The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Monday, we take a look at the new Bosnia ultimatum with Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, Betty Ann Bowser reports on today's Waco hearings, Charlayne Hunter-Gault launches a conversation series on cyberspace, and Robin Minietta of KCTS-Seattle looks at the sentences for sex crimes. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: Troops from the United Nations' new Rapid Reaction Force took up the defense of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo today. About 300 French and British troops are stationed on Mount Igman, which overlooks the city. Their mission is to stop Serb attacks on UN peacekeepers and Bosnian citizens in the UN safe area. We have a report from Mark Austin of Independent Television News.

MARK AUSTIN, ITN: The guns of the royal artillery in position on Mount Igman today as the UN takes a more aggressive stance here, but as British forces spread out across the mountain overlooking Sarajevo, an early reminder of the confrontation that looms. These guns may soon be fired in anger if Serb forces continue their attacks on UN convoys and troops, the fear of British casualties always present.

LT. COL. DICK APPLEGATE, Royal Artillery: We'll obviously be using everything that we possibly know in our sort of tactical dictionary to ensure that we move around as much as possible. We carry out some interesting tactics which will keep them guessing.

MARK AUSTIN: But for much of the day the Rapid Reaction Force wasn't going anywhere very fast, stuck at Bosnian army checkpoints for several hours. These are the royal engineers, their job to dig emplacements for the guns. It was a frustrating time.

LANCE CPL. MARK PALMER, Royal Engineers: We're held here, back so long. We just want to get over there and do the job and get out of the way, and then come back again, and let the tanks do their job.

MARK AUSTIN: One reason for the delay, the French contingent's insistence on using vehicles of camouflage color instead of the UN's white, which the French say suggest surrender, something these elite legionnaires are in no mood for after two French troops were killed by the Serbs.

MR. MAC NEIL: Before the new UN forces arrived, the Serbs had launched a new attack on Sarajevo and other so-called safe areas. Also today, Defense Sec. Perry said NATO forces would defend all the Muslim enclaves, not just Gorazde. Last week, the U.S. and its allies threatened massive strikes against the Serbs if they attack Gorazde. In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole said today he will call for a vote on lifting the Bosnian arms embargo tomorrow. The measure has bipartisan support. We'll have more on Bosnia right after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton made another pitch for his balanced budget plan today. He said the Republicans' version will hurt health, education, and environmental programs. He spoke to the youth group Boys Nation at a White House ceremony this afternoon.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: These priorities are not Democratic or Republican priorities. They are common sense, national decisions that have served us very, very well. So I invite Senators and members of Congress from both parties to join me in balancing the budget while protecting our common ground. I will work hard to get their support, but if they refuse, I must continue to act, alone if necessary, to protect the common ground that brought every single one of you into this White House today. I will do that.

MR. LEHRER: House Speaker Gingrich challenged the President on Medicare today. He said Mr. Clinton had been criticizing Republicans on the issue but had no plan of his own to save the system. Gingrich spoke at a political fund-raiser in Iowa.

MR. MAC NEIL: When the Waco hearings continued today, an undercover federal agent said that Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh knew the raid on his Texas compound was coming. The agent said he told his superiors that Koresh had been tipped off, but the ATF agent who ordered the raid said he never got the message. We'll have excerpts from the hearing later in the program.

MR. LEHRER: A suicide bomber blew up a bus in Israel today. Six people were killed, thirty-two wounded. It happened in a Tel Aviv suburb. The radical Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility. Israeli Prime Minister Rabin suspended talks on expanding the peace agreement with the Palestinians until after the funerals for the victims. But he said the peace process would continue.

YITZHAK RABIN, Prime Minister, Israel: We will not give in to this kind of lunatic atrocity by suicidal terror missions or any kind of terror missions. The government of Israel is determined to continue on the path towards the solution of the longest part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian-Israeli one.

MR. MAC NEIL: Russian President Boris Yeltsin was released from a Moscow hospital today. The 64-year-old leader was hospitalized nearly two weeks ago with heart pains. He is suffering from a form of heart disease called "unstable angina." Yeltsin will now recuperate in a sanitarium near the Russian capital for an undisclosed period of time.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Bosnia, Waco hearings, cyberspace, and sexual criminals. FOCUS - WHAT NEXT?

MR. LEHRER: Bosnia is our lead story again tonight. More troops of the Rapid Reaction Force are taking up positions. The United States and other countries stepped up their warnings of bombings against Serb forces if they attack the safe areas. We start with a report on the fighting around one of those areas. The reporter is Peter Morgan of Independent Television News.

PETER MORGAN, ITN: It's the heaviest fighting Bosniahas seen in several months. For the last five days, Croatian Serb forces have been making marked gains around Bihac. Officials from the UN say the Serb forces have taken up to 30 miles from the Bosnian army. Bihac is within the sights of Serb artillery but for the moment, the Serbs are trying to gain ground without risking a confrontation with NATO. There'd been a lull today, but the fighting here could provoke a wider conflict. The Bihac region has a strategic value for all three parties in the Bosnian conflict and their political mentors in Zagreb and Belgrade. The territory is currently controlled by the Sarajevo government's Fifth Corps based near Bihac. The town, itself, is a UN safe area but only around 25 square miles are protected. Further fighting is going on further North. Serb soldiers from the Krajina part of the Croatia with support from Bosnian Serbs soldiers have been fighting with the Bosnian army around Pecigrad. The Bosnian Serbs want to control road links here in order to link up with their land in Krajina. The Serbs have been helped by rebel Muslim forces from Velika Kladusa, led by local politician Fikrid Abnic, a former member of the Sarajevo government. The latest moves have alarmed the UN.

