The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary, former President Jimmy Carter looks at challenges facing President Clinton, analysts David Gergen and Elizabeth Drew discuss the campaign to sell the Clinton economic package. Correspondent Kwame Holman reports on the massive phone lobbying efforts engulfing Congress. We have a report on the tragedy in the Sudan, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay about Amy Fisher. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: President Clinton will go on nationwide television tonight to sell his economic program. He won't present the actual details of the plan until his speech to Congress Wednesday night. But White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said he will talk about the values and principles underlying the program as well as the price of doing nothing. Mr. Clinton and Vice President Gore continued to brief congressional Democrats at the White House today. At a photo sessions reporters asked whether Wednesday's speech to Congress was shaping up to be the most important of his life.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think tonight is important. I think Wednesday night is important, but, you know, we're trying to change a direction of 12 years and take a new course. And I'm going to offer a program that will create 1/2 million or more jobs in the short run and that is highly progressive, that is very well balanced, that is faithful to the great middle class of this country and good for other things that we care about, jobs and education and health care. But I think it's going to be very important that I sell it to the Congress and to the American people, and that we have a partnership here. So, yes, it will be important.

MR. MacNeil: We'll have more on tonight's Oval Office address right after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Ghali wants a 25,000 person peacekeeping force to take over in Somalia. A U.N. spokesman said today that request will go to the Security Council later this week. The United States now leads a multinational force of 33,000 troops. The U.S. commander said today most of the Americans will leave by mid April.

MR. MacNeil: There was more violence today in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. Two suburbs West of the city came under heavy Serb artillery fire. Meanwhile, a United Nations convoy carrying food and medicine to Muslims in the Eastern part of the country remained stuck at the Bosnian Serb border for a second day. We have more in this report narrated by David Symonds of Worldwide Television News.

MR. SYMONDS: For the first time in 10 months of war, Sarajevo is a city without bread. The last bakery has closed. It has no food for its ovens. Hundreds of leftover stale loaves have been sent out to hospitals, but others must go without. The city now has no gas supplies. Scraps of wood provide some warmth. Meanwhile the row is growing over the decision by the city authorities to boycott the international aid operation. The ban was introduced four days ago because of the failure to get supplies through to parts of Eastern Bosnia.

JOSE-MARIA MENDILUCE, U.N. High Commission for Refugees: Today it is snowing, the food is at the airport. We have 2,800 metric tons waiting for this region, and the people of Sarajevo calling our office to ask us to distribute. So this is not a decision taken by the people of Sarajevo. It's a decision taken by the government, and I think that the government should make, be made responsible for this decision. The people need the food. We have the food, so this should be changed immediately.

MR. SYMONDS: On the border of Serbia and Bosnia, the U.N. convoy is still trying to get through to the beleaguered Muslims. Tens of thousands of them are stranded in towns and villages in Eastern Bosnia, encircled by Serb soldiers. The convoy has been stopped by the local Serb commander. U.N. soldiers on the Bosnian side of the bridge are waiting to take up the aid and deliver it. No way through, despite public approval from Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. U.N. soldiers will try again at first light to break the deadlock.

MR. MacNeil: The former Communist leader of Lithuania has been re-elected as its new president. Alger Das Brazaskas won by an overwhelming margin yesterday in that country's first post Soviet presidential elections. He promised not to reinstitute old style Communist practices and vowed to speed up privatization and encourage foreign investment.

MR. LEHRER: Israeli police placed the Arab sections of Jerusalem under curfew today following the stabbing attack on a group of Israelis at a bus stop. One person was killed. Two others were wounded. Authorities said the attacker was a Palestinian man. It came after a weekend of violence in the occupied territories in which one Palestinian was killed and two Israelis wounded. Two car bombs exploded today in Bogota, Colombia, killing four people and wounding at least 120 others. Dozens of cars and buildings were severely damaged. No one claimed responsibility but the government blamed drug traffickers.

MR. MacNeil: That's our summary of the news. Now it's on to former President Carter, selling the Clinton economic package, phone lobbying, a Sudan report, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. NEWSMAKER

MR. LEHRER: We go first tonight to former President Jimmy Carter. I spoke to him earlier today from the Carter Center in Atlanta, where this week he will host a conflict negotiation seminar with officials from all over the world. Mr. President, welcome.

PRES. CARTER: Thank you, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: First, President Clinton is going to speak to the American people tonight about the economy and the message, apparently, is to be that of contribution, everyone must contribute, everyone must sacrifice. How is that message likely to be received?

PRES. CARTER: I think it will be received well proportional to how much each person believes that they are being treated fairly. I think the truckers on fuel and gasoline, I think the corporate structure on increasing taxes, the wealthier people on doing without maybe some Social Security benefits, all will accept it if they think they're not getting cheated or not being called upon to make a greater sacrifice than others. There's a preference in this country to reduce the deficit even more than it is to increase social programs or programs from the government. So Clinton's challenge will be, first of all, to convince the people it's fair. I think secondly he'll -- he's done a good job already -- but he needs to incorporate into the planning process at least on details as much of the Republican leadership in Congress as possible to give a bipartisan tone to it.

MR. LEHRER: But you think the people are ready for this?

