The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Margaret Warner runs a missile defense debate between Senator Biden and Richard Perle. Gwen Ifill talks to Moshe Arens, an emissary from Israeli prime minister-elect Ariel Sharon. Terence smith gets election night post-mortems from network anchors Brokaw, Jennings, and rather. And Ray Suarez considers Napster's future in the music swapping business. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush today urged the NATO nations to unite behind a missile defense plan. He visited a NATO command in Norfolk, Virginia, and called for new military technologies, including an anti-missile shield. Some of the allies oppose that plan, but Mr. Bush said they won the Cold War together, they must not split up now. We'll have more on the missile defense debate right after this News Summary. Two U.S. Army helicopters crashed last night in Hawaii, killing six soldiers. Eleven others were injured. A Pentagon spokesman said the two Black Hawk craft were involved in a night training exercise when they somehow touched each other. An investigation has begun to determine what happened.

REAR ADMIRAL CRAIG QUIGLEY: This was an exercise that practices the ability to move soldiers around under battlefield conditions, in this case using helicopters. This was done at night. Again, that's something that we need to be able to do in combat so we practice that skill in peacetime training as well.

JIM LEHRER: This was the second fatal military accident around Hawaii in less than a week. Last Friday a U.S. submarine hit and sank a Japanese fishing ship off Pearl Harbor. Today the Pentagon said an unmanned diving vehicle had arrived to examine the sunken wreck. Nine people who were on that vessel are still missing. The U.S. economy is not in a recession yet. That's what Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan told the Senate Banking Committee today. He said growth was close to stalling out when the year began, and that downside risks are still a concern. But he said consumer confidence remains high enough for continued growth, barring a sudden change.

ALAN GREENSPAN: This unpredictable rending of confidence is one reason that recessions are so difficult to forecast. They may not be just changes in degree from a period of economic expansion but a different process engendered by fear. Our economic models have never been particularly successful in capturing a process driven in large part by non-rational behavior.

JIM LEHRER: In other economic news today, the Commerce Department reported retail sales were up seven-tenths of a percent in January. That was the best showing in four months. President Bush called it one good statistic amongst a sea of pretty dismal statistics. He said he remains concerned about the economy. Another deadly earthquake hit El Salvador today. It killed at least 92 people, injured 700, and leveled hundreds of buildings. It was centered just outside the capital, San Salvador, and also shook neighboring Honduras and Guatemala. El Salvador was still recovering from a major quake one month ago that killed more than 800 people and left thousands homeless. Israeli-Palestinian violence escalated sharply today. Israeli helicopter gunships killed a member of an elite Palestinian police unit. They fired a missile at his car as he traveled through Gaza. An Israeli defense official said he had directed attacks on Israeli civilians. Also, a Palestinian boy was killed and more than 60 people were wounded in gun battles across Gaza. In Washington, a State Department spokesman said both sides need to step back.

RICHARD BOUCHER, State Department Spokesman: Our assessment is the events of the last 48 hours represent a serious deterioration of the security situation on the ground at a time that we all recognize is very, very sensitive. The use of Israeli helicopter gunships, Palestinian attacks against settlement and motorists, the use of mortars by Palestinians and the targeted killings by the Israeli defense force today are producing a new cycle of action or reaction which can become impossible to control.

JIM LEHRER: The violence is expected to be a topic as aides to Israeli Prime Minister-Elect Ariel Sharon meet with U.S. officials this week. They arrived in Washington today. We'll talk to one of them later in the program tonight. Former President Clinton said today he now hopes to lease office space in the Harlem section of New York City. He'd originally planned to have offices in midtown Manhattan. But that plan drew criticism, because the rent would have been about $800,000 year. The Harlem space was expected to cost far less. He said he got the idea during a trip last week.

BILL CLINTON: Well, I asked myself down in Florida if I could go any place in New York to have an office starting today, where would I go? And immediately I thought of the empowerment zone in Harlem because one of the major initiatives of our economic renewal package in 1993 was the empowerment zones.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Clinton has also been criticized over the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. But today, President Bush questioned the wisdom of pursuing that matter. He said it's time to move on. The President today nominated Massachusetts Governor Paul Sluchy to be ambassador to Canada. He cited the Governor's experience in dealing with Canadianleaders on energy, fishing and commerce. Sluchy called the nomination a great honor. He must now be confirmed by the Senate. That's it for the news that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to, to build or not to build a missile defense system; an emissary from Ariel Sharon; Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather; and what now for Napster?

FOCUS - MISSILE DEFENSE

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has the missile defense debate.

GEORGE W. BUSH: (August 3, 2000) At the earliest possible date, my administration will deploy missile defenses to guard against attack and blackmail.

MARGARET WARNER: It was one of candidate George W. Bush's core campaign promises, to build a high-tech defense shield to protect Americans from missile attacks. He reaffirmed that commitment today at a military command center in Virginia, and said he wanted to include America's allies in his plans.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We will consult early and candidly with our NATO allies, and we will expect them to return the same. In diplomacy and technology and missile defense, in fighting wars, and above all, in preventing wars, we must work as one.

MARGARET WARNER: But the European allies are skeptical. In January, French President Jacques Chirac said a U.S. missile shield will relaunch the arms race in the world. And last week, German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder cautioned the U.S. against overly hasty and early determinations to move ahead with the project. Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to calm those fears last week when he spoke at a conference in Munich, Germany.

