The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight three Republicans update the failed mutiny in the House; Spencer Michels tells the story of Lake Tahoe's problems; Charles Krause interviews Natan Sharansky, a Soviet dissident turned Israeli politician; and Elizabeth Farnsworth talks to "Washington Post" Moscow correspondent David Hoffman. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said today U.S. economic growth was slowing. He said there was no need to raise interest rates now. He testified before Congress in his mid- year report on the economy. He said inflation has been restrained, despite low unemployment, which often spurs wage hikes. He said it was unclear how long that could continue, but the Fed would be watchful.

ALAN GREENSPAN, Chairman, Federal Reserve: The capacity of our economy to produce goods and services is not without limit. If demand were to outrun supply, inflationary imbalances would eventually develop that would tend to undermine the current expansion and inhibit the long-run growth potential of the economy. The Federal Reserve must be alert to the possibility that additional action might be called for to forestall excessive credit creation.

JIM LEHRER: After Greenspan's comments, the stock market continued its big rally, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 155 points to close at a new high, 8061.65. President Clinton today repeated his support for increasing Medicare premiums for upper income recipients. He did so at a White House meeting with his budget negotiating team. He proposed the Treasury Department collect the premiums and send them directly to the Medicare Trust Fund. Opponents claim the premiums would be seen as a tax increase if collected by the Internal Revenue Service.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I saw some stories today about people worried about the political repercussion of this. My best judgment is that a big majority of the American people will support this. They understand how big the baby boomer retirement generation is. They understand how large the subsidy is on Medicare. And I would be happy to defend the vote of any member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, who votes for this.

JIM LEHRER: The President was asked about reports the Vatican may have held money taken from Nazi victims during World War II. He said Treasury Department archives are now being search for more information. That report came from researchers for the Arts & Entertainment Cable Television Channel. They said they found a declassified document indicating the Vatican held about 200 million Swiss francs taken from Jews and Serbs by Croatian fascists. The Vatican denied those claims. In Italy today a military court sentenced a former Nazi SS captain to a five-year jail term for his role in World War II atrocities. 83-year-old Eric Pridkof was found guilty last August for his role in the killing of 335 men and boys in caves outside Rome in 1944. The State Department issued a report today criticizing Russia and China, among others, for suppressing Christianity. The first ever report on worldwide persecution of Christians covered 78 countries. John Shattuck is assistant secretary of state for human rights. He briefed reporters at the State Department.

JOHN SHATTUCK, Assistant Secretary of State: The issue of persecution is a serious one, affecting many religions. The issue has not previously received much attention with respect to Christians. And the focal point of this report at the request of Congress is that subject, but let me underscore, again, that the U.S. commitment to religious freedom encompasses all religions. We vigorously take up the cause of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Bahas, Hindus, and others, and certainly Christians.

JIM LEHRER: In Russia today President Yeltsin vetoed a bill that had been called anti-Christian. It would have barred people with certain religious beliefs from owning property, publishing literature, or worshiping publicly. On the Mars story today NASA officials released images showing the rover driving up to the rock nicknamed "Scooby Doo." These pictures failed to reach Earth over the weekend because of a glitch in the communications software. NASA official Richard Cooke spoke to reporters today.

RICHARD COOK, Pathfinder Project Manager: The lander and the rover are healthy, so, in a sense, when we do have these problems, it's frustrating, but it's not really--it doesn't have a big impact on our ability to continue the mission. Nevertheless, we--if nothing else--so that I can sleep through the night, we'd like to get out of this mode of reacting to all of these little problems.

JIM LEHRER: Also today, Russia's Mission Control said the irregular heartbeat of Mir's commander had improved, and he was now in satisfactory health. Repairs on the space station had to be put off and assigned to a new crew because of his medical problems. Canadian salmon fishermen ended their blockade of a U.S. ferry in British Columbia last night. A wall of fishing trawlers weighed anchor, allowing the ferry to leave the dock in Prince Rupert Island. The ship was freed, following a plea by the Canadian fishery's minister. The fishermen blockaded the vessel Saturday, claiming Alaska's fleet had been over fishing salmon bound for Canadian waters. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now, it's on to an update on the big Republican mutiny, the troubles of Lake Tahoe, a Russian dissident turned Israeli politician, and a conversation with a Moscow correspondent. FOCUS - FAMILY FEUD

JIM LEHRER: That Republican mutiny in the House of Representatives. Kwame Holman begins our update.

SPOKESMAN: The gentleman is recognized for one hour.

KWAME HOLMAN: Last April, Speaker Newt Gingrich stood in the well of the House and explained at length his decision to borrow money from Bob Dole in order to pay a $300,000 penalty for violating House ethics rules.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: This House is at the center of freedom, and it deserves from all of us a commitment to be worthy of that honor. Today, I am doing what I can to personally live up to that calling and that standard. I hope my colleagues will join me in that quest. May God bless this House and may God bless America. Thank you. [applause]

KWAME HOLMAN: After barely surviving the fall elections with the Republican House Majority in place, Gingrich was moving to rebuild his legendary reputation born of the Republican revolution he engineered in 1994. But on a handful of occasions in the months to come a small but vocal group of dissidents in the ranks variously vexed, criticized, and even publicly challenged Gingrich's leadership. The loose affiliation of independent-minded dissidents contains at least these members, all two- or three-term conservatives, both from the South and West, and with strong approval ratings in their home districts. They voice the concern of other conservatives that Gingrich has become too much of a moderate, too willing to capitulate to President Clinton and the Democrats in budget negotiations and policy matters. But through the dust up with the dissident group, Gingrich maintains the public support of his leadership team.

