The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening on this Martin Luther King holiday. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: A summary of the news; a look at efforts to push Saddam Hussein into exile; in light of weekend demonstrations, some historical perspective on anti-war protests; and a conversation about the civil rights tragedy of Emmitt Till.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The United States stepped up the pressure on the U.N. Security Council today, to deal with Iraq. Secretary of State Powell urged the council to stand behind its ultimatum to the Iraqis to disarm. He addressed a U.N. forum on terrorism, just one week before weapons inspectors make a critical progress report.

COLIN POWELL: We cannot be shocked into impotence because we're afraid of the difficult choices that are ahead of us. So we'll have much work to do, difficult work in the days ahead. But we cannot shrink from the responsibilities of dealing with a regime that has gone about the development, acquiring, Stocking of weapons of mass destruction, that has committed terrorist attacks against its neighbors and its own people.

JIM LEHRER: Other members of the Security Council voiced growing concern over the prospect of military action. Germany, France, and China argued for giving the inspectors more time. In Baghdad today, Iraqi officials promised to improve cooperation with U.N. inspectors. After two days of talks, Iraq said it would hand over more documents and clarify others, form its own inspection teams to look for banned items, and do more to let inspectors interview scientists. The chief U.N. inspector, Hans Blix, said his teams were still having trouble talking to Iraqi scientists.

HANS BLIX: We have now had six cases of individuals we called for interviews, and they have turned them down and said they would be willing to come to the Iraqi headquarters and to speak in the presence of Iraqi officials, and I think that when you get a number of such answers, it is very likely that there is some sort of instruction or there is an intimidate even without instruction.

JIM LEHRER: The government of Cyprus agreed to today to let Iraqi scientists be interviewed on its soil, and the Iraqis insisted they had encouraged their experts to meet with inspectors. They did refuse to let U-2 spy planes fly over Iraq on photographic surveillance missions. They said it posed problems for their air defenses. But overall, a top science advisor said Iraq was doing all it could.

AMIR AL-SAADI: There's no going back on it. We will go through and offer pro-actively whatever they needed in order to enhance their capabilities to appear credible to doubters and suspicious minds. And this is what we did. No more.

JIM LEHRER: As the U.N. inspections continued today, there was new talk of exile for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The British foreign secretary said his government would support the idea. On Sunday, several top advisors to Pres. Bush said the United States would welcome such a move. We'll have more on this part of the story in a moment. In Turkey today, the commander of the U.S. Joint Chiefs met with military leaders in Ankara. Turkey has said it would limit the use of its bases in any war with Iraq. Gen. Richard Myers denied the U.S. was angry with the Turks.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: I certainly wouldn't characterize it as impatient, and I'm leaving here with a sense that turkey will continue to be a very important strategic partner for the United States, and any idea that I'm impatient or that we may demand is absolutely not the case.

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. military made another major announcement today, in the buildup to a possible war. A spokesman said the army had ordered another 37,000 troops to the Persian Gulf region. They'll be spearheaded by the fourth infantry division at Fort Hood, Texas. The division carries M-1 Abrams tanks and Apache attack helicopters. The prospect of war brought out protesters in cities across the U.S. over the weekend. Thousands of people rallied Saturday on the national mall in Washington. Demonstrations in San Francisco also drew large crowds of people carrying signs and chanting anti-war slogans. Overseas, protesters took to the streets in Paris, Tokyo, and Cairo. We'll have more on the protests later in the program. A top Russian diplomat offered a plan today to end the North Korea nuclear standoff. He met with North Korean Pres. Kim Jong-Il in the North Korean capital. The Russian said the talks were successful, but only a first step. The plan calls for making all of Korea nuclear-free. In return, North Korea would get safety guarantees plus humanitarian and economic aid. The widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Urged world leaders today to avoid war. Coretta Scott King addressed the annual King day service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

CORETTA SCOTT KING: We commemorate Martin Luther King as a great champion of peace who warned us that war is a poor chisel for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal. Martin said true peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.

JIM LEHRER: Mrs. King recalled that her husband had opposed the war in Vietnam. She said Americans should be asking questions about fighting in Iraq. Outside Washington, Pres. Bush attended a King Day service at a predominantly black church in Glen Arden, Maryland. He said the country has made progress, but "there's still prejudice holding people back." Fire fighters in Australia battled today to control wildfires threatening the capital Canberra. Over the weekend the fires destroyed more than 400 homes and killed at least four people. Hundreds more were injured. Today fires were still burning just miles from the national parliament building. Some residents criticized city authorities, saying they had not been ready to fight the fires. Artist Al Hirschfeld died today at his home in New York City. His career had spanned much of the 20th century. Hirschfeld was known for his drawings of entertainers, from Charlie Chaplin in the 1920s to the present day. His trademark was hiding his daughter's name, Nina, in the drawings. They appeared in newspapers, magazines, and books, and in major museums. Al Hirschfeld was 99 years old. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to getting Saddam out of there, anti-war protests-- now and before, and the tragedy of Emmitt Till.

FOCUS THE EXILE OPTION

JIM LEHRER: The drive to move Saddam Hussein from Iraq into exile. Tom Bearden narrates our set-up report.

