The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the Kosovo confrontation, with the Yugoslav ambassador to the United Nations and our regional commentators; then, a Lee Hochberg report from Oregon on giving adopted children the right to see their birth records; and Senate Budget Chairman Domenici versus White House Budget Chief Lew on the Republican budget. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton said today there was strong unity in NATO for military action in Kosovo. He said Serbian forces were attacking ethnic Albanian civilians, and more of their troops were massing on the border, preparing to close in. U.S. Envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Yugoslav President Milosevic and other Serbian leaders in Belgrade. And after the four-hour meeting, Yugoslav State Television reported Milosevic asked for genuine political negotiations over Kosovo. Earlier today, Holbrooke spoke to reporters.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: We are, as everyone has said, on the brink of military action. It is not too late to avoid it, but the window is narrowing. I do not want to leave you with the impression that we are optimistic.

JIM LEHRER: And in Kosovo today, that Yugoslav advance continued. We have a report from Bill Neely of Independent Television News.

BILL NEELY, Independent Television News: The Serbian Army isn't backing down or pulling back, Europe's most battle-hardened troops intensifying their attack today. Their commander says theywon't stop until NATO and Kosovo's rebels stop threatening them. They are attacking a cluster of villages around the town of Srbica, from where there are ominous tales of Serbian police separating the men from the women, and of summary executions. Some fled, and told me they know at least seven of the dead. "They just led the men away," she says. "Then they beat us and burned our house." This is what they are fleeing, a sustained attack since the day the international observers left. The Serb troops are hunting these men, Kosovo's rebels, who themselves killed four Serbian policemen in the dark last night, killing following killing. Caught in the middle: Tens of thousands of refugees who are now pleading for help. "NATO should bomb," he says, "even bomb us, rather than leave us in the hands of the Serbs." "Doesn't the world see what's happening here?" she says. "Europe keeps talking to Milosevic. How much time do you want? Bomb, or give us the guns. Just do something." Long convoys of Serbian troops and police are on the move today. They are moving, step by step, towards a confrontation with NATO.

JIM LEHRER: In this country, the US Senate debated a resolution critical of US intervention in Kosovo. Majority Leader Lott is the sponsor. It says committing American soldiers to Kosovo is not in US national security interest. The resolution faces a test vote Tuesday. We'll have more on Kosovo right after this News Summary. The US Supreme Court let stand lower court decisions today that upheld a curfew for teenagers in a Virginia city; damage awards against an anti-cult group which abducted a church member for deprogramming; and an Ohio law requiring public university professors to spend more time in class and less on research. The court also agreed to the strike-down of drug tests required by an Indiana school district for suspended students seeking reinstatement. The first hot air balloonists to complete a non-stop trip around the world reached their base in Switzerland today. Spencer Michels narrates our report.

SPENCER MICHELS: Crowds at the Geneva Airport waited for hours to cheer Swiss Psychiatrist Bertrand Picard and his British Copilot Brian Jones. On Saturday, they completed the first non-stop hot air balloon trip around the world in their "Breitling Orbiter 3," named for the Swiss watch company that sponsored the flight. Many others had failed in the attempt. The pilots had lifted off on March 1st, after having been on stand-by since November, waiting for good weather conditions and clearance to enter Chinese air space. The balloon ascended from Chateau d'Oex in the Swiss Alps. The pilots then flew southwest to North Africa to catch a strong jet stream moving eastward. For 20 days, Piccard and Jones traveled over Africa, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, and the Atlantic Ocean. As the balloon crossed Mauritania at an altitude of 36,000 feet, it completed the circum navigation of the globe, 26,000 miles. The pilots chose to continue across Africa , hoping to land near the pyramids in Egypt in daylight, but high winds carried them to a remote corner of the Egyptian desert. There was no welcome, no reception for the two pilots as they brought their balloon down.

SPOKESPERSON: Eagle has landed. Get the champagne -

SPENCER MICHELS: After seven hours alone in the desert, Egyptian helicopters picked them up and took them to Cairo. Today, back in Switzerland, they reflected on their accomplishment.

BERTRAND PICCARD, Balloon Pilot: We would like to dedicate this flight to the children who are here by telling them that it's beautiful to have dreams, but it's also necessary to have a lot of work to get the dreams come true.

BRIAN JONES, Balloon Pilot: There have been times in the last 21 days where my heart has been beating extremely quickly, but no time like it had been in the last hour. This is an amazing reception, and thank you so much. [Cheers and applause]

JIM LEHRER: It was a big night for the movie "Shakespeare in Love" last night at the Academy Awards. It won seven Oscars, including Best Picture. "Sing Private Ryan" picked up five awards. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a Kosovo update, with the Yugoslav ambassador and our regional commentators; opening adoption records; and the Republican budget.

