The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour this holiday, our summary of the news; some comparative perspective on the war crimes trials of Milosevic and Saddam; a Paul Solman look at the sex discrimination suit against Wal-Mart; snapshots of President Bush and Senator Kerry holiday campaigning; a discussion of what the founding fathers might make of America in the year 2004; and a Jeffrey Brown report on the words of Winston Churchill.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: U.S. warplanes hit a house in Fallujah today, aimed at killing Iraqi terrorists. The U.S. Military said planes dropped 500- and 1000-pound bombs in the strike. Hospitals reported at least ten people were killed. It was the latest in a series of air raids in Fallujah. Also today, Iraq's oil exports were cut in half after looters sabotaged a southern pipeline. An Iraqi official said they tried to steal crude oil to sell on the black market. Radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr sent word today he would honor a truce negotiated with U.S. forces last month. His spokesman said any resistance would be peaceful. On Sunday, Arabic Television stations reported al-Sadr had called off the truce. An Iraqi militant group claimed today a captive U.S. Marine is now in a "place of safety." Al JazeeraTelevision received the statement. It said Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun agreed not to return to duty. On Saturday, an Internet posting claimed he'd been beheaded. But yesterday, another message insisted he was alive. Today U.S. Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt voiced hope.

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT: We see that it's optimistic. We find that it's good news. We're very happy because I know their family is pleased with that news. We would continue to advocate and continue to tell that group to turn this marine back over to proper authorities without harm so that he can get on with his life.

JIM LEHRER: Corporal Hassoun is a Muslim born in Lebanon. He has been missing since he failed to report for duty on June 20. Iraq's interim government postponed announcing new security measures today for the second time in three days. The foreign minister said they would be introduced "soon." The government is expected to reintroduce the death penalty and offer amnesty to insurgents. There was word today that Saddam Hussein's relatives are helping the insurgency. The New York Times reported a web of Saddam's cousins smuggles money, guns, and people into Iraq from Syria and Jordan. The cousins all live outside Iraq. In northern Iraq, thousands of Kurds marched today in Halabja. A poison gas attack there in 1988 left 500 people dead. Today's marchers carried photos of relatives killed in the attack. They demanded the death penalty for Saddam and his top lieutenants. Iraq's Prime Minister Allawi said today Saddam's fate is up to his war crimes tribunal. He said, "That is for the court to decide, so long as a decision is reached impartially and fairly."

A U.N. tribunal suspended the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic again today. The former Yugoslav dictator said he was too sick with high blood pressure to begin his defense. Milosevic is acting as his own lawyer. Prosecutors say the judges should make him accept outside counsel. We'll have more on the trials of Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, right after this News Summary. War crimes trials began in Sierra Leone today. A U.N.-sponsored court laid out charges against rebel commanders in the West African nation. They're accused of murder, rape, mutilation, and use of child soldiers in a ten-year war that ended in 2002. The chief prosecutor said today, "This is a tale of horror beyond the gothic into the realm of Dante's 'inferno.'" Two major wildfires threatened a multimillion-dollar observatory in Arizona today. The Mount Graham facility houses one of the world's largest binocular telescopes. It was evacuated on Friday along with nearby cabins. As of today, flames had burned within a mile of the observatory. Some 1,000 firefighters are battling the fires. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to two war crimes trials; the Wal-Mart case; Bush and Kerry; the founding fathers perspective; and the words of Winston Churchill.

FOCUS - WAR CRIMES TRIALS

JIM LEHRER: Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Saddam Hussein of Iraq, two former dictators in the dock for alleged war crimes. It appeared today that Milosevic's trial may be headed for a premature ending, while Saddam's is just getting started. We start with a report on the Milosevic trial from Jonathan Miller of Independent Television News.

JONATHAN MILLER: After two years of listening to witnesses accuse him of war crimes and genocide, it was finally time for Slobodan Milosevic to present his version of events. The only trouble was Mr. Milosevic wasn't feeling so good. The trial, he protested, was bad for his blood pressure.

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC (Through interpreter): My health situation has deteriorated and it is the direct result of your refusal to enable me to get my health back.

JONATHAN MILLER: The prosecution suggested that a ill health was to some degree self-inflicted.

GEOFFREY NICE: We are going to be in an extremely unsatisfactory position of facing the accused having recurring ill health and a regularly fractured timetable with no certainty of a sensible and reasonable conclusion date.

JONATHAN MILLER: The international tribunal has got three defense lawyers at the ready, but Milosevic has refused to deal with them.

PATRICK ROBINSON, Presiding Judge: The time has come for a radical review of the trial process and the continuation of the trial in the light of the health problems of the accused.

