The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, we have a what-now, what-next discussion about the Kosovo conflict; Kwame Holman recounts former Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung's day before Congress; Lee Hochberg updates the school shooting in Springfield, Oregon; Phil Ponce runs a congressional debate over guns and youth violence; and Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky remembers two men of words with their words. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: NATO missiles struck many targets throughout Yugoslavia today. China continued to demand a full explanation of the attack on its embassy in Belgrade, and the U.S. Ambassador to China said the situation was improving but still dangerous. Betty Ann Bowser has our summary report.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Hundreds of Chinese students took part of anti-American demonstrations in Beijing again today. But at the State Department in Washington Spokesman James Rubin said their numbers were smaller and there was less concern about the safety of American diplomatic personnel.

JAMES RUBIN: The intensity of demonstrations was substantially lower on Tuesday. They remained peaceful, as Chinese authorities stepped up their level of protection and control. There were no protests reported at our missions in Shanghai, Shenjeng or Shangdu. Embassy staff and others are not able to move freely in and out of the embassy compound. We continue to look to the Chinese authorities to maintain order.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In Beijing, it appeared authorities did have order. Hundreds of government police lined the streets of the foreign embassy area of the city. The demonstrations started four days ago after NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese nationals and wounding twenty others. For the first time, state run television ran excerpts of President Clinton's apology made yesterday.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I have already expressed our apology and our condolences to President Jiang and to the Chinese people.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: After meeting with Chinese government officials in Beijing, Russian Balkan envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin returned to Moscow tonight. Earlier, he said his country and China are united in this one demand.

VIKTOR CHERNOMYRDIAN: [speaking through interpreter] We agree with China that before beginning a talks process on what is happening today in the Balkans, we must first see an end to the bombing. You can't put the cart before the horse.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Earlier today, the administration rejected that idea outright. Defense Secretary William Cohen criticized the Chinese government for its refusal to believe what the United States and NATO have said about the bombing: That it was an accident.

WILLIAM COHEN: The fingers point clearly to an intelligence breakdown as far as failing toidentify the movement of the Chinese embassy from old Belgrade into the so-called new Belgrade. I think there's also a difference, a distinction between righteous indignation and calculated exploitation.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Cohen appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee to ask for $5 1/2 billion to continue the air campaign against Yugoslavia. And despite Serbian claims of a partial military pullout from Kosovo, the Secretary said there is nothing to support that.

WILLIAM COHEN: Number one, we have seen no evidence of any partial pullout. Number two, a partial pullout would mean a total victory for him. A partial pullout is not acceptable. He must comply with all of the five component requirements that have been laid out by NATO.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Last night good weather allowed NATO to fly 623 sorties. Targets included an airfield in Nis, a bridge some 35 miles south of Belgrade, rail lines, military barracks, and a police headquarters. Serbian television took journalists to this home near the Kosovo capital of Pristina, where they say three civilians died. Meanwhile, hundreds of ethnic Albanian refugees were moved from Macedonia into a new camp in southern Albania. It's among the first transfers in what relief workers hope will be an ongoing effort to relieve the crowding.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the Kosovo conflict right after the News Summary. Former Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung appeared before a House committee today. He said he used contributions to buy Chinese clients access to President Clinton and other Democratic party figures. The Chinese-American businessman said he accepted money from Chinese officials, but never acted as an agent for the Chinese government. We'll have excerpts from Chung's appearance later in the program tonight. President Clinton asked corporate executives today to invest in poor communities. He and Vice President Gore spoke in the White House Rose Garden. Their new markets initiative attempts to draw venture capital to inner cities and rural areas through tax incentives and loan guarantees. The President said this:

PRESIDENT CLINTON: For years, our government has worked to give Americans incentives to invest in emerging markets around the world. But we now know, as we look forward to how we can continue to create jobs and have economic growth without inflation, that our greatest untapped markets are here at home -- at least $85 billion in untapped markets.

JIM LEHRER: The President, congressional and business leaders will visit several poverty areas in July. The tour was fashioned after trade missions cabinet officials make to developing countries. In economic news today, productivity went up at an annual rate of 4 percent in the first quarter of this year, the Labor Department said. The pace was better than economists expected. Energy Secretary Richardson said today he's creating the new post of security czar. He also said he's imposing an 18-month moratorium on declassifying sensitive information. The move follows reports of spying at U.S. nuclear research labs. AIDS has become the world's most deadly infectious disease, the World Health Organization said today. The U.N. agency said it climbed from eighth to fourth place among all causes of death. Heart disease remains the number one killer on the W.H.O. list. It killed more than seven million people worldwide last year. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to where are we with the NATO war over Kosovo; Johnny Chung before the House; an Oregon school shooting update; the congressional gun control debate; and a Robert Pinsky poetry reading.

FOCUS - KOSOVO - WHAT NEXT?

JIM LEHRER: We go first tonight to a what-now, what-next discussion about the Kosovo conflict. After 48 days, the bombing continues, and so does the diplomatic effort to end it, influenced by Russian involvement, complicated by Chinese anger over the accidental attack on its embassy in Belgrade. Our discussants are Donald McHenry, former U.N. Ambassador in the Carter administration and now a professor at Georgetown University; Peter Galbraith, U.S. Ambassador to Croatia until last year and now a professor at the National War College; Charles Kupchan, on the National Security Council staff in President Clinton's first term and now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; and retired Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, now deputy director of the Center For Disease - For Defense Information. Sorry, just had disease in the News Summary. Sorry, Admiral. Mr. Kupchan, how would you summarize where matters stand tonight?

