The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour this Christmas eve the Nichols trial--we analyze last night's verdicts and the sentencing phase ahead; the massacre in Mexico--Charles Krause examines the story; Betty Ann Bowser reports on the struggle of independent booksellers to survive; David Gergen engages William F. Buckley on his new book about personal faith; and we close with a Christmas eve poem read by poet laureate Robert Pinsky. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.NEWS SUMMARY

MARGARET WARNER: The federal judge in the Terry Nichols trial ruled today that he will face the possibility of a death sentence. Nichols was convicted yesterday of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter but not murder in the second Oklahoma City bombing trial. Nichols' lawyers had urged that execution be stricken as an option in the sentencing phase that begins Monday. Judge Richard Matsch denied the plea. We'll have more on the Nichols trial right after the News Summary. The government of Mexico today denied involvement or blame for the bloody massacre in the southern state of Chiapas. The country's top justice official told reporters he believed a group of suspects would be arrested late today. Forty-five Indian refugees died Monday in a village near San Cristobal de las Casas, killed by men whom witnesses described as paramilitary gunmen. The victims included 21 women and 14 children. Dozens more were wounded. We'll have more on the story later in the program. In Paris, a French court early this morning convicted the revolutionary known as Carlos the Jackal on murder charges. The court sentenced the Venezuelan-born Carlos--whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez--to life in prison. Phil Ponce has more.

PHIL PONCE: The self-proclaimed militant revolutionary was driven by police from the palace of justice to begin living out the rest of his life in a French jail. Ramirez was found guilty of the 1975 killings in Paris of French intelligence agents and the murder of a Palestinian militant. He was sentenced to life imprisonment because his victims were unarmed. He said he was being politically persecuted for his love of revolution and his support of the Palestinian cause. His lawyers maintained he was a victim of a political witch hunt. Carlos spent years eluding police by his ability to change his appearance. Three years ago he was captured by French agents in Sudan. Carlos faces more legal troubles. Authorities in France and Germany are investigating his involvement in several bomb attacks in the 1970's and 1980's, which claimed more than a dozen lives.

MARGARET WARNER: In Washington today more economic relief for South Korea was announced. The International Monetary Fund said it would disperse another $10 billion in loans to Korea by early January, sooner than planned. The U.S. will contribute $1.7 billion of that. The loans are part of a $57 billion bailout plan negotiated by the IMF earlier this month. The South Korean stock market plunged again today, losing another 4.1 percent of its value, but the Korean currency, the wan, rose 6.4 percent against the dollar. In other economic news U.S. personal income shot up last month, while consumer spending rose only half as much. The Commerce Department reported today that incomes went up .8 percent, the biggest jump since June 1996. Spending rose .4 percent, down slightly from the previous month. Consumer spending represents 2/3 of the nation's economic activity. In Moscow, Russian President Boris Yeltsin checked out of a sanitarium today. He has spent the past two weeks there recuperating from what doctors described as a cold and viral infection. Russian television carried footage this evening of Yeltsin meeting with Deputy Premier Boris Nemtsov in the Kremlin. The president later went to his country residence. He's expected to maintain a light schedule for a while longer. And on this Christmas Eve Christians around the world began celebrating the birth of Christ. In Bethlehem, Christians and Muslims prayed and lit candles in the Church of the Nativity built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born. In Manger Square city residents celebrated the holiday with a parade that included Santa Claus and marching bands. In Bosnia, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen brought holiday greetings to American troops aboard the USS Guam. Cohen later met with military personnel in nearby Macedonia. And in Washington, the White House released President Clinton and Mrs.--President and Mrs. Clinton's annual videotaped Christmas message.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Hillary and I wish all of you a joyous holiday season, one full of magical moments with friends and family, celebration of the year just passed and hope for the year to come. I'd also like to send a special greeting to the brave men and women in uniform who are serving our country in lands far from home and loved ones. On behalf of all Americans I thank you for the greatest gift of the season.

MARGARET WARNER: That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to analyzing the Nichols' verdict, the Mexico massacre, super bookstores, a Gergen dialogue, and a Christmas eve poem. FOCUS - NICHOLS VERDICT

MARGARET WARNER: The Nichols verdict and aftermath. Today, a federal judge rejected defense arguments that Terry Nichols should be spared a possible death sentence. Yesterday, the jury rendered a mixed verdict on charges that Nichols helped Timothy McVeigh blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Jurors found Nichols guilty on one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and on eight counts of involuntary manslaughter. They found him "not guilty" of using a weapon of mass destruction and of destruction by explosive. We begin our coverage with last night's reaction to the verdict from some victims' relatives and survivors of the 1995 explosion.

GLENNA RILEY, Bombing Survivor: I am so relieved that they did come up with a verdict before the Christmas holiday really actually got to us. My first reaction was, oh, no, they're letting him off easy, but I think they worked with what they had.

JANNIE COVERDALE, Bombing Victims' Grandmother: You sat in a courtroom just like I did. You heard the government prove that Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh conspired for seven months to blow up that building. In my book that's first degree murder. I don't know where the jury came from. I don't know what they were thinking about, but that's first degree murder.

