The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Leon Aron analyzes what President Yelstin's heart attack today might mean for Russia, Kwame Holman updates the congressional budget debate, Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks with the former president of Germany about 50 years of the United Nations, Elizabeth Farnsworth follows that with Senators Moynihan and Kyl's differing American views of the UN. David Gergen has a dialogue about life in the South Bronx, and essayist Roger Rosenblatt has some thoughts about how to remember tennis player Bobby Riggs. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The House of Representatives passed the Republican Balanced Budget Bill tonight. The vote was 227 to 203. The bill would eliminate the budget deficit in seven years by reducing the rate of growth in Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits, and other government programs. The Senate vote on a similar bill is set for tomorrow or Monday. Here's a sample of today's House debate.

REP. BILL ARCHER, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee: While the hearts of the Democrats may sound as if they are in the right place, their fingers are in the wrong place. Their fingers remain stuck deep in the wallets of middle-income Americans, trying to take from one citizen in order to give to another.

REP. JOHN DINGELL, [D] Michigan: The bill includes both Medicare and Medicaid cuts and tax breaks. Our Republican colleagues said that they would not tie the two together. Well, they are tied together this bill, and the poor and the aged are going to understand that the contributions that they are making, about $500 billion, is being made so that a tax cut could be given to the wealthiest Americans.

MR. LEHRER: Speaker Gingrich took exception to a "New York Times"/CBS poll. It said 81 percent of the people polled did not believe the Republican plan would balance the budget in seven years. 57 percent said they didn't want cuts in Medicare. Gingrich called the poll disgraceful.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: So what we get are deliberately rigged questions that are totally phony, that come out the morning of the vote, that I think are absolute misinformation. I have to tell you, I've met recently with "New York Times" senior leadership. I am very disappointed in this poll. I think it is blatantly dishonest, and I think they ought to frankly retract it.

MR. LEHRER: The Senate Whitewater Committee voted today to issue 49 subpoenas for more documents. They seek meeting notes and telephone and bank records relating to President and Mrs. Clinton's Arkansas land deal. Committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato said the committee will recall two witnesses next week, Mrs. Clinton's chief of staff, Margaret Williams, and longtime friend Susan Thomases. Russian President Yeltsin was hospitalized in Moscow today with heart trouble. We have a report from Julian Manyon of Independent Television News.

JULIAN MANYON, ITN: Behind the bland gates of Moscow's Central Medical Clinic, the Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, is now suffering the effects of his second heart attack in three months.

IGOR IGNATIEV, Presidential Spokesman: Today in the afternoon, the President didn't feel good, and he--at the recommendation of his doctors, he has been taken to the hospital.

JULIAN MANYON: It's just three days since Yeltsin appeared with Bill Clinton in New York and gave robust answers to reporters' questions.

PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN, Russia: [speaking through interpreter] It's now for the first time I can tell you that you're a disaster. [laughter]

JULIAN MANYON: But Yeltsin has now suffered what is described as an attack of myocardial ischemia, a lowering of blood supply to the muscles of the heart, or in plain man's language, a heart attack. On Monday, Yeltsin appeared frail as President Clinton helped him up the steps to their meeting, and it was perhaps significant that cameras were barred from recording the Russian President's return to Moscow Airport, which was marked only by a brief announcement on the news. A short time ago, the government TV channel announced that the president has suffered a worsening of his heart disease, but it gave no information as to how serious his condition may be. The prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, who would succeed Yeltsin in the event of disability or death, says that he has no plans to change his work routine, which today included a meeting with World Bank officials. It was Chernomyrdin who was seen presenting flowers to the president as he recovered from his last heart attack in July this year. Then there were fears for the political future of Russia. Tonight, the Kremlin has emphasized that Yeltsin will remain in command, but a spokesman said that he was unlikely to return to work in the near future. Until more details are known, it is a statement that is bound to leave uncertainty.

MR. LEHRER: The Russian defense minister, Pavel Grachev, was in Washington today for talks with Secretary of Defense Perry. They were met by an honor guard at the Pentagon. Their main agenda item was troop participation in a Bosnia peacekeeping force. Russia has refused to put its troops under NATO, which may send up to 60,000 troops to Bosnia if a peace agreement is reached next week, as hoped. There were two more deaths today from yesterday's school bus commuter train collision in Fox River Grove, Illinois. It brought the total number to seven. The bus driver and thirty other students were injured. Eleven students remain hospitalized, two in critical condition. Transportation officials worked through the night investigating signals at the crossing. Witnesses said a traffic light was not coordinated with the crossing gate. A state official said the light had been inspected the day before the accident. A jury in Houston today sentenced Yolanda Saldivar to life in prison for the murder of Tejano music star Selena. Saldivar was the founder of the singer's fan club. She was convicted Monday of shooting Selena last March at a Corpus Christi, Texas, motel. The life sentence means Saldivar must serve a minimum of 30 years in prison. In economic news today, the Commerce Department reported orders for durable goods jumped 3 percent last month. A rise in the demand for new commercial aircraft was the main cause. Durable goods are big ticket items designed to last three years or more. Former Education Secretary William Bennett launched what he called a hue and cry against TV talk shows today. He said the programs glorified promiscuity and abnormal behavior. Bennett led a fight against violent and sexually explicit rap music earlier this year. He was joined today by Democratic Senators Sam Nunn and Joseph Lieberman at a Washington news conference.