REP. DICK ARMEY, Majority Leader: The speaker is running the House. The speaker is the speaker, and he has the respect and the admiration and support of a majority and many people in the minority.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, Conference Chairman: Certainly, we've had our share of disagreements, but the family is getting along fine.

REP. TOM DELAY, Majority Whip: The speaker is the speaker. He will continue to be the speaker, and those opponents of Speaker Gingrich, too bad; he's going to continue to be speaker.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH: We believe we're very close to having it worked out and hope in the next few hours to be able to announce and then move a supplemental appropriations bill to provide the flood aid.

KWAME HOLMAN: But then came Gingrich's decision last month to give in to the President in a high-profile public relations battle over Midwestern flood aid. A few weeks later, according to a story in last Wednesday's edition of the Hill newspaper some of the dissidents met with some or all of Gingrich's lieutenants and discussed ousting Gingrich as speaker. The plan was abandoned, but reportedly involved Dick Armey, the elected majority leader; Tom Delay, the majority whip; John Boehner, the conference chairman; and Bill Paxon, appointed by Gingrich to chair leadership meetings and reported to be the dissidents' first choice to replace Gingrich. He resigned that post last Thursday. All four men have denied backing Gingrich's overthrow. Paxon did so Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

REP. BILL PAXON, [R] New York: At no time have I ever been involved in effort to overthrow the speaker that I worked so hard to elect. Tim, the speaker appointed me to serve in the leadership to help solve problems. Last week, I tried to work to defuse a problem that you've noted. Mistakes were made. I made mistakes in the way I tried to handle the defusing of this problem, specifically, didn't inform the speaker of the problem early enough and certainly didn't anticipate when it blew up that it would have the impact that it did on our agenda and on our conference.

KWAME HOLMAN: On ABC's "This Week" two of the leading dissidents said they were willing to wait, but Gingrich's lieutenants advocated his immediate ouster. Representative Matt Salmon said conference Chairman Tom Delay promised to support a floor vote against Gingrich.

REP. MATT SALMON, [R] Arizona: There were 17 of us in that meeting, including Tom Delay, and I can tell you unequivocally that the 17 members that were in that room with Tom Delay had that impression; that we walked out believing completely that that was Tom Delay's intent.

KWAME HOLMAN: Now that it appears to be over for now, the speaker's office said today Gingrich plans no action against Delay or the other remaining members of the leadership. For his part, Gingrich said yesterday, at a meeting of business leaders in his suburban Atlanta home district, "You know I don't quit. We are doing fine. We have to calmly keep our eye on the ball." A group that includes many of the rebels reportedly will meet tonight. The full House GOP Conference has its regular meeting tomorrow morning.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, three Republicans assess all this. As we just saw, Rep. Matt Salmon was one of the dissidents seeking the ouster of Speaker Gingrich. He's a second-term congressman from Arizona. Rep. Marge Roukema of New Jersey is serving her ninth term in Congress, and former Congressman Bob Walker of Pennsylvania, who retired last year, is a long-time friend and adviser of the speaker. He is now president of the Wexler Group, a Washington lobbying firm. And Congressman Salmon, starting with you, what brought all this to a head now?

REP. MATT SALMON, [R] Arizona: Well, I think what brought it all to a head now--and call I can say is what I learned from my involvement in this process--on Thursday night one of my colleagues, who had been part of the 11--the group of 11 that was kind of spawned out of our unhappiness about the willingness of the leadership to raise committee funding, that was a long, long time ago, but one of those colleagues came up to me on the floor and said that a member of leadership had requested that we get together that night to decide about decisive action. I might say--I'd point out it wasn't my time frame, because, frankly, I was in more of a "wait and see" mode to see exactly how things were going to play out.

MARGARET WARNER: But--and the substance of it--I mean, is this- -is this a philosophical dispute that you have with the speaker? What is the issue, the No. 1 issue?

REP. MATT SALMON: I don't think it's so much of a philosophical dispute as much as it getting back to the things that we've promised that we would do three years ago on the capitol steps. We simply want to get back to the things that are important for the Republican Party, and that is balancing the budget, cutting taxes, getting the federal government off of our backs, and returning power back to the states. That's all we ever wanted. It's not a personality dispute. It's not in my mind that he has so-called become a moderate. It's just about keeping promises. And frankly, I think that last week's efforts may have been the shadow talked about that was required to get the speaker to take this very seriously, sit down with all interested parties, because, frankly, we understand as well. We can't always have our way, but we would like to have a clear leadership strategy communicated, and we would all like to stick to the same plan.

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman, what's your take on this, on why your Republican majority's come to this passage right now?

