The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Ray Suarez talks about telecom mergers with FCC Chairman William Kennard; Susan Dentzer updates the House votes on health care legislation; Margaret Warner interviews U.N. official Mary Robinson about war crimes in East Timor; Spencer Michels reports on Lanford Wilson's new play; and Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky notes the 150th anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's death. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The House passed a patients' rights bill today. It includes the right to sue a Health Maintenance Organization for denying care. It was advanced by a Democrat and a Republican and backed by President Clinton. It won out over three Republican alternatives. The vote was 275-151. We'll have more on the story later in the program tonight. The Clinton administration continued to press for ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty today. The President and Secretary of State Albright spoke out for CTBT, as it's known. Albright was before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She said the treaty was without question in the national security interest of the United States.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Let us be clear. It is potential proliferators who need to test. We do not. It is those who might wish to modernize. We set the standard for modernization. By approving the CTBT, we can go far to lock in a technological status quo that protects us without threatening others: At the same time, we would strike a historic blow against the spread of nuclear weapons.

JIM LEHRER: Some Senators have been looking to put off a vote till next year. It's now scheduled for next week. Opponents said they wanted a vote so the treaty could be officially rejected. They claimed testing was needed to ensure the safety and reliability of the U.S. arsenal. They also argued compliance by other countries would be too hard to monitor. The F-22 Stealth fighter has won partial funding in the Congress. House and Senate negotiators agreed last night. The deal requires the Air Force jet to pass stringent flight tests before more money is spent on the $60 billion program. The compromise was part of the $269 billion defense package passed late last night. It authorized Lockheed-Martin to begin work on six jets next year. The maker of fen-phen said today it has agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits against it. $3.75 billion will go to those who claim the diet medication hurt them. There will also be checkups for others who took the pills but are not now ill. If a judge approves, payments by American Home Products Corporation would begin later this year. The company pulled fen-phen in '97 after research showed the two-drug cocktail may cause heart valve damage. Donald Trump announced today he has formed a presidential exploratory committee. The New York real estate developer may seek the Reform Party's nomination. He is to meet tonight with Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, the party's leading elected official. Trump said he'll decide by next January or February whether to run. In Mexico, torrential rains have swollen rivers along the Gulf Coast and caused mud slides in the Eastern coastal mountains. We have a report from James Mates of Independent Television News.

JAMES MATES, ITN: A tropical depression is dumping many inches of rain over a wide stretch of Central and Southern Mexico. The results are both predictable and devastating. Torrents of water, mud slides, collapsed roads and bridges have so far killed at least 111 people, and there is little doubt that toll will rise, particularly in isolated communities beyond the reach of the army and the emergency services. No fewer than 160,000 people have been driven from their homes already. And the rain is still falling. In some parts, two and a half feet of rain has fallen in less than two days, more than they would normally receive in a year. They were hopelessly unprepared to deal with this amount of water. And some of the measures they are taking now have the look of desperation about them. The rivers are still rising. Floods like this have not been seen in Mexico for 40 years.

JIM LEHRER: Mexican authorities said the latest death count now stands at 131. In London today, recovery crews sifted through a blackened railway car. They have pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage since the fiery collision of two commuter trains on Tuesday. Authorities fear the death toll may rise to 70 or more. The British government said it would make private rail firms pay $1.7 billion to upgrade safety systems. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the head of the FCC; the House health care votes; war crimes in East Timor; a new play by Lanford Wilson; and an old poem by Edgar Allan Poe.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: The telecom merger regulator and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: This week, the mania for mergers in the telecommunications industry has raced ahead, as has the role of the Federal Communications Commission in regulating that industry. Founded as the Federal Radio Commission in 1934, today's FCC is responsible for overseeing radio, television and telephone companies. And with the explosion of cable TV, mobile phones, and the Internet, the FCC is now operating in a dramatically new world. In 1996, President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act, intended to spur competition among the many companies vying for dominance. What's followed, however, is a series of high profile mergers. Since the Act was signed, the FCC has approved 29 major deals, and has not formally rejected any. Just yesterday, the FCC approved the merger of regional phone companies SBC Communications, and Ameritech Corporation, creating the nation's largest local phone service. SBC owns two other Baby Bells, Southwestern Bell and Pacific Telesis...meaning three of the original seven Bell operating companies are now under one umbrella. This newly combined company will now control nearly a third of the nation's local telephone lines. To ensure competition, the FCC placed 30 conditions on its approval of the $70 billion deal, requiring the new company--among other things--to provide discounts to competitors for leasing part of its network-- to expand into 30 cities outside their region to promote competition for local calls -- and to offer discounts to low income customers. Also this week, the FCC was handed a new challenge, when MCI-WorldCom, the nation's number two long distance company, announced its bid for Sprint, the number three long distance carrier. MCI-WorldCom is itself an example of the recent urge to merge. The Mississippi-based WorldCom had gobbled up more than 60 companies before buying MCI and CompuServe just last year, and now plans to take over Sprint. When the deal was announced Tuesday, FCC Chairman William Kennard issued a strong warning about this latest mega deal, saying, "How can this be good for consumers? The parties will bear a heavy burden to show how consumers will be better off."

