The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight former White House Counsels Lloyd Cutler and Boyden Gray debate the Supreme Court's Whitewater case; outgoing NATO commander Gen. Joulwan is here for a Newsmaker interview; we look at Big Blue's big chess victory; and we say Happy 90th birthday to Katherine Hepburn. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The President took the independent counsel to the Supreme Court today. Lawyers for President Clinton asked the justices to overturn a lower court ruling. It ordered the release to the Whitewater special prosecutor of attorneys notes taken in conversations with First Lady Hillary Clinton. The lower court ruled attorney-client privilege did not apply because Mrs. Clinton was speaking with government-paid White House lawyers, not just with her own personal lawyer. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. And at the Supreme Court today the justices ruled on a Louisiana voting rights case. At issue was what standards the Justice Department should apply in reviewing election system changes by state and local governments. The seven to two decision makes it harder for federal officials to reject changes that hurt minority voting power. In the Oklahoma City bombing trial today the prosecution's star witness said he could have stopped the bombing but did not do so. Defendant Timothy McVeigh's army buddy, Michael Fortier, said both he and McVeigh were outraged by the federal raid on Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Eighty people died in that assault. Fortier said McVeigh told him that somebody should be held accountable. Fortier wept when he explained how he lied to his father about his involvement with McVeigh. He also said he initially lied to authorities about McVeigh's innocence. McVeigh is charged with bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people. Overseas today Secretary of State Albright announced the United States would provide 100,000 dollars in earthquake relief to Iran. We have more on the devastation in this report from Paul Davies of Independent Television News.

PAUL DAVIES, ITN: In a region where most houses are made from mud Saturday's earthquake, followed by more than 150 aftershocks, has destroyed entire communities. It took just a minute for the tremor to level 200 villages in the Northeast of Iran. The search for survivors goes on, but for many hope has long since disappeared. Two and a half thousand people are believed to have been crushed beneath their homes. Earthquakes are a fact of life here but Saturday's tremor was particularly cruel. In one village one hundred girls died when their school collapsed. In all this memory there is occasional cause for hope: Noises heard beneath the debris, a few survivors found alive 36 hours after the earthquake. But efforts are now turning to caring for 50,000 left homeless. Setting aside political differences, Iran's Arab neighbors are flying in aid. America and France have promised relief, while Britain is giving 100,000 pounds to help the victims.

JIM LEHRER: In Moscow today President Yeltsin signed a peace accord with the leader of Chechnya. Yeltsin said it would end 400 years of conflict between Russia and the Muslim-dominated region. Both sides agreed to a cease-fire last year after thousands of soldiers and civilians died. That truce deferred a decision on Chechnya's final status until 2001, and called for Russian troops to be withdrawn from the area. Back in this country NATO commander General George Joulwan said today he wanted to send those indicted for Bosnian war crimes to the Hague for trial, but in a NewsHour interview Joulwan said NATO's mandate in Bosnia forbids such police functions. We'll have that interview with the general, who retires this summer, later in the program. On Wall Street today the Dow Jones Industrial Average set another record. It closed up 123 points to 7292.75. Analysts said the rally was based on the belief the Federal Reserve would not raise interest rates when it meets next week. In Miami today a rare tornado touched down on the Southwest edge of the city. Local television cameras captured the storm on videotape as it blew through downtown then tracked the shoreline to Biscayne Bay. Winds from the funnel cloud tore down trees, roofs, and traffic signs. Only minor injuries were reported. A Miami police spokesman said he had not seen anything like it in the 32 years he had lived there. Weather Service officials said other tornadoes may threaten the area. In Key West, Florida, today Australian Susie Maroney became the first person to swim from Cuba to the United States. The 22-year-old started in Havana yesterday at about noon. She came ashore 107 miles and 24 hours later in Key West. Maroney's doctor said her only injuries were bruises from the towed cage she swam in to protect her from sharks. Maroney already holds titles for record swims around New York's Manhattan Island. She has twice crossed the English Channel. Deep Blue's human programmers won another $100,000 today. The prize from Carnegie Mellon University was established 17 years ago. It was to be awarded the first time a computer beat a world chess champion in a match. Well, that happened yesterday when the IBM computer beat world champion Gary Kasparov in their sixth and final game. We'll have more on the hows and whys later in the program. Also coming up Clinton versus Starr, General Joulwan, and the 90th birthday of Katherine Hepburn. FOCUS - PRIVILEGED NOTES?

JIM LEHRER: We do go first tonight to the legal clash between President Clinton and the Whitewater independent counsel. White House lawyers today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the secrecy of conversations First Lady Hillary Clinton had with government and private lawyers about Kenneth Starr's investigation into the failed Arkansas land deal. Our coverage begins with this background report by Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: As darkness fell on January 26, 1996, Hillary Rodham Clinton emerged from four hours of testimony before a Washington, D.C. grand jury investigating the Clintons' 1980's land deal known as Whitewater.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well, you're all still here I see.

