The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight two Newsmaker interviews with Amb. Richard Holbrooke about the Kosovo deal he brokered and with Attorney General Janet Reno about hate crimes, the Atlanta bombing, and other matters, plus a Tom Bearden report on Indian colleges, and a conversation with writer Calvin Trillin about the Clinton-Lewinsky matter. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: More Serb forces pulled out of Kosovo today. International monitors said they saw police withdrawing from the countryside. But State Department Spokesman James Rubin said the Serbs still had a long way to go. Serbian President Milosevic has until Saturday at 1 a.m. to reduce the number of soldiers and special police in the southern province or again face a NATO air assault. The Serbs also were supposed to help more than 200,000 Kosovo refugees return to their homes. We have this report from a refugee camp near the Kosovo capital of Pristina. Julian Manyon of Independent Television News is the reporter.

JULIAN MANYON: Winter misery has hit the refugees of Kosovo. These people have had no relief supplies for three weeks. They are short of food and warm clothing. Sandals are the only shoes that many of the children possess. Conditions here are about as miserable as they could be. The rain's continuous. It's freezing cold, and the earth beneath the tents is turning into mud. Yet, in spite of President Milosevic's promises, the people here show no sign of returning to their homes. The truth is that they simply don't believe him. A two-year-old boy called "Midgeon" is ill because of the conditions, but his mama still doesn't want to take the chance of trying to go home.

WOMAN: [speaking through interpreter] We're not going. We've tried to go home three or four times, but the Serbs fired at us. I was forced to bring the children back here.

JULIAN MANYON: Their village, Krishnareka, is only a couple of miles from the mountainside where the refugees are hiding. Among the wreckage, some villagers are now trying to repair their homes. Lawson Chali counts himself lucky that a house he was building before the war survived intact. He now spends daylight hours trying to make it habitable but returns every night to his family in the refugee camp.

JIM LEHRER: We'll talk to Richard Holbrooke, who negotiated the Kosovo Accord, right after this News Summary. Congress today passed a fourth temporary spending bill to keep the U.S. Government running through Friday. Talks on the 1999 budget continued. Republicans and Democrats are close to a compromise on how to spend $1.1 billion allotted for improving schools. The impeachment inquiry against President Clinton will focus on core charges of lying under oath, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde said so today. But he said committee Republicans had not decided to drop any specific charges. He talked to reporters at the capital.

REP. HENRY HYDE: Obviously, we're going to have toconsolidate, streamline, or if we are to attend to the array of charges within the time limit that we have imposed upon ourselves and all that is contingent on cooperation from the White House.

JIM LEHRER: Hyde said reaching this December 31st deadline would also depend upon cooperation from committee Democrats. At the White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart said officials were looking forward to meeting with the committee to discuss the standards for impeachment. In economic news today retail sales were up in September. The Commerce Department reported they rose .3 percent. A rebound in auto sales was behind the increase. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 31 points. It closed at 7968.78. A wanted fugitive named Eric Robert Rudolph was charged today with the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. That attack during the summer Olympics killed one person, injured more than one hundred. Federal officials said Rudolph was also charged with bombings at an abortion clinic and a gay bar in Atlanta in 1997. FBI agents and stated local authorities have been searching for Rudolph in the western mountains of North Carolina. He was last seen in January. He was originally charged in the bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. At a news conference Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh announced the latest charges. Freeh said this:

LOUIS FREEH, FBI Director: Mr. Rudolph is now charged with six bombings, including the Birmingham bombing, and that complaint you have seen already. The gravity of these offenses is reflected, first of all, in the indiscriminate nature of his targets, innocent civilians in almost every case, and also a planned and deliberate attack against law enforcement officers, rescuers, first aid individuals who came to the scenes.

JIM LEHRER: We'll talk to Attorney General Reno later in the program tonight. An Indian economist won the Nobel Prize for Economics today. Amartya Sen, a former Harvard professor, now at Trinity College in Cambridge, England, was cited for his studies on famine and other catastrophes at India, Bangladesh, and Africa. The Royal Swedish Academy, which awarded the prize, said Sen has restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of vital economic problems. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to newsmaker interviews with Richard Holbrooke and Attorney General Reno, a report on Indian colleges, and a conversation with Calvin Trillin.% ? NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: The interview with special Kosovo envoy Richard Holbrooke. I talked with him this afternoon.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador, welcome.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: It's a pleasure to be here, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Are you optimistic today, 24 hours or so later, about the arrangement you made with President Milosevic?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Optimism is a word I never use in this area. Let me just be clear on what happened. When we left for the region nine days ago -- when the President and Sec. Albright asked us to go out there -- we were on a glide path towards a war, an aerial war to be sure, but the bombers were getting ready, the fighters were at Aviano fueling up, and NATO was getting ready to issue an activation order, and I really thought that the odds were overwhelming that we were going to have to use force. We gave Milosevic a choice between the use of force and a very strict compliance and verification regime. And after nine of the toughest days imaginable, Milosevic agreed to two verification regimes, a very intrusive aerial surveillance system, which NATO will conduct; Milosevic's air force will have to turn off its radar. They will have to put their anti-aircraft in cold storage, and there will be a safety buffer zone. That air campaign of non-combat surveillance will be conducted, of course, by NATO, but interestingly enough, Jim, the Russians have asked about the possibility of participating in it. On the ground, over 2000 international verifiers in civilian clothes will be there under the auspices of the OSCE - this 54-nation organization based in Vienna. OSCE has never done anything like this before, but we're going to make sure it's for real. These people will be able to go anywhere they want in the country - in Kosovo.

