The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth in New York. After our summary of the news this Monday, we focus on the issue of White House security, how much is enough? Then Betty Ann Bowser looks at the ups and downs of the Massachusetts Senate race, and we close with a discussion of what's happening in the world of communications, where one big deal follows another. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. FARNSWORTH: An American Airlines commuter plane crashed this evening in Northwest Indiana. There apparently were no survivors. American Eagle Flight No. 184 went down about 20 miles South of Merrillville. There were reportedly 68 people on board the aircraft which can hold up to 75. The flight was en route from Minneapolis to Chicago when it suddenly disappeared from radar. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: The man who fired a semiautomatic weapon at the White House Saturday was arraigned today. He was ordered held without bail and to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Twenty-six-year-old Francisco Duran of Colorado Springs, Colorado, was charged with damaging federal property, resisting a federal officer, unlawful use of a firearm, and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. That charge stems from his conviction on aggravated assault charges while serving in the army. At the federal courthouse in Washington today, U.S. Attorney Eric Holder cited a handwritten note found in Duran's truck which raised concern about his mental competency.

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. Attorney: We thought that it was our duty, based on what we saw in that letter and also based on the nature of the offense to at least have that preliminary screening done. It is not an indication, however, that we believe he is incompetent. We just want to make sure that as we proceed that we are proceeding on safe ground, and that he is, in fact, competent, and that that determination be made by doctors.

MR. LEHRER: Treasury Sec. Lloyd Bentsen said today an outside panel already investigating presidential and White House security will now look into Saturday's shooting. The panel is headed by former FBI and CIA Director William Webster. It was formed after a small plane crashed onto the White House grounds six weeks ago. Its report is due in January. The White House North Lawn was reopened today. The Secret Service had closed it after the shooting to search for bullet fragments. President Clinton kept to his schedule today. He attended Democratic campaign rallies in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and is expected to campaign for Democratic candidates throughout the week. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Jury selection began today in the first degree murder trial of anti-abortion activist Paul Hill. He is charged with shooting a doctor and his escort outside a Pensacola, Florida, abortion clinic last July. The 40-year-old former Presbyterian minister plans to defend himself. The judge denied him permission to use justifiable homicide as a defense. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. In Detroit, Michigan, one child was killed and four others injured in a rash of arson fires last night. At least 100 fires were set as part of Detroit's annual night before Halloween arson spree known as "Devil's Night." Nearly 175 teenagers were arrested for breaking the city's dawn-to-dusk curfew.

MR. LEHRER: In economic news today, the Commerce Department reported personal incomes rose .6 of 1 percent last month, while consumer spending was up .2 of a percent. Three phone companies announced a deal with one of Hollywood's top agents to offer television shows and interactive programming over telephone lines. The companies involved are: Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, and the Creative Artists Agency. The system should begin operating in trial markets by late 1995. We'll have more on this story later in the program.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Israel and Tunisia have agreed to establish low level diplomatic ties. That's according to a report on Israeli Radio. The breakthrough came during the first ever Mideast-North African Economic Summit being held this week in Casablanca, Morocco. The two nations will set up offices in each other's country within the next six months. The man who assassinated Mexico's presidential candidate, Luis Colosio, was convicted and sentenced to 42 years in prison today. Aburto Martinez shot Colosio o March 23rd during a campaign rally in Tijuana. Colosio was the candidate of the ruling party. His successor, Ernesto Zedillo was elected president in August. That concludes our summary of the day's news. Now it's on to presidential security, the Massachusetts Senate race, and a big communications deal. FOCUS - SECURITY DETAIL

MR. LEHRER: The President's security is our lead story tonight. First it was an airplane that crashed into the White House just two floors beneath the President's bedroom. The pilot died in that crash, nobody else was injured. That was six weeks ago. Now on Saturday, a gunman sprayed bullets at the White House from a distance of about 200 feet. The shooter was arrested. No one was hurt. He did his firing from behind a 10-foot high metal fence that separates the White House grounds from the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue. Concrete barriers along the outer edge of the sidewalk were installed in 1983 to block potential attacks from vehicles. At White House gates, visitors pass through metal detectors. In addition, there are rooftop sharp shooters stationed on top of the White House. Windows that were shattered in Saturday's attack are in the press briefing room which adjoins the central mansion. The Treasury Department oversees the Secret Service. It had already launched a major review of White House security as a result of the airplane incident. Treasury Sec. Bentsen gave a briefing this afternoon. Here's an excerpt:

REPORTER: Are you concerned that it took civilians to bring this man down and that it took the uniformed Secret Service men too log to get over the fence?

LLOYD BENTSEN, Secretary of the Treasury: The Secret Service did a remarkably good job. They were there very quickly, and they responded, I think, effectively and with judgment. The last thing I wanted to see was someone firing weapons in a crowd like that, even with the full accuracy of someone shooting, hitting the target, nothing to stop that bullet from passing on through and hitting into some bystanders.

REPORTER: Is it possible, Mr. Secretary, to have both, as you say, an open White House and the kind of security that you need?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, obviously, you can't have a totally open White House. You have to achieve a balance insofar as making it accessible as you can to the American people and, in turn, giving the protection that's necessary for this nation's leaders and their family.

REPORTER: Did this review focus at all on the President's personal habits? This particular President loves to go into crowds and things like that. No. 2, do you have any commitment from President Clinton to make any changes or abide by any recommendations of the report? And in going back to Ann's question, is there a presumption that Pennsylvania Avenue would not be closed going into this?

