The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I`m Jim Lehrer.

On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this Thursday; then, the latest on the U.S.-Syria meeting from Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post, who`s traveling with Secretary Rice; a NewsHour report on the clashes between the Los Angeles police and immigration demonstrators earlier this week; a conversation with former CIA Director George Tenet about the storm over his new book, "At the Center of the Storm"; and a rewrite of the history of Virginia`s Jamestown settlement.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. and Syria held high-level talks today in Egypt, the first since 2005. Secretary of State Rice discussed Iraq with the Syrian foreign minister. Later, Rice called the session "businesslike." She said, "I didn`t lecture him, and he didn`t lecture me."

The two met on the sidelines of a conference on Iraq`s future. Many of the country`s neighbors attended the larger gathering. Earlier, American officials in Baghdad reported Syria has moved to stop foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq.

Negotiations on a new Iraq war funding bill began in earnest today. White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten met with Senate leaders of both parties. All said they would not discuss details in public, but Majority Leader Reid insisted Democrats have not given up on timetables for ending the war. President Bush vetoed the first funding bill over that issue.

The U.S. military confirmed today a senior official of al-Qaida in Iraq was killed this week. He was identified as the group`s chief spokesman. But he`s also been linked to the kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll and the death of Tom Fox, a peace group volunteer.

There had also been reports Abu Ayyub al-Masri was killed this week. He`s the overall al-Qaida leader in Iraq. But today, a U.S. spokesman, Major General William Caldwell, said there`s still no proof he`s dead.

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, U.S. Army: I know there`s been a couple of announcements that somebody did kill Abu Ayyub al-Masri. We do not have, nor do we know anybody that has in their possession right now, either a person alive or dead that we can do DNA analysis or photo identification on at this point. I mean, that`s -- we just don`t have any information or knowledge of that.

JIM LEHRER: U.S. and Iraqi forces have increased operations against al-Qaida in recent weeks after a series of major car bombings and suicide attacks.

In other developments, three more U.S. soldiers were killed yesterday in Baghdad. And a rocket attack on the city`s Green Zone killed four foreigners working for a U.S. government contractor.

More than 100,000 Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv today, demanding Prime Minister Olmert resign. The protest followed a government report on the war in Lebanon last year. It sharply criticized Olmert`s handling of the conflict. Thus far, Olmert has refused to quit, despite calls from members of his own cabinet.

U.S. congressional leaders today demanded explanations today of bonuses at the Veterans Affairs Department. The Associated Press reported department leaders received bonuses totaling nearly $4 million last year. They came as the V.A. budget showed a shortfall of $1 billion. At the same time, the agency strained to care for thousands of wounded veterans.

The House passed a bill today to expand federal hate crime laws, defying a veto threat. The bill adds attacks based on gender and sexual orientation. Democrats said it would make it easier to help local law enforcement prosecute criminals; Republicans said it singles out some groups for special protections.

REP. LAMAR SMITH (R), Texas: Our criminal justice system has been built on the ideal of equal justice for all. Under this bill, justice will no longer be equal, but depend on the race, sex, sexual orientation, disability, or status of the victim. It will allow different penalties to be imposed for the same crime.

REP. TAMMY BALDWIN (D), Wisconsin: These characteristics are included in this hate crimes legislation, not because they deserve any special protection -- as opponents of this legislation claim -- but because of the history of particularly heinous and violent crimes committed against individuals based on such characteristics.

JIM LEHRER: White House officials issued a veto threat, saying state and local laws already cover the crimes in question.

Police in Los Angeles promised to cooperate today in probing a violent clash. It happened at an immigration rally on Tuesday. Authorities said demonstrators threw rocks and bottles. With that, officers fired up to 240 rounds of rubber bullets and swung batons to clear the crowds. Much of the melee was captured by news cameras.

Police Chief William Bratton said today he was "not happy" after seeing some of the video. We`ll have more on this story later in our program tonight.

The state of Florida moved today to jump ahead of next year`s presidential calendar. The legislature approved shifting the state`s primary from March to January 29th. That`s just after Iowa and New Hampshire vote and before at least a dozen states vote on February 5th. The governor is expected to sign the bill. National party leaders opposed the move and warned of penalties.

The queen of England arrived in Richmond, Virginia, today. Queen Elizabeth II came to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of the first English colony at Jamestown. She was greeted by Governor Tim Kaine and crowds that brought welcoming signs and bouquets of flowers.

Later, the queen addressed the Virginia legislature. She paid tribute to those early settlers and the American Indians they encountered.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II, England: While it remains difficult to say what it was about those early years which caught that vital moment in the evolution of this great country, it must surely have had something to do with the ingenuity, the drive, and the idealism of that group of adventurers who first set foot on this fertile Virginia soil and the will of the Powhatan people to find ways to co-exist.

JIM LEHRER: Tomorrow, the queen tours the Jamestown site. We`ll have more on the changing history of Jamestown later in the program tonight.

One of America`s first astronauts, Wally Schirra, died today of a heart attack in La Jolla, California. Schirra was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts in the early 1960s. His maiden flight blasted off in October 1962, and he became the third American to orbit Earth. He went on to fly in the Gemini and Apollo programs, as well. Wally Schirra was 84 years old.

