The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight prosecuting kids who kill, Paul Solman on fear of globalization, the move to High Definition TV, and essayist Roger Rosenblatt on missing people. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Stocks took a big plunge today on Wall Street then partially recovered. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 112 points at 8462.85. It had fallen 250 points during trading. The Dow was led downward by Japanese and Russian markets. In Tokyo, the Nikkei Average lost 1.4 percent, its seventh day of decline in a row as the yen sank to an eight-year low against the dollar. And in Moscow, trading was halted briefly when stocks plummeted. They finished down 10 percent. The official death toll in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa rose to 234 today. Rescuers in Nairobi, Kenya, found 15 more bodies overnight. They continued to search for a woman called Rose, thought to be trapped alive under debris. Two hundred and forty-four people remained hospitalized in Tanzania. U.S. FBI agents searched for clues in the rubble of the American embassy in Dar Es Salaam. That bombing killed 10 people. Local police said they have questioned 30 foreigners as part of their investigation. And in Washington, African diplomats made a condolence call at the State Department. Secretary of State Albright had this to say.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Secretary of State: Terror is not a form of political expression. It is certainly not a manifestation of religious faith. It is murder, plain and simple. And those who perpetrate it, finance it, and otherwise support it, must be opposed by all decent people. And that's why I've been heartened by the close cooperation we have had with authorities in Kenya and Tanzania from the moment the tragedies occurred.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The largest industrial merger in history was announced today. British Petroleum is buying AMOCO, the fifth largest U.S. oil company, for $48 billion in stock. The combined firm is projected to have annual revenues of $108 billion, based on 1997 figures. The deal surpasses auto maker Daimler-Benz's acquisition of Chrysler in May but is smaller than other mergers in the banking and telecommunications fields. A two-day-old strike by Bell Atlantic Telephone workers ended today. The Communications Workers of America announced in Washington that a tentative agreement had been reached on a new two-year contract. The union said the deal puts limits on forced overtime and ensures that union members will get the new high wage jobs related to the information superhighway. Seventy-three thousand employees walked off the job late Sunday night when the old contract expired.

MORTON BAHR, President, C.W.A.: This settlement guarantees that the growth jobs of the information future will be done by C.W.A. members. And we're talking about many thousands of jobs in the coming years, jobs that will sustain a decent living standard for American families and strengthen our communities. And this agreement is good for Bell Atlantic. Competition in this field is going to be based in quality service for customers. And it takes quality people, skilled, experienced, and dedicated people, to offer that service.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Bell Atlantic confirmed the agreement. A spokesman had no further comment. In the Monica Lewinsky investigation today Hollywood producer Harry Thomason went before a federal grand jury in Washington. He's one of the inner circle of Arkansans who informally advice President Clinton. Thomason came to Washington in January to help orchestrate the White House response to allegations the president and the former intern had a sexual relationship and lied about it under oath. Deputy White House Counsel Cheryl Mills also testified today. And in Jonesboro, Arkansas today two boys were convicted of school yard killings last March in which four students and a teacher were shot to death. They had been lured outside the school by a false fire alarm and then gunned down. Mitchell Johnson, who turned 14 years old today, entered a guilty plea. The other boy, 12 year old Andrew Golden, pleaded innocent but was found guilty by a judge. They were sentenced to an indeterminate amount of time in custody, but under state law the boys can be imprisoned only until age 21. The juvenile hearing was the equivalent of an adult trial. In Chicago today there was a court hearing for two boys aged seven and eight who confessed to killing and molesting an eleven year old girl. The session was to determine if the boys should go home or be sent to a psychiatric hospital. They are below the minimum age, 10 years, to be imprisoned if they are convicted of the crime. We'll have more on children who kill later in the program. Also today in Santa Monica, California, the man convicted of killing the son of entertainer Bill Cosby was sentenced to life in prison. Mikhail Markhasev, a 19-year-old Ukrainian immigrant, shot Ennis Cosby as he changed a tire along a highway near Hollywood last year. Floodwaters rose again today in Central China. Jiangxi Province was almost completely underwater. Many people refused to evacuate, saying they feared their vacant homes would be looted. Millions have been left homeless. Rescue workers in Hunan Province repaired damaged levees and shored up those in danger of collapse. More than 2,000 people have died in the floods. In the democratic republic of the Congo today the government said its troops recaptured two key cities from soldiers who mutinied last week. The claim could not be independently confirmed. Rebels did not acknowledge the reported setback. They maintain they have the numbers to move on the capital, Kinshasa, and there President Laurent Kabila again lashed out at neighboring Uganda and Rwanda, accusing them of fomenting and participating in the uprising. They have denied any involvement. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the law and kids who kill, fear of globalization, the coming of High Definition TV, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.% ? FOCUS - KIDS WHO KILL

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Spencer Michels begins our juvenile crime coverage.

