The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of the day; the search for Saddam Hussein intensifies in while military families wait and worry back home; what did the president really know?-- a Watergate retrospective with former Senate investigator, Sam Dash, and former Nixon campaign aide Jeb Stuart Magruder; Lance Armstrong's victorious ride in the tour de France; and remembering legendary comedian Bob Hope, who died yesterday at the age of 100.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL:: Two more U.S. Troops lost their lives in Iraq today. One soldier was killed, and three wounded in Baghdad, when someone dropped a grenade from an overpass onto a convoy. Another died in a vehicle accident in southern Iraq. Also today, a floating bomb damaged a bridge north of Baghdad. And U.S. Forces dug up a large stash of anti-tank mines and other explosives in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. A U.S. Military spokesman said the pressure on Saddam's followers is increasing.

SPOKESMAN: We're ambushing them, we're killing them, we're wounding them, we're capturing them, we're getting large numbers of stores and weapons and ammunition and we are clearly impairing their ability to strike at coalition forces and the Iraqi government.

GWEN IFILL: The hunt for Saddam himself also intensified over the weekend. U.S. troops raided three farms around Tikrit on Sunday, looking for his security chief. A U.S. commander said they "missed him by 24 hours." Later, U.S. troops searched a house in a wealthy part of Baghdad. Witnesses claimed the soldiers fired on civilians, and killed at least five Iraqis. The U.S. Military would not confirm that. We'll have more on the hunt for Saddam in just a moment.

Legendary comedian Bob Hope, who entertained generations of U.S. troops, died late Sunday of pneumonia. He had turned 100 years old just two months ago. Hope began in Vaudeville and went on to star in radio, movies and television. Shortly before World War II he began playing dates for troops and continued doing so through the 1991 Gulf War. Today in Los Angeles his daughter, Linda Hope, said he died at home with a smile on his face and his family around him.

LINDA HOPE: We've know that we weren't going to have him around for a long time, you know, a little bit ago, and it was just - I can't tell you how beautiful and serene and peaceful it was. And the fact that there was a little audience gathered around, even though it was family, I think warmed Dad's heart.

GWEN IFILL: President Bush praised Hope's life and work today, saying the nation has lost a great citizen. Again, Bob Hope was 100 years old. We'll have more on his life and career later in the program. Police in Saudi Arabia today killed half a dozen suspected militants in a shootout. Two policemen were also killed in a raid on a hideout 200 miles north of the capital, Riyadh. It was the latest in a series of raids since May, when suicide bombers in Riyadh killed twenty-five people, including nine Americans. A second rebel group in Liberia captured the only port still in government hands today. The assault on the city of Buchanan threatened the flow of humanitarian aid. A larger rebel group continued to bombard the capital, Monrovia. The fighting there has killed hundreds of civilians. At the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan warned the rebels to stop it.

KOFI ANNAN: I think by this reckless behavior this is killing many innocent Liberians and making it impossible for us to give humanitarian assistance. They are disqualifying themselves from any future rule in Liberia -

GWEN IFILL: There was little progress today in getting West African peacekeepers into Liberia. A Nigerian general said it was unlikely troops would arrive this week. Last Friday, President Bush wanted a fourth of U.S. Marines to stand by off Liberia's coast. They would help the West African troops enter the country. The U.N. Security Council voted today to send another 2100 peacekeeping troops to Congo, increasing the international force to nearly 11,000. The additional troops will be replace a French-led force in the Bunya region in North Eastern Congo. Their mission is to halt bloody fighting between rival factions. The U.N. resolution also let the peacekeepers use force more aggressively to protect civilians. Philippine's President Gloria Arroyo today vowed to get to the bottom of a failed military revolt. Over the weekend 300 soldiers staged a mutiny, seizing a Manila shopping and department complex. They said they were protesting corruption and military misconduct. They gave up after 19 hours. Today Arroyo promised an independent investigation.

Two major banks agreed today to pay nearly $250 million to victims of the Enron scandal. J.P. Morgan Chase and CitiGroup reached the settlement with the Securities & Exchange Commission. They were accused of helping Enron create complicated financial deals to hide the mounting debt. Under the settlement the two banks do not admit to any wrongdoing. On Wall Street today the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 18 points to close at 9266. The NASDAQ rose more than four points to close at 1735. American cyclist Lance Armstrong is already planning to try for a record-breaking sixth consecutive tour de France victory next year. Armstrong tied the record on Sunday with his fifth straight victory. Along the way he overcame the flu, a crash, and a faulty brake. He won his first tour in 1999, after battling testicular cancer. We'll have more on this later in the program. Also coming, the search for Saddam Hussein, trying times on the home front, a Watergate retrospective, and remembering Bob Hope.

