The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: President Bush's trip to Europe- - Gwen Ifill talks to four columnists about the problems and the opportunities; the power of the committee gavel in the United States Senate-- Kwame Holman tells the story of one committee; Ray Suarez then talks chairman history with Michael Beschloss, Haynes Johnson, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Norton Smith. And the taking of Shakespeare to the streets of Denver-- Paul Solman performs. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush arrived in Europe today, his first trip there since taking office. His initial stop was in Spain for talks with the prime minister. As they met, European union leaders rejected the President's global warming initiative. They said it was short on action. At a news conference later, Mr. Bush said allied relations remain strong.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I recognize that not everybody agrees with the United States on positions. But there is so much more to the United States unites us than devised us. We share common values and trade together and work on security matters together and a refuse to let any issue isolate America from Europe, because Europe is too important for America's future. Sure, there's going to be differences of opinion on big issues but that will not prevent our friendship from enduring and growing stronger as far as I'm concerned.

JIM LEHRER: The President is to meet with NATO leaders tomorrow in Brussels. We'll have more on the story right after the News Summary. A Saudi man was sentenced to life in prison today for his role in the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa. He was one of four men convicted in the case last month -- the first to be sentenced. A federal jury in New York City deadlocked over the death penalty, so he automatically received life without parole. The bombings in 1998 killed 224 people and injured thousands at the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Federal prosecutors said alleged terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was behind them. Muslim rebels in the Philippines claimed today they'd beheaded an American hostage. He was one of three Americans they seized in the southern Philippines on May 27. We have a report from Ian Williams of Independent Television News.

IAN WILLIAMS: It was supposed to be a day of celebration, but as parades began in Manila, the rebel Abu Sayyaf announced what they called an independence day gift to the government. In a chilling call to the local radio station in Mindanao, they claimed they'd killed 40-year- old American hostage Guillermo Sobero. "We have released him unconditionally," said a spokesman, "without his head. President Arroyo was quick to express her revulsion.

PRESIDENT GLORIA ARROYO: If the Abu Sayyaf's claim is accurate, it only emphasizes the fact that it is a merciless, ruthless group that has no qualms at all in murdering an innocent person.

IAN WILLIAMS: She's ordered an all-out war against them, sending fresh troops to the island of Basilan, where the Muslim rebels are holding 28 hostages. Among them: Three Americans and a group of Filipinos seized from a luxury seaside resort. Unlike her predecessors, the President has refused to negotiate or pay ransom to a group she regards as bandits. Although they've kidnapped foreigners before, they've never killed one, though they've not hesitated in beheading Christian Filipinos.

JIM LEHRER: Government forces found a headless body today on the island where the hostages are being held. A military spokesman said it belonged to a Filipino. But he also said it was very likely the rebels had in fact killed an American. The number of tuberculosis cases in the United States hit an all- time low last year. That's according to a study released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It recorded just under 16,400 cases, down 7% from the year before. TB rates fell by half during the 1990S. The report said early detection and better treatment helped fight drug-resistant strains of the illness. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the President in Europe, chairman power in the U.S. Senate, and Shakespeare on the streets of Denver.

FOCUS - THE PRESIDENT ABROAD

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill has the President in Europe.

GWEN IFILL: In Madrid today, a gracious welcome for President Bush from Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. But in the streets, a different European reception as protesters denounced the execution of Timothy McVeigh. In most European countries capital punishment is banned -- this, the latest indication of anti-Bush sentiment on a continent where many consider the American President unfamiliar with world affairs. On capital punishment, the President said today the United States and its European allies will have to agree to disagree.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The death penalty is the will of the people in the United States. There are some people who don't agree with the death penalty in our country, and it's not an easy subject for any of us. I understand others don't agree with this position. The democracies in Europe reflect the will of the people of Europe. That doesn't mean we can't be friends.

GWEN IFILL: Another issue dividing the old world from the new: Global warming. In April, President Bush personally told German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder the U.S. would reject the Kyoto Treaty, which caps greenhouse gas emissions. And in the face of fresh denunciations today from the European Union, the President made clear he has not changed his mind.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I did speak out against the Kyoto Treaty itself, because I felt that the cote treaty was unrealistic. It was not based upon science. The stated mandates in the Kyoto Treaty would affect our economy in a negative way. On the other hand, I did say loud and clear that we must continue the process of dialogue.

JOE MARIA AZNAR (Translated): President Bush has adopted some initiatives, and those initiatives need to be studied by the E.U., and they will also be studied by Spain, I insist, from the position that we have had of ratifying the Kyoto protocol.

GWEN IFILL: Another source of friction: The U.S. plan to develop an antiballistic missile shield. That would violate a 1972 arms control pact favored by most European states, including Russia. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to sell the idea in Germany last winter.

DONALD RUMSFELD: These systems will be a threat to no one-- that is a fact. They should be of concern to no one, save those who would threaten. And let me be clear to our friends here in Europe, we will consult.

GWEN IFILL: But French President Jacques Chirac has said abrogating the treaty will "relaunch the arms race in the world." And the German chancellor warned the U.S. against "overly hasty and early determinations" to create a missile shield. Still, the White House has backed off on other pronouncements that had unsettled European allies: Specifically American military presence in the Balkans, and talks with North Korea. Last year, the President said the U.S. should pare back its 9,500 troops in Bosnia and Kosovo; about one-sixth of the total force. That would increase the European burden. But Secretary Rumsfeld sent different signals last week at a NATO meeting in Brussels, announcing there will be no unilateral withdrawal.

