The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Ambassadors Barshefsky and Peterson explain the new trade agreement with Vietnam; Margaret Warner, with Stuart Taylor, Anthony Lewis, Ralph Neas, and Boyden Gray, look at the Supreme Court as a Presidential campaign issue; Gwen Ifill talks to UN Ambassador Holbrooke about the AIDS crisis in Africa; and a California accountant reads her favorite poem. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton announced today the United States and Vietnam signed a major trade agreement. It would cut tariffs between the two nations, and provide guarantees on copyrights and investments for U.S. businesses. Congress must approve the deal and renew it on an annual basis. The U.S. and Vietnam normalized diplomatic relations, but not trade ties, in 1995, 20 years after the Vietnam War. We'll have more on this story right after this News Summary. The President was away from the Middle East summit at Camp David. He returned this evening. At the talks, a State Department spokesman said Israeli Prime Minister Barak and Palestinian Leader Arafat met one on one for the first time last night, but he would not give further detail Bill Bradley endorsed Vice President Gore for President today. He did so at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It was the first time he'd appeared with Gore since giving up his own presidential bid. Bradley said winning is a team sport, and Gore praised his vision of justice and equality for all Americans.

BILL BRADLEY, Former Presidential Candidate: Our party is strongest when we are unified, when we speak with one voice, when we work guarantee a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President. I will work to accomplish both, because I believe that Democrats have a better chance of guiding America to a brighter future than do Republicans, and it's not even close. And today I want to make it clear that I endorse Al Gore for President of the United States.

AL GORE: I treasure Bill Bradley's support. He is a good Democrat who speaks and stands for principles we all believe in. And Bill Bradley will be an important part of this campaign and an important part of America's future.

JIM LEHRER: The two men had fought intensely for the Democratic nomination. Bradley quit the race in March, after losing every Presidential primary to Gore. Republican George W. Bush called today for having military veterans mentor the young. He outlined his plan in Pittsburgh at a state convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He said those who've served their country could instill positive values in at-risk youth. Community groups would receive $75 million in federal grants over five years. There will be no Sprint and WorldCom merger. The companies made that announcement today, saying the federal government had demanded changes that weakened the benefits of the deal. The Justice Department sued last month to block the merger; it said combining the nation's second- and third-largest long- distance carriers would stifle competition. The companies already canceled European merger plans. The deal was worth $129 billion. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to trading with Vietnam, the Supreme Court as a political issue, UN Ambassador Holbrooke, and a favorite poem.

FOCUS - TRADE OPENING

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman begins our report on the Vietnam trade deal.

KWAME HOLMAN: Today's trade deal comes 25 years after one of the most enduring images in U.S.-Vietnam relations, the final pullout of Americans from Saigon. But in the past dozen years, new links have formed between Washington and Hanoi, beginning on the economic front. In the late 1980's, Vietnam began to privatize its state-run economy, seeking to pull itself out of dire poverty. Before long, trade and investment from abroad poured in, and the economy underwent double-digit yearly growth. American companies such as NIKE entered the scene after 1994, when Washington lifted its trade embargo against Vietnam. But many tariffs and other trade barriers remained. The nations reestablished diplomatic relations in the summer of 1995. For the 77 million people of Vietnam, life expectancy has risen to 68, and the adult literacy rate is 93%. But annual per capita income is only $1,700, about half the average for developing countries, and only 45% of the population has easy access to safe water. In the last three years, the Southeast Asian nation has seen economic growth slow to about 5%. Overseas investment has declined, too. Proponents of today's accord say it will break down several trade barriers between the U.S. and Vietnam, and increase the current trade flow of a billion dollars a year. Among other provisions, the agreement would reduce tariffs on Vietnamese exports to the U.S. from an average 50% to 3%; cut Vietnamese tariffs on U.S. goods, including electronics and food, by as much as half; and allow U.S. firms to enter the Vietnamese market in areas such as banking, insurance, and telecommunications. The President spoke about the deal this afternoon.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: With this agreement, Vietnam has agreed to speed its opening to the world, to subject important decisions to the rule of law and the international trading system, to increase the flow of information to its people; by inviting competition in, to accelerate the rise of a free market economy and the private sector within Vietnam itself. We hope expanded trade will go hand in hand with strengthened respect for human rights and labor standards, for we live in an age where wealth is generated by the free exchange of ideas, and stability depends on democratic choices. This agreement is one more reminder that former adversaries can come together to find common ground in a way that benefits all their people; to let go of the past and embrace the future, to forgive and to reconcile.

KWAME HOLMAN: For the deal to take effect, both Congress and Vietnam's national assembly must approve it.

JIM LEHRER: For more on today's agreement, Charlayne Barshefsky, the United States Trade Representative, and Pete Peterson, the U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam. And, Ambassadors, welcome.

Ambassador Barshefsky, how would you describe the importance of this agreement today?

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: This is a sweeping agreement which will begin to open Vietnam's market across the range of goods and services and agriculture. It is an agreement of a type that Vietnam does not with any other country in the world, so it is a dramatic first step in the reform of the Vietnamese economy, and its opening to western norms.

