The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight an update on the floods in the West, the drop in the murder rate as seen by a former prosecutor and the police chiefs of New York City and Denver, a Rod Minott report on a dispute over bones, political analysis by Mark Shields and Kate O'Beirne, substituting for Paul Gigot, and a conversation with writer James Carroll. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday.NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Another letter bomb was found in Leavenworth, Kansas, today, this one at the post office. Two were discovered yesterday at the Federal Penitentiary. All three were addressed to a parole officer there. Five similar bombs were found in Washington yesterday, four at the office of the Arabic newspaper "Al-Hayat," and one at the post office that handles the paper's mail. All eight letter bombs were postmarked from Alexandria, Egypt. None of them exploded. No one was injured. The bombs were contained in holiday greeting cards sent in plain, white envelopes. The FBI is investigating. There was more flooding in the West today, causing mud slides and closing major roads. In Northern California a broken levee caused thousands of people to evacuate homes and businesses. The weather has been blamed for 18 deaths since last week. Governors of five western states have declared 70 counties disaster areas. We'll have more on the floods right after this News Summary. Bad weather also continued overseas. Eleven days of snow and bitter cold is blamed for at least 220 deaths from Spain to Russia. Ice blocked transportation on highways and rivers throughout Europe. In France, ice-covered train rails left nearly 12,000 passengers stranded. In England, freezing temperatures left swans stuck by their feet in frozen ponds. Back in this country Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour predicted today Newt Gingrich would be re- elected Speaker of the House. Republicans hold a 227 to 208 majority, and Barbour was reacting to a "New York Times" report today that at least 20 Republicans were undecided about re-electing Gingrich in their vote next Tuesday. Gingrich has been under investigation for using tax-exempt funds for a lecture series and television program. He's admitted to providing false information to the Ethics Panel but denies any intentional wrongdoing. Barbour blamed Democrats for trying to delay the investigation and prevent his re-election.

HALEY BARBOUR, Republican Party Chairman: The fact is this is pure politics, pure politics. And the fact that the Democrats dislike Newt Gingrich personally is true and it's perhaps part of it. But the important thing is they dislike the policies that he not only succeeded in leading through the Congress last time but that President Clinton, himself, often endorsed and spoke in favor of in this campaign. But the Democrats on the left fear it's Gingrich's success and the Republican majority will make the liberals irrelevant. And that's what they're fighting for. This is a fight about the direction of the country and about politics.

JIM LEHRER: The House Speaker is second in line of succession to the presidency behind the vice president. President Clinton announced a decision on Cuba today. He continued for another six months the ban on U.S. citizens suing foreign companies doing business in Cuba. That provision of the Helms-Burton law has been condemned by Latin American and European countries who actively trade with Cuba. The President said he extended the suspension after the European Union and other allies agreed to increase their efforts to bring democracy to Cuba. In Washington, special adviser to the President, Stuart Eizenstat, had this to say.

STUART EIZENSTAT, Presidential Advisor: No one is under an illusion that democracy is going to break out immediately under Fidel Castro, but what we do believe is the convergence of governments of business and labor and of non-governmental interests increasingly focused on the promotion of democracy and human rights will lead over time to more free space and more breathing space for the Cuban people, and as the President is required to do in making this decision, he believed that this will expedite the transition to democracy.

JIM LEHRER: In the former Yugoslavia today the Serbian government conceded courts had wrongly annulled nine municipal elections won by the opposition. Despite that admission, thousands of protesters filled the streets of downtown Belgrade as they have for the past six weeks. Opposition leaders are demanding three more races be counted in their favor. In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Secretary of State Christopher has sent a letter to Serbian President Milosevic. He said Christopher criticized Serbia's hollow assurances of a commitment to democracy.

NICHOLAS BURNS, State Department Spokesman: The message from the secretary reiterates the call of the United States that we have made since the day after the elections for a meaningful political dialogue between the Serbian government and the Serbian opposition. The message from Sec. Christopher warns President Milosevic about the consequences of increased isolation should he fail to take sufficient action to correct the anti-democratic actions of his government over the past month.

JIM LEHRER: In the Middle East today Israeli riot police confronted Jewishsettlers who occupied a West Bank hilltop. The settlers moved in trailers and vowed to set up a new community. They left after assurances they could meet with Israel's defense minister about building more settlements. Also today Israeli police released a second man who had been arrested in connection with Wednesday's shooting in Hebron. He was suspected of helping to plan the attack. The prime suspect is undergoing psychiatric evaluation. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a western storm update, good news on murder, a bones dispute, Mark Shields & Kate O'Beirne, and a conversation with James Carroll. UPDATE - DELUGE

JIM LEHRER: The floods in the West are first tonight. Charles Krause narrates our update.

ANNOUNCER: Okay. He's got ahold of the lady. He'll put her in the ring and take her right on up. Okay. She's in the ring.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Two people were rescued from the roof of their car this morning in Olivehurst, California. The automobile was completely submerged when a levee broke, releasing the flood waters of the Feather River and creating an eerie sea of rooftops in what used to be a neighborhood of homes.

ANNOUNCER: I can imagine some hearts are pounding pretty fast right now. That man in the back in the back of his pickup truck--

CHARLES KRAUSE: It was just one of hundreds of dramatic helicopter rescues throughout the Northwest today, as people and animals were plucked from raging rivers, swollen by the worst winter snow and rainstorms here in recent memory. In Guerneville, California, this family swam with their horses to safety.

WOMAN: It's startin' to come up now, and it's almost up to the house, so we had to get the horses and the dogs out. I still got cats over there I go to go back and get.

