The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth in Washington. After our News Summary tonight, we'll analyze Treasury Sec. Bentsen's resignation and replacement, then Margaret Warner talks with legal reporter Stuart Taylor about the Webster Hubbell plea agreement, and finally we'll debate the ethics of embryo research. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. FARNSWORTH: Webster Hubbell, the former No. 3 man in the Clinton Justice Department, pleaded guilty today to mail fraud and tax evasion as a result of the Whitewater investigation. He acknowledged defrauding his former law firm, the Rose Firm of Little Rock, and its clients of $394,000. Hubbell is a close friend of President and Mrs. Clinton and a former law partner of the First Lady. He also served as a judge on the Arkansas Supreme Court. He entered his plea in U.S. District Court in Little Rock this afternoon. Whitewater Prosecutor Kenneth Starr had this to say afterwards.

KENNETH STARR, Whitewater Prosecutor: Judge Hubbell has accepted responsibility for his actions. He has expressed in open court his sorrow for the pain that he has caused. And I think that this is a time for all of us to reflect on what is an unfortunate day, but, nonetheless, is necessary and is part of an ongoing investigation. And we are looking forward to Judge Hubbell's cooperation with the investigation which is active and ongoing.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Hubbell faces up to 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines. He was released today on his own recognizance. No date has been set for his sentencing. We'll have more on the story later in the program. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Treasury Sec. Lloyd Bentsen resigned today. President Clinton named Robert Rubin, the current head of the National Economic Council, to succeed him. Mr. Clinton said he accepted Bentsen's resignation with deep regret and congratulated him for a job very, very well done. Bentsen had these comments at this morning's Rose Garden ceremony.

LLOYD BENTSEN, Secretary of the Treasury: It's been a great time to be Treasury Secretary. And it's a great time to be bowing out as Treasury Secretary. You couldn't see the economic flag any higher; if I sat down and wrote the numbers that I wanted, we would not write better numbers than this President has brought about. We've got the best numbers that we've seen in 30 years. I believe history will show that we have made the economic future of our children and our grandchildren more secure by the politically difficult actions that you have taken.

MR. MAC NEIL: Bentsen, who is 73, plans to return to his native Texas and work in the private sector. He's agreed to serve President Clinton in what the President described as a seasoned kitchen cabinet of outside advisers. Rubin's nomination must still be approved by the Senate. The Energy Department said today that 13 U.S. nuclear weapons plants pose health and safety risk. The Department study said Rocky Flats in Colorado had the most problems. It found nearly 300 environmental health and safety flaws at facilities that had been used to research and build nuclear weapons. The report said plant workers were most at risk, and there was little chance of danger to the general public.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Vice President Gore today announced plans to close nearly 1300 agriculture field offices -- Agriculture Department field offices. The goal is to cut 11,000 jobs and save $3.6 billion over five years. Some of the largest cuts will come in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The new House Republican leadership today voted to eliminate congressional funding for so-called legislative service organizations, including the black, Hispanic, and women's caucuses. There are currently 28 such groups. Incoming Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said they could continue to work with private funding.

MR. MAC NEIL: Former Vice President Dan Quayle was released from an Indianapolis hospital today. Quayle was admitted early last week after blood clots were discovered in his lungs. At a news conference, after his release, Quayle was asked about the illness and his reported plans to run for President.

DAN QUAYLE: This is not going to be a factor in my decision whether I run or do not run for President in 1996. I would tell you this: That whatever decision I make that the family will support. I'm very fortunate to have a family, and especially my wife, Marilyn, that has been very supportive of the decisions that I've made in politics throughout my life.

MR. MAC NEIL: Quayle said he will decide by early next year whether to run in 1996.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Paul Hill was sentenced today to die in the electric chair. He was found guilty of the shotgun murders of a doctor and his escort outside a Florida abortion clinic last July. Today's sentence in Florida state court will supersede a life sentence Hill received last week on federal charges.

MR. MAC NEIL: Bosnia was a major topic as the European Security Summit wrapped up today in Budapest, Hungary, but Russia blocked the group from releasing any official statement on the war. French foreign minister Alain Juppe said the U.N. is near the end of its rope in Bosnia. France and Britain have both been threatening to withdraw their peacekeeping troops from the region. British Prime Minister Major had this to say at a news conference after the meeting ended.

JOHN MAJOR, Prime Minister, Britain: If the events deteriorate to the point where United Nations troops and the British contingent can no longer carry out their mandate without unacceptable risk, then, of course, they will have to leave, and that is simply to state a matter of fact.