SEC. BENTSEN: Let me take it in reverse order. No, there's no presumption. That is something under review. Second, is the President's personal habits taken into consideration by the Secret Service and how they work to protect him, absolutely. And it will be in this review. And third, insofar as telling the President he's going to have to change his personal habits, we leave that up to you. [laughter in room]

REPORTER: Mr. Secretary, the President has -- it's up to him to decide what recommendations to accept, isn't that true? He has the ultimate say on anything that's proposed.

SEC. BENTSEN: That's true.

REPORTER: And that also involves every day of his own security. The Secret Service can tell him to do certain things but he could say, hell, no, I won't go, or whatever, is that right?

SEC. BENTSEN: You said it.

REPORTER: He has the final say.

SEC. BENTSEN: Yeah, he has to decide, it's his decision, but obviously, I'm sure he'll give some consideration.

REPORTER: -- something like 20 shots. Was it just luck that nobody got hit before he was subdued?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, it's because of where he was firing. What my deep concern would have been if he had been able to reload, what he might have done at that point. None of us know, obviously.

REPORTER: You're not telling us specifically what changes have been made in security at the White House. Would it be possible tonight for a small plane to fly in the way one did six weeks ago?

SEC. BENTSEN: I'm not going to comment on that.

REPORTER: Mr. Secretary, the FBI said here publicly that they're on record they'd like to close Pennsylvania Avenue. Again, there's this problem with access to people. As head of the Secret Service - -

SEC. BENTSEN: I think that's an overstatement of what they have said. The question of closing it period, I think there were questions in the past about closing it to vehicular traffic, or perhaps at some point if a ceremony was out there, changes in the mode of operation. And when the President is out there, obviously, there's a change in the mode of operation of the Secret Service. Thank you very much.

MR. LEHRER: Now, three other perspectives on White House security. Doris Kearns Goodwin is a presidential historian and author. Neil Livingstone is a security consultant. Robert Snow was a Secret Service agent from 1959 to '92. Mr. Snow, first of all, how serious was this incident from a security standpoint on Saturday?

MR. SNOW: Well, it was extremely serious, obviously, when someone opens fire with a weapon of that type, I think the incident should be considered very serious.

MR. LEHRER: Are these kinds of things, this kind of incident, are they part of the, of the security concern, that someone is capable of doing that from anyplace around the White House?

MR. SNOW: When the Secret Service attempts to create a secure environment for the President, they have to take in all of these types of contingencies, and it has been thought about, exactly what happened, that's certainly been thought about before.

MR. LEHRER: How do you feel about closing down Pennsylvania Avenue and the streets immediately around it?

MR. SNOW: Well, the streets immediately around it have been closed. East and West Executive at one time were open thoroughfares. They are now part of the security package, and the Executive Office Building and the Treasury are all part of that security complex. I think it would be a --

MR. LEHRER: Let's explain that to people who don't -- we've got a map up there. There used to be an open street between the Treasury Department and the White House --

MR. SNOW: Right. That's East Executive.

MR. LEHRER: -- on the East side, and on the West side, there was a street that separated the Executive Office Building from the White House.

MR. SNOW: From the White House, yes, correct. And those are now both closed, and they are used as part of our security perimeter to enhance the security. Now, if they were able to do the same thing out in front, it would, again, enhance security if we could control -- if not continually, at least at certain times be able to control what goes on out there on Pennsylvania Avenue and on the sidewalk area.

MR. LEHRER: If you had your personal druthers, would the street be closed?

MR. SNOW: Probably yes, but if a security person has their personal druthers, why they would, would put the President in the tank and take him from Point A to Point B. There's a compromise there that we have to always consider.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. SNOW: And I think that the compromise of closing or opening that street has to be weighed against the other possibilities of things that can be done.

MR. LEHRER: Now, Mr. Livingstone, that's the toughest question of all, isn't it, weighing particularly in an open society, a democratic society that the United States is, how you satisfy the people like Mr. Snow and his successors who are in charge of security for the President and the White House versus the open government and the open system?

MR. LIVINGSTONE: Absolutely. We have to remember that the White House is open to the public. There are even tours of the White House. It's the people's house, the people's palace, and the President also travels out and meets people, campaigns around the country. Frankly, he's very safe when he's in the White House. The Secret Service and the other agencies tasked with his protection are the best in the world. And I think that these -- that the current review that's going on right now is not going to find a lot wrong. There maybe some tweaking here. There may be some additions that can be done. But, by and large, I think they're going to find the President is well protected.

MR. LEHRER: Now, you say that. The layperson, which I am, would come right back to you, Mr. Livingstone, and say that's all fine and dandy. In six weeks, we've had an airplane crash into the building that if it's conceivable that that could have killed the President or people where that thing had crashed, it's also this man fired off 20 shots, and it could have been that somebody, the President included, could have been behind one of those windows and could have been killed.

MR. LIVINGSTONE: No question about it. And the scenario of a plane hitting the White House has always been a nightmare scenario. There's very little time to react. This is a dense urban, metropolitan area. It's got a national airport flight path right behind it. There aren't a lot of good options. And the fact remains that the President is vulnerable, and someone who really wants to kill the President, an organized conspiracy, may be able to get away with it. It's one of the things we have to live with in a democracy, because we really, frankly, don't want to be like Nazi Germany or some banana republic that wraps its leader in an entire cocoon of security.

MR. LEHRER: And Doris Goodwin, is that what this is really ultimately all about, that it is possible to protect a President completely? I mean, there is no question about that, is there, Mr. Snow? I mean, you could do it if you had to?

MR. SNOW: Of course.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. SNOW: If he would change his ways, and the society wouldn't expect him to wear as many hats as he does, I mean, there's just so much there that has to be -- where he has to be out with the public. These are military -- he has so many different roles that he plays that he has to have access, so we have to adjust our security around that.

