The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I`m Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the coming of a presidential commission to reform Social Security, a Newsmaker interview with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, some analysis of the church bombing verdict in Birmingham, Alabama, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay about a baby girl named Jessica. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush today named a 16-member commission to reform Social Security. It will be co-chaired by former Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, and Republican Richard Parsons, an AOL Time Warner executive. The President said its recommendations should include a plan to let younger workers invest payroll taxes in the stock market. Democratic leaders charged the group was stacked in favor of such a stock investment plan, and they said that`s a risky idea. The commission is due to report this fall. And we`ll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Congressional Republicans today struck a deal with the White House on spending for the 2002 federal budget. Funding for everything except entitlement programs, such as Social Security, would grow 5%. President Bush originally wanted a limit of 4%. After a meeting at the White House, Republicans said they expected the budget to pass with Democratic support. And this time, Congress would abide by the spending limit.

SEN. PETE DOMENICI: It`s going to hold because you have a different team. We have the President in town.

SPOKESMAN: That`s right.

SEN. PETE DOMENICI: And he`s not going to be at the end trying to say, "whatever you want, I want to add to what I want." He`s going to be there saying, "I don`t want you to spend more than you agreed to in the budget."

JIM LEHRER: But at the Capitol, Democratic leaders said the spending plan is unrealistic. They said there`s a major imbalance between the amount of money set aside for the first year of tax cuts and the amount devoted to other priorities.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: The figures that I think are as stark as they can be are somewhere in the $3 billion increase in education commitment and a $69 billion tax-cut commitment. That is what you hear from this President proclaiming to be a President who supports education.

JIM LEHRER: The House is expected to take up the final budget package tomorrow. The Senate may do so as well. Israeli Foreign Minister Peres said today there could be wide ranging talks with the Palestinians once the violence stops, but he told the Associated Press Israel would not renew an offer the Palestinians rejected last year; it called for a Palestinian state encompassing virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza. Peres spoke during a visit to Washington, and we`ll talk to him later in our program, tonight. In the Philippines today, President Arroyo warned she`d have more opposition leaders arrested. She declared a state of rebellion Tuesday after violent protests over the jailing of former President Joseph Estrada. We have a report from Louise Bates of Associated Press Television News.

LOUISE BATES: The round-up of Filipino opposition leaders continues. This villa belongs to Senator Gregorio Honasan, an ally of former President Estrada. Security forces have come to arrest him, but he`s not here. The arrests follow Tuesday`s violent clashes outside the Presidential palace, which left six people dead. On Wednesday, the scene at the palace was calm, with the Filipino army on hand to ensure it remains so. President Gloria Arroyo has issued orders for the arrest of 11 opposition leaders accused of inciting the riots. So far, four are in custody. But she said she wouldn`t be declaring martial law for now.

PRESIDENT GLORIA ARROYO: I have no intention of declaring martial law. I hope they will not provoke me, the opposition, into doing that. But I have no intention of declaring martial law.

LOUISE BATES: For now, the Philippines stands at a crossroads, with no one sure which way things will turn.

JIM LEHRER: One opposition leader warned today that democracy in the Philippines is now in its death throes. Russia is ready to talk about President Bush`s missile defense proposal. That word came today from Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov. Moscow has strongly opposed U.S. proposals for a missile shield. But Ivanov said it`s good that President Bush plans to consult with other countries. Separately, China`s official news agency warned again that a U.S. missile defense system could cause a new arms race. In Birmingham, Alabama, today, lawyers for a former Ku Klux Klansman laid plans to appeal his conviction in a 1963 church bombing. Thomas Blanton was found guilty Tuesday of murdering four young black girls in the attack in Birmingham, Alabama. He was given four life sentences. He is 62 years old. We`ll have more on this story later in the program tonight. Also coining up, fixing Social Security, Israeli Foreign Minister Peres, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

FOCUS - RETHINKING SOCIAL SECURITY

JIM LEHRER: The new Social Security commission. We begin with a report from Susan Dentzer of our health unit, a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: With today`s announcement, President Bush made good on a campaign pled to launch a sweeping reform of Social Security; a program that he said faced long-term financial challenges.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: It has been apparent for many years that Social Security itself is becoming insecure. Social Security was designed for an era when few Americans lived much past the age of 65. When Social Security was created, there was about 40 workers paying Social Security taxes for every one retiree receiving benefits. Today there are three workers for every retiree; soon, there will be two.

SUSAN DENTZER: The President said steps were needed to address these trends and to make the program solvent over the long haul. But he also said a key component of reform should be offering younger workers the chance to invest some of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. Those, in turn, could be invested in stock and bond mutual funds and potentially other investments.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Today, young workers who pay into Social Security might as well be saving their money in their mattresses. Personal savings accounts will transform Social Security from a government IOU into personal property and real assets, property that workers will own in their own names and that they can pass along to their children. Ownership, independence, access to wealth should not be the privilege of a few. They`re the hope of every American, and we must make them the foundation of Social Security.

