The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight the use of DNA to identify an unknown veteran and in solving crimes; political analysis by Mark Shields and Paul Gigot; a World Cup update; and some birthday music from the US Marine Corps band. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: A court martial today was ordered for two US Marine officers whose fighter jet caused a deadly cable car accident in Italy. Captains Richard Ashby and Joseph Schweitzer will be tried on manslaughter charges. Ashby was the pilot, Schweitzer the navigator, when their plane severed a ski gondola cable in the Italian Alps in February. Nineteen skiers and the operator were killed. A Marine general ordered the court martial today. He dismissed charges against two other officers in the rear cockpit because they had no control of the aircraft. Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie remains were returned today to his family. They had been buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. The pilots' coffin arrived at an air base in Illinois. It was transported to St. Louis, Missouri, where the burial will take place tomorrow 26 years after his plane was shot down in Vietnam. DNA tests conducted in June confirmed that the remains were Blassie's. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Vietnam veteran Robert Ingram was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor today. President Clinton presented it to the former Navy medic at a White House ceremony. Ingram was honored for aiding several injured comrades while seriously wounded himself and pinned down by enemy gunfire. The Navy official blamed lost paperwork for the 32 year delay in giving the award, the highest military medal for bravery. In economic news today the Labor Department reported its measure of wholesale inflation, the Producer Price Index, fell .1 percent in June. Economists said Asia's financial problems were holding down prices of energy, industrial machinery, and other imports. Overseas today British police said they had only minutes to spare when they broke up an alleged Irish Republican bomb attack planned for Central London. Ten people were arrested, some with explosives. In Northern Ireland, it was a sixth day of standoff between Protestant Orangemen and local police, known as the RUC. The Orangemen are being blocked from parading through a Catholic community. We have a report from Howell Jones of Independent Television News.

HOWELL JONES, ITN: From Chinook helicopters soldiers emerged in full riot gear and took up their positions, just a handful of the 1500 troops on standby in and around Drum Creek. The defenses were being reinforced today after a night when Orangemen came close to storming the barricades. Twenty thousand men streamed in from all corners of Northern Ireland. They trampled through two rows of barbed wire, coming close to breaking out of the security cordon. From out of the crowd a nail bomb was held at police. This bomb and another packed with nails injured several officers. They were stretchered away to safety as the Orangemen jeered and waved the union flag. The IUC opened up with plastic baton rounds. The man across the wire hit ground, and from this moment the Orangemen's challenge to the security forces lost much of its momentum.

JIM LEHRER: An autopsy began today on Moshood Abiola. He was the Nigerian political prisoner who died Tuesday while meeting with US envoys. Five foreign pathologists, including two Americans, are overseeing the post mortem. The government ordered it to end rumors Abiola was murdered. The Nigerian military regime said the cause of death was a heart attack. That news triggered rioting by his supporters. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to identity through DNA, Shields & Gigot, the World Cup, and the Marine Band.% ? FOCUS - KNOWING THE UNKNOWN

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman begins our DNA story.

KWAME HOLMAN: In 1984, President Ronald Reagan presided over the formal burial of the Vietnam War's unknown soldier. The remains were added to the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington.

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: On this day, as we honor our unknown servicemen, we pray to Almighty God for His mercy, and we pray for the wisdom that this hero be America's last unknown.

KWAME HOLMAN: Guarded night and day the Vietnam War unknown rested for 14 years beside the remains of American warriors from World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and in a mass grave soldiers from both sides of the Civil War. But in 1994 reports began surfacing in several Vietnam veterans' newsletters suggesting the remains of the Vietnam unknown could be those of fighter pilot Michael Blassie, who was shot down in May of 1972. In the wake of the reports members of Blassie's family began a public campaign to find out if Lt. Blassie's remains, indeed, were in the Tomb of the Unknowns. They said new DNA testing methods could determine the answer.

PATRICIA BLASSIE, Lt. Blassie's Sister: (ABC NEWS "Good Morning America") I believe the Secretary will listen, and it's just the Blassies' hope that he would go ahead and exhume and go on with the DNA testing.

KWAME HOLMAN: DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid in human cells carries the genetic code, which provides each individual's unique characteristics. In May, Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered the Vietnam unknown's remains exhumed acting on a growing body of circumstantial evidence and the recommendation of a military panel. DNA samples were obtained from Blassie family members and compared by military scientists to the DNA in bone material from the Vietnam unknown. Last week, Secretary Cohen announced the results at a packed news conference.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: Using the state of the art technology that was not available back in 1984, the United States Army central identification laboratory has determined that the remains interred in 1984 as the Vietnam unknown, are those of US Air Force Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie.

KWAME HOLMAN: Michael Blassie's family reacted exuberantly to the news.

JEAN BLASSIE, Lt. Blassie's Mother: I always believed since about 1994 that Michael was in the tomb.

