The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, an impeachment update from analysts Tom Oliphant and Bill Kristol; two follow-ups on the president's budget proposal; Margaret Warner looks at defense, Susan Dentzer examines Social Security; then Phil Ponce looks at the latest news on AIDS; and essayist Anne Taylor Fleming notes the new interest in World War II. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Vernon Jordan gave a deposition today for the impeachment trial of his friend, President Clinton. He was the second of three witnesses to give videotaped testimony this week. He answered questions under oath for three hours in a secure room at the Capitol. Congressman Asa Hutchinson quizzed Jordan on behalf of the House managers. The president's lawyers asked only one question. Hutchinson spoke afterwards.

REP. ASA HUTCHINSON: We completed the deposition. I was satisfied that we covered the areas that were needed. At this point, we're under strict guidelines not to discuss the substance or nature of the testimony, and I intend to follow that completely. At this point it's necessary that I report back to the House managers. In fact, we're going to have a meeting later today. And there will be a determination made after the completion of the deposition tomorrow as to what additional motions that need to be filed with the United States Senate.

JIM LEHRER: Also at the Capitol today, senators watched the videotaped testimony Monica Lewinksy gave Monday. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch said her appearance in person at the trial could be helpful. We'll update the impeachment story right after the news summary. Defense Secretary Cohen said today the Pentagon's greatest need is to close outdated military bases. He and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Henry Shelton testified before the House Armed Services Committee. They urged congress to support President Clinton's $261 billion defense budget. Cohen said closing unneeded bases could save $20 billion over time. We'll have more on defense spending later in the program. C.I.A. Director George Tenet warned of more terrorist attacks by the followers of Osama bin Laden. He's suspected of sponsoring the U.S. embassy bombings last summer in Kenya and Tanzania, in which 250 people died. Tenet and Army General Patrick Hughes of the Defense Intelligence Agency testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

GEORGE TENET, Director, Central Intelligence Agency: Bin Laden's overreaching aim is to get the United States out of the Persian Gulf, but he will strike wherever in the world he thinks we are vulnerable. We are anticipating bombing attempts with convention an explosives but his operatives are also capable of kidnappings and assassinations. We have noted recent activity similar to what occurred prior to the African embassy bombings. And I must tell you that we're concerned that one or more of bin Laden's attacks could occur at any time.

JIM LEHRER: Tenet and Hughes said NATO ground forces, including U.S. troops, would have to enforce a peace in Kosovo if there ever is one. The six nations monitoring the Kosovo crisis summoned both sides to talks in Paris on Saturday. They were told to expect NATO air strikes if they didn't show up. And in Kosovo today, leaders of the ethnic Albanian separatist movement said they would join the talks after threatening not to, but Yugoslav President Milosevic has yet to say if his government will participate. In Iraq today, U.S. jets attacked an anti-ship missile battery in the southern no-fly zone. They were responding to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire when they added the missile site to their targets. In the northern no-fly zone, five other incidents were reported. All U.S. planes returned safely. Back in this country, a federal jury in Oregon ruled today an anti-abortion web page constituted a death threat. Its authors were ordered to pay $100 million in damages. The Internet site was called the Nuremberg Files. It listed personal details about doctors who performed abortions. The names of those who had been killed were crossed out. The defendants said the verdict denied their right to free speech. Paul Mellon died yesterday at his Virginia farm. The art collector and philanthropist donated 913 works to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, by Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, and Picasso, among others. His father, Pittsburgh industrialist Andrew Mellon, founded the National Gallery in 1937. Paul Mellon was 91 years old. And that's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to, where now for the impeachment trial; two budget stories: Defense and Social Security; an AIDS update; and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay.

UPDATE - OVERVIEW

JIM LEHRER: An impeachment trial update now, as viewed by "Boston Globe" columnist Tom Oliphant and Bill Kristol, editor/publisher of "The Weekly Standard." Let's go through the developments, real and possibly imagined as we speak tonight. First, today the deposition of Vernon Jordan -- has anything been said publicly about what Vernon may have said today?

TOM OLIPHANT: Not publicly, Jim, but the quasi leaks have begun. And it would appear at this hour that at its most electric moments Mr. Jordan's testimony was perfunctory and the record that the senators got three weeks ago is still the record they're going to have to wrestle with on the stretch of this case.

JIM LEHRER: Do you have anything to subtract or add to that?

BILL KRISTOL: No. No. I was struck that Henry Hyde late this afternoon was asked whether he expected the trial to be over by Friday, February 12, whether anybody had happened over the last two days that might cause it to be extended. And he said no, he thinks it will be over on the 12th or maybe even earlier, which suggests that the House managers have not gotten anything that would give them a good case for live witnesses.

JIM LEHRER: Where does that rest at this moment? Are the managers still pushing for live witnesses?

BILL KRISTOL: I think -- I hear that they are not certain they want to push for that, they don't think they can win that vote and they would prefer to say we thought we should have had live witnesses, we thought we should have had a much more thorough trial than the senate in its grand majesty has chosen to give us, but we have done the depositions, we think there's enough to remove the president in these depositions, and in the record so far, and let's just go to the vote.

JIM LEHRER: Now, you heard the same?

TOM OLIPHANT: Yes. What the Republicans are saying this afternoon is you can feel them falling back to the idea that the videotapes perhaps should be seen by the senate, though even there that's not certain at this hour anyway. And it's entirely possible, for example, on Thursday that the senate might decide to merely make the videotapes part of the public record, which would enable all of us to see them but not necessarily take time on the senate floor to hear them.