PRES. CARTER: Yes, I think so. He ran on this basis during the campaign, not knowing then how horribly big the deficit was that he would inherit. But I think he's laid the groundwork with his press conference, with his town hall meetings. I think the people see that this is something that's likely to be required of us all. And so I think it can be successful if he puts a fair program forward.

MR. LEHRER: And is it his job to sell this? Must he go sell this just like he sold himself as a candidate? Is that what it takes now to be a President and have a program?

PRES. CARTER: Who else can do it? He has the only bully pulpit in the country really in politics. I know for a fact that he has already lined up his domestic cabinet offices to follow up his presentation to the nation by going around the country and answering detailed questions, having press interviews, perhaps having town meetings, meeting with key players, for instance, in the corporate world, so he'll be obviously marshalling not only the vice president but all of his cabinet officers to present his views very clearly to the American people.

MR. LEHRER: Over blown language goes with the territory at a stage like this, but people are talking already that this particular exercise that he's already begun and goes through on tonight and then again on Wednesday, and then the next several days after that will, in fact, define his presidency. Does it have that kind of smell to you, sir?

PRES. CARTER: I don't think you could say that just one issue will define his presidency, but if you combined within it health reform, which has a major impact on controlling the budget deficit, along with what he does about economics, getting the budget under control, keeping inflation relatively low, doing something about jobs, the totality of the package, yes, I think will define his presidency. The thing is that the President has much more influence over shaping the agenda on the domestic scene, but not very much control over the final decision, because the Congress and the Federal Reserve Board and the private enterprise system is involved. On the other hand, the President can pretty well shape priorities in the foreign arena more than he can domestic issue, and he has more control, at least in this county, over the government's policy. So he has that kind of a quandary in which he finds himself. His main job though on the economy, on domestic issues, on defining his presidency for political purposes will be what he presents this week.

MR. LEHRER: Well, let's talk about some of the foreign things that you mentioned. For instance, just today the United Nations announced that they were putting a 25,000 troop force to send to Somalia to replace the American troops that have been there. They will be replaced over a period of the next several weeks. Sec. Eagleburger, then Sec. of State Eagleburger said right before he left office that when it's all said and done the American people will look back on the Somalia operation with terrific pride. Do you agree with that?

PRES. CARTER: Indication so far is that Larry Eagleburger is correct. We don't know what will happen between now and next June as American troops withdraw, as the effectiveness of the military operation decreases with that factor. What will the warlords do? If there is a subsequent interruption of delivery of food and medicine, I think the Somalia expedition will not be looked on so favorably. But I think that we are implanting within Somalia a policy of weapons control and delivery of food that might be so attractive to the Somalian people that they will help to perpetuate the benefits. If so, I think it will be a major success story.

MR. LEHRER: Is it also a major precedent for the use of American military and for just the use of American power generally? Isn't this about the first time something like that was done?

PRES. CARTER: Well, it is. It's important for us to realize that we are spending about $3 billion this year on so-called peacekeeping efforts by the United Nations, an unprecedented level of effort. I hope that the United Nations and the Clinton administration and other countries' governments around the world will see that the best way to address a problem is at its initial stages and not wait until a Somalia evolves, with a disaster in a country with almost a non-entity as far as a government is concerned. The same thing has happened in Mozambique and other countries. It could very well happen, for instance, in Liberia. The best approach is for the U.N. at the initial stages of the crisis to send in a few observers or a very small peacekeeping force and call upon the private agencies like the Carter Center, for instance, and others, to help resolve an issue at least long enough to have a cease-fire, and encourage the implementation of a sound government through democratic processes with an internationally supervised election. This is the kind of thing that we have already done in a number of countries, including the end of the Contra war in Nicaragua. So I think a preemptive move by the U.N. is much less expensive than to wait till a Somalia disaster evolves and then spend enormous amounts of money.

MR. LEHRER: But is the U.N. to that place yet, where they're willing to go in? Doesn't it almost at this stage of the game take a crisis, take a disaster before the U.N. acts?

PRES. CARTER: So far, yes. My hope is though that with Warren Christopher in the State Department, with Bill Clinton in the White House, that the U.N. can build upon the natural inclinations of Boutros Boutros-Ghali to be preemptive and to utilize the complete gamut of conflict resolution, the orchestration of cease-fires, the holding of elections, which has been very effective as a combined effort in the past.

MR. LEHRER: Well, another area where the U.N. got involved once it became a major crisis, of course, is Bosnia. Do you think President Clinton's new policy that was announced last week is the right direction, the combination of getting involved in the diplomacy of the Vance-Owen diplomacy, at the same time back that up with a potential of U.S. power, is that the right direction for us to go?

PRES. CARTER: I thought that was a beautiful approach orchestrated by Sec. of State Warren Christopher. To have abandoned what Cy Vance and David Owen have done over strenuous months of negotiation would have been a serious mistake, in my opinion. But now to bring in a strong American presence and also recently a Russian presence I think can have the best chance for succeeding in a peace effort of any that I've heard, also, the promise of at least enough military strength to enforce a voluntarily accepted peace agreement is also a decision to be devoutly sought. So I think this is the optimum approach at this point.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. President, what do you say to those who say, wait a minute, this is none of our business, it's the Bosnians' problem, it's the Europeans' problem, no American blood should be shed or even threatened in a way to solve this, we have our own problems now, let the world, let the rest of the world solve their problems, we are not the police of the world, et cetera, how do you respond to that kind of argument?