It was another record-breaking day on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 29 points to close at 13,241, its third record this week. The Nasdaq rose more than seven points to close at 2,565. And the S&P 500 topped the 1,500 mark for the first time since September of 2000. It`s closely watched by market professionals.

And that`s it for the news summary tonight. Now: hello, Syria; the L.A. protests; George Tenet; and Jamestown history.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. talks to Syria. We have a report from Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post. Jeffrey Brown spoke with her by phone from Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, where the talks took place.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, Karen, what did Secretary Rice talk about with her Syrian counterpart, Foreign Minister Walid Moualem?

KAREN DEYOUNG, The Washington Post: She said -- and he agreed -- that they talk exclusively about Iraq. Rice emphasized that the United States would like to see a stop to the so-called foreign fighters flowing from Syria over the border into Iraq. And Minister Moualem from Syria said only that they -- in public statements, said only that they had discussed their joint desire for increased security in Iraq.

JEFFREY BROWN: Today in Baghdad, you probably heard a top U.S. military spokesman said that Syria had, in fact, tightened its borders and reduced the number of insurgents coming into Iraq. Was that seen as a coincidence or coordinated with this meeting in Egypt today?

KAREN DEYOUNG: I don`t think it was coordinated. I think it was a coincidence. The U.S. military makes these assessments on a monthly basis. Rice acknowledged after the meeting that they had, indeed, seen these reports, but that they want to wait and see whether it`s actually a trend and it`s something that continues, because that`s a level that goes up and down over various months.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, you said that they focused largely on or maybe exclusively on Iraq. Were there any signs out there that this was the beginning of some broader restart of relations between the U.S. and Syria? Or is it very much focused on Iraq and the subject of this conference, Iraq?

KAREN DEYOUNG: Well, I think they -- for public consumption, they were saying it`s very much -- it just focused on Iraq and was made possible in the context of this conference. But I think that U.S. officials do see it as the beginning of a resumption of dialogue, conditional, of course, on progress that they hope to see on the Syrian side.

JEFFREY BROWN: And what happened to cause that? Because, of course, the Bush administration has been very adamant about not talking to the Syrians since relations were strained in early 2005, I think it goes back to. So why now? What happened?

KAREN DEYOUNG: Well, I think that what happened is, first of all, the Iraqi government has been quite adamant in asking the United States to please initiate a dialogue with its neighbors. They feel like they`re kind of in the middle of a conflict between the United States and these other governments, and that inhibits increased cooperation on Iraq.

But, also, I think that the administration is well-aware of the criticism it`s gotten at home, particularly following the Iraq Study Group report, which urged it to initiate or to resume some kind of talks with Syria and Iran, saying that, regardless of what they`re responsible for, the situation is not going to improve if we just refuse to talk to them and make clear to them directly what our concerns are.

JEFFREY BROWN: Of course, the administration was very critical of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she met with Syrian President Assad last month. Was Secretary Rice asked about that? Was she distinguishing these talks?

KAREN DEYOUNG: She was asked about that. And she said "Well" -- I`ll read a quote from her -- she said, "Well, I think there`s a difference in going to Damascus and having broad-scale discussions about a whole range of issues with Syria," and that was the issue at the time.

I think having the secretary of state take an opportunity to speak to the foreign minister of Syria about a concrete problem involving Iraq at an Iraq neighbor`s conference makes more sense.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, Iran`s foreign minister is also at that conference. Any signs today that Secretary Rice might meet with him?

KAREN DEYOUNG: No. And U.S. officials made it clear that that`s a meeting that is not going to take place at this conference. They did greet each other a lunch today and exchanged some pleasantries.

There was some thought that they were going to repeat the process, again, just exchanging pleasantries at a dinner tonight that was hosted by the Egyptian foreign minister. But after the dinner was over -- it is now over -- Rice`s spokesman put out a statement saying that she had arrived at the dinner before guests were seated, that after her arrival, but prior to the dinner, they learned that the Iranian foreign minister had already come and gone, and they didn`t see each other.

JEFFREY BROWN: And the conference itself was intended to look for financial and political backing for Iraq, but some of the early reporting that I`ve seen -- including your own -- suggests that it`s bringing out more divisions than bringing countries together. What are you seeing there?

KAREN DEYOUNG: I don`t think that`s entirely true. I think that, certainly, very large concerns remain on the part, certainly, of Iraq`s Sunni Arab neighbors, that they see the Iraqi government as too close to Iran. They see the Sunni minority in Iraq being discriminated against. They see that the promised political reconciliation among groups and the more equitable division of oil revenue has been very slow getting decided within the government.

But I think that, at least as far as the United States was concerned, there was some encouragement that they`d shown up at this meeting, that they did, by and large, pledge aid to Iraq, and agreed to forgive a large portion of Iraqi debt owed to them. And they said that they appreciate Iraq`s new commitment to speed up these reforms, and they will wait and see what happens.

JEFFREY BROWN: So that sounds like -- I was going to ask you finally -- what Secretary Rice wants to come away with from this, and that`s it, those kinds of pledges?

