The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight full coverage of President Clinton's grand jury day, Dan Balz of the Washington Post updates the story, former prosecutors Scott Turow and Joe Whitley examine the legal process, and our new media correspondent Terence Smith observes the press process. We close with a look at a man suspected of being behind U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton completed five hours of testimony late today to the federal grand jury investigating the Monica Lewinsky matter. He will address the nation tonight at 10 PM Eastern Time. Mr. Clinton testified to the grand jury via closed-circuit television from the Map Room in the White House. It was the first time a sitting president appeared before a grand jury in a criminal proceeding. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and his deputies departed the south entrance portico of the White House nearly five hours after their questioning began at 12:59 PM. The president's personal lawyer, David Kendall, had been present for the testimony. He spoke to reporters after Starr's departure.

DAVID KENDALL: This afternoon the president voluntarily testified for more than four hours about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky and the questions he was asked about that relationship in the Jones deposition last January. He testified truthfully. We're hopeful that the president's testimony will finally bring closure to the independent counsel's more than four-year and over $40 million investigation, which has culminated in an investigation of the president's private life. The president would like me to reserve his opportunity to discuss his testimony himself, and he will do so in an address tonight at 10 o'clock PM Eastern Daylight Time. Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have much more on this story right after the News Summary. Overseas today FBI agents confirmed they were questioning a suspect in the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. He was arrested in Pakistan August 7th, the day of the attack, and handed over to American and Kenyan investigators on Friday. The FBI said he has not confessed and has not implicated others. Secretary of State Albright left for Africa today. She's to inspect the damage in Nairobi and in Tanzania tomorrow. The arrest of the suspect led many Americans to leave Pakistan today. A State Department spokesman said a very serious threat led to that action. Non-essential embassy workers and their families packed up. Three branches of the U.S. Information Service were closed. Sixty-seven hundred other U.S. citizens were also encouraged to leave. In Northern Ireland today five suspects were arrested in the car bombing that killed 28 people. The blast occurred Saturday in a crowded shopping area in the town of Oma, 50 miles west of Belfast. One of the suspects has ties to a dissident Irish Republican group under suspicion in the bombing. Political figures visited the site today. Among them was Protestant Leader David Trimble, first minister of Northern Ireland's newly-elected assembly.

DAVID TRIMBLE: We know those responsible are of an able character. We know that there's an obligation on society in terms of government but also of all responsible people within society to make sure that this doesn't happen again. And we will, obviously, look closely to see how people respond to that challenge.

JIM LEHRER: Britain and Ireland said they would tighten the security along the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic to crack down on the movement of terrorists. Russia allowed the ruble to lose about a third of its value today. It also imposed a 90-day moratorium on some foreign debt repayments and halted payments on government treasury bills. Prices for foreign products will rise about 30 percent. Russia imports 80 percent of its consumer goods, about half of its food. Back in this country on Wall Street today the Dow Jones Industrial Average continued to bounce back from last week's losses. It closed up nearly 150 points at 8574.85. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the President's testimony and an embassy bombings update.% ? FOCUS - THE PRESIDENT TESTIFIES

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner begins our coverage of the president and the grand jury.

MARGARET WARNER: When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in January, President Clinton had little to say about his relationship with the former White House intern. His first comment came January 21st in an interview with the NewsHour's Jim Lehrer.

JIM LEHRER: No improper relationship. Define what you mean by that.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I think you know what it means. It means that there is not a sexual relationship, an improper sexual relationship, or any other kind of improper relationship.

MARGARET WARNER: The next day the president promised he'd say more soon.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You and the American people have a right to get answers. I want to do that. I'd like for you to have more, rather than less, sooner rather than later.

MARGARET WARNER: Several days later the president again denied any impropriety with Lewinsky, but he gave no further explanation of the relationship.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never.

MARGARET WARNER: What's of interest to independent counsel Kenneth Starr, however, is what the president said about the relationship under oath earlier that month. On January 17th, President Clinton went to his lawyer's office to give a deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Jones's lawyers questioned him about his relationships with a number of women, including Monica Lewinsky. That deposition is the foundation for Starr's inquiry into whether the president committed perjury or encouraged Lewinsky to do so.

MARGARET WARNER: Now for explanation and analysis of what the president said in that deposition we turn to Dan Balz of the Washington Post national staff. Dan, before we turn to the deposition, set the scene for us today for the president's testimony.