MARSHA KITE, Bombing Victim's Mother: Well, we're glad that they came up with the conspiracy charges but very disappointed on the involuntary manslaughter. I mean, he was with that man to gather the stuff--I mean, they were taking things out to Arizona that they had robbed there in Kansas in the storage lockers, and the seven months that the prosecution, I mean, they need a Congressional Medal of Honor for the way they conducted themselves in the trial and how they laid things out. And I cannot believe the jurors on the eight counts. I mean, Diane Leonard was in that courtroom, and she lost her husband, and that must have been a slap in her face.

SHARON MADEARIS, Widow: At least he was found guilty of conspiracy. Everybody knows he helped build the bomb.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I'll have to live with it, but I wasn't satisfied.

AREN ALMON KOK, Mother of Victim: I'm glad. I'm glad that he got found guilty of something because I was afraid there for a while he was going to get acquitted.

DR. PAUL HEATH, Bombing Survivor: It's wonderful to have a decision today by the jury. It's one step down the road to justice that I welcome it. And I know that it's been difficult for the jury to weigh all of that evidence. But they certainly have done their duty and, as I understand the verdict, they have found Terry Nichols guilty of conspiracy, and that is sufficient to give whatever penalty this jury believes he's earned.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, more on the verdict, the trial, and the upcoming sentencing phase from two observers who periodically have joined us during both the Nichols and Timothy McVeigh trials. Tim Sullivan, senior correspondent for Court TV, and Dan Recht, former president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar and a practicing attorney in Denver. We had hoped Jim Fleissner, a former federal prosecutor, could also be with us tonight, but due to a snowstorm, he cannot. Welcome, gentlemen. Tim Sullivan, take us back to last night in the courtroom and give us the scene when the verdict was announced.

TIM SULLIVAN, Court TV: Well, Margaret, when the verdict was announced, first of all, for Terry Nichols there was virtually no reaction on the part of Terry Nichols. He sat very stoically watching the judge while the judge read the verdict which took several minutes. It's a long indictment and a long verdict for him. But we didn't see any reaction from Terry Nichols at all, that we could discern, until after it was all over and the jury had been let out of the room, and he was speaking with his attorneys before the marshals took him away. And at that point, he looked extremely upset. His face was flushed red. He looked like somebody who'd been punched in the stomach and lost his wind. Terry Nichols' family was in the courtroom during the reading of the verdict. His mother and father, his sister, and his brother were all in the front row, watching. They also did not betray any emotion really as that verdict was read. They were very strong. None of them was crying, and there was very little reaction from them. The jury looked extremely upset--most of them. Two of the young men on the jury sat with their heads bowed through the entire reading of the verdict and only looked up to answer yes when they were asked, "Is this your verdict?" during the polling of the jury. One of the women on the jury sat almost with her back turned toward the court throughout the entire reading of the verdict, and her head down, resting on her hand. She was clearly very upset. Two of the women on the jury were crying after the jury was polled when it was just about all over. In the gallery the Oklahomans, of course, were extremely upset. There were not as many of them there as there have been throughout the trial. Many went home for the Christmas holidays. But there were more than a dozen Oklahomans there. Many of them were crying. They were extremely disappointed in this verdict. The attorneys on both sides looked almost like they didn't know how to react. They sat very stoically, each side, and they--we didn't see the prosecutors congratulating each other in court after the jury left, as we saw after the verdict in the Timothy McVeigh trial.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Dan Recht, how do you interpret the split verdict that they rendered?

DAN RECHT, Defense Attorney: Well, first of all, I interpret it as a huge victory forthe defense. There's no question about this. I mean, from the beginning the prosecution has wanted to get a death penalty against Mr. Nichols. And this makes it somewhat clear that they're not going to get that. So I--despite the public face they're putting on, I would suggest that they're pretty disappointed. And the defense, on the other hand, I would think is very happy because Michael Tigar from the day he took this case, his job has been to save the life of Terry Nichols, and it seems as though he's gone a long way down that road towards saving his life.

MARGARET WARNER: But the split verdict, itself, what does that tell you about what the jurors decided?

DAN RECHT: I think the jurors were compromising. They clearly did not believe that Terry Nichols was as involved as Mr. McVeigh, and while it's a compromise, I don't think the verdicts are inconsistent. What they said is that Mr. Nichols was involved in a conspiracy to use or build a bomb at some point, and at a later point, seemingly, he did some act that was involved in these people dying. But interestingly, they clearly said that he was not involved at the end because they said--when they said that he wasn't guilty of first degree murder, they were saying that Mr. Nichols did not intend for anybody to die, did not deliberate to have anybody die, did not mean to have anybody die, did not know that anybody was going to die. That's basically what involuntary manslaughter is. I mean, to give you a sense of what kind of crime it is, involuntary manslaughter by itself, there is a maximum prison sentence of only six years.

MARGARET WARNER: Tim, what instructions did the judge give the jury on how to determine between murder and involuntary manslaughter?

