The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, nine passengers are missing after apparently being sucked out of a jumbo jet over the Pacific. President Bush said he would fight for John Tower in the full Senate and win, the Federal Reserve Board raised the discount rate to 7 percent, the highest level in three years. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: After the News Summary, the Tower nomination. We talk with four members of the Senate about what happens next, and then hear from Congressional analyst Norman Ornstein. He joins our regular Friday team of Gergen & Shields who will also look at what sort of week it's been for President Bush. Then the disaster involving the passenger jet over the Pacific. We have an excerpt of a news conference held by United Airlines. Finally, Essayist Roger Rosenblatt on the meaning of the furor aimed at Salman Rushdie.NEWS SUMMARY

MS. WOODRUFF: As many as nine people are believed to have been killed early today when something caused a hole to blow open in a United Airlines Boeing 747 flying over the Pacific. The plane had taken off from Honolulu, headed for New Zealand, when suddenly a portion of the passenger compartment was ripped away, leaving a 10 by 40 foot hole in the right side. The pilot returned to Honolulu, where surviving passengers talked about the incident.

PASSENGER: One minute we were just sitting there, relaxing. The next minute the decompression came. Ice blew all over us. We heard the man breathing behind us and we couldn't breathe. It was like instant nightmare and we didn't know what was going on from that moment on until we landed, we were panicking.

PASSENGER: Scared as hell. We're lucky we're alive. It's fantastic.

MS. WOODRUFF: A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Washington said the pilot reported losing power in one right side engine nine minutes after takeoff and eight minutes later radioed that he had lost power in the other right side engine. The plane had been flying for 18 years. A San Francisco airport official familiar with the accident investigation told the Associated Press that information seemed to be pointing to a structural failure rather than any sort of explosion or sabotage. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: President Bush threw down the gauntlet to the Senate today over John Tower. Mr. Bush suffered a major setback last night when the Armed Services Committee recommended that the full Senate reject his nominee for Defense Secretary. The vote came after Democrats expressed concern over allegations about Tower's drinking and sexual behavior outlined in an FBI report. Today the President said he would not back down. He made his remarks in Japan, where he attended the funeral of Emperor Hirohito. Jim Engle of National Public Radio reports for the Newshour from Tokyo.

JIM ENGLE: President Bush told reporters he intends to fight for the Tower nomination when it goes to the floor of the Senate.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I'm going to strongly continue to back Sen. Tower and I do not believe he is going down the drain.

JIM ENGLE: The President insists the FBI report does not substantiate the allegations against Tower and he said the floor debate will clear up any questions about him. In any case, Mr. Bush said he has given no thought to replacing Tower.

PRESIDENT BUSH: So he is my choice, my only choice, and I am standing with him.

JIM ENGLE: The President expressed confidence he can win over the Democratic votes he needs for Tower's approval. Today the President saw eight more of the leaders among the more than one hundred sixty here for the largest state funeral in history. Tens of thousands of ordinary people stood in a cold drizzle as the casket of the longest reigning emperor of Japan wound its way through the streets of Tokyo. While many were saddened, some young people who knew the emperor as only a figure head of post war days were uninterested and took advantage of the post war holiday. Others remembered the most controversial chapters in Hirohito's 62 year reign, the militarism and the war, and sought to make a different statement. Someone even set off an earth slide with a small bomb placed along the route to the tomb. The government tried to finesse a dispute over the separation of church and state by holding two ceremonies -- one an hour and a half long Shinto religious rite shielded from public view. [Funeral Excerpt]

JIM ENGLE: -- And a second official state ceremony over which the government presided. [Funeral Excerpt]

JIM ENGLE: After the heads of state paid their respects one by one, the body of the emperor, who had begun his reign as a god and ended it as the figurehead of a constitutional democracy was taken for entombment to the imperial mausoleum. There a long and controversial chapter in Japanese history officially ended.

MR. MacNeil: President Bush travels to China tomorrow, where he will make a speech on state television on Sunday.

MS. WOODRUFF: There was more evidence today that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan means business when he says he will flight inflation by making borrowing more expensive. This morning the Fed raised its key discount rate 1/2 point to 7 percent, the highest it's been in three years. It's the rate the Fed charges member banks for short-term loans. The move came only a day after two major banks boosted their prime rate to 11 1/2 percent. Today other major banks followed. The prime is a benchmark for a wide range of consumer and home equity loans. The prospects of higher borrowing costs sent jitters through Wall Street. Bond prices fell sharply and the Dow Jones Industrial Index fell almost 44 points, closing at 2245.54.

MR. MacNeil: In Bombay, India, 10 people were killed today and 40 injured when police fired on thousands of Muslims demonstrating against Salman Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses". Police had banned the march, but after Friday prayers, 10,000 Muslims began marching towards the British High Commission. Police said the demonstrators were stoning cars and burning buses. Police fired tear gas and used riot canes and later opened fire to make them disburse.

MS. WOODRUFF: A Lebanese Shiite Moslem was convicted today of hijacking an Air Afrique jet and murdering one of its passengers. A Swiss court sentenced Hussein Mohammad Ali Haheri to life in prison. Haheri hijacked the flight in 1987, while it was en route from Rome to Paris. He was overpowered by Swiss police after the plane landed in Geneva for a refueling stop. Haheri said he hijacked the plane to win the release of pro Iranian guerrillas held by France and West Germany.

MR. MacNeil: In Israel, a soldier was killed on the West Bank when Palestinians reportedly dropped a cement block on his head. It happened during a clash in the open air market in Nablus. Troops imposed a curfew on the city and began house to house searches. In the Gaza Strip, nine Palestinians were reported wounded in clashes with troops.

