The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MS. WARNER: And I'm Margaret Warner in New York. After the News Summary this Friday, Charlayne Hunter-Gault has a Newsmaker interview with Nelson Mandela, the president-elect of South Africa. Then it's our weekly political wrap with Paul Gigot and Elizabeth Drew substituting for Mark Shields. And finally we have an Anne Taylor Fleming essay about problems that can't be solved in a court of law. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions on Haiti today. The unanimous vote came on a resolution drafted by the United States. It's designed to force the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The embargo bans nearly all trade with Haiti and prevents its military rulers and their coup supporters from traveling abroad. U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright spoke before today's vote.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, UN Ambassador: Sanctions are one of the most potent weapons the international community has. Our step imposes upon us a significant moral obligation to persevere and enforce these sanctions fully, so they achieve their objective in the shortest possible time. All of us can and must make these sanctions work. The price of failure would be too high for all of us.

MR. LEHRER: An oil and arms embargo is already in effect. Food and medicine are exempted from today's action. Margaret.

MS. WARNER: The nation's unemployment rate inched down 1/10 of a point last month to 6.4 percent. New jobs, meanwhile, continued to grow. The Labor Department said 267,000 new jobs were created in April, more than analysts had predicted. Businesses have added nearly 1 million new workers to their payrolls this year. At Digital Equipment Corporation today, the news was about jobs to be lost. The computer company said it may cut up to 20,000 jobs over two years and sell some businesses as part of a major restructuring. Digital has lost more than $3 billion in the last three years.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Jay Rockefeller said today Gulf War military personnel were exposed to a number of experimental drugs. The West Virginia Democrat said that was the finding of a six-month investigation by a Senate subcommittee staff. He said one of the drugs was given to protect against biological warfare and may be the cause of the so-called "Gulf War Syndrome," a series of ailments experienced by some veterans. At a hearing today, Rockefeller heard testimony from several veterans who took the drug.

LT. COL. BARRY WALKER, Chaplain, U.S. Army Reserve: All we were told was that the pills would protect us against chemical and biological weapons. We were told to take the pills, not given a choice. My knowledge is that none of the 4700 troops except maybe the command headquarters were given any real information about the risks of these drugs or vaccines. The fact that people got sick was not included in their medical records. I do not remember thinking that the vaccine or the pills that I took were causing me any problems, although I stopped taking the pills, and when I saw that they seemed to have a great effect in making other people sick.

MR. LEHRER: A former Arkansas state employee filed a $700,000 sexual harassment suit against President Clinton today. Paula Corbin Jones accused him of making unwanted sexual advances in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991 when he was governor. An Arkansas state trooper who was Mr. Clinton's body guard at the time was also named in the suit. The President has denied the charges. His attorney, Robert Bennett, called it "tabloid trash" and "made-for- TV lawsuit," "a made-for-TV lawsuit."

MS. WARNER: A $15 billion English Channel tunnel was inaugurated today. Nicknamed the "Chunnel" it's the first land link between Britain and France. Britain's Queen Elizabeth and French President Mitterrand dedicated the rail tunnel in Calais, France. They then got into the queen's Rolls Royce and drove onto one of the shuttle trains for the 35-minute journey to the British side of the tunnel. The trip between London and Paris will take about three hours when regular rail service begins later this year.

MR. LEHRER: Nelson Mandela's African National Congress was declared the official winner today of South Africa's first all-race elections. We have a report narrated by Richard Vaughan of Worldwide Television News.

RICHARD VAUGHAN, WTN: The Independent Electoral Commission officially sanctioned South Africa's first multiracial poll.

JUDGE JOHANN KREIGLER, Independent Electoral Commission: We have concluded that we can certify each of the 10 elections concerned to have been substantially free and fair.

MR. VAUGHAN: The ANC has won 62 percent of the vote, and President-elect Nelson Mandela has lost no time in holding talks with outgoing President DeKlerk to set up the new national unity government. After three hours, the two had worked out the number of cabinet places for the top three parties. Mr. DeKlerk then paid tribute to the new first deputy president.

F. W. DeKLERK: Likewise I would like to extend my congratulations to my new colleague, Mr. Tamu Umbeki, who will also be, as I will be, executive deputy president in the government of national unity.

MR. VAUGHAN: Mr. DeKlerk's own efforts to break apartheid were also given recognition.

MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI, Inkatha Freedom Party: The outgoing state president, Mr. F.W. DeKlerk, was after all the first national party leader who has ever shown the courage and conviction to face the realities of our country.