FOCUS - HUNTING SADDAM

GWEN IFILL: The latest on the hunt for Saddam Hussein and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: American forces are intensifying their hunt for Saddam Hussein. Just yesterday they raided a house in Baghdad and three farm houses near his hometown of Tikrit. The U.S. Military says it's been acting on tips that have increased dramatically since the killings of Saddam's sons last week. At the same time guerrilla attacks on American troops have also intensified. Six U.S. soldiers have been killed since Friday. In Baghdad yesterday Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers said the noose is tightening around Saddam Hussein.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: In my opinion if he's alive it's just a matter of time and again our belief is he's not having a major effect on what's going on right now. He is so concerned with survival he's been through these survival modes before; he knows how to do that. But we'll find him. It's a big country but we'll find him.

MARGARET WARNER: For the latest on the hunt for Saddam we turn to Richard Oppel of the New York Times. He joins us by phone from Baghdad.

Richard welcome. Let's talk about these raids and the hunt for Saddam Hussein beginning with the one yesterday in Baghdad. Tell us about that.

RICHARD OPPEL: Well, at about 5:30 in the afternoon troops began cordoning off the block around the home where they apparently had information that they believed Saddam Hussein might have been hiding out there, that's according to Iraq police on the scene who I spoke with at the scene yesterday. Before the raid took place a couple of - went on to a side street which the troops were trying to block off and there were several civilian deaths of -- Iraqi police on the scene said three; some wire services reported it was a high as five. And later on at about probably 6:30 or 6:45, according to the owner of the house, the troops raided the house, according to the owner took one of his guards away, detained one of the guards. The owner of the house is an interesting guy; it's a tribal leader, very prominent tribal leader, who when we spoke to him afterwards was quite up front about how he was an acquaintance of Saddam's and if anyone had said that Saddam was hiding out at his house, then people would believe it because they knew each other and used to meet when he was president, so that all went down last night, but it followed the raids in Tikrit, as you mentioned, there were three houses that were raided and a lot of the information on that raid came from - according to military officials - came from the capture of about a dozen of Saddam's personal bodyguards on Thursday night who told the military - gave the military information which the military then acted on. Military officials have said they think they missed the chief security officer for Saddam by only about 24 hours in that raid.

MARGARET WARNER: So when the military says the tips have been really flooding in, what are the sources for those tips?

RICHARD OPPEL: Well, basically, the increased information they say they've received is from different places. One is information gleaned from the home in Mosul to Uday and Qusay, Saddam's two sons, who were hiding out before they were killed last Tuesday. The question is the twelve --- the dozen or so bodyguards that were - on Thursday - on top of that according to military officials they just say they've been getting better information from Iraqi citizens; they've been able to find more citizens who they think are credible, who are coming forward, and that's an important element that they say is at work here.

MARGARET WARNER: Do they assume or believe that Saddam Hussein is traveling around, first of all, moving frequently but traveling also with a pretty small retinue, not alike his sons?

RICHARD OPPEL: I have not heard them specify the numbers. What they do say is that he is - this is something that Gen. Myers alluded to when he was here in Baghdad. Basically he is sort of in self preservation mode. Army intelligence are getting - all that he can do right now is just try to keep himself from being - and is in no position - any kind of resistance or activity by Iraqi insurgents or loyalists who may still be in contact with him.

MARGARET WARNER: I noticed yesterday that Gen. Myers said, well, if he's still alive, do you think we'll get him? Are they assuming now or do they really believe, U.S. military that (a) he's alive and (b) he's in Iraq?

RICHARD OPPEL: I think they do. I think they said that several times recently. I think there's a good chance he's probably in Tikrit, which is his hometown and where large amounts of the citizenry is in one way or another related to him, or in that area North or West of Baghdad that has been the focus of so much resistance to American troops.

MARGARET WARNER: You mentioned that some Iraqi civilians were killed around the raid yesterday in Baghdad. Are Iraqis expressing a lot of anger about the civilian deaths that are occurring tangentially to this stepped up hunt?

RICHARD OPPEL: Yeah. I mean, absolutely, as you'd expect, they are very upset. I mean, the people in Mansur today, which is the neighborhood in Baghdad, were - just shocked at what they described as the willingness of - or the eagerness of the troops to open up on civilians. The military is not saying much about what happened last night, except that Task Force 20, which is the Special Operations team that is leading the hunt for Saddam was involved there last night. What the military, kind of in a more broader sense what the military says is that in trying to explain why there have been so many American deaths, deaths of American troops in the last week or so, and why that pace has spiked suddenly, what the military says is it's simply a matter of beating the bushes. More people in the field, more raids, more searches and this sort of thing in their view that is going to prompt more retaliation from insurgents who are still loyal to Saddam, people who for whatever other reason are just willing to take a shot at Americans.

MARGARET WARNER: Richard Oppel, thanks very much.

FOCUS - TRYING TIMES

GWEN IFILL: Next, as U.S. casualties mount in Iraq we have a report we have a report about some anxious military families back home in Fort Carson, Colorado. Tom Bearden is the correspondent.

(Women Singing in Bible Meeting)

TOM BEARDEN: Most of the women in this meeting in Fort Carson, Colorado Springs have spouses in Iraq, and last week like so many others recently, there was news of another Fort Carson casualty, a trooper in the 3rd Armored cavalry regiment.

WOMAN: And we pray life for America, God; we just pray life for this group, God. We want to pray for our soldiers who are in harm's way.