JIM LEHRER: Is that -- do you hear that as well -- that they will become public but maybe not shown on the senate floor?

BILL KRISTOL: Well, senators have been able to see the videotapes beginning this morning and to read transcripts. So, I never expected them to be shown on the senate floor. Yes, I think they might try to simply make it part of the record of the trial and then the House managers will simply seek to go ahead and get a vote on removing the president.

JIM LEHRER: And that could -- now, the other little fly, I don't know whether it's in the ointment or wherever it, is finding of fact. First of all, tell us what it is, Tom, and tell us where you understand that part of the story is.

TOM OLIPHANT: This is an effort before there is a vote whether to convict or not to convict the president to have the senate go on record by majority vote as having found certain facts in the case, which would be enumerated, listed -- not generalities, lied under oath -- not specific allegations of criminal behavior, but perhaps a listing of certain things that he did or said that the senate wants to make a record of. Since floated, this is the only idea short of the final vote, I think, that has shown any traction whatsoever. But it remain a long way from the majority.

JIM LEHRER: You agree?

BILL KRISTOL: Well, I think the Majority Leader, Trent Lott, is interested in this. A lot of Republicans are frustrated, they can't stand the idea of the president just getting off and celebrating with his cigar, or his, you know, drums, as he did in Africa after the Paula Jones lawsuit was settled, and they'd like to get a vote, preferably, in their view, a bipartisan vote. They think they can get some Democratic senators for this.

JIM LEHRER: Is it a substitute for censure, is that right?

BILL KRISTOL: Right. It's a better -- in their view - I don't agree with this, but in their view it's better than censure, it's an appropriate thing for the senate to find, they think they can get some Democrats. Senator Lieberman indicated over the weekend he was open to this. And I wouldn't be surprised to see on Thursday or maybe more likely Friday Senator Lott take the lead and suggest that the senate move to consider this findings of fact. And that could become the big debate then on Friday, Saturday and Monday.

JIM LEHRER: Is this an invention or anything like this ever happen before?

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, it flows out of an earlier effort, I think it was first put into play by one of the House managers, Lindsey Graham, to actually do something that was done occasionally in the distant past, and that is to actually separate the vote whether or not to convict from the vote -- whether or not to remove. And this became a kind of fallback position. I think what some of us like about it is it's about the only thing that's happened in this trial that has scrambled the politics. In other words, you do have a few Democrats who have expressed some conditional interest, though someone like Senator Lieberman has also participated with Senator Diane Feinstein in an effort to write a censure resolution. Bob Byrd has opposed it, which I think tends to block further. But the Republicans are interesting because you get some who are traditional law and order, strict constructionist types, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Richard Shelby of Alabama, who think this is anathema constitutionally and others who, as Bill said, have sought this not just to prevent the president from being exonerated but also to kind of take a stand that what the House sent them was a real case and that it should be viewed as legitimate.

JIM LEHRER: Now, your magazine has editorialized against this. You're in favor of removal just for the record here - you're clearly not against removal -- but you don't like finding of fact?

BILL KRISTOL: No. And I'm happy to defend the House managers and Henry Hyde at any and every occasion. I'm against findings of fact because then you are saying the president has done these things, has lied under oath, has obstructed justice in certain ways, we find these to be facts but he's still fit to be president. I think that is a bad thing for the United States Senate formally to find. If the senate wants to acquit the president, they have every right to do that. We can then argue about whether it was the right decision for the next two years, the next five years, the next ten years. But the notion of sort of putting the stamp on his forehead and then letting him continue to be president I think is bad for the presidency. We should clear him and let him be president without any sort of stamp on him for the next two years or remove him. That's my view at least. But a lot of Republicans are interested in this -- for reasons that are both, you know, high-minded so to speak -- they'd like to try to have a bipartisan conclusion to this -- as well as for more petty reasons of just they hate the idea of the president getting off. And one Republican said that to me this afternoon. The president's going to get off. We can't let that happen. And I said, you know, get used to it.

TOM OLIPHANT: What's so interesting about that is that you get exactly the same behavior from Democrats. I mean, there is high-minded opposition to this because the constitutional breakthrough here is serious and can be opposed. But at the same time there is the beginning of a little effort here to rub it in and to claim exoneration. So on both sides you have the high and the low.

JIM LEHRER: But aren't there some Democrats who also want to walk away from this and go home and say, hey, look, I voted to acquit but I voted to say it was an awful thing that this guy did?

TOM OLIPHANT: There's going to come a moment, which we're forgetting, is that when you approach the final vote, every senator I presume in public gets 15 minutes. And if a senator cannot explain his position, how he views the case and how he justifies his decision in 15 minutes, then what are they doing there?

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

TOM OLIPHANT: Oops, dangerous question.

JIM LEHRER: And neither Kristol nor I are going to try to answer it, right? But one question finally - this thing -- both of you feel like the train is about to get to the destination, right, within the next few days, I mean, clearly by next week sometime?

BILL KRISTOL: Next week, yes.

JIM LEHRER: And is there any evidence that anything has changed as far as there are not 67 votes to remove the president?

TOM OLIPHANT: None whatsoever.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree?

BILL KRISTOL: No change.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. And February 12th is the date. That is next week. There's talk now it could even come sooner than that, it might be even as soon as this weekend, no?

