The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, full coverage of a Senate report on the potential for year 2000 computer chaos. Betty Ann Bowser tells the story of discrimination against black farmers. And Margaret Warner talks to the architect who gave the Washington Monument a very different look. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: A Senate panel said today the US will not be paralyzed by year 2000 computer bugs. The Special Committee said most American businesses were safe but others, especially within the health care industry, were not. Senators Robert Bennett of Utah and Chris Dodd of Connecticut led the panel, which issued an interim report today. They said there may be more problems overseas. We'll have Senators Bennett and Dodd and more on the story right after this News Summary. The Justice Department today came out against renewing the Independent Counsel Law, and a White House spokesman said President Clinton felt the same way. The statute has been in force for 21 years. It will expire in June if not renewed. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder presented the administration position to a House Judiciary Subcommittee.

ERIC HOLDER, Deputy Attorney General: The statute removes many of the constraints that normally limit prosecutors, constraints that exist for good reason under our system of government. In so doing, the acts structure comes dangerously close to tipping the traditional balance of fairness in the conduct of criminal investigations and prosecutions. Independent counsel are largely insulated from any meaningful budget process, competing public duties, time limits, accountability to superiors and identification with the traditional long-term interests of the Department of Justice. This insulation contributes to the independence of these prosecutors but it also eliminates the incentive to show restraint in the exercise of prosecutorial power.

JIM LEHRER: Overseas today, Rwandan rebels killed at least eight tourists, including two Americans, in the East African nation of Uganda. We have this report from Vera Frankel of APTN.

VERA FRANKEL: Shocked survivors are comforted as they try to come to terms with the kidnap ordeal that left eight others dead. Ugandan officials say the eight died after being caught in the cross-fire of a shoot-out between troops and rebels during a rescue attempt. But one survivor, American Mark Ross, said the rebels killed them.

MARK ROSS, Tour Leader: They were executed. There wasn't any rescue attempt. I mean, you know, we ran into the Ugandan soldiers heading up the Southwest at around a quarter to 5 that evening. But we were already on our way back down. Nobody rescued us.

VERA FRANKEL: The tourists were in the jungle tracking rare mountain gorillas. The area made famous in the film "Gorillas in the Mist" is a popular tourist destination. It was thought to be safe until this incident.

MARK ROSS: I got my people moving and we left. We got on down and then came across the first set of bodies. The women that we had been told would be escorted back had been killed on the spot. It looks like one was raped prior to being killed.

VERA FRANKEL: The Ugandan government has issued a statement blaming the Intera Hom Way for the kidnapping. That's the militia implicated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide of more than half a million people.

JIM LEHRER: Fightingspread in Kosovo today. Yugoslav forces pounded targets near the border with Macedonia. Tank and mortar fire hit areas where refugees had fled from earlier fighting. Some 350 ethnic Albanian refugees were evacuated from the area. The White House today defended US Intelligence involvement in UN weapons inspections in Iraq. Spokesman David Levy said US and other member nations provided information and technical support to weapons inspectors. He said the appropriate UN officials were told of that covert activity. A "Washington Post" report today said the UN did not know about it. A deal protecting thousands of acres of California redwoods was announced today. The federal government will purchase 10,000 acres of forest in Northern California for nearly $500 million. Many of the trees were to be cut down by the Pacific Lumber Company. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a Y2K problem update, discrimination against black farmers, and a new look for the Washington Monument.

UPDATE - 2000 - BEATING THE BUG

JIM LEHRER: The year 2000 computer bug: Spencer Michels begins.

SPENCER MICHELS: From the crowded streets of midtown Manhattan to the Great Wall in China, people the world over have been watching millennium clocks count down to January 1, the year 2000. The clocks are ticking fast, with just a little more than 300 days to go. With that in mind, a Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 technology problem has drafted a status report on how well government and industry are faring in preparation for the much-anticipated and sometimes-feared day.

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: We want to be sure, in words that we've used before, that while we are Paul Revere, we are not Chicken Little. We have to get everybody aroused to the fact that the British really are coming. They have to get out of their warm beds and pick up their muskets and get ready for this one. But the sky is not falling.

SPENCER MICHELS: Computer programmers around the globe hope they can beat the deadline in time to correct what is known as the Y2K problem, or the millennium bug. Programmers use a special language, or code, to write the programs that tell the computer what to do. The problem was born back in the early days of the computer. To conserve computer memory, then very costly, the world's software writers would write dates with the fewest possible numbers. Within computer programs, December 31, 1999, was written 123199. Few in the computer industry expected this computer languages to last until now. But many did, leaving 700 billion lines of old computer instructions to be fixed. If they're not fixed, January 1, the year 2000, will register as 010100, which a computer could read as January 1, 1900. That's the big fear. For example, a bank's computer could suddenly read a mortgage statement as 99 years overdue. Electric companies' computers could suddenly think generators all over the country were a century past due for repair and shut them down, thereby crippling the power grid.

