The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is away. On the NewsHour tonight, reporter Allan Nairn, under military arrest in East Timor, describes the chaos there; a Newsmaker interview with Secretary of State Albright as the U.N. gets ready to send a force there; preparing for Hurricane Floyd; children's advocates on what the presidential candidates should talk about; and essayist Richard Rodriguez on the work of photographer Carlton Watkins. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

MARGARET WARNER: Hurricane Floyd blasted the Bahamas today with 140-mile-an-hour winds and rain. The storm is monstrous in size, 600 miles across, and among the most powerful recorded in the Atlantic. Forecasters said Floyd could hit the U.S. anywhere from Central Florida to Georgia or the Carolinas. Authorities have urged nearly two million people to evacuate coastal areas along that stretch. James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the storm posed many threats if it stayed on course.

JAMES LEE WITT, Director, FEMA: Land contact will be at high tide. That could mean five-foot to ten-foot storm surges in Florida on top of high tide and also, if it continues on its path, up to 15 to 20-foot storm surges in Georgia and South Carolina at high tide. So this is not only a dangerously high winds, but also the flood potential is very strong, as well as they're watching very closely for the possibilities of starting to issue tornado warnings as well in some of these areas.

MARGARET WARNER: We'll have more on this story later in the program. In New York today, the United Nations Security Council continued working in closed session on a resolution authorizing a security force for East Timor. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said an advance contingent could be on the ground by the weekend. In East Timor, the U.N. withdrew all but a skeleton staff from its compound in the capital Dili, and evacuated to Australia the nearly 1,500 East Timorese who had taken refuge there. In an ITN interview, Ian Martin, the head of the U.N. Mission to East Timor, explained the decision to leave.

IAN MARTIN: One has to agonize constantly about whether the security risk has become unacceptably high. Perhaps we would have left sooner if we'd been able to leave with the refugees. Conditions in our compound have really become intolerable with 1,300 refugees and a couple of hundred others living there. And we're not able to do our work because we were virtually besieged in the compound only to make very occasional sorties out.

MARGARET WARNER: Late this afternoon, a U.N. spokesman in New York said Indonesian soldiers looted the compound in Dili just hours after the staff and refugees were evacuated. We'll have more on East Timor right after the News Summary. Russian police tightened security across Moscow today after yesterday's bombing of an apartment building. The death toll in that blast rose to 118. It was the latest in a series of bomb attacks in the Russian capital. We have this report from Kevin Dunn of Independent Television News.

KEVIN DUNN, ITN: Moscow woke nervously to the aftermath of yesterday's bomb blast, the third in this city in two weeks. Extra police backed by interior ministry troops stopped and searched cars in the city in the hunt for those responsible. There were also spot checks on peoples' identity papers as part of a security crackdown ordered by President Yeltsin. At the scene of the latest blast, which leveled an eight-story block of flats, rescuers continues to clear the rubble and continued to recover the bodies of the victims. They worked through the night and with each passing hour, the death toll rose. The mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, visiting thebomb site, confirmed that three suspects were being questioned and said almost two tons of explosives had been seized. He has publicly blamed Chechen warlords for the bombing campaign. President Yeltsin meanwhile called in his minister of the interior and demanded to know what steps were being taken to catch the bombers and prevent further outrages. The people of Moscow have been badly shaken by the sudden bombing campaign, and many are privately fearful of when and where the bombers will strike next.

MARGARET WARNER: Two new economic reports released today show that Americans continue to spend at a strong pace. Purchases of foreign goods helped boost the U.S. trade deficit to a record $80 billion in the second quarter of this year, up 17 percent from the previous quarter. On the domestic front, the Commerce Department said retail sales shot up 1.2 percent in August, far higher than analysts had expected. For the second year in a row, the House of Representatives moved toward a vote on campaign finance reform. The main piece of legislation under debate, opposed by the Republican leadership, would ban soft money donations to parties and limit certain political advertising. A similar House-approved bill died last year in the Senate. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to an on-scene report from East Timor; Secretary Albright; Hurricane Floyd; Agenda 2000; and a Richard Rodriguez essay.

UPDATE - STOPPING THE KILLING

MARGARET WARNER: The latest on East Timor: We start with this report from Mark Austin of Independent Television News.

MARK AUSTIN: They were desperate to get out. Under cover of darkness, hundreds of refugees are herded onto trucks under the eyes and the gun barrels of the very troops they're fleeing. Their evacuation was only possible after U.N. Secretary-General appealed directly to Indonesia's president. They were leaving behind a compound where conditions have become almost unbearable and a city that is still burning. There is nothing left here but fear. Soon they had reached the sanctuary of Northern Australia, but these are not people celebrating their safety this evening. Most have seen and lost too much already and they brought bad news for this pro-independence activist already in Darwin. His three sisters had been killed by the militias.

MAN: I was expecting them to come. Now I've heard that this is not human beings anymore - they're animals.

MARK AUSTIN: Most U.N. officials also pulled out with these refugees today, including the British head of mission. Tonight, he told me, there was little choice.

IAN MARTIN: We had more staff there than we could use effectively in a time when we couldn't move around the city, but we really only wanted to go when we could get the refugees out.