CHARLES KUPCHAN: I think that NATO is in a very precarious position today. The air war is not working. They're trying to escalate quantitatively, but what they really need do is change the strategy qualitatively. I think they have two options: Either a ground war, but I think that possibility grows increasingly remote, or I think they really have to move through the window of opportunity that's now open on the diplomatic front, make some sort of offer to Milosevic that says if you get 25 percent, say, of your troops out of Kosovo, we will pause the bombing and wait for you to get the rest out. But I think just to continue with the bombing is a no-win situation and shows no signs of paying off.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see a diplomatic opportunity, Ambassador?

DONALD McHENRY: I think there are things which can be explored. I don't think I would suggest a pause in the bombing. I think it goes on while you do explore things. For example, the hard-line position that every one of Milosevic's security forces has to be gone before you can do anything seems to me to be unreasonable. At the same time, he's shown from the last time that if you leave a significant number of them there, even with observers, that that doesn't work either. The question is how many and under what controls? And it seems to me that that's the kind of thing that can be explored.

JIM LEHRER: What about the bombing, the bombing pause we saw in Betty Anne Bowser's summary at the beginning, Ambassador Galbraith, that the Russians have now joined the Chinese in saying there must be a bombing pause before there's a discussion even of the G-8 proposal?

PETER GALBRAITH: I think NATO is locked into a strategy that is not going to work. That is to say, it will not accomplish its objective of getting the Serbian forces out of Kosovo, which is an essential condition to getting the refugees back by air campaign alone. On the other hand, it is very much in Milosevic's interest now to begin a process of negotiation. And, in fact, he would be perfectly happy to have a process of negotiation that stretched on indefinitely, because at this point in time, he's ahead. He's actually solidified his control over Kosovo by expelling all the ethnic Albanians, as compared to where he was when the bombing campaign began. So I think NATO, in fact, has a terrible dilemma. I don't think it would be wise to have a complete bombing pause now, but I think NATO has got to reconsider a strategy of bombing in urban areas. The targets are not militarily significant to how Milosevic is controlling Kosovo. It causes unnecessary civilian casualties, or sometimes catastrophic diplomatic casualties, as we saw with the bombing of the Chinese embassy. Also, we're engaged in a process now of destroying Serbia's infrastructure, bridges petrochemical plants, the electric grid. And that serves no purpose, again to his control over Kosovo, but it is going to do a lot of lasting damage to Serbia, and I think none of us have an interest of Yugoslavia being a failed state at the end of this process. That damage will have to be repaired. There are no resources in Yugoslavia to repair it, and so that means in the end the western countries will probably have to pick up a substantial part of the bill.

JIM LEHRER: Admiral, where do you think things are? We'll pick up on some of these points in a moment.

REAR ADMIRAL EUGENE CARROLL: Lost in an ineffective strategy. We have limited our action in the area to an air campaign which cannot possibly resolve the situation on the ground, either in Kosovo or in Serbia. We can't control events there from the air. And to continue just pounding away at the infrastructure of Serbia doesn't protect Kosovars. So there has to be some form of a negotiated arrangement which stops the violence. Now, I didn't agree with the beginning of the air war, but it obviously cannot stop without some firm demonstration by the Serbs that they are going to withdraw their forces and permit the admission of an international force, possibly not under NATO leadership, to take over the safety of the Kosovars while then the long-term questions of the political status of Kosovo, the economic measures to restore Yugoslavia are taken under negotiation. The one thing that I've been taught over the years since Korea and Vietnam is if you give the other side what they ask is the price for beginning negotiations, then the negotiations go nowhere. You have to keep the air campaign in place until the other side does what we need them to do, stop abusing the Kosovars and start moving out. I agree that all of the troops don't have to go to reach that point.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see any evidence that -- by these announced troop withdrawal and the fact that the Russians are now involved in a negotiation process at least that there is some sign that Milosevic may be willing to do some of this, that the bombing has, in fact, caused him to back off a little bit?

REAR ADMIRAL EUGENE CARROLL: I think so. I think the framework for an agreement is shaping up. What's being said in public by President Clinton or Chancellor Schroeder is one thing. What's being said privately with Chernomyrdin in these discussions is finding where the give is on both sides where there's face-saving literally that's available to say, well, they're getting out and the Serbs to say, well, we're keeping sovereignty in Kosovo, and then you can stop the violence.

JIM LEHRER: How big a complication is the Chinese Belgrade accident? What has that done to the G-8 process and the potential for getting this thing over with?

CHARLES KUPCHAN: I think it creates a short-term problem and a long-term problem. The short-term problem is getting some sort of resolution through the U.N. Security Council that the Chinese could live with. I think that's probably doable in part because the Russians will twist arms and try to get the Chinese on board. But the longer-term --

JIM LEHRER: Because the Russians -- you think -- are committed to getting this thing over with.

CHARLES KUPCHAN: Yes, because I think the Russians see this as a way to bring themselves back in to the mainstream of Europe. They've been marginalized, they see the war in Kosovo somewhat paradoxically as a way to get back into the game of politics.