DONALD RUMSFELD: These systems will be a threat to no one. That is a fact. They should be of concern to no one save those who would threaten others.

MARGARET WARNER: Russia and China are even more hostile to the idea. They warn that a U.S. defense shield will prompt other nations to deploy new weapons and technologies to try to overcome& -pit. Russia also says such a shield is prohibited by the 1972 U.S.- Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Debates over missile defense date from the Reagan era. Ronald Reagan envisioned a system of space-based lasers to shoot down incoming missiles.

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: (March 1983) What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil, or that of our allies?

MARGARET WARNER: Reagan won some funding, and for 15 years, the project was pursued, but at ever-more- scaled-back levels of research. In 1998, the idea was given new life. A bipartisan commission chaired by then-private citizen Donald Rumsfeld warned that the U.S. faced near-term missile threats from new quarters, from such states as North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. The report spurred the Clinton administration to draw up plans for a $60 billion ground-based system that would protect only the United States and comply with the ABM treaty. But two out of three tests failed, and last fall, the Clinton administration decided not to begin building the system. Candidate Bush called Clinton's ground-based system too limited. But President Bush has given few details about what exactly he has in mind.

MARGARET WARNER: To debate the merits of the administration's missile defense plans, we turn to Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration, and a defense adviser to the Bush campaign. Welcome, gentlemen.

Richard Perle, is the administration right to make this such a high priority? Why does the U.S. need this now?

RICHARD PERLE: First of all, it was an important part of the President's campaign. He didn't make any promises, but the ones he did make he means top keep. And I think that's the way it ought to be. If we don't get started it's going to take some time, no matter when we get going. The program that the outgoing administration had been looking at is worse than inadequate. It would have been foolish to build it. So we have to start over again in a sense building on technology that's been developed, but we have to start somewhere and the sooner the better.

MARGARET WARNER: But what is the threat? Why is it necessary at all?

RICHARD PERLE: Well, we know that there are a number of countries attempting to acquire ballistic missiles. Some of them already have weapons of mass destruction in the form of chemical and biological agents and are working on nuclear agents. And they could break through in this area at any moment. We simply don't know when. If we assume that the only way they can acquire a missile is through their own independent efforts, it could be a few years. But if it comes through trade, if it comes through a transfer of technology, it could happen very suddenly.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you see the threat? Is this the way to meet it?

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: Well, first of all I don't know nor do I think Mr. Perle knows exactly what the President is going to propose. We agree on one thing: The last system shouldn't have been built. It didn't do the job. And I think it would...it was unnecessary for the proposed... for the alleged threat. One of the things I think this relates to is priorities. I think Richard is correct that, you know, there could be a breakout in terms of the purchase of this technology, the purchase of a weapon, the purchase of a missile.

MARGARET WARNER: Excuse me for interrupting. Are you both talking about countries like North Korea, like Iran, like Iraq?

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: Well, I am but I'm not sure what the President is talking about. I'm not being facetious. The President says several things. He says we have to worry about rogue nations. He says we have to worry about an accidental launch -- which means from China or from Russia or anywhere else. The technology, the capacity, the capability of those systems to deal with each of those are very, very different. One is much broader than the other. And I think we have to look at what are the priorities. I'm for the continuation of expending billions of dollars on research and seeing what is the best proposal because I can envision a circumstance where offense and defensive capability combined would enhance our security. But it seems to me that we should be focusing more on, for example, the recommendations of Senator

Baker and others saying that the greatest imminent threat we have is the destabilization of nuclear weapons and Russian scientists for sale. They say it's going to cost $30 billion to deal with that problem. So a lot of this has to do with priorities. I'm holding my powder dry until I see what the President proposes. I can see a circumstance where we could negotiate a circumstance where we had a continuation of deterrence, fewer strategic weapons, and a defensive capability. But one thing we agree on, we shouldn't be pouring cement in Alaska right now.

MARGARET WARNER: What should this... How big an area, whom should this system protect?

RICHARD PERLE: Well, it should, of course, protect the United States but I believe it should also protect our friends and allies, some of whom arepotentially more vulnerable and exposed than we are. It's very important to remember one thing. We have no defense today against ballistic missiles, none whatsoever, not even against a single missile. A single accidentally launched missile, a single missile that Saddam Hussein might acquire would put him in the position of being able to inflict untold damage on the United States. Now if we want to discourage Saddam Hussein from acquiring that missile and that warhead in the first place, we should raise the barrier. We should create a circumstance in which a single missile isn't going to do him any good because we'll intercept it or, two or five or ten or fifty. So a limited defense, not a huge ambitious project, one that we can afford, is the best way to halt the proliferation of these weapons by discouraging people from believing that they can intimidate the United States.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: Theoretically correct as long as if end product is that we don't have this the Russians stop dismantling their MRV weapons....

MARGARET WARNER: The multiple warhead weapons.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: Their multiple warhead weapons -- and have China go from 18 to 600 ICBM's. It is possible to do that. The greatest threat that we have is a dirty bomb being put in the bottom of a tramp steamer coming up the middle of... Look, we smuggle tons of cocaine into this country we can't stop. It wouldn't be hard to do the other. And we're not spending... They aren't mutually exclusive. We should do both but we're spending precious little of our money and our effort to deal with that problem relative... And that is scaled as a much higher threat... Than an ICBM's striking us with a return address on it.

