The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MAC NEIL: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After today's top stories, we have a debate about the future of Medicare in Congress, next, extended excerpts from today's Waco hearings, and the Whitewater hearings, then Charlayne Hunter-Gault continues her conversations on the meaning of cyberspace, and essayist Roger Rosenblatt looks at our protected times. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: The Bosnian government gave up the fight for the town of Zepa today. Serb forces marched into the UN-declared safe area after attacking it for more than a week. UN officials said the Muslim-led army has abandoned Zepa but still controls much of the surrounding area. It was the second UN-protected area to fall into Serb hands. The town of Srebrenica was taken two weeks ago. Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Sladic said many residents of Zepa had fled to the hills. He called on the UN to help those remain.

HARIS SLADIC, Prime Minister Bosnia: We request that women and children are evacuated from Zepa under the UN UNPROFOR protection in the vehicles belonging to the UNPROFOR and the UN. And we also request a resolution that authorizes the UNPROFOR to use force if those convoys are attacked.

MR. MAC NEIL: UN officials said today about a thousand civilians from Zepa had been evacuated on Serb buses without UN escort. Peter Morgan of Independent Television News reports on UN efforts to resolve the situation.

PETER MORGAN, ITN: Tonight the head of the UN's Bosnian mission is in Zepa trying to negotiate safe passage for the town's civilians.

ALEXANDER IVANKO, UN Spokesman: [Speaking from Sarajevo] Our commander, Lt. Gen. Smith, is currently talking to the Bosnian Serb commander, Gen. Mladic, on the situation in Zepa and on how to facilitate the evacuation of the civilians from the enclave. We hope that we will be able to avoid the abuses of human rights, the gross abuses of human rights seen and reported during the evacuation of civilians from Srebrenica.

PETER MORGAN: This afternoon, the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague indicted the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadjic and the head of his army Ratko Mladic. The tribunal has charged both men with genocide and crimes against humanity, arising, in its words, from atrocities perpetrated against the civilian population of Bosnia since July 1992. Gen. Mladic, seen here gloating over his troops' actions around Zepa last week, is accused, along with Dr. Karadzic, of deliberately trying to kill, terrorize, and demoralize the Bosnian Muslim and Croat population.

MR. MAC NEIL: The tribunal's prosecutor said he was also investigating allegations against Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Bosnian government officials said the western enclave of Bihac is under heavy attack today. A coalition of Bosnian and Croatian Serbs launched a fresh offensive against the UN protected area last week. The U.S. Senate today debated Sen. Bob Dole's bill to lift the arms embargo against the Bosnian government. The measure's expected to have bipartisan support. President Clinton opposes the move, but Sen. Dole rejected his appeal to put off a vote. Allied leaders have said lifting the embargo could lead to the withdrawal of United Nations forces. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton attacked Republican plans for Medicare today. He said their move to save $270 billion by slowing the growth of Medicare spending would leave some seniors without medical coverage. He spoke at a Capitol Hill celebration of Medicare's 30th anniversary.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Those who want to gamble with Medicare are asking Americans to bet their lives, and why should they bet their lives? Not to balance the budget, not to strengthen the Medicare trust fund, but simply to pay for a big tax cut for people who don't need it. It's a bad deal, we ought not to do it. We have to make sure that good, affordable health care is available to all older Americans. That's what we do now. Let's don't stop it.

MR. LEHRER: The administration plans to focus on Republican Medicare plans all week. House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it a week of cheap shots in nostalgia. He spoke at a Washington news conference.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: I think to try to scare senior citizens as a re-election technique a year and a half before the election is, frankly, a very despicable strategy. And I have a simple challenge to the President. You tell the country before this week is out what you would do to save Medicare, what is your plan, what is your program, and if you don't have one, then cut out the demagoguery, sit down with us, we'll share with you what we're doing, and you can help us pass a good plan that saves Medicare by strengthening it, and does so by reassuring every senior citizen that they are going to have a program.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have more on this Medicare debate later in the program.

MR. MAC NEIL: A second week for Senate hearings on Whitewater got underway today. Committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato denied a Republican colleague's request to call First Lady Hillary Clinton to testify. Sen. Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina wanted to question Mrs. Clinton about the search of Vincent Foster's office after the White House Deputy Counsel committed suicide. Hearings on the Waco raid continued today. A lawyer for the Branch Davidians testified that he and the FBI had negotiated a plan for peaceful surrender to end the siege at the compound but it fell through.

JACK ZIMMERMANN, Lawyer for Branch Davidian: We had a deal. We were going to do it. We told them on the 14th they were coming out. We told them it would take another ten, twelve days. We asked them, "Do you have that much time?" They said, "We have all the time in the world to resolve this peacefully."

REP. HOWARD COBLE, [R] North Carolina: Well, what frustrated the plan, gentlemen?

JACK ZIMMERMANN: Some desk-bound bureaucrat in Washington overrode those people's judgment down there.

MR. MAC NEIL: We'll have extended excerpts from the Waco and Whitewater hearings later in the program.

