The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, an extended issue and debate segment on prescription drugs for the elderly; Elizabeth Brackett reports on the push to have reparations paid for slavery; Ray Suarez talks about a whaling boat in heart of the sea; and Spencer Michels tells the story of Angel Island. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: George W. Bush today offered his plan for providing prescription drugs to the elderly. It would fully cover drug costs for low-income seniors, and cover at least part of the expense for others. The overall cost was set at $158 billion over ten years. Governor Bush, at stops in Pennsylvania, said his plan would be an immediate step in a complete overhaul of Medicare. He also promised he would not raise the eligibility age for Medicare. Vice President Gore immediately criticized the bush drugs plan. He said it means many seniors would not be covered. He also said there'd be no way to fund it after Bush's promised tax cut. Gore spoke during a campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio. He visited a web site development company, and called for new investments in technology education. We'll have more on the Bush and Gore prescription drugs proposals right after this News Summary. World leaders began arriving in New York today for the United Nations millennium summit. It's the largest such gathering ever, and will promote efforts against war, poverty, ignorance and disease. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan noted today was international peace day, and said this.

KOFI ANNAN: It should deepen our determination to give succeeding generations what the United Nations was created for 55 years ago-- freedom from want, freedom from fear, and the means to sustain our future on this planet. This day should remind us that we can achieve that only if we summon the will.

JIM LEHRER: The summit begins tomorrow. President Fidel Castro of Cuba was among the leaders arriving today. It was his first visit to the US in five years, and only his fourth since coming to power in 1959. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a campaign issue and debate on prescription drugs, reparations for slavery, a great whale story, and an island named Angel.

ISSUE & DEBATE - PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

JIM LEHRER: Prescription drugs-- Spencer Michels begins.

SPENCER MICHELS: With major advances in pharmaceuticals over the last decade, seniors rely far more today on prescription drugs than they did when Medicare was established in 1965. That and the high cost of those medicines have propelled the issue into the presidential race. Campaigning in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Governor Bush announced today that his new plan to cover prescription drugs for Medicare recipients would help seniors more quickly than Vice President Gore's proposal.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: We'll modernize Medicare, but we will not wait to help seniors afford prescription drugs. We'll give them direct aid now by expanding and funding state assistance programs. Every senior with an income of less than $11,300-- $15,200 for a couple-- will have the entire cost of their prescription drugs covered. For seniors with incomes less than $14,600, or $19,700 per couple, there will be a partial subsidy.

SPENCER MICHELS: Under the Bush plan, the government would not offer a drug benefit automatically as part of Medicare, but all Medicare beneficiaries would be given a subsidy to purchase drug coverage from a private health plan. Every senior above the poverty level would get 25% of the cost of their insurance premiums. Expenses more than $6,000 a year would be covered for all seniors. Bush said the program would cost $158 billion over ten years. $48 billion would be spent to cover low- and moderate-income seniors immediately. Bush said the Clinton-Gore administration had squandered opportunities to provide seniors with drug coverage.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: This is a patient country, but our patience is wearing thin. This is not a time for third chances. It's a time for new beginnings and new leadership. (Applause)

SPENCER MICHELS: Medicare currently does not provide any drug coverage, but national spending on pharmaceuticals is expected to soar from $112 billion this year to $243 billion in just eight years. Currently about two thirds of Medicare beneficiaries have some sort of drug coverage through private or employee plans, but the 12 million without must pay for their own medications. Studies show that seniors who are not covered purchase 11 fewer medications over a year than those with insurance. (Cheers and applause)

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE: Thank you.

SPENCER MICHELS: At a Columbus, Ohio, campaign stop, Gore today said his plan would cover all seniors, and he blasted the Bush drug plan.

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE: There are really three problems with it. Number one, it leaves millions of seniors without any prescription drug coverage-- middleclass seniors. Nearly half of all of those who don't have coverage today would not get coverage under the plan that he is announcing today. The second problem is it would still force seniors into HMO's and managed health plans even if they don't want to go into them. As we've seen, there are a lot of problems with the way some of the HMO's have been treating all Americans. And number three, the biggest problem is there is no money to pay for it if you give away all of the surplus in the form of a giant tax cut to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class in a way that stops our prosperity and progress.

SPENCER MICHELS: Gore's own plan calls for spending more than Bush, about $253 billion over ten years. Seniors would pay monthly premiums starting at $25; the government would cover one half those premiums up to a maximum of $1,000. Like Bush's plan, the government would pay the premiums for low-income seniors.

JIM LEHRER: Now, health policy advisers to both campaigns, and two very interested outsiders. Judy Feder of the Gore campaign is dean of policy studies at Georgetown University. She served as a senior health care adviser in the Clinton administration. Gail Wilensky of the Bush campaign is chairwoman of the federal Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which reports to Congress. She served in the Bush White House. The outsiders are Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban institute, and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office; and Robert Moffit, director of domestic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation; he served as a senior official at the Health and Human Services Department during the Reagan administration.