RAY SUAREZ: And with me now is FCC Chairman William Kennard.

Welcome to the program.

WILLIAM KENNARD: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: Why does the merged WorldCom and Sprint have a burden to show that this merger benefits consumers? I thought all they had to show is that it doesn't reduce competition.

WILLIAM KENNARD: No, that's not exactly right. Any parties that come before the FCC and propose a merger have to demonstrate why that merger is in the public interest and specifically how it will serve consumers. And when this deal came before us, we said what we had done in many cases and said that these parties bear a burden. Now, when MCI and WorldCom merged about a year ago, I indicated then that I was concerned about increasing consolidation in the long distance marketplace. So I believe they have a heavy burden to demonstrate that this merger will be pro-competitive and serve consumers.

RAY SUAREZ: But here we are in a world where the FCC has signed off on, following the other antitrust regulators and watchdogs, has signed off on these huge deals that we talked about in the taped report. How can you say no to any other big players that come down the road from here on out?

WILLIAM KENNARD: Well, I don't want to comment specifically on the MCI-WorldCom-Sprint combination, because that, of course, is pending before us. They'll have an opportunity to make their showing before the agency. But as a general matter, we have to make sure that as this industry restructures before our very eyes, that consumers are going to be benefited. We're moving into a really different world in telecommunications today. Consumers are presented with an array of new services and E-commerce and the Internet are really dramatically changing our society, for the most part for the better. And we have to make sure that that engine of competition and innovation keeps going. And that's why we look at each of these transactions on their own terms to make sure that we can identify specific benefits for consumers, more services, lower rates, better communication service.

RAY SUAREZ: Has the 1996 Act provided that so far? For one example, cable rates have risen much faster than inflation every year since the Act was signed.

WILLIAM KENNARD: Well, you know, this is not a monolithic marketplace, Ray. There have been some very, very tangible successes out of that Act. The wireless industry is a good example. We have a lot of competition in wireless. Consumers are paying 40 percent less for wireless services today than they were three years ago when the Act was signed into law. We have a lot of good competition in the long distance marketplace. Our challenge is really to focus on those areas where we still have entrenched monopolies. Local phone service is one area. Cable television is another, where you have dominant providers who still have not broken the back of those monopolies and introduced new competition.

RAY SUAREZ: But here we are watching what's really happening after the Act. Companies are saying, huge companies are saying, we are too small to compete in this marketplace so the only thing that we can do is get bigger, merge or die. The raising of the table stakes in that way doesn't exactly encourage new players to get in at the bottom end and become big. It's just impossible for them.

WILLIAM KENNARD: Well, again, you can't look at this market as one monolithic marketplace; it's many marketplaces, and it's changing dramatically. We are not going to go back to the days where we had just three broadcast networks and one national provider of telephone service. Those days are over. What I envision is a marketplace, a global marketplace, where you have a handful of national, indeed international, players, but lots of little niche players coming into the market and innovating. And we're seeing really good evidence of that today. For example, we have lots of choice in long distance. And you have a lot of new companies that have been born just in the wake of the '96 Act that are going in and providing data services and Internet services. So it's a very different and vibrant marketplace. And our challenge at the FCC is in the face of all these changes of technology in the law to keep this engine of competition going.

RAY SUAREZ: But if you are a Frontier, if you are a Quest, two of the smaller long distance companies, how do you compete with the larger companies, who are exponentially bigger than you are?

WILLIAM KENNARD: Well, the two companies that you just mentioned have been able to attract billions of dollars of capital just in the last few years because they've been able to target niche markets and because you have FCC policies that have allowed them to move in to formerly monopoly markets and compete. One of the things that we have done -- we did just yesterday in the context of the SBC-Ameritech merger -- is to harness the powerful incentives of these large companies to get together and use that as a lever to open the markets. That's why, as we saw earlier, we imposed a number of conditions to make sure that as a condition of these companies getting bigger they have to allow smaller, innovative companies access to those monopoly markets, so that they too can compete.

RAY SUAREZ: But one of the required counter deals, one of the things that they had to agree to in the SBC merger, was to move into new local markets. After the 1996 Act, local markets were now open to long distance carriers, and long distance markets were open to local carriers. To cynics, who look at this post '96 world, that's like telling a shark he has to eat fish all day. You know, as part of the deal, you're telling them they have to do something that they might have done anyway.

WILLIAM KENNARD: Well, that's not quite right, because in order for the local companies to get into long distance, they have to demonstrate that they have opened their market to competition, because that's the biggest challenge we have today, is making sure that Americans in their homes have a choice in local residential phone service. And so before we can allow the local companies into long distance, the local companies have to demonstrate that they've opened their market. And we have worked very, very hard at the FCC to pry those markets open. That's really what the SBC-Ameritech merger is all about -- using the power of that merger to pry open that local market to competition.

