The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, welfare reform as seen by the governors of Connecticut and Delaware, the mayors of San Francisco and Jersey City, and by NewsHour regulars Haynes Johnson, Michael Beschloss, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, plus Bill Kristol; congressional hearings, words, and bills about terrorism, Kwame Holman reports; an update on the turmoil in the African nation of Burundi from a United Nations official, and essayist Anne Taylor Fleming considers where hatred comes from. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in two years during the second quarter of this year. A Commerce Department report today said the Gross Domestic Product had an annual growth rate of 4.2 percent between April and June. At the White House this morning, President Clinton took credit.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: This economic news shows thatour strategy is working, the economy is growing, our nation is moving in the right direction. This is not the time to make dramatic changes that reverse our discipline on the deficit. It is the time to bear down and improve upon the strategy we have been following for three and a half years that has reversed the previous course and brought us such good results. We cannot turn our backs on that progress. The American people do not want to go back to where we were four years ago. This plan is working, and we have to press forward.

MR. LEHRER: A spokeswoman for the Dole presidential campaign said this economic recovery is the first since World War II to leave the American worker behind. Republican Senators, speaking at a news conference at the capitol, agreed.

SEN. SPENCER ABRAHAM, [R] Michigan: Family incomes aren't growing. What has grown, of course, is the tax burden on those families, and so we have sort of a double whammy here. We have anemic economic growth, which is causing people who create jobs and opportunity to be somewhat concerned about they invest their money, but it's meant for real families with the tax rates going up and median incomes staying constant during the Clinton presidency, a much harder time making ends meet, and when I'm back in my state of Michigan, that's what I hear people saying, we work more and more and yet we have less to show for it at the end of the year.

MR. LEHRER: Bob Dole has said he will announce a major tax cut proposal next week. President Clinton ended up talking about matters other than the economy at his White House news conference. He showed a flash of temper when asked if he would sign legislation to pay the legal bills of White House Travel Office personnel fired in 1993. He compared those employees to current White House aides being questioned by Congress about Whitewater matters.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't believe that we should give special preference to one group of people over others. Do you? Do you?

REPORTER: You said you would--

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Do you think we should--do you think the Congress should pay for the legal expenses for all these middle class people that they harassed and brought up there and cost them tens of thousands of dollars in legal expenses, when they never even accused them of doing anything--and they certainly never offered to plead guilty to anything--do you believe that?

REPORTER: I just wanted to know if you were going to keep your word, sir?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I didn't--I never gave my word on that. You go back and see what I said when I was asked that question. I asked, are they going to pay the expenses of anybody else? That's what I said. Don't talk to me--go back and see what I said. What did I say? What word did I give, sir?

REPORTER: --was asked--

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, my spokesmen, they do a very good job, but I have made clear to Mr. McCurry what my position is on this. And if an error was made by my spokesman, I'm sorry, but I have not broken my word to anybody. I have been asked about this one time, and I asked whether we were going to provide for other people's legal expenses who were, who were never accused of anything and who did not offer to plead guilty to anything, and I have heard nothing about that. So the answer to your question is, I do not know what I will do if such a bill comes to my desk, but I have no intention of asking Congress to interrupt its work on Kennedy-Kassebaum, on the minimum wage, on anti-terrorism, to get involved in this? No, I do not.

MR. LEHRER: The second Whitewater trial in Little Rock ended today in acquittals and a mistrial. Two Arkansas bankers and allies of President Clinton were acquitted on four charges of fraud and conspiracy. The jury deadlocked on the seven remaining counts. The judge then declared a mistrial on those seven. The prosecutors could seek a new trial on them. Herby Branscum and Robert Hill were accused of misusing bank funds in an effort to help then Governor Clinton's 1990 reelection campaign. Congressional negotiators reached agreement on a health care reform bill last night. It would ensure workers can keep their health insurance when they lose or change jobs even if they have chronic health problems. An experiment with medical savings accounts is also included. The legislation is expected to go to the House late today, to the Senate tomorrow. The Senate moved toward passage of the welfare reform bill today. The House passed it yesterday. President Clinton has said he will sign it. The bill ends federal guarantees to the poor and gives control of the benefits to the states. We'll have more on this reform of the welfare system right after the News Summary. The House passed legislation today making English the official language of the United States. The vote was 259 to 169. The measure requires all government business be conducted in English. It also repeals a law guaranteeing ballots in other languages for American citizens not fluent in English. That bill now goes to the Senate. President Clinton has said he will veto it. FBI Director Louis Freeh sounded new alarms about terrorism today. He told the Senate Intelligence Committee the United States should expect more attacks.

LOUIS FREEH, FBI Director: You're correct when you talk about a war with respect to terrorism. I think the incidents of the last 40 days, whether or not the TWA flight turns out to be a criminal act or a terrorist act, even leaving that determination aside, I think the country and the American people have been experiencing an increasing war against them by terrorists and terrorist- supported activities.

MR. LEHRER: FBI Director Freeh also said there is still no conclusive evidence a bomb caused the crash of TWA Flight 800. Bad weather prevented investigators from continuing their efforts to recover bodies and wreckage from the Long Island crash site. At a daily news briefing today, FBI agent James Kallstrom was asked by it was taking so long to determine the cause of that explosion.

JAMES KALLSTROM, FBI Director, New York: I mean, we have to understand, this is a terribly different incident that we've dealt with here in the United States. I believe it's the--Bob correct me- -it's the only one I can think of in my lifetime that's laid off the water like this. There's been others in the world, but this is a terribly, terribly difficult situation to deal with. And I don't think it's unusual. We have a very small part of the airplane.