MARK AUSTIN: So finally these refugees have reached safety, but the U.N. operation in East Timor is now effectively closed down, and the peacekeepers are far from ready to go in. For the abandoned refugees left behind in the territory, these may well prove to be the most dangerous days. And there are the people who remain at risk. High in the hills above Dili they gather for a mass, filmed by a freelance cameraman working for ITN. These families have fled the terror of the city and are now hiding in the mountains; the U.N. can do little to protect them. All they can do is wait for the peacekeepers to arrive. A few hundred miles away, the warships of the international force are gathering, but they have yet to set sail and with every day that passes, the suffering in East Timor goes on. In a village in the hills, a baby has died of a fever. They had little medicine here, and precious little help. And this evening, they remain isolated and vulnerable.

MARGARET WARNER: Nearly 24 hours ago, the Indonesian police/military in East Timor detained Allan Nairn. He's an American freelance journalist and an activist with the pro-independence East Timor Action Network. The State Department today termed his detention "unfortunate." I spoke with Allan Nairn a short time ago by phone. I began by asking him to describe where he was.

ALLAN NAIRN: I am being detained in military headquarters in Dili, Timor.

MARGARET WARNER: Are you in a cell? What's the situation exactly?

ALLAN NAIRN: No, I'm in a room in headquarters surrounded by soldiers. I was picked up this morning while walking around the streets of Dili, brought here by the military, and have been questioned, interrogated ever since.

MARGARET WARNER: Tell us what you have observed really since the weekend, since the U.N. mission came in, and I gather that particular day things were pretty quiet. What did you see and witness since then?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, once the U.N. visitors left, they started up again with the targeted burning of houses, of independence supporters and offices, burning done by the militias and the military. It seems that they are trying to, one, punish independence supporters, and, two, just destroy any kind of infrastructure that's left in Timor. So now you can't find a store. You can't find a warehouse. It's all gone. It's all burnt and looted. And on the streets, some bodies have been left to rot in full public view. The militias, which operate out of this very base that I'm being held at, this very military base, they go out in their full militia uniforms, they roam the streets, still staging occasional attacks, although there really aren't many people left to attack. Tens of thousands have fled Dili and entire neighborhoods look to be abandoned.

MARGARET WARNER: So are you telling us that this is a military base, but that these militias are also operating out of that base? In other words, you have both Indonesian military and these militias?

ALLAN NAIRN: Yes. The whole portion of the base is located to the local militia group. When I came here, I saw then in the back in their black T-shirts. And I said to one of the officers, I said, "is that the militia?" He said, "yes. We have them here," he claimed, "to keep them under control." I saw them going out on their trucks and motor bikes to stage their attacks. Later in the day, I was brought to the police headquarters of Dili, and it was the same situation there. Uniform military would be mingling with uniformed militias.

MARGARET WARNER: Did the activity change at all once President Habibie on Sunday had said that the international force would be a lowed to come in? Did anything change?

ALLAN NAIRN: Not really. The days since then have been pretty much the same. The main change now is that there is rising fear among the Timorese because almost all of the international observers have been driven out.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, in the military camp where you are, what's going on there? How much can you observe, first of all?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, earlier in the day, I was sitting at a place where I could observe a lot, and you saw the militia constantly going in and out. There was a -- there were some vehicles that the militia used that have their name painted on them. They were parked right here on the base side by side with the military intelligence vans with the blacked out windows that I often saw earlier in the week cruising the city during militia attacks. They would be the only non-militia vehicles on the street at the time. So this is clearly a nerve center for the militia.

MARGARET WARNER: You had said something to our reporter, Dan Segalan, about you saw some burning of files. Tell us about that.

ALLAN NAIRN: Yes. At the police headquarters, as I was being interrogated this morning, the police intelligence people were hauling out their own files and burning them in a bonfire. They said that, as one of my interrogators, a captain named Napoleon put it, he said Timor is about to become a free country, and that meant that they would be leaving within a week or so. So they had their files of interrogation profiles and surveillance of Timorese activist, and they were now burning them because he said they were preparing to leave.

MARGARET WARNER: Tell me something. It's surprising really that, one, they speak to you that frankly, and also that they re allowing you to use a cell phone to talk to us. Explain that.

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, I'm not the usual interrogation subject. Usually it's a Timorese person on whom they feel free to use electroshock, knives, iron bars. I've interviewed a number of Timorese who have been held prisoner in this very military headquarters building where I am right now, and they described horrible, sustained torture. But because I'm an American citizen, a journalist, also somewhat politically notorious in Timor, I think they figure that they can't get away with that kind of thing. So there's no physical danger to me. And they give me a great deal of space.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, Allan, thank you very much, and be safe.

ALLAN NAIRN: All right. Thank you.

MARGARET WARNER: Nairn said he'd been told he would be taken to Indonesia for further questioning.

MARGARET WARNER: We're joined now by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She's just back from the Asian Pacific Summit in New Zealand.

And welcome, Madame Secretary.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Good to be with you.