MS. WOODRUFF: That's it for the News Summary. Just ahead, the Bush/Senate battle over John Tower, Gergen & Shields, the accident aboard Flight 811, and the passions behind the furious reaction to "The Satanic Verses". UPDATE - TOWER OF TROUBLE

MR. MacNeil: First tonight we update the story that has handed President Bush a major political crisis only five weeks into his Presidency, the rejection of John Tower as Secretary of Defense by the Democratic majority on the Armed Services Committee. Last evening, the Committee voted strictly on party lines 11 Democrats to 9 Republicans not to recommend Tower's confirmation. Tower's fate now rests with the full Senate, and there, President Bush said today he would fight and win. The President spoke to reporters in Tokyo. Here is a fuller version of that exchange.

REPORTER: On the question of Sen. Tower, it looks like he's going down the drain. Are you going to continue to back him, or do you think he ought to pull out?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I'm going to strongly continue to back Sen. Tower and I do not believe he is going down the drain. Nobody has challenged his ability and knowledge to be a good Secretary of Defense, and I'm hoping that the debate that will follow next week will clear up any questions that the members at large may have and so I wish the Committee vote had been different, butI have not considered any options. I stand strongly with John Tower. I know of nobody else whose knowledge in defense matters can equal his, whose knowledge of how the Hill works can equal his, so he is my choice, my only choice, and I am standing with him.

REPORTER: Mr. Bush, why would the result in the Senate be any different than the result in the Committee?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Because I think you're going to have a lively public debate in the Senate. I think the Republican leaders, Bob Dole is already contemplating what to do on the Senate floor, but he knows, because I've talked to him, that when I get back, and I will get back before the vote, he knows that I will do whatever I can to talk to individual members and have them know how strongly I feel about it and hopefully persuade some who have looked at evidence so far and may have a different opinion, so there's no animosity. It's simply a question of fighting for something I believe in. Is it party line? When the vote was all Democrats voted one way and all Republicans voted another, I suppose without acrimony it could be said that that was a party line vote, but do I suggest that there's no chance to pick up Democrats next week, no, I don't. I believe I can do that and I believe that the Senators that are for us can do it.

REPORTER: Is the honeymoon over, Mr. President?

PRESIDENT BUSH: No. The honeymoon is still going fine and I'm not going to get total agreement on every issue. I hope I can get agreement on this question, but I've never expected, nobody's suggested they were going to do it just my way, but this one's important. It's important to our country and I want somebody in that Defense Department that has Tower's expertise and who knows the defense mechanism as well as he does and he's the only one that comes to mind.

REPORTER: Well, have you talked to him?

REPORTER: Why would there be such a difference of interpretation?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I don't know. Go ask the people that voted. I'm halfway around the world.

REPORTER: Don't you risk an even more damaging defeat by taking it to the Senate?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I don't look at it as defeat or victory. I look at what's right and supporting somebody I believe in and looking at the facts, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm not going to challenge Sen. Nunn's motives at all. I never have and I've never expressed anything other than my strong support on the merits after reviewing the information for Sen. Tower, and that's the way I'm going to continue to do this.

REPORTER: Have you talked to Tower at all?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Since I've been over here?

REPORTER: Since all of this has happened today.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I talked to him the day we left, the day before we left, but I haven't talked to him since then.

REPORTER: Mr. President, how much of a problem has the delay in getting Sen. Tower or somebody to run the Defense Department created for your review of foreign policy and your conduct of foreign policy?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, the review is going forward. I would like to have the Secretary of Defense in place. There's no question that the Department needs the new leader, but it isn't interfering with our challenge to the Department to participate in these reviews. In fact, we've ordered a certain number of reviews, they're going to be started, but I'm not going to mislead you. I want my Secretary of Defense in place to further these reviews, to enhance the studies that are going forward and to have our input on these studies, the input from the person that I select to be Secretary. In this instance, I think approving my nominee is right, but I have no acrimony and I'm not going to be drawn into name calling for political accusation here. I'm not going to do that. I've got to work with the Senate on a lot of issues, but I want them to know how strongly I feel and I feel it's not a personal win or lose. It's what's right, who's best to run the Defense Department --

REPORTER: Aren't you whistling in the dark?

PRESIDENT BUSH: -- and that's what's at stake and I'm going to win this battle.

REPORTER: Mr. President, so much of this seems to depend on different interpretations of that FBI report.

PRESIDENT BUSH: It does.

REPORTER: Obviously, that'll be a factor in the Senate debate. If you see it as being in your favor, in your side's favor in this, is there anything you can do to make that public, sir?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I'd like it to be as public as possible, the debate, because I think then there will be plenty of Senators that will want to defend Senator Tower against these allegations which I feel have been, and I'll use the expression again, gunned down. Now clearly some have looked at the evidence, and I'm sure in their opinion they differ with me on that, but that's what a good lively debate can do on the floor and Sen. Tower is entitled to that kind of debate on the issues, not on hearsay. They will not be able, nobody will be able to sustain an objection based simply on hearsay or on some rumor, so that's why I look forward to a fair, open debate, and let the Senators who've made up their minds in opposition to what I'm advocating spell out for their constituents and for the country why they feel as they do. And I expect others will stand up and take a different side. That's what our process is all about, so I don't fear it, I welcome it. I welcome it.

REPORTER: With that report still secret, sir, how are people to know who's right about it?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, it's not secret from the Senators, and how much they refer to it, I don't know. We'll have to look into that when I get back, Fred. I don't know what the ground rules are on how much people can refer to those reports. But the more open it is, the better I like it. Now what precedents are set, I'd have to think very carefully about that, but we're not worried about this debate.