MARGARET WARNER: Would you agree that's a higher threat? The President said today in fact that the other threat comes in on a steamer trunk or a suitcase.

RICHARD PERLE: I think we have to be concerned with both. With respect to the clandestine infiltration of the weapon, about the only thing you can do is improve your intelligence collection because if we know about it, we can stop it. If we don't know about it we probably can't.

MARGARET WARNER: What about the other point Senator Biden just raised, which is the possible reaction of Russia and China? How do you think they're likely to react? Could it ultimately be more destabilizing?

RICHARD PERLE: I don't think so. What I want to say to Senator Biden is that the Cold War is truly over. There's no reason why the Russians need to regard a modest American defense against the likes of Saddam Hussein as a threat to Russia. Russia is no longer an enemy of the United States. And because it's no longer an enemy, the kinds of calculations we made during the Cold War where we looked very carefully to make sure that offense and defense were balanced, calculations that were really enshrined in the ABM Treaty of 1972 -- those are really no longer relevant either for us or for them. As long as we continue to talk about Russian responses in Cold War terms unwittingly, we're really perpetuating the psychology of the Cold War.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: I really don't disagree with the basic premise but I suspect that Secretary Perle would agree that there's a very different calculus for the Chinese with 18 ICBM's now.

MARGARET WARNER: You mean because this system....

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: Let me put it this way. The Chinese already believe we can do about anything we want to do. And so for us to sit and say, by the way, this system that can intercept 2, 5, 7, 12, 15 missiles from North Korea in the future, Iran or Iraq,they're going to sit there and say, it seems to me, any rational planner, well, wait a minute, I'm not so sure about us. And so, again, this is all possible, but I hope there is no... There's almost a religious mantra that goes on not with Secretary Perle but in my outfit, the United States Senate. And that is, anything you can do now to kill dead and forever and put a wooden stake through the heart of the ABM Treaty you should do it. There's others on the other side who say at all costs maintain the ABM Treaty. This is something that could, should and must be pursued, negotiated and discussed with our allies as well as our... not our enemies but our potential adversaries. I don't know why we can't do it all.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you think the administration should deal with Russia's concerns and with the ABM Treaty? Because I mean they haven't bought the argument you made... the Clinton administration made the same argument to them last year and they didn't buy it, that this wasn't aimed at them.

RICHARD PERLE: What the Clinton administration was doing was basically living within the terms of the ABM Treaty with a little modification. The treaty was concluded 30 years ago and was intended to prevent the building of a missile defense. It no longer, in my view, serves our interests. The other party, the Soviet Union no longer exists. And Russia is not an enemy of the United States. So, a treaty meant to regulate a deadly quarrel in which we were both poised at the ready with thousands of nuclear weapons just isn't appropriate for a situation where the concern is not Russian nuclear weapons but Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapon or two or three. It's another world. And with respect to the Chinese, the Cold War is over with respect to Russia. Happily it hasn't begun with respect to China. Let's hope it doesn't.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: I think we can affect whether or not it begins with china. And, look, the rule of unintended consequences plays a significant role in our past history in foreign and defense policy. And again, I don't question the motivation of President Bush. And again, I will wait to see what it is he is proposing. But I just do not think there should be any unilateral action taken. The urgency is not there at this moment. It is possible. Somebody could transfer this technology, but there is not an immediate need. We can move forward now. We spent what -- $6 billion last year on research in this area, roughly? So, it's not like we're standing still. And I'm glad to see that this administration is taking what appears to be a very studied, conscientious and serious look at this. I don't know how that can be done in two or three weeks and I don't expect that to be the case. But there's two forces here. There's a congressional force that's moving along here. I am much more satisfied with the way in which this administration seems to be approaching the issue. They say they need cohesion, they want a NATO alliance. They want us to be together. You have to be able to do....

MARGARET WARNER: Are you in agreement on this sort of urgency question or time frame question or do you think the administration needs to move quickly?

RICHARD PERLE: I don't think we should run for the exit, but we should walk with deliberate speed. There's one last issue that I think really deserves at least mention. If we depend on the military means we have now, that is, the threat to retaliate, and we don't have a defense in the future, it raises a profound moral issue. Henry Kissinger has raised this and he was the architect of the ABM Treaty. Do we really want to kill millions of Iraqis who happen to live in Baghdad if Saddam does something terrible to us? That's the only recourse we have now to discourage an attack on the United States. It's far better to have a defense that doesn't require us to kill civilians.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Gentlemen, thank you both.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: Thank you.

RICHARD PERLE: Appreciate it.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Israel's next prime minister has sent three key advisors to Washington. Gwen Ifill now talks to one of them.

GWEN IFILL: Joining us is Moshe Arens, a Likud member of the Knesset. In previous Israeli governments, he served as minister of defense, foreign affairs, and as Israel's ambassador to Washington. He is also the author of "broken covenant: American foreign policy and the crisis between the U.S. and Israel." Welcome.

MOSHE ARENS: Nice to be with you.

GWEN IFILL: You were in Washington today meeting with officials at the State Department, at the White House. Why were you here?