BILL KRISTOL: I think that's unlikely, but it could come Wednesday or Thursday of next week, though given the way the senate works, they usually take maximum possible time. And I think Friday the 12th, they're going off on vacation next week; they'd like to get it done. It will be Lincoln's birthday when Bill Clinton will be acquitted.

TOM OLIPHANT: No prediction on dates. Prediction on result -- but never on dates where the senate is concerned.

JIM LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you both.

FOCUS - WEIGHING THE NUMBERS

JIM LEHRER: Now, two federal budget fallout stories. The first is on increasing military spending. Kwame Holman begins our look.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: It is time to reverse the decline in defense spending that began in 1985.

KWAME HOLMAN: President Clinton's State of the Union pledge to boost military spending was one of the few announcements that drew broad bipartisan approval.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: My balanced budget calls for a sustained increase over the next six years for readiness, for modernization, and for pay and benefits for our troops and their families. (Applause)

KWAME HOLMAN: The budget the president presented yesterday would increase military spending to nearly $320 billion in five years. Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Henry Shelton spent a good part of today explaining the president's military budget to members of the House Armed Services Committee.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: Mr. Chairman, this does in fact represent a turn in the direction that we were headed. It does represent an increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War, a sustained increase. The president does make available $112 billion resources. It's an $84 billion increase to the budget top line and $28 billion from savings from lower inflation, lower fuel prices, and the other economic adjustments.

REP. FLOYD SPENCE, Chair, House Armed Services Committee: You deserve much credit for convincing the administration to at least begin confronting defense shortfalls and the need for increased spending. The bottom line, however, is that this budget falls well short of adequately addressing the services unfunded requirements.

KWAME HOLMAN: Cohen said the planned spending increases would begin to address concerns about readiness, caused by record-low recruitment, low retention of military personnel, and the need for new equipment.

WILLIAM COHEN: We have been living off the increases that were voted back in the 80's, and now we have come to the point where we've got to start replacing it, if we're going to have the technology and the people to really run that technology out in the future years. And so if you look at it, this technology we've been using,, the Tomahawk Missile, for example, that's 70's technology. We developed that back in the 70's, and we're still using that, to great effect.

KWAME HOLMAN: But several members questioned whether the president's proposed increases were enough to meet the military's current demands.

REP. JAMES TALENT, (R) Missouri: General Shelton testified that he could use effectively I think about $20 billion this year. And that's the figure I'd like to be going for. And if it means increasing the cap, I mean, our men and women out there are putting a lot more on the lines than political reputations. And if that's what we have to do to get the caps increased, we owe it to they will and the country to do it.

KWAME HOLMAN: The joint chiefs of staff recently told congress they need $150 billion more for their services over the next six years. The president proposes spending $38 billion less than that.

WILLIAM COHEN: You may recall in the past we've had caps and we've also had walls. The walls are down this year. Now, that presents a unique challenge to this committee and to the congress because you could go to your colleagues and say let's take some money out of domestic and put it over here so we don't have to worry about whether we get the savings or not, and let's plus up the defense part of it by another $8 billion. So it's going to be a political challenge for all of us.

KWAME HOLMAN: Secretary Cohen also said billions can be saved if congress approves two more rounds of military base closings, something lawmakers are reluctant to do.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: Is it time to increase defense spending after more than a decade of decline? For more on that, we're joined by William Lynn, the comptroller and chief financial officer of the Department of Defense; and two members of congress who are critical of the president's proposal from different perspectives, Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Democratic Congressman Barney Frank. Welcome, gentlemen. Mr. Lynn, after, as we just said more than a decade of decline, the cold war has been over for a long time, why does the united states need to start spending more on defense?

WILLIAM LYNN, Defense Department Comptroller: Well, Margaret, as your setup piece indicated, this would be the first sustained increase in defense spends since the end of the Cold War. It's needed because we have forces deployed across the globe at this point. Korea, they're maintaining their relentless vigil against aggression from the North and Southwest Asia they continue to monitor Saddam's activities there. In Bosnia, they're working in the humanitarian area to bring permanent peace to Bosnia. In Honduras they're trying to help the residents recover from a natural disaster. We're engaged at a very high tempo. We're seeing some strains in the force. To meet those strains we think we need an additional $112 billion to improve the personnel package that we offer people, to improve readiness and modernize for the future.

MARGARET WARNER: Duncan Hunter, you were quite critical of the administration at today's hearing. Why?

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER, House Armed Services Committee: Well, Margaret, first the secretary's presentation that says that President Clinton is adding $112 billion is simply false. The president only has two years left. So all he can do, all he can control in terms of his administration is this next couple of years. And what he -- what happens in the year 2005 is going to be done by another president who hasn't been named yet. So all about $100 billion of that $112 billion is a to whom it may concern letter of recommendation to somebody who as of yet is unidentified. So what can the president do now? The president has offered $4 billion in real spending increases. Now, we are in trouble. The chiefs have told us that we're 18,000 sailors short, the army is $1.6 billion worth of ammunition short, the marines 193 million short. We have people getting out of the services in droves and we are not replacing the equipment that we bought in the 1980's. So it's getting older and older. The navy accident rate - including a number of accidents -- has doubled in this last year over the year before. So we have to spend, according to the chiefs, and they came before us and did something pretty gutsy. They said in front of the congress and they contradicted their commander in chief Bill Clinton, they said in front of the congress and they said we needed $20 billion more per year than what the president's budget gives us. Now, the president even if you add up some of the things that look a little shaky, even if you add up all of his adds to the budget come up to $12 billion a year for the next two years, $12 billion from $20 billion leaves an $8 billion shortage. So we're still going to have an ammunition shortage, we're still, in my estimation, going to have people leaving the services in droves and we're going to be doing a disservice to the people that serve in the uniform.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Lynn, is that right, that this increase will not be enough to answer the problems that Congressman Hunter just outlined?

