The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Ray Suarez studies the case against a veteran FBI Agent charged with spying for Russia; Gwen Ifill and Jan Crawford Greenburg look at today's Supreme Court argument over technology and privacy; Elizabeth Farnsworth offers a major report on newly- released documents about U.S. Involvement in Chile 30 years ago; and Margaret Warner gets the official Palestinian view of the situation in the Middle East. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: A veteran FBI agent was charged today with spying for Russia, and before that, the Soviet union. Robert Hanssen was arrested Sunday night at a park in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. He was allegedly dropping off secret documents for Russian agents. Court documents said he began spying for the Soviets in 1985, and betrayed three Russians working for the United States. President Bush said the case was extremely serious and deeply disturbing.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Allegations of espionage are a reminder that we live in a dangerous world, a world that sometimes does not share American values. I thank the men and women who proudly serve our country, but to anyone who would betray its trust, I warn you, we'll find you and we'll bring you to justice.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the spy story right after this News Summary. Mr. Bush spoke today while en route to a school in St. Louis. The visit was part of a swing through three states to tout his education and tax cut ideas. Among other things, he announced a plan to spend $5 billion over the next five years to promote reading. Russia today formally offered its own plan for a missile defense system. It did so as the NATO Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, visited Moscow. Russian President Putin urged that European members of NATO join Russia to develop mobile anti-missile units. They would protect against short- and medium-range missiles. The Russians oppose U.S. plans for a shield against intercontinental missiles. In the submarine collision story today, the U.S. Navy said it was willing to raise a sunken Japanese fishing trawler if it's possible. The ship went down off Hawaii February 9 after it was rammed by the U.S.S. "Greeneville." Nine people are missing and presumed dead. At the Pentagon today, a spokesman said robot vehicles are surveying the wreck site. Then, the Navy will talk to salvage firms.

REAR ADMIRAL CRAIG QUIGLEY: We still don't know if it is technically feasible to raise that ship. We don't have any in-house expertise in the Department of Defense that is capable of doing that; but there may be commercial salvage firms somewhere in the world that have that capability. We will provide the bottom survey information as well as whatever other information might be useful to those salvage companies for them to consider whether or not their company can perform a salvage of that vessel.

JIM LEHRER: On another subject, Admiral Quigley said Friday's air strikes against Iraqi air defenses achieved their purpose. But he said the detailed damage assessment would not be made public because it would help Baghdad. Another Pentagon spokesman had said Iraq had resumed firing on allied planes over the southern no-fly zone. Israeli Prime Minister Barak decided today to quit politics after all. An aide said he would not serve as defense minister under Ariel Sharon, the man who defeated him in this month's election. Leading members of Barak's Labor Party opposed his earlier decision to remain in politics. They may still join a governing coalition with Sharon. The U.S. Supreme Court today heard a case that features police technology against privacy. Authorities in Florence, Oregon, had scanned a home with a heat- sensing device. They used the results to obtain a search warrant and found marijuana growing under lights. The homeowner said the scan violated the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches. The U.S. Justice Department said it did not constitute a search. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. A federal jury today ordered Exxon to pay $500 million to 10,000 gas station owners. The jury in Miami said the company overcharged the owners for gasoline over 12 years. The judge could add interest to the judgment, raising the total to $1 billion. Exxon said it would appeal. Filmmaker Stanley Kramer died at his California home Monday. He had been ill with pneumonia. He directed nearly three dozen films that won 16 Oscars. They included such classics as "Judgment at Nuremberg," "guess who's coming to dinner," and, in 1952, "High Noon," starring Gary Cooper.

("HIGH NOON" SCENE)

JIM LEHRER: Stanley Kramer was 87 years old. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the arrest of an FBI agent for spying, a Supreme Court argument about privacy, documents about the U.S. role in Chile, and the Palestinian view of the Middle East world.

FOCUS - BETRAYAL OF TRUST

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez reports the spy story.

RAY SUAREZ: The arrest of a 27- year FBI Veteran took place Sunday in this park in Washington's suburbs. 56-year-old Robert Hanssen was detained after he allegedly made a drop of classified data for Russian agents. Hanssen lives in Vienna, Virginia, with his wife and six children. While at the FBI, he was assigned to spy on Russian government outposts in the United States. He's only the third FBI agent ever accused of spying. While FBI Agents searched Hanssen's home, neighbors expressed shock and disbelief.

NANCY CULLEN: I called four women this morning after I saw it on television really early and the same reaction, no way, not Bob. This isn't Bob.

RAY SUAREZ: Hanssen was arraigned in a federal court this morning. He was charged with espionage and conspiracy to commit espionage. He could face the death penalty if convicted and be fined up to $2.8 million. The chiefs of the Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA appeared at a news conference this afternoon.

JOHN ASHCROFT: The arrest of Robert Hanssen for espionage should remind us all... every American should know that our nation, our free society is an international target in a dangerous world. In fact, the espionage operations designed to steal vital secrets of the United States are as intense today as they have ever been.

