The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MAC NEIL: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary, we have a report on the framework agreement reached in the Bosnian peace talks. Betty Ann Bowser reports on today's Ruby Ridge hearings. Charlayne Hunter-Gault looks at the politically enigmatic Colin Powell, then Mark Shields and Paul Gigot analyze the week's politics. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: There was diplomatic news in Geneva today on Bosnia. U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke said the foreign ministers of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia have agreed in principle to maintain a unified Bosnia. He said Bosnian Serbs and Muslims will exist asseparate democratic entities within the country's currently recognized boundaries. But Holbrooke said today's agreement is only a framework.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, Assistant Secretary of State: The problem is that the two parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina have had a terrible war which is continuing and which involved ethnic cleansing crimes against humanity, war criminals, and a whole host of things that are extraordinary in their obscenity. And yet, these two people must end their war and find a way to work together. This is the first step towards that goal. It is not forgetting or forgiving what happened in the past.

MR. LEHRER: Today's agreement does not include a cease-fire among the warring parties, nor did it bring an end to NATO raids against rebel Serbs which continued for a fourth straight day. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Oregon Senator Bob Packwood today relinquished his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee. He also announced he will leave the Senate October 1st. The five-term Republican resigned yesterday to avoid facing possible expulsion after being accused of sexual misconduct and of abusing his office by pressuring lobbyists to hire his estranged wife.

MR. LEHRER: This was day three of Senate hearings into the federal shootout at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. A civilian undercover informant testified that white separatist Randy Weaver approached him about illegal weapon sales. The informant spoke behind a screen with his voice disguised to protect his identity.

KENNETH FADELEY, Federal Informant: He mentioned that he had an 870 shotgun; that he could get 1100, which is a model number, of a shotgun; and that he could supply me with shotguns all day long. He also said he could supply me with four or five a week. I asked him about the paperwork on these shotguns, and he said there was no paperwork on these shotguns he would produce to me, that he had a source that would sell him the shotguns with no paperwork.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have extended excerpts later in the program. The prosecution in the Oklahoma City bombing asked the presiding judge to remove himself rom the face today. The government agreed with defense attorneys that the judge could be biased, because the April blast destroyed his courthouse.

MR. MAC NEIL: The House voted overwhelmingly today to close and realign 132 military bases in this country. The 343 to 75 vote ended an effort by some Democrats to have the list thrown out. The recommendations were made by a special commission set up by Congress to close or reshape the facilities. Today's action gives the military nearly two years to begin shutting down the bases and six years to complete the job. The commission estimates more than 93,000 jobs will be lost as a result of the closings.

MR. LEHRER: The Christian Coalition's annual convention opened in Washington today. The main business of the 4,000 people attending was presidential politics and moving ahead on a conservative political agenda. House Speaker Newt Gingrich addressed today's session, so did Senators and Republican presidential candidates Bob Dole and Phil Gramm. The coalition's executive director Ralph Reed said his group has won a grudging admiration for its political effectiveness.

RALPH REED, Executive Director, Christian Coalition: Think back just one year ago to the taunts and the insults that you and we endured from those who sought to silence people of faith and to drive us from the public square. We have gained what we have always sought, a place at the table, a sense of legitimacy. We are an authentic voice of faith in the conversation that we call democracy.

MR. LEHRER: Outside the convention, protesters attacked the Christian Coalition's position on abortion. A spokeswoman for an abortion rights group said the Coalition is using other political issues to camouflage their agenda. Kate Michelman of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League spoke at a Washington news conference.

KATE MICHELMAN, President, NARAL: Lately, Christian Coalition leaders have championed causes like tax relief. Do not be fooled by their embrace of economic issues. Their fundamental mission is to use government to impose their religious and moral views on the rest of Americans. After all, it isn't tax cuts that ignite their followers. It is abortion that fires them up. Don't be surprised that they are not rushing forward with a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions. They have every intention of eventually passing one.

MR. MAC NEIL: Hurricane Luis turned North into open Atlantic waters today, after causing a total of 19 deaths in the Caribbean. Storm warnings were posted in Bermuda, but forecasters now say the storm is not likely to hit the island. The Caribbean island of St. Martin was hardest hit by Luis. There, nine people were killed and five thousand residents are homeless. Rescue workers continue to search for the missing, and police reported widespread looting. Initial estimates put damage in the Northeastern Caribbean Islands in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

MR. LEHRER: The five astronauts aboard space shuttle "Endeavour" carried out their first major task today. The crew released an $8 million satellite into orbit. It will orbit for two days and then be retrieved. The satellite will study how solar winds interfere with radio signals on Earth. "Endeavour" is scheduled to return to Earth in 10 days. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a Bosnia update, the Ruby Ridge hearings, the Powell factor, and Shields & Gigot. FOCUS - FRAMEWORK FOR PEACE

MR. MAC NEIL: We focus first tonight on the breakthrough in negotiations today between the warring parties in the former Yugoslavia. Peter Morgan of Independent Television News reports.

