The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, tomorrow's flotilla to Cuba. Elizabeth Farnsworth gets two views. The South Carolina primary as seen by Mark Shields, Paul Gigot, and South Carolina reporter Lee Bandy, our second round of stump speeches continues with one by Steve Forbes, and the wars of the future, Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks to a retiring admiral. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton today declared a national emergency in the Cuban shootdown matter. That gives the Department of Transportation the authority to regulate the flotilla heading toward Cuba tomorrow. An exile group is planning to hold a memorial service at the spot where Cuban military jets shot down two private aircraft last Saturday. Four Cuban-Americans were killed in that attack. The foreign minister of Cuba said today his government will avoid a confrontation as long as the Miami-based exiles stay in international waters. U.S. Coast Guard cutters and aircraft will escort the flotilla of boats and planes. Defense Sec. Perry said additional military support would be offered if requested.

WILLIAM PERRY, Secretary of Defense: We will have military forces available. We'll have several ships in the Florida Straits, several naval ships. They are not part of this operation, but they are available to support the Coast Guard if the Coast Guard requests support. And we always have several fighter aircraft on alert at Homestead. That's part of our normal air defense program.

MR. LEHRER: The leaders of the flotilla pledged to stay out of Cuban territorial waters and air space. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Only two contenders in tomorrow's South Carolina Republican primary campaigned there today. Pat Buchanan was at the Citadel. He told cadets the all-male school would not have to admit women if he were elected. Lamar Alexander gave away trademark red plaid work shorts to high school students in Columbia, and then entertained them with his piano playing. Sen. Bob Dole is leading in the polls going into the South Carolina primary. He campaigned today at the state capitol in Hartford, Connective. Five primaries will be held Tuesday in New England. Steve Forbes campaigned in Colorado, which also holds a primary on Tuesday. We'll have more on all of this later in the program. At the White House, President Clinton approved a U.S. visa for Sinn Fein spokesman Gerry Adams. Sinn Fein is the political branch of the Irish Republican Army. Adams will get a three-month, multiple entry visa. As a condition, he has agreed not to raise money for the IRA while he's in the United States. Also in Washington today, a special advisory commission released its report on reforming the United States intelligence community. Recommendations include making the intelligence budget public, ending the Pentagon's role in recruiting spies, and increasing the authority of the director of Central Intelligence. Commission vice- chairman Warren Rudman said the director needs more control over intelligence gathering of 14 different agencies.

WILLIAM RUDMAN, Co-Chairman, Intelligence Committee: We believe that the original intention of the director of Central Intelligence as set forth in the original enabling legislation and executive orders in the mid and late 1940s really has never taken proper form, and we believe there lies a great deal of the problem of some duplication and inefficiencies and frankly some foul-ups within the intelligence community. We believe the director of Central Intelligence should be just that.

MR. LEHRER: The commission report said that 85 percent of the intelligence community is currently beyond the reach of the director of Central Intelligence. The State Department issued its annual report on drugs today. For the first time, Colombia was denied certification. That means the U.S. has found it not to be cooperating in the war against drugs. Colombia will be denied foreign aid from the U.S. or support for loans from international banks. State Department official Robert Gelbard said the Colombian government has sometimes undermined its own citizens trying to fight drugs.

ROBERT GELBARD, Assistant Secretary of State: The decision to deny Colombia certification was not made lightly. We work with some extremely dedicated individuals who, in spite of tremendous odds, have continued to attack the drug syndicates. Many valiant Colombians have died fighting the drug trade. It is crystal clear, however, that narcotics interests have gained an unprecedented foothold in Colombia, undermining much of the progress that Colombia's most motivated public servants could have hoped to have made.

MR. LEHRER: Colombia rejected the U.S. decision. It said the move was politically motivated. The certification of Mexico was also in question until today, but Mexico did make the list of countries that cooperate. In Peru, two Americans were among 123 people killed when a passenger jet crashed last night in the Andes Mountains. Onlookers said the plane was in flames before it hit the ground. The Boeing 737 went down five miles outside its destination of Arequipa in Southern Peru. There was also news today about last month's crash of a charter flight off the coast of the Dominican Republic. U.S. and Dominican investigators said a broken instrument may have been at fault. All 189 people on board were killed. Air safety officials said a faulty indicator may have misled pilots to believe the jet was traveling faster than it actually was. Mikhail Gorbachev is getting back in politics. The former Soviet president announced today he will run against President Boris Yeltsin in the June presidential elections in Russia. We have more in this report from Julian Manyon of Independent Television News.

JULIAN MANYON, ITN: Mikhail Gorbachev has always been known for lengthy speeches, but today he confirmed that he will run in Russia's presidential race in just one crisp phrase.

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, Former President, Soviet Union: Vudu.

JULIAN MANYON: "I will," he said, and then repeated it.

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV: Vudu.

JULIAN MANYON: Gorbachev last held power as leader of the Soviet Union in December, 1991, and has since become a forgotten, even unpopular, figure in Russia. Today, he said that is country needs a new alterative.

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, Former President, Soviet Union: [speaking through interpreter] Today, I'm inviting democrats to unite. This is the only way to defeat both Yeltsin's party and the Communists.

JULIAN MANYON: Gorbachev had come to power in the classic Soviet manner, rising to general secretary of the Communist Party, but then he broke with party dogma and launched the policies of glasnost and perestroika, greater openness and the start of economic reform. Mikhail Gorbachev now says he's ready for a new political challenge, but with the opinion polls showing his support at less than 1 percent, it's clear that he faces an uphill battle.