ALEXANDER IVANKO, UN Spokesman: We have reports of an agreement being made by the Bosnian government and the Croatian government with regard to this attack, so we might see more and more factions being pulled into a war in Western Bosnia, and that is very escalatory.

PETER MORGAN: That alarm was fueled by a weekend agreement between the Croatian and Bosnia governments. Croatia's President Tudjman agreed to provide emergency military aid for Bihac, along with greater cooperation with President Izetbegovic's army. Behind the deal lies another fear, that Croatia is ready to intervene directly in Bihac, or to launch an early attack on Serb-controlled areas within Croatia. But UN officials in Bihac say the Serbs might try to control this area by longer-term measures.

COLONEL JESPER HELSOE, UN Commander speaking from Bihac: You can strangle this area by not allowing humanitarian aid to come in, or you can capture some, a huge amount of ground where they're going to harm us now, and, therefore, it is impossible for the people to harvest, and they are fleeing, and, thereby, you actually have a situation, no food, no Human Jon [humanitarian] convoys, no fertilizers, a lot of refugees, which means actually you're slowly going to strangle the population.

PETER MORGAN: For one group of soldiers, though, the ordeal of Bosnia is over. Dutch UN soldiers held in Srebrenica during the recent Bosnian Serb offensive were welcomed home today by their families. Their military masters in NATO have been trying to iron out differences over the command and control of any future NATO air strikes, but that meeting adjourned this afternoon with the decision. Such moves have been watched closely by the Russians, who made their doubts clear last Friday. Their foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev is in Belgrade tonight for talks with Serbia's president Milosevic. Russia wants political dialogue, rather than NATO action in Bosnia, a point which runs directly opposite the current American thinking.

WILLIAM PERRY, Secretary of Defense: We have invoked the existing resolutions on safe areas relative to Bihac and Sarajevo. If it's necessary, if it becomes necessary to extend additional authority to protect those safe areas, we would certainly consider doing that.

MR. LEHRER: And now to Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, who is with us for a Newsmaker interview. Mr. Secretary, welcome.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, Assistant Secretary of State: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: First, how should the Serbs read this new ultimatum from France, Britain, and the United States?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Well, I hope they take it very seriously. Yesterday, three American, British, and French generals went to Pale to personally deliver to Gen. Mladic and we mean business.

MR. LEHRER: Now, what does business mean?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: The--in regard to Gorazde, as the piece you just showed demonstrated, if the Serbs attack Gorazde, British, French, and Americans have agreed that we will take military action. The NATO Council is working on the exact details, but it will happen. In regard to the rest of Bosnia, the warnings are equally clear, although the consequences are still being worked out in NATO Council tonight, and I hope we'll have final resolution of them tomorrow.

MR. LEHRER: As it relates to Gorazde, the action means heavy air strikes, is that right? We've got a map up there that shows the relationships physically, but heavy air strikes is what will happen. Now will those targets be around Gorazde, or could they be anywhere, if they are Serb military targets?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: In the first instance, the attacks will be in the Gorazde area. If necessary, they'll expand.

MR. LEHRER: What is defined as a heavy air strike, I mean, heavy response? What does that--

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Jim, I don't want to be elusive on this critical question but this is what the military commanders are working out, No. 1, and No. 2, I don't think we ought to advertise exactly what we're going to do. We don't want to put American and other NATO pilots at risk.

MR. LEHRER: But if you're going to--what I'm trying to get--how, how does it compare with the air strikes that NATO has done in the past?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Oh, it's much, much heavier. There's no comparison. As Sec. Christopher said, no more pin pricks.

MR. LEHRER: No more pin pricks. So that means massive--can you give us, without being specific, without forecasting too much, can you give us a feel for what we mean here?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: I can tell you what the United States wants and is working towards with support from the French and the British, as we work through this extremely difficult decision. At Gorazde, where 60,000 Bosnian Muslims are trapped and surrounded by big Serbian guns, if the Serbs attack, we will retaliate, and it will be serious disproportionate retaliation. In regard to Sarajevo, I think the very significant event that came out of the last week, and you showed it in your piece just now, was the French and British had moved up real fighting troops with real artillery, and they are now in the process of being ready to fight back. The Serbs should understand that, as Sec. Perry said last week, we are at a defining moment, and we are going to respond. Now, the exact response is what was being worked out tonight in Brussels, and I am confident that it will be resolved fully tomorrow. There are some complicated command and control issues. There are some complicated questions of exactly how the targets are picked. There is the inevitable hostage issue, but make no mistake about it, the resolve of the United States and its allies should be clear at this point.

MR. LEHRER: Does--has there been any response at all, any indication of a response even from the Serbs?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Gen. Mladic responded to the three--

MR. LEHRER: He's the commander of the Serb forces.

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Gen. Mladic received the three generals yesterday in Pale. I dare say it made an impression on him to see an American four-star general, deputy commander in chief of the U.S. forces in Europe, a comparable-ranking British general and French general come in there and deliver an ultimatum. He wanted them to stay for dinner and have drinks; they said, no, this is our position, let us read it to you, and then we're going to leave. Mladic protested. He said we were delivering it to the wrong people. We said, no, you're the one who should get this ultimatum and take it seriously. I hope that Gen. Mladic and his colleagues do take it seriously, because if they don't, there will be, there must be consequences.

