The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight, following President Clinton's historic visit, we look at Africa's largest country; Jeff Kaye reports on the Mexican drug syndicates' reach into the United States; Elizabeth Farnsworth examines new studies on the gap between black and white students; and a reading from Robert Pinsky's favorite poem project. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: President Clinton was in Tanzania today to bolster the faltering Burundi peace talks. Some ethnic Tutsi factions refused to sign a proposed accord with Hutu rebels. That angered former South African President Nelson Mandela, who mediated the negotiations. He said they had reneged on their promise to sign. More than 200,000 people have died in Burundi's seven-year ethnic conflict. Mr. Clinton said this:

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You can walk away from all of this and fight some more and worry about it and let somebody come back here ten years from now. No matter how long you take, when it comes down to it, they will still be dealing with the same issues. I say if you let anyone else die because you can't bring this together now, all you do is make it harder for people to make the same decision you are going to have to make here anyway. So, I will say again, if you decide, if you choose, not because anybody is forcing you, but because you know it is right to give your children their tomorrows, if you choose peace, the United States and the world community will be there to help you make it pay off.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Clinton is also scheduled to stop in Cairo on his way home to discuss Middle East peace with Egyptian President Mubarak. We'll have more on the President's Africa trip right after this News Summary. Vice President Gore today began a week-long focus on health care. In Tallahassee, Florida, he talked with seniors about his Medicare prescription drug plan. It would cover the cost of medicines for low-income seniors. For the others, it would pay half the cost up to $5,000 a year.

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE: That contrasts with a plan that the other side has pointed to, that says that only low income seniors would be covered, and then they would get a subsidy that they could take to insurance companies, and attempt to buy an insurance company plan that would cover prescription drugs. But the insurance companies have said they will not offer such plans. And they have said that approach will not work.

GWEN IFILL: A spokesman for George W. Bush attacked the Gore proposal, calling it "an old-style government-knows-best approach the American people soundly rejected when Hillary Clinton tried it in 1993." Governor Bush today continued to highlight education. In Austin, he talked about his successes in Texas, citing increased public school spending, more intensive teacher training, and early reading programs. He also pointed to a new national study that shows the achievement gap between white and minority students is growing. He said he'd work to change that.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: The federal government has turned a blind eye to the gap and to students who most need it by failing to require gap closing as a condition of the receipt of federal funds. Vice President Gore offers more of the same. He will not end the status quo because he is the status quo. He offers the failed ideas of the past. I'm offering new ideas -- ideas that are working and can appeal to both the Republicans and Democrats to break the gridlock of education in Washington, DC.

GWEN IFILL: We'll have more on student performance later in the program tonight. Two people are dead and several others reported missing today after fire gutted a giant Moscow television tower. At nearly 1,800 feet, it's the world's second-tallest free-standing structure, after the CN Tower in Toronto. We have a report from Mark Webster of Independent Television News.

MARK WEBSTER: Dominating the Moscow sky line for miles around, the television tower spewed smoke and flames as firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control. Jets were visible at the top of the builds as Russian officials said it was so badly damaged, it might yet collapse. Inside, water poured down the lift shaft as millions of gallons was used to douse the flames. But such was the intensity of the heat it left metal stairs buckled and powerful steel wires twisted. Hundreds of firefighters have been on the scene overnight. With emergency sprinkler systems apparently out of order, it was extremely difficult to get close to the source of the fire.

GWEN IFILL: Russian President told a government meeting today the fire illustrated what condition the country's facilities are in. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the New Nigeria, the Mexican drug cartels, the black/white education gap, and a favorite poem reading.

FOCUS - THE NEW NIGERIA

GWEN IFILL: President Clinton's visit to Nigeria. Kwame Holman begins.

KWAME HOLMAN: With his arrival in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, on Saturday, Mr. Clinton became the first American President to set foot in Africa's most populous nation since Jimmy Carter visited in 1978. Nigeria deliberately was not on the President's itinerary when he toured Africa two years ago, a sign of U.S. disapproval of former dictator Sani Abacha. This weekend's visit was designed to bolster Nigeria's fragile, 15-month-old democracy, which emerged after Abacha's death in 1998. The United States supports Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose election ended 15 years of military rule.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: After so many years of despair and plunder, your journey has not been easy, but we are committed to working with the people of Nigeria to help build stronger institutions, improve education, fight disease, crime, and corruption, ease the burden of debt, and promote trade and investment that brings more of the benefits of prosperity to people who have embraced democracy.

