The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight a report and a debate about the government's move against Microsoft; a look at the bloody violence in the North African nation of Algeria; an update of the situation and the leadership in Cambodia; an interview with the architect of museums, Frank Gehry, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay about something new and big on the road. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: A key Republican offered legislation today that would drastically change the Internal Revenue Service. The proposal by Bill Archer of Texas, chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, drew an immediate favorable reaction from the Clinton administration. Archer's plan would shift the burden of proof from taxpayers to the IRS in court cases over unpaid taxes. It would also create an independent oversight board, which the Clinton administration had previously opposed. Archer and Treasury Sec. Rubin spoke separately to reporters.

REP. BILL ARCHER, Chairman, Ways & Means Committee: Our decision was to establish the best policy, to listen to the Treasury, to take their input, to listen to other sources, and to take their input and to design the best policy--neither to get a veto or to get a signing but to move forward with the best policy to protect the interest of the taxpayers in this country. And I think we've done that.

ROBERT RUBIN, Secretary of the Treasury: We believe we now have a workable plan and a plan that will enable us to continue with the important and I would say the imperative job of improving the Internal Revenue Service. There are areas in which we think this plan could be improved and should be improved, and we look forward to working with Congress toward those ends in the days and weeks ahead.

JIM LEHRER: House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt also announced his support for the plan. The gap between what the United States exports and imports widened at $10.4 billion in August. The 3.4 percent increase was the largest since January. The Commerce Department said the major cause was a flood of toys and Christmas decorations from China. The U.S. trade deficit with China was at an all time high of $5.2 billion. The Department of Energy announced a breakthrough in electric car technology today. Secretary of Energy Pena said this gas-powered fuel cell could replace the bulky batteries currently in electric cars. He claimed they would have twice the fuel efficiency of a conventional gas engine and produce only 5 percent of the pollution. Pena spoke at a Washington news conference.

FEDERICO PENA, Secretary of Energy: This fuel cell technology could dramatically change the automobile industry. Previously, our efforts to develop an electric car were hampered by the difficulties associated with recharging the battery. The fuel cell eliminates these difficulties because it is capable of reforming the gasoline available at any filling station into the electricity needed to power the car. Within the next decade hours of recharging batteries will be turned into minute at the pump of any local gas station.

JIM LEHRER: Pena said these fuel cell cars could be on the road within a dozen years. Secretary of State Albright and Defense Secretary Cohen told Congress today NATO expansion was affordable. They testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Senate must approve the addition of Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Cohen said the U.S. share of the 27 to 35 billion dollar cost is about 2.6 billion. Albright said all NATO members would help the cost.

SEC. MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: NATO is a collective defense alliance. We need to know that at moments of crisis each member will be able to deliver on its commitment to help defend new allies. The President, Sec. Cohen, and I have been making these points loud and clear to our current and future allies. And our message has been received. And I'm confident today that the costs of a larger alliance will be real but affordable and that NATO will emerge from this process with its military capabilities as strong as ever.

JIM LEHRER: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Henry Shelton, will testify tomorrow. A new director of the FBI crime lab was announced today. He's Donald Kerr, a physicist who formerly ran the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Attorney General Reno said his science and managerial background would enable him to improve the lab. A recent Justice Department report criticized FBI scientists for mishandling criminal evidence and thus jeopardizing prosecutions. Kerr was asked about the high profile nature of his new job.

DONALD KERR, Director, FBI Crime Laboratory: One has to expect more political interest, more dedicated efforts to get at the root cause of problems in the laboratory. And I see that as a challenge certainly but, moreover, an opportunity. We're going to have to operate in that environment. We're going to have to prepare our people to work in that environment; yet, they still have to be able to do the highest quality job possible.

JIM LEHRER: A leading FBI critic in Congress, Sen. Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the FBI fell miserably short in its choice because Kerr lacked forensic science experience. The head of the Greek Orthodox Church received Congress's highest honor today. Bartholomew I was presented the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony in the rotunda of the capitol. He later met with House Speaker Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. He will meet President Clinton tomorrow. Bartholomew is the spiritual leader of 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. He's on a 16-city tour of the United States. There were elections today in the North African nation of Algeria for the first time in five years. Algerians showed up to vote in municipal contests at remote polling stations, despite a boycott urged by the outlawed militant Islamic party. Free elections ceased in January 1992, after the government canceled a parliamentary runoff won by the Muslim opposition. A campaign of terror blamed on Islamic militants has been going on ever since. An estimated 75,000 people have been killed. We'll have more on Algeria later in the program. Also coming up tonight the U.S. versus Microsoft, an update on Cambodia, architect Frank Geary, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. FOCUS - MICROSOFT - PLAYING MONOPOLY?

JIM LEHRER: Tom Bearden begins our coverage of the Microsoft story.

