The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, a secret deal to get arms to Bosnia, we have a congressional debate; an update on the militia movement, Rod Minott reports from the Northwest; Bob Dole's attack on Clinton-appointed judges, Anthony Lewis of the "New York Times" and Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice see it differently; and a conversation with the former head of the Ford Foundation, Franklin Thomas. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The House will conduct a special investigation of Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia. Speaker Gingrich made the announcement today. He said a special committee will conduct the investigation. Yesterday a senior State Department official told a House committee the Clinton administration knew about the 1994 shipments but did not stop them. Gingrich said the President's tacit approval was reckless.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: This is a policy which has very significant long-term impact on our effort to isolate Iran, on Hezbollah, on Hamas, and on having Iranian terrorism in Europe. You have a major policy decision involving Europe and involving terrorism, and involving Iran being made by a handful of people in an extraordinarily amateurish way.

MR. LEHRER: Democrats said the Republicans were simply on a fishing expedition in an election year. White House Spokesman Mike McCurry defended the administration's policy.

MIKE McCURRY, White House Spokesman: It did not give a foothold to Iranians in Bosnia because the Iranians were already there and very present and had a great deal of activity underway in Bosnia prior to any decision we made regarding our own knowledge about the nature of Bosnian arms shipments.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have more on the story right after this News Summary. In Congress today, the House approved a 24-hour spending bill that prevents another partial government shutdown at midnight tonight. The Senate passed the same measure by a voice vote. It now goes to the White House for the President's signature. The one-day extension is designed to give negotiators time to reach an agreement on the 1996 budget. A rider attached to this bill also appeals the mandatory discharge policy for members of the military who are HIV positive. At the White House today, President Clinton signed a new anti-terrorism bill into law. The event was on the--was held on the South lawn. Mr. Clinton was joined by members of Congress and families of terrorism victims. The law makes it easier to deport foreignerssuspected of terrorism and harder for terrorist groups to raise money in the United States. It also limits prolonged appeals by Death Row inmates.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: This is a good day because our police officers are now going to be better prepared to stop terrorists, our prosecutors better prepared to punish them, our people being better protected from their designs. This legislation is more important today because of the very forces which have unlocked so much potential for progress, the new technologies, the instant communications, the open borders. These things have done so much good, but they have also made it easier for the organized forces of hatred and division to endanger the lives of innocent people.

MR. LEHRER: The President said although this was a good bill more remains to be done to combat terrorism. Earlier in the day, he met with Lebanese President Hawari in the Oval office. They discussed negotiations for a truce between Israel and Hezbollah rebels fighting over the Israeli-Lebanese border. That fighting entered a 14th day as Sec. of State Christopher continued his peace shuttle. He met with Syrian President Assad in Damascus and then drove to Eastern Lebanon to meet with the Lebanese prime minister. Christopher spoke to reporters there about his progress.

WARREN CHRISTOPHER, Secretary of State: The most important thing that we can do is to end the fighting and to create conditions in which Lebanese civilians can return to their homes, to seek a cease-fire and to try to put together an enduring arrangement that will restore calm and to protect civilians on both sides of the Lebanese border. I would say that although difficult problems remain, we are drawing closer together and some of the gaps are being narrowed.

MR. LEHRER: The Secretary continued on to Jerusalem late in the day to brief Israeli Prime Minister Peres. The Palestine National Council voted today to delete sections of the PLO charter which called for the destruction of Israel. PNC President Yasser Arafat had said failure to pass the resolution could kill hopes for Palestinian statehood. The Israeli government had said it would stop peace talks with the Palestinians unless that language was revoked. In Chechnya today, rebels confirmed the death of their leader and vowed to continue the fight for Chechen independence. They said Dzhokhar Dudayev died in a Russian rocket attack Sunday in the breakaway Russian republic. The former Soviet air force general had led separatists in the war with Russian troops for the past 16 months. More than 30,000 people have died in that conflict. In U.S. economic news today, the Commerce Department reported orders for durable goods went up 1.4 percent in March. That number represents an increase in orders to U.S. factories for long- lasting, high-cost products. The Commerce Department reports the demand for aircraft led the advance. The woman who created Mary Poppins died today in London. P.L. Travers created the magical nanny who slid up banisters instead of down, made medicine taste like candy, and unpacked her belongings from an empty carpet bag. There were nine books about Mary Poppins and one movie starring Julie Andrews. Travers disapproved of that movie, saying it toned down Mary Poppins' darker side. P.L. Travers was 96 years old. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Bosnia arms story, a militia update, the politics of judges, and the former head of the Ford Foundation. FOCUS - COVERT SUPPLIES?

MR. LEHRER: We begin tonight with the Bosnia arms story and with Elizabeth Farnsworth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: House Speaker Newt Gingrich today appointed a special committee to look into the Clinton administration's role in arms shipments from Iran to Bosnia. The controversy has its roots in decisions reportedly taken two years ago.