MR. VAUGHAN: The new confidence in South Africa was reflected in the financial markets as fears that the ANC would reach a 2/3 majority and rewrite the constitution receded.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have a Newsmaker interview with Nelson Mandela right after this News Summary. Fighting continued in Rwanda today, despite new reports of a truce. A Belgian news agency said the rebels and the government signed an agreement for a cease-fire beginning on Sunday. U.N. officials in the capital of Kigali said battles still were raging and the rebels appeared to be gaining ground. The ethnic fighting broke out one month ago. Aid officials have estimated the death toll at more than 200,000.

MS. WARNER: Foreigners today began fleeing Yemen, where a civil war erupted on Wednesday. About 600 of the 2,000 westerners in the Arab nation were evacuated by the French navy. Fighting escalated in the country today. Street battles raged in the capital, and there were reports that SCUD missiles had been fired at the city. The fighting pits rival northern and southern forces against each other. Their two regions merged into a single state in 1990. The U.S. delivered a rare public rebuke today to the U.N. special envoy to Bosnia, Yasushi Akashi. A State Department spokeswoman criticized Akashi for letting Serb tanks pass through the weapons exclusion zone around Sarajevo. The U.N. diplomat agreed to let them through after the Serb military commander threatened to use force. The spokeswoman said the U.S. was not calling for Akashi's resignation but said, "We would like to see him do a better job."

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Nelson Mandela, Paul Gigot and Elizabeth Drew, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. NEWSMAKER

MS. WARNER: We start tonight with a Newsmaker interview with Nelson Mandela, the overwhelming winner of South Africa's first all-race election. Next Tuesday, this man who's spent more than 20 years in prison will become president of a country that until last week did not even allow its black majority to vote. Charlayne Hunter-Gault talked with Mr. Mandela this morning before the final vote count was announced. The final results gave his African National Congress just shy of a 2/3 majority in the new parliament.

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

NELSON MANDELA, President-elect, South Africa: You are welcome. You deserve the opportunity to speak to us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, we appreciate that. Mr. DeKlerk the other day referred to you as a man of destiny. Is that how you see yourself?

NELSON MANDELA: Well, it is sometimes difficult to put a precise temptation into ideas, but I wouldn't assess myself separately from the team of which I have been a member ever since I joined politics. It is the organization that has created the present situation, and to look at the outstanding achievements that were made from the point of view of the contribution, the humble contribution of an individual, may not bear the focusing of exactly the organization and the team that should be complimented for what has happened. I am a member of a very eminent team of people, some of whom you know very well, and it cannot be said that a particular individual is responsible for the achievement that has been made.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: One of the things that Mr. DeKlerk said when we interviewed him last week in that regard was that it's one thing to be the head of a liberation movement, another to be the president of a country, and he had some doubts about your capacity to make that leap, and yet, as I have observed you over the fast few weeks and even months it seemed as if you had made that psychological leap to being president.

NELSON MANDELA: Well, the problem that we face today is that we are dealing with a group of men and women who are produced by apartheid, who can talk about democracy in a way different from what you and I understand by democracy. We also had another tendency from the liberation movement of people who want to continue resisting, even at a time when we are preparing to govern. We have to reconcile those two tendencies, and I think that the African National Congress has already reconciled them. We took the initiative in launching the process of negotiations. Over the last four years we have made the outstanding breakthroughs. We have established the transitional executive council which is already assuming powers of government. We have adopted a constitution which however flawed is able to mirror the hopes and aspirations of the people of South Africa as a whole. Now we are just counting the results of the election, and by the end of the day, we will know the exact state of the parties in this country. We have made a solid contribution in that regard. We have not used the majority which we have enjoyed over this last four years in order to reach decisions. We have used a consensus and were able to keep together 26 political parties pulling different directions. And the achievement that remains is now the collective achievement of all these political parties. That is what is going to happen in the government of national unity.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you're going to lead that government. Do you feel like a president ready to lead a country, and do you feel different from the head of the liberation struggle?

NELSON MANDELA: Well, I don't think that there are going to be different troubles. But I am confident that the men and women with whom I have been working in my organization and the men and women from other political parties want to contribute towards the building of a greater Souther Africa, they want to promote the spirit of reconciliation. That is a message which has been accepted by everybody.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And one you've been talking about quite a bit.

NELSON MANDELA: Well, I have been talking about it, but I am not the only person who has been concentrating on this idea.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I'm sure that you've been awfully busy in these past few weeks, and you've also been ill, and we're happy to see that you're on the mend, but in all of that, have you had time to think about the kind of president you're going to be? Are you going to be a Clinton type president who's hands-on, involved in the nitty gritty of everything? Are you going to be a more removed leader at the top who sets the tone, who uses the office as a bully pulpit to promote your programs but let other people carry out the nitty gritty? What kind of president are you going to be?