MR. LEHRER: On the Atlanta bomb story, FBI Director Freeh also told Congress today nobody is about to be charged with a crime. One person was killed, more than one hundred injured when a pipe bomb exploded in Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park. In Atlanta today, investigators sifted through materials seized from an Olympic security guard described as a suspect in the bombing. We'll have more on terrorism later in the program. At the Olympics, 22-year- old Hezekiel l Sepgeng became the first black South African to win an Olympic medal. He won the silver medal in the men's 800-meter final last night. And Fu Mingxia of China became the first woman in 36 years to win gold medals for both platform and springboard diving. She completed the sweep last night in the springboard competition. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to welfare reform, moving against terrorism, a Burundi update, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. FOCUS -FIGHTING TERRORISM

MR. LEHRER: Kwame Holman has our report on news in Congress today about and against terrorism.

MR. HOLMAN: Official Washington is trying to move quickly this week in response to the downing of TWA Flight 800 and the weekend blast at Centennial Olympic Park. On Monday, President Clinton called congressional leaders and top law enforcement officials to the White House and asked for emergency legislation to deal with terrorism.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The main thing is we need to get the very best ideas we can, and we need to move as quickly as we can to do everything we can to try to strengthen this country's hand against terrorism.

MR. HOLMAN: On Tuesday, a new congressional task force on terrorism began working out the details of that legislation.

LEON PANETTA, White House Chief of Staff: [Tuesday] The purpose here is to hopefully work towards bringing that package together and getting it enacted as soon as possible.

MR. HOLMAN: And by last night, the basis of an agreement had been reached.

SEN. LARRY CRAIG, Chair, Anti-Terrorism Task Force: [Last Night] We have crunched a list of items down to about seven or eight, of which out of those we find agreement on about five.

MR. HOLMAN: The agreement calls for legalizing multi-point wire taps to monitor all telephone calls of a suspect, rather than a particular phone, 48-hour emergency wire tap authority without a court order, use of special technology to trace phone calls, prosecution of suspected terrorists under tougher federal racketeering laws, and institution of the death penalty for anyone convicted of killing someone with a bomb. Before the Senate Intelligence Committee this morning, FBI Director Louie Freeh said the new provisions being considered would not greatly expand the Bureau's authority.

LOUIS FREEH, FBI Director: With respect to wire taps, we now have that power in criminal cases, in organized crime cases, where the attorney general can authorize an emergency electronic surveillance under very stringent conditions and within 48 hours prepare the normal application to a judge which then has to be ruled upon and approved. We're simply asking for a modification of that which would extend the coverage to terrorist cases, terrorism cases in the national security area. We do it now in the organized crime area. Again, my own view of that is that this is not a dramatic expansion of our powers or abilities.

MR. HOLMAN: The Senators asked Freeh for an update on the investigations into the two recent incidents that sparked the latest concerns over terrorism.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, Chairman, Select Intelligence Committee: Director Freeh, permit me to begin with TWA Flight 800. No credible of evidence of a bomb or a missile?

LOUIS FREEH: Not to date, sir. That's correct. Again, we have less than 2 percent of the aircraft. That is now changing very dramatically with increments as large portions of the aircraft are brought up. The two prongs of our inquiry are to determine whether there's any chemical explosive residue on the aircraft, which would explain the presence of an explosive device, or an external explosive device. Secondly, the physical examination of all of the parts of the aircraft, every single part that's retrieved to determine the same thing based on that forensic evidence.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: The pipe bomb explosion in Atlanta, the Committee would be interested in a brief response on the progress of that investigation to the extent you can comment publicly.

LOUIS FREEH: Several hundred very good investigators, both federal, state, and local, are doing what they normally do in those cases. They will not leave any stone unturned. There are a number of good leads that they have. There's a number of suspects that they're looking at, but as my SAC made clear yesterday, nobody's been charged with a crime. Nobody is about to be charged with a crime. We've had several suspects in this case already who we focused on, and once we focused on them, they washed out as suspects because we developed evidence which was exculpatory and inconsistent with their participation. The fact that somebody's name has surfaced or may surface, as you know from conducting investigations, doesn't mean anything. It certainly doesn't mean that person is guilty of anything. We regret many times in these investigations that people's names surface as suspects who are later proven not to be connected. We want to avoid that. We should avoid it at all costs, and, again, we're confident that we're making good progress, we're certainly doing everything that investigators can do in this case, and we don't see any larger threats relating to this incident, either against the Olympics or the American people.

MR. HOLMAN: But Freeh painted a grim picture of what the future holds for terrorism directed at the United States.

LOUIS FREEH: On April 12, 1995, Abdul Hakim, one of the accomplices in the Philippine Air case charged a defendant at this point, was again rendered to the United States. August 2nd of last year, another suspected world terrorist--World Trade Center defendant, Ishmael Najim, was arrested in Jordan, rendered to the United States. October 1, 1995, Sheikh Rahman was convicted in New York. When he was sentenced on January 17, 1996, both by his voice and the statements of his supporters, clearly threatened retaliation against the United States. So well beyond the last 40 days, as this panel well knows, and as this history briefly reflects, the United States and its interests both here and around the world are clearly under attack, and we are prime targets for this type of terrorism which unfortunately does not auger well for the future, and we may be in for a very difficult time with respect to a continuation of these types of things.

MR. HOLMAN: This afternoon, it was Transportation Sec. Federico Pena who went before the Senate Commerce and Transportation Committee to discuss specifically terrorist threats against airlines.