MR. LEHRER: And the public expectation, Doris Goodwin, is such that he could not -- there's no way to protect him, is that right, would you agree?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, I think that there's no way that the President would allow himself to be taken around in a tank and not really accessible to the public. You know, even during World War II and the days before it, you could actually wander in that whole North Lawn of the White House. And finally they were so afraid of bombs coming in or spies or infiltrators, that they put the gates up and the sentry boxes, ad you had to have an appointment to go in. Roosevelt hated that! And I'm sure that President Clinton would hate it if that avenue were cut off from access. You know, think about standing in front of that gate and seeing that White House. It's one of the most emotional moments. That's your house. I just hope they can figure out a way that uniformed guards are stationed there, very visible, very clear that they're there, without cutting out that access to other people.

MR. LEHRER: What's the situation? There are no uniformed guards standing right there, along the gate, are there, Mr. Snow?

MR. SNOW: Well, at each of the posts, there are uniformed officers of the Secret Service who have jurisdiction inside the fence, park police on the sidewalk outside the fence. But whenever there's a demonstration or whether the intelligence tells us that there should be some reason there, we will station officers inside the fence along that. If you go down there during a demonstration, you will find uniformed officers inside the fence there on Pennsylvania.

MS. GOODWIN: Maybe they should be there all the time. I think having a visible presence would be fine but still allow the other people to have that emotional connection to this house.

MR. LEHRER: If that were, in fact, the case on Saturday, would that -- what -- would that have changed the scenario, do you think?

MR. SNOW: You really don't know. I mean, looking at, you don't know what the officers' access would have been to the individual. You know, if he was on the outside of the gate, he might have had a better opportunity to respond as the private citizen did to tackle or to neutralize the person. Inside the gate, about all he could have done would have been react with a weapon or would have been able to do something of that nature, and I'm not sure you want that on a crowded street.

MR. LEHRER: Who calls the shots? For instance, Sec. Bentsen said, you know, the decision was made not to shoot. How does that --

MR. SNOW: The individual, the individual, just the same way any police officer has to make that decision at the time, shoot, don't shoot. The level of threat to himself or to some other person, he has to make that decision instantaneously.

MR. LEHRER: So those individuals, uniformed Secret Service officers, they were standing there and seeing what was happening, and they had to make the decision whether or not to shoot at this guy or not?

MR. SNOW: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Because there was no way to communicate with them through their ear pieces or any of that?

MR. SNOW: No. I mean, you have to make that decision, as any police officer would in any kind of a situation of that type, whether you are going to shoot. You have to have an open -- in other words, you have to have a field of fire that we are not going to take out someone else.

MR. LEHRER: Sure. Doris Goodwin, take us a little bit through the history here, how -- is it incidents like this through history, assassinations, assassination attempts, that have caused the evolution of, of security at the White House, the security on Presidents and their families? Take us through that?

MS. GOODWIN: That's absolutely right. In fact, the first White House guards, as I understand, came in the 1840's, when there were a series of revolutions in Europe, and people were afraid that there might be such things here in America. So President Tyler asked the Congress for guards. The Congress was furious at first. They said, how can you have guards, you're going to be like Caesar, praetorian guards. They finally compromised, and allowed him to have doormen, and eventually, the doormen were allowed to have firearms, so that's when it first began. Then after the assassination of Lincoln, things tightened further. McKinley really, after his assassination, the Secret Service was then assigned to protect the President. And then World War I buttoned it up even more. And then it depends in part upon the temperament of the President. Woodrow Wilson liked being isolated in the White House, and he tended to hold himself up. It was very bad for the country. That's why I think it's good to have Presidents fight against this as much as they can as long as the Secret Service gets to do as much as they can. That balanced intention should probably always remain. World War II tightened it up further. That's, as I say, when those sentry boxes came and never left. So let's just be hoping the President fights against too much, and yet, the Secret Service gets to do a little bit more.

MR. LEHRER: But what about, Doris Goodwin, the point that's been made specifically about President Clinton, his jogging out on the streets and all of that, that for instance, it was suggested that this guy or anybody who really wanted to kill the President, that it's an open invitation in a way, and yet, is that so much a style of a President that -- I mean, it seems to me that would be the most difficult balance at all, that kind of thing. Harry Truman used to go on public walks. Presidents do that kind of thing.

MS. GOODWIN: And what you've got to figure out is some of these Presidents need a replenishment from public contact. That's what keeps them alive. It keeps them vital, makes them feel that they're really human beings, and not sitting in a bubble. I mean, obviously, they shouldn't go too far in trying the patience of the security people around them, but if you try to insist that they not see the public, you may take the life out of these characters.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Do you agree with that, Mr. Livingstone, that - - you said it earlier, that the balance in choosing -- how much leeway should a President have? I mean, when can you say, Mr. President, it's your call, and then say, then turn to the Secret Service, and say, you're also, it's my call, and I'm going to jog, or I'm going to do whatever, but you still got to keep me alive?

MR. LIVINGSTONE: Well, the President has a responsibility to the country to keep himself or herself alive because of the consequences of something happening to them, to our economy, to our orderly government, and so on. So they have got to be sensitive to it. The problem with some Presidents has been that they have had differing views of police and the Secret Service and so on, and those particularly from small states, small state governors, traditionally have bridled at the idea of a cocoon of security around them because they've come from relative freedom, and it takes awhile sometimes to adjust. This President, for example, had the run of Arkansas, for all intents and purposes, before he came here. And the one thing the Secret Service can do, and I believe they did do early in this administration, is to talk to their friends in the press and let some of their concerns be known so that that pressure came back to build, and some people did, indeed, criticize the President, for example, when he was jogging and someone would hail him, and he had run across the street to greet them and things like that.