MS. FARNSWORTH: This was the war in Bosnia two years ago. A United Nations arms embargo was in effect, although the U.S. Congress was pushing for a unilateral lifting of the ban in order to help out beleaguered Bosnian government forces which were being battered by their better-armed Serb opponents. President Clinton expressed concern for the Muslim-led government but said publicly that he would not go along with Congress.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: There are many who say, well, we can do it unilaterally and we ought to do it unilaterally, but, remember, if we do that, first of all, there are substantial questions about whether international law we can do it, but secondly, if you resolved all those, what about the embargo that we have led against Iraq that others would like to back off of but they don't because they gave their agreement that they wouldn't?

MS. FARNSWORTH: But even as that debate was underway in Washington, outside arms were being transported into Bosnia with tacit American approval, according to "Washington Post" articles last year and more recently the "Los Angeles Times." The "Times" said that in 1994, the Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman asked U.S. diplomats if Washington would object to the creation of an arms pipeline that would transfer weapons from Iran to Bosnia. The "Times" said that Washington did not object. This was later confirmed by the administration. The arms reportedly traveled to Bosnia via a large and well-organized air lift from Iran through Turkey into Croatia and from there by road to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The shipments totalled thousands of tons of small arms, mortars, anti-tank weapons, and surface-to-air missiles according to the news reports. The recent "LA Times" articles have sparked new controversy coming at the beginning of the presidential campaign. Republicans began criticizing the President for misleading Congress. Majority Leader Robert Dole, the likely GOP Presidential nominee and an early advocate of lifting the arms embargo, attacked the administration from the Senate floor. SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Majority Leader: For nearly three years, this administration opposed congressional efforts to lift the unjust and illegal arms embargo on Bosnia and Herzegovina. We were told and the American people were told that the United States was bound by the UN embargo in the former Yugoslavia. We were told that if America "violated" this embargo, we would lose support from our allies for other embargoes, such as the one against Iraq.

MS. FARNSWORTH: President Clinton said his administration did nothing improper.

REPORTER: Are you concerned about the investigation of Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia during the war?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: No.

REPORTER: Did you allow it to happen?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Our, our record on that is clear. Mr. Lake has talked about it. There was absolutely nothing improper done.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Yesterday, Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff told Congress the administration did not object to the shipments because it feared a military debacle for the Sarajevo government. He denied the administration was hiding anything.

PETER TARNOFF, Undersecretary of State: There was widespread information disseminated in documents available to the administration and to the Congress for a period of time with respect to shipments from Iran to,to the Bosnian forces through Croatia.

SPOKESMAN: Once the Clinton administration knew of the shipments from Iran, why was Congress not notified at that time?

PETER TARNOFF: Again, my, my recollection is really very clear that Congress was notified through documents made available to the leadership and the competent committees that there was shipment from several countries, including Iran, going to Bosnia from Croatia.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And now the two senior members of the House International Relations Committee that heard Mr. Tarnoff's testimony yesterday. Congressman Ben Gilman, Republican of New York, is the committee chairman. Congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana is the ranking Democrat. Thank you both for being with us. Congressman Gilman, you heard the exchange and Sec. Tarnoff says that Congress had been informed about the shipments, is that not the case?

REP. BENJAMIN GILMAN, [R] New York: I don't recall any direct information from the administration to my office. I think that they are referring to some general reports that were circulating that some arms were being shipped by the Iranians into Bosnia. I would think that in a situation like this there should have been a formal briefing by the administration telling us just what they had or had not done with regard to Iranian arms being shipped into Bosnia.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Congressman Hamilton, did you--do you feel that you knew that this was happening, you were given the information you needed?

REP. LEE HAMILTON, [D] Indiana: I knew. I think many members, perhaps most members of Congress knew. This information appeared in the "National Intelligence Daily." Many members of Congress have access to that, not once but several times. It was even reported publicly in the newspaper. So the fact that the Iranians were shipping arms to Bosnia I think should come as no surprise. And, moreover, there were no objections to it. I asked Mr. Tarnoff yesterday if they had any objections during this period of time. He said, no, there were no objections from members of Congress, so we knew, and we did not object.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Congressman Gilman, this was in the "Washington Post" just about this time last year. The Post reported that the administration had sort of let this happen, acquiesced in this happening. Why is there such a big issue being made now? What is new? Is there new information?

REP. GILMAN: Well, the--many of us in the Congress wanted to lift the embargo, but we wanted U.S. arms to go into Bosnia. We didn't want Iranian arms or Iranian trainers to be in Bosnia to give them a foothold in the European nation. They are now ensconced in Iran, even have a cultural center in Sarajevo, an embassy in Sarajevo. We're very much concerned that this can lead to an eventual opening in the door for an Iranian--further Iranian-led state by the number of Iranians who are in Bosnia.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And in your view, last year's news reports didn't make it clear enough that the Iranians were shipping arms and getting a presence in Bosnia.

REP. GILMAN: These were indirect reports. We had no formal briefing and no direct intelligence from the administration. There were newspaper reports, but we had received no direct information from the administration, but the point remains is that they allowed by acquiescing, allowed the Iranians to gain a foothold to come into Bosnia to start actively being involved in the Bosnian hostilities.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What do you think they should have done?