TOM BEARDEN: The complaint filed yesterday by the Justice Department charged software giant Microsoft corporation with violating a 1995 anti-trust agreement involving its Internet browser software.

JANET RENO, Attorney General: Microsoft is unlawfully taking advantage of its windows monopoly to protect and extend that monopoly and to undermine consumer choice. The Department of Justice will not tolerate that kind of conduct.

TOM BEARDEN: Windows 95, an operating system which controls basic computer functions, such as storing and retrieving files. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates introduced Windows 95 in August of 1995. Now nearly all personal computers sold in stores come with the operating system pre- installed. The government's federal court complaint says that for the last two years Microsoft has required personal computer makers who installed Windows 95 to also install the company's Internet Explorer browser. A browser is software that allows computer users to access the Internet. Microsoft's Internet Explorer and its chief competitor, Netscape Corporation's Navigator, are designed so that users can point and click with a mouse to "browse" Internet content. The Justice Department's Assistant Attorney General in charge of Anti-Trust is Joel Klein.

JOEL KLEIN: What Microsoft is doing here is requiring PC manufacturers and through them consumers in America to take the Microsoft version of the browser in order to get Windows 95. Now, Microsoft and only Microsoft is able to do that because it alone has a monopoly on the underlying operating system software. This kind of product forcing is an abuse of monopoly power. And we will seek to put an end to it.

TOM BEARDEN: More than one third of all computer users surfing the Internet now use Microsoft's Internet Explorer--a dramatic increase that threatens Netscape's dominant share of the browser market. The justice Department's complaint asks a federal judge to force Microsoft to stop requiring personal computer makers to license and distribute Internet Explorer in order to buy Windows 95; notify Windows 95 users they don't have to use Internet Explorer; give consumers instructions on how to remove Internet Explorer from their computers; and fine Microsoft $1 million dollars a day until the company changes its policy. Microsoft denies any wrong doing and said they will fight the complaint in court. Their attorney William Neukom said yesterday "Microsoft is competing vigorously and is in full compliance with the consent decrees. Our efforts are benefitting consumers by spurring greater innovation, better products, and lower prices."

TOM BEARDEN: The government has investigated Microsoft's business practices for more than six years and has won two out of court settlements in anti-trust cases. The Justice Department is also investigating Microsoft's recently announced joint venture with Apple Computers. Microsoft has 11 days to respond to the government's complaint. The federal court judge could then rule on the complaint or call a hearing to explore the arguments further.

JIM LEHRER: On now to Phil Ponce.

PHIL PONCE: Two computer world watchers are with us now. Don Crabb is senior lecturer in the University of Chicago's Computer Science Department and a regular columnist for the "Chicago Sun-Times." And Jonathan Cohen is an analyst of software and Internet-related business at UBS Securities on Wall Street. Gentlemen, welcome both. Don Crabb, in your opinion, did the Department of Justice do the right thing?

DON CRABB, University of Chicago: You bet. It's long overdue. I'm happy they've finally gotten off their high horse and done something about Microsoft.

PHIL PONCE: Why is that?

DON CRABB: Well, Microsoft, I believe, has been illegally competing for years and forcing out the competition by use of their Windows operating system. And I think the tie-in with the Internet Explorer is another example of that.

PHIL PONCE: Jonathan Cohen, your take on the Department of Justice's action.

JONATHAN COHEN, Internet Analyst: I disagree that Microsoft is necessarily using its position within the operating system software market to illegally promote other products. Our view has and continues to be that Microsoft has essentially positioned Internet Explorer Browser software as an integral part of the operating system and that the company is likely in full compliance with the terms of their consent degree.

PHIL PONCE: So you're saying that their browser is an extension of their overall program and just a component of it?

JONATHAN COHEN: There's a history of operating system software, Microsoft operating system software and other people's as well, growing to include additional functionalities and additional services. Over the last 15 years or so that's I think operated as a significant benefit of computer users into the population at large.

DON CRABB: Not to mention Microsoft.

JONATHAN COHEN: Not to mention Microsoft. Absolutely. But, nonetheless, it is our view that Microsoft has successfully integrated browser software functionality inside of the operating systems to the extent that it is essentially a part of the operating system and, therefore, consistent with Microsoft's obligations under the consent decree.

PHIL PONCE: Don Crab, why should consumers care about what it is Microsoft was doing and why the Justice Department is attempting to step in?

DON CRABB: Because when you stifle competition, you stifle the selectivity available to consumers. Let's say five years from now Microsoft wins all these battles and they're the only real software company left in the United States, and that's a very real possibility. They will have succeeded in stifling competition for all consumers because no matter how good Microsoft might be they can't make all of the best software. This is a real problem. I see this going far beyond just a particular violation of the consent decree. I see this as an issue of software competition in the United States versus other countries.

PHIL PONCE: But right now consumers are getting this Internet browser for free. How are consumers being hurt by that?

