The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight an update of new findings about Alzheimer's disease; day two of the hearings on Anthony Lake's nomination to be CIA director; and five House members compare life in the current Congress to that in the last. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The Scottish scientist who cloned a sheep said today the technology is not ready for use on people. He said attempts to do so would be inhumane. Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute testified before a Senate Labor Subcommittee hearing in Washington. He said genetically altering animals could yield human benefits such as producing milk to treat diseases like hemophilia. Wilmut cautioned against moving the debate beyond the current capabilities of science.

DR. IAN WILMUT, Roslin Institute: We're very pleased as a group in both the institute and the company that these questions are being considered and that we've had the opportunity to present our evidence to you because we believe that in the wish to prevent any misuses of the technology it is important that we preserve the opportunities to take advantage of all of the benefits which I've tried to describe. Simply, we think it's important that we do not throw out this particular baby with the bath water.

JIM LEHRER: Two bills have been introduced in Congress to ban federal funding for human cloning research. It's already illegal in Scotland. Anthony Lake faced more criticism today on his role as national security adviser. It came in his second day of Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on his nomination to be director of Central Intelligence. Committee Chairman Richard Shelby said Lake failed to keep Congress informed of policy matters in the past, citing Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia 1994. Lake said he would not make that mistake again. He also said it would have been better if he and the President had known about FBI reports China was trying to influence U.S. elections but would not blame the national security aides who withheld that information.

ANTHONY LAKE, CIA Director-Designate: When making the decision about whether an official made an appropriate decision, it cannot be on the basis of knowledge and information that you receive later in saying you should have known XY and Z. It has to be in terms at least certainly almost completely of what they knew at the time and while they made those judgments. That's very important.

JIM LEHRER: The third day of hearings tomorrow will be conducted in closed executive session. We'll have excerpts from today's hearings later in the program. Attorney General Reno today addressed the flap between the White House and the FBI over the briefing given to NSC aides. She was testifying before the Senate Committee that funds the Justice Department.

JANET RENO, Attorney General: The FBI agents who provided the briefings state that they place no restriction on the dissemination of the information of the chain of command at the NSC. I have been advised that the NSC staff members state that they were asked to curtail further dissemination and that the notes of at least one reflecting of the briefing suggests something to that effect. What I think happened, but we're continuing to review it, is that they pointed out that the matter was sensitive and should be handled carefully. And I think there was a miscommunication with respect to you and a misunderstanding of just what was intended.

JIM LEHRER: The Senate today confirmed Federico Pena as Energy Secretary. The vote was 99 to 1. Pena, a former mayor of Denver, was Transportation Secretary in President Clinton's first term. The President today urged baby boomer parents who have tried drugs to talk straight to their children about it. He spoke during a radio broadcast at a town meeting with teens. The President said parents who tried drugs when they were young should not feel guilty or hypocritical about it. He said he told his daughter, Chelsea, if he knew as a student in England what he knows now, he would have never tried marijuana. The event was hosted by ABC News anchor Peter Jennings. Also at the White House today the President announced a six-year plan to improve the nation's bridges, highways, and transit systems. The $175 billion program would increase highway spending by 30 percent. Mr. Clinton said it would provide millions of jobs, including some for those moving off welfare. Congress must approve the proposal. Small strokes in the brain accelerate the deterioration caused by Alzheimer's disease. That finding was published today in the "Journal of the American Medical Association." It said dementia and death occur much faster in Alzheimer's patients after such strokes. Four million Americans have the incurable brain disorder, and we'll have more on this story right after this News Summary. The U.N. General Assembly today debated the Israeli housing complex claimed for East Jerusalem. Arab envoys called the Har Homa project illegal and asked the world body to condemn it. Jordan's King Hussein also harshly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in a letter to him released Tuesday. The king said he felt betrayed by Netanyahu in accumulative actions taken as the Israeli leader. In reply, Netanyahu said Israel stands by its right to build in Jerusalem and to keep its troops there. Egyptian President Mubarak is visiting the United States. In New York today he said Netanyahu should consider resigning if he cannot implement the Palestinian peace deal. Mubarak spoke on PBS's "Charlie Rose" show.

