The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth in Washington. After tonight's News Summary, we focus again on the NATO strikes and the search for peace in Bosnia, then a look at the Fuhrman tapes and what they say about the Los Angeles Police Department. Next, a report from China on the tension surrounding the beginning of the International Women's Conference, and finally a conversation with the new head of the National Cancer Institute. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: A second day of bombardment by NATO warplanes and United Nations ground forces has forced the Bosnian Serbs to begin acceding to UN demands. Bosnian Serb Leader Radovan Karadzic said his forces will stop firing at the Bosnian safe areas, but he said if the NATO strikes continue, the Serbs will prepare for a long- term conflict. The UN had said Operation Deliberate Force would continue until Serb heavy weapons were withdrawn from the hills around the Bosnian capital. Meanwhile, U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke was in Zagreb, Croatia, today on his mission to broker a Bosnian peace plan. He briefed Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Bosnian Foreign Minister Muhammed Sacirbey on advances in his talks yesterday with Serbian President Milosevic. A State Department spokesman called the results of those talks a "procedural breakthrough."

NICHOLAS BURNS, State Department Spokesman: We now believe that there has been an important procedural breakthrough for peace. Yesterday's announcement that the Serbian government and the Bosnian Serbs will form a joint negotiating team is a welcome development. It's a good start. As Asst. Sec. Holbrooke said earlier today, this appears to end a protracted year-long argument concerning who would speak for the Bosnian Serbs. But let there be no mistake. The road to peace will be long and difficult. There are many, many more steps along the way before negotiations among the parties can even begin or the war finally ended.

MR. MAC NEIL: Five European Union monitors reported killed during NATO raids outside Sarajevo yesterday appeared alive and well today on Serb Television. A Serb officials said the men have been released from Serb custody. We'll have more on Bosnia right after the News Summary. Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: A political assassination shook the state of Punjab today in Northern India today. Beant Singh, chief minister of Punjab, was killed when a powerful bomb blew up his car in the capital city of Chandigarh. At least 11 others also died, including bodyguards and passers-by. Some 30 persons were injured. There is no word yet on who may have planted the bomb. Punjab has been racked by separatist violence for the last decade.

MR. MAC NEIL: Seven of the nation's largest water faucet manufacturers agreed today to produce lead-free faucets by 1999. The decision settles the 1992 lawsuit filed in California by the National Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Law Foundation. The groups claim that faucets contaminate drinking water when lead seeps into water stored in the tap. A University of North Carolina study found that lead levels in tap water from commonly used faucets was as high as 124 parts per billion. The federal standard for safety is 15 parts per billion. Lawyers for the environmental groups spoke at a Washington news conference.

ERIK OLSEN, Natural Resources Defense Council: For the first time, people will be able to choose between leaded and unleaded faucets. They will be able to decide for themselves how to protect their families from lead contamination coming from their taps under the settlement that's been reached and is being announced this morning.

MS. FARNSWORTH: The New England Journal of Medicine stepped up security in its Boston offices today, after getting what it calls a nasty message from an anti-abortion group. Yesterday, the magazine reported a new study that found the combined use of two legally approved drugs can safely induce early abortions. The fax message from anti-abortion activist Randall Terry singled out the study's author, Dr. Richard Hausknecht, who was interviewed on this program last night. To quote Terry, "Let Hausknecht remember the fate of Nazi doctors. This is nothing more than chemical warfare against children."

MR. MAC NEIL: The Justice Department said today it was considering whether to launch an investigation of the Los Angeles Police Department. The NAACP requested a federal probe based on police behavior described in tape recordings being considered as evidence at the O.J. Simpson murder trial. The allegations include officers singling out blacks for arrest without sufficient cause and tampering with evidence in criminal cases. Former LAPD officer Mark Fuhrman, a key prosecution witness, cited such incidents in recorded conversations with a screenwriter. Well have more on the impact of the Fuhrman tapes later in the program.

MS. FARNSWORTH: In economic news, Americans earned and spent more last month. The Commerce Department says personal income jumped by .7 of 1 percent in July, the biggest increase in six months. Spending was also up but only .2 of a percent, the slowest pace since April. On the down side, factory orders suffered their fifth decline of the year. That's our summary of the news tonight. Now, it's on to the NATO strikes and the search for peace in Bosnia, the Fuhrman tapes, and the LAPD, the women's conference in China, and a conversation with the new head of the National Cancer Institute. FOCUS - STRIKING BACK

MS. FARNSWORTH: We begin with an update on the situation in Bosnia and the prospects for peace in the wake of the NATO attack on Bosnian Serb positions. Peter Morgan of Independent Television News reports.

PETER MORGAN, ITN: The skies above Sarajevo were relatively quiet today, but the roads were busy. While NATO and the Bosnian Serbs assessed yesterday's air strikes, French armored personnel carriers patrolled the streets. These camouflage vehicles, a part of the Rapid Reaction Force based on Mount Igman; their presence in the city, itself, the first sign of President Chirac's wish to reopen the roads into Sarajevo. Unconfirmed reports tonight that some Serb guns have been withdrawn have not altered the Sarajevan routines. Many here recall the temporary truce won last winter by Gen. Sir Michael Rose. The guns were silenced then for almost a year but soon returned. This time, after more than 300 sorties and 900 artillery rounds, the UN sounded more confident.