KAREN DEYOUNG: I think those kinds of pledges, and I think, in a much broader sense, you know, the United States, having gone into Iraq without the support of a lot of its friends at the time, as the situation has developed there, and as Iraq has become more and more of a problem, I think they would like to -- I don`t want to say share the wealth, but they would like it to be an international problem and not just a U.S. problem.

And so what this conference does is it brings everybody together, almost 60 governments, almost 30 foreign ministers in a room, to all say, "Not only are we willing to help Iraq, but we, also, are supporting the U.S. desire for Iraq to hurry up and implement these reforms."

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post, thanks very much.

KAREN DEYOUNG: You`re very welcome.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Now, the violence at this week`s immigration rally in Los Angeles. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET Los Angeles reports.

JEFFREY KAYE, Reporter, KCET: Images of Los Angeles police officers clubbing demonstrators and journalists during an immigrants` rights rally on Tuesday have been widely seen on television and the Internet.

This morning, Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton called the incident "an aberration." He says he`s asked the FBI to launch its own investigation, an investigation he says will demonstrate the department`s commitment to professionalism.

CHIEF WILLIAM BRATTON, Los Angeles Police Department: We have nothing to hide, in the sense of our investigation of it, but particularly to push back on anybody who would seek for their own purposes to capitalize on an unfortunate incident, that this is part of some larger scheme to push back on immigrants or immigrants` rights marches.

JEFFREY KAYE: The clashes in L.A.`s MacArthur Park were preceded by a day of largely peaceful demonstrations. Police said problems erupted when some protestors they described as "agitators" started pelting them with bottles and rocks.

Officers said demonstrators did not heed, or maybe couldn`t understand, instructions issued in English to disperse. The police then began clearing the crowd with batons. They fired 240 rounds of rubber bullets. Among those struck were men, women, and children participating in the rally, and journalists who were gathered to cover it.

A man carrying an American flag was hit.

PROTESTOR: With a police baton, they hit me four times.

JEFFREY KAYE: As many as 20 people were injured in the confrontation.

ANGELICA SALAS, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights: I saw women with their children on strollers trying to quickly get out of there. We believe that what the police has done is unacceptable.

JEFFREY KAYE: One Spanish-language network, Telemundo, was reporting live from the scene, when riot police nearly knocked over the anchor. After being pushed, a local FOX television reporter confronted police.

The video, a snippet of hundreds of hours shot at the scene, will be part of three official investigations into whether the officers` response was justified.

CHIEF WILLIAM BRATTON: Investigators are still collecting physical evidence, which includes video coverage on the local media, the LAPD video unit, and video from surveillance cameras that are scattered throughout the park. Investigators will be interviewing injured members of the media later this afternoon. They will also work to identify the officers involved in the uses of force.

JEFFREY KAYE: The altercation has galvanized the immigrant community and their leaders, who called the police action "brutal."

PROTEST LEADER: I was there when the police opened fire on the crowd. No dispersal order was given; no warning was given. The violence was unprovoked and, you know, there are reports that a few bottles were thrown.

But police response needs to be justified. It needs to be proportional. And the people in the park had no idea this was coming. And many people were injured by completely out-of-control police department.

CYNTHIA ANDERSON-BARKER, National Lawyers Guild: In 2000, the police, LAPD, attacked a crowd of demonstrators with these so called "less than lethal weapons," rubber bullets. And hundreds of people were injured. We sued them successfully. They had to pay out to the victims $1.2 million, the LAPD.

This year, the LAPD did it again at the demonstration in MacArthur Park, and they did not reform their policies. They did not reform their tactics. They attacked the crowd indiscriminately.

JEFFREY KAYE: The park where the melee took place is quiet today, but the incident has reignited long-time concerns about the Los Angeles Police Department`s use of force and its relationship with the immigrant community.

The LAPD has been under federal supervision since 2001 to monitor its use of force, treatment of minorities, and tracking of officers` behavior in the field.

Angelica Salas, the director of L.A.`s Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights, helped organize Tuesday`s protest and was in the park during the clash. She says department officials need to better discipline rank-and- file officers who are hostile to immigrants.

ANGELICA SALAS: May 1st, from our perspective, and the manner in which the LAPD acted, was a horrible demonstration of some of the sentiments of some of the officers within the Los Angeles Police Department, who feel that they do not have the duty to protect the immigrant community in this city, and that there is a disconnect between the chief`s support, the mayor`s support, and the belief that everybody in the city should be protected, and very vocal members of the rank and file, who feel that their duty is to arrest and to punish the undocumented who are living in the city of Los Angeles.

JEFFREY KAYE: But Chief Bratton today told reporters he`s proud of his department`s relationship with L.A.`s immigrant communities.

CHIEF WILLIAM BRATTON: We are a city of immigrants. And this department, with myself as chief, we are committed to working with those communities. And we have made it quite clear that the Los Angeles Police Department is very desirous of working to secure the rights of the community and not abuse them.

JEFFREY KAYE: Chief Bratton says the police department`s treatment of demonstrators and journalists did not follow policy, and today he promised top-to-bottom reviews and retraining.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: The storm over the book by former CIA Director George Tenet, "At the Center of the Storm." I talked with George Tenet earlier this evening.