SEN. JOHN KERRY, [D] Massachusetts: John Healy was one of those small business owners who thought it was somebody else's problem. It couldn't happen to him. Luckily for John Healy and his business, he got a scare, and so he decided to test his computer system by creating a purchase order for motorcycle pistons with a receivable date of early January 2000. So what happened when he put in the order in into his system? He punched a key and he waited for his software to calculate how many days it would take to receive the order. He got back a series of question marks.

SPENCER MICHELS: There is a heated debate about just how dire the problem may be. No one knows for sure, and opinions range from Y2K survivalists who are preparing for the worst.

RONALD CASH, Year 2000 Survivalist: The population is going to drop dramatically. Starvation is going to be kicking in there. You're going to have water problems.

SPENCER MICHELS: To public utility industry officials, who predict few disruptions.

MICHAEL HYLAND, American Public Power Association: Right now we anticipate no power outages outside of the normal outages we see on any New Year's Eve date.

SPENCER MICHELS: But anticipating that some problems could occur, the Senate today unanimously approved an emergency loan program for small businesses wishing to make costly repairs now. It is also considering a bill to limit lawsuits resulting from Y2K failures. The Senate report, co-authored by Republican Senator Robert Bennett and Democrat Christopher Dodd, concluded, among other things, that, when it comes to preparing for Y2K, there is a lack of leadership at the highest levels of government and industry. The health care industry is one of the worst prepared, and "carries a significant potential for harm." International aviation and maritime industries are both at high risk for service and shipping disruption from the millennium bug. And key US trading partners like the oil-exporting nations of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia lag behind, raising concerns about the global economy when the year 2000 rolls around. The Clinton administration has imposed a deadline for all federal agencies and departments. They have been told to rid their essential and critical computers of the millennium bug by March 31.

JIM LEHRER: And to Elizabeth Farnsworth in San Francisco.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And with me now are the co-authors of the Senate report: Robert Bennett, Republican of Utah, and chair of the Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem; and Chris Dodd, of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on the committee. Joining them are Bruce Webster, chief technology officer of Object Systems Group, a Dallas software development consulting firm. He recently wrote the "Y2K Survival Guide," a personal preparation manual for the year 2000. And Lou Marcoccio, Y2K research director at the Gartner Group, a technology and business advice company in Stamford, Connecticut. The Gartner group served as a consultant for the report released today. Senator Bennett, expand a little on your "Paul Revere-Chicken Little" remarks, please. What is your view of the overall risk Americans face right now because of the Y2K problem?

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT, Chairman, Special Committee on Year 2000: I think America as a whole will be all right. I think we'll have some problems but they will be localized, and how seriously they disrupt your life will frankly depend on where you live and where you work. If your employer isn't compliant or if your town isn't compliant, you might have water problems or other problems, where most Americans say, gee, this is no big deal. But I think the main infrastructure issues that we face are frankly going to be all right. And if I may, I think our committee can take some of the credit for that in the Paul Revere role. But we do have to worry about the Chicken Little because some people will panic and the panic will end up being more disruptive in their lives than the Y2K problem would be.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So Senator Dodd, just being as specific as possible, do you not expect widespread disruption of electricity, telephones, that sort of thing?

SEN.CHRISTOPHER DODD, Vice Chair, Special Committee on Year 2000:You know, if I can try and synthesize this, the three areas where we at least at this juncture don't see any widespread problem at all, in fact we see a lot of compliance, generally speaking, there are some exceptions here, but financial services are in very good shape and our estimation at home, the issue of utilities are in good shape, with exception of maybe some smaller utilities, some smaller grids could be a problem. We also see the telecommunications field to be primarily in good shape in the country. Again, there may be some exceptions here; there are problems we've got to watch for; but based on our interim assessment here, we think they're on the right track. The areas where we see a problem are in health care, in the area of international relations, if you will, problems offshore that need to be dealt with. We see problems, as well, within the business community, smaller businesses that haven't complied as much, some transportation in government services. Those are the problem areas and those are the areas I've mentioned that are in pretty good shape.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Senator Dodd, specifically what's the problem with health care?

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: Well, you've got 6,000 hospitals, about 800,000 doctors, 50,000 nursing homes. Right now, Our assessment is that about 64 percent of the hospitals in this country are lagging behind. I'll use that terminology. That number is actually higher when you start looking at inner city, urban hospitals or rural facilities that don't have the financial wherewithal to either do the remediation or to buy new equipment. We see in doctors' offices somewhere between 80 and 85 percent of doctors' offices don't have any assessment of whether or not they're going to have a problem with this Y2K issue. You need to get ahead of that. There are other areas here, such as the -- we discovered -- Bob and I did -- in the last 24, 48 hours that 80 percent of the ingredients in all US-manufactured pharmaceutical products come from offshore. That proposes some serious problems in a sense that we're having difficulties offshore getting those products to make the pharmaceuticals that are needed; 40 million Americans require some prescription drugs every day and that could pose a serious risk as well.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Bruce Webster, help us understand the timing of this. You've been looking at it and still are very carefully. Is -- the disruptions that would occur, however minor or major would they occur early January 1st? How will Americans experience this?