MR. MAC NEIL: Secretary of State Christopher traveled to Damascus today for talks with Syria's President Assad. The two again discussed Israel's proposed withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Christopher will meet with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in the Gaza Strip later this week. Meanwhile, in Cairo, negotiators for the PLO and Israel reopened talks on troop withdrawal and Palestinian elections.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop today launched a campaign aimed at improving the health of adults and children. The program, called "Shape Up America," focuses on the benefits of weight reduction and increased physical activity. Koop said more than 1/3 of the country's adult population is overweight. He unveiled his program at the White House today, with the help of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

C. EVERETT KOOP, Former Surgeon General: America is truly suffering from a new epidemic, an epidemic of disease and disability and death, all traced to the plain fact that too many Americans are too big, that too many Americans are overweight, and that too many Americans are sedentary or relatively inactive. We don't like that word "obese," so we avoid it, or we apply it to other people and never to ourselves, but we need to deal with being overweight, and we need to deal with a society suffering from an epidemic of obesity.

MS. FARNSWORTH: The former Surgeon General said 300,000 people die prematurely every year from illnesses relating -- related to being overweight.

MR. MAC NEIL: Southern California was hit by at least seven small earthquakes during the last 24 hours. The tremors were aftershocks to the Northridge Earthquake that killed 61 people last January. There were no injuries, and only minor damage was reported. A fire broke out at a plastic pipe factory in Southeast Alabama early today. An army hazardous materials team was called in, and about 500 people were evacuated from the area. The blaze was brought under control within a few hours. That ends our summary of the day's top stories. Ahead on the NewsHour, Sec. Bentsen's resignation, the Hubbell Whitewater plea, and the debate over human embryo research. FOCUS - BOWING OUT

MS. FARNSWORTH: First tonight, a change at the Treasury Department and what it could mean for President Clinton's economic policy. Today the President announced the resignation of Lloyd Bentsen as Treasury Secretary and the nomination of Robert Rubin, now the head of the National Economic Council, to fill the post. President Clinton talked about Sec. Bentsen's work this morning at a White House ceremony.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: As Secretary of the Treasury, his work has touched nearly every field of accomplishment of this administration, making our economy work again for ordinary Americans, restoring discipline to our budget, helping private enterprise create new jobs, expanding trade, passing the Interstate Banking Act, which saved billions in regulatory costs, ensuring greater tax fairness in our tax code through giving a tax break to 15 million hard-working American parents, and he's also made the Treasury Department a full partner in our fight against crime and drugs. The results are there for all to see.

LLOYD BENTSEN, Secretary of the Treasury: Let me say, throughout my tenure, this President, President Clinton has given me unprecedented access. He's letme be a part of it and working with him to accomplish these goals. He's recognized that economic security is a critical underpinning for national security, and he made Treasury a regular participant in the summit process. I know that Bob Rubin is going to have that same access and that ability to affect economic policy that I had. Bob is a man of integrity and of honor. He has a broad knowledge of our programs and our problems, and he has the ability to sit down with Congress and work things out. An excellent choice, Mr. President.

ROBERT RUBIN, Secretary of the Treasury-Designate: I have been privileged, deeply privileged, to be part of your economic team as you have faced and dealt with tough economic issues, many of which have built up over a long period of time. Much has been accomplished to promote sustained growth in the short-term and to position this country for productivity and economic health in the longer run. But, Mr. President, as you constantly remind us, much remains to be done, especially with too many Americans not yet feeling the benefits of the strong recovery now underway. Mr. President, I don't believe, and I know you don't believe that this country can be all it should be for any of us unless it works for all of us. So, Mr. President, I believe as you believe that we must deal with the problems of our public education system, the problems of our inner cities, the problems of our ever worsening income disparity, and the challenge of strengthening and expanding the nation's middle class. I welcome the opportunity to continue to work on these matters as a member of your economic team.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Now, some analysis. We're joined by two people who cover economic policymaking in Washington. Alan Murray is Washington bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, and Richard Dunham is congressional correspondent for BusinessWeek Magazine. He covered Lloyd Bentsen for many years in both Texas and Washington for the Dallas Times Herald. Let's start with you, Richard Dunham. You covered Lloyd Bentsen for a long time. Why is he resigning now?

MR. DUNHAM: Well, Lloyd Bentsen decided quite a while ago when he was still in the Senate that he wanted to go home and retire at the end of his term, which ran out in 1994, and he told some of the Clinton people this when they were considering him for Treasury Secretary, and pretty much got the go-ahead even if he wasn't going to serve four years. I don't think there was any policy disagreement. I don't think it was frustration over the infighting that always goes on at the White House, but I think when he said that it was a wonderful time to be leaving, he meant that in more ways than one. I don't think he looks forward to all the battling that he'd need on Capitol Hill over taxes, over budget, over everything else for the next two years.

MS. FARNSWORTH: No policy disagreements, what do you think, Alan Murray?