DAN BALZ, Washington Post: Well, as has already been said, they met today in the Map Room at the White House, which is in the White House, itself, not in the west wing. It's a signal that this has to do with personal business, not official business. The president, of course, was there, along with his personal attorneys, David Kendall, Nicole Seligman, as well, and in addition to that Charles Ruff, who is the White House counsel. Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, was there, along with a number of his deputies, including Jackie Bennett. They were-the lawyers were, we believe, seated at tables, the president was seated alone, before them, before the television camera. The testimony was transmitted down to the grand jury, which was at the federal courthouse about 12 blocks away, by a closed-circuit television feed, which was scrambled to prevent anybody from seeing it.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now, let's go back to the deposition that gave rise to this investigation. First of all, remind us again, why will Paula Jones's lawyers asking the president about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

DAN BALZ: Well, the truth is they were asking his relationship with a number of women, not simply Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones, and what they were trying to do was to establish a pattern of behavior on his part in which in one form or another he obtained sexual favors from these women in return for either enticements, job enticements, or those sorts of things, or pressure that he used to cover up what had gone on with those relationships, so that there were a variety of questions. He was prepared for questions about Monica Lewinsky. They had gone over this, he and his personal attorney, Bob Bennett, had gone over this in advance of the deposition, but it seemed clear he was surprised by the amount of detail that he was asked about in those questions. And what we now have is we now have the most extensive record under oath about what he said about the relationship, and, therefore, it's the key document in terms of determining whether he committed perjury, so important, I think, in terms of how he handled it, that David Kendall, his attorney, went down last week to the federal courthouse to actually view a videotape of his testimony.

MARGARET WARNER: So how did the president describe his relationship with Lewinsky in that deposition?

DAN BALZ: Margaret, I guess, in a word I would say carefully. He was tentative in a number of his answers. He was-sometimes appeared as if he were withholding information. Occasionally, he was expansive. In general, he issued few outright denials and left himself room for the truth to emerge later, if you will, that he-him answering questions he gave himself some room for information to come out later.

MARGARET WARNER: So, for instance, he was asked about whether he'd met alone with her. How did he answer questions like that?

DAN BALZ: Well, he was asked, first of all, questions about did he know her, and it was interesting to see the way he responded to that, because one of the things he did was his first recollection was that he didn't recall how much he knew about her. He described her almost like any other young person around the White House that he had seen her around the time of the government shutdown, when he recalls having met her, that she and other interns were sometimes in and out of the office delivering papers. But he made it all sound in the normal course of business and nothing out of the ordinary. Now, when he was asked, were they ever alone together, his first answer was, I don't recall. But as the questioning developed, he did leave open the possibility that in some form or fashion he and Monica Lewinsky had been alone together. Now, there was one exchange that sort of typifies the way these exchanges went.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. And we're going to try to put up a graphic of this as you read it to us.

DAN BALZ: Okay. James Fisher, who was the lawyer for Paula Jones, asked the president at any time have you and Monica Lewinsky ever been alone together in any room of the White House. The president replied, "I have no specific recollection, but it seems to me that she was on duty on a couple of occasions, working for the Legislative Affairs Office, and brought me some things to sign, something on the weekend. I have a general memory of that." Now after that, Jones's lawyers continued to ask about the possibility that he and Lewinsky were ever alone together in areas around the Oval Office, in some of the private areas off the Oval Office, the very tiny kitchen, the private dining room, the hallway that leads off the Oval Office. He recalls several situations where this might have been the case. He recalls perhaps that she had helped deliver pizza during the government shutdown; that there might have been a couple of instances like that. But, interestingly, he always puts-or often put Betty Currie, his personal assistant, in the room, or in the area at the same time, that, in fact, his recollection is in general Betty Currie was probably there. Now, there was one other interesting point about the exchanges in the part of the testimony, and that is that he was never asked specifically whether he and Lewinsky were alone together in the private study just off the Oval Office. Now, we believe that she has said that they were alone together. So, in essence, he was never fully pinned down about the details of encounters that might have occurred off the Oval Office.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's go to the major question about whether they had a sexual relationship. What did the president say on that point?

DAN BALZ: Well, the president was unequivocal in his denials. There were two exchanges that were pertinent. Let me read the first one. It went this way. Fisher, Jones's attorney, asked, did you have an extramarital sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky? President Clinton replied, no. Fisher then asked if she told someone that she had a sexual affair with you, beginning in November of 1995, would that be a lie-the president replies to that. It's certainly not the truth. It would not be the truth. Now, after that exchange, Mr. Fisher realized that he had used the phrase "sexual affair," rather than sexual relations, and so he went back and he restated the question, and that exchange again goes as follows: Fisher said, and so that the record is completely clear, have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in deposition Exhibit 1 modified by the court? The president was then presented with that definition, and he replied, "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. I've never had an affair with her."