ALEXANDER IVANKO, UN Spokesman: The attacks seemed to have succeeded in stabilizing the situation in the city, which registered a significant decrease in the number of firing incidents. In the long-term, it is up to the Bosnian Serb leadership to decide when the NATO Rapid Reaction Force operation will end and heavy weapons cease threatening the people of Sarajevo.

MR. MORGAN: Sirens still sounded over Serb territory; the arms store at Lukavica here was one of yesterday's targets. NATO jets reportedly bombed two sites north of Sarajevo this afternoon. NATO says the raids will continue until Sarajevo's siege is lifted and the heavy guns are withdrawn. "The noose must be taken away," said one NATO official, "not just loosened around the victim's neck." NATO has released copied video recordings of the air raids. These two reportedly showed the attack on a Serb radio command post on Mount Jahorina. NATO have only released pictures of successful raids, as here on the Vogosca arms factory, so it's not yet clear whether all the laser-guided missiles were as accurate as NATO would like to claim.

ADMIRAL LEIGHTON SMITH, NATO Commander: The results of our strikes have, in my assessment, been very successful. I must tell you that we have some weather problems. We've obviously missed some targets, but overall, I believe that we are being very successful in the prosecution of these air operations.

MR. MORGAN: One other NATO operation is underway to try and rescue the two French airmen who ejected from their Mirage fighter when it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. French officials deny the two men have been captured.

ADMIRAL LEIGHTON SMITH: We are exerting every possible effort towards the rescue of the French pilots who ejected yesterday. I do not wish to discuss that particular incident any further, but I'll just say that I hope that our efforts will mirror the successes of the Scott O'Grady case of June.

MR. MORGAN: British troops were taking stock on Mt. Igman, while more details emerged about the fate of five EU monitors who went missing during yesterday's raids. The monitors were trying to mediate between Serbs and Croats in Western Bosnia. Bosnian Serb TV has shown pictures of the five monitors. It claims the pictures were taken in Pale today and shows the EU officials discussing the NATO raids with Serb officials. There was no word from any of the monitors, and no immediate way of confirming the veracity of the pictures. Relief at NATO's action has, for the moment, muffled some of the private doubts. The risk of an open-ended conflict with the Bosnian Serbs remains, and the final aims of Operation Deliberate Force are still disputed. NATO air strikes can freeze Bosnia's military balance but not alter it. That will be decided by the fighters on the ground. Such questions are driving the current diplomatic process. America's envoy, Richard Holbrooke, was in Zagreb this afternoon to consult Croatia's President Tudjman.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, Assistant Secretary of State: I told him in the middle of the talk that I wanted to stop the conversation and see you before continuing, because I felt it was so important to consult you right away.

MR. MORGAN: This new enthusiasm follows last night's agreement between the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia's President Milosevic. The deal means the Serb president will lead any future negotiating team.

SEC. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: We consider what happened yesterday President Milosevic's public announcement on the fact that he will now head a joint Serbian-Bosnian Serb negotiating team a procedural breakthrough but only a procedural breakthrough. The actual substantive negotiations remains extremely difficult.

MR. MORGAN: That was a diplomatic understatement. Tensions between the Bosnian government and NATO are already apparent. The Sarajevo government clearly reserves the right to continue its military actions if NATO pulls back.

MUHAMMED SACIRBEY, Foreign Minister, Bosnia: There have been promises in the past to negotiate to bring about peace, and they have not been fulfilled, so I think in order for peace to have a chance this time, for the talks to have a chance this time, NATO must fulfill its commitment.

MR. MORGAN: But tonight's report of a possible partial withdrawal around Sarajevo raises new questions. North of the UN safe area of Tuzla, Serb guns were still exchanging fire yesterday afternoon with Bosnian army forces around the disputed Posovina corridor. So long as offensives like these continue, the Bosnian Serbs' real attitude towards the NATO ultimatum will remain suspect.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Still ahead, what the Fuhrman tapes say about the LAPD, the woman's conference begins in China, and a conversation about cancer. FOCUS - L.A.P.D. BLUES

MR. MAC NEIL: Now, Los Angeles and the Mark Fuhrman tapes. On Tuesday, audiotapes of interviews with the former LA police detective were played at the O.J. Simpson murder trial. His inflammatory comments have fueled racial tensions in Los Angeles and its police department. We begin with a report by Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET in Los Angeles.

MR. KAYE: The racial attitudes of the Los Angeles Police Department are once again under a microscope as a result of the graphic audiotapes played during the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

MR. FUHRMAN: [on audiotape] We kicked the door down. We grabbed a girl that lived there, one of their girlfriends. Grabbed her by the hair and stuck a gun to her head and used her as a barricade.

MR. KAYE: The voice is of former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman, who repeatedly used racial slurs in tape-recorded interviews with screenwriter Laura Hart McKinny over a 10-year period. Fuhrman, who investigated the murders and who left the LAPD last month, testified during the Simpson trial that he had not used the word "nigger" in the last decade. The tapes refute that claim.

MR. FUHRMAN: [audiotape] Go to Wilshire Division. Wilshire Division is all niggers, all niggers. Niggers training officers. Niggers--with three years on the job.

MR. KAYE: In the interviews, Fuhrman boasted about planting evidence and lying to cover up misdeeds. He insulted women and Latinos and said the ACLU should be bombed. He also bragged about beating up suspects.

MR. FUHRMAN: [audiotape] We basically tortured them. There were four policemen and four guys. We broke 'em. Numerous bones in each one of them. Their faces were just mush. They had pictures on the walls. There was blood all the way to the ceiling with finger marks like they were trying to crawl out of the room.

