The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

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

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Thursday, we have a Newsmaker interview with the South African President Nelson Mandela, a discussion among two House members who are calling it quits and a Clarence Page essay about change. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The House and Senate discussed Haiti today. The Senate considered a resolution praising U.S. troops and urging a withdrawal as soon as possible. It also criticizes President Clinton for not seeking congressional approval before sending in the troops. The House proposal sets a March 1st deadline for troop withdrawal. President Clinton received firsthand information today about U.S. Naval operations in Haiti. He visited the U.S. Atlantic Command Headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. After a briefing, he spoke to personnel aboard the USS Eisenhower. He thanked the military for their accomplishments in Haiti so far.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Much has been asked of you, and you have delivered. Thanks to your efforts, the Haitian people are moving from fear to freedom. Thanks to your efforts, the democratically- elected government will soon return to power. Thanks to your efforts, the world knows that the United States will stand up for human rights and against slaughter, stand up for democracy, honor our commitments, and expect those who make commitments to us to honor them as well. We gave our word and you, the men and women of the Eisenhower battle group, kept the word of the United States.

MR. LEHRER: Defense Sec. Perry will visit Haiti Saturday. He'll meet with American troops and review the military operation there. Back in Washington, exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide met with South African President Nelson Mandela today. They discussed Haiti's upcoming transition to a democratic government. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Before this afternoon's meeting with President Aristide, Nelson Mandela addressed a joint session of Congress. The South African president thanked the U.S. for helping to end apartheid in this country. He also said the time had come to work together to ensure full human dignity for all people.

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA, South Africa: I come out of a continent with those travails and sufferings you are very familiar. You will, therefore, understand easily when I stand up to say that for quite a powerful country as yours democracy, peace, and prosperity in Africa are as much in your national interest as ours. It is our deeply held belief that the new world order that is in the making must focus on the creation of a world of democracy, peace, and prosperity for all humanity.

MR. MAC NEIL: We'll have a Newsmaker interview with President Mandela after the News Summary. The Senate today killed the lobbying reform bill after Democrats failed to end a Republican filibuster. The vote of 52 to 46 fell short of the 2/3 majority needed to close debate. The bill would have imposed almost a total ban on gifts to Congress and required more disclosure by lobbyists. Last week, the Senate killed a campaign finance reform bill as well. The House has put off a vote on the World Trade Agreement known as GATT until after the November elections. Republican members blocked a vote that was scheduled for this week. The Senate will also take up the legislation after the election.

MR. LEHRER: U.N. peacekeepers today found the bodies of 20 Serbs who were killed by Bosnian Muslim sources. The discovery came as patients from Gorazde were evacuated to Sarajevo. We have more in this report narrated by Vera Frankl of Worldwide Television News.

VERA FRANKL, WTN: Arriving at Sarajevo's Kosovo Hospital overnight, a U.N. convoy brought 33 patients from Gorazde in need of urgent treatment. Some of the children had lost limbs in explosions. Others were suffering from leukemia. They were to have been airlifted to Sarajevo, but foul weather grounded the UN helicopters. Hours later, UN convoys ferried almost 400 prisoners to no-man's-land in Sarajevo. The prisoner exchange by Bosnian government and rebel Serb forces was the biggest for seven months. It brought hopes that the tensions here, heightened after a NATO air strike against Bosnian Serb forces, were finally easing. In the face of military and political pressure, Bosnian Serb forces have tightened their strangle-hold on the capital. The prisoner exchange was a positive sign. But optimism soon turned to despair. UN peacekeepers said atrocities had been committed by Muslim forces against Bosnian Serbs near Sarajevo.

YASHUSHI AKASHI, U.N. Envoy: Twenty Serb soldiers, including four female nurses, were killed, in many cases mutilated or burned.

MS. FRANKL: The UN's top official here protested to the Bosnian military. It admitted killing the troops but denied the mutilations.

MR. LEHRER: United Nations officials reported the discovery of more mass graves in Rwanda today. More than 7,000 decomposed bodies were found 60 miles west of the capital, Kigali. The victims are believed to have been killed during the country's four-month civil war. More than 1/2 million Rwandans died in that war.

MR. MAC NEIL: Authorities in Switzerland cast doubt on the theory that 48 bodies found yesterday were the result of a mass suicide. Autopsies showed that some of the victims has been given a powerful drug. We have a report from Paul Davies of Independent Television News.