MARGARET WARNER: And how broad was that definition of sexual relations, that they had agreed to use?

DAN BALZ: Margaret, it's fairly broad and quite graphic, if you will. I mean, I think to the non-legal eye it covers virtually any form of sexual contact. There is some debate about that, in part, because there was a multiple part definition of sexual relations that the Jones lawyers offered at the beginning of the deposition. Judge Wright, who was presiding over the deposition at the time, ruled all of those out initially and then ruled in part of it for the questioning involving Lewinsky. There are some Clinton supporters who have suggested that the single definition that was put before the president might not cover a particular form of sexual activity, and there are others who have suggested that because there were definitions kind of flying back and forth at various times during the afternoon, but there may have been some confusion on the president's part as to exactly what definition was being used. Now, it may be on that basis that the president was prepared to acknowledge some kind of sexual contact with Monica Lewinsky during his testimony and today, without acknowledging that he had committed perjury.

MARGARET WARNER: Which was the story that a lot of White House sources were putting out as a possible scenario. Finally, the last big question is: Did he-is the obstruction of justice-did he encourage her to lie? Did he get other people to encourage her to stay silent with job, seeking health and so on? How did he handle that, those questions?

DAN BALZ: It's interesting. His answers on those were often less direct and I would say less crisp than some of his other answers. They were a little bit convoluted. He certainly acknowledges no instance in which he asked her to lie or did anything to try to get her to cover up, or even to participate in helping her to get a job in exchange for her denial that they had engaged in a sexual relationship. But his answers go as follows: There was one interesting exchange where he is asked something to the effect of how-what he had known about it at the time. He acknowledges that he knew she was on the witness list, but not that she had talked to her directly about the subpoena or about her testimony. He doesn't give up much in terms of what Vernon Jordan may have been doing throughout the discussion on these questions. He generally puts Betty Currie in the middle of it and says whatever he knew he learned from Betty Currie.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, we put up a graphic while you were describing in general what he had said, but maybe if you could just-was this-could you just read us that forth one, if you have it there. This was about whether he knew-all right-I'll read it. Let me read it. When Fisher said, "Have you ever talked to Monica Lewinsky about the possibility that she might be asked to testify in this lawsuit," President Clinton said, "I'm not sure. It seems to me the last time she was there in the White House to see Betty"-Betty Currie-"we were joking about how you all were going to call every woman I'd ever talked to. And so I said, 'You would qualify.' I don't think we ever had more of a conversation than that about it." Is this sort of typical of the way he handled that?

DAN BALZ: This is very typical of it. His answers were such that he was often tentative. He hesitated. The more he was asked, the more information he revealed, but it was a kind of thing in which he suggested he was trying to have his memory jogged and did not have sort of a forthcoming response to most of those questions. The more he was asked, the more he made clear he knew things were going on, but always kind of as a third party watching, being informed by Betty Currie or occasionally being informed by Vernon Jordan.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thanks again very much.

DAN BALZ: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: A reminder: The Washington Post full coverage is available after 10:30 PM Eastern Time on their web site and on ours.FOCUS - GRAND JURY WORKINGS

JIM LEHRER: Now the role of the grand jury and how it's being used specifically in this investigation by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. We get the perspectives of two former prosecutors now in private practice: Scott Turow was Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern district of Illinois; he's also a best-selling novelist. Joe Whitley was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern district of Georgia.Scott Turow, is this the proper use of a federal grand jury?

SCOTT TUROW: Well, my short answer is no, because I think that the grand jury here is being used as a sort of subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee to conduct impeachment proceedings.

JIM LEHRER: Why is it improper then?

SCOTT TUROW: Well, a grand jury is supposed to meet in secret to consider whether there is probable cause to bring charges that, frankly, the prosecutor has a realistic hope of proving in court. And, instead, we have had a virtually public proceeding where the rule of secrecy has been totally lost and where what's being investigated is not really a crime that I think any prosecutor realistically expects to bring to court.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Whitley, you see it the same way?