MR. LEHRER: What do you hope the consequences are? Let's take-- one or two things are going to happen--they're either going to honor the threats of not doing anything or they're going to ignore the threats and go ahead and do something at Gorazde. You've said what's going to happen if they, if they go ahead in Gorazde; there's going to be a U.S.-British-French response. Let's say they don't do anything. What is the end result of this supposed to be, in addition to just protecting the people in Gorazde?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: First of all, let me apologize for my throat.

MR. LEHRER: I understand. I should have--

SEC. HOLBROOKE: I didn't realize it was going to be as dry as it is.

MR. LEHRER: I'm hearing you fine, and I'm sure the audience is, but you've got a bad throat, but you're doing great. Go ahead.

SEC. HOLBROOKE: I've got a bad throat and a difficult policy situation. I'll trade in the throat for the policy any day. Jim, the--there are now five safe areas left. One of them, Zepa, is under tremendous battle tonight and holding out. Another one, Bihac, is where the fighting is flaring up.

MR. LEHRER: On this map, it's up there. It's up there in that corner, right?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Bihac. I would correct your map to this extent. Your viewers should view the entire little tip of Bosnia North of Bihac as one entire pocket. That whole pocket is basically in a military situation right now, and there is a very complicated and confused situation up there. But we feel very strongly that wherever the Serbs attack to violate safe areas, there must be an adequate response. And I'm very, very pleased that the French had taken such aggressive and courageous actions. You know, the French have lost 42 men in Bosnia, including two yesterday, and President Chirac has made clear that he does not intend to lower the French flag. He wants to stay there, and we want to support him in that effort. Now, what are we actually going to do at Gorazde? It depends on what the Serbs do. The Serbs are on notice. You fool around in Gorazde, you're going to get pasted by air strikes. You fool around in Sarajevo, the British and the French have now brought in long guns and state of the art fighting troops. Bihac is a more complicated situation which is under intense discussion tonight in all the capitals of the West.

MR. LEHRER: Nothing has deterred the Serbs up till now. What, what gives you hope that this new approach might work?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Well, that's a very good question. I, as a member of an administration which has long advocated the actions which are now underway, I hope it is not a case of too little, too late. What we're doing now should have been done a year ago or two years ago.

MR. LEHRER: Why wasn't it?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: There was not enough consensus in the West. But under tremendous pressure from the United States, President Clinton, himself, hasbeen on the phone all around the clock. He called President Chirac again this afternoon. He talked to Prime Minister Major yesterday. Sec. Christopher has been talking to the foreign ministers of all the European countries. He went to London. Under this pressure, we have finally begun to see some real progress, and I also think that President Chirac's more advanced aggressive stance has helped a lot.

MR. LEHRER: If this doesn't work, Mr. Secretary, as a practical matter, is this it, there's not going to be anything else, you tried?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: If this doesn't work, the present United Nations position will be untenable. Either the UN will be more effective and stay, which is our goal, or it will have to withdraw. We oppose that withdrawal because it would set off consequences which we think could risk Americanizing the war. It would bring the United States in with 25,000 troops to assist NATO in withdrawing the UN, a very dangerous operation. It would create another half million refugees if the UN withdrew, because for all its flaws and foibles and weaknesses, the UN has done some things. It has fed a lot of people. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has done a terrific job under hellish circumstances. Assistant Secretary Phyllis Oakley just was visiting. It would put enormous strains on NATO, and it would further damage the UN and finally, Jim, it would increase the risks of a wider war. So we want the UN to stay, however, I don't disagree with the premise of your question. If this phase of the process does not succeed, a UN withdrawal before the winter sets in may become inevitable, and the consequences could be disastrous.

MR. LEHRER: Speaking of consequences, let's go another route. Let's say the Serbs say, okay, America, France, Britain, you want to fight, we'll fight, we'll do something in Gorazde. The threat is carried out--if it's a real threat, it's carried out, there's bombs, the Serbs react militarily; some Americans start getting hurt; some Brits--British people start getting hurt; some Frenchmen die, more Frenchmen die. Then what happens?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Well, we are not going to put ground combat troops into Bosnia. That is a red line which the President, the Congress, and the American people have made clear we won't cross. But we are ready, indeed, we want to participate in an active air campaign to assist in the success of the UN mission, and air power, which is what America does best, as it was demonstrated in Desert Storm, is something that we are encouraging and actively pursuing tonight.

MR. LEHRER: But if the Serbs want to fight, they want to have a real fight, they're not going to get it, is that right? In other words, they either go with this threat and back off, they may get bombed if they don't, but there isn't going to be a big fight about this, right? I mean, there are limits to what this threat entails is what I'm trying to get at.

SEC. HOLBROOKE: You mean limits in terms of the extent of the air campaign, or limits in terms of the ground?

MR. LEHRER: Limits to how we might react to a reaction to the air strikes. I mean, in other words, where does this thing, where has- -where is the red line? Is it sending in troops? I mean, could there be more and more bombings, heavier bombings, more and more artillery?

SEC. HOLBROOKE: You're asking a question which is three or four steps down the chessboard, and I can--but let me speak personally.