HOSNI MUBARAK, President, Egypt: If he's convinced, and he's going to honor the agreement, otherwise, he say, all right, I'm going to resign; the best thing. So honor the agreement, implement it, fulfill what you find it reasonable for peace because is peace so important not only to Israel, to Israel and all its neighbors, including Egypt, but if I were in his place, and there are problems with the right wing, they don't agree about reasonable point, about implementing what was agreed upon by the former government, ratified by the Knesset, if I were in this position, I'd tell them, I'm resigning.

JIM LEHRER: On the Albania story today, government concessions failed to stop rebel demands for President Berisha's resignation. Violence continued to spread North toward the capital of Tirana. The U.S. State Department ordered all embassy families stationed there to evacuate. We have more in this report from Paul Davies of Independent Television News.

PAUL DAVIES, ITN: If this uprising has its roots in the deep South of Albania, today it spread to threaten President Berisha's Northern power base. At the mountain town of Rashan, 55 miles North of the capital, we witnessed an outbreak of lawlessness to rival anything that has happened in the South. Following the familiar pattern the town's army base was the first target. The people told us the soldiers had slipped away during the night, so they were helping themselves. There were enough guns here to equip a small army. We saw children as young as seven with newly acquired rifles. It seemed there is no sexual discrimination when it comes to looting the government arsenal. I asked this woman what she was going to do with the guns. "Use them if I have to," she said. She blamed President Berisha for leading the country into anarchy. President Berisha was born in these mountains. These people have traditionally provided his power base. If they have no turned against him, it's hard to see how he can survive. Those he saw as his closest allies have taken up arms, government rule replaced by the law of the gun in several other northern towns. This evening there's tension in the capital: armed men on the streets of Tirana, itself, and they are not soldiers or secret police.

JIM LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to new word on Alzheimer's disease, day two of the Lake hearings, and what's the new Congress up to? UPDATE - ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

JIM LEHRER: We do go first tonight to the new research on Alzheimer's and to Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is devoted entirely to Alzheimer's, the brain disease that turns the golden years of 4 million Americans, mostly over 70, into a period of dementia and even death. But one major story in the magazine suggests Alzheimer's may not be the culprit in many of the changes in the very old and that other studies suggest that many of the symptoms can be avoided or significantly reduced. For details on some of these new findings we are joined by two leading researchers in the field, Marcelle Morrison-Bogorad oversees much Alzheimer's research as the associate director of the neuro science and neuro psychology program at the National Institute on Aging. She wrote an editorial in today's journal. And David Snowdon is the lead author of today's study dealing with strokes and Alzheimer's. He is an epidemiologist at the Sanders Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky. Thank you both for joining us. And starting with you, Mr. Snowdon, in the simplest terms, explain what your study found out about the connection between Alzheimer's and strokes.

DAVID SNOWDON, University of Kentucky College of Medicine: We found that one or two small strokes increased the risk of developing the symptoms of Alzheimer's, and once the symptoms appeared one or two small strokes made the symptoms much more severe. We did the study in 102 Catholic sisters who were 76 to 100 years of age. They had been examined yearly, and they had all agreed to donate their brain at death for our study. And we found that those sisters who had an Alzheimer's-like brain, that many of them did not act like they had Alzheimer's, and that the small strokes in strategic regions of the brain appeared to play a role initiating the appearance of the symptoms of Alzheimer's. And once the symptoms appeared, these small strokes were associated with much more severe symptoms.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And the symptoms you're describing are what, the symptoms of Alzheimer's?

DAVID SNOWDON: Alzheimer's is certainly noted by memory problems, problems in other areas of thinking, such as language and social and occupational problems.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And the dementia?

DAVID SNOWDON: That's basically what dementia--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What you just described.

DAVID SNOWDON: Alzheimer's is one of the types of dementia. Alzheimer's is the most common type in the United States and other western populations.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And when you say an Alzheimer's brain, what did you mean by that?

DAVID SNOWDON: Well, we all develop the lesions of Alzheimer's as we get older.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Anybody, everybody?

DAVID SNOWDON: Everybody, if they live to be old enough, will get these lesions of Alzheimer's, which are just abnormal deposits of protein. And we find that these sisters, who have abundant lesions of Alzheimer's, that they have what we would call an Alzheimer's- like brain, but many of them don't act like they have Alzheimer's. Basically, it took less of these lesions of Alzheimer's to cause dementia or the symptoms of Alzheimer's if small strokes were present.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And what caused the small strokes?

