The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER:

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is off. On the NewsHour this Memorial Day: The news of the day; the prospects for the new roadmap to peace in the Middle East; trying the unlawful combatants from Afghanistan still being held in Cuba; the book publishing business hits hard times; a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Paul Muldoon; and essayist Roger Rosenblatt with a Memorial Day observance.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: Israel's foreign minister said today he expects President Bush and the prime ministers of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to meet next week in Jordan. Silvan Shalom said they would discuss a U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map. The meeting would be added to President Bush's trip to Europe for an economic summit. Shalom's announcement came one day after Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, won his cabinet's approval of the U.S.-backed plan. The Palestinians accepted it last month. Among other things, it calls for the creation of a Palestinian state and an end to Palestinian violence. We'll have more on this in a moment. A plane taking Spanish peacekeepers home from duty in Afghanistan crashed today in northeastern Turkey. All 62 soldiers and 13 crew members were killed. It happened near the Black Sea during the aircraft's third attempt to land for refueling. Spanish officials said the Ukrainian charter planestruck a mountainside in dense fog and turbulence. It exploded and burned on impact. There were also American military casualties this Memorial Day. In central Iraq, a U.S. soldier was killed and another injured in the ambush of a military convoy. The eight-vehicle re-supply mission was hit with machine gun fire and grenades in an early morning assault. And in Baghdad Monday evening, four G.I.'s were wounded when their humvee came under fire, and hit a landmine along the airport road. Yesterday, a soldier was killed when an ammunition dump he was guarding exploded. Those casualties and others from all of America's wars were honored this Memorial Day in solemn ceremonies.

SPOKESMAN: Company, platoon, ten hut.

GWEN IFILL: U.S. troops on duty in Iraq marked the day by paying tribute to more than 140 recently fallen comrades. A chaplain spoke to a troop formation in Baghdad.

CHAPLAIN: Memorial Day for us will never again be just another holiday. It will forever be etched in our mind as a special day.

GWEN IFILL: For some, this Memorial Day was a day of joyful reunion. In North Carolina, hundreds of returning soldiers from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit came ashore on amphibious landing craft from three ships. Others arrived by helicopter at their home base of Camp LeJeune. Many had left last august for a routine six-month tour that stretched into nine months once war began in Iraq. In Washington, under gray skies, President Bush led the nation in remembering those who died in their country's service. Joined by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Mr. Bush laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. Later, he paid tribute to sacrifices past and present.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Today we honor the men and women who have worn the nation's uniform and were last seen on duty, for the battles of Iraq and Afghanistan to the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, to the trials of world war, to the struggles that made us a nation.

GWEN IFILL: Also at Arlington, special mention was made today of the first Native American woman to die in combat. Private First Class Lori Piestewa's uniform was placed on display at the memorial for women in military service. She was one of eight POW's killed in Iraq. And at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, six new names were added to the black granite wall. A powerful earthquake rocked northeastern Japan today. It shook homes and offices, dumped items from shelves, disrupted power and communications, and sent frightened shoppers into the streets. Police reported at least 50 people were injured. In Algeria today, international rescue teams began packing up, saying it was unlikely more survivors would be found in the rubble of last week's devastating earthquake. The official death toll now stands at more than 2200, with more than 9,000 injured, dozens still missing, and 15,000 homeless. The World Health Organization has returned Toronto to its watch-list of SARS-infected areas. The re-listing followed Canadian reports of three new deaths and more than 30 possible new cases, this after almost a month without new infections in the city. Canadian health officials believe the latest cases can be linked to Toronto's original outbreak in April. Twenty-seven people have now died from SARS in Ontario, Canada's most populated province. The WHO stopped short of warning against travel to Toronto. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to prospects for peace in the Middle East, military tribunals, hard times for the book business, prize- winning poet Paul Muldoon, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

FOCUS - PROSPECTS FOR PEACE

GWEN IFILL: The prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The Israeli cabinet's decision to offer conditional approval of a U.S.-backed peace plan broke new ground by endorsing Palestinian statehood. The measure passed by the simple majority it needed, but with just 12 of the 23 members in favor. Four lawmakers abstained. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had hesitated to endorse the so- called "road map to peace," was forced to explain to angry members of his own Likud Party today why he changed his mind. It was not a "happy decision," he said.

ARIEL SHARON, Prime Minister, Israel (Translated): I want to say to you very clearly, I will make every effort to reach a political solution because I think it is important to Israel to reach a political solution. I also think the idea to keep 3.5 million people under occupation is a bad thing for us and them.

GWEN IFILL: Sharon was referring to Israel's 36-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The road map has already been endorsed by the Palestinian Authority. Aside from the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, it also requires Palestinians to rein in militants and end terror attacks, and Israelis to withdraw from some Palestinian towns and freeze settlement expansion. But the two sides disagree on who should take the first step. Yesterday's emotional debate showed deep divisions still remain about the peace plan.

UZI LANDAU, Likud Party Minister: I think that anyone here who wants really to have peace and wants to continue and combat terrorism cannot reward terrorism with this road map.