PRES. CARTER: Well, I would remind them of the First World War and the Second World War and the Vietnam War, which we didn't instigate, which was started by others as a small flame, but became a worldwide conflagration almost and point out the minimal investment at the beginning to prevent an arena of war in which we might inexorably involved. I think this is the best approach to it, and we are not isolated from the rest of the world, even though we say we're not going to send in any troops, we're not going to become involved as a leader. Almost invariably we find ourselves in that position. But to join in now with a reinvigorated -- I shouldn't say "re" -- with an invigorated United Nations, since the Cold War has ended, and formal partnership not only with the Security Council members of the smaller countries but also major nations I think is a wonderful new opportunity that we haven't seen in the past.

MR. LEHRER: But isn't it, as a practical matter right now, Mr. President, isn't it that the United States the only power in the world that really can mount like Somalia, like Desert Storm, or even like Bosnia? I mean, that whole thing was kind of at a standstill, and they said, well, the U.S. must get involved or nothing's going to happen. Is that what the world is like, there will not be action resolving these crises unless the United States gets involved?

PRES. CARTER: Well, I don't object to the United States getting involved. What is happening now will happen in the near future, and Somalia is a good indication that with the United States leadership, at least in the Security Council debate, using our political force to encourage action, then bring in a broadly representative team of nations who can be involved on a relatively small scale accumulatively, exceed that contribution of the United States, is a good approach. I would certainly like to see in Bosnia American influence, American instigation, American efforts on peacekeeping, but if troops do go into the Bosnia area to monitor a peacekeeping, a peace agreement, I would like to see the Europeans be in the forefront. I would not want to see American troops play a leading role, as we did, in either Somalia or the Gulf War.

MR. LEHRER: Well, even in a non-military way, the Middle East, an area that you devoted much energy to when you were the President and still continue to do so, the word is that the peace talks may resume now. They've been stymied and suspended for a while. Do you smell a lasting peace coming out of this process? Is that now a realistic possibility?

PRES. CARTER: I don't think it's a possibility, Jim, unless the United States is willing to take on itself the responsibility of a strong and viable mediator. Just to have a room in which the Palestinians and Israelis can meet under the aegis of United States approval, or the Israelis and the Syrians can meet I don't think will ever be fruitful. The issues are too complicated, and for direct talks, the issues are too sensitive. So I think you have to have a strong mediator. There's no alternative to the United States. And my hope is that Warren Christopher will come back from his eight-day trip to the Middle East with the assurance that the talks will be initiated again and that there be a mediation role for the United States to play. This is a time though when hope has arisen again. It's a time when the American people and the people in the Middle East and all countries want to see a resolution successful. I know from Camp David, which is ancient history now, that for Begin and Sadat to meet with each other directly was totally impossible. As a matter of fact, for the last 10 days at Camp David they never even saw each other. It is the mediator going back and forth with what we call a single document that was successful. I think that the people in the Middle East would prefer to see the U.S. play a stronger role than just to provide a meeting site.

MR. LEHRER: But hasn't the urgency gone out of that process now, the need to find a resolution that everybody talked about? Isn't that kind of gone?

PRES. CARTER: Not for the people who live there.

MR. LEHRER: I mean for the United States.

PRES. CARTER: I don't think so. I believe the American people advisedly or not are infatuated with the Middle East conflict because of difficult connotations, because of our relationship with Israel, because of the role that we played in the past at Camp David and with a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and because we've seen in the past that the Middle East can be an explosive site for conflict that involves us and other nations. I think for all those reasons the Middle East will never be put onto the back burner.

MR. LEHRER: Taking all those things that we have talked about, the specifics and overlay your experience not only as President but your experience since you left the White House and through the Carter Center and trying to resolve these various conflicts about the world, particularly in the new climate, do you look upon the world and all these little things going on and all the potential things in a hopeful way? Is it possible for there to be a new world order, where people do no longer kill each other just over things that happened 400 years ago or over border disputes and all of that? Is that realistic now?

PRES. CARTER: Jim, at the Carter Center we monitor every conflict in the world every day. There are now 112 conflicts that we, that we monitor. More than 30 of those are major wars within which more than a thousand people have lost their lives on the battlefield, which means about 10 times as many civilians have died. And most of these wars are not presently being addressed because they're civil wars. This week, coincidentally, we are assessing five of these major wars here at the Carter Center just to know what is being done, what are the antagonists, what are the issues involved, what might be the best approach to preventing a broadening of these conflicts. But if we can bring in the program on negotiation at Harvard University, for instance, and the European efforts at peace and the Carter Center's role in establishing peace, combine that with the influence of official governments, and watch them in Paris, in London, and even in Moscow, plus the United Nations, and the regional organizations, like the Organization of American States and Organization of African Unity, the totality of that can I think prevent future Somalis, future Mozambiques, future Vietnams, and let the world find a more peaceful future. I believe with the end of the Cold War that is a major prospect for improving the global political system.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, Mr. President, thank you very much for being with us.

PRES. CARTER: Thank you, Jim. FOCUS - PEP TALK

MR. MacNeil: As we reported, President Clinton addresses the nation from the Oval Office tonight to explain the values and principles behind the budget package he'll unveil to the Congress Wednesday night. Tonight's talk is part of an unusual campaign that will continue all week to sell the economic plan to the people and to Congress. To discuss that effort, we have David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, Mark Shields is away tonight. We're joined also by Washington columnist Elizabeth Drew. David Gergen, and Elizabeth, you heard what President Carter was discussing with Jim. Is this week, the issue that's being sold, going to define the Clinton presidency, David?