CHARLES KRAUSE: In Yuba City, in Maryville, California, up to 95,000 people were ordered to leave their homes for higher ground yesterday as flood waters surged up to 30 feet. Some 12,000 of them are still in shelters. Many worry about their loved ones.

WOMAN: I don't know where everybody is. And it's scary.

OTHER WOMAN: I can't get in touch with him. I don't even know if he's alive or anything, you know. It's very stressful.

WOMAN SHOUTING: Is our house still there?

OTHER WOMAN RESPONDING: It's still there, but it's got about six feet of water in it.

WOMAN SHOUTING: Six feet of water?

CHARLES KRAUSE: Throughout the West for the past week the weather has made normal life impossible for millions of residents since snow and ice storms hit the Northwest right after Christmas. Then on top of the ice and snow, warmer weather and rain created flood conditions which caused bridges and buildings throughout the region to collapse. Now five states--California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho--have been affected by the flooding, and seventy counties have been declared disaster areas. Eighteen people have died, and millions of dollars' worth of property has been damaged or destroyed. At Yosemite Park, 2200 tourists and workers were stranded when the Merced River blocked the park's three major roads. Military helicopters have begun evacuating the stranded, but the airlift is expected to take up to three days. In Reno, Nevada, the Truckee River caused the city's worst flood in 40 years. Several of the city's casinos, usually open all day and all night, have been forced to close, as has Reno's international airport and the Mustang Ranch Brothel. In Idaho, thousands of acres of farmland were destroyed, and mud slides washed away many roads, including a thousand-foot piece of U.S. 95, the state's only North-South highway.

MAN: It's been rising rather rapidly, lots of water. I mean, water's everywhere.

WOMAN: This is fun. Might as well laugh, instead of crying.

CHARLES KRAUSE: In Washington and in Oregon the storms are dying down, though flood warnings remain in many places, and thousands of homes are still without power.

JIM LEHRER: There is some good news tonight. The National Weather Service forecast said no rain was expected in the area for the next few days. FOCUS - CRIME WATCH

JIM LEHRER: Now to more good news. To the drop in murder rates and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: 1996 was a decidedly less deadly year in most American cities. The murder rate in each of the nation's 10 largest cities dropped significantly last year, by 15 percent or more in all but two of them, according to a "Washington Post" survey of local police departments. In some cities the number of homicides was at a 30-year low. There were a few exceptions, however, with Las Vegas, Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C., showing increases. What's behind these numbers? We have three perspectives. Howard Safir is the police commissioner of New York City. David Michaud is chief of police in Denver, and Paul Butler is a professor of criminal law at George Washington University Law School and a former prosecutor. Welcome, gentlemen. Mr. Butler, starting with you, what do you think is behind this fairly dramatic decrease in the murder rates?

PAUL BUTLER, George Washington University Law School: It's good news. No one knows what is the real explanation, or a couple of potential ones, demographics. As a country we're getting older. Our median age now is 35. You're most likely to commit crime if you're in your teens or in your twenties. So to the extent that we're getting older we would expect levels of violence to fall off. A lot of the increase in the murder rate in the late 80's was associated with drugs, especially crack cocaine. The market for that is stabilizing. Turfs are being established and drug dealers are working out alternative means of resolving the disputes, alternatives to murder, that is. I also think that one explanation is that communities are taking more responsibility to fight crime. They're working more closely with police, and they're also mentoring their youth. We saw a lot of talk about self-help, especially last year, including at the Million Man March. All that contributes to the lower rate.

MARGARET WARNER: Commissioner Safir, in New York City, you've seen one of the most dramatic decreases, I think 17 percent last year. What do you think is the explanation?

HOWARD SAFIR, New York City Police Commissioner: [New York] Well, I think it really isn't demographics because there are a number of cities that do not have increases in its murder rate. We've had the largest decrease in 30 years. And I think it's effective policing. I think part of it is working closer with communities, but I think our quality of life enforcement, going after minor crimes and briefing everybody that we talk to and making sure that we share our intelligence throughout the department and get everybody in the department involved at the same time working from the top down, going after drug trafficking and guns, because I believe that the major source of violence and murders in this city were drugs and guns. We've taken a lot of guns off the street. We're driving drug traffickers out of this city. And that's the focus that I think has an impact on the reduction in murders.

MARGARET WARNER: And Chief Michaud, what about in Denver, what do you think is the cause? First of all, explain to us how much murder has gone down in your city last year, and what do you think is the reason?

DAVID MICHAUD, Denver Chief of Police: [Denver] Well, in our city we have seen from 96 compared to 95 about a 25 percent reduction in our murder rate. The real tangible thing that I think we can all look at is the tremendous response we have received from the medial profession through the years. We get paramedics to scenes of violent criminal acts much quicker than we did when we were all young officers. We get victims of crimes to medical facilities much quicker via helicopter, and the emergency room teams do fantastic things, I think, sometimes with murder victims. So that may be a tangible reason. The murder victim of 10 years ago is now an aggravated assault victim.

MARGARET WARNER: But aren't assault rates "also" down?

CHIEF DAVID MICHAUD: Yes. Our assault rates are down as well, but I think that that murder rate is down because of that medical profession. But I also agree with the Commissioner, that contacts with the community, where I believe the police profession has really established a greater degree of trust than we have seen in the past, that has opened lines of communication between the police and community, has certainly served us well. And I think good, solid police tactics have also done the same thing through aggressive, proactive approaches to open air drug markets, prostitution on the streets, curfew programs, if you'll just look at that, active curfew programs take youngsters off the street in the middle of the night, where they cannot only be involved in criminal behavior, we hope that we're preventing them from becoming victims of crime. And I think that there's also a tremendous amount of credit to be given to the--all the work that's been done in the domestic violence arena.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, Paul Butler, what about the point that the commissioner in New York made, that if it were mostly demographics, then we'd see this decrease everywhere? Whereas, in fact, in many cities, including Washington, it's still up.