DAVID SNOWDON: We were concerned at the beginning that the strokes might be related to the Alzheimer's disease, itself, but we found that the lesions of Alzheimer's disease had no relationship to the strokes, and the major gene for Alzheimer's had no relationship to the strokes, but what was related in our study to small and large strokes was the amount of atherosclerosis and blood vessels of the brain or basically hardening of the arteries of the brain was part of--part of the small and the large strokes. And so they looked, if you will, like garden variety strokes that are probably related to in the general population to high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and diabetes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Just briefly, how does a person know that he or she has had one of these little strokes? Are they discernible as strokes?

DAVID SNOWDON: Well, that's a problem, because we know a lot about larger strokes, that they have very classic symptoms such as numbness, not being able to use an arm or a leg, blurred vision. See, smaller strokes my have different symptoms. Our study shows that what it strongly suggests that there are strong mental impairments, strong mental symptoms associated with a small stroke, but what we're concerned about is that as people get older, their risk of small strokes goes up dramatically. In the sisters they went up dramatically with increasing age to where after age 95 the overwhelming majority of the sisters had the small strokes. What we're concerned about is that some of these small strokes, that many of them may go undetected, even though they are causing problems.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I know some people who have had small fainting spells, as they call them, and it was later determined that these were small strokes.

DAVID SNOWDON: Correct. And that, basically the National Stroke Association suggests that or claims, makes a very strong statement, rather, that stroke is an emergency. If you think you are having a stroke or a loved one is having a stroke, this requires immediate attention by a doctor because if you get one stroke, your chances of getting another one increase dramatically.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Bogorad, how did the scientific community view this, the significance of this finding?

MARCELLE MORRISON-BOGORAD, National Institute on Aging: I think basically we've all thought for a long time that it was quite probable that other problems in the brain were going to--could coerce the symptoms of Alzheimer's. This was one of the first studies to really show that this actually happens, so I think the way that I would think of it is that people get the neuro pathology of Alzheimer's, the changes of Alzheimer's occur in the brain. But when they have a stroke as well, as Dr. Snowdon's study is showing, the mental symptoms are likely to be much worse.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So what can be done about it? I mean, can it be--now that you know this, what can be done about it?

MARCELLE MORRISON-BOGORAD: I think from two points of view it's important that we try to prevent strokes, first from the point of view of what stroke does by itself, and in this new study from what strokes might do to prevent Alzheimer's symptoms.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Dr. Snowdon, is there a regimen that can be followed that would reduce the risk of stroke?

DAVID SNOWDON: Oh, absolutely. This has been known for many years. No. 1 risk factor is high blood pressure; No. 2 is cigarette smoking; and No. 3 is diabetes. All three of those things clearly cause atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. All three are related to heart disease. They're all three related to both small and large strokes. So working with your doctor to monitor your blood pressure, to monitor your blood sugar on your own, quitting smoking, not starting smoking, and exercising, exercising may help in weight control, which would play a role in diabetes and blood pressure. Basically, our study, at least by itself, offers hope that there may be things people can do who have the gene for Alzheimer's or have Alzheimer's in their family, or in the early clinical stages of Alzheimer's. There's something that they can do to potentially reduce their risk of the symptoms appearing of Alzheimer's.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Dr. Morrison-Bogorad, there was another study that talked about the frequency of unrecognized dementia. Tell us briefly about that.

MARCELLE MORRISON-BOGORAD: Well, this was a very interesting study in Japan, where the researchers looked at a number of elderly Japanese men and gave them tests to see whether they had dementia or not, and then once they sorted them out into those who had dementia and those who didn't, they went back to family members and asked the family members if they had recognized that usually their husbands or their father had had dementia. What the study found was that of all the Japanese men who were diagnosed clinically with dementia 20 percent had family members who hadn't recognized that they had it. And this percentage increased to 50 percent if the dementia in these elderly men was just beginning. Now the other thing was, the other thing they did was to--if the family member had recognized the dementia, they then asked if the family member had sought professional help for the elderly gentleman. And 50 percent of the time the answer was no.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Because they thought there was nothing that could be done about it?