SUSAN DENTZER: To help deliver on that goal, the President appointed a commission heavily weighted with proponents of private accounts. They included the Democratic and Republican co-chairs: Former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and AOL Time Warner executive Richard Parsons, who previously served in the Ford administration. Parsons was blunt.

RICHARD PARSONS: I am a baby boomer. I was born in 1948, and I`ve been contributing to the Social Security system since 1964. And until this point in time I`ve never believed that I was going to get anything out of Social Security when I retired. (Laughter) Never. (Applause)

SUSAN DENTZER: President Bush also named to the panel 14 others nominally split between the two parties, including business executives, economists and other former government officials. But moments after the panel members were introduced at the White House, the criticism began. House and Senate minority leaders Richard Gephardt and Tom Daschle met with reporters on Capitol Hill.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: This is not a bipartisan Social Security commission, this is a Presidential advocacy commission; it is a preordained outcome. As Tom said, all of the members of the commission have already stated in one way or another that they are for the President`s plan.

SUSAN DENTZER: And that plan merited skepticism, they said, especially in light of the recent stock market slump.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: I would ask anybody a year ago, if you had the choice of investing in your NASDAQ account or investing in Social Security, which of those two accounts would be better today? Which would be stronger? And there is no doubt in our mind that a Social Security account over the last year would have been far stronger.

SUSAN DENTZER: And the critics charged that as Congress negotiates with the President on his proposed tax cut and spending plans, the money once earmarked for private accounts is disappearing.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: If you really take their privatization proposal and put it up against the budget, it would cost the budget an additional trillion dollars of funds in order to fund these private accounts over the next ten years. Where is that going to fit in to the budget that they`re talking about? In truth, what he announced yesterday on taxes makes impossible what he announced today on Social Security.

SUSAN DENTZER: The President wants the new commission to report back to him next fall in the hope that reform legislation could be introduced next year.

JIM LEHRER: Susan Dentzer is now with Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Susan, tell us more about this commission. Are the Democrats right when they say that all these commissioners are basically down-the-line supporters of some kind of privatization?

SUSAN DENTZER: Well, it`s certainly true that all the commissioners who previously said anything about Social Security or are known to hold views on Social Security are more or less in favor of individual accounts, with some nuances. Some of them don`t want to do individual accounts at any cost. They`re very concerned, some of them, about how you would pay for them over the long haul. But, generally speaking, the ones who have been vocal on Social Security do favor individual accounts. This is though like any typical Government commission. There are people who know a great deal about the subject. There are people who know next to nothing about the subject on this commission. And there are people who are pretty much window dressing.

MARGARET WARNER: The criticism is certainly predictable when the White House stacks a commission like this. Why did the White House do it this way?

SUSAN DENTZER: There was much furious attempt to read tealeaves in Washington today on just that question. One model of a Social Security reform commission would have had sitting lawmakers empowered to make decisions, go back, push them through their committees, push legislation, round up votes; that`s not this model. Another model would have potentially reached out in what is in effect a very contentious area. What do we do with the biggest government program that most of us have a great deal of a financial stake in? One model said reach out to people on the other side, people of different views. Democrats who hold very different views from the President, the kind of true bipartisanship that the Democrats in Congress are constantly hammering on the President to deliver when he says, in fact, that`s his goal to deliver on- that would have been another model; that was not the model that this commission is. What this commission does appear to be is a group of people-again, some of them very, very respected economists- who are predisposed to individual accounts who are probably there to do some thinking through of some very technical issues about how you set up individual accounts and meet some of the other parameters that the President laid out for them.

MARGARET WARNER: Because the executive order laying this out says they`re supposed to come up- I think they say- to modernize and restore fiscal soundness to Social Security. But then there are these very tight parameters. I mean, they`re on a pretty short leash with what they can come up with.

SUSAN DENTZER: Right. In effect, they were told they can`t look at the idea that has be floated of taking Social Security surpluses that are building up or the Social Security trust funds and investing those directly in the stock market to raise the rate of return of the funds of the program.

MARGARET WARNER: You mean where the government would do that.

SUSAN DENTZER: Where the government in effect would do that. That was off limits. Not surprisingly, that`s something that ideologically Bush and others have long been opposed to. They were also told though, in effect set some goals that were potentially mutually exclusive. One, is that these accounts should be made voluntary. Lots of people who have looked at this idea of making individual accounts voluntary say it`s not workable; that, in fact, it could further jeopardize the financial stability of the program. So that`s one hurdle they`re going to have to overcome. An additional hurdle is in effect since he told them to make the program fiscally sound over the long haul, there`s no one who has looked at this who thinks that only instituting individual accounts accomplishes that. In fact, there has to be substantial new money injected into the Social Security system or very large benefit cuts or some combination of both.

MARGARET WARNER: But does it look to you as if essentially the White House said... Not come up with whatever you think is the best plan, but rather, "here`s what we think is the best plan: Find a way to make it work - come up with the mechanics"?