PROFESSOR PAUL BUTLER: Well, almost everywhere. In the top 10 cities in the country, the rate of homicide is down, and those police departments all employ vastly different means of law enforcement. So that suggests that although I agree that policing is getting smarter or more effective, it's not the only explanation. We should also understand that the rates going down in most places back to what it was in the 80's and 70's, which is still much higher than what we see in other places, including Western Europe. Most killings aren't associated with drug markets. In fact, they're between people who know each other. Domestic violence has a lot to do with the vast number of homicides we still see.

MARGARET WARNER: Commissioner Safir, in New York, is the greatest reduction in homicides between people who do know each other, or what we call random homicide, or stranger homicide?

COMMISSIONER HOWARD SAFIR: Well, it's interesting. About 81 percent of the murders that we had last year were by people who knew each other, but many of them were, in fact, drug related. But we had 19 percent stranger murders in New York City, which shows why we've become such a safe city. We're now 23rd in overall crimes in the United States of the 25 major cities.

MARGARET WARNER: And do you mean because you used to have a much higher rate of stranger murder?

COMMISSIONER HOWARD SAFIR: Well, in 1993, it was 65 percent. But, you know, one of the things that Ithink you have to look at, as well, is shooting incidents and shooting victims. We've reduced shooting incidents 22 percent in the city and shooting victims 21 percent. So I think that comes back to the issue of dealing with guns. And one of the things we really have to do in this country is change some of our gun laws and not treat weapons with the kind of insanity that we do right now. Virginia recently passed a one gun a month law. And they used to be the No. 1 supplier of weapons to the city. We need a national one gun a month law.

MARGARET WARNER: Paul Butler, what do you think on that point about greater confiscation of guns? Do you think that's part of it? And do you think the Brady Law had anything to do with this decrease?

PROFESSOR PAUL BUTLER: I think that the commissioner is absolutely right. We need more gun control, and we need national gun control. Then we'll have something really to celebrate.

MARGARET WARNER: But I mean in terms of what's already happened, do you think that the Brady Law has had any impact?

PROFESSOR PAUL BUTLER: Well, it's had a marginal impact, but in Washington, D.C., we have among the strictest handgun regulations in the country. But we also--our murder rate is going up. The reason is what the Commissioner said. You can go across the bridge to Virginia and buy your one gun a month. Until we have a national policy of gun control, we're still going to see too high levels of homicide.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Chief Michaud, out in Denver, is your department doing what they are doing in New York in terms of aggressive policing against what used to be considered minor crimes? The Commissioner just referred to that--aggressive panhandling and so on.

CHIEF DAVID MICHAUD: Yes. We think that's a very effective tactic, and we talk about the things that I mentioned earlier, open air drug markets with proactive approaches. We do a lot of prostitution stings. We have a tremendous effort, I think, placed on those that are involved in gang behavior. We aggressively monitor that gang activity and consider that--that has been a source of homicide and a lot of violent activity in our city, and by monitoring that more closely, as we have done, I think we've had an impact on violent crime.

MARGARET WARNER: But, Mr. Safir, explain to us why aggressive policing of something like panhandling, aggressive panhandling, or, or vandalism, why would that lead to a decrease in the murder rate?

COMMISSIONER HOWARD SAFIR: Well, I think there are two reasons. One, you send a signal that you're not going to accept disorder or any crime at any level. But the second and the most important benefit of it is that many of the people who commit minor crimes are the same people who commit major crimes or have information about major crimes. Recently, we had a very serious sexual assault in Central Park. We solved that case and a related murder because the individual had been arrested for jumping a subway turnstile earlier in the year, and that was the only time he had been arrested. Because we take all that information and computerize it and share it throughout the department, we were able to track him down.

MARGARET WARNER: Does he have a point, Paul Butler?

PROFESSOR PAUL BUTLER: He does have a point. But the concern is incarcerating too many people. We don't know how many people are locked up or jumping the subways who aren't violent criminals. And that's very expensive, as well, so we have to be careful about that. The United States already incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country in the world.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Michaud out in Denver, what about the point Paul Butler made earlier, that if your different police tactics and approaches that you're using, if that were really the cause, then you would see the decrease in the murder rate only in cities that are doing this kind of thing, whereas, in fact, it's much more widespread than that?

CHIEF DAVID MICHAUD: Well, I think the tactics that I talked about and that the Commissioner talk about are being very widely used across the country. Both the Commissioner and I are a member of an organization called The Major City Chiefs. That's the chiefs of police from the forty-five biggest U.S. cities and the four biggest cities in Canada. And we get together three times a year and talk about these very issues. And I think that I am speaking for my colleagues in the other cities when we say that these kinds of tactics and approaches, problem-solving approaches, if you will, are very much being universally used by many of the cities around the country.

MARGARET WARNER: Commissioner Safir in New York, what advice would you give to your colleagues in cities that haven't had the success in bringing the murder rate down, or do you see any common thread that you can help us analyze why say Miami, Atlanta, and Washington, to name three, haven't had that success?

COMMISSIONER HOWARD SAFIR: Well, I think what Chief Michaud said is absolutely right. I think those cities have to institute the kind of crime reduction strategies that we're doing here in New York, that he's doing in Denver, and what you have to do is you have to have information, you have to be able to computerize your information so that you can meet with your local commanders, and then hold them accountable for what you do. Then the most important other thing is to hold people accountable and measure success not by arrests but by crime reduction. Here in New York we don't measure success of our commanders by the number of arrests they make. We measure success by the number of crime complaints they reduce. And I think by applying business principles to crime reduction and managing crime, instead of letting crime manage you, you end up with the kind of reductions that we've seen here in New York. Accountability and responsibility is probably the key to making sure that police departments are effective.