KWAME HOLMAN: Shortly afterward, Mrs. Clinton discussed her grand jury testimony at the White House with her personal attorney. Also in the meeting were lawyers from the White House Counsel's Office, lawyers paid by the government. Almost a year ago Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr subpoenaed notes from that conversation and another one Mrs. Clinton had with both sets of lawyers in the summer of 1995. Starr claimed because government lawyers were in the room the conversations are not protected by the doctrine of attorney-client privilege. The Clintons say they are, and after being ordered by a federal appeals court to turn over the notes to Starr, the White House authorized an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a speech in Arkansas over the weekend Starr said not having the notes poses a significant impediment to his ongoing investigation. He laid out why he's entitled to notes from the lawyers' meetings.

KENNETH STARR: White House attorneys are in a different category. They represent the government, and ultimately, they represent we, the people, and, as such, they are duty bound to disclose relevant information to a federal grand jury.

KWAME HOLMAN: Speaking Saturday in Barbados, President Clinton referred generally to the controversy.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think that it's obvious that for several years now we've been quite cooperative, and we'll continue to be.

KWAME HOLMAN: But the President's lawyers were more explicit. In papers filed with the Supreme Court Attorney Andrew Frey said turning over the notes to Starr will substantially impair the ability of the Office of the President to secure sound legal advice, particularly in the face of independent counsel investigations. The Supreme Court is expected to decide by next month whether to hear the Clintons' appeal.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the perspectives of two former White House counsels. Lloyd Cutler had the job in the Carter administration and in the first Clinton term. C. Boyden Gray had the job in the Bush administration. Mr. Gray, who has the law on this--on his side in this, the President or Mr. Starr?

C. BOYDEN GRAY, Former Bush White House Counsel: Well, the court of appeals says that the--that the independent counsel has the law on his side. The Supreme Court may have to decide it. They don't have to take the case, but they might. And I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to which way they would come out. All I can say is that we always had the understanding when I was in the White House that we--we would not be protected by attorney-client privilege.

JIM LEHRER: So you agree with the lower court ruling?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, I'm not sure I agree with it. This is what the law is as we were brought up, as it were, in the White House. That doesn't necessarily mean the Supreme Court won't rule the other way. This is--this is the way we were taught. And I am sympathetic to the White House counsel trying to maintain control, especially in the highly charged political issues. But the President does have private counsel, and they have sort of been alone in taking these debriefing--the debriefing notes.

JIM LEHRER: How do you feel about it, Mr. Cutler?

LLOYD CUTLER, Former Clinton White House Counsel: Well, like Boyden, I have guessed wrong too many times in the past to predict how this case is going to turn out, but I think the White House position is a very respectable and principled position. It's also one on which the four lower court judges that have passed on the case so far have split two to two. Back when Boyden was, I think, President Bush's--Vice President Bush's counsel, the Republican Justice Department, the Reagan Justice Department upheld theexistence of the lawyer-client privilege between government lawyers and government officials.

JIM LEHRER: Well, for those of us who are not lawyers explain what--what we--neither of you were present when these--these meetings that involved Mrs. Clinton and these lawyers went down, but are we to suggest they were in a room and there were people who worked like the two of you, worked for the government of the United States as White House counsel, and who were also lawyers who worked privately for the Clintons, is that right, is that how the two of you understand it?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: David Kendall, their private attorney, was there, along with a White House lawyer or two maybe.

JIM LEHRER: Now, if there had been no White House lawyers there, then this--there would be no dispute, from your point of view, is that right?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Correct. There would be no dispute.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree?

LLOYD CUTLER: Mr. Kendall's notes were not subpoenaed by the independent counsel, that's quite true.

JIM LEHRER: They were not subpoenaed. And so there would have been no dispute at all if that had been the case?

LLOYD CUTLER: If that had been the case, but if that had been the case, the White House lawyers charged with the duty of protecting the White House and advising the White House how to respond to a subpoena. Remember, this subpoena is addressed to the White House, not to Mrs. Clinton. It had to be answered by the White House counsel. They need to be able to talk to the officials in the White House. Mrs. Clinton, whom the courts have already held to be a quasi-government official in the case involving the health plan program, because Congress actually passed statutes appropriating money from Mrs. Clinton's office. They need to be able to talk to them, to advise the President and others concerned on what to do and how to respond to the subpoena.

JIM LEHRER: What about that point, Mr. Gray, that this--we're talking about the First Lady of the United States, not a personal matter at all, the subpoena was to the White House?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, one point I think should be made is that the White House has waived whatever privilege there might be, has turned over similar kinds of notes in connection with the White House staff. They seemed to have drawn the line with somebody who doesn't, in fact, work in the White House. Leaving that to one side, I think Mrs. Clinton is entitled to the same thing he's entitled to. I don't think the spousal thing, there's a pretty close relationship. But the fact of the matter is that she should have been well enough served by David Kendall taking the notes and then informing the White House counsel of the things that he thought the White House counsel should know in order to respond.

