The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

TELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is away tonight. On the NewsHour the latest in the Whitewater probe from Glenn Simpson of the Wall Street Journal, an historical look at the space program with regulars Goodwin, Beschloss, and Johnson, and astronaut Joseph Kerwin. The EPA tries to clear the air, Elizabeth Brackett reports. And a Black History Month conversation with school desegregation pioneer Ruby Bridges. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Defense lawyers in the Oklahoma City bombing case today asked a federal judge to block testimony from some potential witnesses. The lawyers claimed news pictures and video of suspect Timothy McVeigh unduly influenced witnesses' memories. McVeigh was identified as the man who rented the truck used in the 1995 explosion of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Prosecutors recently dropped two people from their list of potential witnesses. One of them is the only person who said he might have seen McVeigh in Oklahoma City the day of the bombing. Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr said today the investigation of the President and Mrs. Clinton will continue for "some time." Yesterday Pepperdine University in California announced Starr will become dean of its law school August 1st. Starr's office has been gathering evidence for three years examining the Clinton financial dealings in Arkansas and determining if there were attempts to cover up wrongdoing. Starr cautioned against reading too much into his decision to take the Pepperdine job. We'll have more on the Whitewater investigation right after the News Summary. Federal officials said today one of four recent mid-air encounters between civilian and military aircraft was potentially dangerous. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall reported on the February 5thincident. It involved two planes off the coast of New Jersey, an Air National Guard F-16 and a chartered Boeing 727 airliner. Hall spoke at a Washington news conference.

JIM HALL, Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board: It did seem to us that the incident involving the Nation's Air Boeing 727, which did result in evasive action being initiated by the crew when approached by the F-16, is a matter worthy of investigation. Thankfully, there were no reported injuries in this incident, but the potential for very unfortunate results was clearly there. While coordination between military and FAA air traffic controllers appears to have followed established procedures, there clearly was miscommunication or a lack of communication between military air controllers and the flight of F-16's.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Air Force officials said the communications on February 5th had followed standard procedure. Major Gen. Donald Peterson said military pilots needed new training to avoid setting off the civilian plane's traffic alert system, technology known as T-CAS. Peterson spoke at the Pentagon today.

MAJ. GEN. DONALD PETERSON, U.S. Air Force: The maneuver throughout in all of these four incidents at no time was there a risk of life. There was visual and radar contact with the Nation's Air at all time. There was safe separation at all time. But that's not enough. We realize that the sensitivity of the T-CAS is important to understand when you maneuver around airliners.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Supreme Court acted on a number of cases today. The Justices rejected without comment an Iowa man's appeal to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. California and Arizona adopted laws last November that permit such use. The high court also ruled that companies can be sued by former employees who suffer retaliation, such as a bad job reference. The ruling applies to cases where the former employee filed discrimination claims against their employer, and the Justices also let stand a ruling that bars logging in California old growth forests. They agreed with an earlier court ruling that said logging might impair the breeding habits of a threatened species of bird. Astronauts aboard the space shuttle "Discovery" completed repairs on the Hubble telescope today. Two astronauts performed a fifth and final space walk to mend damage to the telescope's insulation caused by ultraviolet radiation. After the five-hour space walk "Discovery" climbed into a higher orbit. The telescope is scheduled to be released from the shuttle's cargo bay tomorrow to continue its exploration of space. We'll have more on the space program later in the program. In Belgium today Secretary of State Albright proposed NATO and Russia strengthen ties by forming a joint military brigade. She said the unit would be modeled on the current NATO-Russian peacekeeping cooperation in Bosnia. Albright made the proposal during a speech to NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. She said the idea is one of several being weighed as NATO considers offering membership to several former Soviet bloc countries.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Secretary of State: I wanted the public to understand the possibilities here of thinking about a NATO that was not in any shape or form adversarial towards one country; that would provide a sense of security and stability. And I think that what you're going to be hearing in the next month are lots of ideas that we are going to be fleshing out with other NATO members, with the people, the countries that are now seeking applications.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a change in the Whitewater investigation, history in space, the EPA and clean air, and the Black History Month conversation. FOCUS -BOWING OUT

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Up first, the latest twist in the Whitewater story. Margaret Warner has that.

MARGARET WARNER: Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, yesterday confirmed reports that he's accepted a job as the next dean of Pepperdine University Law School in California. Law school officials say they expect him to begin around August 1st. Starr has spent the last two and a half years investigating President and Mrs. Clinton's association with a failed Arkansas land deal and other related issues. For more on Starr's decision and the status of his Whitewater probe we turn now to Glenn Simpson, a correspondent with the "Wall Street Journal." Welcome. First, what has Ken Starr said publicly about the apparent decision to step down and what it means?

GLENN SIMPSON, Wall Street Journal: He's given a very vague and elliptical comment that the investigation will go on for some time which doesn't really mean much. I mean, it was always assumed to be going on for some time, and even if it goes on at a low level, it will continue for some time.

MARGARET WARNER: Now every--all the news accounts seem to be assuming that the fact he's taking this job means he will step down as special prosecutor. Has he confirmed that?