DONALD RUMSFELD: We will stay with them, and when things are appropriate and stable, we would in cooperation and consultation with our allies adjust our forces with them at the appropriate time. You certainly would not want to adjust troop levels downward in at any point in a way that left an unstable situation. The reason for going in was to create a stable situation.

GWEN IFILL: And, after first disappointing South Korean President Kim Dae Jung by delaying talks with North Korea on economic and defense issues, the White House has now decided to restart the negotiations. The E.U. played a role in this as well, moving to open diplomatic relations with the historically closed regime of Kim Jong Il, whom President Bush said he could not trust. These discords have fanned editorial criticism of the White House across Europe. The British "Guardian" newspaper has called the Bush era, "a Presidency of dunces." "Der Spiegel" in Germany labeled the President "the little sheriff." And the Russian news agency "Pravda" derided Mr. Bush as "the toxic Texan." After his stay in Spain, the President travels to Belgium, Sweden, Poland, and Slovenia.

GWEN IFILL: For more on President Bush's trip to Europe, we welcome three European journalists and one American: Christiane Meier, a U.S. Correspondent for ARD, a German television network; Sylvie Kaufman, New York bureau chief for the French newspaper, "Le Monde"; and Toby Harnden, bureau chief of the "Daily Telegraph" newspaper in London. The American is Fareed Zakharia, editor of "Newsweek International."

Christiane is all that editorial globviating we just saw -- is that real tension or is it just editorial tension?

CHRISTIANE MEIER: It might be both. I think in a way it's real tension because the Europeans and especially the Germans feel that they have been approached in a way they didn't really appreciate. They didn't feel they were consulted in all of the questions but rather than informed than consulted but everybody called it consulting. So I think the reaction has a lot to do with that the way they were approached and I think behind that there are a couple of really tense issues like missile defense, which is very worrying for the Germans and for the rest of Europe as well, and also the Kyoto Treaty.

GWEN IFILL: Sylvie Kauffman, hyperbole or real?

SYLVIE KAUFFMAN: Well, I think President Bush has two problems: The first one is a problem of his personal image with the media and the public opinion, which, frankly, this image is really terrible. He's still seen as a weak President who got badly elected without getting the majority of the popular vote. He's seen as the executioner in chief as governor of Texas and for... in this respect it was very unfortunate for him that Timothy McVeigh had to be executed the day he left for Europe, which made sure that all the headlines were there on the front pages yesterday. And on the other level of course you can hope that European governments are a little bit more settled and that they are aware that this is a new administration, which is probably still in the process of formulating its policies. But there has been a style of this administration, which has very much shocked European government in your face style - you know -- going alone -- take it or leave it, which with regard to of course the Kyoto protocol on global warming, as you said, but as well as on some issues like the international criminal court - on coordinated fight against money laundering. A whole range of issues have been dealt with in a very unsettling way for Europeans.

GWEN IFILL: Toby Harnden, you were a part of the group of journalists who got to interview the President yesterday. Do you think he saw all this coming?

TOBY HARNDEN: I think at the beginning of his administration certainly not. I think that I would say would be the single biggest failure of the diplomacy a failure to explain oneself. I thought it was quite striking that Condoleezza Rice said that she was very surprised by the surprise in Europe about the rejection of Kyoto because it had been so widely talked about in the debates and join the campaign. So clearly I think there was a failure on the administration's part to realize the difference in perception certainly in Europe over these issues. But I do think that the problems that do exist, the tensions that exist have been exaggerated. I think we have had this before -- under Reagan the beginning of the Clinton administration so to some extent these are perennial concerns we have, but it's part of the values gap, the perception gap between the U.S. and Europe, which is a very different continent.

GWEN IFILL: Fareed Zakaria is it real gap, or is it just a perception?

FAREED ZAKARIA: Well, it's a real gap, but we have to remember that Europe and United States have disagreed vehemently on policy ever since the beginning of the Atlantic Alliance. I mean, European attitudes toward the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Grenada, Euro missiles, Nicaragua were all much, much stronger; compared to that these complaints are frankly quite reasonable differences that can be bridged. There is another thing, however, going on. It's not just American unilateralism at work here. It is the fact that Europeannations are increasingly utterly self-absorbed. They are basically concerned with the building of the European Union, which is a great and historic enterprise, but has produced a common foreign policy that is frankly embarrassing. Whether you look on issues relating to the Balkans - whether you look on even on the environment on which Bush has taken a lot of heat, in fact, Europe has been utterly irresponsible, paying lip service to Kyoto while doing absolutely nothing. They are wide off the mark in hitting the targets that Kyoto sets out. So Europe has its own part to play in this. And my fear is that you have two societies -- Europe and the United States -- that both for their own reasons have become somewhat self-absorbed and are not paying enough attention to the mutual interests that really sustain this alliance.

GWEN IFILL: Christiane Meier, let's start talking about Kyoto. Is the Kyoto Agreement something that is never going to pass in the United States, never going to be ratified here, something that only one country, Romania, has bothered to ratify? Do Germans - does the German public feel that it's justified to be as upset as they have been over the President's determination that he would just jettison that and come up with something else?

