The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; April 23, 2007

. . . . . . . . . . . . Good evening, I'm Gwen Eiffel. On the news hour tonight, the news of this Monday. The French flocked to the polls for the first round of voting in potentially historic presidential elections. Margaret Warner reports from Paris.

A look at the U.S. presidential election and where Democrats stand on the war in Iraq. A medical mystery story from Chicago about one child's fight against a rare virus. And the life and legacy of former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara is provided by. . . . . . . We've discovered the world's most powerful energy. You'll find it in everything we do.

Uncover it in all the places we work. And see it in our more than 55,000 employees. It's called human energy. And it's the drive and ingenuity that will never run out of. Chevron, human energy. And by the Archer Daniels Midland Company. The new AT&T. The Atlantic Philanthropies. The National Science Foundation. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. Democrats and President Bush geared up today for a showdown on Iraq policy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Congress will pass a compromised war funding bill within days. He said it requires U.S. combat troops to begin leaving Iraq October 1st. The goal, a complete pull out by next April. President Bush has promised a veto of any such timetable, but recharged the president is in a state of denial. The failure has been political. It's been policy. It's been presidential. The president is dug in his heels in this fight. But it doesn't have to be that way. Only through accommodation on both sides. And some degree of compromise can we make progress. Reid said he understands anti-war voters are restless, but he said the president is still commander in chief. And quote, this is his war. In response, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it's Reid who's in denial about the nature of the enemy. And earlier, before Reid's speech, President Bush made clear his position has not changed. I will strongly reject an artificial timetable withdrawal and or Washington politicians,

trying to tell those of where the uniform had to do their job. I will, of course, be willing to work with the Congress, both Republicans and Democrats on our way forward. We'll have more on the Democrats and the Iraq policy debate later in the program tonight. At least 48 Iraqis were killed today in bombings, more than 100 others were wounded. Another U.S. soldier and a British soldier also died today in separate attacks. On Sunday, Prime Minister Amalaki rejected building gated communities in parts of Baghdad. He ordered a halt to work on a three-mile barrier protecting a Sunni enclave. It's surrounded by Shiite areas. Today, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said the U.S. will respect that decision. Former President, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, died today of apparent heart failure. In 1991, Yeltsin became Russia's first freely elected president. Later that year, he stood on a tank to lead resistance to a coup attempt by a communist hardliners.

A few months later, he helped dissolve the Soviet Union at his death Boris Yeltsin was 76 years old. We'll have more on this story later in the program. U.S. Defense Secretary Gates was in Russia today talking missile defense. He met with his opposite number and with President Putin. Gates argued U.S. missile defense systems in Eastern Europe would protect against Iran and North Korea. The Russians view the plans as a threat to their arsenal. After today's talks, the defense minister said that position remains unchanged. The French presidential election moved into its final phase today. Conservative Nicolas Hakozi led in Sunday's first round, followed by socialists, Segalane Royal. Neither received 50 percent, so they meet in a runoff on May 6. We have a report from Jonathan Rugman of Independent Television News. The morning after the night before and outside his campaign HQ, revelling in a blue sky and his historic victory.

Sunday evening and Segalane supporters were celebrating a French revolution of sorts. France sold a vision of pride in itself and in the value of hard work. The candidate hoping to avoid a second round beauty contest in favour of a battle of ideas. Voters have clearly marked their wish for debate to the end, between two ideas for the nation, two visions for society, and two concepts of politics. These rivals struck the same left versus right note. Though Segalane Royal, in a sea of suits, admitted she'd have to reach out to a wide spectrum of voters to win in a fortnight's time. And by today, she seemed as keen to talk about Sarkozi's character as his policies. We have to work so the French can compare two personalities, so they know that coherence, comparing what they say and do, what they are and their character.

But over on the Sen's left bank, the socialists have their work cut out. Their women certainly embodying change, though her promises of more wages and pensions and subsidized jobs may not. And those centrist from Swabairu polled more than seven million ballots yesterday, so can they now be converted into Royal voters. Today, the rights candidate spent an hour in a shelter for battered women, a politician on his own hunt for centre-ground voters. And though five new opinion polls give him a four to eight point lead, a Paris costume shop has these Sarkozi and Segal masks selling neck and neck. We'll have more on the French elections, including a report from Margaret Warner in Paris right after this new summary. The ruling party candidate in Nigeria's presidential vote was declared the winner today, but opposition leaders in Africa's most populous nation rejected the outcome. And international observers said there was widespread fraud.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was one of those observers. She urged a resolution before the new government takes power at the end of May. We have said that this election in many places and in many respects failed the Nigerian people, and we are recommending that this five-week period be used by the Nigerian people for following out the peaceful ways through the constitutional and legal processes. No, we're not satisfied with result. We made very clear that it was a flawed process, and we made some very specific recommendations about how it could be improved. Nigeria has a history of troubled votes since gaining independence from Britain in 1960. Other elections have resulted in coups or annulments. The country is now a major supplier of oil. Fears of new political strife there sent the price of oil up nearly $1.80 a day in New York trading. It finished at nearly $66 a barrel.

