The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, new rules aimed at reducing smoking by young people, the head of the Food & Drug Administration explains, an industry representatives responds. Developments in the TWA crash investigation, and some end-of-the-week politics with Mark Shields and Paul Gigot. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton today announced new limits on tobacco advertising and sales directed at minors. By the President's orders, the Food & Drug Administration will have authority to control the sale and distribution of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. It was the fourth time this week Mr. Clinton had held a White House ceremony to implement new laws or regulations. He spoke today in the Rose Garden.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: With this historic action we are taking today Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man will be out of our children's reach forever. I want to be clear. We said it before. Let's say it again. Cigarettes are a legal product for adults. They have a perfect right to decide whether to smoke. The cigarette companies still have a right to market their products to adults. But today we are drawing the line on children, fulfilling our obligation as adults to protect them from influences that too often are stronger than they are.

MR. LEHRER: The rules would ban cigarette vending machines from places where minors have access, tobacco billboards from areas near schools, brand name cigarette advertising on products not related to tobacco use, and brand name sponsorship of sporting events. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Bob Dole spoke to a convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in Nashville today. Six weeks ago he had been criticized for not addressing the convention of the NAACP. Dole told the journalists he would not concede the African-American vote to his opponents.

SEN. BOB DOLE, Republican Presidential Candidate: We've missed opportunities as a party from time to time. I missed one by not knowing about the NAACP Convention. And I'm sorry about that. [applause] Our candidate for President in 1964, Barry Goldwater, missed an opportunity by opposing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. We don't try to miss any opportunities; we're trying to create opportunities. And not long ago, the contest for the votes of black Americans held the answer on who would win the presidential election. Republicans and Democrats alike fought for the support of African-Americans, neither party taking it for granted and neither party writing it off. But these days we're told that the votes of black Americans are held by the Democrats and there's little or no chance that Jack Kemp or Bob Dole can do much about it or win a sizeable percentage. Now, I don't believe for one minute that this is the case. And I can't think of few better outcomes of this election, not just for the black community but for all America, to have Bill Clinton and Al Gore and Bob Dole and Jack Kemp competing, truly competing for the votes of African-Americans. It hasn't been done for a long, long time.

MR. LEHRER: Dole also said he rejected the plank in the Republican platform that calls for denying citizenship to children born here of illegal immigrants. On the TWA crash story today, the lead FBI investigator said chemists found microscopic traces of an explosive substance on debris from the wreckage. But James Kallstrom said there was still not enough evidence to conclude a bomb caused the crash. We'll have excerpts from his briefing later in the program. Another military plane crashed today, the third one in two days. A Marine Corps electronic warfare plane with four aboard went down near Yuma, Arizona. Yesterday, a National Guard jet crashed on Maryland's eastern shore. The pilot's body was found today. And the pilot of a Marine plane which also crashed yesterday is still missing in the Atlantic off the coast of Maryland. American Airlines confirmed today it has warned its pilots not to rely solely on flight computers. An airline spokesman said the captain of a jetliner that crashed in Colombia last December entered the wrong program code, causing the jetliner to collide with a mountain. All 159 aboard were killed. Overseas today, in Paris, police used tear gas and clubs to storm a church and arrest 300 illegal African immigrants. French riot troops fought their way through hundreds of sympathizers who claimed many of the immigrants had residents' rights before new immigration laws were passed in 1993. Today's action ended a57-day stand-off. In Chechnya, a cease-fire negotiated by Russian security adviser Alexander Lebed went into effect. It calls for a Russian withdrawal from Grozny and a halt to hostilities across Chechnya. At least 30,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the civil war began there 20 months ago. In Belgrade, the foreign ministers of Croatia and Serb-led Yugoslavia signed a mutual recognition accord. It ends five years of hostility between those two countries caused by Croatia's bid for independence from the Yugoslav Federation. And in Calcutta, India, Mother Theresa was seriously ill. She was admitted to a hospital Tuesday, suffered heart failure the next day. She's now on a respirator, her heart problems complicated by a history of malaria. The 85-year-old Roman Catholic missionary won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the poor in 1979. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the tobacco crackdown, the TWA crash, and Shieldgs & Gigot. FOCUS - BREAKING THE HABIT

MR. LEHRER: The new restrictions on tobacco is first tonight. Our coverage begins with this report by Kwame Holman.