MR. LEHRER: Is there a danger, as a result of these two incidents, that the thing could go too far the other way now, that the concern about security could just bottle this thing up in a way that would be counterproductive?

MR. LIVINGSTONE: We are a very reactive nation. We saw that after some of the terrorist threats during the 1980's and so on. And there is -- there is always the chance that we will overreact, and I hope right now that we sit back and say first of all that this incident, no matter how terrible it might have been, it wasn't fortunately, and it is the first time that anyone has ever fired in memory at the White House. The plane attack, we have to continue to be vigilant and so on, but it was the first time that's happened. And I would hope that right now the Secret Service will continue to tweak its systems, do the things that it has done so well in the past, and, and by and large that we don't get consumed in the, in the anguish of the moment, that somehow we have to change all the rules overnight.

MR. LEHRER: Speaking of that, give us some feel, if you can, without revealing anything that shouldn't be revealed, obviously you wouldn't anyhow, Mr. Snow, about what kind of anguish this puts in the individual Secret Service agents, the people who are in charge of the security of the President, when these two things happen, and what kind of reaction they're going to have.

MR. SNOW: Well, you have to realize that we live with that every single day, every single hour. Every day you go to work, you can have an incident of this nature. I mean, and this is one of the problems in security work, is to keep yourself alert and ready for that 30 seconds of terror that may never come in your entire career, or it may come that day that you show up at work. So it's part of the lifestyle, it's part of the entire psyche, I think, of the agents in the service, and when something like this happens, it's just one of those things that they know can happen, when it does happen, why they have to accept it, and then go from there. As he says, we just have to look at our procedures, look at what we have, and it's true, a great deal of security is a reaction to what happened yesterday, not yesterday, but I meant --

MR. LEHRER: All yesterday.

MR. SNOW: All yesterday. The ballards around the White House, the magnetometers at the White House and the rest of them are all a reaction. They then became politically okay to do those kind of things that the security people had been recommending for years.

MR. LEHRER: So somebody had suggested what Doris Kearns suggested, Doris Kearns Goodwin, suggested a minute ago, which is to have a bunch of uniformed officers out there on the other side fence, that person can now probably go to that as a result of what happened Saturday.

MR. SNOW: They will happen as part of the recommendations coming out, yes.

MR. LEHRER: And somebody who may have had some concerns about airplanes is probably going to get his or her way now too?

MR. SNOW: Very possibly.

MR. LEHRER: All right. We'll leave it there. Thank you all very much.

MS. GOODWIN: You're welcome.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Still ahead, the Massachusetts Senate race and a big deal in the communications business. FOCUS - END GAME

MS. FARNSWORTH: Now another in our continuing series of reports on key congressional races and issues this election year. In Massachusetts, a veteran Senate liberal faces the stiffest electoral challenge of his career. Correspondent Betty Ann Bowser has this report.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: Most of all today I need your help, I need your vote, I need that help --

MS. BOWSER: Ted Kennedy has never meant that more than he does now.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: I'll see you on the campaign trail. Thank you.

MS. BOWSER: For the past 32 years, the campaign trail has been a superhighway, each time speeding him into office with at least 60 percent of the vote. But this year is different. The trail is bumpy, full of potholes put there by a youthful Republican opponent who for a while at least put the senior Senator from Massachusetts into a skid. Forty-seven-year-old Mitt Romney is a venture capitalist, a millionaire. He presents a squeaky clean, happy family image in contrast to Kennedy's highly publicized, turbulent past. He points to the fact that he's been married for 25 years to his high school sweetheart, Ann. But like Kennedy, he is the product of a distinguished political family. His father, George, is a former governor of Michigan, who ran for President in 1968, and his mother, Lenore, once ran for the U.S. Senate. Romney is the first candidate Kennedy has ever faced with the money and message to give the incumbent a hard time. Romney is also riding the coattails of the state's most popular Republican, Gov. William Weld. Candidate Romney has positioned himself as a well-styled Republican in favor of abortion rights, the death penalty, and fiscal conservatism. But Romney's most effective weapon against Kennedy has been his message, a call for change.

SPOKESMAN: [ad] What a positive change Mitt Romney will be, the change we need, Mitt Romney for Senate.

MS. BOWSER: Romney has played up Kennedy's age, 62, portraying him as a weary, old liberal, as a tax-and-spend Democrat out of touch with the people of Massachusetts who for too long has supported social programs that don't work.

MITT ROMNEY: You look at our cities, and they're devastated. You look at the poor, they're still left out of the American system. You look at crime. It's gotten worse. And you say, wait a second, he's been there 32 years, he's had a chance, he wants to be there for the next century. Why in the world would you keep somebody whose philosophy has so obviously failed us?

MS. BOWSER: Romney has also capitalized on this year's anti- incumbency fever.

MITT ROMNEY: [addressing group of people] Too many years in Washington! Too many years without the kind of hearing he needs to know exactly what it is that senior citizens and all of his constituents are saying!

MS. BOWSER: His "time for a change" theme, coupled with a multi- million dollar advertising campaign, propelled Romney into a horse race with Kennedy that just three weeks ago was too close to call. But then Kennedy came alive.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: For the people and the principles of Massachusetts, I have only just begun to fight! [crowd cheering]

MS. BOWSER: He aggressively attacked Romney's record as a businessman. His ads featured workers who lost their jobs in a Romney business takeover in Indiana.

FIRST WOMAN IN CAMPAIGN AD: I'd worked there 30 years, and I never dreamed that I'd lose my job.

