The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. MUDD: And I'm Roger Mudd in Washington. After the News Summary, we look at the talk of compromise around the Clinton budget with Treasury Secretary Bentsen and Senators Breaux and Simpson, then the plan for safe havens in Bosnia. We have two reports and a Newsmaker interview with Bosnia's U.N. ambassador. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MUDD: President Clinton's top aides worked to reshape his economic package today. Mr. Clinton met with bipartisan congressional leaders at the White House this morning. White House Press Secretary Dee Myers said the President could accept as much as a 33 percent reduction in the energy tax. At the meeting with congressional leaders, the President was asked by reporters if he was still committed to the so-called "BTU tax" based on the heating efficiency of fuel.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't want to get into the name game here. I'm interested in the principles of the program. Deficit reduction, lower interest rates, job growth. We have job growth coming back into this economy now, and I think we have to continue to do what produces it, which is lower interest rates. The lower interest rates are causing people to refinance all their debt and putting it back into the economy, and that's the thing I'm interested in. We'll just see, Sec. Bentsen and Mr. Panetta are representing the administration in the conversations with the Senate, and we'll just see what comes out of it.

MR. MUDD: After the meeting, Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole said he doubted the President's package would receive any Republican votes. Mississippi Senator Fred Cochran said Republicans could support the principles of Mr. Clinton's plan; it was the details that gave them problems.

SEN. FRED COCHRAN: I'm glad to hear that they're going to modify it. That's what the message is this morning is that the Democrats are ready to make changes, substantial changes in taxes, and we'll just have to wait and see how many changes and what they are. That BTU thing I think has been dropped. I think we're talking about now a broad-based energy tax. I think the BTU tax at least as a phrase is dead. Now, whether in fact and in meaning or substance they have something to take its place remains to be seen.

MR. MUDD: We'll have more on the economic plan with Treasury Sec. Bentsen and two key Senators right after the News Summary. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Members of Congress took aim at the entertainment industry today. Theycriticized television programs for glorifying violence and said TV violence served to instigate violence in the real world. One industry executive said the criticism had been heard and they were working to fix the problem, but others said television merely reflects the society at large. One of the critics was Congressman Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER, [D] New York: During sweeps week last month, the semi-annual carnival of murder and mayhem on the air waves, things were just incredible. I have to admit that I have very little sympathy for those who put out this stuff. While many times the networks are living up to the ignominious title of "keepers of our cultural waste land," in some respects, they are, indeed, driven to it by the proliferation of gore and sleaze by their competitors in the cable industry. And any approach we have has to be across the board, not just aimed at the networks, or not just at cable, but at the whole entertainment industry.

MR. VALENTI: Long before there was an electronic box in millions of Americans' homes, there was violence, a vast inhumanity that's slouching toward us across the century. Now we know that. Well, I tell you quite frankly, I refuse to believe that all of the cruelties visited upon this society were caused by television.

MR. MacNeil: Major network executives told a congressional hearing last month that they would have fewer violent programs next fall than in the TV season just past.

MR. MUDD: United Nations officials today said Muslim forces in Bosnia had recaptured the strategic town of Travnik from the Croats. The battle for the town was reported to have been fierce, with hundreds of lives lost. Thousands of Croat fighters and civilian refugees fled the town today. Croats and Muslims had been allies against the Serbs for most of Bosnia's 15 month old civil war, but they have turned their guns on each other after several weeks ago. The Travnik battle was to be their fiercest conflict yet. We'll have more on the story later in the program. The U.S. branch of Amnesty International today attacked the Clinton administration for giving military aid to countries with poor human rights records. They said the U.S. employed a double standard, ignoring human rights violations in such friendly countries as Israel, Egypt, and Turkey. They called it a serious shortcoming in U.S. policy.

MR. MacNeil: Haitian Prime Minister Mark Bezan resigned today, but the military remained in control of the country. The move followed Bezan's failed attempt to seat a new cabinet and the tightening of U.S. sanctions. Bezan was installed a year ago by the army after their coup ousting democratically-elected President Jean Bertrande Aristide. It was unclear who would take over for Bezan, but former President Aristide said he hoped the news meant he could return to Haiti within weeks. A federal judge in New York today ordered the U.S. government to release more than a hundred fifty Haitian refugees who tested positive for AIDS. The Haitians are being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, some for as long as 20 months. In his ruling, the judge said they were victims of outrageous, callous, and reprehensible behavior by the Bush and Clinton administrations. In Egypt, a bomb apparently intended for a tourist bus killed one Egyptian today and wounded 14 other people. The bomb was dropped from an overpass onto a road leading to the Gaza -- Geza Pyramids. Five British tourists were among the injured. Suspicion for the attack centered on Muslim extremists who conducted an18-month terror campaign aimed at overthrowing the Egyptian government.