MR. HOLMAN: Agreeing with the Food & Drug Administration that nicotine is an addictive drug, President Clinton said today the FDA will within a year begin regulating cigarette and smokeless tobacco advertising and sales. Under the new regulations, young tobacco purchasers will have to prove they are at least 18 years of age. Cigarette vending machines will be banned from locations frequented by children such as supermarkets. Tobacco advertising on billboards will be forbidden near schools and playgrounds. And all billboards that advertise cigarettes and smokeless tobacco will be printed in black and white and contain no pictures. Tobacco companies no longer will be allowed to aim their marketing campaigns at young people and within two years will be banned from sponsoring sporting events. Finally, cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies whose brands are most used by teenagers will be required to educate children on the dangers of smoking and chewing. The steps announced today closely resemble those President Clinton urged the FDA to adopt last summer. He said that teen smoking was a major public health hazard. Teen smoking is at a 16-year high. Smoking among young people in grades nine through twelve increased from about 27 percent in 1991 to almost 35 percent last year. On average, 3,000 children start smoking cigarettes every day. In a recent study, the Centers For Disease Control concluded that 600,000 teenagers started smoking during a period when tobacco companies quadrupled their spending on cigarette advertising. Two tobacco giants, Philip Morris and the United States Tobacco Company, reacted to the President's remarks last summer by proposing their own curb on advertising that would avoid FDA regulation. But in May, the White House said the proposal didn't go far enough. Today, President Clinton added to the pressure on the industry.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Today we are taking direct action to protect our children from tobacco, and especially the advertising that hooks children on a product. I hear from time to time politicians say that they don't really think advertising has much to do with it, and whenever I hear one say that, I say, well, how come we're all spending so much money advertising when we run for office then? If it's immaterial, let's just pull it all off and see what happens to us. Cigarette smoking is the most significant public health problem facing our people. More Americans die every year from smoking-related diseases than from AIDS, car accidents, murders, suicides, and fires combined. The human cost doesn't begin to calculate the economic cost. The thing that galvanized the legal claims of the attorney general, the absolutely staggering burdens on the American health care system and on our economy in general. But, make no mistake about it, the human cost is by far the most important issue. We have carefully considered the evidence. It is clear that the action being taken today is the right thing to do, scientifically, legally, and morally.

MR. HOLMAN: In a video news release made available this afternoon, an official from industry leader Philip Morris criticized the President's approach.

OFFICIAL: Philip Morris strongly believes that kids should not smoke, and they should not have access to cigarettes. That's something we all agree on. President Clinton has said he would prefer a legislative solution to deal with the under-age tobacco issue, and we agree with that too. There's too much common ground on this issue to allow the FDA to illegally seize regulatory authority from Congress and threaten to trample on the rights of the 45 million American adults who choose to smoke.

MR. LEHRER: Now to a further explanation of the new regulations and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Joining us is the man who devised the new regulations, the commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, Dr. David Kessler. Welcome, Dr. Kessler.

DR. DAVID KESSLER, FDA Commissioner: A pleasure to be here.

MS. WARNER: What is you're trying to achieve with these new rules?

DR. DAVID KESSLER: To deal with the problem, what we need to do is to prevent kids from ever becoming addicted to nicotine.

MS. WARNER: And do you have a goal? I mean, how will you know if you're successful?

DR. DAVID KESSLER: The President set a goal in seven years of 50 percent reduction, very simple.

MS. WARNER: Now you heard the Philip Morris video just there and that spokesman was repeating what many critics in the industry say, namely that you have just no jurisdiction to do this. They say we're not a food, we're not a drug. The FDA has no authority over us.

DR. DAVID KESSLER: Nicotine is an addictive drug. That's why people smoke. And the industry has known that. They've known that longer than scientists in the public sector has. When you read some of the industry documents that have come out over the last year, when you read that a general counsel of a major American tobacco company wrote "We are then in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug." When you read that, you realize the key industry officials knew it, knew it was a drug, and said it long before the FDA did.

MS. WARNER: And so why has the FDA been able to make this declaration now and say not two years ago or five years ago?

DR. DAVID KESSLER: What we said several years ago was that we would begin an inquiry. Let me give you the definition of a drug under the law. It's an article, except for food, intended to affect structure and function of the body. Does nicotine affect the structure and function of the body? Of course. Go to any medical library. The question was intent. And that's why those documents and the results of that inquiry, it's now made public-- thousands of pages--that was very important in shaping the agency's ruling.