CHRISTIANE MEIER: Yes. Definitely. It is a surprising thing for me as a European to listen to a colleague and hear how little they react to the real concerns of Europeans, and maybe they're more sensitive than Americans towards global warming. But it is a real concern. And the latest poll show that 80% of the Europeans - actually a poll from today -- would agree that in the European nations and nations involved in the Kyoto protocol would ratify that without the United States. I think that is not a good idea because the United States, and I think that is certainly not a very good idea because the United States contributes 25% of all the greenhouse gases. So it would be much better not to talk in ways of irresponsibility or tensions -- but just talk about topics.

GWEN IFILL: This is not European self-absorption?

CHRISTIANE MEIER: I don't think so at all. I think it's real concern about a real topic. And maybe that is part of the problem; that Europe feels they're not taken seriously - they're not taken seriously by the Americans or, yeah in this case the American administration I should say.

GWEN IFILL: Toby Harnden, how about the antiballistic missile treaty and missile defense that the President is pushing? Is this something which there is room for negotiation, minds that can be changed?

TOBY HARNDEN: I think certainly. I think the ground has begun to ship. I mean, it was interesting at the beginning of the administration when Rumsfeld went over to Europe that European leaders began to, I think to accept that missile defense was going to happen. And it was a question of how to manage and deal with it. The situation is slightly changed now because of the change of control in the Senate, which means that the Europeans who really don't want missile defense to happen have now got a hope that the Democrats in the Senate will block it. But I think that the grounds is shifting on missile defense but if you look at Tony Blair's position in Britain it's much, much wink, wink, and you know, I don't want to say anything publicly for fear of upsetting the left wing of my party in a election which we have now had. But I will support you. And I think also if you look at the way of Bush administration have handled the ABM Treaty and missile defense it has been more clever than the way they handled Kyoto. They are consulting and they are seeking to bring people with them before reaching or announcing a conclusion.

GWEN IFILL: Sylvie Kauffman, how about the notion that Fareed Zakaria proposed that this is a problem about European Union self-absorption and not so much about what President Bush is or is not bringing or saying?

SYLVIE KAUFFMAN: I do agree that Europe at the moment is very much focused on its... On building Europe and on internal problems. You know, this is a very difficult process. It's taking a lot of its energy. But I disagree when he says that we're just having... That Europe is having an irresponsible policy and therefore, not really I think the way this administration has handled the Kyoto issue, the global warming issue is really... This is the major sticking point as my British colleague just said. Nuclear missile defense will be resolved. The dialogue is going on and the administration... American administration had a very different approach to it. But Kyoto is a very deep concern not only for government but for public opinions. It's not true to say that we're just paying lip service to this treaty. I think Spain actually has ratified it - not only Romania. But governments are committed to ratifying it. The European yesterday again expressed its commitment to reach the targets, which the protocol calls for by 2012 -- the targets of rejection of greenhouse gas emissions. And this is a very, very deep issue. You know, we had this problem before I think with genetically modified food. I don't think that the Americans were taken the Europeans seriously on this before and finally the positions got closer and this issue... This issue is now taken very seriously here as well.

GWEN IFILL: Fareed Zakaria, it seems we have two issues here: One is that the Europeans are not taking Americans seriously, and the other that - I mean, the Americans are not taking the Europeans seriously and the other is the flip -- that people aren't taking President Bush seriously; that he looks like a cowboy to them. Is there any way that he can end up undercutting his own expectations on this trip? I guess what I'm trying to say is the expectations are so low is there any way that he won't meet them?

FAREED ZAKARIA: I hope he'll meet them because it won't be good for the alliance if he doesn't. Look, I think that there are some genuine disagreements. I don't mean to suggest that there aren't. And I think that the Bush team has been unnecessarily provocative. But my point is really take Kyoto. It's all very well to say that one is in favor of it but it requires specific actions that involve frankly reducing economic growth in order to meet these targets. Not one European government has done anything about that. It seems easier to say in the abstract we want this, but it would require in order to meet these targets - you would have to go through substantial recessions in Europe in order to hit these targets by 2012. Or take defense spending. Europe says it wants to have its own defense capability because it wants to be a serious player; yet they're cutting defense budgets by 5% every year while at the same time the rhetoric is that they're going to build defense capabilities. That's what I mean by irresponsible. You can't simply mouth the rhetoric of environmentalism or a serious defense policy and not achieve it. So I would wish that Europe would pick up the gauntlet and become more serious in substantive terms and I do very much wish that Bush would be more serious, listen more carefully, consult a great deal more because -- as I say -- in historical terms these are not great differences. Most of them can be bridged. On the environment both sides do want to achieve some kind of practical solution. On missile defense frankly no deployment is going to take place for the next ten years in all likelihood. So we're talking about something that, you know, it's extraordinary. We have managed to take a research program that doesn't really work and united the world in opposition against it.

GWEN IFILL: Sorry. Toby Harnden, is it important that the President is not going to London, Paris or Berlin on this trip?