JIM LEHRER: What argument do they make to the Chinese?

CHARLES KUPCHAN: They make the argument that you've got to do this and that it makes sense and that it's the right thing to do. Now the question is -- and this comes to the long-term problem -- can you bring the Chinese along? And it's not just the leadership because part of the reason, I believe, that the protests have been taking place and the government has provided buses, is that the government was taking a lot of hits from the populace and from the bureaucracy for being so quiet on Yugoslavia. I think what we've seen in the past few days is the government having to respond to this popular up-swell of anger against the United States. And that raises the big question: Will, as we look toward the end of this conflict, the Chinese, the Russians, perhaps other countries, see the United States in a different light -- that American power will not be so benign as it has been, but it may be seen as unilateralist, or wayward - and then we're talking about a very different world in which countries balance against or distance themselves from the United States. And I think that's a real worry.

JIM LEHRER: How do you read the Chinese? In fact, do they now have leverage over the Kosovo process that they didn't have before because of this accidental bombing?

PETER GALBRAITH: Well, they've always had leverage in the sense that if anything went to the U.N. Security Council, they had the option of exercising a veto. But in fact, they have gone along with U.N. Security Council resolutions where they've been agreed to by the western powers and Russia. Now they're signaling they might adopt a different strategy. But in the end, in fact I think they will go along with any kind of U.N. Security Council resolution that the Russians agree to, because their goal is to end the military action. And it would be counterproductive for them to block a U.N. Security Council resolution that laid down the basis for a peace plan that could end the fighting.

CHARLES KUPCHAN: And they still want into the W.T.O. and the other organizations, so they have an incentive.

JIM LEHRER: I was just going to ask Ambassador McHenry that. As a diplomat, how would you phrase the argument to the Chinese, okay, this is a terrible thing that happened in Belgrade, but it's in your interest to get this thing over with?

DONALD McHENRY: Well, the Chinese, despite all the violence of the last few days, first on our part and accidentally, and on their part, have shown that they can control crowds. They can either open the flood gates and let them through or pull them back as we're beginning to see. The irony of all of this is that we tried to avoid the U.N. Security Council and freeze out both China and Russia because we were concerned about veto. We wanted control. We didn't want all of these other countries trying to influence things. In the final analysis, however, we need both of them. We need the Russians to help bring about this deal, and if it goes back to the Security Council, as I think it will and should, we're going to need the Chinese. It seems to me that the Russians -- it was possible to have gotten Russian support all along, maybe not as quickly as we might have wanted, and it seems to me that the Chinese concern is always with what is this going to mean in terms of a precedent for China. All along the Chinese have developed a pretty good theatrical approach to problems; that is, they make a lot of noise, they indicate that they are opposed to an action because of sovereignty and so forth, and then they finally say we'll abstain so long as you all know that it's not going to apply to us. And I think that's going to be the same thing here. They have too many other interests which they have to follow, not the least which is W.T.O.

JIM LEHRER: All right now, Admiral, let's go back to the bombing. Forget how we got to where we are today, you're saying the bombing should continue. Now, the question that Ambassador Galbraith raised is, yes, but it's counterproductive because we're destroying too many infrastructure targets, et cetera. What should the shape of the bombing be from this point on?

REAR ADMIRAL EUGENE CARROLL: It should be reduced and certainly less directed at the infrastructure in Serbia and more concentrate on the forces within Kosovo, with an attempt literally to take the pressure off of the Albanians.

JIM LEHRER: And forget about Yugoslavia itself?

REAR ADMIRAL EUGENE CARROLL: To a large measure; unless there's something coming out of there that is immediately effective in Kosovo, leave it alone. We're going to have to go back in there and rebuild this place anyway -- why in the world increase the level of destruction when it has nothing to do directly with the situation in Kosovo? Keep the pressure on, but keep it on where it counts, and be ready to negotiate and end that level of violence in exchange for the pullback of the Serbian forces and the admission of the international peacekeeping force.

JIM LEHRER: How do you feel about the bombing targets, what they should be?

CHARLES KUPCHAN: I actually don't agree with the admiral, in that I don't think given the nature of the ground war in Kosovo that we really can get at it from the air. It's not a war that's occurring with fixed heavily-armored divisions that need lots of oil and petroleum and ammunition. These guys are wandering around with machine guns and killing people, and most of the Kosovars are already refugees either inside or outside the country. So I really think that the air war is a coercive issue now and it's not a tool of military power. It's a political tool.

JIM LEHRER: Not specific targets; it's just keep it going for psychological reasons.

CHARLES KUPCHAN: And to try to turn up the heat on Milosevic, but I don't think he's making these maneuvers now in this ploy to withdraw troops because the heat's too high, I think it's partly because he's succeeded in destroying the K.L.A. In Kosovo.

JIM LEHRER: Quickly, starting with you Ambassador Galbraith, from each of you, does this thing -- do you see a quick ending ahead, or have we still got weeks or months?

PETER GALBRAITH: I do not. In fact, I don't think that Milosevic's interests in negotiation reflects his view that he's been weakened by the bombing, but simply the fact that he feels that he's ahead, he's accomplished what he wants. And so I don't see him as agreeing to -- he'll make some concessions, but I don't think he'll come close to the essential NATO conditions.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see a quick ending?