BRUCE WEBSTER, Information Technology Consultant: Well, actually, I think that January 1st will be a bit anti-climatic. There is a lot of progress being made. The more spectacular failures have either been overblown or have been repaired. The danger, partly as the Senators have eluded to, is that of panic or market reaction leading up to January 1st. And then on the far side of Y2K, I think the real danger there is economic. I think far more Americans will feel Y2K in their pocketbooks than will find, you know, problems with power or water supply or whatever.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How so? What do you mean?

BRUCE WEBSTER: Well, I see a number of factors that can contribute to an economic slowdown and reception. These can be disruption in oil supply, it can be issues of supply chain and manufacturing, it can be issues of a worsening of the current global economic problem. It can be a problem of simply corporations which are already doing record layoffs finding themselves having to scale back even more as Y2K problems sort of bleed them from a thousand cuts or as a friend said the other day, you know, torment by a thousand flea bites from Y2K problems that weren't caught.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lou Marcoccio, do you share that worry that the domestic economic problems are really the biggest concern?

LOU MARCOCCIO, The Gartner Group: Yes, I do. Actually, the domestic problems, as Senator Dodd said, are mostly focused on the -- some of the smaller hospitals, some of the local city and town governments, smaller businesses. Most of our infrastructure here in the US is in very good shape. From a timing perspective of when these things will occur, basically we're going to see a wrap of up even before January 1, 2000, associated with system failures. These systems basically will start failing as more and more companies and service companies enter their fiscal years in July and in October. We have a number of date anomalies that are built in software code that will be affected throughout the second half of 1999. And the failure period of when we will actually experience these system failures is going to last from about mid 1999 through the end of 2000 into the first quarter of 2001. We will have more volume during the January time frame of 2000, but the overall failures are really a longer issue, about an 18-month issue. Luckily, they're not all going to happen at the same time. They're going to happen when companies run certain transactions in the operation of their company. And these things are run at different times over that 18-month period.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Senator Bennett, what did your committee find about risks to the domestic economy?

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: I think the major risk to the domestic economy will come from failures overseas paradoxically. One of the things that has hit all of us on this committee is the discovery of just how interconnected the global economy is. And we talk to each other around the world by computers now. The computer is everywhere. It's ubiquitous. And as there are problems overseas, either in the supply chain that's been referred to, so that we can't get material that we used to get in the same time frame we used to get it, or the collapse of markets where we can't sell things that we used to sell because the things can't be processed, something as simple as Customs forms that will control the shipping of goods across national borders are all controlled by computers. I think it's true that you will hit January 1 and things -- the world will still be there and you'll say, oh, this behind us. And then systems will start to deteriorate. Supply chains, infrastructure systems in some other countries, and then there will be interruptions and I think the economic impact will probably hit a little later in the first quarter or maybe even the second quarter of 2000. If I had a really god crystal ball, I'd be rich but that's where I think things are going to be.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Senator Dodd, I want to move on now to the national security issues here. This will interest Americans a great deal. What about the dangers of something like a mistake in missile launch because of this problem?

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: Well, we think the risk of that is pretty low. So we first of all to follow our admonition here, and that is that we don't want to create any language here. It's very important and panic in itself can create a whole new issue that - as Senator Bennett has said - could be more problematical than the Y2K problem. So we think it's a low-level problem. One of the ideas that's being suggested and we think has a lot of merit is to establish in Colorado Springs where there is a facility a sort of a window where representatives, teams if you will, from nations that possess a nuclear weapon capabilities, obviously Russia, possibly Pakistan and India, possibly China, to come together here during this period of time when you could have computer failure, satellite failure, causing a nation in a sense to be blind for a period of time; not able to determine whether or not it's under any threat. This way by being in that facility, the nations that have these weapons would be able to watch, as we would watch, during periods like that and minimize the threat of a nuclear - of a premature nuclear launch or someone overreacting to a situation. So that's a very positive suggestion, one that we think actually Senator Moynihan has wisely raised the suggestion that out of this Y2K problem, maybe some more permanent ideas that could offer some stability in the area of nuclear weapons proliferation in the 21st century might emerge. Aside from the bad news of the potential Y2K problem, maybe some ideas will come out that can be helpful. Let me mention, if I can, one thing that Bob wanted to - has talked about that's very important on the economic front and the national security front, and that is one of the things we want to make sure doesn't happen is many countries around the world where the Y2K issue is more of a problem, there's some concern people may decide to move currencies, resources they have out of their own countries, then bring them here, figuring this would be a safer place to be. We would urge people not to jump at that at all. One of the things that would hurt us economically, be a real problem internationally, is if we had a drain of resources out of developing countries to the United States, thereby depleting their resources, hurting our ability to sell into these markets, that could create an economic problem that we haven't anticipated.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Bruce Webster, are you finding that potential in your research?