SPENCER MICHELS: The two boys who went on a shooting rampage outside their Arkansas school last March were convicted and sentenced today in the murders of a teacher and four students. Today was Mitchell Johnson's 14th birthday. Under Arkansas law, he and 12-year old Andrew Golden were tried in juvenile court--where a judge sentenced them to the state youth justice system, which will determine how long they will serve. They could be incarcerated until they are 21. Police say the boys lured their victims outside by pulling the fire alarm, then shot them from a wooded area near the school. But juvenile criminal laws vary greatly from state to state. In Springfield, Oregon a 15-year-old boy who killed his parents and two of his classmates last May is being tried as an adult and could face life in prison. Kipland Kinkel sprayed a school cafeteria with gunfire after being suspended for having a gun in his locker. And this week, authorities in Chicago arraigned two of the youngest boys ever accused of murder. The boys, aged 7 and 8, have been accused of killing 11-year-old Ryan Harris. Police said the girl was sexually molested. The boys allegedly wanted the new bicycle the girl had been riding. According to Illinois law, because the boys are not yet 13, they cannot be tried as adults. If they are convicted, Illinois has no provision to incarcerate anyone under 10. On the judge's orders, the boys are being held at a psychiatric hospital for in-patient evaluation, while the state sorts out how to handle this unusual case. They could be made wards of the state and held until they are 21-but just where for such young children is unclear to authorities. Police say the youngsters confessed to the crime after first claiming to have witnessed part of it. Their lawyers say questioning of the boys by police was done without parental consent, and the boys were never told they had the right to remain silent. According to the most recent Justice Department numbers, in the mid 90's about 3000 juveniles a year were charged with murder in the United States, triple the number from just a decade earlier. Between 1992 and 1995, 41 states toughened their laws to make it easier for children to be tried in adult criminal court.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: Now four perspectives on how juveniles accused of murder are handled in the criminal justice system. Steve Drizin is a supervising attorney at the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University's Law School. Lawrence Steinberg is a professor of psychology at Temple University. He's also director of the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice. Linda Collier is an attorney who has represented children in the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice System. She also teaches a course on juvenile delinquency at Cabrini College in Pennsylvania. And James Backstrom is the county attorney in Dakota County, Minnesota. He chairs the juvenile justice advisory committee for the National District Attorney's Association. Welcome, all of you.Mr. Steinberg, start us out by giving us an overview of what the states are doing and how much of a variation there is among the states in how they treat young people accused of murder.

LAWRENCE STEINBERG, Psychologist: Well, as you mentioned, there's a great deal of variation from state to state, although the one phenomenon that's in common across states is that states around the country have all gotten tougher on juvenile in the last several years,tougher in terms of transferring more and more of them to adult court and tougher also within the juvenile justice system, that is, that the kinds of dispositions that are being recommended and ordered within the juvenile justice system are more severe and more punitive than they have been in the past.

MARGARET WARNER: And explain, what is the practical effect really of putting someone on trial in a juvenile court versus an adult court. What is really the practical difference?

LAWRENCE STEINBERG: There really two different kinds of differences. One is that different rules apply to the court procedures. That is, it's much clearer than adult court, the usual rules of due process will govern what goes on. The juvenile court is a much greater area in this respect. We know from previous decisions that juveniles have certain rights that are the same as adults, but it's not clear in other respects. One issue, for instance, in the Chicago case now and in the case of the younger child in Arkansas is whether these youngsters are competent to stand trial in juvenile court. Competence to stand trial is typically something that we think about in adult criminal court and typically we think about it with respect to individuals who are mentally ill or mentally retarded. Because of these recent crimes, in which children are very, very young, new kinds of issues about whether kids this age can participate in their own defense are being raised.

MARGARET WARNER: Ms. Collier, your assessment of the trend in the various states and what the practical difference is really between trying them as adults versus children.

LINDA COLLIER, Attorney: Well, you know, as Dr. Steinberg said, children definitely leave their rights at the door, and they have all the constitutional rights that adults also have. They have the right to be represented by an attorney. They have a right to notice and a hearing. They have a right to remain silent. They have almost all the rights that adults have in juvenile-I won't say juvenile court, but it is juvenile court, because they have the opportunity to express whether or not they felt that they were justified in their actions. They have a right to say what their feelings were about what they did. They also have a right to offer a defense and to confront the witnesses against them. I think that right now we are moving towards expanding juvenile justice to be more inclusive of some more of the adult demeanors in adult court, and I think that that's all for the good, because right now, even though there are some issues, and there were some historical issues about whether or not children under the age of 14 could be competent as witnesses and to stand trial, I don't think those issues exist any longer. I think right now we certainly have a case here which no longer an anomaly where kids are being accused of these violent crimes, and we have to face the issue that these kids need to be treated as adults and be afforded all of the same rights as adults.

MARGARET WARNER: Just expand on that a little bit. Why do you think they need to be treated as adults?

LINDA COLLIER: Well, I think that they can be responsive to what is required of them. I think now we can no longer say that they don't know the difference between right and wrong, as in the case of Jonesboro, there was some premeditation there. To say that there's an issue as to whether or not a child is competent, I think that that is just it's not really reasonable in light of the times. I think that we've-the children have matured to the point where they are beyond rational. They are beyond competent to understand the ramifications of their actions, even if it is violent as a murder. Premeditation indicates that.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Drizin, where do you stand on this question of whether kids charged with particularly premeditated murder should be just tried as adults?

STEVE DRIZIN, Attorney: I think you need to make an individual decision with regard to each case. But I couldn't disagree more that seven and eight year olds, and even thirteen and fourteen year olds may not be competent to stand trial. You know, these kids are no different than your seven or eight year old who may just be starting to tie their shoes, who's watching cartoons on television, who's just learning to spell and add. The idea of having seven or eight year old grasp what's going on around them in a courtroom is ridiculous! I've represented children who are nine, ten, and eleven, and many of them, they don't have any idea what my role is as an attorney, they can't really participate in their defense to the same extent as older teenagers can. They are unable to understand their Miranda warnings. And they really don't have any basic sense of what's going on in a courtroom, what the nature of the proceedings are. Some kids need to be tried as adults. Certainly, older kids, who are repeat offenders, who are-who perpetrate violence on the community, if they've had an opportunity to receive the services of juvenile court, he can make a much stronger case for 15, 16 year olds. But we shouldn't even be talking about this question with kids as young as seven and eight.