JOE WHITLEY: No, I don't. I believe that the independent counsel in this situation is following the mandate set for him by the three-judge panel that appointed him in the first place, and his expanded jurisdiction covers all of these areas that he's gone into to include the Monica Lewinsky aspect of this investigation. But I think it's-he's been following the law as he sees it, and I think it's appropriate. Also, in this case we have an unusual amount of media coverage that's unprecedented that intrudes into the secrecy of the grand jury process, and although there have been allegations of leaks by the independent counsel's office, also those leaks are coming from many other places, and I think it's almost impossible in a town like Washington to keep things secret for too long, and I think that's what we see here.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Whitley, if the president is the target of the investigation, is that unusual to call him as a witness, as they did today?

JOE WHITLEY: Absolutely, unprecedented in my experience, and I think because of the political considerations the president decided to go voluntarily to testify in front of this grand jury, but hardly ever, in my experience and I'm sure the experience of most prosecutors, would you subpoena a target to a grand jury setting like this.

JIM LEHRER: And Scott Turow, and yet, this grand jury is not about to indict President Clinton, right? I mean, he may be the target of the investigation, but they're not going to indict him. It would have to go to the House of Representatives.

SCOTT TUROW: I think the general understanding is that you cannot indict a sitting president. That is not, frankly, entirely clear if you've read the Supreme Court opinion in Clinton Vs. Jones, the Paula Jones lawsuit opinion that ruled that that case could go forward. But the general understanding, and it's been reported its Mr. Starr's opinion that he cannot indict the president while he is president.

JIM LEHRER: Now, you say, Mr. Turow, that this is not the way Kenneth Starr should have done this. If he wanted to get the testimony about the Monica Lewinsky matter-the issues, for instance, that Dan Balz of the Washington Post just laid out with Margaret Warner-how else could he do it, except through a grand jury proceeding?

SCOTT TUROW: My reading of the independent counsel statute, which says that he's supposed to report substantial and credible information to the House for possible impeachment proceedings, would say that as soon as Linda Tripp had emerged with her tapes, that the matter should have been referred. It's improper to be using a grand jury to gather evidence for the House of Representatives. You're taking the judicial branch and using it for what is constitutionally a legislative function.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Joe Whitley, you just don't see it that way, right?

JOE WHITLEY: I don't agree with that. I think that he had to explore this because it's been a pattern of-he believes-of obstruction of justice, of suborning perjury and perjury,seen from other witnesses as we know. Vernon Jordan, for example, played a large role in the retention of Web Hubble by large companies, and the hiring of Monica Lewinsky or the almost hiring by the State Department of Monica Lewinsky, the almost hiring by the State Department of Monica Lewinsky and also the almost-hiring of Monica Lewinsky by the Revlon Corporation, all represent what the independent counsel thought was a pattern here. There are other individuals beside the president who were under investigation here. Monica Lewinsky, herself, may very well have been charged in this case, but she will not be charged, so I don't think the independent counsel could have left it where it was suggested he leave it by Scott Turow.

JIM LEHRER: In other words, he couldn't have just turned it over to the House of Representatives?

JOE WHITLEY: I don't think it would have been appropriate. I think that he had a job to do to pursue this to the end of it. I think he's done that. I think it's made a decision that the president is not chargeable under the Constitution. That's his decision, but I think there is some debate, as Scott Turow indicated, but I think it was appropriate to go the distance and then present it to the House of Representatives.

JIM LEHRER: Beginning with you, Mr. Whitley, and then to you, Mr. Turow, help those of us who have not either been before or involved with a grand jury before. How does this thing work? It's been suggested and been said flatly that a federal grand jury is essentially a tool of a prosecutor. Do you agree with that, Mr. Whitley? Is that what this is really all about?

JOE WHITLEY: Well, I don't think so, and I think it serves a very useful purpose in filtering out cases that should not be pursued, and I think it should be both a sword and a shield. And I think that's something that Mr. Turow and I would agree on. I believe it serves a very useful purpose in filtering out cases that should not be pursued and also grand jury secrecy is very important. And in most cases somebody's innocent of any crimes-matters like this would not be known to the public. So I think it serves a very useful purpose. It involves the citizens in a community; the citizens in this case-23 citizens-and from the District of Columbia-involved in looking at this very important issue, so I think it serves a very useful purpose.

JIM LEHRER: And it keeps the police, Mr. Turow, from arbitrarily prosecuting people capriciously. That's the point of the exercise, right?

SCOTT TUROW: That's correct. The Constitution guarantees the right to be indicted by a grand jury, and the theory at that time, and I agree with Mr. Whitley. I think it still holds true-was to make sure-put a citizen buffer between the government and citizens and to prevent baseless accusations from being brought forth. That said, though, having appeared before grand juries as a prosecutor and having defended on the other side now for many years, the old saying that a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich is still true. A grand jury exists, guided solely and hearing solely from the prosecution.

