The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

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

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye reports on the Rodney King civil rights trial as it goes to the jury. We analyze the week's politics with David Gergen and Mark Shields. Medical Correspondent Fred De Sam Lazaro reports on families and the right to die, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault back in Somalia files her first report. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Four U.S. military planes were attacked by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire today. None of the planes were hit. They responded by dropping cluster bombs on the Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries. The attack came as U.S. planes were patrolling the no- fly zone over Northern Iraq. A zone was set up to protect Iraqi Kurds in an area above the 36th Parallel from attack by Saddam Hussein's forces. The official Iraqi news agency said the U.S. bombs fell in an area near a dam where people were picnicking. They said a soldier guarding the dam was injured. This afternoon in Washington, State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher had this to say.

RICHARD BOUCHER, State Department Spokesman: The aircraft -- in response to the threat three of our F-16s dropped a total of four cluster bombs on the site. We don't have a damage assessment at this point. As far as the policy goes, I want to state that the United States and our coalition partners remain determined to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and the various measures that were enacted to enforce them, including the two no-fly zones. The latest incident underscores Iraq's continued failure to abide by these resolutions and its international obligations.

MR. LEHRER: Today's incident was the first of its kind since February 3rd, when a French jet patrolling the no-fly zone was attacked. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today asked General Motors to recall 4.7 million pick-up trucks with side mounted gas tanks, saying they may pose a fire hazard. The voluntary recall involves full size pick-ups made between 1973 and 1987. March economic figures released by the Commerce Department today indicated inflation remained in check. The Consumer Price Index rose .1 percent last month. The lowest rise in medical costs in nine years was a main factor.

MR. LEHRER: Milwaukee's problems with its water supply continued today. Health officials closed one of the city's water plants. They said run-off from farms or slaughter houses may have contaminated the city's water supply. Thousands of Milwaukee residents have been taken sick this week with stomach cramps, fever, and diarrhea. Citizens have been urged to drink boiled or bottled water. This afternoon Mayor John Norquist said authorities were looking at various possible causes.

MAYOR JOHN NORQUIST, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The key question for us is: How do we make the water safe so that we can make the announcement we can all have our glasses of water, fresh out of the tap and drink it and tell people that the water is safe enough to drink, take the advisory off. The key question the other night, two nights ago, was: Would you drink the water? The answer was no. And that's why the water advisory went on. And when we can safely drink the water, then the advisory will go off.

MR. LEHRER: The National Guard was called out today in Grand Isle, Louisiana, after a tornado touched down there yesterday. A high school student and two construction workers were killed at a school which was heavily damaged. At least 21 people were injured. Grand Isle is about 100 miles South of New Orleans. Democratic Congressman Harold Ford of Tennessee was acquitted today of federal charges he took political payoffs. His two co-defendants were also acquitted in the Memphis trial.

MR. MacNeil: The federal case against four Los Angeles police officers was wrapping up tonight. The men are accused of violating Rodney King's civil rights when they beat him while trying to arrest him for a traffic violation. Defense attorneys summarized their arguments today. The jurors are expected to deliberate through the Eastern weekend. California Gov. Pete Wilson said he hoped there would be no repeat of the riots which broke out when the officers were acquitted of local charges last year, but he said at least 600 National Guardsmen will be on duty Monday morning in case they're needed. We'll have a report on the trial after the News Summary. The Rev. Benjamin Chavez was selected today to be the new executive director of the NAACP, one of the nation's oldest civil rights groups. The appointment was made by the Association's Executive Committee meeting in Atlanta. Chavez replaces Benjamin Hooks, who retired this year. Chavez is director of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. Jesse Jackson had been considered likely to succeed Hooks, but he withdrew Wednesday, charging the NAACP board with going to reduce the director's authority.

MR. LEHRER: In Bosnia today the commander of the Serb forces surrounding the Muslim-held town of Srebrenica agreed to a cease- fire starting tomorrow. But during a meeting with the U.N. commander he refused to let the United Nations bring Canadian peacekeeping troops into Srebrenica to oversee the evacuation of refugees. The general said his decision was based on yesterday's discovery of ammunition boxes hidden in a U.N. relief convoy.

MR. MacNeil: The Israeli government said today it would allow an Arab president of East Jerusalem to join the Mideast peace talks. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said today he would not object to negotiating with Faisal Husseini, a leading supporter of the PLO and unofficial adviser to the Palestinian delegation at the talks. According to an Israeli newspaper, American diplomats proposed including Husseini in the Palestinian delegation as a way to get the stalled peace talks underway. And in Jerusalem today, thousands of pilgrims celebrated Good Friday, carrying wooden crosses on the Via De La Rosa and kneeling to pray at stations symbolizing Jesus's suffering on the path to crucifixion. Their pilgrimage ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Christ was supposedly buried.

MR. LEHRER: In Little Rock, Arkansas, there was a memorial service today for Hugh Rodham, the father of the First Lady. Rodham suffered a stroke three weeks ago and died Wednesday at the age of 82. The Clinton and Rodham families were joined at the afternoon service by Vice President Gore and other members of the administration. Rodham will be buried tomorrow in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the conclusion of the second Rodney King trial in Los Angeles, Gergen & Shields, the right to die debate, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault's return to Somalia. FOCUS - SUMMING UP

MR. MacNeil: We begin tonight with a report from Los Angeles, where the second trial of the four police officers accused of beating motorist Rodney King is coming to an end. The jury is expected to begin deliberating the latest charges tomorrow. Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET sums up the arguments.