GLENN SIMPSON: He has not. The college officials do say that he has indicated to them that he plans to leave his position as independent counsel. One of the confusing things about this--and there are many--is that Mr. Starr has taken the position in the past that his independent counsel doesn't preclude him from doing other things.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, the newspapers were also filled with quotes this morning from anonymous White House officials saying they saw this as good news. Do they have grounds for thinking so?

GLENN SIMPSON: Well, I think it's not unfair speculation but there was a morning after effect today where they began to realize that they don't really understand Ken Starr, and he's done a lot of things that they don't understand, and, thus, maybe it's not very safe to assume that he's decided not to bring charges against the President or First Lady.

MARGARET WARNER: What was--you said there was a lot of speculation--the speculation by the White House officials was what?

GLENN SIMPSON: Correct. I mean, this is certainly fair speculation. It's very widespread in Washington among people who are close to this case, which is that a serious prosecutor, a serious person like Ken Starr would never leave his position after--shortly after seeking to charge the President of the United States or the First Lady of the United States with a crime.

MARGARET WARNER: Now the news of this also came out in a rather odd way.

GLENN SIMPSON: It did, very odd. I mean, it came out on a holiday Monday. It was announced by Pepperdine University. There was no comment official from the independent counsel's office, which struck many people as strange and suggested that maybe it wasn't planned very well, or planned at all.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, what is known, as opposed to speculated, about how close Ken Starr is to completing his investigation?

GLENN SIMPSON: Well, it is known that they have prepared a large dossier.

MARGARET WARNER: They being what, the staff?

GLENN SIMPSON: The independent counsel's staff, the group of prosecutors in Little Rock, in Washington, to weigh a decision about whether charges are justified against the President and First Lady or others. But that doesn't mean that they're on the brink of a decision. It means that they're basically finished gathering most of their evidence on some of the critical events that are at the center of the inquiry, whether there was fraud involving some government loans in the 1980's, whether Mrs. Clinton's legal work related to any of that.

MARGARET WARNER: And is Ken Starr correct in saying that--I mean, even if he were to leave, if the investigation isn't over, then it does continue, correct?

GLENN SIMPSON: Yes, but if it were to continue on a major level, it would require a federal appeals court panel to appoint an entirely new independent counsel. And the feeling is, if there is, in fact, a serious possibility of charges at the top level of the United States Government, it would be professional suicide, as one lawyer close to the President put it, for Ken Starr to leave at this time. And that is what, you know, continues to be the thinking in the President's camp is that, you know, it really would be almost unthinkable for Ken Starr to leave if he was planning to go ahead with some charges.

MARGARET WARNER: But you're saying at the same time some people in the White House are saying, but we never have understood Ken Starr.

GLENN SIMPSON: Right. They're saying, wait a minute, here's a guy who during the middle of the election campaign gave a speech to Pat Robertson's university, which some people saw as an incredibly partisan event. James Carville, who is usually not at a loss for an opinion, admitted that he thought this was "weird" and something that was confusing.

MARGARET WARNER: James Carville being the former Clinton aide--

GLENN SIMPSON: Correct.

MARGARET WARNER: --who has made something of a cause celebre of impugning Ken Starr's motives.

GLENN SIMPSON: Who is a major supporter of the President, has been on the attack against Ken Starr recently, and is now admitting he's confused.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, give us an update on actually what Kenneth Starr has achieved so far and start by just telling us what has been really the scope of his investigation and in this two and a half years, has that expanded?

GLENN SIMPSON: Well, it has expanded at almost every turn. You know, originally it was centered on a failed real estate deal in Arkansas that began way back in the 70's in a connected collapse of a savings and loan. It has expanded all along to include allegations that there were some sort of a cover-up by the Clinton administration when they came to Washington, and then there was a series of succeeding events involving the White House Travel Office, and whether Mrs. Clinton, you know, was involved in firing some of these employees. And it seems as if, you know, every controversy in Washington added to Ken Starr's mandate. He has achieved convictions of several current former high officials in Washington, as well as in Arkansas, including the governor of Arkansas, the former associate attorney general Webster Hubbell here in Washington. He has convicted the President's business partner, James McDougal, and now Mr. McDougal has changed his story and is allegedly implicating the President in a fraudulent loan. So I mean, he has achieved a fair amount, but it's sort of hard to see where it goes from here because there's not--

MARGARET WARNER: Well, let me ask you this. Now the President and First Lady, though they've been questioned by Kenneth Starr, they've never been officially a target of this investigation, is that right?

GLENN SIMPSON: That's--that is what we understand to be the case. On an almost weekly basis people make inquiries with the White House about whether Mr. or Mrs. Clinton has received a so-called "target letter," and there has never been a positive response to that. And we don't think that, you know, if they had received one that they would deny it.

MARGARET WARNER: And then very briefly in the time we have left, you mentioned that James McDougal is now cooperating with Starr's office. His wife, his former wife is not. What could that add? Why did Kenneth Starr want to talk to the McDougals?

GLENN SIMPSON: Well, he wanted to hear their story simply to hear what he thought was their true story about what happened back in Arkansas so long ago. The question is other than sort of satisfying prosecutorial curiosity in determining what the real facts are and using that for leads, it's not worth a whole lot, given the fact that James McDougal has already gone up on the stand, defended the President of the United States and been convicted, himself, of a fraud. So it's very difficult to see how much closer that gets you to bringing charges.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, Glenn Simpson, thanks very much.