MR. MURRAY: I don't think it was -- no, I don't think there were big policy disagreements. I do think that Sen. Bentsen, who remember was the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who had really the captains of industry waiting outside his door to see him, did find it a little frustrating to be constantly waiting for meetings to start at the White House, to have these twenty something and thirty something kids, in his view, be his peers in administration discussions. I think that was a little frustrating for someone who considered himself more of an elder statesman.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What did he accomplish as Treasury Secretary? If you had to list his main accomplishments, what would you say?

MR. MURRAY: I think you'd say three big things. He played a very important role in shaping the deficit reduction plan that the administration put together and pushed through Congress at the beginning of the administration. He was very important in getting the North American Free Trade Agreement through Congress, and he also played a role in more recent weeks in getting the GATT agreement, big global free trade agreement, through Congress. I think you'd have to say those are the big three achievements.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Would you add anything to that?

MR. DUNHAM: Those are the big ones, but I think on the, the world trade agreement, he played a critical role. When Bob Dole was saying that he would kill the agreement if he there wasn't -- if the White House didn't agree to a capital gains tax cut, Lloyd Bentsen intervened, he talked to his good friend, Bob Dole, and they did work well together on the Finance Committee when Bob Dole was chairman. And he sent Bob Dole a letter that said that the White House wouldn't promise him that it would take up capital gains but that it would leave it on the table, it would talk about it, and that gave Bob Dole some cover so he could retreat from his very strong threat.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What about failures? I mean, there was some talk during the election that some of the Democrats' failures in the November elections could be laid at this door. What do you think about that?

MR. DUNHAM: I don't think there are many failures that you could blame on Lloyd Bentsen. What he was talking about, the economic indicators, if you judge him by the numbers, he did pretty well there. If there are failures, the failures were things like health care, and you can't -- Lloyd Bentsen I don't think went along with Hillary Clinton's solution to health care, and if you want to blame him for not being a team player there, maybe, but Lloyd Bentsen was probably on the right side of what the majority of voters thought.

MS. FARNSWORTH: How's his resignation likely to affect financial markets?

MR. MURRAY: I don't think it has a big effect on financial markets, partly because they were able to immediately announce that he would be replaced by Bob Rubin, former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, a man who has a fair amount of credibility and stature in the financial markets as a result.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Let's get into the political consequences now. Beginning with you, Alan Murray, what are the political consequences of this? Is it a setback politically for President Clinton to lose a proven legislative wizard, somebody that can really deal with Congress at this moment?

MR. MURRAY: Oh, it might be a setback in terms of legislative relations. Bob Rubin doesn't have the same kind of relations with Congress that Lloyd Bentsen does, but what you have to keep in mind is that there is no person in the administration other than the President, himself, who has had more influence on the economic policies of this administration over the last two years than Bob Rubin. And so what we're really talking about here, and I talked to him today. He said the same thing. He said the message is continuity. So I don't think we're talking about big changes, but there is a problem in that, because you can argue that the voters on November 8th said they don't want continuity, they want change. And I think the real challenge for Bob Rubin is to figure out some way to appeal to those voters, particularly the sort of anxious white, middle class voter, the guy without any college education, who's seen his earnings decline over the last two decades, who is anxious about these free trade policies that this administration, they've got to figure out some way to appeal to that voter, because that's the guy who abandoned them on November 8th.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And yet, isn't it true that Mr. Rubin has pretty much said he doesn't think that economics were to blame for the November elections?

MR. DUNHAM: It's true. And if anything, the big difference between Lloyd Bentsen and Bob Rubin is not in their fiscal conservatism or their deficit hawkishness. They both believe in lowering the deficit. But Bob Rubin believes more in government spending, more in social spending. Lloyd Bentsen was much more conservative when it came to that. And, in fact, he may run right up against Congress if he has a new stimulus package or new plants for job training, other things like that, that the Republicans don't want to listen to.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, what about this? I mean, let's talk for a minute more, a little bit longer, about this congressional situation. How big of a loss is this for President Clinton to not have been in that position and to have somebody who hasn't dealt that much with Congress?

MR. DUNHAM: I think on the Senate side it's a big difference. Lloyd Bentsen was trusted by people of both parties. I mean, he particularly worked well with both Bob Dole and Bob Packwood, who's going to be chairman of the Finance Committee, which the Treasury Secretary has to deal with the most. As Lloyd Bentsen -- Bob Rubin is going to have to be developing relationships, whereas, Lloyd Bentsen could have just been in there cutting deals. Now, dealing with the House, I don't think there's very much difference. I think anyone from the White House would have a big target on his back when it comes to dealing with the House. So I don't think there's much difference there, but the Senate is where a lot of deals are going to be cut, and Rubin is going to be behind the curb. He's going to have to learn very quickly.