TOM BEARDEN: As the number of American troops in the Persian Gulf approaches 150,000, Turkey and other regional states are reportedly floating a deal to allow Saddam Hussein to go into exile as a way to avoid war. Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld said he'd consider such a proposal. He spoke yesterday on ABC's "This Week."

DONALD RUMSFELD: I think war is your last choice. I would be delighted if Saddam Hussein threw in the towel, said "the game's up, the international community has caught me, and I'll just leave."

TOM BEARDEN: Rumsfeld was asked if the U.S. would be willing to give the Iraqi leader immunity from war crimes prosecution.

DONALD RUMSFELD: To avoid a war, I would be... personally, would recommend that some provision be made so that the senior leadership in that country and their families could be provided haven in some other country. And I think that that would be a fair trade to avoid a war.

TOM BEARDEN: Also over the weekend, Sec. of State Colin Powell urged Saddam to listen carefully to the exile proposals, and the governments of Great Britain and Germany said they're open to the possibility as well. Recent reports suggest North Africa as a possible safe haven. Other options include Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Exile would not be a new option for the Iraqi leader. Arab leaders made such an offer in 1991 to avoid the Gulf War; he declined. Today, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said there are: Arab and non-Arab efforts being made to avert the war and to reach a formula that will be accepted by all parties without the use of force. Separately, a group of Arab intellectuals is circulating a petition stating: "The immediate resignation of Saddam Hussein, whose rule has been a nightmare for Iraq and the Arab world, is the only way to avoid more violence." Meanwhile, as U.N. weapons inspectors continue their work in Iraq, Saddam's regime is dismissing talk of exile. A top aide today called it "absurd," and a form of psychological warfare from Washington.

JIM LEHRER: More now from Robin Wright, the chief diplomatic correspondent for the Los Angeles Times; Mohammed Wahby, a retired Egyptian diplomat who is now a columnist for the Egyptian magazine al-Mussawar; and Judith Yaphe, who specialized in the Middle East for 20 years at the CIA. She's now a senior research fellow at the National Defense University in Washington.

Mr. Wahby what does your reporting tell you about how serious these exile efforts are?

MOHAMMED WAHBY: Actually, they are quite serious, Jim, because there has been an emerging consensus in the Arab world over the last week if not four weeks actually, not only at the intellectual level, but among even some leaders, which was, of students, which was surprising.-- because among the youth, the youth usually are very militant, but quite a number of students now, actually leaders of students are coming out with the same proposal, because they don't find any other choice. They cannot possibly go back. That's number one. Number two, also all attempts to persuade the United States to stop short of going to war has failed and therefore Saddam Hussein has one of two choices. Either to choose the fate of Hitler, and that is to commit suicide after the United States and other allied troops come into Baghdad, or to save even his own country and save the region also from terrible tragedies by accepting the hospitality of any Arab or Islamic states.

JIM LEHRER: What would you add to that, Robin Wright, about the seriousness of this effort and who is

actually in charge. Is anybody in charge?

ROBIN WRIGHT: Saudi Arabia has played a leading role, which is very interesting because Saudi Arabia is not a nation that normally takes a strong leadership role; it often defers to Egypt. But I think you're seeing a growing consensus around the world, this has widespread support in Europe, there's a little division I think within the United States. But it is clearly the most appealing option to avoid war at this juncture.

JIM LEHRER: What's the division in the United States?

ROBIN WRIGHT: Well, I think there are some that actually fear that if Saddam goes, you will still have the same kinds of people in power, the Baathist Party, which follows the same kind of ideology, and many of the military officials who were responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the past.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see this as something to take seriously?

JUDITH YAPHE: Yeah, I would take it seriously and I would also argue that those people who are pushing hardest for this, the Saudis, the Syrians, even the Turks, want much of what is there under Saddam to remain. They've got no problem with the Baath Party as such. They've got no problem with much of the leadership in having a similar leadership follow him because that's something they know and they can deal with and they think that that will be least threatening to them. But I don't think Saddam is going to run, he's not a runner. And I think that the United States, the officials that we've heard other the weekend, Sec. Rumsfeld, I think there's two audiences they're dealing with. One is to keep pressure on Saddam Hussein. And the only way you keep his attention is by keeping the pressure on very hard and by having him believe, which I think he does, that there's a credible use of force against him. Now, the second audience is everybody else, which is to say see, we're trying to find every way possible so we can avoid war, but we may not be able to, but at least we're willing to entertain this prospect.

JIM LEHRER: As a matter of negotiation, what's in it for Saddam to do this? Why should he leave his country what would he get out of it other than his skin?

MOHAMMED WAHBY: Well, you see, I believe that all depends on how strongly, how credible this request or this appeal by different Arab countries, and also Turkey, how credible that message should be to him.

JIM LEHRER: In other word they have to do more than invite him out?