UPDATE - BRACING FOR COMBAT

JIM LEHRER: We start the Kosovo story with President Clinton's statement this afternoon.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: It is clear that Serb forces are now engaged in further attacks on Kosovar civilians. Already more than 40,000 Serb security forces are poised in and around Kosovo, with additional units on the way. These actions are in clear violation of commitments Serbia made last October, when we obtained the cease-fire agreement. As part of our determined efforts to seek a peaceful solution, I asked Ambassador Holbrooke to see President Milosevic, and make clear the choice he faces. That meeting is either going on now, or should start in the next few minutes. If President Milosevic continues to choose aggression over peace, NATO's military plans must continue to move forward. I will be in close consultation with our NATO allies and with Congress. Over the weekend, I met with my national security team to discuss the military options. I also spoke with other NATO leaders by telephone. There is strong unity among the NATO allies. We all agree that we cannot allow President Milosevic to continue the aggression with impunity. I have also sent a letter to President Yeltsin about the urgency of the situation. Our objective in Kosovo remains clear: To stop the killing and achieve a durable peace that restores Kosovars to self-government, the self-government that President Milosevic stripped away from them a decade ago. We and our NATO allies, and Russia, all agree that this is the right goal. The Kosovar Albanians have accepted this course. Only President Milosevic and Serbia stand in the way of peace. Serbia's mounting aggression must be stopped. Since the adjournment of the peace talks in Paris less than a week ago, an estimated 30,000 more Kosovars have fled their homes. The number now exceeds more than a quarter of a million people, one out of every eight people in Kosovo. Many of them now are in neighboring Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro, all of which could be quickly drawn into this conflict. So could other nations in the region, including Bosnia, where allied determination ended a terrible war, and our allies, Greece and Turkey. Seeking to end this tragedy in Kosovo and finding a peaceful solution is the right thing to do. It is also the smart thing to do, very much in our national interests, if we are to leave a stable, peaceful, and democratic Europe to our children. We have learned a lot of lessons in the last 50 years. One of them surely is that we have a stake in European freedom and security and stability. I hope that can be achieved by peaceful means. If not, we have to be prepared to act.

UPDATE - SERBIAN VIEW

JIM LEHRER: Now, the other side in this conflict. It comes from Vladislav Jovanovic, the Yugoslav Ambassador to the United Nations.

Mr. Ambassador, welcome. Do you have any late information, sir, on this meeting today between your president, Mr. Milosevic, and Richard Holbrooke?

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC, UN Ambassador, Yugoslavia: Not yet. My understanding is that the talks are going to be extended, and it is too early to say anything concrete about its outcome.

JIM LEHRER: As you know, Secretary of State Albright, as well as Mr. Holbrooke, himself, going into -- before the meetings were very pessimistic about the possibility that something could be worked out. Do you share that pessimism at this point?

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: No. The fact is that the document which is portrayed in the western press and political statesmen, the document signed in Paris, this peace agreement, it is not a peace agreement because that document has never been discussed with Yugoslav side, and there is not any peace agreement achieved through negotiations. We have signed another document guaranteeing full autonomy, a Serb government to this province; we signed it with the representatives of the Albanians who are loyal to Yugoslavia and other national communities. That agreement, that document is fully in line with the highest standard -- Europeans and both standards of human rights, democracy, national minority rights and equality of all citizens and nationalities living in that region. So portraying Yugoslavia as a side, as a country opposing peace is totally wrong, if not intentioned. We are a sovereign country, and we are under attack of both separatism and terrorism. We are defending the Holy Land of Kosovo -- which has always been our -- and never belonged to any state of Albania. So terrorists and separatists are not entitled to request the right to a state. The agreement or peace of document -- which was signed in Paris aimed at robbing Yugoslavia from that sovereign part of our territory through -- by representing it as a contribution to the peace. It is a contribution to the realization of the objective of separatism and terrorism and not at all to the peace.

JIM LEHRER: And so your country is never going to sign that document?

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: Our country has been open and is open now to grants to our Albanian countrymen whom respect the same way as all other citizens a very wide, very substantive autonomy - but autonomy and not a quasi-state, not to allow them the possibilities to get away from Yugoslavia in three years and to join Albania, and thus, to create a great Albania.

JIM LEHRER: What is the purpose, then, of this new offensive -- the President talked about it today -- many reporters on the scene have talked about the -- your forces going in there, some of them with black masks, taking young men out and executing them, 250,000 ethnic Albanians are now refugees. What is the point of this exercise at this point, the military part of it?

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: First of all, the point of those -- this information - rumors -- is to make excuse for manufacturing one crisis and justifying a foreign military intervention. There is not any offensive -- even less aggression of Serbs in Kosovo. After all, it is nonsense to speak about aggression of a country within its own country. There is countermeasures against a consistent and accelerated actions and attacks by terrorist KLA.

JIM LEHRER: So -- but you see that as an internal police matter, not as one -- as your folks invading another obviously, correct?

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: We don't invade anybody. We defend our country. If terrorist KLA is a legitimate side, which is not to be disturbed in its stronghold, it is another thing, but it is not -- in our international law terrorists cannot be entitled to any right to keep its territory for themselves. We have a legitimate right to re-conquer this territory and to establish peace in order as America can do it in its own country if the case need be -- or any other country. So what we are -- we are peaceful country, we want peace, we want very just, very correct, very generous political settlement, providing our Albanian countrymen real autonomous rights, but we don't want to accept any disguise of accepting any quasi-state.

JIM LEHRER: In other words, you are prepared, you and your countrymen are prepared to be bombed by NATO airplanes, beginning in the next day or two, is that correct?