SUSAN DENTZER: There are, again, many theories about what this commission is supposed to do. One school of thought says it`s really just buying time for six months or so while we get some of these big debates over this year`s budget and this tax cut behind us. That`s useful because that will tell us how much money there is left to fund the individual accounts in the future, if any, and also what could potentially be left ten years from now when the rubber really hits the road and the mechanisms of funding individual accounts get quite difficult. So that could be one objective. Another possible objective is to think through these technical issues and potentially even come out with the bald truth that it`s going to be very, very difficult to do this without putting new money into the system.

MARGARET WARNER: So that raises the cost issue. Now the Democrats say that to do what President Bush said as a candidate he wanted to do, that kind of privatization would cost a trillion dollars over ten years, and the money is already gone. Are they right about that? Where does the White House think the money is?

SUSAN DENTZER: Well, in fact, what the White House says is there`s enough money building up in the Social Security surpluses over a ten- year period so that you could take something on the order of $80 billion, $100 billion a year and use that money to seed the individual accounts. And that probably is workable for about ten years. At that point, given the great uncertainty of budget surplus projections, that aside, it becomes very, very difficult to do that, and in fact, over time it probably accelerates the rate at which Social Security becomes insolvent. The only way out of that is to put more money into the program. And it`s interesting that Caroline Weaver, one of the economists on the panel who was on a prior Social Security Commission, supported an individual accounts proposal back then that actually would have not only raised the payroll tax, floated a trillion dollars of government bonds in order to finance the individual accounts approach. That was a plan that basically recognized the true cost and dimension of doing this, and it could be that this panel maybe is going to put some reality on the actual mechanisms of having individual accounts.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, finally, the panel has been asked to report by this fall pretty quickly, but given all these obstacles we`ve just laid out, I mean, what realistically can we expect or when can we expect it to actually lead to something in the way of legislation or even a proposal?

SUSAN DENTZER: There is some belief that this has to be done before the midterm elections because of the risk that the Houses of Congress could change hands. So one school, the pro- privatization school, is pushing that this be done very quickly. And in fact Treasury Secretary O`Neill has repeatedly said that after the tax cut is out of the way, this is the next big item on the agenda. This issue, however, is so contentious, this would be the largest structural reform in the program since its inception in the 1930s. It`s very difficult to believe that that skates through Congress on a narrow party line vote and particularly in a run- up to mid-term election.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Susan. Thanks very much.

SUSAN DENTZER: Thanks, Margaret.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Israeli Foreign Minister Peres, the church bombing verdict in Alabama, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Now, the first of two Middle East visitors to Washington. Tomorrow, we`ll be talking with Faisal Huseini, a top official in the Palestinian Authority. Tonight, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Terence smith has that.

TERENCE SMITH: Foreign Minister Peres has been involved in talks about a cease fire to end seven months of violence between Israel and the Palestinians. On Sunday, he was in Cairo discussing an Egyptian-Jordanian plan. Today, he held a news conference with Secretary of State Colin Powell at the State Department. Reporters asked Powell if negotiations would resume soon.

COLIN POWELL: We need to start going down the escalator of violence. You can`t have the kind of negotiations that will be needed between the parties under the current conditions of violence. What the foreign minister has been doing is exploring with Egyptian interlocutors and Jordanian interlocutors and Palestinian interlocutors some ideas in a non-paper that has been well covered and well reported. But you can`t move in that direction until we really see the violence go down and until, I think, economic activity gets started up again between the two sides. And so it is not going to happen all at once and it`s not going to happen all three pieces at once, but we`ve got to get started. And it has been my judgment from the very day I became Secretary of State that the first thing that has to happen, in a serious way, in a way that everybody can see, in a demonstrable way, is a lowering of the level of violence. I think the Israelis have indicated that they are anxious to work with the Palestinians and reduce the level of violence. We have security coordination going on between the two sides at several levels, hosted by the United States. And I think once the violence level goes down, more will be forthcoming from the Israeli side. We talked about settlements, obviously, and there are no new settlements. We have that assurance. And we had a good discussion of the controversial issue of growth and expansion of existing settlements, and that, obviously, will be something that both sides will have to talk about in due course. But we had a full discussion of the whole issue of settlements.

TERENCE SMITH: Tomorrow, Foreign Minister Peres meets with President Bush. A longtime leader of the Labor Party, he joined Prime Minister Ariel Sharon`s coalition government in March. And he joins us now. Mr. Foreign minister, welcome to the broadcast.

SHIMON PERES: Thank you.

TERENCE SMITH: We just heard Secretary Powell saying that really nothing can be accomplished until the violence is diminished and stopped. And yet today again there were mortar firing from the Palestinians. There were Israeli tanks in Gaza. How do you stop this pattern of tit for tat?

SHIMON PERES: Well, much depends upon the leadership of the Palestinians. Much depends upon Yasser Arafat. But the truth is that not only we are suffering out of the terror, so are the Palestinians.

TERENCE SMITH: And in much greater numbers, in fact.