MOSHE ARENS: Well, it's part of the getting acquainted between a new prime minister in Israel, Ariel Sharon, a new administration of President Bush here in Washington. We bring a message that the new prime minister-elect will be prime minister officially I suppose within a week or two. That places ultimate importance on the relationship between Israel and the United States on that very special relationship that he intends to continue to foster, that he is determined on moving towards peace in the Middle East and that

he's realistic about the problems that the Middle East presents at the present time.

GWEN IFILL: Since the election, in fact, just last Friday Colin Powell announced his intention to travel to the Middle East and to meet with leaders there -- what message is it that you hope that he brings to you?

MOSHE ARENS: I think that from the meetings we had here so far, we have not met with the secretary of state as yet. We will meet with him tomorrow.

GWEN IFILL: Tomorrow.

MOSHE ARENS: That on the part of the new administration in Washington there's also a realistic view of problems in the Middle East, maybe more realistic than the view of the past administration.

GWEN IFILL: Are you talking about the past administration's incredibly... The past President's personal involvement in the Middle East peace process which kind blew up?

MOSHE ARENS: Yes, which was based on the belief, very worthy but maybe a little naive, that you could reach a permanent settlement within a matter of weeks with Yasser Arafat. It became very clear that you couldn't do it and that Israeli public overwhelmingly rejected the kind of concessions that were offered in an attempt to do that.

GWEN IFILL: So when this President signals that it's time for the United States to step back, let you work out whatever peace there is to be worked out and then if the United States can do something about it, can step in, can play a role, instead of the United States driving the process, you agree with that?

MOSHE ARENS: We agree with that absolutely.

GWEN IFILL: In the past life, one of your many past lives, you were unhappy with the previous Bush administration that you felt that it had played a role in the downfall of Likud in the past. How do you assess this new Bush administration?

MOSHE ARENS: Well, my impression was that from the meetings today and from what I know of the new administration that there's every reason to believe that we're going to have excellent relations.

GWEN IFILL: Your party now only controls a great minority of the seats in the Knesset and therefore you're trying to form a coalition government. How is that going? How does that stand right now?

MOSHE ARENS: Mr. Sharon has tried to form a national unity government which would be a government that would be based on the two larger parties-- they're really not very large at the moment-- but the two larger parties -- Likud and Labor -- forming the basis of the new coalition. For the moment it looks like it may succeed.

GWEN IFILL: How important is that?

MOSHE ARENS: That's important for stability because without a national unity government, if it's the Likud, and a collection of small parties, the government may not be very stable and then we may have early elections.

GWEN IFILL: You talk about stability but there have been five prime ministers in six years in Israel. How stable are things now politically?

MOSHE ARENS: We have a very unstable system of elections which is new in Israel -- it's called the Direct Election of the Prime Minister Law. It has drastically decreased the size of the two big parties - Likud and Labor -- and increased the size of the smaller parties. That's a recipe for instability.

GWEN IFILL: Do you have a deadline by which you have to have this new coalition unity government established?

MOSHE ARENS: Well, we have a deadline by which a time a coalition has to be established. That's 45 days from the time of elections.

GWEN IFILL: The big question hovering over Ariel Sharon's election and over the formation in some ways of this coalition government is whether the peace process -- I guess, just put it to you directly, how does the rest of the world which sees Ariel Sharon as perhaps a hawk, how do they assess the... how genuine he is in trying to seek a peace?

MOSHE ARENS: Well, I think they should look upon him as a realist and not a hawk. He wants peace. There isn't an Israeli around that doesn't want peace. The question is what is attainable? By the looks of it a permanent settlement, one that would end the conflict once and for all is something that is not attainable, not at the present time. It's something that was tried by Mr. Barak with the help of President Clinton. So we need to go with interim arrangements.

GWEN IFILL: What do you mean by interim arrangements?

MOSHE ARENS: Well, arrangements that will prevent the use of violence, that will gradually bring us closer together, hopefully in time bridge the gap to the point where you can reach a permanent settlement. Right now the gap is too big.

GWEN IFILL: And part of the gap is the conditions that you want to place on the Palestinians that there can be no additional violence. Is that a correct way of....

MOSHE ARENS: No, I wouldn't say that. That's a condition for negotiations. We do not believe that you should negotiate while violence goes on because that is an incentive for further violence. The violent party, in this case, the Palestinians, think they can improve their negotiating position by the use of violence. And that's going to lead us nowhere.

GWEN IFILL: So what is the road map that would take you to a peace?

MOSHE ARENS: Well, first things first. Stop the violence. And I understand that the administration in Washington has been sending that message to Arafat. He has to stop the violence so that we can then move on to negotiations.

GWEN IFILL: Today, as we reported earlier on the broadcast, there was violence but it was Israel taking out one of Arafat's top advisors in the Gaza Strip. At what point does the stopping of the violence include perhaps trying to arrest people like that instead of assassinating or whatever it was?

MOSHE ARENS: Well, look, you know, a government's foremost duty in times like this is to protect the security of its citizens. And when our citizens are being killed on the road, people firing on cars on the highway, the government has to take the necessary measures to put a stop to that. By just saying we're going to arrest them, well, you have to find them first before you can arrest them. It's not that simple.

GWEN IFILL: So when we talk about this road map, we talk about an end to violence before we reach the point where we can even negotiate toward an interim agreement? That's the order?