MS. FARNSWORTH: He has said, Bob Rubin has said that he wants to protect what's been accomplished so far, and he said especially deficit reduction and trade liberalization. But can that be protected now with the loss of the Democratic core constituency in the elections, or the apparent loss of the core constituency, and with the Republicans in Congress?

MR. MURRAY: I think with the bipartisan vote on GATT that we had last month, it's pretty clear that free trade is a goal, a firm goal of this administration and a goal that can be sustained, even with the current Congress. I think on deficit reduction, the picture is quite a bit different, because while all these newly- elected Republicans talk about balanced budgets and deficit reduction, if you really pin 'em down, it's clear that their first goal in the first 100 days is to do the tax cuts. And whether they can come up with the kind of spending cuts they have to come up with just to pay for those tax cuts is very much an open question. And I think it's probably not likely that they're going to get much beyond that and have some significant deficit reduction. I might also add I think that as Treasury Secretary, Bob Rubin is going to be pushing for the administration to get into this tax cut act a bit as well and proposing a middle class tax cut in the budget that comes out in January.

MS. FARNSWORTH: You do think so, because he's been known for being very concerned about the problems of the urban poor, personally and politically, that's been one of his main concerns, and for sort of leaving out the middle class in this. Do you think that he will emphasize that?

MR. MURRAY: I think the election results, they didn't propose a middle class tax cut two years ago, but it's clearly the middle class where the political problem is, so I think they will this time.

MR. DUNHAM: On the kind of middle class tax cut that's most likely to come out of the administration would not only help the middle class, not only help people, twenty thousand, thirty thousand, fifty thousand dollar income, it would help the poorer people too. I mean, they're talking about something that, that would increase the allowance for children or, or would, would do very basic things that would help people at the lower end of the spectrum and in the middle end of the spectrum.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And what about Alan Murray's consensus style? There's so much in the clips and reading about him in newspapers and wire services about his consensus style which he apparently developed at Goldman Sachs. Is this going to work well for him at the Treasury Department?

MR. MURRAY: Well, it worked extremely well in the White House. I mean, his job at the White House was to try and overcome some of the turf battles that have traditionally split economic policymaking in the White House. It's a little different at the Treasury. He can't be quite as self-effacing as he has been. He has to be more public. He has to be somewhat more outspoken, but I think those skills, those consensus-building skills could prove to be pretty useful in dealing with Congress.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And what about -- let's end this with talking about Sec. Bentsen again. He's leaving. Where did he make a difference? Give us an example of where he made a difference, his knowledge of Congress, where Mr. Rubin will have to learn those lessons quickly and work with Congress also.

MR. DUNHAM: Well, I think the first thing that comes to mind is the North American Free Trade Agreement. I mean, he was doing heavy duty lobbying. He had votes in his pocket on the day of the vote with people who wanted to voted against it because of their constituents, but told Lloyd Bentsen if you need my vote to win, you're going to get it. And I think that he was very, very persuasive there. And so the North American Free Trade Agreement and the GATT agreement for world trade I think he really played a role in preventing a stalemate on that one.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So it will be quite a loss, I mean, to the Clinton administration not to have him there?

MR. MURRAY: Well, sure, those were the three things we've talked about were the three big congressional accomplishments of the Clinton administration, and he played a critical role in getting all three of them through the Congress, so they are going to have to work either through Treasury Secretary -- incoming Treasury Secretary Rubin or someone else to find some way to work with Congress.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, Alan Murray and Richard Dunham, thank you both very much for being with us. FOCUS - WHITHER WHITEWATER

MR. MAC NEIL: Next tonight, the latest development in the Whitewater investigation. Margaret Warner has that story.

MS. WARNER: As we reported, Webster Hubbell, a longtime friend of President and Mrs. Clinton, agreed to plea guilty today to charges of mail fraud and tax evasion. This is the second conviction in the Whitewater affair secured by the new special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr. Hubbell was a former partner at the Rose law firm in Little Rock, where Mrs. Clinton was also a partner. The President named him to the No. 3 job at the Justice Department at the start of the administration. Mr. Hubbell left that post last March. For more details, we turn now to Stuart Taylor. He's a senior writer for the American Lawyer and Legal Times. Welcome, Stuart. What exactly did Mr. Hubbell admit to doing?

MR. TAYLOR: He admitted that he stole, really, the word isn't in there, but that's the essence of it, $394,000 between 1989 and '94 from his law firm and its clients by drawing up checks on law firm accounts including what they call client advance accounts that are ultimately passed through to clients for billing to pay personal expenses of his own while falsifying documents to misrepresent those expenses, either client expenses or law firm expenses. That's the mail fraud count. The tax evasion account is for 1992. He admitted that he reported $194,000 in income when, in fact, his income was $309,000, presumably all of these expenses that he was falsely billing during that year, which thereby understated his tax liability by almost $40,000, thirty-nine and some thousand dollars. And each of those counts carries a five-year maximum prison term.