SHIMON PERES: Yes, it`s a tragedy for the Palestinians. You know, it`s a repetition of the very same mistakes that were committed and have been committed 53 years ago when they were over a state of their own as a result of the resolution of the United Nations, they have rejected it. They started terror; they created the problem of refugees. All of us regret it. It was a man made tragedy totally unnecessary.

TERENCE SMITH: Is there anything... Admittedly, of course, there are two parties to this. Is there anything Israel can do on its part to stop this cycle?

SHIMON PERES: Israel can and does many things. First of all, we decided unilaterally and unconditionally to improve the conditions on the West Bank and Gaza.

TERENCE SMITH: Of the people there.

SHIMON PERES: To stop the closure, to increase the number of the Palestinians working in Israel, to lift all the restrictions on exports and imports to provide water, to provide drops. It is to our interest to see that the Palestinians people, the civilian life, will not suffer.

TERENCE SMITH: Earlier we mentioned that there is an Egyptian- Jordanian truce initiative that has been proposed. You`ve discussed it. Is it at least the basis for negotiation?

SHIMON PERES: It can serve as the basis if you add Israeli input to it because the papers or the non-papers as it`s being called was initiated by the Egyptians, the Jordanians in consultations with the Palestinians. Now, such a paper cannot be of value unless the Israelis will participate in it or support it.

TERENCE SMITH: What additional things does Israel want to see included?

SHIMON PERES: We would like first of all to distinguish between things that were agreed and were not implemented, and they should be implemented, and things that were not agreed we have to negotiate. So it must be a clear distinction. And then I think there is a list of confidence-building measures which names only what are the measures that Israel has to take without mentioning the measures the Palestinians have to take. So it must be more even-handed, more objective, more to the point where we stand on the negotiations.

TERENCE SMITH: The central point of it is to get a truce in place, and then to have a ceasefire for a month or more in order to create the conditions where these talks can resume, is that right?

SHIMON PERES: Well, if I can correct it, the ceasefire is not for a month. To have a cease-fire, and after several weeks to start the negotiations - the cease-fire will not stop then until we continue - because you cannot negotiate under fire. The nature of negotiation is to offer compromises and concessions. And when people shoot at you, you cannot negotiate. We are telling the Palestinians, look, bullets will not unite us. Bombs will make our position tougher. Talks will open up and really reveal the extent to which we are ready to go in order to achieve peace.

TERENCE SMITH: So if the Palestinians are will to go commit themselves to an ongoing cease-fire, a continuing cease-fire,...

SHIMON PERES: For their own with Israel.

TERENCE SMITH:... Then the negotiations can resume.

SHIMON PERES: Right.

TERENCE SMITH: And are you hopeful of that?

SHIMON PERES: The basis of the negotiations are so clear. You know, we have three signed agreements: Oslo, Wye Plantation and Sharmashaf....

TERENCE SMITH: These three agreements over the past several years?

SHIMON PERES: Exactly so. I think all of us invested so much in writing down the agreements and not enough in implementing them that we have more paper than reality. This time we would like to draw the necessary conclusion and put the emphasis on the implementation. Would those agreements be implemented, the whole situation would be different.

TERENCE SMITH: In fact as part of those agreements, Israel is obligated to a further withdrawal.

SHIMON PERES: Yes.

TERENCE SMITH: Is she prepared to do it?

SHIMON PERES: Yes, we are prepared to do it if the two parties will do like wise, I mean, all of us have to implement all parts of the agreement. You cannot expect one side to just implement his obligation and the other side will do nothing. So if the Palestinians will be ready to implement, as they should, we should also implement as we would like to do,

TERENCE SMITH: Secretary Powell in the clip we just saw also raised the question of the settlements. - not only no new settlements but the subject of expanding or allowing the settlements to grow. What is Israel prepared to do in that department?

SHIMON PERES: To start with, the present government that has a majority of the right put in its own guiding lines out of our own free will not to build any more settlements, no settlements. It`s quite an achievement. It wasn`t the traditional position of the rightist parties in Israel. Then on the other hand we have to permit the nature of growth to take place. We cannot tell couples to stop producing children. We cannot start building kindergartens for the children. You know, it`s a living organism. And you have to answer whatever life requires.

TERENCE SMITH: So you intend to allow growth to continue within the settlements.

SHIMON PERES: The natural growth. We don`t intend to expand the settlements.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. You`re meeting tomorrow with President Bush.

SHIMON PERES: Yes.

TERENCE SMITH: What are you going to ask him to do, which is another way of asking, what do you hope or want the United States to do now to get this process moving again?

SHIMON PERES: First of all, to continue in the clearest possible way to fight the combat against terrorism. Terrorism became a global danger. We went from a world of enemies to a world of dangers that may arrive everywhere. A group like the bin Laden group can endanger many people in different places indiscriminately. And our feeling today is that the Bush administration position is that terrorism is a non-American act like it used to be with Communism. It`s not only a crime; it`s a sin. And there won`t be any compromises on it. I hope the Palestinians will draw the necessary conclusions from it. You can argue. You can disagree. You can negotiate: Don`t shoot, don`t kill, don`t aim at children, at women, at innocent people.