Ms. Wilensky, why is the Bush plan superior to the Gore plan?

GAIL WILENSKY: Because the Bush plan attempts to modernize Medicare as a program, representing that prescription drugs is a problem for many seniors, but it's not the only problem. We need to make sure that the plan is ready for seniors and the baby boomers as they begin to retire. Now, what is being proposed is not to push people into HMO's, but rather to make sure that all plans, including traditional Medicare, offer prescription drugs as a high option benefit, and that those who need the financial help, who are low-income, they get the help, and that people who have a stop-loss provision, that have high expenditures, that they will not be burdened, and, of course, a second piece, which is recognizing that we need to help seniors now, that we need to be able to provide some assistance for people who either because they're very low income or because they have very high expenditures need help right now. And so it's a two-piece program to modernize Medicare, to make sure that it is there for the baby boomers, to help people get prescription drugs, to help those who are very low income or have who have very high expenditures, but to start immediately to make sure that people don't find themselves choosing between prescription drugs and food.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Wilensky, is it fair to say that the major difference between the Bush plan, on prescription drugs solely, the major difference is that the Bush plan goes through private health plans rather than through Medicare itself?

GAIL WILENSKY: Well, that's only for those who do not want to stay in traditional Medicare. In the discussion of the program, it sounded as though people would have to leave traditional Medicare in order to receive outpatient prescription drugs. That's just not true. The standard Medicare program would also have to offer as a high option prescription drugs so that people who want to have prescription drugs that way would be able to, in fact, purchase their prescription drugs through traditional Medicare, not be pushed into networks or other claims that they don't want to go to.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Feder, how do you see the major differences from the Gore perspective?

JUDY FEDER: Vice President Gore believes that all seniors should receive immediate protection for prescription drug costs. He would therefore make a prescription drug benefit an intrinsic part of the current Medicare program for all seniors, not just for low income program and as part of the fundamental Medicare benefit not to be sought through private plans. I think it's important...

JIM LEHRER: So that is a major difference from your perspective?

JUDY FEDER: Although I understand what Gail is clarifying, and I appreciate the clarification, because it's difficult to really get all of what the Bush administration is thinking from the materials we've seen so far, because there are... they are proposing two parts. They have what is being called an immediate part, which is only a low-income benefit, to be supported through grants to the states. That raises a lot of questions andonly reaches up to an income of $14,000 or $15,000 for an individual or $19,000 or $20,000 for a couple. So it leaves a widow with $20,000 in income, a couple, that would not be a widow, that would be a couple with $20,000 in income, unprotected. So there...

GAIL WILENSKY: Unless they had other expenditures.

JIM LEHRER: Hold on. Let her finish - one second. We'll get right back to you.

JUDY FEDER: There's the low-income benefit that Dave described as immediate. Then the focus of much or your description has been what's been put forward as part of an overhaul of Medicare, which is again the details are unclear, and there's talk of a White House task force to develop those details. But that is the focus on the private plans, which are a far greater extent than would be true in the Gore plan.

JIM LEHRER: Let me ask some very specific questions of each of you. First, Ms. Wilensky, when you look at the Bush plan and the Gore plan, what's the difference in terms of the number of seniors, in general terms, who would be eligible for prescription drug health under the two plans?

GAIL WILENSKY: 100% under both plans as I see it.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree?

JUDY FEDER: No.

JIM LEHRER: No?

JUDY FEDER: The reason I don't agree is that in the immediate term in the Bush plan, only low-income people would be eligible for a benefit, and that's an uncertain benefit, depending on state action, whereas in the Gore plan, people, all seniors would receive a benefit through the Medicare program.

GAIL WILENSKY: Well, let me just clarify something. The Bush plan, the major focus is reforming all of Medicare, modernizing Medicare, but recognizing that even to have implementation in 2003 and full operation in 2004 gives us a period for the next year or two where people are exposed. That's the reason that we have this immediate, not just low-income, but low-income and people who have catastrophic expenditures, anyone who is facing $6,000 of expenditures. As soon as the Medicare modernization program starts being implemented in 2003 and fully operational in 2004, all seniors - all seniors are eligible to receive the subsidy for prescription drugs. This is not a limited program.

JIM LEHRER: Let me bring in on this particular issue Mr. Reischauer and Mr. Moffit. Mr. Moffit, do you see the two programs going in the same place, where eventually there will be prescription drug coverage for every senior no matter...

ROBERT MOFFIT: I don't think there's any question about it. Both plans are looking at fully covering low-income seniors. Both plans are talking about subsidies, sliding scale subsidies for other seniors above the poverty level. Both plans are going to spend more money. Mr. Gore's got a plan to spend $253 billion. Bush's going to spend$158 billion. So we're talking about Medicare reform in terms of more money, taking care of low-income seniors, and also establishing a sliding scale coverage. There are profound differences, however, in the way in which these benefits are designed. There are also profound differences in the way in which they're financed and delivered.

