The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Gwen Ifill looks at the new debate about a missile defense system, Terence Smith tells the story of a 50-year-old incident during the Korean War, Margaret Warner talks with two writers about the future of Kosovo, and a Georgia judge reads her favorite poem. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton offered today to share missile defense technology. He suggested the U.S would give it to the European allies, and possibly Russia, if a defense system turns out to be feasible. He spoke at the end of a summit with European leaders in Portugal.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't think that we could ever advance the notion that we had this technology designed to protect us against a new threat, a threat which was also a threat to other civilized nations, who might or might not be nuclear powers but were completely in harness with us on a non-proliferation regime and not make it available to them. I think it would be unethical not to do so.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Clinton will discuss the issue with Russian President Putin in Moscow this weekend. We'll have more on the missile defense story right after this News Summary. Ethiopia today declared its border war with Eritrea had ended. An Ethiopian government spokeswoman said her country had retaken all of its lost territory after a 19-day offensive. The announcement came as the two sides held talks in Algeria. Mediators there pressed for an overall peace agreement. In Washington today, the Federal Communications Commission said millions of Americans will get a reduction in their phone rates. It is the result of an FCC agreement with AT&T, Sprint, and other phone companies. Monthly bills would go down as much as 50%, for basic service customers who make few, if any, long distance calls. FCC Chairman William Kennard made the announcement.

WILLIAM KENNARD: It means that residential consumers will have at least one long distance plan that has no minimum monthly charge at all. It means that business customers will continue to see reductions in long distance rates as a result of access charge reductions. And, very significantly, it calls for the largest access charge reduction in history, 3.2 billion dollars.

JIM LEHRER: Access charges are fees long distance providers must pay to use local networks. The changes take effect in July. Truckers and bus drivers testified today against cutting back their time on the road. They appeared at a Transportation Department hearing. New rules would limit them to 12 hours of driving in a 24-hour period. The current maximum is 16 hours. Truckers argue the limits would hurt business, but transportation officials say they would make the roads safer. Microsoft made its final arguments against a breakup today. A spokesman said it submitted revisions in the Justice Department's plan for splitting the company in two. He said the aim was to clear up vagueness in the plan. Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has already found Microsoft guilty of antitrust violations. He'll rule next on the penalty. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the new nuclear weapons debate, a Korean War story, a conversation about Kosovo, and a favorite poem.

FOCUS - MISSILE DEBATE

JIM LEHRER: Getting rid of nuclear weapons and defending against them, and to Gwen Ifill.

GWEN IFILL: As President Clinton makes his way through Europe on the way to his first summit meeting with new Russian President Vladimir Putin, one critical issue is at the top of his agenda. The United States wants to build a limited missile defense system designed to knock incoming rockets from the skies. The Clinton administration says amending an international arms control treaty to allow for such a system would enable the U.S. and other countries to guard against attacks but from post- Cold War nuclear threats, so- called rogue states, like North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. To win European support for his plan, President Clinton said today the U.S. would be willing to share missile defense technology with "civilized nations."

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I have always said that I thought that if the United States had such technology, and if the purpose of the technology is to provide protection against irresponsible new nuclear powers and their possible alliances with terrorists and other groups, then every country that is part of a responsible international arms control and nonproliferation regime should have the benefit of this protection. That's always been my position.

GWEN IFILL: But Russia is openly skeptical about the U.S. missile defense proposal. Putin has proposed that both countries reduce their nuclear arsenals to a total of 1,500 warheads each. China, which has 18 missiles in its nuclear arsenal, is also resisting. And officials from other nations have said building a U.S. missile defense system could trigger a new arms race. The Clinton plan would be a much less extensive version of Ronald Reagan's proposed space-based missile shield, derided by Democrats at the time as "Star Wars." But it would require changes in the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty signed by Presidents Nixon and Brezhnev. That treaty, designed to encourage disarmament, expressly forbids national missile defense systems. Because President Clinton has signaled he will decide whether to start building such a system before he leaves office, the missile defense system has emerged as a Presidential campaign issue. Republican candidate George W. Bush surrounded himself with foreign policy leaders from previous Republican administrations to denounce the plan.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: America must build effective missile defenses based on the best available options at the earliest possible date. Our missile defense must be designed to protect all 50 states, and our friends and allies and deployed forces overseas, from missile attacks by rogue nations or accidental launches. The Clinton administration first denied the need for a national defense system, then it delayed. Now, it proposes... now the approach it proposes is flawed, a system initially based on a single site, when experts say that more is needed. The administration is driving toward a hasty decision on a political timetable. No decision would be better than a flawed agreement that ties the hands of the next President and prevents America from defending itself.

GWEN IFILL: And arms control decisions, including possibly large reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, he said, should be left to the next President.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: It should be possible to reduce the number of American nuclear weapons significantly further than what has been already agreed to under START II without compromising our security in any way. We should not keep weapons that our military planners don't need.