BRUCE WEBSTER: Yes, the wealth transfer issue is one that Senator Bennett actually raised very early on in this, and it remains a big concern. We are, as I said, so tied together that we can't always see what the

chain reaction is. Simple issue, another economic impact; a lot of corporations wisely for their contingency planning are stockpiling goods. This in and of itself could depress consumption the first half of 2000 and hit issues there. What we face is a discovery of the complex systems that we have built or that have evolved worldwide. They tie us together in ways we don't fully understand and we discover those connections only as we tug at strings, trying to untie the proverbial Gourdian knot.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lou Marcoccio, has there been a lot of progress in the past year on preparing for this?

LOU MARCOCCIO: There has been phenomenal progress actually. We still have many areas that need to be focused on and especially areas that are lagging behind. But the progress has been phenomenal. Companies like banking and quite a few countries like in Mexico, here in the US and in a number of other countries has moved forward exceptionally well. We have large pharmaceutical companies, many large discrete manufacturing companies, many, many companies throughout the world have really focused, spent an awful lot of money, time and effort and there's been tremendous progress -- especially during the last two quarters of 1998. And we see even more of a shiftoccurring, even in the start of 1999, such that companies are actually spending a lot more money in the areas of business risk assessment as far as their dependencies overseas and in other areas and implementing contingencies to stave off some of those risks and some of those issues.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Senator Bennett, what is your committee recommending for individuals and the nation?

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: For individuals I recommend take charge of your own Y2K problem. Don't sit around and read the newspapers and say this is going to happen nationwide and therefore I'm going to panic. Whatever happens nationwide is less important to you than what's going to happen in your hometown. Talk to your own banker. Talk to your own city hall. Ask the question of whether or not your city is going to have water supply. I've done that with the mayor of Salt Lake City and she assures me everything is going to be all right. That's where I expect to be on New Year's Eve. Look at your own records, look at your own pharmaceutical needs, talk to your pharmacist, understand what you need and take charge, make your own contingency plans and you'll be fine. For the nation, we're just going to continue to do what we've been doing for the last year and keep holding hearings, keep running investigations, keep having interviews. I think the mere fact that someone gets a phone call telling him or her you're going to be invited to testify before the Senate of the United States on the status of Y2K preparedness in your company or your industry or your city or your state stimulates activity that frankly wouldn't have taken place otherwise. And I think the committee -- the committee will continue to do that, and I hope play a positive role.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Senator Dodd, do I have something to add about what's recommended?

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: No. Bob Bennett has done a great job with this. We've got wonderful members of the committee. I mentioned Pat Moynihan and Gordon Smith, John Kyle, Susan Collins, a new member John Edwards joining us, and a member from North Carolina. People are really committed to raising the profile. We have no legislative authority. Today the Senate gave us some additional resources to work between now and March 1 of next year. We just want to urge people, as Bob Bennett said, the best effort here can be made by individual people raising the questions, talking to people at home, talking to their municipalities, people in their states, not to panic about this; there's no reason to around stockpiling and buying large quantities of food or other things. That's not necessary here at all. There are going to be some problems, we think, but they have shouldn't be too pronounced. I think the Gartner Group has suggested - you can correct me here if I'm wrong -- that most of the problems, about 90 percent of them, if are there are any, will be resolvable in somewhere around 72 hours and that 10 percent of the problems that go on, they will be a few days more than that potentially in some areas. So, this doesn't have to be as big an issue at home. And the more work that's done in the next 300 days will even minimize those risks.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you all four very much for being with us.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, black farmers fight discrimination, and a new look for the Washington Monument.

FOCUS - BITTER HARVEST

JIM LEHRER: Betty Ann Bowser has the black farmers story.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Abraham Carpenter and his family once produced more sweet potatoes and turnip greens than anybody in Arkansas. But several years ago, Carpenter says the local office of the Farm Service Agency, run by the US Department of Agriculture, stopped payment on federal disaster loans, claiming Carpenter obtained the money fraudulently. The agency later admitted it had made a mistake, but by then, Carpenter says, his credit was ruined, and his farm business was in trouble.

ABRAHAM CARPENTER: I wasn't able to even get out there and produce the crops that I could go out and sell and make a decent income. You know, by them cutting my funds off-- and they held them for probably about three years -- you cut off three years of income, you know, and take a half a million dollars, basically out of that person's income, you can't produce. So I had to turn down contracts. I lost some contracts.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Carpenter says his problems are a result of outright discrimination by the local office of the USDA.