FEDERICO PENA, Secretary of Transportation: We review regularly our own operations, operations that other countries have in effect, and try to implement those which we deem are most appropriate for our own situation. Clearly, given the changing nature of terrorism not only in our country, in the world, we are moving to do much more and to improve upon the high level of security that we have today. And that's the reason for the President having the Vice President lead the commission to look at all those issues, including the question of our current base line security. We currently have had in place for some years a particular base line. And we have argued for the last several months that it is now appropriate for us to review that base line and make a decision as a country as to whether we need to elevate that base line to a much higher level. And that's precisely what the commission will be reviewing.

MR. HOLMAN: Meanwhile, in another room on Capitol Hill, progress toward anti-terrorism legislation appeared to slow over a proposal requiring chemical tracers called tagents to be placed in explosives, a proposal endorsed by the President.

SEN. LARRY CRAIG, Chairman, Anti-Terrorism Task Force: Tagents was on the table last night. I do believe some of my colleagues from the other side decided to put it back on today. And the reason they did was because they recognized that this needs to fall apart, they need an excuse. I'll be blunt about it. I said, no, we won't let it fall apart on that issue. We think it is an important issue. And we'll work very hard to see if we can't craft a commission or a study that is fair and honest.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER, [D] New York: The bottom line is simple, that tagents have been studied already, that tagents will save lives, that tagents are directly related to what happened in Atlanta, and because so many in the room and in the Congress are afraid of the NRA. They are taking tagents off the table, and yet want everything else on the table.

MR. HOLMAN: And so the fast action on terrorism that began the week bogged down today. For the moment, it's considered unlikely members of Congress will complete work on new anti-terrorism legislation before they recess this weekend not to return until after Labor Day. FOCUS - HISTORIC CHANGE

MR. LEHRER: The big change in the nation's welfare system is next tonight. Margaret Warner begins our coverage.

MS. WARNER: At the heart of the change is a shift of responsibility and power away from the federal government which has overseen the nation's welfare system since its inception. The states will now design and implement their own programs under a few remaining federal rules that impose limits on how long and to whom services can be provided. The question: Will it work? We hear from two governors, Republican John Rowland of Connecticut, and Democrat Thomas Carper of Delaware, and two mayors, Republican Brett Schundler of Jersey City, New Jersey, and Democrat Willie Brown of San Francisco. Welcome, gentlemen. Gov. Rowland, starting with you, you and your fellow governors fought hard to get these changes and this new responsibility. Are you confident it's going to work?

GOV. JOHN ROWLAND, Connecticut: [Hartford, Connecticut] Absolutely. As a matter of fact, if you look across the country, many governors have already implemented some type of welfare reform plan. Two of the criticisms that we heard from day one were No. 1, that welfare recipients don't want to work. The other side of the argument was that others said there were no jobs. In one year, we were able to place about 13,000 people out of welfare and into job opportunities, also providing child care and making sure that we have health care for the families of those people on welfare. So it will work. I know that there's a lot of critics out there. But we have to make it work. We've got to make this country a land of opportunity, and not a land of welfare dependency.

MS. WARNER: Gov. Carper, are you as confident?

GOV. THOMAS CARPER, Delaware: [Wilmington, Delaware] In order to move people off of welfare, you've got to do a number of things. One of those is to help people prepare for a job. The second is to help them find a job, get to that job. And the third thing we've got to do is to enable them to keep working so that they and their families are better off. We've done those things in Delaware. John is doing those things in Connecticut. We're happening in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Florida, and so forth. To the extent that we follow the game plan of making sure that people have some help with health care, they continue to have help with child care, that we give them job training, help them find those jobs, make sure that their taxes reflect the fact that they're living in poverty. As long as we follow that game plan, we'll be successful, and we'll help a lot of people to be successful.

MS. WARNER: And Governor, you're familiar with the bill that the President says he's about to sign. Does it follow that game plan? Does it include what you're saying is necessary?

GOV. CARPER: What it does is it gives us the flexibility as governors to design programs that will do all those things if we're smart enough to do that. I think most of us are. The big plus in the bill is probably the substantial increase in child care funding which we are required to match. I don't know of anybody who can with children, young children especially, can find a job and be successful without some help on child care and on health care.

MS. WARNER: Mayor Schundler in Jersey City, how do you think this program is going to work?

MAYOR BRET SCHUNDLER, Jersey City: [New York] I think the workfare requirement is tremendous. I think the risk with the program is a five year lifetime limit. I think it's very possible that someone could work for six months, then they can find themselves unemployed for a period, and then they can go back to work, and find themselves unemployed. And it's conceivable that you're going to run to the five years worth of benefits. I think far better to say we're not gong to have any such thing as welfare, which is what they're saying here. They're going to have workfare, not welfare. But say that as long as you're willing to work, we're willing to make sure there is an opportunity for you to earn income, that should you end up having to take a workfare job, and you run through five years worth of workfare, we're not going to throw you off at the end that five-year period; we're going to still make sure that you have the opportunity to continue in a workfare program and earn the money that you need to take care of yourself and your family. One other thing which I think is very important here is the way the proposal works, Medicaid will continue to cover you at that first tier job, which may not come with normal medical coverage. And that'll cover you for about a year. But at the end of that year, you'll lose that Medicaid coverage. Now for a lot of families who are working at a, you know, in an entry-level position that does come with health care coverage, when you lose that coverage, it's going to be a very, very great threat to the families' well-being. I think what we really should do with health care is create effectively a refundable tax credit for every American so that if you don't have a high tax liability, you get a voucher back that you could use to buy private health insurance. If you're myself or John Rowland or Governor Christie Whitman and you have enough income to use a tax credit, you use it to buy your own health care. In short, you never lose the benefit. As you climb up the economic ladder, what would be a voucher to cover health care for a very low income person would become a tax credit to cover health care for a higher income person. So you never have a situation where at some point, someone is really at risk of not being covered.