JIM LEHRER: We'll get to those in a minute. But in terms of who is eligible, who would be covered? How do you read this?

ROBERT MOFFIT: My reading is Bush is proposing in effect universal access for prescription drug coverage.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see the same thing Mr. Reischauer?

ROBERT REISCHAUER: I see the same thing if I look out beyond four years, but the immediate plan that was presented by Bush was for the next four years. That's where the detail, and that's to give states subsidies so they can beef up or create programs for their low-income populations. And this would be a welfare program. There's no two ways about it. And one can ask, do we want Medicare to be social insurance or welfare; do we want to leave uncovered 48% of those who lack prescription drug coverage now as this plan would? I commend...

JIM LEHRER: Where do you get that figure?

ROBERT REISCHAUER: Of the folks who are on Medicare who lack prescription drugs, 48% of them have incomes higher than the cutoff in the state plans that Bush is proposing, but he's saying, "you know, look, we can do something immediately, let's move fast." My question about that would be, can we really move fast? It will take the states two, three, four years to set up these programs and work through all the kinks. I don't see this as something that's easy to do either at the national level or at the state level.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Wilensky, you agree?

GAIL WILENSKY: The reason we're proposing it is we think we can move it fast. 23 states have either operational programs or programs that have already passed legislation. We think that gives away to try to get money out to seniors quickly. One of the concerns that we have is that either to modernize Medicare or in fact even to put in place a program like Vice President Gore has will take some time. We want the try to help seniors immediately, because so many states have these assistance programs, we think we can hit that very quickly.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Feder, you've been shaking your head here.

JUDY FEDER: Well, 23 of states do have some kind of state program, but only 14 of those are insurance programs. So the question as to how states would go ahead with this benefit is questionable. We see that the children's health insurance program, which we've been implementing over the last few years, takes time to implement. And certainly any program takes time to implement. The question is, in what direction should we get started? And Vice President Gore would start us immediately focusing on a Medicare benefit.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Wilensky and all, much has been said that your two candidates in particular have a philosophical difference in the whole approach toward providing prescription drugs. Do these two plans reflect that, beginning with you, Ms. Wilensky?

GAIL WILENSKY: I bereave they do. If you look at what Governor Bush has proposed, he wants to have modernized Medicare offered as part of a package of benefits prescription drug coverages -- either through the traditional Medicare with the high option, or through a variety of network plans or HMO's or any other type of insurance plan that people find meets their needs. It is not an attempt to have direct control over prescription drugs, but to try to offer individuals the opportunity to find health care plans, the traditional or others, that meets their needs. That is a very different way of looking at prescription drugs, but the emphasis on modernizing Medicare at the same time indicates that we recognize it's not just prescription drugs that needs to be modernized.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree, Ms. Feder, that the basic difference of the approach is there?

JUDY FEDER: There is a basic difference in the approach. The Vice President believes that from the outset, the very beginning, that we need to move to legislation to incorporate a meaningful prescription drug benefit for all Americans into the Medicare plan.

JIM LEHRER: How do you see that, Mr. Reischauer?

ROBERT REISCHAUER: Well, I see this as the season where candidates try product differentiation, even though there isn't a whole lot of difference between each one's new and improved version. The President put forward a rather extensive and detailed plan to modernize Medicare that is not a whole lot different in general approach from that which the Bush campaign is working off of, which is really the Breaux-Frist approach.

JIM LEHRER: Senators Breaux and Frist had a plan for reforming Medicare that didn't go anywhere.

ROBERT REISCHAUER: Right. But neither did the President's go very far. So we're stalemated there. Each side is professing that it has something totally different from the other, and it's really just not the case.

JIM LEHRER: Not the case, Mr. Moffit?

ROBERT MOFFIT: I respectfully disagree. If you look at the Bush proposal, there are striking similarities between what Governor Bush is proposing and the Breaux-Thomas Medicare bipartisan commission proposal that surfaced last year. That proposal was based on the federal employee's health benefits program which today covers members of Congress and White House staff and federal workers and retirees. That plan is based on a pluralistic competitive model. Federal workers and retirees can take all kinds of different plans, all those plans have prescription drug coverage. Most of those plans cover between 80% and 90% of the cost of those drugs, and nobody has to go out and buy supplemental insurance in order to protect themselves against the financial devastation of catastrophic illness. So we're talking about a pretty profound difference here. If you look at the Gore proposal, it maintains the regulatory structure of the old Medicare system, and expands it. And if you look at the Health Care Financing Administration's power, it's pretty significant.

ROBERT REISCHAUER: You know, I'll join Bob Moffit in his plan; unfortunately, it's not what the Gore and Clinton folks have proposed. This... they have put forward basically an expanded Medicare plus choice plan where you can choose PPO's, HMO's, IPA's, the whole kit and caboodle that we had available for traditional Medicare and you can choose them with or without prescription drug benefit. You can get your prescription drug benefit through the traditional Medicare program, through your employer, wrap around policy if you're a retiree, almost anywhere. This isn't one size fits all.