OTHER WOMAN IN CAMPAIGN AD: We had no rights anymore.

MAN IN AD: They cut the wages.

DIFFERENT WOMAN IN AD: We no longer had insurance.

WOMAN IN AD: Basically cut our throats.

FIRST WOMAN IN CAMPAIGN AD: I'd like to say to the people of Massachusetts, that you think it can't happen to you. Think again, because we thought it wouldn't happen here either.

MS. BOWSER: Boston Globe pollster Gerry Chervinsky says the ads were stunning in their success.

GERRY CHERVINSKY, Pollster: People hadn't focused on Romney. A third of the state didn't know Romney enough to rate him. Those who did know him viewed him fairly positively, and because people basically were thinking that 32 years was enough for Ted Kennedy to serve, they were willing to give Romney a look. But the Kennedy campaign very smartly came out with a series of ads aimed at that third of the electorate who didn't know Romney and basically characterized Romney as this money-grubbing businessman, this sort of robber baron who had taken away benefits and jobs from people in other states, and basically that third of the electorate who didn't know Romney well enough to have an opinion of him began to view Romney negatively. And it turned around the whole dynamic of the race.

MS. BOWSER: Kennedy sustained his momentum in two debates with Romney. Although his supporters were full of enthusiasm, his aides were concerned about the appearance, because Kennedy doesn't always do well when he's speaking off the cuff. But in last week's debate, the old lion roared.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: What will be the cost in terms of the tax incentives that you provide? What will be the impact of that on the budget?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, the impact -- I do not know the specific numbers --

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: So you don't know the cost.

MITT ROMNEY: -- on the budget. Sen. Kennedy, I think it's a wonderful idea to take it through piece by piece and --

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: That's what you have to do with legislation.

MITT ROMNEY: I understand that.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: That's exactly what you have to do with legislation! [crowd cheering]

MS. BOWSER: Kennedy also had a chance to address the issue of his past and the future he's trying to make with his new wife, Vicky.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: Every day of my life I try to be a better human being, a better father, a better son, a better husband. And since my life has changed with Vicky, I believe that the people of this state understand that the kind of purpose and direction and new affection and competence that I have on personal matters has been enormously reinvigorating.

GERRY CHERVINSKY: Kennedy came up on the attack. Romney appeared to be defensive. And Kennedy really did what he needed to do and more. Romney didn't. Kennedy really needed to show people that he was still on top of the issues, that he still had command, and a sense of where he wanted to go for yet another term, and really he did that. He talked about issues that were of importance to him. He talked about things he had done in the past. He talked about issues he wanted to stress in the upcoming Congress, and really he belittled Romney's ability to deal with those issues anywhere near as effectively as he, Kennedy, would be able to.

MS. BOWSER: Although Kennedy now seems to have pulled ahead,University of Massachusetts Professor Lou Dinatale says the peace is still being driven by a fickle electorate.

LOU DINATALE, Political Scientist: No one can underestimate at this stage. This thing seems to be moving back, but it could kick out on a moment's notice. This is wide open until the end. There is no firm ground right here, and that's the surprise for Kennedy.

MS. BOWSER: And nowhere is the ground less firm for Kennedy than in the suburban areas around Boston. Thirty-two years ago when Ted Kennedy went to Washington, elections in Massachusetts were won or lost in the big city. But the demographics have changed. The sons and the daughters of Democratic voters once considered the backbone of the party have grown up and moved to the suburbs. Today most of them consider themselves independent, and they don't necessarily vote the way their parents did. In the past six years, the number of voters in Massachusetts who see themselves as independent has grown to almost 50 percent of the state's electorate. Many of them live in the suburban areas west of Boston, where Friday night football games are a staple. They are people like small company owner Alan Marlow.

ALAN MARLOW: I like to make a choice at election time and not just vote for the whole party. If I want to switch back and forth and vote for a Republican on one and a Democrat on somebody else because I like the individual, I will. And I just don't like to be categorized as strictly a Republican or strictly a Democrat. I had a lot of respect for John and Robert and Ted in the younger years, but I just, I just am kind of tired of 'em.

MS. BOWSER: In the years since young Ted Kennedy was first elected to the Senate in 1962, a new kind of voter has emerged, one that is priming the movement of independence out of the Democratic Party. Democratic consultant Dan Payne calls them "new collar" workers.

DAN PAYNE, Political Consultant: They're people who don't have blue collar jobs, but they're not white collar executives either. They're people who are part of the new economy but they're not what you call classic union blue collar workers. And these are people who are, you know, by and large between the age of say 30 and 50. They're the baby boomers, maybe slightly younger, who don't really have any -- those on the lower end of that, of that cohort, don't really have any personal emotional attachment to the Kennedy name.

MS. BOWSER: Sally Darby grew up in a staunchly Irish Catholic Democratic family. Her grandmother once kept a picture of President John Kennedy on the mantle next to one of the Pope. But today she and husband Paul see themselves as independents who are voting for Romney, because they like his record as a businessman.

PAUL DARBY: I think people respect Kennedy because they feel they know him so well. People have lived these people's lives. It's like their brother or sister or mother or father. And so you respect him as a human being and all the difficult things he's been through. And he has done -- had some significant accomplishments, but that doesn't mean because you like him as a human being and an individual that he's representing you in the way you want to be represented.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mrs. Darby, what about you?

SALLY DARBY: Oh, I don't know. I mean, I certainly, you know, enjoy history, and you know, but after that, I don't feel that there's this aura that they are the only ones that can do the job.