President Bush gave renewed support today to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Senate Democrats and Republicans grilled Gonzalez last week on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. But the president said today this is an honest, honorable man in whom I have confidence. In fact, he said his confidence increased after the Attorney General's testimony. Later, Gonzalez spoke for himself at a news conference. I will stay as long as I feel like I can be effective, and I believe I can be effective. Obviously, we'll be working with Congress to reassure them that we've identified the mistakes that have been made here and that we are taking steps to address them. But I can't just be focused on the U.S.-20 situation. I've also got to be focused on what's really important for the American people. Separately, a White House spokeswoman said of Gonzalez today, he's staying. Classes resumed at Virginia Tech today for the first time since last week's shooting rampage. Students and faculty members paused for moments of silence this morning. A bell told for each of the 32 victims and the gunman who killed himself.

White balloons were also released. Police are still trying to establish any links between the shooter and his victims. Congresswoman Juanita Milandermadano died of cancer over the weekend. The Southern California Democrat was in her seventh term. She was a leader in election reform and shared the Committee on House Administration. It oversees House operations and federal elections. Juanita Milandermadano was 68 years old. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 42 points to close at 12,919. The NASDAQ fell two points to close at 25-23. That's it for the news summary tonight. Now, the French presidential campaign, the Iraq War in the U.S. presidential contest, detecting and treating rare virus, and the legacy of Boris Yeltsin. And now to the French elections.

Margaret Warner is covering that story for us. I spoke with her from Paris earlier today. Margaret, welcome. I was struck by the enthusiasm of this election. And what, 44 and a half million people voted, 85 percent turnout, what drove that? A couple of things went. First of all, I think people recognized that they were in an opportunity, had an opportunity here to elect a real new generation of leaders. The two front runners who will now go in the runoff, Nicholas Sarkozy, and Segalin Fayal are both in their early 50s, more than 20 years younger than Jacques Schifak, and the whole generation of war horses that's really retiring. But the other reason, the other thing that drove turnout and higher registration, was that the French did not want to repeat what they found to be a profound embarrassment in 2002, when voter apathy and huge split on the left let this xenophobic, right-wing, drama fee, Le Pen, make it to the runoff. And so today there's a tremendous sense of pride here in France, at least among people I talk to, that not only was that Le Pen was held to only about 10 to 11 percent

of the vote versus 17 percent of the vote last time. As one woman in a pastry shop said to me this morning, we were not embarrassed. We did not disgrace ourselves. And in fact, I read that Jean Le Pen said I thought the French were unhappy and that's why I ran again. Was the mood upbeat as a result of this, or even leading into this election? Well, the mood yesterday was very upbeat. You know, it's quite different than an election day in the United States. It was a Sunday, it was actually absolutely beautiful day. It's the end of the traditional two-week school holiday. There were people lying on the grass in parks and sitting in cafes. But there was also a sense among French voters that something needs to change here. I mean, the French had appear at least to a visitor like myself. They have an absolutely wonderful life. But there is persistent chronic unemployment of nearly 10 percent. And in fact, its per capita GDP is falling relative to other countries in Europe. So there's definitely a sense that France needs to adapt to the global economy

and that it is time for a change. So I would not say that the French are all satisfied. It's just that they saw an opportunity to express themselves in a way that would give them two legitimate serious candidates that they could be proud of. And so was this outcome then driven mostly by domestic issues, rather than international issues that we see playing out here at home? Yes, very much domestic issues. And in fact, when you look at Sarkozy and Royale and where their votes came from, they both did very well, really all over the country. They're different regions where each did a little better. But what differentiated them, very much related to economic issues and it had to do with age and it had to do with social and economic class. Royale, who's from the left, the socialist, got what one pollster said to me today was the 68th generation. That's the generation of aging. Now aged former students who led the 1968 left student protests here and who are now 55 and older and who very much want to protect

the very socially protective system that the French have. I mean, you can retire here at 55 with very, very generous lifetime pensions. It is very hard to fire somebody here. If you are fired, you get wonderful unemployment benefits. You get five weeks guaranteed paid vacation. There is universal and free healthcare, universal and free higher education. The people who didn't want to lose that tended to vote for Royale. The Sarkozy, what he got greater percentage of were younger voters. And by that I mean the people in their late 20s and in their 30s who are really entering the workforce who want to recognize or believe that France needs to change. And the difference was very apparent yesterday actually with two groups of young voters. I was at one little cafe in the afternoon and next to me was a table of young people who actually three of the four were children of immigrants from Tunisia, from Iran and from the Caribbean.