LLOYD CUTLER: Total abdication of what White House counsel are supposed to do in advising the President and in trying, themselves, to comply with the law. Everybody else has a lawyer-client privilege. Every lawyer who takes notes and writes down his impressions in preparation for litigation, including congressional investigations, has a so-called work product privilege.

JIM LEHRER: Well, let's say it wasn't Hillary Clinton. Let's say it was the White House chief of staff in a similar situation. The White House counsel is there; also his or her personal lawyers. Does that--would it be the same--the same rules apply?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: I think the same rules would apply. And the only point I was trying to make is notes taken in connection with those individuals--I'm not sure about the chief of staff--but notes taken of senior White House people have been turned over already.

LLOYD CUTLER: It's also important to remember, Jim, that if the notes have to be turned over, then the lawyers can be called on to testify about these conversations.

JIM LEHRER: Explain that.

LLOYD CUTLER: And that would be a total destruction of the lawyer-client privilege.

JIM LEHRER: You mean if--now, what we're talking about here is- -they're talking, okay, they're in this room. The people are in this room, and somebody writing down what's said, what Mrs. Clinton said, what the White House counsel's lawyers said, what Mr. Kendall, the private lawyer, said. Now, whose notes is it they want?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, we had the same problem in Iran-Contra. There were lots of White House staff and related people who were being investigated by the grand jury, and it would have been wonderful had we been able or felt we could have debriefed every single individual involved because it would have given us tremendous knowledge about how to defend the interests of the White House, but we felt that was not proper. We did the best we could to find out from the lawyers representing their private clients.

JIM LEHRER: So you did not sit on these comparable situations?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: No. We tried to pick up what we could, but we didn't take notes, and we would not have, you know, felt that we could--

LLOYD CUTLER: But Boyden, you, yourself, declined to respond to the Iran-Contra counsel's questions about your conversations with President Bush.

C. BOYDEN GRAY: If they had taken it to court, I would not have- -

LLOYD CUTLER: That may well be, but you, in effect, exerted the privilege and it was not challenged.

C. BOYDEN GRAY: It was not challenged, that's correct. And I knew when I did it that I was on very uncertain ground.

LLOYD CUTLER: Could I raise a somewhat different point, Jim, rather than the--the abstruse legal merits of this case, which I would say are close and it hasn't been decided before, but are very substantial.

JIM LEHRER: And they have not been decided before. That was the question I wanted to ask. Either one of you all have any really good precedents on your side on this one?

LLOYD CUTLER: There's no cases--

JIM LEHRER: No cases. This has never--the Nixon tapes case-- LLOYD CUTLER: In the Nixon tapes case, where the court held that where executive privilege was asserted, the President's right to withhold documents that he needs--

JIM LEHRER: Right, but that's different--

LLOYD CUTLER: --it had to be a balance--

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

LLOYD CUTLER: --in a case that involved an actual criminal trial, but there's a note, a reference in that case to the duty to comply with the grand jury's subpoena or court subpoena being--even on a criminal case--being subject to the ancient common-law privileges, including lawyer-client.

JIM LEHRER: I think that need to--just for people who were born after Watergate, what we're talking about here with tapes, the White House tapes and the President maintained on executive privilege grounds that he didn't want to turn the tapes over; he was ordered to do so by an eight to nothing vote of the Supreme Court, but I interrupted you, Mr. Cutler.

LLOYD CUTLER: What I was about to say is if these notes have to be turned over, and if lawyers have to testify about what they-- what government officials have said to them, if government lawyers have to testify, we're going to see the biggest epidemic of writer's cramp, writer's block among government officials and government lawyers that you have ever seen. People are simply going to stop taking notes.

JIM LEHRER: They're just going to sit there like that.

LLOYD CUTLER: Or they're going to destroy them the day after they're used.

C. BOYDEN GRAY: That's already happened. I mean, I never took notes.

LLOYD CUTLER: Boyden has said, "I never took notes." You actually said, "I wasn't that dumb."

JIM LEHRER: What kind of world is that?

LLOYD CUTLER: What's it going to do for journalists, for biographers, for historians, if there are going to be no notes because they're either never taken, or they're destroyed as soon as their immediate purpose has been served?

JIM LEHRER: Everything is going to be like a traffic accident, is that what--

LLOYD CUTLER: But, Jim, what if your reporters couldn't have notes, couldn't take notes.

JIM LEHRER: Sure. Mr. Gray.

C. BOYDEN GRAY: We're forgetting the political context of all this. The--whatever privilege may exist--and the Supreme Court will decide this--has been waged politically by so many presidents so often on so many occasions that I don't know what principle is actually going to be vindicated here because it can be waived again in a political--under political pressure. And I think that cat is out of the bag, and I don't know how--to mix another metaphor--you put it back in again; how you build--rebuild Humpty Dumpty. It's already happened. It happened beginning in Watergate and Iran- Contra, Iraq-gate, all the way through, and this--

JIM LEHRER: In other words, the political--when you say political, you mean there's a public controversy of some kind that forget what attorney--what--

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Forget the legal.