MS. BOWSER: Kennedy is campaigning hard to bring voters like the Darbys back by stressing his experience. In a year when the electorate seems sour about professional politicians, it is a calculated risk.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: From family and medical leave to the most far reaching education reforms in our history, to jobs saved and jobs created, I'm proud to say no Senator is faster to the battle when the needs and hopes of working families are on the line! [crowd cheering]

MS. BOWSER: Romney almost scoffs at the experience argument and confidently says it won't make any difference if he's elected.

MITT ROMNEY, Republican Senatorial Candidate: I will not be the average brand new Senator coming to Washington. I'll be that guy who beat Ted Kennedy, and that will give me a bigger voice than just a freshman Senator coming in from anywhere might otherwise have.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, [D] Massachusetts: Freshmen Senators of minority parties, and particularly when you have an administration of a differing party, they toe the line, they'll toe the line for Bob Dole, they'll toe the line for Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond and Orrin Hatch, that's the way life is in the United States Senate. It may not be the way that a person would like it to be, but that is the real institution, that's the real world in the United States Senate. Freshmen Senators are lucky if they get their phone calls returned.

MS. BOWSER: Kennedy's message rings true in areas like Cambridge, part of his traditional core constituency, where social liberals make up much of his 40 to 45 percent voting base. Many of them worry about what businessman Romney would do as Sen. Romney.

JAY DEMERATH: I don't like his ties to business. I don't like the sense that what's good for business is good for the state and good for the nation.

JUDY DEMERATH: And he hasn't had any political experience, has he? He's not ever -- not been elected to any office.

MS. BOWSER: Is that important?

JUDY DEMERATH: It's a heck of a way to start off with the Senator, a little bit too advanced.

MS. BOWSER: And both Demeraths think Kennedy's seniority is important.

JAY DEMERATH: The fact that he has been a Kennedy, that he has connections in Washington, that he has seniority in the Congress and in the Senate is very important, because it means he's in a position to deliver in a way that Romney won't be for a long, long time.

MS. BOWSER: The Kennedy campaign also got a boost from President Clinton, who came to suburban Framingham at a time when his own popularity was increasing among voters for his handling of Haiti, the Middle East, and the Persian Gulf.

LOU DINATALE: And when the President of the United States comes and tells you that your Senator is one of the most important in the U.S. Senate, it helps the clout argument, and Kennedy has been relying on the clout argument as one of the principal underpinnings in his campaign.

MS. BOWSER: In the final days of the campaign, Romney is stressing that he would be his own man, if elected, and that clout isn't everything.

MITT ROMNEY: If people want more of the same in terms of welfare, crime, taxation, then they ought to keep voting for Ted Kennedy, because he has plenty of clout to try and pull legislation in the direction he's been pulling since 1962. If you think that's the wrong direction, you want somebody else in there who will pull in a different direction.

MS. BOWSER: Right now, Kennedy is trying to increase what polling says is a double digit lead. But even if he wins, it won't be by those 60 to 65 percent margins. The days of Kennedy landslides in Massachusetts are a part of history. FOCUS - BUSY SIGNALS

MS. FARNSWORTH: Next tonight, a marriage of phone companies and Hollywood in another attempt to get the jump on the future of communications technology. Today's deal, in essence, turns phone companies into entertainers. Three regional phone companies, the so-called Baby Bells created from the break-up of the old Bell System, will team up with a powerful Hollywood talent agency to produce TV shows and interactive entertainment. They plan to deliver those programs to people's homes over their existing phone network. Last week, the opposite happened. The entertainers tried to become phone companies. The nation's third largest long distance carrier, Sprint, joined with three cable TV companies who want to use their cable systems to push into the local phone market.

BILL T. ESREY, CEO, Sprint: [Oct. 25] This is how the future will be coming into homes and businesses across America. We will revolutionize what will come in over your telephone, your cable television, and your computer. Our venture breaks the traditional boundaries of technology and geography.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That alliance was part of a round of deal-making over cellular systems and their cousins, wireless personal communications services like pagers and portable computers. Those deals reached their peak last week after the government set Friday as the deadline for all business alliances competing for new wireless transmission licenses. AT&T recently completed its takeover of McCaw, the nation's largest cellular phone company. In response, Bell Atlantic has already merged its cellular business with NYNEX and formed another alliance with another Baby Bell, US West. But there have also been some major disconnects. A year ago, executives of Bell Atlantic and the nation's largest cable operator, TCI, announced the biggest telecommunications merger in U.S. history.

RAYMOND SMITH, CEO, Bell Atlantic: [1993] What's going to happen in this world over the next ten or twelve years is an increase in freedom for individuals.

JOHN MALONE, CEO, TCI: [1993] I think giving people choice, broader choice, more choice, is what it's all about. And anything we can do to make people individual and responsible citizens is clearly on the plus side here.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That deal fell apart just days later, and it's not the only one to do so. In the past year, NYNEX and Bell Atlantic tried to team up with Sprint but got nowhere. Bell Atlantic also tried and failed to strike a deal with MCI, and TCI tried unsuccessfully to make a deal with AT&T.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Will the most recent hook-ups disconnect too, or will these new partners stay wired? And what does all this mean for consumers contemplating a so-called communications revolution? To help answer these questions, we're now joined by Eli Noam, a professor of economics and director of Columbia University's Institute for Teleinformation, and Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who writes about technology for Time Magazine. Welcome, gentlemen. Let's start with you, Mr. Elmer-DeWitt. We have three telephone companies, local telephone companies, and a talent agency, a major talent agency. Why have these -- these groups come together?