REP. GILMAN: I think that, No. 1, they should have sat down with the Congress and briefed them and then talked about the implications of having Iranian trainers and Iranian intelligence people in Bosnia and what that could lead to. I don't think there was any consultation with regard to that, or any review with regard to this policy by the Congress or consultation with the Congress.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What about that, Congressman Hamilton?

REP. HAMILTON: Well, I think the President was confronted with some very tough alternatives here, some tough options. He could, of course, oppose the transfer of these arms from Iran to Bosnia. He did not want to do that because the Serbs were winning the war, and the Bosnians needed the arms. He could have unilaterally lifted the embargo as many in the Congress wanted him to do, but that would have drawn us into the conflict. It would have disrupted NATO, even split NATO apart, and caused the problems the President referred to a moment ago with some of our other diplomatic efforts to, to sanction and to embargo. The third choice the President had was simply to do nothing. I think the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, here. I think that choice--it was a judgment call--turned out to be the right one. After all the military balance, after this judgment was made by the President, began to shift, the military balance improved for the Bosnians. That led to a diplomatic effort by the United States. That led to the Dayton Agreement and peace, so I think the policy results here were pretty good. As for Mr. Gilman's point about the Iranians gaining a foothold, I don't think I accept that simply because the Iranians were already in Bosnia. They didn't come in as a result of the President's decision. They were there and they were very active before the President's decision. They remain there today, but I think they are moving out, at least in a military and intelligence sense, and I, I see positive developments there.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Congressman Gilman, what about the point that Congressman Hamilton makes that there were very difficult options available and given the fact that the Iranians were perhaps already there in Bosnia, that allowing these arms shipments to go through was the best of all possible choices?

REP. GILMAN: Well, I don't agree that this is the best of all possible choices. I think--no question the President had some hard choices to make, but there was no reason for him not to consult with the Congress and let us know what he intended to do at the same time that he was objecting to the lifting of the embargo to turn his head and allow the arms to come in even though he was publicly stating that he would not agree to any lifting of the embargo. Yes, Iranians were there, but they were more actively involved once the arms were coming through in training and preparing the Bosnians how to use the weaponry that was coming in. And now we're learning that the reason that there's going to be a possible delay in our leaving, eventually exiting for Bosnia is the fact that there are still Iranian people at work in Bosnia, and until Bosnia agrees to evict all of the Iranians that we cannot agree to any final exit strategy. And I don't think the Iranians are going to want to leave now that they have a foothold in Iran--in Bosnia.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And Congressman Gilman, the Intelligence Oversight Committee investigated this, it's a White House panel, and said that there had been no wrongdoing. This is for Congressman Gilman. Do you think that's not enough? Is that panel not--is it enough for you?

REP. GILMAN: It is not enough. We had a hearing yesterday. There were a lot of unanswered questions. We want to know, besides the President's acquiescence, were there any steps taken to enable this shipment of the arms, and was the President involved in the decision of acquiescence? We now have a differing foreign policy from time to time. We saw what constructive engagement was all about. We then heard about strategic acquiescence, and now we have a "lights out" policy as the "New York Times" described it when the ambassador in Bosnia was asked about whether or not he had a green light or a red light with regard to the arms being shipped by the Iranians into Bosnia. It was characterized as a "lights out" policy that was no green light and no red light.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And Congressman Hamilton, the Intelligence Oversight Committee investigated for several months. Was that an adequate investigation, in your view?

REP. HAMILTON: Well, first of all, I think the Congress clearly has the right to investigate. We want to do that in an effective and efficient manner. Secondly, there may be some advantage to a select committee in the mere fact that you synchronize and coordinate an investigation. And I hope that will be the case here so that no other committees will be investigating and you have duplicative work. But I must say at this point I really do not see compelling reasons for the establishment of a select committee. No charges here so far as I know of violation of law. The basic facts are in agreement, three or four committees looking into it. It seems to me that they're doing a reasonably good job my friend, Chairman Gilman, I think, did a good job yesterday in the hearings, so I don't see compelling reasons for a select committee but if that's the choice of the leadership in the Congress I'm prepared to go along with it and to cooperate and to get all of these facts out.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What about that, Congressman Gilman, why a select committee? Are there any--is there any indication that more was done to encourage these arms shipments than we're being told?

REP. GILMAN: Well, there are some unanswered questions, and that's what we want to find out. And a select committee to have a bipartisan review, it will be consisting of both Republicans and Democrats, both Mr. Hamilton and I will serve in an ex-officio capacity, and it'll give it, this subcommittee an opportunity to spend some full time in taking a good, hard look at this issue so that one way or another we'll know whether or not there's any right or wrong committed in this initiative.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And Congressman Gilman, you heard Mike McCurry say that this is just happening because it's an election year. What do you think about that, Congressman Gilman?

REP. GILMAN: I don't think it's a political action. There's some real questions that should and must be answered, and I think the best way to do it is through this kind of a select committee.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Congressman Hamilton, is this all--is a big deal being made of this because it's an election year in your vie?