MS. WARNER: And how is this related to Whitewater? Why is a Whitewater special prosecutor going after something like this?

MR. TAYLOR: It got sort of pulled into the Whitewater net because among the clients who he admits that he cheated were two federal banking agencies, one of which the Resolution Trust Corporation, Hubbell represented, the Rose law firm and Hubbell represented them when they were filing a suit that related against the accounting firm for Ross & Company that had done work for Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan. That's the now insolvent thrift that the Clintons, that is involved in the Whitewater allegations, because the head of it, James MacDougal, and his wife, Susan MacDougal, were in the Whitewater Development Company venture with the Clintons. That's a big mouthful. The bigger connection is this is the President's closest friend by a lot of accounts. He's the man that the President essentially put in charge of the Justice Department when he first came to Washington. He's the First Lady's former law partner. He's now admitting to being a thief and a tax cheat, and he has been around both at the Justice Department and previously at the Rose law firm in Arkansas and in various connections with this savings & loan, Madison, a lot of places that the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, is investigating with respect to the President and the First Lady.

MS. WARNER: So is the widespread or widely quoted assumption correct that Mr. Hubbell is now going to cooperate with Kenneth Starr in some way?

MR. TAYLOR: He's certainly going to cooperate. The question is: Cooperate about what? He's agreed to tell Kenneth Starr everything he knows. As far as is apparent from the public documents, he has not claimed, and Starr has never claimed that he has damaging information against the President or the First Lady, but presumably, Kenneth Starr wouldn't have given him a deal, wouldn't have agreed to charge him with less than everything he could charge him with, unless he had an expectation that Hubbell was going to tell him something he could use against somebody else, unclear of who else.

MS. WARNER: Okay. And of course, there are two phases of this investigation. It started out as an Arkansas matter, and then there's, of course, the whole question of how the administration handled it once Mr. Clinton became President. In which area do you think Kenneth Starr is looking to Hubbell to help him or provide information?

MR. TAYLOR: I think probably both areas. I mean, Hubbell was involved with Madison. His father-in-law, Seth Ward, was a major debtor of Madison's, also a client of the Rose law firm, so it's all entangled. Little Rock was a small place, the President's best friend, presumably, might know something about what went on in Little Rock or about wheeling and dealing at the Rose law firm. THe connections -- but again, it's a speculative connection -- the connection in Washington is only a little bit less speculative. Various criminal referrals, as the terminology goes, from the bank regulating agency, the Resolution Trust Corporation, were kicking around the Justice Department while Hubbell was one of the top officials at the Justice Department all through 1993. It wasn't until November 3, 1993, that Hubbell recused himself from dealing with those matters, and --

MS. WARNER: And some people say that, in fact, they languished in the Justice Department during this time.

MR. TAYLOR: There is that charge. Now I've spoken to a Justice Department official who says that's nonsense; they were dealt with expeditiously. Hubbell never touched them. They had nothing to do with Hubbell, and it may come down to only that, but certainly the Republicans on the Hill and perhaps Ken Starr as well are going to want to fish in those waters and are going to want to grill Hubbell about who did you talk to and what did you talk to about. I think some of them will find it hard to believe that the President's golfing buddy and best friend who was talking to him on a very regular basis never said anything about any of this even though in the back of his mind he knew that he had very troubling things to hide on his own account.

MS. WARNER: So when today David Kendall, the personal lawyer of the Clintons who is handling this for them, issued a statement saying that Mr. Hubbell's plea bargain doesn't concern the President or the White House or the Whitewater investment in any way, is that just wishful thinking then?

MR. TAYLOR: Not necessarily. There's no evidence public now that contradicts what David Kendall said. What there is, is the fact that Hubbell presumably knows a lot about what went on in a lot of places, and Starr wants to know what he knows badly enough to give him a break.

MS. WARNER: Okay. You mentioned too that the Hill might want to hear what Web Hubbell has to say. Can Hubbell now be called by the Republicans on the Hill, who are saying they're going to reopen some of these hearings? How would that play out, do you think?

MR. TAYLOR: Well, I think Starr, like his predecessor, Robert Fiske, wouldn't want Hubbell being dragged up on the Hill to give public testimony during the same period when Starr is presumably having lots of private sessions with Hubbell to try and learn what he knows. Starr will probably ask the Republicans on the Hill to hold off. I think they will hold off. I think they will probe other areas. They've got plenty of things they want to dig into. For example, I think Sen. D'Amato, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, has said he wants to delve into what happens to the documents that were in Vincent Foster's office the day he killed himself in July of 1993. Now, Foster, of course, is a former law partner of Hubbell at the Rose law firm with the First Lady, and so the connections are labyrinthine.