They're all studying for different careers. They're all worried about whether they'll get jobs. And yet they said, oh, you know, we don't want what Sarkozy wants. We don't want an American-style system where an employer could fire you where you have no healthcare. Then last night after the Sarkozy event, I went with some French friends to a sort of Sarkozy disco with all these 30s-somethings dancing the night away to strains of Donna Summer, singing songs about Sarkozy and talking to them, they were young graphic artists, young lawyers, young people in intellectual property or software. We say, you know, we have to join the global economy. We have to have more flexible workplace. We have to have more opportunities. We have to take more risks. So that is really, I would say, the most important dividing line between the two. Here in the United States, people talk a lot about gender when it comes to presidential politics. I was wondering if Segal and Royales gender, being a woman in this race, had any effect on the outcome? Well, of course that is very, very hard to judge because people often aren't honest about what they really think on that issue.

But she is running actually quite self-consciously as a woman and as sort of the mother of France and align herself with this classic French figure, Maria, you know, the woman we think of when we think of the French Revolution. And she wears skirts. People make much of that. She doesn't wear the sort of more masculine pants suit. But many French said to me, they wanted to elect a woman. I met a man in the park yesterday. I was walking his dogs. I said, I really would like to elect a woman. I'd like to elect Royale, but I'm not sure she's up to the job. Now, that could either be code for is a woman up to the job or it could be because the fact that we're real doubts about her, given her performance in the campaign. Well, now there is, we're looking forward to a May 6 final runoff between these two candidates and there was a third candidate, Francois Beirut, who got 18% of the vote. I assume that both of the leading candidates are now chasing after his voters. Who are they? They are absolutely the key because if you add up the French vote from the left and the right

and give them to Sarkozy and Royale, basically Sarkozy ends up in the low 40s, 40 to 43 and Royale ends up, you know, around 36. So the by who, 8% is the key. His vote were the upper middle class, kind of progressive elite, highly educated, more independent minded voters. What we might call yuppies or sometimes here in France, they call bow bows, the bourgeois bow. And, you know, the people living the good life, someone said to me, well, the upper west side. There's no exact analogy, but those were his voters. Now, pre-election polls said that if he weren't in the race, 60% of them, classically would go for the candidate of the left and a third would go to the candidate of the right and then the rest maybe would stay home. So, Royale has to at least get 60% of them. I haven't done the exact math for that. But, you know, they also cared about jobs.

They also cared about the economy, but it's unclear whether what they want is her solution, which is still to have what she called a France that is protective yet dynamic, but to maintain the social protections remains very important. Or, whether they believe in what Sarkozy is advocating and his message has been, France needs to work harder and work longer. He's saying this in a country with a 35-hour work week. So, they are very much up for grabs. His campaign manager and people have said is his vote is sort of not for sale, not for trading. So, I don't think there's going to be any kind of a deal. And, Royale and Sarkozy are going to have to go after the Bifu voters, really voted by voter. Margaret Warner, we're looking forward to the rest of your reports from France. Thank you very much. Thanks, Glenn. Now, to our own domestic presidential politics,

as Democrats search for position on the war in Iraq to the Woodruff has that story. The debate over Iraq policy in Washington continued today with majority leader Harry Reid and President Bush trading barbs over how to properly fund military operations in Iraq. The president reiterated his push for a clean funding bill without any strings attached. And I believe artificial timetables of withdrawal would be a mistake. While Democratic leader Reid stood his ground, maintaining the truth with role, language is mandatory. Our timetable is fair and it's reasonable. And Reid has the support of the Democratic field of presidential candidates. All believe the problems facing Iraq require a political engagement rather than military force. You have to get the warring factions in Iraq, the religious groups of Shia, the Sunni, the Kurds in a coalition government. Each candidate has also argued that Iraq's neighbors, including Syria and Iran,

must be engaged to help stabilize the region. They're going to have to reach a political reconciliation, there will be no peace in Iraq, and whatever number of American troops are there will not have changed that. But while most of call for a specific timetable for American troop withdrawal, it is here that the details vary. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards would have all personnel out of Iraq by September 2008. Senators Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd both support a phased redeployment of forces, with most personnel out by the end of March 2008. That's also the position of Senator Barack Obama, who said during a speech in Chicago today that a responsible end to the war would re-establish the United States' position of leadership in the world. We've seen the consequences of a foreign policy based on flawed ideology and a belief that tough talk can replace real strength and vision.

Many around the world are disappointed with our actions. Delaware Senator Joe Biden and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson proposed withdrawing most U.S. forces by the end of this year. People say we'll just get out. Everybody wants to get out. Everybody wants to. No one's faster than I want to get out. But ladies and gentlemen, if that civil war metastasizes into a regional war, we're going to be sending your grandchildren back. Only Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel are calling for all troops to be pulled out now. More now on where the Democrats are positioned on the war from Peter Binard, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and editor-at-large of the new republic. He's also author of the book, The Good Fight, Why Liberals and Only Liberals can win the war on terror and make America great again. And also joining us is Washington Post columnist E.J. Deone. Gentlemen, thank you both for being with us.