KWAME HOLMAN: A former army general who was imprisoned by Abacha, Obasanjo traded his military green for traditional garb and promised to build a civilian-run democracy. Nigeria, about twice the size of California, is one of Africa's richest nations based on its resources. It's one of the world's top oil producers, among the top six oil suppliers to the U.S. But for years, corrupt governments and businesses have been accused of siphoning off much of the wealth. Most of Nigeria's 110 million people live in squalor and desperate poverty. President Obasanjo has had a difficult time stabilizing his country. Ethnic conflicts in the North have brought periodic clashes between Muslims and Christians, and ethnic minorities in the Niger River Delta are demanding a share of the oil riches. Two years ago, impoverished locals hacking into a pipeline brought on a devastating explosion that killed at least 700 people in the delta town of Jesse. There have been more pipeline explosions since, killing hundreds more. The Clinton administration says a stable Nigeria is key to stability in the rest of sub- Saharan Africa, especially in the fight against AIDS and the effort bring peace to war-torn Sierra Leone. Last week, national security advisor Samuel Berger announced a team of U.S. soldiers was on its way to train Nigerians as part of a U.N. Peacekeeping force.

SAMUEL BERGER: Nigeria has spent $10 billion on peacekeeping in the last ten years. We have an interest in helping Nigeria bear this burden and to do it in a way that helps to build a professional army for Nigeria, not a political army.

KWAME HOLMAN: In his address to the Nigerian assembly this weekend, President Clinton called on Nigerians to continue to show strength and patience as they build their democracy.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I'm here because your fight-- your fight for democracy and human rights, for equity and economic growth, for peace and tolerance-- your fight is America's fight and the world's fight. (Applause) You have a chance to build a new Nigeria. We have a chance to build a lasting network of ties between Africa and the U.S. I know it will not be easy to walk the road, but you have already endured such stiff challenges. You have beaten such long odds to get this far. And, after all, the road to freedom is the only road worth taking.

KWAME HOLMAN: President Obasanjo said he and Mr. Clinton shared the same goals, and had friendly and fruitful discussions. President Clinton and his daughter, Chelsea, spent yesterday in a small village outside the capital. Thousands turned out to greet them, and Mr. Clinton donned a traditional robe. Today, President Clinton was in Tanzania to lend support to former South African President Nelson Mandela's efforts to broker a peace deal between warring ethnic groups in Burundi.

GWEN IFILL: For more on president Clinton's trip to Nigeria, we turn to Walter Carrington, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria from 1993 until 1997. He's now a Dubois fellow at Harvard University, writing a book on Nigeria. Mobolaji Aluko, professor of chemical engineering at Howard University and president of the Nigerian democratic movement. He was born in Nigeria and holds U.S. and Nigerian citizenship; and Karl Maier, author of the newly released book "This House has Fallen: Midnight in Nigeria." For ten years he was the Africa correspondent for the "Independent Newspaper of London." Ambassador Carrington, what is at stake for the United States in Nigeria? Why are we there?

WALTER CARRINGTON: I think President Clinton put it very well when he described what is going on in Nigeria as the most important democratic transition since the fall of apartheid. We know from what happened under the military dictatorship of Sani Abacha what a negative influence Nigeria can have in the region when it did as it did under Abacha inspired or incited military coups among its neighbors. In addition to that, in an era when we are unwilling to send American troops to do peacekeeping in Africa, we are going to rely upon Nigeria to continue the role that it has played as being the major peacekeeper in West Africa. And ofcourse, thirdly, there is the question of oil -- Nigeria our fifth largest supplier of oil. Nigeria is the country in which we have the largest investment, over $7 billion worth of investment in the country. And I think all of those reasons make Nigeria important to the United States because it is so important a country in Africa, the largest in terms of population.

GWEN IFILL: How about that, Mr. Aluko? Under the leadership of President Obasanjo, is Nigeria up to the task?

MOBOLAJI ALUKO: Certainly we hope Nigeria is up to the task. I would say that we are very happy that President has gone to Nigeria. There were a number of things that he went to there that he did not say when he when there he did not give us a debt consolation that we wanted. And also, he did not make some mention about the death of the Chief Abiola and his wife and Ken Sarawewa. And so, those are some things that we still need to talk about.

GWEN IFILL: You lived in Nigeria and you covered Nigeria for a while, Mr. Karl Maier. Do you think it is up to the task?

KARL MAIER: I think it is an emergency day for this government. This government has a very good public relations internationally but domestically, they are not solving the problems. And this government so far has not tackled the key problems. The unrest in the Niger Delta, the issue of the Sharia Islamic law in the North, the unrest in Lagos, and until they do that, trade agreements, new engagement with the international community will not make the difference. They have to put the house in order at home, and I think President Clinton's visit did not put enough focus on that.

GWEN IFILL: Ambassador Carrington, let's try to walk through some of these challenges. Mr. Aluko mentioned debt forgiveness and the fact that so many people in Nigeria would like to see foreign nations cancel more than $300 billion in debt. How important do you think that is to Nigeria's future?