MR. LEHRER: A bomb exploded in a downtown Paris subway station today. Four people were killed, at least sixty injured. The explosion occurred on an express train during the evening rush hour, setting off a fire. Police said the device was apparently hidden beneath one of the seats. Emergency workers set up a triage center at a nearby cafe. No one has claimed responsibility. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Medicare, the Waco and Whitewater hearings, cyberspace, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - HEALTHY SOLUTIONS

MR. MAC NEIL: First tonight the debate over reforming Medicare. President Clinton went to the Senate today to mark the Medicare's 30th anniversary. Many senior citizens groups aren't celebrating. That's because the coming political battle over transforming the program to reduce costs in the effort to balance the federal budget. Correspondent Tom Bearden has this backgrounder.

TOM BEARDEN: When President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into existence 30 years ago, half of all senior citizens had no health care coverage at all.

PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: There are those fearing the terrible darkness of despairing poverty, despite their long years of labor and expectations, who will now look up to see the light of hope and realization.

MR. BEARDEN: Back then, nobody thought the price tag on such a program would be a problem. It was expected to cost only about $10 billion per year by 1990. But today, Medicare costs over $160 billion each year, and that's expected to continue to rise by 10 percent per year. It's growing at that rate because older people are now a much larger percentage of the population and because today's high-tech medicine costs a lot more than it did in the 60's. Medicare provides health benefits to 37 million Americans. That includes virtually every American over the age of 65 and some four and a quarter million younger people with various disabilities. The sheer number of people who benefit from Medicare guarantees that any plan aimed at cutting the program's cost will inevitably be an explosive political issue. There are two different kinds of Medicare benefits: The first, known as Part A, pays for hospitalization. Patients pay a $700 charge each time they are hospitalized. Medicare takes care of the rest. Part B covers doctors' bills and other outpatient care. Medicare pays 80 percent of those costs, patients pay 20 percent, plus a yearly $100 deductible. The hospital part of Medicare is headed for insolvency. The program's trustees say it will go bankrupt by the year 2002. The Republicans' proposed solution is to reduce the growth of Medicare by $270 billion over the next seven years. They would also overhaul the payment system, giving Medicare beneficiaries vouchers to purchase their own private insurance and would establish incentives for seniors to use Health Maintenance Organizations. President Clinton attacked the Republican plan today.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Will the medical costs stay sufficiently under control to permit these vouchers to cover the full costs of care? No expert thinks so. Is it fair to make older Americans give up their doctors and be forced into managed care instead of giving the option to them to go into a managed care network? Is it really necessary to balance the budget and to stabilize the Medicare trust fund to do what the congressional majority proposes? The answer to every single one of these questions is, no.

MR. BEARDEN: The President has called for savings of $127 billion over seven years but hasn't said how that would be achieved. House Speaker Newt Gingrich called on the President to be specific.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: Medicare starts to run out of money next year. It goes broke within seven years. His trustees said so in a report. Now from everything we can tell so far, they plan a week of cheap shots in nostalgia where they will not talk honestly about our plan, they won't admit that we increased spending by $1900 per senior citizen, they won't deal with the problem; they'll just stand around and celebrate and then attack us. And I think the President of the United States owes it to the people of America to tell us what plan does he favor, how would he save Medicare.

MR. MAC NEIL: Does Medicare need a complete overhaul, and, if so, does the Republican call for a voucher system fit the bill? We ask two members of Congress. Sen. Judd Gregg is a Republican from New Hampshire. Congressman Jim McDermott is a Democrat from Washington State. They join us from Capitol Hill. Congressman McDermott, how do you answer Speaker Gingrich that you Democrats are just making cheap shots and won't say how you would save Medicare?

REP. JIM McDERMOTT, [D] Washington: Well, we're willing to talk about that as soon as they get rid of that tax giveaway to those who are well off in this country. The first thing they did was take $86 billion out of a trust fund and use it as a part of their tax breaks for the wealthy in this country. If that's their intention, then they're not serious about protecting the fund. We want to see 'em be serious. As soon as they do, we have ideas.

MR. MAC NEIL: And, Sen. Gregg, on the general point, how do you answer the basic Democratic charge that your way of fixing Medicare will end up costing many seniors more?

SEN. JUDD GREGG, [R] New Hampshire: Well, it's inaccurate. The fact is that what we're proposing or what I'm proposing and many of us in the Senate are talking about is a proposal which will give senior citizens essentially the same tough choices as members of Congress have. The proposal essentially says to seniors you can stay with the plan you presently have, fee-for-service, if you like it and you want to keep it. We have no problems with that. But if you choose to go into another type of plan, a fixed cost plan such as an HMO or a group of doctors practicing together, a PPO, and that plan maintains the quality which it will have to and maintains the benefit structure which it will have to but is able to deliver the service to you for less, then we're going to let you, the senior, keep 75 percent of your savings. So what we're proposing to seniors is to give them a chance to look around the marketplace and be cost conscious purchasers of health care, and in the process have a lot more choices, and we think be able to stabilize the rate of growthof health care which, as your lead-in piece mentioned, we're not talking about cutting health care, we're talking about slowing its rate of growth so that we can keep the trust fund solvent, which is the fundamental goal here, keep the trust fund solvent.