JIM LEHRER: Because there is no defense-the defense lawyer is not even allowed in the room under normal circumstances, and no defense is put on for the jurors to hear, correct?

SCOTT TUROW: That is absolutely correct. Under the federal system a lawyer is not permitted to even enter the grand jury room.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Whitley, you wouldn't dispute that, would you?

JOE WHITLEY: No, I would not. I think that's one of the more unusual aspects of the process, where your lawyer must wait outside the grand jury room door ordinarily. In this case the president had his lawyer very close by, but if you have a question to ask your lawyer, you must ask the prosecutor for an opportunity to do that and then seek a recess and go outside and then come back in after you've had your counsel give you advice and information on what you should do next. But it is a process that's been very effective against organized criminal activity, against public corruption activity. It's a great tool, a great resource for prosecutors, and if they abuse it, they might very well lose it in this country, but I think our federal prosecutors today are trained well, highly ethical standards in place, and I think that it's-only on rare occasions is it abused, and I think in most cases prosecutors observe and appreciate the power that they have with a federal grand jury.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Whitley, you would not see what Kenneth Starr is doing as an abuse of this federal grand jury system?

JOE WHITLEY: No, I would not. I think it's stretching it to the limit in the sense that the public is looking at it-the public sometimes is not as informed on these issues as we are, as attorneys-and unfortunately, sometimes the system becomes a caricature. But I believe in this case Mr. Starr has taken his oath seriously. I think he's passed along that seriousness to his employees that work for him and the independent counsel's office. And I think that he has not abused the process.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Turow, would you use the word "abuse?"

SCOTT TUROW: Well, I don't like to be that accusatory, but I would say that the destruction of the rule of secrecy has really destroyed the process. The president, for example, were he any other citizen, would never be testifying before that grand jury today. He would do what grand jury targets always do in the rare instances when they're actually subpoenaed, and that is he would claim his right against self-incrimination. And because there is no secrecy attending this process, although there is supposed to be, he can't do it, because he fears the political-not the legal-consequences.

JIM LEHRER: And, Mr. Whitley, there is a force, is there not, behind a grand jury subpoena-just the fact that the grand jury wants to hear from you, whether you're the President of the United States or somebody else-that's different than say, I'd like to send over a couple of FBI agents to interview you? There's a force there that most people cannot resist, correct?

JOE WHITLEY: That's correct. You're under compulsion to appear, and, failing to appear, you may be held in contempt by the court. So there is an altogether different circumstance from voluntarily appearing, a force in this case the president, after receiving a subpoena, agreed to voluntarily appear, and I think, as Scott suggested for political reasons, this was a situation where I think the president realized and appreciated he would not likely be prosecuted in criminal court, but his jury-his jury of peers, if you will, will be the politicians from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, who will be deciding whether or not to bring articles of impeachment.

JIM LEHRER: And that, to you, Mr. Whitley, is a perfectly legitimate use of this grand jury?

JOE WHITLEY: I believe so. I think it focused this entire investigation. I think Congress will now have a much easier job of looking at this. Frankly, Congress as a body is very ineffective in my view in conducting detailed investigations like this one was. So I think that he used all the tools that he had available to him to look into this, and I think now at this point in time I believe he's going to be making a report to Congress.

JIM LEHRER: You disagree with that, Mr. Turow?

SCOTT TUROW: I certainly do. I do not think that that is an appropriate function. The grand jury has enormous power. It does operate in secret. And it is meant to prefer charges in public or to clear the innocent. It is not meant to conduct a subcommittee search for impeachment evidence.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

JOE WHITLEY: This case he had to do it this way. I don't think he had any choice, because he believes-and I believe he's correct-he cannot prosecute the president, so with this particular target or this particular individual he had no choice but to proceed the way he did, and I think that-

SCOTT TUROW: And I say-

JOE WHITLEY: --in this circumstance it was appropriate.

SCOTT TUROW: And I say he should have referred the matter as soon as the Tripp tapes were in hand. He should have referred it to the House.

JOE WHITLEY: And also-excuse me-

JIM LEHRER: No, go ahead.