JIM LEHRER: And, Ambassador Peterson, what would you add to that from a diplomatic standpoint, from the overall relationship between the United States and Vietnam how important is this?

PETE PETERSON: It's a huge leap forward. What we have here is the completion of a circle. We've had normalization in the diplomatic areas and a number of other areas that we have never completed the normalization process economically. This trade agreement completes the circle.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Ambassador Barshefsky, what it is that Vietnam was that they want to sell us?

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: Well, right now, Vietnam sells principally quite low-end goods, for example, low-end footwear, and things like coffees and teas and other spices. Over time, of course, Vietnam would like to sell perhaps mid-range consumer goods, likely displacing other import sources, rather than displacing U.S. producers. From our point of view, of course, we already sell rather high value added products to Vietnam, like machinery, for example, and those types of exports - consumer goods, and of course services market opening in areas like Telecom and banking and telecommunications products will likely grow quite substantially.

JIM LEHRER: Did you sit down, Ambassador Barshefsky, with some kind of rough thing and say, okay, we're likely - the United States is likely to import as a result of this deal so many billions of dollars of goods, and they're liable to import to us or export to us - who gets the better end of the deal, in other words?

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: I think we both have a very good deal. First off, as Ambassador Peterson has said, it is vitally important we complete the circle of normalization with Vietnam. This has overriding importance well beyond notions of simply a trade agreement. Second of all, we have a decided interest in seeing economic reform and economic opening, economic freedom, brought to Vietnam, which is still, after all, a one-party state. And then third, of course, our exports will increase as the market opens. Their exports to the U.S. will likely increase, at least in lower end - lower value-added goods that's good for consumers here.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Ambassador Peterson, you're there on the ground in Vietnam. Give us a feel for how the economy operates now.

PETE PETERSON: Well, the economy is mostly run with state-owned enterprises. They compose about 70 percent of the economy.

JIM LEHRER: Like what? What is it that the state owns?

PETE PETERSON: Oh, they have everything from beer companies, hotels -- companies to cement, fertilizer, transportation, construction, all of those things of course, all of the utilities are state-owned enterprises yet. But there is a process of equitization. It's their word for privatization. It's slow-moving, but this agreement is going to speed that effort up.

JIM LEHRER: How? How will this speed it up?

PETE PETERSON: Well, they're going to see the opportunities to strike for the equity markets, and they're just opening a stock market in Vietnam, I think in fact on the15th. With that, the Vietnamese, through equitization will be able to stake a claim against some of the equity markets that are out there worldwide -- and that then will strengthen the private enterprise sector.

JIM LEHRER: But as a practical matter, they want outside investment, I assume?

PETE PETERSON: Absolutely.

JIM LEHRER: They want U.S. Investment, right? But what is there is to invest in if everything is owned by the state?

PETE PETERSON: Well, there's going to be a lot of new investments. Right now, just for instance, the greatest export from Vietnam is agriculture. But it's operating at a very low end. There's no value-added processing, there's no marketing, there's... it's just sitting there. They're producing product, but they're not really taking advantage of the potential wealth that could be imagined if they had the kind of investment in that sector that is possible.

JIM LEHRER: Do you have the feeling, Ambassador Peterson, that they have the know- how and the ability to take advantage of this opportunity that this trade agreement gives them?

PETE PETERSON: Oh, I don't think they have the know-how. That's where the investment comes in because when you bring investment, you bring technology, you bring marketing skills, you bring a process. And so I don't think, no, they don't have that skill now, but it'll be one that they'll go through the learning process.

JIM LEHRER: Ambassador Barshefsky, you negotiated this deal. What, it took four years, is that right?

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: Almost five.

JIM LEHRER: What was the problem?

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: Well, we embarked upon this negotiation at the President's direction shortly after he normalized diplomatic relations with Vietnam and instructed that we begin to pursue bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam. I think for Vietnam, this has been a difficult process. This is a closed country with a very closed economy. It's very difficult to do business in Vietnam. But it's also an economy that isn't growing, isn't diversifying, isn't creating jobs and is experiencing net disinvestment. So from the point of view of the Vietnamese leader ship over the course of these last five years, it's become obvious that they have simply got to move forward or be left further and further behind. The situation for Vietnam I think became all the more acute after we pursued trade agreements with Laos, with Cambodia and of course with China.

JIM LEHRER: What was your reading, Ambassador Barshefsky, in talking to the negotiators for Vietnam about... when they say they want a free-market economy, do they mean... do they really mean it? I mean is there a Vietnamese version of a free market economy, or is there something that is familiar to ours?

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: I don't believe that the words "free-market economy" should be taken literally. I think what the Vietnamese are after is additional economic growth, and we know from experience that that growth is very hard to obtain on a sustainable basis without economic reform, without competition, without at least some degree of market opening. I think at least in its first stage, this is what Vietnam wants to accomplish. It will not happen overnight, even under this agreement. We phase in a number of obligations in the good sector and in services and in cutting of tariffs and so on because it will take time for Vietnam to begin even a moderate market opening.