REP. MARGE ROUKEMA, [R] New Jersey: I don't quite know how to answer that. First, I've got to say that I was completely out of the loop, surprised, astounded, and more than a little ashamed to see how this whole so-called coup hit the press and hit the public. I can't speak for my colleague here. He has to explain his own thought process. But for me looking at the outside, I'm saying to one extent I agree with him--and that is that our party--and I've been saying this for a long time--that if we're going to be a majority party, that we've got to get all the elements, the different caucuses within our pat, whether it's the right conservative or the more moderate element, such as myself, to pull together, to have communications, to have alliances, and to form consensus. We can't be a minority regional party. But the real problem, as I see it, is the fact that this erupted the way it did at a time when the public is looking to ask, to carry out that agenda that my colleague talked about, and right now we have the budget agreement and the tax bill that are going through negotiations And that was our commitment; that we would behave like a majority party in a professional andbusinesslike way, and get the legislation that belongs to the people passed and signed into law. How can we do this to ourselves? A civil war has erupted and is bordering on cannibalism.

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Salmon, what's your answer to that? I mean, did you all think about the timing, given what's on the table in terms of your negotiations with the White House and the agenda?

REP. MATT SALMON: Again, I completely agree with what she has said. I don't believe the timing was good. And frankly, my timing all along has kind of been wait and see through the August recess, see if we can get our act together, see if our leaders will lead, and stop appearing to bow down to the pressures exerted by Bill Clinton and the media. I was in a "wait and see" mode, and frankly, as I mentioned earlier in this conversation, that was not my time frame.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Former Congressman Walker, you've been through a lot of battles, I'm sure, on the Hill, but have you ever seen anything like this, and why do you think this is happening?

FORMER

REP. BOB WALKER, [R] Pennsylvania: Well, we haven't seen anything quite like this for a long, long time in the Congress, probably going back into the early part of the century, but I think what's happening here is that you have a period of time in which people are not seeing it all come together in exactly the same way. I believe that the agenda outlined by Mat Salmon a minute ago is exactly what the speaker's attempting to do. He's attempting to get a tax cut. He's attempting to get spending cuts. He's attempting to get entitlement reform. He's attempting to balance the budget, why we do all that, but he also recognizes you have to negotiate in a way that brings the Senate on board and ultimately the best way to get all that done is to have the President sign it. That means making some compromises along the way, and it has not been clear all the time that people were prepared to do some of the compromising that was necessary to get the job done.

MARGARET WARNER: Congresswoman, when you heard your colleague, Mr. Salmon, Congressman Salmon, outline his view of what he wants and the way he wants Gingrich, Speaker Gingrich to lead, and he talked about standing on the steps back before the '94 election, the Contract with America, is that compatible with what you're looking for and moderates, if I can call you that, like yourself?

REP. MARGE ROUKEMA: Well, yes, and no, I guess. Perhaps his precise interpretation of what the Contract with America meant is a little different from mine, but, in general, we all agreed to that, or at least we agreed to have a full and open debate on all these issues, and I think that has been done. It doesn't mean that we can be successful in every particular. For example, I voted against a couple of them: the line-item veto for one. But we did have a full and open debate. But I think we've got to move away from that right now and focus on what our job is now and maybe use the example of this disaster relief bill and then the NEA, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the way that was handled. I think we've got to be very careful from the leadership on down where we draw the line in the sand. By that I mean for the general public to understand politicians always want to draw lines in the sand and say this is our last offer; we're not going to compromise beyond this. We've got to be careful when we draw that line in the sand. I think the disaster relief bill was totally mishandled. No way that I could agree with drawing that line in the sand, and yet, there are wide disagreements within the conference, but in the end, we could not turn our backs on those poor people that are out there suffering. That's an example of what I mean, but I think that the responsibility is with the leadership to bring us together to have communication. They haven't; they've been playing us against each other, I'm afraid.

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman, what are you looking for now? I mean, is this over, is it over for now? What are you looking for from the leadership?

REP. MATT SALMON: It's never over. We always have responsibility to keep on fighting for the things that we believe. But I do believe that most of us--myself included--are in a mode of let's try to heal; let's take what happened last week; let's try to make the best of it. I use the old adage when life deals you a lemon, try to make lemonade. I think that's where we're at right now. We have to make something positive come of this. What's at stake here is not just some political game of chess. The future of our country is at stake here. We can't afford to let petty differences get in the way.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. But are you open to the kind of pragmatism that Mr. Walker and the congresswoman are talking about in terms of negotiating with the White House and so on?

REP. MATT SALMON: You know something. I hear what you're saying, but frankly, we'll never know if we would have been able to win the fight if we keep taking a dive in the first round. And that's the way I see it. That's the problem with the last six or seven months, is that we have not carried through a fight to its fruition. And, frankly, I look back at one of the greatest leaders in my mind of this century, and that's Ronald Reagan. If when he went to negotiate with Gorbachev on the nuclear disarmament, when Gorbachev said, okay, you do away with SDI and then we'll talk about nuclear disarmament, if President Reagan would have said, okay, well, I guess pragmatism should kick in now and maybe to get something I should give that up, the Berlin Wall would still be up.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Walker, do you think--David Broder, the "Washington Post" columnist, had a column this morning saying, given the narrow governing majority, it's very hard to bridge this gap that we just heard from these two members. What's your assessment of that?