NELSON MANDELA: Our approach has already been demonstrated in the course of this campaign. We do not believe in taking decisions on top and then sending them down to the masses of the people. We have evolved a strategy a people's forum where it is the masses of the people who are telling us what they want, what their concerns are, what their demands are, and out of those demands from the masses of the people, themselves, we have now prepared what we call the reconstruction and development program which is going to create jobs and build houses, educational, provide educational facilities, electricity, and so on.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Excuse me. How are you going to get those programs pushed through legislation? Are you going to delegate authority to cabinet ministers and then let them push it, or are you going to be in there, yourself?

NELSON MANDELA: I have to be interested in almost every detail, but, of course, it's important, it's difficult, and to achieve that result you see where you have to look into the activities of every department to a detail. It is sufficient to lay down a framework, and all departments, all cabinet ministers should work within that framework, and your task is that of supervisory and sometimes getting involved in the actual operations of a department, depending on the importance of the issue, of the national issue that is involved.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: As we know, there will be two deputy presidents. Mr. DeKlerk will be an executive president, and you will name a deputy. I don't know if you want to do that for us now.

NELSON MANDELA: We have -- I have named a deputy, and that is Tamu Umbeki. He is the first deputy president. I am going along with him today to Mr. DeKlerk. And I want him to take over the task of solving problems with Mr. DeKlerk, and right from now on, I have appointed him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. DeKlerk has said that your presidency will not be as powerful as his was and that he expects to be a very strong president, vice president. Do you have any concerns about his role and about his hold on the civil service, the largely Afrikaner civil service, or do you have confidence that you will enjoy their support and be as powerful as he was as a president?

NELSON MANDELA: The question of a president being powerful does not depend on the clauses in legislation. You can be powerful and exercise all the power you want without even occupying the position of president, and it's a false idea to think that the power of any individual to influence policy in the country depends on occupying a political position. And I have all the power, legal power, which I need, but I don't rely solely on that. My power of persuasion is sufficient. I have welded power as a prisoner without occupying any position, and Mr. DeKlerk had to recognize that. We have taken decisions and forced him to use his legal powers. The decision was taken by us. Take for example how he dismissed two ministers. We gave him an ultimatum that he must appoint a judicial commission to investigate a question of violence. He must dismiss a certain two ministers. And he came out, and said he would never do that. We embarked on mass action. He was forced to do exactly what he said he would never do. So we have welded power even before we assumed government of the country, and that is how the situation should be examined. It is without any such data for him to say I will not exercise the power that he exercised. It is what the masses of the people decide a president should do. And I am going to be a servant of the masses of the people.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you have any concerns about the largely Afrikaner civil service, and do you have any plans to change that complexion?

NELSON MANDELA: I have been interacting with the Afrikaners ever since I came out of prison. And two days ago, I met Gen. Constant Fidun, who is an important right-winger in this country. And I had very fruitful discussions with him. This morning I had, had a discussion with Dr. Fender, the chairperson of the Public Service Commission. I have asked him to continue. He's supposed to retire in June next -- this year. I've asked him to continue to serve as chairperson of the new service commission. He has agreed. And I have heard that support from the army. I have addressed the full generals of the army, all the services there, the air force, the navy, the army, itself, and I have addressed the generals in the South African police force who are responsible for policy making. I have addressed the leadership of the Dutch Reform Church, and a wide range of agricultural organizations which are predominantly Afrikaners, and they have given us their overwhelming support. Everybody in this country wants peace, wants security for his family and his children. And they wanted to -- to start the work of building a new South Africa. And I'm confident that I'll have the support of all services in the country.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The slow count in the balloting has been disturbing to a lot of people, and critics, as a result, are calling the election process a shambles. At one point, you even referred to concerns you had about sabotage in the black areas. Are you worried that the results are going to be in question that your presidency, your government is going to have a problem that comes back to haunt it if these issues aren't definitively resolved, the issue of ballot stuffing, grass found in the ballots, all kinds of irregularities?

NELSON MANDELA: Let me say from the outset that the Independent Elections Commission is composed of men and women of the highest integrity. I have interacted with them in one way or the other in a number of issues before they constituted the independent elections commission, and I have complete confidence in them. They have done and are doing an impressive job in a difficult situation. Undoubtedly, there have been attempts to sabotage the work of the Independent Elections Commission.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: By whom?

NELSON MANDELA: Not by them but by officials. These matters are now adjudicated by officials who have been identified and officials are linked with the old regime, and these are issues which are now matters of public knowledge, that there has been this, a deliberate and concerted attempt to sabotage. Firstly, by not distributing the ballot papers in the areas which are the strongholds of the ANC, on the 27th there were areas which had no ballot papers at all, although the ballot papers were stacked somewhere, and when the inquiries are made, they changed them from one warehouse to the other and still tried to prevent distributing them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you still believe that you will be able to work with people who've done things like this?