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: If NATO decides to bomb us, to invade us, it would act against the principle of international law; it would act against its own treaty -- against the charter of UN. It would outmaneuver Security Council, which never authorized NATO to enforce any action against Yugoslavia. So it will be the beginning of the end of the United Nations, the whole system with Russia relations. Much greater stakes -- things are at stake, not only to invade Yugoslavia, or to compel Yugoslavia to giving a part of its territory to a greater Albania.

JIM LEHRER: But do you question NATO's determination to go ahead with the air strikes if President Milosevic does not agree to certain things with Mr. Holbrooke?

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: You know, throughout our history we have resisted any foreign invaders. We have done it very resiliently against Ottoman Empire. We have done it against also Hungarian Empire. We have done it against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. If NATO would like to be in the rank of those invaders, then it can have a chance to test our resistance; we're ready to defend our country.

JIM LEHRER: So that's how you see this, as an invasion of your country by NATO, including the United States?

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: Unfortunately, the United States is very vocal in such aggressive policy of NATO against our country, and I'm very surprised not to see more American liberal-minded politicians and public personalities to resist that policy. This is something which is really a turning point. If NATO acts against one sovereign state, which doesn't represent any threat to its neighbors, which doesn't commit any aggression against anybody, it would be one precedent which could be an alarm for the rest of the --

JIM LEHRER: What about -- excuse me -- what about President Clinton's point -- and others have made the same point -- that if NATO does not act against your forces, that thousands and thousands of people are going to die, your people, as well as ethnic Albanians?

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: First of all, if President Clinton, whom I appreciate very much, really wants peace, the best thing is to tell our Albanian nationality that they are fully entitled to the nationality rights and autonomy, but they are not entitled to any state. If America -- if United States takes that stand, the road to peaceful settlement will be very open - largely open, and we can easily achieve one agreement.

JIM LEHRER: All right.

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: But if behind the scenes there are some designs to provide our Albanians a state -- within a state -- later on the independent state, then it is not fair play; it is not a sound policy; it is a policy against the peace and stability in the region.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much.

VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: You are welcome, sir.

UPDATE - BRACING FOR COMBAT

JIM LEHRER: Now, an outside Washington view of the Kosovo situation in this country, and to Media Correspondent Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: For that perspective, we turn to three of our regional commentators: Cynthia Tucker of the "Atlanta Constitution," Robert Kittle of the "San Diego Herald Tribune," and Lee Cullum of the "Dallas Morning News." Joining them tonight are Tom Bray of the "Detroit News" and Beth Barber of the "Cleveland Plain Dealer." Welcome to you all. Lee Cullum, let me ask you -- at the beginning you heard the excerpt of President Clinton from this afternoon. Has he made the case, in your opinion, for military action by NATO in Kosovo?

LEE CULLUM: Terry, to my mind he has made the case. I don't think that we can afford to have this situation in Kosovo suddenly explode instead of implode upon itself. We can't have it spreading to other Balkan nations, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Albania, even Bulgaria. It's untenable. It would unleash a flood of refugees in Europe. It would be highly destabilizing. It would disrupt trade routes. It can't be tolerated. I think he's right. I think he made the case.

TERENCE SMITH: Cynthia Tucker, what's your view?

CYNTHIA TUCKER: Terry, I quite agree with Lee. I think that the President did make the case for the limited military action that he's now proposing -- NATO military strikes, a very forceful bombing campaign if that is what is deemed necessary -- for all the reasons that Lee just mentioned. We're talking about the stability of Europe here. We're talking about a war that -- a conflict that could possibly overrun into as far away as Turkey, and Turkey is the border between the Middle East and Europe. And that's already a very fragile area. And we cannot allow the conflict to run that far. And I think the Bosnia example showed us that we can't wait. We know what Milosevic is capable of. And we have to act now to save lives.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. Bob Kittle, who is of course with the "San Diego Union Tribune," not the Harold Tribune - my error -- Bob, what is your view? Do you feel this case has been made? Do you feel that the American public has begun to comprehend it?

ROBERT KITTLE: I don't think the President has made the case adequately, Terry. I mean, the reality is that most Americans could not find Kosovo on a map. They don't know Slobodan Milosevic from Richard Holbrooke. So you cannot with one press conference or one - you know -- brief remarks from the South Lawn make the case. The President needs to make a very sustained argument to the American people for why this is in our interest to be involved in the Balkans. And I think he's got a lot more work to do, frankly, because Americans, I think, are going to be caught by surprise when we send American forces into battle and potentially lose American lives in defense of our interest in the Balkans.

TERENCE SMITH: Beth Barber, do you feel that the case has been made and that the public is hearing it?

BETH BARBER: No. We've been very, very skeptical of this. We don't understand yet why now, why there? Why us? And we sure don't understand what next. All these dire domino effects could possibly happen, but what is it about this bombing campaign and the Serbian reaction that's going to keep that from happening and might even trip it into happening?

TERENCE SMITH: Tom Bray, what's your view of it?