MR. MacNeil: Joining us now to discuss the prospects in the full Senate are four Senators, Republican Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming who voted for Tower on the Armed Services Committee and Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan who voted against him, and two others who have not at least publicly made up their minds, Republican Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas and Democrat Howell Heflin of Alabama, all join us from a studio on Capitol Hill. Sen. Heflin, first to you. The President says he can and will win this on the Senate floor. Can he and how likely is it he will?

SEN. HOWELL HEFLIN, [D] Alabama: Well, I don't know. I think you'd have to evaluate. Most of these real controversial issues come down to about 10 members of the Senate. There could be some defections from the Republican ranks. On the other hand, there about eight or ten Democrats that are usually independent in their thinking that don't necessarily follow party line and I would think that you'd have to have a nose count. At this stage, I don't know.

MR. MacNeil: How about you, Sen. Kassebaum, could there be defections, as Sen. Heflin says, from the Republicans, could it, how do you feel about it?

SEN. NANCY KASSEBAUM, [R] Kansas: I don't know, but one thing that I think is terribly important at least that I believe it not be framed as the end of bipartisanship. I don't think that's it at all. Or if Sen. Tower should not be confirmed, it shouldn't be viewed as a loss for President Bush. I think one can have great respect for Sen. Tower's expertise and ability and yet, still question whether at this point he would be as effective as one should be as Secretary of Defense right now.

MR. MacNeil: Are you one of those who does question that?

SEN. KASSEBAUM: Well, I think that one would have to ask those questions. I'm sure even Sen. Tower must wonder, but the important thing is that this is not a lack of bipartisanship. I don't think it was just done for partisan reasons. I don't think Sen. Nunn as Chairman of the Armed Services Committee was acting out of partisanship.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Levin, do you think the President can pull this off by talking to enough Democrats?

SEN. CARL LEVIN, [D] Michigan: This is going to be decided on the basis of 100 people reading that record, reading the FBI file, reaching their own conclusion and their best conscience, as the constitution tells us we must. I don't believe this is or should be decided on a partisan basis. I was frankly surprised when the Republican leader, Sen. Dole, said that all Republicans should rally to the President's side on this one. I think all Democrats and all Republicans should rally to the side of that FBI report, spend the many many hours that are necessary to read it. Reasonable people can reach different interpretations from that report, that we should reach our own individual judgment based on our individual conscience, and I don't think there should be a partisan solution or partisan result here.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Wallop, you were on the President's side last night. Are you confident he can pull this out?

SEN. MALCOLM WALLOP, [R] Wyoming: I am and I really think he ought to be. You just heard him say that he having examined all of this evidence and seen all the reports that have come in wants John Tower to be his Secretary of Defense. Upon the performance of John Tower in office will rest the judgment of the public on George Bush, not John Tower, and I think that a President is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, but even more importantly, I would take some issue already with my friend, Sen. Levin. It's not going to take many hour to read that report. It isn't that long and it isn't that complex, and most of what is in it is not persuasive, if you want to put the balance of information on the side that each comes down. What happened last night is that people were unwilling to trust their own memory and their own judgment and that of prominent Americans who express their confidence and trust in Tower against the word of a lot of people who wouldn't even put their name behind their accusations.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Heflin, you, I suppose, are one of the Democrats listed as those who are, as you described it, independent and might be one who could be persuaded to vote for Sen. Tower's confirmation in this. What would you have to go on in your head to convince you to vote for him?

SEN. HEFLIN: Well, I haven't read the FBI reports. I wanted to read them this afternoon, but they are not available. And I haven't gone into all the factual situations as the members of the Committee that voted on this but I intend to beforehand. You know, I don't have any set standards one way or the other, other than trying to do what is right and do what is best for the country as a whole, considering all the factors, trying to be fair to Sen. Tower, trying to be fair to the President, trying to be fair to those people who oppose him. So it's a matter I think of those of us who are not on the Committee becoming well acquainted with the facts and evaluating it and trying to approach it from a moral basis.

MR. MacNeil: Do you agree with what I think Sen. Wallop was saying that a President is entitled to have the nominees he wants in his cabinet even if they are flawed to an extent?

SEN. HEFLIN: Well, I think it depends to what degree they are flawed. I think basically I approach the President's nominations that he's entitled to do it, but that presumption is rebuttable and it depends on a lot of factors. I think that we have to review all of those, so I think you ought to have some deference to the President's wishes even if you're in the opposite party, but, nevertheless, you do have responsibilities to the nation as a whole and you have to look at the whole record and all of the facts and all of the circumstances.

MR. MacNeil: Did I interpret you correctly, Sen. Wallop, that the President is entitled to have his members of his cabinet even if some may see flaws in them, and that it's a question of the degree of flaws?

SEN. WALLOP: Clearly, there's some degree of flaw, but in point of fact, Senator after Senator on the Democratic side last night said there was no smoking gun but a lot of smoke, that there was no evidence that was persuasive, but there was a perception, that there was a lot of gun smoke and a few cartridges on the floor, but they saw no bullets and saw no gun. That is not persuasive in the minds of the American public I would not think, and I keep in mind again, I say, George Bush has seen all of this report, has made his judgment and upon his judgment and the performance of John Tower in office will rest the American people's judgment and the world's on his President.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Levin, did you see only smoke, no guns, no bullets, no cartridges?