MS. WARNER: Mayor Brown in San Francisco, do you think this is going to work?

MAYOR WILLIE BROWN, [D] San Francisco: [San Francisco] No, I don't think so. I think the way in which it's been designed, it penalizes those of us in cities like San Francisco that have been doing a tremendous job with people who are not on any form of federal assistance or state assistance but on what we call general assistance. That's the last leg for anybody in the system. In the process of doing what they're doing at the federal level and with the ones that could be designed by the state, it could drive the number of GA recipients up beyond our capacity to endure. In addition thereto, California and San Francisco in particular is a state with a high number of legal immigrants, as well as illegal immigrants. And with all the limitations already imposed on illegal immigrants, to add additional responsibilities of this nature on the local system for legal immigrants literally places us in the position where our general fund will be threatened. So, no, I don't believe that the--given the flexibility without guaranteeing some form of resources to allow that flexibility to be implemented is productive.

MS. WARNER: All right. So are you saying essentially that you think when these different limits kick in, the ones required by the federal government and whatever the states design, that ultimately the cities will be left holding the bag with people who aren't able to move from welfare to work, is that what you're saying?

MAYOR BROWN: There's no question, there's no question in anybody's mind, that's exactly what will occur. People who are living in the cities, if they are poverty stricken and they have gone beyond any of the respective limits that humane governors, as the two that have spoken so far on this program have demonstrated, the end result will be cities will find themselves having to pick up that tab. People aren't going to let other people starve in the streets.

MS. WARNER: Okay. Governor Carper, respond to that point that Mayor Brown just raised.

GOV. CARPER: Not everybody is able to go out and find a job and to go to work. For some people they'll--there needs to be an exception, people who are maybe unable to work, physically, psychologically, whatever it might be, just, they're not going to work, we know they're not going to work, and there is an exemption in the legislation that's been enacted that permits us to exclude one out of five persons, a 20 percent exemption. If you look at the--

MS. WARNER: That's on the five-year limit, in other words.

GOV. CARPER: That's correct.

MS. WARNER: Some people who can't.

GOV. CARPER: In addition, if you look at the food stamp program, it continues to be an entitlement program. If you look at the child nutrition program, it continues to be an individual entitlement program. If you look at the child protection, child welfare portions of this, it continues to be an entitlement. But one thing that's not an entitlement anymore is the cash welfare grant. It used to be called AFDC, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. And the troubling--maybe the most--matter of most concern, and John Rowland and I have talked about this from time to time--the issue of what do we do when we go into a recession as a country, we all know that we will, and we have a lot more people who are on welfare or need some help for a short period of time, how do we handle that? And Congress created a contingency fund, it's about a $2 billion contingency fund. That's probably not enough, and if we hit a steep recession, we'll, we'll have to come back to the Congress, I'm sure, and say, you need to, to provide some additional federal assistance, because we expect the federal government to be, if you will, to provide some safety net or some stability during the ups and downs of an economic cycle.

MS. WARNER: Mayor Schundler, where do you come down on, on these two answers you've just heard in terms of whether when the time limits run out and the money runs out it's going to be left to the cities or not?

MAYOR SCHUNDLER: Well, I do think that legislatures at the state level have a tendency not to want to increase their own costs, and so I do think you're going to see burdens on the cities which is going to necessitate they'll revisit this issue. In short, I would argue that today's welfare system is broke, and it needs fixing. I don't think this is a permanent solution, because I do think you're going to have people who run through those benefits limits. And, again, if the issue is that we want everybody to work in exchange for their benefit, I think that's a good principle. In fact, we very definitely should not continue paying people not to work. That is how you turn a safety net into a snare instead of a trampoline back onto the ladder of economic opportunity.

MS. WARNER: All right. Do you--

MAYOR SCHUNDLER: But if we say that we're going to maintain those benefits, instead of capping them at five years, and we have a system where you never lose your benefit, your health benefit, as you climb up the ladder, it just changes from let's say a voucher to a tax credit. Then you have a situation where there's no incentive for someone to take that worker job if they can get a higher paying private sector job because you're not going to lose any benefits from it.

MS. WARNER: Governor Rowland, let me ask you to respond to another point that particularly Mayor Brown raised which had to do with the cutbacks in services for legal immigrants. Umm, as you've just heard, he said that, again, these responsibilities will fall on the cities. Do you agree with that? Is that a danger?

GOV. ROWLAND: Well, there may be a danger in some of the border line cities, certainly California. We don't see that particular problem in the Connecticut area, but the other question we've got to ask ourselves is who do we really trust. I happen to trust the mayors and the governors and the local legislature to take care of the problems that we have in our communities and in our neighborhoods. And this whole welfare plan is historical if you think about the philosophical change that's taking place. The problem of the past is that we created generational dependency. Also in that process, we said you're either on welfare or you're working, and there's nothing in-between. And finally, a light went on, and governors across this country recognized that you have to build the bridge of opportunity, you have to maintain the health care plan, you have to maintain child support, but also you've got to make sure that you can even keep the benefit, the cash benefit while that person is getting into the work force. So we've changed the whole direction. I'm confident that if we can work and make sure that we have the resources available for people that are in wheelchairs, for people that are mentally incapacitated, we're taking over our city welfare programs. As a matter of fact, in Connecticut, we have 169 cities and towns. Those mayors and First Selectmen have said hey, you're paying for this by the state, about 80 percent, why don't you take it over and you run it so that we don't have literally 170 different welfare programs. It's also a way to combat welfare fraud as well, which we know exists in many of the larger cities.