MOHAMMED WAHBY: Yes, absolutely. They have to also appeal to him from his point of view. You have to tell him something like this, for instance, that listen, Saddam, you have built the strongest scientific, military, industrial base ever witnessed in the Arab world and yet it was destroyed in 1990, 1991. You have rebuilt it -- in a miraculous way. You have to appeal to him in his own terms. Now, are you going to sacrifice again the same thing? That's number one. Number two, Saddam, you have always been swearing that you are an Arab nationalist, you have always been swearing about the Palestinian cause. Are you aware what's going to happen to the Palestinians if war breaks out against you in Iraq? Sharon might use it, that's number one. And so on and so on, but a number of things that can appeal to Saddam. And then Saddam, you are not going to live in a foreign country, you are going to live among your Muslim brethren, your Arab brethren.

JIM LEHRER: Somewhere?

MOHAMMED WAHBY: Somewhere.

JIM LEHRER: Other than Iraq. Does that make sense to you in terms of an argument, a credible argument to make to this guy?

ROBIN WRIGHT: Look, the one thing that will appeal to Saddam Hussein and might tempt him is the possibility, remote as it may seem now, that he could make a comeback. He believes that the --.

JIM LEHRER: In Iraq?

ROBIN WRIGHT: In Iraq. He believes the American experiment will fail in Baghdad and that whether it's the ethnic differences within the country or the inability of the Americans to open up the system and make it work, that some people may want, you know, to see the return of Saddam Hussein down the road. So that I suspect at the end of the day would be the one thing that would get him. But of course the most important issue in all of this is really, is he going to get the kind of guarantees necessary, which means immunity from prosecution of war crimes. And this is where you see within the administration a real battle.

JIM LEHRER: I take it you don't think that, in other words, nobody should be packing Saddam's bags at this point.

JUDITH YAPHE: No, I don't think so.

JIM LEHRER: Why not?

JUDITH YAPHE: Well, he's not a runner, he's not a coward. He is interested in survival --.

JIM LEHRER: This is the way he's going to see it, I'm not a coward?

JUDITH YAPHE: I think he will. His whole outlook is colored in a tribal sense of ethics and values: That which is manly, that which is heroic, that which is honorable. And it would not be honorable to run. How could he leave Iraq, he is Iraq.

JIM LEHRER: What about Mr. Wahby's argument?

JUDITH YAPHE: I want to come back to that, because you have to butter him up, is that the right -- it's good enough. But it's not going to work. Because where would he go? If he were willing to go, I would argue that none of the neighbor was have him, because I think Robin is right, once he's going to be placed somewhere, he will work to get back to where he was. Who wants that troublemaking within their own society? All these societies are rather precarious at this point anyway, which is something Crown Prince Abdullah has been talking about in his other moments. We have to address certain dangers. You bring in Saddam, there's no way they can protect him, there's no way that he will feel secure or that he would not begin to plot and scheme. That's what will happen, I think.

MOHAMMED WAHBY: I think he would be greatly weakened, if he accepts, he will be greatly weakened among his own people. And at the same time there are some countries which can accept him.

JIM LEHRER: Which ones?

MOHAMMED WAHBY: I can name Libya for instance.

ROBIN WRIGHT: No way.

JUDITH YAPHE: No.

MOHAMMED WAHBY: Okay. All right. What about, he has once been to Egypt.

ROBIN WRIGHT: I don't think so.

JUDITH YAPHE: Yes, that's true.

MOHAMMED WAHBY: When he was young, when he was young he was a political refugee in Egypt. That's number one. Number two, in Egypt, don't worry at all; he will not be able to do anything, I know Egypt very well, he will not be able to do anything.

JIM LEHRER: He'd be in a form of house arrest while he was there?

MOHAMMED WAHBY: No. In Egypt he can move everywhere but he would always be under the eyes of several

JIM LEHRER: That's what I mean.

ROBIN WRIGHT: Egypt gets $3 billion a year from the United States. There's no way that the United States --

MOHAMMED WAHBY: We have heard Mr. Rumsfeld and all the other officials welcoming anything that would save American blood. So that is enough, I mean, an argument for the United States even to increase the $3 billion.

JUDITH YAPHE: I don't think so, it's unrealistic that Egypt would accept. I would think the only country where he would feel somewhat safe might be in Saudi if only because, because he would be under Islamic protection. And that would provide him some kind of shield. But I can't see the Saudis willing to, they may house Idi Amin, --

MOHAMMED WAHBY: Impossible.

JIM LEHRER: Impossible?

MOHAMMED WAHBY: Impossible.

JUDITH YAPHE: -- who was not a very nice person, but I think that taking Saddam would be beyond their capabilities or anybody else's. They want him to go to Belarus or some place really far away.

JIM LEHRER: Really far away. You talked about different audiences. There was another suggestion today that all of this talk of going into exile, there's another audience in mind and that is the people around Saddam that, okay, they're giving you, they're going to bomb us back to whatever, we've, they've given you a chance to stop this if you'll just leave town, and they might then trigger their own coup against Saddam. Is that realistic? I'm not asking you to tell me whether that's going to happen or not, but is that on the list of possibilities?

ROBIN WRIGHT: Absolutely. I think that's probably what is far more likely than going into exile, at the last minute when those around Saddam see that their own fate is tied to this man and that the only way to save themselves is to do something against him, to remove him from the equation, that there might be something. It's still a long shot because of his own protection. He's incredible, and he keeps his family around him so closely that it would be very difficult to do I.