TIM SULLIVAN: First degree murder, which his the highest count in this indictment related to the individual deaths, is premeditated, intentional murder. And the judge was very clear about that. Second degree murder is--requires a much lower level of intent. It does not require the same level of premeditation as first degree murder. For the involuntary manslaughter the judge told them that they did not have to find any premeditation to convict Terry Nichols on those counts, and he described manslaughter to them as a lawful act which results in death but that the death is not necessarily foreseen by the act.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, staying with you, Tim, tell us about the hearing this morning. This is when the defense first came in and essentially said the judge should not even let the jury consider the death penalty. On what grounds did they argue that? What did the prosecution say?

TIM SULLIVAN: Well, defense basically had two overall points to make. One of them was Mr. Tigar argued that the jury did not find that Terry Nichols intended to kill any of the people who died. Mr. Tigar argued that in order for the death penalty to kick in there has to be intentional premeditated murder, and the jury acquitted him of the intentional premeditated murders. He was essentially arguing that the first count on conspiracy does not require a finding of intent to commit murder. He was also arguing that the verdict is inconsistent. He was arguing, as he began to argue yesterday right after the--right after the verdict was read-- he said, Given the acquittals on counts two and three, the two counts related to use of the bomb, the government can't go forward with the penalty phase. So that was the basis of his argument. I don't think he expected to win that argument, and I don't think he ever expected that Judge Matsch was going to stop this proceeding and not go forward. But just by convincing the judge to allow him to put that argument on the record this morning, he's made a great record for appeal, and he's preserved an issue that could become very important to Terry Nichols later on, depending on what the sentence eventually is in this case.

MARGARET WARNER: Dan Recht, as a matter of precedent, was Mike Tigar right? Has anyone ever been sentenced to death on say a conspiracy charge, rather than on say first degree murder?

DAN RECHT: Well, the history of the death penalty in our country, since it was re-instituted back in the late 60's, is that nobody--nobody has been executed, except for first degree murder, so not for anything else. And here, of course, Mr. Nichols was convicted of not first degree murder but manslaughter. Now, your question is: What about the conspiracy to build this weapon of mass destruction? That's never been tested by the Supreme Court, or never been tested in the Supreme Court, and so we don't know--

MARGARET WARNER: And explain that. Just let me--because this is a fairly new law--it's an anti- terrorism, federal anti-terrorism law.

DAN RECHT: Right. There are new laws out of the U.S. Congress that allow for the death penalty for some non-first degree murder offenses, including this one. And so whether that is constitutional or not to give somebody the death penalty for other than first degree murder has yet to be tested in the Supreme Court.

MARGARET WARNER: I see. All right, Tim, now tell us about what's going to happen Monday. The jurors are going to come in. What are going to be their options? What are they going to be presented with in the way of further testimony?

TIM SULLIVAN: Well, as they go into the death penalty phase beginning Monday, they are going to have three options when they go back into deliberations after that phase ends. They can sentence Terry Nichols to death, or they can sentence Terry Nichols to life in prison without the possibility of ever being released, or the third option, which is a sentence less than life without parole, but that sentence would have to be determined by the judge. If they go for that option, it goes back to Judge Matsch. He would hold a sentencing hearing later, presumably, at which lawyers for each side would argue what the federal guidelines say the sentence should be. And the judge would have to make the decision. What the jury is in for, however, for the next two weeks probably, maybe a little bit less than that, is some heart rending testimony that they're going to find extremely upsetting. This trial was not as emotionally packed as the McVeigh trial was. The prosecutors were much more subdued this time around in eliciting graphic testimony of the terror and chaos and blood at the Murrah Building. This time they're going to bring in this phase--they're going to bring in survivors of the bombing. They're going to bring in relatives of people who were killed in the bombing. They're going to bring in rescue workers. And those people are all going to talk about how the bombing had an impact on their lives, victim impact statements. They'll talk about how their lives have been changed forever and in some of them destroyed by the loss of loved ones. From the rescue workers we heard in the first trial some very compelling, upsetting stories about people still having nightmares, about being in therapy three years later because of just the horrible things they saw, having to carry dead children out of that building, et cetera. So that's going to be very difficult for the jury. That's all put on to try to convince the jury that they should execute Terry Nichols. Mr. Nichols' lawyers will bring in friends and family members of Terry Nichols, perhaps former army buddies and supervisors of his, perhaps business associates. They will all try to convince this jury that Terry Nichols' life still has value and should be spared, even though he was convicted of the conspiracy count. We may hear from his son, Joshua Nichols, and witnesses like that.

MARGARET WARNER: Tim, briefly, before we leave, I want to get you both on this question. You heard some of the victims' relatives say they couldn't understand the difference in the verdicts between McVeigh and Nichols in both these trials. What do you think was the most essential difference? I mean, was it a question of evidence? Was it the instructions to the jury? Was it the approach taken by the lawyers? What was the biggest difference?