GLENN SIMPSON: Thanks, Margaret. FOCUS - THE FINAL FRONTIER

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now space and American politics and culture. Early tomorrow morning after seven days and five space walks the shuttle astronauts will release a much-improved Hubble space telescope back into orbit nearly 400 miles above the Earth.

ANNOUNCER: Ignition and liftoff. "Discovery" now on its way to service NASA's Hubble space telescope.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The space shuttle "Discovery" lifted off last week on a mission to upgrade and repair the Hubble telescope. It took 12 years to assemble, and with the wear and tear of four years in space, scientists thought it was time for a major overhaul. The "Discovery" crew grabbed Hubble from its orbit 380 miles above the Earth's surface and began their $350 million service call. In five different space walks they installed new equipment that will help scientists see further into the galaxy, and they repaired the Hubble's torn insulation lining. Watching astronauts float like this above the Earth's atmosphere has become almost commonplace, but it's taken a long time to get to this point. In 1959, the National Aeronautical & Space Administration, NASA, unveiled the Mercury project and introduced the nation's first astronauts. Alan Shepard became the first American in space. And when he returned, he got a hero's welcome.

PRESIDENT KENNEDY: This decoration which is going from the ground up. Here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The success helped convince President Kennedy to throw more resources into the space effort. In 1961, he decided to ask for the Moon.

PRESIDENT KENNEDY: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Apollo 11 achieved that goal in 1969.

BUZZ ALDRIN, Astronaut: The Eagle has landed.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins made it to the Moon, and millions of people watched live on television as Neil Armstrong took his historic steps.

NEIL ARMSTRONG, Astronaut: Houston, I'm on the porch. That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, a new question arose: what next? The answer was Sky Lab, an experiment to test the human capacity for extended stays in space. Next came the unmanned space probes, the "Voyagers," which explored the four major planets in the solar system. Then in the late 1970's, NASA went to Congress to get funding for a reusable space vehicle, the shuttle. Since it's first successful liftoff in 1981, the shuttle has flown over 45 missions. One, in particular, stands out in the national memory.

SPOKESMAN: Challenger, go at throttle up.

ANNOUNCER: One minute fifteen seconds. Velocity 2900 feet per second--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: When six astronauts and Christa McAuliffe, a teacher specially trained for the mission, were killed. After the disaster, NASA became more cautious and the shuttle program slowed down. It wasn't space travel's first catastrophe. There had been deaths in fires and the drama of mechanical problems on Apollo 13. But NASA has tried to build achievement on both success and failure. Now though budgets are tight, a Mars probe is hurdling towards that distant planet, and the Hubble telescope, newly refurbished, promises to unlock more secrets of the last frontier.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now a longer view of the impact the space program has had on the American political and cultural landscape. We get it from three NewsHour regulars: Presidential Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, and Journalist and Author Haynes Johnson. Joining them tonight is Dr. Joseph Kerwin, a former Naval aviator detailed to NASA. He was director of space and life sciences at the Johnson Space Center. In 1973, he flew on the first Skylab mission. He now is manager of Houston Operations for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space Company. Thank you all for being with us. Doris, this all really began with "Sputnik." It was all about competition with the Russians, wasn't it?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Presidential Historian: No question. When the Russians launched that first satellite "Sputnik" into space on October 4, 1957, a real shock was delivered to the American system. Lyndon Johnson said as majority leader he looked up at what was once the friendly skies of Texas, he was on the ranch at that moment, and suddenly the whole sky turned menacing. The "Sputnik" emitted a certain kind of beep-beep for those first few weeks which people could hear if they strained. And radio and television commentators would huddle around and say, listen to the sound that forever separates the old world from the new. And suddenly our scientists started worrying. We used to be ahead of the Russians in science, and now they seem to be ahead of us, and people started worrying that our schools were teaching life adjustment instead of science. So there really seemed to be a feeling that we had slipped badly in our whole competition with the Soviet Union. So then what happened is Eisenhower was really hesitant still, though. Instead of wanting to go forward with a project in space, he thought it was important that we develop rocketry, so that we had a missile that could compete directly in the Cold War. But Lyndon Johnson really and the Democratic leaders in Congress took up that cudgel. Johnson gave this incredible speech, control of space is control of the world; they'll be able to--you know--conquer droughts, floods; they'll be the masters of the universe. And he was responsible for getting NASA, which Eisenhower finally solved, created in 1958, and then the Apollo program from there. So no question, it was born in competition and in many ways, the Cold War was the father of the space program.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I don't want to leave "Sputnik" quite yet. It would be hard for somebody today who didn't live through it to understand just how shocking that was.