MR. GERGEN: I think, Robin, it's make or break time for the domestic side of the Clinton presidency. There are going to be crises ahead in foreign affairs that will test him in other ways, but in terms of what he can accomplish on the domestic side, this economic package is a big enchilada, can succeed here. This is, after all, the heart of what his campaign is all about. It will give him a momentum as he approaches, even a tougher issue, and that is health care reform. I think he'll do much better on health care reform. If, on the other hand, he fails here or if the Congress were to seriously rewrite his economic plan, then I think he'll be weakened as he approaches health care reform and many other domestic issues down the road.

MR. MacNeil: Elizabeth, is that the way they see it at the White House, that this is the make or break issue, and this is the week to get it right?

MS. DREW: Well, this is the beginning of an effort that will probably go through August at best. It's going to take quite a while to go through all the procedures and bills that have to be passed. But, yes, they also see it as now it's Clinton's first chance to really take the offensive. He didn't have the best of beginnings, but now the stage is clear. The stage is his. And I think that's why they're holding this unusual Oval Office talk tonight preceding the talk that he'll give to Congress. They think out of last week better. They want to keep the spotlight on him. tonight he'll explain the nature of the problem, why he needs to ask the people to do these things, and Wednesday he'll say what he's asking them to do. But the main thing, Robin, is Clinton has to win the definition battle, and his definition is a pretty good one politically. It's that this is about investment and growth and jobs and a better future for you and your kids. Republicans will say it's about raising taxes and more spending. And if he doesn't win the definition, he's not going to win the war.

MR. MacNeil: David Gergen, they're saying that Clinton got some of the idea for doing this speech tonight from the Reagan effort to sell his economic package. You were part of that White House. Is this comparable, and is this a smart thing to be doing? It clearly worked for Reagan.

MR. GERGEN: I think it is a smart thing for him to be doing, especially if he does what elizabeth just said, and that is to walk the country through his thinking, why he has come to the conclusions, why he has formulated the program that he has. I think it could help him. Now, if on the other hand, it's simply a pep talk, then I think it's a wasted opportunity. But I must say, Robin, I think there are some major differences. I think he's got a tougher sell than Reagan had in 1981. Reagan had a major sweetener. He was selling spending cuts, but he was also selling tax cuts. And, of course, Bill Clinton is selling tax increases. And the other part of this, I think the back drop is tougher. There's more public cynicism today about these budget packages. After all, we had a budget package three years ago that George Bush signed on to, the Congress promised, the President promised that would help to solve the deficit problem. It did not. It raised taxes, and it was supposed to cut spending. Spending is going up. I think people now are skeptical about these packages. I think that makes it tougher for Bill Clinton.

MR. MacNeil: Would it be fair, Elizabeth, to say that tonight, the purpose of tonight is to get to the public before all the people whose oxen are going to be gored by these plans, all the special interests start really mounting those phone -- getting those computerized phone banks working?

MS. DREW: I think it's definitely the case, Robin, but it's also going to be his effort through the whole thing. He has to hold this together. He has to convince the people that there's an entirety here, there's a package that's fair, that's progressive, that will give them a better future, and you can't let those nasty special interests start to pick it apart, or the whole thing will collapse. There's some truth to that, so this is again part of his definitional battle to say all of this is over peace, you need to have more investment, that means spending, you need to cut the deficit, that means taxes and spending cuts. All of that will lead to a better and richer future. He's going to have that battle, not just this week. He's going to have until it's over.

MR. MacNeil: But everybody is part of a special interest, as well as being part of the national interest.

MS. DREW: But you only use special interest to talk about the people who oppose you. You know that.

MR. MacNeil: Yeah. Now describe, David, describe how the White House plans to continue selling this package. I mean, it's quite a campaign, almost unique, I think, what they plan to do over the next week or --

MR. GERGEN: I think it is building on the Reagan model. I think they're taking it three or four steps farther. These people are very good campaigning, as we learned last year, and they have an elaborate campaign plan laid on now where not only will the President be speaking to the country tonight and then go to the Congress on Wednesday, but he'll then hit the road on Thursday, and he'll be traveling across the country for several days. His cabinet, as President Carter pointed out, will be fanning out across the country. So I think we're going to see an awful lot of the Clinton spokespeople here in the next few days, and I think it's going to be, I think it's smart to take it to the country. But the groundwork really has to be laid tonight on what the intellectual foundations are of this program. If he doesn't spell it out successfully tonight, then I think a lot of this road show will not be very effective. I think people have to understand where he's coming from, why he's doing this. I think tonight's speech is terribly critical as an unveiling.

MR. MacNeil: Elizabeth, you mentioned the Republicans and so did President Carter. He said it was important that Mr. Clinton try and get to the congressional leadership of the Republicans and make it bipartisan. Is there any real hope of that in this Congress, or, I mean, Bob Dole has asked tonight to reply to the President. Are other Republicans going to make this a partisan issue, or is there a possibility of bipartisanship in this situation?

