The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this Tuesday; then, a look at the safe return of the shuttle Discovery and its possible meanings; a Newsmaker interview with Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the North Korea negotiator; plus reports on an Ohio town's tribute to its fallen Marines and on the life of pioneering magazine publisher John Johnson, who died yesterday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The shuttle Discovery and its seven crew members returned safely to Earth today. The weather was bad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, so Discovery made a predawn landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. That ended the first shuttle mission since the Columbia disaster in 2003. At Cape Canaveral, shuttle manager Bill Parsons called it a "great day."

BILL PARSONS: We always knew this was a test flight that was going to give us a lot of information. And so we've come back with a lot learned. I think I'll agree with the administrator, this was a wildly successful mission in so many ways. We have some things that we learned and that we've got to go work on. But I think now it's clear what it is we have to go work on and we'll go do that.

JIM LEHRER: There's no firm date for when the next shuttle will fly. First, NASA wants to fix the problem of foam insulation falling away during launch. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. There was word today Iran's new president wants to continue nuclear talks with the European Union. Iranian news reports said he told U.N. Secretary-General Annan he has "new initiatives." In Crawford, Texas, President Bush said he's "deeply suspicious" of Iran's intentions, but he held off calling for U.N. sanctions.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Our strategy has been all along to work with Germany, France and Great Britain in terms of sending a strong signal and message to Iran. And today it looked like that the new Iranian leader has heard that message. We'll have to watch very carefully, however, because as I repeat, they have in the past said they would adhere to international norm, and then were caught enriching uranium.

JIM LEHRER: Over the weekend, Iran rejected a European offer to curtail its program, and yesterday, it restarted work at a uranium plant. Today, U.N. nuclear inspectors met in Vienna, Austria, to consider their next step. North Korea insisted today the United States holds the key to progress in nuclear talks. The chief North Korean negotiator said the U.S. must accept his country having a "peaceful" nuclear program. But on a positive note, he also said despite difficulties the talks have established the "groundwork" for future meetings. The six-nation talks in China ended in a stalemate over the weekend. They're to resume in three weeks. We'll talk to the chief U.S. negotiator, Christopher Hill, later in the program. A suicide car bomber hit a U.S. Military convoy in Baghdad today. The attack killed a U.S. soldier and six Iraqis, and wounded more than 90 others. And gunmen killed at least ten Iraqi police officers across the city. In Washington, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld insisted again U.S. Troops will stay until the Iraqis can take over.

DONALD RUMSFELD: The level of the insurgency is going to be a function as to what, of a variety of things which will affect conditions, and the draw downs that will occur eventually will obviously be based on those conditions, some of those variables that I've mentioned repeatedly, what are the Iranians doing, are they going to be helpful or unhelpful, and if they increasingly are unhelpful, then obviously the conditions on the ground are less advantageous.

JIM LEHRER: Rumsfeld said it's clear weapons are coming into Iraq from Iran, but he gave no details. Also today, the U.S. Military announced a U.S. Marine was killed yesterday near Ramadi. And farther West, U.S. forces pressed an anti-insurgent campaign around Haditha; 20 U.S. Marines were killed in that city last week. A memorial service for some of those Marines was held last night in Brook Park, Ohio. We'll have a full report on that service later in the program. U.S. forces in Afghanistan reported an American was killed there today. The fighting in Zabul Province began after a U.S.-Afghan patrol came under fire. At least 16 suspected Taliban rebels were also killed. A U.S. Appeals Court in Atlanta ordered new trials today for five Cubans. In 2001, they were found guilty of relaying secrets about U.S. Military bases to Cuba. One was also convicted of murder conspiracy after Cuban planes shot down four exiles in 1996. The appeals court ruled prejudice against Fidel Castro's government had prevented a fair trial in Miami. The Federal Reserve raised a key short-term interest rate another quarter-point today. The Federal Funds rate will now be 3.5 percent on overnight loans between banks. It's the tenth increase in the last year. In a statement, the Fed said it expects to continue raising rates at a "measured" pace to control inflation. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 78 points to close above 10,615. The NASDAQ rose more than nine points to close at 2,174. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: The safe return of the shuttle; negotiating with North Korea; the Ohio Marines; and remembering John Johnson.