TERENCE SMITH: Do you want the United States to become more active than it has been? The Bush administration has been more reluctant certainly than Clinton administration to get involved.

SHIMON PERES: We want a clear division of labor. We think the United States should lead the fight against terror in all places including Israel and the Palestinians. On the other hand, when it comes to the negotiations, we prefer to negotiate face-to-face where the United States will play the role of a facilitator not a chief negotiator.

TERENCE SMITH: Let me ask you about Syria. Tensions escalated a few weeks ago between Israel and Syria involving Lebanon. For a long time Israelis have argued that the Syrians are a stabilizing presence in Lebanon. Is that your view now, or do you think it`s time for the Syrians to leave Lebanon?

SHIMON PERES: It`s none of our business. We think that the best thing that can happen is to see Lebanon freed from any occupation. The initial reason for the Syrians to come to Lebanon disappeared because our army left Lebanon. And the best thing as far as we are concerned is to see a completely independent Lebanon, keeping its territorial integrity, living in peace and not in division and hatred. The problem in Lebanon today is that you have one land and three armed forces: The occupying forces of Syria, 30,000 soldiers, the Lebanese army, which is not permitted to fulfill its obligations and you have the Hezbollah. When you have three armed forces, you don`t have a country, you don`t have a policy, you don`t have a state; you have a cause, you have assassinations and killing and dangers. You know, the Hezbollah is priding itself that they have expelled the Israeli army from Lebanon. They forget that they were the reason why the Israeli army entered Lebanon. We have nothing to do in Lebanon. We are not searching Lebanese land or water or politics. We are forced to defend our life. The best thing that can happen is let Lebanon become Lebanon and stand on their own feet, on their own strengths, with their own destination.

TERENCE SMITH: Shimon Peres, thank you very much.

SHIMON PERES: Thank you.

FOCUS - JUSTICE IN ALABAMA

JIM LEHRER: Next, a guilty verdict in Alabama 37 years after a fatal church bombing. Betty Ann Bowser begins our coverage.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: 62-year-old Thomas Blanton, avowed racist and former Ku Klux Klan member, was led away in handcuffs moments after being found guilty. The only thing he said was, "I guess the Lord will settle on judgment day." The Birmingham jury of eight whites and four blacks took just two-and-a-half hours to reach its verdict. There were no white men on the jury. Blanton was convicted of first- degree murder in the bombing deaths of four young black girls, 11-year-old Denise McNair, and 14-year- olds Cynthia Wesley, Carol Robinson and Addie Mae Collins died while they were waiting for church services inside the 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15,1963. The explosion got international attention at the time and galvanized civil rights leaders to press for federal laws to protect African Americans. Prosecutor Doug Jones said the verdict would not have been possible in the racially charged atmosphere of 1960s, and he was not troubled by charges the jury`s decision was based on emotion.

DOUG JONES: They say that, you know, justice delayed is justice denied. Well, folks, I don`t believe that for an instant. Justice delayed is still justice, and we got it right here in Birmingham tonight.

REPORTER: Is this a conviction that could have been gotten in the mid-`60s?

DOUG JONES: I think it would have been very, very difficult. As y`all... Y`all saw the evidence. This was not an overwhelming case. I think that in the climate of the `60s, it would have been very difficult. I don`t think you would have had African Americans on a jury. And I think there are a lot of things that have changed. And I think it`d be very difficult, plus, you know, you can`t get away from some emotion in this case. I mean, there were children that died, and you can`t get away from that. And I think that to... To analyze the evidence and see the evidence, and to see that after all of this time that someone can be brought to the bar of justice and sentenced to life in prison, that is in and of itself is an emotional time.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Blanton`s defense attorney, John Robbins, was troubled with the jury`s quick decision, which he said was based on emotion.

JOHN ROBBINS: The prosecutors indicated if there wasn`t... If they didn`t convict, that these girls would have died in vain, and I don`t think that`s true. I think the girls will always be a monument to freedom, to justice... I mean, long after we`re all... we`re gone. But justice doesn`t mean simply to convict just so we all feel good about ourselves. Justice means making decisions without the emotion, making them by analyzing the evidence. If the evidence is there, then you convict; if it`s not, no matter whether you feel that he`s guilty, you can`t convict.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Birmingham attorney Carole Smitherman was best friends with one of the four girls, Denise McNair; she had planned to attend services with McNair that Sunday morning back in 1963 until her mother said no. For her, the verdict meant a long nightmare was over.