TOM BRAY: Well, I don't think he's made the case. He talks about stopping the killing, and I think Americans are very sympathetic with that obviously, but there's killing going on in lots of parts of the world. We don't seem to be doing anything about that. He talks about self-government for Kosovo. Well, it has never had self-government. It's an autonomous region of Serbia, and it's not clear to me that the Kosovars are interested in anything we would be able to relate to as a democratic government. And then lastly, it all seems sort of out of kilter. I mean, we talk about Milosevic and the Serbs as if they're some sort of Nazi Germany, but to deal with it, we're going to conduct a little bombing and maybe commit 4,000 troops to the area. Something's wrong with that picture.

TERENCE SMITH: Lee Cullum, what do you feel the US policy should be here? Should it be, for example, the removal of Milosevic? How far should the US go?

LEE CULLUM: Terry, if Milosevic could be removed, that would be an enormous help. There is no question he has been the villain in the Balkans. Once Yugoslavia was freed from the Soviet Pact regime, the Warsaw Pact regime I intended to say, it began to fall apart because Milosevic himself fomented hatred. Warren Zimmerman, our last ambassador to Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslavia, said that it's as if the Ku Klux Klan had taken control of the media in this country. He controlled the media. He fomented hatred; he fomented fear in Slovenia, in Croatia, then in Bosnia and now in Kosovo. If he could be removed, it would be great help. I don't know if that's necessarily going to happen. He should be brought to trial in the Hague. That would be a help.

TERENCE SMITH: Cynthia Tucker, you talked about the consequences or potential consequences of this dispute in Southern Europe. What about the consequences to US involvement, particularly if it precedes from a bombing to troop participation and a peacekeeping action?

CYNTHIA TUCKER: Well, Terry, I think that there are distinctions to be made between bombing and committing American troops. I believe that the President has made the case for a bombing campaign. We bomb Milosevic to bring him to the table as we have done before. Quite frankly, I think that there is a limit to what the United States will be able to accomplish in Kosovo. I think that we may be able to stop Milosevic and his forces from slaughtering civilians. That's about all that we are able to do here. But before the United States commits any ground troops to a NATO peacekeeping force, I have -- I think that we have to be sure there is peace to keep. And there is no peace in Kosovo at the moment. So I believe the President has made a case for bombing campaign but he has not yet made the case for American ground troops in action in Kosovo.

TERENCE SMITH: Beth Barber, what would the President have to say to bring you around to his point of view about the wisdom of US involvement?

BETH BARBER: I think he would have to tell us precisely what his purpose is there. I mean, is his purpose to make sure that there is autonomy in Kosovo, or suppose, as the ambassador was just saying, suppose that the Albanians want to go on for a state, if that happens and if what we're doing in the next few days helps that happen, what is the United States prepared to do to stop that if it is prepared to stop it at all? What is our interest there? Cynthia was just talking about no committing of ground troops until there is peace, well, I think the pilots who will be dropping the bombs feel pretty committed to the action that they'll be undertaking in the next couple days if things go as they look like they're going. The United States people want to know why they're there, why they're at risk, and it seems like such a calculated risk that so quickly could become a miscalculated risk.

TERENCE SMITH: Tom Bray, I wonder if you feel that not only that these questions should be answered but whether or not the President should seek some sort of congressional endorsement of this action.

TOM BRAY: Well, I definitely think that he's got to do a better sales job with Congress. He met with a sizable contingent from Congress last week, and from all I hear, it didn't go very well. I was talking earlier today with a US Representative who felt that the president simply didn't make his case and now we see that Trent Lott really wants an accounting, a better accounting of what it is we're up to there. I can't see any reason for the President to act without some sort of congressional consensus here. I think it would be a very potentially dangerous thing to do. Congress has a role to play. Certainly a president is in charge of foreign policy. If American troops or interests were directly in harm's way, then he has a responsibility to act and act promptly. But we've been stringing this situation along for quite a while now, in fact, probably too long. I mean, what I worry about is that the Serbs are pouring forces in there. It's going to be very dangerous for us now to try to get in there ourselves and maybe we've waited really too long. But you can't ignore that he has to have some sort of consensus, because I think we're going to be in there for a long time if we take this step.

TERENCE SMITH: Bob Kittle, I wonder what you think of the issues that Tom Bray just raised, and specifically whether or not congressional endorsement would be good.

ROBERT KITTLE: I think a congressional endorsement is not constitutionally required, Terry, but certainly it is a good idea. Having a good debate in Congress on this is one way to educate the American people about what is at stake here, why we need to be involved, what the risks are, as well as the risk of inaction. So I think it would be excellent for Congress to engage a full debate on this and for the President to press his case on the Hill so that we and the American people have an opportunity to consider these issues and in the end under the ideal situation, the Congress would give the President the support that he's asking for to act in the Balkans. And right now we haven't had much of a debate. We had a short debate in the House last week, and the President just -- support for the President was very narrow. The Senate, I think it's -- no one is predicting how the outcome might be. So I think it's important for the President to get out there and to make the case much more forcefully in public for why this military action is warranted.

TERENCE SMITH: Cynthia Tucker, do you want to see some limits on this while you support the basic thrust? Do you want to see some limits?