E.J. to you first, let's start with Barack Obama. He made a speech today on foreign policy. What struck you? We used a small clip from that. But what struck you about what he said, especially about Iraq? Well, you know, Barack Obama has a great advantage over everybody else in this field or almost everybody else in this field, which is he was against the Iraq war from the beginning. It didn't have to vote on it in the Senate. He made a speech early on that laid out all the problems that he thought would come from going to war. And that speech looks fairly prophetic. That gives him quite a lot of room with the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party. And I thought he used some of that room today where for, if you will, for a general election sort of speech, where he laid out an internationalist interventionist approach. He explicitly said he didn't want to take the military option off the table in Iran. Yet he had lots of good anti-Bush language good for the Democratic base. He called for prudence wisdom and also some humility in foreign policy. On Iraq, he is where most of the party is. He laid out nothing, particularly new for him.

In fact, he reiterated his old position that we should be out combat troops. Not old troops. Combat troops should be out in March of next year. That's a reasonably popular position on his party. So he broke new ground on that. He didn't hurt himself. Peter Barnard, anything strike you about the different noteworthy about what Obama said today. What's striking to me is that he didn't use the word war on terror, and that the war on terror was not the prism through which he views American foreign policy. George W. Bush, of course, has tried to set this up as our great generational challenge, our equivalent to the struggle of the Cold War. Barack Obama essentially rejected that. Not to say that he thought that terrorism was unimportant, but he went back to Clinton's prison for foreign policy, which is essentially globalization. The idea that an interdependent world, bad things that happen in other countries, can threaten us in a much broader way, having to do with the environment, public health, poverty. I think it was a return to where the Clinton administration was by the end of its term, and now you can see the kind of dynamics of a fundamental difference between where Democrats and Republicans are. And again, on Iraq, E.J., where does this put, Obama?

You said he's kind of where everybody else is, how much running room is there altogether, among the Democrats? Well, you know, I think the differences among the Democrats are much smaller than different Democrats have an interest in making them at a certain point. Yes, you have John Edwards, I think, with a very strong anti-war position, of course, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel. But on the whole Democrats are of the view that this war was a mistake, either from the outset or, in many cases, given the way that it was waged, and that somehow the country has to stop the Iraq war from sucking all the energy out of American foreign policy. Now, you have particular problems that different candidates have. Hillary Clinton's got the problem that she voted for the war. She doesn't want to apologize for that vote. And that kind of gets her into some rhetorical trouble, even though a case can be made. She may know more about the Iraq situation than just about anybody except Joe Biden in the race. He, too, voted for the war and is now trying to use his criticism of Bush to put himself right with the Democratic opponents of the war who dominated the party.

Peter, looking at all of what all the candidates, the Democratic candidates are saying, how much does any of that have a bearing on this current right now debate that's going on between the Democrats in Congress and the President over funding? Not a lot. The Democratic presidential candidates are corresponding to Democratic voters, the Democratic base, and so are the Democrats in Congress. And people feel that the war has been a catastrophe, and that they have went to vote in 2006 and created a mandate for some kind of withdrawal, and George W. Bush is standing in their way. I think that the hidden debate amongst the Democratic candidates, or even within the Democratic campaigns, each one themselves, is that they're withdrawal plans come with something of an asterisk, which is they say, we're going to withdraw troops except, of course, we're always going to have enough there to fight al-Qaeda, to stop al-Qaeda from creating training camps. Well, if you look into that further, it may be that it takes quite a large number of American troops actually just to be able to do that much more narrow mission, putting aside the question of trying to create a stable democracy in Iraq. So one of the debates that's bubbling up is the question of whether the Democratic, the candidates withdrawal plans are really true withdrawal plans.

So, any day, I think what I keep coming back to when I hear these discussions is the polls show most Americans now believe the troops should come out of Iraq one way or another, and yet the Democrats are not able to impose that position on the President. Well, first of all, I agree with Peter's point a lot of people, including Obama today, talk about withdrawing combat troops. That's not all the troops we have in Iraq. And I think there's a political problem and a practical problem. The political problem is the country on the whole is turned on the Republicans because they think the Republicans are too much of a war-like party, and the country's kind of decided that significant majority's. On the other hand, they still want to know that while Democrats have pulled the country out of Iraq, they want them to be tough enough to fight whatever enemies we face, including terrorism. As a practical matter in this fight, Democrats simply don't have the votes to force a withdrawal from Iraq. They don't have the votes to overcome the President's veto, and a lot of Democrats who are against the war are unwilling to vote for just a flat cut-off of money for the troops. So what they're involved in is, as John Kennedy, by putting a own twilight struggle, they're really waiting for enough Republicans to turn on the war, to go to the President, perhaps in the fall, perhaps at the beginning of next year, and say, look, Mr. President, this doesn't work anymore.