TIM SULLIVAN: The biggest difference, I think, Margaret, was the evidence. You know, Timothy McVeigh was arrested 70 miles North of Oklahoma City, 70 miles after--70 minutes after the bombing--with explosives residue all over his clothes. Terry Nichols wasn't in Oklahoma City. Nobody saw him building the bomb where it was alleged to have been built. Nobody saw him or identified as the man who allegedly bought the fertilizer that was used in the bomb. There were just no eyewitnesses in this case to tie Terry Nichols directly to the crime. The only evidence of intent came from Michael Fortier. He was discredited.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me get Dan Recht on that point. What do you think was the biggest difference between these two cases, two trials?

DAN RECHT: I think the biggest difference was the amount of evidence between one and the other. I think what's important is to look at these two trials together and see what we have in our country is a jury system that really works. You have the McVeigh jury that said, look, we're convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that he did this, and they convicted him, and they said he should be put to death. And in this case a jury looked at evidence with regard to Mr. Nichols and said, as they should have, look, we tried, we looked at the evidence, we followed what the judge said, and we have reasonable doubts with regard to whether it's first degree murder and with regard to second degree murder. So--and they didn't find him guilty of those--so when you look at a whole of these two trials--even though there's different verdicts--I think we are looking at a jury system that works very well in our country and one that we all as Americans should be very proud of.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Well, thank you both very much, Tim and Dan. FOCUS - MASSACRE IN MEXICO

MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight the Mexico massacre, super bookstores, a David Gergen dialogue, and a Christmas eve poem. Charles Krause has the Mexico story.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Monday's massacre took place in a tiny Indian hamlet called Acteal in Mexico's southernmost state--Chiapas. According to news reports and survivors, a column of gunmen entered Acteal in broad daylight, then systematically gunned down the Indian villagers--some of them at prayer in a local church. According to the Red Cross, at least 45 of Acteal's residents were killed and nearly 20 more wounded. Local hospitals were treating the injured--a majority of them women and children. Residents of Acteal told reporters they had been warned last week that if they did not leave the village, there would be violence. Witnesses said there was reason to believethe gunmen, armed with AK47's, may have been members of a paramilitary group called "Red Mask." Some of the gunmen, in fact, were reportedly wearing police uniforms with the insignias removed. Allegedly, the "Red Mask" paramilitary group has links to local members of Mexico's long-ruling establishment and its political instrument--the Institutional Revolutionary Party, also known as the PRI. Speaking for the Catholic Church in Chiapas, Father Gustavo Ituarte said Monday's attack was a deliberate attempt by the PRI and its supporters among the wealthy in Chiapas to stop the Indians' campaign for land reform and greater autonomy. "This is an act of war. It's a provocation," Father Ituarte said. "Each time there have been steps towards peace, towards dialogue, there have been acts of sabotage." The seriousness of Monday's violence was underscored yesterday when Mexico's president, Ernesto Zedillo, ordered a federal investigation. Speaking on nationwide television, Zedillo condemned the massacre as "a cruel, absurd, unacceptable criminal act." But despite Zedillo's concern, Monday's massacre was only the latest in a long list of killings aimed at intimidating reformers and other government opponents in Chiapas. Located along Mexico's border with Guatemala some 1500 miles south of Mexico City, Chiapas first came to the world's attention four years ago. On New Year's Day, 1994, guerrillas belonging to a then-unknown guerrilla group called the Zapatistas, attacked government soldiers. The Zapatistas' demands for economic and social justice made headlines and helped focus attention on long-simmering tensions between various indigenous tribes and the government in Chiapas--controlled by the PRI and the local oligarchy. Faced with the prospects of a guerrilla war, Mexico's federal government entered into negotiations with the Zapatistas almost immediately after the first attack, and a cease-fire was quickly agreed to. But the peace process has stalled since 1994, and more than 300 Zapatista sympathizers have been killed by paramilitary groups. Some government sympathizers have also been killed. Today, Zapatista Leader Commandant Marcos issued a communique blaming the government for Monday's massacre.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Joining us now are Alejandro Carillo Castro, official spokesman for the Mexican government, and Juan Enriquez, a former member of the Mexican government's negotiating team in Chiapas and currently a fellow at Harvard University's Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us. Mr. Carillo Castro, in Mexico City, how do you respond to the charges that your government and the PRI are at least indirectly responsible for these paramilitary groups and, therefore, responsible for Monday's massacre?

ALEJANDRO CARRILLO CASTRO, Government Spokesman: Well, I definitely deny it because, as you have already mentioned, President Zedillo, himself, has called it a cruel, absurd, unacceptable criminal act. Nobody in Mexico would condone it. I think that it is something that we Mexicans really are shocked to have seen that such a criminal act has happened, so starting from President Zedillo, every Mexican will condemn such a criminal act as an atrocity.

CHARLES KRAUSE: I understand that, but there have been these continuing charges from various people that in Chiapas, the local PRI, the local government may be helping these paramilitary groups, arming them.