RAY SUAREZ: You've long been on record as someone who does not want this new frontier to resemble the old American economic scene, with two nations, one of haves and one of have-nots. How does that intention of yours play in with this tremendous -- this tremendous accumulation of capital power of market share? It would seem to make the little guys, whether it's minority buyers looking for radio stations, whether it is under-served markets looking for local telephone service, whether it's kids in poor school districts getting access to the Internet -- how do these two worlds merge, the way you see it?

WILLIAM KENNARD: Well, I have been -- I've really devoted my chairmanship to making sure that this communications revolution is an inclusive one and that as we move into this wonderful digital future that nobody's left behind. So if you look at every major merger that the FCC has approved during my tenure, I have ensured that as a condition to these mergers that the companies roll out these wonderful advanced services to rural areas and to low-income areas. We did this in the context of the AT&T-TCI merger. We did it just yesterday in the context of the SBC-Ameritech merger. We did it in the MCI-WorldCom merger, because we have to make sure that this communications revolution serves all Americans. I've worked very, very hard with a program championed by Vice President Al Gore to bring computers into all our nation's classrooms. We've invested about $4 billion in two years in wiring our nation's schools and libraries, many of the poorest and most rural schools in the country. The future is bright, but only if we ensure that it's a rising tide and everybody is a part of this digital revolution.

RAY SUAREZ: Is it more likely that minorities are going to be able to get into the game?

WILLIAM KENNARD: Well, we have to keep working very hard on this, and there's a lot of things that we're doing at the FCC. First of all, you can't curse the darkness. The world is changing. We're not going to go back to the world we lived in 20 years ago. We've got to make sure that kids in minority communities and rural communities have access to this technology so they can grow with it like kids in the suburbs. We also have to make sure that young, budding entrepreneurs in the minority community have access to these opportunities. That's why we're trying to get computers into the schools. and if you look at a lot of the mergers that we're seeing in the telecommunications area, as these large companies consolidate, many of these deals are being done on a tax-free basis. I think that we need to harness the power of our tax laws to help some of these small and minority businesses get into the field. That's why since the day I walked into this job I've been advocating that we bring a tax incentive known as the Tax Certificate back into our laws so that minority companies and small businesses have incentives to use our tax laws the same way that the big guys do. And I'm pleased to say that there's some momentum behind this effort now.

RAY SUAREZ: FCC Chairman William Kennard, thanks for being with us.

WILLIAM KENNARD: Thank you.

UPDATE - HEALTH CARE VOTES

JIM LEHRER: Now health correspondent Susan Dentzer has today's House votes on managed care. Our health unit is a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: On Capitol Hill, today was D-day for the forces who want to reform managed care health plans and those who worry that the impact of reforms could be disastrous. Managed care plans, including HMO's and so-called preferred provider organizations, now enroll more than three-quarters of all Americans with private health insurance coverage.

REP. CHARLES NORWOOD, (R) Georgia: What this really is all about is about very two strong American principals: It is about the right to choose in this country and choose your own doctor, and it is about the right to ask people to be responsible for our own actions. We do that all the time, and it's time to ask the insurance industry to be responsible for its actions.

SUSAN DENTZER: On the table today in the House were four separate reform plans, one bipartisan measure along with three others sponsored and largely supported by Republicans. The different bills had much in common, including guaranteeing the rights of sick patients to see medical specialists and broadening coverage for emergency room care. But the big battle was over how these plans differed in expanding patients' rights to sue health plans and collect damages if they were denied needed health care.

REP. MERRILL COOK, (R) Utah: If Americans have the right to sue for a damaged fence or an unsafe toy, they should have the right to sue if their health or life has been endangered or lost. This is a constitutional right. Doctors already face liability, but too often their decisions are forced upon them by an insurance plan. It's only fair, it's only American that the insurance plans be held to the same accountability.

SUSAN DENTZER: The four provisions came up for debate and vote one by one. First to go down to defeat was a plan sponsored by Republican John Boehner. Focused on the key patient protections similar to the other plans, it had no provision for expanding patients' rights to sue.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R) Ohio: Expanding lawsuits against employer-based health plans means expanding lawsuits against employers. And if employers are exposed to lawsuits, they're going to stop providing coverage to their employees. It means millions of American workers are going to lose their health insurance at the very time Congress should be working on expanding access to coverage.

SUSAN DENTZER: After the members dispatched Boehner's bill, they turned to debate the three others and to home in on the specific issue of health plan liability. At the core of the debate was how much to expand patient's current rates to sue health plans, which are greatly curtailed by a provision of federal law.

REP. PATRICK KENNEDY, (D) Rhode Island: Do you realize that the only people in our society that are exempted from our laws and exempted from being sued are foreign diplomats and HMO bureaucrats? They're the only ones in our society who are held above the law.

SUSAN DENTZER: The first of these measures to be debated was sponsored by Republicans John Shadegg of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a practicing physician. It was the plan ultimately endorsed by the Republican leadership after weeks of resisting any expansion of liability. The bill would have allowed patients to sue their health plans, but only in federal courts and only after they had appealed a denial of care through an external appeals process. The provision also would have capped the amount that could be awarded patients for punitive damages and other non-economic damages.