MR. KAYE: The jury will have to deliberate the fate of the four officers charged in the Rodney King beating case without the benefit of testimony from two of the defendants. The defense did not call either Lawrence Powell, Timothy Wind, or Theodore Briseno to the stand. But jurors did hear much of Briseno's videotaped testimony from last year's state trial, testimony that was entered as evidence by the prosecution, not the defense. The defense presented only one defendant, Sgt. Stacey Koon, to the jury. Koon assumed responsibility for the actions of his officers during the March 1991 beating of Rodney King. Michael Stone is Lawrence Powell's attorney.

MICHAEL STONE: If the jury does not credit the testimony of Sgt. Koon, we're in trouble. If the jury credits the testimony of Sgt. Koon, as I believe they will, then we are all in good shape.

MR. KAYE: But Law Prof. Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who sat through most of the trial, felt the defense strategy was risky.

LAURIE LEVENSON, Former Prosecutor: I'm not sure how much the jury will "count it against the defendants that they didn't testify." But it may raise questions sort of in the back of their minds. What are they trying to hide? Why aren't they filling in some of the gaps for us? Gee, we really have to base this all on Stacey Koon's testimony.

MR. KAYE: In six weeks of testimony, jurors watched the home video of the incident time and again, heard conflicting statements from eyewitnesses, from police experts on the use of force, and from doctors who testified about the extent of King's injuries. The most marked change between the defense in the state and federal trials is that last year the defense was divided. In the state case, Briseno accused his co-defendants of being out of control during the beating. This time around, the defense attempted to present a united front. The lawyers began to work particularly closely after a witness called by one of the defense attorneys took them by surprise. Even though Melanie Singer, the highway patrol officer who stopped King, was called by Lawrence Powell's lawyer, her tearful testimony seemed to hurt Powell. "There is no doubt in my mind that he struck King in the face," Singer said, adding, "I will never forget that until the day I die." Briseno's lawyer, Harland Braun, said Singer's testimony astonished him.

HARLAND BRAUN, Defense Lawyer: I think there were serious setbacks. Melanie Singer was a setback on an emotional level. Part of it was that the attorneys were not coordinating the case as closely as we are right now. So you can be hurt more by your own witnesses, and it's harder to survive the defense than it is the prosecution.

LAURIE LEVENSON: The biggest surprise was Melanie Singer. When she took the stand for the defendants -- and I think she was called because the defense wanted to show the high speed chase and how dangerous King allegedly was -- instead of really showing that, she focused on the beating and really hurt the defense by saying, through her tears, that Powell had hit King directly in the face six times.

MR. KAYE: Much of the trial centered on the appropriate use of force and whether the defendants followed accepted police procedures. The prosecution's case relied in large part on the testimony of LA Police Sgt. Mark Kanter presented as an expert on the use of force. Kanter testified that lows delivered to King while he was standing may have been reasonable but that once King was on the ground 32 seconds into the videotape the force was unreasonable and unjustified. "The power stroke by Powell across Mr. King's chest to me is the most flagrant violation of policy on the entire videotape," Kanter said. "This was clearly outside the LAPD policy. He is on the ground, and I don't see anything combative or aggressive." Kanter said instead of beating King, the officers should have grabbed his arms and legs, then handcuffed and arrested him. Although Kanter's testimony was potentially damaging to Powell, Koon and Wind, it might have helped Briseno. When questioned by Braun, Kanter admitted that Briseno's only aggressive contact with King, a stomp, was probably reasonable if it was used to control King. The defense use of force expert, LA Police Sgt. Charles Duke, focused on police training. He testified that all baton blows, kicks and shocks were in policy justified because King was an unsearched felony suspect resisting arrest. Duke asserted it doesn't matter if the suspect is on the ground, standing or sitting, the officers do not need to have an attack on them before they use force. He told the court that he believed King's facial injuries were from a violent confrontation with the ground. Medical experts who testified for the defense agreed that King's facial injuries were caused when he fell. But doctors called by the prosecution insisted some of King's facial injuries were caused by baton blows. As for Rodney King, himself, he admitted drinking, speeding, and leading police on a high speed chase prior to the beating. But he told the jury that he never attacked any police officer. He said he was running away. "I was just trying to stay alive," he testified. He said the officers called him either "killer" or "nigger." It was up to Stacey Koon, charged with allowing officers under his supervision to beat King, to present the defense version of the incident. He said no racial epithets were used that night. Koon told the jury force was necessary because King was combative and charged at Officer Powell. Koon said he thought King was on PCP, a drug said to induce super human strength. Although later drug tests showed no indication of PCP in King's system, Koon testified his body was anesthetized to pain. He has been subjected to numerous baton blows, none of which he feels. Koon's testimony appeared to contradict that of some eyewitnesses, including Melanie Singer, who said she heard King scream out in pain during the beating. Koon admitted the beating was brutal but said it was what officers were trained to do. "My intent was to cripple Rodney King," Koon said, "and that is a better option than having to use deadly force, having to choke or having to shoot Rodney King." Koon testified force was necessary because King's movements on the ground were also a threat. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Climber asked Koon, "I take it you did not perceive Rodney King to be a drunken man, rolling over in response to baton blows." Koon, "No, sir, I did not." Koon testified, "Rodney King had control of the situation. I had control of the officers." Briseno's videotaped testimony from the state trial was introduced during the prosecution's rebuttal case over the strenuous objections of defense lawyers. Briseno asserted that Powell may have struck King in the head, but Briseno was uncertain.

THEODORE BRISENO, Defendant: [State Court Testimony - April 1992] It appeared to be from the shoulder up.

ATTORNEY: All right. Now at that point, what were you thinking, at the point where these power and reverse strokes were being delivered, what were you thinking?