ABRAHAM CARPENTER: I guess it would just have to labeled-- there's no other way for it-- discrimination, you know, outright discrimination. You've got people in the state office, you know, saying that "that nigger should have been satisfied with $100,000, instead of trying to get $500,000," or they might say "we're going to cut that nigger's money off and see how he's going to buy businesses and buy land."

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Carpenter isn't the only farmer complaining. Since the 1960's, black farmers have lost 27 million acres of privately owned farmland, and as acreage shrank, so did the number of black farmers. In 1920, there were nearly one million black farm operators in the United States. Today, there are fewer than 17,000. That means black farmers are going out of business at a rate three times that of white farmers. For years, black farmers have maintained they were routinely discriminated against by the USDA in getting loans and disaster relief. They say the problem was made worse after President Reagan disbanded the USDA's Civil Rights Enforcement Unit in 1981. Two years ago, they went to Washington to protest and filed a class-action lawsuit demanding compensation. In January, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman agreed the farmers had been badly treated and announced a preliminary settlement.

DAN GLICKMAN: We are here to announce an historic agreement for both the USDA and, I believe, for our country. It is an agreement that will close a painful chapter in USDA's history and open a more constructive front in our efforts to see this department emerge as the federal civil rights leader in the 21st century.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Since that announcement, lawyers have gone from state to state to sign up farmers who feel they've been discriminated against by the USDA. So far, they say over 12,000 farmers have applied.

ALEXANDER PIRES: This is the most organized, largest civil rights case in the history of the country.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Alexander Pires is the lead attorney in the case. Last week he explained who is eligible for compensation to a group of nearly a thousand farmers, who came from all over the state to a meeting in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

ALEXANDER PIRES: This lawsuit was intended for all black farmers who have farmed at any time, or tried to farm at any time, since 1981, and who had gone to USDA to try to get a loan of any type, to try to participate in the disaster program, try to restructure a loan, get an operating loan, get a farm ownership loan to restructure their loan, and were discriminated against, and filed a complaint complaining about that.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Then the lawyers helped farmers with the paperwork.

LAWYER: You need to name a white person that received fair treatment versus your father's treatment, okay?

SECOND LAWYER: If you had received your loan at the same time that the white farmers did, do you believe that you would've been able to have that property still today?

FARMER: Yes.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Under the settlement, farmers have two choices. With Option One, they get a tax- free $50,000 cash payment and forgiveness of all outstanding USDA loans. This was designed for farmers who have a minimum amount of documentation of discrimination. Secretary Glickman estimates Option One will give each farmer about $200,000. But some farmers, like Henry Valentine, a sixth-generation wheat farmer, think that's not enough.

HENRY VALENTINE: $50,000 is nothing compared to the suffering that farmers go through. To tell me $50,000, we're going to settle with you for $50,000, write your debt off, a debt that they caused me to have in the first place by systematically delaying my loans, then that's just a slap in the face to me.

LAWYER: After that, did you make any more applications?

FARMER: No, I didn't make any more applications.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Under Option Two, farmers who think they deserve more money and have a higher level of documentation can ask to be compensated for all of their losses that resulted from government discrimination. But regardless of which option farmers choose, they must show they complained about discrimination to the USDA. In some cases, proving that may not be easy, because farmers often didn't keep records, so the lawyers have to help them reconstruct history.

LAWYER: We need to show what the effect of that discrimination was in your pocket.

FARMER: I lost a tremendous amount of property.

LAWYER: Yes, it sure was. In other words, we'll take what your income actually was, and then project what it might have been, had you been allowed to get those loans. Obviously, with a foreclosure, you lose the whole ball of wax.

PROTESTERS: You did it! I didn't!

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But protesters who think the settlement doesn't give enough in damages held a demonstration outside a federal court house in Washington, DC, today. Inside, a hearing on the fairness of the settlement took place, where 17 complaints were considered. A federal judge is expected to rule on it soon. But most farmers say money is only part of what needs to be done.

FARMER: There should be something done about the people who are operating these agencies. There should be a restructuring of the whole system.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: That's precisely what Secretary Glickman says he's trying to do. But it's not a simple system to change. Even though the USDA funds the Loan and Disaster programs, who gets the money is determined by local county committees, made up of farmers who are elected by their peers. Until recently, these powerful committees were usually all white. But Secretary Glickman says that is changing.

SECRETARY DAN GLICKMAN: We are trying to make sure that the committees who run USDA programs at the state level and at the national level represent a better diversity of people in this country. We have changed some systems of accountability to ensure that, in fact, if people don't do it the right way, they're out of here.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Abraham Carpenter says not a single member of his local farm board has been replaced.

ABRAHAM CARPENTER: If a person has committed acts of discrimination, I don't understand how they can sit there and remain unpunished and untouched, you know, and keep on committing acts of discrimination. You know, if that person is not removed from office, that tells me that somebody in the higher authority is supporting discrimination.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And since the boards are elected locally, Secretary Glickman admits that poses problems.