JIM LEHRER: But it is fair to say, Ms. Wilensky and Ms. Feder, that somebody casting a vote on election day and they're concerned about prescription drugs for the elderly, either way it's going to come?

JUDY FEDER: No. And the reason is that it's very... If you start out focusing on a low-income program, I don't think it's reasonable to count on a direction of getting a guarantee, particularly since I think there are considerable differences in the long run visions. I'll comment if we have time.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Wilensky?

GAIL WILENSKY: There certainly are differences between these programs. I think anybody who looks at what Governor Bush is proposing will understand that all individuals, all seniors are included under his proposal and the attempt to have this block grant to states is the concern that we'll have a year or two or three while the program is being implemented. We want to make sure seniors don't have to choose between food and drugs now.

JIM LEHRER: Reischauer, Moffit, is the argument over how you get there or whether to get there?

ROBERT REISCHAUER: We're going to get there, no question about it. The ball has begun rolling downhill, and no politician can stop it at this point.

ROBERT MOFFIT: It's how you get there, Jim. Look, 10, 20, 30 years from now, all these political debates about the details of different plans are not going to matter. I mean, what will matter 10, 20 or 30 years from now is whether our kids are going to want to know whether in fact we faced up fought problems facing Medicare and provided their parents and grandparents with a prescription drug coverage package which is responsible but at the same time recognizes there is personal freedom and personal choice.

JIM LEHRER: We have the leave it there. Thank you all four very much.

FOCUS - REPARATIONS

JIM LEHRER: Paying reparations for slavery. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago has our report.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Nearly 140 years after slavery ended, Chicago City Council members decided it was time for a national discussion on reparations, a discussion some felt should begin with an apology.

SPOKESMAN: Why can't we get somebody to officially say "we apologize?" (Applause)

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: By a vote of 49-1, Chicago joined four other cities in passing a resolution urging Congress to discuss compensation for the descendants of slaves. Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman introduced the resolution.

DOROTHY TILLMAN, Chicago Alderman: What had happened to us as a people in this country had never... we've never had a public airing or a public hearing on it. If you talked about it, something happened to you. And I think America, in order for it to heal and move forward, that we have to discuss it and it has to be dealt with because that's the ugly secret of America, the shame of America, what America did to slavery-- to slaves, and what it did to us.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The Chicago resolution urges Congress to pass a bill U.S. Representative John Conyers first introduced in 1989. The bill, which has never had a hearing, asks Congress to set up a presidential commission to study the issue of reparations. Conyers asked for the commission just after Congress approved a $20,000 reparations payment for Japanese Americans imprisoned in World War II. But Conyers' bill does not attach a dollar amount to reparations for the descendants of slaves.

REP. JOHN CONYERS, (D) Michigan: What I'm talking about is restitution or reparations or how does a nation atone for this huge moral lapse that went over a period of several hundred years and affected some four million people. So it's a big problem, and that's why I want to approach it without a bill on reparations. I want to approach it with the first study by the government about the subject.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: In Chicago, the discussion brought out the horrors of slavery, the lynching and burning of black men -- a vivid description of the torture endured by some slaves was given by Dr. Wade Nobles of the National Association of Black Psychologists.

DR. WADE NOBLES: Before saturating him with oil and applying the torch, they cut off his ears, cut off his fingers, cut off his genitals, and skinned his face while he was still alive.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Dr. Nobles suggested the psychological impact of such horror still affects African Americans today, a condition he described as post-traumatic slavery syndrome. Alderwoman Carrie Austin described her own pain.

CARRIE AUSTIN: To know that my dad was listed not on a birth certificate, but with the livestock, that hurts me today.

CARRIE AUSTIN: I thought about my dad, that the man that was hanging on the picture that had been hung could have been him. So you, slave owner, property owner, you have to have worked him as a part of your property. So did you pay him? No, you gave him room and board or a place to lay. So therefore, you owe my dad. My dad is deceased now, so therefore you owe his offspring, which is my brother and I. So far as reparation is concerned, do I feel that I am one that is deserving of it? Yes, I do, in that respect.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Brian Doherty was the lone Chicago alderman who voted against the reparations resolution. He doesn't doubt that slavery imposed hardship on African Americans. He says the mostly white ethnic residents in his ward don't buy the idea of direct reparations.

BRIAN DOHERTY: I think that it should be part of our history and it should be known, but when you come down and start talking about money, and you try to explain to someone who is first generation here, or somebody who got passed up for a job for affirmative action, and then tell them that there's going to be direct monetary payments for descendants from 150, 200 years ago, they are like, "hey, I've got to make my mortgage payment, my car payment, my tuition payment; what benefit did I have from this? What direct benefit did I have from this?" And they are going to be angry about it. And I can understand that anger.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Even some African Americans say they don't like the idea of economic reparations. Economist Walter Williams says slavery did not impose economic hardship on African Americans; rather, they benefited from it.