HAYNES JOHNSON, Journalist/Author: Well, what Doris says is right. I mean, you can't imagine what a stunning blow to the American psyche it was because we'd come out of World War II. It wasn't that much. It was 1957. The Cold War begins in 1945, but really America was--believed in itself as it never has since. We were unchallenged militarily, economically, technologically. We were superior. We thought we had the knowledge to do anything. We had split the atom, and then there began to be the doubt that seeped in. First the Russians got the atomic bomb. Then they got the hydrogen bomb. American schoolchildren are going down into bomb shelters in their schools. And all of a sudden still we thought we were ahead, and here comes that moment that Doris described so well, and all of a sudden, we were lost in the race to get to space and the Russians were ahead of us. And I remember I was a very young reporter in Washington and one of the things--I would not want to read it today--I was assigned to do a series, "What's Wrong with High Schools," the teaching of math and science. We could do the same thing today, I think, as a matter of fact, but that really was--out of crisis came a national commitment. I think it's important to remember it was born, as Doris says, out of the Cold War, out of competition, out of a fear of annihilation, and we poured the money into it in a way that was picked up by, of course, Kennedy going to the Moon.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And out of politics, right, Michael?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Out of politics. You know, the odd sub-text was Americans thought that because the Russians could launch "Sputnik," that meant that the Russians could drop a nuclear weapon on Omaha, and "Sputnik" had almost nothing to do with that. And so that is what made this great worry that in 1960 John Kennedy exploited in the campaign by saying, I don't want an America that's second best in outer space. But even Kennedy, after he became President, resisted advice to put more money into men in outer space. He thought that it wasn't a very good use of money. He felt it was probably a better thing to keep the program balanced, as it was under Eisenhower, in space among various goals: science, weather, communications, and also military. But then you get the Moon landing that is basically the result of the Bay of Pigs and Yuri Grigoren, April of 1961. John Kennedy was the author of a failed invasion of Cuba that made him very embarrassed. He was looking for a way to quickly demonstrate American strength, and also the Russians that month had launched the first man into outer space. Kennedy went back to his science people and said, well, maybe I was too hasty in saying that we shouldn't spend a lot of money on men in outer space, is there somewhere we can beat the Russians? They advised him to put a lot of money into a Moon landing program. And so then Kennedy made that speech we saw on the taped piece: We're going to land on the Moon by 1970. It ultimately cost upwards of $20 billion at a time that the American budget in the mid 1960's was about $100 billion, and in retrospect, despite all the great things about the Moon landing program--and there are many--you have to really wonder whether it was the best use of those resources to put a man on the Moon, especially since one has not been there for the last quarter century.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Dr. Kerwin, we're talking about all this in the context of the Cold War. But other things were involved too, weren't they?

JOSEPH KERWIN, Former Skylab Astronaut: [Houston] Well, a lot of things were involved. The space program was a great stimulus to technology. It afforded some magical moments in, in history. In everyone's experience, the ones you've covered of Neil landing on the Moon, the first picture of the Earth coming back from far away, but basically it's been an exploration program and a technology program in support of national policy, and I think a very successful one.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Dr. Kerwin, do you think even without the competition with the Russians, the United States would have taken something like this on? Is it like other explorations in history?

JOSEPH KERWIN: Well, a lot of other explorations in history have been stimulated by the needs of the nations that carried them on. It's true that vigorous, young, healthy nations do take on exploration programs. The Spanish used Columbus' expedition in support of their national needs. Certainly, Jefferson used the Lewis & Clark expedition in support of his perceived need of the United States to expand to the Pacific. There are a lot of parallels there with the space program. It was extremely successful. We have used the space program to win the Cold War, and we are now using it to try to prevent another Cold War in our cooperation with Russia on the international space station. It's still an instrument of policy, and I hope it'll be a successful one.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Doris, it became a big part of popular culture, didn't it?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I think there's no question about that. The astronauts who came back from either one of those voyages became national heroes. They really were like the generals from World War II. And there's a certain parallel there with World War II, with common purpose, with organizing our resources, a democracy had beaten out Germany and the axis powers. And there was great pride in that. Now, suddenly, this same large effort had been achieved, and the astronauts seemed like the generals from the generation before. In fact, when Kennedy gave that great speech to the Joint Session of Congress, he said, why the Moon, why not climb the highest mountains, why not fly the Atlantic? Because it's there, as Mallory said, the Everest explorer who had died on the mountain, had finally said, "Why am I climbing Everest? Because it's there." But he said something more than that. He said, "Because I also want to organize our national resources around a common goal." So I think that was all part of the public relations that went to making those astronauts national figures, but we loved it. Why not? It was a great sense of pride. The only sad moment I remember was being with Lyndon Johnson when the men did finally go up on the Moon. And he was so excited--I happened to be at the ranch--he had a picnic table and a picnic dinner prepared so we could watch the whole thing. But then, as it happened, nobody on television even mentioned his name. They talked about Kennedy starting the program and Nixon finishing it. And he was the one who created NASA. He was the head of the space--he was so mad he turned the television off, and he wouldn't let any of us see it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Michael.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: It was. It was a moment in American history where we were united and we did achieve a common purpose like the intercontinental railroad--that's another one--mid 19th century-- but which had a really tangible purpose. The intercontinental railroad improved people's lives in a hundred different ways. The problem with the Moon landing program was that it got so much attention in the 1960's that people thought that that was really almost all there was to the space program, and also that it would help to win the Cold War. The Russians basically dropped out of the space race, at least putting a man on the Moon, by the mid 1960's, and the problem was that once men were on the Moon, July of 1969, people sort of thought that's really all there was, and the result was that there was a little bit of disillusionment that this did not lead to all the wonderful things that the Presidents and other leaders had suggested. And the other thing is that as far as NASA and the American space program now, that was so oversold in the 1960's that I think Presidents and NASA administrators ever since have suffered from that fact because it is very hard now to educate Americans about the fact that the space program really should be doing a lot of different things and should be well funded.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Dr. Kerwin, do you agree with that?