JONATHAN MILLER: The judges will now decide whether the court should impose defense lawyers. Milosevic as a qualified lawyer has insisted on conducting his own defense. He's had to wade through more than half a million documents. It's five years since the former Yugoslav president was first indicted by the international tribunal in the Hague. He faces more than 60 charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide linked to the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. The prosecution charged that he knowingly and willingly participated. Legal observers say his defense will rest on efforts to disassociate himself from ethnic Serb leaders such as Karadzic and Mladic, who remain on the run. It's thought that he'll argue he had no direct responsibility over their forces behavior. As to Kosovo and the charges that he orchestrated the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in the province five years ago, he's likely to argue that it was done to protect the Kosovo Serb minority. Now a defiant Milosevic wants to call 1600 witnesses in his defense including Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, who together ordered the bombing of Belgrade.

JIM LEHRER: Here to talk comparatively about both the Milosevic and Saddam Hussein trials is Diane Orentlicher. She's a professor of law at American University and director of its war crimes research office. Professor, welcome.

DIANE ORENTLICHER: Thank you. Happy to be here.

JIM LEHRER: First on the Milosevic trial. If in fact the judges decide that he is too sick to stand trial, is he set free? What happens?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: Well, there are two different questions. One is whether he's too ill to stand trial. The other is whether he's too ill to continue to represent himself. And the judges may very well decide that the moment has come to force him to accept counsel to represent him.

JIM LEHRER: And if that's the case, the trial just continues.

DIANE ORENTLICHER: The trial continues and he's more of a typical defendant in the dock although I don't think anyone would call Slobodan Milosevic a typical defendant.

JIM LEHRER: Why has it taken two years to get to this point, more than two years actually?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: Well, the trial itself has gone on, I believe, it's only 90 days in court. It's taken two-plus years, however, mainly because of his health. The court has had to adjourn repeatedly because of his ill health.

JIM LEHRER: But if in fact it turns out this health problem does not only preclude his representing himself but the trial to proceed, what will then happen?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: Well, that's the end of it. There won't be a final judgment. This wouldn't be the first time that someone who has been charged with serious crimes, a former head of state, in fact, has escaped the final judgment on grounds of illhealth. This happened with former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet was as well. He was declared mentally unfit to stand trial in chilly a couple of years ago. What that means is there won't be a final judicial judgment. I don't think we've reached that yet. Tomorrow the court may very well decide that he's healthy enough to stand trial but not to represent himself.

JIM LEHRER: Now this representing himself has become a real situation in and of itself, has it not?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: Yes, it has. You know, the trial is known around the world because of his performance. There have been concerns that I think are carrying over on to the trial of Saddam Hussein about that. But I think those concerns are based in large part on the splash he made his first day in court a couple of years ago. The trial has settled into more of a routine over the last two years and the theatrics have settled down a fair amount.

JIM LEHRER: Now as a matter... let's back up a minute on these two trials. . Milosevic of course is being tried in an international tribunal in the Hague. Saddam Hussein is being tried in his own country by his own people. Why the difference?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: Well, we have to go back to the creation of the tribunal. It was set up in May of 1993 by the U.N. Security Council at a time when Yugoslavia was at war and when Bosnia in particular was very much up in flames. The war there was in full rage. And the Security Council was taking a number of measures to try to address that situation, create ago tribunal was one of them. It was seen as an extraordinary measure that the Security Council believed would help restore peace in Yugoslavia. At the time it was created, there were concerns that it was a measure taken by the Security Council in part because it wasn't prepared to take stronger action. That said, whatever political reasons may have underlay its creation, it sort of took on a life of its own.

JIM LEHRER: Now in the case of Saddam Hussein, it never even went to the U.N. Security Council. They just decided that the provisional government and now the interim government there just decided we're going to do it here, right?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: That's right. There's a very important difference in terms of the local attitudes toward prosecution. Yugoslav leaders were not eager to prosecute their own for war crimes committed during the conflict in the Balkans. In fact, Slobodan Milosevic was president of Yugoslavia when this tribunal was created. In very striking contrast, Iraqi authorities are quite keen to put Saddam Hussein and his deputies on trial in Iraq. The other important factor is the attitude of the United States which supported the creation of a Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal. In fact it provided leadership in the creation of that. In contrast in Iraq the U.S. Government has strongly supported the idea of having a local court and has provided a lot of assistance for that.

JIM LEHRER: As a matter of process if Saddam Hussein decides, as Milosevic did, to defend himself, can he in fact do that?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: It's not clear to me whether he will be allowed to represent himself. The statute doesn't clearly preclude that. His family has engaged some 20 lawyers already so at this point he seems prepared to have a full complement of lawyers representing him.

JIM LEHRER: Another issue that was raised by the Milosevic trial was that it was televised and became a big deal among his supporters back in Serbia back in the old Yugoslavia. Is that also a possibility here with Saddam Hussein?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: It'spossible under the statute. The statute provides that the trial shall normally be public but proceedings can be closed for various reasons. The executive director of the tribunal has said in recent days that the proceedings will not be televised in part, in large part, in response to the example of the Milosevic trial. He may be over learning the lessons of the Milosevic trial here. I think there may be some risks to try to control this process a little too much. It may in fact feed anxieties that this process is being controlled and that Saddam isn't going to get a full defense.