WALTER CARRINGTON: Well, the amount of debt is somewhere between $28 billion and $32 billion. I think the thing that disappointed me, I think most about President Clinton's discussion of the debt issue is the continuing of conditioning it upon what is called economic reform which the IMF has used over the years, I think, to disastrous effect in a number of countries. For example, recently, part of the requirements of for economic reform was that Nigeria raise the price of its oil -- at the pump in Nigeria. It did so, and you got a nationwide strike as a result of it. So I think we have to be very careful in the kinds of conditions that we impose. I think the conditions that are procedural in terms of transparency and honesty are good, but I think we have to leave it to these countries to decide how best they are going to put their own economic house in order. I think that unless there is debt cancellation, we aren't going to be able to see the Nigerian government have the resources to deal with some of the problems that Mr. Maier talked about.

GWEN IFILL: Thank you for correcting me on the number by the way about the debt. You mentioned twice the issue of oil and Nigeria's issue of oil. Yet that barely got talked about in this visit that the President made. Is that a mistake?

WALTER CARRINGTON: Well, I think the President in terms of oil was mostly interested in using the, in getting President Obasanjo to use his good offices, among the OPEC nations to get them to raise their output so that the price of oil could come down. Nigeria is already itself producing at its capacity. So it is not a question of Nigeria producing more, but itis a question of Nigeria getting other countries to produce more so that the price of oil for us here in the United States will come down.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Aluko, we hear so frequently one of the major problems in Nigeria is coping with its own internal corruption. Is that a major problem that needs to be dealt with before any of this rest of this can be addressed?

WALTER CARRINGTON: I don't think Nigerians are more corrupt or less corrupt as individuals than any other persons in the world. But there is a systemic problem, I agree that must be addressed if we're to have investments. I really believe that the issue of infrastructure, rail, road, electricity, telephones, those are far more fundamental to, in order for us to attract investment. And I believe that when a systemic approach is done in terms of making sure that cash is not carried around the country, schedules, official schedules of pricing, of ways of going through the tenders and so on think corruption will reduce in Nigeria.

GWEN IFILL: Corruption a major problem?

KARL MAIER: Extremely big problem, and not just for foreign investment. They talk too much about trying to attract foreign investment. The investment, Nigeria needs Nigerian investment. There is a lot of money around the country. A lot of it is spirited out into Swiss bank accounts or U.S. bank accounts. And that is, it is a corrupt system, like the professor said. And it is going to take a long time to change it. You are not going to do it by passing just legislation. But what worries me about people always saying we're going to get investment from the West that will not solve Nigeria's problem.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Clinton has been to the continent of Africa before -- has embraced other new leaders before in poor countries that subsequent of that there have been wars that have broken out. Is Mr. Obasanjo the right person for the United States to embrace now?

KARL MAIER: Well, I think he's the only person right now because he is the civilian leader of Nigeria, and it is not for the United States to step in and say, let's find another leader. It must be recognized his election was, let's say tainted by a lot of rigging and it was not a very good election. He probably would have won it anyway. They have to deal with President Obasanjo, they know him and he's the civilian leader. And until there is a change, of course, he's the man they have to deal with.

GWEN IFILL: How about internal fighting Mr. Aluko within Nigeria among the Christians and the Muslims especially in the North?

MOBOLAJI ALUKO: Well, I think that's a major problem. I mean, that's one portion in which the President has clearly fallen flat on his face. I think that he should have addressed the issue of Sharia much more firmly and make it a constitutional issue.

GWEN IFILL: Sharia being Islamic law.

MOBOLAJI ALUKO: Sharia being Islamic law in the first instance that one state first adopted and now there are eight stops that adopted.

GWEN IFILL: Explain what it is. What is so objectionable about it?

MOBOLAJI ALUKO: Well, I would say in Nigeria, the Sharia law has been applied in the North, in various ways -- but not in terms of the penal code, not in terms of punishment of things not in the -- not a civil law, not laws -- I mean, Sharia has been applied to situations for only several cases.

GWEN IFILL: Sharia includes cutting off of feet.

MOBOLAJI ALUKO: Exactly. For criminals. It has not been applied prior to for criminal cases. But, the new implementation of Sharia on criminal cases really violates Nigerian constitution, and, but General Obasanjo or President Obasanjo failed that it would be too volatile for him to address it and he thought that it would just go away. In fact, his term was that it will fizzle out. But eight states are adopting it and there's a threat on the democracy.

GWEN IFILL: Ambassador Carrington, one major problem on the continent of Nigeria is the issue of AIDS and how one begins to curb the rate of AIDS, Nigeria being the most populous nation on the continent, how important is that to Nigeria's growth?