MARGARET WARNER: Thank you for joining us. What do you make of what Allan Nairn just told us in terms of the situation on the ground there now?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, clearly, there has been tremendous suffering in terms of people having been deported...obviously, killing, looting, a very, very bad situation. And what he is describing, I think, is one of the very difficult aspects of this whole situation, which is the relationship between the regular military and the militia. And that is something that we have been trying to deal with for some time -- making it clear even when I was in Indonesia earlier this year that it was up to the military to make sure that the militia that were already causing problems in East Timor were under control, and the linkages or the relationship between the two are very complicated, and I think also not monolithic. I think there may be some generals who behave one way and others who have other relationships with the militia.

MARGARET WARNER: Did you find it curious, though, that according to Allan Nairn all this is continuing even after President Habibie and General Wiranto, the army chief of staff, came in and said, oh, my God, this is really terrible, we have to get the international force in, and yet, all of this is continuing under the aegis apparently at least of some military commander?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think that they are having trouble, obviously, stopping this, but it is my estimation, Margaret, that, as you pointed out, the U.N. is currently discussing a resolution. I spoke with Ambassador Holbrooke just before I left my office. They are going to be pushing through all night until they get a resolution which will authorize a multinational force to go in there, and it should be in there, as Kofi Annan said, by the weekend. This is an unfortunate or terrible -- I can't even think of the right adjective for this transitional period because it's very hard to definitively put a stop to this, despite the fact that we have said that the government and the military are held responsible for this kind of activity.

MARGARET WARNER: So do you think it's possible that what Allan Nairn told us that the Timorese there are afraid that now, with most foreigners gone, there will be this interim period of a number of days that it's going to be a further blood bath, that they have reason to be afraid?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I would certainly not tell them that things are going to be okay until the military, the international forces get in there because to a great extent, it's kind of a limbo situation. Now, what the Indonesian government had said was that they were systematically replacing the military that was in East Timor that had had, as they put it, some kind of affinity with the Timorese pro autonomy, not the independence movement, and that they were now putting the military in there that had no particular prejudices or affinities against independence. That's hard to tell. And, obviously they should have done something like that a lot sooner.

MARGARET WARNER: Does the Security Council resolution that's now being discussed, does it anticipate that the Indonesian military will continue to have a role in East Timor?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, what -- there's supposed to be - obviously, this is going to happen in two phases. There will be this international peacekeeping force under a Chapter Seven resolution, which means that it can be an enforcement resolution, which will be not a blue-helmeted U.N. force, but green helmets, as we've said. And they will be under --

MARGARET WARNER: Meaning fully armed and able to engage in combat?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Absolutely. But basically under rules of command that are determined by the participants in it rather than under a U.N. commander with U.N. Rules. And there is some thought that, yes, indeed, there will have to be some kind of relationship, partnership with the responsible, reputable Indonesian military. It's hard at this phase - it's hard to tell exactly how that relationship is going to work out, but the bottom line here is you will be seeing if things work on schedule, by sometime by the weekend, forces probably under the leadership of the Australians with forces from Asia such as the Koreans and the Filipinos and others that would be going in as a multinational force, as a coalition of the willing.

MARGARET WARNER: Why is it necessary to leave the Indonesian military in place? As I'm sure you're aware, Jose Ramos-Horta, who has won the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating East Timorese independence said today that was outrageous to leave them in place. Why is that necessary?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think that what we're... the international community is operating under now is the fact that the Indonesians have in fact invited this international peacekeeping force in. Foreign Minister Alatas is in New York now. He's been meeting with the permanent representatives and basically saying that the international peacekeeping force, this coalition of the willing can go in with no conditions whatsoever. And I think that they have to figure out exactly what that relationship will be. Clearly there is a job to be done to try to bring order, but not the order of the cemetery. It has to be a partnership that is worked out with appropriate rules. But the bulk of the force is obviously going to be international peacekeeping.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're saying in other words because the Indonesians invited this international force in that they have a lot of say still in how it's going to operate and probably the makeup of the force and other things, and including if they want the Indonesian military there for at least a time...

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: They will not have a lot to say about the makeup of the force. That's made up as a coalition of the willing. They have said no conditions. And I think we have to hold them to their word. Now, what you have is an Indonesian government that is in place, and you have to remember this. I'm not making any excuses, but you have to remember that President Habibie is the one who actually said that there should be a vote on whether there should be pro autonomy or pro independence. That vote took place, and 98 percent of the people voted and 75 percent of the people voted for independence. And what is supposed to happen in October is their national assembly, which is being constituted now, some by direct... had been elected directly and some by appointment. They will ratify that vote. And that's been a fairly orderly procedure. So the hard part here is that in some respects the Indonesian government has acted quite responsibly. But there are certain elements that clearly are getting out of control, and the question, is how you balance dealing with Indonesia in a responsible way and not totally kind of reading it out of the international system. You have to remember that Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, the largest Muslim country -- located, spread out all over the Pacific. And they are working to turn themselves into a democratic government with a free market system after years of dictatorship.