GWEN IFILL: Democratic candidate and Vice President Al Gore defended the Clinton plan in a commencement address at west point.

AL GORE: We need to continue on a course of deeper reductions. But it is critical that we have the right approach in doing so. We are urging the Russians to tighten cooperation with us to protect nuclear weapons materials and stop the transfer of ballistic missile and nuclear weapons technologies to rogue states. It is these states that represent the new emerging threat to our country. The administration has, therefore, been working on the technology for a national missile defense system designed to protect all 50 states from a limited attack at the hands of a rogue state. We believe, however, that it is essential to do this in a way that does not destroy the anti-ballistic missile treaty. The Russians have made clear that their response to a comprehensive U.S. defensive system would be to halt arms control and increase the numbers of their offensive nuclear weapons.

GWEN IFILL: Gore said the administration should negotiate with the Russians about possible changes in the ABM Treaty. President Clinton is expected to make the administration's case to Russian President Putin in meetings at the Kremlin on Sunday.

GWEN IFILL: For more, we turn to four arms control experts. Walter Slocombe is Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Thomas Graham was President Clinton's Special Representative for arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament. He is currently President of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security. Robert Zoellick is a foreign policy advisor to Presidential candidate George W. Bush, and served in the state department during the Bush administration. And Daniel Goure served in the pentagon during the Bush administration, and is now at the center for strategic and international studies, a Washington think tank. Mr. Secretary,what is it that President Clinton plans to take to President Putin this weekend in Russia?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: He plans to take the proposition that almost 30 years after the ABM Treaty was signed, it is in our interests, both us and Russia and the rest of the world, to modify to permit limited defenses against these rogue state threats -- and that it is far better that we deal with this within a context of arms control, which will allow further reductions, and ensure that limited defenses don't threaten each other's deterrent. That's the basic proposition. I don't expect we'll reach a final agreement in Moscow, but that's the basic proposition that we're advancing.

GWEN IFILL: Is it even conceivable that the Russians would accept this kind of trade-off, which we're told the administration is thinking, which is to say that they would be willing to... you would be willing to agree to their reduction in nuclear arms if they agreed to your request for a missile defense system?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: We think that keeping an arms control framework, as we keep the option to move toward up defense against rogue states is very important.. One of the reasons it's important is it does open the way for further reductions in offensive arms.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Zoellick, what is Governor Bush's response to that?

ROBERT ZOELLICK: Well, the start is a point he made in his speech is that we need to recognize ten years after the end of the Cold War that the Soviet Union no longer exists, and we need to get beyond some of the nuclear security logic and arms control logic of that period. As part of that, we can move beyond some of the old approach of balance of terror and mutually assured destruction that left both countries with thousands and thousands of these weapons where they could wipe each other out many times over. So one of his responses was to say that the United States should set its own nuclear security plan it needs based on what we believe is appropriate for deterrence against different threats. And frankly, Russia isn't the major concern we have.

GWEN IFILL: Does that include a missile defense system?

ROBERT ZOELLICK: The second part of his approach would be missile defense. And, as your clip demonstrated, what he believes we need is an effective missile defense on the best available options as soon as possible. The problem that we have had with the approach the administration has talked about is that the minor modifications they've talked about in the ABM would not allow the most effective missile defense systems. And it was striking that this very month there's an article that's come out by three Democratic security officials, two of whom have served in the Clinton administration who make the exact same case. And I think what you can see building here is a desire that people need the United States to be defended against the types of rogue threats and unauthorized launches. I think there's a pretty broad consensus on that. The question is: How do you do that? And I think there's a growing view that the administration's approach has been, first, late and now wrong.

GWEN IFILL: Ambassador Graham, is there any sense on your part that the Bush administration is too ambitious, the Clinton administration not ambitious enough, and that in any case, Russia or China would accept any of this?

THOMAS GRAHAM, JR.: Well, I think in one sense, both sides are too ambitious. I don't think we need to make a deployment decision now. I don't think we should rush ahead with respect to this system. I think the most important thing is reducing the numbers of nuclear weapons, as Governor Bush did suggest. But I think that, as far as a missile defense system is concerned, there's very serious problems with it. We could create serious problems with the Chinese, possibly with the Russians. There's... to my mind, there's a real threat as to the degree to which... a real question as to the degree to which there's a real threat there. So I think that we have to be very careful in proceeding ahead with missile defense, which just a few days ago was agreed by all the parties to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, including the United States, that it is the cornerstone of strategic stability and should be preserved and strengthened. And none of these plans sound to me like they're likely to do that.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Goure, one of the things the President suggested today is he would be willing to share missile technology-- that was kind of a carrot for the European nations-- is this something that... but he was very unclear about whether Russia would be included in this sharing arrangement. Is that a good idea?

DANIEL GOURE: Well, it's not only a good idea, but it's also not a new idea. In fact, in the prior Bush administration, the effort was made -- in fact, there was an initial dialogue about sharing then missile technology with the Yeltsin government. Seven years later, the Clinton administration is sort of now back, to if you will, square one. It's probably a very good idea if we're talking limited defense. The other thing about missile defense technology is this is this is also the sensor technology and the communications technology which provide for enhanced situational awareness and stability when you have nuclear weapons involved between two states.