TOBY HARNDEN: I think it's noteworthy. I mean, he has seen the leaders of those three countries in Washington but I think he's wanted to send out a number of messages. He's going to Spain, which is one of the two center right governments in Europe. He's obviously not going to have the same third way relationship with the center left governments that President Clinton had. So I think that's the difference. I think that clearly it's a nod to the Hispanic folk in the United States. And this is a President who was Governor of Texas. His international dealings in so far he had any are with Mexico - he's said he wants to look to the Pacific. I think we are going to see a change of emphasis in that he's not going to look solely toward Europe and Europe I think... I mean the flip side as you indicated of is that Europe -- there is a challenge there for Europe to and that is to take Mr. Bush seriously. And they need to get his attention.

GWEN IFILL: Christiane Meier, is it important he's not going to those major capitals?

CHRISTIANE MEIER: No, I don't think, because as my colleagues said they have met and I think it's now or more on the issues on the transatlantic relationships between America and Europe -- as Europe and not so much on particular, you know meetings with heads of state. But I think that his big chance on this trip is that he makes not only himself known and doesn't have sort of nice dinner conversations, the chance that he gets cross that he is changing his approach and that he's listening to Europe.

GWEN IFILL: Sylvie Kauffman is that all he has to do this week or is that very important to do in one week?

SYLVIE KAUFFMAN: Yes, it is a very important visit, absolutely. I'm not troubled by the fact he's not going to Paris or Berlin or London. He's going to meet the whole group of European leaders in Sweden. So this is actually a very good approach to meet the European Union as such. And he's going to Brussels as well so this is not a problem. It maybe better because a visit in Paris right now might have be been a little controversial. I think only good can come out of this visit because he will listen and the Europeans will listen to him as well and this administration has already showed as you showed in your segment that there was a lot of pragmatism going on as well and it's....

GWEN IFILL: Okay.

SYLVIE KAUFFMAN: Sorry.

GWEN IFILL: No, that's all right. Thank you very much. We'll all be watching it all week long. Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the power of the gavel, and Shakespeare in the street.

FOCUS -CHANGING CHAIRS

JIM LEHRER: Now, a two-part look at the importance of committees and their chairmen in the U.S. Senate. First, Kwame Holman reports on how the recent Democratic takeover changed things in one committee in particular.

KWAME HOLMAN: One morning last January, just before the confirmation hearing for defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld got under way in the Senate Armed Services Committee, Virginia Republican John Warner had to relinquish the chairman's gavel to Michigan Democrat Carl Levin. It happened in the midst of an unusual 17-day period when the new 50/50 Senate had been sworn in, but the new Bush administration had not. With Vice President Al Gore still holding the constitutional authority to cast any tie- breaking vote, the majority in the Senate rested with the Democrats.

AL GORE: The majority leader, Senator Daschle, is recognized. ( Applause )

KWAME HOLMAN: Republicans, of course, regained majority control once Vice President Dick Cheney was sworn into office, but their majority lasted only 117 days. The decision by Vermont's Jim Jeffords two weeks ago to leave the Republican party put the Democrats back in charge, and Armed Services Chairman John Warner was forced to give up the gavel again.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: And I say to my good friend Senator Levin that we came to the Senate some 23 years ago. We have worked together these many years, we will continue to work together, and I extend a hand. Good luck. Thank you very much.

KWAME HOLMAN: We asked both Senators what impact the change in majority control and the change in chairmen would have on U.S. Military policy.

KWAME HOLMAN: So Senator, your first thought was not, "there go John Warner's issues and priorities out the window"?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: No, absolutely not. The issues are the same for both of us. Senator Levin is very conscientious and a hard worker, and he has in his heart the best interests of the men and women today in uniform, and those that will serve tomorrow and in the years to come.

SEN. CARL LEVIN: Particularly in the area of national security, it is essential that we act in a bipartisan way. We'd like to do it in other areas, too, but at least in this area we ought to live up to our rhetoric, as few... As close to that 100% as we possibly can. And that means that there may be differences because there are going to be some differences. There may be changes in direction, changes in emphasis, but for the most part, 80% to 90% of our work is consensus work, having to do with the quality of life of our troops, the readiness of our forces.

KWAME HOLMAN: And the bipartisan working relationship that has existed between Senators Warner and Levin has extended to the other 22 committee members.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: We're very proud of the fact that the Armed Services Committee, no matter which party holds the chair, has the maximum achievable degree of bipartisanship that we can have in the United States Senate.

KWAME HOLMAN: The tradition of bipartisanship on the Senate Armed Services Committee can be traced back to the creation of the committee in 1947. Maryland Democrat Millard Tydings was one of the first four chairmen; all of whom insisted the committee take a unified stance on defense policy to answer the emerging threat posed by the Soviet Union in post-World War II Europe. In 1951, Georgia Democrat Richard Russell helped bring the Senate Armed Services Committee into the national spotlight when he chaired a hearing on President Truman's firing of General Douglas Macarthur as commander of United Nations forces in Korea. By 1968, Russell's power and influence over the committee had led to bipartisan agreements to forge a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, oppose a military build-up in Cuba and pursue war in Vietnam. Three members of Russell's committee later would chair the Armed Services Committee and continue the bipartisan tradition: Mississippi Democrat John Stennis, who presided during the 1970s when publicsupport for the military had been eroded by Vietnam; Texas Republican John Tower, who under President Reagan directed the largest peacetime military buildup in history; and South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond, who continues to serve on the committee today, as do Democrats Daniel Inouye from Hawaii and West Virginia's Robert Byrd.

SEN. CARL LEVIN: What an extraordinary committee it is because it's had a tradition of bipartisanship.