GWEN IFILL: In a separate vote, Israeli lawmakers rejected Palestinian demands that they be allowed to return to their homes in what is now Israel. For their part, members of the Palestinian cabinet, which met the day before the Israeli vote, are insisting the road map be adopted with no changes.

YASSER ABED RABBO, Palestinian Communications Manager: If the Israelis are going to introduce changes in the road map that will change the basis of the road map as a comprehensive plan for peace and as a plan which is based on parallelism and on balanced versions, if the Israelis are going to do that and the Americans accept it, well, this will mean that the road map is over, and this will create a very serious political crisis.

GWEN IFILL: Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, also referred to as Abu Mazen, and Israeli prime minister Sharon, plan to meet again later this week in advance of a possible three-way summit with President Bush next month.

The prospects for that summit have raised new hopes about Israeli-Palestinian peace, but how realistic are they? For that, we turn to Stephen Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, a non-profit organization that brings together Arabs and Israelis to solve problems. And Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland; he's also the author of "The Stakes: America and the Middle East."

Professor Telhami, we saw at least an ideological stumbling block appear to be removed with the agreement of the Israeli cabinet to accept at least the direction of this road map. How big a stumbling block was that?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Well, this is important. It's important for a number of reasons, one is without it we couldn't move forward at all. Second, it draws the administration in in ways that the president certainly wasn't willing to be involved otherwise in. And third, it changes the nature of the domestic debate in Israel, in the U.S., and in the Palestinian area. But the obstacles remain great.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Cohen, how important would you say that this is?

STEPHEN COHEN: I believe it's really important historic moment. Because whatever happens from here on in, it is now clear that an Israeli government has made an official decision to accept a Palestinian state. And whether it's this government or another Israeli government, that means that we now have a basis for moving forward between Israelis and Palestinians. And I believe that with Abu Mazen as leader now, or at least as the prime minister of the Palestinians, we have somebody who understands very well what he's going to have to do in order to make this work, and we're going to see whether President Bush has the same determination to push this through as he has on other matters.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Cohen, this is the first of three phases of this road map process. Which is the most difficult phase to overcome?

STEPHEN COHEN: I think each phase is very tough. The first phase involves the two parties giving up the basic way that they have pursued this conflict and fought it, not only for the last few years, but really ever since this conflict began. And therefore, it would be a major step if the Palestinians really did move away from armed conflict, and it would be a major step if Israelis really moved away from continuing to construct settlements and continuing to take Palestinian territory in order to build those settlements. Those would be very big steps. And it would remove an enormous obstacle for going beyond it to the really tough issues that we'll get into in the further phases when we have to deal with issues like borders, with issues like Jerusalem, with issues like the future of the refugees.

GWEN IFILL: Professor Telhami, just in this phase we're talking about this issue of the settlements and ending Palestinian violence. Which do you think is the tougher nut to crack?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Well, both of them are extremely tough to crack. I think Stephen is right about the willingness of Mr. Abbas to do what needs to be done, he clearly understands what has to be done. The real issue is whether the structural barriers to his implementation. Right now you have an environment in which there is no trust on both sides. The Palestinian public is not supportive of unilateral disarmament of the Palestinians unless they see something on the Israeli side. That's shown by the surveys. He still doesn't have great deal of popular support. He's going to have to win the trust of the Palestinian people. He has to engage what might be in essence a civil war in Gaza, if you are going to try to disarm. On the Israeli side, here is the problem. The problem is that you have an asymmetry of power. If the Palestinians do not comply with one step, the Israelis have the power to punish them by not withdrawing, through checkpoints, by imposing curfews. But when the Israelis don't comply, the Palestinians don't have the power to punish them. That means that every Israeli prime minister, every Israeli politician is more sensitive to his public opinion and to domestic political considerations than he is going to be to the Palestinian prime minister. That makes it harder to implement such steps on the issue of settlements, which are essential for moving forward.

GWEN IFILL: If there is going to be a three-way summit, obviously three personalities involved, three leaders, one is Mahmoud Abbas, who you've just been referring to at the Palestinian Authority; the other are Ariel Sharon, and the other President Bush. Mr. Cohen, let's talk about Ariel Sharon. What is the challenge for him now, what is it that he is facing?

STEPHEN COHEN: The challenge for him now is to show that he is really going to get a major change in the security situation of Israel. He is going to be in a position where he's going to be on the defensive within his own political system, within his own movement. They started to criticize him very harshly already today. And the truth is, that he is going to have to allow the United States to take major steps to help Abu Mazen have the strength to do what he can't do even if he wants to do, which is to confront movements that have remained strong. Israel has done a great deal to eliminate the power of the Palestinian Authority. Whatever limited power it had before, it has almost none of it left. But some of the other movements continue to work and to do their violence. How is he going to stop that? Well, partly it's what Shibley said, that he's going to have to build his own credible with the Palestinian street. He's going to have to build it by what Israel does and by what he does to show that he's really a different kind of leader, not corrupt, and that he really means a democratic system for the Palestinians, but that's not enough.