JIM LEHRER: Who are these 2000 people?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Anyone who wants to sign up should send their application to the OSCE in Vienna. You know, every time I go around this country speaking, every time I appear on your show, I get letters from people who did the same kind of thing in Bosnia and said they'd like to do it again, send theirresumes to them.

JIM LEHRER: So you don't have to be a trained diplomat or a military person or anything like that, huh?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: God, I hate to say this in front of my friends in the State Department who - who were so wonderful in this negotiation, but, hey, you don't have a diplomat to be a verifier. These are people who are going to live in towns and villages in Kosovo. They're going to be guaranteed their safety. But we'll have an emergency extraction campaign, if necessary, planned, and an over-the-horizon capability. They're going to be there to verify, to conduct elections, as we move forward in the political process and so on. But I want to be clear - Kosovo was and remains a crisis. Inside the crisis we hit an emergency over the use of force to stop this dreadful thing that had happened in Kosovo over the summer in which you and I have talked before and on which you've reported. We can now see a route to end the emergency, although the activation order was passed two nights ago in Brussels by NATO, and it's still in effect but suspended while we wait for compliance. Today I talked to the French and British foreign ministers and Secretary Albright also did, and we talked to the head of NATO, Solana. They're all -- Solana is getting ready to go to Belgrade within 48 hours to sign the air surveillance agreement. The head of OSCE, Foreign Minister Goremick of Poland, will go there to sign their agreement, and then we want to put these people into Kosovo to verify and comply. Meanwhile, their initial report put them in further drawdowns, so --

JIM LEHRER: Drawdowns by the Serbs of their troops and police, right?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes. So going back to your question about optimism and pessimism, all I can say is that three years ago we ended the war in Bosnia using NATO air power, and I hope that history will record that this week we started the turnaround in Kosovo with the threat but not the use of NATO air power -- but to stress to your viewers, the threat was real, and will remain in force as and if necessary.

JIM LEHRER: Give us a feel for what it was like to sit with Milosevic for -- How many hours altogether were you with him over these last nine days?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I didn't add it up but on the day before yesterday it was 11 hours alone. Yesterday we had a nice short meeting, only two hours and as I went over the final arrangements for our announcements. But I've spent a lot of time with them. With the exception of the last two days of Dayton, this was far and away the most difficult situation.

JIM LEHRER: Dayton is when you were negotiating Bosnia, right?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes. That was 21 fun-filled days.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: But this one was not. This one was really difficult. It was heated and emotional at times. Kosovo is far more important to President Milosevic than Kosovo - excuse me - let me rephrase --- I'm a little tired here. Kosovo is far more important to Milosevic than Bosnia was, because it's inside Yugoslavia. Bosnia was an adjoining country. It was heated at times, it was emotional at times, but in the end, we made a set of arrangements which I think give us the chance of compliance with these UN resolutions. And then we can turn to the core problem, which is the political situation.

JIM LEHRER: Give us a feel for the heat and the emotion that was inside the room at times between the two of you.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, you know, I'm trying to think of anecdotes. We have a rule not to disclose confidential things, but let me just give you an example. On the third day -- the first three days were unbelievably difficult. And I wasn't sure how we were going to emerge from this. I made it clear that bombing was likely. We moved the B-52's forward from the United States to the United Kingdom, and we moved carriers in the Adriatic. On the third or fourth day my memory is a little vague right now, we added to our delegation Lt. General Mike Short, the U.S. and NATO commander of air forces in Southern Europe. General Short, who is a very tough, no-nonsense airman, with 240 missions in Vietnam under his belt, came in and I introduced him to Milosevic and Milosevic leaned forward in characteristic fashion and said - opening line - said, so, General, you're the man who's going to bomb us - was his first line -- and Mike Short was momentarily taken aback, but he came right back at him and said, Mr. President, I've got B-52's in one hand, I've got U-2's in the other - I'm going to be ordered to use one of the two of them, I hope you make the right choice, but I'll do whatever I'm told. That kind of leveled the playing field, and Milosevic knew he was up against the real thing. I think Mike Short's presence in those negotiations -- General Short's presence was really important.