WILLIAM BENNETT, Former Education Secretary: Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "That which uplifts human personality is just; that which degrades human personality is unjust." Does anybody doubt that these shows degrade the people who are on them, that these shows degrade human personality? Do the sponsors think not? If not, why not?

MR. LEHRER: Bennett said he wanted to change attitudes, not legislate behavior. Talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael said, "We have 4 1/2 million viewers. Are we going to tell them, 'You can't watch my show anymore?'". Bobby Riggs died last night of prostate cancer at his home near San Diego. He was 77 years old. Riggs was the No. 1 ranked tennis player in the world in 1939, but gained even more fame in 1973, when he challenged women's tennis star Billie Jean King to a match. He said he expected to prove men players were superior to women no matter their ages. King beat him three sets to none. Roger Rosenblatt will speak of Riggs at the end of the program tonight. Between now and then come Boris Yeltsin's illness, a budget debate update, the UN at 50, and a David Gergen dialogue. FOCUS - FAILING HEALTH

MR. LEHRER: First tonight, the new Yeltsin crisis, how Russia will be governed with President Boris Yeltsin back in the hospital with a heart attack. We take up that and other questions with Leon Aron, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a Yeltsin biographer. Mr. Aron, welcome. First, is there anything you can add to the basic report that we just heard in the News Summary about what happened to him today?

LEON ARON, American Enterprise Institute: No. It all sounds pretty plausible. He has a history of heart illness.

MR. LEHRER: Tell us briefly what that history was.

MR. ARON: Well, it started in college. He, in fact, had to take time off college I think in his third year to recuperate from an illness that significantly weakened his heart. And there were rumors when I did research for the book in his birthplace, Osvardlosk, that while he was the first secretary of the Party Committee there between '76 and '85, he suffered a heart attack.

MR. LEHRER: And we know he's had one since then.

MR. ARON: That's correct, at least one.

MR. LEHRER: When was that one?

MR. ARON: I think it was a few years ago.

MR. LEHRER: A few years ago. And it's generally considered that this is a severe heart condition, or one that--I mean, what is the general word out in the international community about the condition of this man's heart?

MR. ARON: Well, you know, you have to look at not just the condition of the man's heart but his other work habits and other habits.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. ARON: And the problem is that, you know, the man who works from early morning or used to work from 6 till midnight and then get up at 4 and read and then, and then go to work, that's how he worked virtually all his life, into his early sixties, plus his now, by now, proven habit of drinking every now and then at least, this combination could be very dangerous.

MR. LEHRER: And he's never made--he's never adjusted his lifestyle to his heart condition, is that right?

MR. ARON: No, he, in fact, he tells a story in his book, in his first biography, about how he was ordered to stay in the hospital during that incident. He ran away from the hospital in the third day and recuperated at his parents' place. He disregarded the advice of the doctor and went to play volleyball. He was a semi- professional volleyball player. That's when he collapsed with a very serious heart illness.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. But he still--he still drinks liquor, is that right?

MR. ARON: Well, such is the rumor, and I think it's--

MR. LEHRER: What about smoking and exercise?

MR. ARON: Never smoked.

MR. LEHRER: Never smoked.

MR. ARON: Never smoked in his life, and was very active always, took up tennis at the age of 55.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. You watched this news report just now and you're more experienced at watching reports from Russia than I am. How do you read what the spokespeople are saying today?

MR. ARON: Well, there is a Russian tradition. It's a very young democracy, and there's a very clear tradition, both Russian and Soviet, where you minimize the crisis, where the condition of the leader's health is a state secret. Now, they made a tremendous step with Yeltsin, and at least we know what's going on.

MR. LEHRER: Exactly.

MR. ARON: At least, unlike Andropov, he's not having a slight cold.

MR. LEHRER: And then dead, the next thing you know, he's dead.

MR. ARON: And then dies.

MR. LEHRER: Right. Right.

MR. ARON: But, clearly, we are not going to know as much as we would know of a leader in a democratic nation.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Now what happens if he becomes incapacitated? What is the process?

MR. ARON: Well, he--since he wrote the Russian Constitution, essentially, Article 92, Part 2 says that in the case of a persistent and lasting stoyke is the Russian word, persistent and lasting incapacitation, the president then resigns or is removed, and the next article, the third part of the same article, says that in that case the prime minister takes over, and in no longer than three months, presidential elections are to take place. Now, that, of course, leaves Chernomyrdin in a very, very good position.

MR. LEHRER: He's the prime minister now, and--

MR. ARON: He will be the caretaker.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Who decides what is persistent?

MR. ARON: That's exactly the point.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. ARON: That is something that the constitution did not specify. I wonder why.

MR. LEHRER: Because Yeltsin wrote it.

MR. ARON: Yeltsin wrote it.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. So there's no vice president.

MR. ARON: There's no vice president and nobody--in other words, nobody is going to succeed and serve out the term, which is about to end on the 12th of June of next year. Prime Minister--or they call it in the constitution the chairman of the government takes over. In three months, they are to have presidential elections, which is very soon.