MR. LEHRER: In the Hague, Netherlands today, the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal indicted a Bosnian Serb general who had been arrested by the Bosnian government. He's charged with the shelling of Sarajevo for more than three years. An estimated 10,000 people died in those attacks. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Cuban story, the South Carolina primary, a Forbes stump speech, and a retiring admiral. FOCUS - MAKING WAVES

MR. LEHRER: First tonight, the possible confrontation off the shores of Cuba this weekend. Elizabeth Farnsworth has the story.

MS. FARNSWORTH: The organization whose planes were downed by the Cuba Air Force last week plans a commemoration at the site tomorrow. From both the U.S. and Cuban government have come warnings to the organization, Brothers to the Rescue, not to enter Cuban air space or territorial waters. But the Clinton administration also has warned Cuba not to take hostile action against the exiled flotilla. For more on this latest round of tension between Cuba and Cuban-Americans, we get two perspectives. Frank Calzon is the Washington representative for Freedom House, a human rights organization that promotes democracy around the world, and Jose Pertierra is legal counsel for Cambio Cubano, a Cuban-American organization based in Miami that seeks political change in Cuba through peaceful means. Thank you both for being with us. Mr. Pertierra, what do you think is likely to happen this weekend?

JOSE PERTIERRA, Cambio Cubano: Well, I hope that nothing much will happen this weekend. We are calling for restraint on both sides. We're calling on restraint on the part of the Cuba government and restraint on the part of the Cuban-Americans who compose Brothers to the Rescue We think it's necessary to de-fuse this crisis. It's highly dangerous. It could precipitate yet another bigger crisis down, down the road, and unless we de-fuse the tensions that exist between the two nations, I think we're going to be here again next month and the month after that and on and on again because this is a never-ending proposition.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What do you think, Mr. Calzon?

FRANK CALZON, Freedom House: Well, I think that unless the President continues to look at Cubans and take strong action, Mr. Castro will continue to kill not only Cubans in Cuba but to try to do what he did, murdering these Americans in nefarious trade, so I don't think that calling on the Cuban government for restraint makes any sense. In the last couple of weeks, there are more than a hundred human rights activists who are in prison in Cuba who wanted to meet with the public--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you think it's likely that there could be something that happened, either that perhaps one of the boats would take off and go across the waters, or do you think anybody's looking for a fight this weekend?

MR. CALZON: I think the Cuban-American community wants to honor its dead. I think that the idea of having a priest or rabbi, Cuba's an island and Cubans have a special affection for the ocean, for the sea, so this is very appropriate to honor those who died, who were killed by Castro. At the same time, since the President has asked the Coast Guard to help out, I think the Cuban-American community is very concerned about agents from Castro that might want to provoke some kind of incident, and I think the Cuban- American community will do what it can to make sure that this takes place in international waters and that Castro does not have another excuse.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you think that anybody is looking for a fight that's going out on this flotilla? I mean, Brothers to the Rescue, there are various views of it, that it has flown over Cuban air space. Bisota flew over on July 13th, as I understand it, and do you think members of Brothers to the Rescue would be looking for a fight?

MR. PERTIERRA: I don't think there's any doubt that Brothers to the Rescue has for the past several months engaged in a policy of trying to provoke the Cuban government to precipitate some sort of a crisis. I don't think they were looking to get killed, but I think they were looking to precipitate something such as, for example, a Cuban MiG firing off the bow, shot at 'em, that would have provoked an incident. I think they got more than they bargained for. They didn't think that the two Cessnas would be brought out of the sky and unfortunately, four young men died, and it's very tragic that as a result of all of this, American foreign policy towards Cuba and the Cuban-American efforts to try to reconcile our differences have been held hostage by an incident that I fear is going to continue to be repeated unless we de-fuse the crisis by beginning to engage the government of Cuba in dialogue and stop the kind of policies that the United States Congress is going to be considering next week, such as Helms-Burden for example, which I think is highly inflammatory of an already serious crisis.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, I wanted to ask you both about that. You think that the moves that the Clinton administration has taken this week, various moves from tightening the embargo to cutting down on, on the charter flights, do you think those have been the right moves or the wrong moves?

MR. PERTIERRA: I think they've been the wrong moves. I was very glad when I learned that President Clinton was thinking of vetoing Helms-Burden, because it's a wrong-headed policy.

MS. FARNSWORTH: This is a bill which would tighten the embargo?

MR. PERTIERRA: It's a bill which--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Which the administration is now backing.

MR. PERTIERRA: Exactly. And it would tighten the embargo severely, and it is based on, I think, the false notion that you can basically starve the people of Cuba into submission, and it hasn't worked for the last 35 years. You have an embargo in place against Cuba for 35 years and Fidel Castro has not gone away, and he's not going to go away by any further embargoes. All that it does is make it difficult for our family members in Cuba to see us on a regular basis, those of us who live in the United States. It makes it difficult for them to receive medicines from us. It makes it very difficult for the economy of Cuba to get off the ground and receive foreign investment, and the purpose behind the bill is to de-stabilize the Cuban government, and I fear it will precipitate a crisis in Cuba that will be catastrophic.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What do you think about administration policy over this past week? Do you think the administration has approached what happened last Saturday, the shooting down of the plane, in a way that, that will produce the result, in your view?

