The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Friday, we have full coverage and analysis of today's Israeli-Jordanian peace announcement, political talk from Mark Shields and Paul Gigot, more about the Georgia floods, and the story of a comet crashing into Jupiter. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: A new White House Middle East summit is being planned. King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin will hold the meeting with President Clinton on July 25th. The meeting will be a step towards a peace accord based on the framework established last September by Israeli and Jordanian negotiators. President Clinton made the announcement in the White House briefing room this morning.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: This historic meeting is another step forward toward achievement of a comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East. The meeting will build on the dramatic progress made in the trilateral U.S.-Israel-Jordan meetings here in Washington last month and King Hussein's recent declaration of parliament that he was prepared to meet with Prime Minister Rabin. It reflects the courageous leadership and the bold vision which both King Hussein and Prime Minister Rabin have displayed as they work together to create a new future for their people and for all the regions. On behalf of all Americans I salute their commitment to peace.

MR. MAC NEIL: The two Middle East leaders have also been invited to address a joint session of Congress during their visit to Washington. We'll have more on the story right after this Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Leaders of Rwanda's Tutsi rebels said today they will set up a new government next week. They have seized control of much of the country. Sec. of State Christopher said the United States hopes to assist in the creation of a new coalition, and he said the U.S. will no longer recognize the defeated government. A UN official said he expects the rebels to begin a unilateral cease- fire which should take effect this evening. The world's largest refugee camp is forming in Zaire as Rwandans escape across the border. It is filled with Hutus who are fleeing the Tutsi rebel takeover. Jilly Carter of Worldwide Television News narrates this report.

JILLY CARTER, WTN: Powerless to stop the mass exodus, the authorities in Zaire threw open the border gates. Two hundred people a minute streamed in, twelve thousand an hour. Carrying babies on their backs and possessions on their heads the Hutus were fleeing Tutsi rebels who'd advanced across Western Rwanda in pursuit of Hutu government forces. There were moments of tension as Zairian soldiers confiscated machetes and knives. Half a million hungry people have already fled Rwanda, and the same number is expected to enter Zaire in the next three days. Aid agencies have appealed for help. They say only the biggest airlift in recent history could hope to feed the enormous number of refugees.

MR. LEHRER: Many of Rwanda's Hutu leaders have taken refuge in the safe haven created by French troops in Southwestern Rwanda. Rwanda's prime minister-designate called on the French to detain them. He said he wanted them charged with war crimes.

MR. MAC NEIL: Sec. of State Christopher said today there's no deadline on the use of force in Haiti but he added that the country's military leaders should step down immediately. President Clinton signed an order authorizing U.S. helicopters to stop the flow of goods between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and officials from the U.S. embassy in Haiti said the murder of 12 young men earlier this week was politically motivated. The U.S. investigated those murders after human rights observers were expelled from the country on Wednesday.

MR. LEHRER: In economic news today, the Federal Reserve reported industrial production rose .5 of 1 percent last month. Output at the nation's mines, factories, and utilities has risen for 13 months now in a row. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told a congressional group the economy is currently strong, but he said interest rates could continue to rise unless the government took action to control the budget deficit.

ALAN GREENSPAN, Chairman, Federal Reserve: This problem has become too severe to grow our way out of it. As our population continues to age over the coming decades, entitlements will become an increasing share of our budget outlays and of our national interest. Taken separately, these programs have wide support among the American people. But in total, they are far more costly than people recognize. If we continue to borrow to pay for them, the resultant high real interest rates will curtail the growth in living standards.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Israeli-Jordanian peace, Shields & Gigot, the Georgia floods, and Jupiter's comet. FOCUS - TURNING POINT?

MR. MAC NEIL: First tonight, the next Mideast summit and the chances for a full peace accord between Jordan and Israel. King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin will meet at the White House a week from Monday. They'll also address a joint session of Congress. Our coverage of this latest step in the Middle East peace process begins with a report from Correspondent Liz Donnelly of Independent Television News on the problems and prospects for peace in Jordan.

LIZ DONNELLY, ITN: Jordan has long appeared an island of calm amidst the tumult of the rest of the Middle East. Its king, adept at walking a tight rope between opposing interests, has succeeded in creating stability by balancing his openness to the West with the dominant interests of his Arab neighbors. With Jordanian- Israeli peace talks moving to the region next week, there are now the first signs that Jordan's gearing itself up to sign a peace agreement with Israel. When we met King Hussein, he made it clear Jordan would be prepared to go ahead with the unilateral peace deal regardless of the views of its powerful Arab neighbor, Syria.

KING HUSSEIN, Jordan: Our aim is to negotiate seriously our own problems. The Egyptians have done so in the past, and the Palestinians have done so, and our responsibility has always been towards the Palestinians and helping them in any way we can. Now it's time that we look after ourselves.

LIZ DONNELLY: Jordan may be ready for peace but not peace at any price. It insists the deal with Israel must include finding a solution to the Palestinian refugees who've been living here in camps since they fled their homes in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967. This is Widat Camp, to all intents and purposes an established town and home to 40,000 refugees. For decades, Jordan's most crushing problem has been accommodating these refugees. At the very least, it now wants those who arrived here from the West Bank in 1967 to have the choice of returning home or of receiving financial compensation. Samira Abdul Halim is remarkably positive about a peace deal, the one who knows she's unlikely to receive any compensation or be allowed to return to her family home. It now lies within Israel's internationally recognized borders.

SAMIRA ABDUL HALIM: [speaking through interpreter] I understand it's not going to go back to what it was in 1948, but at least we'll have more space. The 1967 arrangements were fine. It's in our interests, there's no problem.

LIZ DONNELLY: Other Palestinians take a hard line approach, among them Abdul Karime Hussein, who fled to the West Bank in 1948 and then again to Jordan in 1967. He argues that every citizen should be allowed to be returned to his original home before a deal is signed.