FORMER REP. BOB WALKER: It's hard to bridge the gap because, I mean, people want to get as much as they can, and really within the caucuses you fight for that. I was always one of the people in- -among the conservatives on the Hill who fought for getting as much as we could of the conservative agenda. The question is whether or not you move in the right way all the time, and it seems to me when you're getting tax cuts, when you're getting a balanced budget, when you're getting spending cuts, when you're getting the entitlement reforms, that's moving in the right direction, and you need to keep the majority in order to do that. And the one thing that Republicans seem to agree on is the fact that they need to be doing those things that ultimately allow them to keep the majority and expand the majority so that they can continue down the path. The only real pressure on Bill Clinton and Democrats is the fact that there are Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, that set the agenda and force the country to move in more conservative directions. And hopefully, all Republicans can agree that that's a plus.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you something else, because I know you still talk to the speaker. How does he personally see this? Does he feel betrayed, and how does he feel it's affecting his ability to negotiate with the White House?

FORMER REP. BOB WALKER: Well, I think he's hurt because of some of the personal relationships on it, but he is very much focused on getting deals done that he thinks will define the long-term prospects for the party. If we get the tax cut for the American people, if, in fact, we manage to do all those things, he thinks that that's what they will end up focusing on and that those will be the right things to have done.

MARGARET WARNER: But do you think this weakens him and his negotiating?

FORMER REP. BOB WALKER: No. It's strengthening. In fact, he's strengthened by what took place here because it becomes clear that some of the rest of the leadership wasn't ready for prime time and that the only people that the White House could really deal with are Lott and Gingrich at this point in hopes of getting the deal. So I think for the moment that he's strengthened by all of this and that the White House will see him as the player that they have to deal with.

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman, you have a meeting, you and your fellow sophomores, tonight at 8, and there's also a Republican conference, all Republican House members tomorrow. What are you looking for in both of those meetings?

REP. MATT SALMON: I think we need to have a lot of open dialogue and we need to get beyond the good sounding happy-faced rhetoric; we need to cut down between all the muck and the mud; and we need to talk to one another. We need to stand one another, and we need to realize that at the end of the day we're friends. And we need to realize that at the end of the day we have the same objectives, and we need to fight side by side, instead of at one another's throats.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Congresswoman, briefly, do you see that happening?

REP. MARGE ROUKEMA: I certainly will do everything I can to urge that that happened. I think that we have got to tell the leadership that we've all got--that they have got to by their own example show us how we can pull together and get this agenda accomplished. And I must say that I think the budget and the tax program that we're working on is a powerful agenda, and it's a powerful message back home, and it's something that we should be proud of. I don't see how we caved in on that. I think it's an accomplishment. And it's about time that we report back to the American people in that vein.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Thank you both very much. Mr. Walker, thank you.

FORMER REP. BOB WALKER: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Lake Tahoe's troubles, Natan Sharansky, and some foreign correspondence. FOCUS - SAVING THE LAKE

JIM LEHRER: Spencer Michels reports the Lake Tahoe story from the California-Nevada border.

SPENCER MICHELS: Jim Hildinger, a photographer and resort owner, started coming to Lake Tahoe in 1931. Now, a year-round resident, he keeps his sailboat on the lake, which sits at 6200 feet elevation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains astride the California- Nevada border. What attracted him and millions of others was the beauty of the alpine setting and the amazing clarity of the water. Now, that environment is changing.

JIM HILDINGER, Lake Tahoe Resident: You can see that it's a green color.

SPENCER MICHELS: Hildinger says the color of the water is the most obvious symptom of Tahoe's problems.

JIM HILDINGER: A mere 30 years ago, it was the color of my jeans. It was blue-gray. And you could see a white disk at 110 feet. We can't do that now. We can only see one now at about 74 feet. In another 30 years you won't be able to see it at all.

SPENCER MICHELS: The water color--a result of algae--is just one of a host of environmental problems facing the Tahoe basin. Hildinger says all those changes can be blamed on too much growth.

JIM HILDINGER: One or two people in the Tahoe basin, even a thousand people, wouldn't have any effect on the lake at all. But when you bring in 4 million a year, now you've got a problem. And when you disturb the watershed, you bring dirty water into the lake. And then the lake changes.

SPENCER MICHELS: So what do you do?

JIM HILDINGER: If I were king, I would stop development tomorrow.

SPENCER MICHELS: There is no question that development has caused problems. Pavement and buildings now cover thousands of acres that used to be wetlands and meadows, meadows which filtered the algae- laden rainwater before it ran into the lake. Now there is nothing to stop the algae from blooming in the water. But development is not about to stop either. Gambling casinos rise from the Southern lakeshore on the Nevada side of the state line. They employ more than 8,000 people that bring in $300 million a year in gross revenues. On the California side of the shore are the motels and tourist shops and attendant traffic jams. In 1969, the first attempts to regulate roads were begun. A regional planning agency was set up by Nevada, California, and Congress, since these agencies' boundaries crossed state lines. Developments like this one, which had replaced natural wetlands with upscale homes and artificial channels, no longer were allowed. But the agency, which tried to slow growth, also made enemies, like Mary Gilanfarr.

MARY GILANFARR, Tahoe Preservation Council: The ambitious desire to extend regulations into positively every aspect of human activity has made it extremely difficult for people to remodel their homes or add on to them, to maybe increase their deck or build a garage, if they want to live in the home year round. It even was virtually impossible to pave your driveway for many years.

SPENCER MICHELS: Lawsuits challenging stringent regulation at Tahoe, were common. The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided one case in favor of property owners. According to the director of the League to Save Lake Tahoe, Rochelle Nason, the battle lines between developers, property owners, businesses, and environmentalists seemed set in stone.

