The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the President's speech on race with excerpts and reaction; a report from Hong Kong on some people who are delighted the British are leaving; and a look at the healing process for those who lost family members in the Oklahoma City bombing. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday. NEWS SUM

MARY

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today states may control who performs abortions. At issue was a Montana law that disqualified physician assistance from doing so. A court majority said the Constitution gave states broad latitude to impose such restrictions. The court also refused to consider a case that attempted to revive Utah's anti-abortion law. The justices let stand a lower court ruling that declared the law unconstitutional. It had banned abortions for women more than 20 weeks pregnant. White House Spokesman Mike McCurry today reaffirmed President Clinton's opposition to a Republican tax cut proposal. McCurry said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was frazzled yesterday when he criticized the President. Lott spoke on ABC's "This Week."

SEN. TRENT LOTT, Majority Leader: I really think the President is not committed to giving working Americans, middle class Americans, a tax cut. I think they're getting positioned to veto the tax cut provision. And so beginning Monday, we're going on the offensive and trying to explain what's in the bill, why it's important to working Americans, and what the President is up to. You know, one of the things he needs to understand, he acts like a spoiled brat. He thinks he's got to have it his way or no way. We've got to do a better job of making sure he understands and insisting on this being a coequal branch of government. We haven't been doing a good job of that.

JIM LEHRER: McCurry said the President believes the Republican proposal penalizes the working poor.

MIKE McCURRY, White House Spokesman: --something for everybody, which is what they want to do. Sure, they want to do some of the things that are going to incent families in the lower and middle income range, but they also want to take care of the people who want capital gains reductions at the highest end of the income scale. Everyone knows that, and I think the priorities the President put forth in his discussion of tax relief are more targeted on exactly the middle income, the lower-paid workers that we believe are the future of strength of the economy, as you see them moving into higher paying, more productive roles in the labor force.

JIM LEHRER: The Senate Finance Committee is expected to start consideration of its tax cut proposal Thursday. The House Ways & Means Committee finished its bill last week. Also, at the capitol today the Senate Judiciary Committee began a review of affirmative action programs. The hearing followed President Clinton's Saturday speech announcing a year-long initiative on race. Witnesses today told the panel how equal opportunity programs have helped or hurt them. Charlene Loen said her son was denied admission to a magnet high school in San Francisco. She said a 1983 federal court consent decree created racial quotas.

CHARLENE LOEN, Parent: The San Francisco school district announced the opening of a new academic high school--Thurgood Marshall. I went to the school district to apply for Patrick. Right away, the person at the office asked me, "Is Patrick Chinese?". I said, "Yes." And she said that the slots for Chinese were already taken at Thurgood Marshall. I asked, "How could that be, because the application period was not even over yet?". She shrugged and said that that's just the way the consent decree requires.

JIM LEHRER: Audrey Rice Oliver, president of a computer services company in Northern California, said affirmative action had to be mandated.

AUDREY RICE OLIVER, Businesswoman: I'm still considered small, successful, yes, but when I go in the door, as I told you, in banking in particular, they see I'm African-American first, and believe me, many things stop when they see your color alone. And, you know, we have a lot of things to work through, but the programs you can't--we have not accomplished the goal for parity and equality in this country. And until we do, we need to keep tools intact.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the President's weekend speech on race right after this News Summary. A former Whitewater business partner of President and Mrs. Clinton went to prison today. Jim McDougal reported to the Federal Medical Center Institution in Lexington, Kentucky, where he started serving a three-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy. He went to a medical facility because he has had a stroke and suffers from manic depression. He and his former wife, Susan, were partners with the Clintons in the Whitewater Land Development in Arkansas. Overseas today, in the Republic of Congo, French troops began leaving the capital, Brazzaville, as fighting near its international airport continued. France said its 1200 soldiers had completed the evacuation of almost 5500 foreigners. Violence broke out June 5th, after government forces tried to disarm rebel fighters alignedwith the country's former dictator. In Northern Ireland today, the Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the shooting deaths of two policemen. The officers were shot in the head while on foot patrol in a rural town Southwest of Belfast. British Prime Minister Tony Blair responded by suspending peace talk plans for the IRA's political party Sinn Fein. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the President's race initiative, another view of the Hong Kong turnover, and moving on in Oklahoma City. FOCUS - FACING RACE