MR. KAYE: The broadcast of the Fuhrman tapes came as the Los Angeles Police Department was in the midst of implementing reforms, prompted by the beating of Rodney King four and a half years ago. Since then, the LAPD has tried to depict itself as a department committed to enlightened community relations and change. Graduation ceremonies for cadets leaving the police academy reveal the changing face of the LAPD. Fifteen years ago, non- whites and women comprised only 22 percent of the police force. Today, because of new recruitment and hiring policies, just over half the seventy-eight hundred officers is non-white and female.

CHIEF WILLIE WILLIAMS, Los Angeles Police Department: Our commitment is to serve the public with respect and the dignity that they deserve.

MR. KAYE: A new police chief, Willie Williams, came in after the old chief, Darryl Gates, resigned under pressure in the wake of the King beating. Although Williams has been criticized for implementing reforms too slowly, he has pledged strong support for community policing.

SPOKESMAN: You're going to serve the community as it explains here, and you're going to work in partnership.

MR. KAYE: Recruits are taught respect for cultural differences, as well as proper police procedures, procedures which Fuhrman said on the tapes he often ignored. Los Angeles law enforcement officials were quick to condemn Fuhrman.

CHIEF WILLIE WILLIAMS: I don't know if Mr. Fuhrman's comments ever represented the view of the majority of the men and women in the LAPD, but I have no information that they did. The fact that we may have a few people in our department today or in the past who reflected those views is going to change.

GIL GARCETTI, LA County District Attorney: These words and this conduct--or apparent conduct--by a police officer is not--and I underline this--is not representative of the vast, vast majority of the police officers in Los Angeles.

MR. KAYE: But while officials maintain Fuhrman was the exception, some community activists suggest Fuhrman symbolizes a larger problem--police brutality and inadequate reforms. Yesterday on the steps of LA's federal courthouse, Latino civil rights attorneys filed a lawsuit claiming an LA police officer wrongly killed a 14- year-old boy one month ago. Lawyer Antonio Rodriguez represents the family of the slain boy. Seventeen years ago, Rodriguez filed a complaint about a brutal incident Fuhrman discussed on the tapes.

ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ, Lawyer: The Fuhrman tapes confirm what the black and Latino community have been denouncing and complaining about and crying for, for so many times--that is justice and an end to police brutality and racism. I think on a long range basis what it establishes is that our city fathers, our city government, the police department, other officials, have been allowing with prior knowledge the presence of fascist and assorted racist, brutal cops in the police department of the city of Los Angeles.

MR. KAYE: Rodriguez's opinions were echoed at the Magic Shears Barber Shop in LA's Crenshaw District. The people here, Fuhrman's remarks came as no surprise.

TWAIN WILSON: Fuhrman doesn't surprise me, because I know of people that had problems with LAPD, as well as myself, you know, getting called derogatory terms.

E. A. SKI: Any time you get pulled over just, just for having a nice-looking car--you know what I'm saying--you're supposed to be stereotyped as a drug dealer because you're black.

MR. KAYE: And that still happens?

E. A. SKI: And that still happens. I have, I have, man, I have a '94 Beemer, man. I'm in the music business.

MR. KAYE: A BMW.

E. A. SKI: Exactly. You know what I'm saying. I do business. I'm legal to the head, and the bottom line is but I'm stereotyped as a black man as being a dope dealer or being some, some, some drug lord, or whatever you want to call them.

RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: 790 KABC Talk Radio. The time is--

MR. KAYE: Callers to radio talk shows expressed similar feelings.

CALLER: There isn't a police department in this country that doesn't have a lot of Mark Fuhrmans. His attitudes are not unlike- -I'm not going to say most cops--but a hell of a lot of 'em and certainly some in every department in this country.

LARRY ELDER, Talk Show Host: Well, that, of course, is the issue. The issue is how many Mark Fuhrmans are there.

MR. KAYE: Conservative talk show host Larry Elder said many of his callers were angry.

LARRY ELDER: Many people are fearing that what Mark Fuhrman is saying is something that happens commonly on the force.

MR. KAYE: Do you go along with that?

LARRY ELDER: No, I don't. I have a lot of friends who are cops. A lot of cops call my show. I've interviewed cops here on the show, and the best guess is that no more than 5 percent, possibly as few as 1 percent, have the mentality of Mark Fuhrman.

MR. KAYE: But officers who may think like Mark Fuhrman should now find the LAPD less hospitable, according to Lt. Otis Dobine. Dobine is immediate past president of the Association of Black Law Enforcement Executives. He says that while the Fuhrman tapes disgusted him, their release may have served a useful purpose.

LT. OTIS DOBINE, Association of Black Law Enforcement Executives: Now, if there are people within this organization or other organizations--law enforcement organizations--that have the same feeling and sentiment that Fuhrman has, they now, I think, will walk around like an exposed nerve saying that he's uncovered himself, I no longer can feel comfortable expressing my views, because people are going to look at me and say, you, you are a racist; you're a bigot.

LAWYER: Is that Officer Fuhrman speaking?

WITNESS: Yes, it is.

MR. KAYE: Today, the U.S. Justice Department announced it will review a request to investigate alleged incidents of police abuse described in the Fuhrman tapes. The request was made by the Los Angeles branch of the NAACP.