MR. CALZON: I think that first of all we have to stop blaming the victim. The responsible element in this tragedy are not Brothers to the Rescue, throwing copies of the universal declaration of human rights over Havana is not really such a big deal. The United States is not at fault. There is always--there are always people who want to blame the United States first for everything. Mr. Castro has to allow the Cuban people the minimal human rights. It's not sufficient to talk about the rights of Cuban exiles like us to visit with our relatives in Cuba. What about the rights of Cuban people in Cuba not to be tortured, to be permitted to speak, to be permitted to meet to do what they wanted to do on February 24th, the day when the planes were shot, were the same day that the coalition of human rights activists had called for a public meeting with a church, with diplomatic observers. Castro's response is to put all of them in prison.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you think that's one reason the planes were shot down, that there is--there was a movement that was meeting in, in Cuba, and this was a warning both to exiles abroad and to people in Cuba, is that why you think it happened?

MR. CALZON: I think the reason why the planes were shot down-- and that's not a surprise to me, one who has kept an eye on Cuban matters for a long time, Castro continues to kill Cubans, and as long as he can get away with it, he will continue to do that. The appropriate response from the United States should have been to destroy those planes, even at the time that it happened or immediately after, so that the Cuban military will know that they can defend Cuba, but they cannot go into international air space and kill innocent people.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you have a response to that?

MR. PERTIERRA: Yes. I don't think the United States should have responded by going up and confronting Cuban MiG's. I think that would have escalated an already terrible situation. Look--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Before you go on, why do you think the planes were shot down? I mean, do you assume that it was a decision taken at the highest level of the Cuban government, that either Fidel Castro or his brother, Raoul, who's head of the army, made the decision?

MR. PERTIERRA: I, of course, don't know, because I am not a part of the Cuban government, but I would assume that a decision of that kind would be made at the very highest levels of the government.

MS. FARNSWORTH: They must have known that it would bring the condemnation of much of the world down on their heads. Why do you think they did it?

MR. PERTIERRA: I think for the past several months Cuba has received these incursions into Cuba, and there's been a tremendous amount of pressure from the within the Cuban armed forces to respond forcibly.

MS. FARNSWORTH: You're talking about the incursions, you're talking about the Brothers dropping leaflets or more?

MR. PERTIERRA: There's been other kinds of incursions against Cuba really for the last 35 years launched from U.S. territory. There's been armed incursions into Cuba. There's been sabotage directed at Cuban installations from Cuban exile groups trained in Florida, in the Everglades, and you know, you have to understand that the Cuban government is also responding to elements of the Cuban population that see this as a violation of their nation's sovereignty, and there is a tremendous amount of pressure to prevent these kinds of events from occurring and also, you know, we know that these four planes, for example, were--were not, that these two Cessnas flying over Havana were really carrying grenades and were dropping them, were going to drop them over the population.

MR. CALZON: Yeah, but the planes--

MR. PERTIERRA: And let's suppose that those planes went into Cuba unimpeded and that they dropped these grenades. How would the armed forces of Cuba be able to tell their people that they allowed these planes to go unimpeded into Cuban territory? And I think the United States would have the same concerns if similar flights were conducted by a foreign power over Washington, D.C., or New York.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mr. Calzon.

MR. CALZON: That's patently nonsense. Civilized nations do not shoot civilian aircraft. If you listen to the tapes and the transcripts, the Cuban pilots knew what the planes were. They shot down one. The others ran away, and they ran after the other ones. There was no threat, no danger to Cuba. They knew that they were unarmed--this is all in tapes--civilian aircraft. This is terrorism in international waters. I'm sorry to say but there's no difference between much of what you say and what the Cuban official point of view is. The point here is not whether airplanes fly into Cuba. The reason why Brothers to the Rescue drop leaflets with the universal declaration of human rights in Cuba is because in Cuba, a person that asks for respect for human rights, that's a provocation for the government.

MS. FARNSWORTH: I want to--we don't have much time left. What will Brothers to the Rescue do? Let's assume for a minute that the event Saturday is peaceful, that there's a replaying, there's a memorial, and that nothing happens, but what happens next? Will there be more flights? What do you see in the future?

MR. CALZON: Well, what happens next is from the point of view of Freedom House, the international community ought to focus on what's happening to the Cuban people today. Cuba is not Castro. Castro is not Cuba. The Cuban military--you talk about the Cuban military--the Cuban military doesn't play any role in this. It is Fidel Castro. No one would do something like that unless Castro orders it personally.

MS. FARNSWORTH: But I'm asking, do you expect what Mr. Pertierra expects, that there would be more, more--whether they're considered provocations or they're considered legitimate acts of people trying to--

MR. CALZON: The only--

MS. FARNSWORTH: --inform people--

MR. CALZON: The only way that you will not have additional violence inside Cuba is for the Cuban government to allow the Cuban people to speak, to organize, because otherwise, the minute that they try to speak up, the violent reaction of the Cuban government will be there. I--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay.

MR. CALZON: He doesn't want to talk about what's happening to the Cuban people and to dissidents who get electric shock therapy in hospitals. That is the heart of this issue, what's happening to the Cuban people.

MR. PERTIERRA: You know, back in November, the founder of Cambio Cubano--

MS. FARNSWORTH: This is the founder of your organization.