GWEN IFILL: But can I return to you the subject of Ariel Sharon's challenge, which is he has said up until last week that he wasn't really crazy about this road map, he said this decision was not a happy decision for him. What changed his mine?

STEPHEN COHEN: I think that what changed his mind was that he saw the tremendous determination of the United States to make this happen, and I think he also saw that the Israeli economy was simply could not be turned around unless they made some major change in the political situation of Israel. The Israeli people gave him a great mandate. But in that time that he's had since the mandate, he has learned what he learned also in the first year and a half of his prime ministership, that he cannot take control of the economy simply by economic measures alone. He's going to have to do a lot, in political terms, with the United States and with the image of Israel and with the openness of Israel, in order to rebuild that economy.

GWEN IFILL: Okay, let me bring Mr. Telhami in.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Here's the reality of it, and I think Steve alluded to it. But it's the factor that's absolutely crucial in all this and that's the role of the U.S.. It is clear because there noise trust on the ground and pause there's such an asymmetry of power, that makes it harder for an Israeli prime minister respond to strategic collisions and more to domestic politics. The role of the U.S. is indispensable. What's significant is the president has decided to get involved. If the president of the United States is involved in a sustained way, it might become possible to bridge the gap between them, but without that it is impossible to imagine that you can move forward -- even if it is true what Steve said, which is that Mr. Sharon clearly does not have the unilateral solution. It certainly has punished the Palestinians, the Palestinians have felt the pain a lot more than the Israelis. The Israelis have felt the pain and they don't have a solution.

GWEN IFILL: But what changed that got the U.S. so much more involved, more hands on than President Bush was willing to be at the beginning of his administration?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Well, two things. One is that during the lead up to the Iraq War, the president has had to make a lot of promises on being engaged politically on the Arab-Israeli issue, and that is toMr. Blair, to other Europeans, to Arab governments that need it desperately, including allies like the government of Jordan. And secondly, there's learning. Every administration comes in thinking they don't want to spend time on the Arab-Israeli issue because it's a losing enterprise, they still think of it politically as the losing enterprise. But the reality is it is so connected to America's strategic interests that every administration quickly learns they can't ignore it.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Cohen, because this has often seemed like a losing enterprise, the question could fairly be asked what is different this time about this new breakthrough in the Palestinian Israeli peace process that we haven't had the same discussion before; what's different now?

STEPHEN COHEN: I think there's a few things that are different first of all, this process begins with already the endorsement of the Arab world. When Clinton did what he did, he did not have the active participation of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. And the president already has that. They have endorsed this, he has made sure that the road map includes reference to the Saudi proposal that was endorsed by the Arab summit. So you have first of all at least the beginning of some Arab participation, and I think that the president is going to try to work on that during his trip. He wanted to have the meeting take place in Sharm al-Sheikh in order to show the importance of Egypt in this process. He may not be able to get it yet because Sharon doesn't like having it in Egypt and is insisting on having it in Jordan. But I believe there's going to be a lot of need for Egypt and therefore there's going to be building on that relationship. So that's one thing. The second thing that's different is that the president has already faced up to some of the problems of domestic opposition. There was a tough battle about the road map in the United States over a few months. There were many elements of the American community that tried to trash the road map. And they failed. The president succeeded in getting the road map adopted, moved it out into the field, and has felt that he has the strength after what he did in Iraq, after other issues of concern in the United States about terrorism, to make this a priority. The American people know they want a peace process, and he feels that he's already, I think, made some progress in making sure that this will not be stopped here at home.

GWEN IFILL: Let me ask a question.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: I mean, I agree with Steve on one very important thing, is that there is an opportunity in a way that wasn't presented actually when Clinton was in office, and that is that not just that you have an endorsement of various parties in Europe and the Middle East of this plan, but also in a strategic decision for the first time on the part of most Arab states and Europeans that the Arab Israeli conflict is detrimental to their interests. They are allies of a solution in ways that they have not been in the past. Still, it takes me back to a point which is very critical. The road map itself has got a lot of problems in terms of implementation. It is dependent on good faith and every step in the future is dependent on what do you on the step before, it's in a way more complicated than Oslo and Oslo hasn't worked.

GWEN IFILL: All right. Shibley Telhami and Stephen Cohen, thank you very much.

GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, military tribunals for some government detainees, hard times for the book business, the Pulitzer-Prize poetry winner, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

FOCUS - MILITARY TRIBUNALS

GWEN IFILL: Margaret Warner has the military tribunal story.

MARGARET WARNER: More than 650 terror suspects, mostly Taliban and al-Qaida members, have been held as unlawful combatants at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere for more than a year without charges or access to lawyers. Late last week, the Defense Department came one step closer to trying some of these non-citizens by military tribunal by naming a chief prosecutor and a chief defense counsel to oversee the cases. Detainees may be tried for any of more than two dozen war crimes and other terror-related offenses. The cases will be heard by tribunals, called commissions, consisting of three to seven military officers who will act as both judge and jury. Under Pentagon ground rules, each suspect is entitled to a military defense lawyer and a civilian defense lawyer as well, if he wants and can afford one. Defense lawyers' conversations with their clients may be monitored by the government. A suspect can be convicted by majority vote of the commission, but the death penalty requires a unanimous vote. Late last week, the chief prosecutor, Army Colonel Frederic Borch and the chief defense counsel, Air Force Colonel Will Gunn, told reporters they believe the ground rules are fair.