ALEJANDRO CARRILLO CASTRO: No. As you have already mentioned, in Chiapas, these kinds of feuds between local groups have existed not since--as you said--four years ago when these guerrilla groups appeared, but it's only a novel--or the new face of a very, very old type of problem from the local groups that have been feuding and fighting for reasons of land property, for reasons of political, and even religious differences, which had existed in the state of Chiapas since more than 40 or 50 years ago.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Mr. Enriquez in Boston, what's your assessment? Who do you think is behind these paramilitary groups?

JUAN ENRIQUEZ, Former Mexican Official: I think there were several warnings that this was happening. There was a letter from the conservative Bishop of Chiapas less than 30 days ago talking about these armaments increasing, talking about tensions in this area. There have been murders since October, over 60 house burnings, over 20 people killed in this small, same municipality. There have been repeated calls from the Gopoca, which is the negotiating authority between the government and the guerrillas, for a peaceful resolution. These have been ignored time and again. And this is not an isolated incident in Mexico. There have been other peasant massacres, such as that of Juredo, which are still today left unsolved. There is evidence that there is increasing violence in Mexico, and this has got to stop.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Who do you think is arming these paramilitary groups, allowing them to go forward?

JUAN ENRIQUEZ: Well, I think one of the things that's happening is the signal that's coming out from the federal government is that violence is okay. When the President of the republic refuses to meet with the Secretary General of Amnesty International, when he goes on a fact-finding tour to Mexico, when there are a series of murders and massacres throughout the country, the assassinations of youth in Mexico City or in Jalisco, that clearly have involvement of people who are part of this regime, and when matters like these in Chiapas are not followed up, for instance, the assassination attempt against Somarice this year.

CHARLES KRAUSE: The bishop in Chiapas.

JUAN ENRIQUEZ: The bishop in Chiapas. Or when the investigation of the attempted assassination of the opposition governatorial candidate, Amale Vendano, during the last political campaign is not investigated and brought forth, the message that people get is it's okay to murder and that's okay to go ahead and do these things. Right now in Mexico City less than 2 percent of the crimes that are committed lead to a jail sentence.

CHARLES KRAUSE: All right. Mr. Carrillo Castro, you've heard what Mr. Enriquez has to say. He says that the message coming from Mexico City is that it's okay, especially in areas of Chiapas, to murder anti- government--people who are against the government--

ALEJANDRO CARRILLO CASTRO: No. I think it's outrageous to say that anyone in Mexico in his healthy mind would say that it's okay to have a violent act, or to murder someone. I think that that is precisely the reason why the Mexican federal government has ordered, President Zedillo has ordered the attorney general on the federal level to take over the case in order to guarantee that the culprits would be sanctioned because if there is even a possibility of anybody thinking that the local government would do what Mr. Enriquez is saying, the federal government is strongly and firmly taking action in order to prove that no one would be above the legal sanctions, notwithstanding the political or religious or economic conditions of the ones that have perpetrated this condemnable act.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And why is it that after nearly four years, since all of this began in Chiapas, that the government and the Zapatistas have not been able to reach some sort of peace agreement? Why does this violence continue?

ALEJANDRO CARRILLO CASTRO: Well, I think that there are several reasons. First of all, when both parties have started a dialogue. Even Mr. Enriquez was a part of the first group representing the Mexican government. There have been difficulties in discussing the agreements that have reached, that have been reached in the different discussions because part of them had to be established in the Mexican constitution that has to be constitutional reforms. And, of course, the Mexican government has agreed to honor those accords, those agreements that have been met, but in order to be able to translate them into constitutional articles; the commission of the--of Congress that had been working towards this project presented a part that was at the beginning agreed upon--the two parties--but the Mexican government has said that in order to translate it to a constitutional amendment, certain provisions had to be taken care of and not to break the constitutional architecture.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Okay. Mr. Enriquez, what is your assessment? You were on that initial peace commission. What's happened? Why hasn't there been some sort of treaty?

JUAN ENRIQUEZ: After the rebellion broke out--and I want to stress that the reason why rebellions--and this is not the only rebellion that is breaking out in Mexico--there were rebellions breaking out in several states- -they tend to be states where the PRI is dominant. They tend to be states where there is a great deal of repression going on. This is not an unprecedented act. These are acts that are occurring in Gerado. These are acts that are occurring in Wajaka. They're occurring throughout Mexico. And one of the reasons why we were able to stop that conflict when we first went in is because we recognized that there was a serious problem and the people were being tortured, were being disappeared, were being massacred, and that that had to stop, and one of the first things we did is we went in and we asked the indigenous population to forgive us for doing this.

CHARLES KRAUSE: But the question is: Do you think the government has negotiated in good faith?

JUAN ENRIQUEZ: Absolutely not.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And what's happened?

JUAN ENRIQUEZ: They haven't sat down at the table, but they've reached agreements, and then torn up those agreements, or argued that there are a series of legalistic barriers to agreements that they've already reached. They have provided the Zapatistas with safe conducts and then violated those safe conducts. One of the first acts of this government was to promise to negotiate in good faith and then send in the army to try and take out the top leadership of the Zapatistas.