RAY SUAREZ: FBI Director Louis Freeh, who led the investigation with the CIA, The State Department and the US Attorney's office, provided most of the details.

LOUIS FREEH: The complaint alleges that Hanssen conspired to, and did commit espionage for Russia and the former Soviet Union. The actions alleged date back as far as 1985, and with the possible exception of several years in the 1990s, continued until his arrest on Sunday. It is alleged that Hanssen provided to the former Soviet Union, and subsequently to Russia, substantial volumes of highly classified information that he acquired during the course of his job responsibilities in counterintelligence. In return, he received large sums of money and other remuneration, including diamonds. The complaint alleges that he received over $600,000 in cash. The full extent of the damage done is yet unknown because no accurate damage assessment could be done during the course of the covert investigation without jeopardizing it. We believe, however, that it was exceptionally grave. The criminal conduct alleged represents the most traitorous actions imaginable against a country governed by the rule of law.

RAY SUAREZ: Freeh described what he called Hanssen's obsession with secrecy.

LOUIS FREEH: Hanssen, using his training and experience to protect himself from discovery by the FBI, never met face-to-face with his Russian handlers, never revealed to them his true identity, or even where he worked. He constantly checked FBI records for signs that he and the drop sites he were using were being investigated. He refused any foreign travel to meet with the Russians, and even declined to use any of their tradecraft. Hanssen never displayed outward signs that he was receiving large amounts of unexplained cash. He was, after all, a trained counterintelligence specialist. For these reasons, the FBI learned of his true identity long before the Russians. They are learning of it today.

REPORTER: Director, in all due respect, how can you call this a counterintelligence success when you've had a spy working inside the FBI for over 15 years without being detected?

LOUIS FREEH: The reason I call it a success is that as an operation and as an investigation, it is an immense success. To conduct this investigation securely, clandestinely, without any leaks, and to do it to the point where we could catch red-handed an experienced intelligence officer laying down classified documents for his handlers, also intercept $50,000 in cash, which the intelligence officers were providing for him, in the business of counterintelligence, I think, by any expert, would be adjudged a huge success. That does not, of course, answer the question as to why someone for 15 years can successfully operate.

RAY SUAREZ: Freeh was asked if this spying was a holdover from the Cold War, or an ongoing problem.

LOUIS FREEH: You cannot simply say that this was a artifact or a residual of the Cold War. The activity obviously continued beyond that. And as late as Sunday, there was clearly an intent to exchange $50,000 in cash for very highly classified and very damaging information from the FBI. So I think that intelligence and counterintelligence are with us and will be with us for some time.

RAY SUAREZ: Former CIA And FBI Director William Webster will conduct a full review of counterintelligence procedures at the FBI.

RAY SUAREZ: For more on the arrest, we turn to: Paul Redmond, who served as chief of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency after the 1993 Aldrich Aimes espionage case; and Elaine Shannon, who covers the FBI and justice department for "time" magazine.

Paul Redmond, again and again the words "grave", "very serious," were used. What makes it so?

PAUL REDMOND: Well, he worked in the place for 15 years. Over a period of that length of time he obviously could give away a lot of secrets. I think one of the key issues will be the mention in the affidavit of tremendous compromises in the area of technical collections to which the affidavit refers. That's obviously extraordinarily serious in terms of the affidavit.

RAY SUAREZ: But is there classified and classified, a sort of hierarchy of value of the kinds of things that he might have given away?

PAUL REDMOND: From a moral, ethical point of view, the compromising of human sources who then get executed obviously is the worst thing. But from the point of view of overall collection, probably the business of the technical case... the technical operations that appear to have been compromised will be even more important.

RAY SUAREZ: Elaine Shannon, does Louis Freeh's statement earlier today and the complaint itself give you any hint as to where to look as far as what was given away?

ELAINE SHANNON: The complaint is very rich reading. This man has not been tried and he's not been convicted to we have to give him the benefit of putting on a defense which we have not heard yet. This affidavit is absolutely devastating. It has page after page after page of his... of the defendant or the subject's own writings or those attributed to him in which he expresses hostility towards the United States, arrogance, hostility towards his fellow FBI people. Then they describe electronic means that we use to survey hostile powers. It says that he told the Soviets, now the Russians, how to evade all of our human-and-electronic surveillance.

RAY SUAREZ: Is there any indication of the kinds of things that they will allege Mr. Hanssen was able to get his hands on in order to pass on to others?

ELAINE SHANNON: Well, sources -- human source people that we turned, people that they turned that we knew about -- a whole technical program, a way that we use of gathering signals and electronic intelligence. Our threat list, our... which means things that we... counterintelligence threats for the future, things that we want to collect about their system from the future -- the list is long. And it's quite chilling.

RAY SUAREZ: Does the fact that he was able, in the view of the FBI, the government's charging that Mr. Hanssen was able to do this work for 15 years, tell us that he was very good at it?