JIM LEHRER: That's important, is it not, that it be perceived to be open and fair and no holds barred, correct -- from the defendant's point of view?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: Absolutely. There are a lot of concerns about whether Saddam Hussein can receive a fair trial in Iraq. And I think that it's important for the Iraqi authorities to address those anxieties and to be fully transparent and to bend over backwards to address concerns about whether Saddam Hussein can in fact get a fair trial.

JIM LEHRER: You follow these kinds of things. Just as a matter of history, how unusual is it for two former dictators to be in the dock, so to speak at the same time?

DIANE ORENTLICHER: Historically it's quite amazing. I think that the greatest similarity between the two trials is the simple fact that two former dictators are in the dock. That's not something we've historically expected. We have seen that happen several times in recent years. A former prime minister of Rwanda pled guilty before another U.N. tribunal about five or six years ago. And we saw a very real possibility that Augusto Pinochet would face some dined of legal process. It was detained for 16 months in London. So there has been a psychological sea change in the past six years or so.

JIM LEHRER: Fair trials and all that aside, processes aside, is it fair to say-- as most people are saying now-- that there was never any question that if it ever got to it that Milosevic would be found guilty just like there's no question if it ever gets to it that Saddam Hussein will be found guilty. These are basically show things for reconciliation and punishment rather than for justice.

DIANE ORENTLICHER: I think it's very important that the trials of both of them send a message that the question of guilt has to be proved and it has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. These men wouldn't be on trial if there weren't mountains literally of evidence against them. There are good reasons why they're being charged as suspects but it's a very different thing to say it's a foregone conclusion that they'll be found guilty. I wouldn't be surprised if in both cases they're acquitted of some charges. Frankly I would be surprised if they're acquitted altogether.

JIM LEHRER: Professor, thank you very much.

DIANE ORENTLICHER: Sure.

FOCUS - WORKPLACE BIAS?

JIM LEHRER: Now, the workplace discrimination charge facing one of the nation's largest employers. Our business correspondent Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston reports.

PAUL SOLMAN: Hoping to get promoted, Betty Dukes used to be as gung-ho as her male Wal-Mart bosses wanted.

WOMAN: Wal-Mart!

WOMAN: Whose Wal-Mart is it?

WOMAN: My Wal-Mart!

PAUL SOLMAN: During the daily cheer, for instance.

BETTY DUKES, Wal-Mart Employee: They'll say clap, clap, we clap, clap louder. We clap loud. They say cheer, they say, "I can't hear you." It gets louder. And "I can't hear you." And I'm louder still. "I can't hear you!" I'm louder still.

PAUL SOLMAN: Dukes' enthusiasm was rewarded, some might say, when after four years she was promoted to customer service manager in 1997, working the complaint desk. The pay?

WOMAN: About $6.45.

PAUL SOLMAN: An hour.

WOMAN: An hour, yes. Don't look so shocked. I was shocked, too.

PAUL SOLMAN: In San Francisco, where Dukes still works for Wal-Mart, that's below the federal poverty line. Meanwhile, all around her, she says, men were being promoted to real management jobs at real management pay. So in 2001, Duke sued Wal-Mart for gender discrimination. She's now lead plaintiff in a landmark case, the largest workplace bias suit ever, covering the so-called class of women-- some 1.6 million of them-- who worked at Wal-Mart sometime in the past six years. Hundreds of millions of dollars in lost wages could be at stake, and the judge in charge called the suit historic in nature, dwarfing other discrimination cases. Edith Arana is another plaintiff. She worked at Wal-Mart for six years in southern California.

EDITH ARANA: I have never seen a man that has, like, struggled, done everything he was supposed to do, worked overtime, sacrificed his family time, come in on days that he wasn't supposed to-- I've never seen a man that would go through that and not get what he was promised. But the women, they do it over and over and over again.

PAUL SOLMAN: When Arana finally complained, she was terminated, she says, just 11 months shy of being fully vested in her pension. Gina Espinoza actually made it into lower management, where she says she was sexually and even racially harassed by her boss on more than one occasion.

GINA ESPIONZA: He used to call me the little Mexican princess. So...

PAUL SOLMAN: The little Mexican princess?

GINA ESPINOZA: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Your boss would call you that?

GINA ESPINOZA: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Espinoza was fired while on vacation, shortly after initiating a sexual harassment complaint. She was seven months short of her pension vesting. Brad Seligman, head of a nonprofit law firm in Berkeley, California, is lead lawyer in the class action suit.

BRAD SELIGMAN: Well, the suit basically charges that Wal-Mart has two work forces. One work force, which is female, is 70 percent of the workers and less than a third of the managers. They get paid less. They get less promotions.