LAWRENCE STEINBERG: I agree entirely. And I think, furthermore, when you make that step to try kids as adults in adult criminal court, then you're faced with the issue of sanctioning them as adults in adult facilities. Are we really-do we really want to put seven and eight year old kids in adult prisons? Is that what we're coming to as a society? I mean, I think that this is absolutely insane.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me get Mr. Backstrom in this, because he's prosecuted young kids and kids. What's your view of this? Should they be prosecuted as adults? Should they be incarcerated as adults?

JAMES BACKSTROM, Dakota County Attorney, Minnesota: Well, again, I think you have to take a look at the individual circumstances in the cases involved, and clearly, kids that are 14 and older, I think, should be under consideration for adult prosecution, given the nature of their crimes and the violence involved in the acts. Kids younger than 14, I think you have to take a look at the individual circumstances, but clearly under 10 I don't think kids of that young age should be facing adult prosecution. So what we need to do is, as a society, is to look for some alternative, because we have to make sure that we have laws in place that hold even these young children accountable for their acts and very serious and violent acts, as we've seen. We have to look for some middle ground, and I've been a proponent of looking at blended sentencing laws, which are kind of a cross between adult prosecution and juvenile prosecution, has a little bit of both, and I think those laws offer some usefulness, as we look at this issue.

MARGARET WARNER: Staying with you for a minute, Mr. Backstrom, Minnesota does have this blended sentencing system and so do I think some nine or ten other states. Just explain briefly how it works.

JAMES BACKSTROM: Well, there's various variations around the country, but under a blended sentencing law, basically a juvenile would be prosecuted in juvenile court, but they would receive both possibly an adult sanction in some states, such as Minnesota, which would hang over their head, that would be kind of one last chance they'd have to correct their behavior, while they're serving out their juvenile court disposition. We also extend the jurisdiction of the court to a longer period of time. In Minnesota it goes up to 21. I think it should go up even higher, and I'm going to be proposing some changes to our legislature to address the situations that we're talking about here today. What do you do with 11, 13 year olds and now 7 and 8 year olds that commit these types of violent crimes? We have to make sure we have laws in place that will hold them adequately accountable, something short of adult prosecution. I think there is alternatives.

MARGARET WARNER: Ms. Collier, you've been trying to get back in here.

LINDA COLLIER: Yes. I was just going to say that I basically agree with what Mr. Backstrom is saying. I'm not advocating that we send everybody off to the federal pen, certainly not, but I do think that the laws as they exist on the books and have existed for the last 100 years for juveniles are definitely too lax. They are not stringent enough. They need to be updated. They need to address the mores and values as they exist now. I mean, 100 years ago, I mean the worst thing that a kid might get caught for and sanctioned for was stealing a horse. Now you have kids going into schools with semiautomatic weapons and taking out whole classrooms and teachers. We don't want that, and I think that what we're trying to address here and what everybody's saying is basically the same. We need to address the problem.

STEVE DRIZIN: That's not true.

JAMES BACKSTROM: No, that's not true. And-

STEVE DRIZIN: It's not true.

JAMES BACKSTROM: We're not-

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Drizin, all right, let Mr. Drizin back in here-

STEVE DRIZIN: I don't want to be said that I'm saying the same thing. I couldn't disagree more with Ms. Collier. Let's focus on the fact that what we're dealing with right now is a 7 and an 8 year old. Before we jump-

LINDA COLLIER: Are you saying we need-

MARGARET WARNER: I think Mr. Drizin-I think she's more talking about the case in Jonesboro, where there were 12 and 13 or now 12 and 14.

STEVE DRIZIN: They were 11 and 13. And even the case of an 11 year old Mr. Steinberg, who is a child and adolescent developmental psychiatrist, I think he would tell you that even an 11 year old there are serious questions about whether or not they're competent to stand trial and able to form the intent necessary to commit these crimes.

LAWRENCE STEINBERG: That's absolutely true. And in addition to that, there's another issue that's not being spoken about. And that is that if you look at non-gun-related violence, there has been no change over the past 50 years in the rates of non-gun-related violence by kids. Kids have always gotten angry at their classmates who have snubbed them. They've always gotten angry at teachers who didn't have access to assault rifles, and that is the big difference between the picture today and the picture several decades ago. Kids haven't changed at all. What has changed is the nature of the weapons that they have available to them.

STEVE DRIZIN: Can I raise one point?

MARGARET WARNER: Yes.

STEVE DRIZIN: And that is that I think what we should be focusing on in this case is the decision of the prosecutors to charge these kids with first degree murder. Seven and eight year olds for hundreds of years in this country-it is presumed that they can't even form the criminal intent necessaryto commit first degree murder or any crimes. And before you jump the gun to charge these children with first degree murder, I think you need to get people like Larry Steinberg and other developmental psychiatrists and psychologists involved to see whether or not these kids can even fathom the consequences of their actions. You should get these evaluations done before you jump the gun and make this the lowest aged first degree murder case in the United States, because it very well might not be and should not be a first degree murder case.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Mr. Backstrom, address that. If you had been given this case, as awful as that prospect is, would you have proceeded this way, or do you agree with Mr. Drizin, that there's another way? I'm talking now about the seven and eight year olds.

JAMES BACKSTROM: Well, as I indicated earlier, I don't personally believe that 7 and 8 year olds should be prosecuted as adults. But they should be prosecuted, they should be held accountable for--these are very serious crimes-

STEVE DRIZIN: And I agree with that.