MR. MAC NEIL: I gather you're not calling it a voucher. It's not actually going to be a piece of paper, but you are going to give senior citizens the choice of having an equivalent value, correct, that something they could apply to buying them their coverage by an HMO, in an HMO?

SEN. GREGG: It would do essentially what a federal employee does today, a member of Congress does, which is they get a booklet which--we've also some assistance in education, a lot of assistance in education--and in that booklet, there will be a list of all sorts of different health care provider groups and what they're offering the senior citizen as an option, and then they would pick the one that most fit their needs, whether it had eye glasses and drugs on top of the basic benefit structure, whether it had a higher deductible or something like that.

MR. MAC NEIL: And so they--excuse me--would they take their Medicare card--they take the card they have now for Medicare and take that to the HMO and say, and then the HMO would then bill the government, is that the way it would work?

SEN. GREGG: The HMO would be paid directly by the government and then the refund to the senior citizen, if the HMO or the PPO came in under the fee-for-service cost for that region, would also flow back to the senior citizen by a reduction in their Part B premium costs.

MR. MAC NEIL: And what would the advantage be to the country generally of encouraging senior citizens to go into HMO's?

SEN. GREGG: Well, we've seen in the private sector that movement into HMO's from fee-for-service, most seniors are now using fee- for-service because that's what they grew up with, that's what they understand; about 92 percent of them use fee-for-service. But that's the most expensive form of health care. And to the extent seniors opt--and it will be voluntary--to move into HMO's, we've seen in the private sector this has reduced the rate of growth of health care costs rather dramatically. Now we don't expect to get the same savings with seniors because they are much more highly-- their utilization is much higher--but we don't need to, so for the country the advantage would be that seniors would have more choices, they'd get--be cost conscious purchasers and get a benefit from their economic decision and their decision to pick a health plan, and for the federal government, the benefit would be that we would have a predictable cost of health care because as they move into fixed cost health care, we can much--we can predict much more aggressively and effectively what the rate of growth will be.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay, Congressman McDermott, what's wrong with that, from your point of view?

REP. McDERMOTT: Well, first of all, you have to think, who are the beneficiaries we're talking about? We're talking about older people who need health care, who are increasingly having difficulty figuring out how the world works and all the varieties of things that go on, and you're going to say to 34 million people, here's a piece of paper, here's a voucher, you go out and figure out by yourself how you're going to buy the best insurance policy. Now if you're 65 and in good health, you've just retired, that's not a problem. But if you're 85 and having a little bit of confusion and you've got illnesses and you've had a heart attack or you've had a stroke or whatever and you have to go out there, who is going to help them figure out--that's the first problem. And the second--

MR. MAC NEIL: He said, you don't have to go out there; you could stay with it as it is, if you wanted to.

REP. McDERMOTT: The problem is, Robin, or Jim, the problem is that they are going to force you to pay more if you stay in the regular old Medicaid program. They call about an incentive to go into an HMO. Turn that around; that means it's going to cost more.

SEN. GREGG: Where did you see that--

MR. MAC NEIL: Senator, let him just finish his sentence, and then I'll come back to you.

SEN. GREGG: I'd like hiim to be accurate.

REP. McDERMOTT: Every proposal that has appeared in the House of Representatives has a requirement that people pay more, some kind of additional payment if they stay with the old fee-for-service. There's not one shred of evidence any place that the government would save money if we put every senior in an HMO. Right now, the GAO says it costs 6 percent more to have people in HMO's than people in fee-for-service.

MR. MAC NEIL: Let me just go back to the Senator for a moment. Is what the Congressman just said true, that if they chose to stay in the present Medicare thing and didn't want to go to an HMO, they would have to pay more?

SEN. GREGG: No, not under my proposal. Furthermore, there is a fairly significant body of evidence called the private sector which has shown that as people move out of fee-for-service into HMO's that there's a significant drop in the rate of the inflation rate in health care premiums, and we've seen a 50 percent drop in health care premiums in the private sector as a result of moving to HMO's, so there is a possibility for savings there.

MR. MAC NEIL: Let's go back to the Congressman. Congressman McDermott, you've charged--sorry to hustle this along--but you've charged that if a lot of them do go into HMO's, they're going to find that the voucher--the price the government is willing to pay- -will gradually be less and less of what the HMO will charge, so I'd like to hear your argument on that.

REP. McDERMOTT: I brought along a chart. This is off the CBO figures from the budget resolution--

MR. MAC NEIL: Congressional Budget Office.

REP. McDERMOTT: --that was passed by the House and Senate, and it shows that in the first year, the voucher will pay for an equivalent amount in the private sector. The blue is the--is what the voucher will be worth. The green is what the private sector will be. By the time you get to 2002, the blue will be $1,000 less than what it is anticipated to be paid in the private sector. Now that means a senior citizen is going to have to reach into their pocket, come up with an extra $1,000 to buy the equivalent health care. And, remember, 80 percent of the people in Medicare have incomes less than $25,000 a year.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay.

REP. McDERMOTT: They're not going to have the money to buy an equivalent program.

MR. MAC NEIL: Let's let the Senator answer that, since that's central to the Democratic complaint about your plan. Sen. Gregg, what's your answer to that?