KWAME HOLMAN: However, a push by Republicans in 1995 to begin laying the framework for a missile defense system strained bipartisan relations on the Armed Services Committee. And that same issue could divide the committee again. As President Bush spends this week trying to convince European allies to support his renewed call to build such a defense system, Democrats have remained unconvinced. And Senator Levin made that clear during Donald Rumsfeld's confirmation hearing.

SEN. CARL LEVIN: We need to analyze the extent to which we spend defense resources on threats that are the least likely to occur. A ballistic missile attack from a terrorist state against the United States is a threat, but it is one that we have successfully deterred, and against which we have a continuing, overwhelming deterrent. And, of course, there are cheaper and easier means of attacking the United States than an ICBM; means such as truck bombs, poisoning of water systems, or infiltration of computer networks, which may not open the unknown attacker to massive destructive in return.

KWAME HOLMAN: Are you concerned that the President's national missile defense initiatives won't be able to move forward through the committee?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: I've had a wonderful opportunity in the past few days to spend some very quiet, one- on-one time with President Bush. And we covered this issue because it's one I've dealt with now these two decades plus. And he's absolutely right-- this country is vulnerable. We have absolutely not one single system of defense that can knock down a missile, were it to be accidentally fired towards the United States, or a rogue nation belligerently firing toward us, and the President is absolutely right, and indeed President Clinton, I think, to a point agreed that we've got to start in this country to just get a limited defense to knock down the one, or two, the three, maybe four or five at the most, missiles that might be fired at America.

SEN. CARL LEVIN: Senator Warner and I have different positions on missile defense, and have had. And so it's very possible that it will be different from what Senator Warner would have done for national missile defense but not necessarily, because President Bush is hopefully looking at the entire issue. He is getting a lot of advice from allies about going slower, not unilaterally destroying a treaty that lends a lot of stability to our relationship with Russia and to the whole world nuclear structure.

KWAME HOLMAN: And Levin admitted that although he is chairman of the committee, his power is limited.

SEN. CARL LEVIN: I don't have the power to stop something. That belongs to the U.S. Senate. The power of the chairman is the power to hold hearings, to call hearings, to call witnesses, to shape the argument, and to lay down that first budget from which then the committee will make a decision. It's in the committee's hands, not mine.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: Could a problem happen, sure it can. But at the moment I believe the President's agenda -- again -- I covered this in some detail with him fortunately here in our meeting. That is going to go forward. And I think that institution will be very responsible and fair, especially in the area of national security, to act on his agenda and support it.

KWAME HOLMAN: And Senate Republicans have in reserve the ability of the Republican majority in the House to offset actions taken by the Democratic Senate, and the President's veto power as well. And Chairman Levin himself understands his position as committee chairman is only temporary.

SEN. CARL LEVIN: One never knows what the future holds. We've learned that many times in politics. We can't predict how long anybody will be here, much less how long anybody will be chair.

SPOKESMAN: True.

KWAME HOLMAN: But for the time being, Levin is chairman and he's planning hearings on the President's missile defense plan sometime this summer.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Ray Suarez goes for some historical perspective on the power of the committee gavel in Congress.

RAY SUAREZ: And that perspective comes from NewsHour regulars and presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss; and journalist and author Haynes Johnson. Joining them tonight is Richard Norton Smith, executive director of the Gerald R. Ford foundation and former speechwriter and advisor to three Senators.

Well, over the past couple of weeks we've covered this change of gavel with the assumption that it's a pretty big deal. What does our own past tell us whether this can change history, Doris?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, in an earlier rare committee chairs had more power, I believe, than they do today. In fact, Woodrow Wilson once said in the late 19th century that we really had a committee by standing committee chairmen - that was governing by standing committee chairmen, rather than the Congress as a whole. I think the reason is that the Senate was more insulated in the old days; it was more hierarchy, more attention to seniority. Their goal was to simply create legislation within the Senate. They weren't all running for President. They didn't have access to television as an alternative source of power. So their power within the Senate was critical. And you could have a situation, for example, when Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was able to undo President Woodrow Wilson who had come back from World War I, the most powerful leader in the world perhaps, and yet he couldn't get the treaty to create the League of Nations through the Senate in part because they had this huge personal animosity. Lodge knew how to play on Wilson, saying to him, the treaty wasn't written well and maybe it was okay for a Princeton guy because he had been the president of Princeton, which he had, but not for a Harvard guy, which Lodge was. And then Wilson on his turn did just the opposite in same bad personal animosity said I will not change an iota of that treaty; I will crush my opposition. The treaty was lost; Wilson had a stroke, was devastated, and in some ways it led to us Hitler and World War II. So in those days I think the chairmen had much more power than they have, but even today we certainly, as we've seen, there's a great deal of difference in scheduling things and hearings and using your authority but it's not quite like the old, more insulated days.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's get some more historical examples. Haynes?

HAYNES JOHNSON: Well, she's right about the seniority problem. It's no longer just what it was. You can't just stay there forever. It used to be these guys would come into to take care of the committee for night. They literally sat like a potentate up there; that's not the case now. But in terms of think about individuals who shape history. Doris talked about Henry Cabot Lodge and the League; in the 1920s it was Senator Thomas Walsh of Montana who led the Teapot Dome investigation that forever changed the American's impression of Warren Harding. Harry Truman became Vice President because of his investigation of the war effort in those years -- a model of investigations. Joe McCarthy -- his name is part of the language now, McCarthyism. Estes Kefauver on crime - Bill Fulbright on the Vietnam War -- all the way down. Sam Irvin on Watergate. These individual people put a stamp on an era and they made a difference. They don't have the power. They did, that's true. But the fact Senator Levin said they can control the agenda; they can decide what to investigate and they can have the staff to go after things makes a huge difference.