PETER MORGAN, ITN: Just over 18 months after the last Geneva talks broke down, the leading parties were back and confident of some results. Milan Milutinovic, Yugoslavia's foreign minister, joined his opposition numbers from Bosnia and Croatia, all brought to the table by U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke. After three weeks of frenetic diplomacy, Holbrooke was sure all three sides would agree to some general rules and principles. Serbia proper now speaks for the Bosnian Serbs in these talks. Holbrooke and the other contact group countries have won an important concession from them: Recognition of Bosnia's borders and an end to plans for a Serb confederation.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, Assistant Secretary of State: The statement we are issuing today is an important milestone in the search for peace. Today's statement contains many significant points. Within its current internationally-recognized borders, it is agreed in this statement that Bosnia and Herzegovina will be comprised of two democratic entities, the existing federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srbska. Bosnian territory will be divided, as you already know, the federation with 51 percent, and the Serbian entity with 49 percent. They also agreed today to create a commission to enforce accepted international human rights standards within their territories. They agreed to allow freedom of movement within Bosnia's borders and allow displaced persons to return to their homes. Each entity will be self-governing, with its own constitution. And I would like to just add off the statement none of this constitutes two countries or partition, as I've read in some newspaper stories. That is not in the statement. While the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina will continue, additional joint institutions at the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina are envisaged.

PETER MORGAN: But huge difficulties remain, made clear when Holbrooke had to prompt the three ministers to shake hands for the cameras.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Why don't the three gentlemen give us a handshake, please, the three foreign ministers.

PETER MORGAN: First, there are the institutional problems, what, for example, will be the exact relationship between the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia. And how will the proposed joint authorities work in a country destroyed by three years of war? One indication of the troubles to come, the foreign ministers failed to agree on a way forward on Eastern Slavonia. The precedence for today's agreements are not good, as the Americans know.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Clearly, much remains to be done. The hardest work still lies ahead. The entities have yet to develop a design for a central connecting structure to oversee the agreed cooperative efforts and to elaborate other joint efforts in areas where cooperation is the only way to solve common problems. In addition, the parties need to define their internal borders within Bosnia in accordance with the 51/49 principle. We should be under no illusions that these will be easy tasks. They can be solved only through intense negotiations backed by a genuine desire to achieve peace. Finally, any agreement must be implemented by all sides, and this could be the hardest part of all.

MUHAMED SACIRBEY, Foreign Minister, Bosnia: It's a small step. It could be a great breakthrough if, in fact, peace on the ground, but this is really not even an agreed-upon document, as much as it is a basis for the negotiations. And we welcome it in that sense. Of course, if you don't see peace on the ground, if you don't movement, then this document is nothing more than another document to go into the trash basket of peace plans for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

MILAN MILUTINOVIC, Foreign Minister, Yugoslavia: That is big step, you know. For this event, we have nothing, more or less. This is very encouraging. Why not? So you don't believe in that?

REPORTER: Yes.

MILAN MILUTINOVIC: Okay. So why are you suspicious, asking me that?

PETER MORGAN: The greatest and most symbolic obstacle is over Sarajevo. The Bosnian Serbs want the city divided in two, while the Sarajevo government wants it kept intact. The Bosnians have vowed to hold Gorazde, while the Serbs insist on a continuous swath of territory. Further North, the Serbs want to enlarge the land corridor around Brcko, and they also want guaranteed access to the Adriatic, probably to the West of Trebinje. Diplomatic talks, though, have not stopped NATO's military action. Day ten of Operation Deliberate Force brought new attacks on Bosnian Serb positions in Eastern Bosnia as NATO commanders warned of bigger raids if Serb heavy weapons are not pulled back from Sarajevo.

ALEXANDER IVANKO, UN Spokesman: The Bosnian Serb army has still failed to withdraw their heavy weapons from the exclusion zone. We have no reports of any heavy weapons even moving inside the exclusion zone, or moving out of the exclusion zone. That is why this operation will continue.

PETER MORGAN: Tonight, Sarajevo's relative silence was broken by a mortar round, which landed on the city's main boulevard known as Sniper Alley. Three people were injured. It's not yet known who fired the mortar. Events in Bosnia and Geneva are being watched closely in Moscow. In a rare public appearance, Boris Yeltsin warned that Russian help for the Serbs may go beyond humanitarian aid if the NATO air strikes continue. Russia is worried about America's support for Croatia and wants to assert its own ties with Serbia. Today's outspoken statements another sign of the wide attentions stirred by the Balkan conflict.

MR. MAC NEIL: Still ahead, the Ruby Ridge hearings, the Powell factor, Shields and Gigot, and an Amei Wallach essay. FOCUS - UNDER FIRE

MR. LEHRER: Now, day three of the Ruby Ridge hearings. A Senate subcommittee continued its investigation into the ill-fated federal siege in Northern Idaho. Among the witnesses today, an undercover informer. Betty Ann Bowser reports.

MS. BOWSER: A paid informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms named Kenneth Fadeley testified from behind a screen, away from television cameras, his voice altered electronically.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, [R] Pennsylvania: And he has made the personal request that he be permitted to testify with a screen, so that his identity will not be disclosed.