MR. LEHRER: So if he's incapacitated, and it's--and it's interpreted that way--

MR. ARON: Lasting.

MR. LEHRER: --lasting way, or if he dies, that--the prime minister would take over for three months and then there would have to be a new election.

MR. ARON: That's correct. That's correct. Actually, before three months are over.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Leon Aron, thanks again for being with us. UPDATE - BUDGET BATTLE

MR. LEHRER: We go now to the big budget debate in the Congress. Kwame Holman again has our report.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: The time having expired, the vote is 227 yes, 203 no.

KWAME HOLMAN: Early this evening, the House of Representatives approved its reconciliation package, which, in effect, approves all elements of the Republicans' seven-year plan to balance the budget, and it fulfills the pledge House Republicans made one year ago when they signed their Contract With America.

REP. CHARLES NORWOOD, [R] Georgia: In the reconciliation, we are going to do the things the voters actually asked us to do when they swept the liberal Democrats out of office.

REP. DEBORAH PRYCE, [R] Ohio: The truth is the Republican Congress has worked long and hard to bring us to this moment in time when we are about to pass legislation to end years of rapidly expanding government and to start this pendulum swinging the other way.

REP. PORTER GOSS, [R] Florida: We are creating jobs, opportunity for Americans to work, opportunity to expand our economy, while at the same time, we control the cancerous growth of rampant, runaway federal spending, which so many have closed their eyes to for so long.

MR. HOLMAN: House Democrats, left out of the budget process for the first time in forty years, had a different perspective on the significance of the day.

REP. JOE MOAKLEY, [D] Massachusetts: Mr. Speaker, the more I look at the bill, the more horrified I become. This bill is an enormous collection of heartless attacks on American children, senior citizens, and working families. And the worst part, the most disappointing aspect of the whole horrible collection of mean- spirited cuts, is that they're made in order to lower the taxes for the very, very, very rich.

REP. LLOYD DOGGETT, [D] Texas: If you make $30,000 or less, these Republicans are going to raise your taxes, plain and simple. To the many who are trying to climb up that economic ladder and share in the American dream, they stamp on their working fingers as they try to climb up that ladder. That's why we call it [holding up sign with "WRECKonciliation" written on it] "WRECKonciliation," because it wrecks working families that are trying to make a go of it.

MR. HOLMAN: During the course of the debate, Democrats employed a strategy similar to one Republicans used in attacking President Clinton's budget two years ago. Each Republican speaker was reminded of the impact their budget plan would have on their constituents back home.

REP. RON LEWIS, [R] Kentucky: It is time that we balance our budget.

REP. ELIOT ENGEL, [D] New York: In response to the gentleman from Kentucky, did you know that in your district 34,543 working families will have their taxes increased by this Republican bill and in the state of Kentucky, students will have $75 million less in student loans?

SPOKESMAN: The gentleman's time has expired.

MR. HOLMAN: Despite the personalized pressure, Republicans' support for their reconciliation package held firm.

REP. DICK CHRYSLER, [R] Michigan: It is the most compassionate thing that we can do for the children of America. And one of the best ways to help the children in America is to help their mom and dad and let 'em have the basic human dignity and pride that comes from bringing home a pay check. We need less government and lower taxes. We need to let people keep more of what they earn and save, and we need to let people make their own decisions how they spend their money, not government.

MR. HOLMAN: While members of the House debated their reconciliation bill under a strict time limit, progress in the Senate was slow. Democrats used Senate rules to offer dozens of amendments in an attempt to chip away various elements of the Republican budget plan.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY, [D] Washington: Mr. President, this Republican--

MR. HOLMAN: Sen. Patty Murray of Washington called for cutting so-called "corporate welfare" and expanding the earned income tax credit for low income workers.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY: Taking away this tax credit adds insult to injury. The EITC keeps people off welfare. It offsets other forms of federal assistance. It gives American parents the security they need to enter the work force.

MR. HOLMAN: And Arkansas' Dale Bumpers tried to put off the bill's $245 billion in tax cuts until the budget is certified as balanced.

SEN. DALE BUMPERS, [D] Arkansas: Do not, do not cut taxes when we're running this kind of a deficit. Balance the budget and then talk about taxes.

MR. HOLMAN: There were so many amendments Senators had trouble keeping track.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS, [D] Montana: The Kassebaum amendment would come up after the Kennedy amendment.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Majority Leader: Right.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: There is an ambiguous point as to when the Bumpers amendment, a vote on the Bumpers amendment and a vote on the Baucus amendment would occur.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE: So it'll be Kassebaum, then Bumpers, then Baucus.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: And then the other second-tier amendments.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE: Then the second-tier amendments, and then the third-tier amendments--

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: After that.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE: --we hope will find their way to the waste basket.

MR. HOLMAN: Majority Leader Robert Dole did work out compromises on increased funding for Medicaid and student loan programs, not appease Democrats, but to secure the votes of moderate Republicans. He'll need those votes tomorrow when the Senate takes final action on the reconciliation bill.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the United Nations at 50, a Gergen dialogue, and remembering Bobby Riggs. FOCUS - HAPPY 50TH ANNIVERSARY

MR. LEHRER: The United Nations completed a year of 50th birthday parties this week, most particularly with the coming of 150 world leaders to New York City. We mark the final act with two discussions, the first by Charlayne Hunter-Gault about the early days of the UN. She spoke with former President of Germany, Richard Von Weizsacker, who now heads an independent working group of the UN.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: President Weizsacker, thank you for joining us. On this 50th anniversary of the United Nations, can you reflect back on its beginnings, especially the role the United States played.