ABDUL KARIME HUSSEIN: [speaking through interpreter] For me as a Palestinian refugee since '48, this peace agreement doesn't benefit me, I stay a refugee. I cannot return to my land. A just peace for me is to go back to my land and work on it.

LIZ DONNELLY: Though this view has considerable support in the camps, the king is firm about forging ahead regardless of dissenters.

KING HUSSEIN: I would like to state categorically that Jordan does not approach these kind of talks with a sense of responsibility to apologize to any or justify any. Jordan has done more for the cause of a just and durable peace in this region than any. Jordan has suffered during all the years that have passed since it was created more than any. And Jordan is just sincere about trying to arrive at the solution that could transform this area from what it has been to what it should be, with the rights of all preserved.

LIZ DONNELLY: The main incentive for Jordan to reach an agreement with Israel is economic. Here in Jordan's stock exchange, there's a great deal of anxiety that the new Palestinian economy in Gaza and Jericho will be a drain on investment. Despite the hub bub little business has done, investors prefer to watch and wait. In this climate of uncertainty, business confidence has plummeted, and growth has fallen from 6 percent last year to virtually nothing now. So Jordan's looking to the international community to sugar any deal with Israel by agreeing to wipe off at least 50 percent of its international debt. Across the border, Israel argues its differences with Jordan are far less complex than with neighboring Syria. Though Jordan claims 160 square miles of land from Israel, more than the Palestinians recently negotiated in Gaza and Jericho, Israel believes this can be settled. The problem for the king is that Jordan has a strong Islamic fundamentalist constituency, and they're opposed to peace so long as Israel remains a Jewish state. With almost a quarter of MP's in the parliament, the Islamic Action Front complain that they're not consulted.

ISHAAK FARHAN, Islamic Action Front: The parliament has been marginalized rather than put in focus, and I think every parliament is not in session as it is now. It should be someone to meet and convene to discuss the major radical political problems.

LIZ DONNELLY: Faced with dissent in Parliament, King Hussein is unabashed. When he invited a group of 50 or so MP's to the palace, is speech left no time for questions. More importantly, he now seems surprisingly dismissive of Syria's concerns.

KING HUSSEIN: Well, I believe that Syria's unilaterally negotiating as well regarding its ties and its occupied territories and the future of its relations with Israel, who all started from the same point, at the same conference, with the same commitments. I don't believe that there is a problem.

LIZ DONNELLY: With major negotiations beginning here at the Dead Sea next week, there's definitely an upbeat feeling. The hope now is with the visit by the U.S. Secretary of State expected soon Syria can be persuaded to move quickly too.

MR. MAC NEIL: To discuss the importance of today's development, we turn to three analysts of Middle East affairs. Geoffrey Kemp is a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Trudy Rubin writes on foreign policy issues for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She recently returned from a trip to Jordan, Israel, and Syria. And Adam Garfinkle, director of the Middle East Policy Council at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Geoffrey Kemp, Warren Christopher, the Secretary of State, said Hussein and Rubin -- sorry, and Rabin are not going to sign a peace agreement when they come to Washington. If not, why is this meeting so important?

MR. KEMP: Well, because for years, Hussein has been meeting with Israeli leaders of both the left and the right in private, and for the first time now, he's coming out publicly and will do so in Washington, D.C.. This sends a message throughout the Arab world and throughout Israel that Jordan at last is prepared to put Jordan first rather than kowtow to Arafat or Assad or in the case of the Gulf War to Saddam Hussein. King Hussein's made it perfectly clear that from now on Jordan comes first as far as he's concerned, and that means coming to the United States, making a deal with Rabin, not signing the treaty, but making the commitment to a deal. That's the only way he can get the economic relief he needs to get the economy jumpstarted.

MR. MAC NEIL: What kind of a deal can they reach to give them something to sign, Trudy Rubin?

MS. RUBIN: I think there will not be any final peace agreement because the king and other officials have made it clear that in the end a signature demands a comprehensive agreement. But will -- what they will be able to do is give an impetus to discussions that are already going on on joint water projects, on solving a question of a small little bit of Jordanian land that Israel is occupying, and I'm talking about refugee issues, and in getting moving in economic development and in Jordan. So I think this will give an impetus to all kinds of discussions except for the final signature.

MR. MAC NEIL: Why do you see it as very important, Mr. Garfinkle?

MR. GARFINKLE: I think it's important for several reasons. The king is now doing publicly, as Dr. Kemp said, what he's been doing privately for a long, long time. But this is a way of preparing the Jordanian population for what's likely to come some months down the road. Televising the speech to the Jordanian parliament is one thing, but standing with the Israeli prime minister in Washington just as Anwar Sadat did, just as Yasser Arafat did, really changes the psychology within Jordan proper. And I also have a slightly I guess more cynical interpretation of why now, and I think why now is that it's -- there's a spin wizard in the White House named David Gergen, and I think he likes to see a little action going on, and I don't think there was any prospect that this visit by the Secretary of State to the region was going to produce any kind of a breakthrough or much newsworthy in the way of a Syrian-Israeli breakthrough. So here's a chance to show the progress that's already afoot in the Israeli-Jordanian tract, and I think that's part of what explains the timing.

MR. MAC NEIL: Do you think that the White House has, therefore, precipitated this meeting, it sort of jumped the thing onto a bigger stage? Mr. Garfinkle first.

MR. GARFINKLE: I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Rubin.

MS. RUBIN: I think that's a bit too cynical. The king has been hinting, in fact, saying out loud that he has been ready to meet Rabin for some time. And I think that has to do with his own sense of timing, of not wanting to be left behind, especially from economic development and from aid that's going to be flowing into the Palestinian areas. And so he has his own agenda, and it's all to his benefit to have -- if he has a meeting with Prime Minister Rabin -- to have it blessed by the White House, because that also puts him back in the good graces of the United States, which he fell out of when he took an ambivalent position during the Gulf War.