WALTER WILLIAMS, Economist, George Mason University: Assuming that I would have been born anyway, or most black Americans would have been born anyway, my wealth and their wealth is higher as a result of being born in the United States than in Africa. Now you have to ask the question, how in the world did so many blacks come to be born in the United States? It was a direct result of slavery. So to that extend, today's blacks have benefited from the horrors and injustices suffered by our ancestors.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Historian Lerone Bennett looks at the question of reparations in his latest book, "Forced Into Glory." He couldn't disagree more with Williams' analysis.

LERONE BENNETT: The question is not what are we today, the question is what would we have been today if we'd had all the billions of dollars that belonged to us. The question is how much greater we would have been and how much greater white people would have been if we had been given the money we deserved to have, and if we had the economic development that we should have now.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But Williams asks where the money to pay reparations will come from.

WALTER WILLIAMS: There is no tooth fairy or Santa Claus giving the government money for reparations. Now... So that means that the only way that the government can give one American citizen one dollar is to first, through intimidation, threats, and coercion, take it from some other American.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Alderwoman Tillman says there are many unanswered questions the nation must thrash out about reparations. Who would be eligible? How much money would be involved? She's not sure what the answers will be, but she knows what she doesn't want.

DOROTHY TILLMAN: You know, we're not trying to send every black American a check in the mail, per se.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: What is your idea of what a form... what a form reparations might take?

DOROTHY TILLMAN: Well, I think it's going to be about rebuilding our community and making sure that the next level of our children don't suffer and be as far behind; to really help our people catch up in this race that white America have had five miles in front of us.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The argument over reparations is not just about money. Genealogist Janis Minor Forte says the discussion has given African Americans the impetus to explore their history.

JANIS MINOR FORTE, Genealogist: In order for blacks to affirm that their ancestry were slaves in the United States, they must embark on a study process to identify their heritage.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Forte says it's difficult for African Americans to trace their history before 1865 and the end of slavery, since slaves' names were not listed in the census.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Many African Americans would think once they hit this one, e one without names in the 1860, in the 1850 census, that they would give up.

JANIS MINOR FORTE: Oh, no, no, their adventure has just begun, because from this... from this document, you can now go into the county courthouse and begin to look at the historical records of wills and probate and marriage records, and find the owners of these slaves. The county government, just like it does today, mandates that every single piece of your property is inventoried.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Forte has managed to trace her history back to 1810. She used an unusual record in identifying her great-great grandfather, Walton Minor.

JANIS MINOR FORTE: One of the most rewarding things that I found in... relative to researching his ancestry prior to 1870, when they were recorded on the census, is finding him documented in 1855, 1854, in the Green County, Alabama, sheriff's jail because his owner had lost him as a gambling debt.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Now you said you were pleased when you found this, not that you were angry about the fact that your relative had been used as collateral, but that you had found this documented.

JANIS MINOR FORTE: I was absolutely ecstatic when I opened up this sheriff's registry log, and looking in it, found that a certain Negro man named Walton about 26 years of age and of black complexion was there in Green County, Alabama, in 1854. I was able to document, and this documentation actually added lifted my great grandfather up off the page.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: And do you think you should have reparations?

JANIS MINOR FORTE: Absolutely. For me, reparation is the filing of a claim for unpaid wages.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But Alderman Doherty says that money should not be part of the reparations discussion.

BRIAN DOHERTY: Slavery should be addressed. Do they need an apology from the government? Should this have some closure? Yes. You start talking about money-- I just know how people are-- it's going to get very divisive.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Tillman and others insist a national debate on reparations will be healing, not divisive.

DOROTHY TILLMAN: We are not the only one that needs this. America needs this. America... America will never be what it ought to be until we are we should be. And America will never be what it ought to be until it discusses reparations for black Americans.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Tillman hopes many of the difficult questions surrounding reparations can be hammered out at a national conference she is planning in Chicago next February.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a whaling story, and Angel Island.

CONVERSATION

JIM LEHRER: Another of our conversations about new books, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: The book is "the Heart of the Sea: The tragedy of the whale ship 'Essex'" by Nathaniel Philbrick. It's a story of misfortune, suffering and heroism, all in the search for the liquid gold of the 19th century, whale oil. And Nathaniel Philbrick joins us now from Boston. Welcome.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: It seems like faced with the choice between writing a really gripping adventure story and writing a history of whaling, you decided not to decide and did both.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Exactly. It was a story that was so good that I was hopeful to insert as much history as I could so that when the reader got through it, they would have had quite a sea yarn, but also learned about Nantucket and American history, as well.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let's take a look at the "Essex." Is it a big ship, a small one, when you look at the whalers that were plying the world's waters at that time?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: She was a pretty typical whale ship of the early 19th century, although on the small side. She was about 87 feet on the deck, had a 21-man crew, equipped with three 25-foot whaleboats, in which six men would go out in pursuit of the whale to kill it.