MS. WARNER: Now, and are there--of course, this is going to be challenged in court--I'm sure you expect that.

DR. DAVID KESSLER: We are already in courts. The tobacco companies have filed suit in district court in North Carolina.

MS. WARNER: And are there any court decisions so far that buttress your assertion that this is an addictive drug?

DR. DAVID KESSLER: That specific issue has not been in court, but look at the industry's own words. Look at the medical literature. Nicotine is an addictive drug. That's why people smoke.

MS. WARNER: All right. Now, let's turn to the question of marketing to children, and we just heard what the President said, hey, you know, if advertising doesn't work, why are advertising? And surely there's something to that, but how much of the appeal of cigarettes to children do you think is marketing versus say their peers, or what they see in the entertainment industry?

DR. DAVID KESSLER: No one likes to say that advertising affects them. No one believes it has any effect. What's the three most heavily advertised brands? Marlboro, Camel, and Newport--what's the three brands that are used most by kids, Marlboro and Newport and Camel. It has an important influence. We send very mixed messages, I as a parent, I as a pediatrician. I tell my kids not to smoke, but you go outside and you see billboards, and you see these images, these images that build on themes of fun, glamour, independence. We need to reduce those mixed messages, and that's what the President did and the FDA did today in a rather historic event.

MS. WARNER: Now, again, as you know, the tobacco companies say they're not specifically targeting young people with these advertising campaigns.

DR. DAVID KESSLER: But the consequences of their actions, in fact, do target young people. If you look at the industry documents, it is chillingly effective at how they have been. If you don't start smoking by the age of nineteen or twenty, you're never going to start. The key are kids and children and adolescents. And we need to be able to focus our efforts on people before they become addicted. And it's kids who start at eleven, twelve, and thirteen who become addicted at sixteen or seventeen.

MS. WARNER: Okay. Do you think these new rules can pass muster on free speech grounds? Because, as you know, the Supreme Court just a couple of months ago struck down some anti-liquor advertising laws in say Rhode Island, I think it was.

DR. DAVID KESSLER: The Department of Justice has reviewed the regulations and do believe that they pass First Amendment muster. The government can protect children. You cannot advertise or promote illegal behavior, the sale of cigarettes, I mean, to children and adolescents. That kind of speech is not protected. And this is not a ban on information. Even the billboards allow information; they allow black and white text. It's--we're trying to do--what we're trying to do is reduce the appeal, the imagery, the fun, the glamor, the positive images that for too long have sent contradictory messages to our kids and adolescents.

MS. WARNER: Let me ask you to explain a couple of the regulations because I think some are pretty clear, such as you have to have an ID to buy cigarettes, show you're 18. But how about this, the magazine advertising, for instance? Now it can't be in magazines that young people read, I assume "Rolling Stone."

DR. DAVID KESSLER: Exactly.

MS. WARNER: All right. What about "Sports Illustrated?"

DR. DAVID KESSLER: It just depends--what can't be in?

MS. WARNER: Well, can there be any--you tell me.

DR. DAVID KESSLER: In magazines that have significant youth readership, more than 2 million kids and more than 15 percent, the ads can't have the attractive imagery. They can have black and white. They can have information; they just can't have that kind of appeal. In other magazines, "Fortune" and like, adult-only magazines, uh, that are read, any images, any words, this is not a ban on information.

MS. WARNER: Now I'm sure the cigarette companies are going to say that some of these rules where you tried to draw this line between adults, marketing to adults and children, cross the line, for instance, that cigarette companies can no longer sponsor say sporting events of any kind, is that right?

DR. DAVID KESSLER: Look at the industry's own code on advertising. They strongly encourage companies not to deal and not to have the sports hero image, and yet, that's, in fact, what the sponsorship is doing.

MS. WARNER: And also the regulation that they can't have any T- shirts, logos, anything like that, logos on T-shirts, sportswear, again, you think that strictly applies to children?

DR. DAVID KESSLER: One third of kids who smoke and had these kind of hats and T-shirts--we turn our kids into walking billboards. They think it's just another commodity; they don't realize that we're dealing with an addictive drug. You wouldn't have a hat or a T-shirt on a kid for Prozac or Valium, would you?

MS. WARNER: Finally, let me ask you about the long range implications of declaring nicotine an addictive drug. What are the long range implications? I mean, they are broader than just marketing to children, aren't they?