JUDITH YAPHE: I think Robin is right. It's implicit in a lot of the messages, but at the same time for an Iraqi to contemplate doing any of that, you'd almost have to think that Saddam was almost dead, because the risk is so high of moving against him.

JIM LEHRER: What are the risks? Explain that

JUDITH YAPHE: Well, Saddam's security forces have penetrated almost every, I would say virtually every opposition group. They have unveiled most of the coup plots or attempted coup plots that have been against until the past ten to twelve years at least. So that they know pretty well what is going on. If I were an Iraqi, I would wait to see Saddam being dragged through the streets the way they dragged the prime minister of the 1958 coup before I was brave enough to

JIM LEHRER: No matter what anybody's saying

JUDITH YAPHE: Remember, the danger is, are you going to get the real Saddam Hussein?

MOHAMMED WAHBY: I think it's not possible to think of any sort of coup de tats now... but I would not rule it out later. Later in the sense of if there is a blitz kreig -- right at the beginning. And they find that the entire system is collapsing, then there will be the possibility of some of his generals turning against him. But not at the beginning. At the beginning I would agree, I would agree it's not possible at all. Saddam as you said actually can read people's mind even before they start.

JUDITH YAPHE: That's right. I can look you in the eye and know what you are thinking.

MOHAMMED WAHBY: Absolutely. And he does.

JUDITH YAPHE: If they wait that long though, it will be too late, because they will believe that the reward will be to be given control of Iraq, and that won't happen. The longer they wait the less likely that is to, I would say is a possibility.

JIM LEHRER: And back Robin to the concerns of people within the administration, that is what they're concerned about, we may get this guy out of here and nothing may change so, they want a two-part deal, right?

ROBIN WRIGHT: There are those who actually want to make sure that Saddam and the system go. And the danger is if Saddam really steps aside and takes the so-called dirty dozen with him and his family, that in fact the system remains.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Well, I think we've pretty well resolved this tonight. Thank you all three very much.

JUDITH YAPHE: Thank you.

FOCUS PROTESTING WAR

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, protesting wars, and the Emmett Till story.

Betty Ann Bowser begins the protest story with a report on the latest, this weekend's demonstrations against a war in Iraq.

PROTESTORS: No war against Iraq!

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The largest protest was in Washington on Saturday, when thousands of protesters gathered near the Capitol, braving bone-chilling temperatures in the 20's. Organizers estimated a turnout of half a million people, but there was no official count by the D.C. Police Department or the National Park Service. Congress ordered the park service to stop counting crowds after organizers of a previous demonstration threatened to sue the service over crowd estimates they thought were too low.

SPOKESPERSON: One, two, three, four.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: People and organizations from all over the country marched: Vietnam veterans against the war, women for peace, anarchist and pacifist groups, and members of ANSWER-- Act Now to Stop war and End Racism-- one of the organizers of the event. A newly formed coalition of 60 labor unions, lead by former Teamsters Union official Bob Meuhlenkamp, also took part.

BOB MEUHLENKAMP: These are very patriotic people. They would support a war if it was justified. That's not the issue. What you hear most is, Bush has not made his case for this war.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: There were also people who came to represent just themselves, young families, grandmothers, and protesters who had never been in a demonstration before. Nancy Morrison, a New Yorker who was severely injured at the World Trade Center on 9/11, explained how the prospect of going to war made her feel.

NANCY MORRISON: I'm heartsick. I think it's a wrong response. I think everything about it is wrong. And I'm so heartened to see that there are other people. I have felt isolated in my dismay, and it's like a community prayer to see everyone out together. I'm very happy about it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Do you think this is all going to mean anything?

NANCY MORRISON: It doesn't matter. In the global sense, I think it always does when people of goodwill speak out.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Mike Corcoran is a Connecticut father of two who, until now, has never been involved in protest.

MIKE CORCORAN: I don't see why the United States has to get so involved. I really don't understand why we always have to be the international world peacekeepers. What's the whole point of the U.N. if the United States always has to be the ones out there?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Valerie Lucznikowska belongs to a group called peace for tomorrow, made up of people who lost loved ones on 9/11.

VALERIE LUCZNIKOWSKA: It wasn't Iraqis who flew into the world trade center. It was mostly Saudis on the planes. Iraq did not commit that.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: So even if the U.N. was on board?

VALERIE LUCZNIKOWSKA: Perhaps if the U.N. were completely on board. If the U.N. could vote on it completely, perhaps in that instance, because that would mean that they found true evidence. That would be a different story. But no evidence has been found. Some empty shell casings are not true evidence.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Dozens of speakers addressed the crowd during a two-hour rally on the national Mall.

JESSE JACKSON: Let's not attack Iraq. Let's choose minds over missiles, and negotiation over confrontation.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Politicians were joined by a contingent from Hollywood.

JESSICA LANGE: We have checked in our hearts, in our minds, it is an immoral war that they are beginning, and we must not be silenced. We have to be able to stand up and say no.

JANEANE GAROFALO: This is a war for imperialism it's going to have disastrous effects globally. It's going to further destabilize the Middle East, escalate the violence in Israel and Palestine.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: After the rally, the field of demonstrators spread out and marched from the Capitol to the Washington navy yard. At one point outside the Washington Marine barracks, the marchers met with a small group of counter demonstrators who called them unpatriotic.