JIM LEHRER: --the legalities--the document, whatever it is, notes, whatever get released, and--

C. BOYDEN GRAY: President Bush's most intimate diaries out in public; President Reagan's most intimate diaries out in public.

LLOYD CUTLER: You can't get Packwood's diaries.

C. BOYDEN GRAY: You can't get any more central to the President's ability to carry on, if you get to his innermost thoughts, and that's all open season politically, not legally but politically.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with Mr. Cutler, Mr. Gray, that if the Supreme Court signs with the lower court and forces the President to--or the White House to give Kenneth Starr the notes from these Hillary Clinton meetings, that some whole new ground has been broken?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: No. I don't believe whole new ground has been broken because we were--we were never led to believe that this ground existed when we were in the White House by the Department of Justice. They were very explicit. We find it sometimes hard to believe, but they were very explicit about it.

JIM LEHRER: So it's not an earthshaking thing if they do that?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: No. As I say, politically--

JIM LEHRER: It doesn't matter.

C. BOYDEN GRAY: It doesn't matter. Politically, it didn't matter.

LLOYD CUTLER: Well, I don't agree with that. As I said earlier, the Reagan lawyers, the Reagan Department of Justice lawyers said there is a lawyer-client privilege between government officials and government lawyers. The American Law Institute, which issues these restatements of the common law, and these are common law privileges, says that such a privilege exists. The Freedom of Information Act protects from disclosure to the ordinary citizen who wants to see what the government has in its files anything covered by the lawyer-client privilege between government lawyers and government officials. So the important thing though, Jim, is--

JIM LEHRER: Is the notes.

LLOYD CUTLER: --everything is going to come to a stop, and we're going to lose this vital record that Presidents need not only to carry out their own business--they need to seek written advice, as well as oral advice--the need of their lawyers to query people to record discussions, to write down their impressions. All of that is going to come to a halt.

JIM LEHRER: Finally, this thing should be resolved quickly, should it not, in other words, the Supreme Court's either going to take it or not take it, and probably move on it very quickly, right, on an expedited schedule?

LLOYD CUTLER: Probably not till the fall.

JIM LEHRER: When you get--

LLOYD CUTLER: The government has not asked to hear it this summer. I mean, the White House lawyers have not asked. This is an issue of will the government grant certiorari, as it's called, and schedule it for say an early fall argument.

JIM LEHRER: But that decision, whether or not they've scheduled it for fall, will begin very quickly.

LLOYD CUTLER: Will be made very quickly.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Gentlemen, thank you both very much. NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight a farewell interview with NATO's top commander, the Big Blue victory, and 90 years of Katherine Hepburn. Elizabeth Farnsworth has the interview with Gen. Joulwan.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: General George Joulwan has been the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe since October 1993, a period that includes two deployments of U.S. and allied troops to Bosnia. He received his commission as an army lieutenant in 1961 just before the Berlin Wall went up. He will retire in July when NATO is expected to take on as new members several countries in Central Europe formerly in the Warsaw Pact. I talked to Gen. Joulwan at the Pentagon this morning.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: General, thanks for being with us.

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe: It's a pleasure to be here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: American troops and allied troops have been in Bosnia for just about a year and a half now. Are they accomplishing their mission?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Absolutely. I believe that what we were in for in terms of both IFOR, the implementation force, and now SFOR, the stabilization force, those objectives have clearly been met. We went in with the implementation force in the first year to stop the fighting, to separate the forces, to be able to police what we call the zone of separation, to demobilize the force to be able to put all the heavy weapons in storage areas and to be able to provide a secure environment for elections to be held. All of that has taken place, and I'm very proud of the effort that the military forces have done.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: As you know, reconciliation is--has not occurred. And there has been some criticism that the Defense Department basically, the people that make these decisions, interpreted your mandate, military mandate, a little too narrowly. For example, Richard Holbrooke, who negotiated the Dayton Peace Accord, made this criticism in the magazine "Foreign Affairs" recently, saying that it would have made reconciliation easier, for example, if the military had gone after the war criminals. What do you think about that?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Well, I think first of all, you know--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: People that have been indicted for being war criminals I should say.

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: What I think has to be looked at is the mandate that we're given by the North Atlantic Council. After all, NATO is comprised of 16 nations, and the United States participates in that and really leads the effort, but we have a mandate of what we can do in terms of the objectives and missions and the guidance that we've received. And within that guidance we have carried out everything we've been asked to do. For example, the support that we're giving to civilian agencies right now is unprecedented.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Give me some examples. What kind of things are you doing?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: In terms of support to the OSCE, the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe, they're responsible for the elections, we have unprecedented support to them. We have twenty to thirty very high caliber officers imbedded in their election system. As Amb. Froehlich said, they would have had success last September if it were not for this group. We have that support, if not more. We're helping them print the ballots, secure the ballot areas. Millions of miles have been--been logged on our vehicles, so just a tremendous amount of support. In arms control, we have been the ones doing the inventory of many of these storage areas. We've turned over all of that to the arms control personnel with the international police task force. We are helping them in so many different ways and trying to help them do their job in training local police. We have been forbidden from doing police functions; that is--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Including picking up the indicted war criminals.