WILLIAM LYNN: This increase meets about three-quarters of the needs that the chiefs have identified. They identified a list of $150 billion. It would meet the full range of requirements. This meets about 3/4 of those. It meets the most pressing needs. It meets the needs to provide better compensation for our forces. There's a pay raise, the largest pay raise since 1982. There's a return to a 50 percent retirement benefit from what was established in 1986. We've restored it to 50 percent. There's pay table reform. There's added money for readiness and we have retained the ramp to modernization so we can replace the forces. Did we meet absolutely every need? No. There's more to be done. As your lead-in piece indicated, the first step in getting the additional money should be additional base closure rounds.

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Frank you have been critical from the other perspective. Outline it for us.

REP. BARNEY FRANK, (D) Massachusetts: It's true there's been a decline in spending since the cold war but there's been a greater decline with the nature of the threat. With the collapse, fortunately, of the Soviet empire, we're in a new situation compared to the 50 previous years. There are bad countries out there. There are people who run countries who shouldn't be allowed to drive cars. But they are not remotely comparable it the United States in terms of fire power. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have a new situation. There is not now for the first time since the rise of Hitler a group of heavily armed people -opponents of freedom -- capable of seriously threatening the physical security of the United States. Now, I want us to be the strongest nation in the world, and I want us to have an active role. But there's a qualitative difference. And, yes, there's been a decline, but there has not been a decline in spending comparable to the decline of the threat - and congress has been part of the problem here. Congress has insisted on buying weapons and wasting tens of billions of dollars for which there is no need. By the way, the B-2 bomber, which was put into that budget and tens of billions were spent over the opposition of a lot of people, is going to turn out to be a waste of money. And, yes, there are shortages and we ought to be paying the personnel more. But we can do that by ramping down where we don't need to spend. Secondly, we have this continued commitment to Western Europe, which made a lot of sense in 1945. By commitment, I don't mean being their ally, I mean, being their source of welfare. The United States continues to subsidize our wealthy European allies and it doesn't make any more sense. I agree that we have a burden to bear in Korea and we have a burden to bear in Iraq. But I do not think American ground troops ought to go into Kosovo, and I don't think American ground troops ought to be staying in Bosnia. There is no reason why Germany and Britain and France and Italy and that wealthy complex of nations close to their own borders can't do that basic peacekeeping. What we've decided we want to pay extra billions so we somehow can claim to be more influential, so if we in fact ramp down to take advantage of the fact that we don't have that overall threat of the Soviet Union - example -- the congress insisted we maintain many more nuclear weapons than we need. We ought to get down to the START III level. The Soviet Union has collapsed. They are not in the same league as us. We should maintain an overwhelming superiority but it's a lot cheaper to do that. And, finally, what we haven't done is reexamined the strategic context. We're still committed to winning an all-out nuclear war with a Soviet Union that doesn't exist and fighting two full-scale conventional wars at the same time. As long as that's our goal, yes, we'll fall short of it.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Mr. Lynn, respond to the overall theme of Mr. Frank's remarks, which is there's a mismatch now between the nature of the threat of today and the resources and the ways the defense department is spending this money.

WILLIAM LYNN: We reviewed the threat comprehensively in the quadrennial defense review just 18 months ago. We are not posturing ourselves against a Soviet threat. We're posturing against the threats that we see today. Those threats run the spectrum from cyber terrorism all the way up to major regional conflicts in Southwest Asia and in Korea. We've developed a force structure to deal with the high end of those -- those two conflicts in Southwest Asia and Northeast Asia, as well as to deal with the more unconventional threats coming -- whether they be from terrorists or rogue states, weapons of mass destruction, cyber terrorism, the whole range of threats, we've redesigned the force and it's substantially smaller than it was in the Cold War.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: Could I ask a question about that? How in that do you figure on the B-2 bomber, where does it play a role there, and how about the many more thousands of nuclear weapons we're maintaining, which costs us money way above the START III level? Do those fit into your strategic conception?

MARGARET WARNER: Go ahead.

WILLIAM LYNN: The B-2 bomber has been terminated. We bought the 20 that were on the books from the prior administration.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: And how much did you spend for that?

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman, just let him answer, please.

WILLIAM LYNN: We've ended the B-2 bomber. We are not buying anymore. We are reducing the nuclear weapons. We're down 50 percent from Cold War levels. We would like to go lower. The problem there is the arms control agreements with the former Soviet Union. But we're reevaluating where we stand with that.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Let me get Congressman Hunter back in this. Congressman Hunter, do you feel -- I know you want to spend more money -- but do you feel confident that the way the Pentagon's spending the money now, whether it's this amount or mores does respond to the new nature of the threat?

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: Well, Margaret, there's two major wars that the pentagon is always looking at -- that we're looking at. We've fought both those wars. One war was in Korea, the other war in the Middle East. And we fought both of those. And our worry is that we might become bogged down in war against Saddam Hussein and see the North Koreans take advantage of that and invade the peninsula going to the South. So we have to have the ability we feel to be able to fight and win two major regional conflicts.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me stop you there and just get Mr. Frank because he doesn't agree with you.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: Yes. In the first place -

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Frank, why do you think that's unrealistic to have to think about winning and fighting those two wars?