MR. MAC NEIL: Now, three perspectives on the repercussions these tapes have for the city and its police department. Willie Williams is the Los Angeles chief of police. John Mack is president of the Urban League in LA. Andrea Ordin is a former prosecutor in the city. She also served on the Christopher Commission, which investigated the police department in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating. She joins us from Tulsa. Chief Williams, what does it say to you about your department, that a detective who just retired a month ago boasts of such behavior and attitudes?

WILLIE WILLIAMS, Police Chief: [Los Angeles] Well, it says what I've already known or what I knew when I came here three years ago, that we do have a small but somewhat significant portion of our organization which shared these views, and ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, they were not at all shy about carrying them out on the streets, and to some extent have not been shy at carrying their views out, and/or their activities out on the streets today. I think what's important to recognize is that when you talk to a lot of people in the community, while they talk about the past, they have seen some changes in the last two or three years, and we're going to make sure that those people who still share those views either change them immediately or get out of our organization.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Ordin, as a member of the Christopher Commission, which set out to reform the department, what do his remarks say to you?

ANDREA ORDIN, Christopher Commission: [Tulsa] Well, I can't be surprised that there was a member--is a member of the LAPD making those comments. As we said in the report and it was four years ago, there were a significant number of members of the Los Angeles Police Department that committed acts of excessive force and that were exacerbated by acts of racial bias and gender bias, so we know that those people have been in the Los Angeles Police Department, and since so few--little time has passed, it is not shocking to think that another person is still there. I guess the question in your opening piece is: How large is it? Our snapshot told us that the vast majority of Los Angeles police officers, men and women working under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, are doing their job well and with sensitivity. But there is a significant number--and that significant number must be eliminated from the force, because even it's only 1 percent or if it were as high as 5 percent, the impact on the whole system, on our schools, in our churches, in our legal system is enormous.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Mack, as a leader of the African-American community, what would you estimate is the number still on the force of people who hold views like that?

JOHN MACK, Urban League: [Los Angeles] Well, I would agree that when you look at the 8,000 Los Angeles police officers that this group represents probably a small percentage. I don't know. I don't take terrible exception or great exception with the numbers and percentages that bounce around--maybe 5, 10 percent. But I think beyond the, the mere and raw numbers, it seems to me, that one of the significant points that we need to keep in mind is that when you hear the kind of repulsive and revolting racist arrogance of a Mark Fuhrman, it says to me that the institutional core of racism within LAPD still provides Chief Williams with a major challenge, because Mark Fuhrman also is a strong willed personality, and I shudder to think the extent of his impact and influence upon young officers, who may have gone through the police academy, received that training, then they're going to come out and look up to him, and/or hear him say, forget all that stuff, let's go out there and brutalize a bunch of niggers.

MR. MAC NEIL: How about that, Chief Williams? I mean, Mark Fuhrman was in charge of training dozens of cops. Are you investigating whether he's passed on his attitudes to them?

CHIEF WILLIAMS: Well, we started doing a lot of things three years ago, not focusing just on Mark Fuhrman, dealing specifically with the question. We're doing a biopsy of Mark Fuhrman's life in the LAPD over the last 25 or so years--every investigation, case, who he's worked with, where he's worked, complaints, civil suits, from A to Z. And we started that probably five, six, seven weeks ago, not in anticipation of these tapes coming out, but based on the leaks and based on other innuendo that we received. But when I became chief in 1992, one of the first things that was done before the end of the year was the institution of cultural diversity training in which every manager down to the level of captain, both sworn and non-sworn, attended along with myself. We've dealt with sensitivity training dealing with gay and lesbian members of our department and community, as well as with the women, because what has not come out in these tapes, that long-term the most horrendous comments, beyond what we've heard the last three days, are Mark Fuhrman's total disdain for women and women in law enforcement. So we've dealt with those issues. We've fired people; we've suspended. We've failed to promote, but there still has to be a message of censure, of non-compliance, and that those people in our organization, if they are not part of the problem, yet they keep quite and condone it, that they will suffer the loss of their jobs, or suffer discipline, along with the perpetrators of these types of acts in the future.

MR. MAC NEIL: How do you feel when you hear the figures that came from Larry Elder, who happens to be an African-American, himself, and is a conservative and sympathetic to your department, saying, it's only 1 to 5 percent? I mean, numerically that could be as many as nearly 300 officers.

CHIEF WILLIAMS: 1 percent of our department is probably about eighty or ninety people, so it could be two orthree hundred out of a total of ten thousand employees when you get our sworn and non-sworn. Now, I'm African-American. I've been in law enforcement for 32 years. You have to remember, our people come from society; they come from the same people that work in the news media, that work in the law firms, that work in journalism, that work in the factories. We don't select, you know, from someplace else. We share the strengths, and we share the weaknesses. It bothers me as a police executive for nearly eight years that I have eight people, let alone eighty or eight hundred, whatever the number may be, and my challenge is to weed them out. The other issue dealing with reform--

MR. MAC NEIL: Sure.

CHIEF WILLIAMS: You know, I've been here three years, but we're being asked to change an institution that's been around for 150 years. It's going to take a little time, and we'll make some process [progress] and we're going to make more progress.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Ordin, I know you're sympathetic to the efforts Chief Williams is making, but do you think he's moving fast enough? I mean, if there are several hundred officers, if that figure is right, who still share attitudes like that--

MS. ORDIN: Well, I am concerned, and I think Chief Williams is concerned, and, and certainly John Mack is concerned, as is I think the vast majority of Los Angeles citizens, that we need to move more rapidly. We did have a blueprint four years ago based upon hundreds and hundreds of interviews, based upon analysis of thousands of documents, based upon, as you remember, the mobile digital transcripts--the transcripts where officers typed of many of the same outrageous, insidious comments and typed them on computers to each other. So we have the background of what was going on, and we have a blueprint of how to fix it. The chief has started to talk about some of those areas, but we have to move much more quickly. Community policing, training, sensitivity training- -the gender issues, as were noted, are remarkably tough to fix and need to be fixed, because we found that women policing, the women who were policing were doing it extraordinarily well, were out there not reluctant to use force, yet, they were never in that top 5 percent of persons with complaints against them.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Mack, has the African-American community felt improvements?