SEN. GREGG: What we're talking about here is how much Medicare is going to increase. At its present rate of increase, which is 10 percent annually, it goes broke. In the year 2002, there is no Medicare system because the insurance trust fund has no money in it. And what we're proposing is a rate of increase which is 7 percent per year annually. That is twice the rate of inflation. We happen to think that that gives us a tremendous amount of elasticity or room in which to take care of the cost increases which are being incurred in the health care community. For example, in the private sector last year, health care premium costs actually went down 1.9 percent as a function of the rate of inflation, but, again, Medicare went up 10 percent. Well, we think that if we see senior citizens move into HMO's as a result of their own choice, their own volition, if they decide to move in that direction, and we happen to believe that they are capable of making their own decisions in their lifestyle--we don't happen to take the Democratic view that only the government can decide what their choices should be--as they move into HMO's or other types of fixed cost insurance plans, that the rate of growth certainly will be able to be reduced to 7 percent annually and probably will drop significantly below that.

MR. MAC NEIL: Senator, answer directly his point that the-- whatever the rate of growth is that the voucher or the government payment won't equal year by year what the HMO's will charge, and the seniors will have to find that out of their own pocket, many of them on very straightened incomes now.

SEN. GREGG: Well, under the program we presented, that wouldn't be a possibility, because the only HMO's or PPO's that could participate would be those that were willing to charge a fee that met what is called the value amount, which is the same amount as the fee-for-service amount or less.

MR. MAC NEIL: You're saying--

SEN. GREGG: So you can't go over the amount that the Medicare recipient would be able to receive if they were to stay in the fee- for-service amount as a charge from the HMO's. That's the plan we have, the basic theory being that there's going to be a significant marketplace movement to undertake servicing these folks once they have the opportunity to. We've seen that in a lot of different sectors. We expect to see it here, and we think there will be a lot of competition for those dollars.

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, here's another direction, Senator, that's raised, for instance, by the "New York Times" in an editorial today, that the insurance companies will just cherry pick, they will take all the younger, healthier seniors, the people just over 65, and then they will leave the older, iller seniors to Medicare.

SEN. GREGG: Well, that was a serious concern that we had. Thus, in our plan, the plan that I propose, we don't allow that to happen. Any Medicare provider group, whether it's a fee-for-service provider, HMO provider, or a PPO provider, must take all comers. There can be no adverse selection. If somebody comes to you and you have put in to be a participant as an HMO or a PPO or any other provider group, no matter who the senior is, you have to take them as a patient. So risks--the adverse risk of selection issue, which is the cherry-picking issue, is eliminated under our bill.

MR. MAC NEIL: Are you satisfied with that, Congressman?

REP. McDERMOTT: Absolutely not. What the Senator is talking about is a theory. What he voted for was a bill that says that although the private sector's going to go up 7 percent a year, they voted for a limited voucher that will only go up 4.6 percent a year, so every year, seniors are going to fall 3 percent further and further and further behind. And that's simply not going to work.

MR. MAC NEIL: He just said the HMO couldn't charge more than the voucher--the government was willing to pay for the voucher.

SEN. GREGG: Plus, I haven't--

REP. McDERMOTT: That's not what's in the budget resolution. They will not lay out on the table what they really intend to do. They simply have been talking--I really wish that the House--Bill Thomas had come over here--but the House is afraid to lay a proposal on the table because they know that they can't defend it.

SEN. GREGG: Well, of course, the group that hasn't laid the proposal on the table, unfortunately, is the administration and the Democratic leadership in the Congress. My proposal is in writing. It has been fairly well discussed. It has been seen by HHS, and the President, regrettably, has not come forward with a proposal, and that's unfortunate because we are looking at a trust fund that's headed towards bankruptcy, and unless we put in place some restructuring of this medical delivery system, which was designed in the 60's, so that it can function in the year 2000, we're going to have a lot of seniors without health care.

MR. MAC NEIL: Congressman, how do you answer that? The President said today very dramatically if you're a conservative, you should believe if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but the system is broke, by the Congressional Budget Office and the trustee's evidence, it is broke and does need fixing, does it not?

REP. McDERMOTT: Since 1965, we have made adjustments in the trust fund every year. The trustees have put out this same report. In the 70's, they were talking about it being broke within two years. We've made adjustments. There are adjustments that we can make and we will make just to save the fund. It would not take more than $90 billion to save Medicare trust fund to the year 2005. They're taking $270 billion because they want to use that money to do the tax break. If they were serious about it, we would sit and talk with 'em, but as long as they want to decimate the fund to the level of $270 billion, they are going to hurt senior citizens. There's no question about it.

MR. MAC NEIL: Sen. Gregg, how do you answer that charge, which is also a fundamental--that you're really cutting so deeply because you need the money for $245 billion in tax cuts?

SEN. GREGG: Well, first off, it's totally inaccurate, and I really wish the Congressman had his facts straight. He ought to read the trustee's report. The trustee said that in order to make the trust fund solvent, it would take $365 billion over seven years in adjustments in benefits or in tax increases. We're at 270 [billion dollars]. The President happens to be at 290 [billion dollars]. I notice your report said 125 [billion dollars]. That's inaccurate. CBO scored it. It's at 190 [billion dollars]. So there's only a 60 billion dollar difference between us and the President over seven years. But the fact is that for the trustee- -under the trustee's own terms, it takes $385 billion to get this trust fund into solvency actuariality. So that's a very important point. Secondly, under the budget resolution--

MR. MAC NEIL: We need to go in a second, Senator.