RICHARD VON WEIZSACKER, Former President of Germany: Well, the first idea, of course, is the United Nations is a gift to the world by the United States, solely by the United States. It was President Roosevelt who very shortly after Pearl Harbor in 1942 gave his first order to the State Department to have a plan made ready for something like the United Nations, and when 50 members convened in 1945, to have it going, again, it was really American intention and American idealistic aims to have the United Nations in order to bring democracy and freedom and human rights to as many parts of the world as possible. It was a very idealistic start, really.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You've also talked about the values of the United States and how they were transmitted to the institution.

RICHARD VON WEIZSACKER: In a sense, you might really say that the intention of the founders in America were to Americanize the world; that is to say, to bring the value of freedom, of dignity of men and of the protection of their rights to everybody. It was the conviction that it is democracy that brings human rights about; that it is democracy which is the best safeguard for peacekeeping. It is hard to find any war waged in history by democracies against democracies. So those basic beliefs of the Americans were very much meant by the foundation of that United Nations.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Of course, the rest of the world accepted that.

RICHARD VON WEIZSACKER: Well, the rest of the world, one must, of course, keep in mind that when the United Nations were founded, there were 50 members. Today we have 185. More than two thirds of the present members of the General Assembly of the United Nations just did not exist as sovereign nations at that time. But on the other hand, the United Nations were founded to see to it that no third world war would break out. And, therefore, the victorious powers of the Second World War created the only really important institution inside the UN, namely the Security Council, and provided themselves with the decisive role in that Security Council, namely permanent membership with veto power. That, in my view was absolutely understandable and legitimate. Now we are 50 years later, and the main dangers for the security of people in the world have, of course, changed. And, of course, it was also due to the work of the United Nations to do something for the decolonization, to bring the theme of human rights into international policy for the first time in history. And there were other things done by the United Nations which most of them are forgotten today or not attributed to the United Nations. Many things in, in the field of care for children, in the field of health, and the Hague Court, and world postal union and other things, which may not seem to be that important to many people today, have been brought into being by the United Nations.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now, 50 years later, there's a big debate about the United Nations, its efficacy, the role of the United States in it. What is your perception of all of that?

RICHARD VON WEIZSACKER: There is just one relatively simple great change: The majority of the world population today is in danger for its security not for the reason of wars between states but due to quite other reasons of which the founders of the United Nations didn't think 50 years ago. We have those two thirds of all members of the General Assembly which have the greatest difficulties of feeding their population, which are not really in a position to trade, let alone compete, with the more powerful economic societies in the world. The unforeseen enormous growth of population is one of the main reasons. If you look at all the terrible fate of so manyrefugees, migration in the world, and then on one side, the dire need for poor, for poor societies on one side, and that rather terrible waste on the other side, in other countries of the world, leads to spoil the resources of nature, and to endanger the environment. Those questions are really at the bottom and the heart of the, of the dangers for so many people in the world, and how can you cope with them by military means, let alone atomic weapons?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Can the United Nations survive without America, and how will America survive in the world without being a part of the United Nations?

RICHARD VON WEIZSACKER: The United Nations is a gift by the Americans to the world, and the survival of the United States depends on the willingness of the American people and American leadership to bring that survival about by sharp reforms. But I'm quite confident that this basic readiness of the Americans really to care, this basic readiness, will lead us in the second half century of the United Nations with many difficulties which will prove that the foundation 50 years ago was well done.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, President Weizsacker, thank you for joining us.

MR. LEHRER: Now, to Elizabeth Farnsworth for an American debate about the UN.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Almost since its first days in New York, the UN has been an issue of some controversy in American politics. With the end of the Cold War and with the big increase in UN peacekeeping, sometimes including American troops, the debate here has intensified. We get two views from the U.S. Senate about the U.S. role in the United Nations. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, was the American representative to the UN in the Ford administration. John Kyl, Republican of Arizona, is a member of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. Thank you both for being with us. Sen. Moynihan, the U.S. supported the UN through all these years because it served U.S. interest to do so. Does it still?

SEN. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN, [D] New York: [Capitol Hill] It surely does, if we will understand what those interests are in the first place, and I'll just put out that charter [holding up booklet]. This is the law of nations. It is primarily directed not to idealistic purposes, although they're certainly consonant. It is primarily directed to the maintenance of peace and security and the prevention of aggression. That is what the law states. That is what is in our interests. That is why we put this institution in place in the first instance. It didn't create the law. The law was there. It has added to it, as for example the, the Geneva Conventions on war crimes, but we have a fundamental interest in the maintenance of international peace and security, and the charter is the embodiment of that law. We sometimes think of law, international law, as saying what cannot be done, as a system of negative restraint. To the contrary, law says what must be done, what may be done. For example, today--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Let me just interrupt you one second, Senator. Let me go to Sen. Kyl now--

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Sure.