REP. HAMILTON: Well, I'd be the last one to charge any of my colleagues on the Hill with political motivations.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. Thank you both very much. FOCUS - MILITIA GROUPS - DRAWING THE LINE

MR. LEHRER: Now an update on the militia movement. President Clinton signed a new anti-terrorism bill into law today. That legislation grew out of the Oklahoma City bombing one year ago. Another consequence of that tragedy was a focusing on the armed militia groups that have existed in this country for many years. Several Western and Northwestern states have since stepped up efforts to police their activities. Rod Minott of KCTS-Seattle reports.

ROD MINOTT: With the Federal Building as a symbolic backdrop, a group of about a dozen people in Helena, Montana, last Friday marked the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing by rallying against armed extremists.

DON JUDGE, Montana Anti-Extremist Coalition: We abhor the vilification of government workers as a threat to people and an assault on our democracy, and we urge all Montanans to stand up and be counted against the acts of political hatred and division.

MR. MINOTT: Organizers of this gathering used the anniversary to kick off a petition drive: Their goal, placing on the ballot an initiative to combat far right extremists. The measure targets the Montana Freemen, a group of anti-government militants who reject state and federal law. About 18 of them remain holed up on a farm in Eastern Montana, where the stand-off against federal agents has now lasted one month. Authorities believe the Freemen are heavily armed. While Montana already has a law that bans paramilitary training, the proposed ballot measure would outlaw the filing of bogus property liens, a tactic used frequently by the Freemen. The initiative would also allow anyone harassed or threatened by extremists to sue for monetary damages. Evan Barrett heads the ballot drive.

EVAN BARRETT, Montana Anti-Extremist Coalition: Silence is consent, and if we stand by silent in the face of this kind of extremism, those who perpetrate that kind of violence and activity will believe that we're on their side, and most mainstream America and mainstream Montana is not on the side of those who would perpetrate violence.

MR. MINOTT: Even though anti-government activity in Montana hasn't become violent like Waco, where more than 70 people died, or Ruby Ridge, where two people were killed by federal agents, it has still focused attention on a sub-culture of armed paramilitary groups. That attention had been at its most intense one year ago following the Oklahoma City bombing.

MORRIS DEES, Southern Poverty Law Center: [April 19, 1995] You can't have a private army poised with AK-47's to assault the FBI or the ATF.

MR. MINOTT: Last year, after Oklahoma City, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center said on the NewsHour it was time to take a hard look at paramilitary groups.

MORRIS DEES: We ought to look closely at outlawing militia groups that, in fact, are more than just study groups that are groups that are training in military procedures with rank, with status, with guns, with the kinds of things that really make up an army.

MR. MINOTT: Dees now says there may be as many as 441 armed militia groups in all 50 states. That's about double what he had estimated a year ago. In a new report, the Southern Poverty Law Center warns the threat of domestic terrorism posed by paramilitary extremists has increased sharply over the past year. In a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, Dees wrote, "Unless action is taken, it is only a matter of time before the country endures another nightmare like the Oklahoma City tragedy." And even though Congress passed federal anti-terrorist legislation last week, many human rights activists still feel there's a need for other statewide measures. According to experts, the growth of militias continues despite laws in 41 states that either ban or regulate paramilitary groups. Opponents of militias say it's time to enforce those laws already on the books more diligently. But defining paramilitary activity and what laws militias might be violating is not clear. For example, Washington is one of twenty-four states with laws that forbid forming unauthorized military companies. The statute was passed in the late 1800's, according to Greg Canova, head of the criminal division for the Washington State Attorney General's Office.

GREG CANOVA, Deputy Attorney General, Washington: This was designed to prevent, in essence, private landowners who were rather often in the West hiring their own groups of armed men to protect their range territory to keep the homesteaders off their property or what they felt was their property that they were using for grazing herds.

MR. MINOTT: The statute has never been tested, and Canova suggests it may not be specific enough to be enforceable.

SPOKESMAN: It's got a little white indicator line on it.

MR. MINOTT: He cites, for example, a militia based in Port Orchard, Washington called the Sons of Liberty and says it's very difficult to identify whether the group constitutes a military company in the context of the law.

SPOKESMAN: The compass needle is always going to point North.

MR. MINOTT: Sons of Liberty was founded two years ago as an answer to bills passed by Congress regulating sales of handguns and assault rifles. Members insist they're an educational group that train in survival techniques such as compass and map reading and first aid. Mark Carter is firearms instructor for Sons of Liberty. He and others affiliated with the group use local rifle ranges to conduct field exercises, often competing in sanctioned gun matches. Carter says calls for curbing militias are really about taking away the right to bear arms, which would prevent him from conducting what he describes as self-defense training.

MARK CARTER, Sons of Liberty: What is wrong with preparing for war? As they have said, if you want to live at peace, you need to prepare for war, and it's simply a matter of showing those that you're very serious about maintaining your freedom.

MR. MINOTT: Canova and other authorities add they don't believe militia groups, including the Sons of Liberty, pose a serious threat right now in Washington State and caution against a crackdown.