MR. MACK: Yes. It's been a mixed bag. I think the African- American community, by and large, feels that the most significant improvement has been the person sitting next to me in Chief Willie Williams, who has come in, he has reached out, he's made it clear that he's committed to developing a partnership between the Los Angeles Police Department and the African-American community, Latino community, and every segment of the city. Chief Williams has been very aggressive in that effort, very open. He has invited people's constructive criticism. He has not turned people off, and I think that his behavior these past several days has been indicative of that fact. For example, Chief Williams has made it very clear that he totally repudiates Mark Fuhrman, all that he stands for, and others who think like him, and that's a great contrast from his predecessor in terms of the way he used to posture. I think Chief Williams, in addition, has had an uphill battle, because he came in here facing some big-time odds. I think that the African-American community, however, having said that, there's still a great degree of impatience that clearly we need to have these various reforms implemented much more quickly. And--but I think we're realistic; we know that some things take a little longer. I would hope that out of this very, very sick situation in terms of the Fuhrman tapes, that we can, out of this diversity, build upon it. No. 1, finally Mark Fuhrman may have done people a favor by breaking the code of silence and, and really confirming a lot of stuff that we have known. Hopefully, the elected officials and police commission will close ranks and work cooperatively and establish the kind of priorities that need to be established to turn around the LAPD.

MR. MAC NEIL: Chief Williams, are you frustrated in trying to institute the reforms by, for instance, not being able to get rid of people you would like to get rid of, because the regulations don't permit you to? Just to give an example, in the--in our set- up piece by Jeffrey Kaye, there, there's a policeman who's been charged with a complaint in the shooting of a 14-year-old boy. As I understand it, he's one of those who was named by the Christopher Commission as one of the so-called "bad apples," and yet, he's still there on the force.

CHIEF WILLIAMS: Well, you have to understand that Los Angeles and California have one of the most restrictive personnel disciplinary systems of any law enforcement agency. If you just look at our disciplinary board, the board acts independent of the chief, and these are managers. The chiefs of police, including myself and past chiefs, we can lower a penalty but we can't raise it. To give an example, if one of the officers in the Rodney King beating had been ordered by this board to return to duty, they would be working today, because I couldn't change it. I think this Fuhrman tape offers an opportunity to look at our selection, look at our promotion, look at our disciplinary system, again, if it requires ordinances changes, charter changes, civil service, there's opportunity; we've already made significant changes in the psychological background interviews, in the training, the last four or five years. But that didn't help, you know, Mark Fuhrman, who came in 25 years ago, but it certainly is making a difference in the selection of people today.

MR. MAC NEIL: I don't want to interrupt you, but is what you're saying, that yeah, you are frustrated because the regulations don't permit you to clean house as rapidly as you'd like?

CHIEF WILLIAMS: Well, it--you're right--it does. It restricts you from cleaning house when you're dealing with people around these issues. See, our department is set up, if you rob, steal, something like that, we can get rid of you pretty quickly, but if you're involved in bias against women, against gay, lesbians, or dealing with ethnicities, it's almost like, well, maybe this is worth a four- or five-day suspension. We've got to change the mentality of those people sitting on the boards and the chief and the board of police commissioners have to have the support necessary to back it up when the formal system doesn't work.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Ordin, do you think that there should be some changes in the laws or regulations, so that what your commission recommended can be implemented faster?

MS. ORDIN: I certainly think that--and we recommended that the discipline process be looked at along those lines--but perhaps even more important is to have an attitudinal change where the leadership of the LAPD and the rank and file and the vast majority of good officers ban together and say this is unacceptable conduct. We mentioned the code of silence before. We must have a situation where the rank and file officers--those P-1 and P-2's--who are being trained by, by a Mark Fuhrman will complain and know there's no retaliation, and know that that's how they make it the department that they want it to be.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Mack, the Wall Street Journal today quotes a Los Angeles teaching aide, Ronnie Brown, who says, the Fuhrman tapes just confirm what black people, in particular, people of color, in general, perceive law enforcement is, institutional white supremacy. Is that an unfair charge at the moment, institutional white supremacy?

MR. MACK: I would--I wouldn't go that far, but I certainly think institutional racism is fair to state, that clearly a large percentage, if not majority, of African-Americans clearly feel that way, that we've had--it's like a cancer--the Mark Fuhrmans of this world, the Stacy Koons of this world, the Lawrence Powells, have been--they have poisoned the institution and they obstruct, and then you add on to that frankly the Police Protective League, the union that's an obstructionist. So I think that, no, not white supremacy. I really don't honestly feel that's a fair criticism, but I think it is a very accurate criticism to state that there continues to be a significant amount of racism as reflected by Mark Fuhrman and what he had to say and the harassment and brutality and framing of people by some--some of the rotten apples on the force.

MR. MAC NEIL: Chief Williams, does that enrage you as an African- American, yourself, to know that your force is still regarded as, as exemplifying institutional racism?