CYNTHIA TUCKER: I don't want to see congressionally imposed limits, but I certainly think that the President needs to have a much stronger idea of where we're headed if we are going to commit ground troops. And of course, that's the time when it would be much more important to him, not only to have a congressional consensus, but to have made the case to the American public. And so far it's absolutely right to say that the American public probably doesn't understand what we're doing there, what the issues are. Let me say, however, that I think it is important that we act before more civilians are massacred. I think it was Senator Nickles who said last week, upon coming out of this meeting with the President, that he didn't think the American public would be onboard until there was more footage of civilians being slaughtered in the streets as there was in Bosnia sometime back. Well, I certainly think it would be a disgrace if America waited until there were more civilians slaughtered before we made a move.

TERENCE SMITH: Beth Barber, what about that point? What about the humanitarian issue? Is that justification?

BETH BARBER: It's hard to say that it isn't, but it's not sufficient justification. I mean, seeing dead bodies on TV is a horrible sight, and it does galvanize the American public, but it does matter where those bodies are and what the US interest is and a what the United States' purpose is in being there. I'm not at all convinced that what the President has in mind, at least what we know he has in mind would actually stop that for any length of time and lead to what he thinks it will lead to.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. Thank you all. I'm afraid we're out of time. We thank you very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, opening adoption records, and the Republican budget.

FOCUS - OPEN SECRETS

JIM LEHRER: Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting has the adoption story.

PROTESTERS: No more secrets! No more lies!

LEE HOCHBERG: These people, adopted as children years ago, were bittersweet as they gathered recently outside the State Records Building in Portland.

PROTESTERS: No more secrets! No more lies! No more secrets!

LEE HOCHBERG: In November, Oregon voters had approved Ballot Measure 58 to allow adult adoptees to see their birth certificate, a first step in helping them find their birth mother, whose name is also on the certificate. For more than 40 years, every state, except Kansas and Alaska, has shielded the identity of birth mothers. Implementing the Oregon measure, says adoption rights leader Helen Hill, would be a triumph for adoptees' civil rights.

SPOKESPERSON: Go on up to Room 205 after we lay down our signs, and I encourage you to apply for your birth certificate just like any other citizen of Oregon. [Cheers]

LEE HOCHBERG: They applied, but they knew they wouldn't get their records. In December, before the ballot measure was to go into effect, four birth mothers had obtained an injunction against it. They argued giving adoptees birth certificates violates the promise of anonymity made to the mothers when they relinquished their children.

FRANK HUNSAKER, Open Records Opponent: These mothers were told this will be kept confidential, and they entered into that life- changing decision with that thought uppermost in their mind.

LEE HOCHBERG: Portland Attorney Frank Hunsaker requested the injunction on behalf of the birth mothers.

FRANK HUNSAKER: And now they're being told, "Hey, what you were told 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago doesn't make any difference because of this new law." That's not right.

LEE HOCHBERG: The ballot initiative came after repeated efforts to pass open records laws in the state legislature failed. It was the brainchild of adoptee Hill, an Oregon artist whose studio is packed with images of embryos and eggs.

HELEN HILL, Open Records Advocate: The egg for me is all about origins and beginnings.

LEE HOCHBERG: Hill says she grew up happily in her adoptive home, but as an adult, working long nights in her studio, she was plagued about her roots.

HELEN HILL: It's a ghostly feeling. It's a feeling of never having had a beginning. Each time you look in the mirror, you almost do a double take. "Who is that?" You look at your hands. "How did that come to be like that?"

LEE HOCHBERG: Last year, she did meet her birth mother. Buoyed by the experience, she took $85,000 she had inherited from her adoptive father and spent it on the initiative campaign to help other adoptees. 51-year-old Adoptee Curtiss Endicott joined the campaign. A former truck driver, he had been forced out of work by respiratory and other health problems he believes are hereditary. Not knowing his birth mother, he has no way of checking.

CURTISS ENDICOTT, Open Records Advocate: Well, I want to find out where this is coming from. My birth mother provided me with some medical history 51 years ago, when she was 19. This doesn't hold water in today's medical world.

LEE HOCHBERG: His birth mother's history says only that she has no history of tuberculosis, diabetes, insanity, or feeblemindedness, not very useful last year when Endicott's son suffered kidney failure, another possibly genetic illness.

CURTISS ENDICOTT: There are just too many questions I cannot answer without the facts -- and I can't get those facts until I can speak to blood siblings.

LEE HOCHBERG: Critics of open records acknowledge such stories are compelling, but they say Oregon's new law goes too far.

FRANK HUNSAKER: The adoptee says to the birth parent, "I don't care what you were promised. I don't care about your rights. I have rights, and my rights are more important. My rights trump. My rights as the adoptee trump your rights, birth parent."

LEE HOCHBERG: Attorney Hunsaker says a promise of privacy was made to birth mothers, and it's a breach of contract to break it. The case may hinge on whether such promises were truly made. Adoptees protesting the injunction say birth mothers never signed contracts guaranteeing privacy. Adoptees attorney Thomas McDermott:

THOMAS McDERMOTT, Open Rights Advocate: We've never seen such a contract. We're actually unaware that any such contract exists, in writing anyway, that typically birth mothers do not contractually agree with an agency or someone like that for confidentiality. There may have been discussions about "will they find out who I am?," or "how would that happen?," But we've yet to see any documentary evidence to support that.