MR. PERTIERRA: --went to Cuba. Yes. He went to Cuba and stood up in Cuba in front of the foreign ministry of Cuba and a number of other Cuban dignitaries and asked for political change in Cuba, for an opening of the political and economic system in Cuba, demanded reforms in the penal code of Cuba, and said that he had the right to return to Cuba, to start an office in Cuba for Cambio Cubano, to seek political change through peaceful means in Cuba. I don't think that those are the acts of an apologist for Fidel Castro. I think it is much more courageous to go to Cuba and to ask for political changes to the Cuban government in Cuba than to do it from the suburbs of--

MS. FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry. That's all the time we have. Thank you very much for being with us.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the South Carolina showdown, a Forbes stump speech, and a retiring admiral. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. LEHRER: Now tomorrow's South Carolina primary and other political matters with Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot, joined tonight by Lee Bandy, political reporter for the "State" Newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina. Lee, what do the polls and the wisdom say about tomorrow as we speak, sir?

LEE BANDY, The State Newspaper: [Columbia, SC] Well, the polls down here show that Dole has a double digit lead. It may have closed a little bit, but the sense is that Bob Dole is going to win his first primary out of his native Midwest.

MR. LEHRER: And his native Midwest being South Carolina? Oh, you mean outside the Midwest?

MR. BANDY: Outside of his native territory, the Midwest.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. I got you. And then what happens after that? Who's going to run? Is there going to be a strong second, or is it- -what do the polls say about that?

MR. BANDY: The way it is right now, and it looks like Pat Buchanan is going to come in second, and Steve Forbes and Lamar Alexander are fighting over third place. And if Lamar Alexander comes in fourth place, I think he will be wounded severely and will limp into Georgia, and I don't know where he's going to find his victory that he's looking for.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's go back through that. What is the base of Dole's support in South Carolina? Why is he going to do so well?

MR. BANDY: Well, I think the trade issue has worked to his advantage here, and not to Buchanan's. Our state is in a period of transition from the Old South to the New South, and Pat Buchanan seems to be playing on the fears and emotions of the Old South. The trade picture here has improved considerably. The economic picture has improved considerably. The jobs have gone from the low skilled, low paying jobs in the textile industry to high skill, higher paying jobs in plants like BMW, Fuji, Pirelli, Michelin, we could go on. In fact, foreign companies have invested $27 billion here in South Carolina in the last nine years, and, in effect, they've created a new middle class in South Carolina, people who are making between thirty-five thousand and forty thousand dollars a year, as opposed to twenty thousand dollars a year in the textile mills. And these people who work in these plants, the new middle class so to speak, are not going to vote for Pat Buchanan in my opinion.

MR. LEHRER: Well, now, the word, the conventional wisdom going in that, was that Pat Buchanan was going to catch fire in South Carolina. Why did--was this the reason it didn't happen, the economic mission didn't work, or what was--what about the rest of his message, the social conservative?

MR. BANDY: Well, I think what you said is a factor, but I think the best thing that happened to Bob Dole down here is that Pat Buchanan did not do as well in Arizona as he thought he was going to do. If Pat Buchanan had done well in Arizona, he would have come in here with a head of steam, and I'm not sure that anybody could have stopped him. Now, Pat Buchanan can get together a conservative coalition of those who love the Confederate flag, those who want to keep women out of the Citadel, the textile workers, and conservative Christians, and if the race narrows, he could win with that coalition, but I don't think that's going to happen.

MR. LEHRER: Not in South Carolina tomorrow?

MR. BANDY: No, I do not.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. All right, now, what about Alexander and Forbes, any--what happened to them there, or what is happening to them?

MR. BANDY: Well, the latest polls show them in the teens. I think that Lamar is getting 13 percent and Forbes is 10 percent, so they are in a statistical dead heat for third place. And I think that Lamar is trying to come in third because if he comes in fourth, I think that he can begin to pack it in.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Mark, are any of these four front-runners, is South Carolina a magic moment for any of them tomorrow?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Well, it's a magic moment, Jim, because each time there's been a victory, the race has changed, so it's a magic moment, I think Lee Bandy's absolutely right, that Bob Dole has to be considered the favorite and if, in fact, he does win, it is his first victory outside of the Dakotas. He's won in South Dakota and North Dakota. He hasn't won out of the Central time zone. He hasn't won other than an $8 cab ride from Russell, Kansas, so this would be an important victory for him.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Do you agree with that?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: I do. I think in particular because it would be a victory over Pat Buchanan who, as Lee pointed out, was saying, if I win Arizona, I can sweep into the South and South Carolina, which ought to be a good state for me. It has a very strong Christian base. Trade protection was supposed to be his big issue. So it would--beating Buchanan there means a lot for Bob Dole.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Lee, the debate yesterday in Columbia, we ran excerpts of it here on the NewsHour last night. It made the front pages of every newspaper in the country today. Was that a really major event in terms of what the outcome could be tomorrow in South Carolina?

MR. BANDY: I don't think so. It was on between noon and 1 o'clock here live, and I don't think that many people watched it. Those who did see it found it entertaining. People down here like a good, hard fight, as long as it's clean, but I don't think anybody learned anything.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. What did you think of that debate yesterday?

MR. SHIELDS: I thought it was a good debate, I really did, and I thought they threw punches. They didn't get into their set routine. You had, you had to agree that a debate is a job interview. You had a sense of who these people were. I thought that--I thought it was a brilliant move on the people running the debate. Lee was one of the questioners, to show the negative commercials, and just to hold the candidates accountable and watch them kind of squirm and bob and duck and weave and say, well, I was only answering somebody else. I thought it was a good debate. I thought it revealed.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. What do you think?