JOE WHITLEY: Also, I would add that there are two roles of a grand jury. One is to fact find, as this grand jury has done a good bit of, and the other is to charge, and in this case, the grand jury has done a lot of the former, as opposed to the latter, as it concerns President Clinton.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, gentlemen, we have to leave it there. Thank you both very much.FOCUS - MAXIMUM COVERAGE

JIM LEHRER: Now, a NewsHour debut. It's that of Terence Smith as the senior producer and correspondent of our new media unit, funded by the Pew Charitable Trust. Terry has been a journalism practitioner for 30 years, in print for the New York Times, among others, and in television with CBS News. With us, he becomes a journalism observer. His first assignment: today's grand jury testimony of the president.CORRESPONDENT: Clinton's closest advisers now believe he has to make clear that he did not intend to deceive having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.

TERENCE SMITH: You could be forgiven for thinking it was World War III. In the pre-dawn drizzle a legion of reporters and cameras had encircled the White House like a hostile army.

CORRESPONDENT: President Clinton, facing what may be the most critical personal test of his presidency, will admit to a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

SPOKESMAN: He's described by some advisers as having had some very emotionally difficult discussions with the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

TERENCE SMITH: It was the start of the long-awaited day when President Clinton would finally testify before the grand jury. And the star of the show was, as promised, nowhere to be seen. Today's three-ring media circus was the culmination of seven months of exhaustive and frequently exhausting media coverage of the White House sex scandal. From winter into spring into summer, Monica Lewinsky's every arrival and departure has set off pandemonium among the press. The lawn outside the federal courthouse has been nicknamed Monica Beach, and the battery of cameras there has recorded an endless parade of witnesses. Throughout it all no one has had a better seat at this circus than Bob Franken, the CNN correspondent whose office has been the massive pillar next to the courthouse steps.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN: Since the colds of January, we've run the gamut in terms of weather, that's for sure.

TERENCE SMITH: Right, all the seasons.

BOB FRANKEN: All the seasons.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, you've got a tan.

BOB FRANKEN: I've got a courthouse tan, which, of course, is not the kind of tan one hopes to get in August in Washington, but this is quite a story.

SAM DONALDSON, ABC News: I get letters from people who believe somehow that the press is responsible for the story. T'ain't true, folks. There are principals here, and they are responsible for this story, whatever it may turn out to be.

TERENCE SMITH: Over at the White House Sam Donaldson of ABC News is perhaps the most familiar face and voice in the press corps. Even he has had to struggle to find the language, just the right word, to tell this story.

SAM DONALDSON: How do you discuss this with the American public? How do I say to television viewers of ABC's World News Tonight, let's talk about oral sex? Well, you'd rather not. And, yet, unless you do, you don't report what may, in fact, be the president's line at his deposition, at his grand jury testimony.

BOB FRANKEN: Let's talk about the alleged semen-stained dress. I've usually referred to it as containing physical evidence of sexual relations, and assuming people out there will know what in the heck is he talking about? I suspect they're going to know.

TERENCE SMITH: For cameraman Neil Grasso and soundman Charlie Dixson of CBS this assignment has seemed like a lifetime. They've spent months beneath this spreading elm.

TERENCE SMITH: This is your tree, huh?

NEIL GRASSO, CBS Cameraman: This is our baby. I think, what, it's grown about two inches since we've been here, is that right?

CHARLIE DIXSON, CBS Soundman: I'm not sure. It's gotten green since we were here. There were no leaves on anything when we started.

TERENCE SMITH: Is this an adult occupation for a grown man or woman?

NEIL GRASSO: It's funny, I had a friend walk by-jogging actually-today, who I hadn't seen in a while, and a family associate, and he came by and he looked at me and went, is this what you do for a living?

TERENCE SMITH: On the Internet too it can be all Monica all the time-the web site-GoMonica.com brings us the top 100 sites. The relentless Monicacam fixed outside her lawyer's office never blinks. Think nobody's watching? The site has had nearly 100,000 hits so far. The newspapers are not far behind. Even before the president opened his mouth today, his testimony-or at least what unnamed advisers said it would be-was front-page news.

DOYLE McMANUS, Bureau Chief, Los Angeles Times: This has been a difficult story to work on from the beginning because of the nature of the issue. Today it's particularly difficult because we won't have a good sense of the substance of the story until very late in the day.

TERENCE SMITH: Doyle McManus is the Washington bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times. He says the competitive pressures on this story have produced more smoke than fire.

DOYLE McMANUS: There has been a minimum amount of substantive knowledge on which the whole menagerie of commentators and analysts, lawyers, and others have erected a vast structure of speculation, commentary. At least today we may have some substance by the end of the day. That'll be an improvement in our situation.

JIM LEHRER: And Terry Smith is here now. First, Terry, welcome to the NewsHour family.