CHIEF WILLIAMS: Well, it does more than enrage me; it hurts me, it enrages me, it frustrates me. I've been an law enforcement officer since 1964. And I remember my former city--there was an unwritten rule, two blacks couldn't work together. You know, and I rose to become chief of two cities, and yet, the institutional concerns of the African-American, the Latino, the Asian community, those concerns are the same as they were in 1964. We've made some strides. Now people are saying, well, maybe it's a small but active minority in the department. Well, twenty-five, thirty years later, they shouldn't be here at all. So it is frustrating as the black man, who has young men who are now young adults, two are my sons, one of whom is a police officer, because we haven't come nearly as far--I think as the lady just said--if I can get the men and women in this organization to adopt the zero tolerance for the code of silence, the message that I sent out last year, and the message I sent out this year, if we can band together, we can step forward as a group, rather than having an individual step forward and be shunned by the larger group.

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, how do you feel about this statement, Chief Williams? You must know this man, Ron Hampton, the director of the National Black Police Association. He also told the Wall Street Journal, the Fuhrman tapes are "the real picture of the criminal justice system in this country."

CHIEF WILLIAMS: There--I'm not sure how--I know Ron--I'm not sure what he meant by that, but they are the picture from the perception of the majority of those African-American, Latino, Asian, and poor whites. I mean, that's a reality. If nothing else has come out of this tape, many people in many communities met with me a couple of weeks ago and said, Chief, what in the world is new, I don't know why you and some other people are so excited. That is the perception for many of the minorities in our community, and the majority of the community has to sit up and say, hey, why, if it's a minority of people then they've got to work with us. So it is a concern, and I don't think it's maybe as large as Ron, but it's real.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Ordin, how does that quote strike you, that those tapes are the real picture of the criminal justice system in this country, as a white woman listening to that?

MS. ORDIN: As a white woman whose mother was born in Mexico, I cannot believe that that is the picture and must be the picture across-the-board. That is still a minority of officers. It is still a minority of prosecutors. It is still a minority of probation officers that would allow that kind of conduct even to be talked about, even if it weren't so. So it cannot be the picture; it is not the true picture; and it only reinforces my view that all of us, all of us in all areas, whether it's in the political area, the schools, wherever it is, have got to be shoulder-to-shoulder at this time to say that's not the way it is, and this is how it is, and to show some concrete changes which will allow us to, to know it's not that way.

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, Ms. Ordin and gentlemen, thank you all. FOCUS - WELCOME?

MS. FARNSWORTH: Next tonight, China greets the International Women's Conference. The unofficial part of the United Nations conference is already underway. But participating non-governmental organizations, human rights, and feminist groups have been arriving all week. They have been lodged in a town 30 miles outside Beijing, where the main event will begin next week. That has heightened tensions between the women and their Chinese hosts. James Mates of Independent Television News has a report.

WOMAN: Women have organized themselves.

SECOND WOMAN: We cannot talk about women's issues without talking about--what we want--

JAMES MATES, ITN: It's not quite what the Chinese expected. They'd lobbied hard to be allowed to host the prestigious United Nations Conference only to find themselves top of the list of those accused of denying women's rights and human rights.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: If we're going to come here like last night and celebrate, we're not going to get anywhere.

MR. MATES: Last night's opening ceremony could have been the Olympics, such is the importance the Chinese attach to this event, the first time they've been accepted back into the international fold since their tanks crushed the students in Tinanamen Square. Their problem: How to play host to 30,000 radical women without allowing the virus of protest to infect their own people. Stage 1 is to keep them well away from the hallowed stones of Tinanamen Square. The women, the press, the Chinese public, all are being excluded in a clampdown that will ensure no repetition of the events of 60 years ago. China's leader, Deng Xiaoping, cloistered in his compound next to the forbidden city, is close to death. The others are jockeying to succeed him, and none will risk humiliation on their own doorstep. So Stage 2 is to move the women's groups to a tented compound 30 miles out of town. Here, Amnesty International staged this afternoon the first public demonstration to be tolerated in China in six years, but only just tolerated. Photographs of a Chinese prisoner of conscience brought out the plainclothes police, men posing as press photographers but with telltale walkie talkies protruding from their pockets. For al the attempts to control and contain this gathering, the sheer numbers of delegates and protest groups here are overwhelming even the formidable Chinese security apparatus, because these women have come with a mission and aren't about to be thwarted.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I would say it's oppressive, yes, I mean, we're able to get around, but it's difficult.

SECOND UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It's very obvious that they want to control everyone, and they are trying to break loose.

THIRD UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: They can herd us in a lot of buildings, but they can't control the ideas and the spirit. The fact is the genie is out of the bottle.

MR. MATES: Not quite, certainly not for the great majority of Chinese women who together make up more than 1/5 of the world's female population. Increasingly, they're tied to subsistence farming, while the men head for China's booming factories. The few who dared speak to us said it would take more than an international conference to liberate them. There are repeated reports of baby girls being killed or abandoned because of China's strict policy of one child per family. Certainly, the orphanages are full of young girls dumped because their parents want their one child to be a boy. None of the policies that favor baby boys over girls, men over women, are about to change. It may be that in one small corner of China, for a few days only, this is the stuff of debate and protest, but everywhere else, the Chinese are ensuring that 1.2 billion people don't hear a word of it. CONVERSATION

MS. FARNSWORTH: Next, a conversation about cancer. Since President Nixon declared war on cancer some 24 years ago, the federal government has spent $27 billion on research into the causes and cures of the disease. Despite this effort, the incidence of certain cancers is growing faster than ever. Yet, some progress has been made, particularly in treating cancers that affect children. I spoke earlier this week with Dr. Richard Klausner, the new director of the National Cancer Institute, about the advances and setbacks in the war on cancer. Dr. Klausner, thank you so much for being with us. The National Cancer Act was passed in 1971, and it promised to finance the search for a cure. Hopes were high. Twenty-four years later, what kind of success have we had?