THEODORE BRISENO: I was thinking he was delivering them to the head.

ATTORNEY: All right. Can you say for certain whether or not the baton hit the head --

THEODORE BRISENO: No, sir.

ATTORNEY: Or was it in -- sir --

THEODORE BRISENO: No, sir.

MR. KAYE: Briseno repeatedly explained that he didn't understand why his fellow officers were beating King.

THEODORE BRISENO: I couldn't see it. I didn't understand it. I couldn't understand. I was trying to look at and view what they were looking at. I couldn't see it. I thought, you know, I understood a lot of things that night, but I'm thinking evidently they saw something I didn't see.

MR. KAYE: Of all the material presented in some six weeks of testimony what is expected to influence the jury the most is the 81 seconds of videotape that show the beating. The prosecution and defense each introduced audio and video enhanced versions to help prove their points.

HARLAND BRAUN: I think ultimately the jury's going to decide the case on the facts, and the facts are pretty clear. It's the tape, the tape, the tape.

LAURIE LEVENSON: It will be the jury looking at that videotape, and the question will be whether they dissect in the way that the defense wants, or whether they look at it as a complete film, as an excessive force beating the way the prosecution wants.

MR. KAYE: But the main issue in the case is whether the officers intended to deprive Rodney King of his civil rights. Briseno's lawyer says the government failed to prove its case.

HARLAND BRAUN: I don't think that there is a, they've established a motive, a rationale for this, and I think the jury's going to understand that this is war zone and that we lose more people in Los Angeles to violence at times on a weekend than they do in the Balkans. So given that context and the fact that these are our warriors and there's a level of violence that they don't define, society defines, I think that if it weren't for the fear factor that they would clearly win. Now the government hasn't proved that these officers did it deliberately, deliberately violated his civil rights by using excessive force.

MR. KAYE: Prosecutors wouldn't talk publicly but former prosecutor Levenson feels the government's case was strong against Powell and Koon, weak against Briseno and Wind.

LAURIE LEVENSON: The prosecution has been most successful in its case against Defendant Powell. There's really been a lot of focus on his actions, and that's because he inflicted over 50 of the blows on Rodney King, including the alleged blows on King's face. He's also the person who after the beating laughed about it, the one who made remarks at the hospital, filled out a false report and also went back to his station where the prosecution said he was showing off Rodney King, so a lot of focus has been on Defendant Powell. There's also been a great deal of focus on Defendant Koon and primarily because he's accepted that focus. He has said, "I take responsibility." He stands behind his officer. The more invisible defendants in this case have been Defendants Wind and Briseno. The lawyers haven't said much. They didn't present much of a defense case, and they're kind of getting lost in the shuffle.

MR. KAYE: In his closing argument yesterday, Prosecutor Climber said the defendants tried Rodney King with Stacey Koon as judge and with Powell, Wind, and Briseno as executioners. They filed misleading police reports to cover the truth. Defense lawyers are arguing that the officers used reasonable force to restrain an aggressive felon who was resisting arrest and that their police reports reflect that. The case is expected to go to the jury sometime tomorrow.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, Gergen & Shields, managing mortality and Charlayne Hunter-Gault in Somalia. FOCUS - GERGEN & SHIELDS

MR. LEHRER: Now some Friday night analysis from Gergen & Shields, David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, syndicated columnist Mark Shields. Gentlemen, the President's economic stimulus package has been stymied by the Republican filibuster in the Senate. Does that mean the Republicans are winning?

MR. GERGEN: Well, I think that they have, I think they've been winning on the issue, Jim. I think that they have made a strong case that there's a lot of boondoggle in this package, and some of it's unnecessary. I continue to believe that the package is reasonably popular out in the countryside so the Democrats, I think, are still winning on the politics of it. The country, the people around the country aren't clamoring for this but it's fairly popular. There's also a trap here, I must say. Some of the most observant Republicans understand that if they cut this package back too much and then Clinton then signs it, that the President later on can, if the recovery falters, can say, well, it was the Republicans' fault, you know, they blocked our stimulus package and, therefore, if the economy does well, Clinton can say, he can take all the credit. But if it goes badly, the Republicans can take all the blame. So they've got to be careful here how they play this.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: It makes you feel sorry for the Republicans. It really does. There's a -- among Democrats in Washington right now, there are several camps. First of all, there is a pessimism on the part of Senate Democrats whom I've spoken with that they're going to get the package through in its original pristine form. I don't think anybody really believes that, although the White House remains rather optimistic, or at least outwardly optimistic, about it. I think the Republicans have shown a remarkable unity, but I think it's, I think it serves no long-term purpose for them in this respect. The economy is still failing to produce jobs. The stimulus is the most popular part of the Clinton program. It promises jobs.

MR. LEHRER: Five hundred thousand.

MR. SHIELDS: Five hundred thousand jobs, and I think for the President, I think it's going to be necessary for the President, this is an administration, just as it was a campaign, that seemed to flounder and seemed to struggle and then the President or the candidate would come and rescue it. I mean, the first three weeks of the administration were big trouble. February 17th he steps before the nation in State of the Union, and all of a sudden, he rescues, he pulls the bacon out of the fire. He reframes the issue. I think he's got to do it this time. I think he's got to take it to the country. I think he's got to make the case. Every one of you fellahs on Capitol Hill has a job and a pretty good one, and why do you want to stand in the way of 500,000 Americans getting jobs at a time when the recovery is not producing jobs.

MR. LEHRER: What about the gridlock issue too, David, isn't this -- isn't what the Republicans are doing, just take it from a non- partisan point of view, exactly what the public said they didn't want done anymore, which is they wanted the government to work and they didn't want this kind of stalemate anymore?