UPDATE - SAFE RETURN

JIM LEHRER: Jeffrey Brown has our shuttle coverage.

MUSIC: Good day sunshine...

JEFFREY BROWN: Mission control used a Beatles' song as a wakeup call for Discovery's astronauts on their last day in space.

SPOKESPERSON: It's a nice day for sunshine, and it's a day for feet on the ground.

SPOKESPERSON: We sure hope that we get our feet on the ground today.

JEFFREY BROWN: But there was no sunshine over Discovery's home base of Cape Canaveral, Florida, this morning, and NASA officials decided to detour the shuttle to Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. It was the first shuttle reentry since the Columbia tragedy two and a half years ago, with all the tension that has hung over the entire mission. But Discovery returned to Earth smoothly and without incident, gliding through the early morning darkness onto the runway in the middle of the Mojave Desert, ending its 14-day, 5.8 million mile journey.

SPOKESMAN: Congratulations on a truly spectacular test flight.

SPOKESPERSON: We're happy to be back, and we congratulate the whole team for a job well done.

JEFFREY BROWN: Commander Eileen Collins led the crew on a post- flight inspection of the craft. There had been problems: Foam debris struck the shuttle on lift-off; so-called "gap fillers" between the protective thermal tiles were damaged, forcing an unplanned spacewalk to the underbelly of the shuttle-- the first time that had been done; and a ripped thermal blanket hanging just below the commander's window also caused concern. Today, though, the crew and NASA officials pronounced the flight a success. During the mission, the crew delivered crucial supplies to the international space station and did some repairs, including replacing a broken gyroscope used for steering. NASA officials had carefully referred to Discovery's trip as a "test flight" aimed at getting the shuttles back on track. During the mission, NASA announced future flights would be halted until the problem of falling debris was fixed. Today, NASA administrator Michael Griffin had this to say:

MICHAEL GRIFFIN: We need to reset the paradigm here on shuttle flights. Shuttle flights cannot be conducted according to a schedule. We would like if it were so, but it's not so. Okay? What we have for the shuttle system fly out from the president is a retirement date. We are working to that retirement date in an orderly, disciplined fashion. We're going to use the remaining shuttle flights to complete the building of the space station, but we will fly each shuttle mission when it is ready to go.

JEFFREY BROWN: At an afternoon news conference, Commander Collins said she thought NASA should keep on flying.

EILEEN COLLINS: We like challenges. We accept and want to go out there and do this mission. And some people say we should stop flying the shuttle because we had an accident. Frankly we've had two accidents. But we are people that believe in this mission and we're going to continue it.

JEFFREY BROWN: President Bush has called for the space shuttles to be retired by 2010.

JEFFREY BROWN: We get our own assessment of the Discovery mission and the future of the shuttle from: John Logsdon, a member of the panel that investigated the Columbia accident; he's director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University; and Robert Park, a physics professor at the University of Maryland; he's a director at the Washington office of the American Physical Society, a professional society of physicists. And welcome to both of you.

Starting with you, Mr. Logsdon, NASA labeled this a test flight. It was a return to space after the Columbia tragedy. Was it a success?

JOHN LOGSDON: Oh, I think with one important qualification it was an outstanding success. All of the mission objectives were achieved. All of the new systems that were put in after the Columbia accident, 107 cameras looking at all aspects of the mission, all worked well with much more information than we've ever had before. But the piece of foam that came off the external tank should not have come off, and that has to be addressed and NASA is addressing it.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mr. Park what do you think?

ROBERT PARK: Well, I think it was not a success quite. Part of the purpose of this mission, whatever anyone says, was to reassure the public and Congress that we're flying again. And it didn't quite do that. I think part of the problem, NASA is to blame. They sort of hyped this mission, and even the problems that they were having, their underwear was sticking out and they had to go tuck it in. They made this out as a big adventure, and it simply focused attention on the fact that there are still problems.

JEFFREY BROWN: You mean they over dramatized?