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: And that does not involve the Soviet Union.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: First of all, let me just make clear that it's been the kind of congressional pressure to spend what you don't need. Mr. Lynn kind of implicitly conceded the B-2 bomber was kind of a waste of money. Tens of billions of dollars went into the B-2 bomber, it's never been used; it'll probably will never be used. And that's the kind of waste that you get into. And if congress would stop that, you could pay the sailors and soldiers and marines a fair wage. Secondly with regard to Iraq, we went to war with Iraq. The imbalance is even greater now between the U.S. and Iraq than it was then and that war was over in a week. There is a South Korean government as well. South Korea is larger and more powerful than North Korea. We are aiding the South Koreans in a war against North Korea. We are not in the position of being the only force there. And the notion that we are likely to have to fight Iraq and South Korea at the same time is remotely possible. The question is -- when you have limited resources, are you going to put all your money into fighting that unlikely full-scale war against North Korea without presumably South Korea and Iraq or are you going to use your resources more wisely?

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Congressman Hunter, go ahead.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: The real question, Margaret, is are you going to give the troops what they need. Now, right now they are 18,000 sailors short. We're not facing the Soviet Union. But that's looking at a conventional threat. We're $1.6 billion short with respect to army ammunition, $193 million short with respect to marine corps ammunition. And, incidentally, if we get gas on those airfields in North Korea or South Korea and we're not able to send tactical air in, we're only going to have B-2 bombers. And if we don't have B-52 bombers that will be 80 years old when we're still using them. So, Mr. Frank's idea of what is good and what is bad are purely his own ideas. And my point is that we're not giving our troops what our joint chiefs that we rely on now tell us we need as a bare bones minimum. They're not asking for a big increase in force structure. They're asking for this half of a military. We've now cut the military almost in half since Desert Storm. We're down from 18 divisions to 10; we're down from 546 naval ships to 325 -

MARGARET WARNER: All right.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: We're down from 25 air wings to 13. The half we have left is not ready. And the Clinton administration is not making that half ready.

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Frank on the readiness issue, yes.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: In the first place there is no - yes, I think there is a problem with readiness in the future. Up till now, by the way, it hasn't manifested itself. We haven't fallen short in any mission.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: We're 18,000 sailors short right now.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: Excuse me, Duncan, you just filibustered.

MARGARET WARNER: Let him finish, please.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: Let me respond.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: But we're short right now.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: Duncan, come on now. You just filibustered. Let me respond. That's silly. Duncan, come on!

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Hunter, do let him finish.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: Okay. Go ahead and finish.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: I think, you know, part of the problem is he knew what I was going to say, which is that it has frankly been he and his colleagues who have foisted on the pentagon unnecessary spending, wasteful spending for the C-130, because it was in Speaker Gingrich's district, four ships under Trent Lott's district, four extra planes elsewhere, the Pentagon, four more nuclear weapons than the Pentagon wants. I agree we should be dealing with readiness and the less glamorous aspects, but unfortunately congress has over the past few years voted in pork, and John McCain has cited $5 billion worth of what he calls pork - unnecessary spending generated by political needs domestically. If you hadn't done that, then we would have had that money available. And I'm prepared in the future to make the money available for the troops and for the ammunition but the waste and the B-2 bomber continues to be a great white elephant which has never been used, is almost certain never to be used, and at the cost of tens of billions of dollars.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: You know, Margaret - you know, Margaret -

MARGARET WARNER: Gentlemen.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: The liberals made that argument in the 1980's and we used all of that so-called pork equipment like the Apache helicopter and M-1 tank to win the war in Desert Storm. And the problem is you only achieve peace through strength and we have lost that strength under the Clinton administration.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, gentlemen, we have to leave it there. Thank you all three very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, fixing Social Security, an AIDS update, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay.

FOCUS - SURPLUS POLITICS

JIM LEHRER: Part two of our budget focus now; it's on Social Security and is reported by Susan Dentzer of our health policy unit, a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SPOKESMAN: President Bill Clinton.

SUSAN DENTZER: As he sent his proposed fiscal 2000 budget to congress yesterday, President Clinton extolled a new era of economic good tidings, with federal budget surpluses as far as the eye can see. But he underscored that with that windfall came one overwhelming task.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: If we manage the surplus right, we can uphold our responsibility to future generations. We can do so by dedicating the lion's share of the surplus to saving Social Security and Medicare and paying down the national debt.

SUSAN DENTZER: And "saving" is, in fact, the president's key word. To repair Social Security and prepare for the coming retirement of the baby boom, he proposes trillions of dollars in new saving by both government and individuals. That plan is now plunging the president into the thick of battle with congressional Republicans over what might be called surplus politics. In effect, it's a historic debate over how much of the looming budget surpluses should be set aside as savings for the future or given back to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts.

SPOKESMAN: John, thanks for joining me.

SUSAN DENTZER: Congressional Budget Chairmen Pete Domenici and John Kasich addressed the issue this week.

REP. JOHN KASICH: Cutting taxes is really a moral issue because that means that people have more money in their pocket.

SEN. PETE DOMENICI: The alternatives are very simple. Do you want to give back to the American people what they've overpaid, or do you want to sit it around up here, and say, we're going to protect it, we're going to put it on the debt, when essentially it will be spent in the next ten to fifteen years, and there will be no surplus and no tax cuts for 15 years for the American people.