We who've been loyal to up to this point can't stay there. And I think that really is the way this policy is going to change. The Democrats just have to keep fighting these fights, even if they lose the particular battles as they go as the thing goes along. So Peter, the impatient anti-war piece of the Democratic base, they keep pointing to the election and saying, hey, that's what we were voting for. But the reality is it's more complicated than that. It takes more time than that. The reality is that George W. Bush doesn't have a vice president who's running for President himself. If he did, that person, who would be right at his ear, would have an enormous political incentive in starting this troop withdrawal. So it was well underway by 2008, but he doesn't. The question is, how much pressure? Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey. Exactly.

The question is, how impact is he going to be by people like Johnson, Nunu, and Gordon Smith, other Republican senators who were vulnerable in 2008? I think the Democrats hope that eventually those people will start to prevail on him because their political future is on the line. What they want Bush to do, even if they can't get him to agree to set a timetable now, is to at least as Harry Reid said in this speech he gave today, to define victory. They want to say, okay, you tell us what has to happen by the end of the year for the surge to be working because then we'll be able to say aha. You said this had to happen. These benchmarks had to be met. Now we can see that they failed. Now you have no argument left. I think they would at least like to get to that point. So EJ and Partika come down to the definition of what makes the surge successful? Right, which is going to be very difficult because what is successful piece in Baghdad? Well, what if you have a reduction in violence in Baghdad and that hasn't fully happened? Yeah, what does it mean for the rest of the country? Does it mean any sort of political settlement? I think the real argument here that's not spoken is between one side of the country now a majority that wants to get out of there at some point, whether it's March or September of 2008 or now. And the other side, which really would like to stay until the thing stabilizes, kind of open ended commitment.

But if you support the president and his strategy, you can't say, I'm for staying there forever. So nobody frames the debate that way, but I really think that's what the debate's about. The discussion goes on. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you both. EJ, D, L, Peter Bynart. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. And to the story of how doctors figured out what caused the rare virus in a young boy and how they treated it. He was a bit bracket of WTTW in Chicago reports. At the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital, strict quarantine procedures were in place behind these doors for a two-year-old boy who's illness started out as a medical mystery. Pediatrician John Marcinac coordinated the child's care. The immediate concern from our standpoint was that the child was very ill.

He had a great deal of lesions all over his body, and we were concerned for his, for his health. Pediatric dermatologist Sarah Stein was one of the first to see the young patient. He was known to have had eczema in the past. When he was first admitted, we thought he had underlying severe eczema or a topic dermatitis, complicated by a secondary infection. After being admitted to the hospital, he kept getting worse. All sorts of illnesses were considered. And we said, wow, these blister vesicles are not very classic for herpes. Now they're looking bigger, puffier, all the same, all in the same stage of development. And that was just very unusual. And we looked at each other and we said, you know, could this be smallpox? Doctors these days don't see cases of smallpox. Because of a successful vaccination program, the deadly disease was officially declared eradicated in 1979, and most vaccination programs ended.

Then came 9-11, followed closely by the still unsolved anthrax attacks. Fears of devastating bioterrorist attacks grew, and in December of 2002, President Bush made this announcement. I'm ordering that the military and other personnel who serve America and high-risk parts of the world received the smallpox vaccine. Since then, 1.2 million military personnel have been vaccinated against smallpox. Smallpox alive virus. And as doctors learned, one of them was the boy's father. He had recently been vaccinated and then returned home before his deployment to Iraq. In the University of Chicago Hospital's microbiology lab, director Kenneth Thompson and microbiologists, Cynthia Phillips, learned about the vaccinations when they called the medical team to tell them they still couldn't analyze the boy's lesions. And I said, I'm so sorry, I'm getting the same results I got yesterday. All I can tell you is all my results are inconclusive.

We've got to wait. He said, well, I've got a news flash for you. And he told me about the father being a soldier in the vaccination, and that's what they thought they had said this is our epiphany. The smallpox vaccine contains a live virus, vaccinia, which is very similar to smallpox. He told me he thought it was vaccinia, and I thanked him and immediately called infection control because this is something they needed to know. How do you feel it? The pediatric infectious disease chief was contacted, and he too began to believe they were looking at an extremely rare, but life-threatening case of vaccinia virus. My reaction was, boy, this looks just like what you see in the books. And tell us the difference between smallpox and the vaccinia virus. This is a key distinction to make. That smallpox is, of course, one of the great historic scurges. It's killed millions of people over the years. Smallpox infection has a mortality rate of between 20 and 50%. Vaccinia is a related virus that we use to prevent smallpox infections.

But occasionally, because this is a live virus, kids, adults, vaccinies, and contacts of vaccinies can become infected. Both the critically ill boy and his mother, who was also ill, replaced in isolation, with procedures so strict even the air in their room is vented inward, keeping the virus inside. Because vaccinia virus is a highly dangerous, contagious disease, it must be confirmed in a government lab. At the same time, samples were sent here to the Illinois State Lab. Additional samples were sent to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, along with pictures of the child's lesions. The results from the CDC were the same as those from Illinois. This was vaccinia virus. Now the question was, how to treat it? Dr. Marsenac knew the hospital could not handle this case alone. If it was the vaccinia virus, he had to get government agencies involved.