MARCELLE MORRISON-BOGORAD: Well, probably because they thought it was a normal consequence of aging, you know, and that nothing could be done about it, as you say.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Now you think this is going to help reverse that thinking? I mean, is this a significant--

MARCELLE MORRISON-BOGORAD: I think it's really a push for us to realize that this happens. I think there are several reasons for it being very important. One is that if it's silent, then that means it's not recognized as dementia and underestimating the numbers of people with possible Alzheimer's dementia in the population, and that's become very important when in a few years let's say we develop drugs which can push off the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease for a few years. And that is definitely our hope and our premise.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But aren't there some drugs now like, for example, Dr. Snowdon, in your study, you mentioned the things that doctors can do, but what about--like I know some Alzheimer's patients with these tiny strokes have been given aspirin, baby aspirin a day. Is that a good preventive or risk reduction factor?

DAVID SNOWDON: Well, aspirin clearly plays a role in the risk of a second stroke and a second heart attack. I think both the studies--both studies, the study of Japanese men in Hawaii and our study on Catholic sisters I think are indicating that it is--that there are many problems in the elderly that are just not--that are basically potentially being ignored that you could do something about. It is not normal for an older person, whether they be 80 or 90, to be having memory problems, serious memory problems or confusion, and that's what they saw in the Japanese men in Hawaii, that I think the people, their family members just thought this is normal for a 90 year old to be slightly confused. It is not normal, and you need to get the attention of your doctors when you have problems like that.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Dr. Bogorad, there was also a study this week not a part of this one that talked about the use of anti- inflammatory drugs. What was the significance of that and the relationship to what we're talking about, like ibuprofen, for example, Advil?

DAVID SNOWDON: This is the fruit of a study which has been going on for a long time, supported by the National Institutes on Aging, and it's a big population study in Baltimore, the Baltimore Longitudinal Aging Study, and because it contains so many people and because the study is looking at people every couple of years, giving them tests for their memory impairment, lots of medical, other medical tests, what this study was able to do is confirm what several other studies have hinted at in the past few years, and that is that a person that's taking anti-inflammatory drugs it seems to reduce their risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. So they looked at the kind of drugs that people were taking. They made very sure that what the people said they were doing was actually what they were doing, and then they looked at the group who were taking anti-inflammatories and compared the rate at which they were getting Alzheimer's disease with the group who were not taking anti-inflammatories. And they found that if the person had been taking anti-inflammatories for over two years, that the risk was reduced by over 50 percent.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Briefly, Dr. Snowdon, so many families in America have to deal with this problem what should they take away from all of this tonight?

DAVID SNOWDON: I'd say the most important thing is that some of the cofactors involved in Alzheimer's disease such as stroke. They're a life-long disease process. You don't have to wait till your 80 years old to do something to maintain the rest--the health of the rest of your brain. By preventing stroke, buckling your seatbelt up so you don't get brain damage and doing other things to keep the rest of your brain healthy allows the brain to compensate for some of the damage that can commonly come from Alzheimer's disease. So I'd say stroke prevention whether you're 20 or you're 80 is incredibly important. Whether we're right or wrong, it's an incredibly important thing to do anyways. And there's hopeful findings now on Alzheimer's, things people can do to live a longer high functioning life.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Dr. Snowdon and Dr. Bogorad, thank you both for joining us. FOCUS - ADVISE & CONSENT

JIM LEHRER: Now, day two of the Senate confirmation hearings for the nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: President Clinton's national security adviser, Anthony Lake, is seeking the support of the Senate Intelligence Committee and eventually the full Senate to become the third director of Central Intelligence of the Clinton administration. Today Lake's second day of public confirmation hearings went much like his first yesterday. Republican Senators questioned him closely about the administration's secret decision to give no instruction; that is, take no position on the 1994 influx of Iranian arms to Bosnia during the war there. Utah's Orrin Hatch challenged the administration's claim that the Iranian arms had the positive effect of keeping the Bosnian government from collapsing.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH, [R] Utah: Finally, what part of the grand strategy was the no instructions policy? Clearly, in my opinion, it would not change the war because it was a strategy that merely slowed the attrition of Bosnia's forces. In short, it prevented the annihilation of the Bosnians but did not allow them to forcefully defend themselves. What was the end game you conceived of in 1994?