JIM LEHRER: When was it that you realized that Milosevic realized this was -- this threat of an air strike - of air strikes -- was real?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I don't know that. You know, my colleagues in Washington - Madeleine Albright - Sandy Berger - others -- Bill Cohen - asked me the same question repeatedly when we had our secure phone conversations. We would go into this little telephone booth with all sorts of detective devices to guard against listening and have these calls to Washington in the middle of the night. Two nights ago we were on the phone with them till 5: 30 in the morning. And then when we got to the hotel, there were 30 journalists waiting for us. And that question was asked. And I don't know the answer. But it was real, and I think that you just put together the package and make sure that it's understood.

JIM LEHRER: Now, you've spent all this time with Milosevic - you've spent time with him before - it's not the first time you've spent some intense moments with this. What's he like? Is he an evil man trying to do evil things? Or is he - do you have any understanding beyond - of him or understanding of why he feels the way he does and does what he does?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I think power motivates him. He's very smart. He's very tough. I think there's a great deal of cynicism there. I know that many people have described him as an extreme nationalist. That is not my view. I think he's more opportunistic than nationalistic. There are people to the right of him - Sheshel -- Karadzic in the region - who are real fascist racists. I think this is a different equation. He's extraordinarily dangerous and will take advantage of any opportunity to gain something. But I also want to say that I'm not into making a moral judgment at this time about somebody with whom I've had to negotiate. My job was to negotiate with them. And I want to just add one more point, Jim, particularly since you know my wife, Kati. She wrote a book, which was very influential in my thinking, about Raul Wallenberg. Wallenberg negotiated with Eichmann to save 300,000 people. Eichmann was surely one of the most evil men, to use your word, ever in Europe in this century, but Wallenberg's theory, which I fully subscribe to, was it's better to negotiate with a person to save lives still alive than to refuse to. And, I therefore have no qualms about doing things which I think will ultimately help the Albanians in Kosovo who have been treated so badly by the Serbs in Belgrade and in Kosovo.

JIM LEHRER: Did you leave there feeling that Milosevic did what he did because he was forced to do it, and that had you had not come and essentially threatened him, held a gun to his head, he would not have done this?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, the short answer to your question is yes. But I don't want to personalize this into the second person singular. It wasn't me. It was a team Belgrade, including General Short, including Amb. Chris Hill, who continues the negotiations now with the Albanians, which is still the crux of the problem. We have to deal with the realities of the refugees, of the political debasement of the process, of the need to hold the elections and get the local Albanian police up and running and get the Serb security police out of the Albanian hair, and we were backed up by all of NATO, by the whole contact group, by the OSCE, even the Russians, and back in Washington the determination of the president and of his national security team, including Madeleine Albright, Bill Cohen, of Britain, France, Germany. Madeleine Albright and I went to Brussels and London together in the middle of it, as you reported. So it was an extraordinary effort.

JIM LEHRER: The 250,000 people who have been displaced, Albanians, ethnic Albanians have been displaced because of this.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I think more than that.

JIM LEHRER: Is it more than that? At least 250,000, 300,000, whatever. Are those people really going to be allowed now to return to their homes and live in safety and comfort?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Most of them are out of the forests and out of the hills that they went into during the summer because if the weather deteriorated, most of them came back into the lower lands and took up residence. But a lot of them are living with relatives or friends or camping out somewhere; their own houses have been destroyed. The current U.N. estimate is that the number of people still out in the open is between ten and fifty thousand. That's a lot, but it's going down every day, and one of the good news events of today is that the U.N. - based on the suspension of the activation order - the U.N. has gone back in there, is starting the humanitarian supply again. But the key thing is to let the people go back not just to get out of the forest but to get into their original homes. And a lot of these homes have been destroyed. And Milosevic said to me - look -- I said to Milosevic the international community should not pay for this, you should, you caused it. He said, fine. He said, I've sent cement and bricks and mortar around and the Albanians can come pick it up, and I said to Milosevic, but, look, you - you put them at the Serb supply, the Serb checkpoints - so that the Albanians are scared to come and get the bricks and mortar, and if they come in, the Serbs have this paraffin test where they put a paraffin test on your arm to see if you've been near gun powder, and if the paraffin test, which isn't always accurate, tests positive, they pick you up as a terrorist. So --

JIM LEHRER: Is he going to stop that?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, the paraffin test only is valid for 72 hours, and the fighting has been over now for about eight or ten days, but the paraffin test - you know, it was terrorizing the Albanians. So -

JIM LEHRER: That's over now, right?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The paraffin test is over --

JIM LEHRER: But what about the rest?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The supplies are still in Serb control -- checkpoints, and that's one of the things we want the U.N. and after them the OSCE to work on.

JIM LEHRER: So there's a lot to be done?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Oh, God, I mean, it's immense, but it's not up to us today to know whether this is the turning point, but I'll tell you something - because you and I did the same interviews at the time of Dayton - history will tell whether it works out or not, but I got a feeling that maybe we're seeing the bottoming out of the emergency and the beginning of an attempt to address the crisis. The crisis is the future of Kosovo within Yugoslavia, and we're only scratching the surface of that one today.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Well, thank you very much. Get some rest. You've earned it.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Thanks, Jim.% ? NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has the night's second newsmaker.