PATRICIA BLASSIE: We stand strong and united in this decision, and obviously it was worth the effort.

KWAME HOLMAN: Lt. Blassie's remains arrived at an Air Force base in Southern Illinois this afternoon. His family plans a private burial tomorrow at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery near St. Louis.

JIM LEHRER: And to Elizabeth Farnsworth in San Francisco.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And for more on the Blassie case we're joined by Mitch Holland, chief of the services branch of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab and Kurt Piehler, director of Rutgers University's Oral History Archives of World War II and author of "Remembering War the American Way."Mitch Holland, I know you're in St. Louis for the burial tomorrow of the young lieutenant. Would you tell us please more about how you identifies his remains.

MITCHELL HOLLAND, Armed Forces DNA Laboratory: Well, we were part of the process of the identification of the remains. And it was quite an honor for our laboratory to be involved. We used a new method of DNA testing, mitochondrial DNA testing, which we've actually been using for about seven years. But we applied that technique in this case to support the identification.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And tell us a little bit about what you did.

MITCHELL HOLLAND: Well, it's a very technical process. We used many of the molecular biology or molecular genetics tools that are available, DNA sequencing, many of the other tools to go in and generate a mitochondrial DNA profile.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you got from Michael Blassie's family, from female members of the family, right?

MITCHELL HOLLAND: Well, that's right. Mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited. So it's passed down from mother to child. And so Michael Blassie's mother and his sister were maternal relatives. And we used those for comparison purposes. Once we obtained a profile or a mitochondrial DNA profile from the remains, we compared those to maternal relatives, and they matched exactly Mr. Blassie's mother and sister.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And the reason you could do this now and not say 10 years ago is that you use this different sort of DNA that's outside the nucleus, and it survives longer, is that true?

MITCHELL HOLLAND: Well, there are two reasons. One is we have new techniques. We have a technique called PCR, or Pulimeres Chain Reaction, and it's very similar to a biological photocopy machine. It's the machinery that's used when DNA replicates during cell division. And so without that kind of technique, there's such little DNA in these remains we wouldn't be able to do the testing at all. And then there is so little DNA at this point that mitochondrial DNA is really the only testing we can do, because it's present in more copies in the cell. There are thousands of copies of mitochondrial DNA in a cell, but only two copies of nuclear DNA or chromosomal DNA, the DNA people normally think about. So it's sheer volume in terms of the amount of mitochondrial DNA. And so we're able to detect it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You've been working very closely with the family in this. This means everything to them, doesn't it?

MITCHELL HOLLAND: Well, as I say, we've been doing this for seven years. And we've experienced the joy of many of these families and brought these cases to them, and we've been a part of that now for seven years. And it's wonderful, I think, for the nation to be able to experience the joy of the Blassies and be part of this. It really raises the awareness of the nation.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Kurt Piehler, what was your reaction to this, given your interest as an historian in the Tomb of the Unknowns?

KURT PIEHLER, Rutgers University: Well, in many ways I'm delighted for the Blassie family, because I think one of the things-the loved one-the parents-the wives-the sons and daughters want is to know what happened to their son or daughter or their father or mother in the Vietnam War, or any war. And so I think the giving back of the identity of the Blassie-of Lt. Blassie was really great for the family. I also-my other reaction was is I think in many ways it makes the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier a historic monument, a monument that in a sense will symbolize the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War. And I think that it will be less applicable to the Vietnam War and probably there never will be an unknown soldier for the Persian Gulf and hopefully for future wars and hopefully there won't be any wars after that, I might add, but that might be a little too hopeful.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. And you mean because they'll be able to identify those remains in the future?

KURT PIEHLER: My understanding is that the military now requires everyone to give a DNA sample. So unless you were to have-which I hope not ever to have a Holocaust-you would not-you would be able to identify all the remains of a soldier, which is quite remarkable, because in the First World War there were roughly about 5,000 unidentified bodies. And Vietnam-that number had shrunk dramatically. But now it seems with DNA testing that we can give an identity to any soldier who-soldier or sailor who's killed in wartime.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Professor Piehler, looking back just for a minute, tell us why the concept of the unknown soldier was so important.

KURT PIEHLER: I think part of the reason was it was important was in a sense it was a way to honor all Americans who served-particularly all Americans who died in combat. And you can't give a state funeral to every private. But you can select one, and in a sense to select one, you select someone who's anonymous. But it also was a symbol to symbolize national unity and national reconciliation. And in the case of the First World War, World War I was a very divisive war. Americans argued about the war going into the war. They argued about it during the war, and there was real controversies over the meaning of war. And the Unknown Soldier was to be a symbol of reconciliation and of unity that was to cross clash and regional and racial lines.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mitch Holland, are you using this technology now also to identify remains from as far back as World War II?