RAY SUAREZ: Michael?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: And, you know, the other threat that runs through all this is that there are big cases in when Presidents have not managed the relationship with these very powerful committee chairmen. Doris mentioned Henry Cabot Lodge. Woodrow Wilson during much of the time that we're talking about was ill in bed in the White House, which probably even increased his instincts or inflexibility. Lyndon Johnson with William Fulbright had this great personal feud that prevented Johnson from going to Fulbright's office and saying can't we somehow have a policy on Vietnam that you and I can come together on. But, you know, there is one case in which a President really did handle it right, and that's Arthur Vandenburg after World War II. Vandenburg from Michigan - with Richard Milton Smith up there in Michigan -- was a prewar isolationist, would have been just the kind of person you would have expected after the war to say Americans should come back -- not be involved abroad. Truman was able to talk to Vandenburg -- get him come to his point of view so that in 1946, when the Republicans took over the Senate, Vandenburg became a foreign relations chairman, Vandenburg supported the Marshal Plan -- later on NATO, the foundations of the strategy that won the Cold War. I don't think it's too much so say that if Truman had not been so deft, Vandenburg could have obstructed him and we might have actually lost the Cold War.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Richard Norton Smith, you've worked with Bob Dole over the years, certainly as finance committee chairman as Ronald Reagan was trying to get that tax cut through. It made some difference who the Finance Committee chairman was.

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: It did make a difference. There is a famous story on election night 1980 --everyone was surprised Republicans picked up 11 seats in the Senate and that meant that Russell Long, the long-term chairman of the Finance Committee, would be replaced by Bob Dole. Howard Baker called Dole in the middle of night to tell him. Dole said, well, that's great, Howard, but who's going to tell Russell. And in fact, Long was so entrenched in that job when they had the first vote the first divided vote of that committee and they called for the chairman, Long voted. And he realized he had made a mistake. He went on to say I not only vote with my chairman; I vote for my chairman. That was entrenched power. There was a time Lyndon Johnson used to refer to committee chairmen as herd bulls. And the cattle there is no doubt are much willing to be herded around today. But the experience of Harry Truman like we talked about Vandenburg - Truman got the worst as well as the best because it is true of course in that so called beef steak election of 1946, Republicans took Congress for the first time in 16 years. Vandenburg said to Truman that if you want us with you on the landing make sure you're with us on the takeoff. That's exactly the origins of Communist containment and NATO - the Marshal Plan, et cetera - while Taft, Mr. Conservative, hero of the conservatives, Mr. Republican, that is, decided he could have any committee chairmanship he wanted. He took the Labor Committee. That was no accident. He wrote what became known as Taft Hartley, which imposed all kinds of restrictions upon organized labor. Truman vetoed the by. It was overridden in both Houses, and it is with us still today.

RAY SUAREZ: Is this something that's changed over time? The committee system is about 185 years old. When Presidents were weaker, were committee chairmen stronger, or did everybody sort of get stronger together as government got bigger?

HAYNES JOHNSON: We had what Doris talked about Woodrow Wilson - he wrote a great book on congressional government. That's basically what we had in 1960; Congress ran the thing. The presidency was not the overpowering office that it has been since Franklin Roosevelt in this period. The one thing that's changed is the role of television - the fact that you can have a hearing and if you can get people to come to that hearing, that can be a springboard for your issue number one or your personality, number two, or maybe your presidency, number three.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Haynes is absolutely right. I mean, in some ways Fulbright's power as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came from those televised hearings on Vietnam. Of course, Johnson didn't like that and used to called Fulbright half bright as a way of getting back at the idea that Fulbright was able to organize the opposition to the war because of television. But I think what's interesting today even with the reduced power perhaps of the chairman, particularly in the House I think it's reduced. It used to be much more authoritarian in the House. They've passed rules where there are more subcommittees; there are more ways of getting bills out of committees than there used to be. But a committee chairman who has savvy and power still has power. I mean, look at Wilbur Mills. Not so long ago he had such power over that tax legislation on Ways and Means no bill could ever get to the floor unless he allowed it to the floor and he would never let it get to the floor unless he was certain there would be no amendments, that his pride was involved. In fact, Lyndon Johnson used to say he was so concerned with saving his face that he's going to lose his ass someday. Then, of course, the irony was that his career ended when he was in the reflecting pond with a striptease person without a lot of clothes on, so Johnson was a great prognosticator of the future.