PAUL REDMOND: Well, if in fact he was spying for 15 years he was good at it clearly because he got away with it. But that's understandable because he was a counterintelligence officer himself. He knew what the Bureau were doing in this town to try to catch the KGB and the SVR, therefore he could tailor his activities, plan his activities around that knowledge to help the SVR meet him - excuse me -- put drops down for him and therefore get away with it.

RAY SUAREZ: This would, if the indictment turns out to be true, this is work that would have continued through the blow-ups after previous spy revelations, where we were told that security was tightening, that internal systems were tightening. Should we... how should we read that?

PAUL REDMOND: It apparently continued through the FBI's own other case, Mr. Pitts, and it appears that the Bureau pre-emptively asking Judge Webster to do some sort of investigative commission have inferred from what this gentleman allegedly has been able to do by way of getting ahold of information to pass to the Russians, have inferred that their own internal control of secrets are not very good.

RAY SUAREZ: So could that be a silver lining, if there is one, that by understanding how this was able to happen you can plug leaks internally?

ELAINE SHANNON: I suppose. But, you know, we hear this, as Mr. Redmond says, after every case. We weren't paying much attention before. Now we're really on the case. One of the things they found was that he was regularly running through the databases with his own name, his own address, the dead drops he was using, other things, to see if there was any hint that he was under investigation. If you read these writings that are attributed to him, as time passes they become more arrogant and morecock sure. You know, maybe at one point he says well maybe these agents could possibly step in a cow pie. Can you translate that into Russian he writes to the Russians.

RAY SUAREZ: Eventually you make a mistake? Is that part of what we take away from this?

PAUL REDMOND: Well, he apparently didn't make a mistake. It appears that the FBI and/or the CIA had quite a source who was able to provide all this massive amount of data that appears to be documents that appears in the affidavit. That appears to me as an outsider now how they caught him.

RAY SUAREZ: So there would be indications from the other side, the kinds of things you're turning up with the countermeasures they're turning up with that tip you off?

PAUL REDMOND: Well, when I was still working there were still some questions that the intelligence community, some of the technical collection operations were being compromised. One could not at that time reasonably attribute those to Ames. Therefore some other people wondered what else was going on. But apparently nothing... nobody was able to find anything until somebody provided all this massive amount of data to the US Government, either the Bureau and/or -- the bureau and/or the CIA -- the same amount of data you see in the affidavit.

RAY SUAREZ: Maybe we don't know this yet but how does the noose tighten? How does an institution like the FBI, like the CIA look internally and try to figure out what's going on?

PAUL REDMOND: It's an extraordinarily hard thing to do because, one, psychologically you're investigating one of your own comrades or colleagues, excuse me. You are going to keep it secret which is a hard thing to do in the organization. The Bureau clearly did an absolutely brilliant job of investigating this guy and billing the case on him and surveilling him all over the place. They're very, very good at that.

RAY SUAREZ: What are we still... what are the Russians -- what were the Soviets in the final stages of the Cold War looking for?

ELAINE SHANNON: And what were they looking for when he serviced the last drop allegedly in December and January? They still want economic intelligence. They still want political intelligence. They still want military intelligence. They're still building weapons systems. He had access to information about all the people that we have compromised and that are now spying for us in their system. And while they... the successor agency to the KGB is -- the SVR is working with us on some limited areas, Osama bin Laden, for instance, they're still spying on us according to everybody I've talked to and, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of dollars in money was changing hands in this case and probably some others fairly recently.

RAY SUAREZ: Has it changed with the end of the Cold War, the kinds of things that are being looked for, the kinds of methods that are being used?

ELAINE SHANNON: Not that I've heard.

RAY SUAREZ: Really?

PAUL REDMOND: Ms. Shannon makes a very important point in the access this guy had, that after the Aimes case the Bureau gained a great deal of insight and complete visibility into CIA's operations against the Russians. It will be very interesting to see what comes out of the damage assessment of this case assuming it goes to fruition to see how much damage was done as a result of that.

RAY SUAREZ: What can an institution do to make itself a harder target? Once this damage assessment is done, as the director mentioned....

PAUL REDMOND: Well, it's hard for Americans to understand; Americans don't like spying. It's a yucky business. But there always be spies. We're the only major power that doesn't like spying. Russians don't spy on us because they're Communists; they spy on us because there's a sovereign Russian nation. The only way you can protect yourself is by a good compartmentation, one, keeping information to as few people as possible as you can manage and still do your job and secondly having a good counterintelligence organization and good cooperation as one clearly has between the Bureau and the agency today. That's the only way this country can protect itself. There will always be spies - the US media and the US Congress some of their members notwithstanding.

RAY SUAREZ: Americans, as Mr. Redmond, suggests may not like spies very much. We also have a long tradition of open trials. Is this one going to be particularly tricky when you put on evidence that the kinds of things that the government will allege was transferred?