THOMAS GRAHAM, JR.: I think it's a good idea to do that in principle, but... and we have talked about it in the past, as Bob Zoellick suggested, but it never really got very far. There's a lot of resistance within the bureaucracy to actually doing that. So saying it is one thing. Actually doing it is quite another thing.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Zoellick?

ROBERT ZOELLICK: Well, the President's remarks raise what is a very important point, which is not only protection of the United States' homeland, but protection of allies and forces. And I'll tell you the scenario people are really concerned about. They're concerned about another Gulf War situation where this time Saddam Hussein or the person who follows him, has nuclear weapons and missiles. And then the question is: Would the United States Senate, in a close vote, be willing to vote to deploy U.S. forces to protect U.S. security needs if the United States, London, Berlin or our forces were threatened? And that's the problem with the current administration proposal. Its missile defense system doesn't protect the allies, and it doesn't protect the forces abroad. And so I compliment them for making a move in this direction, but the worst thing to do would then be to enshrine that flawed system in the ABM Treaty.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: Could I....

GWEN IFILL: Certainly, Mr. Secretary.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: The reason that we think it's important to move toward a decision this year has got nothing to do with politics. It does have to do with the threat and with the fact that we believe, if the next test is successful, that we will be in a position to say, "Now is the time to take the steps necessary to have the option for the next President to deploy a system." The system that we are talking about has the advantage of being the experts that we've talked to in the Defense Department, who actually have the responsibility and the information for this is the one that can be made available most quickly and will be effective against the kind of threat we face early on.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Goure, Governor Bush also suggested this week that there should be significant cuts in the nuclear arsenal. Is this feasible? And is this something which would put the United States at any kind of disadvantage?

DANIEL GOURE: Well, the question really is: Where do you draw the line? The governor said that we can go below the start ii numbers, which are about 3,500 warheads, each side distributes them differently. The question is: Where is the line? Now, the administration, as I understand it, has talked about somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500. There are people who are talking about much more radical solutions in dropping it to the Russian level. You talked about the idea of trading missile defense for the Russian number of 1,500. At 1,500 weapons or anywhere near that, you start to run into both technical risks and operational risks -- distributing the weapons in ways that make them secure from attack, having enough weapons available so that in fact you can both deter and defend yourself and your allies. So the question is whether or not we're not coming to the bottom of this draw-down and really given the current situation in the world, can't go much below 2,000 and 2,500 without taking real risks.

GWEN IFILL: Well, let's turn that question to Governor Bush's adviser. Where is the line? He was very specifically non-specific.

ROBERT ZOELLICK: And for a good reason. I mean as Dan suggested and I think we'd all agree, that's not the type of decision that should be campaign made in a campaign post. That does require a careful analysis. But a key element of what he is talking about is moving beyond the old arms control framework in how you reach that number. I mean I, in 1991 and 1992 was part of a negotiating process that reached START II. Eight years later, we finally have a conditional ratification from the Russians, and those conditions may not even be acceptable to our Senate. So what Governor Bush is saying, Russia is no longer our enemy. Please recall we no longer have to be worried about the things we were worried about during the Cold War. So let us scale our forces on the size that we need, and let's lead by cutting unilaterally, if need be, and urge the Russians to follow. The Russians, frankly, are spending too much money on this. Their system is declining. I think there's a reasonable chance they works and there is with a precedent because this is exactly what we did with tactical weapons in '91. So it's not only the levels, which we believe could be lower but certainly need to be done based on a security analysis. But it's also how you do it, and that the need to move away from a structure that we all dealt with for 20, 30, 40 years but no longer fits today.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Secretary, who are our enemies now? Where is the threat?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: The threat that we're most concerned about is the threat of rogue states. We can't entirely dismiss the fact that Russia still has thousands and thousands of nuclear weapons. And while there is a place for unilateral actions, and we've taken limited unilateral actions - we've got rid of four -- or made plans to get rid of four to Trident submarines. But there is an important role for agreed measures, as well, because those come with real verification measures. They do allow tradeoffs in other areas that are important. And on this business of Cold War thinking, we have moved already in important areas to cooperate with the Russians. Some of these things were begun under the Bush administration, but there have been new initiatives in this administration. For example, we have the cooperative threat reduction program to actually... it has actually been the means in which literally thousands of weapons have been dismantled in Russia during the eight years that this administration has been in office. We have agreements on de-targeting weapons, which means that, if there should be an accidental launch, the chances of which are very, very small, the weapon wouldn't have a target to go to. We are going to make proposals to have what's called shared early warning, so that the two sides exchange information to reduce still lower the risk of misunderstanding what a test or some unexplained event would be. And we're working with the Russians on non-proliferation issues. The idea that we're locked in Cold War thinking is simply not true.