MR. MUDD: Police in Germany today reported four more attacks on foreigners. All of them were against homes or businesses owned by Turks. In one attack, firebombs damaged a Turkish restaurant in a southwestern town. No one was seriously hurt in the violence which came ten days after five Turks were killed in an arson attack. In France, a former Nazi collaborator was shot to death today. Renee Bouquet was a police chief in World War II Visci regime, and he was charged with war crimes in 1991 for ordering thousands of French Jews into Nazi concentration camps. A gunman got into his apartment building early today and shot the 84 year old man four times at point blank range. The man later turned himself in, saying he had acted as an agent of God. That ends our summary of the day's top stories. Ahead on the NewsHour, making a deal on the budget and safe havens in Bosnia. FOCUS - LET'S MAKE A DEAL

MR. MUDD: First tonight, round two for the Clinton economic plan. It was a squeaker in the House of Representatives two weeks ago, and that was said to have been the easy part. This week, the President and his advisers are trying to forge a deal with the Senate Finance Committee where the Republicans are united in opposition and where some Democrats have not been stingy with their complaints, particularly about the proposed energy or BTU tax. Today the future of that tax was in serious question as administration officials and Senators continued negotiations. For a look at where things stand, we go first to Treasury Sec. Lloyd Bentsen, formerly the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Good evening, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. BENTSEN: Good evening. Good to be with you.

MR. MUDD: The White House apparently has turned over to you and to the Senate Finance Committee the job of rewriting this House- passed economic package. What are your instructions, sir?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, it's really the job of the Senate Finance Committee and the leadership in the United States Senate. To the extent we can work with him and cooperate, we want to do that. What I believe that you're going to see is a continuation of a broad energy tax. That should be the objective, one that will lead to conservation, less dependence on foreign oil coming in, often from politically unstable areas, and raise funds to help cut back on that deficit substantially.

MR. MUDD: How do you define then a broad-based energy tax compared to the, the BTU tax?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, that's one that the Senate Finance Committee will have to work out, but I'm confident it will not be based on the British thermal units. It will not be a so-called "BTU tax."

MR. MUDD: So what would it be? Would it be a general consumption tax?

SEC. BENTSEN: I think it should emphasize the consumption issue rather than the productivity issue, rather than on production, itself, more on consumption to deter consumption and to bring about more conservation.

MR. MUDD: So if, if all of us had read the tea leaves available to us today, we can say that the BTU tax is now, in fact, dead?

SEC. BENTSEN: As a BTU tax, I don't think you're going to see that. But, of course, then that finally goes to conference with the House, and they'll work out their differences.

MR. MUDD: So if the tax that you are heading toward is a, is a general consumption tax say of 5 percent, that would apply then to all fuels, be they, be it coal, gas, oil?

SEC. BENTSEN: Let me say at this point those details have not been worked out. You're right at the very beginning of that process of achieving some kind of a compromise.

MR. MUDD: What, what progress did you make today, Mr. Secretary, in your, in your -- is this just the preliminary?

SEC. BENTSEN: Yes, it's just preliminary at this point, but I think we made the progress of deciding that the BTU tax based on British thermal units, that that would be put aside.

MR. MUDD: The White House said today that, or indicated today that the President was willing to take about a, a third less in, in revenue generated by the broad-based energy tax. That would cut it down below $50 billion over five years. How will you, how will you make up the short fall?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, obviously, we have to make it up by further cutting spending, and we're going to increase the cuts of spending, and, of course, we're looking forward to the comments and the suggestions by the Finance Committee as to where else they think those cuts should be made.

MR. MUDD: Well, where do you think they -- where do you think they ought to be made, Mr. Secretary?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, they're going to have to be made, some of them have to be made in Medicare, but we have to be very careful about that, because we have health care reform coming along, and we don't want to intrude on that one to the point that we do not go to universal coverage as quickly as we would like.

MR. MUDD: Do you agree that, that fooling around with Medicare is the so-called "third rail" of American politics, you touch it and you're dead?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, let me tell you this. You have seen this President take on some very tough issues, some things that were called the third rail of politics that other presidents in the past have not had the political will to do, and this is the first time you've seen a cut of that magnitude, some $500 billion. And, obviously, interest rates have reacted to that. We've seen almost a full percentage point, which is the equivalent of about $100 billion in stimulus. And that's one of the reasons that you've seen the increase in jobs and unemployment drop to 6.9. So those things are helpful. I've just returned from Europe and the OECD meeting there, where I was listening to the problems of other countries of where you're seeing recession in most of them. And we have turned the situation around, and you're seeing some modest growth. We want to see that sustained. So that's why it's an absolute imperative that we get this package through. Otherwise, this fragile recovery, we could find it ended, we could find a sharp up tick in interest rates, and we could see us brought back into recession. And no one wants that.

MR. MUDD: Tell me, Mr. Secretary, what happened to the attractiveness of the BTU tax? I remember a president, a campaigner Clinton describing it as the fairest tax of all. What happened on the way to the House?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, frankly, the House passed it. It was a squeaker, but it passed. And it is a broad-based energy tax, and that has much in its favor. But it has been subjected to a very good campaign against it, a very smart campaign. You've seen, for example, the American Petroleum Institute has helped lead a drive, and they've had a front organization and they've had some hired guns that have put out what I think are wrong numbers concerning that tax. And they've done an effective job. They've particularly attacked those Senators in areas where you have energy states. It's been quite a special interest campaign.

MR. MUDD: But do you think the administration gave away too much in the House of Representatives and gave, gave up too soon on the BTU tax?

SEC. BENTSEN: They didn't give up on it.

MR. MUDD: Well, there were a lot of, a lot of exemptions written in the House one.