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Exactly. And we have a memorandum of understanding between NATO and the International Tribunal that outlines what we can do. And what we cannot do is hunt down and arrest war criminals. If we come in contact with them, we can detain them and arrest them. We have been very proactive in doing this. I have not read Dick Holbrooke's article. And I have a great deal of respect for what he did in bringing Dayton about. But within the guidance that we've been given and within the mandate that we have, we've been very proactive. And I think the war criminals do belong on the Hague, but when you read the Dayton Peace Accords, it puts the responsibility primarily on the parties, the former warring factions, to comply with that. It then talks about what the local police should do and an international police task force. We are trying to support that within our capabilities. I truly hope and I truly want to do all I can to get war criminals where they belong, which is at the Hague. But those are political decisions as well, and those political will and that political cohesion needs to be expressed by the international community loud and clear. And then we must have clarity in terms of mission and responsibility of what they want their military to do. And I ask for that clarity, and I think I owe that to the troops that we get that from our political leadership.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you think the troops that U.S. and allied troops will be withdrawn in June, 1998?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Well--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That's what the President has said, and the Secretary of Defense.

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Well, more importantly, that's what NATO has said, and NATO has made that decision in structure. Now, again, it's not very well understood. The guidance to me from NATO, which the United States is--is a nation--a very leading nation in that- -said that my mandate for SFOR goes until June '98. And so that's- -unless I get different instructions in our democratic system, we look to the North Atlantic Council to provide the political guidance that we operate within. June of '98 is what we're now targeted against for the removal of the stabilizationforce.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you think will happen? Do you think that fighting will start up again?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: That's an excellent question, and let me be as clear as I can. I have been pressing our political leadership, both here and in Washington, but primarily in the North Atlantic Council, that we should not be focused on June of '98. What we should be focused on is what do we do between now and June of '98 to try to set the best conditions we can so we could make an informed decision of what has to happen in June of '98, where will we be in opening up all the airports; can we have the telephone system in stalled; what can we do with the return of refugees; a whole series of questions of how can we build the right conditions so that we will be in the best possible posture in June of '98. That is not where the focus is, and that's where I urge the international community and particularly here in Washington that we focus on what can be done. And if we can do that, I think it will truly help us make the right decision in June of '98.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I imagine you don't want to speculate on whether fighting will start up again. I mean, I know that we're helping arm the Bosnians so that they will be more equal to the Serbs. You think they're going to use those arms, all the different entities?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Well, I would hope that we can give a very clear signal that there will be no more fighting. This is in the center of Europe. I think it's--it's unacceptable for any sort of war to break out again. That's absolutely unacceptable. And if you read annex 1 [b] on the arms control in the second paragraph, it talks about using this train and equip to achieve a balance. There's been an imbalance. And I just was in Bosnia last Wednesday and spoke to Madame Plosnick who's the president of the republic of Serbska and talked about this balance and how it isn't for one side to fight against the other side. It's to deter any fighting.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We should remind people that that's the Serbian part of--

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Yes.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: --of the--of Bosnia.

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Yes. And--and so I think, again, we have to make it very clear that there will be no fight and that what we need to be able to do is focus on what can be done in the next say 14 months in order to create the best conditions. That's going to take a coordinated, cooperative effort by the international community, by the civilian agencies, by SFOR, by the North Atlantic Council as a team, one team working on one mission. And that's what I've been trying to urge for the last year and a half.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, on NATO, you've been the military commander of NATO as it's trying to cope with perhaps having new countries enter. How will that work militarily? How will--let's say that in July the decision is made that the Czech Republic and Hungary and Poland come into NATO. Doesn't it cease to be NATO once those countries are in it?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Well, let me answer it this way. The first supreme allied commander was Gen. Eisenhower. At that time in 1951, there were 12 nations in NATO. We had enlargement from 1951 to about 1982 from twelve to sixteen. Article 10 of the 1949 Washington Treaty on NATO talks about a sovereign nation and apply for membership. So I think NATO has to give a very clear impression that it is an open organization so that nations certainly can apply for membership. Whether they're accepted or not is a political decision. And so these nations that apply--and by the way 12 have said they want to--to be considered for membership. How many of those, if any, will be accepted, that's a political decision. The military side of that I think we can adapt to. And, by the way, what is so interesting is that we now have in Bosnia 34 nations with the United States providing troops to that effort. In fact, today in the stabilization force the U.S. commitment is less than 25 percent. 75 percent is by other NATO nations and non-NATO nations. So we really have created, I think, a situation in Bosnia where as we come out of that, we can set a new security relationship in Europe. And by the way, the Russians have a brigade with us in Bosnia. And I have a three-star Russian general as my deputy at my headquarters in Monfeldt, so we have changed. And that is the--the issue of how do we look at the new mission of NATO, at the new NATO, but building on the rock solid foundation of the past. I'm very excited about the future based on what we see happening in Bosnia.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Speaking of the new mission of NATO, let's talk about the new mission just of the U.S. military overall. Your career, 36 years, you were--you were I believe in Germany when the Berlin Wall went up, right, and it stands until now--the wall's down, and all of these new missions that the U.S. military has been undertaking in recent years--what is the role of the U.S. military in this post Cold War world?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Well, I really believe that the terminology now from the Cold War is over--I truly believe the post Cold War period is over, and we're entering a new phase. We--we now have a possibility, I think, from both this--the U.S. military side to engage in peacetime in order to prevent conflict. Twice in this century the United States did not in the first 50 years. We had the bloodiest century on record, and so now we have an opportunity, I think, to shape events in a way that can prevent conflict and provide stability, and that's so important.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Excuse me for interrupting, but is what's new in this, the military would play a role in trying to shape the events to prevent war?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: The key is we are playing a role.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Right.