WALTER CARRINGTON: I think it is very important. I think one of the encouraging things is that President Obasanjo has recognized that AIDS is a problem, and I think the approach in Nigeria is likely to be quite different from that in South Africa. Now, Nigeria, while it has the largest population in Africa still has a rate of AIDS that is relatively low, about 5%, and so that if there is intervention now, it is possible to do what was done in places like Senegal to keep the rate low. Otherwise, you're likely to get the kind of explosion that we've seen recently in southern Africa.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Maier, the President goes to Nigeria, and it is a significant symbolically, but what's the best use of the United States support for a nation like Nigeria, which has so many other same kinds of problems that we've been discussing?

KARL MAIER: I think that the U.S. should put a little more focus on civil society, human rights groups. The problem in Nigeria is to build a society back up. The military rule has undermined individual and collective action to make their lives better: Education, health and human rights groups. And I'm a bit worried that the United States is putting too much emphasis on military training, patrol boats of the Niger Delta and even some of the programs, I feel that maybe too much money will go into the pockets of Americans working in Nigeria as opposed to Nigerian groups that can actually do the work.

GWEN IFILL: What's your answer to that, Mr. Aluko?

MOBOLAJI ALUKO: I agree with him. I agree the emphasis on military relations right now is a little bit too much. And I believe that the fact that we run a presidential system that is very similar to the United States, there needs to be a greater interaction between the two nations in terms of civil relationships, and that is why I applaud the fact that President Clinton did address the legislature about that, and talk about the greater emphasis of collaboration between the executive and the legislative. And I also, I just really hope that the issue of debt must be addressed. I really, although we owe the U.S. just under $1 billion, in real terms, it is not more than $150 million when it is discounted. And I think that the United States should make a commitment to have that canceled such that the other nations of the world can also follow suit.

GWEN IFILL: We'll have to leave it there for tonight. Gentlemen, thank you all very much.

FOCUS - NARCO TENTACLES

GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the reach of the Mexican drug cartels, the gap between white and black students, and a favorite poem reading.

GWEN IFILL: Jeff Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles has the drug story.

JEFFREY KAYE: In the southern California neighborhood, police equipped with armored vehicles and riot gear recently rounded up suspected drug dealers and users. Police departments conduct military-style raids like this across America, and while they seem to be purely local drug busts...

SPOKESMAN: Go back inside!

JEFFREY KAYE: In fact, police targets are the sometimes unwitting retail ends of global drug networks, based in Mexico and supplied by Colombia. Drug-related murders and corruption along the U.S.-Mexico border highlight the vicious competition among the four main Mexican drug syndicates. At stake is the immense income generated by the illegal narcotics trade. The drug syndicates, according to the U.S. Government, make $7 billion a year. That's almost as much as Microsoft earned last year. In the United States, seizures of narcotics and cash show that the far-reaching tentacles of powerful Mexican drug cartels are shaping the face of organized crime. A recent case involving seizures of massive quantities of drugs and money highlights the far flung influence of one cartel north of the border; it also demonstrates the enormous challenge confronting law enforcement in facing transnational multi-layered narcotics businesses. That case involved 34-year-old Jorge Castro who in March pleaded guilty to two of 12 federal narcotics charges. In a plea agreement Castro admitted trafficking in tons of cocaine, and tens of millions of dollars. A judge sentenced him to nearly 17 years in prison. Although he was arrested in Los Angeles, Castro is a Mexican citizen. More importantly, according to U.S. authorities, Castro was part of the notorious Mexican drug organization headed by brothers Benjamin and Ramon Arellano-Felix. Castro is related to the men headquartered in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, the Arellano-Felix organization is said to be one of the most ruthless and powerful crime syndicates in the world. It is believed responsible for the murders of dozens of Mexican prosecutor judges, police officials, suspected rivals and journalists. According to Michael Braun of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, Castro took his orders directly from Arellano-Felix leaders.

MICHAEL BRAUN: Jorge Castro was the highest ranking of the Arellano-Felix organization that was ever arrested on U.S. soil. The Castro organization, Jorge Castro also known as the boss, was a -- he was responsible for the daily operations of a core cell in the Los Angeles area that was responsible for distributing multi-hundreds of grams of cocaine across the United States.

JEFFREY KAYE: The DEA was one of six federal and state agencies that 15 months investigating Castro's organization. The investigation led to 50 arrests in southern California, Georgia, New York, Illinois, and Texas. But the Castro network was only one of many connections to Mexican drug syndicates. This informant considered reliable by the DEA says the Arellano-Felix group uses numerous operatives like Castro to run U.S. operations.

INFORMANT: (speaking through interpreter) I think there were 20 to 30 people, more or less.

JEFFREY KAYE: Doing what?

INFORMANT: (speaking through interpreter) Lieutenants of the cartel.

JEFFREY KAYE: Meaning running operations in the United States, is that what you mean?

INFORMANT: (speaking through interpreter) Yes.