RAY SUAREZ: After some mishaps and some misfortunes, they managed to make it around the horn, around the tip of South America and into Pacific waters; then disaster strikes. Tell us what happened.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Well, they were about 1,500 miles to the west of the Galapagos Islands, right on the equator, when a huge, 85-foot sperm whale, the biggest whale they had ever seen on the voyage, appeared on the port side of the ship. It started moving towards the ship, picking up speed, and rammed into the side of the ship, knocking every man off his feet. And then the whale surfaced on the her side stunned, came back to life, swam ahead of the ship and rammed it at twice the original speed, stoving in the bow as if it was an eggshell and sinking the ship.

RAY SUAREZ: Had this ever happened before that people had recorded?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Never before in the history of American whaling had a whale attacked a ship. So these men were absolutely stunned. The whale was their prey, and this whale had turned them into the victim.

RAY SUAREZ: So they gathered their whaleboats, these open boats on the surface of the ocean, and had a decision to make.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Yeah. They had the three whaleboats. They were divided among those. And they were about as far out as is possible to get into the Pacific when it comes to land. This was relatively early in Pacific whaling, and they had no real hard information on the islands to the west, the Marquesas and the Society Islands. And the only thing they really knew about them were rumors, rumors of cannibalism. And so they were fearful of those islands, so elected instead to head for South America, almost 3,000 miles to the east, upwind, up current, in retrospect, an impossible voyage.

RAY SUAREZ: So everything was pointed against heading for South America? They had to go south instead of just heading directly east to the continent?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Right. They equipped their whaleboats with sails, so they could sail them, but they had no centerboards. So it made it very difficult for them to sail against the southeasterly trade winds. But they had a plan. They figured they had about 60 days worth of provisions: Some water, hard tack and some Galapagos tortoises. And they figured if they sailed directly south for about 30 days, more than 1,500 miles, they'd reach a band of variable breezes, they called them, take a left towards South America, and if all went well, in another 30 days they'd be on the coast of Chile. They'd be living skeletons, but they'd be in a civilized port -- and once again, if all went well.

RAY SUAREZ: But all didn't go well. And it's good for us to remember just how grueling these conditions were. These were open boats, right?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Yes. These were open boats only 25 feet long; six men jammed with what provisions they could assemble. And so they encountered just about every terrible condition a sailor can encounter. There was terrible storms, but really what got them in the first month of the ordeal were the terrible calms, where they would be out beneath the baking sun for weeks at a time, and in these open boats, they had no way to conceal their bodies from the rays of the sun. So it was dehydration that really caught up to them. They were only subsisting on just a cup of water a day.

RAY SUAREZ: And eventually succumbed to the very thing they feared?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Right. I mean, this is the great, terrible irony of the "Essex" story. Their fear of cannibalism drove them on this impossible voyage and ultimately required them to enact their own worst fears, to cannibalize the bodies of the dead sailors because they had nothing left to eat.

RAY SUAREZ: And eventually execute one?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Yeah. It was in the captain's boat. All the boats would eventually become separated, and it was the captain's boat with four Nantucketers, including the captain. And one of these young Nantucketers was the captain's young teenage cousin. And they had nothing left to eat, and they knew that if something wasn't done, they all might die. So they elected to go with what was known as the custom of the sea, where they drew lots, pieces of paper from a hat, to see who should be sacrificed so that the rest might live.

RAY SUAREZ: Eventually the boats do make it to the coast of South America, but the crew by then is much reduced and in... from your description, just horrifying shape.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Yeah. All the boats would become separated. One of them would never be heard from again. And it was really the captain's boat, which was out for 94 days, more than three months, where the most excruciating sufferings occurred. It would come down to the captain and a teenage boy, Charles Ramsdel, just two of them. And they would be found by the crew of a Nantucket whale ship almost within sight of the Chilean coast. And these men were found sucking the bones of their dead messmates. And I'm quoting here, "which they were loathe to part with." Even after they had been rescued, these men with were so delirious with their sufferings, that they were reluctant to surrender the bones. And they had been living for about a week on just the marrow that they could get out of the center of these bones.

RAY SUAREZ: So let's take a look at that second map. How long in miles was their trip in these open boats, with ill winds and no provisions and no water?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Yeah. It was one of the longest open- boat voyages that was ever accomplished. In the case of Captain Pollard, he would sail at least 4,500 nautical miles across the Pacific, longer than Captain Bly's very well-known open boat voyage after the "Bounty" mutiny, and these men --they encountered such terrible conditions. They were out there twice as long as Bly was, so more than three months.

RAY SUAREZ: Sometimes I read a history book, and I think to myself, "why didn't I know about this before?" Why didn't I know about the "Essex"? Was this a big story in the mid-19th century that just sort of disappeared for us today?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Yeah. It really was a fairly big story in the early 19th century. This was a time in American history when America really had two frontiers. It was not only the forests and wilderness to the west, but there was the sea. And the Nantucketers, chasing the sperm whale into the Pacific, were pioneers discovering islands on an almost weekly basis, exploring a wilderness larger than all the world's land masses combined. And so these Nantucketers had quite a high profile when it came to the American consciousness. And the disaster of the "Essex" was something that was widely known. It was kind of the Donner Party story of its day. There was an abridged version of the "Essex" story that would appear in McGuffey's Eclectic Fourth Reader, kind of the Dick and Jane of its day, and so that just about any child who grew up in America in the early 19th century knew the story of the "Essex."