ROCHELLE NASON, League to Save Lake Tahoe: It was extremely contentious. There were years of very bitter battles. There were years of very bitter battles. There were times when people didn't dare put a "Keep Tahoe Blue" bumper sticker on their car; it might be vandalized.

SPENCER MICHELS: But then something changed. The deteriorating environment started to cut into tourism, started to hurt the economy, and the factions realized cooperation was better than war.

ROCHELLE NASON: Strict regulation is not going to go away here because it is absolutely necessary for protecting what we have. On the other hand, for environmentalists, we have to realize the community was not going away. We were not going to turn this into a national park. And there was more to be gained by working together, looking for solutions to common problems than to spending all of our resources on warfare.

LEWIS FELDMAN, Lawyer: It's difficult to sustain a conversation because of all the road noise.

SPENCER MICHELS: Attorney Lewis Feldman, who represents developers, says his clients, as well as the casino owners, have had a change of heart.

LEWIS FELDMAN: They thought the lake was invincible. They didn't- -nobody believed or understood that there is a degradation of water quality occurring. And so that wake-up call was a profound wake-up call. And people have come to realize, quite frankly, that we have to protect the lake first, or there is no business.

SPENCER MICHELS: The community has come together in making plans to revitalize and upgrade this aging business section of South Lake Tahoe. Many tacky, unprofitable 50's style buildings near the state line will be torn down and replaced with more attractive resort facilities, lessening the total number of rooms, opening up more views of the mountains and lake, and adding water treatment facilities. Another success is the restoration of this meadow. It had been turned into a polluted lake and then abandoned by a subdivision developer. After seven years of planning and working with local residents, the Tahoe Conservancy, a California state agency, rebuilt this meandering stream. Steve Goldman is project manager.

STEVE GOLDMAN, Tahoe Conservancy: You can restore a natural system reasonably well. It's a lot of work to undo the damage that man has caused through many years of really ignorance of what they were doing to the environment. And--but it is possible to bring it back and make it beautiful.

SPENCER MICHELS: Even the ski resorts, historically antagonistic toward regulation which had stifled their expansion, have come on board.

SPOKESMAN: There will be comment cards--

SPENCER MICHELS: Tahoe activists of widely different ideologies are now working together on a new project, helping plan the Lake Tahoe Environmental Summit. They want to show the President and the Vice President that former enemies can work together for a common goal. But creating a healthy Lake Tahoe is something they say they'll need federal help to achieve. While much of the Tahoe lakeshore is devoted to profit-making ventures, about 4/5 of the land in this spectacular basis is owned by the U.S. Government and administered by the Forest Service. So the locals feel justified in asking for federal help in restoring this injured environment. Tahoe activists say they need about $800 million. One of the top priorities for federal financing is to help clean up the water flowing into the lake. Locally-funded efforts have not been enough, according to Pam Drum of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

PAM DRUM, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency: These are not sexy things. These are erosion control projects, storm water treatment projects. It's rock riffraff that you see along the road cuts. There are detention ponds to collect storm water, slow it down, allow it to infiltrate into the soil.

SPENCER MICHELS: Another priority for federal money is the forest that pervades the Tahoe basin. Several years of drought brought an invasion of bark beetles, which have been killing pines and furs and increasing the likelihood of fire. John Swanson of the Forest Service says getting rid of the dead trees--often with helicopters- -is very expensive.

JOHN SWANSON, U.S. Forest Service: Over the course of time the trees deteriorate to the point that they no longer have any value for lumber, or even for firewood. They're just rotten trees. And they're about to fall over at that time, and it's a pure expense then to remove then. And most lumber companies are not interested, unless we can pay them outright to do the work.

SPENCER MICHELS: Finally, the Tahoe activists would like to get more money for public transportation to get the tourists out of their cars. Public bus service has been initiated. More money would help speed it along. It was those kinds of projects that prompted Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada to persuade the President to visit Tahoe.

SEN. HARRY REID, [D] Nevada: If we're going to save this lake, we can't do it ourselves. And so I went personally to the President, and I said, Mr. President, Lake Tahoe is in deep trouble and we need you to come and take a look at it. We need the power of the federal government to focus on this.

SPENCER MICHELS: And a national focus on Lake Tahoe is just what local businesses and environmentalists alike need, says Stan Hanson of Heavenly Valley Ski Resort.

STAN HANSON, Heavenly Valley Ski Resort: We're starting to see some of the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that developers have either put in, or that both states of California and Nevada have put into planning and working with the resources starting to work. That's why this presidential conference that's coming up is so important to all of us.

SPENCER MICHELS: Why?

STAN HANSON: Why? Because it puts a focus on Lake Tahoe and makes a commitment to the regional plan, which was created by Congress.

SPENCER MICHELS: Hanson threw a party recently at the top of the Heavenly tram for business leaders, government officials, and environmentalists. It was a gathering of people who would hardly talk to each other a few years ago. Now, they want to ask the President with one voice to help them restore what they consider a national treasury.