MITCHELL HOLLAND: Yes, we are. In fact, we've been very successful on remains from the Korean War and World War II. The conditions in Southeast Asia are really not the best for DNA. And so we actually have a more difficult time working on remains from Southeast Asia than we do from Korea or World War II. So the second most DNA matches that we have made using this technology have been from World War II.

ELIZABETHFARNSWORTH: And-

MITCHELL HOLLAND: The first being Southeast Asia.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How certain is the science at this point?

MITCHELL HOLLAND: Well, it's used as part of the process. And, for instance, in the Blassie case it's used both to exclude as well as include. And so in this case there were seven possible candidates. We had maternal references from all seven families. We excluded conclusively six of those, and the only one that matched was the Blassie family. And so those two pieces of information are very compelling, and then along with all the other circumstantial evidence in the case that suggested that this was Michael Blassie, it all fits together, and makes for an identification.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Kurt Piehler, did the kinds of records that existed in this case, for example, exist in the case of World War II soldiers that would make it possible to match remains with names?

KURT PIEHLER: My understanding and my research, the government actually destroyed the records regarding the body selected, in part. The Unknown Soldier who was selected for World War II and Korea, there were several unknown soldiers selected to be possibly the Unknown Soldier and then one was designated from World War II and one was designated from Korea, and the records surrounding selection were destroyed in a sense to keep the unknown unknown and not to attach an identity. So I think it would be very difficult to identify the unknowns. And I also think just the numbers of unknowns are larger for World War II.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But, in general, if you did have remains that weren't say in the tomb, are the paper records still-

KURT PIEHLER: Yes. The government kept very elaborate records in both world wars and the Korean and Vietnam War. In fact, that's been a real pattern in the 20th century. While war has become more deadly, both the ability of the army and navy to help soldiers and sailors who were wounded, I mean, sad to say, but also it's able to provide most soldiers with a grade and a permanent identity in death. So soldiers are not stripped of their identity just because they die-they die in battle.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mitch Holland, how many identifications are you involved in right now?

MITCHELL HOLLAND: Well, for these types of cases we have made approximately 100 matches. And we're in the process of making a hundred to a hundred and fifty more. So at this point in time we've had an impact in about 250 of these cases.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And do you think it's true that there won't be any more unknown soldiers, that because of the DNA testing, you will be able to identify in the future remains of almost any soldier?

MITCHELL HOLLAND: Well, that's our goal. If we have remains, there's a good likelihood that DNA testing will be able to help make that identification.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Kurt Piehler, you said that this will make the Tomb of the Unknowns more of an historical place. There won't be current remains, but it will still be very important, won't it?

KURT PIEHLER: I think it will. I think both world wars are decisive turning points in American history. And I think Americans will have the same reverence towards the Unknowns-the Tomb of the Unknowns-as they have, for example, to Valley Forge, as they have to Gettysburg, as they have to the Lincoln Memorial. So I think it's a very important memorial and I think it's very much a tribute to the world wars, the generation that fought the world wars.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you both very much for being with us.

KURT PIEHLER: Thank you very much.

MITCHELL HOLLAND: Thank you.% ? FOCUS - UNRAVELING MYSTERIES

JIM LEHRER: The use of DNA to identify people goes beyond that done in the military, of course. Betty Ann Bowser reports.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: These are good times for Tony Snyder. He owns his own business, the T& T Body Shop in Columbia Heights, Maryland. And recently it's been financially successful. But for seven long years Snyder sat in a Virginia maximum security prison--convicted of rape--serving a sentence of 45 years. In 1993 he was exonerated and released--after his DNA sample failed to match another found on the victim's clothing.

TONY SNYDER: I'm for DNA 110 percent--110 percent. It's the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Thanks to those scientists it was a dream come true because I was hoping and praying that something could show that I wasn't the one who did it.

BARRY SCHECK: He had three possible ways that he could have carried it out: in a paper bag, in his posse box, or in his hand.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Barry Scheck helped prove Snyder's innocence. Best known as the DNA expert on O.J. Simpson's defense team, Scheck runs the Innocence Project at the Benjamin Cordoza School of Law in New York City.

BARRY SCHECK: If the blood on his jacket is not the victims' blood, that's a huge factor in his favor.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The program's goal is to free innocent people from prison with post-conviction DNA evidence. Here, Scheck reviews potential cases with students. So far the project has exonerated 33 people.

BARRY SCHECK: This great advance in crime solving, in forensic science, in DNA testing, is excluding out a considerable number of individuals who would have otherwise been convicted. And conversely, we can go back now and look at old cases where people are claiming they're innocent and prove it in unprecedented numbers. I mean, this is extraordinary.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: DNA evidence is also being used to solve previously unsolved or what appeared to be unsolvable cases. In 1994, 22-year-old Hope Denise Hall was viciously raped and stabbed to death in this apartment building in Petersburg, Virginia. Hall was well known in the community. She worked for the NBC affiliated television station in Richmond. Police had almost no leads. They went over the crime scene time and time again for any clues but were unable to solve the crime. Gerald Mann one of the detectives assigned to Hall's 'case.