ARMY COLONELY FREDERIC BORCH, Chief Prosecutor: We have been very careful in this process to do everything to guarantee a fair trial -- full and fair trial. And I'm like every other American. Every one who is at the prosecution ought to get a fair trial, and I'm convinced that's exactly what's going to happen at the military commission.

AIR FORCE COLONEL WILL A. GUNN, Chief Defense Counsel: With the rules as they are presently drafted, I am firmly convinced that we're going to be able to operate in such manner that we're going to be able to provide a zealous defense for all detainees brought before trial.

MARGARET WARNER: President Bush will ultimately decide which detainees may be tried. Will this process ensure fair trials for the detainees? For that, we're joined by Ruth Wedgewood, a professor of international law at Yale Law School and Johns Hopkins University. She consulted with the Defense Department on the military tribunal rules; and David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University law center and an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Welcome to you both.

Ruth Wedgewood, before we launch into the argument, explain how these trials will differ from civilian criminal trials that most Americans are familiar with.

RUTH WEDGEWOOD: Well, they're military trials, so they don't have a civilian jury. So that's one important difference. They're tried by a panel of officers, one of whom will be the presiding officer, and a trained military judge advocate general to help on the law, and the others can be either lawyers or general officers who sit as fact assessors. The major differences are the following: It will preserve everything that we know about American trials insofar as it's going to have burden of proof on the government, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a right to have the defense have to disclose any exculpatory evidence, a right on the part of the defendant to cross examine any witnesses, to call his own witnesses. Where it differs is that, once in a while, there may be some very sensitive particles of information that are either deeply classified or important to the continuing fight against al-Qaida, and in those circumstances, there's a limited right to close the courtroom, and in the worst case scenario to have to even exclude the defendant, but have his military lawyer in there to defend his interests. The second broad difference is that all evidence that's probative will be admissible.

MARGARET WARNER: So does this sound like a set up that will ensure a fair trial to you?

DAVID COLE: Well, not quite. To me, I think it's important that we do justice and that we be seen as doing justice because if we're seen as imposing our will through military force, that will only contribute to the kind of anti- Americanism that we've seen around the world. And I think two of the problems with this process are: one, the secret evidence, that Ruth just referred to, that the defendant can be tried on the basis of evidence that he has no opportunity to see; that the lawyer that he chooses has no opportunity to see. And the only thing the military has done is said that the military's lawyer can see it, but then that lawyer can't talk to his client about that evidence, can't talk to the other lawyer about the evidence. And so you could be convicted on evidence that you've never had an opportunity to see. Secondly, there's no independent review. The president picks you as a defendant, and then the ultimate decider on whether you're guilty is the president.

MARGARET WARNER: Ruth Wedgewood, take each of those objections in turn. First of all, the whole question of this sensitive evidence and the fact that the defendant and his chosen civilian lawyer may be excluded from even knowing what it is.

RUTH WEDGEWOOD: Well, that's the nub of the problem of putting on trials during war time. In some ways it argues for delaying trial, in fact, until al-Qaida is no longer up and about and dangerous, as it still is. I think people have a sense of reticence that you don't want to have a case that entirely centers or even largely centers on evidence you can't share with the defense counsel, who is chosen by the defendant himself. The defendant has to have his choice of military lawyers, and in an ordinary court martial he'd have a military lawyer as well as civilian. But if push comes to shove, that is the dilemma of putting on a trial at war time. On the question of the privacy of communications with his counsel, there is monitoring for intelligence purposes but it's excluded from use at trial. And on the issue of review, I think there David is misreading the regulations. There is an independent appellate panel which has the right to reverse and remand the conviction for further proceedings if they think a serious error of law has occurred.

DAVID COLE: Well, there is a review, but it's within the context of the military, and the ultimate reviewer is the president. The point is that there's no independent judicial civilian review, unlike, for example, in the courts-martial that we use to try our own military people. They get a right to independent judicial review, but we're not giving foreigners who we try for similar kinds of offenses any kind of independent judicial review, and I think that ultimately undermines the legitimacy of the process, and we have a concern. We ought to be concerned about the process, both because we don't want to convict the wrong people, and because we don't want to be seen in the world as just imposing our will, rather than doing justice.

MARGARET WARNER: So David Cole, could a defendant in this kind of case appeal to the federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court on that basis, say I'm entitled to have an outside civilian court review it?