MS. WARNER: And Kenneth Starr's predecessor, Special Prosecutor Robert Fiske, had also looked at these two Washington phases, the death of Vince Foster, and the question of the contacts between Treasury and the White House, and he had concluded there was no basis to find any criminal charges. Is Kenneth Starr now also reopening those areas, or will only the Hill be looking at those areas?

MR. TAYLOR: Starr is looking at that again and is reserving the right to come to a different conclusion than Fiske came to, and I've talked to Republicans connected with the Hill who think Fiske's conclusion was questionable. Starr will re-evaluate it, but I think it is significant that Fiske, presumably Fiske knew about Hubbell's problems at the time, or he knew something about them, at the time when he concluded that there was no obstruction of justice in Washington, and apparently, he presumably wouldn't have reached that conclusion if he thought there was, you know, that he needed to know more about what Hubbell knew before he could reach that conclusion.

MS. WARNER: Do you think Webster Hubbell will go to jail?

MR. TAYLOR: I think he almost certainly will. The plea agreement doesn't, you know, doesn't specify he's going to jail, but the offenses to which he's pleaded guilty almost carry a mandatory prison sentence, unless Kenneth Starr, the prosecutor, goes in to the judge and says, this fellow is so important to us we want you to let him out on probation, and Starr has made no such promise.

MS. WARNER: Before we go quickly, you've covered the legal community. This was massive expense account fraud and overbilling, $400,000 in four years. Do you think this kind of thing happens a lot?

MR. TAYLOR: There have been a handful of other public cases where it's happened, more than a handful perhaps, and anecdotal in the legal grapevine I think is more common than most people would like to admit for lawyers to bill more time than they actually worked to clients and to rationalize it on the ground of, well, I did such a great job they ought to pay me more. I think what Hubbell's accused of which is an elaborate scam involving phony documents to pass through personal expenses is probably pretty unusual.

MS. WARNER: Well, Stuart, thanks very much for being with us. I'm sure we'll be back to discuss Whitewater again. Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the debate over human embryo research. FOCUS - ETHICAL APPROACH?

MR. MAC NEIL: Finally tonight: Should human embryos be created solely for medical research? Last week, an advisory panel recommended that the National Institutes of Health fund such research under certain conditions, but the next day, President Clinton banned such federal funding. Laboratory-created embryos are used to help infertile couples have children in a process known as in vitro fertilization. There are frequently unused embryos which couples often donate for research purposes, but some scientists want to create embryos solely for the purpose of studying fertilization. We discuss this now with Ronald Green, a professor of religion and director of the Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, he was a member of the NIH panel, and Dr. Bernandine Healy. She was the head of NIH under President Bush and is now a physician on the staff of the Cleveland Clinic. Starting with you, Dr. Green, I'd like to ask each of you in general terms about the President's decision. You think he made the wrong decision. In general terms, why?

DR. GREEN: Well, our panel spent almost a year looking carefully at the scientific and most importantly the ethical reasons for proceeding in this direction. And what the President's statement does is really, is shut off some areas of research that are crucially important for human health, human welfare. I regret that there was not more of a dialogue concerning this so that the President could have been educated as we were educated as a panel during that year.

MR. MAC NEIL: Dr. Healy, you think President Clinton made the right decision. Why?

DR. HEALY: Well, I think he made half of the decision properly. I think it was absolutely correct to say that it is unethical to create a human, living embryo in the laboratory for it to be in the custody of researchers solely to do research on that embryo, to expose it to toxins, to damage it, and then to discard it. But I say only half of the right answer, because it's vintage Clinton. He said, you can't create the embryos, but by the way, the presidential imprimatur is on developing these embryos in a laboratory with government money and then discarding them when science is finished with them.

MR. MAC NEIL: Developing them in the sense of using embryos that have already been created to help infertile couples, so-called spare embryos?

DR. HEALY: No. But goes beyond that, because the spare embryos can be used for any kind -- for other kinds of science, to study the effects of toxic chemicals on a developing human embryo, so the parent bond between the parent and that embryo is broken, the embryo becomes a ward of science, a ward of experimentation and is used solely for scientific experimentation and then discarded and is allowed to be developed in the laboratory for weeks. So I think that for the President to endorse that, for the President to put the presidential seal on that, is troublesome to me.

MR. MAC NEIL: Do you agree that that's what he presidential decision means, that research on embryos that are left over, as it were, from a couple's attempt, infertile couple's attempt to have a baby, that he is saying, yes, federal funds can be used for research on such embryos?