ROBERT PARK: They over dramatized it. How many times did we hear the thing described as historic, and unprecedented, and this simply, I think, added to the concern of the public that, look, this thing is having a lot of trouble, and I don't think it reassured anybody.

JEFFREY BROWN: What do you think about that?

JOHN LOGSDON: Well, I think the media overreacted to the foam problem on liftoff. And that generated the debate on whether the shuttle should keep flying or not. I think this happens to be the safest shuttle that has ever flown. So if we weren't going to fly the shuttles, we should have made that decision a long time ago. This mission was a cleaner mission, the foam that did come off clearly did not hit the shuttle orbiter. So it seems to me that the kind of hysteria about the problems with this mission were very much overblown.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, you were on board that investigated what happened to Columbia. The fact that the very same or very similar thing happened, the foam falling off, does that suggest to you that perhaps they rushed too quickly back into space?

JOHN LOGSDON: No, I don't think they rushed too quickly, but they made a bad engineering judgment, and the new NASA that is open about its problems has admitted that. They looked at this particular piece of the external tank, said it had caused no problems in the past, and said we don't have to redesign, you know, it isn't broken so let's not fix it. That turns out to have been a bad judgment.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you see it as an engineering problem or something bigger?

ROBERT PARK: Well, I don't know if it's bigger or not. The real question is: how badly do we need the shuttle. And I think we need it for a little while longer. The scientists all hope, and I think a lot of the public hopes that they're going to fix Hubble. We're going to need the shuttle for that. And then the shuttle is the only way we have of supplying the space station. The space station is doing nothing, and will do nothing, there's nothing going to come out of the space station of any significance, as none of the research that has been done on the shuttle was of any significance. So ultimately, we've got to find a way to drop the space station into the ocean, harmlessly. And that's not an easy thing to do, and that's going to take a few trips of the shuttle as well.

JEFFREY BROWN: This is the larger question, right?

JOHN LOGSDON: Right. I mean, there are risks in flying every mission. And there are benefits from finishing the version of the space station. I have some problem with scientists -- Bob Park being one of them -- that prejudge the results of the research before the research is performed. What we're building is a research laboratory and it's not finished. 60 percent of it is on the ground, including elements from Europe and Japan. We could ground the shuttle, de-orbit the station, and get onto the next program, but I think that defaults on lots of commitments to lots of people.

JEFFREY BROWN: Let me ask you one more question about this mission before we get onto some of the larger areas. One of the factors last time with Columbia was that it was called management problems. One of the factors was communications: Who's talking to whom. This time we seem to see a lot of public talk about the problems about possible solutions. Do you think it worked better this time?

JOHN LOGSDON: I think it's night and day in terms of the way the mission was managed. To me the biggest success of the mission is the evidence that there is a team in charge of the shuttle program now that takes all this new information, listens to everybody, has open communication, makes judicious prudent decisions on how to proceed.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you see a management change that can have an effect on whatever happens in the future with the shuttle?

ROBERT PARK: Oh, certainly I think the management change is good. We're all hopeful that things will work better now. But ultimately, we've got to find another vehicle, if we're going to keep putting people in space. The real question is: Do we need to keep putting people in space?

JEFFREY BROWN: What's the answer to that?

ROBERT PARK: This is a very old fashioned way to do things, I mean, I can't believe how old fashioned it is. This is NASA, and we're doing things the way things were done at the dawn of the space program when we were competing with Russia or the Soviet Union to put people in space. But now, you know, what do we need people for? The first thing we have to decide is: Why do we want people up there? Until somebody can give us a good clean answer for that, if we're just going up there for adventure, I mean, we ought to go bungee jumping. This is an expensive way to do it.

JEFFREY BROWN: And in your mind, what happened with this shuttle mission changed nothing about that question?

ROBERT PARK: Changed absolutely nothing about that. We're all relieved to see that the mission came off safely. And we're going to need the shuttle for a few more missions but hopefully not too long.

JEFFREY BROWN: Does Discovery change the equation for you?