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton's call for a national conversation on race is where we begin tonight. The race relations issue was the centerpiece of the President's commencement address Saturday at the University of California at San Diego. We'll have a conversation about what he said following these extended excerpts from the speech.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: If all the questions of discrimination and prejudice that still exist in our society the most perplexing one is the oldest and in some ways today the newest, the problem of race. Can we fulfill the promise of America by embracing all our citizens of all races? Not just at a university where people have the benefit of enlightened teachers and the time to think and grow and get to know each other, but in the daily lives of every American community. In short, can we become one America in the 21stcentury? A half century from now when your own grandchildren are in college there will be no majority race in America. Now, we know what we will look like, but what will we be like? Can we be one America, respecting, even celebrating our differences, but embracing even more what we have in common? Can we define what it means to be an American, not just in terms of the hype in showing our ethnic origins, but in terms of our primary allegiance to the values America stands for and values we really live by? Our hearts long to answer yes, but our history reminds us that it will be hard. To be sure, there is old, unfinished business between black and white Americans, but the classic American dilemma has now become many dilemmas of race and ethnicity. That is why I have come here today to ask the American people to join me in a great national effort, to perfect the promise of America for this new time as we seek to build our more perfect union. Now when there is more cause for hope than fear, when we are not driven to it by some emergency or social cataclysm, now is the time we should learn together, talk together, and act together to build one America. [applause] We must continue to expand opportunity. Full participation in our strong and growing economy is the best antidote to envy despair and racism. We must press forward and move millions more from poverty and welfare to work, to bring the spark of enterprise to inner cities, to redouble our efforts to reach those world communities prosperity has passed by. And most important of all we simply must give our young people the finest education in the world. In our efforts to extend economic and educational opportunity to all our citizens we must consider the role of affirmative action. I know affirmative action has not been perfect in America. That's why two years ago we began an effort to fix the things that are wrong with it. But when used in the right way, it has worked. [applause] I know that the people of California voted to repeal affirmative action without any ill motive. The vast majority of them simply did it with the conviction that discrimination and isolation are no longer barriers to achievement. But consider the result: Minority enrollments in law school and other graduate programs are plummeting for the first time in decades. Soon, the same will likely happen in undergraduate education. We must not resegregate higher education, or lead it to the private universities to do the public's work. [applause] For those who oppose affirmative action, I ask you to come up with an alternative. I would embrace it if I could find a better way. And to those of us who still support it, I say we should continue to stand for it. We should reach out to those who disagree or are uncertain and talk about the practical impact of these issues. We must build one American community based on respect for one another and our shared values. We must begin with a candid conversation on the state of race relations today and the implications of Americans of so many different races living and working together as we approach a new century. We must be honest with each other. We have talked at each other and about each other for a long time. It's high time we all began talking with each other. Honest dialogue will not be easy at first. We'll all have to get back past defensiveness and fear and political correctness and other barriers to honesty. Emotions may be rubbed raw, but we must begin. What do I really hope we will achieve as a country? If we do nothing more than talk, it will be interesting, but it won't be enough. If we do nothing more than propose disconnected acts of policy, it will be helpful but it won't be enough. But if 10 years from now people can look back and see that this year of honest dialogue and concerted action help to lift the heavy burden of race from our children's future, we will have given a precious gift to America.

JIM LEHRER: Now, five perspectives on the President's initiative. Ward Connerly is a regent for the University of California system. He was the moving force behind California Proposition 209, which abolished racial preferences and public programs there. Congressman John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, accompanied the President to San Diego for the commencement address. Ronald Blackbird Moreno is national executive director of the Aspera Association, a Latino Youth Organization. He also chairs the National Hispanic Leadership Council. Susan Allen is an attorney, president of the United States Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce; and Jim Sleeper is a journalist and author. His most recent book is entitled Liberal Racism. Ms. Allen, what did you think of the President's approach and speech?

SUSAN AU ALLEN, US Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce: I thought--I went to listen to that speech with high hopes--but I came out disappointed. I had hoped that he would really walk the talk and practice what he would preach. He gave us a lot of nice words and feel-good words, but I think in the end there was no substance in his speech. I had hoped that he would repeat his teen-age idol, President Kennedy, when President Kennedy said--I think it was on June 11, 1963--that race does have no place in American life and law. And I hoped that he would start with affirmative action and as the captain of the ship of state steer the country away from the politics of division, preferences, quotas, and set asides toward a country where people are united together under the principle that this country was founded on-- equality for all and preference and special treatment for none. He did not do that. Indeed, he went to California and spoke to the people who had voted not too many months ago overwhelmingly in support of the elimination of affirmative action as we know it today. It was a disappointment.

JIM LEHRER: A disappointment, Congressman Lewis?

REP. JOHN LEWIS, [D] Georgia: It was not a disappointment for me. I thought it was a great speech, a very moving speech. It brought tears to my eyes really. This is the first time since the days of Lyndon Johnson, the days of John F. Kennedy, that we had an American President to speak from his heart, from his very soul, about the whole question of race. I think the President was saying in so many words that if diversity is a goal, then we must be a diversified society. It's good in the boardroom, the classroom, the courtroom. It's good for America. And we see affirmative action only as a tool, only as an instrument to moving toward one America. I think those who criticize the President should give this young southern President an opportunity to make this effort work. This man came of age during the height of the Civil Rights movement. He was not speaking just as President, not as a politician, but as a human being. He really believed that we must move toward one America.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Connerly, what did you think of the speech?