MARGARET WARNER: And with me now is the attorney general, Janet Reno. Welcome, Attorney General Reno. Thanks for being with us.

JANET RENO: Thank you. It's good to be here.

MARGARET WARNER: I want to ask you a little bit more about the announcement you and the FBI director made today about charging this fugitive, Eric Rudolph, with these various bombings, including the Olympic Park bombing. What led you to connect him to all of these various incidents?

JANET RENO: Well, as you know, an arrest warrant was issued from Rudolph today, but the affidavit remained sealed, so we can't discuss it. But the work went into this effort by local detectives, by the FBI, by ATF, has been really a model of the joint investigation tying pieces together, doing excellent work, and I think it's very important.

MARGARET WARNER: There have been some reports that there was a lot of physical evidence in common - nails used in some of the bombs, there were steel plates that directed the blast certain ways, and I think Mr. Freeh even referred to this - I guess - last May, when they posted the big million dollar reward for him. Can you confirm that, at least, that some of that connects?

JANET RENO: Since the affidavit is sealed, we obviously want to do what's right by the investigation, but I can just confirm that we have tried to pursue every lead, every forensic lead.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, he's been on the run since, what, January, since the abortion clinic bombing. Why is he so hard to capture?

JANET RENO: I think he is prepared for something like this. I think he knows where he's at and he knows the territory. He has prepared and trained himself for it, and he's experienced in survival.

MARGARET WARNER: You mean, he's really a survivalist?

JANET RENO: That's what it seems to be.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, do you all still think he's in this area, I guess, in Western North Carolina, in the mountains there?

JANET RENO: They believe that - the people who've been out there - that he is in Western North Carolina or Tennessee or in that area of the mountains.

MARGARET WARNER: And at one point I think you had something like 200 various law enforcement agents looking for him or involved in the search. Is the search still as intensive?

JANET RENO: It still is intensive but it comes and goes, as different leads develop, or as different processes have to be pursued to make sure that we exhaust every possible lead. The FBI agent in charge of the investigation has said that he has not lacked for resources, and we're committed to giving him what he needs.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think today's announcement or the publicity about today's announcement might help?

JANET RENO: I think it's important, as we have developed the evidence that the people know what our conclusion is to date and I think it will be helpful in alerting people to the fact that this is a random killer who has operated in different venue. He's dangerous, and he should be brought to justice.

MARGARET WARNER: And do you have any information or reason to believe that he's planning other attacks?

JANET RENO: Considering what he's done to date I think it is important that he be apprehended as early as possible, that he be brought to justice to avoid harm to anyone else.

MARGARET WARNER: I wanted to turn now, if I could, to the beating and subsequent death of this gay University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shepard. After he died earlier this week, you took the occasion to call on Congress to pass a hate crimes prevention bill that is up there, that is pending. Explain, if you could, what a hate crimes law - what kind of a difference it would make in cases like this.

JANET RENO: Hate crimes really attack all of society. They attack the group the victim belongs to. They create a sense of risk for the people who are the victims, or who are the targets, and that's the reason there's been a long-standing federal commitment to eradicating or eliminating violence, which is an act of discrimination or an act of bigotry against a particular group, against a person because of who he is, not what he's done. And with that, the administration, along with bipartisan support in Congress, almost a year ago now filed this bill seeking to make sexual orientation, disability, and gender part of protected groups, protected against discriminatory violence. But it did more than that. Right now, the bill - I mean, the act as it exists today, provides that you can take action when it is directed against race, religion, national origin, and/or color. But you can't do so if it does not involve a federally protected activity. What this law would do - what this act, if we can get it passed, would do would be to say, okay, it may be federally protected to be on the street, but if you're on the private property 10 feet away from the street, that's not federally protected activity and therefore there would not be federal - a basis for a federal charge in that case. Thus, it becomes so important that we protect the right regardless of where the person stands, or what property they stand on, we have an interest in protecting people against hate, against discrimination, against violence, based on bigotry.

MARGARET WARNER: Though, if such a law were on the books, would it have prevented conceivably what happened at the University of Wyoming?

JANET RENO: It is hard to say - I can't really talk about that case, because it is a pending case, and it is appropriate for the local prosecutor to proceed as he is. We have been in touch with the U.S. attorney. But it is important for government to speak out against acts such as this. But this bill precedes this terrible, terrible tragedy in Wyoming, and we should look at it on its own and the need for it. If we see a terrible act committed and the state comes to us and says we don't have the resources to pursue this, we have a small county, it's a small jurisdiction, we need your help. We're limited in how we can help, because we don't have jurisdiction. This would give us jurisdiction in instances where the violence was focused on sexual orientation, on gender, or on disability.

MARGARET WARNER: So would it mean you would automatically go into a situation like this, or only if you were asked by the local authorities?