DR. GREEN: I think this is not yet clear. The President has clearly forbidden work on the deliberate fertilization of eggs, the creation --

MR. MAC NEIL: For no other purpose than research?

DR. GREEN: That is correct. What remains within the ability of NIH now to support and fund is simply not clear at this point, but let me say here that, just as I supported as a panelist the creation of research embryos for very, very carefully controlled and monitored experiments, so I support the use of embryos that remain from infertility procedures. It is not correct, I believe, to say that this breaks the parental bond in any sense. One of the things that we very strongly insisted upon is that donor consent be given for every step in this process, and we believe that it is reasonable if a couple is undergoing problems of infertility and want to contribute an embryo that would otherwise be destroyed for research that helps other couples or maybe themselves down the line have children that is a reasonable thing to do.

MR. MAC NEIL: But, of course, there's no question of a parental bond in an embryo that was created solely for research.

DR. GREEN: Certainly not an immediate bond, although even there we very strongly counseled that consent be elicited for every step in the process, that nobody should have an embryo taken from them without the full understanding --

MR. MAC NEIL: In other words, a woman who donated eggs would have to consent, and a man who donated sperm would have to consent to the use of those products for research?

DR. GREEN: Absolutely.

MR. MAC NEIL: Let's take --

DR. HEALY: But in fairness, though, I think that the panel said that they -- they made a giant loophole. They said that sperm could be paid for andcould be donated anonymously without the man giving permission for research. So even though they said that, the actual guidelines transgressed that line very, very clearly.

MR. MAC NEIL: Dr. Green, I'd like to divide this now into the benefits you see in proceeding with such research and the harm that Dr. Healy sees in it. Let's start with the benefits, because I think a lot of people perhaps don't understand what good could come from this research on both spare embryos and new ones that would be created.

DR. GREEN: Let me proceed in what I regard as a kind of order of significance, starting with the most immediate but not necessarily in the long run the most important areas, and begin with, first of all, couples facing infertility. Thousands of couples in this country, the world over, are utilizing these new technologies of IVF, and as anybody knows who's had a friend or family member go through this, these are very, very inefficient procedures. The couple spends thousands of dollars, they mortgage their home for a slender chance of having a child. Over the past 20 years, these procedures have not moved forward very well, so the first benefit of embryo research is to enhance these procedures, to develop their media, to understand better what the processes that are involved here amount to. Second, I would say and very, very important is the area of genetic defects. Serious problems occur in the first hours of human life. I heard in the course of our work on the panel that genetic diseases that sometimes do not manifest themselves for 40 years in a life, Huntington's Disease is an example, actually are laid down in the first day or two of embryonic development, so the effort to understand what goes wrong -- why is a child born with a spinal tube defect that creates serious problems of mobility and confidence? How can we reverse it? How can we enter with better nutrition, the avoidance of environmental insults to the child? I would also point out very importantly here the issue of childhood cancers, some of which had their start in early embryonic development about which we don't know a great deal, and then finally I think for adults as well, the whole process of cell development. Why do cells go wrong? Why do cells in an adult suddenly act as though they're in an embryo and start multiplying at the rates that embryonic cells, resulting in cancer in some instances? So all of that kind of research is at issue.

MR. MAC NEIL: Dr. Healy, let's just take those one at a time. What's your comment on the fact that in vitro fertilization for couples who want it is not perfected, and this would -- research would enhance the procedures?

DR. HEALY: Well, I disagree. First of all, one thing the panel does not in any way address is the whole issue of non-human primates. They talked about mouse work, but they did not talk about non-human primates and actually developmentally the first several weeks of a non-human primate is almost indistinguishable from a human.

MR. MAC NEIL: Non-human primate means monkeys or chimpanzees.

DR. HEALY: Monkeys or chimpanzees, and that was not done. It's probably hard to get their tissue, but the fact is these embryos should be used, and if NIH wants to get this information, that's where it should start. And I must say the panel heard testimony from developmental biologists who cautioned and said many of the people who want to use human embryos don't even know what has been done or could be done in animals.

MR. MAC NEIL: Let's go back to Dr. Green. Why not use a monkey or chimpanzee tissue?

DR. GREEN: Westrongly recommend that. In fact, one of our very stringent guidelines is that all appropriate animal research will have been done before submitting a proposal or carrying it forward, and that one must demonstrate clearly both to a local review board and to NIH study review sections that this work cannot be done with non-human animals.

MR. MAC NEIL: Dr. Healy, what about the research into the prevention of genetic diseases which Dr. Green says happened in the first day or so?