WARD CONNERLY, American Civil Rights Institute: Well, I remember that commercial, tastes great, less filling. And I think as you listen to different people you sort of get the tug and pull of our feelings about the speech. I think it was a great speech; I really do. I think the President really shows an understanding of the enormously complex racial problem that we have in the nation. These are the best of times in dealing with that problem, and these are the worst of times in dealing with it. There are some--there are some disconnections, however, in the speech. The President says he wants to bring us together as one nation, and yet, he proposes that we use race--something that 30 years ago I'm sure he would have been saying let's not use race--but he wants us to use race to treat ourselves differently. And I just don't know how we get to where he wants us to be and where I think most people of goodwill want to be treating American citizens differently. And the central theme of this whole issue about race has to be a discussion of what do we do with affirmative action preferences, and the President said he wants to talk to all of us, even those who happen to disagree, but he didn't talk to anybody from my side, from my point of view, before he gave the speech. He didn't include even a token 209 believer on his presidential advisory board on race. And so there are some things there that don't quite hang together between what he says and what he is doing. But overall, I thought that the President did the right thing and he impressed me with his understanding of the problem, although I felt that the solution came up very, very lacking.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Moreno, does it hang together for you?

RONALD BLACKBURN-MORENO, National Hispanic Leadership Agenda: Yes, certainly. I think it's a very good start. I think we're going down a very dangerous course in this country. And if we don't come to grips with the issues of discrimination against not only African-Americans but other groups as well, we're going to be in an explosive situation in the next fifteen to twenty years. And I think bringing this to the forefront of attention, making it central to the debate, I think it's very, very important, especially when we didn't have a racial crisis at the moment. I have to commend the President, first of all, for bringing it to the center of attention; second, for broadening the frame of the issue beyond black and white, and bringing in other minority groups into- -into the discussion. Third, for his strong support of affirmative action we can't wait until we have equal opportunity, until we are able to admit students of color at the University of California, provide them equal opportunity. Especially, we know we don't have an equal opportunity school system. Third, for supporting education, I think that's going to be key for providing equal opportunity for our children and our youth in the future.

JIM LEHRER: Jim Sleeper, the President said we must have an honest dialogue. Is an honest dialogue possible about race?

JIM SLEEPER, Journalist/Author: Well, I think it is, Jim. I'm not sure he hit all of the right notes toward getting us there, though. I think if we're going to talk about becoming one America, we've got to admit that part of the problem is not just our racial history, profound though it is. It's the sheer rapidity and validity of the change we're undergoing now that is scrambling our notions of race so completely that I agree with those who've said there's something wrong with using it as the main lens. And another problem I think with having an honest dialogue, he said at one point that if we--the rollback of affirmative action would resegregate campuses. I don't know if he meant to imply that there's something racist about admissions officers who would not admit qualified candidates. I think if we want to have an honest dialogue, we have to ask why have the number of applications dropped in Texas and California? These go to questions of preparation, of remediation, things that do demand resources, but in order to get to the point where we could build a consensus about assembling those resources, we have to be honest that some of the racial color coding, some of the relentless color coding of our public and private lives that we've been engaged in is not the solution.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Congressman Lewis, there's too much color coding?

REP. JOHN LEWIS: No. I don't think so. I think what the President said and what many of us who have been involved in the Civil Rights movement have been trying to say, we've come a distance, we've made a lot of progress, but the scars and strings of racism are still deeply embedded in American society. And we cannot forget that. Look what has happened in California. Look at what has happened in Texas and other places around the country. There must be a willingness of us to put all of our cards on the table and deal with the whole question of race.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Allen, from your perspective, are all the cards on the table, all the things that need to be talked about being talked about, and will they be talked about?

SUSAN AU ALLEN: Well, I hope so, but I think we should not look to the federal government as the arbiter. It is nice for the President to put it on the national agenda, but I think the most effective way to deal with race relations is to go to the local communities. I can tell you places in New Orleans, in St. Petersburg, and in North Dakota. They have started this process long before our President started to talk about it. In 1971 and '72, for two years, I sat with Marilyn Quayle and 25 women of all ethnic groups, all religious beliefs and all racial orientations- -racial backgrounds, and we sat down. We wanted to talk about what it is that we women of all colors, all backgrounds, can do together to bring a more harmonious society. We did that in 1991, and there was no photo ops, no cosmetic jobs. I think while we have to deal with this, it is pernicious for us to ask four-year-olds when they first step into a school to directly themselves or through the parents to categorize them by race, to ask to check the box to say whether they're Asian, Hispanic, Black, native American, or white. My 18-year-old was filling out a form for the University of Chicago last night. He got accepted there. I'm very happy. He yelled out from the kitchen, "Mom, what am I? Which box should I check?". I had to say, "Check whatever--that describes you." He is both white and Asian, but he said, "Mom, there's only one box." I said, "Ignore that instruction." This is not right for children, for students to have to pick a classification on racial grounds. And that classification will later follow them for the rest of their professional and business life to hurt them and sometimes help them. This is not right. It's not fair, and it's not fair to people like the Chinese woman who we saw on television. That kid never discriminated against anyone. Why should he, having forgone television, video games, and all that, worked hard, would be excluded from the school of his choice so that he can move over and give it to somebody else who may qualify for the school but did well than he did?