SEN. LEVIN: There's smoke and there's also some fire I'm afraid in the FBI report. It's not just a bunch of nameless people. The only way to resolve it is for people to read the FBI report. There are many people who are identified by name who have told the FBI that Sen. Tower's excessive drinking extended through the '80s and they were eye witnesses to it. Now you may want to judge them against other people and you may want to assess just how weighty that evidence is, but everybody who voted last night against this confirmation saw significant evidence in that FBI file or from other parts of the hearing to persuade them that this is a flawed nomination. There is no partisan motive here. The Democrats in the Senate have voted unanimously for every single nominee that has come before us. This nominee is a flawed nominee and we must in our own conscience either reach that conclusion or not. The President is obviously entitled to leeway. The President is entitled to someone in whom he has trust, but the country is entitled to someone in whom it has trust, and the constitution tells the Senate of the United States that we must make a judgment as to whether or not a nominee meets a reasonable standard of that trust.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Kassebaum, how far do you go along the line that the President's entitled to whom he wants and what degree of flaws the Senate should be willing to accept or the other party willing to accept to give him that?

SEN. KASSEBAUM: I've always believed that the President does have the right and responsibility to send forward the names of the people he feels he wants and that he can work with the best, and I respect that. I also think the Senate has the role of advice and consent, and as such, we have to confirm those nominations and we need to play a role and search our own conscience and I think be as fair as possible in trying to analyze for particularly this post, which I think is one of the most important in the Bush administration, and it's not an easy responsibility, because, as I said, I don't think anyone questions the ability and the intelligence of John Tower and someone who knows the defense industry well. But there are other things that I do think enter in and that those of us who are not on the Committee will have to look at the record and think about.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Heflin, another conservative Democrat Senator, Sen. Boren, said today that in the circumstances it would be better if Sen. Tower just withdrew rather than spin this out and get on with confirming someone who will be easily confirmable. Do you have any of that sentiment?

SEN. HEFLIN: Well, you know, that's a judgment call that I think Sen. Tower and the President have to make. I mean, it's not up to us in regards to that. Naturally, it's a controversial issue. Controversial means hot seats. If he withdraws, we are relieved of being from the hot seat, but, nevertheless, we do have responsibility to stay on. We will exercise our responsibilities. We have to vote and we, the 100 members of the Senate, will vote.

MR. MacNeil: How do you feel about that, Sen. Levin, about whether he should withdraw to get it over with?

SEN. LEVIN: I don't think it's appropriate for me to be giving advice either to Sen. Tower or to the President on that issue. I have spoken based on my own search of my conscience and review of the records, including the FBI records, which by the way are hundreds of pages in length, and I don't think it's appropriate for me to give advice to Sen. Tower.

MR. MacNeil: Do you have a feeling about that, Sen. Kassebaum?

SEN. KASSEBAUM: I think it's really something that Sen. Tower would have to decide.

MR. MacNeil: And I presume you do not think so, Sen. Wallop. You have more or less indicated you don't.

SEN. WALLOP: I think definitely he should not and I think a clear single message that President Bush gave there was that he didn't have somebody waiting in the wings, that his choice on the basis of everything he knew and all the same reports the Senators have seen and his confidence in them and the management of the Defense Department remained with Sen. Tower. Under those circumstances, withdrawal is out of the question.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Wallop, if this is a strictly partisan thing and the Democrats, as Sen. Dole claims, are playing partisan politics, does that role fit a man with the reputation of Sam Nunn in this case? Do you believe that he would have read the evidence that you read and be interpreting it the way he did and voted against Tower just for partisan reasons?

SEN. WALLOP: Sam Nunn is a mortal, human politician and is not above partisanship. I have seen him and other Democrats and other Republicans act as partisans throughout my career on Capitol Hill here now, 12 years. It is not a surprising thing to find somebody acting in a partisan way under certain circumstances and last night I think it was clear that they did.

MR. MacNeil: Well, are you saying the Democrats are putting their partisan interest in scoring one against the President ahead of the interests of the country here?

SEN. WALLOP: Well, I'm not part of the caucuses of the Democratic Party and I can't discuss their motives, only their behavior. Their behavior was partisan last night.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Heflin, who will be more influential in helping you make up your mind, Sen. Nunn, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, or the President?

SEN. HEFLIN: I think the content of the argument, rather than the personalities or positions, I think that I'm interested in their logic, their rationale, whatever they may say in regards to it. If it supplies light on the subject, then that is what is important. The FBI reports, the Committee reports, the majority, the minority, the additional views that are contained there, why I'll read all of them with an idea of making up my own mind based on as much information as I can get and based on my concern for the man, the concern for the Presidency, and the concern for the country.

MR. MacNeil: How do you see, Sen. Levin, the charge that Sen. Nunn is playing partisan politics with this? You've said you weren't, but what about Sen. Nunn?

SEN. LEVIN: Sen. Nunn is not a partisan politician. He's well known around this country. Sen. Glenn, who's also well known around the country, is surely not a partisan politician. Senators like that reached the conclusion based on the record that we should not confirm John Tower. And I'm frankly surprised to hear the suggestion the Democrats are partisan when Republicans voted down the line last night, every single Republican voted for Sen. Tower, and yet no Democrat is charging Republicans with partisanship. When Sen. Dole on the floor of the Senate said that every Republican should support the President, not that every Republican should go and read the file and reach their own conclusion based on their own conscience, which is what every Republican and every Democrat should do, but Sen. Dole's exhortation was that every Republican because they're a Republican should support the confirmation of Sen. Tower, and yet, we don't charge Republicans with partisanship, I do not believe that it is appropriate or that it frankly has any compelling argument for a member of the Republican Party who voted down a party line last night to be charging Democrats with partisanship.