SEC. BENTSEN: You will always have as you propose a major piece of legislation and it has been presented to the public, you will find things we did not anticipate, things that are affected in ways that you had not realized they would be. That's part of the legislative process, and you make those corrections where you think there are inequities.

MR. MUDD: Are you generally now, Mr. Secretary, in favor of the direction that the economic package is taking, more emphasis on the, on the spending cuts than on the tax increase?

SEC. BENTSEN: Oh, yes, I am. I'm delighted with that, and I --

MR. MUDD: Why?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, because I think you're getting good balance here. I believe that we can sustain $250 billion in cuts and $250 billion in tax increases and achieve our objective of the $500 billion cut in this deficit over the next five years.

MR. MUDD: What, what other changes might we anticipate or might you anticipate in the economic package, say in the increased tax rates or delaying the new tax on the wealthy or, or other spending cuts?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, the one insofar as any delay in the tax, that has been put in from the beginning as of January 1, 1993, with the option of looking at how the economy is progressing and making a determination as to whether it should stay at that date or move to the middle of the year, for example. That determination has not been made, but that's one that the Finance Committee in the Senate will be addressing.

MR. MUDD: As you, as you begin to make your compromises and you, you pick up the votes of some Senators because you're cutting back on the energy tax and you make up for it with reductions in the Medicare, you lose some and you gain some, how --

SEC. BENTSEN: That's part of the problem, because --

MR. MUDD: Well, that's sausage making on Capitol Hill, isn't it?

SEC. BENTSEN: This is, frankly, this particular program is the only one that I think has a serious opportunity of passing, and I think it will. It's going to be a tough fight. But you will see a number of other proposals, but they can't garner a majority. And what you want to be sure of is that you've finally got your majority together, that you put through this piece of legislation, and that you have an economic policy that is really going to cut back on this deficit and keep these low interest rates.

MR. MUDD: Let me ask one question of you before we go to the Senators. Were these changes agreed to in basic principle prior to the vote in the House of Representatives?

SEC. BENTSEN: Some of them were.

MR. MUDD: Uh huh.

SEC. BENTSEN: and the understanding was that some of those would be changed, and there was an understanding that there would be major changes in the BTU tax.

MR. MUDD: And I want to ask one more question before we go on. The current issue of Time Magazine has an article entitled "Bentsen on the Burner." And the gist of the article is that, that your reputation and standing in the administration is riding on your success in negotiating this economic bill through the Congress. How is that thesis?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, what I would say, that gives me credit for far too much power. This is something in a congressional process where the Senate leadership will play a very major role, where a very able chairman of the Finance Committee is going to play a major role; wherever that we can aid and abet, we'll do that.

MR. MUDD: All right. Let's go for twoother views now from the United States Senate. Democratic Senator John Breaux of Louisiana has opposed the President's original BTU tax and has proposed another energy tax of his own, and Sen. Alan Simpson, Republican from Wyoming, is the assistant minority leader, and he will play a crucial role in trying to block the President's economic package when it comes to the Senate floor. Sen. Breaux, were you able to hear Sec. Bentsen, and if you did hear him in its entirety, what did you think of what he said?

SEN. BREAUX: I heard him loud and clear, and I think he made some good points. I think that what we're looking at is a day of reckoning has now arrived in the United States Senate. All of the members of Congress, we have talked for decades about deficit reduction, are now going to show that they're very serious about making cuts, cuts in spending that are going to be very difficult but very, very necessary. I think the President really is to be commended for really getting this argument going, and there are no more easy answers. I mean, the easy days are behind us. He's going to have some very difficult problems, and I've said all along that America does not need a $72 billion BTU tax. It was something that was going to be more and more complicated. We could do it in other fashions and achieve the same goals that this President outlined.

MR. MUDD: So what is it that, what sort of energy tax would you accept, Senator?

SEN. BREAUX: Well, Roger, first of all, the President's BTU tax is a transportation tax, because it is a tax on all means of transportation, air, water, railroads, automobiles, and trucks already. But in addition to that, it's a tax on manufacturing. It's a tax on heating oil. It's a tax on natural gas. It's a tax on all consumer items. It's a tax on utilities. What I'm suggesting is that we should consider an energy tax like the President has proposed, a broad-based energy transportation tax, i.e., treats all forms of transportation equally, so no one has a competitive advantage over anyone else, and then do away with the rest of the BTU tax, eliminate it completely, and make up that difference with additional spending cuts. I think that's a good program that has the ability to pass the Finance Committee and also the ability to pass the full Senate, and I think it would be accepted by the House.

MR. MUDD: And would those spending cuts include reductions in Medicare?

SEN. BREAUX: Some of them have to, Roger, to be quite honest and candid. Right now we subsidize Medicare Part B health premiums for people who go to doctors. I would suggest that someone who has a retirement income, a retirement income of $75,000 in retirement does not need the federal government subsidizing 75 percent of their premiums to see a doctor. We have to means test Medicare in some areas, and I think we can do it without doing any damage to any people who need the benefits of Medicare. That's just one example, and there are many others.

MR. MUDD: Let me ask the assistant minority leader, Alan Simpson of Wyoming, will the Republicans in the Senate unanimously oppose any brokered deal between the White House, Bentsen, and the Senate Finance Committee?