DR. DAVID KESSLER: It's an historic step. It is a very important step. It's calling the way it is. It's calling it the way the scientific evidence is. We're dealing with an addictive drug. But the regulations, they're one page, they're eminently reasonable. They're about protecting our kids; they're just compelling common sense.

MS. WARNER: But if nicotine is an addictive drug, then the door would be open, would it not, to have the FDA say regulate it as you would a drug, for instance, how much nicotine can be in a cigarette?

DR. DAVID KESSLER: When you read those regulations that were issued today, that one page doesn't say anything about that. And we've gone through notice and comment rule-making. You could do anything, but that's not what the agency has done today?

MS. WARNER: All right, Dr. Kessler, thanks for being with us. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Now to the tobacco industry view of the new regulations and to Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: For that side of things we're joined by Brennan Dawson, senior vice president of the Tobacco Institute, which represents major cigarette manufacturers in the United States. Thank you for joining us. What is your reaction to the regulations we've just heard Dr. Kessler describe and that the President announced today? BRENNAN DAWSON, Tobacco Institute: Well, they're really two-fold reactions. The first, again, is the industry's shared goal of reducing youth smoking. We are committed to continuing to support reasonable measures that would reduce youth smoking. And there are a number of things that have been done at the federal level, as well as at the state, and voluntary level that we've supported, and additional actions that we could support.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So you agree that there's an epidemic that needs to have something done about it?

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: There absolutely is a very serious problem out there. There's a very serious problem if any child is smoking, and more can and should be done. But on the other hand, we have to look at FDA and the FDA regulations specifically. FDA is an agency without authority on tobacco products. If we look at the congressional history, on more than 20 occasions, Congress has been presented with bills that would specifically give FDA jurisdiction over tobacco products. Congress has rejected those bills. If we look to the courts and the court history, the legal history, FDA, itself, has argued and the courts have agreed for decades that FDA does not have jurisdiction over tobacco. This is an agency that a year ago in its notice to propose rule-making once again repeated what Dr. Kessler has said time and time again, and that is we, the FDA, have the authority to ban this product, to remove it from the marketplace. So we have to be very concerned about taking this, what can be perceived as this first step on the road to prohibition. That's a very separate issue in my mind and in the industry's issues, umm, from reducing youth smoking. So it's almost like you have to look at them in different camps.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, what about Dr. Kessler's assertion and the President's today that nicotine is an addictive drug, and therefore, that is the reason why--that is the enabler for the FDA to have jurisdiction?

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: Again, the FDA's assertion of jurisdiction is illegal clearly as defined by the congressional history, clearly as defined by the FDA mandate. I mean, cigarette smoking, nicotine by itself is regulated by the FDA in things like nicotine patches, in nicotine gum, in the same way that caffeine is regulated in some ways by the FDA, but not the coffee that you drink in the morning or the cigarette that the smoker might smoke after their coffee. So you have to really separate those out. And what that all has to do with his health claims. Now cigarettes are marketed without health claims. They're marketed for smokers, for smoking enjoyment. That's what smokers get. That's what--how they're marketed. That's the marketing intent behind cigarettes. So FDA can regulate nicotine; it's a matter of whether or not FDA can regulate cigarettes. Now if we get to the youth smoking, which, again, everyone agrees more can and should be done--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And excuse me, are you saying that the FDA can't regulate cigarettes because they're not addictive, or--I'm not real clear on that.

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: FDA can't regulate cigarette under the Food & Drug Law and under the congressional history and under the court history. So it's a matter of the difference between nicotine in different products that are sold with a health claim and cigarettes that are sold for smoking pleasure as a consumer product in the same way that coffee with caffeine is. I mean, that's the basic difference when you have to look at the nicotine issue.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, what about his argument, though, that the industry is deliberately targeting young people and how do you respond to that as well as the remedy that the regulations propose?

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: Well, and that's why you have to look at youth smoking very differently, because FDA's not an agency, umm, that's out there to regulate youth behavior or anything like that. Umm, I mean, Dr. Kessler used the example of Joe the Camel. Well, the federal agency that, in fact, does already regulate tobacco advertising, the Federal Trade Commission under took a three-year study of the Joe the Camel the campaign. At the end of that lengthy, intensive study, they said that, you know, despite intuition, the evidence wasn't there to support it. Umm, if you look at the studies that have been done on tobacco advertising here in the United States, you find that kids may be aware of tobacco ads, but they also don't like tobacco products, they say that tobacco ads don't make them smoke, and we can then turn to the international experience where many countries have experimented with tobacco advertising bans, and what they've found is that youth smoking continues along the same track that it was on before the advertising was removed.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what is the purpose of advertising, just for clarification, using characters like Joe Camel and others? It's not to attract the youth market, the younger market?