CAROLE SMITHERMAN: I don`t think we could ever right a wrong like that because so... Because I wonder what kind of person Denise would be right now. She`d probably be getting ready for grandchildren or something that. So we can`t recapture all that time for her. It`s gone. But I think it does start for Birmingham, and for those of us who`ve been here over the years, to start looking forward and having more faith in the system that we`re asked to believe in blindly.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In the days after the bombing, hundreds of FBI agents were dispatched to Birmingham. After a two-year investigation, four men were named as unindicted co-conspirators, but no one was charged with the crimes. And then-FBI Director J, Edgar Hoover closed the investigation without ever giving an explanation. In 1977, after a key witness came forward with new information, one of the four, Robert Chambliss- considered the ring leader, known as "Dynamite Bob"--was tried and convicted. He later died in prison in 1985. A second suspect died in 1994. In the 1990s, at the urging of local black leaders, the FBI reopened its investigation. The Government originally intended to try both Blanton and the fourth suspect, Bobby Frank Cherry, but Cherry was recently declared incompetent to stand trial. Because there was no federal murder statute in 1963, Blanton was tried on state murder charges by the U.S. Attorney`s office in a Jefferson County courtroom here in Birmingham. Prosecutor Doug Jones portrayed Blanton as a man who hated African Americans so much, he would constantly taunt them. Much of the case was based on circumstantial evidence. On FBI surveillance tapes, Blanton was heard to talk about "the bomb, the big one," and on one tape he bragged about not getting caught, but he never admitted planting a bomb. The recordings were so old and hard to understand, even with technical enhancement, that the jury had to listen on special headphones. Since the prosecution could not place Blanton at the scene of the crime, defense attorney John Robbins told the jury the Government had the wrong man. Robbins also made no bones about Blanton and the others being racist.

REPORTER: But you yourself said that he has bad character,....

JOHN ROBBINS: Doesn`t make him a bomber. It`s not a popularity contest.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: 37 years ago, the 16th Street Baptist Church here in Birmingham was ground zero in the civil rights movement. It was here that Martin Luther King Jr. And hundreds of other African Americans met and planned the sit-ins, the rallies, the marches and demonstrations for equal rights. Back in those days, their activities met with massive white resistance. The Ku Klux Klan protested. The Birmingham police turned water hoses and dogs on demonstrators, and there were so many bombings of black churches- usually late at night- that the city became known as "Bombingham." But no one was prepared for what happened Sunday morning, September 15, when the bomb tore through the walls of the church just as the congregation began to arrive for services. The Reverend Abraham Woods was one of the first local civil rights leaders on the scene.

REV. ABRAHAM WOODS: They had been bombing churches and bombing homes, but usually they did it under cover of darkness. And... but this particular time, Sunday school and church was in session, on a Sunday morning when people would be present. And these innocent little girls happened to be in that lounge, in that washroom, and that bomb was planted under the stairway, on the side that was adjacent to that washroom. And the significance of it that these innocent little girls who had nothing at all to do with the civil rights activities, and who were children that were no doubt protected by their parents and were not allowed to even be in the demonstrations, they gave the last measure of devotion; they became innocent martyrs in the civil rights struggle.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The Blanton verdict comes at a time when Birmingham is trying to build a new identity. Attorney Smitherman thinks the verdict will help.

CAROLE SMITHERMAN: For Birmingham, it does close a huge chapter in our history, because we`ve had a big hole. It`s just like the gaping hole in the church. We`ve had that hole for 38 years, because people have been walking around who knew things about what happened and never did say anything. So now that we`ve been able to have the jury verdict, and all the evidence is on the table, all those pieces are still out. It was a lot and it made a big difference.

REPORTER: Do you think people are going to finally put this to rest?

CAROLE SMITHERMAN: I think it will always remain in our hearts, as it should be, but I think perhaps now we can move on to some other issues in Birmingham. And we won`t be called Bombingham anymore. We`ll just be Birmingham.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: All over the city there are signs of change: A crisp skyline, a first-class medical center, lots of new construction. And now, city fathers hope, there may also be a sense of reconciliation.

JIM LEHRER: Some further thoughts now on Birmingham and Alabama, from, Bryan Fair, a law professor at the University of Alabama; and Diane McWhorter, author of "Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the climatic battle of the Civil rights revolution." She grew up in Birmingham, and is now a contributor to the "New York Times" and "USA Today." Diane McWhorter, on the verdict, was there ever any serious doubt that this verdict could and would be delivered by this jury in Birmingham?

DIANE McWHORTER: I predicted a conviction, but the early press reports on the trial were very skeptical partly because we were not allowed to hear the... To see transcripts of the crucial kitchen tape, which contained the statements of Blanton about meeting to plan the bomb, making the bomb. So I think there was a sense that they didn`t have the goods on him until we saw the closing arguments and the transcript was projected on a video screen and you could read the words. I thought they were very compelling. So I at that point I really was pretty sure there was going to be a conviction.

JIM LEHRER: Professor Fair, what was your attitude going in about whether or not this verdict would be returned?

BRYAN FAIR: Jim, I was skeptical that there would be a conviction, too. It`s very difficult to try a case 38 years later and to persuade a jury that you have the right person. But like Diane, I think that the tapes were very compelling and ultimately probably persuaded this jury.

JIM LEHRER: What is your view, Professor Fair, as to why it took 38 years to get this trial on the road?

BRYAN FAIR: Well, it`s fairly clear that 38 years ago the segregationists controlled Alabama and controlled the courts, controlled access to justice. They don`t control it today. And that`s probably the key change. In your earlier piece on Birmingham, people who come to Birmingham or to Tuscaloosa and other places can see real change. The central change is that we don`t have a governor who blocks African-Americans from coming to the universities; we don`t have an all-white state police force that brutalizes black people. Those things are different now.