GREG CANOVA: If that's the path you take, you may simply increase the paranoia of honest, upstanding, law-abiding citizens who are out there who may see this as a further threat and may be right that it might be a threat to their otherwise protected constitutional rights.

MR. MINOTT: In Boise, Idaho, state lawmakers have also been grappling with the issue of how much to crack down on paramilitary groups. The rise of a violent and militant neo-Nazi gang known as the Order led the state in 1987 to pass one of the nation's toughest anti-paramilitary laws. It bars people from assembling to train in firearms and explosives for the intent of committing violence. A violation can bring up to 10 years in prison and a fine up to $50,000. Similar anti-paramilitary training laws now exist in 23 other states. Idaho's Attorney General says no one in that state has ever been prosecuted under its anti-paramilitary law. Alan Lance says he doesn't see any evidence the state's largest militia, the U.S. Militia Association, has violated the paramilitary law. He says right now, there's no need for taking action.

ALAN LANCE, Attorney General, Idaho: A crackdown doing what? Violating an individual's right of free speech? No, we're not in that business of violating constitutional rights. Violating them because they have rhetoric that's somewhat outlandish and outrageous, no, I don't think so.

MR. MINOTT: But others worry about what the militia is really up to. Its director, Samuel Sherwood, was quoted in a newspaper article saying a civil war may be on the horizon. "Go up and look Idaho legislators in the face," he allegedly said, "because some day you may be forced to blow it off." Sherwood says he was misquoted, and in an interview on Idaho Public Television, he insisted his group is not violent.

SAM SHERWOOD, U.S. Militia Association: We're not armed. The individuals may or may not be armed. That's part of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, but the Association is not armed, and we do not do drills, we don't go up into the hills in camouflage uniforms.

MR. MINOTT: But while he claims the militia is not armed, Sherwood and his followers have lobbied Idaho lawmakers to recognize their group as the state's official militia. In this booklet, Sherwood says legal recognition would give the Idaho militia access to weapons the U.S. Army uses, including tanks and artillery. Sherwood says the weapons are needed so the militia can serve as back-up for law enforcement. Idaho's governor vows that'll never happen.

GOV. PHIL BATT, Idaho: I can foresee no circumstances in which we'd use it to enforce laws within the state of Idaho. We have our own police. We have our National Guard. We have our county sheriffs, and all the other law enforcement people, and those are the people I turn to, not any militia.

MR. MINOTT: Given the experiences in states like Washington and Idaho, the Anti-Defamation League of the B'Nai B'rith tried to craft anti-militia laws that may be easier to enforce. Their proposal, which the ADL believes can pass constitutional muster, would ban paramilitary training which targets groups or individuals. Marvin Stern is with the ADL's Seattle office.

MARVIN STERN, Anti-Defamation League: It's simply a question of having the ability to shoot a gun but also indicating who the targets of those--of that shooting might, in fact, be. The burden of proof is going to be on the prosecution to make the case that the, the assembling and the teaching, and the training was for the specific intended purpose to carry out an act of civil disobedience or civil disorder or violence.

MR. MINOTT: Militias charge the proposal would deny them the right to assemble, but the ADL says that right would be protected. Sons of Liberty Leader Mark Carter says he's not spoiling for an armed confrontation, but he adds, if it ever comes to shutting his group down, he's willing to take up arms.

MARK CARTER: What our founding fathers did was overthrow the rightfully installed government of the day, uh, because it had become a tyranny over the people. We see a lot of resemblances now between now and then.

MR. MINOTT: For now, this marksman pledges he'll keep his fight at the ballot box, and in the state capital, where Washington's legislature recently rejected the ADL's bill to ban paramilitary training. Four other states are now considering similar legislation.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the politics of judges and the former head of the Ford Foundation. FOCUS - JUDICIOUS CHOICES

MR. LEHRER: Now, the growing political fight over judicial appointments. Margaret Warner has that story.

MS. WARNER: The issue of judicial appointments was injected into the Presidential campaign this month when Bob Dole, the putative Republican nominee, called for the impeachment of a Clinton- appointed judge. Last Friday, Dole attacked the President's appointments to the bench again. We begin with those remarks to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

SEN. BOB DOLE, Majority Leader: [April 19] We go across America and you mention the courts and you mention conservative or liberal judges, I can tell you that people respond. The legal guard rails that protected our society, that ensured a certain fundamental level of security and safety for American families, those guard rails have in many places been knocked down and even dismantled often by the very judges and jurists who have been entrusted with the sacred duty of upholding the rule of law. And many of the judges Mr. Clinton has appointed to the federal bench are precisely the ones who are dismantling those guard rails that protect society from the predatory, the violent, and the anti-social elements in our midst. His appointees to the Supreme Court have been among the most willing to use technicalities to overturn death sentences for proved murderers. They frequently vote to grant last minute stays of execution, even when the Death Row inmate's claims are plainly frivolous. And a startling number of Mr. Clinton's lower court judges have demonstrated an outright hostility to law enforcement. And if President Clinton has four more years and appoints just one more justice to the Supreme Court, we could have the most liberal court since the Warren court of the 1960's. We could lock in liberal judicial activism for the next generation and the social landscape could be dramatically changed: More federal intrusion into the lives of average Americans, more centralized power in Washington, less freedom of religious expression, more rights for criminals, and more arrogant disregard of the rights of law-abiding citizens.