SEN. SIMPSON: No. I don't think so. We're not here for that purpose. I always -- Lloyd Bentsen is the old pro here. He's a highly respected friend of mine, and you want to listen to what he's saying. He's talking as a legislator. A lot of people can't understand this. This process has got to work through legislation. John Breaux is saying exactly what I say. And that is the only way you get this done, and forget, they say well, if you don't like the BTU tax, what are you going to do? Well, I'll, I'll listen to John's proposal, but there's another novel, extraordinary way you might do it. Instead of having 73 billion in new taxes, you might cut 73 billion in spending. But until we do something, means test these things, there is no reason someone should be paying, that Joe six pack should be paying 75 percent of the premium on Part B Medicare for someone who is earning that kind of money, and you're going to have to get into the fact is there is no revenue stream you can produce that will keep up with the raise in the entitlements programs of 24 percent a year. That's what they go up. And Medicare went up 38 percent. And we all have to sit down and sober up. We won't get there with these minor ways of doing it. You've got to go for through, pardon the expression, don't throw your dinner rolls, you've got to go for Social Security, look at those cost of living allowances, means test those things. We're not talking about taking away a single benefit or reducing it. We're talking about COLAS for people who have the bucks, and then we do something with health care, Medicare, and Medicaid. That's it. We can't get there any other way.

MR. MUDD: Will the Republicans present a substitute, Sen. Simpson?

SEN. SIMPSON: Indeed, we will, and it will have no taxes whatsoever in it. Anyone who's in politics knows what's going on out in the land. You go home, they run a banner up outside the building, and that says, no more spending, cut spending. We will produce one. It will have no new taxes. It will have cuts in spending, and it will do things like the Nunn-Domenici proposal which say very simply, you can't let these programs go up any higher than the number of people coming in, plus inflation, plus a cushion. And then you remove the cushion after four years. We can't get that done. Everybody listening, their grandchildren will be picking grit with the chickens.

MR. MUDD: Well, do I take that last comment to indicate that the Republicans will not vote for any economic package that has any tax increases in it?

SEN. SIMPSON: I can't speak for all Republicans, but I hunch that that's probably exactly what it will be. And, remember, when we presented a reconciliation package back in '85, we got one Democratic vote. It's the way it is. When you're in the majority party, go do the heavy lifting. We're glad to help, but we have our proposals which I think read well into what happened in November, and that is we don't want any more taxes. We want you to cut spending. Well, that's our proposal.

MR. MUDD: Let me return to Sec. Bentsen and ask him if, if he read Sen. Simpson's remarks carefully and what he thinks of them. Is that an intransigent opposition, Mr. Secretary?

SEC. BENTSEN: Well, I hope not. I must say that I have a great admiration for Sen. Simpson, and I must say that as chairman of that Finance Committee time and time again I had Republicans joining with us in a bipartisan way to bring things out of that committee. And, frankly, that's my preference. I always preferred that.

MR. MUDD: Sen. Breaux, tell me about what the schedule now is for the Senate Finance Committee. I don't understand that you're going to hold public hearings, is that correct?

SEN. BREAUX: Well, the final product obviously, Roger, will be subject to public scrutiny. What you see now this week is a lot of dialogue, a lot of discussion between members of the Senate working with Sec. Bentsen on a daily basis, a hourly basis really, working with the administration and the White House. You know, one of the problems, it's good to be a majority party, but you also have an obligation to produce results. And we have a majority in the House and the Senate and the White House, and it's going to be much more difficult. It's quite frankly a lot easier to sit on the sidelines and hope everything goes down the tube, but that's not the responsible thing to do. I think we also spend too much time worrying about which party's going to win in Washington as opposed to getting the job done. I really would like to see the hand extended by Sen. Simpson, which I think I'm hearing, to maybe be cooperative and work together for something that could be a real compromise.

SEN. SIMPSON: John, I think it's very important to know that as we talk about this gridlock, don't be misled there. This party that I represent has already presented this President with a letter saying there are 27 U.S. Senator Republicans who are ready to help you with a North American Free Trade agreement, here's a number of us who are ready to help you with a Russian aid package that has to be done. You don't spend $4 trillion defending yourself against an enemy and then can't spend a few dollars while we've still got the hot stuff under somebody's hand there. And we're ready to do that. This is a distortion to -- it's not John, but it takes guts for him to do what he's doing, for John Breaux. I've always admired that in him, and I think we will have a bipartisan approach on this.

SEN. BREAUX: We'd like to borrow a few of them from the NAFTA Free Trade Agreement and have them help us on this one.

MR. MUDD: Well, Sec. Bentsen, it sounds like listening to Senators Breaux and Simpson that you can wrap up your assignment in just a couple of days.

SEC. BENTSEN: I wish it was that easy, but the legislative process, these fellows have to speak their minds and finally get a consensus to get 51 votes is always a job. Each person has his chance to represent his constituency and his beliefs of what the solution should be. And that just doesn't happen overnight.