MS. BOWSER: Fadeley's description of Randy Weaver was in sharp contrast to the portrait Weaver painted of himself. The undercover informant characterized Weaver as a racist who was deeply involved in the Aryan Nation.

KENNETH FADELEY, Federal Informant: We again talked about minorities in this country in a negative manner. We talked about some religious organizations and their followers in a negative manner, and basically, the whole day was filled with how to get a patriot movement started, how--

SPOKESMAN: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. I didn't hear that last--

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: How to get a patriot movement started?

KENNETH FADELEY: How to get a patriot movement started. How to organize ourselves into a--a group that would fight against ZOG, Zionist Occupied Government. That conversation involved the fact that the Jews were controlling the United States government through legislation that was not to their liking, that they controlled the banking and financial communities, that was not to their liking, that the Jewish community, going back to some religious context, was creating an atmosphere where the white man did not have the power, the financial--

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: When you say the--what man?

KENNETH FADELEY: The white man.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: The white man?

KENNETH FADELEY: They blamed--

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Well, wait a minute. Aren't Jews white?

KENNETH FADELEY: Well, I always thought so, but they certainly don't. I would characterize Randy Weaver as a proponent of racism, of hate towards minorities, an individual who, if he had the opportunity and he had the means, would be very violent towards those individuals and towards the government of the United States of America.

MS. BOWSER: Fadeley told the sub-committee that in 1989, Weaver told him he could supply the informant with illegal sawed-off shotguns all day long on a regular basis. That same year, Weaver sold the informant two illegal weapons and was indicted on federal gun charges. Critics of the government's role in Ruby Ridge claim Fadeley set Weaver up. Committee members wanted to know about that.

SEN. SPENCER ABRAHAM, [R] Michigan: You in no way ever raised the issue of making illegal guns or sawing off shotguns to Randy Weaver, that all of the impetus for this came from him, is that-- is that your--

KENNETH FADELEY: Sir, I am emphatic that I did not at any time coerce, bribe, sway Mr. Weaver to do any criminal act, that the criminal act that he did, the sawing off of the shotgun barrels on those two weapons, were originated and done solely by Mr. Weaver and Mr. Weaver alone.

MS. BOWSER: In the past, Fadeley has told conflicting stories about how the ATF paid him for his services as an informant. At Weaver's murder trial in 1993, on charges of murdering a federal agent, he testified he would receive more money for information he supplied if Weaver was convicted. Weaver was acquitted. Fadeley now says he misspoke.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Why didn't you call the attention of the U.S. assistant attorney to your incorrect statement which you testified under oath of trial, that you assumed that you wouldn't get any money if Mr. Weaver was not convicted?

KENNETH FADELEY: When I misspoke and I realized I had misspoke, I didn't feel it was my place to say, wait a minute, that's not what I meant.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Well, why not? If you say you misspoke and you knew you misspoke, why wasn't it your place to tell the assistant U.S. attorney you had misspoken? How was he to know you had misspoken if you didn't tell him so?

KENNETH FADELEY: There was an assumption on my part, sir.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: What was your assumption?

KENNETH FADELEY: That Mr. Hoen knew how I was to be paid and that Mr. Hoen would subsequently in redirect--direct this issue to its proper conclusion.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Well, when Mr. Hoen didn't proceed to redirect, why didn't you call it to his attention?

KENNETH FADELEY: I couldn't find Mr. Hoen.

MS. BOWSER: ATF Director John Magaw told the subcommittee it is not bureau policy to pay informants based on successful convictions.

JOHN MAGAW, Director, ATF: I can tell you clearly it is not a payment for, for conviction. You can go back through our records and look. In fact, the $2,500 that he was paid way earlier was not for a conviction. There was no conviction in that case at all. There was just a number of--a lot of information that he was able to bring forward.

MS. BOWSER: Magaw was not director of the ATF at the time of the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident but said his review of it shows no ATF agent acted improperly. FOCUS - THE POWELL FACTOR

MR. MAC NEIL: Now, the Powell phenomenon. Colin Powell's much- anticipated memoirs will be published next week. The retired four- star general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been flirting with a possible foray into presidential politics. Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on what some are calling Powell mania.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Colin Powell's public sightings have been few and far between. Powell has been traveling around the country making speeches, many reportedly at $60,000 a throw, but most are closed to cameras entirely, and journalists limited to little more than photo ops, as in this appearance at the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce. "How do you see the presidential race?" a journalist shouted from the perimeter.

COLIN POWELL: [San Diego, August 3] Well, I think we're going to have a very exciting 1996.

REPORTER: [inaudible question]

COLIN POWELL: I'm sorry. I can't hear you.

REPORTER: Are you planning to run for President?