TOM BEARDEN: Two units from Fort Carson, the third ACR and the fourth infantry division's 3rd Brigade combat team were sent to Iraq in late March. Since then, Fort Carson has suffered thirteen soldiers killed, five of them by hostile fire. That's more than any other U.S. base since the president announced the end of active combat.

MAJ. BILL FOX, Chaplain, U.S. Army: Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for loving us, and...

TOM BEARDEN: Chaplain and Major Bill Fox runs the main Fort Carson chapel; he says these are trying times for the families.

MAJ. BILL FOX: I find it tough, I really do. And I'm a pretty hard guy. But my heart breaks when I see them. I just want to reach out and hug them, you know, and to say it's going to be okay. But military families usually just stick together and they just help one another. If one gets in difficulty, the other one is there, one, two, three, four, they'll all gather together and they're around. So if there's a particular casualty you find families just gravitating.

AMY WEST: Thank you, we'll see you hopefully next week.

TOM BEARDEN: Amy West is one of the bible study group members, her husband Mike is a captain in the 4th Infantry Division's operations staff. She had given birth to their second child just four days earlier.

AMY WEST: As you know, Mike is in Iraq and at 3:28 she came and it was, as you say, bittersweet because Mike wasn't there. He called me six hours after she was born.

AMY WEST: Right after she was born it was hard.

TOM BEARDEN: Why was that?

AMY WEST: I just wanted him here. I wanted him to share in the joy. You know, it's a beautiful thing, babies are such a blessing that, you know, I wanted him to be with me.

TOM BEARDEN: But West, a West Point graduate herself, says her husband's absence is simply part of his job.

AMY WEST: Our unit was told six to twelve months. So we knew that the possibility was there.

TOM BEARDEN: What happens if it goes longer?

AMY WEST: Then that's what he's supposed to do, you know, unfortunately I want him here with me, the selfish side of me, but I know he's doing what he's supposed to do.

TOM BEARDEN: Sue Bearer isn't in the army, but she's been an Fort Carson since February, taking care of seven grandchildren. Her son and daughter-in-law are both in the army, and both have been sent to Iraq. She had to leave her husband behind in Akron, Ohio and her job as a real estate agent.

TOM BEARDEN: Did you ever think at this stage in your life you'd be taking care of seven kids?

SUE BEARER: Never dreamed it. I'll tell you what though, it's the best diet the world, I've lost 38 pounds, you know; let's face it I'm pushing 60. And it's a big chore. It's a big chore.

TOM BEARDEN: Bearer says her son, Sergeant First Class Vaughn Holcomb, had been ready to retire in June, plans he had to put on hold.

SUE BEARER: He wants to come home, they all want to come home. My daughter-in-law is having a real hard time with it because she's been gone even longer from her kids. And kind of her attitude is -- I don't want to hear what's happening because I can't do anything about it. I can't fix it.

TOM BEARDEN: Do either one of them know when they're coming home?

SUE BEARER: No. No, it's all, it's been all hearsay. We hear one time, we think, okay, they're coming home pretty quick, and then all of a sudden, well, we hear they're not coming home until next year.

TOM BEARDEN: How long can you day here?

SUE BEARER: As long as I'm needed. I have to. I mean, there's, I love the kids, that's all. I wouldn't let them down for nothing.

TOM BEARDEN: Sergeant Holcomb is a member of the third ACR, the same unit that lost a soldier to an ambush last week. Bearer worries about her son becoming a target.

SUE BEARER: I'm in more fear now than I ever was. I'm in more fear for them now than I ever was. Like I say, every day you wait to hear from one or the other.

TOM BEARDEN: But, I mean, he's not in combat?

SUE BEARER: Right.

TOM BEARDEN: But he is.

SUE BEARER: Yeah, it's a different kind of combat. That's the scary part, you know. He's trained to be a tanker. He can put one together and take it apart. But he's not trained for the type of things that he might be up against.

WOMAN READING: Dear Joshua and Timothy, I miss you whole bunches, the houses here are very hot, and we all drink lots of water. Thank you for coloring pictures for me. Love, daddy.

TOM BEARDEN: Tammy Simmons' husband is a chaplain in the 4th Infantry Division. Captain Terry Simmons is currently stationed north of Baghdad, living out of the back of a Humvee.

TAMMY SIMMONS: When I do watch the news, and I see all the terrifying things, who knows who's going to be next, and the way I deal with it, when I do see that, is certainly just to pray.

TOM BEARDEN: She takes care of their four children, and like the others wonders when he'll come home.

TAMMY SIMMONS: It was going to be six months, which would be October. And then it got extended to where I was going to be December, and now nobody is saying anything. So we have no idea when he's coming home.

TOM BEARDEN: What's your reaction to that?

TAMMY SIMMONS: Well, two things. First of all, it is a little frustrating. And second of all, though, the way I am dealing with it is I'm thinking, okay, he's going to stay a year, it will be April, so if he comes back before that, it will be great. That's the only way to deal with it, I think.