LEE HOCHBERG: Counselors at Portland's Boys and Girls Aid Society, an adoption agency, agree legal relinquishment papers never promised confidentiality, but they say state law assured adoptions were private, and the form that mothers filled out to request adoption services suggested the same. Adoption Counselor Lauren Greenbaum:

LAUREN GREENBAUM, Adoption Counselor: The form says, "This information will be held in the strictest confidence."

LEE HOCHBERG: And that means?

LAUREN GREENBAUM: Period.

LEE HOCHBERG: Regards birth certificates, what does that mean?

LAUREN GREENBAUM: I don't think that anybody thought about applying it to that. Adoption records were sealed, and they knew that, and we certainly told them that, and so they didn't have any reason to think that it would ever get out.

CINDY: It was just there was no question it would be shielded.

LEE HOCHBERG: The adoption agency -

CINDY: Oh, yes.

LEE HOCHBERG: -- said to you -- they said to you, "Your identity will be shielded"?

CINDY: Yes. The records were closed. Yes. She doesn't know who you are, and you don't know who she is.

LEE HOCHBERG: None of the birth mothers challenging the law is speaking publicly, but other birth mothers, like this Oregon woman who uses the pseudonym "Cindy," say they believed their identities would be protected.

CINDY: I don't remember the exact conversation, but I do remember enough to know that it was very clear to me that my confidentiality was very well protected there.

LEE HOCHBERG: If adoption agencies promised privacy, they did so improperly, say the adoptees. They argue no contract between a birth mother and an agency can harm an unrepresented third party, in this case the child given up for adoption.

THOMAS McDERMOTT: You and I could not make a contractual agreement that would deprive someone else of their rights. Now, that would not be enforceable. The plaintiffs here really ignore the impact of what about the object of this agreement, which is the child.

CINDY: You know what? That's the reality of infancy. Babies don't get to decide.

LEE HOCHBERG: For Cindy, a rape victim who became pregnant and put her child up for adoption 20 years ago, the legal maneuvering is horrifying. She says she made contact with her now-grown daughter, and the daughter wants to find the father who Cindy had helped send to prison. Cindy fears the girl and father could use Measure 58 to locate her and harm her.

CINDY: It feels like rape all over again to have my timing and my choice taken away in revealing my identity. I gave birth to this child. I gave her life. I chose to give her life. I don't need to allow her to have access to me to hurt me.

HELEN HILL: A birth mother doesn't own the event. A birth is not something that happens to her alone. She can't control everything around that. She can wish to, but there's somebody else out there that is very much affected, the person that was born.

LEE HOCHBERG: Legislators in Delaware have struck a compromise with a new law that gives adoptees access to records unless birth parents ask the state to withhold them. How Oregon resolves its issue will be watched closely in several states, where open records advocates are pushing legislation of their own.

FOCUS - BUDGETING FOR THE FUTURE

JIM LEHRER: Last month, we examined President Clinton's proposed federal budget. Tonight we look at the Republicans' opposing proposal. Kwame Holman begins.

KWAME HOLMAN: Simply put, the budget resolution is a suggested blueprint for how the federal government should distribute the revenues it takes in annually. Separate specific pieces of legislation then are needed to carry out the course set by the budget resolution. Nonetheless, budget resolutions are good indicators of the competing priorities between Democrats and Republicans, and forecast the political battles to come.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: This is our budget for the year 2000.

KWAME HOLMAN: President Clinton released his budget blueprint last month; House and Senate Republicans released theirs last week. Debate and votes on the competing blueprints are expected in both Houses of Congress this week. The Republican proposal drawing most attention is their Social Security lock box. It's a device that would lock away the entire $1.8 trillion in anticipated Social Security surpluses over the next ten years, protecting it from being spent on other government programs.

SEN. TRENT LOTT: If we set this money aside and say this is all going to be saved, both the tax money and the interest, then it will be there for the reforms, or -- and/or it will be paying down the debt.

KWAME HOLMAN: In addition to locking away the Social Security surplus, the Republicans would increase defense spending next year by $18 billion -- that's more than the President has called for; increase education spending by $7.3 billion -- again, more than the President requested. Republicans would set aside $133 billion over ten years to ensure the solvency of Medicare, and they would kick off a series of tax cuts that would total $800 billion over ten years. Republicans claim they can do all of that and still abide by the spending caps set in the 1997 budget agreement. But to do so, it's expected spending cuts of other domestic programs totaling $20 billion will be needed. Those difficult decisions would be made later this spring by the various appropriations committees. There also are competing plans among Republicans over how best to provide the $800 billion in tax cuts. Those specifics will be hammered out by the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees in late summer or early fall.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has more.

MARGARET WARNER: To analyze the Republicans' proposal, we turn to two key budget players: Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, author of the Senate Republican plan; and Jack Lew, head of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Gentlemen, the last time we had the two of you on to discuss the President's plan, Jim Lehrer gave Senator Domenici the first crack, so I'm going to reverse the order right now and ask you, Jack Lew, in general, what do you make of Senator Domenici's plan?