Mr. Tenet, welcome.

GEORGE TENET, Former CIA Director: Thank you, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Are you upset by the reception you and your book have received?

GEORGE TENET: Not upset, Jim. Obviously, this is a raw period in our country`s history, and Iraq is a very difficult issue. I`m not sure I`d say I`m upset by it. I didn`t expect it would be this controversial, but it`s certainly engendered a lot of feelings and emotions.

I don`t know that everybody who`s reacted has actually taken the opportunity to read the book. But it`s a personal reflection of a time in history I lived, and so people are going to have different reactions.

JIM LEHRER: Did you expect to be criticized so severely, as you have been, and so personally?

GEORGE TENET: Well, Jim, I guess you don`t expect the personal criticism, but I certainly understood that issues that would be raised would be controversial with folks, and I guess that`s to be expected. All I`m trying to do is fill in some blanks and give people a sense of what it was like from my position, what it was like to be the intelligence community, what our officers were up against.

JIM LEHRER: A lot of the criticism has centered on your motives for writing the book. What were your motives? Why did you write this book?

GEORGE TENET: Well, people from my position and people who were former directors don`t usually do this.

I thought, first, I had a historical obligation. I believed I lived through some of the most turbulent times in our history. Intelligence was central to it.

Lots of people have provided their perspective from afar. I thought it was important that I give you a perspective from the inside, in terms of what we felt, what we saw, what we did.

JIM LEHRER: One of your critics, former CIA officer who you worked with, Michael Scheuer, said in the Washington Post that your purpose was to absolve yourself of the failings involving 9/11 and Iraq. What do you make of that charge?

GEORGE TENET: Well, he`s entitled to his opinion. I`m trying to give you a sense of what we did well, what we didn`t do well. I won`t absolve myself of anything. History will make these judgments. My motives were far more honorable than Mr. Scheuer portrays, but he`s entitled to his opinion.

JIM LEHRER: So what is the message of the book then? What do you want somebody who reads the book -- and there have been scores of interviews, both in print, but particularly in television -- a lot of people know an awful lot about what George Tenet said and did about this recent period. What`s the message you want people to take away from this?

GEORGE TENET: I think message is, is that there were -- George Tenet and a lot of honest men and women did their best. They did it honorably; they did it honestly. We were sometimes wrong; we were many times right.

Some of the things we were wrong about had profound consequences for the country. We were wrong for professional reasons, not for reasons of trying to tell people what they wanted to hear. We saved thousands of lives. Our activities around the world have been beneficial for the country, and I wanted to give people a sense of what it was like to grapple with all these issues.

JIM LEHRER: It`s generally conceded that the 9/11 attack and the weapons of mass destruction issue involving Iraq are two of the most serious intelligence failings in recent U.S. history. Both of them happened on your watch. How do you see your own responsibility in those two major issues?

GEORGE TENET: I see a responsibility to speak about these issues honestly. If you look at 9/11, while everybody has zeroed in on intelligence, it was a failure of policies. It was a failure of intelligence, a failure of law enforcement.

You know, an entire government needed to do better. We had no system of protection inside the country. We never thought of ourselves as a target. So if you stand back for a moment and look at it, yes, there were short falls on our part, and everybody`s part.

If you look at Iraq, we produced intelligence on WMD that was not accurate. We produced incredibly good intelligence in the post-war phase that was accurate, that told people clearly what the problems were, that should have led to some changes in policy, that I think may have alleviated some of the problems that we`re dealing with today.

So, you know, intelligence is at this very difficult cross section between where we converge with policymakers. We have to take our responsibility; they make decisions, sometimes based on what we say, sometimes based on other things. And all you`re trying to do is show people what this intersection was like.

JIM LEHRER: Some people have suggested, Mr. Tenet, that had you acted differently as director of central intelligence, you could have prevented the tragedy that has now called the war on Iraq. Is that accurate? Is that true?

GEORGE TENET: I don`t believe so, Jim. First and foremost, your job everyday is not to make policy. It`s to provide the president with objective intelligence, the best you could provide.

When you cross the line and become a policymaker, people will start to question your objectivity. I don`t think I would have made a difference in this regard. I think, certainly, if we had produced better intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, if we`d produced more accurate intelligence, we would have made that decision more difficult. I don`t believe it was solely based on WMD alone, although it is what we told the world about.

So at the end of the day, I don`t think we could have stopped it. The implication of what I heard is, we knew the intelligence was bad, we let the president -- we told people things that we knew to be untrue, which is absolutely untrue. And all I can say is, as I look at the pre-war phase, where I know what we produced, I looked at a post-war phase, and even in the run-up to the post-war -- actually, there`s no such thing as a post-war in Iraq. It`s still ongoing -- where we were prescient, knowledgeable, accurate, truthful, and were very direct about what we believe. So there`s a mixed record there, as well.

JIM LEHRER: You said you didn`t involve yourself in policy, and yet there you were sitting right behind Secretary of State Powell, for the whole world to see, director of central intelligence, when he was making this statement before the whole world about weapons of mass destruction. Wasn`t that an involvement in policy? Weren`t you essentially saying to the world, "I support what the United States government and through Secretary of State Powell is saying and doing"?