JEFFREY KAYE: Peter Smith, director of Latin American studies at the University of California San Diego has studied narco traffickers. He says Castro's distribution network serviced what is essentially a major business enterprise.

PETER SMITH: They do the things that we would expect corporations to do. They form transnational partnerships when necessary. They vertically integrate their operations when that is advantageous, which would mean coming into the retail market in the United States. They diversify their product lines, the Arellano-Felix group not only does cocaine but also me that amphetamineminute in a growing measure and also transships heroin and marijuana as well. They are willing to make overhead investments to protect their market share. You might call it corruption, you might call it bribery. But, it comes back to shipping more goods than they really expect will reach the market because they expect that usually 10 or 15% of the shipments are going to be caught.

JEFFREY KAYE: Castro was indicted with eight Southern California subordinates. Like traditional mob families, several were related to each other. To transport drugs and to avoid detection, they operated on a need-to-know basis with two wings, one responsible for drugs, the other for cash.

SPOKESMAN: The reason that these organizations are highly compartmentalized, I mean, it is just smart business sense on their part. If one of these folks gets taken down, they really can't identify anyone other than, you know, those that they work with on a day- to-day basis.

JEFFREY KAYE: The top men in Castro's organization did not call attention to themselves. They lived middle class lives in suburban southern California neighborhoods like this. One key associate, Luis Valenzuela, a fugitive, lived in this house across the street from a neighborhood watch sign. He owned a restaurant in a nondescript shopping mall. The organization used houses and businesses in the LA area as temporary warehouses for drugs or money. Castro workers used vehicles, often equipped with hidden compartments to transport drugs within the U.S. and money to Mexico. Often, the hiding places were activated through a combination of switches. LA Deputy Sheriff Gene Johns who was part of the task force that investigated Castro demonstrated an elaborately constructed hiding place. He asked us to conceal his face.

GENE JOHNS: You touch it, you think that you are hitting the roof of the vehicle.

JEFFREY KAYE: Looks like the roof.

GENE JOHNS: It looks exactly like a showroom roof.

JEFFREY KAYE: How difficult was this to detect?

GENE JOHNS: Very difficult. It took four hours.

JEFFREY KAYE: What was in here?

GENE JOHNS: 40 kilos of coke. Five of these units - per metal tray.

JEFFREY KAYE: Braun says the well-financed traffickers have been helped by the availability of state-of-the-art communications technology.

MICHAEL BRAUN: They're using cell phones; they're using fax machines, they are using pagers to communicate. Again, some of the cell phones are encrypted. Some are not; they go to great lengths, okay, to make their operation as precise as they can.

JEFFREY KAYE: To investigate, Castro and his network, agents got federal court orders to wiretap 29 phones. They listened to hundreds of phone calls. Suspicious traffickers often spoke in crudely disguised code.

SPOKESPERSON: (speaking through interpreter) They are the girls, they are very pretty to go to the dance.

JEFFREY KAYE: Girls, the word used by Juan Carlos Lopez, one of those indicted, described cocaine.

SPOKESPERSON: (speaking through interpreter) Yes, because they told me it was an hour and a half.

JEFFREY KAYE: An hour and a half was 150 kilograms of cocaine. Some calls were ominous. In one, Jorge Castro seemed to order two murders.

SPOKESPERSON: (speaking through interpreter) You go and invite that girl to go out somewhere and pick her up and kill her.

JEFFREY KAYE: Police say they don't know if Castro's organization actually carried out the hits. But as with other organized crime groups, according to this informant, violence and intimidation were common.

JEFFREY KAYE: Was Castro or his organization responsible for any murders?

INFORMANT: (speaking through interpreter) Yes. I don't know which ones.

JEFFREY KAYE: In the United States or in Mexico?

INFORMANT: In both places.

JEFFREY KAYE: Over drug-related disagreements?

INFORMANT: (speaking through interpreter) Yes. They are called adjustments of accounts.

JEFFREY KAYE: Adjustments of accounts. Someone owed someone money and didn't pay them, or drugs and didn't pay them?

INFORMANT: (speaking through interpreter) Correct.

JEFFREY KAYE: Wire taps often led police officials to stakeouts. Traffickers commonly exchanged money and drugs in public areas, such as this shopping center parking lot in Ontario, California. Police surveillance video of the lot in January, 1998, shows a common technique, switching cars. A courier gets out of one car and gets into the passenger's side of a nearby vehicle. At the same time, a man with a baseball cap, later convicted as a Castro associate, gets into the first car. Both cars leave. The switch is made. As drug wholesalers, the Castro organization often used gangs to serve as retail networks. Castro's group commonly sold the narcotics on consignment to gang leaders. The Castro investigation also led to the arrests in mid 1998 of these three men whom authorities consider links between the Castro organization and street gangs. The men are charged with possessing more than 600 pounds of cocaine. Police say they were led to the men after a wiretapped conversation. All three have pleaded not guilty to drug charges, and to allegations that they have ties to two gangs. A Santa Ana, California street gang and the powerful Mexican mafia which is a U.S. prison-based gang. Prosecutor Howard Gundy said drug syndicates in Mexico use members of the Mexican mafia as distribution agents.