REP. MAX SANDLIN, (D) Texas: Mr. Speaker, do we need a new federal tort in this country? Do we want the federal courts preempting state law in this country? Do we want the federal courts taking over traditional role of regulating insurance that is assumed by the states in this country? I submit to you that the answer to those questions is no. But that is exactly what Coburn-Shadegg will do.

REP. JIM GREENWOOD, (R) Pennsylvania: This is obviously a balling act. It has been said over and over again this is a balancing act between too little liability and too much liability. The Goss-Coburn-Shadegg-Greenwood-Thomas, et cetera, coalition product is the middle ground. It is the exact right in my opinion balance between these two extremes.

SUSAN DENTZER: Republican leaders worked hard among their membership in recent days to attract votes for the Shadegg-Coburn Bill. But the plan was rejected handily, with 29 Republicans joining almost all of the Democrats in opposition.

SPOKESMAN: On this vote the are yeas 193. The nays are 238 and the amendment is not agreed to.

SUSAN DENTZER: A similar bill sponsored by Republicans Lindsay Graham and Amo Houghton also would have allowed lawsuits in federal court but would have banned punitive damages.

REP. JAMES GIBBONS, (R) Nevada: What we're doing here, Mr. Chairman, is trying to give certainty to our employers, that they know what their exposure to liability is. We all know that punitive damages cannot be ensured, that this comes out of the pocket of the employer. That's why we take punitive damages off the table. That's why we give a uniform approach to liability and to the remedies that are here.

SUSAN DENTZER: But a solid majority of members rejected that argument as well.

REP. STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES, (D) Ohio: I keep hearing the only difference between Houghton and the Norwood-Dingell amendment -- it only changes liability; it only changes the liability. When a lawsuit is brought, the only thing that matters is liability; no liability, no lawsuit, no damages. Why penalize the American public by restricting their ability to get damages?

SUSAN DENTZER: The defeat of the previous three bills cleared the way for final action on the lone bipartisan measure sponsored by Georgia Republican Charles Norwood, a dentist by trade, and Michigan Democrat John Dingell. Under their bill, people injured as a result of a plan's denial of care would have the explicit right to sue the plan in a state court; they could also collect an unlimited amount in compensatory and punitive damages. Throughout the day, Republicans and Democrats alike spoke out in support of the bill.

REP. ANNA ESHOO, (D) California: We can cast a vote that is going to keep faith with the American people, and I believe that when they come back to judge us, that this will be the yardstick by which they will measure members of the 106th Congress.

REP. CHARLES NORWOOD: I'm asking you today, folks, don't vote for this because you are Republican. Don't vote for this because you're a Democrat. That is not what this is about. I want to you vote for this bill, I want every one of you to vote for this bill today as an American. And let's show this country that on issues of this high quality and importance to the American people we're going to come out of this House and we're going to produce a good bill.

SUSAN DENTZER: In the end, the Norwood- Dingell bill passed, drawing support from an overwhelming majority of Democrats and a solid number of Republicans.

JIM LEHRER: And Susan Dentzer is with me now. Susan, this vote today, does it in fact constitute a major happening in the health care field?

SUSAN DENTZER: Yes, it does, Jim, because it marks really a high water mark of the growing backlash or the backlash that has been growing for two years against managed care. Frankly, the House and the Senate have both been debating these kinds of measures for two years. It did not seem possible until relatively a few weeks ago that a measure like the Norwood-Dingell could pass. But I think what happened, particularly in the House, is this members of both parties looked very closely at the current situation, came to understand that due to this quirk in federal law, HMO's and other managed care plans do have a shield against being sued, that almost no other entity in our society or economy has, and they decided that that was an issue that really had to be dealt with in addition to passing some other protections for patients.

JIM LEHRER: It had a kind of broad coalition of support. I mean, the American Medical Association, a lot of consumer organizations, some conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats, that is most unusual, is it not?

SUSAN DENTZER: Absolutely, right. Very unusual indeed was the fact that doctors in particular, were supporting this because it required them to get in bed with a lot of Democrats who they have traditionally not been in bed with and also particularly to come out in favor of lawsuits and other things that physicians have generally been known not to appreciate.

JIM LEHRER: Well, the president of the AMA was on our program last night. He essentially said, hey, they can sue us, why can't they sue the HMO's, that was basically their position?

SUSAN DENTZER: Absolutely right.

JIM LEHRER: Yes. Had this backlash that you talk about, had that just been miscalculated before now or has it been legitimately growing?

SUSAN DENTZER: I think that the Republican leadership in the House in particular had underestimated the degree to which it was growing and they had failed to read some of the handwriting on the wall, a number of suits have come forward not withstanding the shield in federal law where federal judges, for example, have said, look, this is crazy; there is a shield against these plans being held liable and I can't award any damages in this case but this is nuts. This is obviously not what Congress intended in 1974 when it wrote the law in question and were Congress to go back and revisit this today, in good conscience, it would not exempt those kinds of plans from the kinds of lawsuits that are brought in legitimate cases where people really are injured or in some cases go on to die.