JAMES BACKSTROM: And they need to be investigated and dealt with appropriately. But I wouldn't prosecute those kids as adults. I would look, again, for some sort of middle ground approach, and I think we need to go back to our state legislatures and address this issue, because we're seeing these acts across this country as witnessed in Jonesboro and in the Chicago case, and there's been cases here in my home state, younger and younger kids committing violent crime, we need to make sure we have an adequate system set up, and I agree with one of the comments earlier about the importance of our juvenile justice system, taking on a new role, because for years it's focused mainly on rehabilitation and what's in the best interest of the child, and now it should focus more on protection of the public safety and some measure of punishment and accountability for these crimes.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Steinberg, what's your view on that about what the aim of this-is it punishment? Is it rehabilitation? Is it different than it is for adults? Should it be?

LAWRENCE STEINBERG: Well, it is unfortunately becoming more and more similar to what it is for adults. I mean, the only reason that you would prosecute a 7 or an 8 year old child is for retribution and in order to satisfy, you know, the public's outrage, because--

MARGARET WARNER: About an 11 and 13 year old, 11 and 13?

LAWRENCE STEINBERG: I think once you get to 13/14, you're going into a different stage of development. But I think below 14 it is very, very questionable. Clearly, prosecuting a 7 or an 8 year old child, it has no deterrent effect. It's not as if we want to send a message to first graders all over the United States that we're getting tough on crime. And holding a 7 year old accountable for what he has done is a very, very difficult thing to do, specifically because we're not sure that he really understood what he did in the first place. There are avenues within the juvenile justice system to provide for the rehabilitation of kids that have committed serious crimes. And I still believe that that's how we should proceed.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me let Ms. Collier in here. Ms. Collier, I think we're all agreed that with the 7 and 8 year old, probably something very different is called for, but take a look at the Jonesboro case. Do you think in a case like this, you're really aiming at punishment or rehabilitation?

LINDA COLLIER: Well, I think that, you know, I'm in line with what Mr. Backstrom has said about the blended sentences. I think juvenile court needs to retain its jurisdiction over them long past the age of 21 just to make sure that they have been rehabilitated, but also there is some other doctrine of law called restorative justice, and I think we're all losing sight of the fact that there are victims here, and I think that these children have to be made to understand that there are victims, and they should be made to make some kind of recompense or some kind of offer or something to the victims to show that they are sorry, I know Mitchell Johnson has given some apology or something in court today, but is that really enough, and I think that our juvenile justice system should incorporate some method of restorative justice in the entire program.

MARGARET WARNER: And Mr. Drizin, briefly, we're almost out of time, your view on rehabilitation versus punishment and whether it's different for say teen-agers than adults.

STEVE DRIZIN: Well, it is and it should be. I mean, the juvenile court's premise is that children and adolescents, their personalities are not yet fixed, they're more amenable to rehabilitation, to adults, and we should do everything in our power to rehabilitate them before we move into adult court. But it's also premised on the notion that they need to be held accountable, and they do get held accountable in juvenile court. These children are going to be in state custody, more likely than not, till their 21st birthday. For a seven and eight year old that's three times his or her life span. That's an eternity for a seven and eight year old. They are already feeling the pressure of the justice system in ways that you can't imagine. They cried hysterically when they were locked up and taken away from their parents and more likely than not, though I hope this may not be the case, they're going to get removed from their parents and placed in a residential treatment facility that may even be out of state. That's severe punishment and does send a strong message to these kids. You don't need to be locking them up in adult prisons for 20, 30, 40 years to send that message.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Mr. Drizin, Mr. Steinberg, Ms. Collier, Mr. Backstrom, thank you all four very much.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And still to come on the NewsHour tonight Paul Solman on globaphobia, the coming digital age in TV, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.% ? FOCUS - GLOBAPHOBIA

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The current turmoil on Wall Street is just the latest reason Americans are pondering the risks and benefits of the new global marketplace. Our business correspondent, Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston, explores that now without leaving his neighborhood.

PAUL SOLMAN: It's become a commonplace: globalization is defining the world, for better and worse. The global market has raised regions like East Asia from poverty; but it now threatens to return them to that condition, thus, destroying them as markets for what the rest of us sell, and, as a result, imperiling global prosperity. And in the-the Asia crisis began to drag down the U.S. economy in the last quarter. In other words, globalization brings a potential for economic growth, and the enormous benefits that go with it, but also the potential for dramatic reversals and economic contraction. The only thing for sure: wrenching change, both abroad and right here at home. Okay. Is globalization more bad than good? And does it represent a clear and present economic danger for us Americans? For answers to those questions I thought I'd check with a favorite source. And so in the spirit of thinking globally but acting locally, I called Harvard Professor Robert Lawrence, who lives three blocks from my house here in Brookline, Massachusetts. Lawrence, one of the world's top trade economists, and surely number one here in the neighborhood, suggested we start by meeting at the corner for a local show and tell. And if I wanted to prepare, I could read a copy of a recent book he's co-authored, "Globaphobia: Confronting Fears About Open Trade." The book winds up on the free trade side of the age old trade debate. Its co-author has long been a strong voice against protectionism.

PAUL SOLMAN: My first question: You're not usually a melodramatic guy, but the name of your guy is "Globaphobia."

ROBERT LAWRENCE: Yes. Globalization is a word that we keep hearing, and people use it as if it's a great threat to our economy. What we wanted to emphasize in using that word is that the risks of globalization have been exaggerated and the benefits have been ignored.