BILL GEORGE: America is a great country. It's a freedom loving country, it's a peace loving country. But sometimes you can preach, sometimes you pray, every once in a while you gotta fight.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Some of the anti war demonstrators carried signs that said "No blood for oil," a reference to their contention that a war against Iraq would not be about combating terrorism, but about help Pres. Bush get control of Iraq's rich oil fields.

ROSE LAZARRE: I think this war is about oil because he's got other enemies elsewhere. North Korea is ready, but he's not going.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: You don't think it's about terrorism?

ROSE LAZARRE: No, not at all.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Do you think Saddam Hussein is a threat to the U.S.?

ROSE LAZARRE: No.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Saleem Noormohamed brought his wife and ten-year- old daughter to the demonstration. He believes opposition to a possible war is significant.

SALEEM NOORMOHAMED: The interesting thing is it is heartening to see black, white, yellow, and everybody there who is against war. And the whole idea that the whole country is behind Mr. Bush is ludicrous.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The protests came at a time when polls show more than 50 percent of the American people do not believe Pres. Bush has made a case for an all out war. Anti-war groups have been buoyed by that and by the actions of some local governments. A number of city councils have passed resolutions opposing war, including Chicago's last week.

SPOKESMAN: Resolution passed.

LITTLE GIRL IN COMMERCIAL: One, two...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The anti-war groups have also taken to the airwaves. An Internet-based antiwar organization called move-on.Org began airing this television ad, which is copied after the controversial 1964 campaign ad run by Pres. Lyndon Johnson's campaign.

SPOKEPERSON: Maybe that's why Americans are saying to Pres. Bush. let the inspections work.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But the most visible opposition to a possible war has been on the streets. Besides the march in Washington, there were protests in a dozen other cities, including this one in San Francisco, where tens of thousands turned out. Organizers of the events timed the protests to coincide with celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. He was assassinated at a time when he was organizing demonstrations to protest the war in Vietnam. The march on Saturday in Washington was mostly peaceful. But 16 protesters were arrested on Sunday in a smaller demonstration.

JIM LEHRER: Now some historical context, and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And we get that longer view now from presidential historian Michael Beschloss. Lucy Barber, an historian for the California State Archives. She's the author of "Marching on Washington: The forging of an American political tradition." And Philip Zelikow, director of the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is also a professor of history, and worked on the National Security Council during the first Bush administration.

Welcome to you all.

Mr. Zelikow, take the protests we saw this week. How do they fit into the larger tradition of anti-war protests in this country?

PHILIP ZELIKOW: It's a rich tradition in American history that maybe has six great landmarks. The first is humanity war protests during the War of 1812 when many New England, several New England states even threatened to secede from the union if the war persisted. There was an enormous anti-war movement especially in the North during the American Civil War, some of which was dramatically portrayed in the recent movie, "Gangs of New York," has a pacifist side of it. There was also a strong anti-war and anti-imperialist movement in America during the Spanish American War and the prolonged war to subdue the Philippines about 100, a little more than 100 years ago. And then there was a big anti-war movement in the 1930s, as a reaction to World War I to try to keep America out of World War II. And then there's the Vietnam War of the 60s and 70s, the Vietnam War protest movement and the anti-nuclear movement of the 80s, so a strong tradition. And in some ways what's striking about what we're seeing now is this is very much the heritage of the Vietnam War and anti-nuclear protest movements of the 60s, 70s and 80s, and has, those movements have a good reputation. But it's interesting that a generation ago people's memories were the anti-war movements of the 1930s. And anti-war movements were not quite as well thought of after that experience. In fact, LBJ's secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had been a palsy fist anti-war movement supporter in the 1930s, and forever regretted that he had taken that stand and maybe even overcompensated.

MARGARET WARNER: Michael, pick up on that. Were the anti-war protests of the 30s or movement, would that be the only other time that, as this time, protesters were trying to stop a war before it started, before the U.S. got engaged?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: No, that has happened really pretty much through American history, although the biggest example as you say, and as Philip has said, was just before World War II. A lot of people in the America First movement and others said as much as we may be worried about Germany and Japan and their threat to the United States, this is not our war, we shouldn't get involved. World War I let to grief. Let's be protected by those two big ocean meets. Then at the time of Pearl Harbor, we were almost all internationalists, we all were on the side of this war. You saw very little protest during the war, as you saw with Vietnam. I should probably bring in my own credential. When I was 14, I actually protested against the Vietnam War myself. I was in a very strict boarding school in Massachusetts, and we wanted to protest the invasion of Cambodia by Pres. Nixon, and our headmaster said we could go but only if we wore the school blazer and tie. We were deeply humiliated, but we felt at least part of that time. Big point on Vietnam is this. And that is these movements are a critique that can help to educate a president, and one of the tragedies is that LBJ from the beginning never took it seriously from the very beginning, instead of saying these are people who were making critique of this war, maybe I should listen to some of the reservations that they're raising about the war in Vietnam, he immediately said let me deal with this politically, they're communists, they must be people who wish us ill. From the very beginning he tried to discredit them. And in the end didn't get the benefit from it that he really could have.