JIM LEHRER: We need to point out that the fact that somebody sued -- there has to be a lawsuit and a verdict and all of that sort of stuff, appeals process, et cetera.

SUSAN DENTZER: Absolutely.

JIM LEHRER: Now, what happens next? The Senate has already passed a version of this.

SUSAN DENTZER: Yes, but a very different one, so that means what the great Congressional Cuisinart known as the Conference Committee gets going, two very different sets of ingredients will be poured into it. In the case of the Senate bill, for example, not only is there no provision for expanding liability which obviously was the most contentious thing on the House debate; also the Senate bill -- at least the patient protections for the most part in the Senate bill -- would apply to only 48 million Americans, whereas in the case of the House bill, 160 million Americans more or less are covered. The Senate in particular said, well, for certain plans that are covered under state law we'll let the states decide how to regulate those. We'll just focus on this particular pool of plans where employers pay the bills, where they self-insure. We'll regulate those and let the states regulate everybody else. In fact, in the case of the House they said that is nuts; we don't want 100 kinds of regulations applying depending on what state you are in. We want a much more uniform set of patient protections.

JIM LEHRER: Is there a timetable yet for the Conference Committee?

SUSAN DENTZER: No, and in fact at this point it is not even clear there will be a Conference. The Senate leadership in particular doesn't hold any great brief for expanded liability. It's possible that they could not hold a conference and just let the bills die.

JIM LEHRER: And let it become an issue in the 2000 election?

SUSAN DENTZER: Right, and at this point that is considered unlikely. It's probable there will be a conference but, again, what could come out of it, whether they could produce a bill that the President will sign since he has made it very clear he will only sign something like the Norwood-Dingell bill, all of that remains a major question.

JIM LEHRER: Susan Dentzer, thank you very much.

SUSAN DENTZER: Thanks, Jim.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, investigating war crimes in East Timor, playwright Lanford Wilson, and some Edgar Allan Poe poetry.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has the war crimes story.

MARGARET WARNER: Last Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, to investigate reports of atrocities in East Timor. Robinson is to recommend by December 31st, whether sufficient evidence exists to warrant an investigation or rather a trial by an international War Crimes Tribunal. A lawyer and former president of Ireland, Mrs. Robinson was among the first international officials to call for such an inquiry after a visit to the region nearly a month ago. And she joins us now.

MARGARET WARNER: Welcome, Mrs. Robinson.

MARY ROBINSON: Thank you.

MARGARET WARNER: About a month ago, when you were in the region, you said that there was overwhelming evidence of what you called a deliberate, vicious, and systematic campaign of gross violations of human rights in East Timor. Do you still feel that way?

MARY ROBINSON: I found when I went to Darwin and listened to the stories of the refugees in East Timor who have fled there, the accounts of civilian police, of different nationalities who had been working in East Timor from late June to prepare for the ballot which the United Nations was organizing, the accounts by military liaison officers who were also there, U.N. volunteers of different nationalities, that they all pointed to violations by militia but also involvement of army, of T N I, as they were called -- in fact the army orchestrating the violence by the militia. That intensified at the time of registration when the people of East Timor registered for the vote and it seemed to be appreciated the a lot of them were going to vote, were going to vote for independence so the violence became worse. Many pro-independence Timorese fled, and then they came back and voted; 98 percent of them courageously came and voted and then the violence really was unleashed in a terrible way. And part of the orchestration, the systematic violence, was to drive out the international eyes and ears, and that I found to be very disturbing; a very deliberate campaign encircling Dili, getting the international community to Dili, and then forcing them to retreat to Darwin.

MARGARET WARNER: And what kinds of reports did you find most credible? I mean, what kinds of violence are we talking about? We've seen a lot in news reports, but I'm interested in your view of this.

MARY ROBINSON: Violence of shooting, and shooting into the air first, then shooting into buildings, shooting at cars, shooting at cars which had U.N. personnel in them and might have -- I had civilian police saying the army were shooting at them as they fled the place and cross referencing - in fact, they weren't just saying a person in uniform. They were saying a named person because they knew them and this amounts to a very serious pattern of violence, which still needs to be investigated. We're still talking about serious allegations. And I think that's why an international commission of inquiry is the appropriate way to take that important step further.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. So, how and when do you start your work on the ground?

MARY ROBINSON: At the moment I'm appointing distinguished, eminent individuals. Two of them will come from the region from Asia and the other three will come from other regions, and because I haven't yet been able to put the full five together I'm not disclosing who the names will be. They will carry out the investigation over the coming months together with a team of human rights officers and other expertise, military expertise, forensic expertise, and to ensure that the evidence is properly compiled. As well as that there, is another inquiry and an important one being carried out by the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission into the violence since the 30th of August when the ballot was held. And that is important because it's taking ownership of a very difficult problem, and I'm glad that the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission in Jakarta has asked me and our office for help. And I've made it clear that we'll give them technical advice and support. And we will have some coordination between the two inquiries. The international commission of inquiry goes back to last January, which I think is very important because there has been a lot of violence before the voting, and terrible violence since then.