PAUL DAVIES, ITN: Police originally believed that more bodies were buried in the rubble, but by midday, they gave up the search for victims and concentrated their efforts on gathering forensic evidence that should tell them whether this was, indeed, a case of mass suicide or mass murder. Twenty-three victims were found in a chamber beneath this farmhouse in the village of Chiery. For the first time, police allowed a camera down to see the rooms which were used as a secret chapel by the cult members, in the center of the chamber a pedestal with a silver rose. Nineteen bodies arranged in a circle were found here. The chapel and its cult artifacts were largely undamaged by the fire. A former member of the Order of the Solar Temple has described how the group used to meet in this mirror-lined room twice a day to confess their sins against nature. Detectives say firebombs were planted in these chambers but for some reason failed to detonate. Postmortem operations, still to be carried out on many of the forty-eight victims, may reveal more about the circumstances in which they died, but the cult's Canadian leader, Luc Jouret, is still unaccounted for. Detectives say their initial investigation has shown that cult members, both here and in Canada, went to great lengths to keeptheir beliefs and their activities secret. They fear many of those secrets will have died here with them.

MR. MAC NEIL: Police in Quebec, Canada, today found two more bodies associated with the cult. That brings the total number of deaths to 52.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Nelson Mandela, good-bye Congress, and a Clarence Page essay. NEWSMAKER

MR. MAC NEIL: Nelson Mandela's visit to Washington is our lead tonight. As we reported, the South African president had another full day today that included a speech to Congress. He talked about the many problems the U.S. and South Africa must face together. Here is an excerpt.

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA, South Africa: The despair of millions who are without jobs and without hope, the unborn whom we know will be born disabled and die before their maturity because of poverty. The darkness that engulfs millions because they are both illiterate and -- the many will be victims of rape, robbery, and other violent crimes because hunger, want, and brutalization have warped and condemned many a human soul. What we speak of is not anything unknown to this and other societies across the globe. And yet, it is a reality which assumes its own special place because it superimposes itself on new and yet fragile democratic institutions, democratic institutions that have sprouted out of the turbulent African soil. This situation carries the features of a foundation that is naturally still in the process of setting. It represents the recurrent end of the unending process of the betterment of the human condition. It is to that unending process that we must turn our attention. The question that arises is whether we shall embark on that road, walking alone, or whether you will be with us, having decided thus in the process of the exercise of your own sovereign will.

MR. MAC NEIL: After he spoke to Congress, Mandela met briefly with Haiti's president-in-exile, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Haiti was one of the issues Mr. Mandela discussed when he started his day with an interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: President Mandela, thank you for joining us.

NELSON MANDELA, President, South Africa: You're welcome.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Your main appeal on this trip has been for business investment in South Africa and for support from the government. How significant, staring with business, have the commitments you've gotten from there been in terms of what you wanted and what you need for South Africa and that transformation?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: I could not have expected more than I received from business, both from, both in New York as well as in Washington. The response of business has been very positive.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's been observed that the investment boom that was expected in South Africa once South Africa was rid of apartheid just hasn't materialized. Why do you think that's the case?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: I am not surprised by that. It is for South Africans to settle their own problems. You will remember that there were unfortunate predictions as to what was going to happen when the results of the elections were announced.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Civil war?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: Yes. We prevented that. And no businessman would make plans to invest in such an environment. And even our own businessmen were not prepared to invest in their own country. They were exporting their capital. Ten billion rands left the country in six months. That money now is coming back to the country according to the governor of the reserve bank. And those people who had were cautious, extremely cautious, now feel that an environment exists in the country which will secure their own investments.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Did you have to reassure the businessmen that you've talked with in America about stability in the country? I mean, were those questions that came up as you --

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: Oh, naturally, the question of political and economic stability, the question of fiscal and monetary discipline, the reduction of the high level of taxes in our country, and the reduction of government consumption to prevent inflation, all these things are matters of absolute interest to every investor throughout the world.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How much of a problem -- you said that, you know, the concerns that people had over instability following the election, the predictions of a civil war and so forth never materialized, yet, one of the other two problems, twin problems you're having to deal with is rising crime and spreading labor unrest. Do you find concern about that, and how do you assuage that concern?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: Well, the question of crime is one of concern to everybody. But the position is that the security forces in our country for the last four decades did not concentrate on suppressing crime. Their main objective was to suppress, to crush political activity. And in the process, crime grew to unacceptable proportions. And criminals were able to form powerful syndicates, and they virtually took over the control of the life of the community in certain areas. It is that structure, those syndicates, that is dismantling, and we have put a large number of those fellows behind bars. We are succeeding in bringing down the level of crime, but we must also clean the security forces because in this process when the criminals formed these entities, they were able to accumulate powerful, massive resources. And they involve some of the members of the security staff.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are these black criminals and white criminals?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: Oh, no, no, no. I'm talking about whites now, white members of security. And you must understand that in our country, although blacks are in the majority, only 20 percent of the police are deployed in black areas and 80 percent are deployed in white areas. These are the problems that we're facing. And in spite of that, we are already reducing, we've gone a long way to reduce the level of crime. As far as labor is concerned, nobody who knows our situation should be concerned over what is happening. The basic reasons for the demands that are being put forward by workers today is the fact that whites, white workers get three times, up to five times more wages than blacks for the same job. And, therefore, let workers see their counterparts enjoying privileges which are denied to them, and they are fighting for parity. Nevertheless, when I intervened and addressed a conference of the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions, which is the biggest labor federation in the country --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's COSATU.