TOM BEARDEN: Last week the Pentagon announced a new rotation plan for units in Iraq. It calls for Fort Carson's third ACR to be replaced by next March, the 4th Infantry Division by April. The army chief of staff says a replacement unit should expect to stay for up to a year.

GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Watergate revisited, Lance Armstrong's victory ride, and remembering Bob Hope.

FOCUS - WHAT THE PRESIDENT KNEW

GWEN IFILL: The Watergate scandal 30 years later. Some of the details have faded but the impact remains historic. A president resigned; his top aides went to jail in a political and criminal scandal that still casts a long shadow. Now a new PBS documentary reveals that Jeb Stuart Magruder, who at the time was the deputy director of the president's reelection campaign, believes Mr. Nixon directly ordered the 1973 break-in of the Democratic National Committee's Watergate headquarters.

FORMER SEN. HOWARD BAKER: The question at this point is simply put: What did the president know and when did he know it?

SPOKESMAN: It is a question that has gone unanswered for three decades. But Jeb Magruder, now a retired Presbyterian minister, has finally decided to tell what he claims to have witnessed. At this moment we only have his word.

JEB STUART MAGRUDER, Former Nixon Campaign Aide: I had about 25 decision papers because Mitchell had been so sort of off track with these other issues. So we meet in the morning, and we go through the first 24, and they're typical campaign decisions about polling, advertising. Whatever.

SPOKESMAN: It was Thursday, March 30, 1972 attorney general Mitchell attorney general Mitchell, head of the campaign to reelect the president, met with his deputy Magruder. Magruder had put Gordon Liddy's proposal to bug the telephone of the chairman of the national Democratic Party, Larry O'Brien, at the end of their agenda.

JEB STUART MAGRUDER: We didn't like the idea, it was going into Watergate Democratic National Committee headquarters and bugging Larry O'Brien's phone. So Mitchell said call Haldeman, find out do we really have to, is this really important -- so I called Haldeman and he talks to me, and I say, you know, we're not sure it's worth doing. And Haldeman said yes, the president wants it done. He said is John there? I said yes, and I give the phone to John, and Haldeman talks to him. And then the president comes on the line and talks to Mitchell. I could hear the president talking to him, and it was simply, you know, John, we need to get the information on Larry O'Brien, the only way we can do that is through Lee's plan, and you need to do that. Nixon was saying we want Libby to break into the Watergate. Mitchell gets off the phone, and says to me, he says, well, Jeb, tell Maurice to give Libby $250,000 and let's see what happens.

GWEN IFILL: For his role in the Watergate scandal, Jeb Magruder spent seven months in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice. He is joined tonight by Sam Dash, who served as chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee. He now teaches law at Georgetown University Law School. Jeb Magruder, it's been 30 years. Why are we hearing of this now?

JEB STUART MAGRUDER: Well, it was not something that I did in a meaningful way. I had retired from full-time work in December. And had moved back to Columbus, Ohio, and began to do some writing. So I was thinking about some of these things when PBS called me and asked me to participate in this two-hour special documentary Watergate plus 30 in the shadow of history. And during that period of time when I talked with them both on the phone and then when I went to Washington, the subject came up and I talked about it because it was what happened.

GWEN IFILL: But surely in all the years that have passed since the events that you talk about in this, you've been approached by other people, you've cooperated with the BBC documentary, countless books have been written, and somehow it never came up that you heard this phone call?

JEB STUART MAGRUDER: Well, I was really never asked in a specific way -- certainly not during my testimony at the Watergate trials. To the best of my recollection, I wasn't asked that either at the Senate Watergate hearing, but I really need to go back and look at that testimony. I didn't have it at home. So I wasn't really able to review that. But it was a question of loyalty; it was a question of survival. I was hoping, as we all were, to get either executive clemency or a pardon. And it took about a year and a half, two years later for all of us to find out that that was not going to happen. By that time I had gone through Princeton Seminary and became a minister, and I really made a decision to separate the past as much as I could. That would not have been my parishioners certainly didn't want to spend time just dealing with Watergate.

GWEN IFILL: There's been so much discussion about what President Nixon really knew, how directly he was involved in the event surrounding Watergate and the break in particular. Do you think that what you now know what you're sharing with us, solves a puzzle?

JEB STUART MAGRUDER: Well, I think it does. In the sense that, and I've talked to john dean as an example, and both of us agree that there were other cases. There was the Ellsburg break in, there was President Nixon on the tapes talking about potential break ins at the Brookings Institutes. So this was a pattern of behavior that followed us, followed me certainly from the White House over to the committee to reelect the president.

GWEN IFILL: And why do you think anybody would believe you now? Why is it that after all this time the prosecutors who put together this case in the Senate and the House, they say they had briefed you extensively, why would they believe you now?

JEB STUART MAGRUDER: Well, it really doesn't matter to me whether they believe me or whatever else is true. I know what the truth is, and I'm telling the truth. That's all.

GWEN IFILL: Sam Dash, you were obviously there, this is information which may have been useful to the work you were doing at the time. What is your reaction to this?