DON CRABB: Because they might be getting something else, so they didn't have to tie in the browser with the Windows operating system. I think that this whole idea that Windows, itself, is evolving, including Internet Explorer, is an interesting one; however, the separate product, Internet Explorer Browser can still be bought, can still be obtained without obtaining Windows. So the idea that Microsoft suddenly just figured out how to do this I think is kind of specious. They've been working towards this ever since Netscape Navigator became a real product three years ago because they saw that as competition to their Windows system, which is dominant on virtually every desktop computer.

PHIL PONCE: Jonathan Cohen, what is at stake here? Why is it that a company would want to dominate or have a good share of the browser end of it?

JONATHAN COHEN: What's ultimately at stake is control and influence over the way that people use computers. The browser software functionality is allowing people to do things on the Internet on their own computers and their local networks that they've previously not been able to do. There had been a notion--and I think there still is a notion that there's just the possibility that that type of software could over time expand and displace traditional operating system software. We think that type of a progression is very unlikely. We don't think it's going to happen. We also think that Microsoft has done an awful lot to improve browser technology. In fact, Internet Explorer Version 3 and now Internet Explorer Version 4 both moved the bar--the competitive bar--significantly higher than had been the case immediately prior to those products released. So rather than stifling competition specifically within the market for browser software, we see Microsoft as encouraging competition. Prior to Microsoft's entering this market there was one company that had a 100 percent market share of browser software. That company is Netscape. Post Microsoft's entry into this market there are now two companies vigorously competing, improving the product, and improving the quality of choice for consumers. To me that seems pro-competitive, if anything.

PHIL PONCE: Don Crabb, the Department of Justice seems to be saying that Microsoft, in their opinion, is trying to bully its way into the browser market. Do you think Microsoft is acting like a business bully?

DON CRABB: Yes. I think it's been doing it for some time. I mean, Bill Gates is no fool. He saw three years ago that Internet was going to be a lot more important than he originally had conceived it; that Java, the language that Sun Microsystems has developed, that drives the Internet and that Netscape uses was going to become more important. He's tried to figure out a way to keep Windows ahead of the game--if Windows adds an important component, even as software gets rolled out in Java form and the traditional operating systems like Windows may go away, so he is linking in these Internet Explorer features with Windows. I can't disagree that Internet Explorer is a competitive product. It is. My problem is how they sell it and how they build it into Windows and the fine line between the operating system and the browser becomes a blur, and that's the problem for competition because Netscape does not have its own version of an operating system they can sell their browser on top of. And that's the unfair advantage, as far as I'm concerned.

PHIL PONCE: Jonathan Cohen, do you think that at times Microsoft's aggressiveness in the market can cross the line into that of a corporate bully?

JONATHAN COHEN: I'm not sure what the definition of a corporate bully is. I know that Microsoft is a very aggressive and focused competitive factor in this market. I think that they've been that way since the company's inception. What I have not seen historically is Microsoft behaving in a manner which has served to significantly limit consumer choice. By including these additional products and services in what Microsoft provides on every computer sold, or on most every computer sold in the U.S., at least a PC standard computer, Microsoft is essentially giving consumers more productivity software, more functionality at an unchanged price point. Consumers don't pay for Internet Explorer. Consumers don't buy Internet Explorer. The product is completely free. It's available either through a download or when a person buys a new computer they obtain a copy of it. Consumers, though, do have a choice. If a consumer buys a computer with a copy of Internet Explorer already on it, they have the option--again essentially free of charge--to download a copy or to obtain for very little money, if any money, a copy of Netscape Navigator browser software and run that software on top of the Windows Microsoft operating system. So Microsoft hasn't put into place any structural or technological limitations on the ability of their major competitor to function in this market or to function with their software.

PHIL PONCE: Don Crabb, why should consumers care about Microsoft's size if Microsoft is coming up with good products?

DON CRABB: Well, the problem here is not a question of the technological or other road blocks. It's opportunity road blocks. If you control the operating system, the thing that is automatically loaded up on the computer that you buy and that operating system automatically loads your browser as part of its functionality, do you really think that people are going to go out there and find something else? Irregardless of how competitive that product is--right now it's very competitive--but you have to look down the road, a year, or two or three years down the road, and ask yourself what happens when they no longer have 30 percent of the market but they have 100 percent of the market? They're not going to be compelled to innovate whatsoever because at that point they'll have the desktop and they'll have the browser on top of it, and they may have other software that they've built in at that point--the operating system, stifling other categories of software development. That, again, is where I really worry about this anti-competitive nature of the way Microsoft does business.

PHIL PONCE: Don Crabb, to what extent do you think Microsoft's very aggressive stand in the market is a reflection of Bill Gates' personality? Is it an extension as far as the corporate culture in that?