GWEN IFILL: Ambassador Graham, are we stepping up to the plate and fighting the right enemies in the right way?

THOMAS GRAHAM, JR.: Well, I think that we are not. To me, the principal threats out there are very real and very serious. And they do involve rogue states and sub-state actors, such as terrorist organizations and the like. But the least likely way they're likely to use weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, against the United States, is by long-range ballistic missile. They're much more likely to use small boats, Cruise missiles, other ways of bringing weapons into this country. I think we need to concentrate for the most part on those types of measures which are most directly addressed to the real threat, which is what I just said.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Zoellick?

ROBERT ZOELLICK: Well, you know, Gwen, it's interesting, the whole focus of this program is on arms control, which is what we used to discuss with the Soviet commissars and what I hope that President Clinton will talk about is the need to get that economy moving in a private sector fashion and in the area of proliferation, that he would try to get the Russians to stop helping the Iranians, who are the next generation of threat. So part of the whole problem here is for the President's first visit, I think arms control in a sense is a captive of the past as opposed to the next agenda - or, for example, his relations with his neighbors who feel concerned. But the critical part is we have a new leader in Russia. Russia for all its failings, is no longer the nuclear strategy threat and that's what I mean about being locked in the Cold War. And the ABM Treaty, it's hard to escape, that is a Cold War treaty because that enshrines this balance of terror of leaving each side vulnerable to each other. Why would we want to do that?

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Secretary, are we locked in that... I no know you think you've answered this question one time already, but is it possible that having an arms control summit is pass ?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: Not at all. We need to explain to the Russians, and we have been explaining to them that we face a real threat-- and I disagree with Tom Graham. The most important part of that threat is in fact the long-range missile threat for exactly the reasons that Bob Zoellick identified. That is, the possibility of using the threat of an attack that were... if the missile worked, would be sure to cause millions, or at least hundreds of thousands of fatalities in the United States, if it hit a big city. And that is a real problem and something we should work on and something we need to explain to the Russians that we need to work on. But we need to do that in the context, which recognizes that, while we hope to have good relations with Russia, it is still an uneasy relationship. The Russians, for various reasons, good, bad and indifferent, are worried about us. We're sometimes worried about some of the things that could happen in the future with a different Russia, so that there is a role for arms control. And simply to dismiss arms control as an overhang from the Cold War is, among other things, simply to ignore the Russian position. For example, one of the ways in which we have been able to work with the Russians on trying to reduce the leakage of Russian technology into Iran is by making the point that it is not in their interest, that we should work together to stop it. The Russians have said that one of the things they will do if arms control collapses entirely is drop not just the bilateral agreements but some of the multilateral non-proliferation agreements. I don't know whether they would do that. It would be stupid for them to do it, but we can't ignore that that's a part of the problem.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Goure, should we talking arms control in this first meeting with Mr. Putin, or should there be other things on the table?

DANIEL GOURE: My view is that arms control is not the most important issue, as Bob Zoellick said. It's really the question is: Will Putin lead Russia in a new direction? Having said, that there are real arms control issues on the table for the United States. Even if we don't come to an agreement, it is reassuring to our allies and to others in the world that a dialogue continues. It's going to be very difficult to have progress on nuclear reductions, on other risk-reduction measures or on arms control and ABM Treaty revisions if you're not talking with the Russians. So it's clearly something you have to do, even if it isn't or shouldn't be the main focus of what you take on.

GWEN IFILL: Well, we'll have to end is there. We'll watch what's happening at the Kremlin this weekend. Thank you all very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a media story from the Korean War, a Kosovo conversation, and a favorite poem.

FOCUS - A HAUNTED PLACE

JIM LEHRER: Media correspondent Terence Smith has the Korean War story.

TERENCE SMITH: It's a peaceful, bucolic scene today. The waters run gently beneath the bridge at No Gun Ri. (Gunfire) But this South Korean village is a haunted place. Battles raged here 50 years ago, and residents still can trace the bullet holes in the bridge.

PARK HEE-SOOK, No Gun Ri Survivor (Translated): There were so many dead people here next to the stream, and there were a lot of American soldiers around. I didn't want to die, so I piled the dead bodies on top of me.

NORMAN TINKLER, Korean War Veteran: Either shoot, stay alive or die. That's all there was to it.

TERENCE SMITH: The events at No Gun Ri are still causing controversy half a century later.

GEORGE RUPP, President, Columbia University: ...For revealing with extensive documentation the decades-old secret of how American soldiers early in the Korean War killed hundreds of Korean civilians in a massacre at the No Gun Ri Bridge. Please come forward. (Applause)

TERENCE SMITH: That was the thrust of an extraordinary report released last fall by the Associated Press that has won its authors numerous awards, and this year, the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism, the industry's highest award. The article quoted a dozen G.I.'s and Korean survivors describing a horrific scene in which American soldiers, allegedly acting on orders, machine-gunned up to 300 cowering refugees. But what actually happened at No Gun Ri on July 26, 1950, in the chaotic opening days of the Korean war? Did nervous American soldiers, fearing that North Korean infiltrators might be hiding among civilian refugees, massacre innocent South Koreans?