JIM LEHRER: That conference with President Clinton and Vice President Gore will take place this weekend. CONVERSATION - CLOSING THE CIRCLE

JIM LEHRER: Now to Charles Krause for a conversation with Natan Sharansky, the Russian dissident who has emerged as one of Israel's leading politicians.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Natan Sharansky first came to the world's attention in the 1970's when he joined Andrei Sakarhov as a leading human rights advocate and dissident in Russia. A mathematician by training, Sharansky was then known by his Russian name, Anatoly Sharansky. Initially, he served as an English language interpreter for Sakarhov, but he soon emerged as a leading spokesman for Soviet Jews like himself, who hope to immigrate to Israel. In 1977, Sharansky was arrested by the KGB, accused of spying for the United States. A year later, he was tried and sentenced to 13 years. He was first imprisoned in Moscow, then later in the Siberian gulag at a notorious prison camp known as Perm 35. Although Soviet authorities hoped Sharansky's confinement would remove him as a thorn in their side, his years in the gulag had exactly the opposite effect. He became known around the world as a victim and a symbol of Soviet repression. Finally, in 1986, he was released, stripped of his Soviet citizenship and flown to Berlin, where he was handed over to the American ambassador. Accompanied by his wife, who had campaigned throughout the world on his behalf, Sharansky was flown to Israel. Once there, he received a hero's welcome and changed his name to Natan, which in Hebrew means "the gift." At the age of 38 Sharansky's fight for the individual rights of all Russians and the right of emigration for Soviet Jews had already made him an historic figure. Since Sharansky's release 11 years ago, some 700,000 Jews have arrived in Israel from the old Soviet Union, but they haven't been welcomed with the same warmth as Sharansky. Angry and frustrated, last year they voted overwhelmingly for a new political party that promised to fight for their interests within Israel's democratic system. Not surprisingly, the new so-called Immigrant Party was founded and is led by Natan Sharansky. With seven seats in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, Sharansky has emerged as a key figure in Israel's new conservative government. Indeed, after the election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Sharansky minister of industry and trade. It was in his new post last January that Sharansky returned to Moscow for the first time since he was expelled. By all accounts it turned out to be an emotional and quite extraordinary official visit. Besides red carpet meetings with Russian government officials, he also re-visited Laportovo Prison, where he was held in solitary confinement and tortured by the KGB for over a year before being sent to Siberia. In Moscow, he said he was closing the circle. In New York, recently, we asked Sharansky about life in Israel and his return to Moscow.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Why did you want to go back to the prison cell where you were held for so long?

NATAN SHARANSKY: The prison became for me the symbol of Soviet system. That was the place where there was an encounter between the last remnants of the freedom of Russia, between the last people who kept the survivors of freedom alive, and the leaders of the system which could be stable only if it controls the brains of all 200 million people. That was the place where there was no compromise. All the KGB will finally kill this worrisome freedom, or it will be defeated. And that's why, for me, the symbol of the defeat of the Soviet system is not Berlin Wall. It's not the battlefield between East and West, and it's not international congresses and even not demonstrations of our supporters. That is a punishing cell, or the KGB's prison, where they tried to conquer the brains of the people, and where they failed.

CHARLES KRAUSE: When you went back there, did you feel resentment toward these people? Did it bring back the memories of what they did to you there? Or did it bring back something else?

NATAN SHARANSKY: Of course, it brought back a lot of memories. But I can say I really felt it, and I said it, that I was now fighting with Russia, the country. In fact, I got a lot of good things from Russia, Russian literature, Russian culture, many good things which supported me, as a Jew, as a Zion, helped me in prison too. I never fought with the people of Russia; I fought with the regime, and the regime is defeated; the regime is dead, and just troops in Russia only strengthen this feeling of victory. And that's why even when I was remembering these hard, difficult days in prison, and punishing so, it was optimistic memories.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Do you believe that the changes in Russia are permanent?

NATAN SHARANSKY: Well, nothing is permanent in this world. And you cannot move these people back to Communism. Of course, you can if you kill again twenty, thirty million people, as Stalin did, but in the normal situation cannot really move it back to the Communists. That's why I am optimistic. That's why I believe that there will be no way back to Soviet Union, though the way to become really free, liberal, democratic, modern capital society, it is still a long way to go.

CHARLES KRAUSE: About the condition of Jews in Russia, are Jews free? Are Jews able to practice their religion without any problems? Are they discriminated against?

NATAN SHARANSKY: Big problem of the Soviet Russia, Stalin, Brezhnev, who chose Russia, was the state anti-Semitism. When the leaders on one hand didn't trust the Jews and didn't want them to live as the Jews; at the same time there was a constant policy ofstate anti-Semitism. So the moment that region fell apart, the policy of state anti-Semitism also stopped. There are more Jews there than in--in the government than in most countries of Western Europe, I think. It's only natural that the moment state anti- Semitism was stopped and the restrictions which were on Jews were removed, the Jews became accepted in those areas in which they couldn't succeed before, and today the regime--political regime, economical regime of the country is enjoying also the tolerance of Jewish people, as well as other people, so it's a good side. The bad side, of course, is, as we know from the examples of history, that when some changes, some purges will start, Jews, definitely Jewish bankers will be among the first victims of these purges, and as a result, one of the first targets of the new wave of anti- Semitism. Hopefully will not happen, but there is a big chance of it too.