I said, this is amazing, and we have to work on getting vaccinia immunoglobulin from the Centers for Disease Control. The Vaccinia immune globulin, or VIG, which provides antibodies against vaccinia, is held in the CDC's strategic national stockpile to be used in the case of a bioterrorist attack. Although U.S. marshals brought it to the hospital, the Chief of Critical Care, Dr. Metal and Kahana, says the child did not improve. He got sicker and became systemically ill, developed what we would call systemic inflammatory response syndrome, where he had lung injury and kidney injury in addition to skin. That's when the CDC put in a call to SIGA technologies. A small research and development drug company in Corvallis, Oregon, that had received $30 million in federal funds to develop a drug to combat smallpox. The company's Chief Scientific Officer, Dennis Ruby, says the CDC wanted to try their experimental drug, ST-246.

I was amazed, on Saturday afternoon, within an hour, we had a conference call set up with CDC, all my folks, and all the senior officials at the FDA discussed the situation what we wanted to do. They had access, which they were going to in real time for all of our data. A collective decision was made this made sense, and they issued over the phone a telephonic emergency IND to allow us to proceed. With the IND permission to bring the experimental drug in hand, Ruby flew the drug to Chicago in a private jet. And so I got a call, and I got up, I came in, and we had the drug, and we had the first dose started Sunday morning. The young boy survived the weekend. Dr. Kahana says there are many lessons to be learned from this case, including what the military tells those getting vaccinated. I think that the military should be aware of the fact that this educational process was ineffective. And that although this is a rare complication, and they've given over a million vaccines, and this is to my knowledge,

is the only case of severe vaccinia that we've seen in this country, one is too many. This is your lucky day. When soldiers are vaccinated, they are told to keep the area covered with the band-aid, to keep others from touching the site, and to wash their hands frequently. Since the Army Resumes Smallpox Vaccinations, two deaths have been reported from vaccinia virus, and 60 people caught the virus from someone close to them who had been vaccinated. Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, the Deputy Director of Force Health and Readiness Programs, says the young boy's case may bring some changes in procedure. We want to make sure that how do we not have this happen again, given this sort of circumstance. And so I think that as we take a look at what kind of communication needs to happen, what kind of education process needs to happen, I think yes, there'll be changes there. The child's survival means researchers may be a little closer to finding a drug to treat vaccinia, and more importantly, smallpox.

This past Friday, after six weeks in the hospital, the toddler returned home. He is expected to make a full recovery. The Yeltsin Legacy, Jeffrey Brown, has that story. At the time Yeltsin was the elected President of Russia, one of 15 Soviet republics. He was also a rival of Gorbachev. The coup failed, and soon after the Soviet Union was gone for good. Gorbachev resigned on Christmas Day 1991.

The hammer and sickle came down from atop the Kremlin to be replaced by a new Russian flag. And Boris Yeltsin became President of the Russian Federation, a nation much smaller and sized than the Soviet Union, but still a nuclear power. In the 1990s, Yeltsin's Russia underwent tremendous change, becoming more democratic and free, but worse off in such areas as health and life expectancy. The privatization of state-owned industries through hundreds of thousands of workers out of their jobs and created a new class of wealthy oligarchs. And Boris Yeltsin tried to maintain Russia's role as a world power, working with President George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and being rewarded with membership in the G7 group of industrial nations. Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was born on February 1, 1931, into a peasant family in the Ural Mountains. He was a local communist party chief in the 1960s and 70s. In 1985, Gorbachev brought Yeltsin to Moscow to become the city's communist party chief and to help implement economic reforms.

Yeltsin soon became a popular leader, writing buses instead of limousines, visiting food stores to hear consumer complaints. He also criticized Gorbachev for not moving fast enough on political and economic reforms. In November 1987, Gorbachev fired Yeltsin, but two years later, in the first elections for Soviet Parliament, Yeltsin made a political comeback, winning a seat in the People's Congress. He continued to be critical of Gorbachev. In a 1989 NewsHour interview, while visiting the United States for the first time, Yeltsin did little to mask the rivalry. In this country, Gorbachev is seen by many in heroic terms as a man of history, a man who is turning around a huge ship of state in a very dramatic way. Is that the way we should see? How should Americans view Mikhail Gorbachev? You have some euphoria of the first two years of prehistoric. You don't know the real state of affairs in the country.

If you knew it, you would not be so euphoric now. What should we be? It's not euphoria. More realistic. More realistic. Russia's progress as a democracy under Yeltsin was not always smooth. A parliamentary rebellion in 1993 prompted Yeltsin to call out the military to crush his rivals. In the mid-90s, Yeltsin again turned to the army to stamp out a separatist rebellion in the Russian territory of Chechnya. Thousands have died and the still unresolved conflict. During his presidency, Yeltsin was dogged by charges of corruption as well as rumors of heavy drinking, fostered by episodes like this post-lunch and news conference with President Clinton.