ANTHONY LAKE, CIA Director-Designate: Our answer to that--and here I think the facts speak for themselves--was in the first case to form or to help in the formation of the federation between Croatia and Bosnia. We not only through this strategy got peace in Bosnia, but we also achieved our objectives of reducing Iranian influence. It was a fact of the war that drove the Bosnians to rely on the Iranians. Once we had peace, we forced the Bosnian government to make a choice between us and Iran, and they made the right choice.

SEN. DAN COATS, [R] Indiana: Congress had no knowledge you had made that decision. At the same time that you had made the decision to allow arms to go into Bosnia, the President and the administration was publicly stating that we supported the arms embargo.

ANTHONY LAKE: Senator, I have said repeatedly, and I will say it again, that we should have informed on a discreet basis the Congress about that decision.

SEN. DAN COATS: Why didn't you?

ANTHONY LAKE: We should have.

SEN. DAN COATS: Why didn't you inform Congress? It wasn't an oversight, was it?

ANTHONY LAKE: Senator, the irony here is that the decision was in the same direction that the Congress was moving.

KWAME HOLMAN: Senators also returned today to a June 1996 meeting at which FBI agents warned two members of the National Security Council staff that the Chinese government might try to influence the presidential elections. The staff members told neither their boss, Lake, nor the President about the FBI warning.

SEN. JON KYL, [R] Arizona: You should have been informed, which means there was no justification for you not being informed. Yesterday, however, you testified that you couldn't really evaluate whether the two senior staffers working under you did the right thing or not by not informing you. One of these statements has to be wrong. I mean, they can't both be true. Either you should have been informed, or there was an excuse for not informing you.

ANTHONY LAKE: I do not know what the information was that my staff members were evaluating. And I do not know exactly what they were told with regard to how to handle that information by the FBI. Not knowing those things I am not going to sit in judgment now as to the decision they made not to inform me, because they are fine officers, and I do not think it is right, especially in public, to sit in judgment on that way when I don't know the facts.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY, Chairman, Intelligence Committee: I'm concerned that you were unable to establish an environment, an environment at the National Security Council that would allow this information to reach you. You said earlier--you alluded to the fact intelligence is good but it has to be used, doesn't it? In this case, if it stopped at a certain level, it didn't reach a threshold, there's a breakdown, is it not?

ANTHONY LAKE: There appears to have been some sort of breakdown for some reason here. But breakdown, itself, implies that there was a system that broke down, and I think the system had been working very well on intelligence matters for four years.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: How can we, Dr. Lake, be assured if you were to take the helm over at Langley that you will do what you will do as DCI what appears that you were unable to do over at the White House?

ANTHONY LAKE: Senator, if you're asking me to guarantee that in what I hope will be four years as the director of Central Intelligence that nothing ever will go wrong in that agency, then I cannot guarantee that, obviously.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: I understand that.

ANTHONY LAKE: What I can guarantee you is that, one, when things go wrong, I will hold myself responsible, and in holding myself responsible when things go wrong, I will look into it. If individuals made mistakes, I will hold them accountable. If the system was wrong, if it's broke, we'll fix it.

KWAME HOLMAN: Accountability was just what some committee members wanted from Lake. They pushed him to commit to an overhaul of the CIA which has suffered from revelations of spies within its own ranks.

SEN. JOHN CHAFEE, [R] Rhode Island: One of the problems that I think is left unresolved by your predecessors is the handling of those who were involved in the Ames situation. I just--and we have- -this committee did some investigation in that, and the reports that came back were pretty stern on the agency for what seemed to be insufficient calling to accountability of those in the agency who permitted this situation, or not permitted but did not discover this situation. Do you have any thoughts on that?

ANTHONY LAKE: I can think of nothing more serious than the question of catching and dealing with those would betray their country. The word should go out that if you're a spy, you're going to get caught, because we're doing a lot better job now than we were before Ames in catching them.

SEN. JOHN CHAFEE: All I can say is that we count on you and rely upon you to exercise that accountability that you, yourself, have said is an important part of running that organization.

ANTHONY LAKE: Senator, you can count on it.

KWAME HOLMAN: Despite the critical tenor of nearly all the questioning, Lake was told he does have support on the Intelligence Committee. Democrat Bob Kerrey of Nebraska said the Bosnia and China issue would not affect his vote.