SEN. GREGG: I'm sorry. Okay. Under the budget resolution, none of the tax cuts can occur until after the budget has been put in place with all spending restraint in place and the tax cuts are generated primarily by a reduction in interest rates and are not tied in any way to the Medicare action.

MR. MAC NEIL: Sen. Gregg, Congressman McDermott, thanks for joining us.

MR. MAC NEIL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the Waco and Whitewater hearings, cyberspace, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - WACO REVISITED

MR. LEHRER: Now on to the big hearings of the day. Waco is first. Betty Ann Bowser reports.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Houston criminal defense attorney Dick DeGuerin was David Koresh's lawyer. Jack Zimmermann, another Texas defense attorney, represented Koresh's chief lieutenant, Steve Schneider. Both men spent nearly 32 hours talking to their clients and other Branch Davidians during the 51-day stand-off.

DICK DeGUERIN, David Koresh's Lawyer: Part of what a lawyer does is to try gather facts about the crime, and so much of what I did when I was inside was interview witnesses and look at evidence. And what I saw and what I was told was very compelling that the ATF fired first. Understanding that those on the inside had a big stake in this, and I might have been lied to, but what I saw confirmed that they fired--that the ATF fired first. Everyone who was in a position to know from the inside told me that, that the firing came first from the outside. I was told that firing came from the helicopters, and Jack Zimmermann and I saw the bullet holes in the ceiling of the highest room in the compound. I saw the bullet holes in the front door. This is a photograph that was taken with a long- range lens from the, the surveillance house. Almost every bullet hole was an incoming round, and what I mean by that, it's a metal door, you could easily tell that the bullets were incoming rounds. They were punched in.

MS. BOWSER: By the time DeGuerin and Zimmermann had their last face-to-face meeting with Koresh and Schneider several days later, the FBI had begun tightening the perimeter around the compound. It cut off electricity and played loud chanting music late into the night. [Tibetan Chant in background]

MR. HOWARD COBLE, [R] North Carolina: Gentlemen, how about the loud music, the playing of the loud music, does anybody want to be heard on that?

DICK DeGUERIN: That was the wrong tactic. It was the wrong tactic. When you're trying to create trust between the FBI and the, and the Davidians, then you don't try to punish 'em or torture 'em at the same time. And I know--

REP. HOWARD COBLE: Were you ever asked about the advisability of that?

DICK DeGUERIN: It's not advisable. Under that circumstance, under what we've had going on in Waco, that was a wrong tactic. Increasing that pressure, rather than drive them away from David Koresh, had the effect of bonding them closer together. Sharing a terrible experience like basic training, for instance, you bond together. And the second reason it was wrong is because it played right into this apocalyptic vision that they had; the end was coming; with chariots of fire, with giant beasts breathing fire, and here are these tanks going around there breathing fire. It just played right into this apocalyptic vision. That was the wrong tactic.

MS. BOWSER: On April 14th, five days before the FBI's tear gas plan was implemented, Koresh wrote DeGuerin a letter saying God had given him permission to complete writing out the Seven Seals from the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. Koresh promised he would come out when he was through. About the same time, the two attorneys said, Koresh and FBI officials in Waco had agreed on a plan for surrender.

JACK ZIMMERMANN, Lawyer for Branch Davidian: The plan in general was this, that people on the inside were going to tell us--tell the FBI the night before--Dick and I were going to be there, we were going to start during daylight, so this was all done during the day, and Dick DeGuerin and David Koresh were going to exist first to show everybody that they weren't going to get executed the minute they stepped outside, and then I was supposed to stay in there and then see that the other adults came out, keeping a distanceso that law enforcement wouldn't get nervous about people bunching up. It was going to be tape-recorded by the FBI and there was going to be a press representative there taping it so that there'd be no claims of police brutality and there'd be no claims that the opposite--in other words, both sides would be protected. And then as that went through, Steve Schneider would be the last Branch Davidian out, and I would bring up the rear. So it was all worked out, in my judgment. We had a deal; we were going to do it; we told them on the 14th they were coming out. We told them it would take another ten, twelve days. We asked them, "Do you have that much time?" They said, "We have all the time in the world to resolve this peacefully."

REP. HOWARD COBLE: Well, what frustrated the plan, gentlemen?

JACK ZIMMERMANN: Some desk-bound bureaucrat in Washington overrode those people's judgment down there.

REP. HOWARD COBLE: Mr. DeGuerin, do you want to add to that?

DICK DeGUERIN: I don't know exactly how the decision was made, but obviously, they decided and someone pushed for it, and that's what you ought to find out. Someone pushed for a plan to send tear gas, and not just regular tear gas, CS gas, which has been banned for use in international warfare--we can't use it against our worst enemies--but they used it against those kids--somebody pushed for that plan. And it was too soon; it would have ended peacefully, in my opinion.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER, [D] New York: You two gentlemen came in on the negotiations approximately a month after they had begun.