MR. MacNeil: Thank you very much, Sen. Levin, Sen. Wallop, Sen. Heflin, Sen. Kassebaum for joining us. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: More on the Tower story now from Veteran Congress watcher Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is here tonight alongside our regular political analysis team of Gergen & Shields. That's David Gergen, Editor at Large of U.S. News & World Report, and Mark Shields, Syndicated Columnist with the Washington Post. Norman, what happened? Why did John Tower lose?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN, American Enterprise Institute: Well, this is a long story and it goes back to review the bidding to when the name first surfaced in November, the President and his team said we want to get our national security team, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Adviser, in place in quickly. They quickly named the Secretary of State and the National Security Adviser, said that Tower was going to be the person, but we went for four weeks without Tower being named during which time the White House said we have doubts about his management capabilities and about his ability to deal with procurement scandals, we're going to name his subordinates. By the time we had the nomination actually made --

MS. WOODRUFF: So you're saying that he was already weakened --

MR. ORNSTEIN: He was weakened when the nomination was made and stories about his personal life had been there, and as this carried through and we got more andmore stories surfacing and then we had Paul Weyrich, a leader of the new right, actually say in the hearings that he had seen Tower exhibit immoral behavior brought it out in the open, it began to snowball from that point forward.

MS. WOODRUFF: But the Senate, as we've all heard time and again, is an old boys club, and the club, the members of the club usually stick together. Why didn't that work in that instance?

MR. ORNSTEIN: It's somewhat overstated, Judy, in terms of the closeness personally that exists with individuals. Senators have almost always voted for confirmation of fellow Senators in part because it's in their own interest in case they ever come up. In this case though where you didn't have that close personal tie, what you might say is that John Tower who has not built many friendships had no reservoir of good will to draw on when the drought came. He does not have friends among his colleagues. When it began to get tough, he just didn't have anything there, anything there that would give him the benefit of the doubt.

MS. WOODRUFF: David Gergen, there's such a dispute about what is or is not in that FBI report, do we know how damning the information in there is?

DAVID GERGEN, U.S. News & World Report: No. We're getting leaks now selectively from both sides. I think we can assume that while there's no gun in there, no smoking gun that we always talk about, this proverbial smoking gun, that there is enough there that it did not help his case. I cannot imagine as much as the Republicans talk about openness that they really want to have that published just before his confirmation fight goes to the floor.

MS. WOODRUFF: Mark, do you think we're going to find out what's in that report, or do you think that's just something the Republicans and the White House are saying?

MARK SHIELDS, Washington Post: I honestly don't know. I guess it's Sen. Tower's decision, is that what it is?

MR. ORNSTEIN: The FBI is not going to release the report unless Sen. Tower asks for it, they give it to him, and he releases it publicly, and even then some names would be excised.

MR. SHIELDS: I thought the White House went to great efforts to emphasize that he was not unfit, there was nothing in the report to say he was unfit. There was not hardly a ringing endorsement of him in it --

MR. GERGEN: Well, Bush went farther. He said it gunned down all the allegations.

MR. SHIELDS: But after that, the White House line became there was nothing in there to suggest that he was unfit. I want to underline something that Norman Ornstein said that I absolutely agree with wholeheartedly. John Tower had no reservoir of good will. He is not a nice man. I mean, John Tower has made an awful lot of enemies. There was not that sense of good will. What goes around comes around and John Tower had been abrasive. He had been mean spirited to an awful lot of people, and I don't say that what it robbed him of was the benefit of the doubt. It didn't make votes go against him, but there really wasn't that feeling of - -

MR. GERGEN: I would disagree with one point. I think that he did have some friends among the Republicans. I think he also commanded respect among a number of the Republicans. I think the key player here was clearly Sam Nunn. Sam Nunn, as we all know, sets a very high standard by which he judges this. I assume he is not playing politics with this -- the Republicans obviously think otherwise. But it seems to me that once Sam Nunn made up his mind, the rest of the Democrats came along. Had he gone the other way, I would imagine there would havebeen only two or three votes against Tower.

MS. WOODRUFF: I'm sorry, did you say you think the Democrats were playing politics or were not playing politics?

MR. GERGEN: No, I do not think they were. I do not think that Sam Nunn was. I think there are Democrats who see clear advantages in this, but, you know, the White House has set this up and the backstairs chatter is that Sam Nunn wants to take over the Defense Department and so forth. I think that's nonsense. I don't think that's what's going on.

MR. ORNSTEIN: It was misplayed and it'll hurt them, by the way, over the long run.

MS. WOODRUFF: Norman, this is such obviously a partisan split in the Committee. Will it be that way on the floor? I mean, can we look for some defections? And we just heard the four Senators addressing that.

MR. ORNSTEIN: Well, if you're now John Tower and if you're George Bush, you have to start hoping and believing that you can hold all of your 45 Republican Senators and then try and peel off five Democrats to create that tie where the Vice President votes for you. The first place they've got to turn I think is Lloyd Bentsen, who is the Senator from Texas who introduced Tower. In Texas, it's viewed a little bit differently than in the rest of the country. If he can get Bentsen to not only say I'll vote for Tower, but to get out there and say something publicly, he's got a chance perhaps of picking off some Senators, but it is a steeply uphill battle and frankly, I'm not at all certain that they're going to be able to hold all of the 45 Republicans. We're starting to see some nervousness there and the far right pressure on Tower's personal life is going to hurt them there too.