JOHN LOGSDON: Not really, except it's a step toward the eventual retirement of the shuttle, as Mike Griffin said in your lead-in piece, there's a firm date, 2010, beyond which the shuttle will not fly. And if Bob thinks that it's old fashioned to fly the shuttle, wait until he sees what NASA will propose as its replacement, which will look like Apollo.

JEFFREY BROWN: Tell us, what is under discussion?

JOHN LOGSDON: NASA has given the term "crew exploration vehicle" to the next crew carrying vehicle.

JEFFREY BROWN: We have a picture of it here.

JOHN LOGSDON: And it follows the recommendations of the Columbia board to separate the carrying of people and the carrying of cargo. This will carry three, four, six astronauts, first to the space station, eventually to the Moon. And that's the justification, and I'm sure that Dr. Park and I can argue whether sending humans back to the Moon in preparation for eventually sending them to Mars is a worthy objective or not. I think it is. But this is a system that NASA will try to develop and have flying by 2011, or soon after the shuttle is retired.

JEFFREY BROWN: Does this respond to some of your larger questions?

ROBERT PARK: No, I mean, that's part of the concern. They're going to send a whole flock; this is a bus that they're trying to build. And what are those people going to do? They haven't figured out the mission yet. And here they're building this huge bus to carry them up there. As a matter of fact, as we're doing it right now, we have two geologists on Mars and they're doing a fantastic job. They don't break for lunch, they don't complain about the cold nights, and they live on sunshine. That's pretty hard to beat.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mr. Logsdon, just briefly, the next question of course is when or if another shuttle goes up, that would be Atlantis.

JOHN LOGSDON: It will be Atlantis, it won't happen until NASA figures out what caused this foam shedding, whether it was specific to this particular external tank, or is a general design problem and what it will take to fix it. And none of those answers are apparent yet.

JEFFREY BROWN: Okay, John Logsdon and Robert Park, thank you both very much.

JOHN LOGSDON: Thank you.

ROBERT PARK: Thank you.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Now, the man who's talking to North Korea, and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Just back from two weeks of negotiations in Beijing over ending North Korea's nuclear program is assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill. He was U.S. Point man in the six-nation talks, and also held numerous private sessions with his North Korean counterpart. It's the first time the Bush administration has engaged in such intense bilateral talks with Pyongyang. But the negotiations were suspended for three weeks on Saturday with no agreement. Ambassador Hill joins us now.

And welcome, Mr. Ambassador. I should explain I call you Ambassador Hill because you've been ambassador to several countries as well.

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Whichever.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, your North Korean counterpart, as Jim reported earlier, actually had some -- despite the deadlock had some positive things to say about these talks today. And one of the things he said was that they had established a groundwork for future discussions. Is that your view?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, we went through a lot of issues. As you know, they stayed out of the talks for some 13 months. So we had 13 days to go over a number of issues. And I'd say we covered some of the main issues. What they need to do in terms of getting rid of their weapons, their nuclear programs, and what we can do as to the form of compensation, including energy and economic assistance.

MARGARET WARNER: So what did - I mean, the South Korean foreign minister said today he thought the U.S. and North Korea had narrowed their differences. Do you agree with that?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, you know, it's hard to say because nothing is agreed unless everything is agreed. So indeed, there were moments when it looked like we really had, and there were some other moments where it looked like we hadn't. So we'll know when we get an agreement, then we can look back and see how well we did.

MARGARET WARNER: What did North Korea bring to the table or offer that they hadn't before?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, it's pretty clear that they are prepared to do away with these weapon systems and it's pretty clear they're willing to do away with the systems related to the weapons systems. So that was encouraging. But, you know, to be sure we still have some differences with them.

MARGARET WARNER: Did the U.S., the report suggested the U.S. also indicated some flexibility on this so-called sequencing issue, who does what, when, when did the U.S. reciprocate if North Korea does some of the things they're saying. Was the U.S. able to go part way to meet North Korea's concerns on that?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, to be sure, we're looking at how we can sort of speed up the time lines, how we can get them to denuclearize as soon as possible. So we had some discussion, but I must say we don't have any final agreement on sequencing. That will probably come at the next stage. This stage was simply to look at principles, and then the next stage would be to see how you put those principles together in an agreement.