HOWARD GUNDY: The contract with a member of the mafia who then uses individuals from criminal street gangs for these, the actual leg work and muscle work that's involved in moving the large quantities of cocaine; they are the mules and enforcers and so forth.

JEFFREY KAYE: But despite those arrests and the arrests of Castro and his associates, drug distribution has continued. This March, police mounted an anti-drug raid in the same gang's community, Santa Ana. At the time of Castro's arrest, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles declared the indictment of Castro and his co-defendants will significantly disrupt the domestic operations of one of Mexico's most notorious drug-trafficking operations. But this informant says the Arellano Felix organization quickly recovered.

INFORMANT: (speaking through interpreter) Always when there is people at this level, when they are the bosses like this, they always have someone else, so that they are there. They have those people.

JEFFREY KAYE: Has Castro been replaced?

INFORMANT: (speaking through interpreter) He had to be replaced. He probably already has been.

JEFFREY KAYE: The availability and price of cocaine have also not changed appreciably since the Castro arrest.

PETER SMITH: The logic of the drug war has been that if you interdict and harass and stop shipments enough, the price of the cocaine will go up so high, that people will buying it. We know that the prices have be going down over the last ten or fifteen years. That they are staying down -- and that the best indicator of a real change in the situation would come from cocaine prices. We are not seeing a sharp increase in prices.

MICHAEL BRAUN: We're doing the best we can with what we've got; again, we're keeping a cap on it, and without the local state and federallaw enforcement focusing efforts on drug enforcement, you tell me. What do you think would be like out on the street? It would be a lot worse than it is now.

JEFFREY KAYE: The federal war on drugs costs $17 billion a year. Despite occasional victories such as the assault on the Castro organization, soldiers in the war as well as critics agree that as long as there is strong demand for narcotics and the ability to pay, the drug trade and the growth of organized crime will continue.

GWEN IFILL: Next, Elizabeth Farnsworth looks at two new education studies.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: A new U.S. Department of Education report card monitoring student achievement across 30 years has found that the gap between whites and blacks in reading, mathematics, and science remains significant and in some cases is growing. A separate report issued today on the effect of school vouchers in three cities found test scores much improved among African American students who used vouchers to move from public to private schools.

For more on these studies we turn now to Michael Nettles, Professor of Education at the University of Michigan, and vice chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, which administers the study for the nation's report card; Chester Finn; President of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, an education policy think tank in Washington; Kati Haycock director of the Education Trust, an independent nonprofit organization that works to improve student achievement; and Paul Peterson, a professor of government studies at Harvard University. He led the school voucher study released today.

Thank you all for being with us.

Michael Nettles, first the national test. Who takes it? Who gives it?

MICHAEL NETTLES; Well, the test is taken by 17, 13 and 9-year-olds, a representative sample of the nation's students in public and private schools. And what it basically shows is that children at those age groups are performing better today than they were 30 years ago. So that's good news, especially in math and science. The other good news is the gap between blacks and whites have narrowed over that period of time. The disappointing news is that the gaps have widened between blacks and whites since 1988.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Give us more information about the gaps. Examples.

MICHAEL NETTLES: Well, in 1980, for example, let's go back to the beginning. In 1971, there was a 52 point difference between the performance of African-Americans and whites in mathematics. Those narrowed to about 20-point difference in 1988. But since 1988, the gap has gone back to a 32-point difference. So it is halfway between where it was in 1971, and in 1988.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But it is quite serious, isn't it? Tell me, is this right, I read for black 17-year-olds, the average scores in reading and math are the same as for 13-year-old white pupils. Is that true?

MICHAEL NETTLES: Well, that's one interpretation because these are on the same scale. So that what it suggests is that African-Americans are reading below white 17-year-olds, African-Americans who are 17-year-olds are reading closer to the 13-year-olds than they are to 17-year-old whites.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And the gap remains large for the children of college-educated parents too?

MICHAEL NETTLES: Yes. In fact, the gap between African-Americans and whites among parents, children of parents who graduated from college are wider than they are for non-college graduates. What this suggests is that college - but let me make another point. The children of African-Americans whose parents went to college performed better than children of African-Americans who did not. What this suggests is that college does have a benefit, but it is a differential benefit between blacks and whites. And it has a greater benefit for whites than blacks, say in such matters as income and occupational attainment.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Nettles, why is this happen something does your study give you any insight into that?