JANET RENO: No. What we would do is consult with local authorities in those situations if they refused to do it, if they were unable to do it, if they asked us to do it, if we had the resources, and it might be a variety of reasons, but we would work it out with them as to what was in the best interest of the case, because in many instances, local prosecutors pursue it, do a good job, and achieve justice. They are on the front lines. We serve - if you will - as a backup to them and as an assurance that the federal interest in eradicating violence that is prompted by bigotry is eliminated.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, some 40 states have hate crimes laws. Wyoming is not one of them. And in, I think, 20 or 22 of those states sexual orientation is included. Did it make a difference in those states, just in terms of - you spoke of the symbolic value - of declaring that government stood against hate crimes, did it make a difference when these states passed hate crimes in terms of the frequency with which they were committed?

JANET RENO: I don't have the statistics on what states have done based on the breakdown, but what is important is that even in some instances the state may pass a hate crimes act but there may be another state evidentiary problem that limits what the state can do in a particular case, whereas, the federal government would have broader authority if it had jurisdiction. I think we're all interested in trying to do whatever is right under the law and under the Constitution to try to protect against violence that is produced by bigotry.

MARGARET WARNER: Finally on this point, you know, critics say the problem with it is, it gets into the government or authorities trying to determine motive even before there's been a trial, but how do you know if something's been a hate crime?

JANET RENO: Basically, a hate crime is a crime directed against a group or a person who belongs to a group in a discriminatory way and a way that is prompted by bigotry, prompted by hatred. And that is what this government has been against for so long. It has spoken out in terms of race, religion, national origin, and color, and it should do the same. People shouldn't be treated differently, and most of all, they shouldn't be the victim of violence based on who they are and not what they've done.

MARGARET WARNER: Turning now to the Starr investigation, you announced last Friday that your office was - or your department was conducting a review of certain allegations involving independent counsel Kenneth Starr. What are you looking at there?

JANET RENO: Obviously, I can't discuss what we're looking at, but we're reviewing all thematters that have been brought to our attention recently to see what course of action the Department should take.

MARGARET WARNER: But are you speaking of allegations from the president's attorney that somehow Mr. Starr's office misled you in coming and asking for the expanded authority to look into the Lewinsky matter?

JANET RENO: We're reviewing the matters that Mr. Kendall raised in his letter to me and any additional information that has been brought to our attention.

MARGARET WARNER: In retrospect, do you have any second thoughts about your decision to recommend that he take on this expanded authority, as opposed to say asking another prosecutor to look into it?

JANET RENO: I would not comment until we've completed the review and any appropriate action that followed the rule.

MARGARET WARNER: And your office said on Friday that this was not a "formal inquiry." Could you just explain layman's terms what's the difference between the review you're doing and a formal inquiry.

JANET RENO: What we're doing is reviewing it to see whether we should open an investigation, a formal investigation, whether there's a basis for an investigation and what should be done, whether there is no basis for it.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, on campaign finance you do have three formal inquiries looking into the financing of the 1996 Democratic presidential campaign, as I understand it. I know you can't speak about the substance of those, but can you tell us where those stand just sort of timetable-wise?

JANET RENO: The 90 days are coming up. I think the first one is probably towards the end of November, but I'm not sure. I take my memory with a grain of salt. The schedule is back at my desk.

MARGARET WARNER: And that is the 90 days - at that point you would have to decide whether to appoint an independent -

JANET RENO: The statute provides for an application in certain instance, or it provides that it could be closed in certain instances, or it provides that I could request an additional 60 days.

MARGARET WARNER: And you probably won't answer this, but do you - you've been under a lot of pressure from Republicans on the Hill to name an independent prosecutor in this matter. Do you have any second thoughts now, knowing what you know, that you didn't do it sooner?

JANET RENO: I try to do everything based on what I think is right. I look at the law. I look at the evidence. And I try to say to people, look, don't pressure me, it's not going to help one way or the other; I'm not going to react to it. I'm just going to try to do what I think is right.

MARGARET WARNER: Why do you think this particular matter has been so contentious between yourself and certain Republican - Republican leaders on the Hill?

JANET RENO: In many instances it's not been contentious. I know they feel strongly about it, and they know that I'm trying to do what's right, according to my perspective, and that we disagree. With others, there's a certain amount of contention, but what I try to do is recognize that Congress has an oversight authority and at the same time I ask them to recognize that I have a responsibility to carry out the law free of unwarranted pressure and based on what people can submit to me in terms of evidence, law, and argument that goes to the evidence and the law.

MARGARET WARNER: One final thing before we go, if I could just inquire about your health. How are you feeling?

JANET RENO: I feel fine. I was back at work the next day, but everybody has been so wonderful to me, and I deeply appreciate it.

MARGARET WARNER: Great. I hope that continues. Thanksfor being with us.

JANET RENO: Thank you.% ? FOCUS - TRIBAL COLLEGES

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Colleges on Indian reservations and a conversation with Calvin Trillin.