MR. ELMER-DEWITT: Well, basically you have to look at who they're looking over their shoulder at, which is the cable companies. Both the cable companies and the phone companies are trying to reach the same goal. The cable companies have a big fat wire come into your home delivering video signals, but they don't have switches. You can't dial your television and connect it to another television. The phone company has a marvelous switching system you can connect to any telephone in the world, but they have a little, tiny wire that isn't fat enough to deliver video signals. So the cable companies are busily adding switches to their coaxial cable system and the phone companies are busy adding big, fat wires to their switching system, and but what the cable companies have are some terrific connections with Hollywood. Time-Warner, for example, owns Lorimar Pictures, a big television maker, Warner Studios, you know, Warner Records, Madonna. The phone companies don't know about content; they're basically common carriers. They measure message units. So they have lots of money but they don't know how to strike a deal on Hollywood, so they needed an entree into Hollywood. Michael Ovitz is the biggest dealmaker in Hollywood, and that's why.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So essentially he's to bring the content to the phone companies, is that the idea?

MR. NOAM: Well, it's partly the reason. I think kind of from Hollywood's perspective they have run out of deep pockets from Japan and now they're kind of looking for other people to help them finance their deals. But from the telephone industry's perspective, they're putting billions of dollars into hardware networks, fiber and coax type networks, that will provide a lot of information content, and they want to make sure that there will be something on it that people will want to watch, because people don't watch network equipment and hardware. They watch programs.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And tell me, Mr. Noam, how does this deal -- what is different about this deal from the Sprint deal with the three cable companies? Was that in a different kind of a business relationship?

MR. NOAM: Well, the Sprint deal was a long distance company trying to expand into local distribution, into local service and competition with traditional telephone companies. Here is the opposite case. The traditional local telephone companies are trying to differentiate the product by providing software programming capability. They will make people use their telephone network more than the new alliance between the cable companies and the long distance phone companies.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay, now, on the Baby Bell-Michael Ovitz deal, I am a consumer. Supposedly, they're giving me some kind of product. What's the product?

MR. ELMER-DEWITT: Well, when these big, broad band switched networks get built, whether it's from a cable company or the telephone company, what they're trying to break for the consumer is sort of the tyranny of the TV Guide. You sit down to watch television, and the only thing you can watch is the stuff that's on that particular hour on the channels that are available. If it's a switched system, then the programming would reside on a big computer and basically you would choose among all the programs and have them delivered to your home when you watch them. You could see what you want to see when you want to see it. But, you know, we've got a lot of fiber and coaxial cable and switches to build before we can do that.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And the cellular deal, what would I get with that as a consumer? Am I supposed to be able to out with some portable computer or something?

MR. NOAM: Well, in the future, you'll be able to have -- wherever you are, the phone number will be able to reach you. You'll have a personal phone number, a portable phone number, portable equipment, and wherever you are, at the office, in a car, at home, that phone will ring, i.e., if you let it ring.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you think this is really going to happen, Mr. Noam? I mean, we've been hearing about this for quite a while now, and we've heard -- remember when we were supposed to all have video telephones, is this really going to happen?

MR. NOAM: Well, this are happening. Sometimes they're happening slower, but they're happening. And I think what you're seeing is that the short-term implication, in the short-term we're exaggerating the impact. We think there will be a helicopter in every garage in five years. In the long-term, however, just as the automobile changed American society, these technologies, particularly the mobile and the fiber technology, are going to transform the way in which we work, transact business, have a personal life, shop, and do everything.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So we're really having a major revision of our communications system, no more individual local telephone companies, long distance carriers, cable companies, they're all going to sort of mix together, is that the idea?

MR. ELMER-DEWITT: Yeah. That's sort of less interesting to the consumer than what kind of services can you get. In the wireless deals, which were triggered, of course, because the government is selling off the frequencies sort of one slice at a time --

MS. FARNSWORTH: That's what happened or will happen in early December?

MR. ELMER-DEWITT: Right. Well, there have been auctions all year long, and there's more to come. They're very controversial. But my favorite, the killer application that I'm waiting for is, you know, the day that you're in your office and your boss's office, and you know you're supposed to pick your daughter up at the violin lesson but your meeting is running late and you can't get to a phone, you type out a little message, you know, running late, I'll be there as soon as I can, and you push a button and in her book bag a little beep goes off, and she knows she's got a message from dad, she reads her message, and she knows to wait. That -- to do that we need a wireless E-mail system, and that's one of the things that they're going to be auctioning off. That's one of the uses for the bands that they're going to be auctioning off in December.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And the, the cable, the fiber optics coming into our home, or the other kinds of service that will provide interactive television service, why can this happen now, and it couldn't happen five years ago, Prof. Noam?

MR. NOAM: Well, the costs are coming down, but the government is also auctioning off the airwaves and partly for the wrong reasons, namely to throw it into the black hole of the federal budget deficit, but the basic idea of, of coming out and distributing competitive new forms of mobile communications that will bring prices down and make performances such as the one mentioned possible is quite a good one.

MS. FARNSWORTH: But I'm not thinking about the portable one here, the service in our home. Is that because fiber optics are more available, or because of the new digital technologies, or why do we hear about this all now, and we didn't five or ten years ago?

MR. NOAM: Well, partly we are reaping the benefits of a competitive environment that has been established over several decades of a fairly strong political struggle. We now have multiple companies that are struggling with each other. The industry used to be compartmentalized. Everyone did their own little thing, their own territory, or their own service, or their own technology. Now the barriers are coming off, and as that happens, everybody has to struggle a lot faster, and so these mergers that you see are part of these things working themselves working themselves, on reorganizing, restructuring the industry, not just in America, elsewhere in the world too, but it's starting here first.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And what about the public policy issues raised by this? What about the kid in a poor home who can't tap into some library to do a term paper when everybody -- all the kids that have money can?