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

SEC. HOLBROOKE: I can tell you what I would recommend to the Secretary of State and through him to the President. Under that contingency, I would recommend that if the Serbs don't stop, that we would advocate additional air campaign against the Bosnian Serbs. But I don't think the Bosnian Serbs are going to be that insane. The full might of the NATO air power, if they violate the lines we are now in the process of constructing around the safe areas would be crossed only at their great peril.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, finally, you've been involved in this for sometime now. Give me a feel for what the level of frustration is among you and your colleagues over Bosnia in getting this thing resolved.

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Well, it's tough. It's tough. I've been in and out of the government now for thirty-three years, including seven years on Vietnam and the Johnson White House, and in the Paris peace talks, and I would say, and I know Cy Vance said this to me when I took this job, that this is the same--

MR. LEHRER: The one you have now.

SEC. HOLBROOKE: Yeah--that this is the single toughest problem, Vietnam included, that we've ever seen, because it's a three- sided war, because of the unique horrors and hatreds involved in it, and because by the time this administration took office--and I'm not here to justify every single thing that happened since January of 1993--but by the time this administration took office, it had inherited a situation which was really, really messed up. The success so far--and I want to stress this has been that we have tried to prevent this, and I think successfully, from spreading to Albania, to Kosovo, to the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which would bring it right to the border of our NATO ally, the Greeks, we have strengthened our relations with Central Europe, with Hungary, Romania, the Czech republic, Poland, all through this period. We have held to a process of steady enlargement of NATO as something we're going to try to do and work with the Russians, but I cannot mislead you, Jim, this problem is so dangerous that it must be contained and dealt with, or else it will create additional tensions in Europe.

MR. LEHRER: But that's the big picture. The small picture, or what we're seeing on television and have been seeing, people being thrown out of their houses and thrown out of their towns, and sent to refugee camps, and been ethnically cleansed.

SEC. HOLBROOKE: I understand that. I made two trips there as a private citizen at my own expense. My own son just arrived in Tuzla over the weekend to work on the refugee problem. We ache for the refugees, and on the refugee front, I think the American contribution has been consistent with our longstanding leadership in the humanitarian community, but the ethnic hatred, the political chaos of a three-sided war, the danger of the Croatians returning to the war again, make it a uniquely difficult problem.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, thank you, and I appreciate it, considering your voice. You did great. Thanks a lot. You survived.

MR. MAC NEIL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the Waco hearings, our cyberfuture, and sex crime sentences. FOCUS - WACO REVISITED

MR. MAC NEIL: Now, the Waco hearings. Today two House subcommittees continued their investigation into the events surrounding the federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. They heard from officials from the Treasury Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms. Betty Ann Bowser reports.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: ATF undercover agent Robert Rodriguez was inside the compound early on the morning of the raid posing as a Branch Davidian. Rodriguez testified he and Koresh were reading the Bible when Koresh was suddenly called to the telephone.

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ, Undercover ATF Agent: He came back approximately three to four minutes later, and when he came back, I mean, it was like, like day and night. As he approached me, he was, he was shaking real bad. When he grabbed the Bible, it was shaking so bad that he could not actually read it. I grabbed the Bible and asked him, "What's wrong?" At that time, he stopped, and as I sit here, I remember clearly he took a deep breath, he turned and looked at me, and said, "Robert, neither the ATF or the National Guard will ever get me. They got me once, and they'll never get me again." At that time, he gets up and he walks over to the window directly in front of me, he opens up the shade, looks out both sides. And I'm looking at him, and again, he turns to me and says, "They're coming, Robert. The time has come." At that time, I knew for sure that, that he knew, he had been tipped off.

MS. BOWSER: Rodriguez testified he got out of the compound as quickly as possible and called one of his superiors, Chuck Sarabyn.

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ: I then called Mr. Sarabyn, and the first things I said to him when he picked up the phone was, "Chuck, they know, they know. They know we're coming." I can remember that as long as I live. I'll remember those words.

MS. BOWSER: Then Rodriguez said he drove to the command post to speak with Sarabyn in person.

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ: I arrived at the command post, and the first thing I asked was, "Where's Chuck? Where's Chuck?" And they advised me that he had left. At that time, I started yelling, and I said, "Why, why? They know we're coming. They know we're coming." If I remember right, everybody was really concerned. I went outside and I sat down, and I remember started to cry.

REP. ROBERT SCOTT, [D] Virginia: Knowing what you know, did you convey that information to your superiors?

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir, I did.

REP. ROBERT SCOTT: Was there any question in your mind that they got the message?

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ: Sir, there's no question in my mind that they got the message. In memory of the four agents that were killed and all the agents within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms, as I sit here, I'll tell you I told them what happened inside the compound. I advised them that they knew that we were coming, that Koresh knew.

MS. BOWSER: The Treasury Department's 1993 investigation of the raid said Sarabyn and raid commander Phillip Chojnacki knew the raid had been compromised and in a decision that was tragically flawed allowed it to proceed. But Sarabyn contested that conclusion today.

CHUCK SARABYN, ATF Raid Commander: I was never given an order not to go if we lost the element of surprise. I do not know who up above me, how far, whatever, gave that order to somebody, but I never received that order.

MS. BOWSER: Former ATF Chief Stephen Higgins testified last week that it was clear to everyone if the element of surprise was lost, commanders were to abort the raid. But both Sarabyn and Chojnacki said they never understood it that way.

PHILLIP CHOJNACKI, ATF Raid Commander: I not only never received that command, I don't know that anybody above me in ATF said that they gave that command.