MR. MUDD: Thank you very much, Sec. Bentsen and Senators Breaux and Simpson. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, reports on the latest fighting in Bosnia and an interview with Bosnia's United Nations ambassador. FOCUS - SAFE HAVENS

MR. MacNeil: Next, we turn to the Bosnian story. On Friday, the United Nations Security Council voted to implement a plan accepted by the U.S. and its European allies to create six safe havens in Muslim areas in Bosnia. The resolution calls for more ground forces and authorizes air strikes to protect the safe zones. Still in question is what, if any, ground forces the United States would contribute. Meanwhile, in Bosnia, the fighting continues. The heavies was between Bosnian Croats and Muslims in the town of Travnik in central Bosnia. We begin our coverage with a report on developments there narrated by Lindsay Taylor of Independent Television News.

MR. TAYLOR: Hundreds of Bosnian Croat soldiers on the march but in retreat. The men are falling back from positions around Travnik forced out after the weekend push by the Bosnian Muslims. Two months ago, they fought alongside the Muslims against the encroaching Serbs, but what fragile trust there was has evaporated.

LT. COL. ALASTAIR DUNCAN, Prince of Wales's Own Regiment: The Muslims occupy most of the town. The Croat population, some of them have stayed in their homes, unfortunately not very few, because they're obviously very scared, but large numbers of them have movednorth and are now sheltering in the woods on the side of the Vlasic Vica.

MR. TAYLOR: With the retreating army, Croat refugees also flee areas around Travnik reported to be the center of fierce battles at the weekend. Once again, the all too familiar sight of families leaving their homes and in some cases husbands and fathers. These refugees hope to get close to the British army base a few miles away at the town of Vitez, itself the scene of fierce fighting in recent weeks. Other Croat families even head towards Serb-held areas, preferring to seek shelter with the enemy they know rather than be at the mercy of their former Muslim allies. It seems Travnik's just the latest town about to be transformed from picturesque tranquility to ravaged battleground. These pictures were taken just last week. A former capital of Bosnia under the Turkish occupation, it was until the war evenly divided between Muslims and Croats with a Serb minority. But in recent months, tens of thousands of Muslim refugees have poured in from the Serb- occupied north. The town has effectively been in Muslim control since May. Travnik is overlooked by the hills around Mount Vlasic. Bosnian Serb forces hold this high ground. For months, the Muslim- dominated Bosnian army fought alongside Bosnian Croat forces to hold the front line. But six weeks ago, the Bosnian Croat forces pulled back from the town, itself, leaving the Muslims to defend Travnik alone. This weekend's fighting saw the Muslim forces breaking out of the pocket, driving some Croat forces into the hands of the Serbs to the north. Surrounded by two armies, Travnik remains cut off. There is only electricity two hours a day. Food is available, but prices have tripled in recent weeks due to the Croat blockade of the town. In the trenches, Muslim soldiers resisting the Serb advance say they have been retrained by the Croats.

ELVIR BEG, Bosnian Army: [speaking through interpreter] If the Croatians don't want to be on the front line, that's fine. It's the Muslim soldiers that were holding the line anyway. All we ask is that they allow food and ammunition through to us.

MR. TAYLOR: As in Sarajevo, avoiding sniper fire has become a daily routine here. But now the Muslims also face attack from their erstwhile allies, the Croats. The Muslims say after seeing the destruction they claim Croats have caused to outlying villages, they were forced to seize control of Travnik to preempt further Croat action. And the Muslim commander says even before this weekend, there was already collusion between Serbs and Croats.

COLONEL SENAD DIZDEREVIC, Bosnian Army: [speaking through interpreter] At the moment, it's enough to say that we have evidence from our reconnaissance units that there is everyday contact between Croats and Serbs in some villages.

MR. TAYLOR: But just hours before pulling out from Travnik, the local Croat leader blamed the Muslims for the collapse of the alliance.

MARKO CEKO, Deputy Commander Croat Forces, Travnik: The situation has become impossible for Croats in Travnik. Civilians are exposed to torture and terror, their homes broken into. Life is impossible for them.

MR. TAYLOR: In Travnik, humanitarian relief is still getting through, but with the Serbian-Croat alliance being toughed up by the Serbian leadership tonight, the prospects for Muslims here and elsewhere in Bosnia look increasingly bleak.

MR. MacNeil: Despite the U.N. resolution, many questions remain about who would be protected in the safe havens and how. One of the protected zones is the town of Bihac which is surrounded by Serb forces. Correspondent Gaby Rado of Independent Television News visited Bihac and prepared this report.

GABY RADO, ITN: The front line positions of the fifth corps of the Bosnian army, an army which claims to represent all the peoples of Bosnia but which is, in reality, defending the 90 percent Muslim population of the Bihac enclave. The Bosnian Serb forces are dug in just a few hundred feet away, among a group of huts. The Muslim fighters have to run past exposed parts of the front line, where they're within the sites of the Serbian snipers. In a dugout we encountered two French soldiers monitoring what's supposed to be a cease-fire. Then NATO jets fly over. But they have little effect on the ground. A group of Red Cross trucks transporting aid between Muslim and Serb sectors are caught in the exchange. The French U.N. Protection Force soldiers could only sit and watch. He says, "At the moment, positions are frozen." But as we saw, neither the NATO planes nor the 1300 strong French U.N. contingent can keep the peace around the enclave. The Muslim soldiers in these hills have been holding back the Serbs for the past 10 months. All they have at their disposal are rifles and handguns, mostly dating from the Second World War, many of them captured from the enemy. Edo Durakovic is the local commander. He used to serve in the Yugoslav Army and personally knows most of the Serbian officers he now has to fight.