DR. HEALY: I think that this, again, is not a justification for using human, living embryos. You have to draw a line. He has come up with a litany of magnificent kinds of research objectives NIH is spending $11 billion of taxpayers' money to conduct. To use these living, human embryos, you do not -- you do not need to do this to achieve these goals. I think that that's the kind of talk that is meant to bring the public on board, but what I did not see, after reading six transcripts from these different meetings, are the crisp, definitive answer to why this work can't be done in other systems. They did not provide a moral imperative to using living, human embryos cultivated in the laboratory.

MR. MAC NEIL: What is the moral imperative to use living, human tissues? Because evidently, a lot of people -- the panel received a great many representations from people opposed to the whole idea. People feel very emotionally about it. What is the moral imperative to use human tissues to achieve the results you want?

DR. GREEN: We were persuaded, we had many presentations which told us that at critical points of embryological development human tissues are different from any other animal model, and one can be very seriously misled. One can actually understand a human development process to be diseased or disordered when it is not at all, so we were very much led to the belief and to the conviction that some very stringently controlled work with human tissues had to go forward.

MR. MAC NEIL: Dr. Healy, going to the ethical harm you see, what important ethical line would be crossed that you think should not be crossed to fund such research, federally fund such research?

DR. HEALY: I think it's a rather profound decision to say that a government agency will use its money, its taxpayer dollars, to designate a class of subhuman humans that will be there solely to be experimented upon and then discard them at the whim of science. You are commanding living, human life to the custody of science solely to do science, and I think that is an extraordinary if not a profound step that I don't believe should be taken. Let me give you an example, Robin. In the 1950's, American scientists were taking into custody mentally retarded children in state institutions that were wards of the government to feed them feces to study hepatitis. Now the scientific information was very important in terms of understanding how hepatitis is transmitted, but it was an abhorrent thing to do. It was abhorrent then; it's abhorrent now.

MR. MAC NEIL: Creating a species -- a subhuman species --

DR. HEALY: A subhuman species, whether it be mentally retarded children, or --

MR. MAC NEIL: Yeah. I'm turning the question to Dr. Green now. How do you respond to that?

DR. GREEN: I don't think that's really what is at issue here. What is at issue are the very early human embryo. This is an entity that is smaller than the dot at the end of a sentence. It has no cell differentiation whatsoever. Its natural mortality rate -- and this is not a result of disease -- its natural mortality rate is almost up to 60 percent. 60 percent of embryos never implant in the uterus, even after they've been naturally fertilized inside a woman's body. We had to pit the claims of that embryo, and they are claims, we did not deny that, we've placed the most stringent regulations on the use of embryos. We had to pit that against infants, children, adult men and women, who could be exposed to risks and who could suffer serious diseases if this research does not go forward.

MR. MAC NEIL: Dr. Healy, without federal funding, research of this kind proceeds in many places outside government control, does it not, today?

DR. HEALY: Yes, it does, but it does not proceed with the imprimatur of the President or of the NIH or of taxpayer dollars.

MR. MAC NEIL: So the President saying we won't fund this federally doesn't stop such research?

DR. HEALY: No. And this research is going on in some countries. Some countries have banned it. Other countries have tolerated it. But I think the big issue is what is appropriate here, and how we should spend taxpayers' money, and there has to be a comprehension of what a profound step I believe this is to have a federal agency designate a subhuman specie by criteria developed by humans. I might also mention that Dr. Green was talking about trying to find out about neural tube defects and spinal defects in developing embryos. In order to do that research, you're going to have to allow these embryos to progress much further than even what the panel agreed to, much more beyond a dot of cells. So I think we are opening up a whole new avenue --

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay.

DR. HEALY: -- that I'm not sure America understands or is prepared for.

MR. MAC NEIL: I just want to refer that point back to Dr. Green quickly. If the federal funding had occurred, is your belief that that would have created some kind of ethical control over the work that goes on outside the federal purview?

DR. GREEN: It's our very strong belief. I think it has to be reiterated here. This research is going on. It's going on in private laboratories all over this country. Much of that research we learned is not up to the highest standards both of science and let me stress of ethics. People are being exposed to risks. The embryos have been being manipulated in ways that could not meet the guidelines, the very strict guidelines of this panel. We felt by bringing this under federal review and regulation we could set the highest standards, we could set standards whereby researchers who really wanted to be preeminent in their field would have to conform to those standards.

MR. MAC NEIL: We have to leave it there. I'm sure we'll come back when NIH comes up with its decision on what to do. Dr. Healy and Dr. Green, thank you both for joining us. RECAP

MS. FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion. The two felony counts stem from his actions as a private attorney in Arkansas. Under the plea bargain, Hubbell agreed to cooperate with the ongoing Whitewater investigation. And Treasury Sec. Lloyd Bentsen announced his resignation. President Clinton nominated economic adviser Robert Rubin to replace him. Good night, Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Good night, Elizabeth. That's the NewsHour for tonight. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.