MS. WOODRUFF: We just heard Sen. Kassebaum say that, you know, that she and other Senators, Republicans among them, need to take a look at this, that it's not just automatic, that they're going to support --

MR. ORNSTEIN: If we get to either the vote and it looks like it's not going to be a straight party vote, that a couple of Republicans are going to go off the reservation, I think they'll probably withdraw right before the vote.

MS. WOODRUFF: Mark, do you think that Bush has a chance of winning this on the floor, a real chance?

MR. SHIELDS: Not right now. But President Bush's loyalty is not in question here. I think his judgment is open to question. They waited an awful long time before they submitted the nomination, and a lot of John Tower's problems beyond John Tower's personality is that John Tower, there's nobody really for him. If you look at the constituent elements of the Republican coalition, the religious rite has grave allegations because of the allegations about his own life-style. The hard line conservatives, the Reaganites, know that John Tower was not with Ronald Reagan in 1976 when Gerry Ford ran. He was never a supply sider in that sense in an ideological commitment, and the third group is the pro defense. The really ardently pro defense are worried about John Tower on issues like the Strategic Defense Initiative, so there isn't, there isn't I don't think the kind of intensity of support where someone, it's going to cost you a constituency if you oppose them.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, you're saying this is really going to be tough.

MR. SHIELDS: I think it's going to be awfully tough and I want to come back to something that David said. Sam Nunn leads a committee of Democrats that is hardly the flaming liberal enclave of the United States Senate. It isn't the Judiciary Committee. It isn't the Labor Committee, where the Democrats are quite liberal. I mean, it has Bob Byrd of West Virginia. It has Dick Shelby of Alabama, John Glenn of Ohio, and Sam Nunn --

MR. ORNSTEIN: And Exon of Nebraska.

MR. SHIELDS: -- and Exon of Nebraska. These aren't bomb throwers. It isn't the Berkeley City Council.

MS. WOODRUFF: David.

MR. GERGEN: I agree with Mark's bottom line. I think this is a very very difficult fight for George Bush to win. I disagree with one part of his analysis and that is that there is nobody for John Tower. Once again I think there are Republicans up there who are for him. The hard part is now finding some Democrats to peel off, and I think as Norman said that's going to be extremely difficult. George Bush has very few days in which to do this, and he's going to be overseas for a portion of that time, and unlike Reagan, he can't go to the country very easily on this issue. Reagan in a tough fight like this could go and rally the country. How do you go and rally the country on this? John Tower is not very popular out there, not many people know much about him, and the issues on which he's getting hurt are not issues as easy to turn around in the country.

MS. WOODRUFF: Does the President have any choice at this point but to stand by his appointment, his appointee?

MR. SHIELDS: Who's going to be his Paul Laxalt? Paul Laxalt went to Ferdinand Marcos and said it's time to step aside. Somebody's got to deliver that message to John Tower. If he's not going to -- Judy, just look at this this week. George Bush is at the biggest foreign policy experience of the first part of his administration. He's in Tokyo, meeting world leaders, he's going to China. What is the story that's dominated all the news? It's John Tower. They let it go to a vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee. They insisted that it go to a vote when they're going to lose 11 to 9.

MR. GERGEN: I think they made a mistake --

MR. SHIELDS: Oh, incredible, incredible mistake.

MR. GERGEN: -- letting this vote take place while he was overseas. It seems to me there have been a number of mistakes made here, but I think the enormity of what they're facing --

MS. WOODRUFF: That was the administration's doing, you all agree with that?

MR. ORNSTEIN: It was the functional equivalent of saying I'm creating a big parade where I'm going to be the world leader and then I'm going to send up my own rain making equipment.

MR. SHIELDS: That's exactly right.

MR. GERGEN: That's a good analogy, but, you know, it's important to understand just how significant this is historically. We haven't had a first term President in 50 years who has lost a nomination fight in the Senate. The last time around was Calvin Coolidge. This is a very very important fight for George Bush. It's a very tough fight to lose. I think it has repercussions, by the way, that go far beyond this nomination.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. What does it mean? I mean, this is a President who's been in office a little over a month and is on the verge of suffering a major defeat.

MR. ORNSTEIN: It's bad news. Most Presidents in the first three and four months we set in motion an image, a stereotype, if you will, that the political community, the journalistic community has of a President. Is he a mover and a shaker, a doer, somebody who sets the agenda, who says I'm going to make things happen and they happen, the Babe Ruth who points to the wall and the ball goes over, or is he a President who says this is going to happen and it doesn't happen, is more a captive of events, is somebody who has the agenda set for him. This is one of those things that beings to create a bad kind of image. You can get out of it later on, but it's much more difficult.

MS. WOODRUFF: But, on the other hand, we just heard the President say from Tokyo that he's going to fight for his man, that it's not a matter of right and wrong, it's a matter of, you know, I'm going to stick by my man and we'll fight this on the merits. I mean, people admire that, don't they?

MR. GERGEN: They do admire that, but if the first showdown with the Democrats, the Democrats win, that's going to say something about the future of power relationships in this town. The Democrats will assume after that we've got this guy, we've got the votes and if push comes to shove, we can beat him.

MR. SHIELDS: It's circle the wagon time right now in the Bush entourage, I can tell you. I haven't been there but I've seen enough politically. When you've got that first body blow and you say, and the loyalists say, okay, boss, what we're going to do is we're going to stick together, because if we do lose this one, they're going to have us for the next four years, the Democrats are going to feel George Bush is a whimp, and you'll start to get that stuff again and we don't need that, therefore, we've got to fight. And the loyalist, the badge, measure of loyalty is going to be how hard are you going to go, and it'll be interesting, this is John Sununu as chief of staff's really first test. What does Jim Baker do as Secretary of State? Jim Baker is the dominant force. Certainly a hampered and hindered John Tower doesn't have much clout as Secretary of Defense. Does he really want to open up the gates and bring in a Don Rumsfeld?