MARGARET WARNER: As you said, it was the Indonesian government, their initiative to have this referendum, but there have been criticism, including there some leading U.N. officials that really the referendum shouldn't have been held under the U.N. banner or aegis without forces on the ground ready to sort of safeguard the results, that this was not a surprise, there were predictions of mayhem, whichever way the vote want and that in retrospect, it should have been planned better with military force to back it up.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think that clearly for numbers of years there have been attempts by the united nations to hold talks among the Portuguese, the Timorese, and the Indonesians. And then the U.N. had a operation there in which they actually worked out the arrangements for the election. And there were hundreds of international observers that went in and observed an election that was basically peaceful.

MARGARET WARNER: But unarmed.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Unarmed. But I guess that... you see, I think that the thing you have to remember is this was done at the behest of the Indonesians. And to an extent, they have a sovereign right to have the kind of peacekeeping or election force that they chose. Now, I think that clearly there have been disastrous things that have happened. And as you look at the footage that you played and all the horrible things that we've seen for the last week that are inexcusable. But the only thing I can say to you is that within one week of this mayhem, I think we will have been able to bring in a peacekeeping force that will be in a position to deal with it -- not an excuse, obviously one would wish that this kind of horrendous thing never happened. But I do think there are ways that this is now being brought under control, and the United Nations has to play an important role. This is kind of a big test for the U.N. as to whether it's going to be able to do this properly.

MARGARET WARNER: Finally, Madame Secretary, the U.S. role in this force. Tell us about that.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, President Clinton has felt very strongly that what was going on in East Timor was an outrage. He spoke about it before he left for the region. He made a big point of it in New Zealand and has said that we would supply what we're best at, logistic support, communication, strategic lift. And that is going to be our role.

MARGARET WARNER: So no combat troops?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: No. But there may be some troops that are associated with the strategic lift. But as I've said, the Australians are the ones that are going to take the lead with other Asian countries that will form the bulk of the force.

MARGARET WARNER: But if President Habibie had not agreed to let this international force in, the U.S. felt that there was no way that we or anyone else was going to force its way in?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, what we did was to cut off all assistance, stopped all foreign military sales and were systematically getting ready for increased economic sanctions. The discussion that went on was how was it possible to invade a country such as Indonesia that has a very large powerful military. So the point here was to systematically squeeze them economically to try to get them to see the light. And, in effect, I believe that the actions that were taken in Auckland and the statements that President Clinton made and that the other leaders made did, in fact, have some influence on President Habibie.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thanks, Madame Secretary. Thanks for joining us.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Thank you.

FOCUS - FEARSOME FLOYD

MARGARET WARNER: Our correspondent Tom Bearden is in Daytona Beach, Florida. He begins our hurricane coverage.

SPOKESMAN: He was over on the beach side, and he's all by himself.

SPOKESPERSON: Okay, well, we'll get him.

SPOKESMAN: Okay, excellent. You'll be safe here, all right?

TOM BEARDEN: Emergency shelters in the Daytona Beach area filled up rapidly as the day progressed. They were opened only to people who didn't have the means to leave the area. Some shelters were already over capacity, like the one at Horizon Elementary School.

WORKER: Special needs, we still have a few open. Atlantic High School is full. That's full. And Palm Terrace is full.

TOM BEARDEN: Workers at the Volushia County Emergency Operations Center were taking a steady stream of calls from people looking for advice on what to do. But for the most part, all they could tell people was they were pretty much on their own.

WORKER: A lot of people are just kind of patting people on the head and telling them they're going to be okay. Good afternoon. Emergency services.

TOM BEARDEN: Kurt Freudenburg and his family were covering up the last of the windows at their house on Daytona Beach this morning. Freudenburg moved here from Houston not very long ago.

KURT FREUDENBURG: I came out here on business a year and a half ago, and we just really loved the area. I mean it's been so great. Daytona, normally, is very safe from hurricanes. Most of them either hit South of us or North of us, because we sit kind of back in enough that they really haven't been evacuated at all before.

TOM BEARDEN: Are you worried?

KURT FREUDENBURG: A little bit, especially when we've heard that the surf wave was going to be about 35 feet coming in, and the sea wall over on the beach a block and a half away is only 12-foot high. Yeah, a little.

TOM BEARDEN: Freudenburg lives at the end of a peninsula, separated from the mainland by the Intracoastal Waterway.

OFFICER: Do you have any I.D., Sir?

MAN: Yes, I do.

TOM BEARDEN: Access is limited to a few bridges, and state and local police were only allowing residents across this morning. Richard Robinson was helping Freudenburg's neighbor, Margaret Lawrence, board up her house as she and her husband prepared to evacuate.

MARGARET LAWRENCE: I'm not going to worry about things I can't do anything about. I'm concerned, but I've done everything I can. Fortunately, we got rid of our little sports car that my husband couldn't get in and out of anymore, and got that.

TOM BEARDEN: A lot of people are scared in Daytona, and indeed along the entire U.S. Coast from Florida to South Carolina, as one of the largest storms in history approaches. The outer edge of the hurricane was already kicking up the surf this morning, even though the storm was still hundreds of miles away. The high-rise condominiums and rental properties are deserted, most people apparently choosing to obey the governor's order to evacuate an estimated one million people from the eastern Florida coast. Georgia and South Carolina have also urged an additional one million people to evacuate.