SAM DASH: Well, I'm not surprised with what Mr. Magruder is saying now. For the past 30 years, I have been telling the public that I've always believed that Richard Nixon was on top of everything and ordered it. As a matter of fact, the evidence was very clear. The meeting that really set out the Watergate break-in was a meeting in Attorney General Mitchell's office in which John Dean attended, Jeb Magruder attended, and Liddy had a show and tell with an easel and cardboards and was explaining everything. That meeting could never have been held without Richard Nixon's approval. His counsel would never have been there. And John Dean testified at our hearings that he told Haldeman about the meeting that they were planning to do this. And Haldeman, as chief of staff, always reported to the president. So I'm not surprised, it really isn't new information.

GWEN IFILL: So it doesn't change what this revelation --

SAM DASH: No.

GWEN IFILL: Someone having directly heard the president's voice.

SAM DASH: Well, I would liked to have Magruder to have told me that when we were questioning him, and our questioning was thorough. It's a long time ago, it's hard to recall specifically everything that happened. But I don't believe it's really very significant. I think too much time is being spent on that, because we've always known that there isn't anybody who was involved with the investigation, whether it was the special prosecutor's office, Mr. Coster's office or my office as chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, who ever doubted that Richard Nixon was a hands on criminal in this case.

GWEN IFILL: Are there other unclosed loops having to do with Watergate that are still --

SAM DASH: Not really. Not really. People ask questions about what was on the 17 and a half minute gap. I have known no doubt all along it was Haldeman telling the president, what John Dean just told him, that Liddy had come to him and told him that they had, excuse me, screwed up.

GWEN IFILL: You presume that's what was?

SAM DASH: No, I have the whole evidence, we were using the computer and all do I is ask the computer to put in logical sequence, all of these things and it comes out. That Haldeman at exactly that time, when he went in to see the president, when the 17 and a half minute gap took place, and it was clear that that is exactly what he was telling the president, because it would take about that time to give that information, and why it had to be erased is that the president was lying to the American people by saying he didn't know it until about a year later.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Magruder when we look back at this again every anniversary we look at it and once again are struck by how remarkable the event of that time, can you take yourself back to what the mind set was of people like yourself and John Dean and John Mitchell and Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and all the names now of scandal lore and why were people so loyal, what was it that propelled this into such a big deal?

JEB STUART MAGRUDER: Well, it was a sense in the White House, when I worked in the White House, that loyalty was the single most important factor. And as John Dean said a couple weeks ago at a press conference, he said, you know, when Nixon put on his hat, everybody put on his hat. So there was this ingrained sense of loyalty, plus the factors surrounding power, the fact that we were in the White House, we had access to the limousines and Air Force One and things of that kind. It's a very heady time. And for anyone, I was a heady time for me. And we liked working in the White House. The shadow side of the president started to emerge, and one of the reasons I took the offer to go over and run the campaign was I thought maybe I could sort of avoid the problems that I saw on the horizon. Well, of course it turned out that Gordon Liddy just followed me over to the campaign.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Dash, Mr. Magruder tells a story of a time in which people were so loyal, so kind of caught up in the idea of being in the White House and being loyal to this flawed man in the person of Richard Nixon that they would do anything, including condoning criminal activity. Have we learned any lessons from that time?

SAM DASH: I think we've learned some very serious lessons and it was much more grave than Mr. Magruder is even indicating. When you say they would have done anything, we asked Mitchell, the attorney general, who said I would have done anything to get Nixon reelected and when asked does that include murder and he puffed his pipe and said that's a tough question. You know, this was a very serious tragic time in America, we almost lost a democracy and our constitutional government. And the good time was that our government worked as the Constitution wanted it to work. It was a strong Senate, a strong Congress that was carrying out its constitutional oversight function, that exposed the criminal activities of the president, but not only exposed them but informed the public who were the ultimate sovereigns. So here a president resigned on the exposure of this based on the separation of powers, without bloodshed, it wasn't a revolution, and a new president comes in without bloodshed. The government worked at this time.

GWEN IFILL: Because it worked does that mean that that would not, the lessons we learned from Watergate, does that mean those same mistakes would not be repeated again?

SAM DASH: No, no. It's very important that this documentary be shown to the American people to remind them how close we came because although it worked then it doesn't mean it would work now. And presidential abuse, even during this period when we so fear a terrorist attack that our present administration is seeking power that the constitution doesn't really allow them to have, and an alert Congress, if they were alert and they're not, would be holding this president accountable.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Magruder, same question to you. Do you think the lessons learned from water gate will prevent the same sorts of things from happening again?

JEB STUART MAGRUDER: Well, I would hope so. But if you look around history, you'll see mistakes made in many administrations not just in our country but in other countries, history is rife with activities that are unethical, immoral, in high places -- not just in the government, in corporations, Enron and WorldCom, and the church, the church has its problems as well. So I'm optimistic somewhat.

GWEN IFILL: All right. Jeb Magruder, Sam Dash, thank you both for joining us.

GWEN IFILL: "Watergate plus 30: Shadow of history" airs on most PBS stations Wednesday night.

FOCUS - TOUR DE FORCE

GWEN IFILL: Now Lance wins France, again. Spencer Michels has our report.