MR. GERGEN: Well, that's true, and I think that's why it's in the Republicans' interest to find a solution here that represents a compromise. I do not think it would be in the Republicans' interest to have this go down altogether because I do think that then if we don't get the 500,000 jobs created by the economy naturally, Bill Clinton's going to come and swat 'em, saying, look, I was going to produce 500,000 jobs and the Republicans put their, blocked it. The most innovative idea that's come forward among Republicans actually has come from Jude Wynisky, who has been a longtime supply sider of course, and he's been arguing what Republicans ought to do is not just say be against all the boondoggle, pork spending in this thing, but they've got to say, look, Mr. President, we will give you your program if you also cut the capital gains tax, if you really reduce that so we have some real stimulus to the economy because that way the Republicans can be on the side of growth and not just against spending. They've got to be for something, and at the moment, I think the danger for the Republicans, even as they're successful in blocking so far, I think the danger is that they will become known as the negative party.

MR. LEHRER: Don't the Democrats, don't President Clinton and the Democrats face that same kind of problem, because didn't they kind of stiff the Republicans on this?

MR. SHIELDS: Absolutely.

MR. LEHRER: No compromise. You either vote it our way or forget it, and they, they're open to this, hey, fellahs, no more gridlock charge as much as the Republicans, aren't they?

MR. SHIELDS: No question, and there was a decision made, a tactical, political decision that they were going to do it with Democrats and not reach out to Republicans, not trying to include them early. That worries --

MR. LEHRER: What was the reasoning behind that?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, it worked in the House. They had the votes in the House. The House leadership and the House itself, membership, I think it's fair to say, were eager and sort of redeeming the public reputation of the institution to show that it did work, they could get an up or down vote. The rules in the House do not encourage or allow delaying tactics. In the Senate of course 40 Senators, and there are 43 Republicans, can sustain and maintain a filibuster, which prevents a vote, but more important than that, the Senate Democrats under the leadership of Senator Robert Byrd, the former majority leader of West Virginia, and now the chairman of the all powerful appropriations committee that gives everybody goodies in every state inthe union --

MR. LEHRER: Or those who --

MR. SHIELDS: Those who don't can go to West Virginia and genuflect for the rest of their life in snow banks. He, he is a master of Senate rules. He invoked a rule which has not been used in the past, was used by Republicans, in fact, when they were in charge, which is that no amendment to the bill, in effect, have any standing, that there will be one final vote on all the amendments, even though they've been adopted along the way so the Republicans' efforts were fruitless, and that really calcified and --

MR. LEHRER: It really made 'em mad.

MR. SHIELDS: -- it made the Republicans mad in the end.

MR. GERGEN: But, Mark, that also speaks to something else, and that is there has been a strong amount of arrogance on the part of a lot of these Democrats to shove it through or to have a steam roller to roll over the top. I mean, the Clinton White House picked up most of the sales techniques of the Reagan White House but they forgot one. That was that Reagan reached out to the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. There's been no effort on the part of the Clinton White House to reach out to the moderate wing of the Republican Party, and --

MR. LEHRER: About seven, there's about seven votes in the moderate wing of the Republican Party.

MR. GERGEN: Well, it may not be a wing. It may be a feather at this point.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

MR. GERGEN: But it's still out there, and it's important, and I think that the President didn't reach out, and I think what the President could face if he continues to do this and the White House is doing this, is stiffing the Republicans on health care too, that's the way the Republicans feel, there is a possibility of growing up within the Senate, if the Republicans stick together, you can see a new coalition forming, that is, the united Republicans working with a group of moderate to Southern Democrats and becoming the new majority. That's what the President must hear tonight.

MR. SHIELDS: I would add too I think the President is still, the mandate for change in the country is still within. The country loathes the status quo. The Republicans are walking I think a very, very thin high wire, the Senate Republicans are, if they appear gridlocked. If it's cast as a fight over principle, what they're trying to say, what the White House let happen to it this past week, I don't understand why except the President's message became diffuse and he became involved in more issues than he should have been, is that the rhetoric became one of deficit versus jobs. I mean, they've got the strength, they've got the strongest case to play, which is jobs. We're talking about putting Americans to work at a time when Americans are fearful, when IBM is laying off. This isn't just, this isn't just old mills closing down. This is great companies. Great American companies are laying off.

MR. GERGEN: That's true. It doesn't help to play the class warfare card though the way they're playing it. It's so divisive the way that they -- I think the Democrats -- I mean, that the Clinton White House has played that very hard, and it's divided off a lot of people. I think they have a much better chance of putting together a coalition if they didn't play it as hard as they are.

MR. LEHRER: I'm going to give you a torture transition that's going to knock your eyes out.

MR. GERGEN: All right.

MR. LEHRER: Speaking of jobs, Gov. Mario Cuomo said this week that he didn't want to be considered for the Supreme Court of the United States. That is astonishing to a lot of people who believe that that is probably one of the highest callings, one of the highest positions there is in this country. What's your reading of that?

MR. GERGEN: I don't think he showed a disrespect for the Court so much as a recognition of what kind of person he is. You remember Arthur Goldberg who was reported back in the '60s, a Democratic activist, went on the Court and he resigned from the Court three years later because he just didn't feel comfortable. He wanted to be out making decisions, you know, and he wanted to be out in the arena. And I think Mario Cuomo, for all of his philosophical orientation, I think loves the arena. I think he loves being governor of New York. I think he likes the challenge of trying to run again. It is --

MR. LEHRER: It's a case of knowing himself.