ELAINE SHANNON: Well, I think that if you read the 100-page document and the references to the death penalty -- which he himself makes - he says to his handlers I am risking my life -- I think the whole point is to get him to negotiate a plea agreement, as Aimes did, and he's got Aimes' lawyer Plato Cacheris. And if I were in trouble, Plato Cacheris is one of the people I'd call, and I think at the end of the day we're going to see a plea agreement so that they don't have to go to trial. But if they have to go to trial, I think it will be a good lesson for everybody including the FBI And CIA, Americans don't like snitches either, but the fact is this guy got away with an awful lot and nobody - it didn't seem to occur to anybody to even put him under investigation. He had a good career and good ranks and complete access for a long time.

RAY SUAREZ: Elaine Shannon, Paul Redmond, thanks a lot.

PAUL REDMOND: Thank you.

FOCUS - SUPREME COURT WATCH

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill has the Supreme Court story.

GWEN IFILL: The Court heard arguments today in a case from Oregon, which pits police use of technology against the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures. At issue: Whether law enforcement officials may use thermal imaging devices to detect heat coming from a house- - in this case, heat produced from an indoor marijuana growing operation-- without first obtaining a warrant. For more on today's proceedings, we're joined by NewsHour regular Jan Crawford Greenburg, legal affairs correspondent for the "Chicago Tribune."

So, Jan, I take it that this case, it's privacy and technology all coming to a head in what case? What brought it to the court?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, it kind of has a long and convoluted history. It came about in 1992 when authorities in Oregon were conducting a drug task force investigation and they began to suspect that Danny Kyllo might be growing marijuana in his home. So one night in the middle of the night, two officials trained this thermal imaging device on his house. And the device, which records heat that comes out of your house, like infrared, radiation, it's like a camera, detected some hot spots.

GWEN IFILL: They were outside of his house.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right, sitting outside on the street basically taking this kind of high-tech photograph that showed these hot spots. So they took that information to a judge and, coupled with some other information that they had gotten on Mr. Kyllo, were able to get a warrant. They got the warrant. They executed the warrant, went inside his home and lo and behold found 100 marijuana plants all growing under these high intensity heat lamps. Now, Mr. Kyllo pleaded guilty to this offense, but he conditioned that plea on the assumption that he could challenge the government's use of these thermal imaging... this thermal imaging device in this case.

GWEN IFILL: Was it in itself a search?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Exactly. When I mention the procedural that is kind of convoluted he initially won in a San Francisco-based federal appeals court. But the government asked for a rehearing and one of the judges resigned, another judge took his place and so when the court reheard the case, he lost. That's how he took it to the Supreme Court, and that's how he ended up here today.

GWEN IFILL: One of the courts along this long convoluted path, one of the defenses on the part of the government was that this was akin to a neighborhood... someone who lives in a home leaving their garbage on a curb and that garbage if that was looked through by law enforcement authorities -- that was not a warrantless search, that was not a violation.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: That wouldn't be a search at all because the court has long held that things that we, you know, that we hold out to the public, like the garbage we leave on our curb, you know, we don't expect that they're going to be kept private. So, the government doesn't do anything wrong when it starts looking through, for example, like you said, the garbage, and doesn't infringe on our privacy and doesn't need a warrant. Now, I mean, as you know, the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. And the issue in this case is whether or not this was a search at all. The court has long held that a search occurs when the government intrudes into an area that people would reasonably expect would be private.

GWEN IFILL: Not the same thing as a flashlight in a car at a traffic stop.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right, right, because that's something that has become accepted uses, and we know people have flashlights. The Boy Scouts, as I think Justice Breyer said today, walk around carrying flashlights. So we might not expect that something, you know, that a person could detect with a flashlight outside would remain private. But, Mr. Kyllo's lawyer argued today that we do expect things that go on inside our home to be private, and the use of this thermal imaging device detected something that he was doing inside his house. So, therefore, that violated his expectations of privacy and constituted a search so the government should have been forced to get a search warrant before they used the device in the first place.

GWEN IFILL: Now, the government had a tip. They had reason to believe that there was a reason why the excess heat was coming out the house, just not driving down the street trying to see who has got their heat turned up too high.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right.

GWEN IFILL: What did the government say if their defense?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, the government said, look, this is not - you know -- some scary technological device that can go through concrete or penetrate walls, that it's not detecting, you know, what you're doing in your home, an object or a person that's walking around; all it's doing is looking at the outside of the house. It's detecting the heat emissions from the roof. You know, it doesn't really show up anything more than what the police could have learned if they had waited and allowed a snow to come down, a snowfall, and the hot spots would have melted in little spots on the roof. So the government's case basically was this is not a big deal.

GWEN IFILL: Okay. Here comes tea leaf reading or marijuana leaf reading time, here it comes. What did the Court say today? What was the argument like? What did the Justices seem to be listening to?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, it was interesting. I mean, they clearly - the Justices clearly are concerned about the power of technology to invade our privacy -- the government's use of that technology. The question was, is this the case? Does this case do it? It broke somewhat along traditional lines with the liberal Justices, the more liberal ones, being very concerned that the government was essentially going into the home here with this device and violating this man's privacy. The more conservative justices, particularly Justice Scalia were sympathetic to the government. Justice Scalia liked the snowfall analogy and said this doesn't show anything -- said this device doesn't show anything that police couldn't have used, couldn't have learned with their unaided eye in another context. He said, look, if we don't allow this thermal imaging device without a warrant, what about the... You know, flashlight, binoculars, what about eye glasses? All of those things help police officers detect.