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: Advertising doesn't get kids to smoke. I mean, that's clear, the President's Council on Economic Advisers has said that that's clear; the FTC looking at the Joe the Camel campaign said that was clear. A Canadian court recently said that in overturning a Canadian tobacco advertising ban.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But what about--excuse me, what about that correlation that they made between the increase in revenues put into those ads--he named certain brands of cigarettes a few moments ago--and the correlation with the increase in smoking during that period, do you just reject the connection there?

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: Well, it's not surprising that kids smoke the most popular brands of cigarettes. I mean, kids smoke because of peer pressure; kids smoke because of parental and family influences; kids smoke because of the influences in the society around them. So the most popular brands are the most heavily advertised brands because that's the way marketing works and that's what kids tend to flock towards. They do what they see other people do. But this FDA would do nothing to get at the peer pressure issues, at the parental influences or, or even reducing youth access to tobacco products. So it misses the mark if the real goal is youth smoking.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So you don't think that by taking the ads off of the T-shirts, by making sure that in the magazines that young people read these ads are not attractive and don't portray cigarettes as fun and all the other things that he cited a few moments ago are going to make any difference at all?

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: The tobacco industry more than five years ago, responding to public concerns, took down cigarette billboards from within 500 feet of schools. Umm, you know, the FDA rule goes so much further than that to virtually wipe out tobacco billboards. And kids aren't smoking because they see a cigarette ad on a billboard. I mean, let's talk about the magazines. Commissioner Kessler likes to throw out "Rolling Stone." Umm, but "Rolling Stone" has a very grown-up readership, honestly. This would also affect magazines like "Better Homes and Gardens," clearly not a youthful publication. "Time Magazine" and "Newsweek" are so close to the 2 million youth readership mark that it would be very difficult to say that in the next two weeks they would not be affected by this act. These are not youthful publications. And this is not children we're protecting; we're taking this away from adults.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So how does the industry plan to deal with these regulations at this point?

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: You know, there has been court challenge that is still underway. We're not the only ones who've challenged this. Advertisers have challenged this. Retailers have challenged this. Smokeless tobacco manufacturers have challenged it. That will continue, legal challenge. We, unfortunately, have to, but in the meantime, umm, we hope that there are reasonable people that we can work with. We're already working with states and retailers and wholesalers, and to make sure that reasonable efforts take place, um, so while the legal challenge goes on, we're still committed to being out there and trying to make a difference.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is this going to make any difference in terms of the way you approach young people?

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: We--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: These new regs.

MS. BRENNAN DAWSON: Umm, you know, these regs don't deal with the reasons why youngsters smoke. Umm, these regs are very bureaucratic; they're very cumbersome, umm, you know, we'll have to pursue the legal challenge.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. We'll pursue the story. Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the TWA crash and Shields & Gigot. UPDATE - TWA FLIGHT 800 - SEARCH FOR CLUES

MR. LEHRER: Now an update on the investment of the crash of TWA Flight 800. Elizabeth Farnsworth has the story.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Today the "New York Times" reported that chemists at the FBI crime laboratory in Washington, D.C., have found in the wreckage of TWA Flight 800 traces of a chemical used in plastic explosives. But this afternoon, investigators said the findings did not prove that the plane was destroyed by an explosive device. At a news conference on Long Island, FBI Representative James Kallstrom read a lengthy statement to reporters.