MS. WARNER: For more on this, we turn now to Anthony Lewis, columnist for the "New York Times," and Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Institute for Justice. Clint Bolick, what's the basis for these charges that Sen. Dole is making about President Clinton's judges, the ones he's appointed?

CLINT BOLICK, Institute for Justice: Well, President Clinton already has appointed a quarter of the federal judiciary, and judges have an impact. Certainly there have been some very good decisions by Clinton judges and there have been some very bad decisions by Reagan and Bush judges, but by and large, as I found in a study I did for the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix recently, Clinton judges are more liberal. This should not surprise anybody because Bill Clinton is a fairly liberal President. This has real world ramifications in areas of criminal law, civil rights, civil liability, and so it is--the power to appoint the third branch of government is one of the most awesome powers the President has and, and Bob Dole, many of the points he makes are extremely valid, especially regarding the Supreme Court and which the conservative majority hangs by the balance of a single vote.

MS. WARNER: When you say liberal, what do you mean exactly?

MR. BOLICK: Well, in criminal cases certainly the overwhelming majority of decisions would be decided the same, regardless of who appointed a judge. But in controversial or close cases, the Clinton judges are much more likely to side with criminals and criminal defendants than Reagan and Bush judges, and this has happened repeatedly. It's striking how often it happens. And in one court that I looked at, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals of Richmond, in, in hotly contested criminal decisions, the non-Clinton judges sided with criminal defendants 40 percent of the time, the Clinton judges 86 percent of the time.

MS. WARNER: Tony Lewis, what's your assessment of these charges and theevidence that Mr. Bolick's just laid out?

ANTHONY LEWIS, New York Times: [Boston] Well, the charges that Sen. Dole made don't bear much resemblance to the rather recent statement of Mr. Bolick. He's quite right--judicial appointments are a very important power of the President, and so on. But Sen. Dole's charges were simply wild. Judges are the root cause of crime. Nobody can believe that. That's absurd. And many judges are sworn enemies of law enforcement, or what was his phrase, outright hostility to law enforcement? Please, I don't think any judge would think that of his colleagues no matter who it was. It's an absurd thing. Now as to just one thing I might take exception to in Mr. Bolick's statement. He puts it in terms of siding with criminal defendants. Well, of course, we have something called the Constitution. So the judge who, who decides on whether a particular clause of the Constitution, say a clause guaranteeing the right to counsel or a clause guaranteeing due process of law or forbidding unreasonable searches and seizures, he doesn't think or she doesn't think of that in terms of being for the criminal defendant who most judges dislike, and they decide an overwhelming proportion of cases against criminal defendants. It's simply they may have a different view of what that clause of the Constitution means. So it's a little unfair to put it in terms of siding with the criminal defendant.

MS. WARNER: Does he have a point? Does Mr. Lewis have a point?

MR. BOLICK: Well, there are very important protections of liberties in the Constitution, and I think this is a very, very delicate balance, but the, the expansive reading of criminal defendants' rights in the Constitution does have very serious ramifications for society. For example, just to give you one example of one of the decisions that I looked at, in a criminal case where a number of people were being charged with assault, murder, and lynching, the defense lawyer made an error and showed some photographs to the jury that were not admitted into evidence. The judge declared a mistrial. When the prosecution sought to try them again for this same offense, it was struck down under double jeopardy. The deciding votes in that case were Clinton judges. Just as Anthony Lewis said, they read a clause of the Constitution, in this case the double jeopardy clause, very, very broadly. The result is that people who may have been guilty of very heinous crimes cannot be tried for that offense because of something that their lawyer did. This is precisely the kind of technicality that real--that mainstream Americans find very appalling, and rightfully so.

MR. LEWIS: Ms. Warner, let me just respond.

MS. WARNER: Please do.

MR. LEWIS: We could sit here and talk about like decisions or decisions of equally shocking character made by Reagan judges or Bush judges or somebody else. Uh, it does no good to try to pin those things on one side or the other. The truth of the matter is that something Mr. Bolick didn't mention earlier when he said nearly 25 percent of the judges have been appointed, federal judges have been appointed by Clinton, 60 percent of the judges have been- -were appointed originally by Bush or Reagan, and they were appointed, I want to tell you, in a process that deliberately chose right wing ideologues. That was the process. The striking thing about the Clinton appointments is how un-ideological they are. Most liberal judicial thinkers believe that the President's appointments have been far too centrist, and I don't think that myself. I think they're about right. But they certainly are not as ideological as the Reagan and Bush appointees.

MR. BOLICK: See, here's where we get into a good old-fashioned philosophical debate, and that's what it ought to be about. I think that most Americans did not like what judges were doing. They were taking over school systems. They were taking over prison systems, imposing racial quotas, letting criminals out on technicalities. After 12 years of Reagan and Bush appointees, the judges got out of those businesses by and large. And now with more liberal judges being appointed, you are seeing a return to the activism that was a hallmark of the earlier courts that people didn't like. And that's the debate we ought to be having. Clinton, instead, is not defending that kind of judicial philosophy, but it is having a real world impact.