JIM LEHRER: Are we going to help them in any way, other than just to sign this deal?

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: We'll certainly provide technical assistance. This is particularly the case on what I would call rule-of-law issues. This agreement, apart from effecting the most important market opening in Vietnam in 30 years, also has very substantial provisions on increased transparency in Vietnam's trade regime, in the way they pass laws, in the way they pass regulations, notions that the public should have advanced notice of changes in law, that they should be able to comment on changes in law. This is very radical for Vietnam, and in particular, in these rule-of-law areas we'll be providing substantial technical assistance. And of course we'll assist, as well, in implementation of regulatory reform and other areas, as needed.

JIM LEHRER: Would you agree, Ambassador Peterson, that that kind of thing, transparency is a radical idea in a closed country such as Vietnam?

PETE PETERSON: It's a major problem. And of course, with the lack of transparency corruption operates freely.

JIM LEHRER: What kind of corruption? Give us a feel for the kind of corruption that operates.

PETE PETERSON: Well, there's petty corruption and then there's major corruption. The petty corruption is just sort of a service issue, where somebody does something for you and there's an expectation that you're going to pay for that service, even though you're getting that service from a governmental agency. They pay very low wages, and so some of their take-back is through that process. But the major corruption is with the lack of transparency in doing contracting and in doing the kinds of business issues that Ambassador Barshefsky has talked about. This agreement is going to carry the Vietnamese to a new level in transparency that is going enact, I think, a significant process of reducing corruption, as well.

JIM LEHRER: How will the transparency do that?

PETE PETERSON: Well, because people are going to be able to see, you're going to see what ministries are doing, you're going to see... in fact, one minister is going to see what the other minister is doing that currently that even doesn't take place. A person puts in a contract for a... or a bid for a contract, and that's going to be seen all the way up and down the line. There's going to be open bids. It's going to be a process that they haven't done before.

JIM LEHRER: Is this going to... agreement, Ambassador Peterson, likely to create new wealth at the upper reaches of Vietnamese society, or is that society is not going to allow that to happen, at least to individuals?

PETE PETERSON: No. There's going to be an accumulation of wealth across the entire spectrum. And there's quite a disparency between the rural and the urban areas now and they're going to have to be very careful with their investment to make sure that that doesn't widen in this process. I think that you're going to see that 77 million people in Vietnam becoming major consumers for American goods ultimately.

JIM LEHRER: But Ambassador Peterson, the wealth now is held by the peoplewho are running the government, right?

PETE PETERSON: Well, it's...

JIM LEHRER: No?

PETE PETERSON: It's across the board. Is not as distributed as much as we would like, but you would be surprised to go to an average Vietnamese home now and that home is chuck full of assets. Those assets have been accumulated in just the last ten years. It's a major change, and you see this even in the rural areas, where televisions, telephones, refrigerators, a whole host of other kinds of consumer articles that are present now couldn't have been even thought of ten years ago.

JIM LEHRER: Ambassador Barshefsky, back to the rule-of-law issue, you negotiated some property rights issues here, as well. And they're considered very important. What are they, and why are they important?

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: Well, for example, Vietnam will lease property to foreigners. This is, again, something quite radical but important, as we begin to effect market opening. Foreign companies, American companies will be able to own outright businesses in a whole host of services... and sectors.

JIM LEHRER: That was not possible before?

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: Never. Never. Not at all. Not at all. So this is very, very important. This isn't merely a means for Vietnam to attract investment; it also allows for the growth of expertise and the expansion of sectors of its economy that have never before existed, let alone expanded. Of course the United States is a leader in services trade, whether it's banking or insurance or telecom, architecture, engineering, accounting, advertising, so on and so forth, all of which are covered by this agreement. So there are very substantial rights that will be acquired by U.S. companies and a very substantial change destined for Vietnam.

JIM LEHRER: And finally, Ambassador Peterson, in that respect, tell us why it's in the United States' interest for there to be a prosperous Vietnam, a Vietnam that is growing economically and otherwise.

PETE PETERSON: Let me add one point before we get to that, that this trade agreement will bring a great deal more predictability in Vietnam for American businesses, so they will know exactly what kind of returns they can expect, what kind of rules that they will operate under ultimately, and -

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

PETE PETERSON: -- this is going to be a big issue, as well. There's a whole number of reasons why it's important for the United States to be engaged in Vietnam, one and then two, to conclude a trade agreement like this one. It is on our interest to be there in Vietnam, to help bring stability to an area that has been historically destabilized for centuries. Right now, the Vietnamese people can actually look out over the horizon and anticipate peace and prosperity for generations. This is the first time in 4,000 years that's in place. And with that, the United States is there not only to sell goods but also to encourage the Vietnamese to continue to work with their neighbors, to work with the community of nations and to be a good player, if you will, on the stage with the rest of the world to bring peace throughout that region and through the entire world.

JIM LEHRER: Well, thank you both, Ambassadors.

PETE PETERSON: Thank you.

CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the Supreme Court as a political issue, Ambassador Holbrooke, and a favorite poem. Margaret Warner has the Supreme Court story.