MS. DREW: Well, again, partisan is in the opposition, but I think that it is going to be a partisan issue. I don't see him getting much support out of the Republican leadership. They've already said we don't need a stimulus package, we don't need all these tax increases, but I think the thing to understand is he's going around selling this, though his aides prefer we use the word "presenting," is that he's going --

MR. MacNeil: He, himself, used the word "selling" today, didn't he?

MS. DREW: Well, I know. I was corrected today, so I'm saying presenting.

MR. MacNeil: Right.

MS. DREW: As long as I remember. But, anyway, as much as we sit here and say this is make or break for Clinton, this will define Clinton, they want to make the argument this is make or break for Congress, this is going to define Congress, that he was elected to bring about change, he's trying to do that. This is a bold program. This is a test of your Congress, and he will travel probably at least once a week until the whole thing is over. He'll do more town halls. I suspect we'll see some other innovation, all to bring pressure on the Congress to essentially pass his program.

MR. MacNeil: David.

MR. GERGEN: You know, they've also changed -- the word "sacrifice" is no longer in vogue. Now tax increases are called contributions by the Clinton White House. It reminds me of the Reagan White House. We called tax increases, as you remember, revenue enhancements.

MR. MacNeil: How do you, David, how do you think the Republicans see their role in this?

MR. GERGEN: I think, Robin, they think that Bill Clinton has made a serious error in the formulation of this program. Heretofore when budget packages have been put together $2, there have been $2 of spending cuts promised for every $1 in tax increases. That's what Leon Panetta wanted, Clinton's budget director wanted. That's what his Treasury Secretary wanted. The President has, instead, apparently chosen to have $1 of tax increases for every $1 of spending cuts. Republicans, when they hear that Bill Clinton is trying to reverse 12 years of Republicanism, say that's exactly right; we are for lower taxes; this fellow is for dramatic increases in taxes. And they're going to slam him on this tax issue. They will draw a line in the sand on that. I think it's going to be very heavy going on this. And not only why I do, I think some Republicans in the Senate will mostly oppose him on that, I think that the Republicans think they have a shot at pulling away some conservative Democrats. This is going to be a tough fight.

MS. DREW: But you know, David, Reagan didn't get his, one, spending cuts. He complained about that for years.

MR. GERGEN: He did.

MS. DREW: That he thought he'd made this deal with Congress and he didn't get the spending cuts.

MR. GERGEN: That's why Republicans now are saying if it's one for one and the promise is going to be much, much worse than anything you say --

MR. MacNeil: David and Elizabeth, we have to leave it there, but we'll be back with you after the President's talk later this evening. Thank you both.

MR. GERGEN: Thank you. FOCUS - CONGRESSIONAL CALL-IN

MR. LEHRER: Next, phone call democracy. Official Washington is already bracing for the public's reaction to the President's speeches tonight and Wednesday night. For the past several weeks, Congress and the White House have been on the receiving end of a barrage of phone calls from all over the country. Congressional Correspondent Kwame Holman reports.

ANNE MARIE CRANE, Sen. Lugar's Staff: [on phone] All right, well, ma'am, thank you very much for calling, and I will let the Senator know how you feel.

MR. HOLMAN: The busiest people on Capitol Hill these days seem to be the ones answering the phone.

ANNE MARIE CRANE: We're starting to get a bunch of calls. I guess -- did President Clinton lift a ban on HIV positive people coming into the country? I must have taken 30 so far.

MR. HOLMAN: Members of Congress first became inundated with phone calls three weeks ago in the wake of attorney general nominee Zoe Baird's disclosure that she knowingly had hired illegal immigrants. The phones continued to ring after President Clinton moved to lift the ban on gays in the military.

KELLY NORMAN, Sen. Simpson's Staff: One day between Chad and I we probably had 600 calls. It kind of just shut down the whole office. We couldn't do anything but answer those phones.

CHAD CALVERT, Sen. Simpson's Staff: With four incoming lines, you just got, you know, hundreds of people trying to call. They get busy signals.

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON, [R] Wyoming: We don't understand what's out there, and there's one way that they can be heard, and that's to pick up the phone or they don't know what a fax is maybe, but they know that somebody told them in the last campaign that they had a voice, and they are, they are going to speak.

MR. HOLMAN: One of those somebody's was Ross Perot, whose grassroots Presidential campaign took off after an appearance on the Larry King Show.

LARRY KING, Talk Show Host: I asked Ross Perot: Are there any circumstances under which you would run?

LARRY KING: ["Larry King Live"] Can you give me a scenario in which you'd say okay, I'm in?

ROSS PEROT: If you're that serious, you, the people, are that serious, you register me in 50 states.

LARRY KING: We were a spawning point. There's no doubt about it, because he had so much reaction the next day. CNN's phones broke. That couldn't have come planned. That was spontaneous. I didn't say call in and vote for him. I didn't say get those switchboards hopping.

MR. HOLMAN: But it is radio and TV talks shows that are getting the credit and taking the heat for unleashing the recent flood of phone calls into the nation's capital. A recent editorial in Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, dubbed the phenomenon "Answering Machine Democracy," and worried that its influence on members produces the tyranny of the noisy minority over the rational, but less worked up majority. Those comments struck a nerve on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

SEN. BOB DOLE, Minority Leader: My four district offices in Kansas and my Washington office have received about 6,000 phone calls. Now that sounds like democracy in action to me. But, wait, the politically correct police in the media decided it's not democracy. It's a disgrace. It seems the new PC analysis that all those Americans calling in were just following orders, that they were forced to pick up the phone because all those radio talk show hosts made them do it.