MARGARET WARNER: Elizabeth Farnsworth takes the story from there. She spoke a short time ago with Max Mayfield, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Thanks for being with us, Mr. Mayfield.

MAX MAYFIELD: You're very welcome.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Where is Hurricane Floyd right now?

MAX MAYFIELD: Well, you can see the eye is just now passing off the North coast of the Abaco Islands here, the Northwestern Bahamas. This is still a very, very powerful hurricane. The center is about 235 miles Southeast of Cape Canaveral. But as you can see, it's a very large hurricane, and the tropical storm force winds actually spin out about 200 miles away from the center.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And how fierce are those winds right now?

MAX MAYFIELD: Well, they've actually come down a little bit to 140 miles per hour. They were up to 155 miles per hour this time yesterday. They don't want to make anything of that really because it's a little bit like being run over by a freight train, versus being run over by a semi. Neither prospect is good here. This is still a very powerful Category 4 hurricane on the southwest end of the hurricane's tail, and wherever that core moves over, if that core were to make a direct hit on the United States coastline, we'll expect extreme damage.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Give us a sense of what kind of damage a Category 4 hurricane does.

MAX MAYFIELD: Well, Hurricane Andrew is a good example; that hit the Southeasterly coast in 1992, and then Hurricane Hugo upon the South Carolina Coast in 1989 is another example. In fact, Hugo might be a little more representative because it was powerful and large. And this hurricane is, indeed, quite large.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Trace the trajectory of the hurricane for us on your map there.

MAX MAYFIELD: Okay. We really think that it will continue on this Northwestern motion and eventually turn a little bit more towards the North. This time tomorrow night we forecast the center of the hurricane to be somewhere off the Northeast Florida coast, and then sometime around midnight tomorrow night be on the South Carolina coast. Now, we make a forecast every six hours. We're always looking at additional information; that will likely be revised as we go along here. But the main point here is that we do have a hurricane warning out right now from Boca Raton, Florida, all the way through the Florida coast - the Georgia coast -- and now it's extended to include the South Carolina Coast, up to Little River in South Carolina. As it starts turning more towards the North and eventually East to North, we expect it to accelerate and we also have a hurricane watch in effect in from Little River in South Carolina all the way up to Cape Charles on the Southern tip of the Delmar Peninsula.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Mayfield, could it still veer off and avoid the coast?

MAX MAYFIELD: The computer models are really not suggesting that. It may turn a little bit more East or due North. That timing is certainly not very clear now. This is a very real threat to Georgia and the Carolinas. We really don't have much evidence here that it's going to miss the whole coastline.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Give us a sense of the storm surges and the rainfall that could result from this.

MAX MAYFIELD: Okay. That's very good. We need to talk about the hazards. One hazard, there is a storm surge, and on this track, we're saying we could have five to ten storm surges on the Florida East Coast. Five will be plenty high enough as long as the core stays off the coast like we're forecasting. If the core of the hurricane gets closer, it will become higher. And then as it gets up closer to Georgia and the Carolinas, the storm surges will begin to increase higher because the Continental Shelf is so shallow in those areas. So that's the storm surge, and then one hazard. And the greatest potential for loss of life is always from the storm surge on the immediate coastline. We also need to talk about the wind, 140-mile-an-hour winds and the core of the hurricane. As it starts moving faster into the Carolinas, we would expect some of those strong winds to spread well inland. A hurricane is not just a coastal event. But the strong winds and heavy rains will spread well inland as well. We're forecasting five to ten inches of rain. We've really learned some lessons here over the last 10 and 20 years. We know that we have a significant loss of life from hurricanes inland from the inland flooding. And people didn't know that. The last hazard are the tornadoes, usually the tornadoes are on the right front quadrant; that's really not going to be a problem for Florida, but as it moves up closer to the Carolinas, we would certainly expect to see some isolated tornadoes.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Mayfield, what made this storm get so huge. This is rare, isn't it?

MAX MAYFIELD: It is. In fact, yesterday at this time it was almost a Category 5 hurricane. We've only had two Category 5 hurricanes to make landfall in the United States this century. Luckily this one has gone down a bit. But it's still a very solid Category 4 hurricane. We've had maybe 15 or so Category 4 hurricanes strike the United States this century. So even that is very rare as far as why it strengthened that much, we never really are sure. But it did move over a very warm eddie of warm water in this region. We think that helped it some. The upper level environment is very, very favorable. And for whatever reason, it is a very powerful Category 4 hurricane.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Max Mayfield, thank you very much.

MAX MAYFIELD:You're welcome.

MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, children's advocates on agenda 2000, and a Richard Rodriguez essay.

FOCUS - EMPHASIS - ELECTION 2000- CAMPAIGN AGENDA

MARGARET WARNER: Now, another in our series of special emphasis discussions about the 2000 election campaign. As our regular viewers know, we've been asking a variety of individuals and groups what issues they want to hear the presidential candidates address. Jim Lehrer taped this discussion last week.