JOSEPH KERWIN: Well, it's a matter of perspective. I--talking about the ticker tape parades with the astronauts in the 60's, I think back to the ticker tape parade for Lindbergh in the 20's, that soon faded. There is--there will never be a time in aviation like the feat of Lindbergh. Today it's the American Airlines strike, but does that mean that aviation has failed? No. It's part of our society now. It's essential to us. I think the space program needs to be part of our society and essential, and we're slowly getting there. The big thing we need now is to make access to space much less expensive.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Dr. Kerwin, are you saying that it was natural after the excitement of the early years that the--the emphasis on the space program and the excitement that surrounded it would just diminish?

JOSEPH KERWIN: Oh, yes. It was inevitable. And I certainly agree with Haynes that a balanced program is, is needed. And I would like to see, as NASA would, the program move to more and more commercialization. And I think if you look carefully at what's happening in NASA, you will see the ground work for that being laid.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Haynes. Oh, go ahead.

JOSEPH KERWIN: The--excuse me--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Go ahead, Dr. Kerwin.

JOSEPH KERWIN: No, that's okay.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Haynes.

HAYNES JOHNSON: One of the things, we're talking about what happened and why it went away so quickly. Don't forget the Vietnam War intruded; the riots in the cities occurred, and w all remember, all of us around the table, that all of a sudden the debate became, if you can put a man on the Moon, why can't you solve the problems of Watts or poverty or disease, and so you had this guns versus butter, which was the old World War II argument. Now you had it again at home, where do you put your priorities, and I think it was always probably a false argument in some ways because the space program did contribute to technology, to science, and all that, even though it may have been oversold. And now we're sort of groping toward less hyperbole but toward a program that has, as we said earlier, more balance to it.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: And one irony is that, as you widen the compass, if you go out a hundred years from now, it could very well be that one of the most important things the United States did near the--or at least in the last portion of the 20th century was land on the Moon. It could be a century from now that so many good things have come from that, that everything else tends to pale.

HAYNES JOHNSON: We take it for granted too. Look at those pictures of the Hubble. We've all seen space walks before. It's stunning, and we just take it for granted, or you'll see these space, interplanetary, the probes now. You can see the planets in a way we've never seen them before. I find that--we're all excited by that, and it is a part of the culture. Look at the "Star Wars" phenomenon. There's a whole generation of Americans have grown up now lining up to see this 20 years later. It's part of their culture.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Doris, do you agree with Michael that when we look back at this part of the century, we may look at the space travel, especiallygetting to the Moon, as one of the most important things?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, you know what's possible is suppose that it happened, as Lyndon Johnson had predicted, that other powers had gotten to the Moon and if there had been a possibility of somehow using that in a nefarious way, I mean, I'm not sure that was ever possible, but the fact that a free nation and a democracy did get there and that now they're reaching out for cooperative powers with the Soviet Union, it could have gone in a different direction, and I think that's very important. The other unknown factor is at the time when this original space program was being launched, the developing countries seemed up for grabs between Communist and democratic nations, and the space program seemed an enormous pride in the emblem of the Soviet Union. So that's one of the other things that launched Kennedy into it. So I think it's true--who knows--and maybe the next venture will be Mars, and I think there's something to what Kennedy said, even though if I had my way, I'd rather see that same common purpose go toward poverty in the cities, but, nonetheless, we can't give up on that notion that there is incredible excitement when you're exploring things that are unknown. And I hope our nation never does.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Dr. Kerwin, do you think the space program has as much relevance today as it ever did?

JOSEPH KERWIN: I think so. I think trying to evaluate the program is very difficult in the middle of it. It's sort of like trying to write the history of the United States in 1550, you know, 60 years after Columbus. It's been wonderful. The people, by the way, don't buy the spin-offs or the military purposes. They buy the dream. They remember the Moon landing, and a couple of things can happen. One is that more people can go into space and experience that wonderful feeling and that wonderful view by themselves, and the second thing is that some day we may find life on Mars for sure. And think how that will turn us inside out.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That'll be something. Thank you all very much. FOCUS - AIRING DIFFERENCES

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the EPA tries to clear the air and a conversation with school desegregation pioneer Ruby Bridges. The clean air story is next. Last year the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new attack on air pollution. But the agency is running into strong opposition. Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett of public station WTTW in Chicago reports.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Most of what pours out of the stacks at this Mobil Oil refinery in Joliet, Illinois is steam, but not all of it.

SPOKESMAN: Okay. That is an alarm.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: So you can see what happens. That's a real alarm?

SPOKESMAN: This was a real alarm.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: What comes out of the stacks is monitored very carefully at the Mobil Refinery. Alarm bells rang frequently the day we were there. But even with the millions of dollars in pollution control equipment the refinery was out of compliance for a time last year.