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: We are engaged with 27 other nations now. We are carrying out seminars, exercises with all these different 27 nations.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This is in the partnership for peace.

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Partnership for peace, which is an engagement strategy to try to say how do we create trust and confidence, how can we create stability so then investment can come in, so democracy will take root? The mission did not end with the fall of the wall or the collapse of the iron curtain. The objective was never the Berlin Wall. It was the rest of Eastern and Central Europe. How do we interact to create democratic societies that can live in peace and freedom with respect for the dignity and worth of the individual? General Marshall in the Marshall Plan 1947 had this vision which included Eastern and Central Europe and, indeed, the Soviet Union at the time. Fifty years later Marshall's vision, his dream, is closer to reality. That's the objective. And if we can do that, that is in U.S. strategic interest. That is in the world's interest. And if we can do that, we will create an environment of a Europe whole and free, from the Atlantic to the Urals. That hasn't happened in hundreds of years. At a very small price--we had 350,000 troops there in the Cold War--we have about 100,000 there now--we've got our allies engaged. We've got our partners engaged with us. It's a great opportunity. And that, to me, is the future. And that's the role of the U.S. military. That's what the new strategy is that's being developed now.

TELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Gen. Joulwan, thank you very much for being with us. And good luck in your retirement.

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN: Thank you very much. As always, it's a pleasure to be here. FOCUS - BLUE VICTORY

JIM LEHRER: Now, a chess upset for the ages and to Paul Solman.

ANNOUNCER: Oh, Deep Blue--Kasparov has resigned!

PAUL SOLMAN: Yesterday, in the sixth and final round of man versus machine, the rematch, machine didn't just beat man but trounced him, as IBM's Deep Blue computer beat world champion Gary Kasparov.

GARY KASPAROV, Chess World Champion: I'm ashamed by what I did at the end of this match, but so be it.

PAUL SOLMAN: Yesterday's loss in New York comes little more than a year after Kasparov beat Deep Blue in a six-game match in Philadelphia, three to one with two draws. In this year's rematch, Kasparov was even with the new improved super duper supercomputer going into yesterday's contest. But the champ was clearly shaken- -by game two, which he should have played to a draw, but mistakenly resigned instead; by game five, a draw the computer forced, though Kasparov had the advantage; and by the computer's seeming ability to play human-like strategies. After game five, to some, Kasparov sounded desperate.

GARY KASPAROV: I'm not afraid to admit that I'm afraid. And I'm not even afraid to say why I'm afraid, because sometimes, you know, it definitely goes beyond any known chess program in the world. You know, it makes decisions that still cannot be made by any computer, and facing such a challenge with no preparation--no preparation before the match, I have to be extremely cautious.

PAUL SOLMAN: Sunday's showdown proved to be no contest. In fact, Kasparov made an early blunder that shocked experts. After just an hour of playing, instead of the usual four or so, Kasparov resigned the game and, thus, the match. At a post-game press conference Kasparov sounded bitter and said another rematch would prove he could beat any machine.

GARY KASPAROV: I think it's time for Deep Blue to start playing real chess. And I personally assure you, everybody here, that if Deep Blue will start playing competitive chess, I personally guarantee you I'll torn tear it in pieces with no question.

PAUL SOLMAN: C. J. Tan, leader of the IBM, savored the victory.

C. J. TAN, Deep Blue Programmer: It visibly shows the world that technology--what technology can do for man and how far we have been able to push technology.

PAUL SOLMAN: Kasparov says he wants a neutral party to sponsor a future contest. The Deep Blue team says it's considering his challenge.