MS. FARNSWORTH: --just to get an opinion about that. Does the UN continue to serve U.S. interest in the way that Sen. Moynihan has just outlined?

SEN. JOHN KYL, [R] Arizona: [Capitol Hill] Well, as Sen. Moynihan just said, the law existed, much of it, before the United Nations, and much of it could exist without the United Nations. We have treaties. We just adopted the GATT Treaty. We have a new NAFTA treaty. And the United Nations, itself, is not technically required to govern relations between nations with respect to laws; however, there are other purposes, as Sen. Moynihan pointed out. My own view is that the United Nations has not been a very good buy. It is rife with waste, and its accomplishments are not particularly significant, and there is danger in the United States acting in ways that are contrary to United States interest. So I have some suggestions on what the United States ought to do in its relations with the United Nations.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What is your major criticism of the United Nations?

SEN. KYL: Well, I would have several. First of all, it is enormously wasteful, and I think Sen. Moynihan certainly would agree with me on that.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Don't disagree.

SEN. KYL: Right. And--but the problem is that unlike the United States Government, it's, it's not something that the Congress and the President can easily deal with. As a matter of fact, this week, right after President Clinton made a speech about the waste in the United Nations, recommendations were made to increase the salaries of the executive personnel of the United Nations by 15 percent. The President of the United States earns $200,000 a year. Boutros Ghali earns $344,000 a year. And there are numerous examples of the waste. So the first thing the United States should do is cut way back on its funding until those problems are resolved. Secondly, you mentioned my service on the Intelligence Committee. We've got to stop providing the United Nations with sensitive intelligence information, such as the information that we find that was compromised in Somalia, information that was found by the Marines to have been strewn about in the UN headquarters there after the UN officials had left, material that should have never even been provided to them, let alone set in that particular setting. There are other things that I would do as well. In particular, I would never authorize the use of United States troops under Chapter 7 military operations without prior approval of the Congress, and certainly not authorize the establishment of a permanent peacekeeping force in the United Nations, as President Clinton was toying with doing in his first year in office.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sen. Moynihan, do you disagree with any of this?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Not really. I would add, though, that John, when I was UN ambassador, the deputy secretary general, the Soviet-- there's an American and there's a Soviet--he defected to us, and we kept him in place for a couple of years, so we picked up some intelligence along the way. I guess I'd make the point that the Cold War paralyzed the central function of the UN, which was maintaining international peace and security on a collective basis. The law, as Sen. Kyl said exactly right, international law is there, but a mechanism for maintaining it. The test is Bosnia. Sen. Dole gave a superb speech on the floor this morning talking about the new revelations about the slaughter of Muslims in Srebrenica. A war crime under the Geneva Conventions, if the Serbian government was involved, as clearly it was, and Mr. Milosevic was involved, then they are war criminals, and there is now in the Hague a war crimes tribunal trying to bring a measure of law into this post Cold War world. Our test of the UN really is in this decade and the decades to come. I don't know if we're going to meet it. The idea of law has sort of, sort of evanesced in the American mind. We don't see it as an opportunity to see that things that happen that should happen that we desire to happen.

SEN. KYL: Elizabeth, I think the Senator has touchedon something very important, and it deserves a little bit more conversation here, because I think he's absolutely right that one of the key tests with respect to the effectiveness of the United Nations is Bosnia. And one cannot--at least I would argue that the United Nations has not been particularly successful in Bosnia, and by the way, nor has the United States Government foreign policy. But I think in, in identifying Milosevic as a war criminal, it is rather strange that the United States would be inviting him to the talks that are going to be held at Wright Patterson Air Force Base beginning on November 1st. And I doubt very seriously that through the United Nations, that there will be any action taken against him. He is one of the negotiators representing the Serbian forces in Bosnia. And it also seems to me that it is probable that whatever action is taken to accommodate a peace settlement will not be through the auspices of the United Nations but, rather, through NATO, because of the ineffectiveness of the United Nations. So I agree that this is a real test for the UN. I think perhaps it's already failed that test.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And Sen. Kyl, the U.S. owes the UN right now more than $1 billion in payments. Because of the weaknesses that you see, the criticisms that you have, do you think we should hold up on those payments until certain reforms are made, or what--

SEN. KYL: Yes.

MS. FARNSWORTH: --should we pay up?

SEN. KYL: No.

MS. FARNSWORTH: There was so much criticism in the last week about that. Should the U.S. pay up--criticism in the UN, the speeches.

SEN. KYL: The Congress has made it clear that in reducing the budget deficit and asking Americans to do their share here to get our budget in balance I think we have to prioritize these things, and there is no way that I would approve, throwing money down a rat hole, in effect, which is the United Nations today, and paying money to people who frankly have no interest in conserving it. And until they stop the waste that's just an epidemic there, I wouldn't send any more money, no.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: You know, John, I was in Sarajevo three years ago at Thanksgiving, and if you look at those UN peacekeepers, with that mortar fire, that artillery fire, the heavy machine gun fire, moving around, getting food in, and so it--you know, that takes class, particularly when you're not allowed to shoot back. We've put peacekeepers in a place where there was no peace. Now, that's tragic, but there is law, and there are rights. And if we let them- -if we let Bosnia be just dismembered, those people brutalized, well, we will have let down the principles we established.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sen. Moynihan, let me just interrupt one minute. Another question here, specifically about the UN. All of the criticism from Congress about the UN, there have been problems before between Congress and the UN, is this more serious? Is there a real crisis in the U.S. relationship with the UN, I mean, because of Somalia, because of Bosnia, because of other things?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: There is, but I think the larger crisis is that for the first time the UN is confronted with its clear responsibility to prevent the dismemberment of a member state, Bosnia, with the participation of another country, Serbia. If we fail that test--well, the League disappeared too, didn't it, John?