PAUL SOLMAN: All right. So second question: Why did you ask me to meet you on the corner?

ROBERT LAWRENCE: Precisely because I wanted to go around this neighborhood and show you the fact that most Americans work in jobs that are not threatened by international competition.

PAUL SOLMAN: Lawrence was about to make an almost obvious point: To show how buffered most of us are from global downturn. That, for instance, is Carl Levine, our neighborhood's amiable dry cleaner.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: What does the Asian crisis mean to your business?

CARL LEVINE: It doesn't mean anything. People are going to come in here, they want to look good, they want a good product, and that's what we offer them.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: So you care about what happens in Brookline?

CARL LEVINE: That's my main concern is how I'm going to make a living here, and then I'll worry about the outside world.

PAUL SOLMAN: Carl's assistant, Jimmy Clark, underscored the obvious: What's to worry about? Competition from some super efficient dry cleaner in Japan?

JIMMY CLARK: They'll still be in Japan, and we'll still have Brookline.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: It's a long way to go to get your pants dry-cleaned.JIMMY CLARK: We're not going to have flights out here just going to Japan to get your pants.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, the fact that my dry cleaner doesn't compete with Japan wasn't exactly a revelation. Besides, how representative was it of business in our increasingly global neighborhood?

PAUL SOLMAN: All right. Dry cleaning I buy, but two stores away is the Thai grocery, with the Thai CD's and here Brasili's is opening in a week, "the Brazilian way to be in America," and on the corner is the travel place, which as Israel and Egypt and Africa, the Caribbean. I mean, that's international.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: Yes. But what they're-all these stores are doing is providing local services, and the essence of a service is that it has to be produced in the same place as it's consumed. Now, most of these people are in the service economy, most Americans work in the service economy. Only about 15 percent of Americans are employed in manufacturing. Only about 2 percent are employed in agriculture, and those are sectors which are severely subject to international competition. For the rest of us there may be some elements of international competition, but, by and large, our economy is self-contained.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now, Robert Lawrence isn't the only trade maven in Brookline. About a mile from his and my homes, within earshot of the local trolley, is another neighborhood, which includes the home of Robert Kuttner, a global skeptic, who finds fellow townsman Lawrence inconsistent.

ROBERT KUTTNER: I find it very ironic that the standard view is that trade is very good for the American consumer, and it would be terrible to put up any barriers against trade, but at the same time, when something bad happens to some other part of the world, then somehow we're insulated. How can both things be true?

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, of course, globalization does make a difference to the U.S. economy, especially in global industries, but it's mainly a positive difference, says Robert Lawrence, as he tried to demonstrate at our next stop, a firm called NECX, just outside Boston. This is a brokerage outfit, but it doesn't trade stocks or bonds. Instead, it buys and sells competing microchips all over the world. Larry Marshall is chief operating officer.

LARRY MARSHALL: We actually thrive on international trade. All of our business is done around the world. We buy all the products that we sell in many, many countries, and bring them into the United States and ship them within the United States and back out to other countries. We manufacture no product at NECX. Everything we do is bought and sold through international trade.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: Has the Asian crisis really affected you?

LARRY MARSHALL: What the Asian crisis and the circumstances around the world relative to the United States has done for us is put us in a position of being an importer, as opposed to an exporter. And right now we're bringing more product into the United States than we're shipping out of it at this point in time.

PAUL SOLMAN: Of course, if the global economy is hit hard, the same would be true for firms immersed in it. Indeed, any NECX's sales have been flatter than expected this year, and neighboring manufacturers have even begun laying off employees. But over the long haul, says Robert Lawrence, global jobs are better jobs. And, in fact, brokers here, working on salary and commission, start at around $40,000 a year, average more than $100,000. The top guns make more than half a million. A college degree may be standard but it's not mandatory. The keys here are aggressiveness, street smarts, diligence, and motivation. So, high-paying jobs for those with the right stuff, isn't that what critics like Bob Kuttner have long called for?

ROBERT KUTTNER: Certainly some of the jobs created by more trade are very good jobs. On the other hand, some of the jobs destroyed by trade are good jobs. And I think in a more subtle way there is a whole social compact that was typical of the post World War II era with strong unions and higher social protections, and that is eroded by trade.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now, it's not that globalization's dangers are lost on Robert Lawrence. It's simply that he considers them the price you pay for the benefits of a broader, freer market, which is what he says a global market is all about.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: It's a bigger marketplace. It offers more choice. It offers more opportunity than just the domestic or local market.

PAUL SOLMAN: So it's the same idea of a free market, except it's a free market with no national boundaries?

ROBERT LAWRENCE: Yes. We find it's very-we would find it very strange if someone built a wall straight down the United States and said, you know, the East of this country trade with the West. We would also imagine it could be quite disastrous for both sides. But we somehow-many people believe it's somehow natural that we have barriers between countries, yet, the argument is exactly the same.

PAUL SOLMAN: Robert Lawrence had one more destination in mind-the Prudential Mall in downtown Boston-to make perhaps the most familiar point in this debate: that as consumers we all benefit from globalization. Why has inflation been so low for so long? Largely because of cheap imports from abroad.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: By importing, we get things at lower costs than we would have to spend if we had to make them at home.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, of course, but what about people who make the imports? We walked into the first store we saw-Britches USA.

PAUL SOLMAN: Let's just see where this is made. No rigging here. Hold on. It's made in Mexico.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: That's my whole point. It's cheaper to make these clothes in Mexico and that's why American consumers will benefit from trade.