MR. GERGEN: I think it's a case of knowing himself and making a pretty good decision on his part.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: I think David's right. I think Mario Cuomo remarked to a friend that he would, at sixty, he feels too young to be entombed, is how he put it, and it is. I mean, the Supreme Court and people, you talk to politicians that have gone on the bench and they miss. They miss the action. They miss the activity. They miss the color, the fun, the relationships. It's a solitudeness existence. It really is to a great degree. Unless you're terribly close to the other eight justices, it can be pretty lonesome. Mario Cuomo loves to get on the phone, as people who have written things about him he found unflattering or incomplete, can attest. Mario Cuomo uses his long distance line regularly, and I, I think that in a strange way he'll be missed because he did bring an eloquent evocation of really the nation as family, a sense of our common purpose, our common identity, our common responsibilities certainly more passionately and more articulately than anybody, any contemporary in public life.

MR. GERGEN: Yeah. Bill Clinton was right in thinking the fights that would occur between Mario Cuomo and Justice Scalia on the Court would have been --

MR. LEHRER: They would have been something to have seen on videotape, right. All right. What does this do now for President Clinton and his search for a, you know, for that slot, for a successor to Byron White?

MR. GERGEN: Well, I think it clears the deck for him, and in an interesting way I think it makes a lot easier to appoint a woman or a minority, say to appoint an Hispanic, because I think if he, if that had been his initial impulse after all we went through on the three nominees to the Justice Department, I think that he would look like he was striving too much for gender appointment. I think it's now clear that Bill Clinton was seriously interested in Mario Cuomo, who's the one person apparently the President called.

MR. LEHRER: He had to have been for Cuomo to have written in the letter, the signal had to go beyond just an idle comment in an interview, would you not agree?

MR. GERGEN: By all recorded accounts, this is the only person that Bill Clinton has sounded out personally about the job, so that I think he was serious about it, and I think we ought to take it at face value. I do think it makes it a lot easier though to appoint a woman now, or I think a Hispanic in particular.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: I really haven't thought of it in those terms. I thought that Bill Clinton would have been hard pressed not to have appointed Mario Cuomo. I think it was necessary for Mario Cuomo to withdraw himself, because -- and Bill Clinton is not somebody who makes idle chatterwhen it comes to appointments of the Supreme Court. He did say that and did say it before a national audience during the campaign, and I think that -- so the focus really was on Cuomo, and it took Cuomo to withdraw himself. I don't know. I think it's such an enormously personal thing. One of the criticisms that was made about Cuomo was the fact that he was 60. He feels himself too young. Some people, Democrats, say that's too old because they see Clarence Thomas, who went on there in his young 40s, going to be there for another 35. They want to stack it so there's going to be somebody there till the year 2040.

MR. GERGEN: Can I add a political footnote to this?

MR. LEHRER: Sure. That's the business we practice.

MR. GERGEN: Okay. Well, I think publicly it's interesting in terms of New York State, if Mario Cuomo had left New York to go to the bench, the Republicans were salivating about the possibility, just the possibility of recruiting Colin Powell to run for governor of New York.

MR. LEHRER: He great up in New York.

MR. GERGEN: He grew up in New York. He has roots there, and if he had won, he would have been a very strong candidate. If he had won, he automatically would have become a huge contender for presidential nomination on the part of the Republican Party. I think Mario Cuomo now staying in New York and running I think the chance of getting Colin Powell into that race has much diminished.

MR. SHIELDS: Who was the last New York governor to be a nominee of the party?

MR. LEHRER: Thomas Dewey.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right. President Dewey.

MR. LEHRER: And he wasn't from the Bronx.

MR. SHIELDS: President Al Smith.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. SHIELDS: President Franklin Roosevelt.

MR. LEHRER: Good-bye. Thank you both very much. FOCUS - FINAL DECISION

MR. MacNeil: Next, an update report on the right-to-die debate. An unusual gathering addressed that subject recently in Minneapolis. Our medical reporter Fred De Sam Lazaro of public station KTCA was there.

MR. LAZARO: Pete Busalacchi finally saw the day he both dreaded and fought for. He was allowed to let his daughter die by removing her feeding tube. Christine Busalacchi had been in a so-called "persistent vegetative state" since a car accident in 1987.

PETE BUSALACCHI: All a parent can do is the best he can, and I hope I tried to do the best I can this morning.

MR. LAZARO: The experience has made Busalacchi a seasoned campaigner in one of this nation's most wrenching bio-ethical dilemmas. It was the topic of a recent Minneapolis conference titled "For the Underlying Challenge, Managing Mortality."

SPOKESMAN: I deal very well now with Nancy's death, but I don't deal too well with some of the stuff we had to go through, some of the political stuff.

MR. LAZARO: The gathering drew a who's who in the growing right to die debate. Families, some with almost household names like Quinlan and Cruzan, fathered to share their experiences, hoping to help others in a society that they say does not know how to deal with death. We talked to a smaller group of participants.

SPOKESMAN: We've learned a lot from her case. And we love our daughter.

JULIA QUINLAN: I feel that the support is very, very important. We had established, we have established a hospice program as memorial to our daughter, Karen, and we allow our patients to die with dignity.

MR. LAZARO: The case of Joseph and Julia Quinlan's daughter, Karen Ann, first drew public attention to the right to die dilemma in modern medicine. It wasn't all kind attention 20 years ago.

JULIA QUINLAN: From the very first day after our attorney filed the case in the court, the headlines on the paper the following day was "Father Request to Kill Daughter." And that just showed the ignorance of the public.