MR. MAC NEIL: Geoffrey Kemp, why do you think he's doing it right now?

MR. KEMP: Well, I think, I agree that he has very strong motives to do this from an economic standpoint. There are lots of bilateral things that Israel and Jordan can work on irrespective of the peace treaty, tourism, joint construction projects. These can benefit both economies. But as Trudy Rubin said, he's not to get his relationship with the United States in order so that he can help write off his debt and rebuild his military establishment which has been denied spare parts and modern equipment for many, many years because of his close ties to Saddam Hussein. Now, I don't disagree that David Gergen may think it's preferable for Mr. Clinton to come out and announce a meeting between Rabin and King Hussein than to announce the invasion of Haiti.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Rubin, go back to you. Describe in a bit more detail what they can do, what Hussein can do, in -- with Israel, short of a treaty. What practical things can they actually get going on?

MS. RUBIN: Well, the first thing is that this takes the taboo off of open meetings between Israelis and Jordanians, and since the king is extremely interested in things like economic development, this means that you can have joint delegations of international businessmen, of Jewish and Arab businessmen coming to Jordan, coming to Israel, looking at investing. The king -- there are also projects that Jordan would like to see started that involve, for example, a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea that involve desalinization, and now those can be worked on more openly, and the king can attract investment more openly, and you can have joint tourist development start going on. I think with the king the message that he is delivering is the future of this region lies in economics not warfare, and he wants to get on with the economic development, and if he can do that in the open, if he can meet with Israelis openly, that will really impel the process.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Garfinkle, what's in this for Israel right now?

MR. GARFINKLE: Well, there are several things in it for Israel. First of all, the PLO and Jordan are involved in, in what is many respects a competitive relationship right now with Israel, and getting Jordan to go forward in the peace process puts a lot of pressure on Yasser Arafat to stand and deliver many of the things that he's promised. Secondly, a lot of us really think that the Jordanian plunge will -- either signals a Syrian readiness to do business or may, may build one. In addition, in Israeli domestic politics having a Jordanian dimension to the peace process is very useful because for years the Labor Party has been of a mind that it would trade land for peace, but it's also always opposed an independent Palestinian state. Now the way that it's always reconciled those two things was to hold down a major role for Jordan. And that role has shrunk over the years but it has not disappeared. And by bringing Jordan forward this is a way to reassure the Israeli population that the possible maligned development of Palestinian nationalism can be limited by an arrangement with Jordan.

MR. MAC NEIL: Doesn't King Hussein also have a less extreme demand as the solution for Jerusalem?

MR. GARFINKLE: Oh, yes, much less extreme. That's just one example of many where kind of a bidding game can go on.

MR. MAC NEIL: Describe what he wants as opposed to what Yasser Arafat wants.

MR. GARFINKLE: Well, the Palestinian position is fairly clear. Arafat says it every chance he gets lately, and that is that he thinks that Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, should be the capital of an independent Palestinian state. The king has been far more subtle. He said some months ago that sovereignty should be left to God, which is a very interesting sort of way of putting it. But the king basically sees a way to divide off the symbolic and the religious authority of the city, to divide that off from questions of political sovereignty and also to de-fuse the Muslim-Arab side of it, so that it wouldn't be just the Palestinian place, but it would be a Muslim place that would have a room for the Jordanians and for the Moroccans and for the Saudis and others. And from an Israeli point of view, that's a far more desirable way to think about Jerusalem than the view that the Palestinians are putting forth.

MR. MAC NEIL: Jack Kemp -- I'm sorry.

MR. KEMP: I don't mind.

MR. MAC NEIL: Are you running for president?

MR. KEMP: Uh-huh. With this accent?

MR. MAC NEIL: Geoffrey Kemp, there's also an interesting -- King Hussein has credentials regarding the religious rights in Jerusalem, does he not? His grandfather was -- describe the position of his grandfather there in the -- and his authority, religious authority.

MR. KEMP: Of course, it was the assassination of his grandfather who really controlled all of Jerusalem, the area that the Israelis occupied, that set in motion the sort of tragedy that led to, to ultimately the Israelis and the Jordanians never reaching an agreement.

MR. MAC NEIL: And he was assassinated with King Hussein there as a small boy beside him.

MR. KEMP: By a Palestinian.

MR. MAC NEIL: By a Palestinian, when he was negotiating secretly with the Israelis.

MR. KEMP: That is correct. That is correct.

MR. MAC NEIL: So this comes around a very interesting full circle.

MR. KEMP: Yes, it does, but I would like to add one point about what also is in it for Israel that's terribly important. The Likud Party which, as you know, has bitterly opposed anything to do with Arafat, cannot complain in any way about negotiation and a deal with King Hussein. They've met with him, themselves. Now, what this does is it helps to prepare the Israeli public for what ultimately is the really big test. Are they prepared to evacuate the Golan Heights and do a deal with Syria? That's going to be terribly tough even for Rabin to sell, and the more parts of the peace process that are together, the easier it will be to do the deal with Syria.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Rubin, what do you see as the benefit for Israel in this?

MS. RUBIN: I, I think that there are benefits that, that relate to pushing the Palestinians along. What happens is that the East Bank of Jordan has a huge Palestinian population, which has a very vested interest in what happens on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, by bringing Jordan in. By opening the prospect of economic development, these Palestinians will become more encouraging to their brethren and cousins across the way, and there will be concrete, hopefully concrete, economic evidences that it's worth moving forward. It also stabilizes the East Bank, and that's very important for Israel. Shimon Peres has said to King Hussein that Jordan is not Palestine which has been a claim of the Israeli right wing, that they recognize that Jordan is a sovereign entity of its own, and that puts King Hussein in a better position ultimately to work out the relationship he will have with the West Bank, and that relationship will be very important for Israel, because it will stabilize the whole region.