CHARLES KRAUSE: As you know, when you were in Russia, and since you've left Russia, people have asked you about the irony of your having been a prisoner of conscience, of your having fought for your beliefs, of your having been imprisoned and mistreated, and the accusations that the UN and others have made about Israel and accusations that it too had used inappropriate means to--against Palestinian prisoners. How do you feel about that? How do you feel about your new country and some of the practices that apparently take place?

NATAN SHARANSKY: Well, it is something which is very difficult to accept. It is something which is a very difficult situation when democracy has to call on one hand how to save democracy--on the other hand how to fight with the terrorism. But it's very different situation; we understand what is the atmosphere in which we are acing; just now we are continuing our peace negotiations with our Palestinian neighbors, who just this week passed a law of killing every Arab who's selling land to Jews and killed last week, they killed two Arabs for selling land to Jews, and Arafat personally approved it. An Arab spokesman on our TV explaining why it is natural. Can you imagine that say that in Ala Baba there is law killing every white person who's selling land to blacks or something like that this. But that is unfortunate. That is daily situation that we are dealing with. And I'm very sorry that United Nations and the Security Council are not condemning unanimously these types of actions, but that is the difference between our democratic country, which has a--really has a difficult challenge of how to cope with terror and to stay democratic and free, and non-democratic surrounding.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Is Israel the country that you imagined it would be when you were in the gulag, when you were in prison in Moscow?

NATAN SHARANSKY: It's good trying to compare them, punishment cell. You have these dreams about Israel, and it's like paradise. It's like next world that you're coming, and I think even if you're a religious person, when you really pass away and go to the next world, to--as you probably will find out that it's not exactly the paradise which you saw in your dreams, especially if your dreams were in prison, so I do enjoy every day of my life in Israel, but, of course, it's a country with a lot of problems, people have brought together to live together after 2000 years of living in different countries with very different backgrounds, with huge problems--social relations between religion and state--political- -how to--and what conditions to find peace with our neighbors and the conditional equation of democracy and non-democratic--and with all this, I think it's--Israel is a very optimistic example of the history of people, of building young, vibrant, dynamic democracy, and built with the ancient people after thousands of years of exile.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And finally, when you think about it, you've been on a very fascinating journey--your life from Russia, Siberia, the camps, Israel, and now you're here in the United States representing Israel--what, to you, what's the meaning of all this for you? What do you hope to accomplish? What's left to accomplish?

NATAN SHARANSKY: Well, it's, I would say, the most interesting journey is not when they are moving geographically. The most interesting journey is what's happening with yourself. I was a loyal Soviet citizen and tried to be a successful scientist, but as a loyal Soviet citizen, I was a slave and never thought myself free. And then I went back to my Jewish roots, and as a Jew, felt myself a free person, free to speak for the rights of you, the other Jews, and then the rights of non-Jews--and then even to be free Jew, even in prison, you continue being a free person with a lot of power, a lot of strength, and with the feeling of belonging to the history. And then you move to Israel and then the challenge is how to continue being free person in the free country when you are involved in thousands of different choices and different compromises and debates, and to be yourself--and to protect your freedom, and at the same time to continue influencing this process. And now in the government you have a new challenge really to be on the level of that responsibility which you got from the people, and at the same time to remain a free person who acts in accordance with the operating principle. That, by itself, is an interesting journey and it is an interesting challenge. And I hope that I'll be able to continue it in the way as I did it until now.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Natan Sharansky, thank you very much for joining us.

NATAN SHARANSKY: Thank you. SERIES - FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a foreign correspondence, our new series of conversations with correspondents from American news organizations about the places and stories they're covering. Elizabeth Farnsworth has tonight's.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And with me is David Hoffman of the Washington Post, who has served as the paper's Moscow correspondent since 1995. Thanks for being with us, David. Is Boris Yeltsin as much in control and as vigorous as he seems?

DAVID HOFFMAN, Washington Post: Very much so. He's got a big head start on the second term. He's put young reformers in charge--two guys, especially, Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov, very active young reformers, very ambitious. We don't know what the result will be, but we "do" know that Yeltsin has already crossed the big hurdle in securing democracy. They had an election last year. 65 million people voted twice within two weeks. I think that's a big statement. Nobody in the system now wants to go outside the democratic process. The bad news is there are a lot of holes left, a lot of things left unfinished.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Like?

DAVID HOFFMAN: Well, there's no rule of law. There's no respect for the law. A lot of laws don't exist yet. Also, there's no civil society, the thing that keeps people in touch with their rulers. There's nobody answering the phone at city hall when citizens call. And that's part of democracy too, not just electing somebody but actually making it work.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, something happened today. Boris Yeltsin rejected a law that was passed by the duma having to do with religious freedom. Tell us about that.

DAVID HOFFMAN: Well, it was an excellent sign that Yeltsin is in control, and I think on the right track, because here was a law that would have restricted freedom of religion. It would have created two classes of religion, one essentially free and one restricted. And Yeltsin says this does not comport with our Constitution; I veto it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You know, I--in reading your articles from Russia, the theme of change is just omnipresent, change in every field, political change, economic change, and a sense of people's lives as being very dislocated by these changes. Is this evident everywhere you look, or do you have to go out and really make an effort to find the evidence of this kind of change and dislocation?