SECRETARY DAN GLICKMAN: We can do a lot based upon the authorities we have, but most of the employees out to work in these counties are technically not federal employees. This is a unique brand of employment, where they get their paychecks from USDA, but they are technically employees of the County Committee. So it is a little harder for the Secretary and the Department of Agriculture from Washington to set standards than it might be if they were all straight federal employees, straight federal civil servants. But I'm not using that as an excuse.

SPOKESMAN: I've heard so much about you --

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Mike Dunaway is in charge of making sure black farmers get fair treatment at the local level in Arkansas. He runs the USDA's Farm Service Agency for the state. Last week he spoke at a Black History Month event sponsored by his department.

MIKE DUNAWAY, Arkansas Farm Service: We, as USDA servants, probably are not going to be able to help everyone that comes to us with everything that they're going to want done. But if we're fair in our dealings, and we treat them in a manner that we would want to be treated, a lot of these problems, folks, that we're experiencing now would be on the downhill side.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Dunaway says things are improving. For the past two years, his office led the nation in the number of loans USDA gives black farmers. And he pledges employees who discriminate will suffer consequences.

MIKE DUNAWAY: If we have an employee or anyone charged with not treating people with dignity and respect, or charged with discrimination, it's going to be fully investigated. And if it can be proven, it will be appropriately dealt with. We still have a lot of work to do. Sensitivity training is something we definitely need to do. But we have got a good start with the civil rights training that we've done, and with the customer service training that we've done.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Rice farmer Ephron Lewis agrees that relations with the farm agency have gotten better for both him and his son.

EPHRON LEWIS: Things are better for him and things better for me at the local office. With the new guidelines, I guess, that the Department of Agriculture handed down, our office is 100 percent better than it used to be, even though we may have the same people there. But they are a lot different. They look at things -- they look at you as people, instead of looking you as just a subject.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The USDA says the settlement should secure a bright future for black farmers.

SPOKESMAN: What about tomorrow night?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Abraham Carpenter isn't so sure. He's telling his 12-year-old son Carlos to go to college someday and study anything but farming.

CONVERSATION - WORKING ART

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a new look for the Washington Monument. This evening, an official lighting ceremony marks the unusual effort. Margaret Warner talked with architect Michael Graves about the project earlier today. She begins with some background.

MARGARET WARNER: The Washington Monument has stood as a symbol of the nation's capital for more than a century.

STEPHEN LORENZETTI, National Capital Parks-Central: This one here shows some ideas of what the building might have looked like.

MARGARET WARNER: This tribute to America's first President was a long time in the making. Architect Robert Mills won the original design competition in the 1830's.

STEPHEN LORENZETTI: This is the Robert Mills' design that won in 1836.

MARGARET WARNER: Work began in 1848, but soon lack of money and the onset of the Civil War froze construction for 20 years. When work resumed in 1876, builders had to use a slightly different color marble. And Mills' design was scaled back, eliminating all but the simple obelisk of classical proportions that remains today. When the 555-foot structure opened to the public in 1888, it was the tallest building in the world. Since then, tens of millions of tourists have ridden the elevator or climbed the nearly 900 steps to catch the views from the top. But decades of scorching sun, strong winds, and rain have badly weathered the facade. A 1992 study commissioned by the National Park Service found several serious cracks near the top that have let rain penetrate the interior, damaging the commemorative stones inside.

STEPHEN LORENZETTI: If you look closely, you can see rust stains on various parts of the stone. This is caused by water coming through the joints over the iron lentil above the stone and depositing the rust stains on the stone itself.

MARGARET WARNER: The Park Service decided a lengthy overhaul was in order, inside and out. But it didn't want to create the same kind of eyesore the last renovation had, with its bulky steel scaffolding that obscured the beauty of the landmark. A public/private partnership sponsoring the new renovation -- including the Park Service, the Park Service Foundation, Target Stores, and the Discovery Channel -- chose famed Princeton, New Jersey, architect Michael Graves to design a scaffolding that wouldn't obscure the landmark's dramatic effect. After nearly 40 years as an architect, Graves has produced a remarkable collection of high-profile buildings throughout the world. His distinctive style, blending classical elements, building block geometric shapes, and sun-kissed Mediterranean colors can be seen in smaller projects like this Napa Valley winery and in large-scale structures like the Humana, Inc. headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. He's known, too, for his occasionally playful elements, as in the Disney Company headquarters in Burbank, California. Graves' scaffolding for the Washington Monument, which has taken four months to erect, consists of 36 miles of aluminum tubing covered with a semi-transparent blue mesh in a pattern that echoes the rhythm of the blocks on the monument's face. The scaffolding sits three feet out from the monument face on all sides and tapers to a pyramid cap, just as the obelisk inside it. The elevator and hoists for workers and materials are inside the mesh layer to avoid marring the profile. But visitors who approach up close can see through the fabric to watch the restoration in progress. The scaffolding alone was expected to cost between $2.5 million and $3 million, a hefty chunk of the projected $9 million total budget. Predictably, reaction to the structure's new look has been mixed.