MS. WARNER: Tony Lewis, let me ask you about another point that Sen. Dole brought up which was, he said that he, if he were President, he would not longer have the American Bar Association screen judicial appointments and rate them. He said the ABA had become an advocacy organization. What's your view of that?

MR. LEWIS: I think that's one of the most comic lines uttered by a United States Senator in years. The American Bar Association Committee on the Federal Judiciary is very straight, rather serious, dominated by commercial lawyers and people of that kind, and always has been. I used to cover it many years ago, and I know that they're concerned overwhelmingly--and I know how they work-- they talk to lawyers in the community, they interview lawyers about prospective judges. It's very much a nitty-gritty kind of thing, and it's--I should say something about what Sen. Dole proposed instead, which is he would have prosecutors and victims of crime help him select judges if, if he were President. Well, there's a fundamental misconception there that I think is furthered by Sen. Dole's whole speech, which is that federal judges have a lot to do with, with trying crimes in this country. Overwhelmingly, perhaps 90, 95 percent of crimes, 98 percent are tried in state courts. Federal judges have nothing to do with the run of the mill crimes in this country. They were originally there for federal specialties like patents and trademarks and enforcing the civil rights laws and deciding constitutional questions and tax laws, and those are the kinds of things that mostly the American Bar Association Committee on the Federal Judiciary deals with: Is a judge competent? Is a prospective nominee competent to deal with that kind of question?

MS. WARNER: What's your assessment of this ABA controversy?

MR. BOLICK: The ABA has elected in recent years to become an advocacy organization, rather than a professional organization. I resigned from the ABA a few years ago because it got involved in civil rights legislation that I disagreed with their position on it. Once it has made that choice to become an advocacy organization, I don't think that it has a proper role in evaluating judicial nominations.

MS. WARNER: Let me ask you, Mr. Bolick, why do you think Sen. Dole has decided to make this a--such a high profile political issue in this campaign, and do you think it will resonate?

MR. BOLICK: Well, not being a politician, being interested in this from a, a legal perspective, umm, I can only speculate. This is a populist issue, because people don't like what the courts used to do, umm, and it is very important in the real lives of real people, regardless of whether it's an election issue or not, I'm really glad that people are talking about it, because the courts are very, very important.

MS. WARNER: Tony Lewis, what do you think is the political impact of raising this issue to this high profile?

MR. LEWIS: Let me say something first, if I may, Ms. Warner, about the larger issue here, which Mr. Bolick mentioned a while ago. It isn't just crime. It's the general position of judges in the system. I noticed that Sen. Dole spoke critically of the Warren court. Well, why not come right out and say that what we're talking about here is we don't like the court that held school segregation, officially required school segregation, required by southern state laws, unconstitutional? That's what people don't like and that's the most important thing the Warren court did, along with one other thing, to hold that the unequal districting of state legislatures so that the suburbs were discriminated against was unconstitutional. Those are the two boldest things the Warren court did, much bolder than some of the things we hear about--we've been hearing about tonight, so I just think it's, it's good to put that in context.

MS. WARNER: Very briefly, your response. Is that a code for--

MR. BOLICK: It's a code for racial quotas. It's a code for forced bussing. These are the sorts of things that Justice Ginsburg, for example, seems to have stepped into the shoes of the Warren court and--

MS. WARNER: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

MR. BOLICK: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

MS. WARNER: His appointee to the court.

MR. BOLICK: And, uh, this court is one vote away from a very substantial swing to the left.

MS. WARNER: Gentlemen, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you both very much. CONVERSATION

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, a conversation with the former head of the largest foundation in the world. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: He's Franklin Thomas, who has just retired after 12 years as president of the Ford Foundation. Thomas tripled the foundation's endowment from $2 billion to about $7.7 billion today. Last year alone, Ford awarded more than 2,000 grants worth almost $300 million. As he was preparing to take up work on South Africa and other issues, we spoke with Mr. Thomas about his years at Ford.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Frank Thomas, thank you for joining us.

FRANKLIN THOMAS, Former President, Ford Foundation: Thank you for having me.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What has been the mission of the Ford Foundation traditionally, and how did it change during your 17 years?

FRANKLIN THOMAS: Well, the foundation is a philanthropy created with a broad charter to help improve human welfare in the world, and each successive leadership of a foundation has defined the areas in which the foundation would work in furtherance of that mission. What we've tried to do is to elevate the role of the people who are the intended beneficiaries who are also victims of the problem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The foundation you said was both national or domestic. Did you find that the design that you've set up worked for domestic, as well as international? I mean, how does that all play out?

FRANKLIN THOMAS: It was one of the more exciting discoveries, in fact, that many of the approaches that seemed relevant to let's say a U.S.-based problem also turned out to be relevant to a problem of a developing world.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Give me an example.