SEN. KYL: It did. It did. Elizabeth, I would also, in addition to what Sen. Moynihan said, make this point, because you asked, is there a crisis with respect to congressional action, and I suggest that so long as we have an administration which is or seems bent on increasing the multilateral aspects of foreign policy and putting a great deal of confidence in the United Nations, particularly in the peacekeeping forces there, by the way, which have increased from $27 million seven years ago to $3 billion today, that we'd better be very careful, I think, to do two things: First, Congress should always approve any Chapter 7 military actions before they are voted on by the United States in the Security Council and secondly, I would assert that we ought to also approve in advance the assessments, and I think Congress would probably attach some conditions on those assessments. I would be willing to pay the assessments if there could be real progress toward reducing the waste that's inherent in UN operations today.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, Sen. Kyl, do you think there's a philosophical debate really underway here more than the criticisms that exist about the UN, some of them are operational. There's corruption, that sort of thing, but it's philosophical too, isn't it, whether the U.S. should be acting more unilaterally in the world?

SEN. KYL: Well, yes, and that is a very fundamental question. Because of the treaty obligations of the United States, we have to be very careful what we commit to do under UN auspices, because some will argue that prevails over U.S. law, and that's why it's very important to get congressional approval of these important actions, and I suggest that there are very pernicious things afoot, such as the convention on the law of the rights of children and other kinds of UN resolutions and actions, which I don't think the American people support.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: We don't need that in the UN. What we need is international peace and security.

SEN. KYL: Agreed.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sen. Moynihan, do you worry that there is this move in Congress for--against multilateral action? Do you worry that that trend could be dangerous for the United States?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: In the end, there's no multilateral action that involves the United States that we do not approve in the Security Council. Let's be careful about it, but we need a success, and can't we just take a moment and have a parade? The Cold War is over, and now a messier world is around but a vastly less dangerous one.

SEN. KYL: I must say, Elizabeth, if the world acted with the charm and the cheeriness of the Senator from New York, the United Nations would work a lot better. By the way, the United States Senate would too.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, Sen. Kyl, Sen. Moynihan, thank you for being with us. DIALOGUE - AMAZING GRACE

MR. LEHRER: Now, a Gergen dialogue. David Gergen, editor-at-large of "U.S. News & World Report," engages Jonathan Kozol, editor author of Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation. It's a book about children in the South Bronx.

DAVID GERGEN: I found what you described there in the South Bronx. It was very hard to believe it was America.

JONATHAN KOZOL, Author, "Amazing Grace": It was hard for me to believe it also, and, you know, over these past 30 years in which I've been a teacher and worked in some of the poorest ghetto neighborhoods in America, I've seen a lot of poverty, but I'd never seen anything like this. First of all, it's--the housing in the area is about the most squalid that I've ever seen. This is in the poorest section of the South Bronx, which is the poorest single congressional district in our country. The housing is as squalid as anything I saw in rural Mississippi before the Civil Rights Movement began.

MR. GERGEN: And more segregated, I might add.

JONATHAN KOZOL: It's the most segregated neighborhood I've ever visited in the United States, except for East St. Louis, which is totally black, in the local elementary school, where there are some very good teachers and a very good principal, and they try hard. Eight hundred children, there was one white child, and that child is gone now. So there's complete racial segregation. The, the health conditions in the neighborhood are worse than anything I've seen anywhere outside of Haiti. A quarter of the women who have children at the local public hospital are HIV-positive, one quarter. Asthma is endemic in the neighborhood. I've never been anywhere where I met so many children who have these little pocket pumps they pull out of their pocket, always going like this when they talk. Some people think it's because New York City has put all of its toxic installations in this neighborhood. There's a sewage plant; there's a big waste burner there; anything that's resisted in the white upper East side of New York is put up in the South Bronx instead. So people are surrounded by literal poisons. But my own hunch is that the asthma is probably as much psychological as it is physical. My hunch is that the, the deepest reason for the asthma that so many kids there have is that there's this overwhelming sense of concentration that they have been put out of sight where we won't see them in our neighborhoods, packed in as tight as possible.

MR. GERGEN: I was very moved by your story, a couple of stories in particular. One was this young eight-year-old, Bernardo Rodriguez. This is basically a Hispanic and black community we're talking about.

JONATHAN KOZOL: That's right.

MR. GERGEN: But young Bernardo Rodriguez.