SEN. BOB KERREY, [D] Nebraska: I'm not going to vote against you, as a consequence, your role in Iran-Bosnia, though I was very strongly critical at the time, both publicly and privately, of the no instructions, non-informing of Congress. I think it was a mistake. I'm not concerned over the notification over the Chinese briefing. I don't think--it's clear to me that not all intelligence reaches the boss, and in a compartmentalized environment, all intelligence is not supposed to reach the boss. That's not a breakdown, and I don't regard that as a problem. I can say to you- -I'll say for the record--though I think it's a significant issue, if I'd have been a staffer at the NSC, I'm not sure I would have kicked it upstairs.

KWAME HOLMAN: Tomorrow, the Intelligence Committee will spend part of the day questioning Lake in a closed session where he can address classified matters. The hearings will continue into next week.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, an inside look at the new Congress. FINALLY - LOW GEAR

JIM LEHRER: Now a slow start for the 105th Congress and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Two years ago the Republican takeover of Congress was the story in Washington. Legislative activity in the House of Representatives was fast and furious. The statistics from this year's new Congress on the other hand paint a very different picture. In its first two months the 105th Congress has been in session on the floor for only 58 hours, and it has taken just 27 votes. During the same time frame two years ago the 104th Congress had seen 296 hours of floor action and had held 176 votes. For perspective on this we turn to five House members, all of whom came on the NewsHour from time to time during their first term in office. With us again are four sophomores, Democrat Zoe Lofgren of California, and Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania, and Republicans Zach Wamp of Tennessee and George Nethercutt of Washington. They're joined tonight by third term Republican Congressman Henry Bonilla of Texas. Welcome back all of you. Zach Wamp, let's start with you. Explain these statistics. What's going on?

REP. ZACH WAMP, [R] Tennessee: Well, they said we were going too fast in the last Congress, and now some people say we're going too slow. I think that we're methodically going about our business, and I think we caught our stride really last year as we tried to get presidential signatures on a number of initiatives and we did, and they re-elected us and said now you're at a pace we can stay with you on, and we're going about our business in a very professional way. We all three serve on the Appropriations Committee where we're working real hard to continue downsizing the federal government, leading to a balanced budget, and it's tough work. We're at the committee right now, all of us, trying to find ways to continue to reduce spending.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that, there's more going on here than meets the eye?

REP. GEORGE NETHERCUTT, [R] Washington: Oh, for sure, Margaret. I think this is a deliberate pace that we're engaged in. We couldn't possibly sustain the pace that we had two years ago. That was terribly unusual. It was productive, in my judgment. It was a good thing that we did it. But now we're back to I think a more sensible pace, at least some of us have a life now, and somehow the workload is bigger than it's ever been, I believe. It's just more local to our districts. We're able to focus on issues that are important to us individually and our district, and we'll get to the nation's business from a national perspective in due course.

MARGARET WARNER: You held a press conference today, Chaka Fattah, with quite a different perspective on this.

REP. CHAKA FATTAH, [D] Pennsylvania: Well, I said today had to do with what the Congress is doing, that is, the committee I serve on, the Government Reform Committee, is spending a great amount looking at the 1996 elections, and looking into irregular or illegal activity that took place. And I suggested that we should use the Federal Election Commission which the Congress set up and we fund to regulate and investigate federal elections, rather than spend our committee's time on it. I don't think it's a matter of just the clock, how much time we're spending. The compass is more important actually, what direction are we going in, and I think there is a new sense in the Congress of a slower pace which is a lot healthier for us all, I think, from the humanistic standpoint, but we have not yet I think found our stride on focusing in on the critical issues that face the country. We haven't been able to really set our sights in terms of what we're going to do to improve educational opportunities, for instance. So I think that there's some work for us to do. The pace is a lot slower, but I think the end product has to be relative to the nation's priorities.

MARGARET WARNER: What do you see as the biggest difference between this first couple of months of this Congress and last time?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN, [D] California: Well, in the last Congress we did all-nighters. Once I think we were in session for 36 hours in a row and voted on things mostly that never became law and it was very contentious. This year I think we've gone off in the opposite extreme, and we're really not doing much of anything. The Science Committee that I serve on is a wonderful, important committee, got organized this morning, and here it is mid March. And I will say we've tried even without having assignments to have hearings and the like. I think the members are interested in doing something useful, but for whatever reason we're not really producing results on the subject that people really care a lot about. What I hear when I go home is education and juvenile delinquency and prevention and how do we get our country back on the right track on a bipartisan basis.