MARTHA MENDOZ, AP National Investigative Reporter: There's orders to fire on civilians-- remarkable, sensational orders that have, you know, stunned military historians when we brought them to them. They're orders to fire on civilians at the time.

TERENCE SMITH: Martha Mendoza, a national investigative reporter for the AP, was part of the team that worked on the story for more than a year.

MARTHA MENDOZA: We don't declare whether things happened or not. We describe it. You know, we say, "here's what these people saw. Here's why, according to these military records, there's every reason to believe this."

TERENCE SMITH: The reporting team, including Sang Hon Choe and Charles Hanley, conducted hundreds of interviews here and in Korea, and AP researcher Randi Hershaft made countless trips to archives to assemble the paper trail that reconstructed the events at No Gun Ri, 80 miles south of Seoul. The story had an immediate worldwide impact, making network news programs and headlines around the world. At the Pentagon, Army Secretary Louis Caldera announced a full- scale investigation into the incident and whether the U.S. soldiers were acting under orders.

LOUIS CALDERA, Secretary of the Army: It will be an all- encompassing review. I am committed to finding out the truth to these matters as best we can after these many years.

ANCHOR: There are questions today about the accuracy of an award-winning report by one of the...

TERENCE SMITH: But more recently, the story has also generated an unusual public battle among major American news organizations. "U.S. News & World Report" and others are challenging the authenticity of several of the sources quoted by the Associated Press. Veterans groups contacted the magazine, "U.S. News" executive editor Brian Duffy says, questioning whether one of the sources, Edward Daily, had been at No Gun Ri at the time.

BRIAN DUFF, Executive Editor, U.S. News & World Report: Our reporting indicated that Mr. Daily, according to the army's best records, was not at No Gun Ri, was not a machine-gunner, and served in the unit that was at No Gun Ri fully eight months after the alleged incident occurred.

EDWARD DAILY, Korean War Veteran: We followed our orders and we fired in there to eliminate the problem.

TERENCE SMITH: The AP initially stuck by its source, and as other news organizations picked up the story, Ed Daily became, in effect, the voice of the incident at No Gun Ri. NBC's Tom Brokaw interviewed Daily on "Dateline"...

EDWARD DAILY: We set up a machine gun position that I had was right over here to fire at an angling.

TERENCE SMITH: "Dateline" paid to fly the veteran back to No Gun Ri.

SPOKESMAN: In the chaos of war, an act so horrific it would remain secret for half a century.

TOM BROKAW: You heard that order?

EDWARD DAILY: Yes, sir.

TOM BROKAW: Kill them all?

EDWARD DAILY: Yes, sir.

SPOKESMAN: The order, carried out without question. The nightmares would come later.

TERENCE SMITH: Then last week, the AP re interviewed ed daily and the media dispute suddenly took a new and bizarre turn. The agency reported that daily, when confronted with army records, now recognizes that he could not have been at the scene on the day of the incident, and that he had instead learned of it secondhand from soldiers who were there.

JONATHAN WOLMAN: The story overall doesn't depend on ed daily's veracity.

TERENCE SMITH: Jonathan Wolman, the AP's executive editor, defended the central thrust of the story in an interview shortly before daily changed his story. He and Martha Mendoza stressed that they had numerous other authentic sources for the account of a massacre.

MARTHA MENDOZA: Ed Daily told us about a large number of civilians in south Korea. That happened. The Pentagon has confirmed to the "New York Times" that they have now concluded that more than 100, I believe it was, people died there. The South Korean investigators have concluded the same thing. That account stands.

TERENCE SMITH: But Brian Duffy at "U.S. News" contends that Daily is a pivotal figure in the AP Account.

BRIAN DUFFY: His quotes are, I think it is safe to say, the most dramatic of the account. He talks about on summer nights, he can still hear the screams of children in the tunnel who were being shot. And, in an odd way, he tied the whole AP account together.

TERENCE SMITH: And other veterans interviewed by "U.S. News" put a different spin on the incident at No Gun Ri.

BRIAN DUFFY: We quoted others saying there was "no massacre." There was shooting, but certainly the veterans we talked with who were there all took issue with the fact that the firing was done on orders from any officer.

TERENCE SMITH: But in its research, the AP uncovered orders that seemed to direct the G.I.'s to stop all movement across the front line. "No refugees to cross the front line," read one. "Fire everyone trying to cross lines." "Use discretion in case of women and children." "All civilians in this area are to be considered as enemy," read another, three days later; "action taken accordingly."

MARTHA MENDOZA: Some of the veterans recall hearing orders, and we quoted them as hearing those orders to fire on civilians. We also in our reporting described some veterans who did not hear orders. Where those orders came from, we've tried to track down as best we could, and we're looking forward to the Pentagon getting to the bottom of it.