MARGARET WARNER: But you were convinced that the North Koreans are really ready to give all this up?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, again, I'll know better when we have an agreement, certainly, this is a thirteen-day negotiation, the first five days a lot of discussion, the next five days looking at texts, in those five days when we're looking at text there were some encouraging signs. The last couple of days it turned the other way. And so we'll have to see. What is encouraging is that they've agreed to come back on the week of Aug. 29.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. So now let's talk about the deadlock. The talks stalemated over what?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, essentially toward the end it was very clear that North Korea wants to maintain a civilian nuclear energy program. And in addition to that, they also want to have some light water reactors built for them. These are reactors that are a little more difficult to make bombs out of, but by no means impossible to make bombs out of. And, in fact, these were reactors that were talked about in the 1990s and another agreement at the time.

MARGARET WARNER: And the U.S. Is unwilling to accept this, why?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, I don't want you to bi-lateralize this, because none of the other participants at the talks were willing to give the North Koreans light water reactors. The South Koreans who had been willing to do that now are talking about providing conventional power. And no one else is really talking about providing light water reactors, so this was North Korea against the others.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, I accept that the others agree with the U.S. on this. But again explain why, explain particularly, and the president was asked this today, why is the U.S., which also faces something of an impasse with Iran, willing to accept that Iran could have peaceful civilian nuclear power but not North Korea?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, I think have you to remember how we got here. I mean, the North Koreans had a research reactor in a place in a place called Yongjian; it was a graphite-moderated reactor, and what happened was one day they withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, they withdrew from the safeguards that accompanied that, they kicked out the inspectors and within two months, just two months they had turned this so-called research reactor into a bomb making machine -- so obviously -- and proud of it, by the way. So obviously we do have some concerns about letting them go back to research reactors or other things.

MARGARET WARNER: So are you essentially saying because the world cannot trust the North Korea to keep its word if it had any nuclear capability at all?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, that's a pretty direct statement, and in my line of work, let me just point out we have some remaining differences on this issue, to be sure.

MARGARET WARNER: But now if the two alternatives, and you probably won't accept that these are the two alternatives, but let me posit them anyway.

CHRISTOPHER HILL: There are at least two, I'm sure.

MARGARET WARNER: If one alternative is that North Korea gives up all its weapons, all its weapons grade programs, everything, and wants a civilian reactor with very intrusive inspections, or it continues to, it says build bombs and do everything else outside the NPT, are you saying there's no give in the U.S. position on the civilian reactor side?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, one issues is when we talk about getting rid of only military programs or weapons programs, then you'll get into the question of whether, you know, some program and some place is weapons related or not, and you'll start getting into an argument of whether it's related or not. So we'd like a clean slate. And I must say the other partners in this process agree to that. And, in fact, the draft, the Chinese draft on the subject of, which was a draft to try to create the whole agreement, made very clear that North Korea needs to get out of the nuclear business, then get back into the NPT.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now, you've broken for three weeks; they've said they'll come back; the U.S. is obviously coming back, and the other parties. What difference do you think three weeks will make, if what you're trying to do is get North Korea to move?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, I must say two weeks was a long enough period for me in Beijing, so three weeks would be a lot longer, but, you know, it's an opportunity for the North Korean negotiators to go back to Pyongyang to discuss this with actually their leader, with Mr. Kim Jong-Il, but also the rest of their government. They need to look at what's on the table, and in fact what's on the table is a pretty good set of things for North Korea. This is a country that really needs some help, really needs some help in terms of its economy. And I can assure you making weapons is not part of that.

MARGARET WARNER: But, I mean, are you counting on the Chinese to help bring them around? What else --

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, I think we all agree, in fact I had a lot of good conversations with the Chinese, we all agreed that this is time for North Korea to settle and get out of this business. So certainly we hope the Chinese can do something. The Chinese have a very strong relationship with North Korea, a very strong economic relationship, political relationship. In fact, there are a lot personal relationships that go between China and North Korea. So we do look to China. But I think we all have a responsibility to do everything we can do to get an agreement.