MR. LAZARO: The Quinlans did gradually win public sympathy as well as the right to disconnect their daughter from a respirator. Karen Ann Quinlan died nine years later.

JOSEPH QUINLAN: It should be handled just within the family. I've always felt that way, and it's a pleasure really to hear about all these cases, and that's what's coming out on every single one of them, the family, the family, the family, instead of everybody in creation getting in to it, you know, including the courts. It was one of the bad parts I think of our case was having to go through a court trial.

MR. LAZARO: The Quinlan case set only a limited legal precedent for others that have come through the courts. Each has had its own peculiarities and complications.

SPOKESPERSON: First I'd like to thank everyone for the opportunity of being here and presenting our family's side of this case.

MR. LAZARO: There's the case of Ruth Wanglie's parents, for example.

OLIVER WANGLIE: See here. That's her grandson. See here.

MR. LAZARO: Her father, retired Minneapolis attorney, Oliver Wanglie, fought for a family's right to keep a loved one on life support. The local county hospital wanted to remove the respirator keeping his 87-year-old wife, Helga, alive. Doctors called her prognosis hopeless.

OLIVER WANGLIE: Well, we don't know. I've seen miracles happen before.

MR. LAZARO: Helga Wanglie died of other complications while still on life support. But her husband's hopes were not entirely without foundation. The Cole family of Maryland did see a miracle. Based on the best medical advice, Harry Cole sought to have his wife removed from life support. Jacqueline Cole was comatose from a stroke. But five days after her husband's court petition, she emerged to make a near total recovery. Still, both say it was the right decision.

JACQUELINE COLE: Contrary to popular belief, I don't think he was trying to get rid of me. I think he wanted nature to take its course, and he saw too much interference on the part of medical science, and he just wanted to remove everything and give me a chance to function for myself, which I did do, five days later.

HARRY COLE: I look upon her awakening as not as something that was a torment. I look upon it as a great gift, as a real miracle.

MR. LAZARO: Despite the occasional miracle, these families say they have no second thoughts about their decision to withdraw their loved ones' life support. Joseph Cruzan fought all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to remove the feeding tube sustaining his daughter Nancy.

JOSEPH CRUZAN: But I felt very strongly that I'm not going to let Nancy lay like this to see if God's going to perform a miracle because I believe spiritually that if God wanted Nancy raised up he could do it today.

MR. LAZARO: Nancy Cruzan's case involved the almost classic circumstances. She was a young car accident victim sustained by a feeding tube in the so-called "persistent vegetative state" that her sister, Christy Cruzan White says was completely hopeless.

CHRISTY CRUZAN WHITE: We felt that removing that technology would allow her to escape from this existence that she was enduring.

MR. LAZARO: The Cruzan family eventually won its case based on evidence that Nancy Cruzan had made known before her accident that she never wished to be kept in a vegetative state. That was a vital difference with Busalacchi. No one recalls Christine expressing such wishes. It left her father to act in what he felt was her best interest.

PETE BUSALACCHI: I looked at my daughter in her condition, and I could see I wouldn't want to stay like that. So if I wouldn't want that for myself, why would I want it for my own, my own daughter?

MR. LAZARO: Busalacchi's opponents came from pro life groups like these picketers outside a hospice which once considered admitting Christine. They don't doubt that Pete Busalacchi meant well, but they say he cannot serve as an example for future cases. Indiana attorney James Bopp has represented several pro life organizations.

JAMES BOPP, Lawyer: If we authorize families to, in effect, choose death for a family member, we're not just authorizing the, the good families to do that, we're authorizing all families to do it. So we have to be realistic in looking at the full range of families that exist, and there, and we've come to recognize that some often do not act in the best interest of their family member.

MR. LAZARO: Also invited to the Minneapolis conference, Bopp had a rare audience with families he's fought over the years.

SPOKESMAN: Would you being in the same condition as our loved ones want to continue yourself in that condition?

JAMES BOPP: I would be totally unable to decide. [laughter in audience] So the question is -- because I -- see, I think it is different to ask me as a "normal healthy" person whether I would like to live disabled and asking a person with disabilities whether they think life is worth living. One is hypothetical. The other is real life, and I think the studies show that there's a heck of a difference.

MR. LAZARO: In Bopp's view, people in so-called "persistent vegetative states" are essentially disabled persons. Decisions about their quality of life, Bopp argues, are inherently subjective and dangerous.

JAMES BOPP: What we're doing is just judging people not as individuals that have individual worth, but we're saying there's a test, okay, which you have to pass, that is, you have to be in the right place and you have to be smart enough and you have to be enjoying life and experiencing life to a level that we think makes you worth anything.

MR. LAZARO: At the heart of the dispute between Bopp and families like the Cruzans is what, in fact, is being prolonged, life or death.

JOSEPH CRUZAN: I was in a legislative meeting a couple of years ago. There was a young man there, and he said we've lost track of how precious life is. And I said, "You're a 180 degrees off. We've lost track of how natural death is." Fifty years ago, people died, grandma, grandpa, died upstairs in the bed, their kids at their side, the younger kids outside playing. I mean, it was, you know, a sad time, but I mean, it was something that was accepted. Death, death was a part of life.

[EMERGENCY CARE SCENE]

MR. LAZARO: Today death or holding death at bay is part of the health care system, a large part according to Dr. Arthur Caplan. His Biomedical Ethics Center at the University of Minnesota held the conference.

DR. ARTHUR CAPLAN, Medical Ethicist: We've isolated death and put it off in a sort of technological shroud and sent it far out of our lives.

MR. LAZARO: Caplan says the health care system is pressured to fight death at all costs, costs that account for the bulk of U.S. health care spending.