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Moreno, you believe the classification by race must continue.

RONALD BLACKBURN-MORENO: I believe that people who have been historically discriminated against in this country have the right to equal opportunity. And that's the main purpose of affirmative action, is to provide equal opportunity to students who don't have equal opportunity, to students who don't have access to college. We--on the one hand, we have a growing divide in the country by race, by socioeconomic status. And on the other, we're having a very, very significant and rapid change in the face of America. And we have to come to grips with that. And until we can come up with a way--until we can come up with a school reform, for instance, that will provide equal opportunity to all students, to all students, quality education for all students, we have to find ways of providing the opportunities for students to go on to college. Why don't students go on to the University of California and University of Texas? Why are applications now? What message is the University of Texas and the University of California sending to minority students?

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Connerly.

WARD CONNERLY: You know it's kind of interesting that all of those who want to continue affirmative action preferences point to diversity. It's the very diversity in California that has inspired us to say we can't go on doing what we have been doing in the past. We're making public policy for the future. We're trying to build a society in which those things don't matter; that race will not matter. And I don't know how we do that if we keep living in the past. And our skin color and our--how we spell our last name are not measurements of who we are. And what we want to do in this state--and this is why people of California voted for 209--is we recognize that this natural diversity that is bubbling out of our system here is not going to allow us to continue classifying people by race. We don't even know what boxes to check, as Ms. Allen said, and the only hope for us to make this experiment of American democracy work is to do away with those silly little boxes and get beyond the questions of race. And we can't do that until we do away with these programs that classify us and decide who gets into college and who gets a job and who gets a contract on the basis of race.

JIM LEHRER:Jim Sleeper, can there be a dialogue about this very subject, a national dialogue about whether or not we should continue to classify people by race?

JIM SLEEPER: Oh, I think it's inevitable. I think we're going to have it. And--

JIM LEHRER: As a result of what the President's done, or was it already underway?

JIM SLEEPER: I think it's already underway. And I think, again, I share the concern on his panel, he should have included some of the younger black writers, whether it be Randall Kennedy, or Itibarian Jerry, and others who are dealing with the increasing vagueness of around race loyalty and race pride. I think that's very important. And if I can just say, Mr. Moreno rightly invoked the idea of equal, equal opportunity education-- equal opportunity for people as individuals, not as members of groups. When the President said, if there's an alternative to affirmative action show me and I'll embrace it, I'm sure Mr. Connerly could speak to that better than I, but my understanding is that when the University of California realized that 209 was going to pass, the institute had special preparatory sessions, remedial sessions in some inner city neighborhoods. Kids flocked to them. People applauded. And the only question in my mind was: My gosh, why weren't they doing this before? Isn't that a way of equalizing opportunity without pasting labels on people and making these presumptions. Those are the kinds of things that I would like to see candidly discussed in the kind of dialogue that the President is initiating.

JIM LEHRER: Can they be talked about, Mr. Moreno?

RONALD BLACKBURN-MORENO: Of course, of course, and I think that the President is just bringing this to the forefront once more. And I think that the issues that have been discussed here like equal opportunity and other people have to be brought into the discussion as well. The people who really held power in this country have not been part of this discussion.

JIM LEHRER: Like who?

RONALD BLACKBURN-MORENO: Corporate America has not been part of it. And more than any other sector, these are the people who own the economic resources in this country, 93 percent of the economic resources in this country. And these are the people who, these Fortune 1000 companies have to be part of the dialogue. They have to realize that equal opportunity and inclusion are good for America and are good for American business. And it's very important that this major group--the major sector be included in this discussion.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Connerly, are they going to be included?

WARD CONNERLY: Well, I'm sure they will be included, but I respectfully disagree here. This problem is not going to be solved by corporate America. This problem is going to be solved by the firemen and the policemen, the shoeshine man, the people on the street who have to live with the whole problem of race every day. Those are the people that will solve this problem. And until we recognize that reality, we're not getting anywhere. The problem has to be solved within the hearts and minds of the American people and all the stereotypes about race have to be banished by those people. We've gone as far as we can go with those who have the lovers of power in government. It has to be solved by the everyday people in our society.

JIM LEHRER: Congressman Lewis, is it a hearts and mind problem now?