MARGARET WARNER: Why do you think Congress isn't coming to grips yet with these issues?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, it's hard to know. We just came back from a bipartisan retreat that I thought was very healthy, and where some members who've been here for years, over ten years, spoke to each other for the first time, so I am hopeful that at least having met each other now, we'll be able to engage in the dialogue and find common ground because the common ground for the most part was not present in the 104th, and it hasn't been present really in the 105th.

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Bonilla, how do you see it? Because you have a longer--even longer view than everyone here. Do you see the slowdown as a healthy development, as your fellow Republicans do, or something else?

REP. HENRY BONILLA, [R] Texas: Well, this Congress is not only different from the last Congress but it's very different from the Congress before. If you'll recall, when Bill Clinton was elected the first time, the Democrats had a huge majority and a very, very aggressive big government agenda. And then the next time America- -elections, America rejected that, and we got the Republican majority, and we had a very aggressive Republican agenda. And frankly, we tried to save the world in 100 days, and it was too fast for the American people to accept without us educating them and taking them along, letting them know what we're doing slowly because we have to remember people out there are worried about the same things. They're going to church festivals; they're concerned about regulations, and private property rights, and legal problems in their communities via tort reform, and they're not reading the "Washington Post" every day here and saying, hey, how come you're not--don't have a more aggressive agenda like the "Washington Post" and "New York Times" might be suggesting? When we go home, we're not hearing anyone tell us, hey, what's wrong with the pace this time? They're talking about the same issues that we've been hearing about some time. They want us to eliminate the IRS. They want us to basically get the government off their back, off their land, and out of their pocket. And they're understanding that we've got to go a little slower this time at a more normal pace, and they're accepting of that. The other thing that's important is that there's not a lot of enthusiasm to try to pass 10 bills in a week or whatever and then watch the guy up the street on Pennsylvania Avenue simply veto them all. We've got to find a different way to approach this, so we don't just have a confrontation with the White House every time.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, Zach Wamp, as you know, a lot of conservatives on the outside are taking what three of you have said, which is we're trying to work at a pace the American people can accept. And they accused you of timidity. I mean, Ralph Reed, the head of the Christian Coalition, said the leadership was afflicted by timidity, retreat, and muddleheaded moderation. What do you say to critics like that?

REP. ZACH WAMP: We're in the trenches doing the people's work to the best of our ability. And I think frankly we're trying not to be influenced so much by outside groups, whether they're conservative groups or liberal groups. I think maybe in the past there's been a propensity in this town to listen too much to these groups, instead of just doing the common sense thing that's right there in front of your nose. There's so much confusion right now with all these campaign finance reform scandals and all this stuff in the city anyway if were doing a lot more, they might not notice it because every night the banner story is yet another one of these issues. And I hope that we'll fix the campaign finance system before we go too much further down the road with other legislation because there's a need for it, and it's a systemic problem. It's not the Democrats. It's both parties. It's the system, and I think Ross Perot's right on this issue. There's good people up here caught in a bad system that needs to be fixed by both parties.

MARGARET WARNER: How much did Speaker Gingrich's ethics problems and the aftermath of that, how much is that affecting all of you and the sort of energy and cohesion and drive behind House Republicans?

REP. GEORGE NETHERCUTT: Margaret, I think it was a distraction. It slowed us down, I believe, from getting to work earlier in a more vocal way and a more national way setting forth an agenda and saying this is what we want to accomplish this year. It was a distraction, that which is going on down at the White House is also a distraction.

MARGARET WARNER: You're talking about the fund-raising question and so on?

REP. GEORGE NETHERCUTT: Certainly. A new scandal essentially, new information, conflicting information every single day, and that's troublesome to me as a member who wants to go to work and do good work, but on the other hand, I'll tell you, as has been said here, we're working--I've not been much busier during the day. I've got four hearings held all at the same time. I'm going one to the other. We're working on appropriations measures that are really setting the tone for how the country will develop and what funding we will provide for the various programs that are funded by the taxpayer. We're being very careful about how we fund those, and we're being sensitive to the taxpayers' needs and also having that be reflected through the appropriations process, so maybe our friends here are having a little slowertime, but the three of us are very busy, and we'll meet our obligations in the Appropriations arena on time this year, won't be subject to criticism, and we'll move forward.