MARGARET WARNER: How concerned are you that your investigators weren't able to go in immediately with the Australian-led force, the way, for example, war crimes investigators in Kosovo went in immediately with the NATO-led force, so they were there right away to collect the evidence?

MARY ROBINSON: Certainly the situation in Kosovo was different in that there was an existing international criminal tribunal, so it is possible for the investigators to be there immediately. I believe that there are so many witnesses who can give firsthand accounts, refugees, victims who suffered and those who saw and who are trained military and civilian police, I believe that it's important to safeguard the physical evidence. We have been advising the appropriate ways to safeguard, where bodies are found in a well, where charred remains are found in houses and in other properties, where there is some evidence of bodies being taken out to sea and what can be retained of that. There are various issues that worry us -- weather, for example, can destroy some physical evidence. But I think that what the Commission inquiry will be looking at is a very large degree of first-hand accounts and it will be for the Commission of Inquiry then to report to me and I will report to the Secretary-General, as he has asked, before the end of December.

MARGARET WARNER: You said you expect to get cooperation from this Indonesian Human Rights Commission. Do you also, though, need cooperation from Indonesian authorities? I'm talking about the military, the very same military I gather you're going to be investigating.

MARY ROBINSON: Well, certainly the investigation will address violence by the militia and violence by T N I.

MARGARET WARNER: The Indonesian army is the T N I.

MARY ROBINSON: Indonesian army. That would require that there would be cooperation. I was very glad to hear the chair of the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission say very clearly yesterday that there was a moral duty on Indonesia to cooperate with the International Commission of Inquiry. Also we're going to see a transition to a U.N. presence and U.N. management of the territory of East Timor very soon. We're all concerned about the situation in West Timor and actively concerned about access to refugees, to those who are displaced too in West Timor. Many of them are in camps which are organized and run by militia. And it is of a matter of great urgency that they would be able to return if there is their wish to East Timor. I know that the refugees - the UNHCR are working very much on that.

MARGARET WARNER: But you are not involved in that?

MARY ROBINSON: Not directly, no, but I think it would be possible for the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission, as part of its fact-finding inquiry, to go quickly to West Timor. They would have an access there. And I have certainly encouraged that because their presentation as investigators of human rights violations could defer further violations against the people of East Timor.

MARGARET WARNER: But let me draw another comparison with Kosovo. In Kosovo the international community in fact would like to see Milosevic's regime fall apart, so investigating the Yugoslav military there is no conflict. But in Indonesia, the international community, in fact, has a lot of interest in the stability of Indonesia and the military is a big part of that government still. Do you think that might complicate your task?

MARY ROBINSON: I think what the Commission of Inquiry will inquire into is activity by named individuals, and those individuals will be accused of the serious allegations that were being made when I heard the reports in Darwin. How far up the chain of command goes it's very difficult to say at this point, but it certainly will be an issue that the Commission of Inquiry will have to look at, and I also place a very high priority on the human rights program which we have with Indonesia and indeed the progress in a number of areas of human rights, the adoption of a plan of action for human rights, the strengthening of the National Human Rights Commission, which Indonesia has carried out quite recently. And when I was in Jakarta, following my visit to Darwin, I had a discussion on this with President Habibie. It is important for us to encourage the civil society, the move to democracy, the wonderful idealism of young people in Indonesia. I met some of them, some, you know, human rights activists. So it's difficult and it will require a lot of balance and a firm approach on addressing issues of violation, gross violation in the context of people who for the first time were able to vote for independence and 98 percent of them came out and voted. And you know, I think it's a wonderful turnout of people determined to decide on their own future. And we must stand by them and bring about justice for the terrible wrongs that have been done to them.

MARGARET WARNER: Finally briefly and it may be unfair to ask you to do this briefly but as you said yourself this violence had been predicted. As you said, the early warning signs were there but the horror still happened. Then you are asked to come in and catalog the horror. Why does this pattern keep happening?

MARY ROBINSON: I think we must learn to prevent these conflicts. We must harness all the resources of early warning that we have. We've made a lot of progress. We have special reporters, we have committees, we have the work of my office, we have regional organizations. We can do better and we must in preventing because when a conflict takes place, the toll of human life is terrible. So I'm determined next century is the century of prevention of these terrible conflicts.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mrs. Robinson, thank you for being with us.

MARY ROBINSON: Thank you.

FINALLY - OZARK ROOT

JIM LEHRER: Now Spencer Michels reports on a playwright's return to his roots.

SPENCER MICHELS: The Ozarks in Southern Missouri is the setting for many of the plays of native son Lanford Wilson. The Ozarks, as he puts it: Lakes and rivers, great fishing, the whole countryside so beautiful in the spring it could break your heart. Dogwood trees, red bud, dairy farms, the grass so green it hurts your eyes." The words are from "Book of Days," Wilson's newest play, which has been playing at the Repertory Theater of St. Louis. The Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright was invited to come home to his native state to do this play, after living and working in New York most of his career. He and Marshal Mason, who directed "Book of Days" and nearly all of Wilson's works over the past 34 years, are fine-tuning a drama they believe is among Wilson's most profound. Sitting next to Marshal Mason on the set of "Book of Days," Wilson explained why he reaches back into his own boyhood in the Ozarks to talk about hypocrisy, bigotry and values in modern-day America.