SPOKESMAN: We were in a situation where we were increasing the make of some of our small particles in the interest of increasing our profitability, so it go to the point where we had a few thirty violations or 30 percent opacity.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The refinery manager, Wyman Robb, says his industry has done a lot to clean up the air.

WYMAN ROBB, Midwest Manager, Mobil Oil: We've made a lot of investments in a lot of industries over the last ten to fifteen years that are continuing to show progress in improving the ambient air quality throughout the United States and every year it gets a little bit better.

[MOTHER WITH CHILDREN]

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But the air hasn't gotten enough better to help the Damitz kids. Eight year old Kyle and ten year old Jeff both have asthma. Kyle's is so severe he has had a permanent shunt implanted in his chest to enable him to receive large dosages of steroids and gamma globulin. Even so, on bad air days the boys have trouble.

KYLE DAMITZ, Asthma Patient: It feels like you can't breath a lot of the time.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: What does your chest feel like?

KYLE DAMITZ: It feels like it's all swollen up.

JEFF DAMITZ, Asthma Patient: It feels like my chest is closing up from my air ways, and I can't breath and it feels like I'm suffocating.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The Damitz boys are not alone. The Environmental Protection Agency says asthma in children has increased by 118 percent between 1980 and 1993 and is now the leading cause of hospital admissions for children. Dr. Howard Ehrman sees an ever increasing number of children with asthma in the public health clinic in an Hispanic Chicago neighborhood, a neighborhood dominated by the stacks of two of the city's coal burning power plants. Chicago is out of compliance for EPA ozone, or smog standards, though it meets the standards for particulate matter, the tiny soot produced by industries.

DR. HOWARD EHRMAN, Cook County Hospital: We thought when we passed the Clean Air Act in 1970 that, for example, that particulate matter at a certain size, which is classified as 10 micrograms, would be very important in terms of cleaning up the air, and it has made tremendous differences in cleaning up the air. But the science continues to evolve and science in medicine and health, and people themselves know that, for example, it's very hard to know anybody anymore who doesn't either have a family member or close friend who doesn't have asthma. What's happened is we've found out that the particle size is much smaller than we originally thought that can cause even greater damage. Very simply, the smaller particles can get further down in the lungs and cause damage to things that the larger particles can't.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The new science has prompted the EPA to propose tough new standards for air quality. Public hearings to discuss the controversial standards were held in four cities across the country in January. The EPA says the implementation of the new standards could prevent 40,000 premature deaths a year and reduce asthma episodes by more than a quarter million cases every year. Both proponents and opponents have hired public relations firms and launched expensive print and radio campaigns.

SPOKESPERSON: As a mother I want stronger clean air standards to protect my kids. Sure we've made progress cleaning up the air but not enough to protect kids from asthma attacks.

PERSON IN RADIO AD: [Citizens for a Sound Economy] I'm a pediatrician. Kids with asthma? Most of it's caused by bad indoor air, you know, dust mites, stuff like that.

OTHER PERSON IN AD: Sounds like the bureaucrats in Washington are scheming to keep their jobs.

ANOTHER PERSON IN RADIO AD: Son, air quality has been getting better the way it is. I guess they've got to have something new to work on.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: A coalition of industry groups held a news conference the day the Chicago hearings began.

DAVID SYKUTA, Partnership for Environmental Progress: The regulations could easily, in effect, be mandating a lifestyle police. See here my friend, the snow blower, all of us will be using the next several days, this could become an endangered item in the city, the common barbecue grill once again perhaps an endangered species.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Mary Nichols, the EPA's top administrator for air quality, chaired the hearings in Chicago.

MARY NICHOLS, EPA: Those are really scare tactics that are designed to try to galvanize people into thinking that their fundamental rights are going to be infringed, or that, you know, the government is going to come in and tear their lawn mower away. Not only is there no history to support that kind of fear, but it's absolutely contrary the way the whole process works.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But many small business owners have felt shut out of that process. These landscape contractors and nursery owners, getting together at their yearly trade show, were worried about what the new standards would mean to their bottom line.

SCOTT McADAM, Landscape Contractor: If it meant going back to pushing a hand lawn mower and people wanted to pay for that and that was the right way to go about it, this industry would do it. But I question if, people, No. 1, if that's something we really need, which I don't believe we do. No. 1, I question if there really are some standards that are fair and that have been researched so that we can really judge how we're performing.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The EPA says it is required by law to review the clean air standards every five years and that proposals to revise them are based solely on the effect on public health, not on economic impact.

MARY NICHOLS: I think that there is a lot of common sense behind that notion because I think there is a basic public right to know whether the air that they're breathing is healthy or not. Then you can decide how much cleaner you can afford to make it as a society, but I think the goal really should be just based on health.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: If the new standards are adopted, Mobil would be out of compliance almost all of the time. Millions would again have to be spent not only to control what comes out of the stacks but to reformulate the refinery's gasoline products so customers would not violate the new standards.

WYMAN ROBB: For us, it's going to mean significant increased capital expenditures that don't appear to be justified based on scientific data that has been put forward by the EPA.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Attacking the lack of scientific data is often done by those who oppose the standards. And there was some division among an advisory panel of scientists convened by the EPA. In a letter to the administrator panel members said, "The deadlines did not allow adequate time to analyze, integrate, and interpret and debate the data on this very complex issue." But Nichols insists the science is there.