SPENCER MICHELS: It was one of the closest, most dramatic, and interesting races of the Tour de France in years. By the time American Lance Armstrong pedaled along the Champs-Elysees yesterday to claim his fifth consecutive championship, he had survived his toughest battle since his first victory in 1999. After racing more than 2,000 miles over 20 days, complete with crashes, rain, and mountain climbs in grueling heat, Armstrong, who led the U.S. Postal Service team, won this race by his narrowest margin yet-- just 61 seconds over his rival, German Jan Ullrich. At 31 years old, Armstrong became just the second man to win five tours in a row. Spanish rider Miguel Endurain was the first to do it between 1991 and 1995.

LANCE ARMSTRONG: This was the hardest of the five. It was much harder. I thought it would be close, but this was a lot closer than I guess I had expected and I wasn't really prepared for that. It added a lot of stress to life the last three weeks.

SPENCER MICHELS: This marked the 100th Tour de France, cycling's most prestigious race. Competitors literally tour much of the country, pedaling high into the Alps and Pyrenees. The cyclists try to win a series of short races each called stages, each about 30 miles or so. The winner must have the fastest cumulative time overall. Many consider it to be the most difficult of any athletic competition.

NEWSCASTER: Armstrong is having a terrible day. But it is a great day -

SPENCER MICHELS: From the start, it was a race filled with obstacles and tensions not just for Armstrong, but other riders as well. American cyclist Tyler Hamilton suffered a double fracture of his collarbone during a crash. But he pressed on and finished fourth overall.

SPOKESMAN: It's a team sport and I didn't want to let my team down.

SPENCER MICHELS: For his part, the German rider, Jan Ullrich, competed despite returning from a knee injury and an eight-month ban from the sport for using drugs. A former champion of the tour and a four-time runner up, Ullrich stayed neck and neck with Armstrong throughout the month. But it was Armstrong who continued to amaze. Unlike past races, he did not dominate in the Alps. He narrowly avoided one wipeout by riding off the path, and he nearly lost his shot at winning after crashing when his handlebar caught on a spectator's handbag.

NEWSCASTER: Armstrong wants to go right now. Oooh! He has gone down! What has happened there?

SPENCER MICHELS: While Ullrich and other competitors waited for him, a courtesy usually extended on the tour, Armstrong quickly got back on the bike, and then rallied from behind to win that day's stage.

NEWSCASTER: That is a recovery for you. He saves the day!

SPENCER MICHELS: At one point, Armstrong only had a 15-second lead over Ullrich. Fans, including movie actor Robin Williams, felt the intensity of the race.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: It's a great tour. It's been amazing. It has everything. It's like NASCAR without explosions. It's got it all. Downhill, uphill, and incredible moments of humanity like when Ullrich waited for him.

SPENCER MICHELS: In fact, the race was so close that it came down to the penultimate day of the tour before it was clear who would win.

LANCE ARMSTRONG: Ullrich will be difficult to beat, but going in my objective is to win.

SPENCER MICHELS: Armstrong's lead was only slightly more than a minute over Ullrich, as they entered the final time trials of the race. This time, it was Ullrich who crashed, allowing Armstrong to play it safe and hold on to win.

NEWSCASTER: Armstrong had a wonderful ride, but in the end didn't push it too much.

SPENCER MICHELS: Armstrong won his first tour after battling back from testicular cancer during the mid-'90s. Today, after the latest grueling win, he put it all in perspective.

LANCE ARMSTRONG: It's been a very difficult three weeks of course, but somehow along the way you have these problems and you always look back to 1996 and you realize that a crash on Luz-Ardiden or a little cycle across into gap is not nearly as bad as sitting in a hospital room in Indianapolis, Indiana. And so drawing on that experience helps and perhaps is one of the secrets to winning the tour.

SPENCER MICHELS: Armstrong now says he will take a short break from cycling, but plans on capturing a record sixth title next year.

FINALLY- IN MEMORIAM

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, remembering Bob Hope. We begin with essayist Roger Rosenblatt.

ACTOR: That's enough, come on.

BOB HOPE: Wait a minute, we work here. I am very sorry. My partners, you and me, we work here. I only been in this country a very short time.

ROGER ROSENBLATT (originally aired July 9, 2002): No one could back out of a fight quicker than Bob Hope. He was the slick, fast-talking British-born American confidence man who kept up the patter until you laughed and you loved him.

BING CROSBY: Is everything all right?

BOB HOPE: Yeah, but I think we have to have a little more room when the baby comes.

BING CROSBY: Oh, yeah?

ROGER ROSENBLATT: No one could jump higher when told to jump. No one could push a woman in front of him with more skill and grace. Hope in the movies was much more than a coward, of course. He could sing with Bing, dance a little-- actually, quite well. He started out as a hoofer. He could even turn heroic momentarily, when it was absolutely necessary.