GWEN IFILL: Have there been other similar cases that this court has ruled on which we might look as a precedent?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, you mentioned one. The garbage on the curb; that's the one the appeals court relied on. That's the one the government relied on today. So whether the court goes that route, it would be a victory for the government. The defendant here, Mr. Kyllo though puts forth another case. He said, you know, you shouldn't look at the garbage. This isn't heat waste. This is more like the wire tapping cases, electronic surveillance cases where the court has ruled that you can't put a microphone, for example, on the outside of a phone booth to detect the sound waves. I've got to tell you, a couple Justices seemed to suggest today that that's how they saw this case. Justice Souter, for example, said that measuring heat emissions to him seemed more like measuring sound waves that, you know, that you might detect with a wire tap. As the court has long ruled if you're going to detect something with a wire tap, you have got to first get a warrant.

GWEN IFILL: The court also has to deal with this notion that technology issues are going to become more and more of a factor in privacy cases. Did that come up at all in the discussion?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Yes. And Mr. Kyllo's attorney argued for this really broad rule. He asked the Court to basically use this case to limit the government's use of new technologies, at least this trying to detect what's going on inside your house. He said the police should not be able to use technology to detect what's going on inside a home if they couldn't see it with their unaided eye or other senses. The Justices did not seem to want to go that far today, not in this case. They don't have to go that far. Frankly, several -- Justice O'Connor, for example, suggested that that rule is too broad because that could invalidate the flashlights, the, you know, I mean some of the other things... the drug- sniffing dogs, I mean some of the other things they've allowed.

GWEN IFILL: We'll be watching this. Jan Crawford Greenburg, thank you very much.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a look back at Chile, and the Palestinian view.

FOCUS - PURSUING THE PAST

JIM LEHRER: Now, a major NewsHour report on recently declassified documents on U.S. Policy towards Chile. Elizabeth Farnsworth has our story.

DEMONSTRATORS: Pinochet! Pinochet!

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Last month's indictment and house arrest of Chile's former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, on charges of murder and kidnapping have reignited passions in Chile. Relatives of the 3,000 people killed under Pinochet's rule want him tried in court. His supporters are hoping for a reprieve based on his poor health. In the United States, newly declassified documents showing a high level of U.S. support for Pinochet have stirred old passions, too. The documents were released over the past two years by the Clinton administration, partly in response to the indictment of Pinochet by a Spanish judge in 1998. Peter Kornbluh, of the non- profit National Security Archives, lobbied for the release.

PERTER KORNBLUH: We have obtained the declassification of over 24,000 new documents, among them several thousand CIA records which the agency itself never wanted to let see the light of public scrutiny. They contain significant evidence of a policy to undermine democracy in Chile and to support dictatorship there.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The documents can be accessed by virtually anyone on the Internet. They're on the U.S. State Department web page. Morton Halperin helped coordinate the massive project as head of policy planning at the State Department.

MORT HALPERIN: Well, the Clinton administration made the decision to release the documents because we thought we had an obligation, given our history and involvement with Chile, to do what we could to contribute to the debate within Chile about how to deal with their past, and particularly how to deal with General Pinochet.

SAM HALPERN: I was there for seven-plus years.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Sam Halpern was executive assistant to the CIA's head of covert operations in the early 1970S. He supported the declassification of the documents and defended the activities they reveal.

SAM HALPERN: The Cold War had a beginning, and a run, and then the end, and nobody expected it to take 45 years to win. But we won it finally, because of things like this.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This refers to the U.S. campaign, detailed in the documents, against Salvador Allende, a Socialist who was elected President in 1970. He headed a coalition including the Communist Party, which was anathema to the Nixon administration. The documents tell the story of U.S. Attempts to prevent Allende's inauguration, and when that failed, to undermine him. Augusto Pinochet overthrew Allende in 1973 in a violent military coup that was welcomed by the United States. Under Pinochet's 17-year rule, thousands of people were tortured and killed. And in the years since then, the democratic governments that succeeded him have built somber monuments to those victims. An American filmmaker, Charles Horman, was among those killed in Chile right after the 1973 coup.

ACTOR: All right?

ACTRESS: Yeah. You got enough money?

ACTOR: Yeah, I think so. How about you.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Horman's story was told in the academy award- winning film "Missing."

ACTOR: You never know.

ACTRESS: Thanks, Hal.

ACTOR: All right.

ACTRESS: Charlie, be careful.

ACTOR: Don't worry, they can't hurt us. We're American.

JOYCE HORMAN: Between the two of us, we had an interest in exploring Latin America, and Chile specifically.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Charles Horman's widow, Joyce, who never married again, is using the declassified papers as evidence in a suit she has filed in Chile against Pinochet. She read from a document released last November.