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: COSATU. I appealed to them not to press their demands in such a way that they should disrupt the economy of the country.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And the response?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: The response was absolutely positive.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, sorry --

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: If you notice, it was said -- what I said to them, if it had been said been somebody else would have provoked even greater trouble but the leadership of COSATU listened very carefully. Because the point I was making is that you have got 5 million of our people unemployed. You will need to create jobs for those people. We can create those jobs if business is able to respond, and if our workers are demanding more salaries, then that is going to lead to more entrenchment and is going to increase the number of the unemployed. And I think they listened very carefully to that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I remember asking you when you first got out of prison if you were concerned about the potential crisis of rising expectations. What about now? Do you feel that the expectations that have been raised by your government being in power are such that the people will have patience until you can begin to -- till this pipeline begins to flow into the communities? I mean, do you have a handle on this?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: You will notice that during the run after the campaign for the elections, there is one point I kept on hammering in every rally that I addressed, that our concern is to address the expectations of our people, that that -- that this is not an event that can be achieved overnight. It's going to demand a year, two years, even as much as five years to be able to address these basic needs. And I think our people understand this. What they are watching is the thing that we have started laying the foundation to address these aspirations. We have already started, for example, with free medical care for children under six and pregnant mothers. We have started -- we are now feeding free of charge one million children throughout the country, and we can, therefore, point out to our people that we have formidable problems. We are faced with the question of the absence of infrastructure to introduce free medical schemes and free school feeding. Nevertheless, we have started, and that has created a tremendous impression.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. President, if I could turn to an other subject, and that is Haiti and President Aristide, whom you'll be meeting today, you said yesterday that in your reading of him, he was a flexible man, broad-minded and open to reasonable argument. I assume you were referring to the issue of amnesty which South Africa has had considerable experience dealing with. What is the status of the amnesty in your country now, and do you see any lessons or do you have any lessons that you plan to share with President Aristide in that regard?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: One of the points I've made which I would like to repeat here is that we have had a very conservative community in our country, the Afrikaner community. They are the people who are in the security forces and who have been very negative in their approach. In June this year, I attended the biggest congregation of the Dutch Reform Church in our country, which is a church for Afrikaners. If I had gone there four years ago, the police would have defended me against people who wanted to kill me out of hatred. This time, the police defended me against people who wanted to kill me out of love. Every one of them wanted to shake hands, wanted to embrace, and wanted to touch, and the police had to defend against that. That's an indication of how things have changed, because our message of reconciliation, of nation-building, of granting amnesty, indemnity, has struck a powerful, favorable chord. And people can understand that we're here not for purposes of retribution but to forget the past and to build our country. There are, of course, cases where there can be no amnesty in our own country. We've made that clear. Those are high officials who sat down and planned the murder of innocent civilians who were no threat for anybody at all, we can't excuse. But the masses of the members of the security forces who committed offenses in the course of depending of apartheid against the freedom fighters who were fighting against apartheid, those are due for amnesty, but people who deliberately planned murder of innocent civilians, we have said very clearly, those must be punished.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And so what will you say to President Aristide?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: So far as Haiti is concerned, we are saying that people who committed offenses in the course of their political activity, however reprehensible it might be, the general approach is to grant amnesty and indemnity. And that is the message. The application of that principle we'll leave it entirely to President Aristide. But it is necessary for one to heal the wounds of the past if you are going to build your country and to have unity. I am working with people who fought me very bitterly before the elections. It was my responsibility as the man who is leading the majority party, my responsibility to heal the wounds of the past and to work with people who were my opponents. Today if you entered, you attended a meeting of the cabinet, you will not know who belongs to the National Party, who belongs to the Inkatha Freedom Party, who belongs to the ANC, because that understanding that it is our primary responsibility to unite the country and to promote the spirit of reconciliation has taken root.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And that's the message you plan to deliver to President Aristide?