DONALD McHENRY: I think both the bombing and the negotiations are going to go on for a little while. It does seem to me, however, that the framework for a settlement is in place.

JIM LEHRER: Admiral?

REAR ADMIRAL EUGENE CARROLL: Not a quick ending. And we're talking in terms of weeks, but the openings are there, and they should be exploited.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Kupchan?

CHARLES KUPCHAN: I think sooner rather than later, because people are getting scared that the alliance will crack, and because a lot of people are saying it's not working and they need to start walking through the diplomatic door.

JIM LEHRER: So you mean sooner from the NATO end, rather than from the Milosevic end?

CHARLES KUPCHAN: Well, it's a dance between the two; we both have to lower our expectations.

JIM LEHRER: And it takes two to dance. All right. Thank you all very much.

UPDATE - THE CHINA CONNECTION

JIM LEHRER: And speaking of China as we were, there was a House hearing today about campaign financing and the alleged involvement of China in the '96 Clinton-Gore effort. Kwame Holman reports on that.

REP. DAN BURTON: Today we have a rare thing: we have a cooperative witness.

KWAME HOLMAN: Throughout the course of a two-year investigation of fundraising abuses during the 1996 presidential campaign Dan Burton, chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, was unable to produce a major witness willing to testify publicly. But today he had Johnny Chung. Chung is one of the key figures in allegations the Chinese government tried to influence the 1996 presidential election by contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to President Clinton's campaign.

REP. DAN BURTON: What has Mr. Chung told us? He's told us that General Ji Shengde, the head of

Military Intelligence for the People's Liberation Army, gave him $300,000. General Ji would be the equivalent, as I said, of our CIA. It was wired to him through Lt. Colonel Liu Chao Ying of China Aerospace, whose father was the head of the People's Liberation Army at one time, and a member of the hierarchy in the Chinese government.

KWAME HOLMAN: Last year, Johnny Chung pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions

to the Clinton-Gore campaign and to the campaign of Democratic Senator John Kerry. But at the start of his testimony today, Chung told committee members he was not part of any grand conspiracy.

JOHNNY CHUNG: At the outset, I must make the statement and observation that I believe my testimony here today will probably disappoint a lot of people. Contrary to what some people think, I have never acted as an agent for the Chinese government. I have never sought to do anything that might facilitate any sinister attempt to undermine the interests of my country, which I love. Far from it. I am a first generation immigrant, a US citizen who, like your forefathers, do not speak English as good as my children and my wife do. But I am as loyal to my country as any of you.

KWAME HOLMAN: Chung was a major Democratic donor, contributing 360,000 dollars to the party and its candidates from 1994 to '96. Records show he visited the White House 50 times in that

period -- often with Chinese citizens who were clients of his consulting business.

JOHNNY CHUNG: These people wanted me to do everything from assisting them in getting a visa to enter this country to escorting them around the country, providing interpreter service, paying their expenses and making introductions to both business and government contacts.

KWAME HOLMAN: Chung also explained the importance of getting the President and Mrs. Clinton to pose for pictures with his clients.

JOHNNY CHUNG: For people who do business in China pictures are worth their "weight in gold." Just like many American companies, such as Coca Cola or Pepsi, will spend millions to advertise in the Super Bowl game, these business people and their companies treasure photographs with important people because in China, such photographs project a great sense of importance and reflect the degree of

your importance. Asa consequence, they were willing to provide me significant sums of money to

help them get these photos.

KWAME HOLMAN: Then in painstaking detail Chung described a 1996 meeting in China with a business woman Liu Chao Ying and a man he later learned was the head of Chinese Military Intelligence, General Ji.

JOHNNY CHUNG: The key information relayed to me at this dinner from Ji was the following:

"We really like your President. 'We hope he will be reelected" of "We like him to be re-elected."

I will give you 300,000 US dollars. You can give it to -- or use it for your President and Democrat

Party.

KWAME HOLMAN: Chung said he became uncomfortable about handling the money after Liu

told him the General's true identity.

JOHNNY CHUNG: I also pointed out that the money was supposed to be for the various business deals we had discussed in July. In response, she told me that I could use the money for three things: I could give it to the President and the Democratic Party, I could use it to take care of the General's son, Alex, and I could use it for my own purpose/business and to set up my and Liu's companies. I never had any intention to give the $300,000 to the Democrats, and I ended up following Liu's advice and used the money primarily for myself and for helping the General's son, although I did make a donation to the DNC that was from the same account into which Liu made the deposit.

KWAME HOLMAN: The FBI has been able to verify only that Chung made a donation from that

account totaling 20,000 dollars. California's Henry Waxman, the committee's top Democrat, agreed Chung's testimony doesn't point to a conspiracy.

REP. HENRY WAXMAN: It seems to me a very strange conspiracy if the Chinese government is telling you to give $300,000 through General Ji's comments, to give $300,000 to the Democratic Party, but he doesn't care whether the Democratic party or the President knows it was his money. He doesn't seem to care that you only gave $20,000 of it and not $300,000 of it to the President. If that's the way they've run their conspiracy, it seems to me a very strange notion of a China plan to reelect the President.

KWAME HOLMAN: Georgia Republican Bob Barr immediately responded to Waxman's conclusion.