JIM LEHRER: Tom Bearden has the Indian college story.

TOM BEARDEN: In many ways graduation day at Sinte Gleske University is like graduation at any other college. Friends and family turn out for the celebration. There's a commencement speaker and talk of hope for the future.

SPEAKER: I believe that our future is our past and how we interpret it and how we preserve our practices and traditions.

TOM BEARDEN: And then, one by one, the graduates are called onto a stage to receive their diplomas. But there are some real differences as well. The graduates each receive an Eagle feather in their hair; their diplomas are printed in the Lakota language on calfskin leather. And the ceremony is capped off with an entire weekend of activities, including a rodeo, and a powwow. Although these rituals may not be commonplace at most state and private schools, they are at the 30 tribal colleges which have been established on Indian reservations over the last 30 years. The schools are located primarily in the upper Midwest and Southwestern parts of the country. Enrollment has doubled over the past 10 years to about 25,000 students, representing 250 different tribes. Sinte Gleske was founded in 1971 and was named for a Lakota warrior chief. It's located on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in remote South Central South Dakota in a county that has one of the highest poverty rates in the country. Sinte, as it's known for short, offers two-year, four-year, and graduate degrees.

ANN VALANDRA, Class of 1998: I would just like to extend the deep appreciation to my family that has helped me reach this goal, and to the Sinte Gleske University day care and the administration and staff. They have allowed me opportunities that I would not otherwise have received at any other college. Thank you.

TOM BEARDEN: Ann Valandra graduated this year from Sinte Gleske with a degree in business administration. Before coming here, she had attended the University of South Dakota, but ultimately dropped out because she felt alone and isolated so far away from her family.

ANN VALANDRA: My Grandpa Tom has always stressed that heritage and your roots are very important and to, you know, always surround yourself with a good, stable family system. And so that's pretty much why I came home, because I was so much involved in my family that I, you know, I just didn't think I could be that far away from them.

TOM BEARDEN: A single mother, Valandra is a typical graduate of the University. 70 percent of the students are women, the average age is 30, and most have several children. The University helps students stay in college by providing day care and allow women to bring their children to class. Tuition is just over $2,000 a year. About half of the students receive some form of financial aid. Class size is small, sometimes as few as four, so students receive a great deal of personal attention. A wide range of courses are offered and are designed to help students get jobs after graduation, including accounting, education, computer science, even silversmithing. But the core of the curriculum and the only required courses are those in the Lakota Studies Program. Even though about 85 percent of the students at Sinte are from the Lakota Tribe, most know little of tribal history and even less about Lakota language and customs.

ALBERT WHITE HAT, Teacher, Lakota Studies: All native American philosophy and traditions were outlawed.

TOM BEARDEN: Albert White Hat teaches Lakota language and philosophy classes. He says too often students have only negative images of their heritage.

ALBERT WHITE HAT: We're not to be trusted. We're savages. And recently we're drunks; we're lazy. I mean, that's the image they always portray of us. We grew up seeing that, so when we get into public place, without thinking, we become that image.

TOM BEARDEN: White Hat says studying Lakota traditions gives students self-respect.

ALBERT WHITE HAT: We notice that these students - boy, their minds open up - they challenge what's out there. A lot of them sober up, you know, and change their lives. It's wonderful to dream again. It's wonderful to have visions again, and it's wonderful to have ways of addressing those visions, those dreams, and making them into reality.

TOM BEARDEN: Tribal colleges were the dreams of Indian leaders more than 40 years ago. They were established to provide a nurturing atmosphere on the reservation that Indian students weren't receiving when they left go to state and private schools. The physical plants at most of the tribal colleges are more like a nightmare, a rag tag assortment of decrepit buildings and old trailers. Dorm rooms are scarce or non-existent. Athletic facilities are often nothing more than a basketball hoop. The faculty, who have mainly been educated at non-tribal colleges, are paid far less than their colleagues at other schools. The average teacher's salary at a tribal school is just over $24,000. The federal government provides all of the tribal colleges with a core amount of about $30 million a year. That averages out to about $3,000 per full-time student. Additional money comes from special government grants and from private organizations like the Kellogg and Lannan Foundations, both of which are major contributors to Sinte. Lionel Bordeaux is the president of Sinte Gleska. He says money is their biggest challenge.

LIONEL BORDEAUX, President, Sinte Gleska: We need to keep the funding stream going. We're able to serve student needs. We provide student needs academically and culturally, but we're very meager on resources. We've been able to stretch a dollar a long way, as you see from this building here. These are OSHA-condemned buildings that these institutions started in, and, yet, this is a way of life with tribal colleges.

TOM BEARDEN: Many applaud tribal colleges for their mere survival but some say it's time for them to focus on what they are and what they want to be in the future. William Tierney is a professor of higher education at the University of Southern California and the author of a book about tribal colleges. He notes that tribal colleges have been around for 30 years and need to assess what's successful and what isn't.