MS. WOODRUFF: But you don't think the fact that the President was off being statesman this week in some way takes some of the edge off this loss? You think it makes it --

MR. ORNSTEIN: Makes it worse.

MR. GERGEN: I think it hurts his trip. I think Norman's right about the rain making machine, but the other point is that a lot of journalists are beginning to make assessments now about how this is going and there's a feeling, you know, it's a half formed administration, many many positions vacant, still a confusion over the agenda, an uncertainty about where George Bush is going.

MS. WOODRUFF: You've got interest rates going up.

MR. GERGEN: Interest rates are going up and now serious journalists are saying it's not just a question of where George Bush is going but do the Bush people know what they're doing? And I think that's a very harsh judgment. It's harsh to come at this time.

MS. WOODRUFF: That's inside the beltway.

MR. GERGEN: That's inside the beltway, but that has a ripple effect over time. George Bush is still popular around the country, but over time that kind of thing can eat away at --

MR. ORNSTEIN: Remember, the Carter administration early on you had a popular guy. He nominated Ted Sorensen for head of CIA, big outcry, he backed down from it. It didn't destroy his popularity at that point, but it created an image that hurt later on, and that's what this does.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Thank you all for being with us. Norman Ornstein, Mark Shields, David Gergen, once again you've been brilliant. Thank you. FOCUS - FLIGHT 811 - FATAL FLIGHT

MR. MacNeil: Now we look at the airline disaster that occurred this morning when a 10 by 40 foot hole ripped open a United Airlines jet en route from Honolulu to New Zealand. Late today, United said nine passengers were unaccounted for, a revision of the original estimate that as many as 16 people had been sucked out of the plane. That was the figure used atUnited headquarters in Chicago this afternoon when Sr. Vice President Lawrence Nagin met with reporters.

LAWRENCE NAGIN, United Airlines: The plan experienced an in flight problem which resulted in the shutting down of two engines of the aircraft and the return to Honolulu. At this time we have 16 passengers who are unaccounted for. There are 11 people in the hospital in Honolulu, and of those 11, 3 are crew members.

REPORTER: How many cycles did this aircraft have?

LAWRENCE NAGIN: This aircraft had 15,021 cycles. A cycle is a takeoff and a landing. The plane was built in 1971, it came on line in late 1970, early 1971. It has been flying safely since then, and I think the integrity of the airplane speaks for itself in terms of that it did come back to Honolulu for a safe landing after the mid air occurrence.

REPORTER: But isn't it one of the older planes?

LAWRENCE NAGIN: It is one of the older 747's in the fleet.

REPORTER: Can you at least tell us maybe what happened on board the airplane when the incident occurred and what took place in the cabin?

LAWRENCE NAGIN: What I can tell you is that an emergency was declared when the occurrence went into effect approximately 20 minutes after take-off at approximately 23,000 feet. The captain immediately declared an emergency, an on-board emergency, he turned the aircraft around, he dumped fuel, and made a safe landing at Honolulu.

REPORTER: Can you tell us what the engine difficulty may have had to do with this? Was it the engine problem that came first or second?

LAWRENCE NAGIN: There was an engine problem associated with the return and, indeed, by the time he returned two engines had been shut down is the best information we have at this time. Now whether that was caused by debris from the hole from the aircraft and debris falling from the plane or from an initial problem will have to be determined.

REPORTER: Since the 747's fuselage is designed in such a way that any structural failures are supposed to tear in straight lines and head each other off, the configuration of the hole being almost perfectly square, wouldn't that indicate a structural failure as opposed to --

LAWRENCE NAGIN: Well, that's why I would not want to engage in that kind of speculation. Certainly, we are not experts either standing here or sitting here to do that. I think the graphic pictures that have been shown speak for themselves. Now whether that is indicative of a failure of some kind or other kind of foreign object occurrence inside the aircraft, I would not want to speculate at this time.

REPORTER: Was this such a failure of the airplane that it caused maneuverability problems, or can you describe what you mean by that?

LAWRENCE NAGIN: Well, the situation is you've all seen the hole in the fuselage here in the pictures. Here is a captain who was flying with a fully loaded 747. With that occurring he then, as we have indicated here, had to shut down two engines. We're not prepared to comment on the cause of that, the two engines down with the fully loaded 747. He had to dump fuel and then fly the return to Honolulu, and land that plane safely. We would characterize that as heroic.

MS. WOODRUFF: Earlier this afternoon, I talked by telephone with a passenger on United Flight 811. She is Beverley Nisbet, who was returning to her home in New Zealand, after a vacation in the United Kingdom. I asked her what happened.

BEVERLEY NISBET, Passenger: The flight was just going as normal and all of a sudden there was just a big hiss followed by an escaping sound and a big gaping hole appeared inthe side of the plane.

MS. WOODRUFF: You had no warning whatsoever that there was a problem?

BEVERLEY NISBET: No warning. It was just an ordinary flight. The stewards had just announced they were going to bring the drink wagon around, they were getting it organized, and it all just happened in a flash, and the inside lining of the plane around the area dislodged and started flying back into our section and some of the men grabbed those bits of wood and pushed them so they wouldn't injure people.

MS. WOODRUFF: Did you see what happened to the people who were sitting in the immediate area?

BEVERLEY NISBET: Well, no. It was really difficult. I could see -- it was assumed I think that some of them were actually sucked off, but we weren't aware of that in the drama, but I did see two girls sitting very near the hole because the wind was blowing their hair right up in the air.