MS. WARNER: Well, Mayor Brown, both these governors sound like they're pretty sensitive to the issues you've raised. Are you reassured at all?

MAYOR BROWN: Well, if I lived in the state of Connecticut, I might be. If I lived in the state of Delaware, I might be, but I lived in California, where for years my governor, Governor Pete Wilson has been attempting to remove all of the support services available for people on welfare. We have a governor who's been universally hostile to child care. We have a governor who's been universally hostile to Head Start, all of the kinds of things that would break the generational cycle of public assistance. And I just don't see the kind of flexibility that the federal government is extending to people like Pete Wilson being good for my city.

MS. WARNER: Mayor Schundler, could Mayor Brown be right, that we're going to see a very uneven situation here from state to state?

MAYOR SCHUNDLER: I think that's--I think you're going to see problems in every state honestly, but the reality is the system we have there really has destroyed people's lives. It's not that-- we're talking about whether what they're talking about in Congress is perfect. Again, I don't think it is. I think we've got to make some changes to it, but I think what we have now is a dreadful system that has trapped people in poverty. And it's not only enormously expensive, which is really besides the point, but it is tremendously debilitating vis-a-vis the folks you want to be giving a help out of poverty. We really have a situation here where the minute someone tries to climb out, we take away all their benefits and, and we make it so they're worse off. So I think we're going to have to revisit this. I don't believe the time limits are the right way to go. I think a work requirement is absolutely essential. I think the governors should let us at the local level direct that work so we can make sure that there's socially constructive labor at the local level that makes a difference in our communities, and it's not directed by the state in the way which makes it make work, and not really apply to our needs, but I do think you've got to deal with the benefits situation and make sure--

MS. WARNER: Mayor Schundler--

MAYOR SCHUNDLER: --that people don't lose their health care.

MS. WARNER: Mayor Schundler, thanks. I'm sorry, gentlemen. I'm terribly sorry. We're going to have to leave it there. I'm sure we will revisit it also. Thank you all very much.

MR. . LEHRER: Now, four additional perspectives on this welfare reform legislation. They are those of NewsHour regulars presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, author and journalist Haynes Johnson, joined tonight by William Kristol, editor and publisher of "The Weekly Standard." Doris, in historical importance, how does this rate?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Presidential Historian: Well, I think no doubt that it's a landmark changes. When you think about it, America as a country was so slow to come to the idea that the federal government had a responsibility for poverty and for welfare. All through the 19th century, all through the 18th century, the idea was that if you were poor, somehow you had a morally defective character and paupers were actually put in jail. People were imprisoned for debt. So it took really the Great Depression when one out of three people were out of work to shift those attitudes away from that moral look and to say that maybe the economy, itself, was in fault, and as a result, we, as the federal government have a responsibility to help people who've fallen as a result of a bad economy. So that's when AFDC started. It's when so many of these other programs began. When the 1960's came along, there was a beginning to understand that we have to reach even further than we did during the Depression, and a lot of good things happened. We look on the failure of the war on poverty, but it really had legal aid, it had so many things that we look back on now that we're successful like Head Start. And now what's happening is we're taking away that federal responsibility, and I fear we're going back to some of those attitudes to save these kids who are born to the wrong parents are somehow going to be penalized because they were born in the wrong place, in the wrong race, and I think we're really turning backward, both in our attitude toward governments and our attitudes toward poor people themselves.

MR. LEHRER: Is that what has happened, Bill Kristol?

WILLIAM KRISTOL, The Weekly Standard: No. And I think the evidence is in, and the current welfare system doesn't work. There's a lot of consensus on this. You know, what the federal government has done, and in a way courageously and unusually is say, we don't quite know what to do here, but we will be better off to let states experiment, but with certain guidelines, then to pretend that the federal government knows right now how to break the cycle of dependency that's been created. The National Center for Health Statistics released the statistics in 1994 on illegitimacy. One in three children in the U.S. born in 1994 was born out of wedlock, and that is "the" damning statistic about the current welfare system. Bill Clinton, I think, realized it, realized that the system had to be changed when he ran for President. The election in 1994 happened, and now we do have a big change in public policy but not simply because people suddenly became mean-spirited, or even because Republicans won Congress, but because the evidence is in, and the welfare system hasn't worked.

MR. LEHRER: So it's historical reform not historical reversal, in your opinion?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Yeah, that's right. I mean, I don't think we're going back to the 1880's or even the 1920's. But it is an important moment. I mean, the key--modern liberalism stands or falls by the notion that the federal government can intervene in social problems and make things better. And it has made lots of things better over the last 60 years, but the majority of the American people and the majority of Congress and a majority of Democrats in Congress and the Democratic President of the United States no longer think that the federal government's intervention in the welfare system is making things better.