MR. SHADEGG: And Mr. Sarabyn, you never got such a command?

CHUCK SARABYN: That is correct, sir. Obviously, we lost the element of surprise. We were ambushed. Our point is we felt that his actions at that time did not indicate it to us that we had lost it, but, in fact, we had.

MR. SHADEGG: Mr. Rodriguez.

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ: Sir, Phil [Chuck Sarabyn] and Chojnacki know exactly what happened. To this day, I will stand by what I've said, and what I've told them. I have never changed my story. They have changed theirs many times. And to this day, they can still sit there and lie to all the agents of ATF that what I said, what I supposedly said was not said, and, and instead of coming up and admitting to the American people right after the raid that they had made a mistake, that the element of surprise had been lost, that the agent had advised them that they knew they were coming, instead of dong that, they lied to the public, and in doing so, they just about destroyed a very great agency.

MS. BOWSER: Dan Hartnett, who was Sarabyn and Chojnacki's boss, told the committee he believes the element of surprise was invented by his superiors at ATF after the fact, and he was especially critical of Undersecretary Ron Noble.

DAN HARTNETT, Former ATF Deputy Director: I saw Ron Noble testify on a national program several months ago or a month ago where he said both Treasury and ATF ordered the commanders at Waco not to proceed or to abort the raid if they lost the element of surprise. And what I'm saying to this committee is that I had never heard the term "element of surprise" until after the raid when we started using it ourself and the media started using it. It was just that nobody ever called and said, abort the raid if you lose the element of surprise. That just never happened. But secrecy was a part of the plan, secrecy and safety. I mean, it was discussed over and over again.

SPOKESMAN: Did you think you were set up?

DAN HARTNETT: By Mr. Noble? I think Mr. Noble felt that he had to be very careful in a new administration not to look as if he was whitewashing anything.

MS. BOWSER: Following the Waco investigation, Hartnett was forced to retire. Sarabyn and Chojnacki were fired and later reinstated after lengthy civil service litigation. To this day, Hartnett still says he believes Sarabyn and Chojnacki did not lie to him in the aftermath of Waco, and he believes the Treasury report is about 70 percent accurate.

RON NOBLE, Undersecretary of Treasury: At these hearings, the very people who are most criticized in the report have baldly asserted that the report is only 70 percent accurate.

MS. BOWSER: Undersecretary Ron Noble angrily responded to Hartnett's criticism.

RON NOBLE: Certain members of this committee accepted that figure as gospel without any consideration of the source or evidence to support that number. Indeed, none of those criticized articulated what, if any, facts in the report were inaccurate, what analysis is flawed. As Sec. Bentsen observed, it is not surprising that Mr. Sarabyn, Mr. Chojnacki, and Mr. Hartnett disagree with some of the conclusions of the report because they are among those who were criticized and were detrimentally affected as a result of the review's findings. For the record, I've heard about the hundred plus witnesses that are going to be called, but for the record, none of the members of the team that generated the Treasury Department's report on Waco were ever interviewed, ever interviewed prior to this hearing to determine what they thought about the report, what they thought about Ron Noble. So let me now ask the agents, lawyers, and individuals who gathered the facts and performed the analysis for the Department of the Treasury report on ATF's investigation to please stand up and be recognized and identified and associated with this report. Thank you.

MS. BOWSER: Noble said the Treasury report on Waco is the most exhaustive in the department's history, and he stands by its conclusions. SERIES - CYBERFUTURE

MR. LEHRER: Now, conversation one in a series on cyberspace. What is it exactly, and what does it mean for our lives are the questions. Charlayne Hunter-Gault asks them first of Steve Case, president of America On-Line.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The nation's fastest growing commercial on-line service is America On-Line. Like other on-line services, it invites anyone with a personal computer to hook up and for a fee tap into a whole range of information, databases, and services. Unlike some, from the moment you log on, America On-Line is deliberately designed to be inviting, non-technical, and easy to use, more like a visit to the local shopping mall than a trip through cyberspace. One reason for that is America On-Line's 36-year-old president, Steve Case. He knew all about consumer marketing from previous jobs at Pepsico and Procter & Gamble, when he founded the service 10 years ago with the goal of turning on-line from a computer nerd's paradise into a mass market service. Most of what America On-Line delivers is aimed squarely at the tastes and needs of middle class consumers. Entertainment news provides plot summaries of the latest movies. There's also financial advice, sports information, home shopping, even a chance to catch up on Oprah. By the standards of truly mass media, like network TV, America On-Line is still small, but it is growing rapidly.

OPERATOR: Okay. May I have the screen name that you want to reactivate, please?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It recently signed up its three millionth customer, gaining a million customers in just one year. We recently talked with Steve Case at his headquarters at America On-Line. Steve Case, thank you for joining us.

STEPHEN CASE, President, America On-Line: Thank you.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Tell us, what is your definition of cyberspace?

STEPHEN CASE: I don't really like the word cyberspace. It sounds kind of science fictiony and kind of, kind of strange, kind of a strange place. I think of this more of interactive service as being a new medium, just as telephone was a medium or television was a medium, people around the country will be able to plug into these services and access information, and communicate with other people and buy products, and learn new things, the whole concept is really about a more interactive participatory medium than has existed before. Traditional media, whether it be newspapers or magazines or radio or television, has been more of a one-way passive medium, that people decided what people are going to read and what people are going to see, and so a relatively small number of people play that kind of role, and a large number of people get the benefit that in terms of the broadcasting of that message. In this new interactive world, people can interact with the content, interact with the services, and really customize the services to meet their own needs, so instead of, you know, just seeing what the editor wants you to see, you could really find out more about areas of particular interest, and it's participatory, because you're not just accessing content, you're also talking with other people about that content, which is that you're really able to customize the service more than traditional media allows you to do it and create a more interactive community experience around that content.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is this the greatest benefit, or what do you see as the greatest benefit?