SUSAN DENTZER: In effect, the Republicans proposed to tip the balance of the surplus more toward tax cuts. The president, meanwhile, proposes to tilt more toward saving. He has fully joined the battle with his plan to save Social Security. The core is a proposal to transfer $2.8 trillion over the next 15 years into Social Security's reserves. That would be over and above the projected $2.7 trillion that is already scheduled to accumulate. The additional money would come from future budget surpluses if those actually materialize and from other government resources if they don't. Economist Eugene Steuerle says this would be a historic departure from long-standing policy.

EUGENE STEUERLE: Massive amounts of general tax revenues will be transferred into Social Security, and Social Security benefits will be paid, not simply by the Social Security taxpayer, or the individual Social Security taxpayer, but the individual through his or her income taxes.

SUSAN DENTZER: On paper, Social Security's reserves would double, making the program solvent until about 2050. The mechanics of doubling the reserves are complicated. In essence, the president would add much of the additional $2.8 trillion to the reserves in the form of government bonds. But he would buy back the same amount of government debt from the public so the overall level of treasury debt wouldn't increase. Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers:

LAWRENCE SUMMERS: By 15 years from now, the stock of our debt relative to our income will be lower than at any time in our history since the World War I buildup.

SUSAN DENTZER: Then, through a special change in budgetary rules, the president says the additional reserves would be locked up so they really would be saved for Social Security, rather than used to permit other spending or tax cuts. That approach won an endorsement from Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.

ALAN GREENSPAN: If we allow these surpluses to run, we are reducing the national debt, and that is a very important element, because we learn that as the debt goes down, so do long-term interest rates, so do mortgage rates, and indeed economic growth would be materially enhanced as a consequence of that.

SUSAN DENTZER: The president's plan has two other notable features. First is a proposal to grow the beefed-up Social Security reserves even faster by investing a portion, $700 billion worth, in the stock market. Here's the rationale: The government securities in the Social Security trust funds earn a low return of about 2.8 percent a year, after adjusting for inflation. In comparison, the largest U.S. stocks have risen in value about 7 percent a year for decades. Summers says Social Security shouldn't pass up the chance to capture those higher returns.

LAWRENCE SUMMERS: That's how federal workers pensions are invested. That's how state and local workers pensions are invested. That's how it's done in the private sector.

SUSAN DENTZER: In another notable feature of his plan, the president proposed to shore up Americans' private retirement savings. He says that's critical in an era when Americans as a whole are saving at some of the lowest rates in history. To address that, he would devote $500 billion of the budget surpluses to creating new universal savings accounts, or U.S.A.'s. In effect government would provide some of the seed moneys for those accounts as a kind of targeted tax cut.

LAWRENCE SUMMERS: The way those accounts would work is the government for many people would put in a base sum, then additional contributions would be matched, matched depending on their income. For some people, each $1 you contributed, up to $500, would be matched by a $1 contribution from the government. For others, the match rate would be higher. For others, who were of somewhat higher income, the match rate would be lower.

SUSAN DENTZER: No sooner had the president unveiled these ideas than scrutiny and debate over them began. The plan to invest part of the reserves in the stock market drew immediate fire, including from Greenspan, who worried that stock-picking decisions could become politicized andinterfere with the economy.

ALAN GREENSPAN: I do not believe that it is politically feasible to insulate such huge funds from governmental direction. I'm frankly just hard-pressed to find what any benefits are in doing it.

SUSAN DENTZER: Among members of congress, however, confusion about the details of the president's plan reigned. Today Domenici said he still had trouble understanding it.

SPOKESMAN: Your accounting is beyond my comprehension and I say that in all honesty. Now, what I think the case is that by putting the money in the way you have discussed it into transferring the debt to the treasury and to the trust fund, I think you have postponed the day when we'll have to go out and borrow a bunch of money or incur a huge amount of new tax to fix Social Security. I basically don't think it will work and it defies my comprehension.

SUSAN DENTZER: That confusion aside, some lawmakers complain that the president hadn't proposed tough enough measures to make the program solvent over the very long haul. Those would probably involve unpopular moves to trim the future growth of Social Security benefits. The president has already agreed that such steps may be necessary, but wants them hammered out on a bipartisan basis.

SPOKESMAN: The numbers are such that retirement and health are scheduled to occupy 80 percent or more of the budget as we move out into the early 21st century. The president's proposals don't really deal with this fundamental issue of what these programs should be and how much we can afford them, vis- -vis other things we may want to do as a nation.

SUSAN DENTZER: The debate will now escalate as lawmakers further digest the details of the president's budget and flesh out their own Social Security reform and tax cut plans.

UPDATE - TRACKING AIDS

JIM LEHRER: Phil Ponce has our AIDS story.

PHIL PONCE: A major conference on AIDS is being held in Chicago this week, and already several important new studies have been released, including one that may have solved the riddle of the origin of the AIDS virus. Here to tell us about that and more are Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Laurie Garrett, a medical writer with "Newsday." Welcome both.