REP. BOB BARR: Mr. Chairman, apparently there's more of a Gulf between the Seventh District of Georgia and Mr. Waxman's district in California than just geography. A reasonable inference clearly for purposes of pursue this matter further, if one is indeed concerned about - which some may not be -- about the integrity of our electoral system, and business as usual, maybe in California to take money from foreign sources, it is not business as usual in the Seventh District of Georgia. And when we see in the Seventh District of Georgia or when we see as former US attorneys that people meet under these circumstances, talk about funneling $300,000 in, possibly using it for the reelection of the President, very likely coming from a foreign source, then further efforts made to obstruct evidence, to intimidate witnesses, these things set off red lights.

KWAME HOLMAN: As for Chung, he received five years probation for his guilty plea and must perform 3,000 hours of community service.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a pre-Littleton school shooting update, Congress debates gun control, and Robert Pinsky reads some poetry.

UPDATE - RECOVERING FROM TRAGEDY

JIM LEHRER: Springfield, Oregon, one year after its school shooting. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

LEE HOCHBERG: Few towns outside Colorado felt the horror of the Littleton School massacre like Springfield, Oregon. Many residents are still healing from the town's own school shooting a year ago. When tragedy hit in Colorado, some, like these people tying blue ribbons in a symbolic plea for nonviolence, hurried to comfort their young.

WOMAN: We're going to make the schools safe for you, aren't we?

LITTLE GIRL: Uh-huh.

WOMAN: And you're going to have fun in school, aren't you?

LITTLE GIRL: Yes.

LEE HOCHBERG: It was a year ago when a student pumped 50 rounds of ammunition into 24 classmates in the cafeteria of Springfield's Thurston High School, killing two. 15-year-old Kip Kinkel had been arrested and suspended from school a day earlier after authorities found a gun in his locker. He allegedly shot and killed his parents later that night, then opened fire on his classmates the next day. His trial is upcoming. Police say his father had purchased the gun because of the boy's fascination with firearms.

BETINA LYNN, Shooting Victim: An emotional part of it is you realize how close you came to losing everything.

LEE HOCHBERG: Recuperation for the community and the 22 wounded teenagers has come slowly. A bullet from the assailant's gun missed Betina Lynn's spine by less than an inch. Her recovery has been painful, and she's left Thurston High.

BETINA LYNN: I couldn't sit through any movie for a couple months just because I was so fatigued with my physical recovery. And then after that, I couldn't watch any movie or television program that had any knife violence, let alone gun violence, just because I could not handle seeing it.

LEE HOCHBERG: Jesse Walley was shot in the abdomen. He says he's doing okay, but some classmates have been unable to return to the cafeteria, and they were retraumatized when the school principal announced the Colorado shooting.

JESSE WALLEY, Shooting Victim: He just came on and said, "Excuse the interruption. There's been a school -- there's a school shooting in progress in Colorado." Some of them at least were just in complete hysterics, even after they found out it was 1,000 miles away.

MONA WALLEY, Mother of Shooting Victim: I hurt so bad. I just -- I just can't believe that it happened again.

LEE HOCHBERG: Jesse's mother, Mona, says she's suffered sudden and intense crying fits since her son was shot.

MONA WALLEY: And I've done that now for a year, for a year. And will it stop next year? I don't know.

LEE HOCHBERG: The Springfield School District has used the year to consider how to prevent school shootings. The high school has hired a police officer to parole school grounds and serve as an ear for student tips. Following advice from this government handbook, teachers have been told to watch for signals of potential violence: Student rage over minor problems, unusual interest in firearms. Experts in school violence say counselors could help.

JOHN GANZ, Federal Response Team: School's a perfect place to intervene with kids at risk.

LEE HOCHBERG: John Ganz was leader of the federal response team sent to Oregon shortly after the Springfield shooting. He says the tragedy shows intervention with troubled students as early as kindergarten is needed.

JOHN GANZ: Kids like Kip Kinkel could have been intervened with. Some people feel they should have been intervened with, that we in the school could have and do have the resources to identify those kids that are at risk, and to intervene with them.

LEE HOCHBERG: But Springfield school psychologist Cathy Paine and superintendent Jamon Kent say their school's teachers and counselors are overwhelmed.

JAMON KENT, Superintendent, Springfield Schools: A teacher may have 150 to 160 kids in a day. And if that's roughly six hours, that's somewhere around two to three minutes per kid. So a kid says, "I've got a problem with a class issue or I've got a problem at home." When do we get to that child?

LEE HOCHBERG: You said that you've got three counselors.

CATHY PAINE: How many at the high school?

LEE HOCHBERG: Three.

JAMON KENT: Three, isn't it?

CATHY PAINE: Yeah.

JAMON KENT: 1,500, Three counselors.

LEE HOCHBERG: For 1,500 kids?

CATHY PAINE: Uh-huh.

LEE HOCHBERG: Are you saying there's little or nothing you can do?

JAMON KENT: For what?

LEE HOCHBERG: To reduce the odds of this happening again?

JAMON KENT: Yes, I am.

LEE HOCHBERG: Outside of school, a group called Ribbon of Promise formed in Springfield to fight violence.

STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never be an aunt.

STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never live on my own and be independent.