GEORGE TENET: Well, I supported what the secretary had in his speech, because we helped him write that speech. The secretary asked me to come up and be with him. Yes, it was a bit unusual. We spent three days and nights -- longer than that -- at our headquarters working on this speech.

And here`s a classic tension. You can absolve yourself of the responsibility when intelligence is used, but we chose to participate and help the secretary craft what we believed was an accurate speech. It wasn`t. We let him down; we let the country down.

And it`s something that`s difficult. But we were right there. He asked me to be with him, and I said I`d do it.

JIM LEHRER: Was it right to go to war against Iraq?

GEORGE TENET: Well, Jim, you know, if you look at the consequences today, obviously, the consequences are very difficult. Our strategic interests have been hurt. We`re in a very, very difficult situation.

You know, history will make a judgment. I`m not one at the front end who said, "Don`t do this." It wasn`t my job to say this. I`m not one who didn`t believe in getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

I believed in the intelligence of weapons of mass destruction. Policymakers made a choice. Here we are, and history will make this judgment over the course of time.

JIM LEHRER: But some have suggested -- would you agree with this -- that, as a result of going to war with Iraq, first of all, al-Qaida -- in other words, more terrorists have been created rather than less. Al-Qaida is stronger. The United States image and perception about the United States abroad is in much worse shape because of this. Thousands of people, thousands of Iraqis, more than 3,000 Americans, billions and billions of dollars have been spent.

GEORGE TENET: Jim, there haven`t been any good consequences here. The loss of life is the worst of all, those consequences, American and Iraqi. Al-Qaida has viewed this as a cause celebre for propagandistic values, not that they care about anybody in Iraq.

Where we stand against al-Qaida at any moment in time is a very subjective determination. We still have lots to do against them, although we`ve done very, very well against them, you know, since 9/11. So all of the things you say are accurate, and these are things we now have to look forward.

One of the things I hope we get around to doing is, we`ve got to look forward. We can keep looking back, but we`ve got to figure out as a country how we`re going to unite, how we`re going to stop finger-pointing and thinking through how, as Americans, we do the best we can to get all those kids home as fast as we can.

JIM LEHRER: Looking ahead, is the United States still vulnerable to another 9/11-type attack from al-Qaida?

GEORGE TENET: Well, Jim, we`re better off than we were, because we`ve thought about securing our country. But I will say this: For al-Qaida, we still remained the brass ring and a target that they care about a great deal.

We had signs up at CIA headquarters that said, "Today is September the 12th." We have to live as if it`s September the 12th everyday. They have a long timeline. They are enormously patient. They`re counting on the fact that, at some point, we`ll tire of standing on lines at airports and doing what we need to secure us.

All I would say to people is: Our vigilance is absolutely essential. This is a generational challenge. My son, our kids, our grandchildren are going to be dealing with some form of this extremism.

And the other thing I would say is, people need to understand that, while what we do, the military intelligence and law enforcement communities do, is tactical, you can`t kill them all. You can`t capture them all. This is about Islam and the message from the mosques. This is about hope, putting people to work, making those societies more vibrant, changing their educational systems.

And at the end of the day, one final point. There`s no unilateral solution to this problem. We need a coalition of countries that will continue to work with us here. We can`t do this alone.

JIM LEHRER: You made the point in your book that suicide bombings have become -- have increased throughout the world. And the United States is, obviously, susceptible, vulnerable to suicide attacks, and yet none have happened here. Why? Why not?

GEORGE TENET: I don`t know why, Jim, except that I believe that, from al-Qaida`s perspective, they want to hurt us in a way commensurate with our standing as a superpower. They`re still committed to multiple spectacular attacks.

And the big worry I cite in the book is their interest particularly in nuclear weapons and their interest in hurting us in a way that, even with thousands of nuclear weapons, if they had one, if they could deliver and develop one, it would make thousands of nuclear weapons in our arsenal absolutely irrelevant.

JIM LEHRER: Finally, some questions about George Tenet. And back to your original -- your motives for writing the book and going so public. I mean, it was three years ago that you resigned. Not a word came from George Tenet in a public way. Now, suddenly, you`ve not only written a book, you`ve been on "Larry King Live, you`ve been on the "Today" show, you`ve been on "60 Minutes," all of the above.

GEORGE TENET: All unnatural acts.

JIM LEHRER: Right. Why are you doing this?

GEORGE TENET: Well, Jim, I think I`ve written something -- I hope that it`s something that people will take the time to reflect on. There may be some things in it that spark some debate. That`s a good and healthy thing in America.

And I just thought that this period of -- look, historians -- in 20 years, everybody will fill in all the blanks, and I wanted to make sure that, since intelligence was such an important part of it, that our story be told.

JIM LEHRER: Let me read you what Howard Kurtz wrote about this. He said that, "Whatever Tenet`s strengths and weaknesses as CIA director, he quit three years ago. He accepted a Presidential Medal of Freedom and then remained silent until now when he`s peddling a book. If he felt so strongly about these intelligence issues, about the rush to war in Iraq, about the way he says he`s been besmirched, why didn`t he speak out before now? How does he justify remaining silent?"

GEORGE TENET: Well, Jim...