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: That's the message I will give to President Aristide.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, President Mandela, thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, good-bye Congress and a Clarence Page essay. FOCUS - STEPPING DOWN

MR. LEHRER: Next tonight, a discussion among five members of Congress who said no thanks, no more. They are among the thirty- six from the outgoing 103rd Congress who decided to hang it up, to retire, to not seek reelection. The five are: Senators Howard Metzenbaum, Democrat of Ohio; John Danforth, Republican of Missouri; David Boren, Democrat of Oklahoma; Congressmen Tim Penny, Democrat of Minnesota; Alex McMillan, Republican of North Carolina. I talked to them this afternoon. Gentlemen, welcome. Sen. Boren, what's gone wrong with the Congress of the United States?

SEN. BOREN: Well, I think this has been a major disconnect between what the Congress has been doing and what the people want done. One of the disconnects has been the partisanship. People of this country are increasingly nonpartisan. They want us to get together and solve our problems as Americans, and at the same time, Congress has become more and more polarized on party lines. That's a subject of great disappointment to the American people and disillusionment. They also see us refusing to reform ourselves. They floods of special interest money coming into the campaigns. They see us refusing to give up our own empires with too many committees, too much bureaucracy, and the people are very angry. And I have to tell you, I think that the level of distrust and disappointment in Congress has passed what is normal in terms of history. I think we're really seeing our political system put at risk because that trust between the people and these institutions is in danger of being ruptured permanently.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Danforth, do you see it that badly, the situation that badly?

SEN. DANFORTH: No, I really don't. I think that obviously there is alot of cynicism in the country right now. I think that in an age of talk radio and 30 second TV commercials and political campaigns, that is probably a natural result. And I do agree with David that we are much more partisan now. The parties are much more sharply divided and much more contentiously involved with each other than they were when we entered the Congress.

MR. LEHRER: What happened? How did that happen?

SEN. DANFORTH: I'm not really sure how it happened. I think that in the Senate at least the makeup of the Senate has changed considerably since 1977, when Howard Metzenbaum and I came. The - - within the Republican Party, the center of the Republican Party has been pretty much cut out of it. People who were more liberal Republicans are no longer here, so that our party has shifted to the right. And I think also that some Republicans, a number of Republicans have come to the Senate from the House of Representatives, and they were pretty much treated like dogs over at the House, so they are used to baring their teeth, and they're doing that in the Senate.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman McMillan, as a Republican in the House, did Sen. Danforth say things that made sense to you just now?

REP. McMILLAN: Yeah, I think he put his finger on a lot of it. I would add that, you know, since I've been here, ten years now, I was here four years under Reagan, four years under Bush, two under Clinton, and I think a lot of the partisanship has arisen by the Democratic domination of the House for over forty years. I think some 26 of those years we've had Republican Presidents. So we've tended to polarize and Republican Presidents haven't been able to get their agenda adopted. And so Republicans in the House have found themselves in a minority for over 40 years. I certainly found that for 10 years. And I think things have just tended to polarize to the point where I think it is destructive. Congressman Penny and I have had occasion to work on budgetary matters together in a bipartisan way, and I think we probably both found our own leadership on our respective sides sometimes caving in around us and creating divisions and undermining efforts to produce good bipartisan results.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Congressman Penny, why does that happen? Who's allowed this to happen? I mean, you all are members. There are other people who are members. A group of people usually do what they want to do. There are only 535 of you. Why has this been allowed to happen?

REP. PENNY: Well, I think it's the culture of Washington and particularly the culture on Capitol Hill. You do have a culture of power in which seniority is paramount and a handful of key leaders, many of whom were elected for the first time one and two generations ago, are involved in running the Congress today, and I think it's fair to say that in some respects our agenda is behind the times because the leadership is not current. But it's tough to buck the leaders. And that's one culture. The partisanship has increased through the years. Part of that started in the late 70's with a heavy onslaught of negative campaigning which sort of changed the tenure of elections, and it changed the type of people that were coming to Washington. That hasn't gotten better. Frankly, it's gotten worse in the years since. There's a spending culture here that makes it very difficult for us to apply any common sense restraint to spending because there's a built-in spending bias in virtually everything we do to address the programs of government, and the burden is always placed on those that are trying to put the brakes on, and there has been very little restraint on those that advocate an even larger role. So on a whole range of issues, the culture and the system that we operate in sort of leads to this dysfunction.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Metzenbaum, it sounds terrible?