NELSON MANDELA: You must expect that the old regime is going to resist, in spite of what happens on the surface. You must remember, Mr. DeKlerk has stood up in a meeting attended by all the leaders of this country and has said he was against majority rule. We knocked him hard for that. He tried to promote a concept of power sharing which meant that if one party got 75 percent of the votes and another 25, the 75 percent should be unable to take a decision without the consent of the 25. We rejected that, and instead, put the concept of a government of national unity, where the majority rules would apply. We have made the progress in spite of the attempt to block the process of democracy. We have made progress. And in this regard, the ANC has got a majority of support of 64 percent against 20 percent of the national party. In spite of the attempts to sabotage, we have prevailed, and that is what we should concentrate upon. And we must also take into account that South Africans, including Africans, colored, Indians, and whites, they want this election to succeed, and that those elements who are trying to sabotage are in the minority, and we have already neutralized them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So you believe that this election will be certified free and fair, and there won't be any ghosts to come back to haunt you?

NELSON MANDELA: Well, I would be prepared to live with ghosts. Some of them are very benevolent. Ghosts can be very friendly and benevolent, and once we're prepared to live with them. But the general picture is that of a first democratic election in the country involving people, some of whom have got a low level of literacy. Nevertheless, the elections have gone on very well in spite of the attempts to sabotage, which has been a source of great concern to the IEC and to all those who are committed to a new South Africa. And I think the IEC is handling the matter very skillfully and very diplomatically, very cautiously, and they have made sure that in the end, whatever the problems are, this election should be satisfied as free and fair.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: By the end of the day you will know whether the ANC has the 2/3 majority. What happens if you get the 2/3 majority?

NELSON MANDELA: No difference at all. I have said on more than one occasion that this government of national unity must not be an empty shell in which the smaller parties are reduced to a position of rubber stamping the decision of some other organizations. That majority must be used in a very discriminating manner. The acid test of the new government is that the reconstruction and development program, where that leads, that the government of national unity is going to succeed or not is going to depend on that program. And we are going to use our majority in the interest of the entire country, and the interests of the country are linked up with that reconstruction and development program. And I have no doubt that the major parties in the government national unity themselves have promised South Africa, the people of South Africa, to ensure a better life for all, and therefore, they are committed to this program. And whether I get the 2/3 majority or not, it is going to make no difference, because our position is going to remain the same. We are going to carry the government of national unity on the correctness of our views, just as we have been able to keep together the 26 different political parties with different backgrounds together to move forward to the extent that today we have been able to select a government of our choice.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The voting, in spite of your team of reconciliation before, during, and after the election, the voting was strictly along racial lines, and in the Western Cape, the national party won a majority on a campaign that was blatantly racist, that was condemned by your media, your establishment media. What does that auger for the future? You know, even given your theme of reconciliation, the reality is that people voted their color.

NELSON MANDELA: That's not a very fair assessment of what has happened in this election. If we had relied purely on African votes, it is doubtful if we would have got the 64 to 65 percent we have got. A substantial section of the whites in this country, Indians and coloreds, voted solidly, solidly for the ANC. The colored community throughout the country has fully backed the ANC.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Except in the Western Cape.

NELSON MANDELA: That is true. In the Western Cape, the colored community voted overwhelmingly for the national party but solidly behind the ANC. When you take into account the racist campaign which the ANC conducted frightened the colored people --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean the national party?

NELSON MANDELA: The national party frightened the colored people and suggested that if the ANC comes into power, it will apply the slogan, "Kill the colored." It will take over their houses, their universities." The colored community in the Western Cape has built a very important role and stood behind the ANC. If you consider the matter from that angle, the type of campaign the national party conducted, then the colored community responded to the ANC very well. You must remember also that this is not at the end of the contest for the hearts of the colored people. I have no doubt that in the course of my presidency I am going to make a terrific impact on the colored community because the colored community has got thinkers and many other thinkers in the colored community are behind the ANC.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You spoke -- you've spoken often in this interview about your reform program. I'm wondering how do you think that the fact that although whites did vote for the ANC, the majority of them voted for the national party, how do you think you're going to be able to implement your reform plan with whites, business people who don't -- who haven't identified with this government?

NELSON MANDELA: That is not -- those are not the facts. About six months ago, there was an opinion poll amongst the leading corporations in this country. As to the question what was asked: Who would you like to see to be the president of the new South Africa? 32 percent voted for DeKlerk. 68 percent voted for the leader of the ANC. So it is not correct to say that the builders of this country have reservations about the ANC.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Because Mr. DeKlerk told us when we interviewed him that he did not think that -- he said this was an uhuru election, it was about liberation, and that in five years' time the election was going to be about the economy, and that he would be in a much stronger position than your government to then take control of the real election, was what he implied.