GERALD MANN: I didn't think that we would be able to solve this. You know, murders go unsolved, but this one was one that we just had no information on. The investigation was thorough from the beginning, and it was very frustrating because there wasn't anything that was overlooked or a glaring omission by any of the investigators. Everything was done correctly.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Then in 1996, during a routine search of Virginia's DNA data bank, officials made what's called a "cold hit." The data bank identified an individual whose DNA profile matched DNA recovered from Hope Hall's body. It belonged to 19-year-old Shermaine Johnson, already in jail for murder and robbery. He will go on trial for the Hall murder soon. Dr. Paul Ferrara runs the DNA lab where the cold hit was made in the Hall case.

DR. PAUL FERRARA: It allows the triers of fact to have very strong reliable data to say this person's DNA was at the scene of the crime, or this individual's DNA was not at the scene of the crime. So it's a two-edged sword. If you are guilty of a crime, DNA is probably your worst enemy. On the other hand, if you're innocent, it's your greatest friend.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Lisa Schermier is a forensic scientist in Ferrara's lab. On the day we visited she was looking for DNA contained in blood on a huge machete knife.

LISA SCHERMIER: This is a chemical test for the detection of blood. It's a series of chemicals. I've put some water on the swab to swab the suspected stain, then I go through a series of chemicals and if it is blood, it will give me a fuchsia-type color on the swab.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The next step in the process depends on how much DNA was found. If it's an ample amount, a traditional method is used. But if it's a minuscule amount, such as saliva on a cigarette butt, a new technology is used. It's called PCR--or Pulimeres Chain Reaction. This new PCR testing allows small pieces of DNA for the first time to be cloned. Put simply, in about 20 minutes the PCR process makes it possible to make millions of copies of the tiny original DNA sample so that there is more than enough DNA to test. Recognizing the increasing accuracy of DNA evidence, most states now require all convicted felons to give DNA samples. Their individual codes are then stored in computers. With 160,000 samples collected, Virginia's database is the largest in the nation. Ferrara explains what that means for law enforcement.

DR. PAUL FERRARA: If the police have a suspect, we can compare DNA, and that's how this technology was first applied. Then we realized very quickly, but, wait a minute--if we have a database of all convicted felons, knowing the recidivism rate of felons, if in the future those individuals leave any part of their tissue or body fluids at the scene of a crime, we would be able, even in the absence of any suspects being developed through normal police investigative techniques, we can search the data bank and identify the individual.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Benjamin Keehn of the public defender's office in Boston thinks most of the laws mandating DNA testing for convicted felons are unconstitutional. Keehn is suing the state of Massachusetts on behalf of a class of felons, some of whom are in this correctional facility in Framingham. Keehn maintains the state does not have the right to search anyone's body without probable cause.

BENAJIMIN KEEHN: The state is saying, in effect, you may be a danger in the future because you were in the past, and therefore we need to register your DNA. That is a fundamentally different way that government has heretofore been permitted to treat its citizens. And if that theory prevails, it can be applied to any number of other potential classes or subclasses of our society as to which an argument could be made that that subclass is at risk of committing crimes in the future. If we are going to take DNA from prisoners because they are at-risk, why shouldn't we take DNA from teenagers, from homeless people, from Catholic priests, from any subgroup of society that someone is able to make a statistical argument of being at risk?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Some states like New York have passed legislation that limits use of DNA data banks for identification purposes only. Others, like Massachusetts, say its use is justified for any "law enforcement purpose."

BARRY SCHECK: I can easily imagine, unless they correct this legislation, that somebody will come along someday very soon and say look, I have a law enforcement purpose--I want to get access to the DNA you took from all these convicted sex offenders, and I want to do some screening on it because I think I can find a gene that shows the people committing sexual assaults, or I can find a gene that's related to violent behavioror homicidal behavior, or I can find a gene that's related to maybe drug abuse, which I think may be related to some of the crimes of these offenders; I want to experiment with it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Law enforcement--especially the FBI--is sensitive to that kind of speculation. The Bureau is setting up a national data bank that will someday contain thousands of DNA samples from all over the country. Jennifer Smith--who runs the FBI data bank--insists the Bureau is only interested in DNA information that can be used to solve crimes.

JENNIFER SMITH: Well, I believe the system has been designed to protect people's privacy. I think we are very conscious of the areas of DNA that we amplify--these areas don't have information in them that could be used by life insurance companies or something like that. Again, it's really just for forensic purposes. But I have no desire to look at private citizens that aren't involved in crimes and their DNA profiles, nor does I don't think anybody else in our outfit, at least.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Virginia's forensic Chief Ferrara says the way to avoid abuse is to have laws to prevent it.