MICHAEL NETTLES: Well, some of the performance improvements of African-Americans over the past 30 years is due to their increase in performance at lower levels of skill. For example, in mathematics, the vast majority of children are not able to perform one step problems, but when it becomes, when it comes to more complex tasks, like using fractions, decimals and even more complex uses of mathematics, children are having a great deal more difficulty. We have seen a lot of the gaps eliminated at the lower levels performance in each of the subject areas of reading, math and science. But it is now higher standards and more expectations of, for performance of more complex tasks are needed.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So, basically you are saying that low expectations would be one explanation for why this is happening.

MICHAEL NETTLES: Yes, that's one. Another is lower quality schools. The African-Americans in the nation in general are attending schools that are not at of the same quality on average as their white counterparts -- higher rates of teachers teaching science and math, for example, who are not certified in those subjects, or higher rates of absenteeism among teachers, lower quality schools in general. So that may be having a significant impact on these differences.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Chester Finn, what's your reaction to this study?

CHESTER FINN: Well, the big news is how flat these scores are over 30 years. There are blips up; there are blips down. There's some narrowing of gaps. There's some widening of gaps. If you look at this in the big picture, it is pretty flat from the '70s across the '80s and across the '90s. That says to me our efforts at education reform in this country as a whole have not got much traction -- at least not for the country as a whole. We see promising results in particular places -- in one state or one city. And we see reforms that we have high hopes for. But to take this kind of giant barometer of kids across the country as a whole, they are not doing very much better now than they were doing 10 and 20 and 30 years ago, and the changes along the way are not nearly as significant as the lack of progress that was have made so far in our reform efforts.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So what do you think causes the gap?

CHESTER FINN: I think that the black/white gap in particular, which has been with us for a very long time, is partly indeed the result of inferior schools. It is partly the result of less well-educated parents. It is partly the result of lower expectations. There's a whole litany of things, I'm afraid that things we do not well for white kids but we do them worse for African-American kids and the upshot is that what Lyndon Johnson set out to do in 1965, which was to close the rich/poor achievement gap, it has not happened yet.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay, I'll be back to you on maybe what should be done about. Kati Haycock, what's your reaction to the study?

KATI HAYCOCK: I think the most important news is a powerful reminder that we actually made significant progress as a nation during the '70s and '80s in raising achievement among poor and minority children and in narrowing gaps between groups. In about an 18-year period, the gap between white and black kids nationally was cut in half. The gap between white and Latino youngsters which was smaller to begin with declined by one third. So we did, in fact, make real progress and there's a real reminder of that in the data in this report. The saddest reminder there though is that in the '90s that progress literally stopped dead in its tracks and since that time, the gaps have widened again. Mike made it very clear and this is true for Latinos as well as African-Americans - by the way -- that at age 17 their schools in mathematics and in language arts are virtually identical to those of white students at age 13.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And do you point to the same passage for this gap?

KATI HAYCOCK: I point primarily to school-related causes. There is no question that all of us as parents can help our kids to score better on these tests and to perform better in schools by reading, by turning the television off and so on. So there are things that parents can do. But when you look very closely at the differences in the quality of education received by African-American and Latino youngsters and poor youngsters of all races, you can hardly come away thinking that we have got a fair system. They are taught by more than their share of teachers, who are teaching out of field who are brand new, who are not well trained. They are more likely to be in watered down courses. The expectations for these children are terribly low. It is hardly surprising they don't do so well on tests.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Paul Peterson, respond to that study and tell us about your study.

PAUL PETERSON: Well, what we have found is that if children go to a private school, and have a set of teachers and a school environment in that setting, within two years, they close the gap by about one third. So, what was done, the progress that Kati is talking about in the '80s was achieved in the three cities we studied in the two-year time for those students who got a voucher and went to a private school. This is only the African-American students, I hasten to add. We did not see any gains for the other students, from other ethnic backgrounds. But we did see that black students can learn. And we also found out some reasons why.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay, before you tell us why, what three cities and just describe your study a little bit.

PAUL PETERSON: The three cities are New York City, Washington, and Dayton , Ohio. And what we did is we looked at a group of students who won a lottery to go to private school. They got a voucher to go. And then we had the group who did not win the lottery. So the two groups of students are exactly alike. We take the family background and the initial ability of the child out of the equation, and what we find is, this is the effect of schooling. And we asked the parent a bunch of questions about the school, and the ones who got to go to private school told us that there is much less of a discipline problem in the private schools. There is a lot more communication with the family: Higher expectations, more homework demand of the students and the schools are smaller. So these are some pretty basic things that seem to make a big difference for black Americans, didn't make such a big difference for the others.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So if you put these two studies together, would it be fair to say that would you say vouchers would be one answer to the gap problem?

PAUL PETERSON: Well, it looks as if it is able to close the gap when it is really difficult to find anything else that able to close the gap. I would also say, this is just three studies, it is not time to change American education overnight. But it is time to explore this as an avenue that might bring about some bigger changes.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay, Kati Haycock, respond to that, please.