COLIN POWELL: I have made no political plans yet.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But the less Powell says publicly, the more press he seems to get, covers of major news magazines, op-ed pieces, news stories, and the more press he gets, the more speculation there is about a possible Powell run for the presidency. In fact, the 58-year-old war hero, according to some polls, is the most respected figure in American public life. What's fueling Powell mania, as some are calling it? There is the matter of the book, My American Journey. The books launch in mid-September is being coordinated with Powell promising to break his public silence of the past two years in a major network television profile, followed by a 22-city book tour. Some have speculated that Powell's phenomenal press is a part of a "media savvy campaign" on the part of his publishers, looking to recoup the $6 million advance reportedly paid to Powell for the book two years ago. Veteran Powell watchers, like "New York Times" reporter Michael Gordon, argue that whatever media strategy there is, is most likely aimed at achieving several objectives simultaneously, with Powell very much in control of them all.

MICHAEL GORDON, New York Times: It looks as if the lecture giving, the lucrative book contract, the political ambitions, or at least his desire to keep open a political option, are all of a piece. This is a man who's an extremely skillful bureaucrat, extremely adept at viewing with the media in the Reagan administration and in the Bush administration.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After two tours of duty in Vietnam, Powell returned to the United States and was selected as a White House fellow in the Nixon administration. In both the Reagan and Bush administrations, Powell served as national security adviser. In 1989, he became the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at 52, the youngest in history. Gordon covered Powell as a part of his national security affairs assignment since 1985. Last year, Powell was featured in a book Gordon co-authored, The General's War, about the Persian Gulf War. He's left the beat but has been tracking what some are calling Powell's non-campaign campaign.

MICHAEL GORDON: It's a media savvy campaign. It's not a media friendly campaign. He doesn't give any on-the-record interviews. And journalists at the event I attended are not allowed to ask questions, so Powell is also skillful at shaping the coverage about him. He says what he wants to say. He avoids and barely even mentions the controversial elements of his career on the Persian Gulf, on Somalia, on Bosnia, and kind of controls the message.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: If anyone really knows what Colin Powell is really up to, as the old saying goes, those who know don't tell and those who tell don't know. There are those, however, who argue that Powell mania is being generated not so much by the actions of Powell but, rather, by a yearning in the body politic to get away from business as usual. They argue that the public is looking for a person of vision and moral authority, a genuine American hero, a Colin Powell, a sentiment echoed in an informal survey on a New England beach the other day.

MAN ON BEACH: Yeah. I think he'd make a good President and/or Vice President, whichever one he decides to make up his mind to do.

GIRL ON BEACH: Someone like Colin Powell represents a broad range of people, different classes and different races, and I think it's great. You need diversity, you know. So--[giggling]--I think he should run.

SECOND MAN ON BEACH: I followed him since he was a White House fellow, and I also know people who served with him in the military and that he's--he's a diplomat. He can do it. He also has a sense of integrity.

ED GOEAS, Republican Pollster: I think that's a lot of what's at the base of this, is that he is viewed as a true American hero, and there is a strong desire in this country to have more heroes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ed Goeas is a Washington-based Republican pollster.

ED GOEAS: Americans generally have a positive attitude. I see that in the polling all the time. They want the best to happen. They believe that there are answers for every problem that we're going to be faced with not only today but in the future. And I think they look for someone that perhaps can stand up to that same standard in terms of how they communicate, what they believe in, and what they think the future is.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It is precisely how Powell communicates that many say accounts for the impact he has had on people who've heard him speak.

ED GOEAS: It's the way he inspires the people, he inspires the good. The guy's terrific. My sense is that he is not speaking from notes, that he's speaking from the heart. I think he's speaking from his experience and what he think should happen, and you can't beat that for any politician.

MICHAEL GORDON: He follows a very careful script. He knows exactly what he wants to say. God has picked America to lead the world, that Americans need to consider themselves as family.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Eddie Williams is the president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based group that monitors and analyzes black political and economic issues.

EDDIE WILLIAMS, Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies: At our annual dinner several years back, he--it was a marvelous opportunity for him to capture--he talked about himself. The staff and those who heard him were just totally enthralled. He is a very engaging man. He talked about some of his--some of his experiences along the way. But what was left with me was his talks about what he wants to do for young people, for children, and how he spends a lot of time going into schools, talking to kids, and that when he had time, that that was something that he would like very much to do, to give them hope and aspirations and what not.

CHUCK KELLY, Citizens for Colin Powell: He involves two themes. One is the idea that democracy depends upon the individual responsibility. Similarly, it depends upon the voters requiring responsibility on the part of government. And we could argue that our society has moved quite far away from either of those principles.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Chuck Kelly is an investment banker and retired Air Force officer who is head of the Citizens for Colin Powell Committee. So far, most of their activity has revolved around organizing committees around the country they say with their own funds and some limited fund-raising. Powell has neither encouraged nor discouraged such groups, according to Kelly. On this day in August, Kelly was formally registering his group with the Federal Election Commission. As a Yale law student, Kelly worked on a Draft Eisenhower for President Committee.

CHUCK KELLY: Eisenhower came in at a time where the country was riveted over the Communist threat and the Communist conspiracy, and people were very partisan and divisive, and he, he restored a sense of faith. We are in a similar condition today. The partisanship and the bitterness, the distrust is eroding our civic discourse. It's eroding the effectiveness of our government, and it is because there is no trusted leadership. There's no sense of integrity at the top. There is no sense of a moral compass, and it is the quality of the life and the example that Colin Powell brings to this that I think is the restorative.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Powell has said that once the book is about. I think ensuring that the economy continues to grow and be robust and the benefits of a strong economy gets down to all of our--I think we have some concerns about our--just our family situation. And I don't mean that in terms of my family but the American family.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But Republican pollster Goeas is among those who argue that media responsibility aside, their polling data suggests that the public is more interested in Powell, the man, than his stands on issues.