MARGARET WARNER: Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court term ended with a burst of decisions on hot-button issues ranging from abortion to school prayer to whether the Boy Scouts could expel a gay scoutmaster. The fact that many of these cases were decided by a 5-4 vote prompted a flood of articles and editorials on how the outcome of this year's Presidential race could alter the balance on the court. What's more, both liberal and conservative groups are now trying to energize their supporters by arguing that this election could reshape the court for decades to come.

For our own discussion of what's at stake for the court in this Presidential campaign, we turn to Stuart Taylor, legal affairs correspondent for "National Journal" and "Newsweek," and author of last week's "Newsweek" cover story on this issue; Anthony Lewis, a columnist with the "New York Times"; C. Boyden Gray, former White House counsel in the Bush administration, now in private practice in Washington; and Ralph Neas, People for the American Way and author of a 75-page report on this topic called "Courting Disaster."

Welcome, gentlemen.

Ralph Neas, in this report, you wrote that the court is just one or two votes away from can your tailing fundamental rights that millions of Americans take for granted. Is there really that much at stake in this election?

RALPH NEAS, People for the American Way: There really is. Every American, Republican or Democrat, should know that this is the most important issue the Supreme Court in the most important national election since 1932. Because of age or health or because this is really the first time in 130 years that we've gone six years without a Supreme Court appointment, there could be one or two or three Supreme Court justices. And what our report,, "Courting Disaster" shows is that there are a hundred precedents that could be overturned if there is one or two more right-wing Supreme Court Justices like Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia. That's an enormous amount at stake.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see it, the stakes that high, Boyden Gray?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, I wouldn't accept the characterization that Ralph places on right-wing judges and the like. But do I think it's an important election, and there are some important issues at stake that are coming up in the Supreme Court that are razor-edged, 5/4 cases, so it's an important election, but I can't accept the right-wing rhetoric.

MARGARET WARNER: Stuart, we hear this is a rallying cry before almost every election, particularly from Democrats, but also from often religious conservatives. Is it really that different this time? And if so, why?

STUART TAYLOR, National Journal/Newsweek: I'm not sure it's dramatically different. I'm not sure this is going to be the thing that swings the election, but in a very close election, it could tip things, it could tip some important voters one way or another, particularly because the Supreme Court is now, as it was in 1987, when Judge Robert Bork was nominated and defeated, it's right at a point where there are four votes leaning this way to the liberal side, four to the conservative side on a lot of issues and a one-vote switch could have a big effect, affirmative action being an example.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, get a little more specific. What issues do you think-just choose two or three-- where you think the balance is really so close that one or two appointments, or one appointment one way or another would make that big a difference.

STUART TAYLOR: Well, I think there are at least three. Affirmative action, I think a more liberal court would basically say racial preference is forever, fine with us. A more conservative court, by one vote, might just obliterate racial preferences. Religion, on aid to religious schools, tuition vouchers, a more liberal court would probably strike them down. A more conservative court would probably uphold them. Federalism, the state states' rights issues we've heard so much about that are kind of elusive to the public, a more liberal court would overrule the entire line of decisions the Rehnquist court has been laying down. And abortion, certainly a more conservative court would reverse this partial-birth abortion decision last week. One thing that I think is interesting about this is that it has clearly been Mr. Gore who has taken the offensive on this issue and Bush who has been on the defensive. You might wonder why, because, as I read the polls and the court's decisions, the current Supreme Court is considerably more liberal than the public on abortion, on affirmative action, on religion, and maybe on gay rights. I don't think there is much opinion on federalism, but if you want to figure, well, is the court going to go farther in the direction that they are already a little out of sync with the public, that's if you elect Mr. Gore from one perspective.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Tony Lewis, weigh in here. One, how do see the stakes? And how do you explain the fact that, as Stuart points out, Al Gore talks about this a lot more than George Bush?

ANTHONY LEWIS: Because I think he needs to energize his voters to take your second question first Margaret, and his voters are a women, for example, on the abortion issue and Democrats and liberals on the other issues that Stuart correctly mentioned. I want to say something that may seem a bit old-fashioned or naive here, and I don't disagree at all with what the others have said. I think it is an election issue, and I think it does matter a lot. But I feel uncomfortable talking about the Supreme Court in these terms. I like to think of judges as not people you line up, left, right, center in that way, and I like to think of judges as people who are just dedicated to trying to do their best to determine the law and read the Constitution to the best of their ability. I know that seems, as I say, naive, maybe Stuart agrees with me, but I'm made comfortable by this politicization of appointments.

MARGARET WARNER: And Boyden Gray, it's certainly true, is it not, that these appointments that presidents often don't get to reshape the court as they hoped?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, appointees frequently fool their appointers, and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was one of the best examples. He didn't do what President Roosevelt thought he would do and wanted him to do. But I think it's also true what Tony Lewis said, that you shouldn't apply a litmus test, and most Presidents haven't. Vice President Gore is coming very close to demanding or saying he's going to demand a litmus test on a couple of issues of potential nominees. That is a very dangerous precedent, I believe, and a very bad thing for him to be doing. Governor Bush has made clear he's going to look for philosophy, but he's not going to look to individual issues, and I think it's a very dangerous thing. And I would agree, although not always with Tony, just on this issue, I agree judges should be put on the court to do their very, very best. You hope that they'll follow your general philosophy, but on specific cases, that's I think a no-no.