MARGARET WARNER: Chief Michaud, do you have anything to add to that in terms of what you'd advise your colleagues elsewhere?

CHIEF DAVID MICHAUD: No. I think that that was well said. And those are the tactics that we try to use here. And I must say I must thank the Commissioner because many of the things that we're trying here in Denver we have taken from some of the things that New York has tried and has found such success with.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that prescription, Mr. Butler?

PROFESSOR PAUL BUTLER: I do agree. And I think what's so exciting about these new trends in law enforcement is their emphasis on community policing and crime prevention. So the Commissioner is right. It's not just locking out people but it's trying to prevent crime before it happens by working especially with the young people in the communities. That's so important. And it's good news.

MARGARET WARNER: So do you think this is a short-term phenomenon or the beginning of really a longer-term trend?

PROFESSOR PAUL BUTLER: Well, because we still can't quite be sure what caused the decrease it's unclear, but we do know that in about five or ten years, there's going to be an up-surge in teenagers and people in their twenties, again, the people most likely to commit crime. So then I expect that we'll see a peak.

MARGARET WARNER: Commissioner Safir, do you agree with that?

COMMISSIONER HOWARD SAFIR: Well, I think it's something we have to be concerned about as the population demographics change. But I think, you know, one of the things that's important is that police executives not get confused about their role. I think social agencies and prevention programs are very important, and everybody needs to work with the community to do that. But I think in order to keep crime down police executives have to understand our role is crime prevention and law enforcement, not social services.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay, gentlemen, thank you all three very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, who owns the bones, Mark Shields and Kate O'Beirne, and a conversation with James Carroll. FOCUS - BONES OF DISPUTE

JIM LEHRER: Now, who owns the past? That is the question of debate in the Pacific Northwest. Rod Minott of KCTS-Seattle reports.

ROD MINOTT: For years, anthropologist Jim Chatters has quietly hunted for historical artifacts in Southeastern Washington.

JIM CHATTERS, Anthropologist: That's quite a layer of ash.

ROD MINOTT: But lately that peace has been disturbed by a bitter dispute over some ancient bones.

JIM CHATTERS: Well, what would ordinarily have been the find of a lifetime has been something of a nightmare.

ROD MINOTT: That nightmare began last July here on the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, with the discovery of a human skeleton. During a hydroplane race, Will Thomas, a spectator, stumbled on the remains while wading in the water.

WILL THOMAS: And I saw something that looked like a rock, a round rock, and I kind of jokingly said to Dave, "Here, look, I found a human skull." And I reached down, and it felt pretty round, and it was kind of heavy, and it was kind of stuck in the mud a little bit. And I pulled it out, and held it up, and I saw those teeth there, and we saw a human head here. And so we were just stunned.

ROD MINOTT: So were investigators when they later dug up a skeletal body that was nearly complete. The bones were that of a middle-aged man who stood about five feet nine inches tall, and it soon became clear to forensic experts this was a rare skeleton. Bone samples dated the skeleton, known as Kennewick Man, at 9300 years, one of the oldest and best preserved human skeletal remains ever discovered in North America. Jim Chatters examined the remains at the request of the Coroner's Office. These photographs of the bones were taken by him. They're among the few images of a skeleton that have been released to the public. Chatters noticed that the skull appeared more Caucasian-like than Indian.

JIM CHATTERS: Some of the key things--one that you can't see because this is almost a 3/4 view--is that the skull is very long and very narrow. It has very high, round eye sockets. The modern native population, they tend to be square. The orbits tend to be square. The orbits tend to be square and a little bit lower in proportion to the width. This is the broken edge here, and that's the rounded base.

ROD MINOTT: CAT Scan pictures verified a stone spearhead was imbedded in the man's pelvis.

JIM CHATTERS: It came in from his right side just about like this, straight in, went right through here, and into the bone inside right there.

ROD MINOTT: The problems for scientists like Jim Chatters began when Indian tribes here in the Kennewick area claimed the skeleton as an ancestor. Indian leaders said the remains belonged to them and demanded the bones be returned for immediate burial and without further scientific study. Indian leaders argued they were legally entitled to the bones under a 1990 federal law known as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It requires remains to be returned if they are Indian or somehow culturally affiliated. The act was passed to protect American Indian graves which in years past were frequently stripped of artifacts by scientists, hobbyists, and museums.

ARMAND MINTHORN, Umatilla Indian Tribe: It was very bad. There was no sensitivity at all for artifacts and/or human remains before this law was passed.

ROD MINOTT: Armand Minthorn is a tribal leader for the Umatilla Indians.

ARMAND MINTHORN: There was outright total disrespect for the artifacts in that they were subjected to black marketing, also Native American remains were subject to black marketing.

ROD MINOTT: Minthorn says any scientific study of ancient remains would be disrespectful of the dead.

ARMAND MINTHORN: These remains are sacred to us, just like with the non-Indians. In their religion, their bible or the things that they use in their religion on the altar, those things are sacred to them. These remains are the same. They are very sacred to us, and they should be left alone and reburied as soon as possible.

ROD MINOTT: But anthropologists say scientific study, including DNA testing of Kennewick Man, may offer important answers on how the North American continent was settled. Many scientists believe that 12,000 years ago early migrations occurred across the Bering Sea by a land bridge.