JACK LEW, White House Budget Director: Well, in general, Margaret, President Clinton laid down a bold plan in the State of the Union that called for setting aside a large part of the surplus, 62 percent for Social Security and 15 percent for Medicare. At the time, the Republican plans were calling for tax cuts that would have used the entire surplus. We're very pleased that we're making progress towards the kind of plan that the President called for. Setting aside the 62 percent for Social Security seems to be a given now. We're disappointed that the debate over Medicare has not advanced as much as the debate over Social Security, and, in particular, we're concerned that if a tax cut is paid for first and the Medicare portion of the surplus allocation waits for later, we're afraid it just won't be there. We think that's an important debate, and it's an important debate to have at the very beginning of the process.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Domenici, do you agree with that basic -- with Jack Lew's assessment of the basic difference, that it's really a question of whether there should be a tax cut or saving more for Medicare?

SEN. PETE DOMENICI, Chairman, Budget Committee: Well, first of all, the President sets aside 62 percent of the surplus that belongs to Social Security; we set 100 percent aside. We believe that every penny of it should be there. They spend $158 billion of the Social Security surplus in the first ten years for programs. We don't believe that's right. Secondly, all this talk about what they're doing for Medicare -- let me explain to you: In our budget, we spend $200 billion more on Medicare than they do. They cut $10 billion out of Medicare where they cut; we don't. In addition, we put $133 billion under a Senator Snowe amendment in a reserve fund, set it aside where it can be used for Medicare, including prescription drugs. Now, let me tell you the real, real problem with the President's budget. You people out there, especially seniors, you think he paid for prescription drugs. He paid for not one penny worth of prescription drugs. As a matter of fact, Mr. Lew, who's on this program, said the budget of the President does not spend any money on prescription drugs, and he doesn't intend to in this budget. He transfers 15 percent of the surplus into a trust fund and takes back IOU's, which only this administration can understand; nobody else can. So we think our budget is a good one. We don't spend all of the surplus on tax cuts. 100 percent of Social Security is put in a lock box, which incidentally, the administration's even objecting to our lock box. In addition to that, we do not -- we set up Medicare as I've just described it waiting around for a bipartisan solution, which we could have had already had the President been a player. He sat on the sidelines. Now we're anxiously waiting for his plan. He has none; he's submitted none. We say taxpayers have paid too much in taxes. So after we've done these things that I've described, all of which are good for America, good for our seniors, we then say give back the American people over a decade $750 billion in taxes. Give it back to them; they overpaid. And we leave it up to later committees, because it's not our responsibility. We think the marriage tax penalty - that fixing that should not wait 15 years like the President suggests we wait 15 years for tax cuts.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. You laid a lot of things out there, and let me see if with Jack Lew I can first address this question of the surplus. And correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Lew, but as I understand it, there's the Social Security surplus, which for years the government's been using to mask the operating deficit, but at some point later this year, even the operating deficit is going to come to the break-even point, and we're actually going to have a surplus in the regular budget, is that right?

SEN. PETE DOMENICI: That's right.

JACK LEW: Well, we haven't yet made a projection of one for this year, but in the very near future.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Here's my question, because I want to get this clear: Is the President proposing after this point to continue using any of the Social Security surplus to pay regular operating expenses?

JACK LEW: What the President's proposed is a 15-year plan where over 15 years there would be more money going into the Social Security Trust Fund than the amount of the Social Security surplus. I think that we can get confused by going through the year-by-year or the 10, 15 year totals. The real point is what are we going to be doing with this very special opportunity to spend the surplus, to allocate the surplus?

MARGARET WARNER: I'm sorry. Which surplus are you talking about?

JACK LEW: I'm talking about the entire surplus, because over 15 years, we're putting into Social Security more than the amount of the Social Security surplus. If the difference is a year-by-year difference, I think we'll work that through over the course of the process. The problem on Medicare is we've not yet reached an agreement that 15 percent of the surplus should go into Social Security. And that would be 15 percent of the non-Social Security -

MARGARET WARNER: Into Medicare, you mean.

JACK LEW: Into Medicare, that's correct. And we've not -- the President's proposed that 15 percent of the surplus go into Medicare, and that would be the non-Social Security surplus. Those are the very same dollars that would be going towards a $700 billion tax cut that Senator Domenici talked about. I think that we have to look at these as comparative plans, and there's I think no question but that the President plans does set aside more resources for Medicare. The Senator described the Senate budget as putting $133 billion aside for Medicare. We don't see where that is. The numbers just don't seem to add up. It calls for cuts throughout government that we don't think are sustainable -- cuts in discretionary spending that would cause us to have to reduce the number of FBI agents by 2,700; cuts in Head Start that would mean 100,000 kids coming off the rolls. We don't think that's a practical level of funding. If you start restoring funding levels to what are practical, sustainable levels, we don't think that $133 billion is there. The issue to us is what do we do with the dollars we know to be there, the dollars in the surplus, that non-Social Security surplus, which the Republican budget puts into a tax cut? The President says those dollars should go into Medicare first. We think that's a very, very clear choice, and we think it's a mistake to go first to a tax cut.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. And Senator Domenici, why do the Republicans think that non- Social Security surplus should go to a tax cut, rather than into Medicare?

SEN. PETE DOMENICI: First of all, let's make it very, very clear: The administration spends in the first ten years $158 billion of the Social Security Trust Fund. Mr. Lew talks about 15 years. We have never done anything on 15 years. They use 15-year projections so they could come up with a figure of 62 percent would be enough to take care of Social Security while they spent the rest of it.