DR. RICHARD KLAUSNER, Director, National Cancer Institute: Well, we've seen some real successes in the last 25 years. The majority of cancers of childhood are now curable, where they were previously fatal. We now know how to cure patients with Hodgkin's Disease and testiculate cancer and some others, but, in fact, the challenge of cancer remains enormous. There is still a long way to go. The war on cancer has certainly not been won, but it certainly has not been lost.

MS. FARNSWORTH: There's a perception out there that we're in the middle of an epidemic of cancers. Is that true? I guess it's because the incidence of some cancers is up.

DR. KLAUSNER: The incidence of some cancers is up, and there is no question that as we approach the end of the 20th century, we must be struck by the fact that cancer will soon be the No. 1 cause of death in the United States. One out of three families are directly touched by cancer. It truly is a scourge of modern civilization. However, whether, in fact, the incidence of cancer is rising as dramatically as people's perception is not as clear. We're much more aware of cancer. It's being diagnosed more. For most cancers, the mortality rates, however, have not increased.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Let's get the figures clear. Death rates are either holding steady or going down, right?

DR. KLAUSNER: That's right.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Overall.

DR. KLAUSNER: That's right.

MS. FARNSWORTH: But the incidence of some cancers--bladder cancer, melanoma, and what other cancer is there actually--that means there's more of those cancers--

DR. KLAUSNER: Being found.

MS. FARNSWORTH: --even being found.

DR. KLAUSNER: That's right. Well, one is the fact that we are now better able to diagnose cancer, and so some of the increase in the incidence numbers is due to greater diagnoses. Some represent true increases in incidence. Exactly why there's an increase in incidence in specific cancers, some going down, some going up, we don't know. Clearly there are many, many factors that result in cancer, environmental factors, behavioral factors, nutritional factors, and hereditary factors. They all come together, and result in a very changing landscape of the incidence of cancer.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What about the causes of cancer? Have the great breakthroughs of recent years been in the genetic causes of cancer?

DR. KLAUSNER: Well, there's no question that in many ways the greatest breakthrough in cancer--something that really has resulted in a cautious optimism in the scientific community--is that we're beginning to finally understand just what it is that takes a normal cell and transforms it into a cancer cell. And we now know that cancer is a genetic disease. Each cancer is the result of the accumulation of a small number of changes or changes in a small number of pieces of genetic information. And that really represents a tremendous breakthrough. What it's led to and has propelled is one of the most massive scientific searches ever, and that is the search for the cancer genes; however, it's important to state--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Excuse me. Are they specific genes, or are they mutations on other genes?

DR. KLAUSNER: Well, there's--the human body has--each cell has about 100,000 genes, and that encodes all of the information required to make a human being. It sounds like a lot, but in the end, it actually isn't such a large number. Only a relatively small subset of those 100,000 genes are changed in cancer, and those changes are responsible for cancer. In any particular cell, no one gene can be changed to produce cancer. It's, rather, the accumulation of perhaps a handful of changes in a handful of genes that result in the cell going from a well-behaved, normal cell to one that grows wildly and out of control.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And do we know why?

DR. KLAUSNER: Well, there are many reasons. The genes are made of DNA, and DNA, in fact, is a relatively vulnerable and unstable molecule. It is changes in the structure of DNA that results in changes of these genes. Now, in any cell, in the normal course of a day or the normal course of a division cycle, thousands of changes take place in the DNA. But the remarkable thing is every cell has the ability to correct most of those changes. It's either the failure to keep up with the changes, because there's an increase in the number of changes, because of toxins or chemicals, or other things from the environment, like tobacco, that dramatically increases the amount of mutation and the chemical nature of the mutation, or a failure of the surveillance system that's constantly watching the genome, which is what we call the genetic material that allows these mutations, these changes to escape detection, to escape correction, and resulting in the gradual changes that lead to cancer.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And what are the implications of this discovery for fighting cancer, curing cancer?

DR. KLAUSNER: The implications are enormous. First of all, we now know that about 10 percent or more of individuals with cancer actually inherit a change in one of those critical diseases that then puts them at enormous risk of some time during their life developing cancer. So it has tremendous impact certainly in those families, in those patients. Also, those are the genes that produce specific proteins that when abnormal are responsible for the biology that determines the nature of cancer. Does it grow fast? Does it spread? Does it spread locally, or does it spread around the body? So identifying those genes not only allows us the possibility of new and early diagnoses but also allows us to understand the critical processes in the cell that we need to be able to target to create the--to develop drugs that are going to be needed to develop new therapeutics that will ultimately result in cures of these diseases.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Are there some therapies that are working? There was a lot of optimism about Interlukin and the various immunological therapies. Is that--is that the realm that we're talking about, right?

DR. KLAUSNER: Well, there are many new therapies. Traditional chemotherapy, which was so successful in curing certain cancers-- you have to remember 40 years ago, no one believed that drugs could possibly cure cancer--but we definitely showed that drugs can cure cancer. Now we're finally understanding why those cancers that were cured by those drugs, in fact, were cured. We actually didn't know until very recently.