EDO DURAKOVIC, Bosnian Army 5th Corps: [speaking through interpreter] You can imagine how hard it is with many losses. We are sacrificing our fighters to capture weapons from the Serbs to protect ourselves.

MR. RADO: Are you angry with America and Britain and France for not helping you more?

EDO DURAKOVIC: [speaking through interpreter] Yes, we are, particularly in recent weeks after this complete turnaround in policy towards Bosnia, this policy which didn't help us. They promised us first the recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and after that, they promised that they would protect us as a small republic.

MR. RADO: Whatever their official line may be, the Muslims are now quite clearly following a very calculated twin track policy. They've learned that from the Serbs and Croats. While the Muslim politicians continue to talk to the United Nations about the safe areas policy, their armies fake out and capture the territory which they think should be theirs, Vance-Owen map or not, and now it doesn't seem to matter whether it's the Serbs or the Croats who stand in their way. In Bihac, the Bosnian and Croatian flags fly together over the office of the local HVO, the Bosnian Croat force. At the moment, Muslims and Croats fight side by side here, but after the events of Travnik, it's hard to say how long that alliance will last. The 300,000 inhabitants of the Bihac enclave, who include refugees, live the aimless, artificial life of a people under siege, expecting fighting to resume at any moment. A quirk of history placed an almost purely Muslim community in the middle of a Serbian region. The only link Bihac has with the outside world is provided by U.N. convoys. People here will only support the safe areas policy if it guarantees them a corridor with the outside world. The U.N. commander, Gen. Morillon, has been visiting Bihac, anxious to dispel local fears about the policy.

LT. GENERAL PHILIPPE MORILLON, Commander UN Forces in Bosnia: It has been misunderstood, totally misunderstood. It has been taken as an abandon of the Vance-Owen peace plan, and now the fact that some more clarity has been given by the last resolution, it's only an expedient to consolidate the cease-fire on the ground and to give the necessary time for the total implementation of the Vance- Owen peace plan.

MR. RADO: But for the moment, all industry in the Bihac enclave is at a standstill, and the only activity which continues as normal is farming. The Muslims are afraid the safe areas will lock them into backward settlements. The U.N. still has to prove it can give them reason to hope for more.

MR. MacNeil: Now we're joined by the ambassador of Bosnia- Herzegovina, the United Nations Muhamed Sacirbey. Amb. Sacirbey, a dual Bosnian and American citizen, was born in Sarajevo but has lived and worked as a lawyer and businessman in the United States since 1967 until his recent appointment to the United Nations. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for joining us.

AMB. SACIRBEY: My pleasure.

MR. MacNeil: Is what that correspondent said right in your view, that you've accepted the safe haven plan but while you're accepting that you're now trying to gain as much territory as you can, either from Croats or Serbians?

AMB. SACIRBEY: I must emphasize that at least I represent the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and I cannot represent Muslim, Croatian, or Serb interests alone. I represent the interests of all the people, and what we want to see in Bosnia is as much as possible a return to communities living together as they have for centuries, therefore, I do not accept the idea that government forces are involved in some sort of territorial grab. As you know, the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina has been the target of scavenging for many elements who are looking to take advantage of the lack of support that we have received from the International Community, the lack of defensive weapons provided to us to defend our country.

MR. MacNeil: How -- then how else do you explain what is going on in Travnik, the first report we saw, where it appears that Muslim forces are driving the Croats out and, and Croatian civilians out of the town?

AMB. SACIRBEY: I cannot explain everything that happens in this situation, but I think your report at least explains in part that No. 1, this is not a war against civilians as far as the government forces are concerned. Civilians, Croatian civilians, have stayed in the town. And No. 2, I think there is a failure on the part of the International Community to follow through on its own peace plan. The Vance-Owen maps left unenforced but nonetheless with some significance in people's minds have produced opportunist elements, particularly I think over the last month in certain Croatian communities that felt that the entire Travnik region was part of "Croatian territory." On the other hand, there are certain Muslim elements in the Muslim population that felt very much threatened by this view. And as we saw on the report, there was a mistrust that was developing because there was no political settlement that would allow for these people to share political power.

MR. MacNeil: There are reports on the wires that British U.N. troops saw Muslim soldiers shooting at fleeing Croatian civilians with machine guns today. Can you throw any light on that?

AMB. SACIRBEY: I have not heard of any such reports, and if it happened, I can only condemn it with the most absolute terms.

MR. MacNeil: What are -- are you -- so, in other words, you would not agree that Muslim forces in either Croatian, in the Croatian case here are doing a bit of their own ethnic cleansing, to use the term that the Bosnian government has supplied to the Serbs?

AMB. SACIRBEY: No, absolutely not. Again, I must emphasize that within the government of the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, within our defense forces, we have Serbs, Croats, and obviously a large number of Muslims. Within the United Nations mission in New York that I'm the ambassador of we have Croats, Muslims, Serbs, and others. We do not condone any ethnic cleansing, any forcible movement of population. I'm sure there are civilians who have suffered. I'm sure there are civilians who are fleeing, but in no way would we ever condone and would we ever support a systematic attempt to remove populations from one area to another. I, again, have to emphasize in the Travnik region, this is a town that had a slightly larger Muslim population, a Croat population. By the Vance-Owen plan, it happened to fall into what was to be a Croat- dominated province. But because of the lack of a political settlement in terms of implementing Vance-Owen, because of the lack of the International Community's will, a commitment to move ahead with Vance-Owen, I think many people are now saying we really have to concern ourselves with opportunism, and we'd better protect what's our own before, in fact, another area is deprived from the Bosnians.