LARRY KING: When you see an outpouring, that can't be planned and it is a pretty good judge. Where it's not a good judge is if you get some sort of wild talk show host, an extremist, left or right, whose telling people, you call in, you write in, or you do this, then that's manufactured.

ANNOUNCER: Now from our studios in New York City, here is Rush Limbaugh.

RUSH LIMBAUGH, Talk Show Host: 8:20, America held hostage to Clinton administration rolls on.

MR. HOLMAN: An estimated 15 million people a week now tune in to hear the conservative views of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: Wait a minute. You raised taxes three years ago, and it's caused the deficit to get bigger. Where's the evidence that raising anybody's taxes causes the deficit to go down? It doesn't.

MR. HOLMAN: Unlike Larry King, Limbaugh doesn't hold his opinions in check, but Limbaugh insists he never encourages listeners to call their elected representatives either.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: Now, if what I say or what I do, or the positions I take happens to enrage people or make them laugh or motivate them to action, then I would say it's because of quality of my performance and the sincerity and passion of my expression, rather than my instructing a bunch of boobs to make phone calls.

MR. HOLMAN: And Limbaugh readily admits that most of the phone calls into Washington these days probably are from those who share his conservative views.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: The liberals do have -- I mean, they've run Congress for 39 years, liberal Democrats have, and they've controlled the Senate for most of those years, and I do think that they feel empowered, and conservatives don't. They don't feel empowered and are simply lashing out, trying to say, hey, we're still here, you may have won the White House, but listen to what we think, we're not going to go easily.

MR. HOLMAN: Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson and his 700 Club TV program also reach an estimated 15 million a week, and during the recent debate on gays in the military, Robertson didn't try to conceal what he wanted his audience to do.

PAT ROBERTSON: I think Congress is very sensitive to the mood of the electorate right now, and I think it's extremely important that you call your Congressman or your Senators. Now you've got two Senators and one member of the House of Representatives. so that's three telephone calls, but there's the switchboard number.

MR. HOLMAN: And call they did. On that one day, the capital switchboard handled nearly 1/2 million phone calls, ten times its normal load. Whether the calls are spontaneous response or organized effort, members of Congress are listening.

LARRY KING: We'll come back. We'll be including your phone calls. We'll discuss some current issues, of course.

MR. HOLMAN: When House Speaker Tom Foley and Minority Leader Bob Michel recently helped Larry King debut his daytime radio talk show, the first topic of conversation was, of course, talk.

LARRY KING: What do you make, both of, you stalwart Speaker Foley of this, this thing we're on now, this talk show phenomenon?

REP. TOM FOLEY, House Speaker: Well, it's certainly been growing as a feature of our national life, and it isn't brand new, as you know. I'd much rather have sort of an anxious, even hyperactive public community out there responding to issues than one that was asleep or worse, just as strange, just didn't want have anything to do with the issues of government.

LARRY KING: Do talk show, reactions from a talk show affect you, Bob?

REP. BOB MICHEL, Minority Leader: Well, I think the Speaker's got it right. I may have a little bit of a problem with, with it in the pressure that is engendered. I hope we would get the same kind of reaction when we get to the real, real difficult issues, for example, of dealing with the budget, itself. Now, if that continues, then, of course, it's --

REP. FOLEY: I think we have to be careful too, if you wouldn't mind me saying so.

REP. MICHEL: Sure.

REP. FOLEY: That we don't take the calls to offices and so on to be the whole of public opinion. And obviously it's important that people call or write, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that's the only opinion that's being registered out there.

MR. HOLMAN: Four years ago, it was an organized letter writing campaign that pressured members of Congress to repeal a major piece of health care legislation approved only a year earlier. The Catastrophic Health Act provided senior citizens with long-term health care but increased their monthly Medicare payments. The bill's author, House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, became a target of protest in his own district.

REP. DAN ROSTENKOWSKI, Chairman, Ways & Means Committee: I don't think they understand what's going on, and it's just too bad.

MR. HOLMAN: Rostenkowski fought for his bill and criticized members who didn't.

REP. DAN ROSTENKOWSKI: Because we in this Congress can't take the heat from a wealthy few, all principles are being abandoned. This House is in full retreat.

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON: I thought it was a terrible mistake to repeal that, because 80 percent of the people who would have been covered would have gone from $4.80 a month to 10 bucks a month, a month, and then the top tax, those 5 percent would have had to pay twelve to seventeen hundred a year, and they brought it down, total selfishness by the highest earning in retirement people in the United States, and we listened to them, instead of the 95 percent of the people who are out there.

MR. HOLMAN: By contrast, the atmosphere in Zoe Baird's confirmation hearing changed in just a matter of hours. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alan Simpson was sitting in the hearing room when the phones started ringing.

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON: Staff members were coming in, putting little tallies in front of people's desks, said 160 calls this hour, or 200 or 300 or 800, and putting that in front of the Senator.

MR. HOLMAN: Do you have any doubt that, or do you think that that changed some Senators' minds who would not have changed their minds in the manner that you did?