DAVID HOFFMAN: Well, it's amazing because the Russians are extraordinarily patient and I think industrious and adaptable in all this turmoil that surrounds them. Here's a country where nuclear physicists, men who are at the cream of their scientific achievement and their careers, are making $50, getting rations every month, standing in line for bread, mathematicians who've become locksmiths. So there's an overriding sense of humiliation. And people are bearing it, and many of them are trying to adapt. There are also enormous changes around them. You find grandmothers selling raw chicken on the street corner and whizzing by them fancy Mercedes.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How--tell me other ways that people are adapting. If people are making this small amount of money, if they're making such a low salary, how do they survive?

DAVID HOFFMAN: Well, it's very interesting. One way they survive is to have little garden plots. And this summer, as we speak now, people were out furiously trying to keep their gardens growing before the first frost, which comes earlier in Russia, because these little garden plots, maybe 3 percent of the total land mass of this huge country, produce a quarter of their food. And they sock it away in their cellars. People are finding ways to adapt. I don't think it's easy. I don't think it's happy. I think they feel humiliated, but it's extraordinary how hard they work at it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why are salaries so low?

DAVID HOFFMAN: Well, this huge inflation after the Soviet Union collapsed, and when that inflation came down, it cost--it created a lot of debt. People are paid their salaries months late, and they've never received any serious money for their work. One reason is that the government is going through a process of wringing out that inflation and trying to meet these IFM standards for becoming a normal market economy. It's very painful. It's really not the fault of the people now, but it's the fault of this history that they brought with them, this centrally-planned economy. Turning it into a free market is not easy or quick.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We hear in this country so much, and, in fact, you've written about it, the new capitalist class, people who--some reporters have referred to them as robber barons. What do you see? I mean, when you're say in the streets or out in Moscow, what do you see of this new capitalist class?

DAVID HOFFMAN: Well, they ride around in caravans, you know, armored Mercedes and several Cherokee jeeps following them, lights blaring and guns bristling, because they all have their own little private armies to protect them. They're also extraordinarily rich, and they flaunt it. And there's a huge amount of what you'd consider sort of 1920's Chicago kinds of--ways of dressing and ways of behaving. But I have to say they also are the new power--one of the new power centers of Russia. Seven or eight of these big bankers, we call them oligarchs. Maybe that's too nice a word-- robber barons. They're buying up newspapers, airlines, oil companies. They are beginning to create a structure for Russia. It's not a liberal free market economy like we think of. It's actually much more of a European or even South Korean economy, with several huge conglomerates, monopolies.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: With criminality involved or not? I mean, we hear a lot about banditry, but is that something totally separate?

DAVID HOFFMAN: No. Criminality has infiltrated all aspects of Russian business and commercial life, unfortunately. There are people that would like to get rid of it. I think ultimately it's going to take these oligarchs. It's going to take the power structure, itself, to come to some conclusion that this is--these lack of a rule of law makes it impossible to track foreign investment, makes it difficult to do business, but right now it's everybody for themselves. It's a "winner take all" economy and the rules don't exist, except the rule of the gun and the rule of the use of force.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What about outside of Moscow? Is it different outside? I know you've traveled a lot.

DAVID HOFFMAN: Well, Moscow is a state unto itself. It's a booming capital, where casinos stay open all night, and it doesn't resemble Moscow of the end of the Soviet era at all, but the rest of the country is actually desperate. People are in despair. You find whole towns where this boom town mentality has not spread. It's a great puzzle to a lot of people. Why hasn't this spread? Why don't the Russians have, for example, okies who pull up roots in the provinces and come streaming toward the prosperity of Moscow? It's not happening, and it's a big puzzle. There are signs in some other cities--Nisninograd--St. Petersburg--of prosperity taking hold, but frankly there's just too much to spare in the provinces.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Overall--I mean, I know it's hard to make a generalization, but I'm going to ask you for one anyway--do you get the sense that people are optimistic or pessimistic about what's happening to them?

DAVID HOFFMAN: People are cynical and pessimistic. And I think actually a very small number of them are beginning to adapt and to change and change that attitude. There's a middle class in Moscow. Those people are optimistic. There's a very small number of people who've made it to an upper class. They're optimistic. There's a large number of people to whom the words "democracy" and "free markets" mean chaos and confusion and disorientation and humiliation. And it's very, very important, I think, that we understand that they don't view these words and these values in the same way we do. They haven't seen the results. It's only five years, and that's not enough time. It's a warped, sort of imperfect period for them.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And how important is it that Americans know about this? The Cold War is over; we're not threatened in the way we were by Russia at all. Do you still think this is a really important story for Americans to be following?

DAVID HOFFMAN: It's very important and for different reasons than in the past. You're right. This is a weak state, and in its weakness is the threat. The threat isn't any longer. In a Cold War we'll have an exchange of intercontinental ballistic missiles, but Russia today is so weak it's sort of like a blender without a top. Things are spinning around so badly inside something is going to pop out. And I think a lot of people worry nuclear proliferation, chemical weapons proliferation, weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons, even pollution, which is getting worse and worse, I think Americans should care about that, because one day one of these hazards, if not kept inside the blender, is going to pop up, and it's going to be dangerous.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, David Hoffman, thanks so much for being with us.

DAVID HOFFMAN: Sure. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said there was no immediate need to increase interest rates. President Clinton repeated his support for increasing Medicare premiums for upper income recipients, and Canadian salmon fishermen ended their blockade of a U.S. ferry in British Columbia. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.