JONATHAN KOZOL: Bernardo is an eight-year-old boy who went to the local public school, a good student, a very serious student. His, his grandma took care of him because his mother was in prison. His grandma told me that she kept all his math exams and all his papers. She had a whole scrapbook of all these things that she loved, a very religious family. They lived in a building which, which is sort of a classic privately owned, publicly subsidized slum apartment structure in the South Bronx. The elevator door had been broken for a long, long time. People in the house had complained. Naturally, the city never did anything about it, because the lives of these kids just don't appear to matter to people in New York, not to the city government. Finally, one day, the little boy is playing out in the hallway--they lived up on the sixth floor--accidentally brushed the door of the elevator, it opened, the elevator wasn't there, of course, and he fell five flights to his death. His body wasn't found until his blood began to drip on passengers. I learned about this when I visited his home, and his grandma and his aunt told me about it. And they spoke of it very much in religious terms, because he was a devout little boy. And that's terribly important to me, because generally when we talk about the violence that's done to children in the ghetto, we are speaking of the drug dealers and the gangsters, and that kind of obvious violence. But there's also a kind of institutional violence going on here. I mean, that child wasn't killed by drug addicts on the block; he was killed, in my belief, by very nice folks who look like you and me who probably went to Harvard Business School and establish fiscal policy for New York City and decide which neighborhoods will get resources and which ones won't. In that sense, I--I think--I think that people of my social class are the ones who killed that little boy.

MR. GERGEN: This is Washington, another story that illustrated to me the breakdown of the services, almost a breakdown of civilization.

JONATHAN KOZOL: There's a wonderful woman, David, and she's the central figure in the book, she and her son. She's now one of my closest friends. This is a woman who contracted AIDS 10 years ago from her husband, who had been a drug user. She's about 49 years old now. She is one of the most decent, serious, responsible people I've ever met. She's done nothing wrong. She--her only mistake was to grow up black in a racially divided city, in a deeply racist city, had to choose her husband from that very limited marriage pool of men who had no jobs, and now she's paying the price of all the pathologies that set in as a result. She goes to the hospital. She does everything she's told to do. She's very dutiful--goes to the hospital, typically waits two, three, four nights--in one case waited four nights at the local hospital in the emergency room before they could even find a bed for her. Her first night she had to sit up all night long. The next three nights they put her on a stretcher next to the door where the ambulances come in. When she finally goes up and gets a bed in the hospital, it's covered with blood and bandages, and it turns out they'd forgotten to clean it. So she has to clean her own bed before she can get into it. That, that is classic in New York City. I'll be honest. I've never seen medical care which is so squalid, barbarous really.

MR. GERGEN: I found--you described at one point that this was almost medieval conditions, that these were Dickensian, but I thought the description of death camps came to mind as one read this about where people were living. It was also very striking, was how the children felt that they were put there intentionally by the rest of society, they, in effect, were exiles in their own country. You heard two black children praying as they went to bed at night, "God bless Mommy, God bless Nanny, and God, don't punish me because I'm black."

JONATHAN KOZOL: That's right. That's right. The reference you made to death camps, it's important to note I didn't make that reference. I'm very careful myself, partly because I'm Jewish and I don't want to do anything to diminish the meaning of the Holocaust in Germany, but I sure heard a lot of people in the neighborhood use terms like that. And I--I've also heard an interesting phrase used by people in the neighborhood. They say, when you take all the poorest of the poor, especially black and Latino people, that you don't want in Manhattan, homeless people for example, you pump 'em all into the worst part of the city, the most dangerous and sickest part of the city, adding death to more death, and then you put in the same neighborhood everything you don't want that smells, that's dangerous, that's ugly, they said it isn't exactly like genocide, but it's kind of passive genocide. You just put 'em out of sight. We don't need to see them, to smell them, or know them, and maybe they'll kill each other off. I've heard a lot of people say that to me. And though I try to keep my own views out of this book, I tend to agree with them. I tend to agree with them.

MR. GERGEN: You also, interestingly enough, you've written eight books prior to this time.

JONATHAN KOZOL: Yes.

MR. GERGEN: You've looked at a lot of these, the worst social issues, worst social problems we have in this country, and in the past, when you looked at homelessness or problems in our schools, illiteracy, you suggested solutions. And it was very striking that in this book you decided not to do that. Why?

JONATHAN KOZOL: I've done it so many times in the past every time I write a book it tends to get political attention and invited to Capitol Hill. I go up and testify in front of the Senate Subcommittee or a House Committee. I make 10 suggestions. They pat me on the head. I go away. Nothing ever happens. I'm too old to keep recycling that, that ritual when I know it's insincere. The problem these days, David, is not that we don't know what needs to be done. We know that it's an embarrassment to our society, that it's unChristian, and it's unreligious to herd all of our most vulnerable people into a place of death and leave them there to die. We know that's wrong.

MR. GERGEN: You think it's a sin?

JONATHAN KOZOL: I--

MR. GERGEN: You think it's evil.

JONATHAN KOZOL: I used the word "sin" in the book, and this book is written to a large degree in theological terms. I don't--I don't think this is a problem of insufficient knowledge on our part. This is a very clever country, and New York is the most clever city in America. I think it's a problem of lack of theological will to do what is just. I think this is a crime against vulnerable, innocent children, and I think it's a crime in which every one of us is complicit. FINALLY - THE MEMORIAM

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, the legacy of Bobby Riggs. Riggs was a Wimbledon and American title champion but what he is best known for is his battle of the sexes tennis match with Billie Jean King in 1973. It happened in front of a crowd of 30,000 at the Houston Astrodome and over 50 million television viewers.