NELSON MANDELA: Well, DeKlerk had the majority in the current parliament. He has emerged with only 20 percent, with all the wealth that he had -- he predicted that he was going to winthe election -- he only managed 20 percent, and he is opposing the reconstruction and development program. He can never emerge stronger after we have started implementing the reconstruction and development program because that is what the country is waiting for, and anybody who has got reservations about that program can never emerge at all. Who is he and on the basis of what can he talk about a future for the national party? These are just the words of a clever politician.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I've heard you over the last few weeks try to temper the rising expectations of the black majority. One thing I haven't heard though is anything about the white sacrifice that may be necessary for you to achieve the goals that you've set up. Isn't it the case that whites are going to have to make some sacrifices to make up for the years of privilege they've had at the expense of the black majority?

NELSON MANDELA: That --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is that a reality?

NELSON MANDELA: -- really is not the issue in this regard. By reorganizing the budget in this country, we have all the resources we need to make this reconstruction and development program succeed, and there is a great deal of emphasis on things that don't matter. The government spent 10 billion rand in buying tanks, guns, and ammunition, only 2 billion on housing. We are going to reverse that. This country sufficiently rates for us to have the resources to implement this program of action, and we can do that. We've calculated the figures ourselves and also with builders, we have calculated that we have sufficient resources to ensure that the houses will be built and job recreation programs will be established without undermining the position of the whites.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I've heard you refuse to set priorities. You say jobs are important, housing, health, rural electrification. But I wonder if you have a sort of an American style, first hundred days' set of goals, something you want to achieve concretely within the first hundred days?

NELSON MANDELA: Well, that is not the way we work out our priorities. We are going to organize resources, have a program for a particular period and implement it, and these are things which have to be worked out with the masses of the people, themselves, who are involved. And they will decide what in their region is the priority, and we will then respond to that. It's not a question of the leadership working out priorities without reference to the masses of the people who are going to be affected.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: International investors are said to be guardedly optimistic about investing in South Africa in the long- term but still concerned about stability. What is your --

NELSON MANDELA: Oh, naturally. Stability will only come when the new government takes over, and it is only that government and not the DeKlerk government that can put an end to the violence, because the government of DeKlerk has also relied on violence against the blacks as a strategy in this election. We have defeated him, and our task now is going to be to ensure that the security forces carry out the duty of maintaining law and order and are not involved in crime.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about --

NELSON MANDELA: And continually we have established security and stability. You can't expect foreign investors to come and risk their investments.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How soon?

NELSON MANDELA: That depends on what we do. We have already reduced violence to a minimum even before we take over by declaring a state of emergency.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are you going to continue that?

NELSON MANDELA: Well, it's going to depend on the situation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But right now?

NELSON MANDELA: The situation, the situation now requires that state of emergency to continue.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about --

NELSON MANDELA: I will review the matter from time to time. We'll review the matter from time to time, and depending on the situation, we will call off or lift the state of emergency.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I have to ask you about Kwazulu Natal, because that's where most of the instability now seems to be. I heard someone say this morning that it would be in the best interest of the whole situation if the Inkatha Freedom Party won that region. What's your assessment of that situation?

NELSON MANDELA: We are discussing the situation with the Inkatha Freedom Party, and I think it would be premature to have any pessimistic view. We have made tremendous progress in spite of the tensions between the ANC and Inkatha. The ANC is a national organization, and it has taken power throughout the country. The problem is localized in Natal. Even in Natal it is in certain areas. And I think that a government that's led by the ANC will be able to cope with the situation in Natal.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The liberation struggle was characterized by the theme of your book No Easy Walk to Freedom. I'm wondering now what you might -- what label you might put, what title you might put on this next phase.

NELSON MANDELA: Well, I don't think I will approach it from the point of view of such titles, but the promotion of the spirit of reconciliation is something that we should all unite and try and achieve in our country.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mr. President, we wish you all the best. Thank you.

NELSON MANDELA: Thank you. Thank you very much. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. LEHRER: Now, our Friday night political analysis with one of our regulars, Wall Street Journal Columnist Paul Gigot, who is joined tonight by Washington columnist and author Elizabeth Drew. She's working on a book about the Clinton administration. Mark Shields will be back here next week. Paul, the -- start with the Paula Jones lawsuit accusing President Clinton of sexual harassment back when he was governor. What's your feeling for how serious a political matter this is for the President?