MS. WOODRUFF: What happened on the plane immediately afterward? Were there people, was everyone presumably buckled in and buckled up rather and --

BEVERLEY NISBET: We all straight away put into practice the emergency drill that we had only watched on a video some 10 minutes before and we all got our life jackets and in the middle section oxygen masks dropped down, but we were told they weren't required. Those that couldn't help themselves were helped by other people. It was amazingly calm in the circumstances. I think we were all sitting in disbelief.

MS. WOODRUFF: Was there any word from the pilot by way of explanation as he --

BEVERLEY NISBET: It's very difficult for me to say here because the noise of the gushing air -- things did come out of the intercom, but it was very difficult to hear with the gushing air and the stewards, more or less, had to guide the passengers what to do.

MS. WOODRUFF: Have you learned any more about what might have happened from talking with the other passengers?

BEVERLEY NISBET: Well, I've actually been here at the medical center quite a long time on my own so it's hard. Everybody has their own little ideas what could possibly have happened, but I think the experts are going to have to come up with that one.

MS. WOODRUFF: Are you hurt? Are you injured?

BEVERLEY NISBET: Well, yes. What happened, I didn't actually get injured in the plane, itself. I got injured when we went down the emergency chutes like big rubber slides. I had people, I had somebody crash with their feet into my back and I'm very badly bruised.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, Mrs. Nisbet, we thank you again for answering our questions.

BEVERLEY NISBET: Yes, that's all right. Thank you very much.

MS. WOODRUFF: Thank you. ESSAY - FEEDING ON FEAR

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight our regular essayist, Roger Rosenblatt, has some thoughts on the story that has dominated so much of the news this week, reaction to Salman Rushdie's novel, "Satanic Verses".

ROGER ROSENBLATT: So furious a beast is zealotry it is odd to associate it with fear, yet fear is what drives the thing, fear and self doubt. Those were the two forces behind the international riots and death threats that exploded in reaction to Salman Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses". Literary people like to see this episode as a question of free expression, but from the point of view of Muslims, the matter is a battleground of fear. Here is a people struggling to retain their tradition in an atmosphere of assaults from the West, television, dress, manners. The worst of it is that the assaults are seductive, the believers need reassurance, and suddenly along comes the work of menacing fiction written by none other than a Moslem gone West that reminds them just how much reassurance they need. All of this goes to the fearful nature of zealotry which shows itself in circumstances widely different from the Rushdie riots. What is true for the Moslems in Iran is also true for the orthodox Jews in Israel -- all the recent questions that have involved the nature of Israel and Zionism, the tests of who is a Jew have arisen in the context of the year long Palestinian uprising on the West Bank and in Gaza. Israeli reprisals have brought outside support for the Palestinians, along with a certain shaking of resolve among many Israelis. The power of the orthodox, the zealot has emerged in a climate of self-doubt as it always does. In fact, the original zealots were members of a Jewish sect who opposed Pagan Rome and polytheism. They turned not only to terrorism and assassination but to mass suicide at Masada in AD 73 rather than surrender their fortress on the mountain. Among Christians historically, zealotry has risen as a result of a variety of threats. In the 13th century a sect of flagellants was formed in the midst of plagues and famine. Crowds representing it robed all classes robed over Italy, scourging themselves for sins that were believed to have brought on the natural disasters. In 1497, the Dominican zealot Cirvana Rola ordered the children of Florence to collect lewd books, playing cards, lutes and mirrors for a 60 foot pyramid to be set aflame, the first real bonfire of the vanities. The massacres of the Protestant Uganots in 16th century France, the Inquisition, the witchcraft hysteria in Europe and America, all were acts of zealotry stemming from an acknowledgment that a particular world of right thinking was endangered. The most fervid period of witch hunts during the late 17th century was also the time when science was posing its most terrifying challenges to established religious thoughts. in modern times, zealotry has broadened its range but not its basic impulse. Manifestations of zealotry as different in motive and effect is the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Nazism, and communism have all had in common the same sense of siege that characterizes the Rushdie riots. In every instance, tradition is sought, clung to, mongered, as a way of holding fast to the faith. In Japan, in 1970, Yokio Mishima committed hari kari in a protest against the moral laxity of modern Japanese society. Until the publication of "The Satanic Verses", the most horrific zealot show in the past 10 years, was the mass suicide of the cultist followers of the Rev. Jim Jones in Guyana. Who could forget the sight of the 900 bodies lying as if resting after a picnic on that lush grass. Inevitably, zealotry was ignite explosions like the Rushdie riots because it thrashes about in a rigid structure that it sought in the first place. Zealots allow themselves no room for skepticism and criticism, and yet, it is the internal skepticism and criticism that gives birth to the outbursts. In a way, zealotry is a self realizing prophecy. Outer forces are, indeed, as threatening as they seem, for they have instilled the self doubt that must eventually bring the zealot to his knees. To forestall that collapse of will along the way, he may kill a few novelists, burn a few flags and books, attack a few embassies, but in the end he has nothing to nourish him but the security of his insecurity. That is what one sees all over the world as Salman Rushdie runs in fear of his life from a mob in fear of itself. RECAP

MS. WOODRUFF: Once again, Friday's top stories, nine passengers are unaccounted for from a United Airlines jet after a hole ripped open the fuselage over the Pacific. President Bush said he would win the fight in the full Senate to get John Tower approved as Defense Secretary, and the Federal Reserve raised its key discount rate to 7 percent, the highest level in three years. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Judy. That's the Newshour tonight. Have a good weekend and we'll see you on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.