MR. MacNeil: So in a small way you're confirming what you suggested a moment ago, that some local Muslims saying, hey, if there's nobody going to enforce Vance-Owen, we'd better consolidate this town and make it a Muslim town just to be sure?

AMB. SACIRBEY: Well, this is already supposed to be a Muslim town, because it had a slightly larger Muslim population --

MR. MacNeil: But you said it was meant to be part of a Croatian province.

AMB. SACIRBEY: That's right. See, the Vance-Owen plan I think had many flaws, probably the biggest flaw right now that it's not been implemented, but one of the good things about the Vance-Owen plan was that this province, for example, would have had a Croatian governor but in terms of the underlying local government, and with respect to Travnik, it would have had a Muslim mayor with Croat participation. On the other hand, at the provincial level, you'd have had a Croatian government with significant Muslim participation at the Governor's Council. So I don't think what we're seeing in Travnik is in any way inconsistent with Vance-Owen. What's happening though is that without the political settlement taking place through the commitment of the International Community to move forward with Vance-Owen, local forces now are effectively taking things into their own hands and trying to assert political control.

MR. MacNeil: I see. You just heard Gen. Morillon, the U.N. commander there, say that the, the safe haven plan has been misunderstood, that it is really just an expedient to consolidate a cease-fire on the ground in order to move forward with full implementation of Vance-Owen. Do you agree that that's what the safe haven plan is?

AMB. SACIRBEY: I would hope that he's right but our suspicions are that he's not.

MR. MacNeil: What are your suspicions?

AMB. SACIRBEY: Our suspicions are that this is an expedient way for the International Community to effectively put Bosnia on the back burner and allow the status quo to remain indefinitely, institutionalize the agony of Bosnia and its people. I think what we have in Bosnia right now is a situation that cannot be allowed to stay as it is, because, as we can see, there are too many elements in our community that are suspicious of outside intentions, as well as of each other sometime.

MR. MacNeil: Now, you, the Bosnian government was saying this, you, yourself, were saying this for days as the U.N. debated it and for several days after they promised a resolution, but yesterday your government accepted the safe haven plan. Why?

AMB. SACIRBEY: We were always prepared to cooperate with the U.N. if, in fact, the safe haven plan would be implemented in such a fashion, No. 1, to have real value to our people, to really justify the name safe havens, and No. 2, if there was an intermediate step toward implementation of Vance-Owen. There is no plan yet. There is only a resolution. The plan needs to be worked out by the U.N. Secretariat office. We are now saying that we want to cooperate with the U.N. in working out a plan that fully will accomplish the two goals that I mentioned. If it does not accomplish those two goals, then, in fact, we will not go ahead. We will not accept this plan. So --

MR. MacNeil: Do you have any options, in fact, with your six enclaves that are now called safe havens surrounded by Serbian forces who have continued to nibble at them, nibble very violently at them? Do you have any options but to accept this plan? You don't have the large enough forces and you don't have the armies you wished, because the, the plan to lift the arms embargo was not accepted by other members of the Security Council. So what options do you have but to accept the safe haven plan?

AMB. SACIRBEY: Well, as I said, we have to first see what kind of plan truly is put on the table, because there's only now a vision of something that no one is quite sure what it's supposed to look like. No. 2, there is, for instance, a safe haven called Gorazde right now. But over 10 days, the town has been bombarded, been savagely attacked by Serbian forces, and this is a safe area obviously that is not very safe, and the U.N. has failed up to this point in time to even interject monitoring forces to see, to verify what's going on. So from our perspective, we're not at all certain that the U.N. will have the will to make the "safe areas" concept work. Before you ask the Bosnians do they have any choice, I think someone ought to ask the U.N. whether or not they have any will and whether or not certain member states are willing to contribute the adequate resources to make it work.

MR. MacNeil: Did the United States make any private assurances to, to you, to the Bosnian government?

AMB. SACIRBEY: I think the assurances that have been made are already fairly public. The most significant one of them, one of the assurances was, to work toward the lifting of the arms embargo if, in fact, the Serbians do not accept the Vance-Owen plan.

MR. MacNeil: In other words, the Clinton administration will continue trying to get the arms embargo lifted if the Serbs don't stop fighting?

AMB. SACIRBEY: Right. I think this is already publicly well known. We did not ask for American intervention in the form of ground forces, and the only thing we ever asked for the U.S. to do was to work toward the lifting of the arms embargo so we can defend ourselves, or, in the alternative, to, in fact, take the full intervention, i.e., air strikes and other measures that may be necessary to implement peace. I think at this point in time we have a situation where the International Community has interjected in a half way sense. They have imposed an arms embargo, therefore, freezing the arms situation where the Bosnian government has been the least prepared, the least capable of defending its people, and at the same time we have no further progress toward truly bringing peace to our country.

MR. MacNeil: If the United States does not send troops to help police these safe havens and join the U.N. force there, who else is going to supply enough troops to make up the number necessary to secure those safe havens?