SEN. METZENBAUM: Well, I think it's maybe a little overstated. I don't think it's good. I think there are a lot of problems, and I have a lot of problems with the conduct of the Congress, and I get a sense of frustration at times. But I'm not too sure, Jim, that there hasn't been an overemphasis on the part of the media as to the negatives as to what Congress does. So when we're -- we try to pass 'em, we do pass some very good legislation. That doesn't make much news. It's when we get in a tiff with each other that it does make news, and I'm not saying that I want to start manipulating or handling the news, but I think there's been a greater emphasis in recent years on the divisiveness in Congress than there has been on the accomplishments. And I think there's some very fine members of the United States Senate and the House, two members that I'm sitting with today, these are very able members. They have fought for their concerns. They've been -- been willing to make compromises at times. I've differed with them at times, but I think that to just take a broad brush and say Congress is doing a terrible job, and the people there are not very respectable or not concerned about their government I think would be unfair.

MR. LEHRER: But Sen. Metzenbaum, what I just heard from the -- your four colleagues sitting there is about as bad as anything I've ever heard written on any editorial page or op-ed page of the media. I mean, these are -- you all -- this criticism we're hearing now from you all is coming from within, not from without.

SEN. METZENBAUM: Well, there's no question about it, Jim, that there are reasons to be critical. I think there's been more -- on the Republican side have used the filibuster more in this session of Congress than ever before since I've been here and I think probably ever before in history. I think it's become almost a regular operating tool. I don't think that reflects well on the Congress, and I don't think it reflects well on the Republicans, but I'm not trying to broad brush the Republicans as a group. I think there have been some things that have developed that are negative, but we have passed some legislation that's pretty good legislation, but the American people really haven't paid too much attention. And I think also on a health care issue, I think we gave it a full court press and tried our darndest in order to bring about legislation. I think Jack Danforth went out of his way particularly to provide some leadership that way.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Sen. Boren, if folks like you five are leaving and what you have said is -- many people have said that, as I just said, from the outside as well as from the inside -- how does this get changed? If you say this is the worst time we've had in a polarized Congress, all the evidence seems to be that it's going to get worse before it gets better, is that correct?

SEN. BOREN: I think it may, but I think that there's light at the end of the tunnel. I think one of the things we could do, for example, is change the way we relate to each other as individuals. When I first came to the Senate sixteen years ago, there was an unwritten rule -- they called it the Mansfield Rule after Mike Mansfield, who upheld it as a tradition -- the tradition was that no Senator would go to another state and campaign against the sitting Senator. I as a Democrat wouldn't go up to Missouri and campaign against Jack Danforth just because he is a Republican. I will be leaving the Senate never having gone to the state of a colleague to campaign against them. Open seat. That's different. You go and campaign for the candidate of your party. But that's happening all across-the-board. Members are campaigning against each other. They're going to each other's state. That makes it very hard then for them to sit down and work together. You know, we used to have fights on the floor. We can think of Dirksen and Lyndon Johnson and how they upheld their parties' points of view but they are at the same time personal friends, warm personal friends. And they could sit down together and they could work together. And when I first came it was that way, and now more and more new Republican Senators and Congressmen only get to know the Republicans. The Democrats only get to know the Democrats. This is unhealthy but, Jim, along with it, the sort of negativism here, there's something positive happening. I think while some people are giving up on Washington to some degree, they're not giving up on involvement. And there's a renaissance of people getting involved at the local level, voluntary activity, local governments, school boards, corporations adopting schools, all the rest of it, and so the fact that some people are saying, Washington isn't functioning very well, that's not all bad because people are deciding to save the country from the bottom up, rather than the top down.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Penny, one of the perceptions or one of the really most severe criticisms that's made of members -- not the institution -- but individual members of the Congress of the United States -- is that they're motivated mostly by the need to get reelected in the next election. And, of course, if it's a Senator, it's six years -- it's every six years, and a House member, you all, it's every two years. What has been your experience based on observation whether or not -- how valid that charge is?

REP. PENNY: Well, most members are here as serious public servants but you get immersed in a culture that makes it difficult to do the job. And, frankly, too often around here the courageous votes are not rewarded; they're punished. And the politically safe votes are the ones that are encouraged within the system.

MR. LEHRER: By whom? Who's the system? Who does that?