RALPH NEAS: I think we all feel precisely the same way as Anthony Lewis. Unfortunately, history, history going back 225 years just hasn't been that way. Ronald Reagan politicized the court back in 1987 and 1986. This year the right winghas politicized it first, and of course they worked out something apparently with George W. Bush. They made it a big issue for the last two years. George W. Bush has said he's going to put as his models Clarence Thomas and Anthony Scalia on the court. Unfortunately it has been politicized too much, then you do have to take a stand. If you think someone is going to go on the Supreme Court that would be a disaster, that would overturn "Roe V. Wade", that would overturn the environmental laws, the Voting Rights Act, privacy, campaign finance reform, all the things that "Courting Disaster" shows, then you do have to speak out on it and it does become a election year issue.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you see this politicization issue, and is it more intense now?

STUART TAYLOR: Oh, I think it gets more intense all the time and I agree with Tony that it's regrettable. I think really the court has politicized itself. On more and more issues what the court is doing, and in particular what it's doing that overalls other branches of government, when they strike down acts of Congress, when they strike down acts of legislatures, when they tell a school board, you can't do that, when they tell the President you can't do, that t are making policy in areas where the Constitution says very little or nothing. Abortion, for example, the Constitution says nothing about abortion. The "Roe Versus Wade" was sort of conjured up out of very general phrases and was recorded, even by most liberal scholars like Archibald Cox at the time, John Harvey Link - just to name two Harvard scholars as kind of made-up constitutional law.

MARGARET WARNER: Defining the right to privacy.

STUART TAYLOR: If you're going to start legislating from the bench, you can hardly expect that the people who usually like to think they should have a say in legislation are going to think they should have a say in what you do.

ANTHONY LEWIS: Margaret, may I say a word here?

MARGARET WARNER: Yes, Tony?

ANTHONY LEWIS: Stuart, whoa -- you make it sound as though only the present Supreme Court and only the liberal minority on the court were doing what you say. Why, that's been that way since day one on the Supreme Court. It's in the nature of the job. They have this enormous power, a power that I think has been used on the whole for good and has kept this country together and really given us what has been the model for the world, constitutionalism, a court that will defend individual rights even against the government. But of course they overstep. The irony is that today, with a usually conservative court, it is holding more federal statutes unconstitutional than any other recent court, maybe than any court in history. You wrote that yourself in the "National Journal," Stuart.

STUART TAYLOR: That's quite right.

ANTHONY LEWIS: It's not quite as, shall I say, new as you suggest.

STUART TAYLOR: There's an argument here, and I agree, conservatives and liberals both play this game, and you can debate which of them play it more or worse or for longer and in which era of history. But for example, there's a whole argument about whether the reason they're striking down federal statutes so fast now is because the court has suddenly gone nuts or because Congress has gone nuts. And there's an argument to be made either way. Justice Antonin Scalia makes the argument that Congress has gone nuts very well.

MARGARET WARNER: Let's go back just to this unpredictability because I don't want to leave people with the impression that we think necessarily that presidents can really reshape the court. Boyden Gray, you've been involved in decisions like this. As Gary Bauer, the conservative activist pointed out, four justices that voted to invalidate date that Texas school prayer before football games case were Republican appointees. Aren't there a lot of other factors that go in to the naming of an appointee that often a president doesn't choose someone id logically pure?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, it's impossible in the political context in which we live, given the realities of the confirmation processes, to pick someone who's ideologically pure. But I do think presidents can get the direction right, more or less. And that is I think a valid point. And I think that is at stake in this election. It's a general philosophical point about the role, the central role that a government should play. Are you for big government, or are you not? Or are you for the Congress overreaching, or are you for saying, "gee whiz, you're really meddling too much in the affair fairs of a state sovereignty." Are you going to say parents cannot have a choice, if they're poor and not wealthy, but if they're poor, are you going to say they do not have the choice to send their children to a parochial school with money that they choose to spend, not with money that the state is spending? Those are fundamental issues. Those are issues that can be affected by a president. You get individual cases, anti-trust this or regulatory that, and a president's going to get fooled maybe, but directionally and generally, I think a president can shape. And that's not bad either because are...

MARGARET WARNER: Go ahead.

C. BOYDEN GRAY: And that's not bad because, at the end of the day, we are a democracy and the court should be responsive, indirectly in any event vent to the democracy.

MARGARET WARNER: Ralph Neas wanted to get back in here. Go ahead.

RALPH NEAS: Absolutely. We really should know that over the last 50 years, over 70% of the justices have been Republican. We've basically had conservative people. It's been a bipartisan consensus. But it's important also to note that the rallying cry of the right, whether it's Senator Orrin Hatch or whether it's Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, no more David Souters. David Souter was the miracle of the Bush administration. Somehow he got on and we all owe Warren Rudman a great debt of gratitude. But there will be not be any David Souters in this happen in the year 2000 and the right wing does get control of all three branches of government. That will never happen again.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Tony Lewis, you wanted back in.