MARY NICHOLS: We are somewhat taken aback by some of the charges that we've heard about how the standards are not based on sound science because this is the most extensive peer review science process that we know of ever engaged in by the Environmental Protection Agency, and frankly, we think it's a model of what public science really ought to be.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Maureen Damitz says she doesn't need a panel of scientists to tell her the air affects her children's asthma. She knows as soon as they try and play outside on bad air days. And as for a cost/benefit analysis:

MAUREEN DAMITZ: I look at my pocketbook and what asthma's costing us in their medical treatments. Kyle's bills this year will cap out about fifty/fifty-five thousand dollars. And Jeff has had a good year. He's been what I call healthy. Just maintaining Jeffrey has cost us around $6,000. And while we have insurance, we pay 20 percent of all that, so we're $12,000 out of pocket, so if I pay a few more pennies for gas, a few more pennies for something manufactured, it's going to be split amongst many people, not just hitting me.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But state and local officials also question the standards. Chicago's Commissioner of the Environment.

HENRY HENDERSON, Commissioner of Environment, City of Chicago: Standards, themselves, do not improve clean air; it is clean air that improves the public health. And that can happen only through a range of programs that actually work.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Chicago already has restrictions against industrial development because of the city's failure to comply with the current ozone standards. Chicago's commissioner says the news standards could have a negative impact on public health.

HENRY HENDERSON: It will drive further jobs from the city. It will drive further employment opportunities, and urban sprawl and all of the transportation problems that are associated with that are the major focus and major source of the degradation of our air quality.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The EPA says Chicago and other urban areas will be given added time to meet the proposed deadline. Right now Chicago has until 2003 to come into compliance for ozone. If the new standards are accepted, the city will be given another 10 years to meet the deadline. The EPA says final decisions on the new standards will be published in June of this year. CONVERSATION - WALKING TALL

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, a Black History Month conversation and to Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: On November 14, 1960, the nation watched as six-year-old Ruby Nell Bridges walked into William Frantz Elementary School and into history. A federal court ordered the New Orleans school system to desegregate, making Bridges the first African-American to attend the elementary school.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: That first morning I remember mom saying as I got dressed in my new outfit, "Now, I want you to behave yourself today, Ruby, and don't be afraid. There might be a lot of people outside this new school, but I'll be with you." That conversation was the full extent of preparing me for what was to come.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Her walk inspired the 1964 Norman Rockwell painting "The Problem We All Live With," a small black girl escorted by four federal marshals walking to school beside a wall bearing a scrawled racial epithet and the letters KKK. Harvard psychiatry Professor Robert Coles witnessed the scene in New Orleans. He has written a children's book about Ruby Bridges' experience called "The Story of Ruby Bridges." In the book Coles reminds children of the heroism of Bridges' action, showing her facing an empty classroom because angry parents kept their children home and all but one teacher refused to teach a black child. Today in Washington U.S. marshals honored Ruby Bridges Hall at a ceremony celebrating Black History Month. One of the marshals who accompanied her 36 years ago remembered that day.

CHARLES BURKS, U.S. Marshal [Ret.]: We expected a lot of trouble, but, as it turned out, it wasn't nearly as bad as we thought, even though Miss Bridges probably thought it was. For a little girl six years old going into a strange school with four strange deputy marshals, a place she had never been before, she showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn't whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier. And we're all very proud of her. [applause]

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And Ruby Bridges Hall, in turn, thanked the marshals.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: I wish there were enough marshals to walk with every child as they faced the hatred and racism today, and to support, encourage them the way these federal marshals did for me. I know there aren't enough of you, but I do hope that I have inspired some of you today to join me again by dedicating yourselves to not just protecting but uplifting those you touch because that will enable us to rise together as a people, as a nation, and as a world.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Here with us now is Ruby Bridges Hall, and welcome. You were six years old when you went into that school. Did you have any idea at that age what you were getting into?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: No, I really didn't. I remember that morning my mom saying to me, "Ruby, you're going to a new school today. I want you to behave." I remember the federal marshals driving up in the car and us being in the car driving to the school. I also remember the conversation that was going on in the car. Federal marshals were explaining to us how we should get out of the car and how to walk once we arrived in front of the school.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Did they tell you there'd be nasty people there, or--