MARGARET WARNER: Lucy Barber, how effective have anti-war protests been through history?

LUCY BARBER: I think it depends on how you judge the effectiveness. Have any anti-war protests stopped a war? I don't thinkso. But on the other hand, there's no question that the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era changed our way of thinking about whether or not we the country should go to war -- so, for example, I think of the fact that these protests now are getting organized and being put on the agenda so much before we've actually committed to any military action, shows that legacy -- that people know that protests can change foreign policy.

MARGARET WARNER: You mean, do you mean that the feeling is that you have to start before the war starts or you don't have a chance of ending it?

LUCY BARBER: I think that's part of the lesson -- that you've got to start earlier, and to put yourself out there. In a sense I think back to what happened during the Operation Desert Storm and how disorganized those who opposed that military action were. So that by the time it actually came around that the Persian Gulf War started, even the anti-war groups had already broken apart from their coalition. So you had two weekends of marches on Washington, because they couldn't even agree to march in the same way. So you see, -- this time a coalition actually holding together, and I think that's going to be one of the most important things for the anti-war movement right now is whether or not they can keep that coalition together.

MARGARET WARNER: Of course the Gulf War ended so quickly that there probably wasn't much time for anything to gather steam. Phil Zelikow, what is your view on how effective or what effect anti-war movements have had?

PHILIP ZELIKOW: Well, the anti-war movement of the 1930s was enormously effective. It was extremely powerful. It effectively paralyzed American diplomacy really at least up until the middle of 1940 and the fall of France, and significantly inhibited American moves right up to Pearl Harbor. So it was very powerful. And then people then looked back on that and wondered whether or not that influence had been beneficial. In the Vietnam War, its influence is much more controversial there's actually a fairly strong argument among some historians that the anti-war movement actually prolonged the war, because it polarized American opinion, helped elect Richard Nixon and gave Nixon additional backing because of the backlash against the way the protesters were conducting themselves. But the cultural momentum from that era of protests was huge. And carried beyond the Vietnam War, and as you can see in the film, lingers today.

MARGARET WARNER: Your view about the effectiveness?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I see it as more positive actually. I think it's a part of the system, because when a president is making a decision to go to war, the most serious decision he can make, you have to hear both arguments and this is one way of doing it. During the Civil War, Lincoln was opposed by a lot of the copperheads of the North, as Phil mentioned a moment ago, they helped Lincoln to focus his arguments and fight this war in a way that had broader support. Even after 39, 40 and had he not had that opposition, he probably would not have been as good both in terms of devising a strategy to fight World War II and also making the case. And I think Vietnam as well. Vietnam, the reason it is more of a tragedy than I think almost anything else is that that movement began in 1965 and had very little effect until we finally ended our active involvement in 1973. That was an absolute rebuke to the way that our system is supposed to operate. When support for a war drops and when there's a huge movement against it, the government is supposed to respond and it did notunder Johnson and Nixon. That was the reason I think for that enormous rage. Nixon gave a press conference at the height of the protest in late '69 and said, I know about the protests, he said, under no circumstances will I be affected what so ever by it. That led to the kind of polarization that Philip mentioned.

PHILIP ZELIKOW: But, this can be constructive. A president doesn't necessarily have to agree where the anti-war protesters to hear them.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Exactly.

MARGARET WARNER: Lucy Barber, what would you add particularly on the Vietnam War, and then whatever other point you planned to make, but in terms of your sense of the effect it had at the time.

LUCY BARBER: Well, I think Michael is very right to say that the styles of protest did cause a lot of concern for on servers and for people who were not willing to take such radical means. And that's part of the whole question of the coalition. And I think that's what's so crucial if this anti-war movement is going to be effective. You need to be able to figure out how to keep a movement that contains people from moveon.org, who are making arguments just about what is a good reason for a protest, to pacifists who oppose all war for all reasons. Since I'm actually someone who was raised in the religious society of Friends as a pacifist, as a Quaker I've always opposed war, I can appreciate how it's hard to keep those two sides together. You could see it during the anti-war movement in the Vietnam era that Quaker pacifists would often want a certain style of protest, but would back away from the more disruptive move towards the violent side, because that was opposed to their religious principles. So I think that's going to be one of the real tests here is this issue of what tactics are different groups going to take. I heard you said in the intro that some people chose to use civil disobedience yesterday, as part of their protest, where as the marchers on Saturday were all peaceful and no arrests were made. So how people are going to choose between those two different types of tactics, is going to have a big effect.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me get a brief final comment from Phil and Michael. We haven't talked about the government's reaction. These people were permitted to demonstrate peacefully. That has not always been the case, has it?

PHILIP ZELIKOW: Not always, but in general, really from the earliest days of the nation, there has always been tolerance for a fair scope of peaceful protest. During the Civil War, the country was at such grips that that tolerance went down. But it was always still there. Horace Greeley, one of the leading newspaper men of the country, was vocally anti-war. And I think just about all presidents recognize that they have to at least act like it's healthy.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I guess I disagree on that one. Wilson passed espionage and sedition acts, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon thought the anti-war protesters were literally treasonists, and to some extent that led to Watergate Nixon's reaction against this. The most droll thing that LBJ did, when there were anti-protesters attending a speech he gave, he would tell the Secret Service agents to sprinkle itching powder on the protesters so they would have to put down their signs. So I hope that's the worst reaction we see; Pres. Bush is giving no sign of doing something like that.