ED GOEAS: They don't really care what the issues are. The numbers were virtually the same on whether he was pro-choice or pro-life. The numbers were the same on whether he was pro-affirmative action or against affirmative action, which basically tells me they're not really looking at him because of issues. What we need is a leader that can work through those solutions and bring them forward.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What kind of factor is race, positive, negative, non-starter?

ED GOEAS: It's a non-starter. We wanted to see how many people actually knew he was black and asked. And it was overwhelming. In most of those that didn't, quite frankly, it was the black community.

EDDIE WILLIAMS: I don't see the same kind of enthusiastic speculation in the black press, in the black community, and among black leaders that I find in the major press, including television and, and news magazines. And one, obviously, would ask why, and I ask myself why, and I suppose it is because Colin Powell has never been involved in anything in any wa that directly identified him with the black community, not in an organization. He's never spent particular time with--in the civic area or in the civil rights area, or--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In a few days, many of the questions swirling around Colin Powell's future in the political arena may get answered. Meanwhile, as vacationers savor the last rays of the waning summer sun, Powell mania's reach extends even to places where this time last year the buzz was all about the current President vacationing in these environs on Martha's Vineyard.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think Colin Powell should run for President?

MAN ON BEACH: No, I don't. I have no idea what he stands for at all. I don't what party he belongs to. I think that he'll just siphon off votes from people who might happen to really have an opinion on the issues that matter.

WOMAN BEACH: I personally think he has a better chance of some of the ones that are currently in the running, as far as what we already have in office, and I'd like to see him give it a try anyway, for I think good, bad, or indifferent.

SECOND WOMAN ON BEACH: Colin Powell, I'm not sure who he is. I have no clue to who he is.

THIRD WOMAN ON BEACH: Well, I think, from the past, military men haven't necessarily proven to be good Presidents. You can't just transfer that military operation and training and, you know, command skill over to the presidency, because as most Presidents find when they get into the White House, they can't do as much as they thought they could do working with Congress, but I think, to be honest with you, he can garner the white vote, which will be very important.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think Colin Powell should run for President?

SECOND MAN ON BEACH: Yes, I think he should. It'd be a symbolic run, but, yeah, I think he should.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why symbolic?

SECOND MAN ON BEACH: Because I don't think in the final analysis that white America will be willing to vote for him collectively.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you think?

ANOTHER WOMAN ON BEACH: I agree with him, and I do think he should run.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It was two years ago at a Harvard graduation that Colin Powell, the general, spoke passionately about service to his country.

COLIN POWELL: [Harvard University Commencement - June 1993] For me, service as been a source of enormous satisfaction. I hope that each of the graduates here today will devote a part of their future to service, service to this country in whatever way you find appropriate.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Most informed guessers believe it's likely to be a while before anyone knows what Colin Powell is going to do about a presidential run. But the wait on what he believes and where he stands is now over. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. LEHRER: Now, some analysis of this Powell factor and other current political matters from our regular team of Shields and Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. Mark, should Colin Powell be considered a likely candidate for President of the United States right now, seriously?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: He should be considered a serious candidate, Jim. I don't know, likely; it's a pretty subjective--but I mean, real possibility and plausible candidacy, absolutely. The old rule about real estate, the three things you're looking for, location, location, location, the American people are looking for leadership, leadership, leadership. Every candidate in their field is trying to prove it, that he has leadership. This guy walks--

MR. LEHRER: He doesn't have to prove it?

MR. SHIELDS: He doesn't have to prove it.

MR. LEHRER: What do you think, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: I agree with Mark about the serious quality of his appeal, and who knows if it's likely. I mean, it really depends very personally on him. I think that--

MR. LEHRER: Do you think that's right? I mean, do you think that this is really a personal decision for him, it's not up to the political gods and the polls and who raises money and all of the normal things that sometimes go into these things?

MR. GIGOT: No. Because I think there's an opening through which he can run, and it's partly the leadership thing that Mark talks about, but there's--I think he's a reflection of some of the things, the character traits, an appeal that we don't see in the current people running. For example, the President, one of his big problems is character and moral integrity. Powell has that in spades and projects that, and that's something that people project on him. Bob Dole, a Republican that most people know, is somebody who's the consummate insider, a politician who sort of suggests that he'd been here for 30 some years, the same old thing, Powell is an outsider, and he has that kind of appeal. I think both of those factors create an opening for him as either an independent candidate but more likely, frankly, as a Republican candidate.

MR. LEHRER: How do you see him as a Republican candidate, Mark? Is that--is that plausible?

MR. SHIELDS: I don't see him as a Republican President-- candidate. I see him as an independent candidate really.

MR. LEHRER: Why not a Republican?