JIM LEHRER: Tonight, the views of children and youth advocates. Starr Parker is the president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education in Los Angeles. Virgil Gulker is the executive director of Kids Hope U.S.A. in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Bill Stephney, a media executive, is a board member of the National Fatherhood Initiative and the National Urban League. Margaret Brodkin is the executive director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth in San Francisco. And Steve Culbertson is the president of Youth Service America.

Mr. Gulker, what should this presidential election be about?

VIRGIL GULKER: This election, Jim, I think needs to be about children and families, because children and families really are at the heart of America. It's really the soul of America. My concern is-- we have worked with children around the country-- is that growing numbers of these children, like the shooters, I think, at Columbine, really don't feel like they belong. We encountered a six-year-old child recently in Indiana, for example, who had been arrested 25 times for arson. When I asked the elementary school principal why he would do this, the principal responded that this child was "looking for proof that someone cared." That's the story of growing numbers of children and families, I think, in America. My plea is for candidates who have themselves had almost a transforming experience which has put them in touch with children and families in need-- people, Jim, candidates who really have a sense of passion for the people of America and not just its politics.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Stephney, children and family?

BILL STEPHNEY: Children and family and, I think, the larger American society as a whole, that we all have to develop a collective sense of belonging. I think in many respects that the candidates have to articulate a vision of... that of a coach or a manager of a baseball team-- Joe Torre of the Yankees, or Phil Jackson from the Chicago Bulls, now the Los Angeles Lakers-- the ability to galvanize and rally the troops together. A young man walking in Harlem carrying a brown bag stuffed with ice cream shouldn't think that he'll get stopped by cops because he may be a felon. He should feel that in America, he has the freedom to walk from his house to his girlfriend's house with a bag of ice cream because this is his country. And I think there's a growing sense amongst not only young African-American males, but all young people that they do not belong to this society for one reason or another.

JIM LEHRER: How does that translate, Mr. Stephney, into a presidential campaign issue?

BILL STEPHNEY: Well, again, that presidents may not be able to deal with the specific issues of each and every child...alienation or child or young person being marginalized from the society. However, a president can articulate a collective vision for the country that we all belong.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Brodkin, a collective vision for the country, is that what you want a president to do?

MARGARET BRODKIN: Absolutely. But I don't think they can talk about it without talking about the underlying economic issues, particularly the growing gap between rich and poor, and the fact that our children and families raising children are at the bottom of that gap very disproportionately. So I think our parents want to hear what they can do to help their children participate in the economy of this country. They want to hear what's going to be done to make the schools better, to make sure they have affordable housing, to make sure that there is quality child care, to make sure they can get health insurance. I think they want concrete answers that will help them participate in the economy of this country, that is now obviously benefiting the very rich, but not most families raising children.

JIM LEHRER: And all of those specifics that you just mentioned could all fit under one umbrella theme, you think?

MARGARET BRODKIN: Well, certainly. They need to speak to the families raising children, because we all have such a stake in the well-being of our children.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Parker, how do you see what this election should be about?

STARR PARKER: Well, actually I do see that all of those issues can fit under one umbrella issue, and I'd sum it up in two words: Government larceny. And what I have seen out of candidates, as the president of CURE, the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education, we're very interested and concerned about issues of the poor and issues of children. As a mother, I'm very concerned about the decisions that are being made that will affect my children in particular. But what we've seen out of most political candidates and pundits and experts is more government welfare actually. I mean, we can go beyond this discussion and talk about how the government is monopolizing in education, how they do run a monopoly over schooling. You have welfare in subsidized living. In fact, I was a part of that system, in and out of the welfare state for about seven years to where we simply just sent out checks on the 1st and the 15th. Some people think that that ended with the welfare bill, but yet we still take new applications -- all the way to issues of criminal welfare to where taxpayers subsidize profile defendants and bail them out of jail on their own recognizance, if you will, to where 60 percent never show up in court, and then even to the current debates of government retirement welfare-- retirement welfare which really amounts to a complete and comprehensive exploitation of the poor. How dare us not look at these issues, and the presidential candidates, when it comes to privatization of Social Security, not considering that as a very viable option, when we are confiscating out of people's paychecks a payroll tax that makes it worse for them in terms of economic empowerment, accumulating transfer of wealth, all the way to the rate of return to where black men in this country, if a working black male dies before his 70th birthday in this country, he has accumulated $10,000 that will automatically transfer to a white married female. I think that these are issues that the presidential candidates should look at very seriously, government larceny, and what we can do about abolishing the income tax and allowing for parents and families to make their own decisions on behalf of their children.

JIM LEHRER: So in a word, get the government out of the way is what you're saying?

STARR PARKER: Limited government is the idea of the founders, as well as personal responsibility or what we might term as individual liberty, and allowing the free market system to use the built- in components there to take care of commerce.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Culbertson, what do you think this presidential election should be about?

STEVE CULBERTSON: Well, I think, Jim, we've spent the last 30 years trying to figure out how to distribute wealth fairly and make sure that people receive services. I think that's a good thing, but I think we need to spend the next 30 years thinking how to leverage the resources of the government. You know, we talk about the era of big government is over and the era of big citizenship has begun. I think particularly in terms of young people... you know, young people are looked at as a problem, and are not looked at as resources. They have enormous energy. They have enormous commitment and idealism. And I think if we can tell young people that they're assets to their communities and not problems or challenges, the way that we've been treating them for the last 30 years, that we'll be in better shape.