DR. ARTHUR CAPLAN: The health care system is oriented to deliver care, and it's reinforced by legal strictures that say if you don't, you're in trouble, and economic incentives which say, if you don't, we're in financial trouble. So there's powerful incentive to keep doing things, to keep pushing on, not just medically, but legally and in terms of economics.

MR. LAZARO: Caplan says families and individual patients are increasingly resisting those legal and economic forces. They are pushing for their right to terminate treatment, even the right to treatment that will terminate one's own life. Ron Adkins' wife, Janet, was the first patient to be assisted in suicide by controversial Michigan pathologist Jack Kevorkian.

RON ADKINS: We're keeping people on life support systems and on the feeding system, and then we say, well, we'll pull that away and we'll let them starve to death. Is that humane? We wouldn't in an animal. I mean, we'd be put in jail if we advertised in the paper we're going to let our dogs die, but yet we're talking here on one level that it's okay, that's okay to do that, why isn't it -- if we're going to decide to pull the system away, give them a way out then, inject them with something so that they're gone and not suffering.

MR. LAZARO: That kind of doctor-assisted suicide with several safeguards was recently legalized by the Dutch parliament. It has long been an accepted practice in the Netherlands. Ethicist Caplan says that it is fraught with too many dangers in the U.S.

DR. ARTHUR CAPLAN: There are too many people out there who are fearful and I have to say in this country there are too many people out there who worry that their race, their ethnic background or their pocketbook is going to lead them to a situation where medicine finds them unappealing, unattractive, or not lucrative enough, that climate is one in which I think you've got to take a stance that says we don't favor this option. We discourage this option. We put obstacles and roadblocks before you. I haven't said that I wouldn't allow it, but I would argue vociferously that the cultural context of the United States is one in which offering suicide to a country that's 37 million citizens with no health insurance. It's not a wise place to start a discussion of active euthanasia.

MR. LAZARO: Caplan opposes general societal sanction for doctor- assisted suicide. Yet, he supports the individual decision in the Adkins case as one carefully deliberated by a competent individual. That kind of contradiction, that conflict between individual and societal interests, he says, will continue to dog the right to die debate. FOCUS - RETURN TO SOMALIA

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, Charlayne Hunter-Gault's Somalia diary. Charlayne was in Somalia when U.S. troops set up Operation Restore Hope. She's back there now as the U.S. gets ready to turn its mission over to a multinational U.N. force.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In the earliest part of the morning here in Mogadishu, Marine Col. Buck Bedard is about to begin his daily routine, sizing up the footprint of the military force he oversees as its main operations officer. Today, along for the ride and the beginning of his good-byes, is the man most responsible for planting that footprint, Gen. Robert B. Johnston, code name "Sea Wolf." Both Marines have been on duty here since Operation Restore Hope started last December. Having achieved their first objective, the safe delivery of food that halted the starvation and death, their major focus is now on security and stabilization. As we raced the sun over the tiny but sprawling city Bedard tells us that the purpose of his daily aerial flight is to look at what's happening on the ground and determine how big and how heavy the footprints should be. On this day he tells us confidently that for a while now the fit is if not perfect the best it's been, thanks to ten what he called strong points or military anchors around the city, strong points that have facilitated movement along such erstwhile forbidden thoroughfares as October 21st, named in honor of the Siad Bari revolution. It leads to the northern boundary of the city. After Bari fled, it became the dividing line between the two warring factions that virtually destroyed the plague in their fight for control of it. As we soar over the ruins of the two-year civil war, skeletal remains of homes and businesses, pasta and pencil factories, mosques, Bedard points out signs of physical rebirth, new roots, markets filled with melons and other fruits. At the once contested port, more strong points and more commoners, even a recreational beach being used at this moment by an El-Cat from a strong point offshore. There is also the now familiar site of bright green spread like a beach ball over twigs that serve as home to thousands of refugees, still there, but Bedard says not as many. The refugees feel full enough and safe enough, he says, to go home. Of those remaining, their once disorderly lines for food had given way to order now that both food and fairness are certain. Bedard tells us that such order has been the order of the day all over Mogadishu for weeks now. He says he will explain after our coffee break.

COL. BUCK BEDARD, U.S. Marines: Is what we took a look at is where do we need to be to allow us to influence the most things in this city, and that's kind of the way we started, and then once we got the initial way down, then we said, okay, now where do we have to put the strong points, like the one I showed you, where are the strategic areas that we need to have a presence at?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But some of that I imagine was trial and error.

COL. BUCK BEDARD: It was, and we moved several times. But, but each time we moved, we left a mark and created a new impression of where we were going, or we left a smaller force there and moved to another one and just continued to expand.

LT. GEN. ROBERT JOHNSTON, Joint Task Force Commander: In there it's sort of an interesting stat that of a million people in the city that there are, there is a presence somewhere within a thousand meters of 95 percent of the city, so in other words, the footprint is pretty broad where if anything got out of hand, there's somebody very close by.

COL. BUCK BEDARD: I would think if you were, Charlayne, a person from Somalia that lives in Mogadishu, you would think we've got probably 75,000 people here. Every place you turn around, you either run into somebody walking or somebody who's patrolling, somebody's moving around, and that's the kind of presence that we want to give. And we think that has brought the umbrella of security to the city, knowing that you can go out and do whatever you want like they once did, and that's what we're attempting to do. How about coffee here?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I'll be for that. Our next stop is a school secured by a strong point next door. It's named for Anthony Batello, a Marine killed on duty here. It was one of the first to open since the war started in 1991.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: [talking to people at school] Congratulations to you. This is very interesting.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The school was started in this once abandoned and garbage strewn gym by Jawah Mohamed, a former schoolteacher who works without pay. Within weeks, the number of volunteers rose from three to forty-five as the number of students jumped from forty-five tosixteen hundred.