MR. GIGOT: I agree with Mark. I thought it was revealing. You did get the personalities out there. Bob Dole was in there interrupting everybody and, you know, piping up, and Pat Buchanan I thought won the debate in just terms of debating points because he has that great skill with language. Unfortunately, I don't think a lot of people watched it. That's a problem.

MR. LEHRER: Maybe--Lee, finally on this, is there any kind of perceptible--usually on the night before an election like this people pick up movements of various kinds either up or down. Is there any measurable movement here, or any candidate who's particularly taking off or one that's falling like a rock as we speak?

MR. BANDY: Well, the person who seems to be fading fast down here is Lamar Alexander. Pat Buchanan, who was in the state today and had rallies all across the state, so he's trying to whip his troops up and get them excited, but he even talked today like he was not going to win it, and Forbes is not much of a factor here either. He came into the state for the first time yesterday. He's run about a million dollars' worth of advertising, but I don't detect his advertising has helped him here. South Carolinians like for you to come to the state and ask for their vote. He hasn't come, and so he hasn't shown up well in the polls.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Paul, bottom line is that it's unlikely that this will be a winnowing primary tomorrow, is that right, that those four will still be there on Sunday morning?

MR. GIGOT: They will still be there on Sunday morning, but as Lee pointed out, for Lamar Alexander, a fourth place finish or even a weak third, would be very damaging going into the states next Tuesday, where I think he does have to win, or else he can start refurnishing that Tennessee home.

MR. LEHRER: But he will stay in, will he not, no matter what?

MR. SHIELDS: He'll stay in, Jim, but he'll stay in, is he going to be dead man walking, I mean, like Phil Gramm nearly was after Iowa, or after Louisiana? I think that what Bob Dole wants is Bob Dole wants Steve Forbes to finish third, because Steve Forbes isn't going to go away. I mean, he's in. He's on for the duration. He'd like to get rid of Lamar Alexander.

MR. LEHRER: And so would Buchanan, right?

MR. SHIELDS: That's right. He'd like to get rid of Lamar Alexander. If Lamar Alexander finishes fourth, I think it probably means the effective wrap-up of his campaign. I did want to say one thing about the debate that struck me. This is a campaign that's really without a theme. In each state, the race changes, from Iowa, where there was a heavy emphasis upon the moral climate of the United States and how it would have been poison in many people's minds to New Hampshire, it was economic anxiety and changed and then Arizona it was taxes, and yesterday in Lee Bandy's debate there in Columbia, all of a sudden--

MR. LEHRER: I don't think Lee Bandy wants it to be called Lee Bandy's debate.

MR. SHIELDS: Lee was there. He was the dean of South Carolina, a political journalist--journalism. They started arguing, Jim, about Dixie, playing Dixie. Pat wanted 'em to play Dixie, whether Shannon Faulkner ought to be banned permanently from the state--

MR. LEHRER: She's the female student who--

MR. SHIELDS: Who went to the Citadel for a week and consequently has more military experience than either Lamar Alexander or Pat Buchanan, and then, then they got into whether the stars and bars should fly over the state capitol. I mean, it's really a campaign. That was all business is local. Tip O'Neill used to say all politics is local. Boy, they localized that race yesterday.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. GIGOT: I think there's an irony in the South Carolina potential outcome. If Bob Dole wins, I mean, who would have thought that the epitome of the old Midwestern Republican Party would have his campaign rescued in South Carolina by the vanguard of the new Social Christian right, and Bob Dole's getting an awful lot of those voters. I mean, a lot of them are voting with their hearts for Pat Buchanan but an awful lot of them are saying pragmatically Pat Buchanan is not the right messenger for us, and we're going for Dole because we think Dole can win. And if he looks back on six months from now, he may think the most important point of my campaign was that Hollywood speech on values because that suggested to those voters that I was on their side.

MR. LEHRER: Lee, does your reporting bear that out, that big hunks of the Christian right voters in South Carolina are going to go for Dole?

MR. BANDY: Well, I don't know if there are big hunks or not. Bob Dole is getting the leadership of the Christian Coalition, but the Christian Coalition cannot control its followers, and I think the bulk of the followers are going with Pat Buchanan.

MR. SHIELDS: One thing that Lee touched on about the employers in South Carolina, one of the reasons I think that Pat Buchanan's message hasn't been as well received there is that these are employers who are not the record profits and then laying off 40,000 people, these are people, these are employers for whom life has been better for workers there. I mean, these are employers like Fuji, who have a record and a reputation of keeping people on the payroll and not discarding them like so many used Kleenex.

MR. LEHRER: --has--

MR. SHIELDS: That's right. That is the Buchanan message, is that the heartless corporate chiefs who just discard people.

MR. LEHRER: Paul, Mark, two quick things, other things before we go, besides South Carolina: who's winning the debate in the Senate, well, the Senate debate about whether or not to extend the Whitewater Committee investigation? The Democrats blocked it.

MR. GIGOT: Right.

MR. LEHRER: The Republicans said they're going to come back. Does anybody care? Is it a big deal?