WILLIAM TIERNEY, University of Southern California: Are they as rigorous as they can be? Probably not. They - like so many other higher education institutions - don't have extremely clear indicators of what a quality education or quality curriculum is. If you think of academic rigor, in some ways tied to the faculty, do the faculty at tribal colleges have as good training as - or sufficient training as other faculty at other institutions? I think tribal colleges, themselves, would say probably not, and in large part that is a response to - they just don't have enough resources to survive.

TOM BEARDEN: Tierney says the colleges also suffer from trying to do too many things for too many people, and as a result, teaching becomes more about maintenance than excellence.

WILLIAM TIERNEY: They need to decide on a case by case basis which kind of education and training they want to do, because they can't be all things to all people. If they want to focus primarily on jobs and employment and in that sense a certificate or an AA degree is a terminal degree, or do they want to be a transition to a four-year institution or become four-year institutions, themselves? And you can't do all of those. There's finite resources right now.

TOM BEARDEN: One of the aims of the tribal colleges is to improve living conditions on the reservations. The hope is that college educated Indians will stay on the reservation to start businesses and spur economic development. Although most graduates do remain and 90 percent of them are employed, real improvements have been slow in coming. Unemployment on the Rosebud Reservation, for example, is still nearly 80 percent. 30 percent of the children never complete high school, and alcoholism is still a very real problem. Nevertheless, residents say Sinte Gleske has had a profound effect on their community. A major one has been providing many more Indian teachers for elementary and secondary schools.

TOM BEARDEN: Shirley Gunhammer graduated from Sinte with both an undergraduate and a master's degree in education. She's been teaching at the elementary school in Rosebud since 1982 and has won several state and national awards for her work. Gunhammer says Sinte has affected even the first and second graders she's taught over the years. She says they have an appreciation for education that kids 30 and 40 years ago didn't have.

SHIRLEY GUNHAMMER, Class of 1982: The major important thing that I see within the students that I teach is the fact that they are proud of their education because they have their parents or grandparents or aunts or brothers or sisters going to Sinte, and they participate in activities at Sinte with them, and they're just really excited about higher education.

TOM BEARDEN: Sinte Gleske and the other tribal colleges hope to build on that excitement to use the unique cultures of their tribes to foster a new tradition of higher education among native Americans. They believe that would go a long way toward solving the seemingly intractable social and economic problems that have long plagued America's Indian Reservations.% ? CONVERSATION - PERSPECTIVES

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the last - for a while at least - in our series of conversations about the issues raised by the conduct and the investigation of President Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky matter. We have talked to Stephen Carter, Orlando Patterson, William F. Buckley, Deborah Tannen, and Shelby Steele. Terence Smith has tonight's.

TERENCE SMITH: With me now is Calvin Trillin, also known as "Bud," staff writer for the New Yorker and a columnist for Time Magazine. He's also the author of several books, the most recent entitled "Family Man." Bud Trillin, welcome. I believe you made a recent discovery that you and your wife, Alice, are not, after all, members of the Eastern elite but, in fact, the American people, in caps.

CALVIN TRILLIN, Author: That's absolutely right. We reflect perfectly the survey showing what the American people believe about the Lewinsky affair, and so we no longer wait for the polls. I just Alice, what do you think of that, and if I think the same thing, that's it.

TERENCE SMITH: And what are the American people thinking these days?

CALVIN TRILLIN: Well, they're thinking probably something separate from and different from the people I call the "Sabbath Gas Bags," the commentators on Sunday morning, and the rest of the press. I think they're thinking that - well, you can see the survey - although in our house, of course, you don't need a survey - that all of this is deplorable, but now we'd like to go on and talk about something else.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, now, as I understand it, the "Sabbath Gas Bags" as you call them are not very happy with you, the American people and your reaction to the Lewinsky scandal.

CALVIN TRILLIN: They're horrified with us, Terry. In fact, I'm afraid to come to Washington, because I'm afraid that one of the "Gas Bags" will recognize me in an elevator as the American people and grab me by the lapels and start shouting at me, "How dare you not believe what we say you're supposed to believe!"

TERENCE SMITH: Now, some people are calling this the umbrage gap. What's that?

CALVIN TRILLIN: Well, I think the umbrage gap is something between the press and "the" American people, that is Alice and me. And I think it's partly because, well, there's always - there's always a certain kind of gap in these situations. There was in Watergate. I wrote something in Watergate that I found myself quoting a lot lately, and that is that people in our trade are so enamored of tumult that they find it difficult to understand how ordinary people dread it. And so there's always more excitement in these events in the press, and also they have the spirit of the case. I mean, the "Gas Bags" and the rest of the press are sort of like someone riding in a fox hunt, and he's on the horse, and he's focused on the fox, and he really thinks it's the most exciting thing in the world, and people who are observing the fox hunt might just see him as an overweight man in a silly costume on a horse who doesn't seem to be having a terribly good time, and they also tend to sympathize after a while with the fox, even if the fox looks like the same sort of fox that took away some of their chickens.