DR. PAUL FERRARA: You do it by regulation; you do it by statute; you do it by imbuing on people ethical, responsible behavior. We are only interested in one thing, and that is assisting in the identification of the guilty or the exoneration of the innocent, and that's all we're concerned about.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But attorney Ben Keehn takes no consolation in that statement.

BENJAMIN KEEHN: I don't have any confidence at all--in states where the laws are sketchily drawn, there is nothing but the good word and the assurance of the people who are administering these data banks to protect us--not that I have any reason to doubt them--but for this information to be useful to law enforcement, it has to be disseminated. It has to be sent out. Once you start sending this stuff out, the risks of genetic privacy violations occurring is there.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Wendy McGoodwin, head of the Council for Responsible Genetics in Cambridge, Massachusetts., also worries that DNA data banks may be seriously abused.

WENDY MCGOODWIN: Our organization has documented numerous examples of genetic discrimination where healthy individuals have either lost their insurance or their jobs on the basis of predictive genetic information. Doctors are now able to test for hundreds of gene mutations that may put people at risk for future disease--diseases such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia. Now it's very important for your doctor to have that information but it can be very dangerous if that information falls into the wrong hands.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But for people like Tony Snyder DNA technology has been a miracle. It restored his life and gave him back his reputation. As new uses for DNA technology grow, there are going to be new questions to answer.--ones pitting privacy rights against the great public good--and right now most of those questions have no clear cut answers.% ? FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight Shields & Gigot, World Cup soccer, and the music of the US Marine Corps Band. Shields & Gigot, our syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot.Gentlemen, regulating managed care, we talked about it on this program last night. Congress is back next week. Are they going to do anything about it?

PAUL GIGOT: I think they might, Jim, I really do. The Democrats-if they want to take over the Congress, they need an issue. When you're in the minority, you need something that galvanizes people, gets people to vote. What they've been trying have been busts frankly: Tobacco, not really something people run out in the streets for; campaign finance way overrated as an issue. They think they found one in protecting patients from HMO rationing of health care, and there are enough Republicans who think that this is an issue that they don't want to get on the wrong side of, but they're going to try-I think they will probably try to pass something.

JIM LEHRER: How do you read it?

MARK SHIELDS: Paul's right. When the economy is bad, the economy is the only issue. When the economy is good, in order to be an incumbent, you have to come up with another issue. Republicans couldn't in 1996, and Bill Clinton won. Democrats better in 1998, if they hope to make any gains at all, or just hold their own. Jim, four years ago in this country we had a big debate over national health care. And David Gergen, who was then a counselor to President Bill Clinton-

JIM LEHRER: I've heard the name.

MARK SHIELDS: --argued against the omnibus Clinton plan, because he said, look, this is going to lead inevitably to rationing of health care, and people are going to be angry at the government, and they're going to be angry at the government to put it in, and you're going to pay for it politically. Well, we got rationing even though we didn't get a national health plan.

JIM LEHRER: Through HMO's.

MARK SHIELDS: Through HMO's. And now the ire and the fire is directed at insurance companies and the Health Maintenance Organizations, and there's no question that it is at issue. I mean, North Carolina-Sen. Lock Faircloth, Republican running for re-election, challenged by a Democratic plaintiff's attorney, a multi-millionaire himself who's made this a big issue-I stand for the patients against the big insurance companies-Sen. Faircloth quickly ran out and changed his position, and now he's for a plan. So the Republicans are scurrying to come up with a plan of their own.

JIM LEHRER: Do you think it's a legitimate issue, Paul, or is strictly a political issue?

PAUL GIGOT: No. I think there is an issue, if you have cancer and you need an experimental treatment and you've been denied permission, well, that's very important to you. You know, insurance, you want to make sure that that is something that can be covered. But it's not fair simply to say this is something that HMO's and the evil guy profit seeks made because HMO's are a function of the marketplace responding to the runaway costs. So we ask somebody to ration care, and since we have such a screwed up marketplace that prices don't ration care as they do other resources in the economy, we end up with bureaucrats doing it, whether it be government in Medicare, or in the private sector it turns out it's become HMO's. So it's not a clear philosophical divide between the parties, because it's not a-I mean, HMO's are hardly laissez-faire kind-they're already a bureaucratic entity. So Republicans might be more willing to regulate something like that than they would other subjects.

JIM LEHRER: But you all-Susan Dentzer said on the program last night that she felt that it could replace-same thing you said-it could replace all these other-as the hot issue when Congress comes back.

PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think it's something that Republicans are going to try to respond, as Mark said. I think the interesting question politically is whether Democrats let them, because Republicans are not going to pass all of the rules, particularly ones that help lawsuits like the Ted Kennedy bill offers, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Democrats wanting that issue in November filibuster in the Senate and say, wait, and then blame the Republicans for not going far enough and trying to make it that galvanizing issue.