CHARLES KRAUSE: All right. Gentlemen, unfortunately, we have to go, but I want to thank you both very much for joining us. Thank you. FOCUS - CHAIN REACTION

MARGARET WARNER: Now, the impact of super stores on the book-selling business. Here's another look at the story filed by Betty Ann Bowser earlier this year.

DAN ODEGARD, Former Bookstore Owner: This was the store in Edina.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: At one time Dan Odegard was known as one of the premier booksellers in the country. He fondly remembers the days when authors would stop by his three Minneapolis area stores for an autograph signing.

DAN ODEGARD: Alex Haley. Erica Jong. Robert MacNeil, who you may be familiar with.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But in 1989, a New York-based bookstore company called Barnes and Noble, decided to expand its operations nationwide. It started in the Minneapolis area with a store like this one, which covered thousands of square feet and stocked nearly 200,000 titles. It had a coffee bar that sold food and latte--it discounted prices. Within three years, Odegard was out of business.

DAN ODEGARD: Increasingly, we didn't have enough margin. We were having difficulty just staying alive. The perception certainly was, and the reality was too, that you could get books more inexpensively there.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But it wasn't just discount pricing that drove Odegard out of business. The big bookstore chains are able to guarantee long-term leases with national commercial companies for real estate space. They can also spend millions of dollars on marketing and advertising. Odegard could do neither.

DAN ODEGARD: Barnes and noble opened within a couple blocks of us; they put billboards all around where we were located. We couldn't begin to afford that kind of advertising.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Nationwide, the four major bookstore chains--Barnes and Noble; Borders Group; Crown Books and Books-A-Million--increased their sales 180 percent in the ten-year period from 1986 to 1996 to $5 billion. Meanwhile, grocery stores, discount stores, and warehouse clubs increased their overall book sales. The competition has driven independent stores under. In the past two years 200 have closed around the country, so that today only 18 percent of all books sales to adults are made in independent stores. The Tattered Cover in Denver is one of the independent books stores that so far has survived. Ironically, the Tattered Cover and a few other large independents around the country were actually the model for the new superstores.

SPOKESPERSON: Would you please Miller Williams. (applause)

BETTY ANN BOWSER: By hosting poetry readings and providing comfortable chairs in a "living room" setting these stores became a place to gather and socialize. Joyce Meskis, the owner of the Tattered Cover, says in spite of her success, her profit margin is less than 1 percent, and she's worried she may be the next forced into bankruptcy

JOYCE MESKIS; I think that we have been targeted. There are certainly a large number of Barnes and Noble stores that have come into our community. First wave positioned four stores at each corner of the city. Then one came closer to us. I would say there's quite an influx of stores coming into our area.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Steven Riggio is Chief Operating Officer of Barnes and Noble.

STEVEN RIGGIO, BARNES & NOBLE: I think one has to realize that the book selling business is a retailing business and retailing is competitive, and, you know, whether it be books or toys or, you know, office supplies or the like, it is competition, and I think that we have achieved success because of our innovative ideas or revolutionary ideas.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Riggio says recent sales in Barnes and Noble stores are up 24 percent, even though industry wide book sales are flat. And he says that's because of people like these we talked to in one of the Minneapolis super stores.

JACK KRUGER: Just about anything that you might want to find or look up, you can find here. You know the smaller stores are kind of limited. And so we come here because of all the books they have.

SHELLEY NELSON: I like the tendency for the superstores to give a comfortable setting in which to spend some time with books, as opposed to picking something off the shelf, buying it, and leaving.

VINCENT SENIOR: The coffee bar. Anda place to sit, and they have nice, comfortable chairs.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: I see you like baseball.

VINCENT JUNIOR: It's my favorite sport

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And do they have a real good selection of baseball books here?

VINCENT JUNIOR: Yes. This whole front shelf right here.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But critics of the super stores say the chains are more interested in money than books. Emilie Buchwald heads Milkweed Editions--a small not-for-profit publishing house in Minneapolis.

EMILIE BUCHWALD: The chains look at their computers and say this book isn't selling a month or two after it's been delivered from the printer, send it back. And that book never has a chance to have a shelf life. That book never has a chance to have its reviews catch up with it so that people even know that it's there.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Steve Daubenspeck, who manages one of the Barnes and Noble superstores in St. Paul, says he gives books a chance. He says occasionally a book like "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCort breaks through because people like him recommend it.

STEVE DAUBENSPECK: We look at the book, and we make decisions on the book itself, which is important.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: So there are some books that get a stay of execution?

STEVE DAUBENSPECK: Yes, yes. There are books that get stays of execution. So, it's not all done by five people in New York. There's a lot of people involved in this. I would be scared if that was the only way books were bought in America.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Critics also complain the "superstore phenomenon" has changed the way publishers do business and led almost to an economic form of censorship.

SANDRA DIJKSTRA: Chains will only order books that are published at a certain number. The big book publishers are only going to be wanting to buy books that they can be publish in a certain number. So we're reaching a point, a kind of a cannibalistic cycle, which is rather frightening.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Sandra Dijkstra is a book agent who represents more than 150 writers, including Amy Tan, author of "The Joy Luck Club." At a recent appearance at the Tattered Cover, she talked about the influence the chain stores have had on what books get published.