REP. PENNY: The system is driven by base-line budgeting, which automatically increases every item in the budget, and that starts out with an approach to spending around here that automatically assumes we're going to spend more. I mean, those are the sorts of systems that, that sort of punish those that are trying to change the status quo and reward those that are comfortable with the status quo. But a lot of this gets down to the fact that 70 percent of all Americans belong to a special interest group; 40 percent belong to more than one special interest group; and these folks pay a few dollars to these organizations. And it's come to the point where they believe some slanted mailing from these groups before they believe some legislator from their hometown. And there is a fear factor that I think is driven by that sort of pressure on politicians. And --

MR. LEHRER: You mean --

REP. PENNY: Not so much money. You know, people say it's $5,000 contributions from a particular group. But I think it's fairer to say that we've got a lot of organizations that know how to generate mail or phone calls today. They may be a small slice of the electorate, but they drive a lot of decisions because legislators, given a choice between a $5,000 contribution and 5,000 votes in their home district, will always side with, with the pressure that's coming from those phone calls.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman McMillan, did you experience this kind of culture of fear, the political fear that Congressman Penny has just outlined?

REP. McMILLAN: Well, I think that's present. A big difference, though, is I was part of the minority, and he was part of the majority. I think part of the problem is entrenched power that by necessity seeks to perpetuate itself. And that's just part of the culture. It's part of the leadership. It's part of the committee chairman structure. It's part of the seniority system. It's built into the staff. And the staff really controls the agenda of the House, not, not the membership. I share those who've stated the view that we have probably the most dedicated, able, honest membership in Congress today, perhaps in our history. But the system basically caves in on individual initiative which gets squelched in the process. And I --

MR. LEHRER: In what way? Give me -- could you give me a quick example of what you mean, so I understand.

REP. McMILLAN: We'll just take Penny-Kasich. And I worked on that, along with Tim Penny.

MR. LEHRER: That was the budget bill, right?

REP. McMILLAN: Right. And that was a very serious budget alternative that we had difficulty, by the way, getting the media to cover, and good media coverage is an important part of taking the risk of exercising leadership. But when we got that to the floor, the leadership caved in on it, the President caved in on it, the committee chairman caved in on it. Even ranking Republicans were caving in on it. And yet, we came within, what was it, three or six votes of passage, despite all that. That was an example that this place can come together. My answer to this -- you didn't ask me but I'll offer it --

MR. LEHRER: Yes, sir.

REP. McMILLAN: -- is term limitations. And I say that reluctantly because I know a heck of a lot of members who have been here longer than the 12-year limit I would place on it. But I would go to four- year terms, limited to three in the House, because what's important here is the experience one brings here and not what one gets here. And we need to emphasize that more if we're going to be responsive to the American people.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Danforth, let me ask Sen. Danforth -- I want to go around on this, but beginning with Sen. Danforth, how much were your negative feelings about the institution and frustrations, whatever, how important were they in your decision not to run for reelection?

SEN. DANFORTH: Well, they weren't important at all. In fact, I really am not as negative as I think this program has indicated people are. And I certainly don't feel frustrated. I think it's been a great honor to serve in the Senate. I've enjoyed it, and I still enjoy it as a matter of fact. I just think from my standpoint, I want there to be something else in my life other than to be in politics. I do want to say this, Jim. I think that just very briefly that David Boren made a very good point when he talked about bipartisanship, and the so-called mainstream effort that we had in health care was one of the best things that I've seen in the recent past in the United States Senate. So there are at least people who want to bridge the parties. And I think that that's very promising.

MR. LEHRER: But, Sen. Danforth, that didn't get enacted into law. I mean, nothing happened.

SEN. DANFORTH: No. But I don't think any of us should expect that whatever we come up with is going to turn the country on a dime. I mean, that's not the way America works, and it's not the way it should work. But it was a good, honest effort on the part of Republicans and Democrats acting in good faith with each other. And it was really a remarkable thing. And there is the possibility for more of that. But I think that these kind of conscious efforts to bridge the parties, particularly by people who are somewhere in the center of the political spectrum, is extremely important if we are going to avoid polarization in Congress, and if we're going to avoid polarization in the country at large.

MR. LEHRER: Which happens first, Senator? Is the -- does the country get polarized and then the Congress gets polarized, or does the Congress get polarized and then the country gets polarized?

SEN. DANFORTH: I think that's very hard to tell, but I think both are happening right now, and I think that one of the places to start in trying to make connections between those polls is by people who are in the center of the political spectrum functioning together on a bipartisan basis, and that's what we did with the mainstream effort on health care. And I think that that can be replicated.