LANFORD WILSON, Playwright: I'm really drawn back here. I often am, and in my thoughts and dreams. And maybe it's just youth. Maybe it's just that you go back to your childhood and the things you were taught, and go over... was that right, was that correct? Did I learn that? Who told me that?

SPENCER MICHELS: Director Mason knows Wilson's writing and mind so well he often speaks for the playwright.

MARSHAL MASON, Director: The thing about the Midwest, the Midwestern people, is that it is the heartland of America and, in that sense, it is the crossroads of all kinds of things: American values and hopes and dreams and aspirations and fears.

SPENCER MICHELS: In 1969, Wilson, seen on the left here, and Mason, co-founded the experimental Circle Repertory Theater in New York, which they consider the beginning of off-off-Broadway.

SPENCER MICHELS: What distinguishes off-off- Broadway from just off Broadway?

LANFORD WILSON: Well, off-off Broadway you don't get paid. You don't get anything. You do it all yourself.

MARSHAL MASON: It was created out of the need from the artists to express themselves, and at that point, Broadway was almost exclusively English: Harold Pinter and John Osborne, these guys were occupying the Broadway theaters. Off Broadway had become very commercial. It was running "Little Mary Sunshine" and "The Fantastics," and that sort of thing.

SPENCER MICHELS: Broadway wannabe almost?

MARSHAL MASON: That's right. A young American playwright had no place to go, and so we went to the little coffee shops - you know -- down in the village. Most of it was down in the village.

SPENCER MICHELS: Was this the genesis of the Circle Repertory Theater?

LANFORD WILSON: It was the genesis of every black box theater, every second- stage theater that is in all of the regional theaters. None of that existed until off- off Broadway.

SPENCER MICHELS: Circle Rep produced plays for 27 years before closing three years ago. Among its hits was Lanford Wilson's "Talley" trilogy, including "The Fifth of July," seen here in a television adaptation about a gay veteran whose legs were blown off in Vietnam. "Talley's Folly," which later played on Broadway, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980; it's the story of a romance between Sally Talley, an Ozark woman, and Matt Friedman, a Jewish accountant from St. Louis who is despised by Sally's family. On stage alone, Matt, played by Judd Hersh, makes the Ozarks setting universal.

MATT: Now, you would think that in this remote wood, on this remote and unimportant, but sometimes capricious river, world events wouldn't touch this hidden place; well, such is not the case.

SPENCER MICHELS: Wilson was born in Lebanon, Missouri 62 years ago, and baptized in a black church. He says he remembers a cafe on the main street, much like this one, that some of his relatives patronize to this day. 82-Year-old cousin Mayfield Wilson, a dairy farmer, remembers when Lebanon had a thriving cheese plant, which plays a key role in the drama.

MAYFIELD WILSON, Lanford Wilson's Cousin: They hauled it in here in ten-gallon cans and trucks, had a route. They would go around to the farmers and pick it up, and they made cheese out of that milk.

ACTOR: The real cheddar taste, it's no relation to 90 percent --.

SPENCER MICHELS: Using strong, rich dialogue, and memorable characters, Wilson in "Book of Days" rhapsodizes on the glories of true, aged cheddar cheese.

ACTOR: It's pungent, sharp, it's a little sour, and has this deep, deep flavor with a long, really sharp, but mellow aftertaste. That's the sign of a good cheese...the aftertaste. (Laughter)

SPENCER MICHELS: "Book of Days" is the story of a nasty murder that the town wants to cover up. The owner of the cheese plant dies in what looks like a hunting accident. But when Ruth, the bookkeeper, discovers foul play, the citizens in this apparently religious community ignore her.

RUTH: Conroy, have you done anything to this gun?

CONROY: What do you mean?

RUTH: You didn't clean it or anything like that.

CONROY: No ma'am, I didn't want to handle it any more than I had to if you want to know.

SPENCER MICHELS: Ruth struggles alone for truth and justice, much like Joan of Arc, whom she plays in a small theater production of "St. Joan." Wilson has cleverly woven the two heroic characters together. The townspeople also don't want to hear about how the plant owner's son, an ambitious would- be politician, is cheating on his wife. The wronged wife tells the town minister she wants an apology.

WRONGED WIFE: I want him to say to me and to Christ and to our congregation that he is sorry for it.

SPENCER MICHELS: But Reverend Bobby ignores the truth, and turns the tables on her in order to protect her husband, counseling her to keep her mouth shut.

REVEREND BOBBY: I won't have you stand in front of this congregation and say to them that you're not a fit wife, Louann. I won't have you humiliate yourself like that. (Audience moans)

SPENCER MICHELS: Religious scenes abound in the play, like this baptism of the suspected murderer that the reverend performs before his rapt church. Wilson, a Baptist himself, is no fan of fundamentalist religion in the 90's. And he holds strong political views, rooted in the 60's; he's worried about where America is going in the post-Vietnam era. He has said he doesn't want to be didactic or preachy in his writing, but in "Book of Days," he makes very clear his opinions, letting the chips fall where they may.