STEPHEN CASE: Well, I don't think there's a magic bullet here that's going to make this new interactive medium mean a particular thing to everybody. I think one of the things that's so great about it is its customizability, that what you might see value in in this medium might be different than what I see value in in this medium. Everybody can have a somewhat personal experience.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Someone we talked with in this series said that he wasn't convinced that this was something that he needed. I mean, why do people need this?

STEPHEN CASE: The history of new technology and new media has always been the same path, which is in the early stages people are kind of questioning what's going to happen, you know, why do you need a telephone, why do you need a fax machine, why do you need a television, why do you need--if you go back and look at history, there's tendency for people to kind of wonder about the viability of these new things, but you really get in the hands of consumers, and more and more consumers get enthusiastic about it and creative people start emerging to really do things in innovative, new ways, it allows you to reach an even wider audience, and that's when it really starts becoming a mainstream phenomenon. We've made great progress in the last 10 years, but there's still a long road ahead to really make this a mainstream phenomenon that everybody feels a need to plug into. But I have to tell you, in the last six months, I've noticed a real interest among people who I never would have expected to be interested in plug-in, interactive services, so it is starting to move more mainstream.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Like--

STEPHEN CASE: My mother. My mother is completely fascinated with these services, and I would have pegged her a few years ago as, as probably never touching a computer.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You said before that you didn't, you weren't sure that this will ever be a mass medium like television, but what about advertisers? What's going to be in it for them?

STEPHEN CASE: Well, advertisers need to figure out new ways to reach an audience. The media has already started to get fragmented. And 10 years ago, package-goods marketing was really kind of easy. You created an ad, and you ran it on CBS, and NBC, and ABC, and you reached the whole country. Now, there's a tendency to focus more on specialized media, so the ad created for MTV is very different than the ad created for ESPN or CNN, and in this new medium, as more and more people connect to these services, and they start doing more of the things they do in their everyday life through these services, it's going to be critical for companies who want to reach this emerging audience to figure out new ways to engage them and inform them and have a dialogue with them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How is that going to affect quality and content, because one of the raps always on television is that it's created for the masses and, therefore, the programs that it develops, you know, have a certain mass appeal, so a lot of things get left out, you know, things of quality and so on. How is that going to affect the content?

STEPHEN CASE: I think that's one of the great possibilities of this new medium is instead of trying to create content that can be kind of the lowest common denominator, reach the broadest audience, you can create content that's really going to meet the needs of specific audience, particular affinity groups, or special interest groups. In the television world, the difficulty the networks have is, is they only can run one program at a time, so they have to decide, you know, Thursday at 8 o'clock what program are they going to pick. In this new interactive world, the decision of what to air or what to view is really in the hands of each consumer. They really are the Brandon Tartikoffs of the next generation. They decide what they want to see, and there are going to be many, many choices.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mentioned earlier, we talked about community, but if everything is going to be programmed toward niche marketing and special groups and so forth, how do you prevent a kind of balkanization, really, and how do you prevent increased isolation?

STEPHEN CASE: Well, Balkanization sounds like a bad thing. Specialization sounds like a good thing. In the world of magazines, for example, there's 12,000 special interest magazines published, and the fact that there's magazines on this topic or that topic does not mean that people are only going to live their lives with a particular magazine, thinking about those particular topics. This new medium is important. It's going to reach a wide audience, but it's not going to replace television or newspapers or magazines or any of the things people do today. It will complement them. It may change them in some ways, just as the advent of television changed radio, the programming content changed somewhat, but nothing is going to go away, so this concern that this new medium is going to result in people just sitting in front of their computers and connecting into these special interest groups to the exclusion of everything else, I think is--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And not leaving their houses.

STEPHEN CASE: I think that's silly. I mean, I guess the same thing could have been said about the telephone, that, you know, if you could talk to somebody on the telephone, I guess you never have to go outside to actually meet people, but, you know, most people don't have that view, that most people use it as a tool and use it in very effective ways, but it doesn't replace their need to, to interact with people in other ways. And that's why I don't like the cyberspace thing. It feels like it's sort of a separate world. I don't think of this as a separate world. I think of it as an extension of the real world.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But there are those who worry that this is going to create two classes of people in society; the haves and the have nots, the haves, those who have technology, those who don't, or those who--you know, and especially as it relates to the poor kids, people without access now to this kind of technology. Do you see that changing in the future?

STEPHEN CASE: I think it'll be a problem down the road. Right now, the problem really isn't information haves, information have nots, because almost everybody is an information have not. As it becomes more mainstream, as tens of millions of people are connected to these services, not just millions of people, I do think we'll be faced with the public policy issue of making sure everybody has a way to connect these services. I do think just as you saw with public television or with libraries, it will be a mechanism that is put in place to provide essentially the ability for everybody to connect to these services. But right now, the challenge is more fundamental. It's how do you make this something that, you know, most people want to connect to as opposed to the way it is today, where people are hearing about it but most people aren't using it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about the whole privacy area, is that an issue that people need be concerned about?