PAUL SOLMAN: And the other work force?

BRAD SELIGMAN: Is the male work force. It's one-third of the hourly workers, more than two-thirds of the managers. They get paid better.

PAUL SOLMAN: According to statistics commissioned by the plaintiffs in 2001, Wal-Mart paid men more than women on average in every job category and the higher the job, the greater the difference. For example, male district managers made 35 percent more than females; male regional vice presidents, 50 percent more. In addition, women filled only 10 percent of those top jobs. It's all part of what Seligman calls Wal-Mart's non-system of promotion.

BRAD SELIGMAN: To get promoted, there was no application process, there was no posting. What there was, was the tap on the shoulder. A manager, most likely a male, would reach down and tap the shoulder of some favorite, and that person would be anointed to become the next manager. And we all know people are comfortable with what looks like them, and the face of senior management at Wal-Mart is the face of middle management at Wal-Mart, is the face of lower management at Wal-Mart. It's mostly a male face.

CLAUDIA RENATI: The average white, 22-, 30- year-old white male. That's all I ever saw promoted.

PAUL SOLMAN: For years, Claudia Renati tried to move up from her job as assistant marketing manager at a Sam's Club, a Wal-Mart subsidiary. She says all her reviews were excellent.

CLAUDIA RENATI: Yet I couldn't get into management.

PAUL SOLMAN: Why not?

CLAUDIA RENATI: Because I couldn't lift 50 pounds of dog food consecutively, was the last thing that I was told. And I said, I don't think so. I mean, I just had surgery six weeks ago. I don't think I could do that. And he said, "no." He goes, "no, can't do anything for you."

PAUL SOLMAN: Wal-Mart denies the charge of discrimination, and is expected to appeal. Lawyers for the company argue that individual stores and district managers decide pay and promotions, not the home office. Vice president for corporate communications Mona Williams:

MONA WILLIAMS: I'm not sure how representative a couple of stories are of the Wal-Mart experience.

PAUL SOLMAN: Williams' office introduced us to a counterexample, Betty Dutton.

BETTY DUTTON: Well, let me tell you about my experience at my store.

PAUL SOLMAN: As a young mother in the '60s, Dutton worked part- time in Arkansas, leaving in the '70s to stay home with the kids. In 1980, she returned full-time, made store manager in 1990.

BETTY DUTTON: Wal-Mart has many, many times asked me to do other things, from district going on up to regional. But this store here, I love it. I love northwest Arkansas. And the main thing I like is, they have given me the opportunity to train people.

PAUL SOLMAN: What can a store manager expect to make? I'm not asking for your salary, but...

BETTY DUTTON: Well, you know, you ask me things that I really don't care to discuss at this time. But I will tell you, Wal-Mart has treated me wonderful. I have had every opportunity in the world to be or do anything I want to at Wal-Mart. And I think the high achievers that want it, it's there.

PAUL SOLMAN: According to the plaintiffs' 2001 statistics, however, Dutton's experience is unusual. Only 14 percent of Wal-Mart store managers were female when the suit began, and they earned about 15 percent less than their male counterparts. But Mona Williams insists Wal-Mart is changing.

MONA WILLIAMS: Over the years, we've made more and more progress in promoting women into management job. So right now, about 40 percent-- just under 40 percent-- of our managers are female. We still have some work to do there. But we're putting our money where our mouth is. For example, we're ensuring that we promote women at the same rate that they apply for jobs, or even better. We've established an office of diversity, and put someone in charge to drive that improvement. And trust me, she is driving that improvement. This year, for the first time, we are tying diversity goals to compensation for our officers.

PAUL SOLMAN: But it's not just the numbers, say the plaintiffs. It's the culture of Wal-Mart as well, which is why the lawsuit includes sexual harassment claims like Chris Kwapnoski's. She's worked at Sam's Club since 1986.

CHRIS KWAPNOSKI: I asked what I needed to do to get promoted, and I was told to doll up and blow cobwebs off my makeup.

PAUL SOLMAN: Blow the cobwebs off your makeup? That's a quote?

CHRIS KWAPNOSKI: Yes, from our general manager at the time. And I asked him exactly what that meant. You know, was I supposed to wear skirts and high heels on the receiving dock, you know, while I'm driving power equipment? I never really had a comment back on it. He just kind of looked at me and was like, you know, you just need to doll up.

GINA ESPINOZA: I was the only female manager at all of the meetings that we had, district meetings and such. And these guys were just, you know, wanting to have their meetings at Hooters.

PAUL SOLMAN: What's Hooters?

CHRIS KWAPNOSKI: Hooters. You never heard of Hooters?

CLAUDIA RENATI: The dress code is short- short-short shorts and skimpy little tops.

WOMAN: You get titillating moments at Hooters.

PAUL SOLMAN: And hooters are?

CHRIS KWAPNOSKI: Hooters.

WOMAN: Hooters.