MR. MAC NEIL: What is the potential solution for the Palestinian refugee problem? We saw in that report by Liz Donnelly that the Palestinians have been refugees ever since '48 there, living in the so-called camps, who will never go back to their original homes. What is the projected solution for that?

MS. RUBIN: Well, I'll tell you one thing that is not the solution, and the Jordanians feel very strongly about this, is that the Palestinian refugees from '48 and Lebanon and Syria, they will not accept that they be dumped in the East Bank of Jordan, and so strengthening King Hussein also strengthens the pressure on Arab countries to ultimately absorb some of these refugees.

MR. MAC NEIL: Geoffrey Kemp, what do you see as the solution to that?

MR. KEMP: Well, the solution, quite simply, is economic growth. The Middle East is potentially rich enough, and if you put together the talents of the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Jordanians, the Syrians, and the Lebanese, and the Egyptians, together with the huge amounts of money that are going to come into the Gulf over the next decade, you can solve this problem with growth. But that requires, of course, the political settlement to be in place first.

MR. MAC NEIL: Requires also some U.S. help. What do you think the cost is, or the U.S. is expected to contribute to push this thing to the final stages between Jordan and Israel?

MR. KEMP: Well, the first thing the President has got to do is to persuade the Congress to write off some of the Jordanian debt. He's then got a very tough job in trying to sell more advanced arms to Jordan. That will be very controversial because until there is a peace treaty, there will be people in Israel who worry about Jordan getting more advanced arms. But the other major role the United States can play is the role it's played with the Palestinian economic dilemma, chivvy and goad the world community to put more money into this effort because, after all, the costs of paying for peace are much cheaper than the costs of another war.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Garfinkle, what do you think the understandings are that the U.S. will provide to, to lubricate this deal?

MR. GARFINKLE: I'm not privy to the numbers that have been thrown around, but I'm quite confident that it'll be a lot cheaper than financing Camp David, because as Prof. Kemp pointed out, back in those days, we paid for the whole shebang, and now we have help from lots of other countries, and that's very useful. I think one thing that's important is that in any future settlement of refugee difficulties, there's a huge difference between those who were displaced in 1967 and those who were refugees in 1948. Those who left the west side of the river in 1967 may get a choice as to whether to come back or not come back and receive compensation instead, but for those in 1948, I think it's fairly clear that they aren't going any place, and they have to be integrated into Jordanian society, and that will require two kinds of costs. One would be a direct cost to the individuals who had property lost or taken, and secondly, a cost of infrastructure that could be given to the Jordanian government to build roads and to build schools and to build houses, all the things that are needed to truly integrate these people into Jordanian society. And, again, we're talking about levels of money and the billions of dollars, and clearly, none of the local parties by themselves can afford this, so this must be an international effort if it's to work.

MR. MAC NEIL: Let me ask each of you quickly in conclusion, Mr. Christopher said there won't be a peace deal signed now. Is it possible that as a result of his negotiations they might surprise us and pull something out of a hat and have a breakthrough? Trudy Rubin, do you think so?

MS. RUBIN: I wouldn't expect it. I don't think it's in the king's interest right now to do it. I think that he can get what he wants at the moment without doing it.

MR. MAC NEIL: Do you agree with that, Mr. Garfinkle?

MR. GARFINKLE: The king has said a few things. He said, for example, he's prepared to go forward with many aspects of normalization short of a treaty. He's also said that he'll sign a document with Israel once they agree on borders. Once the border is demarcated, he'll sign something about that before a full peace treaty is put together. I think it's almost impossible that he'll sign something in the next couple of days. I mean, the water problem alone is going to take many, many months to work out. I think they will announce some things like, for example, the opening of the borders of the two countries to third country tourists. I think there will be a series of rather small pieces of progress that that can be announced, but signing a peace treaty, I don't think it's possible.

MR. MAC NEIL: What do you think briefly, Geoffrey Kemp?

MR. KEMP: Not until the Palestinian-Israeli accord has been fully worked out for the whole of the West Bank and not until King Mahafa Al-Assad of Syria has made a much more positive move towards peace. Under those circumstances, he might go ahead with a full fledged peace treaty before Assad signs, but Assad has to make a move first.

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, Geoffrey Kemp, Mr. Garfinkle, Ms. Rubin, thank you for joining us. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Shields and Gigot, a flood update, and the Jupiter comet. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. LEHRER: Now our regular political analysis by Shields and Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. Mark, Congress is back. Health care reform hangs in the balance. What are the prospects as we sit here tonight, sir?

MR. SHIELDS: Prospects, Jim, are a lot brighter than they would have been if Bill Clinton had appointed -- President Bill Clinton had nominated George Mitchell to the Supreme Court. I was thinking about if George Mitchell had been nominated, his confirmation hearings being held this week, there is no health care bill. The only hope of there being a health care bill, and I still think there's a very real hope, rests squarely on the shoulders of two individuals, George Mitchell, the Senate Majority Leader who's trying to put together a coalition in the Senate that will get 51 votes, and Dick Gephardt, the House Majority Leader who's charged with the responsibility of trying to round up 218 -- get first of all a bill and then round up the 218 votes.

MR. LEHRER: Only Mitchell can do that?

MR. SHIELDS: Only Mitchell can do it, I think it's fair to say. And I think Paul would agree.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Paul, that Mitchell's so key -- that key to this?

MR. GIGOT: Well, he's going to be a big help, but there's something else the Democrats have going for them. They came back from the recess really in a state of high anxiety because I think they realize, especially the ones running for re-election, realize that they've got to pass something on health care and crime, something to show that they can run and go back to the voters in November, or it's going to be a massacre.