JAMES KALLSTROM, FBI Director, New York: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Since the tragedy of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996, the team of federal, state, and local officials working tirelessly on this matter has had two priorities: first, to recover the victims, identify them and return them to their loving families; secondly, to determine whether the cause of this catastrophic event was the result of a mechanical malfunction or a criminal act. As a result of scientific analysis conducted by federal examiners, microscopic explosive traces of unknown origin have been found relating to TWA Flight 800. However, based upon all of the scientific and forensic evidence analyzed to date, we cannot conclude that TWA Flight 800 crashed as a result of an explosive device. Forensic experts outside the government consulted by the FBI agree that the detection of the microscopic explosive traces alone does not allow the conclusion that TWA Flight 800 crashed as a result of an explosive device. Other evidence of some kind--for example, physical damage, or patterns characteristic of a detonation, would need to be available, in addition to confirm the explosive trace findings before a positive conclusion of an explosive device could and should be made. Consistent with our practice, if during this investigation information comes to our attention that might affect the security of the public in general or the traveling public specifically, that information has been and will continue to be expeditiously shared with the appropriate agencies and organizations for whatever action is deemed necessary. Based upon the evidence to date, investigators cannot conclude whether this tragedy was the result of a criminal act. Consequently, at this time, the National Transportation Safety Board remains the lead agency in charge of the investigation. The investigation will continue until its appropriate conclusion. Thank you.

REPORTER: Any results of any of the--some of the metallurgy tests that you're doing--uh, would provide additional information?

JAMES KALLSTROM: I said in my statement that other things like, you know, scarring or pitting, things would be the type of thing that we would be looking for, so obivously things like that would be extremely helpful.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Kallstrom was then asked what these new findings do to the theory that the explosion could have been caused by a missile?

JAMES KALLSTROM: I said a minute ago the missile theory is still on the board, continues to be, and when we find out where we're here from the standpoint of which theory proves to be correct, we'll delete the other two.

MS. FARNSWORTH: He was also asked: Are there ways for such traces to get aboard an aircraft other than explosion?

JAMES KALLSTROM: Yes, sir, I believe there are. REPORTER: Such as--

JAMES KALLSTROM: Well, I suppose somebody could bring chemicals like that and put em on the aircraft. I mean, it's not inconceivable that this chemical could be available through some other means other than through an explosive device and be left on the airplane. There will be a lot of opinions whether that's highly improbable or highly unlikely or, you know, people will put percentages on what they think about that, but the reality is you don't get to 100 percent based on trace evidence.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And Kallstrom answered this question: "Could it be assumed from his statement that other evidence has not made itself known yet or are investigators looking at certain other things that may give other evidence?"

JAMES KALLSTROM: We're looking at everything we can look at as quickly as we can look at it. We're waiting for the rest of the airplane to break the surface of the ocean out there so that we can, you know, put this tragedy to at least one level of a conclusion. We want to do that. The NTSB wants to do that. If it's a criminal act, we want to move on and we want to find out who the perpetrators are, who the people are that would do such a horrific act, so we have absolutely no reason to do anything but what I just described to you. But we must do it correctly, we must do it in the rule of law, we must do it professional. It's to no one's advantage for us to stand up there and hypothesize based on unclear evidence, you know, what this is and where it's going. It's to no one's benefit.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And finally, there was a question about the timing of today's announcement.

JAMES KALLSTROM: Well, I think it's fairly obvious. There were a number of reports in the news media today that, that had different versions of, of the facts as we know them. And we thought it would be the correct thing to do to advise the public through the news media, advise the victim families that are watching, advise the American public as to what the facts are, and as to why we're operating the way we're operating. That's why we did it today.

MS. FARNSWORTH: The investigators said portions of the wreckage are being sent to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. They will be examined by the NASA investigators who probed the Challenger space shuttle disaster. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, our Friday night political analysis by Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. They are both in Chicago tonight. Paul, four big White House announcements this week. Today it was tobacco. Elizabeth Dole said it was an election year gimmick. What do you think, sir?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Well, it--if it is, it's a pretty good gimmick. Uh, it is, umm, uh, the President has struck here a theme that is--most people seem to agree with. He had a harder time when he looked for a corporate villain early in the administration, insurance companies didn't work very well, when they were talking about health insurance; the drug companies didn't work. But there's not a love lost out there from the--on the tobacco companies. And in--they sense an issue here where they can play national politics, as opposed to regional politics. And there's no question this is going to help perhaps some of the Republicans in some of the tobacco growing areas, Sen. Jesse Helms, for example, of, of North Carolina, uh, and Mitch McConnell, incumbent of Kentucky, but as far national politics goes, it's probably a pretty good issue for the President to contrast with Bob Dole's use of the drug issue which he has been trying to use against the President.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Mark, you agree, few political down sides to this one?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: I don't think there's any political down side to it, Jim, other than to be a Democrat running for reelection in North Carolina or running for election. Harvey Gant, the former mayor of Charlotte, challenging Jesse Helms in North Carolina, all of a sudden Jesse Helms becomes the tribune of the little tobacco farmer, the guy who's going to stand up against the oppressive federal government. And in that sense, it's a problem.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Yesterday was welfare reform, Mark, and that's a slightly different issue, is it not, for the President? He--well, you give your analysis, sir.