MR. GIGOT: Well, I think that the Democrats, the Senate Democrats are doing something rare in politics, which is that they're taking a political risk by helping the President, taking and putting themselves and their credibility on the line, trying to block something, without knowing the outcome. I mean, they don't know what's going to happen with the special counsel, Ken Starr. They don't know if something else is going to pop out that would embarrass them later for having stood up and maybe filibustered an ongoing investigation, so they are taking something of a risk, and I think the Republicans feel they wouldn't mind having this debate going on for a little while, having the President cast--the Senate Democrats cast that vote to say let's shut it all down.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. What do you think, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: I think if the chairman of this committee were John Chafee of Rhode Island or Bill Cohen or Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas or Alan Simpson or Mark Hatfield, you know, I think there wouldn't be probably much consternation. I mean, Al D'Amato, the Senator from New York, is a visible supporter of Bob Dole's to the point where he kept everybody out of the ballot in New York, and they finally had to be put on there by judge's orders, so it's taken on a partisan--I think there's a lower risk there for the Democrats in taking on D'Amato. Now Phil Gramm, Sen. Dole's new best friend, has returned, and he's going to get on the committee and so I think there is a sense, as well, with the report this past week from Mr. Stevens, the former U.S. attorney here, the Republican U.S. attorney, and the FDIC, that there weren't more investigations in the Rose Law Firm, I don't think the risks are as great. The problem for the White House is every time you turn around, Jim, there's some more papers--

MR. LEHRER: Yes.

MR. SHIELDS: --that have been missing for two years that they've been trying to get ahold of, and they come up with, so--

MR. GIGOT: You're making Al D'Amato's case.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. And finally, the politics of the Cuban situation that, that--the discussion that Elizabeth has just ran. Are there domestic political ramifications involved in this at this point?

MR. GIGOT: Well, the domestic political ramifications are that Bill Clinton had to go along with the sanctions. I mean, this was an avalanche that he was either going to get run over by or try to get out in front of, and so he agreed essentially because he was- -his veto, if he had vetoed the sanctions bill that the Republicans were offering against Cuba, it would have been overridden, and the Republicans are competing for the, with each other to--for the vote coming up in Florida, there's no question about that. I still don't think the President can win Florida unless the Republicans put Fidel Castro on the ticket, but he's trying at least to stay in the game by signing legislation.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: Aside from the personal and human tragedy involved, Jim, this is where you show your bona fides as an anti-Communist. You're still tough on Communism.

MR. LEHRER: That's the only place left.

MR. SHIELDS: That's the only place left. I mean, you can't do it in China, because you want to sell Q-tips to China, right? You know, and their slave labor we kind of overlook because we want to do some deals, but, you know, damn Castro, you can really get tough and get mad at his fatigues and all the rest of it, and I really think that's sadly what's--but it's, to put it squarely, Paul's right, to put it squarely on the ballot and on the agenda for the Florida primary.

MR. LEHRER: And that is going to be in--could be a very important primary.

MR. GIGOT: Could be a very important primary, although you can't tell a bit of difference between the four, among the four Republicans on the issue. They all seem to be--more or less agree on it, so I--politically it may matter if somebody can get to somebody's right.

MR. SHIELDS: If they start bidding on it. I mean, yesterday in South Carolina, I thought Pat Buchanan was going to say that his favorite American President in the 19th Century was Jefferson Davis. I mean, these guys will be organizing guerrilla raids.

MR. LEHRER: They'll be on the flotilla.

MR. SHIELDS: Sure.

MR. LEHRER: Right. Okay. Well, thank you, Mark and Paul, and Lee Bandy, thank you very much for joining us tonight from Columbia.

MR. BANDY: Thank you, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Thank you. SERIES - ON THE STUMP

MR. LEHRER: Now, another in our second round of Republican Presidential candidate stump speeches. Tonight, Steve Forbes. He spoke last night at a candidates forum in Aiken, South Carolina.