DAVID COLE: Well, yes and no. I mean, the tribunal order says there is no judiciary review, but courts have interpreted that to say there's habeas corpus review, but it's a very limited review. The Supreme Court or the federal court that might look at the case would not ask whether the person was innocent or guilty, would not look at the merits of the case, and so, you know, it's ultimately whether you're innocent or guilty is going to be decided by the president and his subordinates, and he is the person who initially puts you in claiming he thinks you're guilty, and then he's the person who ultimately decides whether you're guilty. That's... to me that's the problem, both in terms of perception and the reality of fairness. Some of these people may well be guilty. I imagine that the military will pick the people who are most obviously guilty to start out. But we still need to have a fair set of procedures.

MARGARET WARNER: Could there be a perception problem internationally, Ruth Wedgewood, on the basis that David Cole just laid out?

RUTH WEDGEWOOD: I think everyone is aware that these trials will be high profile. The "New York Times" and the "Washington Post" and other good journalists will be covering much of them, most of them. It's an open courtroom, except when it's closed on limited occasions. So there's a real sense, yes, that there's going to be high profile, we're going to be judged by the fairness of what's done. Everyone who's involved in the process will know that and take that to heart. There is a civilian on the appellate panel, I have to emphasize that. Secondly, I think this is going to be a closely monitored process. Although the Congress heretofore has not ever provided habeas corpus review for the treatment of enemy combatants off-shore, Supreme Court case called Johnson V. Eisentrager from the Second World War, nonetheless Congress has changed the habeas corpus statues. So there's no off the record in life, we know that. And these are going to be conducted by guys whose fitness reports are not going to include these trials, the chains of command are deliberately kept somewhat different. But where I have to differ with David is that it's been set up so that there is an autonomous nature to the trial process. It's not President Bush saying what he feels like on Thursday. It's meant to be a separate system. That's why it's been so slow in the getting go, that it's taken a year and a half to draft regulations that can make it into something that is am adaptable, but rule bound court system.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think, David Cole, that at least having these civilian defense lawyers, does bring in some measure of independence?

DAVID COLE: You know it might. And certainly the fact that the chief military defense lawyer has already said he thinks the procedures are perfectly fine, points to the need to have some civilian in there who is willing to question the process. But the way they've set up the conditions for civilian lawyers, I'm not sure anyone is going to sign up to do the work because, first of all, your conversations with your client are going to be overheard, you're not going to be able to see the secret evidence against your client, you're not allowed to talk about the case with anyone without special advance permission from the court. So you can't do any fact investigation without identifying the people you're going to talk to to the court in advance. You can't do any work off-base on the case, and once you're on the base and on the case you're not allowed to ask for any kind of continuance or any kind of delay based on personal or professional reasons. And you're not paid, and you have to pay for your own security clearance. So what lawyer is going to sign up to do these cases? I think they've written the conditions for civilian lawyers in such a way that they're so onerous that they basically guarantee that this is going to be a family affair. It's going to be military on both sides. And I think for the defendant to be told you could be recommended but you're going to be represented by your captors, the people who have kept new isolation cages for a year and a half without any trial, now you get to have one of these people defend you. Thanks a lot.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think, Ruth Wedgewood, any civilian trial lawyers will take this on under those conditions?

RUTH WEDGEWOOD: Oh, I think so. It's going to be a new process. From a lawyer's point of view, it's going to be an interesting process. It's going to be... just as the trial of Milosevic in the Hague is a trial which everyone is interested, so, too, people will be interested in this. David shouldn't be surprised at some of the precautions that are necessary. You're in the middle of a struggle against al-Qaida, and a defense lawyer who's going to be brought very much into the family and has to therefore have some of the same precautions that people do about sharing information on sensitive parts of the investigation. But I think David, as we professors often do, underestimates the curiosity of civilian lawyers who will want to be part of the process and will want to contribute to make it there.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Ruth Wedgewood, how soon, one, do you think we'll start to see one of these trials? And also, how many of these more than 600 detainees do you think will actually be put through this process?

RUTH WEDGEWOOD: Well, many of the detainees are likely to simply be interned for the duration of the hostilities, as you are permitted to do under the law of war. That if you're caught on the battlefield while the battle is still going on until the end of act of hostilities, you are... but ultimately I also think we're going to have some problems with the European allies or others that as time goes on, they're going to need some kind of procedure with which to continue the hold people. Whether that consists of a trial processor some kind of status review and determination remains to be seen.

DAVID COLE: Well, I think this is the real problem. The military is going to pick, as Ruth suggested, the easy cases -- a few people. They're going to be show trials essentially. And the vast majority of people on Guantanamo who have been held for a year and a half have never been provided any hearing whatsoever, and they'll be the hard cases, the cases where we're not sure if they're guilty or innocent and they're given no hearing what so ever.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, David Cole, Ruth Wedgewood, thank you both.

FOCUS - SELLING BOOKS

GWEN IFILL: Now hard times for book publishers. Media correspondent Terence Smith has that story.

TERENCE SMITH: James Patterson is on the publishing equivalent of a victory tour. >> James Patterson, next on today.

TERENCE SMITH: From the set of the "Today" Show and an audience of millions, to the throngs of adoring readers at a midtown Manhattan book signing. To the venerable confines of the 92nd Street Y for an evening's book chat.