ANTHONY LEWIS: Well, I wanted to say that there is one big change which makes it harder to have the kind of disinterested judge that we're used to -- that used to exist and that is that there are interest groups now vetting very closely who is nominated. I mean back when, you know, Boyden gray mentioned Holmes. When teddy Roosevelt appointed Holmes, he wanted him to be sound on anti-trust to degree had with him and the first Holmes did was to dissent in an anti-trust case and Roosevelt wrote a letter saying, "I've seen more backbone in a banana." Well, today, you would pretty much know what Holmes was going to do on an anti-trust case because there are people like Ralph Neas know what those people are going to do.

MARGARET WARNER: And that's really changed things, hasn't it, Stuart?

STUART TAYLOR: Well, I'd like to point out that Ronald Reagan added three members of the court and two of them have voted to keep "Roe Versus Wade." George bush added two members of the court and one of them hasvoted to keep row versus way. So I think Ralph would have told us in 1981, if you let these Republican pick Supreme Court justices, "Roe Versus Wade" is gone. But three out of the five chosen by those two have gone the other way. Now, I don't think it's because they surprised Reagan and Bush. I think it's because, for various reasons, the first Reagan appointee was Sandra Day O'Connor. His priority was not going to get be somebody who was going to be anti-row versus way. It was to get a very qualified woman. When Anthony Kennedy, who's also pro Roe was nominated, Robert Bork has just been defeated... Douglas Ginsburg had just had to withdraw. They needed someone who could get confirmed, and much the same was true and Boyden knows a lot more about this than I do, when David Souter was chosen.

MARGARET WARNER: Briefly, Ralph Neas, pollsters say to most voters this is not a big voting issue. Does it really matter to average voters?

RALPH NEAS: I'm not sure where you're getting that polling information much the field poll out of California said this was the second most important issue statewide in California -- the "Newsweek" poll said last week said that 73% of Americans think that the Supreme Court is somewhat important or very important. This is by the way the first time this has ever happened in the national election time. So I think things have changed and they know what's at stake, they know what the Supreme Court can do in their lives, their kids lives and their grandkids.

MARGARET WARNER: Quite reply, Stuart. Do you think voters care?

STUART TAYLOR: I think some care and some don't and how it gets spun by the candidates will have a lot to do with how what effect it has on the election and how it gets spun by the press.

MARGARET WARNER: Thank you all four very much.

FOCUS - AIDS IN AFRICA

JIM LEHRER: The AIDS crisis in Africa. Susan Dentzer begins.

SUSAN DENTZER: This week's international AIDS conference in South Africa has focused renewed attention on the scope and consequences of the global pandemic.

SANDY THURMAN, White House AIDS Adviser: This epidemic in south Africa and around the world is out of control. The numbers are staggering, and we all ought to be mobilizing to do more.

SUSAN DENTZER: Nearly 34 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. A total of 25 million are in Africa, where more than 11 million have already died of AIDS. As a result, the pandemic has begun to reverse three decades of social progress in this and other parts of the developing world. In the nine hardest-hit African countries, AIDS has already caused a sharp drop in life expectancy. Between now and 2015, the disease is expected to shave 17 years off projected life spans, cutting them to an average of just 47 years by 2015. Along with the human tragedy are the economic consequences of wiping out much of an entire generation of Africans. A new World Bank report describes these consequences starkly. "The illness and impending death of up to 25 % of all adults in some countries will have an enormous impact on national productivity and earnings...Resources that would have been used for health care, orphan care and funerals...The loss of human capital will affect production and the quality of life for years to come."

PETER PIOT, Executive Director, UNAIDS: AIDS has now to become the heart of the development agenda. There's no way we can hope for sustainable development without containing AIDS.

SUSAN DENTZER: For all these reasons, awareness has grown that AIDS also poses a serious threat to global security and stability. At the United Nations General Assembly last September, President Clinton described how the U.S. was finally moving to help put the issue on the world's diplomatic front burner.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: (September 21, 199) We've begun a comprehensive battle against the global AIDS epidemic. This year I'm seeking another $100 million for prevention, counseling, and care in Africa.

SUSAN DENTZER: Now the Clinton administration is preparing to add another $250 million this year for AIDS care and prevention in Africa. That's part of a multibillion- dollar program to be undertaken by the U.S., the World Bank, and the United Nations. America's ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, has been tapped as a major administration spokesperson on the international AIDS crisis. On his recent trips to Zimbabwe and other African countries, he's highlighted AIDS prevention in particular as a key concern, noting that ten times as many Africans are dying of AIDS as are dying in prolonged wars in the Congo, Ethiopia, and Angola.

JIM LEHRER: And to Gwen Ifill.

GWEN IFILL: And joining us now for more on the international response to the AIDS pandemic in Africa, UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

Ambassador, welcome back to the program.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Thank you, Gwen.