MR. SHIELDS: That wouldn't have meant anything -- that wouldn't have meant anything if there were a new Majority Leader there. I mean, George Mitchell has proved as Majority Leader both in the opposition and since Bill Clinton has been President that he brings those qualities of leadership, of trust that only develop over a period of time, Jim. And if someone had taken his place -- I don't care how good a Majority Leader -- Jim Sasser or Tom Daschle or whoever were to prevail, they wouldn't have the same kind of following --

MR. LEHRER: But whether it's Mitchell or Billy Bob Unknown, he's still got to have a plan.

MR. SHIELDS: Absolutely.

MR. LEHRER: And what's the plan going to be that can get those 51 votes. Well, you're not going to answer that one, are you?

MR. SHIELDS: No. I mean, it's a tough one, because, I mean, you're dealing with not only with realities, you're dealing with political, political lives. You're dealing with egos in the Senate, and when you're talking egos, you're talking astrodome proportion ego. I mean, we're talking really large, excessively enormous egos, and he's got to deal with that with those two. So it's a -- you know, I still think -- I think it will be universal coverage. I think there will be -- I think that will be the stated objective, and there has to be a clear path on how that is attained.

MR. GIGOT: If Mark had a plan, I think the Senate could use it, they'd be looking for it, because --

MR. LEHRER: Shields' plan.

MR. GIGOT: -- because they really are in a conundrum here because, on the one hand, you've got a lot of Democrats who want to vote for something. On the other hand, they went back and found out that the Clinton plan was basically underwater. I think you're going to hear nobody talk about the Clinton plan.

MR. LEHRER: It's going to be the Mitchell plan, the Mitchell- Gephardt plan, or some other kind of plan.

MR. GIGOT: Exactly, exactly.

MR. SHIELDS: And they're not distributing those conundrums, are they?

MR. LEHRER: Not in --

MR. SHIELDS: No plan, no plan.

MR. GIGOT: Although with this administration you never know. [laughter]

MR. LEHRER: Keep talking, Gigot. No, but what about, for instance, the abortion thing? We had an argument -- a debate about that on this program last night, and here we had two Democrats, both of whom are for universal coverage, coming down very strong on either side, and both of them said they're going to take a hike if they don't get their way. Is that -- read that for me.

MR. GIGOT: I think it's an enormous problem for the administration. I mean, there's no issue, as we all know, that people feel more passionately about than, than this one. And I think the people especially on the anti-abortion side are willing to take a walk if this is in. I think in the end the administration and the Democrats are prepared to take it out if they can get the structure of the health care plan in place because they can tell the proponents, the pro-choice people, we'd come back next year and get this in a standard benefit package. But we've got to pass health care, and they're not going to let this scuttle health care. And that's the real risk for the Democrats right now.

MR. SHIELDS: I think there is an added factor here. Some conservative members of the House have said they would not support a health bill if it had abortion in it, a national health bill.

MR. LEHRER: You're talking about Democrats?

MR. SHIELDS: Democrats. Now these are people who wouldn't support it if it had tonsillectomy coverage or appendectomy coverage, but there is in that list of people who have stated that they would not support a bill that included abortion coverage. A number of stalwart Democrats -- Democrats Jack Mirth of Pennsylvania, Tony Hall of Ohio, Marcy Kaptur from Toledo, and Dale Kildy from Michigan -- who are the kind of people who not only are supporters of national health but were with Clinton on all the tough fights so far, I mean, on the budget fights, on the tax fights, and all the rest. So these people, their loss is something that can't be calculated for, and --

MR. LEHRER: And they have said, they have said if it --

MR. SHIELDS: They signed a letter that if it's in there, it means --

MR. LEHRER: Forget it.

MR. SHIELDS: -- it means a whole host -- there's a whole host of acts to follow. It means, for example, archdioceses in a health plan would have to provide abortion coverage for their own employees, and, you know, there becomes a conscience element there that is intolerable to a number of their constituencies and their supporters.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with Paul that what the administration will probably do is pull it out and try to just work a deal with the --

MR. SHIELDS: I think it -- I think it'll be the last issue resolved, I really do. I think you've got to get close to that 218 first. That's not going to be one of the first things.

MR. LEHRER: That's -- 218 is what it takes to pass.

MR. SHIELDS: Two hundred and eighteen in the House of Representatives.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. SHIELDS: And I think then there will be some, some provision, some resolution that will allow them both to live, but I think it will be -- it will certainly be one that the package, the basic package does not mandate it.

MR. LEHRER: Paul, is it safe to say at this point that the abortion thing, part of it, but that the final deal -- you get the 218 votes in the House and the 51 it'll take in the Senate, that they're all going to be Democratic votes, there's not going to be any kind of bipartisanship on this?

MR. GIGOT: On the current trajectory, yes. I mean, the President might pick up Jim Jeffords, the Vermont Republican. But he's counted as a Democratic vote now anyway.

MR. LEHRER: Particularly on this issue.

MR. GIGOT: Particularly on this issue. At the current way they're going, yes. Now, if for some reason they lose on some of the -- on their votes on their bill, they may try to reform a moderate alternative. And there are some -- a lot of Democrats now working with Republicans on that option.

MR. LEHRER: And would Mitchell -- is Mitchell in a position to work a bipartisan deal? He's not, is he? Is he very --

MR. SHIELDS: Well, I mean, George Mitchell has been the Democratic leader, and he certainly raised a lot of Republican hackles. I mean, the number of Republicans still privately credit George Mitchell, as much as anybody, for George Bush's defeat in 1992. I think that he created the, the climate, set the issues, made -- baited Bush, stopped his capital gains initiatives and all the rest of it, so I think it does become tough. I think George Mitchell -- I think returning to what Paul said earlier, I think he's right, and he deserved to be underlined on this -- Democrats need a crime bill and they need a health bill. And I think they have to have something that they can go back to the people and say, we have made a difference, we have worked with broken gridlock.