MARGARET WARNER: Late today you were quoted on the wires as having told reporters that you were willing to meet with the North Koreans again privately before the talks. Have the North Koreans indicated an interest in that; is that in the works?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, actually, we haven't had any discussions on that. I just got back from Beijing and I'm still bleary-eyed today. But the first thing I want to do is work with our allies, Japan and South Korea, to make sure we have a really common position. We need to discuss where to go next, and as for meeting with the North Koreans, we don't have any plans to do that right now.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, tell us now about the meetings, and both the big ones and the bilateral ones. What was it like negotiating with them?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, first of all, I heard they would be very bombastic, that there would be tempers; I didn't see any of that. It was pretty business-like, pretty calm and business-like, and a lot of the times we spend just reviewing each other's position. You know, we haven't met in a while; it's been 13 months since there were any six-party discussions, so it was a real opportunity to go over where our differences are.

MARGARET WARNER: What was different about the private talks versus the big group talks? I mean, where did you meet; was the atmosphere more informal?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, with the North Koreans we tended to meet with their entire delegation; usually they didn't like to break into a smaller group than that. With the other delegations we would often have one-on-ones, whereas with the North it was pretty large. They tended to be rather formal, with interpreters and the works, so it wasn't a lot of sort of side bar give and take there.

MARGARET WARNER: So what do you think you learned in the private talks that you otherwise wouldn't have known or understood?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, certainly in dealing with them directly as we did, I found it very useful to deal directly. Rather than deal with their lawyer, you're dealing with them directly and you kind of understand their insights. And you get a little better sense of what's really important to them. Now, I have to be careful of that because we could come back in three weeks and I could find that, you know, they absolutely positively have to have some element that I didn't anticipate this time around. But I feel I had a little sense of what's important to them. And from that I draw a little optimism because I think we can work something out if I'm right about that.

MARGARET WARNER: So where are you on the scale of very optimistic to very pessimistic?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Oh, I don't want to say that in a game that I'm playing in right now, I don't want to make a bet on that. But we have to see. We have to see. I mean, it was encouraging that they agreed to this date, that is Aug. 29. We had all six parties sit down and we all discussed that. They agreed to come back; that's encouraging. But as to whether they're, you know, whether they're really dragging themselves over the line and agreeing to do all that, we have to see.

MARGARET WARNER: And how long is the United States interested in, willing to continue these talks, versus when the U.S. would say this is going nowhere; we're going to try to take this to Security Council?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, I mean, President Bush has made very clear on many occasions that we consider the six-party talks the best way to solve this. I mean, this is not a bilateral issue with the U.S.. Every country there needs to be involved. So we think it's the best, and as long as we're making progress, I would say we made some progress in Beijing, we'll stick with it.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're not saying that the next round, the Aug. 29 round is make or break?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: I don't like to use terms like that.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Ambassador Hill, thank you very much.

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Remembering the Ohio Marines and a publisher named Johnson.

FOCUS - MOURNING IN OHIO

JIM LEHRER: Now, an Ohio town honors its Marines killed in Iraq, more than a dozen last week alone. Betty Ann Bowser has our report. (Bagpipes playing)

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Several thousand people came to an arena in Brook Park, Ohio, last night to remember the Marines from the Third Battalion, 25th Regiment, who've died since the war began.

GOV. BOB TAFT, Ohio: Ohioans one and all mourn our heroes fallen in a cause greater than themselves.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Most of the fallen had ties to Brook Park, where their third battalion is headquartered. Many of them came from small towns and cities all over Ohio. (Applause) In a matter of days last week, large numbers of Marine reservists were killed in separate incidents in Iraq. And with that news, the war got personal for the residents of this suburban community.

SPOKESMAN: Congressman Kucinich.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich represents the Brook Park area.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: War can be so impersonal, yet when we put a name, a face, a place and match it to families, when we look through the catalogue of memories, those memories become sacred treasures, and then war is not impersonal.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Brook Park is a city of 21,000 people near Cleveland. It's a blue collar town, where people have worked at the Ford plant for generations. Many served in the Marine Reserves and the Ohio Army National Guard, which is also based here. When residents learned last week that one roadside bomb killed a large number of Marines, they started flying flags at half staff in their front yards, in their windows and up and down the streets.