PAUL SOLMAN: Yes. But wait a second. The classic argument is that Mexican workers are being exploited so that we can buy things cheap, low wages; they can't form unions, and so forth.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: The conditions in Mexico are not ideal, but you have to ask yourself wouldn't they be worse off if they weren't able to sell the fruits of their labor.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, would they be better off, or wouldn't they? You could pose that question almost anywhere in the mall--here at the toy store, for instance, where most of the items are made in China. With that thought hanging, we decided to take our free trader to a last destination of our choosing-and so back to Brookline, to have Robert Lawrence debate Robert Kuttner face to face. The first question was for Kuttner: When globalization extends to places like Mexico and China, isn't it good for American consumers?

ROBERT KUTTNER: Well, it's very good for American consumers. The question is: Is it good for American workers, who are the same people as American consumers between 9 and 5? And I think there are two separate but related issues about workers. One, how many workers are displaced by these imports and what happens to those workers? And secondly, what happens to the workers in China? Are they being paid wages that are sufficient to allow them to import products back from the United States? If that were the case, then everybody would benefit the Chinese workers we know are being paid very low ages.

PAUL SOLMAN: Robert Lawrence, however, insisted that globalization is the best bet for workers in China, or anywhere else.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: Well, I think that the best chance that foreign workers have to raise their wages comes from increasing the demand for the products that they make.

PAUL SOLMAN: But, counted Robert Kuttner-

ROBERT KUTTNER: The problem with that is you've had twenty or thirty years now in countries like Bangladesh where wages have remained very, very, very, very low and rising demand in Europe and United States hasn't really raised the wages. It would be a much more direct route to have minimum wage laws, to have global labor standards. That would get the wages up.

PAUL SOLMAN: Robert Lawrence continued to hold his ground.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: The real way to raise incomes is to get the pie to grow. And that's what trade does.

PAUL SOLMAN: Do you really think that there's an alternative to open markets because can you really keep Bangladesh from trading with the United States, and is that going to help Bangladesh more than trading with the United States does?

ROBERT KUTTNER: No, absolutely not. And I think where Bob and I would agree is on the point that trade is good for growth and where we disagree is on the question of how much do you have to regulate it.

PAUL SOLMAN: We started this piece: Is globalization more bad than good? Does it represent a clear and present economic danger to the American economy? What's your answer?

ROBERT KUTTNER: I think Asia is potentially much more serious than people being displaced from jobs by foreign workers, because Asia is about a speculative meltdown of a whole region of the world who are potentially our customers.

PAUL SOLMAN: And do you worry about it? Do you think there's a clear and present danger of Asia melting down and affecting us?

ROBERT KUTTNER: Yes. I do. I think for the moment we're complacent because we seem to be insulated; the other shoe hasn't dropped yet. And I think it's potentially very serious.

PAUL SOLMAN: Robert?

ROBERT LAWRENCE: Yes. I agree that we need the proper kind of global institutions to manage globalization. I think on that there is no question. What I'm very worried about is the fact that currently our Congress doesn't either want to pass trade negotiations or funding for the International Monetary Fund, so that-under those circumstances I think globalization can be dangerous.

ROBERT KUTTNER: I think where we disagree is that he's for more negotiations to facilitate more free flows of trade, and I'm for more negotiations to facilitate standards.

PAUL SOLMAN: But you're both worried?

ROBERT KUTTNER: I'm worried, yes.

ROBERT LAWRENCE: And I'm worried.

PAUL SOLMAN: And so what would seem are the administration--Alan Greenspan, the Senate, all of which are supporting the IMF. The House remains divided and is holding up funding. In the final analysis then the surest thing you can say about globalization is not that it's good or bad, but that it's scary because of the changes and the lurches a worldwide free market inevitably implies.% ? UPDATE - HDTV - TRANSFORMING TV

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, the future of television. Kwame Holman begins our report.

KWAME HOLMAN: Hundreds of potential customers lined up outside a San Diego electronics store early last Thursday morning. And when the doors opened at 10 o'clock, the first high-definition television sets in America went on sale.

SPOKESMAN: Look at that picture. You're watching the new Panasonic-

KWAME HOLMAN: True--most of those who stood and waited several hours were there to take advantage of the coupons and giveaways the store had advertised. But the promotion did serve its purpose --to draw a crowd to HDTV's retail debut.

SPOKESMAN: It up-converts the analog signal to digital.

KWAME HOLMAN: HDTV is considered the most significant improvement in the television image since color was introduced 45 years ago. Digital technology now has made it possible for broadcasters to transmit pictures with dramatically increased clarity, offering twice the resolution of current television sets and a bigger picture as well. Bruce Miller is program director at WHD-TV in Washington, D.C., an experimental station created by television broadcasters and manufacturers to test the new digital equipment.

BRUCE MILLER, Program Director, WHD-TV: What you will notice here is first of all the aspect ratio is now 16 units wide by nine units high rather than a 4 by 3, which is your current standard system. This more closely approximates the 35 millimeter movie industry, which runs closer to 18 by 9. But now in translating a film like this you no longer have to pan and scan to where the action is occurring. You can reproduce virtually all of it on the screen.

KWAME HOLMAN: And not only a much-improved picture but CD-quality sound as well. But none of it is available right now, though a handful of television stations scattered around the country is test broadcasting digital HDTV signals.

SPOKESMAN: We're getting a picture. Everything is working fine.

KWAME HOLMAN: The largest broadcast networks-ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox--have committed to broadcasting limited HDTV programming beginning November 1st. Some two dozen local stations in America's top ten television markets say they will be ready to send those digital signals along to viewers at home.