TERENCE SMITH: Have the "Sabbath Gas Bags" reached a consensus, do you think, on whether the President should go?

CALVIN TRILLIN: Well, I think they've reached a consensus on the level of outrage because I think they're invested in the story. There are a couple of ways of looking at any event in this. The facts really aren't much in dispute, but if you look at the President's testimony in the Jones deposition, for instance, you can either think oh, my goodness, he perjured himself, and he's the chief law enforcement officer of the land, and that's terrible, we can't stand for that, or you can think this is sort of a divorce action thing that happens every day and it's very difficult apparently to find anybody who's ever been indicted for it. And either one of those are defensible. But if you're a person who said at the beginning he's not telling the truth about this, he'll be out in a matter of days, which side are you going down on? I mean, they're invested in this, and one thing we know in this society is you have to protect your investment. I don't mean it's a bias or a wicked evilness or anything. It's just a normal human way of looking at things.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, there is a sense that a sort of consensus or critical mass has been reached among especially those reporters/pundits on Sunday mornings, that this is very serious stuff, and you, the American people are not taking it seriously enough. That's you and Alice.

CALVIN TRILLIN: Yes. It's amazing. Almost everything they say - and I've actually written that when the "Gas Bags" mentioned a phrase, the American people, it would be a good time to hit the mute button, because they keep saying things that I don't recognize. One of them at the beginning was saying almost as a mantra that the American people and Bill Clinton had an implicit contract, but all that kind of thing was behind him, and I asked Alice, do you remember signing some kind of contract with Bill Clinton? She said, no. I said, me neither, I don't know what he's telling me about. So I think, yes, they've decided it's very serious business, and it is serious business. I mean, I think that, as many people have written, there are really two streams of the story. One of them is what happened, that is, what the president did? The second one is how it was discovered and what's being done about it. And I think most people - certainly myself included - because I am the American people after all - were greatly offended by the first part, what the president did. But I think that we're even more offended by the second part. And I have to say that I hate the second part. I hate the release of grand jury testimony and the document dump and Monica Lewinsky's psychiatric - I don't think that anybody's sexual activity is very uplifting in transcript form, and I don't see what we're doing in all of this.

TERENCE SMITH: That's probably part of what you were talking about when you wrote about the maniacally legalistic society. Is that what you see?

CALVIN TRILLIN: Yes. In a way. I mean, I think that we've pulled these huge machines up in order to deal with this, and, of course, as it turns out, as we're told weekly by the pundits, the people who were interested in pursuing this are mainly interested in the process. They don't actually want Bill Clinton out. They want the process, and you know, I think it's something like maybe the tulip lunacy in 16th century Holland or something. I don't think - I mean, I think that most people - judging from my house - can really distinguish between what was done and what's happening now. And I think most of us now are somewhat offended at being told that because we're also offended by what's happening now and lack any sort of moral values, and the only people who have moral values are either the "Gas Bags" or the congressmen, and I don't really want to go down this road. I mean, I mentioned once that there's nobody perfect around here, and when one of those congressmen gets on television and says, it's getting so you can't watch the news with your kids anymore, the reason he can't watch the news with his kids is those aren't his kids. His kids are back in the district with his first wife, and if you look very closely at the divorce trial, maybe there was something about when the affair started with the lobbyist that wasn't - was he lying to the American people? I just think that we all think - that is, Alice and I - that means the American people - think that we've gotten into an area that's not exactly our business and I think - I don't think it's surprising that we feel this way. I think there was a hint even in '92, when people - when the Republicans had to back off the family value business after that convention. I think that people have an innate feeling that - at least Alice and I do - that we were raised to think that this stuff was none of our business.

TERENCE SMITH: And you also have your friend, Hobart, the conspiracy theorist, and he - he obviously thinks this is all a plot to -

CALVIN TRILLIN: Yes.

TERENCE SMITH: -- to help out Al Gore, whom you describe -

CALVIN TRILLIN: That's right.

TERENCE SMITH: -- as a man-like object.

CALVIN TRILLIN: Yes. I have described Gore as a man-like object, but I dothink that Hobart originally said - that was when Hillary Clinton said it was a vast right wing conspiracy and Hobart said maybe not a vast right wing conspiracy but if you change that to creepy little cabal, maybe he'd go for it, and I recently in the spirit of a columnist making sure that all their columns were correct, checked that out, and I can't find that I had a friend named Hobart but I do find the creepy little cabal is still around.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. Well, I want to thank you and Alice, which is to say the American people.

CALVIN TRILLIN: The American people thanks you too.% ? RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke confirmed on the NewsHour tonight that more Serb forces were pulling out of Kosovo. White House and congressional budget negotiators were moving to a 1999 budget agreement and wanted fugitive Eric Robert Rudolph was charged with three bombings in Atlanta, including the '96 Olympic Park bombing. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.