MR. GIGOT: Well, I'm beginning to think, Jim, that this is -- this presidency is a four-year race between the questions and doubts about this President's character and his savvy political instinct. And this was the character issue come back again. This time I think it's a little different than just the mere accusations of infidelity, which were familiar and have been discounted by a lot of the voters, because this is a legal issue. This brings the issue of sexual harassment with all of the ramifications, the political echoes it created in the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas debate, and we have a specter here potentially of a president actually being deposed on some of these things. So we could create a --

MR. LEHRER: Being deposed meaning having to answer questions, not deposed as president.

MR. GIGOT: Answer questions. No, I'm sorry. That only happens in monarchies. [laughing]

MR. LEHRER: That's right. That's right. Elizabeth, how serious is this or could this be?

MS. DREW: I think it's serious in the extent that he really didn't need this now. I think Paul is exactly right. Actually, you had both Clinton this week -- you had the thing that he really needed to happen and a major legislative victory that he was very much responsible for and then a story that re-raises a question of --

MR. LEHRER: That's the assault weapons ban.

MS. DREW: The assault weapons ban, right, and a story that re- raises the question of his character, whether or not there's validity to this suit, it's almost irrelevant. And he really didn't need that. And at the White House, I mean, they're all acting very cool about it, and the President, asked today in a photo, well, what about the suit, well, I'm not going to dignify it with a response and all that. I'm told he's very upset, and you can tell that the aides aren't very happy. I mean, they know that they just don't need reminders. And, of course, Jim, it came at a time when they really started to feel that Whitewater was petering out. There have been no new charges. There will be hearings in some form, but they really thought maybe they were getting that off the table for some period of time, and then this. And I can remember when Paula Jones first did her press conference --

MR. LEHRER: That was in February, wasn't it?

MS. DREW: February, a conservative political action group here which makes it a little bit suspect, and the White House jumped on it. Now they've adopted the term "bimbo eruptions," and they really thought they'd gotten rid of her, and here she is back to haunt Mr. Clinton. It's almost like a Greek play.

MR. LEHRER: Yes, Paul. You --

MR. GIGOT: If there are any doubts that they didn't take this seriously, they were gone when they hired Bob Bennett. I mean, he's the kind of attorney you hire when you're going to fight a political battle.

MR. LEHRER: This was Robert Bennett, probably the best known, most effective defender of people in public life in Washington who've been accused of things. He represented the Keating -- or he prosecuted the Keating five. He also represents Dan Rostenkowki, just for the folks who don't know who Robert Bennett is.

MR. GIGOT: He represents you. You get him as representation when you're not going to just argue the law, you're going to argue the politics, and he knows how to work the press, and so they take it very seriously.

MR. LEHRER: What about this issue? You mentioned it, Paul. You mentioned this in your column this morning, in fact, in the Wall Street Journal, this thing with the Anita Hill- Clarence Thomas deal, that this really puts the liberals and the Democrats and the feminists on, in a very interesting situation. But you said in your column wait a minute, the conservatives should be careful with that issue, this particular issue now. Why do you feel that way?

MR. GIGOT: Well, I wish they would. I'm afraid they won't be, because what the Anita Hill episode put on -- I think on the agenda in Washington as a political standard is one of personal attack and moral assault really. You go right to the heart of the individual. You don't argue about your political differences. You go right to the heart of the character of the individual. And a lot of conservatives remember that standard now, and they're itching to get back. And Paul Jones creates the perfect opportunity, so you have an awful lot of people who wore those "I believe Anita" buttons who are going to be put on a tough situation here because they're going to have to look at this lawsuit and say, do I take this one seriously too even though Bill Clinton has arguably been one of the best presidents for the feminist cause in many, many years.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. What do you think about that, Elizabeth?

MS. DREW: Well, I don't believe much in the politics or retribution or the "so is your old man" school of governing. I think to say Robert Bork or Anita Hill isn't to say much about the next situation or another situation. I think where this is really dangerous for the President is not just in the character question coming back again, but there's a whole question of Clinton's presidentialness and whether he really brings the dignity to the office that there should be. And sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. Now the suit was brought. It's a really squalid, horrible suit. The whole country is going to be talking about some of its details. It sure doesn't help in that respect.

MR. LEHRER: But at the same time, there are a lot of people saying, yeah, okay, this terrible thing has happened, the Paula Jones thing, and as you pointed out, at the same time he won a big one yesterday by two votes on the assault weapons thing, and he did it the old-fashioned way by getting on the phone and telling the public and members of Congress he wanted it very badly. Explain that.