MR. LEHRER: Michael, is it correct to say that this has never happened before, that the federal government has actually given up something and given--and turned it back to where the power it took it returned?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: I think it's probably not fair to say that it's never happened before, and it's another sign of the kind of things that I think that we're really seeing in the 1990's, which show the advent of a conservative period and the collapse of the kind of consensus that Doris was talking about just a moment ago. Really from the mid 1930's until the late 60's, early 70's, it would have been impossible to come up with a kind of bill to get it passed, get a President to sign it, as we are seeing this week. Even in 1970, Richard Nixon, a Republican President who is thought of as a great conservative, he suggested the family assistance plan. That involved a direct cash payment to bring families above the poverty level in exchange for promises of going to work and training. If Jimmy Carter in 1980 had agreed to sign a bill such as the one that Bill Clinton is going to be signing at this moment, he probably would have been burned at the stake, or at least at the Democratic Convention in New York, he would have seen an enormous spontaneous uprising perhaps against his nomination. So I think it shows really how much things have changed that you've got a President who is the steward of the Democratic Party with these liberal traditions that reach all the way back to Franklin Roosevelt, that he can not only sign this bill but do so with a relatively small amount of opposition from within his own party.

MR. LEHRER: But speaking of Franklin Roosevelt, Haynes, a lot of people would argue that the programs of the Depression were intended to be stop gap. They came out because we were in a Depression. And the stop gap period is over.

HAYNES JOHNSON, Journalist/Author: That's right. And as matter of fact, it's a fascinating discussion here. You have the mayors disagreeing with the governors, and here we're having these, oh, totally different kind of views. Doris's view about, in effect, Horatio Alger, the self-made man in American life, we'd say the self-made person today, but you lift yourself up by your boot straps and you can sink or swim, and if you don't make it, it's your fault, and then you have the federal government in a crisis coming in, and then there was the role of the federal government and Bill is right, that was the lynchpin of liberal America that the federal government had a responsibility across-the-board to impose standards to help those in need of help. And, in fact, now that's broken. Whether it's a good thing or bad thing, it is clearly broken. This is a big moment, Jim. This is not just a little change in the law, or a change in, in sociology, or even politics. It's a big moment. We don't know what's going to happen. You listen to those governors, and mayors, they don't know what's going to happen.

MR. LEHRER: They don't know what's going to happen.

HAYNES JOHNSON: And I don't think we do either, really.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

HAYNES JOHNSON: But--although we have great wisdom here.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Well, speaking of great wisdom, what do you think is going to happen, Doris.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, the worry that I have is that even during the Depression, for example, Roosevelt wanted workfare rather than welfare, but he realized that public jobs were not going to be enough for everybody, so you had to have that guarantee, that safety net underneath. What hasn't happened in this bill--Clinton's original thought was going to cost $10 billion more because he was going to have public service jobs. He was going to have job training. He was going to have child care. This bill has cut the amount of what we're going to assist. You're going to have people cut off welfare without that movement up to work, which everybody agrees is necessary.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: So I think it's a really scary thought of what we're going into in this unknown world.

MR. LEHRER: Do you have scary thoughts about this, Bill Kristol?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Well, it's a change, and change, as always, can be scary, but I think the current system is awfully broken.

MR. LEHRER: So it couldn't get any worse?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Well, it could get worse, but I think most states will experiment, and I think states will watch what other states do, and those states that do better will then set the model. It is the progressive experiment that happened at the beginning of liberalism in this century in reverse. It's evolution apparent to the states. The current system is broken. Just in the nineteen-- teens and twenties people thought the capitalist system was broken, and more intervention was needed. And now there's a chance for states and localities and the private sector to experiment to see whether you can help people in need without creating dependency, without destroying families, without undercutting personal responsibility. So in that respect, I'm personally hopeful. I think that Bill Clinton is happy, since I think his chances for reelection increased an awful lot--

MR. LEHRER: That's another story.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: --yesterday. That's another story.

MR. LEHRER: We don't talk politics here. [laughter among group]

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Forgive me. We're only in Washington, D.C. We shouldn't talk about that.

MR. LEHRER: Right. Michael, what do you see when you look down the road on this?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Well, it reminds me of what Howard Baker as the Senate Republican leader in 1980 once said about Ronald Reagan's economic program--it was a river boat gamble, and one couldn't know really how it would finally result. But the thing that is wonderful about our system is that it's enormously resilient. If people begin to feel that this shift of power to the states and localities is beginning to fail, you're going to see a big, new liberal movement in this country. You'll probably see someone running for the Democratic Presidential nomination in the year 2000 saying--

MR. LEHRER: Hey, I told you so.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: --Bill Clinton was wrong, he took us to the right, this was disastrous. And he could do very well if it proves to be a failure.

MR. LEHRER: So the, the monkey is really on the states now to deliver, is it not?

HAYNES JOHNSON: It is, Jim, and I think that's the important part here. The--ideally--I mean, it ought to work from the bottom up. The reason the government got in is because all the states were not equally helping their own citizens, and there was a disparity across-the-board. That's where the federal government opened the door and went in.

MR. LEHRER: That's what started all of this.

HAYNES JOHNSON: Absolutely. And so now the question is: If they do--if we listened to the governors tonight, it's going to be wonderful. And we all hope that's the case. But we don't know that, and the record of in the past at least is not reassuring that all states are going to do as well for all of their citizens. That's where the federal role came in, so there is this debate that Bill was raising earlier, and Doris too, and Michael, all of us.

MR. LEHRER: As a practical matter, does it diminish the power of the federal government, Bill?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Sure.

MR. LEHRER: I mean, in a real sense?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Yeah. I don't think the change is going to be as drastic as some people are saying. I think if we have, if we have this discussion two years from now, most welfare systems and most states will be recognizably similar to what they are today. Most governors are not going to change the system overnight. They know how little they know. They're going to be cautious. But I think you will see a faster pace of reform state by state, and an awful lot of attempts by each--by one state to learn from another state.