MARK SHIELDS: The Democrats have by every measure of public opinion a fifteen to twenty-five point edge over the Republicans on the issue of health care and particularly taming the excesses of HMO's or representing patients' rights. So I think the political element of it is a-is real. It's permanent. It's not going to go away. We had yesterday the conservative Republican position staked out by Steve Forbes, a presidential candidate who said, we don't need any more Soviet-style regulations. There's sort of a rhetorical nostalgia. But I mean, that's a position that he doesn't want the Republicans coming up with a dime store New Deal and coming up with a similar plan.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Paul, what else is Congress likely to do of consequence when they come back next week?

PAUL GIGOT: The show's over, Jim. They're not going to-(laughter among group)-they're not going to press-both sides are going to be positioning for the election. I think Republicans are probably going to try to pass a tax cut, put it on the president's desk, ask him to sign that, and if they don't-

JIM LEHRER: Raise Cain.

PAUL GIGOT: Yes, and say, look, if you elect more of us, you'll get a better tax cut. There will be some fighting over social issues. This election, Jim, in November is going to be about turnout. It's going to be one of the lowest turnout elections maybe ever, and-

JIM LEHRER: Why?

PAUL GIGOT: Times are good.

JIM LEHRER: Because of just what we're talking about?

PAUL GIGOT: Yes. People-

JIM LEHRER: There is no issue-

PAUL GIGOT: People have low expectations of what they get out of Washington. Washington is meeting those expectations. And there's not a great drive, do something, so Congress-the approval rating is higher than I can remember it.

JIM LEHRER: And so when somebody makes the charge, oh, it's a do-nothing Congress, nobody really cares, do you agree with that?

MARK SHIELDS: I think that's certainly the guiding principle of the majority party in Congress and for many in the minority party. It's a sense of there's no reason, there's no compelling national reason to throw out incumbents now, so why give 'em one, and-

JIM LEHRER: You mean by causing-

MARK SHIELDS: Doing something. I think it's fair also to say that the Republican revolution-we've gone through two previous elections, which were fascinating. In 1994, the Republicans swept to victory on Capitol Hill, the first time in forty years, and they did so by running against Democratic domination of what the perceived Democratic excesses were of '93/94, when they controlled everything. The Democrats want the presidency for the first time-the second term for the first time in 60 years in 1996, by running against the perceived excesses of that Republican Congress in the persona of the Speaker. So now we're at a point of excessive timidity. Incrementalism is the-

JIM LEHRER: And no excesses to pin on the other one.

MARK SHIELDS: That's right. As soon as somebody comes up with an idea, the Democrats come up with an idea on patient's rights, the Republicans are going to have a plan. It's going to be 50 percent or 60 percent off and with people who went to better business schools running it, but that's what it's going to be.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. How would you assess the state of the Republican leadership in the Congress right now going into these last few months of this session?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, they've sheathed their knives from last summer, but it's still tense. I don't think that there's-

JIM LEHRER: Tense you mean internally between and among them?

PAUL GIGOT: Particularly there's an expectation in some quarters-maybe wrong-but that a lot of people think that Newt Gingrich may run for president. If he does run for president, that vacates the speakership. There's a competition under him between the majority leader number two, Dick Armey, and the head of the Appropriations Committee, Bob Livingston, to succeed him. Now whenever you have that kind of-there's a competition internally-

JIM LEHRER: And it's there on the table no matter what you're talking about, right?

PAUL GIGOT: Exactly. It is exactly, and so they're fighting over a particular issue, the strategy. Livingston says I'm an appropriator, we got to get something out here, guy, I need my prerogatives. Armey says wait a minute to try to win over different factions within the party. I think that has an upsetting effect. The other thing is with an 11-seat majority, you know, everything is just pulling teeth, because there's 11 guys get together in the back room, and they can basically pull you down, so you got to bring those folks-

JIM LEHRER: For any reason?

PAUL GIGOT: Right. So you got to bring them on to the table.

MARK SHIELDS: Congressman Mo Udahl, the wonderful Arizona Democrat, once said that when Democrats form a firing squad, they form a circle. And Republicans have stolen that page from the Democrats' play book. There's no question, Paul's absolutely right. I mean, the tensions and the fault lines are there, and you can see them maneuvering for the future, but the problem is there's no majority, there's no consensus, and there's no agenda. So I mean-you know, there really isn't-and there's no urgency or emergency within the country compelling any of the three.

JIM LEHRER: What about a minority, what's the status of the minority? Is there a strong minority?