MR. LEHRER: And the politics of this, your reading of this, what you'd said a couple of weeks ago, I think, Paul, is that the politics of this are such that the Republicans can vote against health care reform and go home and defend it politically and not get hurt, and so it's strictly a Democratic issue at this point, you think.

MR. GIGOT: Well, only, the only way Republicans are really going to get hurt on this is if the issue is framed as health care reform for obstructionists. But if it's framed as the Clinton-Kennedy plan with government components versus some other alternative, I think you'll see Republicans rally to that alternative and feel they can get away with it and maybe benefit by it.

MR. SHIELDS: There's one point that David Broder made this week that deserves reinforcement.

MR. LEHRER: Washington Post --

MR. SHIELDS: Washington Post columnist writer, a frequent analyst on our show. David Broder pointed out that George Mitchell and Dick Gephardt, the key role they're playing, that term limits, imposed term limits, there would be no chance for any bill. I mean, you need people of the veteran skills and the trust that's built up over a period of time that a Gephardt has, having coming to the Congress in 1976, a Mitchell having come to the Senate in 1980, that 14 years, otherwise, you're deferring that whole responsibility to staff, nameless, faceless, powerful staff, or lobbyists.

MR. LEHRER: The Senator had also implied the others who are on the other side are trying to defeat various things as well.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: It takes skill both ways. Look, quickly on Haiti, what's your reading, Paul, on the domestic politics on whether or not to send the Marines into Haiti? Where does that argument stand?

MR. GIGOT: Well, if the President has to climb a hill, he's still at the bottom.

MR. SHIELDS: He hasn't made the case?

MR. GIGOT: No. I think he's convinced the Black Caucus, which has been sort of moving him along on this, and he's got the state of Florida behind him. He doesn't have his own party in Congress I don't think yet -- he's got some of them -- but Sam Nunn, for example, a very critical supporter on any military venture for a Democratic President --

MR. LEHRER: Senate Armed Services Committee.

MR. GIGOT: Services Committee -- came out today -- this week, and he said, Haiti is not in our vital interest, so if we're going to do it, Mr. President, we've got to think about what we're going to do not just in the first week but what we do when we get there. We've got to get some promises for Mr. Aristide, we've got to have a plan to get in and to get out. And that was a warning to this administration. And, of course, the Republicans, the only Republican we're supporting right now is Connie Mack, who's running for reelection in Florida.

MR. LEHRER: In Florida. Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: Jim, this has been a bad one for the conspiracy buffs. The conspiracy buffs always operate on the premise that the military was just chomping at the bit, you know, dying to get in and mix it up, and I just came across a wonderful quote of Al Gray, who's a former commandant and Marine Corps general in the United States Marines, who said, "I don't run democracy. I train troops to defend democracy, and I happen to be their surrogate mother and father as well as their commanding officer." And Al Gray, himself, saw combat five years in Vietnam, two years in Korea, and I think this really shows the military's feeling about each other, that they don't want to send their own into harm's way unless there are vital interests involved. They will go, they will fight, but there's a real face that they have on all these people who will go into combat.

MR. LEHRER: And it's up to a President and particularly a President to find the vital interest and sell the vital interest if it's not -- when you're talking about San Francisco being invaded or Norfolk being invaded, then you have to define the vital interest. Is that what you're --

MR. SHIELDS: That's absolutely right, and Larry Korb, who was Ronald Reagan's assistant secretary of defense, once said, we never would have been at Kuwait if Kuwait grew carrots. Okay. Kuwait grew oil, and there is no oil in Haiti. If we do go in, it's strictly human rights and democracy. There's no economic interest there.

MR. LEHRER: But some would argue on that case, I mean, the politics even in a Congress of the United States were not necessarily for the United States going to the aid of Kuwait, and President Bush sold not only Congress, he sold the public on that.

MR. SHIELDS: That's exactly right.

MR. GIGOT: He certainly did, and he created facts on the ground. He made the decision to send those troops to the Gulf, and Congress had to basically go along, and then he went right to the Congress. Now it would be interesting, will this President go to a Democratic Congress and ask them to endorse his decision to, to invade Haiti if that's what he has to do?

MR. SHIELDS: Or will he follow the leader, Ronald Reagan, who went into Grenada and then told people about it 24 hours later?

MR. LEHRER: Yeah, yeah, but if you'd have polled the American people, should we send troops into Grenada, they'd say, what, so you know --

MR. SHIELDS: You can't afford to go to Grenada. I mean, it was - - you know, try and find that on the map. [laughter]

MR. LEHRER: Yeah, right, okay. And we're going to see you next week. UPDATE - HOMECOMING

MR. MAC NEIL: Next tonight, assessing the damage. Floodwaters in Georgia forced thousands from their homes over the past week. Now the waters have been receding and the residents returning. Correspondent Betty Ann Bowser reports from South Georgia.

MS. BOWSER: For residents of the Lake Blackshear area near Americus it happened so fast they had almost no time to think, no time to pack, and now that the flash flooding is over, the water is receding, they are beginning to comprehend the totality of what they've lost.

MS. BOWSER: What are you going to do with all of this?

RUSTY REED: It'll probably end up going into the trash can, the dumpster right across the road over there.

MS. BOWSER: Were there any treasures here?

RUSTY REED: Are you kidding? Five children. She had some beautiful furniture in there. And it's -- I mean, it's essentially nothing now. I mean, she's down to zilch.

MS. BOWSER: Is this your mom, your grandmother?

RUSTY REED: My mother.