MR. LEHRER: And when you say scary, Doris, what do you mean? What scares you?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well,, I think the worry is that we're in a situation now where lots of low income jobs are not available to people who don't have a lot of education, where kids coming in school--you look at who these women are on welfare. 85 percent of them are in poverty. They don't get pregnant and then go into bad dependency. The fact is the reason they get pregnant is they have a poor educational experience, they fail out of school, or they drop out, and that cause the depression that leads to the pregnancy. How are we going to intervene in that cycle? It seems to me what we're not doing here is even talking about that, which is really what we should be talking about if we want social justice.

MR. LEHRER: But your point is that the states can't do that, only the federal government can do that?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: It's very hard to imagine that the states that are hard pressed with funds are going to be able to do what the common good of the country should be doing. What is the federal government after all, but it's all of us saying, in a time like this, when we have an economy of plenty, are we going to allow people to be under such poverty, and I think that should be our common goal, that we won't allow that, not put up to the states. Look, in the old days, the states used to have a suitable home rule where you could only get welfare if you had a suitable home, and every southern state said blacks didn't have a suitable home. That's what we have to worry about, that kind of discrimination that could still go on.

MR. LEHRER: You don't see that happening, do you, Michael?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: No. And I think it's very hard to get people to make sacrifices when they think that the federal government is not doing something terribly well. If this is turned to the states and the states do a bad job, they may in some cases long for the days of federal centralized power. If that happens, I think Doris's view will become predominant particularly within the Democratic Party.

MR. LEHRER: And the pendulum will swing the other way. And we have to go. Thank you all very much.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Thanks, Jim. UPDATE - TROUBLED NATION

MR. LEHRER: Now to a Burundi update and to Charlayne Hunter- Gault.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Government troops are on high alert, and security remains tight in this ethnically torn Central African state. Violence, which has subsided in the last few days, followed a military coup last week. The Hutu government was toppled, and Tutsi-backed Major Pierre Buyoya took charge. The coup stirred up new fears of violence and an exodus of refugees to neighboring countries. Since the 1993 assassination of Burundi's first elected president, a member of the majority Hutu tribe, the world has witnessed massacres and reprisals between the Hutus and the minority Tutsis who dominate the army. This ethnic division is similar to the mix in neighboring Rwanda, where civil war claimed 500,000 lives in 1994. Three years of conflict in Burundi have left 150,000 mostly civilians dead. Since taking control, Burundi's new leader has been trying to reassure the international community that his ousting of the legitimate government was necessary and, in fact, would halt further bloodshed.

MAJOR PIERRE BUYOYA, Burundi Coup Leader: We are not expecting to stop violence immediately. In a situation like Burundi, it's impossible. But we'll do all we can to diminish and then to stop violence in the coming days and weeks.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But African countries have denounced the coup, and the Organization of African Unity said it would not recognize Major Buyoya.

SPOKESMAN: The summit feels that this will deepen the conflict in Burundi and worsen the security and stability of the whole region.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Yesterday, African leaders meeting in Tanzania agreed to a number of measures to force the Junta to return the country to civilian rule. One was a call to reinstate Burundi's parliament and ban political parties. The leaders also want the new regime to resume peace negotiations and share power with the Hutus. But most importantly, they vowed to impose total sanctions on land- locked Burundi. This would especially cripple the coffee and tea industry, staples of the country's economy. The ban may also extend to air and ferry travel.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Joining us now to update the situation on the ground and on the diplomatic front is Kofi Annan, Undersecretary- General for Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations. And thank you for joining us. Mr. Annan, what can you add to our report on the situation as it is now?

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. Undersecretary-General: As you know, the regional heads of states met and took a rather strong stand against a coup d'etat and recommended sanctions, imposition of sanctions. And they are also pressing ahead with the formation of an intervention force. And I think what is also interesting is by and large, the leaders in the African region have taken a much stronger stand than some of the reactions which have come in from our side, Africa.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now can you be more explicit there. Are you talking about the western governments which have not wanted to be a part of a peacekeeping force? Is that what you're referring to?

KOFI ANNAN: I think that is one, and there's a question of efforts in trying to put together a force, and also a reaction to the coup, itself, where some have felt that everyone should not be too harsh because you need to work--you may have to work with the people on the ground. But I believe that for the Africans, the Burundi situation poses a real moral, political, and philosophical dilemma. You will recall led by the African continent and the African leaders, the entire international community fought against minority rule in South Africa. If minority rule is not acceptable in one country on the continent, it should not be acceptable in another. And how do you deal with that? And this is why they've been quite anxious to get the two groups to share power and really keep the dialogue going and eventually return to the democratic processes which President Nyerere had been hoping to discuss and expand with the leaders in Burundi.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, where do you and the UN stand at this point, for example, on the peacekeeping forces?

KOFI ANNAN: We have been in consultations with the member states. We have received some offers but not enough really to say that if we had to go in today, we will be able to do it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you need how many to go in?

KOFI ANNAN: I hesitate to give a figure now because we are still refining our plans. But what is certain is that most of the western governments have indicated that they will not put troops on the ground, but they will give logistical support and maybe offer airlift capability.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is that a satisfactory response as far as you're concerned?

KOFI ANNAN: It's not an ideal response because in a situation like this, you may need to intervene very quickly and if you're talking of rapid reaction and early intervention, you will ideally want to rely on those governments with capabilities, those governments who have extensive logistical support and airlift capabilities to either join the operation or to lead it. If that does not happen then, of course, you have to do the best you can with the offers you receive, but it can also not be excluded that at the end of the day if the response is not sufficiently strong, we may not be able to put in a force.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But how can you put in a force? I mean, you don't have the legitimate government in power, but you do have a military coup in effect. How would that force relate to that coup and Major Buyoya?