AMB. SACIRBEY: We're not certain. I know that there are certain European countries who are not currently involved in the efforts as well as certain countries with Islamic majorities who would wish to participate, but the U.N. has rejected the participation of these forces in the past, some assumption that they are biased. We find that unacceptable when we have Russians, Ukrainians, British, French troops coming into Bosnia, orthodox Christian and other Christian, and I'm not sure why Muslim countries, when they're willing to help, should be rejected as somehow inappropriate.

MR. MacNeil: But it is it your position that these safe havens cannot be made effective in defending the civilians who were crowded in there unless there are more troops, U.N. troops than are presently on the ground?

AMB. SACIRBEY: That's not, that's not the only point that we would make. We would also make the point that these communities need to be free in terms of movement in and out, in terms of being large enough so that the civilian population is not always under the threat of sniping, large enough to allow freedom of movement in terms of access to water, access to food. Obviously, what we see in at least some of these safe areas, in particular in Srebrenica, does not fit the definition of a safe area but more fits the definition of really an open prison.

MR. MacNeil: And what has the United States, what do you expect the United States to do now in terms of, of using air power if the Serbs do not respect the safe havens?

AMB. SACIRBEY: That's difficult to answer, because I'm not sure that anyone really has envisioned what steps may be necessary to truly make the safe areas designation justified. I can only tell you that the ambassador of New Zealand, Amb. Terence O'Brien, who spoke before the Security Council on Friday when the resolution was passed, said that he thought air power would and should be used immediately if the Serbians violated any safe area. Presumably, under this concept, the Serbian forces now surrounding the town of Gorazde and relentlessly bombarding it would be and should be attacked by NATO air power. That clearly has not happened, and obviously, the people are going to continue to suffer. At the same time, to our great disappointment, the U.N. has failed to even get a minimum number of observers in there to deal not only with the evaluation of the situation but to provide terribly needed humanitarian relief.

MR. MacNeil: I'm sorry, but we have to end it there. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for joining us.

AMB. SACIRBEY: My pleasure. Thank you. ESSAY - RECORDED TIME

MR. MUDD: Finally tonight, some thoughts about the Holocaust and recording what happened five decades ago in Europe. Our essayist is Vanity Fair contributing editor Roger Rosenblatt.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: In MacBeth, Shakespeare wrote, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time." Recorded time. It becomes an obsession with people in every circumstance to keep a record of things, to make an account of what is happening even when the likelihood of tomorrow following tomorrow is next to nothing. That thought reverberates around the stark and overwhelming Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. How everyone involved in the terrible, calculated, deliberate mass slaughter was driven to give evidence, down to the last syllable of recorded time. The museum is a monument, both to the dead and to the survivors, perhaps to the survivors more than the dead, since the lesson the building proclaims is that what the Nazis did to six million Jews and Gypsies and homosexuals, anybody can do to anybody else at any time, anywhere. But the other, the parallel monument, is to the surviving records, the records of the Germans as they wrote down their rules and made their signs and slogans. "No Jews allowed." Jewish identity cards, the yellow star of David, the passports, the lists of those headed for the camps, the train schedules, the tattoos on the arms and hands of the prisoners, the very last syllables of recorded time. America was concerned with recording the time too. Gen. Eisenhower said that he wanted to view a concentration camp firsthand "in case there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda." Ike was prescient. He wanted a record, because he wanted to confirm the truth. For a perversion of that same motive, Joseph Goebbels did not want certain records kept. Thus, the burning of unacceptable books all over Germany in the spring of 1933, over 25,000 books were burned in Berlin alone. Goebbels rejoiced, "The past lies in flames," which is what one wants to do with the past when you believe tomorrow and tomorrow the world. Still, the most important recording of time was made by the victims themselves, the most heartbreaking, yet the most valuable. A symbolic, fictitious victim, Daniel, has been created by the museum for children. The fictitious boy is meant to represent all children who suffered in the Holocaust. His diary records the disintegrating life of his family from normal raucous to deprivation to separation to death. The photographs of real families climb the high walls of the museum, beautiful still lives, as if they rose to heaven. The pictures of the victims' belongings, the belongings, themselves, an indisputable archeology of ordinary things. The fragments of the Torah hurled by the Nazis into the streets as if they were trash, the record of the word of God outlasting everything. In the Warsaw Ghetto, there were Jewish archivists who, knowing full well that they would die, would certainly die, nonetheless, wrote down who was there in the ghetto, what was happening. In the extermination camps, prisoners did the same thing, record, record, even though they must have believed that their words, letters, and poems would be destroyed with them. The past lies in flames, but it doesn't. The past is a flame, the insistent will to let others know the moral obligation to strangers of the future to send a warning, to send word prevails over the murderers and over the ovens and the nooses and the ashes, rising as an imperishable declaration of faith and dignity -- tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. RECAP

MR. MUDD: Again, the major story of this Tuesday, President Clinton's top aides worked on revisions to his economic plan. On the NewsHour tonight, Treasury Sec. Bentsen said the so-called BTU energy tax would be put aside. He said it had been killed by a very smart oil industry campaign to discredit him. He said the revised economic program would contain more spending cuts, including some cuts in Medicare. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Roger. That's the NewsHour for tonight, and we'll see you again tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.