JACK ZIMMERMANN: That's correct.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: You too, Mr. DeGuerin?

DICK DeGUERIN: Yes.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: And in that 30 days, Koresh had lied repeatedly to the agents. On April 2nd, he states that it's a fact he's coming out if a tape is played. The tape is played on local Waco TV on CBN and he doesn't come out. On March 7th, he says he won't be that long. Then on April 2nd, he says he's going to come out right after Passover--doesn't come out. So what we have here is lie after lie after lie by Mr. Koresh, a man who we know has violated federal laws, who has abused children, and all of a sudden on April 15th, we know--you somehow know that he is telling the truth. Well, I have real problems with that. I think most people would have real problems with that, because his pattern was not to tell the truth.

JACK ZIMMERMANN: The dates you gave are wrong. Okay. All the dates like--he never said on April 2nd, that he was coming out at any particular time, because Mr. DeGuerin and I were involved by April 2nd, so I know that's wrong. Now, there were some other promises before that, but you have to put it in context. Until there was somebody he trusted, he didn't trust those people out there, but once Mr. DeGuerin became involved, that's when it happened.

MS. BOWSER: DeGuerin and Zimmermann said FBI negotiators in Waco failed to understand the depth of commitment Koresh and his followers had to their religious views.

DICK DeGUERIN: This was not a bunch of people who'd had--who'd been hypnotized. These people that I saw--and I met almost everybody in there that died in that fire--these people believed- -they believed in the Bible. They were there because of the Bible. Most of them--well, I can't say that--many of them were there not because of David Koresh. Some people had been there as long as 40 years. Some people had been born and raised there. They were there because they believed in a--a vision of the Bible that was unusual. I don't understand it, and these scholars have a difficult time understanding it. But it was real.

REP. HENRY HYDE, [R] Illinois: The unfortunate thing is in the context of Jonestown and the James Jones experience, there is such a cynical approach towards religious fanaticism, there is an unwillingness to understand or believe that there are people in the world who are persons of belief and they believe strange things by our standards but had some--had the understanding been these weren't hostages, these were willing members of a religious group and to get--to get in there and to dissipate them would take persuasion, argumentation from--in their frame of reference, not tear gas and not tanks, and that, it seems to me, was the judgment made somewhere along the line that ended up costing a lot of lives.

JACK ZIMMERMANN: I agree.

DICK DeGUERIN: I agree.

JACK ZIMMERMANN: And if you in your next few days will find out who made those ridiculously dangerous decisions, then I think that would be exercising your oversight responsibilities, and you're the only one in the country who can do it.

DICK DeGUERIN: Mr. Zeliff, I met most of the people in there. I met the children. I wanted to be part of helping to save their lives. And I--I feel that if I had been a little bit more persuasive, I could have gotten David Koresh out of there quicker, and so I feel that I failed. But I also feel like it was a great mistake to start the tanks and tear gas. Whether you accept that David Koresh started the fire and committed suicide with all of those people, or whether it was accidental or not, there's one thing certain: Those people would be alive today if those tanks and tear gas hadn't started rolling on April the 19th.

MS. BOWSER: DeGuerin and Zimmermann said in the end, responsibility for the way Waco ended rests with the person who ordered it, Attorney General Janet Reno, who is scheduled to testify next week. FOCUS - WHITEWATER HEARINGS

MR. LEHRER: Now the Senate Whitewater hearings which resumed for their second week today. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: In it second week, the Senate committee heard from a witness implicated in the central allegation of this phase of the Whitewater hearings, that presidential aides removed Whitewater documents from Vincent Foster's office. Former White House aide Patsy Thomasson said she entered Foster's office on the night of his suicide with then White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum and that she took nothing when she left.

PATSY THOMASSON, White House Aide: We went to the White House counsel's office on the second floor. As we went into the reception area, the cleaning lady was coming out of Vince's office. Bernie and I went in. As we entered, I looked on the surfaces of the furniture to see if I could see a note. Nothing was immediately apparent. My thought--if there was a note, Vince would have placed it so that it would be easily found but that it not--would not have been placed where it would not have bene discovered fairly readily. I sat at Vince's desk, opened the doors to the desk to see if there was anything that looked like a suicide note. I looked through the top of his briefcase which was sitting on the floor. I didn't see anything.

MR. HOLMAN: The committee Democrats' counsel, Richard Ben- Veniste, zeroed in on Thomasson's assertion that her search of Foster's office had nothing to do with Whitewater documents.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE, Democratic Counsel: Was there anything in your view surreptitious about your going to the office to look for the note?

PATSY THOMASSON: No, sir.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Was thereanything untoward or improper in your motivation to go ahead and look for the note?

PATSY THOMASSON: No, sir.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Did you mean to destroy any evidence should you have come upon it--

PATSY THOMASSON: No, sir.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: --that evening?

PATSY THOMASSON: No, sir.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Did anyone tell you that that was your mission?

PATSY THOMASSON: No, sir.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: To the best of your knowledge, did anyone remove any documents from Mr. Foster's office that evening?

PATSY THOMASSON: No, sir.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Are you aware now that there are differences in recollection between you and Ms. Williams and Mr. Nussbaum as to certain of the details about who came first, who stayed when, who left first, and all of that?