KATIE EDWARDS: I think it's hideous. I'm really disappointed. I was looking forward to seeing it, and you can't see anything.

LEE GLAZE: I'm an art teacher, so it's pretty interesting. And I also like to work with clay, so I love the style and the simplicity of it.

CHRISTOPHER PARKHILL: I mean, it has to be done. If it needs to be fixed or rectified, then that's what you have to do. I mean, it's going to preserve it for a long time.

MARGARET WARNER: The Graves scaffolding will stand as the face of the Washington Monument until the restoration is complete, expected in July of 2000.

MARGARET WARNER: And with me is Michael Graves. Why did this project interest you?

MICHAEL GRAVES, Architect: Well, I thought that given my interest in restoration and the Washington Monument itself and the city, I thought it was a great chance to give back to let's say an eight-year-old who comes from Des Moines with his parent or her parents to see the Washington Monument, and then discover that indeed it's covered with scaffolding -- what could you do to -- to somehow give them something that they didn't expect, give them two monuments -- the original monument, of course, and then this new scaffolding to sort of highlight or amplify the question of restoration. I thought we could tell a story about restoration, about monuments in general, obelisks, George Washington, that monument in the mall on the axis of the capital, et cetera, that had never been told before, simply by this act of making something new there that ultimately will come down, but to, as I say, amplify the question of restoration.

MARGARET WARNER: This kind of creative scaffolding is much more common in Europe, isn't it?

MICHAEL GRAVES: Well, you know, in Europe the buildings are so old, they're constantly under scaffold. There's a wonderful church in Rome that during the two years I lived in Rome in the 60's was under restoration the whole time. I thought it would soon come down. The next time I saw was 20 years later, it was still under scaffolding. And it was called Sempri in Restaro. But it was always in restoration. But in Japan and Asia, we cover our buildings in scaffolding so the workers can work with a kind of netting over the whole thing so that they are protected from the elements, so they -- one doesn't really see the building until it's finished, and then it all comes down.

MARGARET WARNER: So, you mean even when you're building a building from scratch?

MICHAEL GRAVES: Mm-hmm.

MARGARET WARNER: You did this in stages, where first the aluminum scaffolding went up and then the mesh went up. And a lot of people loved it with just the aluminum scaffolding. Why did you add the mesh?

MICHAEL GRAVES: I added the mesh because I thought it was important to describe what the problem was, that my eight-year-old that I mentioned wouldn't know anything about pointing, for instance. Pointing is that act of taking mortar out very carefully and putting new mortar in, repairing the stone, and fixing that surface, the outer surface of the stone, any cracks. All of that will be fixed and replaced. And I thought it was important to highlight or amplify that question of, what is restoration? Why do we need to restore buildings? Aren't they good for all time? No, in fact they need their health care as well as we do.

MARGARET WARNER: So you mean by the pattern that you used with the mesh and the aluminum, you were trying to suggest the mortar underneath?

MICHAEL GRAVES: Yes. You might have ten or twelve blocks across the top of the Monument. If we make two or three, we have sort of amplified that whole suggestion of the coursing, the ability to lay one stone against another and another one on top of those two, so that there is a pattern called running bond. But it's kind of not a layman's term, but it's a way of seeing the staggering that occurs in the laying of the stone, which is the most structurally important part of the whole Monument.

MARGARET WARNER: I was amazed to read that the Park Service had decreed that your scaffolding is supposed to support all these workers and materials, but could not be actually riveted into the Monument in any way. Was that hard to work around?

MICHAEL GRAVES: Not at all. The scaffolding is about three feet from the monument itself, enough room for workers to get through, around each other, and so on working on it. And we thought that it was important that the scaffolding simply touch or lean against the Monument. But if one side is leaning and the other side is leaning, they counterbalance each other, so it's not a structural problem at all.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, as you heard, the reaction to this has been mixed. Does that surprise you?

MICHAEL GRAVES: It does surprise me, because last week I was here for another meeting for another project, and as I was going to my hotel, I asked the cab driver to take me around the Monument, "One turn around please," and he said he would. And he asked -- he then told me that, did I know the Monument was closed? I said, yes, I didn't want to go in, I just wanted to see the scaffolding. He said, "Well, it's very interesting," not knowing who I was or what my role in this was. He said, "It's very interesting. All my fares"-- in other words, all his passengers that have gone to the scaffolding have said -- "I like it better this way than the former way." And Robert Mills is a favorite architect of mine, the original architect, so I wouldn't want him to hear that, but nevertheless, I like that comment. So I was all pumped up that a lot of people liked it.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, some in our piece liked it also.