BRUCE MILLER: By the end of May of 1999, the FCC requires that the top four affiliates in the top ten markets-so that would be 40 stations--must be on the air; in September of '99, the top 30 markets and the top four affiliates in those markets. So now we're talking 120 stations, and it's going to continue to grow every three to six months until we reach 2003 when all the stations will have at least one digital channel associated with it.

KWAME HOLMAN: Subscribers to Direct Satellite Service can expect high definition programs to begin in December or January. But in a major setback for digital it was revealed recently that the 65 percent of television viewers who subscribe to cable will not be able to get HDTV. That's largely because most cable systems' channel capacities already are filled. In order to make room for the digital information needed to provide high resolution pictures and sound, cable companies would have to knock some current cable channels off the air or increase their system's capacity.

BRUCE MILLER: It means rebuilding your entire distribution plant to get the additional band width--to get you from maybe three dozen channels up to 500 channels.

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, consumers have their own decisions to make. Should they spend seven to eight thousand dollars to be the first in the neighborhood with an HDTV, even though program choices initially will be very limited? Should they wait until HDTV set prices drop and digital programs become more available, or should they spend a few hundred dollars on a box that will convert the new digital signals and make them compatible with the TV sets already at home? Consumers may have only until the year 2006 to decide. That's when all television signals are mandated to become digital, and the system used for the last 60 years is set to become obsolete.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Phil Ponce has more.

PHIL PONCE: Now on to the future of television with Joel Brinkley, a New York Times Washington correspondent. He authored a book about High Definition TV called "Defining Vision." Welcome, Joel.

JOEL BRINKLEY, New York Times: Thank you.

PHIL PONCE: Joel, obviously, we showed shots of what a screen of a High Definition television set looks like, but we can't convey the image because high definition-we're not showing it on high definition.

JOEL BRINKLEY: We're looking at it on a standard television.

PHIL PONCE: Right. Why would someone want to spend seven to eight thousand dollars on a television set? What is so different about the image that we weren't able to convey to our viewers?

JOEL BRINKLEY: Lots of people who look at High Definition for the first time have a different perception of television altogether, because it feels like looking out a window, rather than looking at a picture. It feels involving. I've watched lots of HD TV demonstrations with video professionals and average consumers, and it just makes people gasp when it's presented properly. However, I don't think many people are going to spend seven or eight thousand dollars for one of these sets. In fact, the industry does not expect to sell very many. Many of these sets are in stores just so people can see it, and they can present it to the public in a way that's appealing so perhaps they'll buy it later when the prices fall.

PHIL PONCE: So right now, the television sets that are going on the market, the ones we saw in San Diego, for example, the point of that is what, to wet the public's interest?

JOEL BRINKLEY: Largely. Of course, if lots of people bought the sets, Panasonic and the other manufacturers would be quite happy. But they don't really expect to sell very many at these prices. It's really just to let people know what it looks like and get the public excited.

PHIL PONCE: At some point, though, the prices are go down. It always does, so it seems, with consumer electronic products. Starting out at seven or eight thousand, where is it expected to go? Where does the industry expect it to go?

JOEL BRINKLEY: The one big reason these sets are so expensive is that these are digital sets, and they have very complex microprocessors in them that are being created just for digital television. And when the market is small and the processors are new, not many people are making them, and the prices of these kinds of things fall very rapidly, as we've seen with computers. So I would expect and the industry believes that these prices will fall by half probably in two or three years, partly because these first sets are loaded. They have every option and gimmick on them you can possibly see, and by next year you'll start seeing sets that offer High Definition without, you know, multi-channel, five-speaker system and a thousand other gadgets people may not want.

PHIL PONCE: And just a point of information you mentioned these are digital sets. High Definition TV is a type of digital TV and a digital TV is different from the television sets that are on the market now in what way? Explain the difference.

JOEL BRINKLEY: Digital television sends the TV signal to your home in the ones and zeroes of computer code, rather than an analog wave form signal. That means that your TV can, if you want it, be a computer, in essence. Digital television also allows you to put more information in the same space, using digital compression. And that allows broadcasters and others to squeeze the extra picture content information into the TV channel but allows High Definition, rather than what we have now. But you don't have to broadcast High Definition. You can broadcast standard definition like we have now. You can broadcast web pages. You can broadcast almost anything you want, because a digital signal is imminently flexible.

PHIL PONCE: And a digital signal, as you're saying, allows you to transmit just a whole lot-a whole lot more information, which makes for a clear picture, better audio, and that sort of thing?

JOEL BRINKLEY: That's correct.

PHIL PONCE: So this fall, if somebody does have a High Definition TV or digital TV, what kinds of programs will he or she be able to watch?

JOEL BRINKLEY: At first, the only programs the broadcasters are going to offer in High Definition are programs that are 35 millimeter film-based, because that's a High Definition format. In other words, all the movies that you see on TV can be shown in High Definition at no extra cost, plus most of the prime time entertainment programming, which is recorded in Hollywood on 35 millimeter film. It's going to take a while before the networks decide to do live programming in High Definition, because they'd have to buy a whole new range of cameras and production equipment that are quite expensive. And the networks are just as curious as the rest of us to understand whether the public really wants this. They don't want to spend all this money to buy all this production equipment to find perhaps two or three years from now that the public looks at High Definition with a yawn. Now-

PHIL PONCE: Is that a real possibility, that the market might not respond?

JOEL BRINKLEY: Well, it's a possibility, I suppose, but early tests have found a lot of interest in the public, and Americans seem to like whatever is the newest, greatest thing, whatever it is, anyway, and there's been so much interest and hype about this technology for years I would expect people are going to lap it up when the price becomes competitive.