MOSHE ARENS: That is correct. I think that that has been experienced throughout the world, that you cannot negotiate successfully while violence goes on, that you have to put a stop to the violence. The violence is being initiated by the Palestinians. Mr. Arafat so far has not made any serious effort to put an end to that violence. If he were to make a serious effort, I think that that would bring an end to the violence. At least we want to see proof of him making a serious effort.

GWEN IFILL: How bad a mistake was it, in your opinion-- obviously you're a supporter of Ariel Sharon....

MOSHE ARENS: I am, I am.

GWEN IFILL: But how bad a mistake was it originally to try to pursue peace through the kinds of concessions that Ehud Barak was willing to make?

MOSHE ARENS: Well, first of all the people of Israel by overwhelming vote said it was a very bad mistake.

GWEN IFILL: They did.

MOSHE ARENS: I think generally when you operate on the basis of illusions when you're not realistic about the problems that you face, when you don't want to recognize that there is a gap that at the moment cannot be bridged, then you're chasing the rainbow. And the end result, although the intentions are the best, the end result is bad. We got a very bad result. We got a lot of violence.

GWEN IFILL: If you and Barak are so far apart in the approach to where you should go to end this violence, how does a coalition government work -- if he agrees to join it?

MOSHE ARENS: Well, I don't know if he personally would agree to join it. He announced immediately after his defeat that he was resigning. Maybe he'll change his mind. Mr. Sharon has offered him a position in the new government. I think that Mr. Barak has also not been unimpressed by the results of the election. I think he realizes that the vast majority of Israelis did not support his policies. So maybe he's changing his mind.

GWEN IFILL: There is square one quality to this. At what point does it look like the entire peace process will be back at square one? Where is that? And how do you move past that to the next step?

MOSHE ARENS: It's not back at square one by any means. Considerable progress has been made. There is a Palestinian Authority. They have their institutions. They have control over significant parts of territory that they claim. So we've moved ahead. But we want to be sure now that we don't move back, that we move forward.

GWEN IFILL: Moshe Arens, thank you so much for joining us.

MOSHE ARENS: Thank you for inviting.

JIM LEHRER: Next week, one of Yasser Arafat's top aides, Nabil Shath, will be in Washington, and we expect to interview him then. Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather on election night, and a Napster update.

FOCUS - ANCHORS WEIGH IN

JIM LEHRER: Now, the network anchors' view of election night from Media Correspondent Terence Smith.

TOM BROKAW: Good evening. I'm Tom Brokaw in New York. It's been a long campaign. It appears it will be a long and exciting evening.

DAN RATHER: We could be in for a long night.

PETER JENNINGS: In many ways this will be an unusually interesting election night.

TERENCE SMITH: And unusually interesting it turned out to be.

PETER JENNINGS: Mr. Gore has won in Florida.

TERENCE SMITH: With seeming certainty the networks called the state of Florida for Vice President Al Gore just before 8 o'clock Eastern Time, November 7, about ten minutes before the polls closed in the panhandle region of the state. But later in the evening, Gore's apparent Florida victory, and his prospects for the presidency, were taken away.

DAN RATHER: But we've just pulled back the big 25 from Florida.

TERENCE SMITH: Then, after 2:00 A.M. on November 8, Governor Bush was projected the winner of Florida and, thereby, the presidency.

TOM BROKAW: George Bush is the President-elect of the United States. He has won the state of Florida...according to our projections...

TERENCE SMITH: But that victory, too, proved short-lived: Yet again, around 4:00 A.M., the contest was declared too close to call. It would remain so for five weeks. Tomorrow, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Louisiana Republican Billy Tauzin, will conduct a hearing examining the election night conduct of the commercial broadcast and cable networks and their jointly operated exit polling consortium, the Voter News Service. Recently, the NewsHour sat down with the anchors of the three commercial broadcast network evening news programs to reflect on election night and to look ahead to the hearing.

TERENCE SMITH: When you look back -- you've got a few weeks now to look back at what happened on election night. What happened?

TOM BROKAW: The simple answer, and it's not a dodge, is garbage in, garbage out.

TERENCE SMITH: Bad numbers.

TOM BROKAW: Bad numbers. The precincts had changed in their characteristics. Al Gore trailing the President- elect in the state that proved to be pivotal by 565 votes.

TOM BROKAW: 565 votes.

RUSSERT: And there are some votes....

TOM BROKAW: That's not even a wide spot in the road.

RUSSERT: There are still some votes that have not been counted.

TOM BROKAW: And there's still votes to be counted because we're at 99.... Broward and Palm Beach are the uncounted votes. What if this goes the other way?

TOM BROKAW: Was there a rush to judgment? Probably.

TERENCE SMITH: Competitive pressure?

TOM BROKAW: No, no, I really don't think so. I mean, I don't think that our guys, the computer wizards who make these calls are saying, CBS has done it, I've got to do it because they know what the risk is when they put themselves out there. In the past some have gone faster and others slower. I've been on both ends of the occasion.

TERENCE SMITH: This time Fox was first and three others followed within four minutes.