BING CROSBY: Fly, fly, fly.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Once he played the mayor of New York, a job that requires courage. In fact, he could do everything, like a con man should. Funny hat, funny suits, a little of this, a little of that. A lot of Hope. ( Applause ) he is in his 100th year. Imagine that. We catch occasional sight of him nowadays -- and bent over, standing beside Delores, his wife of nearly 70 years, but still vertical. We have seen him all our lives. As a kid, I listened to Bob Hope on radio, often when he played the disrespectful guest on "The Bing Crosby show." I read Bob Hope comic books. There were the road pictures revived on TV. (Cheers) There was Hope always going to war, from World War II to Desert Storm.

BOB HOPE: Ladies and gentlemen, today we're in Long Binh, 17 miles northeast of Saigon. I don't care if Charlie is watching, I'm giving away military secrets. We're on live TV today, and we need the ratings. ( Laughter )

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Where there is life and death, there was Hope. His opening line as he would enter a hospital ward: Okay, everyone on their feet. His repeated line, "To give you an idea of just how long these guys have been at sea, their pin-up girl is Phyllis Diller." He hosted the Oscars a lot, but only won an honorary trophy. He said, "Oscar night at our house is called Passover." Indefatigable Hope. Relentless Hope. Hope springs eternal. That nose. Caricaturists glommed on to his nose, as did he, because Hope was unusual among comics. He was sort of handsome. He had to will himself attractive in a comic way, attractive and a little scary, like a con man should. It was what Hope said and how he said it that altered his appearance. That loud, clear water, almost plaintiff voice that could turn a less-than-ordinary line into a howler. He was the first comedian to admit he used writers, hundreds of them, perhaps because he knew it wasn't the writers that got the laughs. They said it was his timing, but it was something else. We knew he was con man, but we also sensed he was a good guy. That guy could take us anywhere.

SINGING: Thanks for the memories...

ROGER ROSENBLATT: In his 100th year, he represents a century of American life, two world wars, prohibition, the depression, Korea, Vietnam, television, talkies, Silicon Valley, 9/11-- the nation within the compass of a comedian who read the newspapers and made jokes about that life.

BOB HOPE: Here I am, starting another season on television. Well, don't look so surprised. Jackie Onassis is working too.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: The Guinness Book of Records reports that Hope is the most honored entertainer in world history. Here are some specifics. 284 TV specials. 56 starring roles in movies. 56 theaters, schools, performing art centers, and U.S. Streets named after him, as well as three species of plants and two military ships.

BOB HOPE: Hey is that... nah.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: And with all that, you and I have no idea who the real Bob Hope is, nor do we care. So complete and consistent an entertainer has he been, his so- called real self would only get in the way. All we've seen of him is what he chose to show us: Funny hats, funny suits, a little of this, a little of that, and the adorable con man standing outside the tent, selling laughter.

BOB HOPE AND BING CROSBY: Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man, bake a cake as fast as you...

GWEN IFILL: Terence Smith has more.

TERENCE SMITH: Joining me to discuss Bob Hope's life and legacy is comedienne Phyllis Diller, a close friend of Hope's for decades and former talk show host and entertainer Dick Cavett, who interviewed Bob Hope on several occasions. Welcome to you both. Phyllis Diller, you worked with Bob Hope in films, on television, and of course overseas. What made him special?

PHYLLIS DILLER: Well, he was just the world's greatest comic, and such a fine gentleman and a positive doer and thinker and speaker.

TERENCE SMITH: He had a great connection with the audience, and I wonder what you think what the ingredients were, Phyllis Diller, that went into that to connect, as he did, in a very affectionate way?

PHYLLIS DILLER: Well, he was such a common man for the audience he was, he spoke to them at their level. He didn't come out as a big star, he came out as an entertainer who really delivered the laughs.

TERENCE SMITH: Dick Cavett, was that it, the common man element in his presentation? I mean, he portrayed himself in a very self deprecating way. He was a wise cracking tightwad, a coward, that sort of thing. Was that it?

DICK CAVETT: It was that and a whole lot of other things too. It used to annoy me so, maybe Phyllis remember this is happening, where after Bob's radio show way back when we were kids, some kid on the playground would say hey did you hear Bob's show last night, if I had his writers, somebody would say, I'd be Bob Hope too. And you had to find an impolite way of saying to them he had a lot of other things you don't have also. I could never believe that. And yet seemingly normal adult people who can dress themselves have asked me as recently as the last few years, could he talk without his writers or was he just tongue tied the way they say. Anybody who said that didn't know him.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, tell us what he was like when he wasn't necessarily on stage. Dick Cavett.

DICK CAVETT: Oh,I'm sorry it's me. By the way, I apologize for breaking your dress code, they pulled me right off the street. I spent a lot of time hanging around with Hope and always when he was backstage I would stand near him, and one day I said at the back stage of the Merv Griffin Show, I was a writer, I said how is your life going, and he said not so great. And then made a swinging gesture and said I just can't get any distance. His life was golf at that point, apparently but nobody has ever really pointed out one thing about him that is amazing -- his fabulous diction. It's unparalleled in the business. Maybe Rex Harrison, possibly. And never gets said much about Hope and he almost never blows a line, and his pronunciation is so clear and said with perfect emphasis that it's a thing to behold in awe. So was his singing, which was not just a bad singer but a real singer. And his dancing, he was almost as good as Cagney.