TERENCE SMITH: In the midst of the media sniping over the No Gun Ri story, questions have been raised by some at the Associated Press about the objectivity of the principal author of the "U.S. News" investigation, military affairs reporter Joseph Galloway. Galloway, who participated in this year's Memorial Day services in Washington, is himself a member of some of the veterans groups that originally raised the alarm about the AP story.

BRIAN DUFFY: I don't think it's a conflict at all. I mean, we disclosed the fact, in our first story, that the reporter in question had first heard questions about Mr. Daily's record through his membership in these associations. It sheds unflattering light on the entirely military. But by the same token, I mean, shooting on unarmed refugees, if it happened, I think any good soldier would say, you know, "that's beyond the pale."

MARVIN KALB: There is a plus and a minus here. The plus is as a member of the association, he will get information that perhaps another reporter will not get.

TERENCE SMITH: Former broadcaster Marvin Kalb, executive director of the Shorenstein Center in Washington, disagrees with Brian Duffy about Joseph Galloway.

MARVIN KALB: The very fact that he is a member raises a question of a conflict of interest, and since the question is raised, it almost answers itself. He should not have been the one to do the story.

TERENCE SMITH: Beyond that, Kalb questions whether journalism is the appropriate medium to examine historical questions like No Gun Ri.

MARVIN KALB: Journalists are best at covering the news. "Tell me what happened, tell me today, tell it to me fast, give it to me as fairly as you can and then move on to the next story." But when journalists begin to go back ten years and then 40 and 50 years, they take on the role of historians. That requires a special kind of skill, which they really don't have.

TERENCE SMITH: The AP's Jonathan Wolman and Martha Mendoza disagree.

JONATHAN WOLMAN: It teaches us a lot about a war, and within journalism, it teaches us a little about war coverage. And for the United States, which projects power across the globe, I think these are lessons we want to learn, and we want to fold these lessons into our preparations for the future.

MARTHA MENDOZA: I think that people who read newspapers buy those newspapers because they are basically hiring us to tell them the truth. And when we find out things that are happening, it's our responsibility to tell them the truth, and that's what makes this job such a great responsibility.

TERENCE SMITH: No matter how unpleasant that truth might be?

MARTHA MENDOZA: Absolutely.

TERENCE SMITH: For its part, the Pulitzer Prize board is standing behind its award to the AP. Edward Seaton is chairman of the Pulitzer Board.

EDWARD SEATON: The basic story is clearly there-- even, as I understand it, from the "New York Times" report that the Defense Department has confirmed that an atrocity occurred, and that is what the prize is for.

TERENCE SMITH: The South Korean government is attempting to reconstruct what happened at No Gun Ri, and survivors and families continue to press compensation claims. The Pentagon investigation has been under way for eight months. More than 100 people have been interviewed. A final report, originally expected near the 50th anniversary of the start of the war this June, is now expected this fall.

CONVERSATION

JIM LEHRER: Now, one of our conversations about new books and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And with me are the authors of two new books on the Kosovo war. Michael Ignatieff is the author of "Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond." And Tim Judah, the author of "Kosovo: War and Revenge." Welcome, gentlemen.

Tim Judah, in your book, you call this a war of human error. What do you mean by that?

TIM JUDAH, Author, "Kosovo: War and Revenge:" Well, what I mean by that is that the bombing campaign, which lasted 78 days, was something which began because western leaders thought it was going to take three days or a week. There wouldn't have been a bombing campaign if anyone had imagined in their remotest dreams-- or nightmares, I should say-- that it was going to last 78 days. But because of that, because they thought it would be three days or, at worst, a week, it had a sort of loop effect, that Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav President, the Serbian leader, thought that he could call NATO's bluff, could risk a bombing, because he thought, "well, three days or a week, that's something that I can withstand." There were many more human errors, but I think those are the... that's the most central, important one.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, you call this a virtual war. Explain what you mean by that.

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF, Author, "Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond:" Well, the war was real, as horribly real as war always is, to the people and citizens of Belgrade. To the Kosovo Albanians massacred by the paramilitaries, this is as real as it gets. It's death that makes warreal. But to us, to the western alliance nations, to the spectators, people watching this program, it was a virtual spectacle; it existed only on television. One of the things about it as a war, which I think is historically unprecedented, is we transferred all of the mortal risk of death to the other side. It was a war fought under two basic rules: Zero casualties for our side, and as low a level of collateral damage as we could -- the first war that I can think of where we fought 78 days, 40,000 missions or something and not a single combat casualty. The issue that the book raises is an American President has been given a new technology, this precision-weapons technology that allows him to strike any target, anywhere in the world, in next to real time, with almost perfect chance of accuracy. This means that the threshold at which an American President can engage military force is going down. The risks of engaging are going down-- no casualties on the American side, very little collateral damage. If military violence can be used more easily, how do we keep it under control? That's the issue in the book.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see any evidence, though, that this would make the west or western democracies more cavalier about going to war?