PHIL PONCE: Some of the problems, though. This issue with cable, with access to High Definition TV, if you're hooked up to cable, what's that problem?

JOEL BRINKLEY: There are two related problems. One, the cable industry does not want to carry the digital channels that the broadcasters will put on the air. Every TV station in the country, Public Broadcasting and otherwise, has been loaned a second channel by the government. And for a period of years, they'll broadcast the conventional programming in its usual place, and the digital and sometimes High Definition programming on the new channel, usually in the UHF band. Well, the cable industry doesn't want to carry all of the old channels and all of the new digital channels, because they think that'll use up other channel capacities, so they're fighting a government requirement that probably will come out later this year, that would require them to carry it, as they do with today's TV channels. Another problem, however, is that they haven't worked out the technical needs for carrying a digital signal from a cable box to a digital television set, that is, cables have not been finalized; there are still specifications that need to be worked out. So even if they carry the signal right now, there'd be no way to get it from the cable box to the digital television set.

PHIL PONCE: The vast majority of the universe is still going to have the old-fashioned analog television set. That is set to be obsolete by the year 2006. I mean, is that actually going to happen? Is that what you expect?

JOEL BRINKLEY: No. The government-the federal rule says that the TV stations that are on the air now will go off the air in 2006, return to the government, and auctioned. The government expects to raise five or six billion dollars from this, and that money has already been counted in future budget projections that allows the government to say there's a balanced budget. However, there's an amendment that was added to this law last year that says they cannot turn off the analog station in any city that does not have homes-85 percent of the homes have High Definition or digital television sets. Well, there are 5 or 10 percent of homes in most cities now that still have black and white televisions. The idea that in 2006, which is seven or eight years from now, everybody's going to have bought a digital television set, nobody believes that's going to happen. It's fiction.

PHIL PONCE: Joel Brinkley, thanks for being with us.

JOEL BRINKLEY: My pleasure.% ? ESSAY - MISSING PERSONS

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, essayist Roger Rosenblatt considers some people who have disappeared.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: We don't always know that people are here, but we know when they are missing. A wealthy woman, Irene Silverman, disappeared under suspicious circumstances from her Manhattan townhouse. For the weeks of her disappearance it was her disappearance that made her present. Missing persons of a certain prominence or status, that is, seize the public's attention, because in some way we do not believe that disappearance is possible. The Internet has street maps to our homes. The credit card company knows where our money is. Every salesman in America has our phone number. How, in this reach-out-and-touch-everyone culture can a person not be here? Absence makes the heart grow fascinated. In the 1920's, the popular and blatantly nutty evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared for over a month, claiming unpersuasively to have been kidnapped. Her flock heaved with worry during her absence and lost interest in her when she returned. When Agatha Christie disappeared in 1926, her readers were in a state. Ambrose Bierce disappeared in Mexico in 1914, Amelia Earhart in 1937. A famous explorer fell off the earth to be discovered by H.M. Stanley. Dr. Livingstone, I presume? Butch Cassidy gone, Patty Hearst gone. Until Jimmy Hoffa dropped from sight, there was no more celebrated vanishing act than Judge Joseph Force Crater's. On August 6, 1930, the New York playboy judge with gangster connections walked out of a Broadway restaurant and into a cab and poof! He may not have been the first person whose life was forever changed by entering a New York taxicab, but he was the best known. Exactly how fascinated the public grows with these disappearances depends on the romance attached to the disappeared. Earhart and Hoffa were intriguing presences in their own ways and became more so as absences. Judge Crater was an odd duck, but it was nicely weird to see a judge go AWOL. Jokes followed the legend. "To pull a Crater" referred to absentees. Over PA systems, you would hear, "Judge Crater, call your office." Sometimes we envy the missing. We don't like to think of them as dead. We like to think of them in some paradise, leading a new life. Somewhere, Judge Crater sits in a nightclub, sipping champagne from a floozy's slipper. Somewhere, Amelia Earhart tends her garden and watches jet planes overhead. Recently, the repentant Russians buried the bones of Anastasia of the Romanovs. DNA, mistrusted by the Russian Church alone, took away forever that tantalizing myth of the missing heir to the czars. The missing persons are the ones we want, our eagerness for them made intense by their disappearance. Mrs. Silverman is no Anastasia, but she was never so clearly in view as when she vanished from sight. When the imagination idles, it can picture all these people together on a separate planet. They convene in the Land of the Gone. The truth is more prosaic, but for the time of their vanishings, they do something strange to the public mind. Counting becomes caring. We are moved to know that all are present and accounted for, thus, the relentless search for POW's missing in action; thus, the continued efforts to identify the unknown soldiers. The world moves along in great masses of people who largely go unnoticed by one another. Take one of us away, and we know that something is missing, something irreplaceable. I'm Roger Rosenblatt.% ? RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 112 points at 8462.85, after dropping 250 points earlier in the day. It was led downward by Japanese and Russian markets. The official death toll in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa rose to 234. And British Petroleum and the U.S. oil company AMOCO will merge in a $48 billion stock deal. An editor's note before we go: The Boston Globe announced today that columnist Mike Barnicle was being suspended for two months without pay. Last week, the Globe asked Barnicle to resign because of a column using some unattributed George Carlin jokes. Barnicle said he got the jokes from a friend. Barnicle told a news conference this afternoon he had apologized to the publisher. He will continue as one of the NewsHour's regional newspaper commentators. We'll be with you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.