MICHAEL GRAVES: Yes, of course.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, the critics have tried to describe you, and they've described you as a postmodernist or postmodern classicist. I mean, one -- do those terms mean anything to you? How do you define yourself?

MICHAEL GRAVES: An architect. That's good enough. You're a journalist, I'm an architect.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you describe -- do you describe your style?

MICHAEL GRAVES: Well, you can, but to -- to label people is a thing that you guys do to us that is too easy -- because it's -- whether music or poetry or politics, you have to -- you have to give the description a greater breadth. And I'm interested in lots of things in architecture, but in terms of making buildings that are accessible and making language that is accessible -- the language of architecture -- because, you know, if an architect makes a door or a window, it comes with a whole lot of baggage. And if -

MARGARET WARNER: You mean expectations people have?

MICHAEL GRAVES: Yes, yes. Where is the front door? Where is the back door? What do they mean in our society? What's front and back? What's the threshold? What's -- what is the facade of a building here in Washington, let's say, say to us as we approach that building? And that's the language that is carried out every day in architecture, those kinds of expectations. It's not to say that you simply repeat the language. You might turn it on its head, you might change it, you might vary it in various ways, but you first of all have to -- you speak a language that uses accent, uses change, uses difference. But unless you're speaking a language people get, nobody's going to get anything. So I'm trying in my architecture to refine the kind of language that I've been working with for 35 or 40 years and make that language more explicit and clearer every day.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, you've received much critical acclaim, also of course sometimes critics, as you know, look at some of your buildings-- particularly I'm thinking of, say, that Disney facade, the Disney headquarters facade with their 18-high-foot Seven Dwarf Gargoyles-- and they say, "He's just gimmicky." Does that bother you?

MICHAEL GRAVES: I haven't read that one. Actually, it was a wonderful partnership between Frank Wells and Michael Asner and myself in terms of constructing that facade. And they really pushed me to say something about what they were, what they stood for, and how they supported their part of the industry, the film part of films of Disney. And the Seven Dwarfs -- "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was the first full-length movie, and so I think it was Frank Wells who said, "Why don't we use them somehow on the facade?" So using the kind of classical idea of Hermes to support the roof was an idea that came rather quickly, and then we developed the facade using that. I don't really see it as a gimmick. They are the -- you are working for an entertainment company. You're not doing a tombstone for somebody. You're not doing something that is altogether serious. You're working for Disney.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, as we noted in the piece, you also don't just build buildings. I think one of your most recognizable, I don't know, symbols or pieces of work is that Alessi Teakettle. And you design all kinds of things you sell in your shop in Princeton. I read one article that said you were the only architect in America who had his own bridal registry. I'm just wondering, why do you do that? Why do you -- why do you -

MICHAEL GRAVES: I haven't been married that often.

MARGARET WARNER: I think they meant you provide one for people.

MICHAEL GRAVES: Yes, yes, yes.

MARGARET WARNER: Why do you do this? Why does it interest you?

MICHAEL GRAVES: I guess it interests me because I've never thought that architecture is limited to, you know, making just buildings. We came through a time in the 1950's where architects became specialists. They were going to only do museums or only do, let's say, office buildings. And I've never felt that way about architecture because when I was trained in the 40's and 50's, it was the time of Saarinen and Mies and Le Corbusier, and the Eameses. And these are people who designed furniture and fabrics and buildings and the interiors, the exteriors, the landscapes and so on, just the way Michelangelo designed the costumes for the Swiss Guards in front of St. Peters -- very few people know that. But if I were to do that, you know, the critics would come out of the woodwork and say, you know, "What's he up to now?" So it's a way of saying that -- that everything in the domestic interior, as well as the office environment, is up for grabs in terms of an architect or a designer working in that manner. Many of the designers, the industrial designers of Europe were trained as architects. They happened to specialize in industrial design, but I have elected not to do that. But small things, as well as large things, interest me a whole lot, and I don't see why to -- why I should stop at the moment we reach the door.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Graves, and congratulations.

MICHAEL GRAVES: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: And a few minutes ago, the lights went on at the Washington Monument. Here's how it looked -- accompanied by singer Amy Grant.

AMY GRANT: [singing] Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain. America, America, God shed his grace on thee. And crown they good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. Oh beautiful for patriots dreams that sees beyond the years. Thine alabaster cities gleamed, undimmed by human tears. America, America, God shed his grace on thee.

And crown they good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. America, America, God shed his grace on thee. And crown they good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea - from sea to shining sea.

JIM LEHRER: That special lighting will be on every night until the end of the project.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday: A Senate panel said the United States will not be paralyzed by year 2000 computer bugs. The Justice Department said it was against renewing the Independent Counsel Law. And at least eight tourists, including two Americans, were killed in Uganda. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.