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Oh, no, not at all.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Nobody prepared you for that?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: No. And I kind of feel like that was a good thing because it's--it would have been very frightening for me as a six-year-old to hear what I might actually see once I got there.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It would loom large in your imagination.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And yet when you confronted it and saw it, do you remember your reaction?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras. I really didn't realize until I got into the school that something else was going on. Angry parents at that point rushed in and took their kids out of school. And my mother and I sat in--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You mean, you sat there as they paraded the other kids out of the school. You saw that?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes. And I didn't quite understand what was going on, but they seemed very upset, and they were shouting, and pointing at us because we were sitting behind some glass doors.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You and your mother?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: My mother and I in the principal's office. And we sat there all day because we were not able to go to class because all of this was going on. So I actually didn't attend class until the very next day.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And what happened then?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: The very next day upon arriving at the school the federal marshals escorted me to my classroom, and once I got there, the teacher was there. There were all these desks and no kids. And I actually thought I was early that day.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You thought you were early.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: I thought I was early.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You mean, you still hadn't grasped the enormity of this and what was going on?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Not at all. And actually what had happened is that all the kids were taken out of the school, and the school at that point was boycotted.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How long did it stay like that?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: That lasted for overa year.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You went to school every day.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Tell me about that.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Every day I went to school. My teacher, who was actually from Boston, accepted that job not knowing that the schools were going to be integrated that day. But she taught me, and every day I would arrive. She would greet me, take me to my classroom, and it was just her and I.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And she would teach you as if she were teaching a whole class?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Exactly.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Did you come to create a bond between the two of you?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: We got to be very, very close. As a matter of fact, I met her again last year. I had not seen her since then, 35 years actually, and I met her, and she said, "You know, it's funny, I just realized that neither one of us ever missed a day of school." And I said, "You're right. I don't know what we would have done."

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: In Bob Coles' book, he writes of that teacher looking out the window, thinking that she saw you one day talking to this mob, but you weren't really. Tell me what was going on.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Well, the story is that I prayed. And I don't actually remember that, but it sort of comes from the fact that my mother said to me, "Ruby, if I'm not with you and you're afraid, then always say your prayers." And that's something we were taught. I was raised that way. If I had a nightmare, I would go to her bed at night, and she'd say, "Well, did you say your prayers," and I would say, "No." And she'd say, "Well, that's why you had the nightmare. Go back and get on your knees." And so she said, "If I'm not with you, then say your prayers."

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So you used to say your prayers a few blocks away.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But this day you forgot.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Until you got in the middle of the mob.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Right.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So you just stopped--

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: And said my prayers.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What did you say?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: I don't actually remember the prayer.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It's in Bob's book.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: But I prayed, yes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It's quite beautiful.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: I prayed for the people. That's what I did. And so that was actually--that tells me that I was really afraid because that's when I would say my prayers.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You prayed for those people who were being mean to you?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: That's pretty amazing. When, if ever, did things get better?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Not until much--well, actually better the next year because at that point the school was totally integrated.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So everybody came back?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Everybody came back. But later on, it's always important for me to point out that there were some families who actually felt like this was okay, white families, that their kids attend school with a black child. But you have to keep in mind that they also had to cross a picket line to do that. And so there were very, very few people that had the nerve enough to do that, to subject their child to that.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And your own family paid a price, right?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Oh, definitely. My father was always against the idea. He felt like, you know, why subject me to that; just send me to the black school that I had been going to, I could get the same education there. But my mother was very persistent, and she insisted on it and finally convinced him to go through with it.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But he lost his job.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: He lost his job. He came home one night and said that his boss said that he could no longer keep him there working.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Too much pressure.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Because there was too much pressure. Everybody knew that it was his daughter that was going to this white school, and so he had to fire him.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Even your grandparents suffered.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: My grandparents, who were sharecroppers in Mississippi at the time, had been living there for 25 years on this farm, and they had to leave Mississippi. They then moved to Louisiana, which is where they live now. But even the people that they sharecropped for said that, you know, everybody knows that it's your granddaughter that's in the school, and we're going to have to ask you to leave.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You talked about the three things that sustained you during that time: prayer, faith was one, your family, and friends.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes. That was very, very important. I don't think that my parents could have gone through what they did without the whole community coming together. We had friends that would come over and help dress me for school. Even when I rode to school, there was people in the neighborhood that would walk behind the car. I actually didn't live that far from school, and so they would actually just come out and walk to school with me.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What impact did that experience have on your life?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: It took me a while to really realize just how important that sacrifice was that my parents made. And having four kids myself, I--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Four boys, right?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Four boys--I struggled quite a bit trying to raise them, and I soon found out that what I really wanted to do is to work with kids. And something happened in my family. I lost my brother a few years ago. He had four daughters that I took in and started to raise. I then found out that they were sort of raising themselves, and it just hit me that we're not concerned about each other's children anymore.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So your focus today is totally on education?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Education, children, and family.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And has the school system changed that much in all those years? I mean, do you still grapple with some of the same problems?

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes. Some of the same problems. The biggest problem, I think, is that parents are not as involved with their children's education as they used to be.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So it's not the racial aspect as much as it is--

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: I don't think so. I don't think so. I started the Ruby Bridges Foundation in the hopes of bringing parents back into the schools and taking a more active role in their kids' education. I believe that if I can bring resources into the school that the public school system can do but ultimately what we want as parents is a good education for our kids. It doesn't matter who they sit next to.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Ruby Bridges, thank you for joining us, and Bob Coles' book, all the proceeds go to the Ruby Bridges Foundation.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: For that purpose.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Yes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, all the best.

RUBY BRIDGES HALL: Thank you. RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, defenselawyers in the Oklahoma City bombing case asked a federal judge to block testimony from some eyewitnesses because of undue media influence. Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr said the investigation of President and Mrs. Clinton will continue, despite Starr's accepting a new job, and federal safety officials said a recent midair encounter between civilian and military aircraft over New Jersey could have had serious consequences. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.