JIM LEHRER: What`s the answer?

GEORGE TENET: ... it took me a long while to think about what I lived through. I lived through seven years. I interviewed scores of people. I didn`t want to write immediately. I don`t think you write coming out of a caldron when you`re emotionally drained and you`re tired.

You don`t want to write in anger. You want to write thoughtfully. You want to reflect on what happened. I talked to scores of people. I looked at thousands of documents. I may not have all the answers. I wanted to do this in a patient and methodical way, and that`s the way I decided to do it.

JIM LEHRER: Did the CIA vet your book?

GEORGE TENET: Yes, they did.

JIM LEHRER: And is there anything that they asked you not to put in the book or to take out of the book?

GEORGE TENET: They certainly did, yes.

JIM LEHRER: Anything that you wish you had been able to say that you were unable to say, anything big?

GEORGE TENET: No, absolutely not. Things that they asked me to remove were legitimate. There would have been some nice spy stories I would have loved to tell, but what they asked me to take out were legitimate, and I took them out, appropriately.

JIM LEHRER: And the message, the total message of the book, and now all of the public appearances and all of that, what do you want people to think about George Tenet?

GEORGE TENET: Well, I guess, at the end of the day, Jim, all you can ask for is people believe you had a tough job, you got up everyday, did it to the best of your ability, you led your people well, and honestly, and history will judge the rest.

That`s all you can expect. People will have different views on it. This is America, and it`s a great country, and everybody will have opinions. I want to lay down what my views were, and people will judge.

JIM LEHRER: Do you believe you`re worse off or better off for having written this book and gone so public?

GEORGE TENET: Jim, I`ll never know that. We`re in, right?

JIM LEHRER: We`re in the middle of it.

GEORGE TENET: We`re in the water and, over the course of time, better off or worse off, I think historians will say, perhaps, I hope that we`re better off for knowing what he thought. Whether I`m better or worse off, it`s not really relevant at this point. People are always going to think what they`re going to think. The only people I care about are the men and women I led. I think I know what they think.

JIM LEHRER: Some of them, of course, have issued statements criticizing your book and what you`ve said.

GEORGE TENET: Well, Jim, none of them were -- none of those six worked with me. And another six have issued a letter, with 150 years of experience, who saw me up close, but nobody much cares about them. And at the end of the day, you know, they have a view. They can express that view. Others have a far different view. And over the course of time, people will express themselves.

JIM LEHRER: Your head remains high, in other words?

GEORGE TENET: Yes, sir, it is.

JIM LEHRER: Thank you, sir.

GEORGE TENET: Thanks very much, Jim.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, thinking differently about Jamestown. NewsHour correspondent Kwame Holman begins.

KWAME HOLMAN: Four hundred years ago this month, in 1607, 104 settlers -- all men -- completed a five-month voyage from England and began establishing the first permanent English colony in America at Jamestown, Virginia.

Most schoolchildren are familiar with two of Jamestown`s historical figures: John Smith, the English soldier and adventurer credited with keeping the struggling settlement alive; and Pocahontas, the local Indian leader`s young daughter, who brokered cooperation amid the settlers` conflicts with the native population.

Bly Straube, a Virginia archaeologist, says whatever the true nature of the relationship between the two, it`s always been surrounded by myth.

BLY STRAUBE, Senior Curator, Jamestown Discovery: Personally, I sort of think that there was a relationship. You know, it may not have been sexual in nature. It may have been just caring, but maybe she thought of him more as a father figure or something.

KWAME HOLMAN: And Jamestown long had been thought of as a failure, riven by conflict among the settlers, laziness, mismanagement, disease and starvation, and nearly wiped out by an Indian rebellion. It never achieved the iconic stature given the pilgrims, who landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 13 years after Jamestown.

William Kelso is head archaeologist of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

WILLIAM KELSO, Director of Archeology, Jamestown Rediscovery: First, I learned about Jamestown as a footnote in the history book, in the high school history book, just a footnote. "And also Jamestown, but it failed." And there was, you know, a huge chapter about the settlement of Plymouth, and Boston, and New England.

KWAME HOLMAN: So, in 1994, Kelso and his team set out to find archaeological evidence that would fill out the sketchy history of Jamestown, beginning with the belief that the original fort built by the settlers simply was washed away by the James River.

WILLIAM KELSO: There was no proof of that. It`s just sort of accepted, you know, story. So I put the shovel to the ground and, fortunately, right away found one fragment of, as it turned out, a tobacco pipe, symbolically. I mean, of course, tobacco is what made Virginia stay on and be permanent.

But that and a piece of pottery, and I knew it was old enough to be the time of the fort. It`s the oldest fragments I`d ever found anywhere in America. So I thought, "It`s a good sign." You know, I was very excited. This is going to be -- this is going to work.

KWAME HOLMAN: Kelso and his team now have unearthed nearly a million artifacts and say they`ve developed a far fuller picture of the Jamestown settlers. They see a resilient and resourceful group that established a profit-making settlement based on tobacco -- and later, slaves -- and were the first practitioners of what would become American representative government.