PAUL SOLMAN: Breasts.

CHRIS KWAPNOSKI: There you go.

PAUL SOLMAN: Wal-Mart's response to the sexual harassment charges? That of course there have been some abuses. This is, after all, the largest employer in the history of America.

MONA WILLIAMS: We have 1.3 million people in this country. I think that's the size of the city of San Antonio. Yes, we have had folks who have made the bad decisions. But how do we deal with that? If anybody does that, we deal with that manager. We fire managers who make decisions that abuse associates.

PAUL SOLMAN: But sometimes, perhaps, those managers have fired others first. Gina Espinoza was let go. She now runs her own consulting firm. Edith Arana is studying to become a teacher. Claudia Renati is executive director of a local arts council. Chris Kwapnoski still works at Sam's Club. And Betty Dukes is a Wal-Mart greeter, welcoming customers to the store.

MAN: How y'all doing today? Thanks for coming to Wal-Mart.

BETTY DUKES: This time a year ago I was making roughly $8.48 after my ninth year of employment. Now my salary, after various increases, now it's at $12.53 an hour.

PAUL SOLMAN: What accounts for that?

BETTY DUKES: In all honesty, I believe that it was a spin-off from my active participation in this class action lawsuit.

PAUL SOLMAN: Wal-Mart is expected to appeal the class action ruling tomorrow.

SERIES - CAMPAIGN SNAPSHOT

JIM LEHRER: Our presidential campaign snapshots tonight come from the candidates' appearances this holiday weekend. President Bush observed the fourth of July in Charleston, West Virginia, yesterday.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: On July 4, 1942, in the midst of the Second World War, President Franklin Roosevelt gave encouragement to our troops abroad by reminding them of our nation's founding creed. They were fighting, he said, because Americans believe in the "right to liberty under God." (Applause) The president said, "for all peoples and races and groups and nations everywhere in the world." Today, a new generation of Americans is wearing the uniform. They are serving the same creed. They are showing the same courage, and they make us proud every single day. (Applause) The war on terror has placed demands on our military. In Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, our people in uniform have been unrelenting in their performance of duty.

They've been skillful and courageous. They've accepted hard missions, long deployments, and the difficulties of being separated from their homes and their families. Some have returned home wounded. Some have died. Each is mourned and missed. And each one will be honored by our country forever. (Applause) Iraq, only last year, was under the control of a dictator who threatened the civilized world, who used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. He tormented and tortured the people of Iraq. Because we acted, Iraq today is a free and sovereign nation. (Applause) And because we acted, the dictator, the brutal tyrant is sitting in a prison cell, and he will receive the justice he denied so many for so long. (Applause) Because we've taken the fight to the enemy, because we've been strong and determined to do our duty to protect America, and because freedom is rising in places they claim as their own, the terrorists are desperate, and they are furious. They're running out of places to hide. They know their cause is failing. They know that time is against them, and their only chance is to shake the resolve of Iraqis, Americans, anybody else who loves freedom. This history we celebrate today is a testament to the power of freedom to lift up a whole nation.

And we still believe, on America's 228th birthday, that freedom has the power to change the world. May God bless you. And may God bless America. Thank you all.

JIM LEHRER: Senator John Kerry spent this afternoon at a barbecue on a farm near Pittsburgh.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: There was a great writer who said the two most magical words in the English language are summer afternoon. I think if you take a look at the kind of day we've had today particularly celebrating the Fourth of July weekend, this is very special. I thank you. We thank you. Teresa and me, the family, all of us for taking time to come and sort of break bread and share a moment like this together -- the importance of this race. One of you came up to me and said, someone working so hard in the Pittsburgh area and said to me, you've got to restore our country's conscience. That's really what this race is about. It's not about the politics of Democrat-Republican though we are proud of who we are. We're proud that we're democrats. We're proud of the values. But we believe those are values that reach across party lines. Those are values that bring people together -- that actually try to govern and get things done, not just protect the most powerful, not just divide the country for the purpose of winning. I'm running for president because I believe this nation is thirsty for leadership that builds the future and makes America stronger. That's what we're doing. I look around here. There are a lot of vets here, a lot of vets from different eras. I think every single one of us wants to join together. We're here celebrating one of America's great holidays. But as we are here celebrating a holiday, those of us who have served abroad at any point in time know that it's a harder time for service people who are away from home because they're thinking about the barbecues. They're thinking about a beautiful summer afternoon when they're out in the desert. It's 110 degrees and we're home under the trees and in the water fountains and enjoying the day. The blessings of liberty and freedom are not cheap. You have to preserve them. You have to guard them. You have to fight for them. And it takes patriots who are willing to stand up and speak the truth and make our country stronger and fight for it. And every single one of us, no matter how we feel-- and we have strong feelings about how we got where we are today, and we have strong feelings about why America wasn't told the truth up and down the line about what we're doing. We have strong feelings about sending troops into combat without body armor and adequate arm amount, but we no matter what as Americans all join together in gratitude for the service of those troops who are there for our nation. I hope that over these next days we're going to do what excited me in the 1960s when President Kennedy stood up and lifted the spirit of our country with the possibilities of going to the moon and of standing up for principle and making a difference. Every single one of us has the opportunity to do that in these next days. We're going to let America in the words of Langston Hughes, we are going to let America be America again. That's what this race is about. Thank you and God bless you all for coming. Thank you.