TOM BROKAW: I wasn't aware of that. I didn't know that Fox had gone first. We were more worried, as I was talking to our guys who were making the calls about Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin. They seemed to be tougher calls that night. And it was because the Florida data were so wrong, frankly. And I don't think that we did a sufficient job in explaining to the audience, when we say project, what does that mean -- it's a best estimate. We think they're going to win. And generally in the past, we've had kind of set phrases that we would use every time, and we didn't have them this time. I did it kind of out of memory, a couple of times, but not enough. As for the business that there was some kind of a conspiracy to suppress votes in the panhandle and that kind of thing, it's worth noting that when we made the projection for Florida, there were 11 minutes left in the panhandle for people to vote, and 5% to 6% I think of the precincts were still open. That means for us to have real suppression of vote there, that all over the interstates and county roads of the panhandle people had to be putting on their brakes and doing u-turns and heading home. I don't think that was going on. You also had a very hot Senate race going on down there that people had real motivation to get to the polls. But, you know, look, it's the Congressman's absolute prerogative to have these hearings and to examine it. One of the things you can say about television is that when we make a mistake, everyone knows about it, and we almost instantly apologize for it. We're right there, as we were that night, both times. And as I said, we just didn't have egg on our face, we had a whole omelet on our suits that night.

PETER JENNINGS: We are now able to make the projection in the state of Florida. ABC News projects Al Gore wins state of Florida and its 25 electoral votes. Give him the first big state momentum of the evening.

TERENCE SMITH: What conclusions have you drawn?

PETER JENNINGS: Well, the conclusion is a fairly simple one. We made an honest mistake, I thought the first time, based on... On computer modalities and information which had served us so well over the years that we've become all together too accustomed to it, and we made a mistake.

TERENCE SMITH: Reporter: In calling it for Gore.

PETER JENNINGS: In calling it for Gore. We made a colossal mistake the second time, under the pressure of competition.

PETER JENNINGS: (November 8, 2000, 2:20 AM) ABC News is now going to project that Florida now goes to Mr. Bush.

PETER JENNINGS: I'm very glad in my shop that David Westin, the President, has taken a very strong lead in isolating all of our decision makers and analysts for the next election from any possibility of competitive pressure. They'll be in a dark room without any... without any television sets. And of course, we'll re-look, and we in fact have hired an outside organization to re-look at all of our computer models, so that we will not have to sing I'm sorry one more time.

TERENCE SMITH: Reporter: And to those who would... those in Congress or anywhere else, who would try to impose restrictions, who might propose legislation prohibiting networks, let's say, from projecting winners until all the polls are closed, something like that, what would you...

PETER JENNINGS: Well, I'd be happy to have my boss speak to the political issue of that, but it would be an interesting news story, would it not be, if a politician in the United States tried to legislate freedom of speech and information in the country? It would be a great story.

DAN RATHER: (CBS News, November 7, 2000, 10:00 PM) Bulletin: Florida pulled back into the undecided problem. Computer and data problem. One of the CBS News election night headlines of the hour. This knockdown, drag out battle drags on into the night. And turn the lights down. The party just got wilder.

TERENCE SMITH: What do you think as you look back on it? What went wrong and what should be different?

DAN RATHER: Well, first, we made mistakes, and we need to be accountable and responsible for those mistakes. We need to explain the people, and I think we have, we've certainly tried to explain what happened, how it happened, why it happened and what steps we're taking to do the best we can to keep it from happening again. Having said that, I want to make sure that people understand that I've been in the business long enough to know we can't do it perfectly. There is no way to do it perfectly. We can do it better. We called some places too soon on election night. We did not say often enough-- well, we did say, but not often enough, "look, these are our estimates. We think they're valid, but you have to take them as estimates, and nothing is certain until the votes are counted." We didn't say that often enough.

TERENCE SMITH: Should you not project?

DAN RATHER: No, not as long as things are...

TERENCE SMITH: Should you not use exit polls?

DAN RATHER: No. It's a moot point, quite honestly, because competitively this isn't going to happen. And I think, frankly, it's a waste of time to discuss it under the current situation now. Its wisdom, exit polls are going to be used. The government couldn't, if it tried, and I don't think it's going to try, pass a law saying you can't. The First Amendment is there. The question is, how better and more responsibly can we handle those polls? And we're working on it and working hard on it. I want to say this about election night: That while we made a lot of mistakes, I'm not sure that our mistakes are the most important mistakes made election night. The most important question about election night is, how do we get an election as close to perfection, in terms of people casting their votes and getting their votes counted? That's the key thing. Now, the Constitution guarantees free elections. It doesn't guarantee perfect elections. We know we can't get them. But I fear that not a lot of people in Congress are going to listen to that.

TERENCE SMITH: Yeah.

DAN RATHER: It's easy to beat up on us, and particularly when we deserve it. So we'll get a public caning, and we probably deserve it. (Laughs)

FOCUS - STOP THE MUSIC - NAPSTER

JIM LEHRER: The latest on the Napster story, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: Yesterday a federal appeals court ruled that the internet music company Napster cannot let its users share copyrighted music. The group representing major record labels said it was happy with the decision.

HILARY ROSEN: American intellectual property is our nation's greatest trade asset. We cannot stand idly by as our nation's assets are in jeopardy or dismissed by those who would use them for their own enrichment. That's why today's decision is so especially important.