They hear the dance. In 1995, he suffered two heart attacks. At the same time, the Russian economy was going through its sixth consecutive year of negative growth. Millions of Russian workers went from months without getting paid. Yeltsin's reelection seemed in doubt, but he made a memorable campaign appearance to show his vitality. Yeltsin won reelection in July 1996, but from then on often disappeared from public view. In a surprise move, Yeltsin resigned on New Year's Eve 1999, working out a deal with his handpicked successor Vladimir Putin that he and his family would be immune from prosecution on charges of corruption. The news of Yeltsin's death today came as U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was in Moscow for talks with President Putin. I extend my sympathies to his family and condolences to the Russian people, and I think was an important figure in Russia's evolution toward democracy. Yeltsin's funeral is scheduled for Wednesday.

There will be a day of national mourning in Russia. Right here. Boris Yeltsin was 76 years old. And for more on Yeltsin's legacy, we go to David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Lennon's Tomb, The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. He was the Washington Post Moscow correspondent from 1988 to 1992. And Marshall Goldman, professor emeritus of Russian economics at Wellesley College. If we can visit her to Russia, he was in Moscow during the 1991 coup attempt. David Remnick, we've just laid out the incredible ups and downs of Yeltsin's career. What is it all that up to for you? Well ups and downs is a great phrase. This was an enormously important figure in the history of Russia and extraordinarily contradictory. Here was a guy who had the physical, political, and spiritual courage to get up on a tank and oppose a coup attempt by the KGB in the Communist Party. And had it not been for him, there would have been an enormous political vacuum, because as you remember, Michel Gorbachev was held hostage in the south of the country in Ukraine.

At the same time, he was filled with mistakes once he came to power. He was the first elected president of Russia, and yet he prosecuted an extremely foolish and brutal war in Chechnya. So it's up and down, up and down, all the time with him throughout his career. He's an extremely vain and perilous and unpredictable, sometimes cynical, even brutal leader. And at the same time, his impact is one of creative destruction, the destruction of the last empire on Earth. Marshall Goldman, what would you add to that for an overall assessment first? Well, I think David's statement of creative destruction really hits right at the mark. I think to the west, we will be very appreciative of Yeltsin for standing for democracy, for really bringing an end to the Communist system. To the Russians, however, they will look back at him as someone who squandered the country's riches, who presided over a drop on the GDP of about 40 percent, who presided over this incredible situation where parts of the country were talking about secession, and where Russia lost its superpower status.

So for them, this was a bad era, a leader who was an alcoholic, a leader who had some physical problems, and it sent set the stage for a reaction to this, which is now taking place under President Putin. And yet you're saying for us, it's a different way. We see it differently. I'm not so sure we're going to be all that thrilled with the fact that Putin was brought in by Yeltsin and what Putin is doing is undoing so many of the reforms that Yeltsin tried to do. But for us, he was really quite a charming person, a very interesting person. I should say, by the way, that the Russians liked him in a sense that one of them said he's one of us. He was really not all that sophisticated, but at the same time, being one of us is not necessarily the best accommodation for being a president of Russia. David Remnick, you were taking us back to that moment in 1991. Go back there again for me. What was at stake when he got on the tank? What was writing on that?

Absolutely everything was at stake. History was at stake. Remember what had happened. Gorbachev had pushed the country in a reform direction, although he couldn't go quite as far as Yeltsin playing the role of the iconoclast. Gorbachev goes to Ukraine for a vacation and to write a speech about realigning the union. And while he's down there, a confluence of the KGB, the Communist Party and the security apparatus, put him under arrest. A remarkable dramatic story. And in Moscow, the KGB is faced down, the military is faced down by both the person and the symbol of Boris Yeltsin and the demonstrations and the mass support that he was able to gather around him at the Russian White House, the parliament building in downtown Moscow. Everything was at stake and it's quite conceivable, despite the lack of will that the Communist Party and the KGB showed in the end of those three days, that it's quite conceivable without Yeltsin as a galvanizing figure that at least temporarily those institutions could have stalled reform and marched it backwards. As it was, the country had gone too far and Yeltsin was there to act as the galvanizing force of an opposition. So everything was at stake.

So how do we explain, Marshall Goldman, I'll start with you, how do we explain what went wrong? Well, what went wrong is that he tried to move, Yeltsin tried to move too rapidly. This would have been difficult for anyone to undertake the change after 70 years of very rigid communism to suddenly say, okay, we're going to move to shock therapy or whatever other kind of panacea there was going to be. The people didn't know how to restrain themselves and they just began to move in different directions. Besides which the reforms resulted in a situation where the most valuable assets of the state were turned over to a group that did nothing really to earn them. No self-made men, no Bill Gates type of creation this way. And this caused enormous resentment on top of which the price of oil fell to $10 a barrel. And so this was the main earning source for the Russian government. And this really brought about a collapse of the country so that in 1998 the country was really bankrupt.