FOCUS - FOUNDING VIEWS

JIM LEHRER: Now, to Ray Suarez for a Fourth of July founding fathers perspective on current events.

RAY SUAREZ: What would our founding fathers think about our country today? On America's 228th birthday we get some insight from three people who've studied the founders: Richard Brookhiser's latest book is "Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, The Rake Who Wrote the Constitution." He's a senior editor at the National Review. He's also written biographies of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Adamses. Ron Chernow is a prize winning biographer; his newest book is on Alexander Hamilton; and Jan Lewis is chairman of the Department of History at Rutgers University; she's a specialist in colonial and early national history. She's written extensively about Thomas Jefferson.

Well, guests, recently we've been arguing about habeas corpus, had some great debates about the limits of executive power, and this constantly toing and froing about powers of the states versus the federal government. It's still in 2004 a world the founders would recognize, Ron Chernow?

RON CHERNOW: Well, I think the founders would be very pleased by the power and the prosperity of the country. I think that they would be somewhat dismayed by the nature of political discourse. These were men who had rich political visions that they passionately and extensively argued. I think that they would be dismayed by a world of politicians who are governed by pollsters and focus groups who express themselves through 60-second ads, rather than through speeches and papers and pamphlets, and these were men who didn't have dispositions, but they had philosophies.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor Lewis, Ron Chernow saying that they wouldn't be too impressed with the discourse, it got pretty rough in the 1790's, didn't it?

JAN LEWIS: Oh, it sure did, and I think actually they might find politics today milder than it was in their time. We have to remember that during Jefferson's administration Vice President Aaron Burr got into a duel and actually killed the former secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton. As bad as things have gotten with Dick Cheney he's only used the "F" curse; he hasn't actually gone out and shot Richard Rubin.

RAY SUAREZ: Richard Brookhiser, weigh in on the politics of today and how you think it would look to - to the founders.

RICHARD BROOKHISER: Well, I agree with Professor Lewis. In a lot of ways politics is more polite and more moderate than it was. The man who wrote the Constitution, Gouverneur Morris, 25 years after he wrote it he wanted the country broken up. You know, he said in order to form a more perfect union, then he decided the union wasn't so perfect, so his attitude was, the hell with it, let's split the whole thing up and start all over, which is a pretty radical position. I think the founders would find our politicians and our voters pretty dumb. I mean, we have two Yale men running for president now, but I don't think they can translate Greek into Latin, and back, which, you know, anyone who went to a college in those days was required to be able to do. And, you know, I'm not just laughing at George W. Bush and John Kerry. I think they would have this disdainful attitude towards we, the voters, as well.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Alexander Hamilton, went, I guess to the precursor of Columbia University, rather than to Yale. Did he get the country inevitably of all the founders that he was looking for?

RICHARD BROOKHISER: Oh, I think so. I mean, it was Hamilton I think who had a vision of an America that would be dominated not only by agriculture but by manufacturing stock exchanges, banks, corporations, large cities, a lot of things that were anathema to the Jeffersonian version. I think that he was very prophetic in terms of the shape of power, not only that the federal government would become so powerful but that even within the federal government that the executive branch would, as it were, be the engine of government. But I think it was Hamilton who first saw the president, for instance, would be the principal actor in the American political drama at a time when Jefferson and Madison, who saw the House as much closer to the people, as the perfect populist institution, were hoping that the Congress, particularly the House of Representatives, would have a larger role. So I think that if Hamilton came back today, he would have more of a sense of vindication in many ways than Thomas Jefferson.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor Lewis, is this a zero sum gain? If Hamilton got his America, does that mean Jefferson didn't get his?

JAN LEWIS: Oh, I don't know. If Jefferson is still the favorite founding father and million people flock to Monticello every year and Jefferson's ideals -- life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness -- are still the ideals that govern this nation and to some extent have sway throughout much of the world.

RAY SUAREZ: Back to Richard.

RICHARD BROOKHISER: Well, I think one thing that would please them all would be the fact that there were no more slaves, and this was an institution that they lived among; many of them owned slaves. I think it's fair to say that all of the founding fathers thought that slavery was bad and hoped that it would eventually pass away. Now some of them were more practical in pursuit of this goal than others. Alexander Hamilton and John Jay helped found a manumission society in New York to get rid of slavery in New York State, because it wasn't just a southern thing. New York had a lot of slaves, but I think in fairness to all of them, including the great slave owners, like the Virginians, they would be pleased to see that this institution had disappeared.