REP. JOHN LEWIS: Well, it's that, and it's more, but when you have the President of the United States, the highest elected official, helping to set the climate, creating an environment, creating a sense of hope and optimism, I think it's important. I think we should be grateful that we have a President who's prepared to take on this hard and difficult task, but in the real sense there must be a revolution of ideas and values on the part of the American people. The same way during the 60's, that we brought the problems of segregation and discrimination from under the American rung I think we must bring this problem out into the open, and we all can deal with it. I think we can have a national dialogue, and we can change the hearts and minds of the people, but the President must be involved in that process.

JIM LEHRER: National dialogue has begun, Ms. Allen?

SUSAN AU ALLEN: Yes, it has, and I think I do agree with the President that you cannot throw money at it; power cannot change it; and you cannot use high technology to create it. It has to start with people's hearts, and people will only follow if they think they will be treated fairly.

JIM LEHRER: Ms. Allen, gentlemen, thank you all very much. FOCUS - SAYING FAREWELL

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, another view of the Hong Kong turnover and moving on in Oklahoma City. Ian Williams of Independent Television News has the Hong Kong report. It's about some folks there who are delighted the British are leaving.

IAN WILLIAMS, ITN: In Hong Kong's new territories the Tang family are remembering the dead at their ancestral graves. A pig is carved as an offering to the several generations of Tangs buried here. By tradition, this elaborate and upbeat ceremony is led by the family elder, Tang Pak Wing, who throws lucky money around the grave to ward off the ghosts. The Tang clan, Hong Kong's oldest, is a group of extended families who trace their lineage back nearly a thousand years to the area's original inhabitants. And today 77-year-old Mr. Tang is the most senior of the clansmen. His branch of the clan still lives in an ancient walled village close to the border with China. The entrance hall is lined with plaques awarded to ancestors who worked as senior government officials last century during China's Chin Dynasty. When the British occupied the new territories, the Tangs had already been there for 900 years, and they waged a private, though futile, war of resistance. Over the decades that followed they've retained the fierce patriotism, heightened by the end of British colonial rule.

TANG PAK WING: [speaking through interpreter] Basically, I support China's takeover of Hong Kong. At the moment, we have colonial government, but we'll have our own after the handover. It's a happy thing.

IAN WILLIAMS: Today, much of the new territories are still a world apart from the commercial frenzy of Hong Kong's island. In some areas it seems little has changed since China leased the area to Britain in 1898, the lease that expires on June the 30th. In the early days of British rule the new territories were the least developed part of the colony, and the indigenous peoples were able to retain much of their character and tradition. Many of the original villages are still standing, though clan members are now vastly outnumbered by those who fled to Hong Kong from Communist China and were rehoused in vast estates that now dot the territories. Mr. Tang still demonstrates his national pride by hoisting a Chinese flag on his property, only his flag is that of the anti-Communist forces which lost the civil war in 1949. While Mr. Tang is delighted to see the back of the British, he's deeply suspicious of the Communists.

TANG PAK WING: [speaking through interpreter] I wonder what will happen in Hong Kong after the handover. Will they maintain the rule of law and democracy that we have now? I have my doubts, but others just don't think about it.

IAN WILLIAMS: Those reservations about the Communists are not shared by other members of the Tang clan who are already organizing massive celebrations to welcome Hong Kong's new rulers. Dr. Tang's Hutong, who traces his ancestry in Hong Kong back 27 generations, is chairman of the Celebration Committee in one of the biggest towns close to the border. Though he was educated in Britain, he's been appointed an adviser to China and is the driving force behind a series of events culminating on July 1st.

DR. TANG SIU TONG: We celebrate this occasion because it's a pride of the people of China, of Hong Kong really, that they are able to leave the colonial rule and back to the Mainland China. The second thing is that we should have a very optimistic look of the future. We should not be pessimistic because things change. Even China things change.

IAN WILLIAMS: In the Tang ancestral hall a dinner to celebrate the handover and commemorate the struggle against the British by the indigenous people. Dr. Tang is guest of honor. He's used his status as a member of the area's oldest clan to urge people to dispel any fears they may have about the future and to show their national pride. One of the most poignant sources of pride for all the Tang clan was until recently hidden from view, its very existence kept secret from the British authorities. There are no names on this tomb, the bodies inside having been buried secretly 100 years ago. This tomb contains the remains of more than 1,000 indigenous people who died fighting the British and were buried here in great secrecy out of fear of reprisals against their families. Whatever their differences about the future, both Tangs are proud of their history and of this monument which they call "The Tomb of the Heroes." [music in background] As the handover has approached, so the people of the new territories have been treated to a spate of cultural performances from Mainland China--courtesy again of Dr. Tang's celebration committee. The aim- -complete with subtitles for the majority unfamiliar with this Mainland dialect--is to solidify the links between Hong Kong and China. This will soon be followed by an opera sung by the People's Liberation Army in honor of the indigenous people and their struggle against the British. Old Mr. Tang, the keeper of the clan's history, may feel the endorsement of the PLA is something he can do without. That history is important to him. His ancestors were servants of the emperor, and he would never raise the Communist flag. He's adamant Hong Kong's new rulers will have to prove themselves worthy before he joins any celebrations. FOCUS - LIFE AFTER DEATH

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the psychological aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. Betty Ann Bowser begins our look.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: No one was prepared for what happened in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

RESCUE WORKER TO PERSON CARRYING BLEEDING BABY: Just sit him down right here.