JIM LEHRER: Diane McWhorter, what`s your reading of that? Is it literally true that this trial just could not have been held for?

DIANE McWHORTER: Oh, yeah, I mean the investigation was flawed initially. The Birmingham police had a longstanding tradition of collaboration, active collaboration with the Ku Klux Klan - including the klavern earn that produced the church bombers. The big problem was that the evidence has always been weak because nobody involved in the case has talked about it. There was a Klan code of silence known as the kiss of death that said that if you ratted out your brothers, your families would suffer reprisals. And I think that`s ultimately the most frustrating thing about this case, that even though there`s justice, we may never really get at the truth. We may really never know what happened in the hours leading up to the bombing.

JIM LEHRER: Difficult question, Ms. McWhorter, what was your feeling about the public opinion both in the white community and the black community about the need to have this trial and get a verdict and get it behind him?

DIANE McWHORTER: Well, I was sort of surprised by the apathy on both sides. Initially the trial looked like a media event. It was just a huge press gallery and the family and victims... family and friends of the victims. And then word got out in the papers, that nobody was attending the trial and I think Birmingham then became worried that, oh, no we`re going to get a bad name for not caring about the trial. On the white side there`s been this enormous urge to try to put this behind us, sweep it under the rug without really understanding it or confronting it. On the black side, I believe there is a feeling that possibly this was a white person`s guilt trip, that they were spending a lot of money to go after a man who had lived most of his life free, that the money could be better spent on concrete things like education or better bus service. So perhaps they were reserving judgment because of, you know, lack of faith in the system until the verdict came back. And I think that the mood was described in the local newspapers today as something like quiet satisfaction. That`s what... that would seem to sum it up to me.

JIM LEHRER: Quiet satisfaction, Professor Fair? Would you use the same words?

BRYAN FAIR: I wouldn`t use those words. I think both relief on the one hand that this trial has concluded with the guilty verdict - but also great anger that the federal government did not stand taller in 1963, 1964, 1965, that the FBI did not proceed with its investigation and offer a fuller explanation of why this trial... I wasn`t suggesting earlier that the trial should not have taken place but rather that the environment, the legal environment, has changed substantially since then.

JIM LEHRER: What drove it, Professor Fair? Why was this trial... Why was it finally held? Who was... Who or what group of who`s were behind it?

BRYAN FAIR: Several things drove it. One FBI agent, upon returning to Alabama and wanting to embrace Birmingham-both blacks and whites in Birmingham- began to sponsor some meetings with black leaders. And this was the central issue for many of those leaders that why didn`t the FBI ever take this case more seriously and treat it more fully? He undertook his own investigation as I understand the reports and was able to persuade Doug Jones, the U.S. Attorney and other... the state district attorney and others that there was sufficient evidence to put this puzzle together.

JIM LEHRER: Do you know that agent`s name?

BRYAN FAIR: My recollection is it`s Charles Langford.

JIM LEHRER: Does that ring right with you, Diane McWhorter?

DIANE McWHORTER: It was Rob Langford.

JIM LEHRER: Rob Langford. Do you agree that he`s the one who got this started?

DIANE McWHORTER: Oh, yeah, I do. I disagree with the notion that the FBI was slacked on this investigation. I`ve looked at al the available documents. Boy, they investigated this case to the max.

JIM LEHRER: You mean back in the 1960s they did?

DIANE McWHORTER: Oh, yeah, they interviewed... The only suspicious thing I found was that they had an informant inside the Klan named Gary Thomas Rowe whom they had shielded from prosecution for crimes he had committed in the line of duty in the previous two years. I`m sure that they had suspicions that he might have been involved in the bombing. There was never evidence that he was ultimately. But I think it probably affected the initial investigation. They, for example, didn`t show his picture to any potential witnesses or a picture of his car. And if Hoover had any truly any nefarious reasons for shelving the investigation- and I would never say that he was trying to shield church bombers because it would have been a huge feather in his cap to get a conviction in a case like this- it was probably because he was worried about what might come out about the informant.

JIM LEHRER: Well, let`s look ahead now beginning with you, Professor Fair. What is the result of this likely to be in Birmingham and Alabama, either good or bad?

BRYAN FAIR: Well, again, for some who knew the four victims, the surviving parents, and I think for the city itself, this does allow some closure. I think it also raises a number of questions about where Birmingham is, where Alabama is, where the nation is on race questions generally. I don`t think that this case will resolve the larger questions about racial equity in the United States, about educational opportunity for all. I think it does provide some relief for the persons most closely involved. But with racial profiling, with police officers allegedly shooting unarmed African- Americans, we have many other problems happening here and elsewhere that must also be addressed by the leading law enforcement organizations.

JIM LEHRER: So in some interesting way, it`s possible that this verdict might open some new wounds? Is that what you`re saying - Or in a good way or in a negative way?