JOYCE HORMAN: "The government of Chilemight have believed this American could be killed without negative fallout from the United States government. How else would they actually kill an American unless they believed that?"

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Though many of the declassified documents remain heavily censored by the CIA, which blacked out crucial names and places, Joyce Horman welcomed the information she got.

JOYCE HORMAN: We believe that our case can be very helpful to other victims because of the document have been released in our regard.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The U.S. Justice Department has withheld some important documents as part of its continuing investigation of Pinochet's possible role in the 1976 Washington, DC, bombing assassination of Orlando Letelier and his American colleague, Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Letelier had been an Allende government minister, and was the foremost critic in exile of Pinochet. Attorney Sam Buffone, who has represented the Letelier family, said the document release, while not complete, has already helped.

SAM BUFFONE: It is the break in the dike that encourages others to come forth. We've now seen in Chile revelations by insiders within the military and secret police, I think, largely spawned by the revelations in the documents.

PETER KORNBLUH: This is a White House mem-con-- a memorandum of a conversation-- between Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The National Security archives' Peter Kornbluh said some of the information about covert operations in Chile was already available because of congressional hearings in the 1970s. But the documents themselves reveal much more.

PETER KORNBLUH: We have learned the details of how the CIA Goes about trying to foment chaos in a small country like Chile. We have a document here, for example, which is a blueprint of the CIA plan to create a "coup climate" where one doesn't exist, and that is an extraordinary document.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The man at the center of many of these documents is Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security adviser and later secretary of state. Kissinger coordinated U.S. policy towards Chile.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you think of the release of these documents?

HENRY KISSINGER: Those documents that deal with national policy, conversations with foreign leaders and things of that nature, I think should be released. Then the things that deal with criminal activity in this country, such as the assassination of Letelier, they should be released. My instinct is against releasing operational cables on intelligence activity. It's the ones to and from the field that bother me about the insight they give and also the ease with which they lend themselves to distortion, because it's very easily possible that the top people never know what is in the details of these cables.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The operational cables that are attracting the most attention have to do with the 1970 kidnapping and assassination of Chilean Army Chief of Staff Rene Schneider. The documents detail some CIA Support for the anti-Allende Chileans who planned to kidnap General Schneider, hoping it would cause panic and prevent Allende's inauguration. The CIA sent guns for the kidnapping.

MORT HALPERIN: The CIA's position appears to be that the actual guns that actually were used in the kidnapping that led to his murder were not the guns that they provided. And one can argue about this terrible fact, but there is no question in my mind the military in Chile believed that we thought it imperative that General Schneider be removed, and that whatever means was necessary to do that should take place. I don't think we can walk away from that responsibility.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: One heavily censored memorandum of a White House conversation shows Kissinger and others feared the kidnapping and coup could not succeed, and may have called off CIA support about a week before Schneider was killed.

HENRY KISSINGER: As far as we were concerned in the white house, this thing ended on October 15. Then, I think around October 23 or so-- I don't remember the exact date-- they kidnapped Schneider and in the process, killed him.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But the same document also shows Kissinger instructed the CIA to preserve its assets in Chile, and stay in touch with those who'd been planning the kidnapping. Based on those instructions, the head of covert operations at the CIA cabled agents in Chile to pull back from one plotter, but also wrote, "it is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup." In the end, according to a CIA report last year, CIA agents passed $35,000 to the group that killed Schneider after the deed had been done. Kissinger insisted he had told the CIA to cut off support, and that the documents indicating otherwise are misleading.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you have any regrets about U.S. policy in those years?

HENRY KISSINGER: I think our assessment of Allende was correct. I think that there was something boy scoutish and amateurish and immature about the immediate reaction to the Allende reaction, because that was not... we should have known that that was not feasible. The particular actions, whether one would do them again, I would question. But the particular actions, I want to repeat, were an attempt to bring about either a vote by the Chilean Congress or another election. They were not an attempt to bring about a coup.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In June, 1976, Kissinger, in Chile for an Organization of American States gathering, met with Pinochet. Their conversation is detailed in a declassified memo. By now, the White House was well aware of Pinochet's repression. Kissinger did bring up human rights violations, saying they were making it difficult for him to get aid for Chile from Congress. But he also said, "we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going Communist."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why did you not say to him, "you're violating human rights. You're killing people. Stop it"?

HENRY KISSINGER: First of all, human rights were not an international issue at the time the way they have become since. That was not what diplomats and secretaries of state and Presidents were saying generally to anybody in those days. In talking to the head of state of the government, I spent half my time telling him that he should improve his human rights performance in any number of ways. But it was also true I was convinced that Allende was heading the country toward Communism. And for that reason, we did not want to weaken Pinochet to a point that the Allende people would come back.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: A White House press statement that accompanied the final group of documents released last November read in part: "Actions approved by the U.S. Government during this period aggravated political polarization and affected Chile's long tradition of democratic elections and respect for the constitutional order and the rule of law."