RAY SUAREZ: Napster is a service that runs over the Internet. Created by a 19-year-old college student, it lets users swap music with anyone else signed onto the service. The music is stored on millions of personal computers, not on Napster, so swappers consult a billboard posted at the Napster web site, then use their computer to reach through the Napster doorway into the computer of another user, downloading music from the other member. The result: A huge network of listeners who can gather and store music files on their computers, all for free. Since it launched in May of '99, Napster has attracted some 50 million users from around the world, enough to prompt five record labels to ask the courts to shut down the service. For more on the court's decision and the future of Napster, we turn to Peter Jaszi, a professor of law at American University. He signed an amicus brief submitted to the court in support of Napster; and Ric Dube -- an analyst at webnoize, a research firm covering the digital entertainment industry. Professor, last fall the district court came down with a ruling that many said was the doom sounding for Napster. Now an appeals court says basically we agree with everything that the district court said but Napster hasn't been shut down. Why?

PETER JASZI: Well, although the appeals court certainly favored the recording industry on most points, there was one very important one on which it disagreed with the district judge. It found that the injunction that she had issued originally was overbroad, and so the case has been returned to the district court so that she can craft a more narrowly drawn injunction. And it will be under that injunction, which is yet to come, that Napster either will continue to do business in some form or will eventually cease to do business.

RAY SUAREZ: Ric Dube, is that just a formality wanting the lower court judge to get the words of the injunction right or is the door still open a crack for Napster?

RIC DUBE: Well, the door is open a crack for Napster. If they can come up with a way to stay in operation without letting files through that are copyrighted, then they can continue to operate. On the other hand, they don't necessarily have that technology in place right now, so unless they could get it done real quick, they would have to shut down for some period of time. On the other hand, they could just keep this injunction in legal limbo through the appeals process because there are still other places they could take this appeal just enough to stay in operation until they can launch a commercial version of their service later this year.

RAY SUAREZ: So I understand it better the requirement, Ric Dube, would be for Napster to somehow ride herd on copyrighted material even as millions of people look for each other's files. Is that possible?

RIC DUBE: Yeah, it is possible. There are technologies called audio fingerprints that they can use so that when Napster looks at a person's hard drive to see what files they have stored on it, then it could simply disregard any of the ones that they don't have authorization to make available through the service.

RAY SUAREZ: Now, Peter Jaszi, one of the big points that Napster tried to make in court was that this constituted fair use as established in earlier cases about recording music, and the court shot that down, said it is simply not fair use. Was that a big setback for the long haul?

PETER JASZI: I think there were two parts of the court's opinion, one more surprising than another. I don't think anyone was much surprised by the court's finding that a lot of what Napster users do as individuals isn't fair use. I think many of us were more surprised that the 9th Circuit gave so little weight to the defense that Napster had asserted based on the Supreme Court's 1984 Sony decision, which held that when a technology has both infringing and non-infringing uses, the suppliers of that technologies-VCR's back in 1984; Napster today-- can't be found to have secondary liability for copyright infringement.

RAY SUAREZ: But in the opinion, the court said that Napster, while it doesn't do the infringing itself, provides the site and facilities for others to do the infringing. They said that that's not a big difference to them.

PETER JASZI: And again I think that that was, for some of us, the surprising thing about this decision -- because, back in 1984, there was a strong argument to be made that VCR manufacturers provided the means by which some infringement of motion pictures could occur. The court there held though that because there were also many non-infringing uses for that technology, the suppliers of the technology, as distinct from its users, couldn't be held liable. Here, in this case, despite recognizing the existence of substantial non-infringing uses of Napster, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals nevertheless failed to recognize an equivalent defense.

RAY SUAREZ: Ric Dube, is there going to be a way... Is this technology so compelling that somebody is going to have to figure out a way to make it legal?

RIC DUBE: Well, Napster's trying to work on making it legal. You know, for now it was up for debate as far as they were concerned whether its current state was illegal or not. But there are really two Napsters. There's the current one that people have grown to know and love. And then there's a commercial version of the service that they're trying to develop using a loan from one of the five major media conglomerates that control music, ironically one that has a music company is suing them right now. Really the name of the game for them is to bide their time and keep people coming there as long as they can until they can rule out this commercial service and hopefully maintain as big as an audience as they can. They want to charge about $5 a month.

RAY SUAREZ: Does Napster provide the basis, sort of the structure, the outline for what might be a service in the future that will become as ubiquitous as cable television?

RIC DUBE: Well, that's hard to say. If music companies got their act together and put music in a centralized location so that it sounds good and it's at a fair price and has terrific selection and maybe some added value, then maybe you wouldn't need to swap with other people. You just go to that one location and be able to get all the music that you can. We know that people love Napster. Our research shows that well over 70% of college-aged Napster users would pay $15 a month to use the service. Now Napster is shooting for a $5 price tag. With that difference, if it's the same service, if the commercial service provides at least as much value as this current controversial service, they could maintain a significant number of users.

RAY SUAREZ: Peter Jaszi, does the music business take a risk at this point in ending up with so many legal encumbrances on delivering music over the web that something that may be very promising for them may end up being more difficult now?

PETER JASZI: I think that's absolutely true. I also think there's another risk as well. And that is that unless the music industry finds a way to make an arrangement with Napster that is going to permit this very popular and well liked service to continue, there is a significant risk that current Napster users are going to migrate to other second generation peer-to-peer file sharing technologies which are going to be much less easy to manage and control both practically and legally. So I think the industry does have a considerable incentive now to try to come to terms with Napster along the lines that have been mentioned a few moments ago.