TERENCE SMITH: Jim, thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the president is being tested. Kenneth Starr is being tested by this story, so are those of us who do this sort of work for a living, are we not?

TERENCE SMITH: Absolutely. The president's credibility is not the only credibility on the line here. It is really a defining moment for the news media. Their coverage of this story over the last seven months has been part of a controversy of this story. Many feel there's been too much of it. And certainly the intense competitive pressures on this story-the minute-to-minute deadlines, the 24-hour news cycle-all of these have produced some bad journalism, some stories that simply weren't true. So the public is going to be watching. Right now-and all this day and into this night-you have had the most lethal of situations, which is intense interest and no news.

JIM LEHRER: No pictures, nothing to take pictures of. And is this story-of course, as you say, it's a watershed in many ways-is it not because this is the first story that's been driven in some ways by Internet coverage as much as the traditional thing?

TERENCE SMITH: This story was born on the Internet. The somewhat infamous Matt Drudge and his web site, which has made him sort of the web equivalent of Boot of the Beast in the Evelyn Wa novel, he actually launched this story when he scooped Newsweek on the Internet on their own story, which was the Lewinsky tapes back in January. So it was born on the Internet. It's been pushed ahead on the Internet, and sometimes with major errors.

JIM LEHRER: You know, some of the mainstream news organizations, the Dallas Morning News, being one, the Wall Street Journal being another, put stories on the Internet before they put them in their own publications and had to say, wait a minute, that wasn't quite right.

TERENCE SMITH: Exactly, including Time Magazine last week, put them out on an instant basis, pull them back, because they're not right. So it shows that the Internet has great potential for the fast delivery of news and great pitfalls too.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Whitley, the former U.S. Attorney down in Georgia just said that the volume of the news coverage, the intensity of the news, there is no precedent for this, is there, Terry?

TERENCE SMITH: Well, certainly not for quantity. Quality-

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

TERENCE SMITH: --might be another issue. But there has been wall-to-wall coverage of this story, with precedent perhaps since the Gulf War, which is an amazing thing to think of. It has been especially for the television networks very difficult. Today, for example, when the president began his testimony at 12:59, three major television networks interrupted their regular programming and went to special reports with, of course, no information about what's going on in that sealed room. In fact, Peter Jennings on ABC reported what he called a very difficult, very challenging atmosphere in the Map Room. Well, Peter, you must have gotten that one through ESP or something, because, obviously, it was a sealed room. There were no reporters there. CNN began the testimony phase with a little clock up in the corner of the screen, saying the president testified so long. It looked like the little scores you see on NFL football games or a baseball game. Well, then they tried to take it down, because, of course, the president-they discovered-was taking a few breaks-as you might imagine.

JIM LEHRER: Absolutely. So it wasn't literally that must testifying going on. Well, Terry, look, we've just hit some high points here. This is exactly the kinds of stories you're going to be doing, not just about obviously the president and Monica Lewinsky but other stories of the press. You've come at the right time, sir.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, thank you. I mean, we have the information industries are big now, they're important, and they're controversial, and what I hope we will be about here and what we intend here is reporting and analysis on the information industry, not hammering, finger wagging, and commentary. Ithink there's probably enough of that around.

JIM LEHRER: I agree. Terry, welcome again. Thank you, sir.

TERENCE SMITH: Thank you.% ? UPDATE - AFRICA BOMBINGS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, an update on the embassy bombing story and to Phil Ponce.

PHIL PONCE: There's been an arrest in connection with the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A suspect, identified as Mohammed Sadik Howaida, was apprehended at the airport in Karachi, Pakistan after arriving on a flight from Nairobi. He was on his way to Afghanistan, according to news reports. The suspect was returned to Kenya this weekend for questioning by U.S. and Kenyan authorities. For more, we go to David Breset. Mr. Bresett is a former Secret Service-excuse me-I got lost here-Mr. Bresett is a former Secret Service chief of foreign intelligence who also worked at the CIA, and he's now with the private security company, Beckett Brown International. Welcome, Mr. Breset. First of all, your reaction to the arrest, a bit of a surprise?

DAVID BRESETT, Former Secret Service Official: I was surprised, Phil, pleasantly surprised, that the Pakistani authorities would pick up on Howaida's bogus travel documents and grab him. I think it's a great break for-if he's truly connected and only further investigation will tell-he's truly connected with the Nairobi bombing-it's a great break for the investigators down in Kenya.

PHIL PONCE: And according to reports, his itinerary was to fly from Kenya to Pakistan and then on to Afghanistan. What does that tell you?