BRYAN FAIR: Well, I think it is a step toward redemption but I think we are a long, long way from reconstruction.

JIM LEHRER: Diane McWhorter, what`s your reading of the likely impact of this, if any?

DIANE McWHORTER: Well, I think that there`s a certain amount of nostalgia around the country for old race crimes like this or a very simple black- and-white racial issues where the villains carry dynamite and the heroes are Sunday school girls because there`s maybe something reassuring or comforting that somehow these wrongs can be righted, that we can, you know, we can go back and refight these battles -because... And I think you saw this in the Mississippi flag case too where there was this urge to go down... back to the South to see if the racists had repented yet and there`s a sense that maybe if they do down there, then the country can reach the racial millennium. When, you know, it`s really... It`s a very simplistic way of approaching the problem. The problem of economic justice is much more intractable and challenging than that.

JIM LEHRER: Before we go, let me ask you this, Diane McWhorter, your hometown is Birmingham. Is it likely to be a different place because of what that jury did yesterday?

DIANE McWHORTER: Well, I almost feel like it`s part of the cellular, you know, structure of the city, this bombing. I hope that maybe, you know, there is a sort of New Yorkers don`t go to the Statue of Liberty feeling about the case, about the trial that this is our monument, this bombed church is a monument that we haven`t always wanted to own. And I think, you know, what I hope is that the city will own it and try to understand why it happened here, that it happened here for a reason, that it wasn`t inflicted upon us, that there was a sort of lone gunman theory that is popular know these guys were lunatic fringe who had nothing to do with the rest of us. I think that`s not true. I hope the city will accept that.

JIM LEHRER: Diane McWhorter, Professor Fair, thank you both very were.

DIANE McWHORTER: Thank you.

ESSAY - NEWS ABOUT JESSICA

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, essayist Roger Rosenblatt speaks about a very special baby.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: The news is about Jessica, our first grandchild- have a cigar; no, don`t- who was born on March 1, weighing in at just under seven pounds, and 19 inches big. I hold her on the couch as she sleeps swaddled, part baby, part blanket, in the crook of my arm. Her harpist`s fingers twitch in independent dreams. The threads of blue veins above her barely visible eyebrows run like rivers on a map. It comes back to you, holding babies, the surprisingly substantial weight. The news is also about Jessica literally, in that, as she sleeps, the news is on TV. As I hold Jessica, 15-year-old Charles Andrew Williams sits in the back of a police car that is about to take him to a county juvenile facility for killing two fellow students in Santee, California. His skin looks smoother than a baby`s. I casually realize that part of my grandfatherly duties will be to hold Jessica safe from the news, but the thought is too easy. She will also need to be alert to the news. When she is old enough, I will inform her that I am in the news business, or on the soft edges of it, and she may ask what the news business is. Then, I`ll be forced to confess that I have never understood most of the news: Not the child killings, the tribal slaughters, the religious wars, the categorical hatreds, the fate of the poor, the diseased, the driven-from-their-homes; I have never understood the weather. Not that these deficiencies have ever stood in the way of my sonorous brayings about the nature of the universe. But I should also let her know that there are other kinds of news I do understand. The news of the heart`s surprises, for example: The news that makes Mohammed Ali decide, after long decades, to apologize to Joe Frazer for brutally taunting him when they were contending for the heavyweight championship; the news of the white school teacher in North Carolina, who donated a kidney to her African- American student. I should tell Jessica about the news of the familiar, which is always strange - and the news of the routine and continuous, which is always shocking - the news of tides and tulips - the news of the full moon. I should tell her about the news of the just and the good. I should relate the story of Billings, Montana, which in the Christmas season, in the mid- 1990s, was invaded by members of the Ku Klux Klan. They knocked over headstones in a Jewish cemetery, tormented an old black minister in his church, painted swastikas on the homes of American Indians. Then they tossed a cinderblock through a Jewish child`s window, which was signified by a menorah. So the local paper printed up a full-page picture of a menorah, which the predominantly Christian people of Billings placed in their windows, and soon the Klan was driven out. I should tell Jessica that there is the news of the honest broker, of the fair-minded, of the modest, the quiet, the traditional, the harmless, the unglamorous, the unchatty, the constant and the tender. All of these made news while the O.J. trial came and went; while Monica came and went. The news business, I should tell her finally, involves knowing and understanding all that goes on in the world: The gentle and the intelligent, as well as the stupid and the murderous. As I hold her, a girl in Santee, California, is attempting to lift the spirits of a broken-hearted friend. In Northeast America, we are attempting to dig out of a snow- packed winter and to catch flashes of sunlight. This, I should tell her, is the news of gratitude and hope, or the news about Jessica. I`m Roger Rosenblatt.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, President Bush named a 16- member commission to reform Social Security. He said it should recommend a way to let younger workers invest payroll taxes in the stock market. And on the NewsHour tonight, Israeli Foreign Minister Peres said Israel is willing to turn over more land to the Palestinians if they live up to existing agreements. We`ll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening with an interview with a top Palestinian leader, among other things. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.