DON CRABB: Everything Microsoft does is an extension of Bill Gates' personality. He's a competitive guy. He's a very smart guy. I wouldn't want to have to compete against him in business because I think he does push it right to the edge of the envelope. Some people think he pushes it beyond that envelope, but I think the company reflects Bill Gates' personality almost to a tee.

PHIL PONCE: Jonathan Cohen, what's your take on the extent to which Microsoft's aggressiveness in the market is a reflection of its founder and leader?

JONATHAN COHEN: I would tend to agree with the previous statements. I think that the limited time that I've spent with Bill Gates and the time that I've spent with the rest of the senior management at Microsoft certainly indicates that this is a company that is driven by a group of people that are enormously competitive, enormously aggressive, and who have successfully changed the landscape for personal computing not only in the United States but worldwide. I think that's been to the benefit of the computing population, but clearly this is a company that is extremely aggressive. I do think, though, that it's important to differentiate between hypothetical argument about what may or may not happen over the next five or ten years and the issue that's really at hand today, which is the U.S. Justice Department's decision to move ahead against Microsoft on the basis of Microsoft's failure to comply or their alleged failure to comply with the terms and conditions of the consent decree. Reading through the consent degree, which is only about a twelve or thirteen page document, there are some very specific limitations placed on Microsoft's conduct going forward. This is the agreement that was reached between Microsoft and the Justice Department back in 1994.

PHIL PONCE: Gentlemen, I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there. I thank you both for joining us. FOCUS - ALGERIA IN AGONY

JIM LEHRER: Next, Algeria's five-year descent into violence. Hundreds of people have been massacred just in the last few months. We have a report from one village by Saira Shah of Independent Television News.

SAIRA SHAH, ITN: An Algerian government guardsman shows us the site of a recent massacre. But the government hasn't always been this open. It's rejected calls for an independent inquiry into the wave of killings that has swept Algeria this summer. Many of the villages targeted actually supported the Islamic militants named for the attacks. Rais--a 30-minute drive from the capital--is one such town. Six weeks ago it was surrounded by men who descended on its inhabitants and slaughtered them.

MAN: [speaking through interpreter] We were in the middle of men who were shooting at us from two sides. They shot at our feet so that we would fall. Then they cut the throats of those who fell, except the young virgins. They took them away alive.

WOMAN: [speaking through interpreter] There were fifty or sixty people fleeing. You simply ran in a group to get to the main road, while all the time they were grabbing at us to cut our throats, throwing grenades at us.

SAIRA SHAH: When they reached the main road, the only lighted place, the villagers claim the army was already there but it didn't help them. Instead, soldiers shot at anyone who approached, and they never tried to enter the village. The people were trapped in the dark back streets, along with the killers. They ran to and fro, looking for shelter. Some came here, to the house of a neighbor. This woman says, "They came to me because my house is more secure. We told each other, 'We'll all live together, or we'll die together.'" It's the testimony of this man who doesn't want his name to be used, which gives us the clearest indication of not just what happened but why it happened. He led us through his house, which was looted and burned in the attack. And he told us how he was injured as he fled with his family.

MAN: [speaking through interpreter] I was holding my handicapped child in my arms. I was running with my baby and trying to shelter us both from the bullets, but I met the terrorist in front of me and one tried to strike me with a hatchet, so I blocked it with this arm. I was injured. I fell down and dropped the baby. They took the baby by the leg and threw it against the wall. They smashed its head.

SAIRA SHAH: He told us that his village had a history of close contact with local Islamic militants. The villagers here had helped them in the past but in the sector where the attack occurred, they'd recently stopped.

MAN: [speaking through interpreter] They used to come to the families in the village. And they would help them; they gave them food and money. But now no families give help, so they do this to us, and take what they can by force.

SAIRA SHAH: Armed guards accompanied us to the village. We filmed them secretly. But questions still remain about why on the night of the massacre didn't leave the main road and rescue the villagers. The killers were able to enter this village seen off the road behind me and two other roads. They howled like jackals and wolves made a lot of noise and all the villagers around heard exactly what was going on. But although this village is also ringed by barracks and garrisons in almost every direction, they were allowed to carry on for nearly four hours uninterrupted, where finally the killers escaped. I put those very points to the prime minister.

SAIRA SHAH: This village is surrounded by army garrisons. There were three and a half hours in which somebody could have intervened. Why did the army not intervene?

AHMED OUYAHIA, Prime Minister, Algeria: Do we fight other people that will tell you this government is not doing anything? You will find people who will tell you that the army was there just looking and the others were killing but you ask me as an Algerian citizen, I'll give you my point of view. As the head of the government I'll tell you that I reject such allegation and I say and insist on the fact that the army, the national guard intervened, intervened as quickly as it was possible.

SAIRA SHAH: Bizarrely he appeared to suggest that the villagers played a part in their own deaths by not reporting the massacre in advance.