RAY SUAREZ: As did a young whaler named Herman Melville?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: That's right. 20 years after the sinking of the "Essex," a young whale man named Herman Melville was cruising in a whale ship about on the same latitude as the "Essex" sunk. And he had heard stories of the "Essex," because all whale men told this story. And they came across another whale ship that happened to have the young son of Owen Chase, the first mate of the "Essex," who had written an account of the disaster soon after he returned to Nantucket. Melville questioned Chase's son very closely, asking him in detail about the disaster, and the boy took from his sea chest his own copy of his father's narrative. Melville would read it that night. It would profoundly influence him. And about a decade later, he would write "Moby Dick," in which the climax is, of course, involves a whale ship being rammed by a whale.

RAY SUAREZ: So for decades after, we've read a story that may be of the "Essex," but we know it as the "Pequot"?

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Right. And what would happen... When "Moby Dick" came out in 1851, America was much more interested in the west than the sea. With the discovery of gold, people really began to focus on the American West, and the sea was something that you don't read about in popular literature. And Melville would find out the hard way, "Moby Dick" was a flop. It was not a critical or popular success. And yet for us today, the "Essex" disaster is known almost exclusively as raw material for Melville's art in "Moby Dick." And with my book, I'd really like to return the "Essex" disaster to its rightful place as a piece of history, as something that was very important to American culture in the early 19th century.

RAY SUAREZ: The book is "In the Heart of the Sea." Nathaniel Philbrick, thanks a lot.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: Thank you.

FINALLY - ANGEL ISLAND

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, making art out of history. Once again, Spencer Michels reports.

SPENCER MICHELS: From 1910 until 1943, Chinese immigrants to America approached Angel Island in San Francisco Bay with fear and hope. They hoped the U.S. immigration station on the island would not be their last stop in the country they called gold mountain, America. Flo Oy Wong, a Chinese-American artist, and Felicia Lowe, a documentary maker, take the short ferry ride to Angel Island often these days. Both are the daughters of at least one parent who came into the U.S. Illegally. Through art and film, they are bringing new attention to an old, and until now, obscure story; a story that happened in the place sometimes called the Ellis Island of the West. This is the place where the U.S. Government under an 1882 law called the Chinese Exclusion Act tried to keep Chinese laborers and their families out of the country, send them back to China.

FELICIA LOWE, Documentary Maker: When I learned about Angel Island...

SPENCER MICHELS: Lowe has documented both the pain of that rejection, and the lies the immigrants had to tell to gain admittance to their chosen land.

FELICIA LOWE: But it's a place that moves you, not only because the walls talk and tell you stories, but because of the spirit and energy of this place.

SPENCER MICHELS: Does it still move you?

FELICIA LOWE: Absolutely. Every time I come here I have such deep feelings about the people who were here, especially knowing that my father was one of those people.

SPENCER MICHELS: Felicia Lowe, who is raising funds and awareness to have the old immigration station restored, has documented on film Angel Island's history. (Whistle blows) The story begins with Chinese coming to America to work in the California gold fields and to build the railroads in the mid- 1800's. About 100,000 Chinese lived in America in 1880. When the economy went bad, anti- Chinese feeling became virulent, and Congress voted to exclude all new Chinese immigrants except certain categories: Merchants, teachers, and minor children of citizens. For the most part, wives of Chinese men already here-- even if the men were citizens-- could not enter legally, since U.S. policy was to prevent families from settling here. Judy Yung teaches Asian American history at the University of California, and has written about Angel Island's legacy. She calls the Chinese Exclusion Act blatant racism.

JUDY YUNG, University of California: The Chinese were seen as being not only racially inferior, but they were seen as being politically despotic, they were seen as being heathens, they were seen as being immoral, unethical; they didn't treat their women right. They were just seen as being very un-American and undeserving of being American.

SPENCER MICHELS: Despite being mostly unwelcome and illegal, Chinese kept arriving, though in smaller numbers. Starting in 1910, these new immigrants landed first at Angel Island to face immigration officers and possible deportation. It was an intimidating place: Barbed wire, guards, locked doors, and unfamiliar food. Families were often split apart. Stays of two weeks to six months were common. And the culmination of it all was an interrogation by officials. Lowe found the transcript of her father's interrogation.

FELICIA LOWE: You had to answer a series of questions to confirm that you were the person you said you were on the paper. In looking at these transcripts, it's frightening. "Did your father tell you what he had done in this country? When is the first time you were ever absent from Kay Gok Village overnight or longer? How many children did your father's first wife bear him?"