KATI HAYCOCK: Well, I have got my doubts, frankly. If you look carefully at the research that Dr. Peterson and his colleagues just accomplished, what you realize is that, you've got test data for only about half of the kids in the sample. Secondly, the numbers of kids participating in the voucher program in DC, in particular, which is where they supposedly got the largest gains, actually diminished significantly between year one and year two, presumably going back to the public schools. You have to ask yourself, are six or seven points of gain significant, when you only have half of the kids even being tested, can we really be sure of these results, and I think as he indicated himself, it is not so sure here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let me just let Mr. Peterson respond to that quickly.

PAUL PETERSON: Well, you know, the students that we follow are pretty much a cross section of those who applied. The lottery was the way we chose who got in and is the comparison group. And you follow as many as you can bring back in. But there's no sign that we didn't get a pretty typical group of students. I doubt if any of these results, we would get very similar results in three different sites using three different research teams gathering the data, and when you get back, you say there is something going on here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Chester Finn, what's your response to that?

CHESTER FINN: Well, the Little Foundation I'm involved with is helping to support the program in Dayton, Ohio. And as an investor in that program, of course, I was pretty pleased to see these kinds of positive results for the three quarters of the children who have benefited from the program in Dayton who are, in fact, African-American. This was encouraging. As Kati said, I think we're not prepared to leap into some kind of universal public policy change on the basis of this. But this is a pretty promising suggestion that giving kids the chance to go to different schools, better schools is a pretty good way to narrow the achievement gap. And I hope we're able to do that for a whole lot more kids in this country over the next few years.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Kati Haycock, I interrupted you. You want to say something now?

KATI HAYCOCK: Well, I think it is important that we be clear about what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is very, very modest gains on a small number of kids. We have no idea whether that's an accurate representation. We have known for a very long time that comparable kids do slightly better in private schools than they do in public -- but only slightly -- and certainly not nearly as well as their counterpart do in other countries. So to suggest that putting even all of our kids in private schools is somehow a panacea for what ails us as a country is simply nonsense. Both public and private school children in this country do far less well in mathematics and in language arts than their counterparts in other countries.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Michael Nettles, when you take the study that you led or that you were chairman of, and you look at this new study what kind of conclusion dose you draw?

MICHAEL NETTLES: Well, I was delighted to see the study. I think that some of the attributes that Professor Peterson talks about that he observed in the schools, such as high expectations, focus on homework, high-quality interaction between teachers and parents, are attributes that we ought to learn from. And when they are aspects of the study that I would like to see improved. For example, some of the students in Dayton had a public school as a choice. And I would like to see how those students actually performed after wining the lottery. It is also interesting to find out what kind of inspiration people get from wining the lottery versus losing the lottery. So, those are aspects of the study that I think we would like to see continued -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right.

MICHAEL NETTLES: -- continue examining. But there is no doubt we need to have all sorts of ideas and solutions for this enormous gap between blacks and whites, in achievement in this country. And if choice is one of those, then we should spend a good bit more time learning more about it and trying to give people the option.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you all four very much for being with us.

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, another reading from the favorite poem series. That's the project of former poet laureate Robert Pinsky to ask Americans to read their favorite poem. Here is Paul Connah, a bookseller from Los Angeles.

PAUL CONNAH: The reason that I love this poem is because it's about a writer whose work I loved, in particular, "Moby Dick," the book. I think that it is the greatest piece of American literature perhaps of prose. "Moby Dick" is probably where Melville's pest best poetry is even though he wrote standard 19th century formal verse. His real poetry is in "Moby Dick." And Hart Crane has written a song of praise and a eulogy. Hart Crane, a modernist 20th century poet writing about Herman Melville as if he were at his tomb. I don't know if I we want to the tomb, but he called it "At Melville's Tomb." And he spoke about Melville and encapsulated in what is a short poem, through compressed imagery, the power that came out of Melville's writing about -- in "Moby Dick" -- about people and about death at sea. And I love the poem because of the sound of the poem, because of the imagery. "At Melville's Tomb" by Hart Crane. "

At Melville's Tomb

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge

The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath

An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,

Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,

The calyx of death's bounty giving back

A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,

The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,

Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,

Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;

And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive

No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps

Monody shall not wake the mariner.

This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

PAUL CONNAH: There's a line in the poem about Melville that says "This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps." And Hart Crane actually threw himself off a ship in the Gulf of Mexico and more than Melville, Hart Crane is really the fabulous shadow that only the sea keeps.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major stories of this Monday. President Clinton was in Tanzania to bolster the faltering Burundi peace talks, and Vice President Gore began a week-long focus on health care. Texas Governor Bush continued to highlight education. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.