MAYOR MARK ELLIOT: I'm concerned because there's only so many seats, and I'm concerned for the vets and families.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Brook Park Mayor Mark Elliot says his city has been devastated by the loss of life. He's also been overwhelmed with expressions of sympathy, with e- mails and phone calls coming from all over the world.

MAYOR MARK ELLIOT: This experience has been like none other that I've ever experienced. Each day, I will get... have that interaction with our residents who... who want to help somehow. They... they want to reach out. They want to touch somebody. They want to be... they want to be a part of it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Paul Schroeder and Rosemary Palmer have found comfort in the outpouring of sympathy. Their 23-year-old son, Lance Corporal Edward "Auggy" Schroeder, died last week along with a number of other Marines when their amphibious vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Haditha.

ROSEMARY PALMER: He could be one of your sons. He could be the kid next door. He was not the kid who's the top of his class. He's not the kid who was going to go to Harvard or the like. He's just a regular kid.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Auggy Schroeder loved being part of a group. In college, he was a fraternity boy. He was a football player, and he loved being a Marine. But the reality of being called to active duty in Iraq was something else.

PAUL SCHROEDER: When he first got there, he talked about the discomfort he had in going into someone... some Iraqi's home, where they were treating them very friendly, and the Iraqis were offering them bread and sandwiches and... and very good food. Meanwhile, they had to... to go through their effects and their belongings, looking for weapons or whoever. That was...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: He didn't like that?

PAUL SCHROEDER: Well, he was uncomfortable about it, but he knew it was his job.

ROSEMARY PALMER: Because they're being so hospitable and so nice. Then he's saying, --

PAUL SCHROEDER: And they weren't.

ROSEMARY PALMER: "Okay, now if you'll excuse me, I have to go rip through all your stuff."

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Schroeder's' parents said they began to worry when their son e-mailed them that his unit was doing the same operations over and over again in an area of Iraq known to be crawling with insurgents.

PAUL SCHROEDER: They were in Haditha three times clearing it out. Well, it didn't work. Either we... we send in enough troops and material to do the job that we think needed to be done, or we stop doing it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The Schroeders said they felt U.S. policy in Iraq wasn't working for a long time but didn't say anything because they didn't want to appear unpatriotic. Now, all that's changed.

PAUL SCHROEDER: My family has been violated, and I am angry. We have to discuss the fact that 27 months of trying the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity. These people have never had democracy. So the vacuum is there, and I don't think our leaders gave that any thought.

ROSEMARY PALMER: But, on the other hand, we don't think he died in vain, because if you just said that because he died in the war that we didn't agree with, he died in vain, he didn't. He died doing what he felt was necessary, and what more can a man do than do... die doing what he feels is right?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Auggy Schroeder is one of the Ohio Marines remembered at what has now come to known as "The Fence." After 9/11, it was a way to keep people out of the Third Battalion headquarters, but now it serves to bring people in so they can mourn. Brook Park resident Diane McCluskey didn't know any of the Marines who died, but she brought her dad and three children to pay tribute.

DIANE McCLUSKEY: For me, honestly, you know, it touches me, all the people who are over there fighting and putting their lives on the line, how frightened they must be, how frightened their families are every day that they're gone. My own brother being in the last war, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law being ready to ship out, you know, for months, and they're down in South Carolina. And to know it could be them and to know how I would have felt, I understand how their families are feeling right now. And so my heart goes out to them.

RICHARD LABUDA: I was pulling in the driveway. I started tearing up. It's a bunch of young people that did this for us. And I feel sorry for their parents, and what are their brothers and sisters, wives, what are they going through? It's sad, very sad.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Every day, hundreds of people come to The Fence. Many bring their children and try to explain what it's all about. They've left mementos, pictures of the Marines, a note to the Marine families. This stuffed eagle was left by a little girl who used her entire week's allowance to buy it. Dan Maust is an Ohio native from a nearby town who supports the war in Iraq, but says until last week he didn't think much about it.