STEPHEN CASE: Privacy is a big issue. I think over the next 10 years it's going to be one of the hot consumer issues, because there's more technology, people are going to get nervous about what people are doing with the information, and one of the most important things we can do is to build a relationship with our customers. They trust us, and they trust us to do the right thing with their information, which in most cases is doing nothing with their information.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you see government becoming involved in the regulation of this down the line, or do you see enough self- regulation that that won't be necessary, or what?

STEPHEN CASE: I hope it won't be necessary. I think as an industry, we do have the capacity to self-regulate, and it's better to give the tools to our customers to allow them to customize the service to meet their needs, or the needs of their families. Giving parents the controls I think is really important. Educating parents about the possibilities of this new medium are also very important. We think it's better for services like America On-Line and our customer is to essentially self-regulate and show self-restraint as opposed to have the government try to regulate it, because censoring cyberspace is a very, very difficult task because of the member-generated nature of the content, that it's not like traditional media where people are editing information in New York and distributing it to everybody. Every minute, people are adding to discussions and it's happening not just in the United States but globally and to really have a global thought police trying to censor this content would be very, very difficult, almost impossible in my opinion.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you envision a time when the whole world is going to be wired, going to be on line?

STEPHEN CASE: Yeah, sure, sure.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I mean, when you look down the line into the future, I don't know how far away it is, just in your wildest informed imaginings, what do you see?

STEPHEN CASE: I don't see any reason to believe over the long run it won't be as important as the telephone was. It took several decades before most people had telephones, and people said, why would I need a telephone; if I need to talk to somebody, I just kind of wander down the street and talk to them. It didn't really strike them, the possibility of the telephone. I think people were saying, well, telephone, maybe there will be one telephone in every town, and maybe if you occasionally need to make a phone call, you'll go to this phone by the bar and make that phone call. Nobody really conceived of the idea that one day everybody would have phones--in fact, many people have multiple phones--and it would change the way they communicated with people and buy products and conducted everyday lives. I think this interactive medium is on that same path. And just as with the telephone, it took several decades, it will take several decades here to have that ubiquity, but my sense is it's going to happen, and it's going to be quite exciting to watch.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Steve Case, thank you.

STEPHEN CASE: Thank you.

MR. MAC NEIL: Tomorrow night, Charlayne talks with Neil Postman, author of the book The Surrender of Culture to Technology. FOCUS - INCURABLE IMPULSE?

MR. MAC NEIL: Finally tonight, the legal wrangling over a Washington State law that keeps violent sex offenders in custody long after they've completed their prison terms. We have an update from Robin Minietta of public station KCTS-Seattle.

ROBIN MINIETTA, KCTS: In 1988, Ron Petersen was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for first degree rape. It was his third felony rape conviction. With time off for good behavior, he completed his sentence in August of 1993, but today, nearly two years later, he's still behind bars.

RON PETERSEN: I am at SCC because a petition was filed against me by King County prosecutors alleging that I was a sexually violent predator and that I should be arrested, detained, and evaluated.

MS. MINIETTA: Petersen is being held at the Special Commitment Center, or SCC. It's designed as a treatment facility and run by the state's Department of Health & Human Services, but it's located on prison grounds and secured by barbed wire, armed guards, and locked doors. The men who are imprisoned here have already served time for the crimes they've committed. But under a Washington State law enacted in 1990, criminals who repeatedly commit sexually violent crimes can be locked away for up to life. Since the law took effect, 31 men have been confined. They've responded with a slew of lawsuits filed in state and federal courts, and even though the state supreme court upheld the law in a ruling issued last year, the challenges continue. Attorney Scott Johnson has been involved in several of the cases and believes the lawsuits are legitimate.

SCOTT JOHNSON, Lawyer: They're challenging conditions of confinement, the extent of treatment, the adequacy of treatment, they're challenging the constitutionality of the act, and various aspects of the act.

MS. MINIETTA: The law does not impose new criminal sanctions against repeat offenders. Instead, they're brought to court for civil commitment proceeding. In effect, the law labels some offenders as mentally ill and allows them to be sent back to a locked facility for psychiatric treatment even if they've already served their full prison sentences. Norm Maleng is a county prosecutor and head of the task force that drafted the law.

NORM MALENG, County Prosecutor: Quite frankly, what we're talking about is people who are presently in prison who have served their criminal sanction, are coming out, and we know to be dangerous.

MS. MINIETTA: In other words, people like Earl Shriner. In the spring of 1989, Shriner cornered a seven-year-old boy on a dead end trail in this vacant lot. He raped and beat the child and left him for dead.

HELEN HARLOW: I had absolutely no idea that such a person could even ever expect to be on the streets.

MS. MINIETTA: The boy's mother, Helen Harlow, was shocked to learn that Shriner had a long history of sexual assault.

HELEN HARLOW: December of '88, he was released from jail for one of his minor offenses which, of course, followed his release from a 24-year history of offenses and incarceration, and our attack was in May, and so it was not too long.

MS. MINIETTA: Shriner was arrested and charged with rape, assault, and attempted murder. He was found guilty and sentenced to one hundred and thirty years in prison. But for Helen Harlow, the stiff sentence wasn't enough.