MARK SHIELDS: Always easier to be in the minority, always. I mean, you can get-

JIM LEHRER: Well, then why does everybody want to be in the majority so much?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, then you can make a difference, but you make political points in the minority by you get everybody on your side to stand for the cause, knowing full well the cause isn't going to pass. I mean, the greatest example was campaign finance reform. Democrats passed it when they were in the majority and George Bush was going to veto it. Republicans were for-Speaker Gingrich was for abolishing soft money and for eliminating PAC's in 1993 when Bill Clinton was in the White House and Democrats controlled it, and he knew they wouldn't do it. Go into the majority and things become a little bit more complicated.

JIM LEHRER: The Democrats-

PAUL GIGOT: The Democrats-because they're in the minority, you can paper over divisions. The big division in the Democratic Party is between one side of Pennsylvania Avenue and the other, that is, the tension between the minority in the House and the President of the United States. The President of the United States-Democrats in the House want to say it's a do-nothing Congress. The president says let's take credit for a balanced budget, let's take credit for tax cuts, let's take credit for IRS reform. Well, those were all done with a Republican Congress. So there's a natural tension there.

JIM LEHRER: And we are done as a matter of fact. Thank you both.

PAUL GIGOT: Thank you.% ? UPDATE - KICKING HABIT

JIM LEHRER: The World Cup and to Phil Ponce.

PHIL PONCE: Over the last five weeks a cumulative global television audience of 37 billion people has watched 62 games of World Cup soccer. Thirty-two national teams started out. This week they were whittled down to two. Brazil's semifinal victory over the Netherlands Tuesday came after 90 minutes of regulation play and 30 of sudden death overtime. The game was still tied one to one, so each team had five penalty kicks to see which could make the most. It was an emotional win for Brazil and brought the team's coach to tears. Brazil can now win its second straight World Cup title and a record fifth overall. Host country France then played Croatia on Wednesday for the right to play Brazil in Sunday's final match. France's two to one victory set off a national celebration. France invented the tournament in 1930 and will now play in its first ever championship match. One of this year's big surprises was the Croatian team. It reached the Final Four in its World Cup appearance. It's been an independent country for only seven years since its break with Yugoslavia. There have also been agonizing defeats. In one of the most exciting games Argentina beat England on penalty kicks after a 2/2 tie. The loss sent England to something approaching national mourning. And the US was disappointed too. The Americans lost all three qualifying matches, including a two to one loss to Iran in a high-profile game. Not all the action was on the field. Security officials had to play defense themselves against continuing hooliganism. In the most serious incident a group of German neo Nazis clashed with police and left a French policeman in a coma after he was clubbed in the head. Up to 2 million fans came to the games, and officials say the overwhelming majority were well behaved. On Sunday, all soccer fans will find out whether the next world champion is Brazil or France.

PHIL PONCE: We're joined now by two people who will watch Sunday's game with interest. From France Philippe Coste, the New York correspondent for L'Express, a weekly French news magazine, and a Brazilian perspective from Paulo Sotero, the Washington correspondent for O Estado de Sao Paulo, a daily Brazilian newspaper. Gentlemen, welcome both.Philippe Coste, you were just in Paris, when France beat Croatia. What was it like there?

PHILIPPE COSTE, L'Express: I was in my car during the first minutes of the game, and actually I had never heard such an eerie silence in the city. Everybody was at home. I could cross the street in something like 15 minutes, so the city was completely deserted. And, well, there was this kind of incredible tension in the city and I think in the whole country during the first half of the game, and then afterwards came the victory and really the atmosphere in Paris is really such an explosion of joy is actually unprecedented, and we've never seen in years 350,000 people in the Champs Elysses, people hugging each other, hugging perfect strangers in the street, there was some kind of a fraternity or some kind of a solidarity feeding the whole city that we are not really accustomed to in Paris, which is supposed to be a very reserved town.

PHIL PONCE: Paulo Sotero, you're not going to bust his bubble, are you, on Sunday?

PAULO SOTERO, O Estado de Sao Paulo: We will try. We will really try. I think we have a great team. We are not totally satisfied with our team yet. They don't have-they have not played to the standards that we'd like to see them playing, but-

PHIL PONCE: How can you not be satisfied with them if they're in the final game? What standards are they not meeting?

PAULOSOTERO: In Brazil we are very picky about those things. You know, we had the gods of soccer, we had Belair, that's the standard. It was like having Michael Jackson here.

PHIL PONCE: You mean Michael Jordan?

PAULO SOTERO: Michael Jordan. Sorry. You had this-we had-we need to play a very effective joyous kind of soccer. We like improvisation. We like the teams scoring, and the team has been sort of tentative so far, and we hope that on Sunday we'll win but we'll win big, we win like we won in '58, five/two, or against Italy in 1970 in Mexico, four/one, that's the kind of thing that would make us very, very happy.

PHIL PONCE: Philippe Coste, what does this game mean to France?