LEE HOCHBERG: It sponsored this Thurston High performance of "Bang, Bang, You're Dead," a gritty play in which the Springfield killer is confronted by the ghosts of the classmates he killed.

STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never achieve my dreams.

STUDENTS IN PLAY: Never!

STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never see all I want to see.

STUDENTS IN PLAY: Never!

STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never know all I wanted to know.

STUDENTS IN PLAY: Never!

STUDENT IN PLAY: It's over.

STUDENT IN PLAY: It's over!

STUDENT IN PLAY: It's over for us, Josh.

STUDENT IN PLAY: But it's just beginning for you.

STUDENT IN PLAY: For the rest of your life.

STUDENT IN PLAY: You'll have us in your head until you're dead.

STUDENT IN PLAY: And you'll see us over and over and over again as you saw us in the school cafeteria.

STUDENTS IN PLAY: Again, again, again, again, again! [Bong chimes]

STUDENT IN PLAY: Oh, God!

LEE HOCHBERG: The play is targeted directly at troubled students, says Ribbon of Promise founder Dennis Murphy, Springfield's fire chief.

DENNIS MURPHY: It principally is for the would-be shooter, the one or two or three persons that we think are literally in every school, that have considered suicide, that have considered mass splash acts of violence. The message is for them: It's not worth the price.

LEE HOCHBERG: Ribbon of Promise has been deluged with requests for ribbons since the Colorado tragedy from people supporting the group's anti-violence mission. Hopeful but saddened verse fills its computer mailbox.

SPOKESPERSON: The children run. The children hide. Pray to God that they could just go outside. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Bang, bang, bang. Pop, pop, pop.

LEE HOCHBERG: The organization hopes to set up new chapters nationwide. Still, its most powerful influence may be its most controversial. In a rural hunting and fishing town with many gun advocates, it's staked out a position in favor of gun control. Fire Chief Murphy supports a law under debate in the state legislature that would hold adults liable for failing to secure firearms. Proponents say the law might have kept Kip Kinkel away from his family's guns.

DENNIS MURPHY: They weren't locked up. They were just wide open. There was no restrictioned access at all, and the net result is what you witnessed at Thurston High School.

LEE HOCHBERG: Another bill would allow authorities to hold students like Kinkel 72 hours for evaluation if found with a gun. The federal support team's John Ganz agrees guns are the issue.

JOHN GANZ: Things are lethal now. You know, we try to say that it's our right to have and bear arms, and we end up with Springfield, Thurston High School, and Littleton. I think we have to get rid of guns. We have to get rid of them in schools; we have to get rid of them in homes.

LEE HOCHBERG: But the gun control message has found lukewarm acceptance in Springfield.

PERSON SINGING: Where have all the children gone?

LEE HOCHBERG: In July, a local TV station said it couldn't air this public service announcement that called for an end to gun-related violence because it would rub salt in the community's wounds.

PERSON SINGING: Gone to graveyards one by one oh, when will we ever learn?

LEE HOCHBERG: And even some victims of the shooting spree don't want to see more restrictions put on guns.

JESSE WALLEY: No, I think we should be able to use them and understand them. You go out hunting, and if you've never had a chance to use a gun before, you're going to end up hurting yourself or someone else.

LEE HOCHBERG: 17-year-old Jesse Walley says he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. His mother, Mona, does support the proposed 72-hour evaluation period for students with guns, but says in this hunting town, guns and kids are not an inherently bad mix.

MONA WALLEY: You can build a strong family bond or strong manly bond with your son that way.

LEE HOCHBERG: The issue isn't going away. Since the Colorado shooting, two Springfield students have been charged with threatening to blow up a local school, and another fired his BB Gun at students on campus. Amidst the turmoil, some in the community are seeking meaning in these artistic impressions of the tragedy on its first anniversary-- artwork done by Springfield students themselves. [music in background] Psychologists say the town's nightmare is nowhere near ended. Retraumatization continuing with the anniversary and upcoming court trial for the student suspect could last another two to four years.

FOCUS - CONTROLLING GUNS

JIM LEHRER: The school shooting in Oregon led to a gun control debate there as we saw; the recent Littleton shooting brought that debate to Congress. Phil Ponce has that.

PHIL PONCE: Gun control legislation is being debated this week on both sides of Capitol Hill. Today the Senate took up a bill that would toughen penalties for juvenile crimes and will include some gun control measures. Later in the week the House Judiciary Committee will take up the issue. Two members of that committee are with us: Republican Congressman Bill McCollum of Florida, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime and the sponsor of legislation that would help states fight juvenile crime; and Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of California. She's the author of legislation that would ban all gun sales unless approved by the federal government. Representative Lofgren, if I can begin with you, you call your proposed legislation the Save a Child Act. Tell us more about how it would work.

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, one of the things that bothers me is we did get political consensus to ban certain kinds of assault weapons. One is the Tech .9. However, the manufacturer, for example -

PHIL PONCE: The Tech .9 being an automatic weapon.

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: It is. The manufacturer, a guy by the name of Carlos Garcia, whose company in Miami, makes these things, he's gotten around that ban by making minor changes. For example, the assault weapon used in Littleton was the Tech DC-9, which is basically the same gun with "DC" stamped on it to avoid the ban on assault weapons. And I just don't think that's right. I think we ought to have -- instead of letting the manufacturers get around the ban on assault weapons, we ought to have a pre-clearance by the Secretary of the Treasury so that these models, if they're assault weapons, if they're banned by law, they can't then be sold just by making minor changes to avoid the law.