DAN MAUST: Seeing their names and there's a lot of connections. There's a guy from Ohio State where I graduated from, and there's a guy who played football at Normandy-- and that's right around the corner, you know, in Parma. And just the connections that, you know, you personally feel when you see different things like that.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Bill and Dee Hartmann are from Cincinnati. They support the troops, but have recently changed their minds about the war.

BILL HARTMANN: We toppled Saddam. We toppled his government. Now it's just going to be a civil war over there, and I don't think we need to be involved in it.

DEE HARTMANN: Now we're losing too many at a time. I feel sorry for them over there now. You know, I think they... like he said, I think they've done what they went over there to do, and to have to keep going back, it's starting... it's not our place, you know. I mean, I think we need to get out and let them build themselves again.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Mike and Alice Walsh released white pigeons to honor the Marines.

MIKE WALSH: I don't agree with the war 100 percent, but we have to finish the job we went in to do. We're not finished yet; you have to go on and finish the task. You know, it's like starting to paint a garage. You don't paint half of it. You paint the whole thing. So, we have to do our job, I guess.

ALICE WALSH: We all feel bad... (sobbing) ...but you have to look at... these men and women are over there, and they believed in their country. If they didn't believe in their country, they wouldn't be here. There's no draft.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Over the weekend, the bodies of the Marines killed this month started coming home. They're being returned to small towns and cities all over Ohio, where similar plans are being made to honor the dead. (Music)

FOCUS - PUBLISHING PIONEER

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, remembering America's first black publishing mogul John Johnson. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: Publishing pioneer John Johnson ventured where no one else in the industry had before, bringing portrayals of African-American life into mass market publications. Johnson was born poor in a small Arkansas town in 1918 and moved with his mother to Chicago as a teen. During World War II, Johnson launched his first magazine, Negro Digest, with a $500 loan secured by his mother's furniture. Modeled on Readers Digest, it was a journal of black thought. Johnson rolled out his next magazine, the glossy Ebony, in 1945, when blacks still were shut out of much of American culture. It featured profiles of celebrities as well as articles on middle-class life. In a 2003 interview, Johnson explained what he was trying to accomplish.

JOHN JOHNSON: I thought you needed a publication that would emphasize the positive aspects of black life -- that would show success, would show achievement and encourage other people to aspire to a better life.

KWAME HOLMAN: Johnson started the pocket-sized news weekly Jet in 1952. Chicago Tribune columnist and NewsHour essayist Clarence Page remembers the role the magazines played in his life.

CLARENCE PAGE: Growing up in the 50s and 60s, I can tell you that Ebony and Jet was part of our household, it was very normal to walk into a black bungalow or an apartment; there would be a copy of Ebony or Jet there on the coffee table or couch. When I was in the Army, I'd say one out of three of my fellow black GI's had a copy of Jet in our hip pocket.

KWAME HOLMAN: After early struggles to secure advertisers, Johnson steadily built Ebony's monthly circulation from its first press run of 25,000 to more than 1.6 million last year. "Jet's" circulation is about 900,000.

CLARENCE PAGE: Because of his pioneering work now, major advertisers consider it a part of their budget now to reach out to the African-American market, to the Hispanic market. They take a special effort now but that was all new with Johnson. He presented a black America that was very much like white America, chasing the American dream, buying nice homes, driving nice cars, trying to enter all walks of life.

KWAME HOLMAN: Johnson's corporate empire would grow to include other media and cosmetics. It's now valued at half a billion dollars. In 1996, President Clinton awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

JOHN JOHNSON: If I tried to envision Johnson publishing company as it is today, I simply wouldn't have tried. I say to young people they should dream small dreams, because if you dream a small dream, it can become a reality.

KWAME HOLMAN: John Johnson died from congestive heart failure in Chicago yesterday. He was 87 years old.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major developments of this day: The shuttle Discovery returned safely to Earth. Reports from Iran said the new president wants to continue nuclear talks with Europe. On the NewsHour tonight, U.S. Envoy Christopher Hill said he sees encouraging signs North Korea is prepared to give up nuclear weapons, but he said there are still key differences to work out. And the Federal Reserve raised a key interest rate another quarter-point. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.