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: Well, I think, as it played out-- and Tim... This is what makes Tim Judah's book such an interesting one-- is that it's a story of mistakes, miscalculations. And when you net out the Kosovo thing, almost everybody who went through it thinks, "we're not going to go there again, because we almost lost." I mean, I think the western alliance is aware in the marrow of its bones how close we came to military defeat, despite having total omnipotence in the air, total domination with this new precision technology. The precision technology could not stop ethnic cleansing on the ground, could not prevent the mass expulsion of the Kosovar people. We were faced in a curious way with having the omnipotent means that proved to be impotent in certain crucial respects. So that while the new technology is lowering the risk of using political violence, there are a number of other factors that are making... increasing the risk on the other side, so things are balancing out. But it's still an area of risk. And the chief issue, Kosovo was fought in the media spotlight. There was people like Tim Judah, there were people like me all over the thing, trying to focus the attention of western electorates on what was going on. But there are a lot of conflicts where we can use precision technology and nobody would be there to see. We've got an Iraq air operation right now. Do the American people know that they're bombing Iraq right now as I'm talking to you? They don't, because the media isn't there. So that's a virtual war, where there's no democratic control, surveillance over the use of military violence. So these issues of democratic control over a force that's easier and easier to use I think are going to be with us for a long time.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think... I'll read you a quote from your book. You talked about the hypocrisy of our willingness to kill in the name of our values but not to die for them. And of course the stated purpose of this was a humanitarian purpose. Are you saying that it was fundamentally dishonest, unethical?

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: No. I think the problem is different. No responsible military commander, no responsible American President wants to risk American lives or anybody else's lives needlessly. If we can accomplish a human rights goal of zero casualties, so much thebetter. I think the problem is different. We preach human rights ends, and then we practice such risk- averse means, that we can't actually accomplish those ends. That is to say, we did win, but 15,000 Kosovars were massacred and slaughtered. We couldn't stop that. Brave American pilots were upstairs at 15,000 feet watching people going from house to house with machine guns and knives and couldn't stop the ethnic cleansing. If you take these risk-averse means to accomplish human rights ends, you can't accomplish human rights ends. That's the problem.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that? I mean, what does the Kosovo conflict say about the west's ability to intervene militarily in these humanitarian wars, or these wars for humanitarian causes, the kind of doctrine that both your prime minister and our President enunciated during the war?

TIM JUDAH: Well, Michael Ignatieff is of course quite right, and other points that he raises in his book is... are because you intervene for human rights issues and humanitarian catastrophes in one region, for example, Kosovo, that it begs the question, well, what about other areas? What about the Chechynas, for example? And is it hypocritical to intervene in one place and not to intervene in another place like Chechnya because the Russians have nuclear weapons? I don't think it is. I think that we have to be realistic about it, and if you can intervene, if it's possible to do so, well so much the better. But it doesn't mean that you should just sit aside because... everywhere because you can't intervene everywhere.

MARGARET WARNER: But what about the conflict that Michael just pointed out, that if you're going to go into these causes for which you assume the public, your public, is not willing to lose tens of thousands of lives, you're going to go in in this sort of halfway, virtual way, this risk- free way, which in the end doesn't really do the job but does a lot of destruction?

TIM JUDAH: Well, there are also risks of not intervening. I think that one of the things which motivated western leaders is what I think you might call the Srebrenica factor. I don't know if people will remember the Bosnian Muslim town which fell in the summer of 1995, and the Bosnian Serb army promptly massacred 6,000 or so Muslim men and boys. I think it was that fear that that was about to happen all over again, which helped push western leaders to war, because they were terrified that it was going to happen all over again, and then they would get the blame, well, for not having intervened. And people would have said, "well, you didn't learn the lessons of Bosnia. We saw what happened before. Why didn't you do something?" So it's an appalling dilemma, and we might well see it again. What happens if there's a war in Montenegro this year? It's quite possible. Well, should we intervene? Should we not? It's going to be a hard one to call.

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: I think the simple issue here that Americans have to focus on is that almost every American I talk to said-- I'm a Canadian, just to make it clear...

MARGARET WARNER: Who lives in London.

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: ...Who lives in London. But almost every American I talk to says, "Why is this always our business? Why do we have to go in and do the heavy lifting when people are threatened with massacre, genocide, or human rights violations around the world?" The simple answer is that no other military power in the world has the logistical, technological capabilities you do. Then the question is how you ration that rationally, so that you're not everywhere, so that your army isn't spread out in 1,000 garrison operations all over the place, how we focus it and frame it according to a set of criteria where we get clear grounds for intervention. But the idea that some Americans have is that we can just say, "it isn't our business," isn't just... It is just not a credible policy. Because it's clear to me in the next... The next President of the United States is going to have something come across his desk where, you know, hundreds of thousands of people are in mortal peril, imminent danger of being exterminated or expelled or killed, and there will be a demand for intervention, and we simply must devise combat-credible ways of doing that. The only way we've got at the moment is going in by air. My book is saying, if you go in by air, there are only certain things you can do. We've got to now take the next step and devise some set of combat-capable ground deployments that allow us to rescue human beings, because in the end, this is a country that does believe in certain kind of values. If you proclaim those values, you eventually have to stump up the military capability to back them up. And I think Kosovo teaches us that. I'm glad we intervened, but we didn't do the job we promised we would do, in my judgment. And the next time, the next intervention is going to be tougher, and we're going to have to have the right military strategy to do that. And my view is we don't have that strategy at this hour, and we need it.