PHIL PONCE: Rep. Lofgren, just to make sure I understand what your proposed legislation would do, it would create an outright ban on the sale of all guns, with the exceptions carved out by the Secretary of the Treasury, is that correct?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, the intention is that you would not be - you would have to get approval for the model to avoid the going around of the ban on assault weapons, as happened since then, the ban.

PHIL PONCE: And Representative McCollum, your reaction to that scheme?

REP. BILL McCOLLUM: I don't like giving that much discretion to any agency or any one group. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would undoubtedly administer this. I think that what we should keep in mind is two things: One, none of us want to see minors possessing these kinds of firearms that in this particular instance were being possessed in Littleton. There are law already on the books that prohibit a lot of that, and they need to be enforced properly. And, secondly, where we can improve those things that are there in the law, we need to take a look at doing that. And there are some things the President, I understand, is going to propose -- we haven't seen his legislative package yet -- that all of us are going to agree on - not everything he proposes but some of them. For example, a youngster who is convicted today as an adult is prohibited if it's a serious violent crime from possessing a gun in the future. But if it's in juvenile court, it's a juvenile delinquency, even though it's a serious violent crime, that youngster later on in life is possess a gun. And I think that law needs to be changed there, as it does with explosives. But last, and not least, we need to keep in mind the sole problem and the focus out of Littleton shouldn't be on guns. While they may be a serious problem in certain respects with minors, there are a lot of other reasons why we're having violence in this country among youth - that we had guns - a large number around here long before we had this major group of incidents that have come forward in Littleton and just before that. And we need to look at those - like the failure of the juvenile system, which is really broken in this country --some of the problems that we know we've got out there with so much violence on television and Internet, and so forth, that are influencing these kids, and the question of parental and school and church and other supervision over these youth. Why did this happen? Why weren't they caught earlier? Those questions are as important if not more important than the issue of the guns.

PHIL PONCE: Representative Lofgren, are those equally important questions?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, certainly, the whole issue of violence is important. And I think we ought to look at the entire picture. However, I don't think it's true that 30 years ago a lot of teenagers had assault weapons. I just don't think that that's a fact in evidence. And sure, there is things on the Internet that we don't like, but I do know this: If you've got a child who's having a problem who wants -- who's enraged and angry and they've got their fists, they'll do one level of damage. If they've got an assault weapon, they'll do another level of damage. So we do need to include as we look at the whole issue of making children safer, the issue of children's access to assault weapons and to guns, especially children who are disturbed. I am hopeful that listening to Bill here that we will find some common ground. We certainly should, the country is calling on us to do that.

PHIL PONCE: Rep. Lofgren, how do you respond to the congressman's earlier statement that there are plenty of laws on the books already and it's a question of their being enforced?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, I mean, that's why I introduced my bill. And I'm hopeful that we can look at it in maybe Mr. McCollum's subcommittee. And if it needs to be defined better we can do that as well. But, in fact, it wasn't illegal, I don't believe, to have a Tech DC-9, because it evaded the ban. The President's proposed that teenagers shouldn't be allowed to possess assault weapons. And I agree with that. I don't see a reason why a teenager needs an assault weapon.

PHIL PONCE: Representative McCollum, do you see any reason why a teenager should be allowed to have an assault weapon?

REP. BILL McCOLLUM: No, I don't - and I don't think the debate is really over that. Of course, we can argue what an assault weapon is and I know what Zoe Lofgren wants to do is probably expand that definition a little bit further than we have it today. But the thing I'm most concerned about at the present time again is the focus of this -- so much discussion of guns. We have a bill that's come out of the Subcommittee on Crime that was prepared before Littleton that is unanimously supported by Democrats and Republicans alike.

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: I'm a co-sponsor of that.

REP. BILL McCOLLUM: And you're a co-sponsor. It should be in the full Judiciary Committee perhaps as early as next week and then on the floor of the House, dealing with trying to correct a broken juvenile justice system. And what I see in Littleton, while it's just one piece, it's a big piece of the puzzle nationwide, is a failure of the justice system in the juvenile sense to capture youngsters early like they should. What we found in studying this problem nationwide is that all too often a juvenile who commits an early misdemeanor crime, such as spray painting graffiti on a warehouse wall, or doing something like running over a parking meter, or throwing a rock through a store window, does not get any punishment in juvenile court -- often isn't even taken in, in many of our urban areas by the local authorities, because the system is overworked. We don't have enough juvenile judges, or probation officers, or diversion programs, et cetera. And what we are proposing in this legislation is a major grant program to the states that gives them money to improve their juvenile system, have drug courts, gun courts, school safety, whatever they want to use it for in that regard, if they do one thing -- if they ensure the United States Attorney General that they're going to put in place a system of graduated sanctions to punish the very early juvenile delinquent with some kind of consequences, community service, not necessarily time locked up in jail or in delinquent centers, but some kind of consequences put into the law at the very early stages -- because the experts all say that if the kids have consequences early on, they're far less likely to be getting into trouble later using guns or whatever in violent crime. I think this is the single thing we can do right now that we all agree on would be extremely beneficial.