JAMES PATTERSON: I like the idea of writing a fun history.

TERENCE SMITH: The best-selling author is putting in a long day on the road promoting his latest chart-topper, "The Jester," co- authored with Andrew Gross. Patterson is in that most exclusive of book clubs: The blockbuster author who sells millions. He's sold 45 million in North America alone on his past 21 books, and he has been translated into 36 languages. That popular validation, and adulation, never get old.

JAMES PATTERSON: I love to do it. Somebody said you're lucky if you find something you like to do and then it's a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it. That's what I do.

TERENCE SMITH: Telling stories is big business-- upwards of $26 billion worth of books were sold in this country last year-- but 2003 has brought troubling signs to the industry.

GALE FELDMAN: Sales are stagnant. In fact, they have been going down the past few months.

TERENCE SMITH: Gayle Feldman is a research fellow at the national arts journalism program at Columbia University. She recently released a study about the publishing world.

GAYLE FELDMAN: The book business is in some difficulty at the moment. You can sell huge quantities of something, but there are big distortions in the business and problems.

TERENCE SMITH: According to the Association of American publishers, a leading industry group, sales of adult hardcover books were off a startling 18 percent in the first quarter of this year as compared to last. Gayle Feldman sees a number of explanations.

GAYLE FELDMAN: There is a squeeze on profits. Book publishing -- the big publishers have consolidated so that you have five or six big, big companies that control the biggest books. There are many, many books that do not get marketing or publicity money behind them and they die.

TERENCE SMITH: Even more striking, some of the most bankable authors-- Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark and Sue Grafton-- have sold far fewer copies of their recent books than had been expected.

CHARLES McGRATH, Editor, New York Times Book Review: It's as if certain brand-name writers-- the Grishams, the Clancys, the Kings of this world-- have hit the wall, which is very surprising.

TERENCE SMITH: Charles "Chip" McGrath is the editor of the "New York Times" Sunday book review.

CHARLES McGRATH: It's not just that they've maxed out, it's that their sales are sort of declining, that their newer books aren't doing as well as the ones before.

TERENCE SMITH: The reasons are not entirely clear, but industry experts believe it is possibly the result of a market flooded with books or, simply, changing tastes among the book-buying public.

PATTERSON: --like a signed manuscript --

TERENCE SMITH: Attracting buyers has never been a problem for James Patterson. While most authors leave promotion to their publishers, Patterson uses all the skills he learned in his earlier career as head of the ad agency J. Walter Thompson to ensure that his works find readers. He participated in a recent TV Guide contest, for example, in which readers were asked to finish a Patterson story. Prizes included having a future character in a Patterson novel named after the winner.

ANNOUNCER: This season's number one best seller...

TERENCE SMITH: He helped pioneer book advertising on television, paying part of the costs of some of the first ads for his novel, "Along Came a Spider" himself.

SPOKESMAN: James Patterson reads from Suzanne's diary from Nicholas.

SPENCER MICHELS: To promote his romance novel, he struck a deal with crystal light drink mix, which offered beach towels to winners of a trivia quiz about the book. And when sales lagged in the bay area, Patterson set a series in San Francisco. Area sales skyrocketed. Promotion is one thing for an established author, quite another for a newcomer like Matthew Pearl, who at age 27 has written his first novel: "The Dante Club." On this day, Pearl is attending three book signings, two interviews, and a reading-- a new experience for the Harvard and Yale-educated Dante scholar.

MATTHEW PEARL: I think it actually helps for a writer that is starting out to know as little as possible about the business side of it. You want to be savvy, but you don't want to get obsessed. You have to learn to roll with the punches and really communicate in different venues and books signings is one of them. So they are sending me on a book tour to I guess eight, nine cities altogether.

TERENCE SMITH: Jonathan Karp, a vice president and editorial director at Random House, receives 300- 500 submissions a year. Pearl's was one of the handful he chose to edit for publication.

JONATHAN KARP, Random House: A really ambitious and talented writer is going to make you forget reality, and he's going to make you see things that you wouldn't normally see in life. Matthew Pearl believed in his story. That's the mark of a great that's the mark of a great novelist. When you can make a reader believe something that's very unusual.

TERENCE SMITH: He says his gut told him Pearl's unlikely fictive tale of the hunt for a Dante- inspired killer in Boston in 1865 would sell and sell big, so much so that Random House ordered a first printing of 100,000 copies-- nearly unheard of for a first-time, unproven author. "The Dante Club" did not disappoint: It immediately went to number one on the "Boston Globe" bestseller list and cracked the top 10 on the venerable "New York Times" list. Chip McGrath says industry talk counts in the book world.

CHARLES McGRATH: He's one of those amazing stories. There is a lot of buzz about this, and this is the kind of book that publishers like to get behind. It could be the beginning of a great career.

TERENCE SMITH: In an economic slump when overall sales are down, making a best-seller list can be crucial to a book's success.