WOMAN: But we've got to find his brother.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: No one was prepared for the psychological impact. And certainly no one knew how it would affect rescuers who worked around the clock to find people. From the outset expressions of sympathy and support were enormous..

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Today our nation joins with you in grief.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The president proclaimed a national day of mourning and joined 20,000 Oklahomans at a memorial service. Relatives of victims were given teddy bears to clutch as reminders of their loved ones. A few blocks away at city hall thousands of cards, letters, and donations came pouring in. The money would later be used to take care of the physically injured. But some of it was also used to pay for the psychological aftershocks as well. Oklahoma city psychologist Kay Goebel predicted one day after the bombing what some of those emotional problems would be:

KAY GOEBEL, Psychologist: I think the next thing will be all kinds of reactions from people who are going to have trouble with nightmares--sleeplessness--depression--agony, and one of the ways to come out of this is to find those points of hope--to find some sense that life will go on, and at some point there will be some normalcy.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But in the early hours after the bombing, people like Kathleen Treanor were still trying to find relatives who were missing.

KATHLEEN TREANOR: [crying] I just want everyone to know what my little girl looks like--and what my mom and my dad look like-- if anybody sees them or knows of them--

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Treanor was looking for her four-year-old daughter Ashley Eckles who had gone to the Social Security office in the Murrah Building that morning with her grandparents.

KATHLEEN TREANOR: She's my baby girl. [crying] She's younger here. She's three and a half--three years--just a little bit longer than that--but for the most part, that's her.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Ashley's body was found the next day. Her grandparents were located in the rubble on the afternoon of the little girl's funeral. Treanor found comfort in expressions of sympathy, but like most of the people who experienced the bomb, she's had to find her own way to survive it. One year later, in 1996, Treanor buried her heartbreak in speeches that she gave to church groups.

KATHLEEN TREANOR: We have choices to make now. We have two choices: We can be bitter and angry, and we can shake our fists at each other and at God and demand to know why, or we can let go of that anger, give it to God, and count our blessings.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: At the time, Treanor said she was no longer angry but was still struggling with other feelings.

KATHLEEN TREANOR: What I grieve for is what we're going to miss. There won't be a first day of school for Ashley. There won't be any proms. There won't be any weddings. I won't be able to teach her how to sew or cook or do the things that my mother taught me.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And Treanor was already thinking in 1996 about what she hoped to tell a jury someday about her daughter.

KATHLEEN TREANOR: Ashley was just blooming. I mean, she was a little rose bud. You know, who's to say? She might have been another great you know, she might have been another Reba McIntyre. Or she might have been a great painter. She might have been a doctor someday that discovered a cure for cancer. Who's to know, you know, what she could have been.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Treanor got the chance to talk about Ashley when she was one of 38 prosecution impact witnesses. They testified in Denver before the jury considering life or death for Timothy McVeigh. Treanor testified she got a call from the medical examiner's office seven months after the bombing telling her they had found another part of Ashley's body--portions of a hand. She was asked if she wished it placed in a mass grave or wanted to claim it. "Of course, I want it" she told the medical examiner. "It's part of her and I need to have it where I know it is."

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Treanor told the jury she had Ashley's body exhumed from this grave near Guthrie, Oklahoma, so the missing hand could be placed in the child's coffin. It was that kind of grim emotional testimony the jury heard for two and a half days. One by one relatives of the victims and those who searched through the Murrah building for bodies came to the stand to tell the jury how their lives have changed since the bombing. At times during the testimony almost everyone in the courtroom was in tears, including members of the jury. Diane Leonard--whose secret service agent husband Don was killed--said she felt like she "died too--I have a huge hole in my heart"-- she told the jury--"that will never be mended." Oklahoma city police officer Donald Browning told the jury of his recurring nightmares about the children--"I dream I'm crawling through the rubble" he said. "I hear the children crying- -I turn and run and the kids keep crying--I feel very guilty."

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The final witness was Glenn Seidl, whose wife Kathy died in the blast. He told the jury how their young son has struggled over the loss of his mother. With nine-year-old Clint sitting in the spectator's gallery Seidl read the jury a note written by the boy: "We used to go for walks," it said: "She would read to me--I will still make my Mother's Day cards--I miss my Mom."

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes the story from there.