AHMED OUYAHIA: Why--a whole day those women were first putting bumps around the village--people were seeing that situation--and they did not alert the security force.

SAIRA SHAH: Since the Islamic FIS party won elections in 1991, which were then annulled by the government on orders from the military, the two sides have waged a bitter arms struggle that has often descended into terror. But over the years both sides have become factionalized, ideologies fractured. Accountability is nil and civilians have been drawn into the fray. In Rais, there are few jobs. These local youths are unemployed. Others have found employment in the ranks of militant groups splintered from any Islamic political control. They're little more than armed groups.

MAN: [speaking through interpreter] Because there is high unemployment young people have no jobs so the terrorists find it easy to recruit them.

SAIRA SHAH: Since the massacre the villagers have been given weapons with which to defend themselves but only on condition they form a government-supervised local defense unit known as Patriots to counter the militants. Nobody here was willing to openly criticize their new defenders but there was some bitterness. Our witness refused to say whether they were useful. When pressed, he said he didn't believe in anything, the army, the Patriots, nothing. We left Rais, as we had come, in a military convoy. We'd heard testimony that the military, which here means the states, failed to help people who are being systematically slaughtered over a period of hours. A reliable tally of death has never been made. The government says a hundred people died. The villagers say the figure is three times higher. Algeria's graveyards are packed with the victims of massacres that have happened almost every week over the past few months here. If they're still shrouded in mystery, that's because the government has blocked all attempts at independent investigation.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a Cambodia update, a conversation with architect Frank Geary, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. UPDATE - CAMBODIA'S CONFLICTS

JIM LEHRER: Cambodia and the man who rules it. Charles Krause has our report.

CHARLES KRAUSE: For more than two decades, Hun Sen has been at the center of Cambodia's tragic history--first as a Communist guerrilla commander, then as the head of a government imposed by Cambodia's neighbor, Vietnam, and currently, as prime minister of a quasi-democratic regime created after UN-supervised elections four years ago. Now 45, Hun Sen's first foray into politics took place in the 1970's. That's when he joined the Khmer Rouge, a Maoist-inspired guerrilla force led by Pol Pot, which was responsible for killing more than a million Cambodians in the late 1970's. At the height of the genocide in 1977, Hun Sen defected, fearing that he too would be killed. He escaped to neighboring Vietnam, where he was at first imprisoned. But later, he was selected by the Vietnamese to help run--and later lead--a government they installed in Cambodia after sending in their army to defeat the Khmer Rouge. For most of the 1980's, Hun Sen and his government ruled Phnom Penh and other parts of central Cambodia with Vietnam's support. The Khmer Route, however, still controlled much of the countryside. Finally in 1992, after years of civil war, human slaughter and political instability, the UN and the international community intervened to organize elections. The vote was relatively clean and Hun Sen's political party, the CPP, came in second. As a result, he ended up as co-prime minister-- sharing power with Prince Ranarridh, a member of Cambodia's royal family. But last July, the arrangement fell apart. After nearly four years of coexistence, Hun Sen accused Prince Ranarridh of collaborating with remnants of the Khmer Rouge and of importing illegal weapons. The prince was then forced to leave Cambodia after being warned he would be overthrown in a military coup. A few days later, forces allegedly loyal to Hun Sen carried out that threat, rounding up and executing a number of Ranarridh's political supporters. Hun Sen denied complicity. But still he moved quickly to consolidate his power once the coup had taken place. Since the coup, Hun Sen and his new government have been denounced by other governments and by editorial writers around the world. Stung by the criticism, he flew to New York recently, where he sought to improve his image-- and to convince the United Nations to recognize and seat his new government. In New York, he had a private meeting with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, followed by a photo-op and a public meeting at the Asia Society, where he tried to persuade a group of influential Americans that his government deserves UN and US support in an interview afterwards, we asked Hun Sen about Prince Ranarridh's accusation that he engineered the coup.

CHARLES KRAUSE: How do you respond to his charge?

HUN SEN, Prime Minister, Cambodia: [speaking through interpreter] Ranarridh is the one who has threatened to kill me some years ago before Saddam Hussein is power man. I'm asking if I have all power, why should I go and get more power, so I can say that Ranarridh is collaborating with the Khmer Rouge, but myself, I'm collaborating with ten more political parties. I want to emphasize that Ranarridh left without somebody push him out.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Despite Hun Sen's version of events, diplomats in Phnom Penh and several international rights groups tend to support Ranarridh's claim that he was forced to leave Cambodia. Human rights groups have also documented the repression that took place after the coup.

CHARLES KRAUSE: There is a report by Asia Watch, which I have a copy of here. In this report it accuses you and your government of carrying out a deliberate campaign to kill principal leaders of the opposition, to arrest and detain other leaders of the opposition, or force them to leave the country. Specifically, how do you respond to the charges in this report?