CHARLES McGRATH: I still think it's true that the "Times" book review can make or break a book. It's part of what can become like a sort of self-propelling mechanism and that is to say that a lot of stores will discount "New York Times" bestsellers or they will feature them in their stores.

TERENCE SMITH: A perfect cycle: Lists drive sales and sales drive the lists. Today, of course, there are many best-seller lists, from "Publishers' Weekly" to "U.S.A. Today" to amazon.com. And now, a company called Bookscan-- owned by A.C. Nielsen, the television ratings service-- is revolutionizing the compilation of best-seller data by tracking book purchases electronically at the point-of- sale. Jonathan Karp welcomes the new approach.

JONATHAN KARP: I don't know if the so-called new economy is a real thing, but if it does help us understand where are readers are and what they're buying, and we can manage that information quicker and more efficiently, than I think that's a good thing.

TERENCE SMITH: Meanwhile, the number of titles published in the United States keeps growing; some 140,000 are expected this year alone. The unanswered question in this sea of books is how many will rise to the surface and catch the public's fancy?

CONVERSATION - WINNER

GWEN IFILL: Now another of our conversations with winners of this year's Pulitzer Prizes in the arts, and to arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown.

JEFFREY BROWN: Here are the first lines of Paul Muldoon's poem, "A College Land's Catechism." Which is known as the orchard county, which as the garden state. Which captain of the bounty was set adrift by his mate?"

JEFFREY BROWN: The 52-year-old Muldoon is a lover of rhyme and rock and roll. And he is this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. So you can teach poetry after all, huh?

PAUL MULDOON: I believe one may teaches it. Otherwise, I'd be somewhat fraudulent, I think.

JEFFREY BROWN: Muldoon is a transplant to the central New Jersey town of Princeton from the Northern Ireland village of Moy. Thus the title of his prizewinning book, "Moy Sand and Gravel." The poems, he says, straddle the two places in his life.

PAUL MULDOON: There's a little tightrope walking between the two places. And, indeed, one of the central figures in one of the poems in the book is Blondon, the great French tightrope walker who specialized in crossing Niagara Falls, you know, bringing with him all kinds of accouterments; a wheelbarrow. He would stop halfway across and light a little stove and cook himself an omelet. So, I suppose that's a rather precarious position to be in. And, perhaps, it's a position that... that I recognize from time to time, of between two cultures.

JEFFREY BROWN: So this tightrope you're talking about, was it intentional when you set about to collect the poems for this book?

PAUL MULDOON: Well, there's very little of the intentional about the business of writing poetry, as least as far as I can see. What I try to do is to go into a poem-- and one writes them, of course, poem by poem-- to go into each poem, first of all without having any sense whatsoever of where it's going to end up. So in that sense, I suppose there's a little bit of the tightrope walker's unease. In fact, it's probably... most tightrope walkers would feel much more at ease.

PAUL MULDOON: Who would like to read his or her poem on this fine occasion?

JEFFREY BROWN: Muldoon has been teaching at Princeton since 1987, and let us join a recent writing class where student poems were read and dissected.

PAUL MULDOON: It's very difficult, I think, often for... for those little words to carry the weights on their narrow, little shoulders that's been asked of them to carry.

JEFFREY BROWN: Something of a child prodigy, Muldoon as a teenager earned the notice of Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet who would win the Nobel Prize for literature. A prolific writer, Muldoon's "Moy Sand and Gravel" is his ninth collection of poetry.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now we watched you teaching today and there was a great emphasis on clarity, on what is exact... what is the phrase exactly mean? You really push that on your students.

PAUL MULDOON: Well, indeed, because clarity, the movement towards clarity is, I think, at the heart of the enterprise. Let's face it, confusion is what we're living with -- not being able to make sense of what's happening to us from day to day. Whereas making sense is what we're aiming for -- making sense. Now that's a complicated matter, of course, in that many poems are difficult. Sometimes clarity, though they may be moving in that direction isn't always what they achieve.

JEFFREY BROWN: Certainly your own poetry has been called difficult.

PAUL MULDOON: Well, that's right. That's why I bring it up. ( Laughs ) because...

JEFFREY BROWN: You beat me to it.

PAUL MULDOON: It's not as if I'm trying to write crossword puzzles to which one might find an answer at the back of the book or anything like that. To... they... they are... meant to be equal to the difficulties which surround us. In this era of extraordinary complexity, where it's impossible to-- I was going to say walk down the street-- but, you know, move towards one's front door with its alarm, turn on one's television for heaven's sake, if one's able to do it. Understand even remotely what's going on under the hood of one's car, never mind understand what is happening in Afghanistan or Iraq for most of us.

JEFFREY BROWN: So the complexity of the poem mirrors the complexity of life around us?

PAUL MULDOON: That's my story. That's my story.

JEFFREY BROWN: I do...

PAUL MULDOON: And I'm sticking to it.

JEFFREY BROWN: In fact, while following all Muldoon's references can be difficult, enjoying his playfulness with language is easy. Listen as he reads the rest of "A College Land Catechism," the poem featuring a tightrope walker.