MORT HALPERIN: I think every word of that was argued over for a very long time. I think there were some of us who thought that we owed them a straightforward apology. There were other people who thought that that went as far as we should, and there were many others who thought that went much too far. I think that does make clear that the U.S. Government understands that its actions contributed to the disruption of the democratic process.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Henry Kissinger disagreed with the White House statement.

HENRY KISSINGER: I don't think that this is what one administration should do to its predecessor, because when you have 23,000 documents-- many that are capable of so many different interpretations-- this is not the way to judge history.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Sam Halpern, who was with the CIA, agreed.

SAM HALPERN: We were following our orders of our President, and we did the best we could. We didn't win what we wanted to be done, and I don't think there's anything to be sorry for. That was American policy at the time, and American policy changes.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Juan Gabriel Valdes is Chile's ambassador to the United Nations.

JUAN GABRIEL VALDES: No, it is always shocking to learn again and to read again that the United States sent machine guns to the pouch of the U.S. embassy to Chile in order to kidnap the commander in chief of the Chilean armed forces. And of course, this was very important for us to know. And I think that what the reaction of my government at the time was-- and I think that it still is-- is that we would like to see along with the papers a certain sense of remorse.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Letelier attorney Sam Buffone went further.

SAM BUFFONE: I think we should take a page from the Chileans, who really pioneered the truth and reconciliation process through the Rettig Commission, and we should think about our own truth and reconciliation process; that first of all, let's have the truth-- full disclosure-- about everything that the U.S. did in the Cold War, as well as what happened to us. And then let's consider those who were responsible in a reconciliation process. The time has come to do that.

HENRY KISSINGER: Well, this assumes that the policy was immoral or worse, and that... that I don't accept. It's easy to forget what the Cold War was like. We thought, rightly or wrongly, we were in a life and death struggle with the Soviet Union as a functioning global system.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And so the debate goes on, as do the demonstrations and disagreements in Chile. They are not likely to end soon.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Secretary of State Colin Powell is about to make his first trip to the Middle East. In preparation officials of both sides in the conflict have come to Washington for preliminary talks. Last week we spoke with a representative of Israeli Prime Minister-Elect Sharon who was here. And tonight, a Palestinian view of the stalemate and violence in the Middle East, and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And with me is Nabil Sha'ath, a senior advisor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and minister of planning in the Palestinian Authority. He's a veteran of years of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, including the failed talks at Camp David last July. He met with Secretary Powell today. Welcome, Mr. Sha'ath.

NABIL SHA'ATH: Thank you.

MARGARET WARNER: What is Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians looking for from Secretary Powell and this new Bush administration?

NABIL SHA'ATH: We'd like to see the same commitment to the peace process in the Middle East as we have seen with Mr. Clinton and with Mr. Bush Sr. before him. We'd like to see involvement and we'd like to see a real attempt at keeping the terms of reference, international, legality -- Resolutions 242 and 338 --which meant in Jordan and Egypt and Lebanon withdrawal to the borders of the 1967.

MARGARET WARNER: How did Secretary Powell respond when you said this to him that you wanted deep involvement by the Bush administration?

NABIL SHA'ATH: Well, I think he was positive. He very clearly has not yet formulated the full policy guidelines for this administration, and he's going to visit the Middle East very soon. He's going to meet with President Arafat and with the leaders of the area. I think he is in the process of formulating a different strategy.

MARGARET WARNER: But he has said and the new President Bush has also said that they thought President Clinton and his people were too deeply involved and that basically the US role should be to step back and let the Palestinians and Israelis work it out. I think Powell said last week, you know, jawboning is pretty much all we can do right now. I mean, how does that sit with you?

NABIL SHA'ATH: Well, remember in the Oslo agreement, we and the Israelis did it alone.

MARGARET WARNER: Of '93.

NABIL SHA'ATH: '93, and also the immediate negotiations afterwards which I led on the Palestinian side and the general led on the Israeli side what became known as the Gaza-Jericho agreement we did without any intervention from the United States. But that was in the days in which there was euphoria about the peace process and mutual trust. With the present situation, without that trust and with the continued occupation by the Israelis of our territory and putting us under real siege, you still need the... an activist policy by the United States to get this peace process going and to end the occupation.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's turn to your view of this Israeli government and what that means for the Palestinians. First of all, your reaction to the news today that the defeated prime minister -- Barak --will not be joining Prime Minister-elect Sharon's government.

NABIL SHA'ATH: Well, I think this is really a matter that the Labor Party finally had to decide -- as Mr. Barak was the leader of the Labor Party. The Labor Party and its supporters in Israel saw that they could not continue to give their trust to Mr. Barak. They feel that his defeat, which was partly caused by the many supporters of the Labor Party including the Israeli Arabs refrained from voting indicated that he could not continue -- particularly with Mr. Sharon as his defense minister. It's really an internal matter in the Labor Party and in Israel.

MARGARET WARNER: But the new President... The new prime minister Sharon has made clear he's not willing to offer the same things that Barak offered to Palestinians. In retrospect do you think the Palestinians missed a bet not accepting the deal Barak offered at Camp David in July and instead essentially letting this uprising flower?