DAVID BRESETT: Well, that's consistent with what we know about Arab Afghans. And I believe that's what we're dealing with probably here.

PHIL PONCE: Arab Afghans?

DAVID BRESETT: A rather generic expression for those individuals that were drawn together at the beginning of the Afghan conflict to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan back in 1979. As you know, that conflict's been almost a 10-year period. These are people that are now pretty much have returned to their homelands but still are able to seek refuge-safe haven, if you will, in denied areas such as Afghanistan.

PHIL PONCE: And one of the key people in that group is a gentleman by the name of Osama Bin Laden. Who is he?

DAVID BRESETT: Well, he's been described as everything from an enigma to a radical Saudi prince. I don't think--he's not either-to be honest with you. What he is is a radical Saudi financier of terrorist organizations. This is an individual that was drawn in again like Arab Afghans, as I mentioned earlier, into the Afghan conflict early on, and rose to a position of prominence. And now a lot of people consider him the godfather of the so-called Arab Afghan movement. I believe he's the heart and soul of that movement.

PHIL PONCE: And he's believed to be living in Afghanistan, is that correct?

DAVID BRESETT: Yes. In Southern Afghanistan.

PHIL PONCE: What is the source of his wealth and how much money is he supposed to have at his disposal?

DAVID BRESETT: He's from a wealthy Saudi family. His family, who are certainly backers of the current regime in Saudi Arabia, they're not radical-made their money in the construction business.

PHIL PONCE: And he's what-he's a black sheep, and the Saudi Arabian government has, what, taken away his passport?

DAVID BRESETT: Yes. They jerked his passport, I guess, a couple of years ago now, and his citizenship, and he's in no man's land in Afghanistan basically.

PHIL PONCE: Why does he hate the United States so much?

DAVID BRESETT: Well, we're the infidel. That's the short answer. He blames, as a lot ofother Afghans, the United States for a lot of problems that Muslims are facing around the world. That's the slightly longer answer.

PHIL PONCE: He's not reluctant to go on record as saying these things.

DAVID BRESETT: No. He did relatively recently back in May. He was interviewed by a U.S. news team, and basically he said I'm coming to get you, U.S., and I think he's certainly followed up on his threat.

PHIL PONCE: And how does he operate? I mean, does he have-does he hire people? Does he pay people? How does it work?

DAVID BRESETT: Well, the people associated with this Arab-Afghan movement have been described in the past as a loose collection of like-minded individuals who come together for one-time operations. There are a number of organizations-the Gamada Ela Slamea-Egyptian Al-Jihad, and several others, depending on the country you're talking about, that have people available to do these type of operations. They are basically, in a manner of speaking, under Bin Laden's umbrella. That's certainly-they're subject to his influence. They need funding. He can provide that. They need an ideological leader. He can certainly provide that. He's the latter day incarnation of an individual by the name of Abdulla Hasam-who was instrumental in getting the so-called Arab-Afghan movement off the ground back in-it must have been 1978-79, rather.

PHIL PONCE: At this point there's no hard evidence that this known publicly anyway linking Mr. Bin Laden to what happened in Africa. What makes the United States so keen on him as a suspect?

DAVID BRESETT: Well, the outstanding threat, first of all. I think that the general method of operation-there are a variety of factors that leave U.S. investigators to believe that-that he's probably the one. To a great extent the process of elimination-you look at the usual suspects out there-Iraq-I don't believe they were involved. I don't think they have the reach at this point in time to pull off these relatively sophisticated type operations outside the immediate area of the Middle East that they're ensconced in. The timing is bad for Iranian support. So it comes down to a-in my mind-process of elimination, and the person that looms large in my mind at least is Bin Laden.

PHIL PONCE: And very quickly, in the time we have left, where does an investigation like this go from here?

DAVID BRESETT: Well, you got to rely to a great extent on the forensic evidence developed at the crime scene and see what comes out of that. If you're able to come up with some signature items on the devices that might point to an individual or organization, that's just a start. Intelligence organizations should lead the charge hopefully in a perfect world.

PHIL PONCE: And with that, we are out of time, Mr. Bresett. Thank you for joining us.

DAVID BRESETT: Okay, Phil, thank you.% ? RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major story of this Monday, President Clinton testified by closed-circuit television before the federal grand jury investigating the Monica Lewinsky matter. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and his deputies concluded their questioning this evening after five hours. The president will give a speech to the nation tonight at 10 PM Eastern Time. We will present it live at that time on most public television stations. And we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening on a regular time. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.