JIM CHATTERS: What the find says is that the people who first came into the new world looked different than we thought. They have characteristics that are similar to those of modern Caucasian, but the races as they existed nine thousand, ten thousand, twelve, thirteen thousand years ago, when people were crossing the land bridge were probably configured very differently. We would probably not find these races that long ago.

ROD MINOTT: But many Indians in the Columbia River area reject theories that there was a land bridge, or that their ancestors migrated from Asia. They say their oral histories show they've always been on the North American continent.

ARMAND MINTHORN: And we as Indian people know that we have been here since time began. We didn't come across no land bridge. We have always been here.

ROD MINOTT: Initially, the federal government sided with the tribes. The Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the land where the bones were found, said it would return the remains for burial, but that triggered an outcry by scientists who filed suit in federal district court.

ALAN SCHNEIDER, Attorney for Anthropologists: This is the amount of paperwork that this case has generated, all of this here, plus all of these. This takes about two months.

ROD MINOTT: Attorney Alan Schneider represents eight anthropologists who are seeking to block return of the skeleton until scientists have a chance to study it.

ALAN SCHNEIDER: We do not believe that the Army Corps properly determined that these remains are within the scope of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Action, that, in fact, the evidence in hand indicates that this individual is probably not Native American within the meaning of the statute. So that's the first nature of our claim. The second claim that we have is that the Army Corps' refusal to permit scientific study of the skeleton is arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.

ROD MINOTT: Schneider also says the Indian Graves Protection Law is too ambiguous and fails to define many terms, including cultural affiliation.

ALAN SCHNEIDER: I do not think that this statute was designed by Congress to reach remains that are 9300 years old and that have no established cultural or kin relationship to existing Native American people.

ROD MINOTT: But the Umatillas insist the skeleton is an ancestor because it was found on land where the tribe has historic and legal claims. Journalist John Stang has written extensively about the dispute over Kennewick Man.

JOHN STANG, Reporter, Tri-City Herald: This area, the tri-city area which is in Southeastern Washington, was a crossroads of several Indian tribes. The Indians buried their dead near the rivers. And we're at the intersection of three rivers here, the Snake River, the Columbia River, and a smaller river called the Yakima River. And so this is a prime spot where Indians live, and where Indians lived, they also died and were buried.

ROD MINOTT: While the courts sort out this dispute, the Corps of Engineers is making sure no one gets a look at the skeleton. The agency has locked the remains inside a vault at this government lab and refuses to allow access to anyone. Dutch Meier of the Corps says even photographs are forbidden.

DUTCH MEIER, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Any examination handling photography, videography could be perceived as a desecration of those remains, and as long as we have responsibility for them, we're taking very conservative interpretations of our responsibilities.

ROD MINOTT: In recent weeks the Corps of Engineers has also backed off from turning Kennewick Man over to Indian tribes immediately. The agency now says it needs more time to consider several new plans on the skeleton, among them a California-based religious group which believes the bones may be that of a white Northern European ancestor. Chatters says he's upset Kennewick Man is fueling racial politics.

JIM CHATTERS: I'm really incensed by that. I'm incensed by the fact that this individual is being used to promote racial politics when the lesson I think he brings to us is that race doesn't mean very much; that we're all essentially one people, and separateness is not going to get us any place.

ROD MINOTT: Chatters and others say the Indian Graves Protection Act is being used to halt numerous other archaeological studies around the country as well. The case of Kennewick Man may very well set a legal precedent on how all such digs are handled in the future. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Now, our regular Friday night political analysis by syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Kate O'Beirne, Washington editor of the "National Review," who's substituting for Paul Gigot, who's on vacation. Mark, Republican Chairman Haley Barbour says Newt Gingrich is going to be re-elected Speaker of the House on Tuesday. Do you agree?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: I don't know, Jim. I'll say this. I think Haley Barbour probably entered the fray at a good time for Newt Gingrich, but there is and has been apparent these last couple of days more than aroma, more than a scent, a strong, strong smell of panic on the part of those endorsing and supporting the Speaker. There was pressure on both Porter Goss and Steve Schiff, two members of the Ethics Subcommittee.

JIM LEHRER: Two Republican members.

MARK SHIELDS: Two Republican members.

JIM LEHRER: Two out of four. There are two Democrats, two Republicans.

MARK SHIELDS: Two Democrats, two Republicans, to say that they saw nothing in the record that would hold the Speaker back from being Speaker again. This, Jim, was so unprecedented. I mean, this was just violative of all the traditions, principles, practices of the Ethics Committee in the past that Jim Cole, the special counsel for the Ethics Committee, who has taken a vow of silence and kept it. He has not spoken on anything. I mean, contrast him with Ken Starr, who--give him a lunch, he'll give a speech. He hasn't said a word. He came up and said that isn't true, that we had agreed, the committee had agreed in advance on a reprimand, rather than a censure, so you see the Speaker, himself, having a one-man phone bank. He's got conference calls. He's calling members individually. There's an anxiety and apprehension, and the biggest apprehension is will this vote, would it possibly turn out to be a vote for Republicans who are casting it for the Speaker, like Gerry Ford's pardon or Dick Nixon in 1974? There's something that's going to come back and be an election issue that would bite them. There are going to be further disclosures, further revelations that are going to haunt them. And I think that's really what makes the uncertain--probably what makes Haley Barbour's guess as good as anybody's.

JIM LEHRER: What do you smell, Kate O'Beirne?