PAUL MULDOON: Who cooked and ate an omelet midway across Niagara Falls? Where did Setanta get those magical hurley balls he ramstand down the throat of the blacksmith's hound? Why would a Greek philosopher of note refuse to be bound by convention but live in a tub, from which he might overhear, as went to rub an apple on his sleeve? The mutineers plotting to seize the maid of the mist, while it was still half able to forge ahead and make half a fist of crossing the Niagara Gorge -- the tub in which he might light a stove and fold the beaten eggs into themselves. Who unearthed the egg trove? And who having eaten the omelet would marvel at how the Mounties had so quickly closed in on him late of the Orchard County by way of the garden state?

JEFFREY BROWN: You love the play of words, of sounds, of connections, of things that don't necessarily seem to connect, but suddenly you make connect.

PAUL MULDOON: Well, I think that's one of the great delights of... of attempting to write poems. And central, in fact, one might say to the activity is to find those likeness between unlike things.

JEFFREY BROWN: What about the use of rhyme?

PAUL MULDOON: Well, I think of rhyme as being intrinsic to the language, integral to the language.

JEFFREY BROWN: As in how we hear it, how we take it in?

PAUL MULDOON: Absolutely. Our tendency to find chimes in the language is intrinsic to us and to it. And you've only got to look at even television advertising. I'm sure 50 percent of television ads use rhyme. At the base of hip-hop, rap music, there may be other things coming into play. And they may not always be so attractive. But one thing that's certainly is and something to be said in its favor, is that there is an engagement with language and with rhyme.

JEFFREY BROWN: What is winning the Pulitzer mean for you?

PAUL MULDOON: Well, it's a huge honor. It's wonderful. I mean, I guess it's perhaps the great American prize. I'd no idea that I was even eligible for it, though I am a U.S. citizen. The fact is that where I am now is where I was a month ago; which is however clich -ridden it might seen, facing the blank page and probably finding it as difficult and maybe even slightly more difficult to keep on going. But the hope is... the hope is that one of these days that something really exciting will happen, and something really clear will happen.

JEFFREY BROWN: Really exciting like what?

PAUL MULDOON: That an absolutely stunning poem will come down the pike.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, Paul Muldoon, thank you for talking to us. And, again, congratulations.

PAUL MULDOON: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure. Thank you.

ESSAY - THE FUTURE OF MEMORY

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, some Memorial Day thoughts from essayist Roger Rosenblatt.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Now that the design competition for the buildings to replace the World Trade Center is over, another has begun. The competition to create a memorial to the victims of September 11 was opened a few weeks ago. Entries may come from anyone over the age of 18 who can pay the $25 application fee and stay within the required format. Thus the invitation is not to professional architects alone, but to everyone. It suggests that the design inspiration could come from ordinary people, because the memorial will be for ordinary people, and to ordinary people. This represents a relatively new tendency in memorial-building. The idea is that the death of the un-prominent count for as much as the confident statues of presidents and of bronze generals on bronze horses. The thought behind the tomb of the Unknown Soldier has expanded to embrace the 50,000 soldiers of the Vietnam Memorial, known but obscure; and the federal office workers killed in the Oklahoma City bombing; and more local deaths as well -- flowers at doorsteps, at the walls of schools, at the base of trees. All signify a common mourning for the fallen, usually in violent circumstances-- as if the suddenness of the deaths could not be accepted, and thus required instant memorialization in a heartfelt effort to dull the shock, symbolically to keep the life going. The goal of the world trade center competition is to create future memory. What can one design in the present do to affect observers years from now with a recollection of an event that occurred years ago? The Vietnam Memorial created future memory by leading one on a walk down along the wall, a descent where one may touch the names of those permanently absent. It is like entering a grave where only memory is alive. When one ascends again, memory has a future. I have been in places where the dead are not memorialized, where bodies were thrown into rivers or burned to skeletons, and there is no national inclination to remember the dead. It seems to me that people pay a price for such neglect. Not because of the worn dictum that history unrecalled repeats itself-- generally history will do that whether one recalls it or not-- but rather because memory informed by sorrow makes one attached to others, both dead and alive. In a way, all recent memorials commemorate our common helplessness. We come to this year's Memorial Day shortly after a war in which Americans and others died. No memorial is likely to be designed for them, except in the houses where they lived not long ago. One way or another, we naturally tend to design memorials out of photographs, letters, old baseball gloves, school souvenirs. The dead collected such things to arrange their lives, and we rearrange them to keep their lives moving forwards. On Memorial Day, every day, it is our way of acknowledging a design we cannot account for. I'm Roger Rosenblatt.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major developments of the day: Israel's foreign minister said President Bush and the prime ministers of Israel and the Palestinian Authority may meet next week in Jordan to discuss Mr. Bush's new road map to peace; 62 Spanish peacekeepers returning from duty in Afghanistan were killed in a plane crash in northeastern Turkey. And on this Memorial Day in Iraq, two U.S. soldiers were killed and four others injured in two separate ambushes. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.