MR. NOAM: Well, not only is that an issue but the general affordable telephone service. It was based on the fact that it was in a monopoly system. Some customers subsidized other customers.

MS. FARNSWORTH: In other words, businesses paid more?

MR. NOAM: Right. Cannot -- cannot exist in a competitive environment, but that doesn't mean that it cannot survive, the support system cannot survive, if you restructure --

MS. FARNSWORTH: Why couldn't it? Why couldn't a business have to pay more for an interactive system than a private home?

MR. NOAM: Well, because then in a competitive environment those kind of businesses would be targeted first. They'll provide the cream that will be skimmed off by competitors. But you can reorganize the system by restructuring universal service support, and, in fact, both the -- in the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats are pretty united on that to have all new entrance, as well as traditional companies sharing the burden of universal service.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Are you worried about public policy issues?

MR. ELMER-DEWITT: I am. When the phone system that we enjoy today was built, the government required that the phone company in exchange for having a monopoly, that it provide universal service. And fortunately now we have -- as you say competitive environment - - and the government doesn't have that stick of monopoly to force them to do that, although, you know, I am more worried about the fact that kids can't read. We sort of have two cultures here: one that gets its information from watching television and one that gets from reading newspapers.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What makes the deal makers so sure that there's a market for this product? I mean, there have been other examples of -- GTE, for example, tried something like this but nobody wanted to see the movies that were making available. Do you think there is a market for this?

MR. ELMER-DEWITT: Yeah. I think there is. I'm not sure it's what they think it is. They're very attracted to home shopping. I think there is a lot of -- people get a lot of pleasure out of actual physical shopping that they might continue to do even if they have the option of buying it at home. It depends on how they price it. People might like the convenience of being able to order up whatever movie they want to have when they want it, but if they charge -- have to pay a lot for it, they might not do it.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you think that there's a market for all of these services?

MR. NOAM: Well, I think nobody has a crystal ball. These are bets. I think what these three phone companies are doing is they place a bet of a hundred million dollars for, approximately for each company. Those are very substantial companies. They can afford that kind of money. It's a risk hedging. It might work out, and then again it might not, they might get burned. But it's certainly kind of a way for them, call it a tuition payment for media, Hollywood 101.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Gentlemen, thank you very much for being with us. I'm sure we'll talk about this again soon. ESSAY

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Jim Fisher of the Kansas City Star talks about a Midwestern homecoming.

JIM FISHER: This is North Central Missouri, rural as you can get, one of those fly-over places for people on either coast. Of course, you don't have to get on a plane here to travel. You can go to Mexico, Paris, even Florida, all within 20 miles of this place, one whose name you've heard before, except folks here say "Santa Fee," [Santa Fe] Missourians pronounce words the way they look. There's not much left here. Sixty Souls, the Masonic Lodge, a boarded up grocery. Hard to believe that Santa Fe used to have a bank, a Ford agency, several businesses, even its own newspaper, and believe it or not, this, a trolley, the old Mexico Sante Fe and Perry Traction Company. Ran up until World War I when gravel roads and high wheel cars came in. Those latter two things doomed not only trolleys but Santa Fe and a couple of thousand other small, Midwestern towns. It's peaceful here and at times probably a little dull. Oh, there's been crimes. Forty years ago a fellow sparking the same girl as the town electrician arrived home, walked into what essentially was a booby trap rigged by his jealous rival, and was nearly electrocuted by concealed wires carrying power from a nearby 7200 volt rural electrification line. Compared to today's drive-by shootings, that was pretty imaginative. But that was a long time ago. These days most of the action happens in a place called "The Store." Mornings and afternoons older people play ten point pitch and trade lives. Others come to buy canned goods and milk, bread and soda pop. That's Richard Willingham behind the counter. He's 47, related to most everybody in town. He shouldn't be here. Willingham settled in Vancouver, Washington, married, raised his kids, and lived the good life.

RICHARD WILLINGHAM: I guess the No. 1 thing that I went out there for was the fishing. Loved to fish, loved the salmon fishing, and everything was so handy from Vancouver, you go an hour most any direction you could find some type of outdoor sports or, or some type of entertainment, and you didn't have to go a long way. So everything was right there in Vancouver.

JIM FISHER: Except a few years ago he started noticing things.

RICHARD WILLINGHAM: A lot of people, the growth. I think probably the growth. It's growing leaps and bounds out there. And everybody is in a hurry.

JIM FISHER: It was time to come home. Willingham and his wife, Dixie, saw a need here, primarily a place for folks to get together and a grocery store to finance it. The couple came up with the money to build it, and this fall the Willinghams sold their house and moved here. What the couple did wasn't all that unusual. Poke around the Midwest, away from the cities, which are like any other cities, and you'll find similar stories. It's not a tide of people, probably never will be. It's individuals here and there, who've had enough of the smog, the crowding, the senseless crime, who know there are places other than the savage streets the media seems to portray as the norm, rather than the exception. Now Willingham is a storekeeper, an honorable profession. Dixie makes ceramic dolls, and there's always time to wet a line at the big reservoir just to the North. No salmon though, just bass and catfish. And Santa Fe? Sleepy as ever. Well, maybe not always, especially when the ten point pitch game gets going. I'm Jim Fisher. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, the man accused of firing a semiautomatic weapon at the White House was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Francisco Duran was held without bail after being charged with four federal offenses in U.S. District Court. And this evening, an American Airlines commuter plane crashed about 20 miles South of Merrillville, Indiana. American Eagle Flight #184 was traveling from Indianapolis to Chicago. Police officials have reportedly said there were no survivors among the 68 people aboard. Good night, Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Good night.