HOWARD COSELL: [ABC Sports -1973] We're back live in the Astrodome, and you see them out. Bobby Riggs, he's being brought in. Billie Jean King has come in earlier in a colorful float, carted apparently by a couple of football players, they look that big. But there's Bobby doing his thing, the big act, the big bluster, the big noise. That's been his constant, constant theme ever since before the Margaret Court match, and you'll remember how he disposed with Margaret, with almost enormous dispatch. Now he's got tougher competition, Billie Jean King, who's got the public support. But Bobby doesn't dare.

SPOKESMAN: Third match point for Billie Jean King.

WOMAN: It looks a little like Margaret Court now.

SPOKESMAN: A lot of ladies would like to have this in other doubles. It is over. Let's watch Bobby Riggs. Three straight match- -

MR. LEHRER: With us to remember that and other moments is essayist Roger Rosenblatt. Roger, so what should we remember about Bobby Riggs?

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Well, I think we remember a consummate hustler. I was never quite sure how sincere he was when he called himself the, the lobber against the libber, and put 'em--made that--made that spectacular pitch about beating women, that women weren't as good as men. I thought he was just hustling a spectacular event in sports. In any case, it certainly paid him and Billie Jean King a lot of money.

MR. LEHRER: But there was also serious results of that. Didn't it put tennis on the map in a way that it hadn't been before, I mean, now--I should say on the screen?

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Yeah, I think so. It certainly put women's tennis on the map, and that was an important business. Also, the prize was going to be $100,000 to who ever won, so that the money was made equal. And it also put tennis in a light which has two sides to it, one of--one good, one not, of the spectacular sports event. You will remember that this year, and there was an abortive one-on-one match, a one-on-one basketball game between Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal. It didn't come off because of a potential injury to Olajuwon. But it's in the same spirit of this, that is the spectacular one-on-one event, that makes the athlete, not the club, not the owner, but the athlete in control.

MR. LEHRER: And it--it--but I find that--that was Howard Cosell- -I recognized his voice there in the voice-over just then.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: But I mean I remember that event became a huge thing, and it was all show business from beginning to end, was it not?

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Well, I wonder if people didn't begin to perceive that sports could be show biz. You know, about the same time, Jim, that was--free agency began in baseball. It's not exactly show biz, but it again it switched the power or the control of the game to the individual. Once you do that, to the individual athlete, the money rises, everything rises. In tennis, it wasn't too long before you could barely see the uniform of a tennis player because he was advertising so many things with patches on his sleeves and on his shorts and so forth, tennis that was an all-whites game, everybody played in whites now can play in any outfit at all, again emphasizing the individual. A lot of people would feel it's gone too far. And, in fact, in baseball, it went so far that the baseball fans rebelled this year, as you remember in the beginning of the year, and didn't show up. But I think it was a swing from a time when clubs, as they're called clubs, exclusive clubs, owners controlled the sport to a time when players started to control the sport.

MR. LEHRER: And you think this kind of--this was the beginning of that.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: I think it was one important spectacular beginning.

MR. LEHRER: Is it, is it unfair to the memory of Bobby Riggs to do what I just did or what I did in the News Summary, to say he was a great Wimbledon champion, he was a great tennis champion, but he's best remembered for the Billie Jean King thing in 1973?

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Well, you and I were just observers, so we can be as fair or unfair as any observers are, but my guess is that this would be exactly the way Bobby Riggs would want to be remembered, he was a colossal, a spectacular hustler. He was even a hustler in tennis. He--he set up this match with Billie Jean King, beat Margaret Court, made $20,000, lost to Billie Jean King, made $100,000. I think he would have been happy.

MR. LEHRER: And you think that's what it was all about for him was just to make some money?

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Yeah. Well, I think money was a big driver, and I think just to be a terrific showman. He was a natural showman. In a way, he reminded me of Mickey Rooney in that he kind of looked like Mickey Rooney and behaved sort of wildly like Mickey Rooney, and always said, just look at me.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. There was always--there was speculation at the time that he really didn't care whether he won that match or not, that the kind of--he was 55, she was 29, and his whole point was that women should stay in the kitchen, they shouldn't play tennis, and men of any age could beat any woman, but it didn't seem to me like he even played that hard. Am I wrong about that?

ROGER ROSENBLATT: I have no idea. I'm 55 too, and I'd be lucky to make it out on the court. The, the--my impression was that this was largely hype but any good athlete--and he was a great athlete- -when you get on a court, you want to win, get anywhere you want to win. And my guess is that he tried as hard as he could, was very disappointed that he lost, but quite happy in--with the whole show.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Roger, thank you very much.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Thank you, Jim. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, the House passed the Republican Balanced Budget Bill tonight. The vote was 227 to 203. The Senate votes on a similar budget tomorrow. And Russian President Yeltsin was hospitalized with what was described as a mild heart attack. Tomorrow night, Shields & Gigot will be here, as will our six regional commentators, for a look at the Colin Powell presidential possibilities, among other things. We'll see you then. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.