LANFORD WILSON: In this one instance I don't mind being didactic so much. I think there are things that you have to take a stand for or against sometimes, and I am really sort of shocked and appalled by some of the things that are happening. I grew up a Baptist. And I think it's a religion that embraces so much and I just hate to see someone, something so close to baptism... being divisive and saying "I hate this." That would never have said when I was... when I was baptized, when I was growing up.

SPENCER MICHELS: Many of Wilson's plays explore the aftermath of the Vietnam era and the sexual revolution, sometimes with a hint of irony.

ACTRESS: We did it for them, for our children and our children's children.

ACTOR: I heard that.

ACTRESS: Slopping barefoot and naked through the rain and freezing mud at Woodstock. For what? To make our country free, liberation. And look at what this perforated generation has done with it. It's treason.

SPENCER MICHELS: Wilson is angry that much of the idealism of that period is gone, though he acknowledges the hedonism of the era.

SPENCER MICHELS: Why is that era so important to you, and why should it be so important to the audience?

LANFORD WILSON: What we thought this country was going to be when... when a people's movement managed to end that war and change everything, we dreamed of such a much better country. It was the most angelic time this country has ever had.

MARSHAL MASON: It was a spiritual time and a time of great idealism, and that idealism - you know -- really took root among the young people, particularly, and the idea that we could make a difference in the future of our country and in the future of the world.

SPENCER MICHELS: Don't you essentially think people have forgotten that era? And it seems to me that you are bemoaning that fact, that it's sort of lost.

LANFORD WILSON: Yeah, I don't see anything. There is not a single remnant in the young people today; there's not one remnant of that idealism.

MARSHAL MASON: Kids don't read newspapers anymore or watch news on television. They don't care about the world. They've given up on it. It's like it's beyond them and hopeless. And if this play does anything, it's about the idea that maybe an individual needs to stand up and really fight for what is right, in spite of the consequences, because, of course, this woman pays dearly for her beliefs.

SPENCER MICHELS: This play ends very bleakly, no hope.

LANFORD WILSON: No.

SPENCER MICHELS: Are you...are you that...

LANFORD WILSON: I didn't know it. I didn't know it until I saw the play and said, "Shoot, this is pretty bleak, isn't it?"

MARSHAL MASON: And I think this play really looks at America at the end of the century, and it's saying, "we continue to change, and the direction that we are changing in should give us some cause for alarm;" that we'd better really rethink what our values really are. And the value of the individual needs to be reassessed here in America towards the end century.

SPENCER MICHELS: "Book of Days" then moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Wilson and Mason are hoping for a New York run after that.

FINALLY - FAIRYLAND

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, some words from Edgar Allan Poe. He died 150 years ago today. And NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky, the Poet Laureate of the United States, pays homage.

ROBERT PINSKY: It's fitting that this Edgar Allan Poe anniversary should come in the autumnal Halloween month of October. Poe has sometimes been mocked as a corny poet of coarse effects -- at best in French translation and more admired by French poets than those who write in English, like Tom Gunn, who wrote the epigram. "Though Edgar Poe writes a lucid prose, just and rhetorical without exertion, it loses all lucidity, God knows, in the single, poorly rendered English version." But Poe has a powerful imagination that can't be denied. He gives a haunting picture of that imagination itself in his poem called "Fairy-Land," not as well known as the insistent cadences of "The Raven," but possibly Poe's best poem, with its weird vision of a moon that becomes the fabric of a massive pale tent that in turn dissolves into butterfly dust. "Fairy-Land" "Dim vales-- and shadowy floods and cloudy-looking woods, whose forms we can't discover for the tears that drip all over. Huge moons there wax and wane-- again-- again-- again-- every moment of the night-- forever changing places-- and they put out the starlight with the breath from their pale faces. About 12 the moon dial one more filmy than the rest (a kind which, upon trial, they have found to be the best) comes down-- still down-- and down with its center on the crown of a mountain's eminence, while its wide circumference in easy drapery falls over hamlets, over halls, wherever they may be-- o'er the strange woods-- o'er the sea-- over spirits on the wing-- over every drowsy thing-- and buries them up quite in a labyrinth of light-- and then, how deep!-- O, deep! Is the passion of their sleep. In the morning they arise, and their moony covering is soaring in the skies, with the tempest as they toss, like-- almost any thing-- or a yellow albatross. They use that moon no more for the same end as before-- videlicet a tent-- which I think extravagant: Its atomies, however, into a shower dissever, of which those butterflies, on earth, who seek the skies, and so come down again (never-contented things!) Have brought a specimen upon their quivering wings."

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday. The House passed a patients' rights bill 275-151. It includes the right to sue a Health Maintenance Organization for denying care. And the maker of the diet medication fen-phen said it has agreed to pay nearly $4 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with Shields and Gigot, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.