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON: Oh, yeah, without question. In fact, you could go back and look at the tapes. I haven't, and I don't spend the time, but there are at least three Senators on both sides of the aisle who won the second round of questioning, were asking some pretty technical questions, and you could almost tell them the next round that their staff had gone through and say, look, you'd better get right to the nub of this thing. They're not -- they don't care what you're asking about that.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, [D] Vermont: Ms. Baird, it's been reported that telephone calls to Senators' offices have been running in a very unfavorable ratio to your nomination as these hearings have gone on. Do you feel that you've been treated fairly that way?

ZOE BAIRD: Senator, it's difficult for me to comment on what it is that prompts people to call.

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON: I didn't even care how many called in. I never paid attention. In fact, I said -- somebody rushed in and said, oh, Lord, you had 50 calls in the last -- don't come tell me that again. I don't live under that. That's how I get in trouble. I listen to my constituents by reading their mail, which is always a more thoughtful thing from a constituent, than a quick phone call from the gut triggered by emotion, fear, guilt or racism. And that's how this place works.

MR. HOLMAN: The White House works both ways. It has tables of volunteers opening and sorting through the mountains of mail delivered to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue every day.

PERSON ON PHONE: All righty. And I'll pass your message on to the President, and thank you for calling.

MR. HOLMAN: And the White House takes calls as well. The Clinton administration has expanded a special comment line and staffed it with a steady stream of volunteers to record phoned in complaints, concerns, or words of encouragement. The President's office gives a tally of incoming calls twice a day.

LORRAINE VOLES, White House Deputy Press Secretary: I don't know if he personally looks at them every day. I know that he's taken an interest in them. He's always been -- he's a person who ran for the presidency as one of the people, and that that's always been a very important dialogue for him to keep. So he's always been very interested in what the general public think. So I'd say it's a safe bet that he's looked over the tally sheets.

MR. HOLMAN: So it should come as no surprise that after he outlines his economic plan on Wednesday night, President Clinton wants those phones to ring.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: LIsten to what I say next week, decide whether you think it's fair, and tell me and your Senators and Congressmen whether you think I'm right or wrong.

MR. HOLMAN: Remember, operators are standing by.

SPOKESPERSON: [on phone] Good morning. White House Comments Office. Can I help you? FOCUS - ANOTHER TRAGEDY

MR. MacNeil: Next a report from the Sudan, the African nation which has been enduring both civil war and famine for years. Now a wasting disease is spreading through the Southern part of that country, killing thousands, and international relief agencies blame the government in Khartoum for blocking shipments of medicine to the worst hit areas. A French medical group, Doctors Without Borders, has been working in the Southern Sudan and provided video to European news organizations. This report from Independent Television News was narrated by Lindsay Taylor.

MR. TAYLOR: Weak and barely able to move, yet hunger alone has not caused such agony. Kalaazar is a vicious disease which aid workers say is spreading in Southern Sudan. It's already said to have claimed more than a hundred thousand lives. Without help, hundreds of thousands more could die. Aboard this plane a life line for some. These are relief workers from the charity Medecine San Frontieres. Yet, this is no government-sanctioned mercy mission. They're flying into the remote area around the western upper Nile without permission from the Sudanese authorities in Khartoum, whom they believe do not support their actions. To help combat kalaazar, Medicines San Frontieres, or MSF has mounted low profile aid missions to the region for the past four years. This American doctor, who asked not to be named for security reasons, is the leading authority on the disease.

DOCTOR: The whole place is devastated from kalaazar. I can't tell you in better words than just saying that the place is a complete disaster because of kalaazar. It's a huge problem. In fact, it's probably the No. 1 health care problem in the whole area. Primary health care here has to deal with kalaazar because that's what's killing everybody. Some estimates in various places are between fifty and seventy percent of the population has died from it already.

MR. TAYLOR: Kalaazar begins with a fever lasting several weeks. The disease affects the spleen and often the blood. Haitians, many already weak from additional scourges such as diarrhea and pneumonia, may also suffer bleeding from the nose and mouth. The disease is spread by sand flies that settle in the indigenous Acacia Trees. MSF says it's an epidemic which the Khartoum government's refused to admit. However, when we showed these pictures to the Sudanese ambassador in London, he openly acknowledged the seriousness of the problem but said it was only one among many in Sudan.

ALI MOHAMED OSMAN YASSIN, Sudanese Ambassador: I do believe there's an epidemic in the Sudan. It's one of the epidemics in the Sudan. It started in 1953, but I would say is not as rampant as other epidemics in the Sudan.

MR. TAYLOR: There is no vaccine against kalaazar, but it can be cured. A course of injections last 30 days and cost around 200 pounds. Other aid would also help prevent disease.

DOCTOR: We need medicine and we need mosquito nets. We need to have good protection for the people that are well. You know, mosquito nets for everybody here if they could use them and would use them would make a differences.

MR. TAYLOR: But MSF claims the Sudanese government has deliberately hampered attempts to gain access to the area. This community is totally isolated. No foreigner has been here in almost 20 years. In its continuing battle with the rebels in the mainly Christian South, the Muslim government is accused of using the disease like a weapon.

MR. TAYLOR: It has been claimed that you are not tackling the problem of the epidemic because it suits you, because it's killing your enemies in the South.

ALI MOHAMED OSMAN YASSIN: No, that's not true. In fact, a very profound sadness and sorrow will rain on everybody as Islam commands us to look after our people, whether Muslims or not Muslims, and we abide by that. My government welcomes very much any help from any organization whatsoever.