MR. LEHRER: Now, Sen. Metzenbaum, you are one of the poles of your party and of the Senate of the United States, the liberal pole. Do you find a solution to the problems where Sen. Danforth finds them?

SEN. METZENBAUM: Well, let me put it this way. I don't think that the solution to the problems of what's happening in Congress relate to liberalism, conservatism, or whatever the case may be. My frustration with the Congress is that too few members of the Congress go out on the floor and actually vote in accordance with the dictates of their conscience. They put a finger up in the wind and see which way the winds are blowing, what the lobbyists are saying, what they have the feeling their constituency want or don't want, whether it's going to hurt them in the next election, and vote that way. I think in the past you had some giants in the United States Senate. I never served in the House so I don't know much about it, but you had some giants in the Senate who took leadership roles, who voted in accordance with the dictates of their own conscience and didn't worry as to whether or not the people said this is right or this is wrong but decided that they had an obligation to provide some leadership and not be on the other side and just be in a -- taking a Gallup Poll and being an automaton down here and seeing which way they should vote. I'd like to see more of that independence that was present in yesteryear.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Penny, how much -- the question I asked Sen. Danforth -- how much -- how important were your negative feelings about the Congress? How important were they in your decision not to seek reelection?

REP. PENNY: Frankly, if I were leaving out of frustration, I would have left 10 years ago. I'm leaving because I think 12 years is long enough, and my family's at an age where I really want to get them back to Minnesota and have more time to spend with them. But I --

MR. LEHRER: You're not turned off. You're not turned off about politics.

REP. PENNY: Well, I believe public service is important but I do have, obviously, some frustrations with the way Washington works, but I agree that if there's one fundamental achievement that we all ought to strive for, it's a greater sense of bipartisan cooperation. I think that's what's driving the public crazy. They seeus lobbing grenades at one another, instead of working down to solve the problems of the nation. And it's important to note that through the years, we have forged consensus in Congress, and that's the way you build consensus within our society. Even Social Security passed with strong support from both Democrats and Republicans. The civil rights laws, 1964, passed with 80 percent Republican support, 60 percent Democratic support. It shows that on the big issues we've always found a way to come together in the past. We need to find a way to do that again.

MR. LEHRER: And you believe that Congress can show the way, rather than reflect the way.

REP. PENNY: I believe that's correct.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman McMillan, do you agree?

REP. McMILLAN: Absolutely. I think the health care situation is a little different in the House, and there are a lot of bipartisan efforts of which I was a part. I met with Ira Magaziner most of last year, along with five other Republicans. I sponsored a task force with a Democrat in my district. I co-sponsored the Cooper Bill, even though I didn't agree with it all, and tried to forge a bipartisan effort in the Energy & Commerce Committee to come up with a bill. And we couldn't even get a mark-up offered in committee. The White House wouldn't basically compromise on it. They ran through their own proposal. And, yet, I think the makings were there in the House to build a health care reform bill out of the Senate. And I think if the proper leadership had been exerted by committee chairmen and by the White House, we would have had a good chance of doing that.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. I want to go finally to Sen. Boren to the question about who's leading whom right now, the Congress or the people.

SEN. BOREN: I think the real vitality is going to come from the grassroots. We're going to save the country from the bottom up, not from the top down. And that's why I decided to go home and be president of the university, because I think that, that really the mentoring of the next generation is where the reformation of this country is going to come from. And I'm encouraged by what I see at the grassroots. Public service shouldn't be about power. It ought to be about where you can do the most good. And I think we need constantly new people coming in, with new experiences. That'll bring freshness here. That's needed.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Sen. Boren, you're going to become the president of the University of Oklahoma. Sen. Danforth, what are your plans?

SEN. DANFORTH: Well, I'm going back to St. Louis, my hometown, and hope to work in a law firm and get in people's hair.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Sen. Metzenbaum, what about you?

SEN. METZENBAUM: I expect to try to make my voice heard on issues of community and public concern and will probably identify with some organization which will give me an opportunity to speak out and try to have some impact upon what's going on in America.

MR. LEHRER: Congressmen Penny.

REP. PENNY: Well, I'm going to take a senior fellowship at the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota, and I'll also do some other teaching at a couple of other colleges in Minnesota, and I'll stay affiliated with the Concord Coalition, the national budget watchdog group.

MR. LEHRER: Right. Congressman McMillan.

REP. McMILLAN: Well, I'm trying to write a book, and then I'm going to go back into the --

MR. LEHRER: Fiction or non-fiction?

REP. McMILLAN: Pardon.

MR. LEHRER: Fiction or non-fiction?