KATE O'BEIRNE, National Review: I--if there's a definition of a safe bet, Jim, it's that Newt Gingrich gets elected Speaker on Tuesday. What's the choice? Two men are going to run for Speaker- -Dick Gephardt and Newt Gingrich. Now, I think it would be asking too much of bipartisan cooperation to expect a House Republican majority to elect Dick Gephardt Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Newt Gingrich wins, and I disagree with Mark with respect to the atmosphere now on Capitol Hill. I would argue they were far more nervous a week ago, Republicans were nervous a week ago, more nervous than they are now. I think they are increasingly confident that they can defend Newt Gingrich on the merits of what the subcommittee's found. They see increasingly Democratic critics having to mislead with respect to what the subcommittee found in order to attack Newt Gingrich, and there's a growing conviction, I think on their part, that this is not about Newt Gingrich, that this is an assault on the legitimacy of the Republican majority. And I think maybe the Democrats have been smirking prematurely or have overplayed their hand. And the instinct on the part of the Republicans is to rally. Newt Gingrich might have his conservative critics and his Republican critics, but he's also blessed by having in the minds of his colleagues all the right enemies. And they're now rallying because they see it as an assault on all of them.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the Barbour news conference today was prompted by the story in the "New York Times" which said that 20 Republicans were kind of not necessarily wavering, they just--just so we get this in the record gate, it's possible to have a vote on Tuesday where nobody gets elected because you have to have--as I understand it, you have to have a majority of--no, not of those present but of the House. So you could have 200--all the Democrats could vote for--I mean, for Gephardt and if 20 Republicans didn't vote at all, you wouldn't have a Speaker. Is--am I--that's what I read in the paper today.

MARK SHIELDS: That's what I read in the paper today too. I honestly don't know if that is the House rule, but I--

JIM LEHRER: But you have to have--it's not like a vote--all those voted. Before you can have a Speaker, it has to be a majorityvote of all the members of the House. But at any rate what do you--how do you read that "New York Times" story? Do you think that is not correct?

KATE O'BEIRNE: I think there is far less than meets the eye there. I think what those twenty-some members are doing is being judicious. I'm going to be really judicious. I'm going to be very independent and look at the evidence, and then I'm voting for Newt Gingrich. You know, I mean, they're back home. Many of them are in districts where Newt Gingrich is terribly unpopular, so what are they going to be telling the local media, I'm going to be a rubber stamp, no, they're going to look carefully at the record. But the fact that only one member, a single freshman, Michael Forbes of Long Island, has flatly stated he'll vote now. I thought that there was an outside chance a few others might join him now that he was the one who was willing to step out and be the first. But he's alone out there.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, what about Kate's point? And others have made the same point that the Democrats have actually mishandled this, I mean by smirking too quickly, to use Kate's term, and getting out there in front. Why didn't they just remain silent and let this thing come to its natural flow? Do you think that's wrong?

MARK SHIELDS: I don't think there's a smirking. I mean, should they not respond to the press. I mean, I haven't heard Nancy Pelosi say a word. I haven't Ben Cardin say a word. Those are the two members, Democratic members of the committee. I haven't heard a single Democrat on the committee say a word. Dave Bonior has been on the television, the Democratic Whip. He's been the protagonist, I mean, just as Newt Gingrich was the protagonist. I mean, Jim, the problems with the Republicans, and Kate, I think, puts as good a spin on it as you can put on it, but I mean is this, it isn't a Washington story. It's a story that the "Columbus Dispatch," and the Denver papers, I mean, that's what the editorials--these--we could go and say, oh, it's terrific, Newt's okay, but all of a sudden, these people back home are hearing from their own editorialists, you got to understand this. Newt Gingrich ran against a corrupt Congress, a corrupt city, the center, the nerve center of hypocrisy and corruption, he said, is on Capitol Hill. All right. He was the reformer. He has an awful lot of Republicans who ran on a similar reform platform. Now their choice is this, Jim: you can vote for the Speaker to be re-elected. He's either going to be reprimanded or censured. We've never had a Speaker before who's been ethics--been censured or reprimanded by an Ethics Committee. Newt Gingrich, whenever there was a thing to come out of the Ethics Committee, he went to the floor. He was for the more serious penalty and punishment. He said that you couldn't be--we couldn't be soft on these issues. I mean, I'm telling you it's a tough, tough vote for these folks.

KATE O'BEIRNE: Two things benefit Newt Gingrich at the moment, though. His colleagues just went through re-election where they held on, despite relentless attacks against Newt Gingrich. And I think something the Democrats are missing is Newt Gingrich is certainly personally unpopular, but that has not translated to an unpopularity for the Congress. In fact, Congress under Newt Gingrich is more popular now than it has been in ten or fifteen years. And by overplaying the hand, the public's cynical about much of this ethics stuff. There's every chance they begin thinking, aw, come on, you know, why don't they start talking about the agenda, is this all about political attacks on one another, they're playing politics again. What's more important than the vote on Tuesday because Newt Gingrich will be elected is Gingrich's speech on Tuesday. I think he has to be contrite, and I think he might have to plead arrogance, rather than ignorance. And if he-- if he does that--

JIM LEHRER: What do you mean?

KATE O'BEIRNE: Well, maybe that he was too full of himself. You know, it happens to everybody. It's towns like that. I mean, see if he can't make that case. The public doesn't like Newt Gingrich but they don't share David Bonior's blood lust for Newt Gingrich. And I don't think that there's any evidence that they're looking for a political assassination.

JIM LEHRER: What about carrying it the next step, Kate? Frank Rich in "New York Times" has made the point this week that if Gingrich remains Speaker of the House that just his--the fact of his being there takes the edge off of any attacks that the Republicans might make against President Clinton and any Democrats on ethical issues?