RAY SUAREZ: Pleased to see but at the same time weren't some of them also marked by their unwillingness to step forward on the issue and sometimes their willingness to let others step forward on it?

RICHARD BROOKHISER: Well, they had mixed records. You know, George Washington grew up in Virginia a slave holding culture. He owned hundreds of slaves, but in his will he freed all his own slaves, and he knew that his will was going to be a public document and therefore he was making a statement by doing this. For some of the other founders who lived in New England or Pennsylvania it was perhaps an easier call because those states got rid of their slavery, you know, ahead of even New York.

RAY SUAREZ: Go ahead.

JAN LEWIS: Jefferson is a complicated one here. He's frustrating to us, maddening. He knew that slavery was wrong, yet, he never worked up the courage to free all of his slaves, nor to compel his country to face the issue. He was afraid, he said in his notes on the state of Virginia, that were slaves freed, they would rise - justly rise up against their former masters and kill them, therefore, he said, well, we'll just have to colonize slaves somewhere else, Africa, the Caribbean, in the far West somewhere, anywhere far away from the white folk. It turned out that he was actually wrong. After the Civil War and it didn't take a civil war to terminate slavery, after the Civil War, black people didn't rise up and exact vengeance on their former masters. To the contrary, it was white people who oppressed blacks and who lynched them. Jefferson happily was wrong. Unhappily, he didn't do much - didn't do much of anything to bring an end to the institution of slavery.

RAY SUAREZ: Ron Chernow, you want to -

RON CHERNOW: People would be surprised at the extent to which the slavery issue permeates the early years of the republic. You know, we're all taught in school, right, that the Constitutional Convention the major split was between the large states and the small states and the compromise was worked out that the large states would get proportional representation; small states would get the equal vote in the Senate. In fact, Madison himself said the major split at the Constitutional Convention was not between the large states and the small states but between the North and South because slavery was really a most divisive issue, and the early year of the republic were haunted by fears of disunion, haunted by fears that there would be breakaway confederacies, civil war, foreign intrigue, foreign invasion, and so the thing that was given a premium above all else was unity, so that the most divisive issue, the one thing that could wreck the whole experiment, was slavery, and so Rick's right. I mean, the reactions of different founders is radically different. You have Hamilton, J. Adams, outspoken abolitionists, Washington kind a little bit more in-between; Jefferson opposed to slavery in theory by preferring to defer any action to a future generation, but there is a kind of collective decision that this is one issue that is too hot to handle.

RAY SUAREZ: We've taken a look at domestic questions. Richard Brookhiser, let's turn to foreign affairs. There are American troops permanently posted in many places on the globe, fighting and dying in a few places. Is this a world that the founders could have imagined?

RICHARD BROOKHISER: Well, it depends on which founders, but I think their foreign policy views tended to be shaped by their experience of the Revolutionary War. Washington, of course, was commander in chief. Hamilton fought throughout the whole length of the war as an officer. John Marshall also found in the Revolution. So these - Washington and Hamilton especially - tended to be men who viewed the world as a dangerous place, and they knew that America had to be prepared to meet those dangers should they become immediately threatening. Some of the other founders - Thomas Jefferson, who was a congressman and a state politician, also James Madison, they tended to be people who hoped that America could stay out of conflict and when they became president, they worked very hard to keep the United States out of the world war that Napoleonic France and Britain were engaged in. They went to great lengths to do this and then in Madison's second term it finally becomes unsustainable, and what we know as the War of 1812 is really our last minute intervention in the Napoleonic Wars. So I think you have some founders who have perhaps unrealistic hopes for the prospects of peace and you have other founders who have been their literally in the trenches who know that that's probably not going to happen in this world.

RAY SUAREZ: What about the idea of an interventionist America, Professor Lewis, the one that would put her men and women on ships and send them to other parts of the world to change the political order?

JAN LEWIS: Well, I think that's actually something that would have been difficult for most of the founders to imagine simply because the United States at that point was so incredibly weak, and the first priority, the highest priority was simply to preserve the United States, to win the revolution to establish the nation to avoid entangling alliances for as long as possible, not to get involved in this very bad tired old war of Europe. So to some extent it would have been hard for them to imagine the United States becoming the greatest military power on the Earth, at least not for a really long time, and then beyond that getting involved in foreign adventures or entering into a war of choice. That, I think, is probably close to unimaginable.

RAY SUAREZ: And what about the notion, Ron Chernow, of the United Kingdom, the United States's closest and best ally in the world?

RON CHERNOW: Well, you know, --

RAY SUAREZ: And the United States, the senior partner in that alliance by the way?