JIM LEHRER: More now on this victory and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And now the smaller and larger meanings of this match. Frederic Friedel is Gary Kasparov's technical adviser and a computer chess expert. Daniel Dennett teaches philosophy at Tufts University. He wrote about computer intelligence in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea. And Hubert Dreyfus is a philosophy professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He's the author of the book What Computers Still Can't Do. Welcome, gentlemen, to all of you. Frederic Friedel, why do you think Gary Kasparov lost this match?

FREDERIC FRIEDEL, Kasparov Adviser: I think that he just didn't stand up to the pressure of the situation. The situation was very unusual for him. For 20 years he's been playing chess against human beings and flesh and blood. Here, the opponent was completely invisible. It was backed up by a team of engineers and programers. And every day we heard of new grand masters who had been on the team, so in some ways he cracked in the end.

MARGARET WARNER: Is that what he meant when he said, "Well, I'm a human being, and when I see something that's well beyond my understanding, I'm afraid?"

FREDERIC FRIEDEL: What he meant was that there were certain phases of the game which he just didn't understand. We had most of it analyzed quite well--game one, game three, game four. But game two he didn't understand. And it played very heavily on his mind. And I think game two lost the match for him.

MARGARET WARNER: And that's the one where a lot of experts said afterwards he missed a move that, in fact, he--he cracked too soon- -he missed a move that he could have made?

FREDERIC FRIEDEL: Well, that was an additional thing that right in the end he resigned because he assumed a computer that's playing so well would have calculated everything and the game is lost. It looked very lost. And 200 people in the auditorium and 20 grand masters noticed nothing. And then at 1 o'clock in the morning or 2 o'clock in the morning we discovered with a computer that it is a draw. He could have played on and drawn the game.

MARGARET WARNER: Hubert Dreyfus, what do you think is the significance of this? There'd been a lot of commentary about it. "Newsweek" Magazine called it the "brain's last stand." What do you see as the significance of this outcome?

HUBERT DREYFUS, University of California, Berkeley: Well, I think that's a lot of hype, that it's the brain's last stand. It's a significant achievement all right for the use of computers to rapidly calculate in a domain--and this is the important thing-- completely separate from everyday human experience. It has no significance at all, as far as the question: will computers become intelligent like us in the world that we're in? The reason the computer could win at chess--and everybody knew that eventually computers would win at chess--is because chess is a completely isolated domain. It doesn't connect up with the rest of human life, therefore, like arithmetic, it's completely formalizable, and you could, in principle, exhaust all the possibilities. And in that case, a fast enough computer can run through enough of these calculable possibilities to see a winning strategy or to see a move toward a winning strategy. But the way our everyday life is, we don't have a formal world, and we can't exhaust the possibilities and run through them. So what this shows is in a world in which calculation is possible, brute force meaningless calculation, the computer will always beat people, but when--in a world in which relevance and intelligence play a crucial role and meaning in concrete situations, the computer has always behaved miserably, and there's no reason to think that that will change with this victory.

MARGARET WARNER: Daniel Dennett, what do you see as the significance? And respond, if you would, to Mr. Dreyfus's critique.

DANIEL DENNETT, Tufts University: Certainly. It seems to me that right now is a time for the skeptics to start moving the goal posts. And I think Bert Dreyfus is doing just that. A hundred and fifty years ago Edgar Allan Poe was sure in his bones that no machine could ever play chess, and only 30 years ago so was Hubert Dreyfus, and he said so in the earlier edition of his book. Then he's changed his mind, and, as he says, it's--this is really no surprise. People in the computer world have known for a couple of decades that this--this day was going to happen. Now it's happened. I think that the idea that Professor Dreyfus has that there's something special about the informal world is an interesting idea, but we just have to wait and see. The idea that there's something special about human intuition that is not capturable in the computer program is a sort of illusion, I think, when people talk about intuition. It's just because they don't know how something's done. If we didn't know how Deep Blue did what it did, we'd be very impressed with its intuitive powers, and we don't know how people live in the informal world very well. And as we learn more about it, we'll probably be able to reproduce that in a computer as well.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Dreyfus, do you think he's right that perhaps we don't--still just don't completely understand what it is that humans do when they think, as we think of thinking?

HUBERT DREYFUS: I think that we don't fully understand it in the sense that Dan Dennett and people in the AI community meet, if I fully understand.

MARGARET WARNER: By AI you mean artificial intelligence.

HUBERT DREYFUS: Right. That is, we don't--we are not able to analyze it in terms of context-free features and tools for muting these futures. But I don't think that's just a limitation of our current knowledge. That's where I differ with Dan. There is something about the everyday world which is tied up with the kind of being we are. We've got bodies, and we move around in this world, and the way that world is organized is in terms of our implicit understanding of things like we move forward more easily than backward, and we have to move toward a goal, and we have to overcome obstacles. Those aren't facts that we understand. We understand that just by the way we are, like we understand that insults make us angry. You can state those as facts. But I think there's a whole underlying domain of what we are as emotional embodied beings which you can't completely articulate as facts and which underlies our ability to make sense of facts and our ability to find any facts relevant at all. Can I say one word about this- -

MARGARET WARNER: Please.