FRANKLIN THOMAS: And vice versa. Bangladesh is the often-cited example with the Grameen Bank, where you have saving circles of people who pool their money, then make loans to one member of the group to pursue an economic activity, help support that member during the implementation of this idea, the member pays back, and then another person from the group is able to borrow. Well, that idea, the Grameen Bank, which we and others have helped expand within Bangladesh, is now the reality of micro-credit across the world--Africa, Latin America, parts of Arkansas and Appalachia in this country--very same principles of organized savings, communal support of the investment or economic activity. That's been something that has known no boundaries because it's a human condition.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And give me an example of something you've learned in America that can be transmitted or transplanted somewhere else.

FRANKLIN THOMAS: I think the Community Development Corporation is a great example. That's a U.S. phenomenon. Its origin is where people in a given community organize to address the problems of that community and in so doing form partnerships with the business sector, the governmental sector. But at the core of the partnership is the community itself making the basic decisions. That sense of organization and of partnership that really was initiated in the U.S. is now finding expression across the world. So that's a transplant going in the other direction.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And how did you set your priorities, and what kinds of things did you do that you weren't doing before?

FRANKLIN THOMAS: I think at the core of the strategic change was a recognition that women were the majority of the world's population, they were the majority of the world's poor, and they were the least powerful in terms of decision-making, whether it was within families, communities, governments, or enterprise, and it was our belief that if you could focus your attention on gender inequities, wherever they occurred, and try and help people remove those inequities so that opportunities for women would be equal to those opportunities for men, you would dramatically increase the capacity of the world to address its problems.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you measure success in the foundation- -I read in one of your statements that you said social change is to foundations what profit is to the corporate world--how do you measure that?

FRANKLIN THOMAS: Well, in a real sense, I think of foundations as the research and development arm of a society. We're the parts of the society that ought to be taking risks, developing new ideas, backing innovative people and institutions who are pushing new ideas, ideas that are designed to remove inequities, increase opportunities, and lead towards more harmonious relations, whether interpersonal or intergovernmental or globally. I think the emergence of representative governments across the world is one signal that there is a growing sense across the world that participation matters, that the quality of life in any setting is a function almost directly of the degree of engagement people have with that life, of the choices they have, of their opportunity within their society.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is the thing you feel the proudest about, your biggest success--

FRANKLIN THOMAS: Well--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Or maybe they aren't the same thing.

FRANKLIN THOMAS: [laughing] I'm--I'm proud of a few things. It's hard to pick one. One is that the foundation, itself, is healthy and vibrant and able to do increasingly important work going forward. Secondly is to witness the transitions to democracy, particularly in South Africa. If I've had one area of sustained personal commitment for years, it's certainly been--involved South Africa and its transaction. And to see that happen, and to know that there are opportunities to help it cement that political change, are extraordinarily powerful to me.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You arranged for the first ever meeting between the ANC and the government when the leaders were still in exile. Nelson Mandela was still in prison.

FRANKLIN THOMAS: That's--as it turns out, that's correct. It was a weekend meeting out at the conference center on Long Island, and it was the first ever meeting between members of the ANC in exile and some people close in to the South African government and the Brudaban, and it was a meeting the results of which included week- long contact between the ANC and members of the Afrikaner community, each of which felt that their lives and mission had been changed in a meaningful way by that contact.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And how many years later was it that--

FRANKLIN THOMAS: It's just about four years later that Nelson Mandela was freed and these negotiations began, and the resultant elections in 1994, so that's a period of quite extraordinary experience for me.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Finally, you've had a unique vantage point from which to look at this country and the world. As you look at the state of the world today, how do you feel about it? Are you optimistic, are you pessimistic? How do you feel about the world?

FRANKLIN THOMAS: Well, I'm--maybe by nature--an optimist, so I remain optimistic about the world. I think that we have evolved to a point where we have defined what's worthy of communication as equal to controversy. And if there isn't controversy, we tend to think it isn't worthy of communication, so it's much more difficult to communicate those things that are working and working well than it is to be aware of our shortcomings as a people, as a nation, as a world. At the core of everything I know about life are the very basic simple messages we all learned as kids, and that includes do unto others as you would have done unto you. It is one of the simplest, most fundamental truths about life. It's what anchors the human rights movement in the world. It's what anchors a belief in democratic systems. It's what anchors an opportunity-driven society. What we're struggling with is how best to do that with entrenched interest, feeling threatened, and those on the rise feeling that they aren't being able to rise as fast as their talents would allow. We're struggling with the very process of democracy and opportunity. And I'd say to you that's a struggle that's going to go on forever. What we need are additional perspectives from which to understand that struggle so that we aren't led to despair by the headlines.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Frank Thomas, thank you for joining us.

FRANKLIN THOMAS: Charlayne, thank you for having me. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, President Clinton signed a new anti-terrorism bill into law. House Speaker Gingrich appointed a special committee to investigate the administration's policy on arms shipments from Iran to Bosnia, and late this evening, White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta said he had reached agreement with Republican negotiators on a 1996 budget. Congress and the President must still give it final approval. Earlier, the House and Senate approved a 24-hour spending bill to prevent a partial government shutdown so a final agreement could be worked out. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.