HUN SEN: [speaking through interpreter] We are going to investigate--we want to find out who did the killing. Until we now hadn't seen any politician got killed. At this point we want to know who is the politician got killed in order for us to send the killer to the justice. We don't want people in the prisons, so I would like to invite Asia Watch to come to Cambodia to watch with their own eyes and study each case with their own eyes.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Despite the recent turmoil, another round of UN-supervised elections is scheduled for next May.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Would you expect that you will be a candidate in that election?

HUN SEN: [speaking through interpreter] I'm going to be a candidate in this election. I'm not going out and campaign for the party. Somebody else can do it. I keep myself in place to control the--the guns in order to create an atmosphere neutral, to create a--just and equal atmosphere--each political party got to have equal time.

CHARLES KRAUSE: To protest the coup, the Clinton administration suspended U.S. aid to Cambodia. SPOKESMAN: We will not be resuming those portions of our aid program that in some way directly or indirectly support the government of Cambodia. This is a clear signal to Hun Sen and to his associates that the United States will not be conducting business as usual with those individuals.

CHARLES KRAUSE: From your perspective, what is the role of the United States in Cambodia? Do you consider the government of the United States at this time to be an ally of yours, an enemy, or has it been relatively neutral?

HUN SEN: [speaking through interpreter] Since the beginning I never consider U.S. as an enemy, despite U.S. has sent soldiers to destroy my country. During the fighting I was hurt five times, and my eyes--I got blind. This should not be an obstacle to the relationship with the United States. When I was foreign minister and then later in 1985 became prime minister, I noticed that I was helping United States in finding U.S. servicemen that disappeared during the Vietnam War. I'm still working, looking for the MIA. I have special considerations in having a relationship with U.S., like, you know, I have two sons studying in the United States. I have another son who is going to West Point. I consider it the best school in the world. I want to have friendship, not enemy.

CHARLES KRAUSE: When I interviewed Prince Ranarridh this summer, shortly after the coup, he said that he was willing to talk with you; that he was willing to negotiate with your government to find some solution to this problem. Why have you refused to talk with him?

HUN SEN: [speaking through interpreter] A few days ago Ranarridh announced that he want to meet me and then yesterday he said he cannot work with Hun Sen. Those words that he said, that he cannot work with Hun Sen, this is the cause of the fighting in July. Before the fighting, a few months, Ranarridh has announced-- telling Asia Watch he cannot work with Hun Sen. He refused to work with me as co-prime minister in the government. There is no reason for me to talk to him again.

CHARLES KRAUSE: From New York Hun Sen flew to Paris and is now back in Cambodia.

FOCUS - MONUMENT TO ART

JIM LEHRER: Now, a new Guggenheim Museum and the man who designed it and toElizabeth Farnsworth, who's in Los Angeles tonight.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The fourth largest city in Spain, a gritty industrial port in the Northern Basque region, may seem an odd setting for a major new museum of 20th century art, let alone one being hailed as an architectural masterpiece. But there it is, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry. It's the result of an unusual deal between the New York-based Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Basque regional government, which is trying to spruce up an image tarnished by terrorism. Bilbao, the largest city in Basque country, is a stronghold of the separatist group ETA, which seeks independence from Spain sometimes through violent means. For the Guggenheim Foundation it was a win/win deal. The Basques agreed to foot both the $100 million construction bill and the operating costs of the new museum, the centerpiece of a huge urban renewal project for Bilbao. The Guggenheim Foundation gets to run the new museum and gets plenty of space--257,000 square feet to be exact--to display more of its art. Until now only about 1 percent of the foundation's holdings have been on view at any one time, mainly in the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Built in 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright's corkscrew-shaped building is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of 20th century architecture. Guggenheim Director Thomas Krens wanted an equally distinctive building for Bilbao.

THOMAS KRENS, Director, Guggenheim Foundation: It's a bit of a cliche but I see this building somewhat like the Sidney Opera House, that there was a building that somehow captured the public imagination as a function of his architecture and came to symbolize the city. I believe that this building in Bilbao will have the same impact.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry beat out two others in a 1991 competition for the job of designing the Guggenheim Bilbao. Critics now seem to be in a competition of their own to come up with words of praise. "Miracle" is one word that crops up a lot. The enormous boat-shaped gallery is a nod toward Bilbao's past as a center of shipbuilding and trade. Inside, the space is free of structural columns, custom-made for exhibiting large scale works of contemporary art like Richard Serra's "Snake," 13 feet tall and 100 feet long.