HELEN HARLOW: [speaking to small group] Well, I was thinking rather than contacting the legislators that we may need to get to know in our area--

MS. MINIETTA: Harlow started a citizens campaign to overhaul the state laws that had freed Earl Shriner after he had served time for previous offenses. She and her supporters marched on the state capitol. They brought along piles of tennis shoes, some of which had belonged to victims of violent crime, to make a symbolic point about public safety.

WOMAN: These are the shoes of my three and a half year old niece. She was raped by her father when she was seven weeks old. He walked out a free man after serving only 37 months.

MS. MINIETTA: In the face of public pressure, the legislature passed and the governor signed what's commonly known as a sexual predator's law, but the law has its critics. John La Fond, law professor at Seattle University, wrote a court brief challenging the detention of one of the first persons to be sentenced under the law. He argues that civil commitment is not the way to deal with repeat offenders.

JOHN LA FOND, Seattle University School of Law: We should punish people for what they have done, not for what we think they might do, and I think the criminal justice system is perfectly capable of handling the dangerous sex offender through long-term penalties.

RUSSELL LEONARD: These cases are like legalized lynchings in court.

MS. MINIETTA: Russell Leonard is one of the public defenders assigned to the civil commitment cases. He argues that the decks are stacked against his clients from the moment a jury hears the words "sexually violent predator."

RUSSELL LEONARD, Public Defender: The stigma is immense. These cases come into court with that label already attached to them. Even if the judge were to instruct the jury that this person is not a sexually violent predator or presumed not to be a sexually violent predator, that's the name that this statute gives these cases. The law has essentially made these trial by character assassination.

MS. MINIETTA: In fact, the public defenders have taken a beating in court. To date, prosecutors have won every case they've brought to trial. Deputy Prosecutor Carol Spore.

CAROL SPOOR, Deputy Prosecutor: We would look at a pattern of predatory offenses, and by that, I mean that the individual frequently will have committed sexual offense after sexual offense after sexual offense and have that interrupted by periods of incarceration, and then immediately upon release from custody commit another sexual offense.

MS. MINIETTA: The law requires that Spoor prove to a judge and jury that these sex crimes are the result of a mental abnormality or personality disorder. It's not an easy case for a jury to decide since the trials usually come down to a debate between experts. Alma Clark was the jury foreman in a 1991 trial.

ALMA CLARK, Jury Foreman: An expert would say this information shows us that no, they would not be likely to offend, and that very same information given by the other expert would tell us just the opposite.

MS. MINIETTA: For Clark and the rest of the jury, the decision ultimately came down to a gut feeling.

ALMA CLARK: All we could go by was what we know, what we knew to be normal as far as we're concerned, and we felt that we didn't feel that it was normal behavior, whether it was a mental abnormality or not, if you want to call it that, to go into a stranger's home and molest them. That, for 12 jurors, who kind of have to decide what's normal and not normal, didn't seem normal to us.

MS. MINIETTA: Reaching a consensus about mental illness and sexually violent behavior eludes even professionals. Dr. James Reardon is the spokesman for the Washington State Psychiatric Association which opposes the law.

DR. JAMES REARDON: The legislature is trying to say that sexual offenses are an unusual type of criminal behavior that reflects some type of, of mental disorder, and we are saying, no, that, that criminal behavior is criminal behavior and should be treated as criminal behavior.

MS. MINIETTA: Ron Petersen agrees. He argues that he's being punished twice for the same crime: once with a prison sentence, and once again with his current civil commitment.

RON PETERSEN: The state wanted prison; they recommended prison, an extensive sentence, and they felt that the punishment would fit the crime, and that's what was needed. Now they come back and say, oh, by the way, we want you to be treated also.

MS. MINIETTA: The inmates went to federal court claiming that therapy was inadequate and the staff poorly trained at the Special Commitment Center. A US district judge agreed and appointed a special court representative to monitor the program. Bill Dehmer is director of the treatment program.

BILL DEHMER, Treatment Program Director, SCC: I think it's developed a lot since then and that we have more than an adequate program currently, and we are providing it to residents that are interested in working on their sexual deviancy and admitting to their sex offenses and want to work on changing that.

MS. MINIETTA: Resident Bradley Ward is participating in treatment.

BRADLEY WARD: I want the help and that I desperately need to get going in my life.

MS. MINIETTA: Others, like Rolando Aguilar, are participating for different reasons.

ROLANDO AGUILAR: See, my reason is only being up there is to try to see if there's anything that's going to get me out. I haven't seen anything that's going to get me out, other than the court, itself.

MS. MINIETTA: And still others flatly refuse any treatment at all, according to David Weston, superintendent of the Special Commitment Center.

DAVID WESTON, Superintendent, SCC: The legal mandate we have is for the control, care, and treatment of individuals. Treatment, certainly this kind of treatment cannot be forced against a person's will. If a person chooses not to participate, we still have a responsibility to provide for their care and control.

MS. MINIETTA: Under the provisions of the law, inmates have the right to request an annual review of their commitment, and they must prove to a judge that they no longer meet the criteria of a sexually violent predator. In addition, the law was recently modified to allow for conditional release to a less secure facility, but the details have yet to be worked out. Meanwhile, prosecutors are watching impending prison releases and say they will continue to file commitment cases against anyone they feel poses a significant danger. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story of this Monday, troops from the United Nations Rapid Reaction Force took up positions to defend the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. On the NewsHour tonight, Assistant Secretary of State Holbrooke said there will be disproportionate retaliation by NATO air forces if the Serbs attack the Muslim enclave of Gorazde. Good night, Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll see you again tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.