REP. McMILLAN: It'll be truth.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

REP. McMILLAN: And go back into theinvestment banking business in all probability, but I hope to stay active in the issues of health care reform. And I probably, likewise, will do work with the Concord Coalition.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, all five gentlemen, good luck to you in your new lives post Congress, and thank you for being with us this afternoon. ESSAY - GOING, GOING, GONE

MR. MAC NEIL: Finally tonight, essayist Clarence Page, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune, with some thoughts about the nature of change.

CLARENCE PAGE, Chicago Tribune: A new age does not announce its arrival. It just arrives and catches you without notice. One day you look up and suddenly, like a character in the Twilight Zone, you notice things have changed. Your record store doesn't have any records, just CD's and tapes. Apartment buildings no longer have fire escapes. Pay telephones no longer come in booths. Houses no longer sprout TV antennas. Engineering students no longer carry slide rules. Typewriters disappear from the news room, along with carbon paper, and movable type. Smoking is fashionable one day, roundly condemned the next. And what happened to leisure suits? Who wants to know? Age teaches of the vulnerability of cherished things. Yesterday's hit is today's golden oldie and tomorrow's antique. Many have been gathered here in the pages of Going, Going, Gone, a book of images of a lost America collected by two nostalgic writers, Susan Jones and Marilyn Nissenson. Its pages offer us something new about things not very old. It offers us a message that America reinvents itself quite quickly these days, shedding its old skin, then looking back on it with a mixture of fondness and loathing. Do any of us miss segregation, for example? How about communism? Red baiting, the Cold War? It's all a part of our past with which we must make some sort of peace.

RONALD REAGAN: The crusade for freedom is your chance and mine to fight communism.

CLARENCE PAGE: It reminds baby boomers like me that, as modern as we like to think we are, part of us still dwells in another world, before Vietnam or Watergate, or downsizing. It was a rougher, tougher world in some ways. Black smoke belched out of towering smokestacks. But many of us miss that too, because it meant jobs. It was also a more formal, genteel world. Women wore white gloves before venturing downtown. Men wore shirts with neckties and, of course, a fedora. Teens made dates at soda fountains. Gasoline always was served to you by an attendant. He wore a uniform and a smile as he washed your windshield and checked your oil, without being told and without expecting a tip. A milkman delivered fresh milk and cream to your door in bottles. Doctors made house calls -- so did the kid from Western Union, sometimes with a song. The world of sports was governed by a different etiquette too. It didn't have huge contracts, but it had loyalty. Teams stayed in one town. Towns stayed in the same leagues. Baseball players stayed with one team. [music in background] And despite its stuffy formality, it was a world with limitless possibilities. Science was our friend. "Better living through chemistry," said Dupont. Science gave us nylon stockings, after all, lovely as silk but cheaper, able to give every woman the legs of a movie starlet if she could stand the pull and tug of something called a girdle.

NEWSREEL SPOKESMAN: A major medical hurdle was crossed with the discovery of by Dr. Jonas Salk of the anti-polio vaccine.

CLARENCE PAGE: Science beat polio, the great plague of the 50's, making iron lungs a relic of the past and givingus hope that science could do anything, even beat the plagues of today. Science gave us the automat, the perfect marriage of a coin-operated machine and food, giving you freedom of choice at reasonable prices, whenever you wanted it, as long as you had enough nickels. Some things we don't miss. The unanswered telephone is almost as rare as rotary dial. And that's okay if you don't mind talking to a machine. There are bad ideas we don't miss, like landfills filling up faster than we expected and DDT killing many bugs we didn't like and too many of the birds we did. And how bout those X-ray machines they used to have at the local shoe store just so we could watch the bones of our tones wiggle in the hazy shadows like some TV show? That was a mistake. We know better now. Instead, we make new mistakes. What next? Is there a future for labor unions, suntans, men's clubs, fur coats, two-newspaper towns? What will become of adolescence, as our children and grandchildren come of age in an era of condoms and metal detectors in high schools? What will happen to childhood? Will we notice its passing? An era does not announce its departure. One day you just look up, and it's gone. I'm Clarence Page. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major stories this Thursday took place on Capitol Hill. Both the Senate and House debated the U.S. military mission in Haiti. The House proposal calls for a complete U.S. withdrawal by March 1st. The Senate resolution would require a pullout as soon as possible. And a lobbying reform bill died in the Senate after Democrats failed to end a Republican filibuster. A bill to reform campaign financing met the same fate last week. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night with Shields and Gigot, among other people and things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.