HUBERT DREYFUS: --this story. I never said that computers couldn't play chess. I've got a quote here. I said, "In '65, still no computer can play even amateur chess." That was a report on what was going on in 1965. I've had to put up for 35 years with this story that I said computers could never play chess. In fact, I said from the beginning it's a formal game, and of course, computers could play, in principle, could play, world champion chess.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me bring Mr. Friedel back in here. Mr. Friedel, did Gary Kasparov think the computer was thinking?

FREDERIC FRIEDEL: Not thinking but that it was showing intelligent behavior. When Gary Kasparov plays against the computer, he has the feeling that it is forming plans; it understands strategy; it's trying to trick him; it's blocking his ideas, and then to tell him, now, this has nothing to do with intelligence, it's just number crunching, seems very semantic to him. He says the performance is what counts. I see it behaves like something that's intelligent. If you put--if you put a curtain up, he plays the game and then you open the curtain, and it's a human being. He says, ah, that was intelligent, and if it's a box, he says, no, that was just number crunching. It's the performance he's interested in.

MARGARET WARNER: Daniel Dennett, I know you're not a chess expert, but I mean, do you feel that in this situation the computer was thinking in the way that Mr. Friedel said Gary Kasparov thought it was, I mean, that it was somehow independently making judgments? I'm probably using the wrong terminology here.

DANIEL DENNETT: No. I think that's fine. I think that Kasparov has put his finger on it too. It's the performance that counts. And Kasparov is not kidding himself when he sees--when he confronts Deep Blue and feels that Deep Blue is, indeed, parroting his threats and recognizing what they are and trying to trick him, this is an entirely appropriate way to deal with that. And if Professor Dreyfus--

MARGARET WARNER: But do you think it was capable of trying to trick Kasparov?

DANIEL DENNETT: Certainly.

MARGARET WARNER: And Mr. Dreyfus, your view on that.

HUBERT DREYFUS: No. I think it was brute force, but the important thing is I'm willing to say, okay, it's the performance that counts. But it's the performance in a completely circumscribed, formal domain, mere meaningless--can produce performance full of trickery--performance in the everyday world.

MARGARET WARNER: Daniel Dennett, briefly in the time we have left, where do you think we are in the continuum of developing-- percent of where computers--or 50 percent?

DANIEL DENNETT: No. I don't think that's the right way to look at it. In fact, Deep Blue in chess programming in general is a sort of offshoot to the most interesting work in artificial intelligence and largely for the reasons that Bert Dreyfus says. I think the most interesting work is the work that, for instance, Rodney Brooks and his colleagues and I are doing at MIT with the humanoid robot Cog, and as Dreyfus says--you've got to be embodied to live in a world, to develop real intelligence, and Cog does have a body. That's why Cog is a robot. Now, if Bert will tell us what Cog can never do and promise in advance that he won't move the goal posts and he won't say, well, this wasn't done in the right style, so it doesn't count, if he'll just give us a few tasks that are now and forever beyond the capacity of Cog, then we'll have a new test.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We have just a few seconds. Mr. Dreyfus, give us two tasks it'll never be capable of, very quickly.

HUBERT DREYFUS: Okay. If Cog is programmed as a symbolic rule- using robot and not as a brain-imitating robot, it won't be able to understand natural language. There's no reason why a computer that's simulating the way the neurons in the brain work won't be intelligent. I'm talking about how what's called symbolic manipulation won't be intelligent.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thanks. We have to leave it there, but we'll return-- FINALLY - HAPPY 90TH

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, Happy 90th Birthday, Katherine Hepburn. Here she is in three of the forty-four films she made during her long career.

KATHERINE HEPBURN: [Film Segment from "The Philadelphia Story" 1940] Hello you.

JIMMY STEWART: I feel fine.

KATHERINE HEPBURN: Did you enjoy the party?

JIMMY STEWART: Sure, sure. The prettiest sight in this fine, pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.

KATHERINE HEPBURN: You're a snob, Conner.

JIMMY STEWART: No doubt. No doubt.

[SCENE FROM "WOMAN OF THE YEAR"]

[SCENE FROM "ON GOLDEN POND]

JIM LEHRER: Katherine Hepburn, 90 years old today. Happy Birthday! RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, President Clinton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to preserve the secrecy of conversations Mrs. Clinton had with White House lawyers. Notes of those talks were subpoenaed bythe Whitewater independent counsel. The government's star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing trial said defendant Timothy McVeigh wanted to avenge the federal raid on Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. And Australian Susie Maroney became the first person to swim from Cuba to the United States 107 miles in 24 hours. Before we go, a follow-up to a story we reported in February about the proposed merger between Echo Star Satellite Television Company and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation: It was expected to challenge cable television's dominance of the industry. That deal is now dead. Echo Star has sued Murdoch for more than $5 billion. A spokesman for News Corporation said his company would vigorously contest the matter. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.