THOMAS KRENS: Richard Serra's work is not so much in physical space but in its weight. Very few museums are designed to be able to receive steel plates of ten, twenty, thirty, forty tons. This museum has been designed to be hospitable to works of that kind of scale that you'll be able to take a tractor trailer truck into the main gallery carrying a 70-ton sculpture, if need be.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: By some accounts the building's light-filled central atrium evokes the Guggenheim, New York's world famous rotunda, both inside and out. But the surrounding cluster of irregular volumes, a so-called village of shapes, makes this an unmistakable Frank Gehry design. These individual shapes are sheathed in limestone. Uniting them is a twisting, curving, jutting cloak of titanium. Metal-clad buildings are another Frank Gehry hallmark. This one was engineered with the help of a three-dimensional computer modeling program originally developed for the aerospace industry. Spain's King Juan Carlos inaugurated the museum Saturday night in a ceremony muted by mourning for a policeman shot when he foiled an ETA terrorist attack last week.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Architect Frank Gehry joins us now. Thank you for being with us. Congratulations!

FRANK GEHRY, Architect: Thank you.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How is the relationship between the Americans and the Basques--this is an unusual project in that it's the Basques' Museum and yet the Guggenheim Foundation retains control of it.

FRANK GEHRY: You went right to the heart of it. It's exciting to watch. It's two cultures. It's a Basque culture, which is fairly insular, and America, which is a melting pot, which is used to extending its arms to everybody, and they're trying to understand each other. They built something very special. They know it's special, but the real miracle will be them getting along and going together for the years to come. I think they're- -both sides are very intelligent. They want to do it. It'll be a real interesting few years.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What difference did it make in your thinking that it was Bilbao; that it was Basque country, with its history of separatism, its history during the Spanish civil war, all of that?

FRANK GEHRY: Well, I spent a lot of time trying to understand the culture, trying to understand the people. I related to them because I was raised in a Jewish upbringing in Toronto, Canada, so I was an outsider into the culture when I was a kid. And I understand--I empathized with this outsider role, and--but I can't put my finger on a piece of the building and say this is Basque, but they seem to think I captured their spirit. I tried to use the materials of the region to build the building. The stone in Spanish. The steel structure is Spanish. All the work people were Basque. The only thing that wasn't Basque was the titanium, and we were going to use stainless steel but it was too cold, and the titanium was so beautiful in the Bilbao light, and it actually turns gold in the rain. And we couldn't help but use it, and it came from Australia.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Take us back to when you first realized you were going to do this, you're in Bilbao, you see where it's to be on the waterfront. When did you decide to make it--you've called it a ship run around--you've called it many things--when did you decide on its design?

FRANK GEHRY: Irresponsible is the words I used to describe my--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So I can't hold you to them.

FRANK GEHRY: I'm liable to say anything. Anyway, we're on the river in Bilbao; it's a port that's being the accession--moved closer to the ocean. It's all industrial. It's quite tough industrial looking, and it's surrounded by these green hills, which is very forgiving and makes the industrial palatable. Artists love Bilbao because of this feeling of toughness and solidity and no frills. It's kind of an essence, and so I had a 19th century city up on the hill, up higher, and I had the river and this huge bridge bisecting the site that I had to reconcile. So it's obvious I made the top part relate in simpler forms, blocky forms, to the 19th century city. On the river I made kind of a boat shape. I'm a sailor, so I use those--I love that kind of imagery, and I absorb the big bridge, which if you're standing on the river side of the building and you look up, the traffic looks like it's going into the building, and it's--it's very dynamic, and it kind of fits visions of fantasy cities by Fritz Long and--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The film maker.

FRANK GEHRY: Yes. And where you saw these ramps and moving cars up in the air coming into buildings and stuff, and so I built on that idea.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How much was Frank Lloyd Wright in your mind?

FRANK GEHRY: I knew he would hate what I did. In fact, I wanted to have--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why would he hate it?

FRANK GEHRY: Well, because all of us hate each other's work in a way, and I would have been a young upstart, even though I'm an old man now. But I wanted to have a picture of Frank Lloyd Wright in the foyer sort of looking disgusted. Frank Lloyd Wright was only in my mind that Frank Lloyd Wright hated contemporary artists, didn't like--he liked Japanese prints and stuff like that. And he built a museum in New York without taking into account what kind of art would be in it. He saw it used for smaller drawings and paintings. Of course, things have changed since then, so the--my work was a kind of a critique of him; that we needed galleries that could be used for what's going on now and hopefully in the future. The atrium idea was asked for by Tom Krens, who is the museum director you've heard from. And he asked me to make it bigger and better, so I carried on with this Fritz Long image and made a--sort of an idealistic city in the atrium that's vertical. It doesn't have spiral--it's not spiral ramps, and so it's a different idea sculpturally.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Some people have said it's sculptural in itself, the museum, and they refer to you as a sculptor as much as you are an architect. Is that true?

FRANK GEHRY: Well--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you think of yourself as a sculptor?

FRANK GEHRY: Well, I think that when you draw those lines, they're not really relevant.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Although there aren't that many architects who are referred to as sculptors.