MS. BOWSER: Rusty Reed and two of his five brothers spent today cleaning out their 72-year-old mother's home. Five days ago, it was completely underwater.

EVELYN WEST: The water come up so fast it, well, it was floated from the top of my washing machine and busted the top off -- all my food -- my food scattered.

MS. BOWSER: Evelyn West lost nearly everything. She and her husband, Grady, built this little brick house by the lake five years ago when he retired. It was supposed to be for their golden years. But now at the ages of 68 and 70, they are faced with starting over. They're determined to make the best of it.

GRADY WEST: I look at it this way, you know, there's no use of grievin' over it, it's a material thing, and it can be replaced, and I've always been a hard worker, and I think that we can -- between the two of us -- we can overcome this, and really that you haven't got much choice.

MS. BOWSER: For 32 years, Grady West worked for the Crisp County Power Commission that built this nearby dam. It broke at 5:30 last Saturday morning, causing most of the flooding in the Lake Blackshear area. There had been one inch of rain an hour for more than a day. It was too much water, too quickly for the 65 year old earth dam and power station. Officials are warning Lake Blackshear residents to get their boats out of the water as flood levels continue to drop. They estimate it will be six months to two years before repairs to the dam are complete and the power station is fully back on line. University of Georgia County Extension Agent Gay Sheppherd is trying to help people get their lives back on line. She insists residents must use chlorine bleach to decontaminate every item in their home that's been touched by floodwater.

GAY SHEPPHERD: We're talking about everything. It is not the water that fell from the sky. We're not worried about the water that fell from the sky. We're worried about the water that is rising, and we have sewage that has entered into that water, and we have dead animals and so we are talking about bacteria, nothing that anyone would want to touch, and here people are walking into it and digging through it. And everything that it has touched is contaminated.

MS. BOWSER: Have you been able to salvage anything over here?

BETTY JANE NEWSOME: My dishes is what I'm trying to salvage.

MS. BOWSER: Oh, look at all of these pictures.

BETTY JANE NEWSOME: And some of my pictures I can save and then some of them I can't save, and --

MS. BOWSER: Just about all Betty Jane Newsome has left to decontaminate are her dishes and family mementos. In the last year, Mrs. Newsome has been forced into early retirement, undergone triple bypass surgery, and now this.

BETTY JANE NEWSOME: This is my mama and daddy right there. I found that one. Needless to say, that was our wedding pictures.

MS. BOWSER: Is there anything besides these few pictures and dishes that you can take away?

BETTY JANE NEWSOME: Not in the house now.

MS. BOWSER: Nothing.

BETTY JANE NEWSOME: Nothing in the house.

MS. BOWSER: You really can't put a price on memories, can you?

BETTY JANE NEWSOME: No, there's nothing that will help you with it. So it looked like a pretty livable place but it doesn't look like anything now, does it? Just excuse the mess. This is the way it looked. This was my pickles that I had just put in -- getting ready to put 'em in the vinegar for 'em to stay for several -- for four weeks. That's my hutch over there. There's one of my microwaves under the table. This countertop was sitting straight this way. And you see how it is. I had a butcher block table sitting here. It's sitting in the middle of the bedroom in there.

MS. BOWSER: The water carried it in there?

BETTY JANE NEWSOME: Yes, ma'am. This is the master bedroom. There's my pillow. I wondered what happened to my pillow, but there's my pillow right there. This is the master bedroom, and if they don't know that I love shoes, if you're showing them boxes in there, they'll know I loved 'em, and I don't know where any of 'em is at, but -- and it's just a feeling you can't describe. I have been in a fire, and now I have been in a flood. And I don't know which would be the worst, the fire or the flood. You have nothing left either way you go.

MS. BOWSER: Still, this 61-year-old grandmother says no flood will stop her from rebuilding her home by the river. Like most of the victims here in Georgia, she has no flood insurance. FINALLY - CRASH COURSE

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, a smashing space story. Jupiter meets its destiny. Essayist Paul Hoffman, editor of "Discover Magazine," tells all.

PAUL HOFFMAN, Discover Magazine: At about 3:58 Eastern Daylight Time tomorrow, the first of twenty-one chunks of Comet Shoemaker- Levy will smash into Jupiter, the king of the planets. At speeds of 130,000 miles per hour, the mountain-size chunks will pummel the gas giant for the next week like a barrage of cosmic cannon fire. Scientists will have a once in a lifetime opportunity to witness the violence that was so common in the early solar system when the Earth was formed four and a half billion years ago. Only 16 months ago, scientists didn't even know about this comet's existence, let alone that it was going to plow into the largest planet in the solar system. Now, every major telescope in the world is trained on Jupiter. From Palomar in Southern California, to Hawaii's Keck Telescope to even the Hubble Space Telescope orbiting high above the Earth, the space probe Galileo that's bound for Jupiter will also have its numerous scientific instruments, including a camera, focused on the jovian light show. The secrets the collision might reveal about both the comet and Jupiter have astronomers going gaga. Paul Chodas at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena estimates that the comet fragments could be as large as a couple miles across.

PAUL CHODAS, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: If you convert the mass of these comets and you factor in the extreme velocity, which is about, let's see, forty miles per second when they impact, then you get anywhere from a hundred thousand megatons of energy upwards to several million megatons of energy.

PAUL HOFFMAN: More than all the atomic bombs on Earth going off.

PAUL CHODAS: A great deal more, yes. It's just unimaginable in human terms.

PAUL HOFFMAN: But astronomers won't get to watch the explosion directly because the comet chunks will slam into the far side of Jupiter. The impact sites will rotate into Earth's view some 30 minutes later. Thus, Hubble and Earth-based telescopes will only be able to see the aftermath of the collision. The spacecraft Galileo will have the only ringside seat. But, unfortunately, the craft's main high speed antenna's crippled, forcing NASA to use a much slower back-up antenna. This means photos of the encounter won't get back to Earth until mid August. No one is sure what those photos will look like Bob Mitchell is a NASA engineer who works with Galileo.