PHIL PONCE: Dr. Fauci, if you would, briefly summarize what it is the researchers found regarding where AIDS comes from.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, investigators were able to show that it is highly likely, not yet definitive but highly likely that the H.I.V.-1, which is the predominant virus that infects man, actually originated in the chimpanzee and probably co-evolved with the chimpanzee during the evolution of the chimp. And sometime probably decades ago there was a jump in species from the chimpanzee to humans, probably more than one jump, at least maybe three separate ones that were documented, which is now getting us closer to solving the mystery of what we suspected all along, that the origin of H.I.V.-1 actually did come from a chimpanzee. So it's of considerable historical interest. The importance of it remains to be determined when we have tests, for example, that try and figure out why the chimpanzee, who's been infected for such a long period of time, does not apparently get ill from the virus. And that's the scientific question that needs to be answered.

PHIL PONCE: Before we get to the scientific question, just to make sure we understand how that jump you talked about was made, chimpanzees in that part of Africa are hunted for food and hunters will dress them out in the field and it's a bloody business where -- and the belief is what, that that's how the virus entered the bloodstreams of humans?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: It's very likely that though during the period of time when you are butchering and preparing the meat that you get nicks and cuts in your hand, and the most like likely explanation is that that's how it gets transmitted, because we know, as a matter of fact, from our experience with H.I.V. that when you have cuts that get into contact with exposed blood that you can actually transmit it. And it is likely that's how the first transmissions came from the chimpanzee to human. And then once it was in human, it was spread by sexual contact.

PHIL PONCE: Laurie Garrett, one of the things Dr. Fauci said earlier was the hope or the possibility that if scientists can figure out how it is chimpanzees were able to live with the virus without getting sick that the same kind of lesson might be applicable to humans.

LAURIE GARRETT: That would be a wonderful possibility, no? There's only a 1.5 percent DNA difference between humans and chimps. So whatever it is, if something is conferring protection to those chimps, it's something very subtle, something very small, and possibly something that, well, we can get to the bottom of and find that difference between chimps and humans. And so that's very exciting.

PHIL PONCE: Laurie Garrett, what are the next questions that people have to ask as they explore-- what are the next questions - you were having trouble with your ear piece, it seemed -- what are the next questions people have to ask to figure out if in fact that promise is there?

LAURIE GARRETT: Well, it seems a key thing is being able to observe large numbers of wildly infected chimpanzees to see how are they getting infected. We assume it's the same ways that we see in monkeys, which is mostly sexual, but we don't know if that's for sure, and also some idea of how they're protected. But really Dr. Fauci can answer that question much more than I can.

PHIL PONCE: Dr. Fauci.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: If it's something immunological, namely, if there's something within the immune system of the chimp that's protecting the chimp from progressing to a clinical disease whereby they're still infected, if that particular factor or factors can be identified, then that could be a target either for the development of a vaccine that can induce this particular factor in people who are uninfected, or in infected individuals something that could actually induce the enhancement of this factor so that the people who are infected can have the same sorts of protection that apparently the chimp has. So it really is a question of pinpointing what are the factor and factors that allow the chimp to be able to live with the virus and not progress to clinical disease. That's the really first important scientific question that needs to be asked and answered, hopefully.

LAURIE GARRETT: I think there's another scientific question that's very exciting to look at because working backwards, creating a sort of backwards family tree, Dr. Betty Korber, Los Alamos, has computed that probably this event, this jump from the chimps to humans, occurred sometime between about 1924 and 1946. So then you can begin to ask questions, what were the human activities in this part of the world that would have put them in contact with the chimpanzees, that would have facilitated this event occurring? And beginning to answer questions like that has implications not just for H.I.V. but for a whole host of microbes that may make the jump from chimpanzees and have in the past made the jump from chimpanzees or monkeys to human beings.

PHIL PONCE: So Laurie Garrett, if I'm understanding you, you're saying that in possibly the same way that humans started encountering those host animals that were carrying these viruses, that, what, there are other - potentially there are other viruses or other hosts out there that humans might be encountering in the same way?

LAURIE GARRETT: Absolutely. Absolutely. We are moving into rain forest areas at pell-mell pace now. But we started our big steps in these areas during the colonial days. And that would certainly coincide with the time period we're talking about, in the 1930's, for example, beginning to exploit resources in those countries. So whatever happened, however that jump event occurred, must have coincided with human historical events going on in that area. And, you know, it's interesting that Gabon Cameroon area and the Thai rain forest is also a site that has brought us two chimpanzee outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus, which causes a hemorrhagic fever disease and whatever harbors that virus normally is in that same region. And there are untold possibilities of other microbes that may be either in the chimps or monkeys or primates in this same time part of the world.

PHIL PONCE: Dr. Fauci, let's move on to another study. There was a study having to do with the way in which the transmission of AIDS takes place between mother and infant and some new approaches to address that. Tell us about that.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, we know from studies done a few years ago that you can substantially block -- not completely but substantially -- the transmission from an infected mother to the infant by treating the mother for a considerable period of time during the pregnancy and then treating the infant immediately after the pregnancy for a few weeks. Although that works, that's really not feasible for developing countries that can't afford that amount of anti-viral drug. The study that was spoken about today is a study in which the drug -- two drugs, AZT and 3-2-C, were given at the very latter part of pregnancy for the last three weeks and then for a week to the mother and to the infant thereafter, and the decrease in the transmissibility was substantial. In fact, if you even just gave it at the very time of delivery and to then again to the mother and the infant after delivery, you were still left with a significant decrease in the transmissibility. That's really very important because the very long protracted therapy just is not feasible in countries that can't afford it. If this indeed holds up to be true, then we can talk about the possibility of having a significant impact on the transmissibility of the virus from an infected pregnant woman to the infant in countries that apparently cannot afford this very protracted course of therapy. So that's an important finding.