PHIL PONCE: Representative Lofgren, not enough consequences at the moment?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: What I think is this - that we shouldn't look for a single solution. And I'm a co-sponsor of the bill - I think we all are. And I think it's a good thing to do, and I think it's the right thing to do. It will keep some kids from getting in trouble, and that's great.

PHIL PONCE: But what are you saying, that it doesn't go far enough, or it doesn't address the real issue?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: All I'm saying is that if think we can come up with a system that makes sure that every kid in America doesn't get in trouble, then we're fooling ourselves. No system is perfect. What we need to do is reduce the access of kids to weapons of destruction, like assault weapons, in addition to doing the kind of juvenile justice reform and prevention that Bill has talked about, which I endorse. We need to that, we need to talk about our culture, but we can't use that as an excuse not also to talk about the access of kids to assault weapons. We need to do something about that as well.

PHIL PONCE: Representative McCollum, does your focus on consequences take into account the kind of access that Representative Lofgren is talking about?

REP. BILL McCOLLUM: Not in this particular legislation, but it does in the long run, because what we're dealing with, with consequences -- if kids know and understand that when they perform some criminal act there's going to be some consequence to that, then they're far less likely, all the sociologists, all the people in juvenile justice tell me far less likely, later on, as they progress, and they often do frequently with a long track record of things that never came before juvenile courts that should have probably, far less likely to get involved and commit those offenses, whether it's with a gun or without a gun. It's very, very important to do. Now, that's not to say that I disagree with Ms. Lofgren with regard to the fact there are other factors involved. The hearing on Thursday of this week in the full Judiciary Committee is going to focus largely on the culture question in the sense that we have such a high level of violence these kids are being exposed to -- many youngsters -- we're being told -- really don't understand the consequences of their acts and what is reality as a result of this. And that's occurred much more rapidly in recent years. So I agree with her to the extent that there's no single silver bullet to this in the sense of a solution, but to focus, as I've heard so many do recently, on the gun issue alone is really the wrong emphasis. It's not to say there aren't things we can do with that area, but the idea of the guns being the principal source of the problem here is not right either.

PHIL PONCE: Representative Lofgren, in the short time we have left, what do you think is the likelihood Congress is going to come up with something given all that's happened?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, I'm hopeful we can go to the sensible middle on gun measures. I mean, no one is saying that people who like to hunt shouldn't be able to go out and hunt. But I do think there are some reasonable, sensible things that we can do that will diminish the ability of kids to have access to guns when they shouldn't have them. And I also mentioned that a number of these kids in these shootings that have happened in these schools have never been involved in the juvenile justice system at all, and so wouldn't be subject to graduated sanctions, because they never got in that kind of trouble before. So we need to do the juvenile justice repair, we need to do something about the culture of violence, and we also need to do something about sensible control of guns with kids, And I'm hopeful that we will step up to the plate as the American people want us to do and accomplish all three of those things.

PHIL PONCE: Representative Lofgren, Representative McCollum, I thank you both very much.

REP. BILL McCOLLUM: Thank you.

FINALLY - CHILDREN'S BARDS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, remembering two writers who spoke to children. Here is NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate of the United States.

ROBERT PINSKY: Shel Silverstein, the beloved and immensely popular author of poems for children, died yesterday. By an odd coincidence, tomorrow is the birthday of Silverstein's great predecessor, Edward Lear, the master of limerick and nonsense praised by T.S. Eliot, among others. Lear was born in 1812, Silverstein in 1932. Shel Silverstein, like Lear, was an illustrator, as well as an author. His books include "Where the Sidewalk Ends," "A Light in the Attic," and "Falling Up." I'll pay Silverstein the tribute of reading a couple of his poems, along with one by Edward Lear, who I think was one of Silverstein's models. Here, just for a taste of the rhythm, is Silverstein on his beard, "My Beard." "My beard grows to my toes, I never wears no clothes, I wraps my hair around my bare, and down the road I goes." This recalls some lines from Edward Lear's poem on himself. "How pleasant to know Mr. Lear, who has written such volumes of stuff. Some think him ill-tempered and queer, but a few think him pleasant enough. His mind is concrete and fastidious, his nose is remarkably big; his visage is more or less hideous, his beard, it resembles a wig. He has ears and two eyes, and ten fingers, leastways if you reckon two thumbs; long ago he was one of the singers, but now he is one of the dumbs." There is a side of Shel Silverstein's writing that's softer, more overtly sweet than anything I know by Edward Lear. And those qualities appear in the title poem of "Where the Sidewalk Ends." "There's a place where the sidewalk ends and before the street begins, and there the grass grows soft and white, and there the sun burns crimson bright, and there the moon bird rests from his flight to cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black and the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow, we shall walk with a walk that's measured and slow, and watch where the chalk-white arrows go to the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes, we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and we'll go where the chalk- white arrows go, for the children, they mark, and the children, they know the place where the sidewalk ends." I salute these two very successful and profession practitioners of that difficult genre, the playful.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday. NATO missiles struck targets throughout Yugoslavia. China continued to demand a full explanation of the attack on its embassy in Belgrade. And Former Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung testified he bought access to President Clinton and other party figures through campaign contributions. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.