AMY TAN: I think it is having a kind of trickle-down effect on the whole industry because it means that publishers again want to publish what is obvious, what will be a best seller from the instant they publish it. They want a recognizable image, a recognizable title, or recognizable name. And so I think it means that, you know, there will be a question of whether an Amy Tan could have happened in this environment.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Riggio maintains his business is having quite the opposite effect.

STEVEN RIGGIO: Totally preposterous. Our buying staff is some of the most experienced book people in America. We' re giving greater exposure, greater distribution, and greater display to books from small presses and mid size publishers and university presses, and we're seeing tremendous growth there.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Publishers complain that the chain stores deliberately order large quantity of books knowing they can return them--leaving the publishers to absorb the losses. It's a practice, they say, that's forcing them to re-think which books they publish. At least one major publishing house--Harper Collins--recently stunned the publishing world when it announced it would not print 100 books that had previously been scheduled. And Milkweed publisher Buchwald is also making changes.

EMILIE BUCHWALD: One of the things we've had to do is to cut back our publishing program somewhat and be very, very careful about how we allow out books to be ordered in the future-- to make sure that at least on our part--the books are not going to go out and then come back.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Those independent bookstores that hope to survive are also making changes. The Tattered Cover has extended its hours, added an espresso bar and restaurant, and gone beyond poetry readings to wine tastings.

COLLETTE MORGAN: You can put him down on the floor if you'd like and he'll uncurl and walk around a little bit.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: For other independents, survival has come from finding a niche. Collette Morgan, who used to work at Odegard's, and Tom Braun found theirs in a children's bookstore.

PERSON: Tiffany, look out.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Not only is the Wild Rumpus bookstore home to more than 33,000 books--a hedgehog, three chickens, two cats, and some twenty birds also live here. For the past four years Morgan and Braun have turned a profit, in spite of what has happened to the other independent books stores in Minneapolis.

COLLETTE MORGAN: You have to have something that will set you apart from the other booksellers. So if you have--if you can specialize in a certain area and have a great expertise in that area, then you're many jumps ahead of the competition.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Still, Braun and Morgan, like other independent bookstore owners, think even fewer children's books are being published because of the influence of the superstores.

TOM BRAUN: Fewer and fewer people are making the decisions to buy from a smaller, a shrinking assortment of books. I mean, we're talking about books here. We're not talking about running shoes. So we want variety. We want as many different kinds of books as possible, and I think the impact is that we're losing that variety gradually.

STEVEN RIGGIO: I think on the contrary. I mean, we consider our bookstores neighborhood bookstores and they're not homogeneous; they're each individually distinct. We are big believers in rooting our stores in the communities they serve and consider our neighborhood bookstores. You know, every one of our stores is different.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Riggio said Barnes and Noble hopes to open three to four hundred new superstores in the next five years. And the company is selling books on the country's largest Internet provider, American OnLine. This service will compete with Amazon.com, another web site that offers 2 + million titles. And not to be outdone, independents like the Tattered Cover are trying to compete with their own web sites. It may be a new chapter in books wars waged in cyberspace. DIALOGUE

MARGARET WARNER: Now, a Gergen dialogue. David Gergen, editor-at-large of "U.S. News & World Report," engages William F. Buckley, Jr., editor of "National Review," and host of public television "Firing Line." Buckley's latest book is "Nearer My God," an autobiography.

DAVID GERGEN: Bill, thank you for joining us.

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR., Author, "Nearer My God:" Nice to be here.

DAVID GERGEN: Good. In your new book you say, "There is something about the modern disposition that compels even those who believe in God to keep all such matters tidily secluded in their own tent." Tell us why you've come out of the tent.

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: I felt an obligation. I'm a writer, and I was asked to write this book. I put it aside after one year, one writing year devoted to it, on the grounds that I simply couldn't handle it. It was too big a subject. But then I felt that itchy feeling that I guess conscience is the best word for it, saying, I shouldn't do that to God. I think he's done a lot of things for me. I mean this quite seriously. So I thought, well, now I got to go back and do it. But I did feel that the reader ought to know that there is that natural reticence that I feel, being a non-preaching Christian, how much convinced I am as a Christian.

DAVID GERGEN: Can you tell us--I don't mean to invade your privacy--but can you tell us a little more about what your faith has meant to you personally, whether you--

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: I grew up in a devout Christian Catholic family, ten brothers and sisters. My mother was conspicuously devout and my father was devout also. We always simply assumed that God was the patron of human life. Now, when you run into the kind of nonchalant and cheeky secularism that you run into at Yale, for instance--I wrote a book about it--you all of a sudden recognize there are a lot of people out there who think that this is a superstition. We'll go ahead and let people indulge in it because some of them have a good time. I set out to show in this book, I don't think it is a superstition. I think very bright people feel--believe in God and that God does something for us by giving us perspectives that make life tolerable, especially in very sad moments.