RON CHERNOW: Yeah, actually, you know, Americans tend to imagine that the early years of the republic were both isolationist and isolated, and in fact the dominant issue in the 1790's is whether we should tilt toward France or tilt toward England, and you know, we had - we were surrounded by European powers even in North America, with England to the North, Spain to the West and to the South, to Denmark, Holland, France, in the Caribbean. One of the things that fascinated me when I was studying Hamilton, you open up a newspaper of the 1780's and 1790's, there's much more foreign news as a proportion of total news than you will find now. Papers today in comparison seem rather provincial so that we were born really in a world war once France and Spain entered the war, so that we were never as apart from the rest of the world as I think we sometimes like to fancy.

RAY SUAREZ: Ron Chernow, guests, Happy Fourth to you all.

FOCUS - WAR & WORDS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the words of Winston Churchill. Arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports.

WINSTON CHURCHILL: Our air power will continue to teach the German homeland that war is not all loot and triumph.

JEFFREY BROWN: Winston Churchill, it was said, "mobilized the English language and sent it into battle." An exhibition at the Library of Congress tells the story of this man of action and his relationship with the United States. And it is his words that most stand out. He wrote throughout his long life-- letters, news dispatches, volumes of history and memoir. He's perhaps best remembered for his powerful wartime speeches, rousing his country to resist Hitler, calling on the U.S. to join the fight.

WINSTON CHURCHILL: We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

JEFFREY BROWN: On the page, you can see Churchill's squiggles and cross-outs, even the way he constructed a speech. Daun Van Ee is the exhibition's curator. This is actually how he wrote out his speeches?

DAUN VAN EE: Yes, all of them were set out as he read them in what he called "psalm" form, like a psalm from the bible, almost poetry. In this way he could get the right emphasis and he could pause at the places where he wanted to pause. He could have exactly the kind of rhythm and the cadence that he wanted.

WINSTON CHURCHILL: We shall aid and stir the people of every conquered country to resistance and revolt. We shall break up and derange every effort which Hitler makes to systematize and consolidate his subjugation. He will find no peace, no rest, no halting place, no parlay. And if driven to desperate hazards, he attempts an invasion of the British Isles, as well he may, we shall not flinch from the supreme trial.

JEFFREY BROWN: "This was their finest hour": It's got to be one of the most famous lines in the history of oratory.

DAUN VAN EE: June 18, 1940, right after the Nazis had conquered France, Churchill made this speech bracing the British people to their duties, as he put it, "let us therefore..."

WINSTON CHURCHILL: ...Therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British empire and its commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "this was their finest hour."

DAUN VAN EE: It was very inspirational. It was also directed in part at an American audience because, you know, he says that, you know, the United States also has a stake in this. If Britain goes under, the United States will go under.

JEFFREY BROWN: In fact, Churchill's pairing of war and words went back to his youth. As an ambitious young man in India and Africa, he won fame both as a soldier and dashing war correspondent. For much of his life, his writing and lectures helped support his lavish lifestyle. In 1900, for example, he talked his way through part of the United States, recording his earnings as he went. As a wartime leader, he called upon his lifelong experience with language, says his granddaughter, Celia Sandys.

CEILA SANDYS: He thought out every sentence very carefully and rehearsed them and practiced them and wanted to make sure that he left them with the message that he intended.

JEFFREY BROWN: Sandys runs a consulting business called Churchill Leadership. She gave a lecture at the Library of Congress during our visit and talked to us about her grandfather's way with words.

CELIA SANDYS: These speeches were not rustled up. They weren't written for him. He had many, many people researching and bringing him all the facts that he wanted, but the speeches were always his. I've spoken to many of his secretaries, who used to sit there night after night taking dictation either with a pencil or a pad or with a typewriter where the keys were muffled so they didn't make a sound to distract him.

JEFFREY BROWN: And then he would practice the speeches over and over?

CELIA SANDYS: Absolutely, yes, and he would even practice mistakes that he would make. For instance, when he went to Harvard to receive an honorary degree, he said the "infernal combustion engine" and he quickly corrected it to the "internal combustion engine." But his secretary told me that she'd heard him practicing the mistake on the train coming up from Washington.

JEFFREY BROWN: ( Laughs ) He knew a good mistake when he heard it.

CELIA SANDYS: Absolutely.

JEFFREY BROWN: On Dec. 26, 1941, Churchill addressed the U.S. Congress, at a low point for his country and ours.

WINSTON CHURCHILL: It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come, the British and American people will for their own safety and for the good of all walk together in majesty, in justice, and in peace. ( Applause )

JEFFREY BROWN: Peace was years away, but it came. In his later years, Churchill would write a six-volume history of the war and many other works. In recognition of his writing and oratory, Winston Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953. He died in 1965 at age 90.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of the day. U.S. warplanes hit a house in Fallujah aimed at killing Iraqi terrorists. An Iraqi militant group claimed a captive U.S. Marine is now in a "place of safety," after he agreed not to return to duty, and a U.N. Tribunal put the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic on hold over concerns about his health. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.