MS. DREW: Well, this was very crucial to him. This was the Bill Clinton that we saw several examples of last year, and we hadn't seen him for a while. So he really needed it, and I give him more credit on this one than even on some of the others, because I never thought he would lose NAFTA, the trade agreement. Presidents don't lose trade agreements, but this one he was truly behind, he really went on the line for it. His attorney general, Janet Reno, was a huge help, but so was his secretary of the treasury, Mr. Bentsen, a certified hunter and gun man, and he worked and he worked and he worked and he put his energy into it, and other people worked as well, Charles Schumer, who sponsored it, and people on the Hill. And he won. That's the other side of Clinton, the guy that goes on the line, risks a bit. He risks a bit in all sorts of ways, and, and pulled it off.

MR. LEHRER: How do you -- what's your analysis of why that vote went that way yesterday?

MR. GIGOT: I think, I think it that way less because the President twisted arms and he because he understood that the politics of gun control had changed. What you had in the past was liberals who wanted gun control versus gun owners. That never got very far. Now you've got police. You've got virtually every police association in the country saying, we want this, these weapons to be banned because we're outgunned. That creates a very different political dynamic.

MS. DREW: Ronald Reagan wrote a letter about it.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. GIGOT: But that creates a very different political dynamic. You see, the cities always vote for gun control, city representatives. Rural representatives tend to vote against it. The battle on this issue is for the suburbs. And you have a lot of suburban representatives who are saying, we're not sure if this is going to help control the crime problem, but symbolically we'd like it done.

MS. DREW: And Paul's right about another point. It's no great secret Clinton's polls show that people are with his kind of change and are with his talking about violence. I mean, this is a case where political exigency and political leadership happen to coincide.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's go move on to the other area that he -- a lot of -- he's drawn a lot of heat or criticism on particularly, and that's his poor handling of foreign affairs. It was the big thing he did on CNN with all the CNN correspondents. He's drawn a lot of heat on Haiti. What -- but it doesn't seem to be resonating around the country. I just saw a poll that just came out that said that the majority of the American people still don't care about foreign affairs. They elected him, as Mark Shields said on this program, they elected him to do domestic things, he's doing domestic things, and they've tuned this other thing out.

MS. DREW: And I think that's part of the problem, you see, I think that's right. And that's what -- he's trying to follow that, and yet, he doesn't want the opinion makers and the foreign policy elite to condemn his management of foreign policy, and there's a lot to condemn about it. I don't think Haiti is one of them, by the way, but I think there are valid criticisms. So he's trying to stay in tune with the public and yet be a credible figure in the world, which he's having trouble doing. And it's the dichotomy I think that's causing the inconstancy and the problems that he's having.

MR. LEHRER: Do you feel he's having trouble being a credible figure in the world, Paul?

MR. GIGOT: I do. You hear it everywhere when different foreign people, foreign secretaries or leaders come to town, and they invite you over, and you just have a talk. Off the record, they say, we're not sure where this presidency is really going on foreign policy. We've lost a lot of confidence. You hear that time and again everywhere. Partly it is because he de-emphasizes foreign policy, which the voters want. But I think the voters, by and large Americans tend to de-emphasize foreign policy until there's a crisis or until there's trouble that has to be addressed. And then they want a president to be able to have the credibility to put together the coalitions to meet it. And the problem is by kind of sacrificing American credibility in the world bit by bit, it's going to make the onset of the crisis in Haiti -- now he's talking about intervening in Haiti, and he's actually talking about an invasion -- you know, that sort of talk is -- has got people up on the Hill very upset.

MS. DREW: You know, I think this is the real point about Haiti. I don't think there are good options in Haiti. That's why I'm more sympathetic with how it's been handled. And even John Chafee said - - the Republican who's critical -- said, but I don't have a Haiti policy. It's really tough, and they've tried various things. But they're now saying -- I mean, they've put on these tougher sanctions and gotten them approved at the U.N., and the idea is to try through tougher sanctions to get this rather recalcitrant military government to make a political deal, and if they don't, they're looking at military options. As a policy maker said this afternoon, he said, we're not just saber rattling, we mean it. Well, then you think they really have to mean it, because the President's credibility is hanging by a threat.

MR. GIGOT: But if you talk to the Pentagon, they say he doesn't mean it, he is saber rattling. If you talk to the State Department, they say he's just saber rattling. There's no coherence within the administration even on this point.

MR. LEHRER: Finally, former Vice President Dan Quayle's book, he took some shots at some of his former colleagues in the Bush administration. Should we be surprised and worried about that, Paul?