MR. SHIELDS: Because I don't--first of all, I think it would be crazy for Colin Powell to run as a Democrat or a Republican, to go into that, that tar pit with all the other tar babies and say, now- -

MR. LEHRER: I'm going to be one of them too.

MR. GIGOT: You're in an optimistic mood today.

MR. SHIELDS: Where do you stand on capital gain tax cut and where do you think we ought to outlaw and should there be a rating system for cartoons and whatever else and go up to Ralph Reed and kiss his ring tonight at the Christian Coalition. I think this is a melancholy time for America. It's a time of racial tension and racial estrangement. It's a time of declining expectations. It's a time of growing economic and income inequality. What Colin Powell is, Jim, is an affirmation of America. He's an affirmation--this is the kid who's the son of immigrants. He grew up in the city, the biggest city in America, in the South Bronx. He's--he says in his speech, I'm a New Deal kid from the South Bronx. He went to CCNY. He went in the army, the one place in our culture, Jim, the military of the United States, where one can say you could really get ahead, where there isn't discrimination and there isn't favoritism. Neither one is tolerated, so I mean, it's--that--and a country that's yearning for success, that's what I think he represents at this point to an awful lot of people.

MR. LEHRER: And he would blow the whole deal if he went as Republican--

MR. SHIELDS: I just think--then you're--well, he's got--he doesn't have to listen to me, but what--

MR. LEHRER: I'm sure he will, though, Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: No. If you're nominated, you get the nomination, you got Bob Dole, you got Newt Gingrich. I mean, how popular, how popular is Colin Powell? Newt Gingrich has said that he won't run if Colin Powell runs. Here's the guy, Mr. Ideas, himself, Mr. Position Papers, and he's saying, I'm not going to run if he's going to run. The key is that he's got to hope that people look and say, geez, it's Clinton against Dole, it's Clinton against Gingrich, it's, oh, why can't we do better? That's his opportunity.

MR. GIGOT: I disagree with Mark on that. I think that that is one possible opportunity but it's such a long shot. I mean, the cards- -

MR. LEHRER: Why is it a long shot, the independent thing?

MR. GIGOT: Because of the way the campaign finance laws are written. The parties, both parties, Republican and Democrat, have it stacked in their favor, the money to get, to project--

MR. LEHRER: Look at Ross Perot. He came out of nowhere with several million dollars.

MR. GIGOT: He did, and he got 19 percent, an historic figure. He didn't win. I mean, if Colin Powell--

MR. SHIELDS: He got 19 percent, Paul, saying that the Republicans could have sabotaged his daughter's wedding. I mean, this was a guy that was in the Meninger Clinic waiting room, for goodness sakes, and he got 19 percent!

MR. GIGOT: Well, you're right that the--

MR. LEHRER: Moving right along--[laughter in room]--

MR. GIGOT: You're right that the parties are weak, but it's just- -it's never happened in our history, and he would have to buck 200 years of history to win as a third-party candidate, and that is something you think about very carefully before you do it. I think his better prospect is, frankly, to run as a Republican, to see if he can get one of the party nods, because if you get the Republican nomination, despite the fact that you go through an ordeal, nonetheless, you emerge with all of that party behind you, and you emerge as somebody who's serious.

MR. LEHRER: But if you go through the checklist of issues, and Mark very demurely mentioned the Christian Coalition just now, I mean, the checklist of where Colin Powell is believed to have come down on so many of these social issues is just the opposite of where say the Christian Coalition is on so many of them, and I mean--what I'm trying to say, how in the world would Colin Powell ever get the Republican nomination?

MR. GIGOT: Well, I don't know if he would or not, but he might become a Vice Presidential candidate, enhance his credibility there, but the other thing is I don't know where he stands on some of these issues. We don't know, and that is a big problem.

MR. LEHRER: There's a lot of speculation--yeah--

MR. GIGOT: His message right now is essentially vote for me because I'm me, and you need ultimately to have something else.

MR. SHIELDS: This is a big--a really serious problem. People that vote for the President, Jim, it's the most personal vote that any American citizen casts. You're far more apt to cast an ideological vote on whether someone's for the B-2 bomber or against building a dam somewhere, on a congressional race or a Senate race. In a presidential race, you're hiring a President. You're hiring somebody's judgment, integrity--

MR. LEHRER: To react, to make decisions.

MR. SHIELDS: --intelligence, that's right, and that's--and you've got an information overload. I don't care whether the guy wants to cut the capital gains tax or not, and boy, oh, boy, the Christian Coalition does and so does the Capital Gains Club of Dallas and every other group that he'd have to appear before if he wanted the Republican nomination or go before a Democratic group and do the same thing.

MR. LEHRER: Do the opposite.

MR. SHIELDS: He's diminished by it.

MR. GIGOT: Mark is right about the personal decision of the presidency, but that doesn't mean that you can somehow step back from the great debates of the day and the great--the decisions that are--I mean, where you stand on abortion can become a character issue after a time. Where you stand on economic politics, those things become defined, where you stand, whose side you're on. Those things can't be skirted by somebody who's running for President.

MR. LEHRER: And they would be--in other words, he would be tested--the process of going for the Republican nomination would test him in a way that you think would be positive.