KATE O'BEIRNE: Well, first of all, you're going to hear the Republicans, and they're beginning to do it now, I think increasingly reminding people that Dick Gephardt, the Minority Leader in the House, has had ethics problems and got a little wrist slap because he had filed misleading statements with the Ethics Committee. You'll hear much of that on Tuesday. Newt Gingrich clearly--

JIM LEHRER: It's about a piece of--some property that he owned, right?

KATE O'BEIRNE: Exactly. An expensive beach front property he owned, and was allowed to correct the record and told be more careful in the future, Dick. But I mean, it certainly, you know, didn't rise to the level of--of derailing the entire Democratic minority. Newt Gingrich was not going to lead any ethics charges against Bill Clinton, but so they sit back and they wait for Ken Starr. They've got Fred Thompson, Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee's oversight hearings beginning in February on the campaign financing in the Senate. I don't think they're worried an awful lot about Newt Gingrich's hurting their ability to make an ethics case against Bill Clinton. It's ludicrous that there's this equivalency between Newt Gingrich's minor transgressions and the things that are piling up about Bill Clinton, but they seem ready to live with that reality.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think?

MARK SHIELDS: Two points. A factual correction first on Dick Gephardt. Dick Gephardt amended his financial disclosure statement, if that's what it was. That happens dozens of times on both sides of the aisle, every session of Congress. The committee voted ten to nothing, five Republicans, two--to drop it right then and there, I mean, in spite of the fact that Jennifer Dunn, Republican Deputy Whip in the House was pushing it, banging it, trying to make it an issue, ten-zip. Now those five Republicans on the Ethics Committee are not Margaret--I mean, Jim Bunting of Kentucky is a good conservative in addition to a Hall of Fame pitcher. I mean, they ten-zip said that's it, no problem. So this is--but you can see what the Republicans are doing. I mean, Haley did it. Haley Barbour did it today. It's--first it was the staff. My goodness, it was the staff that did it. Then it was that damn lawyer who did it. And now, now it's the Ethics Committee. They should have done Gephardt. I mean, some plan that Kate's absolutely right, Newt has to stay up there and say I was wrong. He can't say he was naive; nobody believes Newt was naive. There are accusations against Bill Clinton. There's a confession and admission on the part of Newt Gingrich. That's a big distinction.

KATE O'BEIRNE: But all the members have an interest in--I agree with you that that's how they handled Dick Gephardt's problem, because traditionally that is how they've handled problems like this at the Ethics Committee. In fact, though, he had the same property listed as either an income property or a rental property where it benefited him to do so. And he had to figure out which is it and then amend his forms twice. Don't forget all of the members live and die by the Ethics Committee, whatever their rules might be and however they decide to treat any of these misfiled documents or need-to-amend documents, and whatnot. Many of them, it seems to me, are worrying about what's the criteria. You know, there but for the grace of God go I. I can run up, you know, filing--being inattentive, filing contradictory statements. And they're not willing to let something like this with two Democrats on the subcommittee, along with two Republicans, finding no intent on Newt's part to deceive the committee.

JIM LEHRER: Yes, Mark.

MARK SHIELDS: I just think the key moment is going to be when the counsel, James Coles, makes his case, and that's what Republicans are understandably concerned about. Right now, Jim, the dominant attitude among Republicans that I've spoken to is similar to that it was when Jim Wright was in trouble; it's a mix of compassion and fear, compassion that you don't want to kick a friend when he's down, especially someone who's been a leader of his party, who's been probably a help to you, but the fear at the same time, do I want to get too close because this could be radioactive? And that- -those are the two motions that I think are competing in Republicans that I've talked to.

JIM LEHRER: Kate, what does it say about here we're going to a new Congress, a new administration--a new term of a President, and we're talking about ethics on both sides?

KATE O'BEIRNE: Jim, you had an earlier segment. Americans on crime, American cities might be safer, but the murder rate on Capitol Hill is on the increase. Yeah. This is now how the game is played. You know, you don't argue with your opponent on a policy agenda. You destroy your opponent personally. Look at dispirited liberal Republicans, though. This, this--Republican colleagues of Newt Gingrich's are increasingly convinced this has far less to do about 501C-3 of Internal Revenue Code and far more to do with who chairs House Committees. You--you don't have an agenda dispute. You go after Newt Gingrich. You bring Newt Gingrich down, and by doing so, hopefully, you destroy this agenda which their President, how demoralizing, has sort of endorsed.

MARK SHIELDS: I don't know a single Democrat who thinks that the Democrats are going to be chairs of any committee. They--I mean, that has nothing to do--I don't know that is any part of the plan. I mean--

KATE O'BEIRNE: They're surrendering the--

MARK SHIELDS: No. There'll be a Republican chair, a Republican Speaker of the House. If it isn't Newt Gingrich, then whoever it would be, whether it's Dick Armey or Tom Delay or Henry Hyde or whoever, but it would be a Republican. Republicans have the majority.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, Kate, good night.

KATE O'BEIRNE: Good night. Thanks, Jim. CONVERSATION

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight an award winning family story and to Elizabeth Farnsworth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: James Carroll received the National Book Award for nonfiction last month for his book "An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us." Ittells the story of a family that embodied the conflicts of the nation during the war with Vietnam. In those days James Carroll was an anti-war priest. His father was the founding director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the man in charge of counting the enemy and evaluating targets in Vietnam. James Carroll has since left the priesthood and is now a poet and novelist, author of , among other works, "Mortal Friends," and "The City Below." He also writes a weekly column for the "Boston Globe." Thank you for being with us, Mr. Carroll.

JAMES CARROLL, Author: Thank you, Elizabeth. It's good to be here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Your father is--is bigger than life in this book. Tell us about him.