MR. GIGOT: Well, you know, Ronald Reagan used to have the 11th commandment, thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican. Dan Quayle's rewritten it, thou shalt speak ill of every Republican. I -- I'm a charter member of the Quayle revisionist club. I mean, I wrote nice things about him as vice president. I thought he was a better vice president than the common perception. But in reading the book, I'm disappointed by the book, because I think he had a chance to say forget those four years, tell a little bit about the debate. Let's say this is what Dan Quayle wants for the country, this is where he wants to move. And, instead, you find the agenda in a kind of odd way almost set by his critics because he constantly is responding to them instead of moving on to say the Atlantic Monthly article which said Dan Quayle is right about the Murphy Brown fracas and family values, he kind of lets it drop.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Elizabeth, what do you think?

MS. DREW: Well, I think settling scores is fair game, and in James Baker, whom he settles with some scores with, it's a fair point, because Baker made no great disguise of his lack of esteem for Mr. Quayle. But Paul may be right, that that would have been better literature, but it wouldn't have sold books. And I have the slight sound of a publisher right behind this guy saying, this is the way he's going to get attention. Have you written Dan Quayle's philosophy? I'm not sure that he would be on as many television programs that he's now on. I think it does have something to do with positioning for the nomination the next time, because he's attacking -- used to attacking everybody, as Paul said, but particularly the centrist in the party, and aligning himself with the, with the Christian right. Whether any of this is relevant to whether he seems presidential I seriously doubt.

MR. LEHRER: All right. We'll leave it there. Elizabeth, Paul, thank you. ESSAY - HEARTS & COURTS

MS. WARNER: Finally tonight, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming has some thoughts about what happens when courts try to decide matters of the heart.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: She seemed so firm and so fragile at the same time, ever so young yet ever so poised Kimberly Mays asking a Florida judge to terminate the rights of her biological parents.

KIMBERLY MAYS: I want them out of my life and my life back.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: Famous as the girl who had been swapped at birth in a Florida hospital, the teenager was allowed to remain with the only dad she had ever known while her literal parents, Ernest and Regina Twiggs, were denied any access to her. That was late last year, and as these things are, it was compelling drama, another real-life chapter in the family-values theater in which we watch our country folks lay bare their hearts and shed their tears in some court of law or another only to see their lives rehashed anew on the daily talk shows and nightly movies for TV.

CORRESPONDENT: Now a different story is emerging. The first time we knew that something might be amiss in Kim's present life was when she went to live at this youth shelter in Sarasota.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: That was then and now is now, and Kimberly Mays has thrown us another curve. In the complicated throes of adolescence, she's gone back to live with the parents she said she never wanted to see again. Our adamant prodigal daughter returning home. Are you listening Hollywood? Time to crank up another movie with another end. The real question is: Are we listening? Are we getting it? But in matters of the heart, courts of law have real limitations, our increasing reliance on them notwithstanding. What a litigious country we've become, seemingly unable to solve any problem without a lawyer. Even a girl whose prom date didn't turn up turned around and sued him for the price of her dress and her wounded pride. Clearly, we are a nation of grievance collectors and the legal profession is burgeoning to redress those grievances. In the 1980s, the number of lawyers in the country grew by about 50 percent to 729,000, and it is no secret that our government at every level is dominated by lawyers. More importantly, we have allowed, even insisted, that they insinuate themselves into every facet of our lives, both professional and personal. Watching the Kimberly Mays saga unfold, I was reminded of sitting in a New Jersey courtroom the wintry day of 1989 when a judge terminated the parental rights of Mary Beth Whitehead, the surrogate mom of Baby M. The judgment seemed so definite, so tough, so potentially unwise. After all, down the road, Baby M would know her biological mom wanted to keep her or at least share her, and then wouldn't she turn on her other parents, William and Elizabeth Stern, who had kept her from that mother? I felt slightly sick leaving the courtroom that day. Wasn't there a kinder and gentler middle ground for all involved? Mary Beth Whitehead certainly thought so. She persevered and in another legal go-around was awarded visitation rights to the baby she had borne. The much-wrestled over little girl now goes between homes. Nobody's palsy-walsy here. There was too much legal bloodshed for that. But down the road, at least Baby M will know she was a victim of too much love, not too little. And so it is with Kimberly Mays. Decisive and erratic, brave and adolescent, she's trying to chart her own course, find her own place, and to find her own family. And in this, the adults once poised in legal battle have come together to help her. For now, she is with the Twiggs. Tomorrow, who knows? She is a complicated young girl, or at least one holding a complicated hand. And her gyrations remind us that no legal ruling can nail down a custody arrangement for the human heart. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming. RECAP

MS. WARNER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, the United Nations Security Council voted to tighten international sanctions on Haiti. The nation's unemployment rate fell 1/10 of a point to 6.4 percent. And on the NewsHour, South African President-elect Nelson Mandela said he would reverse the budget priorities of his country, shifting spending from weapons and ammunition to building housing and creating jobs. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Margaret. We'll see you on Monday night. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.