MR. SHIELDS: My analysis, Jim, is that that President helped himself politically by all measurements, all earthly indicia, and helped the Republican Congress.

MR. LEHRER: I'm sorry, all earthly what?

MR. SHIELDS: All earthly indicia, all indicators--

MR. LEHRER: Got you.

MR. SHIELDS: --that we have as opposed to celestial, and we do indulge--Paul and I go into celestial occasionally, but no, by every measurement, he certainly helped himself. And that's a big plus for Bill Clinton. He, in a strange way, yesterday's ceremony, which was not very celebratory, it wasn't the usual roman candles and all the rest of it--there was almost a sense of explanation and defense and rationalization.

MR. LEHRER: And the Democratic leadership was not there with him.

MR. SHIELDS: The Democratic leadership was not there, but, Jim, in a strange way, it was, it was testimony to the fact that the Republicans had won the Congress in November of 1994, and the left of the Democratic Party since that time has been essentially toothless and docile, and tired. It raised no challenge to Bill Clinton. He was the first President--the last Democratic President not to be challenged for renomination was Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II. Every other Democratic President has been challenged--

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. SHIELDS: --within his own party, and because he was free to move--he's the last has been running to the middle, and that was an example of his running to the middle and taking, attempting to take welfare off as a 96 issue working for the Republicans.

MR. LEHRER: Paul, how do you read it?

MR. GIGOT: This is a fascinating case of Sherlock Holmes' phrase of the dog that didn't bark. I mean, here you had a President who essentially repudiated 60 years of Democratic social policy. Uh, the Democratic Party, if it has been about nothing else since Roosevelt, it's been about federal action on behalf of poor people, the federal government, activist federal government on behalf of the poor. And it's repudiated and nothing happens. And we got a couple of press releases from the left wing, but nobody really reacts. And I think it's a testimony to a couple of things: one, if this had happened in 1980, I think the, the liberal wing of the party would have gone after Jimmy Carter. But it's a testimony to how much weaker they are within the party and within the country really, and second, to how much Democrats of all stripes fear Newt Gingrich more than they mistrust Bill Clinton. I mean, Newt Gingrich is the great mobilizing force for this party right now. It's the great unifying force. It's the only unifying force. And I think that's--that helps explain the welfare thing.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Paul, there were two others: minimum wage and the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, health insurance. They were the other two that the President signed this week. And there he's--he's right with the Republican Congress and also with the Democrats in Congress as well, is he not?

MR. GIGOT: Uh, he is. I mean, those--both of those passed with large majorities in both--from--in both Houses--Democrats and Republicans--where welfare divided the Democrats down the middle. The Democrats can reasonably sign on to both of these. I think the more interesting one, though, is welfare--I mean, is the health care because in a way, Bill Clinton is lucky that his original health care plan, the big, gargantuan one, didn't pass a couple of years ago, because if it had, it was so widespread, and it had so much change, he would have had an awful lot of people mad about it, even if other people--he would have had real mobilized opposition. Uh, right now, he's been able to-- because that failed, he's able to pass this incremental reform, which is widely popular, targets a couple of sources of middle class insecurity, and he's willing to get credit for it--he's able to get credit for it and still say, I, uh, I fulfilled one of my campaign pledges.

MR. LEHRER: So, Mark, generally, a good week for the President, these four all taken--this kind of Monday it has to be this, Tuesday it was, Wednesday, then Thursday, and it's a big deal, huh?

MR. SHIELDS: No. I think it was a good week for the President, Jim. I don't think there's any question about it, certainly on balance by anybody's measure, and it has to be considered a good week. If the, if the welfare signing was an indication of the, the President's being able to move because of the Republican domination of the Congress. Minimum wage was an indication of what had happened in the Republican Congress since they got elected. If anybody had predicted in November of 94, January of 95, that this Congress was going to produce an increase in the minimum wage, they would have been asked to head for the Menninger Clinic, and that was not the case. I mean, there were Republican leaders, including Dick Armey, who said it would be over their dead body, and the last time I checked, they were still kicking, screaming, and spitting.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Okay. Speaking of weeks, this was the first week of the Dole-Kemp campaign. How did--what's your assessment of how well they did, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: Uh, Jim, I thought they had--they had energy, they had a lot of sort of spirit. It--the numbers started to come back at them, Paul's paper, the "Wall Street Journal"/NBC Poll today showed it back at double digits, and it's a--I think after the, after the San Diego convention there was a sense of the Republican base vote firming up, but I thought--I think it's still a high energy ticket. I think it's still a very, you know, sort of--it's given Bob Dole sort of a vitality which his candidacy had lacked, I think, prior to the choice of Jack Kemp.