STEVE FORBES, Republican Presidential Candidate: This campaign in 1996 will be one of the most important in American history. It will define the direction not only of the Republican Party but also of America going into the next century and the next millennium. We will have three basic choices. We can follow the path that we're on today, which is indecision, incoherence, drift, where the President of the United States gets up each morning, has to consult polls to see what he's supposed to believe that day.That's one direction. [applause] What Clinton, what President Clinton does is the political equivalent of painting by the numbers. It's not art and it's not leadership. [applause] But there's a better direction for America. We don't have to turn inward. We don't have to fear the world. We don't have to raise tariffs, which are a form of the sales tax, 20 to 40 percent tariffs are sales taxes. I see a different America. I see an America that is once again self- confident, dynamic, outward-looking, forward-looking, inventive, innovative, able to compete with the world and more importantly, ready to lead the world once again. That is the America I see, and that is the America that we can have in 1996. [applause] America, my friends, has the potential for the greatest economic boom and spiritual renewal in our history. The real question in 1996 is: How do we fulfill our promise as a people and as a nation? I believe it is by returning to basic strengths of America, and that is less government and more freedom. The American people, whenever the American people have the power to control their own lives, America moves ahead. All of the proposals that I'm making in this campaign have the common thread and theme of giving individual Americans more opportunity, more responsibility, more control, more power over their lives. We've done this before, and when we have revived these basic traits of America, we can move forward again. We have a chance to do it. Washington is in disarray. The Cold War is over. We are entering a new and exciting era that will alter the way we live and the way we work. The real question before us then is: How do we move ahead? What are the obstacles and barriers that stand in the way of America leading the world again? And the answer is very simple: There are a handful of things that stand in the way. Remove those obstacles and barriers, give us more freedom, return power, opportunity, responsibility to we, the people, and America's best days are truly ahead. To get America moving again, we must change Washington, we must strike up a source of power in Washington, which is the tax code. You know- -[applause]--you know from your history books, you know from your history books that the power to tax is the power to destroy, the power to tax is the power to abuse. And for too many generations in Washington it's been the habit of exchanging favors and loopholes for political support and contributions. That's why the tax code today is nothing more than a cesspool of legalized corruption and special interest legislation. [applause] We should replace this monstrosity with a simple flat tax that is a tax cut for all Americans. Now, the people in Washington don't want you to know this, but a flat tax is a tax cut. There's a tax cut for all families and all individual Americans, and that's the way we get America moving again. The flat tax is simple. We can fill it out on a postcard. It removes millions of people from the tax rolls. This is a break for all Americans. This is a break for working Americans. [applause] If you want to get America moving again, return resources to the American people. With a flat tax, with a flat tax you'll keep more of what you earn or rip down barriers to job-creating investments so we can create more jobs and better- paying jobs too. This is the way to start to get America moving again. There are other reforms as well, including lower interest rates by making the dollar sound, respected again, not a yo-yo in value as it has been for the last 30 years. The dollar should be worth a dollar today; it should be worth a dollar tomorrow. Let's take it out of the hands of the Washington politicians and return it as a fixed measure of value. Make it as good as gold again. [applause] And there are other reforms as well. We must keep our current Social Security System for those who are on it in terms of benefits and those who are going to go on to it in the next twelve to fifteen years. But we know and younger Americans know that this system is going to be broke by the time they retire, so why don't we do something right for once, before the disaster happens, and that is, and that is start a new system of Social Security for younger Americans, where a part of their payroll tax that now goes to Washington to subsidize that national debt would, instead, go to young people's own, individual savings or retirement account. [applause] That way--[applause]--that way, that way, they'll have something when they retire, far more than they're going to get under today's system. The money is invested in America, which makes America stronger. It takes it out of the hands of the Washington political establishment, the ones who gave you the S&L's and other disasters. Why not in education? Our education system in much of America is not doing the right job. Why not do the job right for once and return the control of our schools to parents by giving parents genuine choice? Bust up the monopoly of the NEA. [applause] But all of these changes, all of these changes have the common thread and theme, these and other changes, including welfare reform, medical savings accounts to give the elderly more control, better coverage at less cost, all have the common thread and theme of returning power and responsibility to we, the people. This is the exciting promise in 1996. If we get the mandate, we can move together. We can make America once again that shining city on the Hill. CONVERSATION - MODERNIZING THE MILITARY

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, a conversation about a revolution in the U.S. military. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It was a revolution that started during the Persian Gulf War. Americans watching television in their living rooms got a chance to glimpse a whole new array of high-tech weapons, smart bombs, advanced helicopters, and systems to control what has been called the electronic battlefield. There is a debate within the military about what some are calling Gee-Whiz Gadgetry, and the necessary military reorganization they require. But that has not stopped those charged with leading the revolution. Chief among them is Admiral William Owens, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I talked with him just before his retirement this week, which comes almost 38 years after he entered the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is technology really going to be the driving force in future military conflicts?

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: Well, I think there are really two driving forces. One is our people, you know, and here we, we never lose track because we talk about technology, the great importance of these fine young men and women we have in our military and how important it is that we get the right ones into our military and that, and that we take care of them once they're, once they're with us. And so that's the first, the first mandate that we have for the American military in the future, but technology is enormously important now. The smart front edge of warfare that we get from industry, from American industry, gives us so much of an edge as we look to the future. And so I think the technology of being able to look at a very large battlefield and see it, that is a battlefield perhaps the size of Iraq or North Korea--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The whole country.

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: And see the whole thing 24 hours a day, all weather, i.e., through the clouds, all weather, real time, i.e., you see what's happening in the battlefield, real time, is with us in the next three to five years. And if that is true, and if we can then communicate that information to our soldiers on the ground, our pilots in the air, our sailors and ships at sea, then we can be enormously efficient in the way we do our war fighting in the future. War is not the same now as what it was in the past. Its contingency is, it's a variety of different kinds of operations. But the fact is that we are able with this kind of technology to do things in very efficient ways, i.e., it costs less, we will lose fewer lives of our most prized possession, our young people, and I think it will have a dramatic impact on those enemies or supposed enemies around the world who would want to threaten us or our allies if they know that we have these kinds of capabilities. So it's a deterrent function as well.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It costs less than what?

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: It costs less than the brute force approach. Now, if you're going to go with tank against tank or airplane against airplane, sort of brute force, force on force kind of equation, that's going to cost more than it will if we use all of our assets and the smart front end, i.e., the ability to see what's happening in that battlefield and reach out and touch them with sophisticated weapons, from a distance all four services working together will cost less, will save more lives.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you see as the greatest threats in the coming years?

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: It's very difficult to know where we will be fighting in the future, but you can be sure that the kinds of challenges we face will be different. We expect that the threat of weapons of mass destruction could be with us, chemical or biological or nuclear weapons. We hope not, but it could be. And we have to be ready for those kinds of things. And at the same time, we need to be ready for the kinds of new technologies like Cruise Missiles, these kinds of very smart missiles that fly for a few tens of miles to a target and then have a very precise seeker.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Looking ahead at the other fighting services, describe what is going to be their major innovative weapons.

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: The United States services?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mm-hmm.

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: Well, there are a lot of exciting things out there. I might just give you a couple of examples. I brought a few toys along. Is that okay?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Fine, sure.