MR. GIGOT: Yeah. Now this doesn't mean that he has to stand--

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. GIGOT: --and, you know, click off every da and tiddle, but it does mean that he must, he must declare himself on the big question.

MR. SHIELDS: Abortion is a big issue, and it is. I'm talking about the transvestite taxidermist against the metric system and all those--

MR. GIGOT: He can avoid all that stuff.

MR. SHIELDS: Oh, no. He can't.

MR. GIGOT: I think so. I think so.

MR. SHIELDS: And the fat is that the two parties, Jim, the biggest change in the past five years is that the two parties have both lost membership identification.

MR. GIGOT: Sure.

MR. SHIELDS: Our two-party system is in serious jeopardy. What he could represent is the two parties become in Bill Bradley's phrase "increasingly less relevant." What he represents is the broad middle of American politics.

MR. LEHRER: All right. What about the practical side of politics? What is--could he mount a good independent campaign?

MR. SHIELDS: I think--

MR. LEHRER: The money is there, and the organization is there, you think?

MR. SHIELDS: I think that's what Paul's point becomes. I mean, he has not been through the political process. He hasn't been subjected to the adversarial, to the criticism of other candidates. I don't know how we would respond to that. He's had quite favorable press coverage. He could get the coverage, Jim. Money isn't as important as coverage. All right? Colin Powell on the ballot in 50 states, really, one of the most important thing about Ross Perot's candidacy in 1992, from February 7, 1992, to June 6, 1992, Ross Perot went from zero in the polls to leading in every major public opinion poll, both the President of the United States, George Bush, and the Democratic nominee, without spending a nickel on radio or television advertising of any kind, that was the strength of an idea, that was the strength of a message, and that's exactly--Colin Powell doesn't need the kind of money that you'd need if we were going to just get, you know, Frank Fishback and run him for President.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's say he gets on--either as an independent candidate or as the Republican nominee for President. Can he win? What about what the man there at the end told Charlayne, white America will never vote for a black man, whether it's Colin Powell or anybody else?

MR. GIGOT: I profoundly disagree with that. I think that there are some white Americans who would not do that, just as in 1960, there were a lot of Americans who thought that America would never elect a Catholic President. But I think that there are an awful lot of Americans right now, white Americans, and the polling frankly bears this out, who would feel a sense of pride in voting for a black American who has achieved what Colin Powell has achieved and who can in a sense represent that American affirmation that Mark talked about. He would speak, he could speak, if he ran through the process and declared where he is in the values of America, he could affirm this country's--

MR. LEHRER: That affirmation is just as white as it is black, is what you're saying.

MR. GIGOT: Absolutely, absolutely.

MR. LEHRER: What do you think, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: They say Americans are bigoted. They say Americans wouldn't vote for an authentic American hero who happens to be black. I think they're wrong. I mean, that message would be so powerful, I believe, in 1996 that Paul's absolutely right. I mean, it would isolate, you know, a few fringies, you know, the nuts, and whoever they are, off on the side, and they'd say, oh, my God, this is terrible, and it's written in Deuteronomy, 11:14, if this happens, the place will collapse or something of the sort. You know, but I think--I really think that Colin Powell transcends racially.

MR. LEHRER: How does Bill Clinton run against Colin Powell?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, Bill Clinton has to run on Bill Clinton's record in, in--that he can make the thing work. What he has done and what he has achieved in his management of the economy, his mastery of issues, that Colin Powell doesn't--he can't run directly against Colin Powell certainly--he's not going to attack Colin Powell's character or leadership.

MR. LEHRER: How does Bob Dole run against Colin Powell?

MR. GIGOT: Well, in a race, I think, Bob Dole--the other Republicans nominees in a race--if Colin--let's say a Republican nomination race--they would run I think on ideology and on issues and ideas, and they would try to smoke him out and say, all right, where do you really stand and try to, you know, the party's nominating base is a conservative base, and they would have to-- they would try to bring him out and draw some distinctions on the issues. That's what they would try to do in a nominating fight. If he were an independent, both the Republican and the Democrat would play to their bases, and they would try to coalesce that and say, look it, we--our issues are most important, and, and hope that Powell somehow couldn't transcend that on both sides.

MR. MAC NEIL: Impossible question to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyhow. Is the Powell thing more the result of Powell or a just kind of nyah about Clinton, Dole, and the possibilities on the Republican side?

MR. GIGOT: I think it's both, but frankly, right now, I think he- -he has so many of the personal characteristics that are attractive, but right now he's ultimately expressing--people are putting on to him their dissatisfaction with the current choices. He's filling that vacuum.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree?

MR. SHIELDS: Yeah. I think he's--I think you need a Colin Powell. I don't think it just happens to, you know, Sammy Glick walking by. I think it need--you need a Colin Powell. He is--it's a time, Jim, when people just are satisfied with politics. I mean, it's Packwood, it's all of it. It's wrangling. It's--it's seamy. It doesn't work. There seems to be a lot of nitpicking back and forth, a lot of smallness, and--

MR. LEHRER: And he's different.