PATSY THOMASSON: Yes, sir, I understand that's a difference.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Did you at any time before you gave testimony on this subject attempt to sit down with Mr. Nussbaum and Ms. Williams to get your stories straight?

PATSY THOMASSON: No, sir.

MR. HOLMAN: Alabama Republican Richard Shelby pointed out that Thomasson had no White House security clearance at the time she looked through Foster's office.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY, [R] Alabama: Did Mr. Nussbaum at this time, when you told him Mr. Watkins asked you to go look in the office, did Mr. Nussbaum, the counsel at the White House, ask you, Ms. Thomasson, did you have property security clearance to go in there or to look through documents?

PATSY THOMASSON: Mr. Nussbaum didn't question me about it.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: He didn't ask you that question? PATSY THOMASSON: No, sir.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: Okay. Did he mention security clearance at all to you?

PATSY THOMASSON: It would not have been an issue that night, Mr.- -Sen. Shelby. We were only looking for a suicide note.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: No. I didn't ask you was it an issue; I asked you, did he ask you.

PATSY THOMASSON: No, sir--

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: Did he bring it up?

PATSY THOMASSON: --I've said that.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY: No, he didn't, did he?

MR. HOLMAN: Tomorrow the committee will hear from those responsible for White House security, officials of the U.S. Secret Service. SERIES - CYBERFUTURE

MR. MAC NEIL: Now, the second in a series of conversations on a place called cyberspace. What is it and what does it mean for our lives? Tonight Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks with author and media scholar Neil Postman, who heads the culture and communications department at New York University. One of his books is entitled Technopoly, the Surrender of Culture to Technology.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Neil Postman, thank you for joining us. How do you define cyberspace?

NEIL POSTMAN, Media Scholar: Cyberspace is a metaphorical idea which is supposed to be the space where your consciousness is located when you're using computer technology on the Internet, for example, and I'm not entirely sure it's such a useful term, but I think that's what most people mean by it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How does that strike you, I mean, that your consciousness is located somewhere other than in your body?

NEIL POSTMAN: Well, the most interesting thing about the term for me is that it made me begin to think about where one's consciousness is when interacting with other kinds of media, for example, even when you're reading, where, where are you, what is the space in which your consciousness is located, and when you're watching television, where, where are you, who are you, because people say with the Internet, for example, it's a little different in that you're always interacting or most of the time with another person. And when you're in cyberspace, I suppose you can be anyone you want, and I think as this program indicates, it's worth, it's worth talking about because this is a new idea and something very different from face-to-face co-presence with another human being.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think this is a good thing, or a bad thing, or you haven't decided?

NEIL POSTMAN: Well, no, I've mostly--[laughing]--I've mostly decided that new technology of this kind or any other kind is a kind of Faustian bargain. It always gives us something important but it also takes away something that's important. That's been true of the alphabet and the printing press and telegraphy right up through the computer. For instance, when I hear people talk about the information superhighway, it will become possible to shop at home and bank at home and get your texts at home and get entertainment at home and so on, I often wonder if this doesn't signify the end of any meaningful community life. I mean, when two human beings get together, they're co-present, there is built into it a certain responsibility we have for each other, and when people are co-present in family relationships and other relationships, that responsibility is there. You can't just turn off a person. On the Internet, you can. And I wonder if this doesn't diminish that built-in, human sense of responsibility we have for each other. Then also one wonders about social skills; that after all, talking to someone on the Internet is a different proposition from being in the same room with someone--not in terms of responsibility but just in terms of revealing who you are and discovering who the other person is. As a matter of fact, I'm one of the few people not only that you're likely to interview but maybe ever meet who is opposed to the use of personal computers in school because school, it seems to me, has always largely been about how to learn as part of a group. School has never really been about individualized learning but about how to be socialized as a citizen and as a human being, so that we, we have important rules in school, always emphasizing the fact that one is part of a group. And I worry about the personal computer because it seems, once again to emphasize individualized learning, individualized activity.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What images come to your mind when you, when you think about what our lives will be like in cyberspace?

NEIL POSTMAN: Well, the, the worst images are of people who are overloaded with information which they don't know what to do with, have no sense of what is relevant and what is irrelevant, people who become information junkies.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you mean? How do you mean that?

NEIL POSTMAN: Well, the problem in the 19th century with information was that we lived in a culture of information scarcity and so humanity addressed that problem beginning with photography and telegraphy and the--in the 1840s. We tried to solve the problem of overcoming the limitations of space, time, and form. And for about a hundred years, we worked on this problem, and we solved it in a spectacular way. And now, by solving that problem, we created a new problem, that people have never experienced before, information glut, information meaninglessness, information incoherence. I mean, if there are children starving in Somalia or any other place, it's not because of insufficient information. And if crime is rampant in the streets in New York and Detroit and Chicago or wherever, it's not because of insufficient information. And if people are getting divorced and mistreating their children and their sexism and racism are blights on our social life, none of that has anything to do with inadequate information. Now, along comes cyberspace and the information superhighway, and everyone seems to have the idea that, ah, here we can do it; if only we can have more access to more information faster and in more diverse forms at long last, we'll be able to solve these problems. And I don't think it has anything to do with it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you believe that this--that the fact that people are more connected globally will lead to a greater degree of homogenization of the global society?