BOB MITCHELL, NASA: We just do not know how big the events are going to be and, therefore, what we'll be able to see. Depending on the size of the fragment or if it breaks up into smaller fragments which a number of the fragments have been doing, then it'll look -- it'll be like meteorites, and there will be a number of small flashes. And so whether we see several small flashes or one big flash or none at all will give us some indication of exactly what happened.

PAUL HOFFMAN: While the multi-billion dollar Hubble and Galileo are focused on tomorrow's collision, the irony is that the cometary interloper was discovered by three part-time astronomers scraping by on a $25,000 a year budget and stealing time on a tired old telescope, the 18-inch instrument on Mount Palomar. Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker discovered the comet in late March, 1993 along with a colleague, David Levy, hence the name of the comet.

CAROLYN SHOEMAKER, Astronomer: Well, we knew it was unusual as soon as we found it. I turned to the others and said, I don't know what this is, it looks like a squashed comet. It looked like someone had stepped on one. But we knew right then and there that we had something very unusual.

PAUL HOFFMAN: The Shoemakers told other astronomers about the strange squashed comet. Larger and more powerful telescopes not only verified their discovery but found that the comet had flown apart into 21 chunks and was headed for a deadly meeting with Jupiter.

PAUL HOFFMAN: How did you feel then?

CAROLYN SHOEMAKER: Mixed feelings. One of dismay because, oh, I'm going to lose my comet, and it was such a beautiful comet. I just envisioned that that comet was going to be out there for years, and we were going to get to see it for a long time. And by that time, we realized that there were about 21 separate nuclei, and it was truly a beautiful thing in all the images, so I was dismayed. And on the other hand, after I thought for a little bit, I thought, if I'm going to lose one, I want it to go out with fireworks. So now my problem is: Will it go out with fireworks?

PAUL HOFFMAN: Astronomers like Yeomans at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are not sure how catastrophic the collisions will be which will make tomorrow all the more fun.

DON YEOMANS, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: It could be anything from an absolute fizzle -- i.e., the pieces could break up high into the atmosphere in Jupiter -- or it could be quite a phenomena -- a several million megaton blast blowing material up into the atmosphere of Jupiter where it can be seen by ground-based astronomers. So it -- our experience base is so limited we've never seen or witnessed anything like this before that the best we can do is just cast a wide net.

PAUL HOFFMAN: Even if the collision turns out not to be spectacular to look at, it will be a gold mine for science. Astronomers have already learned from this that comets are held together only loosely. They can literally be pulled apart by hand.

DON YEOMANS: There's a paradigm switch, if you will, a new way of thinking about comets. Before this event, we thought of comets as a solid, monolithic ice ball covered with some sort of a crust of organic or carbon-based molecules. Now we tend to think of comets as, as sort of a rubble pile, bits and pieces that are held together very loosely, a very fragile structure instead of a monolithic structure.

PAUL HOFFMAN: Celestial garbage they may be but in one sense we're all the sons and daughters of comets.

GENE SHOEMAKER, Astronomer: Comets delivered to the Earth the environment for life, the water that's in our oceans, the gases in our atmosphere, the carbon, actually the chemical elements that are necessary for life, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, came from comets. In some real sense, we are the progeny of comets.

PAUL HOFFMAN: Most scientists think that 65 million years ago a comet hit the Yucatan, kicking up enough dust to block out the sun. Plants died, followed by the dinosaurs that lived on them.

GENE SHOEMAKER: The comet that hit Yucatan 65 million years ago and wiped out the dominant terrestrial land forms made room for mammals to speciate. There was a burst of speciation among mammals. New mammals came into being, and that's why we're here today. So we can, in effect, trace our existence to a comet impact that occurred 65 million years ago.

PAUL HOFFMAN: As for comet Shoemaker-Levy, its rendezvous with Jupiter is no more than a return home because Jupiter, like the other large gaseous planets in the outer solar system, was originally formed by coalescing comets. But surprisingly, scientists know little else about Jupiter. They don't know what gives the planet its ruddy colors. They're not sure what causes its notorious stormy red spots. They don't know the composition of its dense atmosphere. They don't even known where the jovian atmosphere ends and the solid core of the planet begins. They hope the comet encounter will clear up some of these mysteries.

DON YEOMANS: If these fragments of the comet are large enough to punch into the depths of Jupiter's atmosphere and blow material back out into the atmosphere where it can be seen, we can determine for the first time what is the chemical nature of the interior of Jupiter.

PAUL HOFFMAN: Fortunately, the comet's collision with Jupiter as a spectator sport would certainly be a different game if a catastrophic impact happened here on Earth.

GENE SHOEMAKER: My best estimate is that a comet that's about 3500 feet in diameter -- that's about a kilometer -- hits the Earth about once every million years, something that size or bigger, and a body about six miles in diameter hits the Earth about every hundred million years.

PAUL HOFFMAN: While the odds, thankfully, are against any of us ever meeting a comet up close and personal, that hasn't stopped scientists from running computer simulations of a comet triggering cosmic armageddon here on Earth. Tomorrow's spectacle will give them a real life experiment to test their Doom's Day theories against. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the main stories of this Friday, King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin will hold a summit with President Clinton on July 25th at the White House. Leaders of Rwanda's Tutsi rebels said they will set up a new government next week. Sec. of State Christopher said the U.S. will no longer recognize Rwanda's defeated leadership. The world's largest refugee camp is forming in Zaire as Rwanda's Hutu majority escapes the rebel takeover. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. Have a nice weekend. We'll see you on Monday night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.