MR. SHIELDS: And he seems bigger.

MR. LEHRER: Seems to be different. Yeah. Gentlemen, thank you both very much. See you next week. ESSAY - AN ARTIST'S STUDIO

MR. MAC NEIL: Finally tonight, essayist Amei Wallach looks at the secrets left behind in a couple of artists' studios.

AMEI WALLACH: The studio of an artist is a mysterious place with secrets to tell. Even after the artist no longer inhabits it, the studios of the best-known artists often become shrines of sorts, maintained by foundations and universities--like this tiny impoverished studio in Easthampton, Long Island, where Jackson Pollock in the 1940's made his breakthrough into the rhythmic, nonrepresentational painting known as "abstract expressionism," which put American art on the international map for the first time in history. But across the bay in Southold, a pair of his-and-hers studios which slumbered intact and in obscurity for half a century have suddenly emerged to resurrect not only the reputations of two fine and forgotten artists, Henry and Edith Prellwitz, but also a time before the rules of art and life changed so drastically. Almost nothing has changed here since Edith Prellwitz died at the age of 80 in 1944, four years after Henry's death at 85. You can see in the face of her self-portrait the force of will it took to transfer her into an artist so successful in her day that she won the Silver Medal at the 1895 International Exposition in Atlanta. She was born into New York society in the corseted age, when the sight of a naked ankle could incite erotic fantasy. But at 20, she enrolled in a life class at the Art Students League in New York City to learn how to paint men and women in the nude. On the night before she took this decisive step, she wrote in her diary:

WENDY PRELLWITZ READING LETTER: "Dear Poor Mama, a stronger tie is drawing me than holds me to you. I regard my work as a sacred marriage, and tomorrow I shall be bound to my love."

AMEI WALLACH: Ten years ago, Henry and Edith's great granddaughter, Wendy Prellwitz, began leafing through the diaries, the boxes of letters, the photographs stored in the studio. Wendy too is a painter and a Boston architect with her husband. She recognized all the self-doubts in the diaries.

WENDY PRELLWITZ READING PASSAGE: "Life is all a mistake. I'm a mistake. I love nothing. I care for nothing on earth but art and a few friends."

AMEI WALLACH: Wendy was struck by the ways, so remarkable for the time, in which her great grandfather supported the artist in her great grandmother. A few months before the wedding in 1894, Henry wrote to Edith:

WENDY PRELLWITZ READING PASSAGE: "How happy we will be and industrious. Remember, darling, our marriage is the best thing that could ever happen to your art, for you know I respect and value it. I promise faithfully on my honor and love to aid you in every way to develop it, my dear, dear one. We are sadly incomplete alone, but we will develop together."

AMEI WALLACH: And they did. Henry's studio adjoined and complemented hers. They had met at the Art Students League. Both had studied in Paris at the Academie Julian. Both exhibited at the National Academy of Design. Henry became treasurer of the Academy. He won the Silver Medal at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. Then, the 1913 New York Armory Show introduced European modernism to America: Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse, DuChamps' "Nude Descending a Staircase." Suddenly, the Prellwitzes were outdated. Henry's gentle impressionism, the tableaux of women and children for which critics has compared Edith to Mary Cassatt--that art was old hat. By the time the Prellwitzes died in the 1940's, Pollock's abstract expressionism was just around the corner. After the Armory show, the Prellwitzes retired to their evocative studios on Peconic Bay, along with a group of other artist friends. And that is how their grandson, Wendy's father, Sam Prellwitz, remembers them.

SAM PRELLWITZ: My grandfather was a fun-loving man, and enjoyed his little jokes like the Reveille every morning. He would get out on the porch where we're sitting here with his bugle and blow Reveille. And down the beach Edward A. Bell, whom we called the admiral, and had a big ship's bell, which is why, would ring eight bells, and they would come clearly back through the woods, then the day officially began.

AMEI WALLACH: After the artist died, no one in the family wanted change much in the studios. The paintings simply stayed there until Wendy started showing them around. The result is an exhibition at the museums at Stony Brook this summer which travels to the Federal Reserve Board in Washington next winter. When Edith painted a woman dreaming over a book, there was no-nonsense crispness in the way she handled the light, illuminating a green, green vase at the woman's feet. Henry could paint "Pagan Joy" and he could paint the "Bleak Comforts of a Deserted Winter Road." Sometimes when you stick to the superhighways, even in art history, you only get part of the point. Tucked away in cul de sacs is evidence of people who lived lives with conviction and passion, of paintings that remember other times and other values, and when you come upon them suddenly like that, emerging from deep sleep, everything looks fresh and filled with possibility. I'm Amei Wallach. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major stories of this Friday, negotiators in Geneva announced a breakthrough in their attempts to broker a Balkan peace. U.S. Envoy Richard Holbrooke said the foreign ministers of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia agreed in principle to keep Bosnia-Herzegovina united. And in this country, Oregon Senator Bob Packwood announced he will leave the Senate October 1st. He relinquished his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee effective immediately. Packwood said yesterday he would resign, rather than face expulsion on charges of sexual and official misconduct. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you on Monday night. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.