WILLIAM KELSO: There was a problematic group of people here, but not all of them. And, yes, over half died, but the other half lived. You know, that`s the story. And so this goes on to be a permanent settlement, because somebody was succeeding.

KWAME HOLMAN: Jamestown thrived as the Virginia capital through most of the 1600s, until a fire destroyed the capital building. The area became farm land, a use that helped preserve the archaeology that`s now rewriting Jamestown`s standing in the history of the nation, 400 years after its founding.

JIM LEHRER: Jeffrey Brown takes it from there.

JEFFREY BROWN: And we explore our growing understanding of Jamestown now with Karen Kupperman, professor of history at New York University. She`s written widely about early American settlements and is author of "The Jamestown Project."

Annette Gordon-Reed is professor of law at New York Law School and professor of history at Rutgers University. She`s the author of "The Hemings Family of Monticello: An American Story of Slavery."

And NewsHour regular and presidential historian Michael Beschloss, he recently wrote about the historical importance of Jamestown for Newsweek magazine.

Welcome to all.

Karen Kupperman, who were these people? And what does the new archaeology tell us about their experience?

KAREN KUPPERMAN, History Professor, New York University: Well, as the piece said, there were around about 100 men and boys. There were several boys at Jamestown, and they played very important roles, actually.

And they came, I think, principally to set up a trade post. I think that was what they were hoping to do. I don`t think the English initially thought in terms of colonization. Colonization was very, very expensive. And in the English case, every expedition, every ship had to be paid for by private investment.

So the investors were looking to find a product in America that they could get in trade with the Indians and keep a very small, permanent contingent here, I think.

JEFFREY BROWN: And what about their experience is new? What has changed in our thinking, in your thinking about this?

KAREN KUPPERMAN: Well, the archaeology is extremely important, because it shows us, as Bill Kelso said, that the colonists are, from the beginning, engaged in really purposeful activity. They`re making products that the Indians want. They brought sheets of copper with them, and they`re actually making items to Indian specifications.

And the archaeologists have not only found evidence of that within the fort, but they`ve also found Jamestown made items in Powhatan`s capital, at Werowocomoco, for example. So there`s evidence of all kinds of activity that`s going on. So they really are, through trial and error, trying to build the kind of economic base that the company was asking them to.

JEFFREY BROWN: Annette Gordon-Reed, what jumps out at you about it, particularly picking up on that, the economic seed here that was born at Jamestown?

ANNETTE GORDON-REED, New York University Law School: Well, really, in 1619, of course, you get the first Africans who come to Jamestown. And there are different theories about what their first role was, but certainly it was the beginning of Africans being involved in the cultivation of tobacco, which, of course, begins the slave society in Virginia, and that spreads across the United States, or what was not the United States at that time, but in the American colonies.

So that`s the thing that jumps out at me about Jamestown, is the beginning of something, the beginning of a problem in American history that starts in the very beginning in that place, a much less uplifting story than Plymouth, but it`s nevertheless something that has been central to the American story from the very, very beginning.

JEFFREY BROWN: Michael, the interaction of three cultures?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Yes. You know, nowadays people who are looking at Jamestown, particularly people in our profession, look at it not as it was for most of American history, as basically the story of some white English settlers with African-American slaves and Indian sort of bit players in this pageant, but the intersection of three equal civilizations. That`s wonderful.

And another thing that I think is just so exciting is, you know, in our line of work, we often say that history is argument without end. And someone who`s not a historian might say, "Well, maybe after 400 years, the argument may have been ended."

But here`s a case where, because of the archaeology, the things that Bill Kelso is doing, and also new scholarship, even 400 years later it`s almost the beginning. We`re getting all sorts of new evidence about Jamestown, and we`re also looking at the place in a different way.

JEFFREY BROWN: You know, one of the fascinating things about telling the story is who tells the story.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Absolutely.

JEFFREY BROWN: This character -- and I`ll call him a character, John Smith -- not only participated, but was telling the story, as well. And, of course, the veracity of his life and what he wrote is long in dispute, right?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: It is. You know, he had motives. He was trying to raise money in London for the Virginia Company, so he may have told some stories about Pocahontas that, as they say in Texas, don`t have the added advantage of being true. And so here we are, you know, centuries later, trying to evaluate which of these recollections is true, which isn`t, and the archaeology does help.

JEFFREY BROWN: Tell us more, Professor Kupperman, about the relationship between the settlers and the Indians, the indigenous people that were there. It sounds like it`s much more complicated than the story is usually told.

KAREN KUPPERMAN: Well, I think, if I`m right, and that what the English wanted was a trading post, I think that`s also what the Indians wanted. The first thing you have to say is that, if Powhatan, who was the paramount chief, Pocahontas` father, if he had not wanted the English to be there, they would not have been there, because they were utterly reliant on the Indians for their food supply.

He didn`t have to attack them. All he had to do -- as he explained in detail to Captain John Smith -- all he had to do was to move away, and cut off trade, and the English were either dead or gone.

So then you have to say, "OK, why did he want them there?" And I think the reason was because there were certain kinds of products that were made in Europe that he knew about. He knew a lot more about Europe and Europeans than the colonists did about America and Americans.

JEFFREY BROWN: He`d had a long experience already.