MARGARET WARNER: What is the lingering impact of the Oklahoma City tragedy on the families and friends of those who died and how do they cope with it? For that, we turn to three people: Bruce Epperly is the Protestant chaplain at Georgetown University, where he writes and teaches on death and bereavement; Robert J. Lifton is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the City University of New York, where he also runs a center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He's written widely on the psychological aftermath of death in such extraordinary circumstances as the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima. And Gwen Allen is project director for Project Heartland, a crisis counseling group set up to help those affected by the bombing. Since that event two years ago, her group has counseled individually more than 8500 people in Oklahoma City. It also set up a center in Denver during the Timothy McVeigh trial. Welcome, all of you. Thanks for being with us. Help us, Rev. Epperly, put what we just saw in a larger context. What- -how are people's lives changed when they lose a loved one or a family member in a tragedy like Oklahoma City?

REV. BRUCE EPPERLY, Georgetown University: Well, in many ways their lives reflect the rubble that you saw. They saw at one time an ordered world, where things were predictable, where they thought they could plan for the future, for proms, and weddings. And now all that is out of the question. So in many ways their life becomes chaotic. And one of the challenges in dealing with grief and bereavement is finding some sort of order, putting the pieces together, finding some hope.

MARGARET WARNER: And how is it different from say if they lost a loved one in something also unexpected but like an auto accident, or--

REV. BRUCE EPPERLY: Well, I think in many ways it's very similar, but the difference might be just the enormity of it. I think we in America feel that we're protected; that this can't happen here. We know that automobile accidents can happen but not terrorist acts. And that, I think, is something that totally disrupts our sense of security and safety. And it's almost--it's unbelievable. It's almost hard to grasp that this could occur here.

MARGARET WARNER: Dr. Lifton, how do you see this again in the larger context, and particularly the fact that this was a deliberate act? What effect does that have on those that live through losing something this way?

DR. ROBERT JAY LIFTON, Psychiatrist: Well, there are different levels that one can use to look at it. Just the fact of encountering debt, any debt, is powerful, and often overwhelming. Then there's the death of somebody very close, someone with whom one has lived intimately, and that's a pain as great as any that we know. And then, third, there is the way in which the debts were brought about. There's a difference in people's reactions, for instance, to a natural disaster like a flood or a tornado, on the one hand, like a flood or a tornado, on the one hand, and an act of violence like this one, because in an act of violence of this kind, there's an embitterment and a sense of rage and a sense of loss of faith in human beings to a degree, all of which must be faced in the recovery process. So on all of those levels of the death encounter this is a profound experience for the Oklahoma City survivors.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that, that the fact that it- -a deliberate act causes a loss of faith?

REV. BRUCE EPPERLY: I think it does at least in the goodness of humanity, and one of the challenges is to discover that this is not characteristic of all human beings; that there is goodness and kindness, and indeed that there is amidst the insecurity of the world some order. Again, I think one of the ways that we deal with tragedy is to know that tragedy does exist. But there also is an order--death exists, but there also is life and life going on.

MARGARET WARNER: And Dr. Lifton, just drawing again on your research and experience, how about the fact that this is also a national event, that is, if you lost someone in this and you said, my sister died in the Oklahoma City bombing, everyone you know knows what that is. Does that change the quality of the experience at all?

DR. ROBERT JAY LIFTON: It changes the quality of the experience in ways that I think we don't fully understand. The whole country was involved in this disaster. The rest of us who watch it on television can't have the profound experience of the actual survivors. But I do think that actual survivors can draw something from the national attention. On the other hand, I think they quickly feel that their experience in some aspect of their mind and the most painful form isn't really affected by the rest of the country. There's a corner of that experience that has to be worked out by themselves with people close to them now, and yes, through elements of connection beyond the self, whether that's through religion or through some secular equivalent, and also survivor struggles to find meaning because if they can't find meaning in their lives after that experience, then there's no way to build a future. And that means looking into the causes of this experience, so all those factors are very important for the Oklahoma City survivors.

MARGARET WARNER: So Gwen Allen, how does--how much of what you just heard? Does that jibe with the people you personally counseled and the people that your group has counseled, in terms of what they're experiencing and how they're trying to come to terms with it?

GWEN ALLEN, Project Heartland: Oh, I would agree. I think that one element the two gentlemen did not mention, though, is the fact that most of these families feel this was preventable, and that's compounded their anger, their recovery. Another thing that's compounded it has been the trial process, itself, and the length of time it's taken for the alleged perpetrators to be brought to trial, and be sentenced, and, you know, the folks here in Oklahoma City are exposed to this on a daily basis. There's no getting away from the news media or what has occurred or the bumper stickers that talk about what happened, and remember April 19th. There's no getting away from that. So that prolongs that grieving and that recovery process.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it actually interferes with the private grieving and recovery, is that what you're saying?