SPENCER MICHELS: In order to try to qualify for entry, many of the immigrants assumed new identities. Wives became paper sisters who were supposedly married to merchants, since the U.S. allowed merchants-- and only merchants-- to have families. Therefore, the children became nieces and nephews of their real parents. To pass the test, they studied coaching books prepared by relatives that told them about the person they were now claiming to be. Like Lowe's father, they became so-called paper sons.

FLO OY WONG: My name is Flo Oy Wong. Now Wong is my married name, but I also have a fake name.

SPENCER MICHELS: Flo Wong often tells school groups how her family had to change their identities to get into the country. She has turned that saga into an art show, called "Shhh," which is on display in the old immigration station barracks -- rice sacks stitched to American flags, with stenciled names-- real and fake-- on the work. Each panel tells of family member of friend who secretly changed his or her name, and then held that secret sometimes till death.

FLO OY WONG: After I tell you my mom's secret, I want you to go to that part of the room and share the secret with different...

SPENCER MICHELS: Flo Wong's family arrived from China in 1933 after her father, who had lived for a while in the U.S., decided his family would do better in America than in China. Her sister, Li Keng Wong, was seven at the time they made the long journey, but she remembers her father's admonitions.

LI KENG WONG: He said, "well, we had better pack. We're ready to leave." But he reminded us, "remember, mama is not going as my wife; mama is going to the United States as my sister. And the United States would not allow me to bring your mother in as my wife, so therefore we're going to tell a lie."

SPENCER MICHELS: Li Keng Wong, who later became a teacher, was interrogated with her two sisters. They lied to the officers and passed, and then kept the secret.

LI KENG WONG: I never did want to say anything because I was embarrassed. I was still afraid. Throughout all the years going to school that the immigration officials would find out.

SPENCER MICHELS: The Chinese exclusion law was repealed in 1943, yet even today, Li Keng Wong can't ignore what happened nearly 70 years ago.

SPENCER MICHELS: How do you feel about that? And how did you feel?

LI KENG WONG: Oh, we feel ostracized. We feel as though we're marginalized and we feel as though we're not 100% Americans. You know that. I mean, all of us feel that way.

SPENCER MICHELS: Her sister, Flo Wong, says she overcame her own bitterness, though she knows many older Chinese immigrants have not.

FLO OY WONG: There is anger. There's hurt, there's disappointment, there's bitterness, there's fear. There's a fear of authority, especially white authority, because the first people who interrogated them were the white interrogators here at Angel Island.

SPENCER MICHELS: Retired purchasing officer Albert Wong, who is still playing basketball at 77, is no relation to Flo Wong and her sister. He came to Angel Island as a child, too, and remembers seeing Chinese poetry carved into the walls of the barracks.

ALBERT WONG: There were a lot of poems on the wall. I didn't see anybody writing one, but I was told one of the gentlemen wrote the one by the bathroom there. And he was still there... He has been there over a year and he was still waiting for his case.

SPENCER MICHELS: The poems had long been forgotten when, in 1970, a ranger inspecting the decaying immigration station on Angel Island found them beneath layers of paint. Historian Judy Yung says many were in classical Chinese style.

JUDY YUNG: They were written by Cantonese-speaking immigrants, so I'm going to read them in Cantonese. This is the way it would have sounded. The first poem: (Speaking Cantonese) and in English we've translated: "Instead of remaining a citizen of China, I willingly became an ox. I intended to come to America to earn a living. The western-style buildings are lofty, but I have not the luck to live in them. How was anyone to know that my dwelling place would be a prison?"

SPENCER MICHELS: Until the poetry was discovered, the state was going to burn down the immigration station. Those plans were canceled, and the old barracks were made safe enough for tourists. California State Parks official Tom Lindberg says that now, this site is being increasingly visited by Asian Americans and others.

TOM LINDBERG, California Parks Department: It's a chapter of California and mostly American history that's not in our history books. We had a facility here that was trying to keep people out, and it's been a quiet secret in the Asian community that's finally coming out. It's a chapter that should be told.

SPENCER MICHELS: In the end, 95% of the 175,000 Chinese who passed through Angel Island were admitted to the U.S. Immigration officials recommended deporting many, but on appeal, the courts often overturned those orders. Still, the scars and the secrets remained with the new Americans, as did their new identities.

FLO OY WONG: Why would my government enact a law to keep someone like me or my ancestors out of this country? And it's a puzzling question. I don't have the answers.

FELICIA LOWE: You know, it happens to be our history, and it's not always pretty, and yet, without knowing what it was, how can we go forward? So I really feel like it's in the revealing and uncovering this history that we can begin the healing process.

SPENCER MICHELS: The old immigration station is now open year-round. Flo Wong's art exhibit is on display through September. Recently, state funds have been appropriated for additional restoration on the decaying and long-forgotten port of entry on Angel Island.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday: George W. Bush offered his plan for providing prescription drugs to the elderly, and Vice President Gore immediately criticized it, saying many seniors would not be covered. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.