[SCHOOL SCENE]

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How did you happen to decide to do this? Why did you do this instead of something else?

SPOKESPERSON: [speaking through interpreter] You see some of the teachers before in the profession of teaching, it was the first thing that came to my mind.

MARINE: Now that the secure environment has been created by the Marines and the coalition forces, they are now coming forward, and it's people like this and people like her that are now coming forward and taking the bull by the horns, if you will, and making the system start functioning again.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You called them, what did you call them?

SECOND MARINE: Well, I hate to use the term, but they are the kind of silent majority I would like to think over there that is now coming forth and doing things they need to do to get things back on track here. I've been very impressed with all the volunteers.

COL. BUCK BEDARD: You know, I think, to see what we've got here today, you have to go back to January. When we moved into the stadium over here and replaced the force in there and they came across the street and said we've got 40 children that want to go to school and want to start a school here and stay here, because you're right next door to us, 40 children in January to what they've got now, almost 2,000 here, it's just absolutely incredible, and due to a lot of hard work by this young lady and all the folks with us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Our next stop is a feeding center. There is still the occasional disruption but the decision to maintain a heavy footprint has ensured that the food gets to those who need it most. From the looks of things, women and children.

COL. BUCK BEDARD: We provide, we make sure the trucks get here, coordinate that this gets in here safely, and that no bandits --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now, it's warehouses like this that used to be looted by the bandits?

COL. BUCK BEDARD: Yes, absolutely, and the major warehouse down at the fork. None of this is stored in here anywhere. It's brought down here and it's delivered. And the big thing about the delivery is, is it's not just bringing the grain in the sacks and giving it to people, but going through what we -- we call this delivery. This is distribution, and there's a difference. The same in the surrounding areas, when you just deliver, it makes it very easy to rip it off.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But to distribute it --

COL. BUCK BEDARD: Once you've got it distributed, broken down like this --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: This is something new?

COL. BUCK BEDARD: We've been doing this for about 60 days but it is new starting in December and January when we arrived here. We learned the hard way too about just delivering bags.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: As we moved to our next destination, buildings pock marked with bomb and bullet holes from the civil war and its aftermath of looters and bandits all foreshadow a need. Policing has been the job of Marines like these. Now they are preparing to hand that task over to the Somalis.

COL. BUCK BEDARD: The Marine Corps has never looked better by your performance in town, the way you look, what you've done, along with your other Somali fleets, force comrades to put this city back on track. Like you, I've been here four months, and when I think about this place looked like on 9 December and what it looks like today, it's, it's like magic. What Marines do best is just using their initiative to find out what needs to be done in a very non- traditional mission, totally unlike Desert Storm. We've been talking about it, and Desert Storm was easy, certainly potentially more dangerous but easier in terms of what we're trained to do, the missions, we've got our mission, it is time to hand it over to the United Nations, and for the Marines, it looks like the Pakistanis will be the country that will take over Mogadishu and allow you to go back to Camp Pendleton or 29 Palms.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: An effective police force is universally regarded as the first building block of a new civil society here. One of the first official groups formed was the police committee, former police officers who now meet daily to provide oversight for the reconstruction of the department.

COL. BUCK BEDARD: We've got a few challenges ahead of us. If anybody in this city can, can put fear into a policeman and not allow a policeman to do his job, that person needs to go to jail. COL. BUCK BEDARD: Now this is one of my pride and joys right here. This is the Wordigley Police Station and one of the things we're finding, we have found, with the numerous police stations that we've got is that these guys stayed with their police stations, many of them, even during the civil war, stayed right here, didn't leave, and, and in this particular case, and now we've got the police force back on -- morning gentlemen.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Hope for the future is being vested in this fledgling new force, down from its high point of 7,000 during the Bari regime, to some 3,000 today. For the last two years of the civil war none of them worked. New uniforms remained stored in a Nairobi warehouse until now.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you feel about being a policeman in a country that has no government?

POLICEMAN: [speaking through interpreter] I know that there is no government but our job is not whether there is a government or not, is to have this city, secure this city to be a very secure, peaceful city.

COL. BUCK BEDARD: Tell him I noticed this. Some of the people like their boots, some like their shoes. It's a problem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Yes.

SPOKESMAN: It's not like that they like their shoes or they like the boots or the flip flops but it's that the size of the shoes are all the, are all messed up and some of them had sore feet and some of them don't have socks to wear with their shoes, but it's getting better. Those are minor problems then considering --

COL. BUCK BEDARD: Absolutely.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Let me ask you a final question. How optimistic -- are you optimistic that your country is now coming back together and it's going to continue to improve?

SPOKESMAN: [speaking through interpreter] We hope that Americans have -- that the Americans police -- the American government is a very government and we hope the Americans -- if they help us, we'll be fine.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you need that help right now?

SPOKESMAN: Yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You're not ready to see them go?

SPOKESMAN: [speaking through interpreter] No, we're not ready for the Americans to go. We want the Americans to be here.

MR. LEHRER: Charlayne will be back Monday night with an interview with Gen. Johnston about his tour of duty in Somalia. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Friday, four U.S. military planes were attacked by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire while patrolling the no-fly zone in Northern Iraq. None of the planes were hit. They responded by dropping cluster bombs on the Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries. The Bosnian Serb commander agreed to a cease-fire tomorrow in the besieged town of Srebrenica. Good night, Jim.

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