JIM LEHRER: How does a President of the United States do that?

STEVE CULBERTSON: Well, I think they support programs such as Americorps, the Corporation for National Service, which has done an amazing job in bringing 100,000 young people in full-time, dedicated service over last several years; working with the existing non-profit sector, such as Youth Service America, where I am, or an organization such as Habitat for Humanity, or the American Red Cross. This is a way in which government partners with the non-profit sector, I think, in a really significant and effective way.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Gulker, where would you see the role of the federal government? That's actually what the President of the United States functions, operates, controls, leads. How does...you've heard what the others have said about government-- no government up to what the government should do. Where do you come down?

VIRGIL GULKER: Well, again, trying to view this through the perspective of the child, my anxiety here, Jim, is that the work that I do is done almost in exclusion from Washington. Most everything that's happening for the children and families we work with is community-based. There are a series of government programs that are essential for these children and families, but there are growing numbers of faith-based initiatives that are also having significant impact on the children. I think we need a marriage of those two, but I don't honestly think, Jim, it's any longer a matter primarily of policy. We have so much policy, so many programs, yet so much of this operates without any reference whatsoever to a person.

MARGARET BRODKIN: If I could...

VIRGIL GULKER: If I had my druthers, I would say that no politician should be able to propose or enact legislation for children or families unless he can name or actually interact with a child or family. We really have to go back to the issue of who do we want to lead us? That to me is almost more important than how they lead. I think we've got to have leaders whose hearts have been touched. I remember Robert Kennedy going home and telling his children about poor children he had worked with or spent time with. We have to get back to that kind of a value, I think, because that will shape how America reaches out to its children and families. No amount of policy is going to change that.

MARGARET BRODKIN: I very much think that government should not be the enemy in this presidential race, and I don't think people want it to be the enemy. I think that people want very concrete things from their government, and things that cost money; that, you know, we're not going to fix the problems of our children with volunteers.That helps, but we need money for schools, for child care centers, and we've had a whole era of, you know, putting the onus of responsibility only on the individual. Now I think we need to have an era where we have to go back and say, "unless we have government support families, parents aren't going to be able to do their jobs."

STARR PARKER: But..

MARGARET BRODKIN: It doesn't undermine their ability to do their jobs; in fact, it allows them to do their jobs. If they feel a sense of economic security, if they have a safe place to live, if they have safe, affordable child care, then they can be the parents they want to be.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Parker?

STARR PARKER: But I don't agree that that's true. In fact, what has happened is, we have forced the American people into a situation of dependence on government by the tax system, to where we've grown comfortable with them providing the services. It has not been left up to the individual. Over the last 40 years, we have amassed a system that actually spends billions of dollars annually-- in fact, over a billion dollars a day just for poverty programs. And when you think about the poor and issues of the poor and family building-- which is a separate issue than someone brought up earlier, Columbine-- but when you think about those issues, what is at the root of that type of poverty? And it's illegitimacy, out-of- wedlock births. And until we start recognizing that family building is individual- and community-driven and not a massive system where we send 30 percent, some cases 40 percent of our income to a federal bureaucracy and have the solutions trickle back down to where they release that money, allowing for us communities and families build with the local networks that are available.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Stephney, where do you come down on this?

BILL STEPHNEY: Yeah, I have to agree with Ms. Parker on that. In the industry that I work, the music industry, there are rappers and singers with names like L.L. Cool J and Jah Rule who are writing songs about the breakup of their families, their own fatherlessness. We now live in communities where sometimes upwards of 85 to 90 percent of children are growing up without fathers. When they're growing up without fathers, they're growing up without adult males in those communities. It's good to talk about what government certainly can do, and sometimes government can be part of the solution, but there are other points where government can be the problem. Many of the reasons... one of the reasons why these communities are so fatherless today, you can look at welfare policy of the past 30 to 35 years, where federal legislation actually barred families from having fathers within the household in order for them to get aid.

MARGARET BRODKIN: But I'd like to remind people that the marriage rate and the employment rate correlate very closely together, so when people feel a sense of economic security, they are much more likely to be involved in their community, to raise stable families.

STARR PARKER: That's why we should privatize social security, because that is economic empowerment, in particular on behalf of the poor as well as low-wage workers.

MARGARET BRODKIN: I think that's a denial of the reality of what has actually been happening...

STARR PARKER: What, that 12 percent has been confiscated off of the top of people's checks and sent into a failing system that gives a very low rate of return?

JIM LEHRER: Let Miss Brodkin respond there, please.

MARGARET BRODKIN: What has actually happened is, we have withdrawn government support over last 15 years from our families, not increased it, and more and more money has gone into the hands of a very much smaller portion of people.

JIM LEHRER: Finally, Mr. Culbertson, clearly there's disagreement on all of this.

STEVE CULBERTSON: We're used to that in Washington.