MARGARET WARNER: What do you think the chances are that the next such conflict that comes across the next President's desk will again be in the Balkans?

TIM JUDAH: I think it's... It may even happen before you have a new President. It could happen any time in Montenegro. So I think it will be an appalling dilemma when it happens. If a civil war breaks out in Montenegro, in part fomented by Belgrade and the government of Montenegro-- which, I should say, is the only remaining republic within the federal republic of Yugoslavia-- it's going to be a very hard one to call.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see it that way?

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: I do. And intervening in a civil war, Serb against Serb, Montenegrin against Serb, 750,000 people in a strategic area of the world that most Americans have never even heard of or been to or visited, the trouble is that if we don't contain that, it'll simply destabilize everything that American troops have tried to achieve in Bosnia, everything we're trying to achieve in Kosovo. This is one of these cases where it's not merely a question of, do we intervene, but when... If we intervene, are we willing to stay the course? This really is a case of in for a penny, in for a pound.

MARGARET WARNER: And we're in for a penny certainly. Thank you both very much.

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: A pleasure.

FINALLY - FAVORITE POEM PROJECT

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, another poem from poet laureate Robert Pinsky's project, which asked Americans to read their favorite poem. Tonight, a judge from Georgia.

LEAH WARD SEARS: I'm Leah Ward Sears. I'm a justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia. I was the youngest person ever selected to become a member of the Georgia Supreme Court, and I was the first woman to join the court. The poem is "For my People," and there is an element of my work and my life that is devoted almost entirely for my people, for their uplift and joy. You know, if you'd know a little bit, I was born in 1955, and if you know a little bit about that era, it was an era of tremendous change in this country, the beginning of the civil rights movement. I was too youngto participate actively in it, but I was very... I was stamped by it. It molded me, and my career was going to be devoted to doing things just, moral, and right for my people. The definition of "For my People," as I had understood it as a young girl growing up has really broadened itself as I've become a more mature woman. "My people" is all the people of the state of Georgia. It encompasses everybody living in this country, and it's even growing now and becoming much more of a world view. Nonetheless, I still have the old concerns, which embody what I thought as a young girl growing up black in the United States. As I sit down and write my opinions, I always have the mission, my original mission in mind, which is to make sure that fairness and justice is brought to all the people, and my people were, for long periods of time, excluded from that definition. For my people is why I live, it is why I'm here, it is my life. "For My People" by Margaret Walker. "For my people everywhere, singing their slave songs repeatedly, their dirges and their ditties and their blues and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an unknown God, bending their knees humbly to an unseen power. "For my people, lending their strength through the years, to the gone years and the now years and the maybe years, washing, ironing, cooking, scrubbing, sewing, mending, hoeing, plowing, digging, planting, pruning, patching, dragging along, never gaining, never reaping, never knowing, and never understanding. "For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama backyards, playing baptizing and preaching and doctor and jail and solider and school and mama, and cooking and playhouse and concert and store and hair and Miss Chuneby and Company. For the cramped, bewildered years we went to school to learn to know the reasons why and the answers to, and the people who, and the places where, and the days when. In memory of the bitter hours, when we discovered we were black and poor and small and different, and nobody cared, and nobody wondered, and nobody understood. For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and play and drink their wine and religion and success. To marry their playmates and bear children, and then die of consumption and anemia and lynching. For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago, and Lenox avenue in New York, and Rampart Street in New Orleans, lost, disenchanted, dispossessed, and happy people, filling the cabarets and taverns and other people's pockets, needing bread and shoes and milk and land and money and something, something all our own. For my people walking blindly, spreading joy, losing time, being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied and shackled and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures who tower over us omnisciently and laugh. For my people, blundering and groping and floundering in the dark churches, and schools, and clubs, and societies, associations, and councils, and committees, and conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and devoured by money- hungry, glory-craving leeches, preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by false prophet and holy believer. For my people, standing, staring, trying to fashion a better way from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding, trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people, all the faces, all the Adams and Eves and their countless generations. Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Leta second generation full of courage issue forth. Let a people loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of healing and a strength of final clinching be the pulsating in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now rise and take control."

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday: President Clinton offered to share missile defense technology with the European allies and possibly Russia. Ethiopia said its border war with Eritrea had ended. It said it had recaptured all its lost territory in a 19-day offensive. And the Federal Communications Commission announced a reduction in phone rates for millions of Americans. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.