But I would say Marshall though that your initial comment putting it in context is absolutely crucial. I don't know anyone on Earth who had a superior plan to get the former Soviet Union to get Russia jump-started into a healthier economy. The legacy of seven years of communism and a thousand years of absolutism not only weighed heavy on Yeltsin to continues to weigh heavy on the Russian situation. And you're absolutely right to point out the price of oil. The price of oil is now much much higher and on the strength of that and the strength of some quite good reforms under Putin despite his other horrendous difficulties. With a high price of oil and the better cultivation of that oil supply you now have the growth of a real middle class not just in Moscow but in many cities around Russia. Well you've been enormously important development.

You have to look at this in historical terms. This reform the story comes out and fits and starts. Well you've just moved it up to now which is where I wanted to bring this to the question of to what extent the Yeltsin legacy is seen in Russia today in Putin's Russia. Marshall Goldman what do you see? Well Putin you know the interesting thing is if Yeltsin had stayed on which of course his term ended. But if he stayed on in the price of oil went up to sixty seventy dollars a barrel as David pointed out then Yeltsin probably would look like a hero. But I think people will look back and say under Yeltsin over a thirty one-third of the population fell below the poverty line. So this was in a sense good riddance let him go and of course Putin is there. But even though the recovery of the economy began before Putin was made prime minister much less president. Putin is going to get credit for that and Putin's standings after all the public supports some seventy to eighty percent according to the public opinion polls. So by contrast Putin looks good inside the country where he's bringing about order the Russians hate the notion of disorder which occurred under Yeltsin.

So Putin by contrast will look good and I think they're going to look back at Yeltsin and say it's too bad that he lasted as long as he did which I think is an unfortunate way to look at it. Well unless you have an interest in civil liberties as I'm sure Marshall agree that since Putin arrived on the scene in 2000 for example the press has been slowly crushed under the foot of the Russian government. And also the way the Russian economy is successful as it is is designed is a kind of Kremlin ink as you as it were everybody in the Kremlin hierarchy today has very very strong KGB ties. And they also sit in a sense they have a ministerial role and they also have a role either in gas or in oil. This is kind of arrangement I'm not sure is destined for a long future. David we only have about a minute but I just want to ask one thing when Yeltsin resigned he asked for forgiveness because many of our hopes he said have not come true. What about him personally did he what drove his hopes do we know. Well I think Yeltsin as contradictory a figure as he was did have an interest in post communist freedoms up to a point democratization up to a point and I think although he behaved like Sarboras especially in the second half of the 90s I think he did recognize that he had made some horrendous mistakes and one of the things that we haven't gotten into is the war.

I think he did recognize that I think we do have to give him credit as is David said that he did support democracy the press criticized and mercilessly he didn't crack down on it like his successor Putin has done. So I think what he appreciated the fact is that he tried to bring about the change he tried to support democracy but he just wasn't up to what was needed at the time. All right Marshall Goldman David Remnick thank you both very much. Sir thank you. And again the other major developments of the day democrats offered a compromise or rock war funding bill it sets a goal of pulling combat troops by next April.

At least 48 Iraqis were killed in bombings more than 100 others were wounded and late today journalist and author David Halberstam was killed in a car crash in San Mateo County. A reminder you can download audio versions of our reports and listen to them on your computer, iPod or other MP3 player to do so visit the online news hour at pbs.org. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening I'm glad I full thank you and good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara is provided by. Somewhere in the hard land a child is sitting down to breakfast which is why a farmer is rising for a 15 hour day and a trucker is beginning a five day journey. An 80m is turning corn and wheat soy and cocoa beans into your favorite foods. Somewhere in the hard land a child is sitting down to breakfast which is why so many work so long and take their job to hard.

ADM resourceful by nature. And by Chevron. Pacific life. The new AT&T. The Atlantic Philanthropies. The National Science Foundation. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. To purchase video cassettes of the news hour with Jim Lara.

Call 1-866-678-News. I'm PBS. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, I'm Gwen Eiffel. I'm Gwen Eiffel.

I'm a Democrat stand on the war in Iraq. Thank you. We've discovered the world's most powerful energy.

You'll find it in everything we do. Uncover it in all the places we work and see it in our more than 55,000 employees. And by the Archer Daniels Midland Company, the new AT&T, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the National Science Foundation. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.

Democrats and President Bush geared up today for a showdown on Iraq policy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Congress will pass a compromised war funding bill within days. He said it requires U.S. combat troops to begin leaving Iraq October 1, the goal a complete pull-out by next April. President Bush has promised the veto of any such timetable, but recharged the President is in a state of denial. Today your has been political. It's been policy. It's been presidential. The President is dug in his heels in his fight, but it doesn't have to be that way. Only through accommodation on both sides and some degree of compromise can we make progress. Reid said he understands anti-war voters are restless, but he said the President is still commander in chief. And, quote, this is his war.