FRANK GEHRY: But architecture is a three-dimensional objection, therefore, by definition it's a sculpture. It's different. I could not be making sculpture like my friend Richard Serra. He spends all of his life messing around with two-inch thick steel of a certain dimension and it's a highly refined language that he's developed. My highly refined language has to do with buildings that are functional and have budgets and have people using them and relate to different kind of constraints. In the end, after you solve all the functional problems, there's a moment of truth, I call it, where you're like the artist. You're making decisions of scale and form and composition and color and texture and so on. But I think it's different. I've been invited to make sculptures, and I've fantasized it. I find it very different, so, no, I'm an architect, pure and simple.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You've made many other buildings and many of them are also very outstanding and beautiful and have been well reviewed. Why do you think this one has captured so much attention?

FRANK GEHRY: I think because the Guggenheim is a very well known institution. I think it carries a lot of cache as a--as an institution. The art that will be shown--the shows are of international consequence. The site-- the idea of making such a thing in a place like Bilbao is unique. It's an out-of-the-way place. The people haven't been going to Bilbao on their normal trek to Spain--usually go to Barcelona or Madrid. So I think the Basque culture is attractive. It's interesting. It hasn't been overdone, and to marry the--it's an unlikely marriage in the first instance, and that's why it's such a miracle, I think, that--and I know it's going to succeed.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Briefly, in the time we have left, did it accomplish what you wanted it to when you dreamed of it? Does it do what you wanted?

FRANK GEHRY: Well, I'm never satisfied. I'm always--and by the time a building is built I'm not to--it's five years later, so I've done half a dozen more buildings. And so I look back at it and I would like to change it all because I have a new language and I say I wish I'd known this then, but you know, it's pretty exciting. I mean, I'd be blase to say--I mean, I was knocked out.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you very much. Congratulations again. ESSAY - ONE FOR THE ROAD

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming considers changes on the road.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: Until fairly recently most people seemed to be driving fairly normal automobiles; that is, ones of normal size. My child rearing friends had segwayed into the requisite Volvo station wagons or the occasional mini-van, but essentially the suburban roads around where I live in West Los Angeles were full of nice, normal cars, both domestic and imported. Yes, there was the occasional showy Porsche or Rolls Royce, but for years the fuel-efficient, small, though luxurious BMW was the politically correct car of chic choice. Then something happened. From one day of the next it seemed everyone went mad for big so-called sport utility vehicles. It started with those boxy jeeps and just exploded into even meatier Ford Explorers and Toyota Land Cruisers and Chevrolet Suburbans. Suddenly, the market and mall parking lots were full of these behemoths, the soccer moms and briefcase dads running around in these mammoth, four-wheel drive vehicles. They aren't using them to navigate rugged terrain. Only 1/4 of these vehicles are ever used off-road. This isn't about that. This is about size and road swagger, the new self-image. Clearly, some sort of road machismo has taken over, everybody riding high in the saddle, living some Wild West fantasy life behind the wheel. Riding along in my lowly compact I feel timid and dwarfed, as if the schoolyard bully had suddenly strutted into view, and my fears are not misplaced. In any collision between one of these five thousand pound brutes and a regular old car like mine at thirty-three hundred pounds the passengers in the car are four times more likely to be killed: meaning, I'd be outgunned in a New York minute. Add to that the gas these so-called light trucks use-- they average only about 14 miles a gallon--and they put 20 percent more pollutants--make that gunk--into the air--than a regular car. But that doesn't stop anyone here in my showbiz capital or anywhere else in the country either. The sales of these vehicles went up 77 percent last year. Clearly, the country is feeling its economic oats, strutting its stuff on the highway, and thumbing its nose at the memory of gasoline lines. We're riding high on the hog. I look around my neighborhood, and, indeed, everything seems to be inflated. The new houses are bigger. Mansions go up cheek by jowl, each bigger than the one next to it, each with a kitchen fit for a hotel--no doubt to warm up the already prepared food we buy on the way home from work--and each with a front door big enough for a giant. Does anyone need a door that big? Never mind--bigger is better. Every new gambling joint in Vegas is bigger and more garish than the last. On Wall Street companies are gobbling each other up, and even Ted Turner, making a monstrously generous donation of $1 billion to the United Nations, wanted to make sure it was the biggest such bequest on record. Bigger is everything. Bigger is the measure of the man--or woman. I suppose we can say that we Americans are never very good at concealing our economic bravado. We're inclined to flaunt it if we've got it, and that's exactly what we're doing now. Just take a drive, and you'll see this full tilt, four-wheel flaunt. Butif you're not in one yourself, drive very, very carefully. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, a Republican plan to drastically change the Internal Revenue Service was favorably received by the Clinton administration and Secretary of Energy Pena said a new gas powered fuel cell could be used to replace the batteries currently in electric cars. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.