GWEN IFILL: You have said that AIDS is the number one issue in the world today, the number one issue. Can you elaborate on that?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I came to this conclusion because people ask me always, "what's the biggest problem in the world," expecting an answer like the MidEast or nuclear proliferation. There are dozens of big issues. But the level of the AIDS crisis, its potential to destroy economic achievement, undermine social stability and create more political uncertainty and the inability of the rest of the world to contain it on only one continent, because it can't be sealed off in Africa-- it's already spreading elsewhere in the world, particularly the subcontinent of India and Pakistan-- is so enormous. The health people think it's the worst health crisis since at least six, seven centuries. And this isn't just a health crisis, so this is my considered judgment.

GWEN IFILL: And today the United States agency for international development released a report saying that 28 million African children will lose one parent by the year 2010. What's your reaction to that?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: More evidence of what we've been talking about, and I'm very pleased that the Durban conference and programs like yours and Ed Bradley's wonderful CBS "60 Minutes" show two weeks ago and the series in all the newspapers are forcing people to done confront it. I'm very pleased that members of both Houses of Congress, both parties are putting in amendments and resolutions increasing the amount of resources we're going to devote to this issue. But the answer's not going to lie in resources from the West alone. It's going to take destigmatization in the countries of Africa and leadership from the African leaders and other leaders and an end to the denial in which many countries in the world argue that it isn't their problem. You know, Gwen, on Monday of next week, the Security Council will vote the first Security Council resolution in history on a health issue, and it will be on AIDS, but not just in Africa. It will be an instruction to the UN that all peacekeepers have now got to be deeply, more deeply involved in how to prevent AIDS from spreading. You know, UN peacekeepers have often brought peace to an area but spread AIDS or brought it home. But the interesting thing to us is that several countries came to us in the last few days, as we were negotiating this resolution and said, "this is great for another part of the world, but it doesn't apply to us." That kind of denial is the way to real problems.

GWEN IFILL: What you're asking for, I gather, is testing of UN peacekeepers before they go abroad, something you can't impose on another country. So what effect could that have on the overall problem?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, let me be clear. The resolution cannot mandatorily require countries test their peacekeepers. That is something each country must do for them itself. The United States does not send any soldier overseas unless he or she has been tested and if they test HIV-positive, they're kept in the states for treatment. That is not true of every other country in the world by a long shot, and the UN does not have the authority to impose that on other countries. But we can insist that, once they get in to the UN peacekeeping forces, condoms are made available, counseling is made, vigorous and aggressive, and that it become a core part of the UN activities. Otherwise we're in the anomalous and ironic position of spreading AIDS while trying to prevent conflicts.

GWEN IFILL: How did this ever problem, which every day we're hearing new and more horrible statistics about what's happening on the African continent in particular. How did this remain unaddressed internationally for so long?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: You'll have to ask yourself and your colleagues that. In august of 1992 as a private citizen, I went to Cambodia to visit friends there and to see the UN operations. I was so astonished by what I saw and what my son, who had spent the night kind of prowling the streets of Phnom Penh saw, that I wrote a letter to the UN as a private citizen saying, "I don't understand this -- the UN peacekeepers are spreading AIDS on the streets." I never got a reply. That was eight years ago. If I changed the word Cambodia to Africa, it would apply today.

GWEN IFILL: But are there not also cultural hurdles which have to be overcome on the continent of Africa and many countries where talking about sexually transmitted diseases is still a taboo?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Gwen, there are cultural issues everywhere. Let's not stigmatize one continent. You and I can both remember when people in the City of New York would not get in a taxicab if the drivers looked like they came from a certain Caribbean island. People wouldn't go to certain restaurants, people didn't know how the disease was spread and thought you could get it from a handshake. And that was in the United States just a few years ago, and we have the best communications and education system in the world. It is certainly true that in Africa, the cultural factors are much greater. For example, we know that women who are HIV-positive should not breast feed because they can cut the transmission rate enormously. The cultural pressures are that they must breast-feed and it's also an economic necessity. Education and communications are the key. The prime minister of Mozambique, Dr. Mukumbe, the only prime minister on the continent who's also a doctor, told us when he came to visit us in New York, that he tried to find out the local name for AIDS among the tribal languages of Mozambique and found to his horror that the African tribes, many of the African tribes in his country, Mozambique, called it the disease of women. Well, once you call it the women's disease, you've lost at the outset. So education is essential. And that must overcome cultural factors, which, let's be frank, exist in the U.S., as well.

GWEN IFILL: Does the concern of people like the prime minister of Mozambique, does that offset the kinds of setback which a lot of AIDS activists feel happened as a result of the comments made by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, I think each country has to be dealt with on its own merits. Uganda, Senegal, and Thailand are three countries where the rate has dropped substantial because of strong leadership and openness and candor. In South Africa, what has happened is a huge controversy has broken out. I have followed this from the beginning and talked to President Mbeki several times. I know he's sincere in wanting to deal with the AIDS epidemic, and I think that this controversy that has exploded around his comments may not be quite as damaging as we all think it is. I know this is a counterintuitive judgment, but I say that because I'm watching the coverage you all have giving it. And the coverage is highlighting the problem. And that is what's needed to be done. So while I certainly don't think there's any question about the causality here, HIV leads to AIDS, full stop, period -- but the debate, this controversy may not hurt us as much as we think.