RAY SUAREZ: Go ahead.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I'm sure he did that -- unlike many other committee chairmen - (laughter) - but, you know, the other thing was that television broke it down but so did the end of the seniority system because in 1994 for instance when the Republicans came in, they said we're not going to put six year term limits on our committee chairmen and also we're going to elect them by secret ballot so you might get some surprises. And the biggest change of all is that when the seniority system was dominant, there was one group of American society that felt it more than anyone else, and that was black Americans, because most of these chairmen were southerners, very much anti-civil rights, and so for decades - Franklin Roosevelt, who probably would have loved to do something about civil rights, would not even support an anti-lynching bill because he thought that that would kill much of his other legislation in the Senate. John Kennedy in the early 60's would have liked to send a civil rights bill to Congress -- wouldn't do it because he thought it would stall his programs.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Richard, for all that change, we shouldn't gloss over the investigations power. Already the new Democratic chairmen are talking about looking into things like spikes in gas prices and the price of natural gas being delivered through pipelines, things like that. The investigations power still end up mattering in 2001 doesn't it?

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: And it matters more than ever to television. We live in a 24 hour news cycle and that means there's 24 hours to fill. The chairmen love that. Setting the agenda -- a phrase we have heard ad nauseum for the last couple of weeks -- to go back again - when Woodrow Wilson came back with his treaty - the Versailles Treaty and the covet of the League of Nations -- it was very popular initially. Henry Cabot Lodge, the brand new chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, knew he had to find a way to stop it. So he got up on the floor and read the entire text of the treaty. It took him two weeks - he read very slow - and he then convened hearings that went on six weeks. By the time he was done he basically began to build up a head of steam of opposition to thing. But one point that's very important, picking up on what Michael said - of course the impact of southern Democrats -- we looked at the Armed Services Committee in that film piece. One reason why the Armed Services Committee spoke with one voice so many years was not only because it had the same chairman but because of the enormous influence of southern Democrats who tended by and large to be conservative pro-defense, pro-military. They're gone, because by and large the southern Democrats - the conservative Democrats are gone from the Senate just as northeastern and Midwestern Republican liberals are an endangered species. That's affected the committee system as well.

RAY SUAREZ: Aren't there niches being filled by a new generation of Republican Senators who are also defending many of those same interests -- defense contractors outside of Atlanta, the shipyards and other places like that?

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Well, sure. There is no doubt special interests have as much as influence as ever on Capitol Hill. But the committee itself no longer speaks with one voice, as it did in the days of Richard Russell and John Stenis or John Tower. There was a continuity that was part of the bipartisan foreign policy - that was part of the idea that this country was literally living day do day under military threat from the Soviet Union and to the Soviet Empire. That's all gone.

RAY SUAREZ: Richard, Haynes, Michael, Doris, thanks to you all. Thanks to you all.

FINALLY - THE PLAY'S THE THING

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, much ado about Shakespeare. Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston reports.

PAUL SOLMAN: You could forgive them, downtown Denver's crowds, if they assumed that some strange time machine had turned the city back 400 years to Shakespeare's day, the bard himself at large, Henry V's St. Crispin's speech at hand.

BOY: "What's he that wishes so? My cousin, Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin, if we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss."

PAUL SOLMAN: For 17 years, the Denver public schools-- K-12, 71,000 strong, four-fifths of them minorities, and two-thirds needing help to fund their daily lunch-- have done what seems impossible these days. With inner city schools so roundly scorned for failing to teach kids to read and write, or care about the past or foreign lands, they've mounted scenes from Shakespeare in the spring and managed to engage 3,000 players to strut their stuff and fret up on the stage.

BOY: "I trust him with affairs of state, but he would send us to a watery fate."

PAUL SOLMAN: It's pretty hard when all the world's a stage, and all the players in their teens or less, each speaking metered verse in ten-beat lines: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

GIRL: "Injurious Hermia! Most ungrateful maid! The sisters vows, the hours we have spent where we have chid the hasty-footed time."

PAUL SOLMAN: This spring it seemed the Denver-fest was doomed for lack of funds. They needed $38,000, which an angel gave because he thought this project taught so much.

BOY: "My Ariel, be free and fare thou well." ( Applause )

PAUL SOLMAN: So once again the crowds cheer on their stars, as Shakespeare's shows continue to go on.

JOE CRAFT: Okay. Everybody's looking great.

PAUL SOLMAN: Joe Craft, an English teacher, steers the ship. While others argue whether standard tests should be the metric for what's learned at school, craft thinks that Shakespeare's words are sterner stuff. It forces kids to learn to read and think.

JOE CRAFT: If they can learn to read Shakespeare, they can learn to read anything. We start them early enough so they begin to pick it up, and it feels like their own language to them. So they go home and they say to their parents, you know, "we're doing Shakespeare," and they say, "oh, no, you can't do Shakespeare. Nobody can do Shakespeare." And then they come and see them and they say, "well, they're doing Shakespeare."

CHRISTOPHER DUNCAN: "Speak, if you can. What are you?"

PAUL SOLMAN: The words come proudly now, although at first they didn't quite come trippingly off the tongue.

CHRISTOPHER DUNCAN: The first time I figured it out, it was "Macbeth," I was like, "yay." But then I looked at the script and I was like, "whoa. This is really different." It was almost like learning a different language.

PAUL SOLMAN: If this be madness, there's a method in it.

CHRISTOPHER DUNCAN: "I have no reason to kill him."

PAUL SOLMAN: It took Chris Duncan months to learn "Macbeth."

CHRISTOPHER DUNCAN: "Where are they? Gone! Let this pernicious hour stand accursed in the calendar."

PAUL SOLMAN: But now he's learned so well, he speaks his lines faster than the rest of us can parse them.

CHRISTOPHER DUNCAN: "Do speak further about this."