TERENCE SMITH: Phyllis Diller, you accompanied Bob Hope on some of these overseas trips to entertain the troops, and I expect those were very special moments. Tell us about them, tell us what they were like.

PHYLLIS DILLER: Well, he was in his favorite element when he was with the armed forces because he was so grateful to them, in real appreciation he took the shows to them. Because he wanted to raise their morale and that was what it was all about, and God knows he did it. He brought big, beautiful shows with the Les Brown Band of Renouns, a lot of pretty girls, and made for comedy.

TERENCE SMITH: In fact he had a line that Phyllis Diller, he had a line a he repeated all the time to the soldiers pointing to the women in the show, and he'd say, just want to remind what you what were fighting for.

PHYLLIS DILLER: Right.

TERENCE SMITH: Dick Cavett, go ahead.

DICK CAVETT: I was just going to say, one of his writers said, no I asked him was Hope really affected by the war, it's hard to tell, on camera. And he said it is, but he said he went into a burn ward once on one of the trips and he was shattered and came out and said I just can't do that any more. But he bucked himself up and he did. And then I don't know if Phyllis knows this is true or not, the idea that they caught a sniper watching one of the shows in Vietnam.

PHYLLIS DILLER: I didn't know about that.

DICK CAVETT: There was a sniper and he was apparently a rustic and had never seen a show and was just loving it and grinning. But he was dispatched any way, figuring it would be better to have a Hope than a sniper. Said did you ever tell Bob about that, he said no no no.

TERENCE SMITH: Tell me this, Dick Cavett, by the time the Vietnam era that you're talking about especially, Bob Hope was seen then as a politically conservative, I would say establishment figure, golfing with presidents and the like. Did that cost him some audience in that era?

DICK CAVETT: I think it may well have, and a lot of it is still a little murky to me. I remember Jonathan Miller once said Bob Hope has become a desecrated part of the Republican Party, rather than a humorous. There was a lot of bad press. And I think it was John Carey, it was, who came on a show of mine and said when they booed Hope at Danang it really got to him. And I always felt sorry about that. Because God knows if he was politically primitive in any way, think what else he was. And the fact that he went over there, risked his life, and saw these guys, and didn't listen to the idiot congressmen who said it a terrible thing sending these Hope troop over there, they get these scantily clad girls and parade them in front of these poor marines and soldiers, only get to see them for ten minutes. Would you like to have been the person to go out front and say we have some scantily clad girls back stage but we're not going to bring them out because the Congress doesn't want it. But I think the world was much, much simpler before Vietnam, in all always and even in that one dramatic way that affected Bob Hope.

TERENCE SMITH: Phyllis Diller, he seemed remarkably adaptable in such a career that began in vaudeville and went on and adapted to television and certainly in films, that seems to me a gift when people keep growing like that.

PHYLLIS DILLER: Well, he did, from youth on he was ever growing, and ever improving. You know, about the war thing and Vietnam, you see, he was a hawk, and of course it made him some enemy was the people who were against the war. He didn't like the war, he wasn't for the war, but again, having been a former fighter and successful fighter, to him not going with it to an ending was like pulling a punch, you see, he wanted to get it over with and done with. And of course he was doing everything he could raise morale, and as Dick said, he visited those hospitals and made those trips through hospitals which some people couldn't have lived through them.

TERENCE SMITH: What was his mission, Phyllis Diller, when he went before those troops, and he continued to do it right into the period before the first Gulf War?

PHYLLIS DILLER: He was at that Gulf War, wasn't he?

TERENCE SMITH: Exactly, just before it. So what was he trying to do, in his own terms, was it's lift morale, what was he trying to do?

PHYLLIS DILLER: Well, he wanted to bring them morale lifting and bring them entertainment and bring them, it was like a message from home, and give them hope, and let them see what they were fighting for because you see he always felt that they were fighting for democracy and freedom. I'm sure he felt that.

TERENCE SMITH: Dick Cavett, go ahead, please.

DICK CAVETT: I know a writer who before he succeeded all the way had a job right after World War II and the job was to drive Bob Hope to universities, where he could get fill stadiums and things because it was like a man who needed a drug, needed a boost, he, it is so addicting -- those audiences of soldiers, if you've ever stood in front of one and had acres of them laugh at you, it's something you want to have as many times as possible until you die. So it wasn't a totally self deprivation for him, but the, nobody can fault him on his generosity and his heart and his great wit.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, he certainly, obviously, drew strength and great longevity from it. Dick Cavett, Phyllis Diller, thank you both so much.

GWEN IFILL: A correction before we go. I said earlier the Watergate break in was in 1973. Of course I was in 1972.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the other major developments of the day. Two more U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, one in a grenade attack and another in a vehicle accident. U.S. forces dug up a large stash of explosives in Saddam Hussein's hometown, and intensified their search for the ousted leader. And rebels in Liberia captured the only port still in government hands.

GWEN IFILL: And again to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add names when the deaths are confirmed, and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are two more.

GWEN IFILL: We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.