MR. LEHRER: Paul, speak to that, but also specifically to the, the--to Bob Dole's speech today to the Black Journalists Meeting in Nashville. It's not very often that you hear a national politician admit he did something wrong, which was that he didn't speak to the NAACP a few weeks ago.

MR. GIGOT: Well, that's right. He--and he linked that admission of a mistake to other Republican mistakes going back to being, really borrowing a Jack Kemp line, which is that the Republican Party was away without leave in some of the civil rights struggles of the, of the 50's and 60's. Umm, I think that was--I saw the speech, and I thought it was a terrific performance. I mean, he didn't back down on affirmative action, he made a real forthright case for his view on racial preferences. On the other hand, he said, look, we're going to do something we don't usually do; we're going to ask black Americans for their votes. And I thought it was a terrific performance, capping really a very good week of campaigning. You know, we talked to Republicans, and they're sort of knocking on wood, saying, believe it or not, Bob Dole seems to be running a good campaign after the doldrums of July, Kemp seems to have--he seems to have borrowed some of Kemp's enthusiasm, and he's seemed to have given some of his restraint to Kemp. So they're balancing one out pretty well, and Bob Dole seems- -he's campaigning as if he thinks he can win, which of course is the requirement before you can--before you're able to--

MR. LEHRER: Before you actually do it.

MR. GIGOT: --you have to think you can, yeah.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Mark, this is also Ross Perot's first week out there. He got the--officially got the nomination of his Reform Party last Sunday. How does he look a week later?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, I mean, Ross Perot, Jim, I'm frankly surprised he's now in single digits, and, uh, I don't under--

MR. LEHRER: In the opinion poll.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right, in the opinion polls. I do not underestimate Ross Perot. This is a man who you'll recall took, took budget deficits in 1992 which were, you know, way down on everybody's laundry list, and made it a centerpiece of not only the campaign of 92 but also put it right up there in people's minds and voters' concerns. So, uh, he has, he has great ability as a messenger. I think there's a great opening for Ross Perot that is left to him by both the Republicans and the Democrats by, by Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, and the excesses we saw at San Diego, which will be more than replicated if not exceeded here in Chicago, with big fat cat parties and corporate sponsorships and all the rest of it, I think that the issue of campaign finance reform, of political reform, remains there if Ross Perot, and he certainly is- -has shown an adroitness of picking up issues before--I think that's his opening to, to be a player in this campaign of 1996, because I don't think either candidates can plausibly introduce that issue and raise it.

MR. LEHRER: Paul, your Perot thoughts.

MR. GIGOT: Unlike my friend, Mark, I've been underestimating Ross Perot for years, and this time I may finally be right. It seems to me that he is diminishing the third party movement that he helped create. He created this process. There's a real--there is a third party demand in this country, but Ross Perot has turned up--ended up making it more a vessel for his own ego and his own campaign or appear to be that than something bigger for a bigger cause. And I don't think he's helped himself, and the other thing, problem he has is that Bob Dole, by putting tax cuts on the table, by, by putting some issues like school choice and other things on the table, he's made this difference in the race. You can't say that there's no choice here between Dole and Clinton. There are real differences. And a guy like Perot sometimes tends to flourish when there's--people can say, ah, there's not a dime's worth of difference. This time there is.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, look, we're going to leave it there, and we will talk to you all next week. We'll be out in Chicago with you, and we look forward to talking all week about the Democratic convention. Thank you both very much.

MR. SHIELDS: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: See you. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, President Clinton announced new limits on tobacco advertising and sales directed at minors, Bob Dole appealed for African-American votes at a convention of black journalists in Nashville, and FBI chemists found traces of an explosive in some debris from TWA Flight 800, but it was not enough for them to conclude a bomb caused the crash. And as I just said, we'll see you on Monday night on the NewsHour from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. And that will be followed each evening by our joint PBS-NBC News converage of the convention, itself. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.