GWEN IFILL: The United States is prepared to spend many million dollars more than it has been on AIDS in Africa, but still a fraction of say $1.6 billion that it's spending on anti-drug efforts in Colombia. Does that speak to our priorities?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: It's not a question of priorities. The Colombia drug issue is a huge problem. But AIDS is beyond the level of any other problem in the world today. No one country, no one set of pharmaceutical companies, no one answer exists. It's a multi-phased war across the board. I am delighted that President Clinton and Vice President Gore have led the trim willing of our efforts. I'm even more pleased that members of Congress from both parties, Senator Helms chaired a hearing on this yesterday in which 11 Senators came to discuss this issue. Both parties, bipartisan, were all moving to address it. But I want to stress this: After you cut away all the other issues, it's going to take leadership and destigmatization by the leaders of Africa themselves, and meanwhile we have these appalling wars going on all over the continent, which are diverting resources and contributing, by the way, to the spread of AIDS. It's a terrible tragedy.

GWEN IFILL: And finally, Ambassador Holbrooke, is there any way of knowing how a government or a collection of governments in the form of the United Nations can actually change something as basic as sexual behavior?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I'm sorry. You want to know whether the UN can change sexual behavior. That's beyond my ability. What I think we have to do is recognize that education, massive education of how the disease is spread and destigmatizing it so people don't pretend that it's something that it isn't, is necessary. I don't think you can change human nature, but maybe you can change human practices and human understandings. It started in this country, it's got to be relentless. Let us not kid ourselves. The media is finally paying attention to this. I congratulate you and your colleagues for doing this, but the problem is not going to go away, and I hope the media doesn't go away either, because you, you are the key to breaking through in on this issue.

GWEN IFILL: Ambassador Holbrooke, you for joining us.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Thank you.

SERIES - FAVORITE POEM PROJECT

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, another poem from poet laureate Robert Pinsky's project of asking Americans to read their favorite poem. Tonight's reader is an accountant from Stockton, California.

MARY McWHORTER, Accountant: Well, when I was about 12 years old, in seventh grade, my seventh-grade teacher gave us this poem as an assignment, and it was a very interesting poem. A lot of the kids in the class found it to be kind of funny. You know, at that age, they read things, and they don't understand how serious they are, the effects of war and things like that. But the way things were in my family, my father was blind during World War II, and this poem really brought home to me the tragedies that occurred during war and things that had happened in my father's life that I wasn't even aware of. And reading this made me start to think about how bad things must have been for him when he was, you know, in his late teens and early 20's, going to war, having people die in front of him, being blinded at such an early age. He was only about 18 when he was blinded during the service. My mom and dad met when she was probably about 19 years old. He was in the hospital, and she wound up falling in love with him. And I always wonder how hard it must have been for her to go home and tell her family, "I'm marrying a blind man," because back then, you didn't see them holding down jobs and taking care of a family. And you didn't see too many women going out and holding down a full-time job. He started working in the county courthouse in Hudson County in New Jersey. He was able to open a small lunch counter in this courthouse, and that was how he supported our family. And they were married probably about 25... I guess about 20, 25 years before she died. And I was nine years old, my sister was 14, and my brother was 18. But it was very hard on my father, because he relied on her for a lot of things. And after she died, my father told his friend, "God took my eyes away from me twice." And in spite of the fact that these terrible things happened to him, he managed to go on with his life. He's never one to feel sorry for himself. After my mother died, he had a painting done of her from a photograph, and of course it was a very hard time for him. But he told all his... anybody who came into the house, "the first person who tells me 'who's that?' When they look at that picture, I'm going back and getting my money back," because obviously, he couldn't tell by looking at it. But he had a very good sense of humor. Everybody loved him. "Dulce et Decorum Est," by Wilfred Owen. "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, till on the haunting flares we turned our backs and towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots but limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of tired, outstripped five-nines that dropped behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling, fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; but someone still was yelling out and stumbling, and flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, as under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace behind the wagon that we flung him in, and watch the white eyes writhing in his face, his hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; if you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, my friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old lie: Dulce et decorum est, pro

patria mori." And that last Latin line means basically, it is sweet and noble to die for one's country. I still remember our teacher, he was very expressive when he read the poem. But the kids all laughed at him when he read it because they thought, man, this guy is so melodramatic and really getting into it. They all thought it was funny. But I think kids that age are like that. They don't take it seriously. I don't think I reacted the same way that they did. You know, I kind of took it in, and obviously, all these years later, I remembered it. And when I first heard about this project, that was the first poem that I thought of.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday. President Clinton announced the U.S. and Vietnam signed a major trade agreement. Bill Bradley endorsed Vice President Gore for President. And WorldCom and Sprint announced they had dropped their merger plans. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with Paul Gigot and Tom Oliphant, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.