MARGARET WARNER: But I mean, there are some Republican members who are impatient and unhappy, are there not? I mean, Scott Cluge from Wisconsin said if the first 100 days last time reflected the Bataan Death March this has been like a 100 day Club Med.

REP. HENRY BONILLA: No organization is going to have total agreement. I'm sure that you have disagreements within your own household and you have disagreements within this television operation here. So, sure, we're going to have some, but it's healthy discussion that we can all get together and try to work on a common--Scott Cluge agrees on us on what we ought to be accomplishing. Whether or not the pace is something we can agree on is something we can work out, so it's not a problem to have that disagreement within our ranks.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you two see, as you look over at your Republican colleagues, not just these but in the House, what is your assessment, and I'll start with you, Chaka Fattah, what is your assessment of why they aren't as hard charging as they were last time?

REP. CHAKA FATTAH: I think that the American public in the last election re-elected Bill Clinton. He ran on a platform that he wants to see the country do more in education, protect our environment, rescue Medicare from its difficulties, that these agenda items that the President was re-elected on differ slightly from the Republican priorities, and they're having a hard time reconciling their desire to work with the President and get some things done, and what the President would like to get done and seemingly what the American people re-elected him to do. So that there are some natural conflicts here, and there's been this call for bipartisan cooperation. Now that does not mean non-partisan. Both parties have an agenda, and we have to find a way to get them together in a way that helps--to help the country. We have some work to do, and it's just a matter of how soon we're going to get to work at it.

MARGARET WARNER: And how cohesive are you Democrats? There again have been a lot of outside commentaries saying that with your minority leader, Dick Gephardt, already jockeying for a position for the year 2000, that that's affecting your ability say to work with the White House and the President on certain issues. Do you see that yet?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: I haven't seen that yet. Actually the President has--we were over all the women last Thursday and spent about an hour and a half with the President and Vice President going through issues, and I haven't seen that. But just commenting on Chaka's comment, I agree, but I think going back to bipartisanship, what I heard from some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the retreat, just informally talking, is that, you know, there's disagreements on the Republican side, and there are certainly disagreements on the Democratic side, but the margins are narrower in terms of the majority. There are ten votes, you know, that separate the majority from the minority really and so the divisions really make it hard to move forward which really tells me and I think a lot of us we've got to work together on a bipartisan basis to do things in the center, and I would argue, as Chaka said, on the agenda items that the American people chose in the presidential elections, specifically and importantly education, which is the number one issue that my constituents talk to me about and that all the polls show is the key to the future of this country.

MARGARET WARNER: So where do you think, if there is going to be the prospect of working with your Democratic colleagues, are they on the same issues that they see it?

REP. GEORGE NETHERCUTT: Well, certainly. I think we share the same issues. We may differ certainly on how we get the results that each of us want, but I think our results are a little different than theirs traditionally. We want to have government be more responsive, cut out waste and efficiency. We think that local control is better than government control at the federal level, so our philosophy is taking us in that direction. That's where we may clash in the coming weeks and months. This philosophical difference that the President has with the Congress, the majority in the Congress and some on the Democratic Party have--we'll have our differences but I think our ultimate objective is get to a balanced budget, get there honestly, and give faith to the American public that we're doing the people's work.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree, when you all really start getting down to issues, there are still going to be some big clashes?

REP. ZACH WAMP: Well, the bipartisan congressional leadership met with the President on the Hill just a couple of weeks ago. He came up to the Hill and met with 'em, and they came up five issues, and those are the five good issues, but noticeably absent, Margaret, was campaign finance reform at a time where we're in a crisis, and if crisis doesn't bring about resolution and change, when are we going to change? We haven't changed this system since Watergate. That crisis brought about that reform. We're in a crisis again, and we've got to come together on campaign finance reform. I'm going to keep saying it until everybody does because we've got to do it. The other issues are still very important, but if this is not a crisis in government and public trust, I don't know what is.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thank you five very much. It's very nice to have you back. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, the Scottish scientist who cloned a sheep said the technology is not ready for use on people. The American Medical Association reported small strokes in the brain accelerate deterioration caused by Alzheimer's disease, and President Clinton urged baby boomer parents who have tried drugs to give their children straight talk on the issue. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.