KAREN KUPPERMAN: He`d had lots of experience vicariously. He had not himself been to Europe, but there were people from the region, at least one man that we know of, who had spent 10 years living with the Spanish. And there had been many ships in and out of Chesapeake Bay.

So I think, you know, Powhatan looking at this straggling group of 105 men and boys thought, "These are people that I can control, and they can be a source for me of the trade goods that" -- especially what they wanted was smelted metal, anything that could hold an edge, you know, axes, and hoes, and knives.

And that would also increase his power, because he would become the conduit for those things to other Indians. And so I think he made a calculation that was actually not so very different from the calculation that the Virginia Company made.

JEFFREY BROWN: Professor Gordon-Reed, tell us a little bit more about the system of indentured servitude and, eventually, slavery. How did that become -- well, how did it become a system and part of the legal system?

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: How did slavery become a part of the legal system? Of course, they started out with indentured servants from England. And, again, many of these things are disputed, things that people are talking about in the scholarship now, about why they actually went from indentured servitude to slavery. It became more expensive.

The general thinking is, to have indentured servants and then slavery, it was cheaper to import Africans. Africans had knowledge of cultivation of, if not tobacco, plants that were like tobacco. And there`s this series, confluence of events that led the white settlers, the colonists, to turn to African slaves for labor.

They were not -- it was not immediately legalized. In other words, it took a time to bring forth various statutes and things, to bring an actual system of slavery in Virginia, but it was sort of a gradual process. By the 1700s, certainly, the whole system was in place, and you had a slave society that depended upon tobacco and tobacco cultivation. So it was a gradual process.

JEFFREY BROWN: Michael, in our set-up, we mentioned that Plymouth became, I guess, the guiding spirit, in a way, that people would look to in the founding myth of the country, myth in the good sense. Why was Jamestown ignored for so long or so poorly understood?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Well, one reason is just what Annette was saying, because Jamestown, by the end of the 17th century, had mortgaged itself, had addicted itself to tobacco growing and slavery. They couldn`t get away from it.

They used land for tobacco rather than for growing food, for instance, and they began this tragedy of slavery that has shadowed so much of American history. So, to some extent, people saw Jamestown as a very mixed legacy.

Another reason is that you look at Plymouth in contrast. It`s a rather happy story, people seeking religious freedom. You grew up around Boston; I grew up around Chicago. You probably, like me, would hear about Squanto and, at Thanksgiving, we`d have a pageant.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes, sir.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I don`t think anyone dressed up as John Smith having a mutiny on the boat coming over to America. So, in a way, it was a more child-friendly event, Jamestown was.

And another thing that was sort of interesting, as you talk to some southerners and some southern historians, they will say that they think that, after the Civil War, there was almost a conspiracy by northern, particularly New England historians, to deny the South of its rightful place in early American history and that that led to downplaying Jamestown and upping the attention on Plymouth.

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: Well, it`s certainly a tough legacy...

JEFFREY BROWN: I`m sorry, go ahead.

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: I was going to say, it`s a tough legacy. I mean, to have a founding based upon religious freedom versus a founding that has the conflict with Native Americans, an unhappy story, the institution of slavery. So if it was a conspiracy, it was a conspiracy that, in some ways, that hid some things that perhaps southerners might have been ashamed of.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, just in our last moments, let me stay with you, Professor Gordon-Reed, how should the legacy -- how should we think of the legacy now of Jamestown?

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: Well, it`s like anything. It`s a legacy of struggle. It`s a legacy of triumph, in some ways. But it was the beginning of a process that we have yet to complete, and that is to try to make all of the cultures equal in this society.

And I think I said to someone before, if slavery was original sin, Jamestown is the Garden of Eden, in a sense. And that`s where it took place. And so we can remember it, but remember the good things and the bad things, as well.

JEFFREY BROWN: Professor Kupperman, a legacy, briefly?

KAREN KUPPERMAN: Well, I think it`s partly a question of how you build a society. I mean, I think the reason why Jamestown looked so bad for the first decade was because it was a trial-and-error process, in which error seems to have predominated.

But what they were doing was figuring it out. And the first thing they tried was martial law. They said, "OK, we`re going to regiment everything. Every part of life is going to be regimented." And they tried that for a while.

And then, at the end of about the first decade, they had a breakthrough. And what they came up with is that, if you give everybody a stake in the outcome, then you can actually make this function. And so that`s where they developed this headright system, where every comer, at least for the first few years, got their 50 acres, something they would never, ever have had in Europe. And so they -- it`s also a lesson, I think, in how you make a society work.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Karen Kupperman, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Michael Beschloss -- and I know you`re most thrilled that we get to re-look at history, right?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Absolutely, all the time.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Thank you all three very much.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: And, again, the major developments of this day.

The U.S. and Syria held high-level talks in Egypt, the first since 2005. Secretary of State Rice met with the Syrian foreign minister to discuss Iraq.

A U.N. conference in Thailand reached agreement early Friday on ways to fight climate change.

And the U.S. House voted to expand federal hate crime laws to include attacks based on gender and sexual orientation. White House officials threatened a veto.

We`ll see you online and again here tomorrow evening, with Mark Shields and David Brooks, among others. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.