MS. FARNSWORTH: We're actually at a very early stage of the science in understanding what causes cancer, right?

DR. KLAUSNER: That's right. We are at a very early stage.

MS. FARNSWORTH: It was a huge discovery, but it's still so early that--

DR. KLAUSNER: That's right.

MS. FARNSWORTH: --they're just working out the implications.

DR. KLAUSNER: And there's a tremendous amount that needs to be done. We wish we were able to put an absolute time scale on how long it's going to take us. But the reason why we have not won the war on cancer is not because we've gone about it the wrong way; it's because the problem is so incredibly complex, because the challenge is so daunting.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What about the resources available to the National Cancer Institute? Have you have had enough resources, and what about the current Congress?

DR. KLAUSNER: Well, so far, the NIH, which the National Cancer Institute is part of, has been well supported by the President and by Congress. In fact, the American people have consistently supported the biomedical research enterprise and they have created one of the great jewels of our civilization. Our biomedical research enterprise is the envy of the world. And we always-- there's always the opportunities for greater advances but the American people have made a tremendous investment, and they continue to support that investment.

MS. FARNSWORTH: How much of the research is done privately, as opposed to publicly, now? What's the sort of relative weight of the research on the--especially on the genetic aspects of cancer?

DR. KLAUSNER: Well, about one cent of every health care dollar that's spent is spent in federal research. Perhaps 3 cents are spent on total health research. But the federal investment in research is the absolute heart and core of it. It is the federal research that is concerned about the ultimate bottom line and not the day-to-day or year-to-year bottom line. It provides the stability; it provides the investment in the human infrastructure to train young people to go into research. It provides the absolute bulwark of our discovery of the most basic pieces of knowledge which, themselves, represent the great weapon that we have in this war.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What about prevention? Some critics have said that not enough money is spent on prevention; too much is spent on the, the molecular biology, and not enough on just telling people how to live healthier lives, to quit smoking, and all of that.

DR. KLAUSNER: Well, we do do that, and the recent efforts and the recent discussion about smoking represents the outcome of over 40 years of basic research. Basic research can be in the laboratory. It can be in the clinic, and it can be in the community. We do all of those types of research, and it is--

MS. FARNSWORTH: How important is smoking, by the way, in causing cancer in America?

DR. KLAUSNER: Oh, it's enormously important. It very--there's very good reason to believe that as much as 30 percent of all cancers are the result of smoking and certainly 80 percent of all lung cancer--the single major killer from cancer--is the result of smoking. The President's actions show tremendous courage and tremendous conviction. It's clear that there is no single thing that we can address that could have a more beneficial and long- lasting effect on the public health than to decrease the addiction of our young people to tobacco and tobacco products.

MS. FARNSWORTH: It was fairly unusual for you, as the head of the institute, to come out so publicly in favor of the President's and the FDA's drive to limit the tobacco reaching young people. Are you planning to be more activist in the months that come? You have just been appointed.

DR. KLAUSNER: Well, Dr. Varmus, the director of the NIH, and I, as you know, wrote a letter to the President, and we wrote the letter to the President about smoking as two of the scientists directly appointed by the President to oversee the health research enterprise. We wrote for one reason, not to support any particular policy but just to make it extremely clear that the scientific evidence about the health consequences of tobacco and about the addictive nature of nicotine are irrefutable. And that's very important. Again, as I said, the American people have invested in the National Institutes of Health and this biomedical research enterprise with the expectation that we will discover things, that we will create knowledge, and the expectation that that knowledge will be used to inform public and private decisions. It was simply to express the fact that the evidence, the scientific evidence, is irrefutable, that Dr. Varmus and I wrote that letter.

MS. FARNSWORTH: About one in three families I think you've said are affected by cancer. A lot of people, a lot of our listeners are affected by cancer. You've done some of the research in the molecular biology, the cellular biology. What do you find the most sort of exciting and what makes you feel the most optimistic about the future, because the figures are pretty bad for many, many kinds of cancer, the survival rates are still very low?

DR. KLAUSNER: That's absolutely right, and we are all equally impatient and equally frustrated by the gap between the enormous progress in the science of cancer biology, and the very limited progress in increased patient survival.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Is that just a matter of time, getting the science out of the labs and into the, the treatment facilities?

DR. KLAUSNER: It is "just a matter of time," but the way science works is very mysterious. We can't lay out a plan of step-by-step discovery that tells us how to get from Point A to Point B. Most of the discoveries come from very unexpected places; however, we feel that the history of medicine in this century, the extraordinary progress we've made, has come from the process of discovering the cause of disease in order to prevent it, and the nature of disease in order to diagnose it and to develop treatments. And we all feel optimistic, though cautiously optimistic. We know how much more needs to be discovered, but we also know that the discoveries that we're making now are clearly going to have an impact in both diagnosis and therapy.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Thank you, Dr. Klausner, for being with us.

DR. KLAUSNER: Thank you. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major story of this Thursday was the war in Bosnia. A second day of bombardment by NATO warplanes and UN ground forces has pushed the Bosnian Serbs to make some concessions to UN demands. The Serbs have agreed to stop firing on the UN safe areas as long as the assault stops. The UN says its operations will continue until the Serbs pull back their heavy artillery from around the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. Good night, Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Good night, Robin. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with our regular end-of-the- week political analysts. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.