NEIL POSTMAN: Here's the puzzle about that, Charlayne. When everyone was--when McLuhan talked about the world becoming a global village and, and when people ask, as you did, about how connections can be made, everyone seemed to think that the world would become in, in some good sense more homogenous. But we seem to be experiencing the opposite. I mean, all over the world, we see a kind of reversion to tribalism. People are going back to their tribal roots in order to find a sense of identity. I mean, we see it in Russia, in Yugoslavia, in Canada, in the United States, I mean, in our own country. Why is that every group now not only is more aware of its own grievances but seems to want its own education? You know, we want an Afro-centric curriculum and a Korean-centric curriculum, and a Greek-centered curriculum. What is it about all this globalization of communication that is making people return to more--to smaller units of identity? It's a puzzlement.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what do you think the people, society should be doing to try and anticipate these negatives and be able to do something about them?

NEIL POSTMAN: I think they should--everyone should be sensitive to certain questions. For example, when a new--confronted with a new technology, whether it's a cellular phone or high definition television or cyberspace or Internet, the question--one question should be: What is the problem to which this technology is a solution? And the second question would be: Whose problem is it actually? And the third question would be: If there is a legitimate problem here that is solved by the technology, what other problems will be created by my using this technology? About six months ago, I bought a new Honda Accord, and the salesman told me that it had cruise control. And I asked him, "What is the problem to which cruise control is the solution?" By the way, there's an extra charge for cruise control. And he said no one had ever asked him that before but then he said, "Well, it's the problem of keeping your foot on the gas." And I said, "Well, I've been driving for 35 years. I've never found that to be a problem." I mean, am I using this technology, or is it using me, because in a technological culture, it is very easy to be swept up in the enthusiasm for technology, and of course, all the technophiles around, all the people who adore technology and are promoting it everywhere you turn.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Neil Postman, thank you for all of your cautions.

NEIL POSTMAN: Thank you.

MR. MAC NEIL: Tomorrow Charlayne talks with technology author and columnist Gina Smith. ESSAY - PROTECTION TIMES

MR. LEHRER: And finally tonight, a different look at our changing times from essayist Roger Rosenblatt.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: The unabomber makes a mockery of protection times. That is what our times may be called, protection times. Everywhere one looks is evidence of social self-defense, from criminals, from villains, from disease. The White House is fortified. Your block is patrolled by security guards. You carry a gun, or you're considering it. Not all that long ago, one would enter an airport and simply board a plane--no baggage X-ray, no metal detectors. Years ago, one would never see a metal detector in a school or in a business tower or in a government building. Whoever heard of mace 30 years ago? Who was rich enough to install an alarm system in one's house? Who needed an alarm system? Now, home protection is one of the nation's biggest industries. Lights light, bells clang, horns hoot, honey, I'm home, watch the code. Protection times. If home protection is one of the nation's biggest industries, it is because theft and murder are bigger businesses still. Not for thing is the state of fear, the state of the union. People shoot at the White House. People blow up federal buildings. City kids are escorted to and from schools or the homes of friends to keep them safe from other kids with automatic weapons or from bigger people selling drugs. Up country, life is no different. Drive-by shootings on small town streets, crack for sale, danger everywhere, including in bed. Beware of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Did you use protection? Enter the unabomber in a world that has locked itself away from itself, tight as it can. Enter the unabomber in a country of streets where every parked car has the "club," where telephones can be equipped with devices that let you know if the call is threatening, where you can hide behind your computer terminal, alone and secure, and yet, the unabomber can get to you. He has gotten to others. He does not enter the home. He sends a lethal package. Voluntarily, one goes to the door. Voluntarily, one opens one's mail. Protection times. The unabomber derides protection times, and in a way, he helped create the times. He has been for how many years now the invisible embodiment of modern fear. If we have become introverted and defensive as a people, it is because of forces like the unabomber. We are no longer narrowly afraid of a mugging or a burglary. We are afraid of being. All those protective machines we have set up, all those alarms we've installed, all the security guards we've hired, what they say is, something is likely to go wrong here, something terrible is about to happen. And the dark panicky truth that runs under all these protections is that they do not work. The White House will not be protected. The federal buildings will not be protected. We will not be protected. That is what the unabomber tells us. There will be much relief when the man is caught. One trusts that he will be caught. Lives and limbs will be saved. The unabomber will be grilled and analyzed. He will be studied for his so-called "revolutionary views" and compared to early 20th century anarchists. And he will, of course, be accorded the full treatment for murderous celebrities. Why not? He is interesting. His callous deadliness makes him interesting. But he is something else besides. He is the monster in the modern closet. He is the person who for no reason is waiting to do us harm. He is the one against whom we have armed ourselves and walled up ourselves and still he makes it through. He is the theme of fear, and he scares us to death. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story of this Tuesday, the Bosnian enclave of Zepa fell to the Serbs. United Nations officials said Bosnian Muslim troops had abandoned the town. The Bosnian prime minister called on the United Nations to protect civilians. Good night, Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight, and we'll see you again tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.