KOFI ANNAN: I think that we have looked at two options. The first option was a force that could go in with the consent and agreement of the government on the ground, and when the ARUSHA process discussed this issue on the 25th of June--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That is the Africans in the Region.

KOFI ANNAN: That's correct, working with the OAU, the government at that time invited a force to come in. The president and prime minister agreed that a force should come in, but they moment they got to Bujumbura, they started backing up. Buyoya has said that he is against a foreign intervention force.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So where does that leave you?

KOFI ANNAN: It will mean that if the international community were to decide to go in, it would have to be under Chapter 7, and they may have to do it without a consent of the government, and this can be done if the will is there, but the force has to be credible and capable.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what--excuse me, I'm sorry.

KOFI ANNAN: The force has to be credible and capable of implementing its mandate and protecting itself.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But does the will exist anywhere within the U.N. structure, within any of the member states?

KOFI ANNAN: It hasn't been sufficiently manifested at this stage.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what about the economic sanctions, because the Africans haven't agreed to commit troops either, they've gone the way of economic sanctions, how effective do you think that could be?

KOFI ANNAN: I think it could be effective if all the countries in the region implement it. Let's not forget that Burundi is land- locked, and they rely a lot on Tanzanian ports to get their goods in, including fuel, and all that. And if the governments in the region decided to seal their borders, it will create a considerable economic hardship and put lots of pressure on the government in Burundi. But let me add something else. In addition to the economic sanctions, the governments decided to put up a force, and already I know that Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Uganda have agreed to contribute troops to a regional force.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is the physical situation? I mean, has the killing stopped? Have the conflicts stopped?

KOFI ANNAN: The conflict, obviously, has not stopped, and they will--and one will have to keep, uh, working on the reconciliation process and try and get the parties together along the ARUSHA line and perhaps get them to return to the efforts that Nyerere, President Nyerere has been leading. Two days ago, many more--the refugees were leaving the country, going to the neighboring countries, but the neighboring countries are now determined to stop and seal their border and also impose sanctions. And I suspect one of the strategies is to get--to try to get the Burundi regime back to the negotiating table to--to join the process which is being led by President Nyerere and talk to the Hutu group on power sharing arrangements.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mr. Secretary-General, thank you for being with us.

KOFI ANNAN: Thank you very much. ESSAY - THE FACE IN THE MIRROR

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming considers where hatred comes from.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: [violin music playing in background] The Holocaust will not be put to rest. Half a century after it ended, we are not done with it and maybe never will be. Anyone who seen the pictures cannot expunge them. And every year, there are new additions to the archives--movies, documentaries, museums, oral histories, and books, all probing the wound, asking "the" question of the 20th century: How did it happen, and who was responsible for the slaughter of 6 million Jews? It's the question that won't go away, won't be answered once and for all. And now a new book opens it all up again, pointing an angry finger at the ordinary Germans. It was they who did it, says Harvard Professor Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in his new book Hitler's Willing Executioners. The author's contention is that a particularly hate-filled strain of German anti-Semitism brought about the Holocaust, not Hitler. He was the spearhead, yes, but ordinary folk weaned on anti-semitism, sick with it, participated, tortured, pulled triggers, and even relished the task of extermination. In painful detail, he documents the reign of these ordinary butchers. And no matter what you have read or heard, it once again pierces the heart and conscience, and raises historical hackles. The book hasn't even been published in Germany yet, but controversy rages there in anticipation. It is a country that would like to get on with it, leave the past behind. It would like to believe that an elite corps of killers did most of the work, and that Hitler is the Satan of our time who forced his citizens into brutal obedience. Even here in this country, a surprising deep and passionate argument over this book has sprung up. The Holocaust is the mirror we keep in our back pocket, taking it out from time to time as we have been forced to again by this book to take the measure not just to pre-war Germany or Hitler or anti-semitism, but of ourselves. To read Goldhagen's book or wonder the halls of any of the Holocaust museums like this one, the Museum of Tolerance in my hometown of Los Angeles, is to ask yourself the question: Who am I? What would I have done? Could I have resisted? Could I have participated? Where does hate come from and what traces are there of it in any or all of us? After all, Americans knew Jews were being exterminated earlier than we like to remember. And we turned away boat loads of those fleeing Europe. We did that. And what of our own long history of segregation, of treating a huge piece of the population as less human, forcing them to the back of the bus, to the other drinking fountain, hanging them from trees? Whose hands are clean? That, of course, is the real question Goldhagen forces us all to confront. His critics--and there are many--says his thesis is too simple, too all-encompassing, and does not allow for the other wholesale slaughters of our time--Russia, China, Cambodia. All too recently we have watched Bosnia and Rwanda cannibalize themselves. Evil is not the exclusive province of Hitler's Germany--nor is anti-semitism. And by making it seem so, Goldhagen inadvertently lets the rest of us off the hook, along with the other homicidal, pied pipers of our time. [somber music playing] But step back out of the pages again, out of the intellectual waters and back in here. Take a seat on a bench. Take a deep breath and look in the mirror, because that's what this place is. That's what Goldhagen's book is. And we do owe him gratitude for forcing us to look into it once again. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, the U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in two years during the second quarter of this year. FBI Director Louis Freeh told a Senate Committee the United States faced increased attacks by terrorists and a Little Rock jury acquitted two Arkansas bankers of conspiracy and fraud. The case grew out of then Governor Bill Clinton's 1990 reelection campaign. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.