JIM LEHRER: Yes, yes, indeed. But how does this disagreement get aired during this presidential campaign? How can it be put on the table, so the candidates have to talk about it, whether you come down with Miss Brodkin or whether you come down with Ms. Parker or whoever?

STEVE CULBERTSON: Well, I think there's a couple of ways. First of all, the issues are important, and it's important that we look at what works. And there are problems being solved every day in America, absolutely, and the government has a role in that, the non- profit sector has a role in that, and the corporate sector has a role in that. And I think we need to highlight those programs, and I think that's what candidates do as they move around the country. They find things that work, just as Clinton found City Year in Boston and found that it worked. So I think that these kinds of forums that take place during an election period where there's an enormous amount of rhetoric-- and your particular industry is drawing out these ideas-- I think this is really in the mix of that, is where the ultimate answers will lie. But I don't think it's going to be easy. I think it's going to take a number of candidates. I'm glad to see that, you know, there are candidates on both sides, you know, more than one that seems to be bringing issues forward. McCain is doing some good stuff on the Republican side to try to balance out what Mr. Bush is doing. Certainly Mr. Bradley's added a lot to the Gore mix. So I think we're going to see some answers percolating out of this, but it's going to take some time.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, thank you all five very much.

MARGARET WARNER: Our agenda 2000 project continues. You can participate by visiting our web site, at pbs.Org/newshour, and also by regular mail to: The NewsHour, Box 2626, Washington, D.C., 20013.

ESSAY - FROM EAST TO WEST

MARGARET WARNER: Finally tonight, Essayist Richard Rodriguez of the Pacific News Service considers a photographer who helped create our vision of the American West.

RICHARD RODRIGUEZ: No one would be more surprised than Carleton Watkins himself to find his photographs hanging here in San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, a few blocks away from where his studio was located 100 years ago. Today, Watkins is considered by many in the art world to have been the finest American landscape photographer of the 19th century. His photographs, like this elegant view of the Columbia River, or this photograph of California cling peaches, are compared to modernist paintings of Degas and C zanne in their composition and sense of perspective. Carleton Watkins was born on the other side of America in Upstate New York. He was a boy of ten when photography was invented in Europe. By the time he went West in the 1850's, the common assumption was that the camera was a scientific tool, a technology for pragmatists, not artists or mystics. Watkins took these photographs of logging camps and mining camps and train tracks, because his clients were businessmen, busy building the West. There is no sense of paradise lost in these scenes of young Salt Lake City or San Francisco or Portland. Notice the way Portland, Oregon, emerges from the shattered remnants of the forest in the foreground. But if there is an optimistic sense of man's rightful place in this Eden, there is also astonishment at this land that we dare to inhabit. The West upsets our conventional ways of seeing and thinking. Trees reduce humans to insects; there are desert Indian dwellings that unravel time. In such a place, surrealism governs. A tree is photographed taller than a mountain; a lake turns the known world upside down. After Abraham Lincoln saw Watkins' photographs of Yosemite, he signed a bill to protect the region from development. It was at Yosemite, that nature reinvented photography. Faced by the enormity of what was before him, Watkins felt forced to rebuild his camera to produce 18 x 21-inch negatives. A century later, and in the same way, this Hollywood would need to photograph this landscape in cinemascope and vista vision. These photographs of Yosemite were taken in the 1860's, at a time when America was splitting in half, North versus South. But along the East-West axis, the railroad was binding America together. Our expansionist ambition was realized, as Atlantic was joined to the Pacific. So there was this irony. At the same time that the nation's soul was tearing in half, the American imagination was expanding West toward the infinite. On the new railroads, Americans saw the nation from a new height, and at a new speed, not frontally, but from a train window, one corner of the horizon sliding away as the other corner of the view came rushing, rushing forward. Watkins belonged to this new East-West America. He produced panoramas, these images meant to be placed on a wall side by side, because the human eye could no longer see America at a glance, so vast was the scene, whether cityscape or wilderness. He also produced images for the stereoscope, an invention that became common in many American parlors. Two almost identical photographs, placed side by side and mounted together produced a three-dimensional depth when viewed through a binocular holder. What separates us today from those 19th century Americans who sat in their houses all over this country and marveled at these views through their stereoscopes is that our modern eyes had been dulled. We no longer see through smog the West that the 19th century saw. Carleton Watkins died nearly penniless in 1916. But to see through his lens is to sense again the importance of the western landscape for the nation's imagination. At a time of North-South division, the landscape of the West redefined us, restoring our optimism and wonder. Watkins himself was transformed by this mysterious place, from the technician photographer into an artist. I'm Richard Rodriguez.

MARGARET WARNER: The Carleton Watkins exhibit has left San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art; it will reopen at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in early October.

RECAP

MARGARET WARNER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, Hurricane Floyd blasted the Bahamas. Forecasters said it could hit the U.S. anywhere from Central Florida to Georgia or the Carolinas. On the NewsHour tonight, Secretary of State Albright said an international force would probably be in East Timor by this weekend with American support but no American combat troops. She said the mission would be a big test for the United Nations. We'll see you on-line, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Thank you and good night.