DAVID GERGEN: Much of your book, it's quite striking because it's so unlike what's out there about religion today, it is a serious struggle to understand and to come to grips with Catholic and Christian doctrine. Have you come to believe in both, Jesus, the historical figure, and in the resurrection, itself?

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: Well, yes, I do. I think that's absolutely central to Christianity. St. Paul thought so, and so does everybody. If Christ has not risen, then everything is in vain. But the circumstances of His resurrection were quite widely reported, and we know that his apostles devoted their entire lives in ways that would not be thinkable, except on the absolute certainty that this had happened. So yes, I think it is central, and I devote a certain amount of time to that. It is, I think you're correct in suggesting that it is often thought of as simply a myth, sort of a happy thought. I don't think it's happy thought. If it were, as Russell Kirk--I quote here--then Christianity would be something--nothing more than simply conjurings of social observations. It's the startling fact, Christ rose.

DAVID GERGEN: A good deal of your life in a quiet way has been devoted to sort of settling or wrestling with these questions, almost--wrestling with the angel. You brought together a group of people called the Forum, who were people who had come to Christianity, come to Catholicism during their lives, and had serious- -

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: Yes. I thought it would be interesting to take six or seven very bright people, three or four of them professionals, scholars, and say to them, look, here are some questions that pass through the mind of everybody who's experimenting with Christianity, who's thinking about it--how did you react when that went through your mind and what was it that caused you finally to adopt the faith? I'm talking about people like Russell Kirk, Ernest Van Hoeg--very reputable scholars. I think it was a successful part of my book because it lets people in on the mystery of the Church and whatever attachments in their case brought them to Catholicism. This isn't a book just for Catholics, as you know.

DAVID GERGEN: No.

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: It's a book about Christianity and about religion. But I am a Catholic, and hardly conceal the fact.

DAVID GERGEN: Yes. There was one question you put to them that I'd like to put to you, just to paraphrase it a bit. Was there one feature of the Catholic Church distinguishing it from other Christian sects that, in particular, kept you a Catholic, kept you in the Church, and, if so, what was it?

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: I think it is the centrality of the assumption that the Catholic Church is the Church that was founded by Christ. But they all have polisticity, for sure. A lot of people do think that. And if it's so, then you'd want to say, well, give me a good reason for not joining it? Now, I know there are an awful lot of reasons, awful lot of subtle, theological questions here, but that is the point that is most--that, plus also its general record and the constancy of its performance are morally--I find that pretty impressive. Two thousand years is a long time.

DAVID GERGEN: And you believe--

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: That's longer than the Democratic Party, isn't it?

DAVID GERGEN: It is. You believe, as well, in the infallibility of the Papacy.

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: Yes. You have to say that carefully. The Pope cannot pass along anything that contravenes the judgment of God as revealed. That is to say, when he speaks infallibly, which has only been two or three times, he cannot mislead--we consider that a commitment of Christ, that he will not let the Church mislead us on basic doctrinal matters.

DAVID GERGEN: Many people, when they think about Bill Buckley, they think, of course, as the conservative intellectual leader in conservative thought. How has your Christian belief influenced your views on conservatism?

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: Well, it's made me right all the time. (laughing) My position is ultimately based on my conviction that the individual is supreme; that you can't mess with the individual. In this sense I think Jesse--Martin Luther King said really the same thing. I quote Martin Luther King in this book, and I cite his evocation of Christianity as the source of his feeling that man should be free and go on to wonder why, where Martin Luther King has celebrated these days, but the Christian faith that inspired him is very widely neglected in the same places.

DAVID GERGEN: We have only a short time left, but I wanted to ask you, as a devout Catholic, and as a conservative, how do you then square your conservatism with views of the Catholic Church on social responsibility, the more modern views that have been promulgated by the Church?

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: There's always a tendency in churches, as far as I can see, to say we've got to build one more gymnasium for the homeless. And I think we should build one more gymnasium--don't get me wrong--but the attempt to suck spiritual energy into activity of that kind, in my judgment, doesn't really pay off. There's a spiritual hunger in the world, and that hunger is appeased by the worship of God and by an attempt to follow his commandments. Now, there is nothing in the social doctrines of the Church that can be said to be crystallized, that contradicts any position I've ever taken, unless you can come up with one.

DAVID GERGEN: I haven't yet, but I'm sure others will now try. Bill Buckley, thank you very much.

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: Thank you so much. FINALLY

MARGARET WARNER: Finally, on this Christmas Eve, America's Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky, reads a holiday poem.

ROBERT PINSKY: Thomas Hardy's Christmas poem, "The Oxen," has to do with the legend that at midnight on Christmas Eve the oxen are said to kneel intheir stalls.

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. 'Now they are all on their knees,' An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, 'Come; see the oxen kneel,

'In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know,' I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so. RECAP

MARGARET WARNER: Again, the major stories this Christmas Eve: A federal judge ruled Terry Nichols will face the possibility of a death sentence. He was convicted yesterday of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the second Oklahoma City bombing trial. And the International Monetary Fund said it would disperse another $10 billion in rescue loans to Korea by early January, sooner than planned. We'll be with you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Good night and Merry Christmas!