GIRL: "Look up clear. Be confident and leave all the rest to me."

GIRL: "A drum! A drum! Macbeth doth come!"

PAUL SOLMAN: By festival time, all Park Hill School's fifth grade had mastered a short version of "Macbeth." The play abridged, but not the daunting verse, with words and rhythms the S.A.T's won't touch, like those of the three crones who stir the plot.

CHILDREN: "Thus do go about. Thrice to die, and thrice to mine. And thrice again to make up nine."

PAUL SOLMAN: Now you begin by saying, "when shall we three meet again," right?

GIRL: Yeah.

GIRL: Yeah.

CHRIS SMITH: "When shall we three meet again," because we're like, "when shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain."

PAUL SOLMAN: Right. And then you use a word... You say, "when the..."

KEEANA PULLENS: "When the hurly-burly is done, when the battle's lost and won."

PAUL SOLMAN: "When the hurly-burly's done." What's a hurly-burly?

KEEANAPULLENS: It's just like... It's like this phony word that you use. It's not...

PAUL SOLMAN: What? What, what?

CHRIS SMITH: The war.

KEEANA PULLENS: The war.

STUDENT: The war.

PAUL SOLMAN: It's the war? The hurly-burly, the fighting.

CHRIS SMITH: "When the battle is lost and won."

PAUL SOLMAN: I see. So the hurly-burly is like the battle?

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah.

PAUL SOLMAN: Reporter: Shakespeare's language in the mouths of babes; it seemed to be such stuff as dreams are made on.

BOY: "And I shall hear my Thisbe say, Thisbe oh, Thisbe, Thisbe, Thisbe."

PAUL SOLMAN: If Shakespeare's words pose problems for us all, to one in six of these kids, English is a foreign language they don't speak at home. Spanish is the native tongue of Thisbe-- Fernando Gomez-- here for just three years.

PAUL SOLMAN: How good was your English when you came here?

FERNANDO GOMEZ: Actually, I didn't speak any English when I come here.

PAUL SOLMAN: None at all.

FERNANDO GOMEZ: None at all.

PAUL SOLMAN: And now you're doing Shakespeare?

FERNANDO GOMEZ: My third year I'm doing Shakespeare and really like it. It's pretty cool.

RENE SOTO: I used to be like a very shy guy, so doing this I can get in front of a large crowd and just go loose, do whatever I want.

PAUL SOLMAN: Did it really change you that way?

RENE SOTO: Yeah. I lost my shyness mostly. In the classroom I'm like one of the... What is that, that sit back in the... Way back in the room and stay quiet, don't answer any questions or nothing like that. Well, now I still sit in back of the room but I talk more, I answer the questions.

PAUL SOLMAN: If some had lost their language fears, some had none. The queen of fairies in "Midsummer Night" explains in this speech how time's out of joint.

TAREENA WIMBUSH MAHDI: "And through this distemperature, we watch the seasons alter. The hoary-headed frosts falls in the lap of the crimson rose."

PAUL SOLMAN: Could you tell us who Titania is and what you were saying there in that speech of yours?

TAREENA WIMBUSH MAHDI: She is queen of the fairies. And she's talking to the fairy king about how they need to have intercourse because she knows that he's sleeping with other females, but they need to get together so that the seasons are in order.

PAUL SOLMAN: Anybody in your family or friends find this is a slightly shocking monologue to be doing on the street corner in Denver?

TAREENA WIMBUSH MAHDI: No, my mother didn't find it shocking at all. She's seen worse things than that.

PAUL SOLMAN: The famous bard spoke surely to his times, but has time made his work seem out of date?

PAUL SOLMAN: Do you feel that the themes you were writing about are really relevant to people who... In a country that you couldn't have imagined in your time, for example, from ethnic groups that were certainly not together in your day?

MATT LANG: I actually believe that it helps us all come together as one from many different backgrounds and many different societies. And back then it was only men, and now we let in women, and they perform even better than I believe the men do. ( Laughs )

BOY: "Who knows not or what dost where his thing?"

PAUL SOLMAN: The women do perform now, but their roles are scarcely changed, and frankly, there's the rub. "The taming of the shrew," to pick just one, is not exactly P.C. in an age when women are presumed as strong as men.

MAREN LEWIS: "If I be waspish, best beware my sting."

PAUL SOLMAN: It's not that Kathryn never held her own; it's just that she was held by stronger hands.

PAUL SOLMAN: Do you get mad sometimes when you see how you're being treated in this play?

MAREN LEWIS: Oh, yeah. I'm very frustrated about how he can just throw her around and that was acceptable at that time period to smack her and to spank her and to throw her around and things of that nature, to grasp her in such a way so that she can't move.

PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, the play's the thing that made her think.

MAREN LEWIS: I've been very interested in medieval time periods, and not just medieval time periods, but the period of when women were suppressed and didn't have the vote or things like that. And it brings me to a place of realizing what they actually went through.

BOY: "And let her be Kate. Then let Kate be chaste."

PAUL SOLMAN: Will Shakespeare plays to kids because he sensed that common folks respond to common things-- to jealousy and love, to greed and gags-- themes that play so well in Denver streets because he knew what fools we mortals be.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday: President Bush arrived in Europe, his first trip there since taking office. European Union leaders rejected the President's global warming initiative. And a Saudi man was sentenced to life without parole for his role in the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.