PHILIPPE COSTE: Actually it's a big surprise. We never reached the final in the World Cup, and actually the French are still stunned by so many victories, they feel like-I don't know-struggling actors-just meeting-a story with DeNiro in a movie-and all of a sudden it's some kind of a really honorable performance for a team that was really an outsider, so far. What it means, it means a lot more for the French society I think that we've come so far, for a country that was really struggling with a loss of identity, with some fears about its strength, its position in the world. All of a sudden things are getting clear. We have more common denominators. There's some kind of hope, and it corresponds at the same time with a lot of changes in the French society, when we look, for example, at the French team, which is a racially mixed team, well, there is some kind of an emphasis on values like this team got there because of hard work, it got there because of good integration in the country, and people are really proud of that team, and that's a very-that's an encouraging sign for some gap bridging in the French society or some soothing of discrepancies.

PHIL PONCE: Paulo Sotero, does the game mean as much in Brazil as it seems to mean in France?

PAULO SOTERO: Oh, it means a lot to us. It's a celebration of ourselves, and it's something that we do very well. We are the team that won four World Cups already. We played in every World Cup since 1930. And it I think over the years we have been so successful with this, we have raised this game to such a high level, that it has become at an emotional level a celebration sort of an equalizing in Brazil, an equalizer in Brazilian society. Now this is something that everybody in Brazil can do. Brazil is a very unequal society. So it's a way-it's a celebration, a very hopeful thing for us. You know, we're altogether in this. There is no Brazilian that thinks he or she is better than the other Brazilian when it comes to judge soccer. And it's a very beautiful thing. It's a lot of fun really.

PHIL PONCE: But it seems to me that looking at the video from France, Philippe Coste, that there's a passion that so many countries attach to the game. What is the source of the passion?

PHILIPPE COSTE: Oh, the source of the passion? Well, it's a simple game in a way. It's-well, maybe we could compare it with the-with what the Brazilians say-I mean, it's an equalizing factor in society. It's the one moment when people come together and submit to the same rules, watch the same players, watch themselves at the same time chanting and enjoying the game. But France has not been one of the most ecstatic countries, one of the Italians, the Brazilians are known for their fans, and I think this enjoyment by the French of the soccer game is something really new. For long we didn't have good teams; the days of glory of the Platini teams of the 80's were long gone. We never reached such a high level. And all of a sudden everybody is converging towards this game, even in France-women, for example, that were supposedly not very interested are cheering their team the same way as everybody in the country. So I think it's a specific moment for the country.

PHIL PONCE: Paulo Sotero, is part of the enthusiasm, part of the excitement, tapping into patriotism, a love of Brazil, the fact that Brazil is on the world stage in such a prominent way, is that a part of it?

PAULO SOTERO: It can tend to overdue those things. In 1970, for instance, we are governed by a military dictatorship when we won for the third time and they used that. They tried to use our joy to promote their own project for Brazil, which we ended up by rejecting later on. But I think there is this-it's patriotic but in a very-you say in a very positive way. It's not-it's a very healthy raising of the flag. There is no hatred for other. It's not something that we do against France. We all love France. We obviously hope to win this and then go off and celebrate and drink a lot of French wine, and-but it's positive because if, for instance, politically, you know, I don't think it means much. We are in an election year. We are pretty much at peace with ourselves in Brazil. We are a democratic nation. We are struggling to perfect our own democracy. If the team wins, I think it will help some the current president but you know, I don't think that people will abuse that, we'll try to overuse that, because it could backfire on them.

PHIL PONCE: Philippe Coste, very quickly, how do you explain to Americans-I mean, you've been working in the United States for a while-how do you explain to Americans the passion for soccer that exists in other parts of the world?

PHILIPPE COSTE: Oh, it's quite difficult. I can explain what's going on in France. For the first time they have a united team, they have a team that works fine together, that's very representative of their nation, very-it's a game that transcends class and that transcends economic problems, and it's a moment of grace in the society, especially for France, that have been struggling with identity problems for such a long time, and that was, let's say, submitted to some kind of a gloomy period of its existence during the recession, and also it's coming together-values are more simple. It transcends politics. It transcends everyday problems, and I think that's why it-I think this victory or that-

PHIL PONCE: Well, Philippe Coste, I have to interrupt you. May the best team win. Philippe Coste, Paulo Sotero, good luck to you too.% ? FINALLY - THE PRESIDENT'S OWN

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight a Happy 200th birthday to the United States Marine Corps Band. It has played at every presidential inaugural since Thomas Jefferson's in 1801 and he's the one who dubbed it "The President's Own." The band played today at a special White House ceremony.

(BAND PLAYING)% ? RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie's remains were returned to his family. They have been buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. The Labor Department reported wholesale inflation fell .1 percent in June, and British police said it broke up an Irish Republican bomb attack planned for Central London. Ten people were arrested, some with explosives. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.