MARGARET WARNER: On that note we'll end it. Thank you all three very much.

CONVERSATION THE MURDER OF EMMETT TILL

JIM LEHRER: Now a conversation about a tragic moment in American civil rights history. Gwen Ifill has that.

GWEN IFILL: In 1955, a 14-year-old Chicago boy named Emmett Till was kidnapped, brutally tortured, and murdered for whistling at a white woman while on a visit to Mississippi. That murder is widely seen as a critical spark for the modern Civil Rights movement, and it's the subject, this Martin Luther King Day, of a new PBS documentary by filmmaker and Macarthur genius grant awardee, Stanley Nelson. He's with me now. Stanley, welcome.

STANLEY NELSON: Thank you.

GWEN IFILL: What made you decide to retell the story of Emmett Till?

STANLEY NELSON: Well, the Emmett Till story is something that I've lived with all my life. I mean, it scared me to death as a kid, and it's something that I've always known about. But the immediate push was I heard Mamie Till Mobley on the radio, I guess about three or four years ago...

GWEN IFILL: His mother.

STANLEY NELSON: Yeah, his mother. And she was just so moving. It was just an incredible experience to hear her. And I started trying to add up in my head, well, you know, this was 44 some years ago, and he was 14, and if she was 16 when he was born, I mean, that would be a super young mother. And it came to my head that she would have to be, you know, up in her 70s.

GWEN IFILL: Tell me a little bit... for people who don't remember the whole story, of the story of Emmett Till and his murder.

STANLEY NELSON: Sure. Emmett till was a 14-year-old kid from Chicago who went to Mississippi to visit his uncle in 1955, and was accused of whistling at a white woman. Three days later, her husband and another man came into the house where Emmett Till was staying. They didn't try to hide their faces, they didn't wear masks or hoods or anything. They just came in and took him in the middle of the night. Three days after that, his body was found in the Tallahatchie River. His body was so brutally mutilated that he could only be identified by a ring on his finger. When his body was shipped back to Chicago, his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, said that she wanted the world to see what had happened to her son, and refused to bury him in a closed casket, and had an open casket funeral for Emmett Till.

GWEN IFILL: And we should say that Mamie Till Mobley, who championed the fact that for people who were apparently responsible, at least in part, for her son's death were never found-- in fact, were acquitted of the crime. She kept the story alive all these years, but she passed away recently.

STANLEY NELSON: Yeah, Mamie Till Mobley just passed away on Jan. 6. So she just passed away. Unfortunately she never got a chance to see the film.

GWEN IFILL: But we get a chance to hear from her in the film, which is... and in the clip we're going to show now, she's describing what it was like to send her only son off to Mississippi to spend the summer with his uncle.

SPOKESMAN: On Aug. 19, Mamie gave Emmett the ring that had belonged to his father. The next morning Emmett and his mother grabbed his bags and rushed off to the 63rd Street Station.

MAMIE TILL MOBLEY: He was running up the steps to try to make it to the train, and I said, Emmett, or Beau I called him Beau I said, "where are you going, you haven't kissed me good night. And how do I know I'll ever see you again?" And he looked at me and he said, "oh, mama." He kind of scolded me for saying something like that. But he turned around, he came back, and he kissed me good-bye. And he said, "here, take this." He pulled his watch off and gave it to me. He said, "I won't need this where I'm going." I said, "what about your ring?" He said, "oh, I'm going to show it off to the fellows." With that, he was up the steps and on his way to get on the train.

GWEN IFILL: So Stanley, when I watch these pieces that you put together into this hour-long documentary, I wonder, how do you go about pulling all the pieces together? How do you know how to illustrate her words, and how do you get the footage to do it?

STANLEY NELSON: Well, the footage, I mean, we were so lucky. When we went into doing the film, we had no idea that there was so much footage of the trial that took place after Emmett Till was murdered. And, you know, we just scoured every possible source. I mean, what I tell the people that I'm working with -- and we had a great coordinating producer and a great assistant producer-- what I tell them is, you know, look, I want to see every single piece of footage that was ever shot, every picture that was ever made that concerns Emmett Till. And if I don't see every picture... if I see a picture ten years from now that I haven't seen before, then I'm going to come, I'm going to knock on your door, and you're going to be very, very sorry. So, you know, they tried to find every single thing they possibly can, because I think that's our job in doing this kind of long- form documentary, is to try to accumulate every single thing we possibly can, because that's what makes the story rich for us.

GWEN IFILL: One of the things you alluded to earlier is Mamie till Mobley's decision to have a casket of her son's mutilated body left open for thousands of people to come pass by, who had never met her or had never met him to see, and how that was the spark that caused such national, international grief and attention. Was there something about the savagery of this particular murder which caught people's imagination in this way?