GWEN ALLEN: In some ways it does, but on the whole it just lengthens the time.

MARGARET WARNER: Now you mentioned, Dr. Lifton, the two wanting to see, or what role the trial or the justice process plays, and Gwen Allen, help us understand that. What were the people you've worked with looking for from the trial?

GWEN ALLEN: I think many of them were wanting to in their words look McVeigh in the face or in the eye. They wanted to see the man that they hold responsible for this. Many of them were looking to the trial for answers to questions that they had. Many of them went to the trial feeling like they needed to be there to represent their loved ones' interest, the person that they lost, and those that were scarred or injured to see that their rights were upheld, and justice done.

MARGARET WARNER: And would you say that a desire for vengeance is all part of it, for some or not?

GWEN ALLEN: I think there was an element of that in it, but I think, as most of us saw Friday, there was a lot of sadness when it was over with. I think some of the victims felt like when this trial's over with that I'll be okay; I'll feel fine; and Friday afternoon they did not feel fine. To get justice someone has to die. Or should die. And that's not a good feeling.

MARGARET WARNER: Dr. Lifton, what role do you think the judicial process in a situation like this plays for these families of victims?

DR. ROBERT JAY LIFTON: First, I think that going through the whole trial process reactivates all their pain. There's no doubt about it, just kind of symbolic reactivation. I think the conviction of McVeigh was extremely important to them, and a source of some satisfaction. One can say that the universe has been rendered counterfeit and false and absurd by this outrageous event; with the conviction of McVeigh they can feel a moral universe is to some extent reestablished. But the idea of killing McVeigh, as has been well said, somehow doesn't create a lot of joy among the survivors. They're quite ambivalent about that, and they want to see him suffer but something in them understands that another life being taken or another act of violence doesn't bring about this much talked about but almost nonexistent idea of closure. So they're still struggling with these issues, and the conviction was necessary; the death sentence is another thing, and it's very unclear about its value or its meaning for survivors.

MARGARET WARNER: You use that word closure that we've heard an awful lot about somewhat critically. What's wrong with that concept as you see it?

DR. ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Well, closure is very misleading because it implies that there's a moment when the whole thing is solved and you just move on. Anyone who's had an experience like that, or who has observed it, knows that it reverberates all through one's life as a survivor. There can be a direction of recovery but there's not closure in the sense of it being over. It's a kind of partly an American tendency to want to see a problem, to find a solution, and then leave it behind, then that would be closure but that's not the way human beings are, or the way that minds react to a disaster of this kind.

MARGARET WARNER: Gwen Allen, what expectations or desires do you think the Oklahoma City families have about this idea of where they can get to? I mean, peace of mind--if it's not closure, what is it?

GWEN ALLEN: Peace of mind is learning to live with what has happened to them and getting on with their lives. Most of them have said we will never have closure, and helping them realize that this is always going to be a part of them. And most of them do realize that.

MARGARET WARNER: You're nodding your head.

REV. BRUCE EPPERLY: Yes. The wound will never entirely heal, and the healing really doesn't come from avoiding the struggle or the pain but living through it. And I think the--one of the people that was spoken of in the--talked about hope, moving from being a victim to having hope the future, having hope that life will go on, and at least in the case of one person it was a religious hope that somehow or other God would work through this event, and that that in many ways helps people know that the world is not entirely random and chaotic.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Dr. Lifton, is this something that a person in the situation has to actively work on, finding this reason for thinking that there's hope? I'm not expressing myself well here, but--or is it something that sort of happens over time?

DR. ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Well, I think both. One actively struggles to overcome that experience, so that not all the self has to be bound up to the pain and the horror, some of the self increasingly amounts of the self can move ahead, but you know, I think in the future what we're going to see as people recover more but still struggle with their images people questioning and this is again another reason why closure is so misleading, questioning what led to this, what is the right wing movement in America, what kind of people want to do this and why, and those are very important questions that this event leads us to ask. And I have the feeling that many of the people directly affected in Oklahoma City will be asking these questions, and in that sense combining private mourning and recovery with public questions.

MARGARET WARNER: And briefly, Gwen Allen, are you seeing any of this yet?

GWEN ALLEN: I think we are. The numbers in terms of the numbers seeking services is down. So I think people are moving on.

MARGARET WARNER: So you mean the number of people coming to say your group?

GWEN ALLEN: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: And how much longer will--your group is partially federally funded, I think, isn't it?

GWEN ALLEN: It's totally federally funded.

MARGARET WARNER: And how long do you expect to keep operating?

GWEN ALLEN: We will be operating through the Nichols trial.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. That is Timothy McVeigh's, of course, alleged accomplice. Well, Ms. Allen and gentlemen, thank you both very much--all very much. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may control who performs abortions. The court also refused to consider a case that attempted to revive Utah's anti-abortion law. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with a look at the 25-year legacy of Watergate. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.