JAMES CARROLL: Well, as a son, of course, he was bigger--bigger than life to me, but he really was an extraordinary character, no matter how you measured him. He began as a worker in the Chicago stockyards of an Irish Catholic family on the South side of Chicago. He was an FBI agent as a young man. He had a remarkable career as an FBI agent that quickly brought him into the Air Force as a general. He was the youngest general in the United States military in 1947. And he had a powerful career as an intelligence officer in the military, culminating in his--as you just said--his founding the Defense Intelligence Agency. And he was the director of the DIA through most of the war in Vietnam, a powerful man, the father of five sons, the husband of a strong Irish woman.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: He was also--he had also attended seminary for 12 years and quit just as he was about to be ordained, is that right? In some ways that event is the event that sets everything else in motion in your book.

JAMES CARROLL: It's true. The subtitle of my book is "God," and, you know, religion, especially the Catholic faith, is the context within which the whole story unfolds. My father's impulse to become a priest that he had as a boy and that he didn't follow through on and that I think shadowed him for the rest of his life, of course, was a powerful factor, largely unconscious, I think, in my own decision as a young man to become a Catholic priest. So that then when I became the wrong kind of priest, you might say, it was especially loaded between us. And the crisis on this issue, religious, gets joined to the political crisis during the 60's so that there's a political confrontation, a religious confrontation, and, of course, you might almost say an Oedipal confrontation between me and my dad. It all came together at the same time, and because it was about the war and Civil Rights period and because my brothers were involved in the story, it became--well, it became very much a loaded American story--oddly enough, for all of the particularities of it, not that different from what was going on in many American families in the same period.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And yet so--of the different elements that occurred to other people occurred at once in your family. I thought, as I read your book, that if this had been fiction, I wouldn't have believed it. Tell us about your brothers. Tell us about the way the political conflict manifested itself in your family.

JAMES CARROLL: Well, there were five of us. We all, more or less, came of age together in the 60's, and by the time I was ordained to the priesthood in 1969, my father was at the peak of his power as an intelligence officer at the Pentagon. And in the same period, my--two of my other brothers made decisions that would affect the unfolding of the family story powerfully. My brother, Brian, who was the next youngest to me, in that same time became an FBI agent, and he was assigned quite promptly to the task of tracking down draft resisters and draft dodgers and members of the so-called Catholic left. And at the same time, my brother, Dennis, next youngest, became--you guessed it--a draft resister and even a draft exile for a time, was out of the country, and eventually came back. There was a period when we couldn't talk about Dennis in front of Brian. We didn't want to talk about Brian in front of Dennis. It was unbelievably complicated. And at the same time, Dad was presiding over this, well, you know, what would become clear eventually a kind of massive intelligence failure because the war in Vietnam, among other failures, was an intelligence failure. And his own war inside the Pentagon, of course, was something I didn't know about. And I'm identifying at the same time with the Berrigan wing of the Catholic peace movement. I'm becoming a peacenik priest. So through those years, the late 60's, early 70's, every possible conflict is joined in my family. And the amazing thing is that really the wonderful thing is that as a family we found a way to stay together, although the breach between me and my father actually did eventually become total.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The last chapter in your book is about your father's death and funeral. Would you read from that for us?

JAMES CARROLL: Well, I would. You know, ironically enough, as if it is a novel, my dad died just as the war in the Persian Gulf was breaking out, and it seemed impossible to me that the whole story of our relationship should be recapitulated in yet another what to me was a very misguided American military adventure. And I'm reading the very end of this story. We have just buried my dad at the Arlington National Cemetery. It's January of 1991. It's the day before the only sizeable peace demonstration that took place in Washington. And I'm going to go home, instead of going to the demonstration. "As the earth had opened under me, my personal abyss, I was staring in. And, yes, I saw those bombs, and yes, I saw the war induced into the world. Yes, I saw the doom of history. I saw it all in the death of my father. War had come down war between us. I saw the lesson of it clear. We both lost. Victory is meaningless. But the story, this story, is a victory of the need to be victorious, which is why this particular war was holy and why this story is sacred. My father was dead, a fallible man, a noble man. I loved him. And because I was so much like him, though appearing not to be, I had broken his heart, and the final truth was, oh, how the skill of ending with uplift yet alludes me. He had broken mine."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You write that narrative, itself, is sacred. And you've used the word "Requiem" in the title. Were any souls laid to rest by this book?

JAMES CARROLL: Well, I did use the word "Requiem" thinking it would be about a laying to rest. I think I did in some way lay my dad to rest. The book telling the story enabled me to see the experience more from his point of view than I ever had before, seeing really what the struggle inside his life in the Pentagon was like, which was a very powerful one of which I knew nothing at the time. And I ended the story more full of respect and more full of love for him than I ever had been before. A grief struck, of course, that I couldn't express it to him. But then I'd have to say finally the sad thing was I didn't find the rest myself that I thought I would. I think I speak for a lot of people in my generation, people affected by the war on both sides of it, peaceniks and veterans, that there was a way in which that war opened a wound in us that hasn't closed yet. I hope that this story is part of the closing of that wound for Americans in some small way, but I believe that many of us will spend the rest of our lives trying to pull the threads of this narrative together in some way that will enable us to have peace at last.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, James Carroll, thanks so much for being with us.

JAMES CARROLL: Thank you very much. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, two more letter bombs were found in Leavenworth, Kansas. Yesterday, two were discovered there, five in Washington. President Clinton suspended for another six months some enforcement provisions of a law designed to deter foreign investment in Cuba. And Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour said Newt Gingrich should be and would be re-elected as Speaker when the 105th Congress convenes next week. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening with full coverage of the Gingrich story and other matters congressional. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.