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: We have today getting ready to go to Bosnia a vehicle called the Predator. It has come pretty much off the shelf, a new way of buying things. It is quite--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you mean off the shelf, just--

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: I mean, from American industry--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Going to Sears and Roebuck--

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: Not quite, but without military specifications, you know, not a very expensive, long-term development program, but simply working with American industry to develop something that is good enough and cheap relatively to give us new capabilities, so this Predator vehicle will fly in Bosnia. It has been in Bosnia before, but we're sending it back here in the next few weeks, will fly at 30,000 feet altitude and will stay up there for twelve to twenty-four hours. And while it's up there, it is looking at the ground through the clouds, and it is transmitting video of what it's seen, real time, direct, via commercial satellite that we rent to a soldier on the ground in the headquarters in Bosnia, for example. We hope not to be using weapons there, but if you needed to use weapons, you could see the targets on your screen. You'd be able to put a cursor on the location of the target and it would tell you precisely what the location of that target was.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And the margin of error?

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: And very close, very close, a few meters, and with that kind of information, you could, if you had to shoot at the target, you could use something like this army tactical missile system. It's the American Scud, except this one goes every time you push the button, and it goes exactly where you want it to go and so--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So it's not the dumb bomb that the Iraqi Scud was supposed to be?

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: No, it's not a dumb bomb. It's a very reliable, smart bomb, but it's ballistic, i.e., you launch it into a ballistic trajectory and so it gets to its target very quickly. It will go 200 miles in about five minutes. And when you think about how long it would take an airplane or a Cruise Missile to go 200 miles, it would be 30 minutes. So it gets there very fast. So with this thing, if you see the target, and if you transmit that information to the person who has one of these available, he can launch this, and five minutes from the time you saw the target, the smart weapon is on target, and so the potential for these kinds of things is very great in our future.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about the little guy you have over there, what doe he do?

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: Well, it's an interesting little guy. This is a little unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV, we call it. We call it the micro UAV. This is not a model. It's the real thing. It's designed for soldier in a fox hole who would launch it in a sort of high-tech way by launching it like this. It'll fly for about an hour. It has a tiny little camera on the front of it. It's about maybe 3/16 of an inch in diameter, and that little camera is a very good, has very good resolution. It flies at about 100 feet above the ground and it will give you good enough resolution to actually recognize a person a couple of miles from the location where the target launched the UAV. The soldier sees what it sees via a five- inch dish antenna, a five-inch tiny thing, and an IBM think pad. This costs maybe $500. What he has in his hand costs maybe $700. The total cost is a little over $1,000, but when you think of the capability this will give to even a foot soldier in the future, we, we have come a long ways.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Finally, let me just ask you this. We've talked about the new technologies and all the things that are going to help revolutionize modern warfare. Is it your position that our current military is wedded to systems that are outdated like aircraft carriers and things like that? Because I know one of your- -

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: Just to name one.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Just to name one. I know that you propose something like a floating base out there, which some people say won't work or it's too expensive or too impractical. But is that your basic position?

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: Well, I think that there are categories of weapon systems that become somewhat obsolete when you start to see new technologies like these things that I've talked about here this morning. You know, we have manned aircraft that do this kind of thing, for example, and if this is so successful and we're building another one that is a little more capable than this now, that will be very inexpensive relatively, if that's successful, then perhaps you can do away with the manned aircraft that it replaced and save billions for our country. So there are some of those kinds of trade-offs. I'd be a little cautious about trading off aircraft carriers today or Air Force tactical air, or the capabilities of our army in the battlefield, because we genuinely have thinned down an awful lot the DOD, the Defense Department top line, budget top line, has come down by about 45 percent in about 10 years, so we have to be a little cautious, because we've already trimmed a lot. But these technologies give us some of the answers for how to retain our military capability as we look to the future, with a smaller budget, and I think that's a part of the answer.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So it's fine not to give the military more money. I mean, I don't mean to be flip about that, but, but you're saying that the military can make due with less, given the new technologies?

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: I am not asking for more money for our uniform military. I think we have enough. I would encourage our leaders in Congress to give us every bit of freedom we can have to manage it ourselves a little better. We'd like to privatize a little more. We'd like to have the ability to, to use our people in different ways, and we'd like to have a little more flexibility in the way we manage it, but I don't think we need to have more money in our military. We have it in us to do what we need to do for our country, with less money, and as I said, the DOD top line is down by about 45 percent over that 10-year period.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But there are rumors that you are leaving because you are frustrated, worn down about the failure of the services to cut overlap and cooperate more closely. Is that true?

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: It really isn't true. I'm leaving for purely personal reasons. I may appear worn down, but it's not, it's not for that reason. We, we genuinely I think have made tremendous strides in coming together. I think if you could see the Joint Chiefs and we had--a couple of days ago, we had a whole-day meeting to talk about these kinds of things that we're talking about right now, and I think America would be pleased to see how close together we are in terms of the common thrust to do the right thing. It's not always--it's not always smiles, but we're always talking about the right issues, I think, and we're trying to reach consensus to do things differently and more efficiently. And I'm not leaving for that reason.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Adm. Owens, thank you for joining us and all the best.

ADM. WILLIAM OWENS: Thank you very much, Charlayne. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, President Clinton authorized the Coast Guard to keep tomorrow's protest flotilla out of Cuban waters and air space. Cuban-Americans and boats and planes will go to the spot where Cuba shot down two unarmed civilian aircraft last week. Cuba said it would not interfere with the demonstration. And a State Department report said Colombia failed to do enough to combat drug trafficking, and must be denied United States aid. Have a nice weekend. We'll see you on Monday night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.