PHIL PONCE: And Laurie Garrett, speaking of medication and the effectiveness of drugs, some new research on the -- on the, what, apparent increasing lack of effectiveness of some of drugs?

LAURIE GARRETT: Well, there are several papers here showing that what's called HAART -- highly active anti-retroviral therapy -- this combination cocktail therapy that has been responsible for some tremendous breakthroughs in declining death rates and progression to AIDS rates and so on in this country is not an absolute thing. Even before we came to this meeting, at any number of AIDS-associated meetings, we've been hearing more and more reports about people failing on heart therapy. And basically what seems to happen is that one of two things eventually catches up with them -- either the toxicity of the drugs and particularly their effects on their livers and GI tract, or the virus acquires the capacity to resist the drugs and then to resist another set of drugs and then another set so that the virus becomes more and more capable of withstanding exposure to the very medicines meant to wipe it out. And that seems to be a time-valued event. In other words, the longer you're on these drugs, it generally seems the greater the likelihood that resistance will emerge, you'll have to switch and each time you switch -- try another drug cocktail -- it seems that the time to the necessity to switch again shortens. This is speaking in very generalized terms, of course. There are patients for whom HAART therapy is very, very successful and the first round works.

PHIL PONCE: Dr. Fauci, there was a feeling at some point that this mix of drugs was increasingly effective and there was a sense of optimism. Was that misplaced?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, I think the optimism about immediate eradication of the virus certainly was misplaced a couple of years ago. Now we're seeing the sobering realization that although things are still much, much better than they were before these combinations of drugs were available, this concept that in the vast majority, 90 percent of the people, then the problem is over, you're just going to treat them and then that's it -- we're seeing now, as was reported from a number of studies, one from Alabama, that the original percentage, 85/90 percent is really down now somewhere around 60 percent or less, such that each month or year, or what have you, that goes by, more and more people break through as Laurie had said. That fortifies and underscores the need to develop new and better drugs, not only that are as powerful, if not more powerful, than the ones we have but also ones that are less toxic and more user friendly.

PHIL PONCE: Dr. Fauci, Laurie Garrett, that's all the time we have. I thank you both very much.

ESSAY - WW II ENCORE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming considers the renewed interest in World War II.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: As we slide towards the Oscar race, two hard-core, World War II epics are being highly touted as potential winners. Forget escapist fare with its pseudo violence, volcano eruptions, asteroid crashes, et cetera. It is these two movies, "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line," that are being talked about, and their violence seems anything but fake. They are both gripping and graphic, reawakening our violence-benumbed hearts to outrage and grief, reminding us of the cost of war, any war, even the so-called "last good one." Limbs are severed, innards tumble onto the ground in surreal counterpoint to the beauty of the countryside. World War II is breaking out anew in other places as well. Anchorman Tom Brokaw's book about the World War II vets, "The Greatest Generation," has been at the top of the best-seller lists, while Stephen Ambrose's two recent books about the war have together sold a million copies. Clearly, there are fashions in nostalgia as in anything else. But why this fashion now? The obvious answer is the easy one: Because we want and need heroes, and we have to go back over 50 years to find them, certainly that many of them, millions of near-kids who fought on faraway battlefields defending democracy. Today, the last of them, many of them our own fathers, are rapidly aging, and a younger generation wishes to pay its final respects. Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," like Tom Brokaw's book, is full of such sentiment, almost a wistful, apologetic adulation tendered by men who themselves never went to war, a guilt-laced generational gut ache left over from Vietnam. It's no accident that all this World War II stuff comes now, amid the mid-life reckoning of the baby boomers; when the first of them to reach the White House, the first president to be impeached in over 100 years, was a man who like so many of his peers back when -- friends and foes alike -- sidestepped the draft when it was his turn. It comes, too, at a time when the world seems an overly complicated, intractable, and muddy place. Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq-- you name it, it's muddy. What to do? How to help? Whose problem is it, anyway? Yes, today feels more like 1936, when we wanted to think that Hitler was Europe's problem, and December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor made our moral virtue easy to find.

SPOKESMAN: Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy -

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: This isn't even the Cold War, with its clear polarity to comfort our World War II heroes. There was clarity in that, however threatening, however much it caused us to sometimes compromise our own standards by propping up this or that dictator, or even helping to overthrow democratically-elected governments, not to mention the excesses of McCarthyism at home and the quagmire that became Vietnam, all in the name of anti-communism. All of these things can get overlooked or pushed aside in our desire to have things simple, clean, like in the movies, like on TV -- good guys, bad guys, black and white, men with guns, men bonded in a noble cause.

TOM HANKS: ("Saving Private Ryan") Some private in the 101st lost three brothers, and he's got a ticket home.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: In fairness to the two movies, they are not full-tilt, gung-ho war movies. They are World War II refracted through the memory of Vietnam. "The Thin Red Line" certainly is, and more powerful and more complex for it. You do leave the theater after these movies grateful for the sacrifices these men made, but also mindful of the stupefying loss of life, the boredom and terror of war.

ACTOR: Have you ever had anyone die in your arms?

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: And that's a gift whenever and wherever it comes. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday: President Clinton's friend, Vernon Jordan, gave videotaped testimony for the impeachment trial. C.I.A. Director Tenet warned of terrorist attacks by the followers of Muslim extremist Osama bin Laden. And ethnic Albanians said they would join Kosovo peace talks in Paris. Yugoslav President Milosevic has not yet said whether he will attend. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.