STANLEY NELSON: Sure. I think the... Emmett Till's body, the condition of his body, really just, you know, horrified people. And I think that because Mamie Till was in Chicago, she could get the word out. I mean, people had been lynched for 100 years, but in the Emmett Till case, people could actually see it with their own eyes. They could see the brutality that they had, you know, just heard about. So it was the fact that she was in Chicago, and could get the word out, and then people could see. And then, at his funeral, 50,000 people actually went by and saw his body, and then "Jet" Magazine published pictures, and those pictures went around the world.

GWEN IFILL: One of the things that's hard for people who are children of this century or this decade, of this time, to remember was what it was like at the time, and the kind of language that people used, and the way that this sort of thing could escalate. One other thing that struck me in particular when I was watching your documentary was listening to the sheriff, and listening to the way he spoke to the television cameras about the case. Let's listen to that.

NARRATOR: Tallahatchie county sheriff and plantation owner Clarence Strider was responsible for locating witnesses and gathering evidence against Bryant and Mylam.

SPOKESMAN: Sheriff Strider was a big, fat, plain-talking, obscene- talking sheriff you'd expect to find in the South. His actions at the trial were more, I think, not so much to seek justice of what was going on, but to be sure that his courtroom was totally segregated.

ERNEST WITHERS: The man had laid it out that we got 22 seats over here for you white boys, and we got four seats over here for you colored boys. We don't mix them down here. We ain't going to mix them, and we don't intend to. You ain't going to be with the white folks, and the white folks ain't going to be with you, and y'all might be.... ain't going to be no love nest between black and white folk.

NARRATOR: Strider consigned black reporters and Detroit Congressman Charles Diggs to a card table on the sidelines. Strider greeted them as he passed with a cheery, "hello, niggers."

SHERIFF CLARENCE STRIDER: We never had any trouble until some of our southern niggers go up north, and the NAACP talks to them, and they come back home. If they would keep their nose and mouths out of our business, we would be able to do more, and we'll enforce the laws of Tallahatchie County in Mississippi.

GWEN IFILL: Bryant and Mylam, who were the two at the top of that clip, were of course the two men who were later acquitted, who were tried and acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury of their peers-- people from their county, actually-- of the crime. All the years later, all the years of lecturing and traveling that Mamie Till Mobley did to try to bring attention to her son's murder, did she ever feel vindicated, do you think?

STANLEY NELSON: Well, Mamie Till Mobley was an incredibly strong woman. And I think that one of the things that was so impressive about her was that she was not angry at all. She wasn't bitter. You know, she wanted the world to change. She wanted to make sure that this didn't happen again. And she pushed for that. But she... there wasn't a lot of bitterness. I think you see in the film, you know, it's very clear who she was. So, you know, she was a real kind of... you know, just bigger than life. I mean, she was incredible.

GWEN IFILL: Whatever happened to the book she was working on? She was working on a book when she died.

STANLEY NELSON: She was working on a book. I actually talked to her co- author last night, and he said that they have come far enough before she passed to finish the book, so we're hoping that the book will be finished.

GWEN IFILL: When you say that Mamie Till Mobley wasn't bitter, but just wanted the world to change so this wouldn't happen again, do you think that happened? Has the world changed?

STANLEY NELSON: I don't think it's changed enough. I mean, I think that clearly the world has changed from the Mississippi and the world that we knew of back there in 1955. But I think that one of, hopefully, the lessons of the film is that, you know, the Civil Rights movement and change is made up of these kind of small heroes-- you know, these people like Mamie Till Mobley, or Willie Reed and Mose Wright, who both testified at the trial, you know, black people who testified at the trial, and then had to flee Mississippi, never to live there again. I mean, that's who really made up the Civil Rights movement, that's what it's about. And if we want change-- and I think a lot of us say we want change-- then we have to push for it. That's what I think the Civil Rights movement was about.

GWEN IFILL: And in matter of fact, it was 100 days after the discovery of Emmett Till's body that Rosa Parks didn't get up on the bus. On Martin Luther King Day, thank you for joining us.

STANLEY NELSON: Thank you so much.

GWEN IFILL: Stanley Nelson.

STANLEY NELSON: Thank you. Thank you so much.

JIM LEHRER: Stanley Nelson's film, "The Murder of Emmett Till," airs tonight on PBS stations. Please check your local listings for times.

FINALLY KING DAY

JIM LEHRER: And on this King Day, we close with a poem about another young man's experience of racism. Here is former poet laureate Robert Pinsky.

ROBERT PINSKY: Sometimes a poem can compress material that is large and fraught into its most direct, plain, and minimal essence. Countee Cullen wrote a 12-line poem that does something like that for the racial hatred that Martin Luther King, Jr. resisted, the social and psychological penetration of racism. Here's Countee Cullen's poem, written in 1925, "Incident," for Eric Walrond.

Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee, I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That's all that I remember.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: The United States stepped up the pressure on the U.N. Security Council to deal with Iraq. Sec. of State Powell urged the council to stand behind its ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to disarm. Iraqi officials promised to improve cooperation with U.N. Inspectors. And the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. urged world leaders to avoid war. Coretta Scott King addressed an annual King Day service in Atlanta. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.