MR. TAYLOR: The ambassador said that welcome included MSF, provided they're properly accredited. But there are dangers working in the area. This is the bomb shelter doctors use during government air raids. Despite the continuing conflict, the government maintains it is in control of the area, however, it appears to concede rebel control when it comes to the blame for allowing the spread of kalaazar.

ALI MOHAMED OSMAN YASSIN: The area in which this epidemic is spreading now is under the control of another group, not in the government group, so this is how they get into it, as I said, because the government is not responsible for that. The rebellions are responsible for that, not my government. So you know the risk there if you go there without the approval of the faction and the government, they might take risk.

MR. TAYLOR: With such warnings, MSF is concerned that it'll either be expelled or forced to evacuate through increased fighting. If that happens, there's no doubt here of the effect.

SPOKESMAN: Last year, many people died here of the kalaazar and different diseases. When the MSF was evacuated here, many people died.

MR. TAYLOR: The ground here is so hard that the dead cannot even be buried, but the hot dry conditions are no deterrent to the sand flies spreading kalaazar, a disease waging its own war on the people of Sudan. ESSAY - THE EYES HAVE IT

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight essayist Roger Rosenblatt, contributing editor for Vanity Fair Magazine, thinks he's figured out why the Amy Fisher story drew so much attention.

MR. ROSENBLATT: Within a two-day period recently, Phil Donahue devoted his show to Joe and Mary Butafuco.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think that Amy Fisher shot the wrong Butafuco and she aimed too high.

MR. ROSENBLATT: The following morning the papers headlined the story that the friends of the Butafucos protested that they had been silenced on the Donahue Show. And that afternoon Donahue had another show on the media attention paid to the Amy Fisher story.

SPOKESMAN: Well, frankly, Phil, I can't believe that on here discussing this question --

MR. ROSENBLATT: On any given day in the past month one could turn on the tube to see Amy, Amy's parents, Amy's friends, Amy's lawyer, Mary Jo's lawyer, and Joey's lawyer. All three made-for-TV movies of the story outdrew practically all the TV shows in history. What is going on here? I think it's the eyes, the distance in Amy Fisher's eyes. I think the appeal of this story is that it centers on a teen-age girl seen from every angle whom no one can reach. Of course, there's the element of teen-age sex. Teen-age sex is especially alluring in the Amy Fisher story because it involves an older man, and so revives all the Lolitaish, lust dreams of bankers for cocktail waitresses or more elegantly Leslie Howard for Betty Davis in "Of Human Bondage."

[FILM SEGMENT]

MR. ROSENBLATT: Or more recently, Woody for Sun Yi. The sexual fantasies of older men, when they are awake enough to have them, are rarely admirable, yet, they flourish. Then there's the element of locution, Long Island. Long Island has always been an oddly mysterious place. Between the toll bridges and the unreal Hamptons lies a real country, unknown to everything but itself, combining assertive normality with streaks of great strangeness and almost total invisibility. Crimes are especially startling here, sudden passions in the driveways, which brings up the attracting element of cars, automobiles, unusual as that may sound. Yet, sex has a connection with cars and cars to Long Island. I don't know why, but Long Island teems with auto dealerships, used car lots, repair shops, even at one time an automotive museum in South Hampton. In American folklore, cars are the vehicles for sex, wanton women languishing around sleepy-faced studs at the gas pumps, the double meaning of "fill 'er up," and the drive-ins, and the back seats, and the chicky run in "Rebel Without a Cause," and the cruising in "American Graffiti." The postman rang twice in a filling station, and lurid adultery was found with the wife of a garage man in the "Great Gatsby," location, Long Island, and a shooting as well. Long Island and cars and sex and Amy Fisher talking sex in her Long Island accent to her Long Island boyfriend on tape, while noting that she deserves a Ferrari. Still, if you ask me, the deep and disturbing attraction of this story is Amy, Amy apart from the question of did she or didn't she mess around with Joey, Amy apart from the shooting, Amy apart even from the leering and the forbidding dreams. Like Long Island, she is available and unfathomable. This is what all teen-agers are, perhaps teen-age girls especially. Amy has received thousands of letters of support from other teen-age girls around the country. Who are these girls? What are they supporting? In what dark corners of their rooms do they recognize and identify with Amy Fisher and her dead air home and family and the older men and the desolation and the boredom of street and shopping mall and high school? I look at Amy Fisher, and I see a face as enigmatic as Garbo's, the eyes seemingly filled to the borders by the dark pupils, the stare equally blank and probing, contradicting the sometimes tender and self-critical things she says. The eyes at once occupy and constitute a world in a different galaxy. This has always been true of teen-agers, but these days the distance seems greater for some reason, maybe because too many adults have given up the attempt to bridge it. Look at this girl. What could she do? What could she not do with her high intelligence and her looks and her pain as opaque as a wall? She is recognized by teen-agers all over America. They can't take their eyes off her. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main story of this Monday, President Clinton will address the nation at 9 PM Eastern Time in his first televised speech from the Oval Office. The President's expected to outline principles underlying his economic package of tax increases and spending cuts. The details will be unveiled on Wednesday in a speech to Congress. Mr. Clinton said he hopes the plan will create 1/2 million jobs. It's also expected to address skyrocketing health care costs. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.