MARGARET WARNER: So your point is -- let me make sure I understand you. Your point is that even after the regular budget comes into a break-even point that the President is going to continue to spend Social Security money for operating expenses?

SEN. PETE DOMENICI: No doubt. And secondly -- secondly, he puts a large amount of the non- Social Security surplus into a trust fund for Medicare but says you shouldn't spend it. He says it's there to expand the life expectancy of the program, but it's not there to be spent on anything. Mr. Lew so testified before us. We believe that we took $132 billion, and we -- of the surplus. We did not use it for Social Security because it was not theirs. We did not use it for tax cuts because we want it for Medicare in the event, in a reform package, you need it. And I predict we won't even need that much for a major bipartisan reform to fix it for a long period of time, and take care of a lot of prescription drugs along with it.

MARGARET WARNER: But how can there be such a difference? I mean, how can $133 billion -- why do you think $133 billion is enough to solve the Medicare plan or problem, and the White House is talking about I think $350 billion over ten years?

SEN. PETE DOMENICI: The White House has no plan. They have no idea where $350 billion comes from. It's a figment of the imagination, and if you look at what the ten members of the 17-member commission voted in, they gave drug prescriptions to the poor, and they did not spend one penny of general funds -- none. They found the savings within the program to pay for some prescription drugs. And one last comment, and then I'll give the rest of the time to Mr. Lew: He talks about us cutting discretionary spending. Let me tell you what. Once again, we didn't spend any Social Security money on discretionary spending. Secondly, we increased defense more than the President. We increased education more than the President. We increased veterans more than the President. And if our Senate wants to take those priorities, then other programs have to be restrained and cut, because both the President and the Republicans have the same amount of money to spend to stay within the caps.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay, Mr. Lew, what's wrong with the Senate choosing, say, those priorities-- increased veterans, education and defense, and trimming or cutting other non-defense programs?

JACK LEW: The problem, Margaret, is that the numbers just don't add up. If you look at what would be required in terms of reductions outside of the areas that Senator Domenici just described, they're just not sustainable levels of reductions - 11 percent in this year growing to 20/25 percent in just a few years. Is it not possible to deliver the programs that people count on with those kinds of reductions. We've seen a plan like this before. In the early 1980's, you know, we saw when tax cuts came first. We saw what happened when defense increases were being put forward with the expectation that unrealistic discretionary savings could be accomplished. We ended up 20 years later with $3 trillion of debt. At the time, in the early 1980's, it was being called by then-Republican Leader of the Senate Howard Baker a riverboat gamble. But 20 years later and $3 trillion of debt later, it's not a gamble; we know it's a mistake. I think the differences we have between us can be worked out, but it's unfair to describe the President's Medicare plan as being somehow not real. It's very real. If the dollars can be spent on a tax cut, they can be spent on Medicare. If $350 billion is put into Medicare instead of a tax cut, it will extend the life of the Trust Fund, and the actuaries of the Medicare Trust Fund have said so. It's a policy choice that we make this year in Washington. We think that it's a rare opportunity to make this kind of a decision looking at a surplus, but we should make no mistake about it -- if we spend the surplus on the tax cut, we can't also spend it on Medicare. We can have some of both, but we have to put our priorities in the right order. And the President has been very clear that his priorities are Social Security first, followed by Medicare. And he has a tax cut proposal. He has proposed savings accounts, universal savings accounts, to help people save for retirement. We'd be happy to engage in a debate over whether that's the right tax policy or whether there are others that might be more desirable, but the size of the tax cut cannot come first. It cannot take the entire on- budget surplus or the vast majority of it, leaving for later problems like Medicare. When we looked at Senator Domenici's budget, it looked to us like when you include the debt service cost that it spent more than the on-budget surplus on the tax cut.

SEN. PETE DOMENICI: Oh, that's not true. That's not true. Come on. We saved Social Security and put every penny in. You don't; you spend part of it. Now, we have a surplus that doesn't belong to Social Security, and you conclude that you've got to pick $350 billion of it, put it in Medicare when you don't even know what they need, and essentially wait 15 years before the hard-working Americans can get a tax cut under your proposal. You're frightened to death of the idea that you can't find enough places to spend this surplus, so we can't have a tax cut. You want to spend it; we want to give it back to the people. That's clear.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, gentlemen, I'm sorry. We have to leave it there. We'll have you back again. Thanks so much.

JACK LEW: Thank you.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major story of this Monday was Kosovo. President Clinton said there was strong unity in NATO for military action. U.S. Envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Yugoslav President Milosevic in an attempt to avert NATO air strikes. On the NewsHour tonight, Yugoslavia's a ambassador to the UN said those talks may be extended. And Yugoslav troops continued their advance on ethnic Albanian enclaves in Kosovo. An editor's note before we go: In a report last month, we said two prescription drugs had been proven effective in preventing breast cancer. To clarify that, Tamoxifen has been shown to sharply reduce the incidence of breast cancer in high-risk women; Raloxifen has been approved for prevention of osteoporosis, and tests sponsored by its manufacturer also showed some reduction in the incidence of breast cancer. The drug's effectiveness in preventing breast cancer will be studied in a largely federally sponsored clinical trial beginning this spring. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.