NABIL SHA'ATH: Well, I mean if you look at what has been done in Taba, you see that Taba was so much better.

MARGARET WARNER: This was the later meeting you had in Egypt.

NABIL SHA'ATH: Exactly. The last meeting just before the elections we did much better. There was a lot of progress. There was more progress that could have been achieved had it not been for the onset of these elections. Camp David, there was some progress no doubt. It was not enough for the Palestinians. After years of struggle for their freedom - for their independence, after making the greatest concession when they gave up strugglingfor all their country with the exception of the 22%, the West Bank and Gaza, it was not good enough. It could not have settled for it.

MARGARET WARNER: But now Prime Minister-elect Sharon is saying all those things are off the table. Barak offering 95% of the West Bank, offering Palestinian sovereignty over part of Jerusalem. Where does that leave you?

NABIL SHA'ATH: Now, the present situation is... cannot possibly lead to any peace and cannot lead to an agreement. I think the Israeli people knew it and know it. It was really their election of Sharon was much more a protest against Barak than it was really deserting the peace process.

MARGARET WARNER: But the Sharon people say it was also a protest against the uprising and the violence and that they wanted to elect somebody who they thought would bring security never mind a peace deal.

NABIL SHA'ATH: You cannot bring security without real peace. What this thing is all about is a just peace, and eight years the Palestinians accepted to negotiate and to deal with any violence inside or outside them and succeeded. The question of violence came when I think the Palestinian people felt that it was impossible to continue that occupation without a real protest.

MARGARET WARNER: I'm trying to get at here how you read this new incoming government, if he manages to create one. Now, Moshe Arens who is a key adviser to Sharon was on the show last week. He said a permanent settlement was not attainable at this time, that all Sharon wants is some sort of an interim deal that ends the violence and freezes... He didn't say what it would involve, but an interim deal. Do you expect more?

NABIL SHA'ATH: We spent ten years of interimness, and that's it. Look at the map. The map today shows 42% of the West Bank has been given back to the Palestinians and there are three regimes, a, b, and c. All of them are in little bundles, little blocks totally separated from each other in a sea of Israeli occupation -- and increasing settlement activities. This is an impossible situation. If Mr. Sharon thinks this is a solution, this is prescription for further conflict.

MARGARET WARNER: But what is your reasonable expectation about where he's going and what he's willing to do?

NABIL SHA'ATH: Well, we don't know exactly what he's going to do. He's unable apparently to form a unity government. And that is part of the reason why Mr. Barak had to resign. If he doesn't form a unity government and forms an extreme right government, this really cannot survive. We don't know yet if he's really capable of putting a government that can stay and for how long. And it is quite possible that the Israeli people, after the shock wears off and after there is a real attempt at reconciliation seems possible to the Israeli people, that he is not going to be the man who is going to make real peace, that somebody will have to come from the ranks of the Israelis that once again will put that peace process on the table and then make a real attempt at making it.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're counting on Sharon being a short-term prime minister? Is that what you're say something.

NABIL SHA'ATH: Well, some people say there is little chance that the man can change -- that Mr. Begin changed and made the peace with Egypt, that Mr. DeKlerk changed and made the peace with Mandela. It is possible. It is very improbable though.

MARGARET WARNER: Now he has also said and Mr. Arens said on the show last week that he's not even going to sit down and talk about anything: An interim agreement, anything, until essentially the uprising stops, the violence in the streets stops. Is Arafat, one, able and, two, willing to deliver on that from the Palestinian end?

NABIL SHA'ATH: Well, the question really has to be looked at two sides. We are for a real solution that will stop the violence and will continue the peace process. But it is impossible to see it only from the point of view of Israel, of the Israeli right. The Israelis are in actual occupation. Their tanks crisscross our territory. Gaza alone is divided into five little pieces today. Our economy is under siege and GNP had fallen by 50%. 60% of our people are unemployed. What violence? The occupation is one of the greatest violence we have seen. It has to be done by both sides. It has to be done in a concerted way so that the violence is reduced as the occupation is reduced and as the siege is reduced. We need to really look at it also from the point of view of a political light at the end of the tunnel. The two things have to go together. Maybe peace is the best guarantee of security and not just the other way around.

MARGARET WARNER: But are you suggesting then that things may have to get worse before they get better or that the cycle of killing is going to continue?

NABIL SHA'ATH: I hope not. Here is a role for Mr. Powell. I hope his visit will lead to a positive...the United States' role that would stop that escalation of violence, that will stop the excessive use of force by the Israelis and would bring this all towards a much better situation.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mr. Sha'ath, thanks for being with us.

NABIL SHA'ATH: Thank you.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday. A veteran FBI Agent, Robert Hanssen, was charged with spying for the Russians. And the U.S. Navy said it was willing to raise a Japanese trawler if it's feasible. A U.S. submarine rammed and sank the vessel off Hawaii earlier this month. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.