RAY SUAREZ: Ric Dube, do you agree that what's coming down the road may be harder to ride herd on?

RIC DUBE: What's already here is much harder to deal with than Napster and most of the other peer-to-peer environments out there have no centralized server and in some cases really don't have any commercial intentions behind them. There's nobody to sue. That said, yesterday's decision means that the music industry has a little bit of the pressure off of them to do something more quickly than they would have had to before. Additionally, it gives them the upper hand in any sort of settlement negotiation with Napster that could follow from this.

RAY SUAREZ: A lotof other artists, Ric Dube, were involved in the amicus briefs, people who not only write songs but to shoot movies, who write books, who provide all kinds of artistic content. Are they looking down the road and seeing a future where their creative goods are swapped over the net as well?

RIC DUBE: Yeah, bits are bits. Right now it's music. It's already movies. If you know where to go on the internet, there are current theatrical films, a movie comes out on Friday by early Saturday morning if you know where to go it's on the Internet for free. This is going to happen with books. It's already happening with games and software. Everything is affected by this.

RAY SUAREZ: So how long until we see some sort of resolution quickly Professor Jaszi?

PETER JASZI: In the particular case I think matter of months probably -- Until Judge Patel fashions the injunction under which Napster will finally stand or fall.

RAY SUAREZ: Peter Jaszi, Ric Dube, thanks a lot.

ESSAY - ONE TO ONE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, on this Valentine's Day eve, a message from essayist Roger Rosenblatt.

TOM HANKS: Oh, my.

HELEN HUNT: My granddaddy used it on the Southern Pacific.

TOM HANKS: I'm always going to keep this on Memphis time.

HELEN HUNT: Merry Christmas.

TOM HANKS: I love you.

HELEN HUNT: I love you too.

TOM HANKS: I'll be right back.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: In the movie "Cast Away," the great success of this past Christmas season, tom hanks is alone on screen for one hour and 15 minutes.

TOM HANKS: Brace for impact!

ROGER ROSENBLATT: A FedEx employee, he has survived a FedEx plane crash, and has been tossed on a remote island in the Pacific, where he lives entirely on his own for four years. During that time, he creates companionship by painting a primitive face on a volleyball, the contents of one of the FedEx's packages which has washed ashore with him. He calls his friend Wilson, after the brand name. He argues with Wilson. Wilson instructs and chides him. He rejects Wilson and then retrieves him with anguished apologies.

TOM HANKS: Wilson!

ROGER ROSENBLATT: The point, which the writer of the screenplay, William Broyles, makes quietly and brilliantly, is not only that no man is an island, but that this particular man whose life with FedEx assured everyone of being in touch with everyone else basically needs just one person, even if that person has more than the usual bounce. But he also has with him a sort of real person with him, the woman he loves and longs for. She, played by Helen Hunt, gave him a pocket watch with her picture in it. The man from FedEx, whose life was guided by time, now has an inoperative watch to remind him of that. Love and FedEx are removed from him, as cast away as he is. The movie brings an unusual thought to modern America, where self-sufficiency and insularity have become the same thing. Sit at your computer and get rich or poor-- alone. Buy plane tickets, alone. Buy books or gifts, alone and stay at home and wait for someone to bring them to you-- alone. Learn, alone. Communicate with others, alone. Do your job anywhere in the country, in the world, where, like Garbo, you want to be alone. And when you want to send something to anyone, there's always FedEx, the remarkable company that connects everyone with everyone. With connectedness like that, what could one possibly need, want for, reach for? Which brings to mind "Family Man," another successful movie of the Christmas past, which ought to have been a lot worse than it is, managing to fuse "A Christmas Carol" with "It's a Wonderful Life" without screwing up either story. ( Alarm clock ringing )

NICHOLAS CAGE: Kate?

CHILD: Come on, dad. Get up.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Here, Nicholas Cage is given a glimpse of the family life he could have had, had he made a different turn years before. What he realizes when seeks to combine his dream life with his real one, is that his real one is alone. Rich, powerful, sybaritic, and alone. He doesn't work for FedEx, he handles giant mergers, which, like FedEx, bring everyone to everyone. Yet he, too, finds that he only wants one person, the girl of his original dream. Alone, he discovers he wants one other, just one. The disappointing truth about mergers, or FedEx, or the telephone, the telegraph, the typewriter, the walkie-talkie, the Internet, or radio, or television-- things that supposedly bring everyone to everyone-- is that they can never deliver on their promise. The world is not within their grasp. When John Dunne wrote that line about no man being an island, he was listening to church bells in an English village -- bells that spread the news of a local death, but were still about one person. The acknowledgment of connection was made one to one. You can never reach everybody. But, if you're lucky, you can reach one person. And if you're very lucky, that person will reach back, and remove you from your aloneness, one to one. Here we are on Valentine's Day again. I write you from my island. I'm here with Wilson. He sends his love. I send my love. I'm Roger Rosenblatt.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday: President Bush urged the NATO nations to unite behind a missile defense plan. And the army investigated the crash of two Black Hawk helicopters last night in Hawaii. Six soldiers were killed. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening with a Newsmaker interview with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.