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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Memorial Service Today for Space Shuttle Columbia; Colin Powell Speaks to U.N. Security Council Tomorrow

Aired February 04, 2003 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, HOST: And good evening, again. We're back at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, as Larry mentioned.
At some point, even the great and important stories can be reduced to their simple and essential core. And for us, today was that day with the tragedy of the shuttle. We so care about the investigation we want to know what happened. And we're still following the search for the debris, now believed scattered as far west as California.

But it was something else that spoke loudest to us today. It was a picture, one picture of a young boy leaning on his father's shoulder. A boy who had lost his mom. He and all the children of the grieving families were told to be proud of their parents. That they could take comfort in someday remembering how the world honored seven lives of great purpose and achievement.

That's no doubt true. But what cold comfort in the years between today and that distant tomorrow. We think of Sydney (ph). She didn't lose Payload Commander Anderson, the lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, who had already logged 211 hours in space, she lost a dad.

And we think of Ian (ph). He didn't lose Mission Specialist Clark, the Navy commander and flight surgeon. He lost mom, and it was all over his face.

Today the children of Columbia lost the person who got out the Band-Aids when they fell down, who stayed up late to help them with their homework when it got tough, who picked them up off the ground when they learned to ride a bike, who sent them off to proms and rooted for them at soccer practice. Not the stuff of heroes, just the simple great purpose of being a good parent.

We can imagine that for the kids that title means the most to them as the one that will not be etched in some memorial years from now. It's mom and it's dad. And as much as the world will now hug these children, they have truly lost that which is irreplaceable, and that is the most heartbreaking thing of all.

More on the memorial today in a moment. But we begin "The Whip" with the investigation as we have. And as we have, we begin with Miles O'Brien. So Miles, a headline, please.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, the search for evidence continued today. And there was a fair amount of success. A piece of landing gear, some computer circuitry, some fuselage, a nose cone. But perhaps most important some credible reports of debris perhaps from Columbia's wing found as far west as California.

BROWN: Miles, thank you. Back to you at the top tonight.

This tragedy here comes just as the issue of Iraq and the possibility of war comes to a head. Our senior White House correspondent John King reporting on that tonight. John, the headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Secretary Powell delivers a critical presentation to the U.N. Security Council in the morning. On the eve of that presentation, Saddam Hussein said in an interview he has no ties to al Qaeda, no weapons of mass destruction, and is cooperating fully with the United Nations inspectors. Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld put it this way: he said listen to the secretary in the morning -- Secretary Powell -- and you will find out that Saddam Hussein is a liar.

BROWN: John, thank you.

And some controversy tonight over the man who would run the war if it comes to that. Jamie McIntyre following that from the Pentagon. Jamie, a headline from you.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well Aaron, on what may be the eve of another Gulf War, as you said, the man who would lead the way, General Tommy Franks, is under investigation for possibly sharing too much with and doing too much for his wife. Now his supporters insist it's all a bunch of silliness, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld seems to agree even before all the facts are in -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, you never hear reporters ask a presidential candidate, just how well would you deal with national tragedy? Yet they can be some of the most important moments of any presidency. Jeff Greenfield tonight looks back at how past presidents have coped. And we'll talk with David Gergen about how this president has handled the tragedy at a time when matters overseas are looming so large.

And after the tributes and the tears, after all the mourners go home, what becomes of the dream to explore space? Bruce Morton on that tonight in "Segment 7." It's a very full hour from Houston tonight at the end of a very full day.

It was a sad day, that goes without saying, but it was also a tremendously busy one. And few other places to heart and head fly in such tight formation. True in triumph and true also in tragedy, and especially true today. President Bush was here to tend to the broken hearts, and there are a lot of them at NASA and all around the country. But even as he did, and he did what he could, the ones with the lumps in their throats were busy with the task at hand. So we begin tonight with the investigation. And we begin again with CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Even as many of the investigators paused to reflect, the hunt for clues pressed on. 9-1-1 tapes in Nacagdoches...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know there's nothing you can do about it, but the " Challenger was coming in this morning and it blew up. It always comes in right over our driveway out here on Route 333 (ph)...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes ma'am?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it blew up. I don't know how, but it...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand, ma'am. Well that's what we think we heard, but we're not really sure, ma'am.

O'BRIEN: And most important, credible reports of pieces of what appears to be Columbia's wing in California, Arizona and New Mexico, much farther west than the debris found so far. NASA is dispatching teams to check these reports out.

MICHAEL KOSTELNIK, NASA ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR: Early material in the debris field is extremely important to the early events of the recovery that would shed important light on what the ultimate cause was, because we feel these results are potentially credible. We have dispatched NASA recovery teams to go and take a look at this material.

O'BRIEN: And near Hemphill, Texas, in the so-called debris belt, some other potentially key discoveries, including wreckage from the landing gear, the fuselage, and some computer circuitry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not just confined to the gear. It's the whole vehicle. It's understanding where all the debris is in relation to the flight path and looking at the debris that's returned and seeing what kind of damage it suffered so that you can put together a playback, if you will, of the sequence of events that led to the breakup.

O'BRIEN: Meanwhile at the Kennedy Space Center, workers got back to the business of processing shuttles. NASA engineers also conducted a flotation test to test a long shot, whether any tiles knocked off during launch could have floated back to shore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now we're told ultimately the pieces of Columbia will end up at the Kennedy Space Center, where they will be pieced together in an effort to try to determine exactly what caused this whole disaster. One other note to give you, Aaron, just to show you evidence can come from odd places, an apache helicopter on a routine training mission in Texas might have captured some interesting images of the shuttle. The investigators are trying to get their hands on that tape as well.

BROWN: Let's talk about the importance of -- at least the possibility that something as far west as California might be found. Why is that so critical?

O'BRIEN: Well, we know from the timeline that's where the trouble began, right around as the Columbia screamed across the coast and into California. That's when you see those temperature spikes on the left side underneath the wing and on the left side of the fuselage. So whatever was happening began at that point. And whatever fell off at that point was probably right at the origin, the root cause.

Now, if you can link that location of that tile to the place where the foam struck 16 days prior during the launch, you're getting closer to coming to a conclusion.

BROWN: And each individual tile is identifiable of where it would sit on the shuttle?

O'BRIEN: They all have serial numbers on them. The serial numbers are designed to withstand the heat of reentry. If they're intact enough, you'll get a serial number and you can pinpoint its location on the fuselage.

BROWN: Thank you, Miles. Miles O'Brien with us tonight.

Well if you have ever lost someone very dear to you, then you know that in some ways the memorial service is the hardest part. Up until then you try to pretend it isn't true. You want it not to be true. But once you put on the black clothing and look at the pained eyes of those who have gathered to grieve with and to comfort you, the pretending is over and the truth finally begins to sink in. And it was that way in Houston today.

The president and the first lady were here to spend private moments with the families and serve a public function for the country. Someday they will find comfort that their family was important enough for the president of the United States to come to honor them. Someday, but not likely this day. Not yet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today we remember not only one moment of tragedy but seven lives of great purpose and achievement. To leave behind earth and air and gravity is an ancient dream of humanity. For these seven it was a dream fulfilled.

CAPT. KENT ROMINGER, ASTRONAUT: This diverse crew functioned flawlessly together, but each individual brought much more than just technical ability to that crew. Let me go on.

Ilan, he was the perfectly poised fighter pilot with a sparkle in his eyes. His instructors remember a moment prior to getting in his launch and entry suit where he was standing there in dark blue thermal underwear with a Santa Claus cap and quipped. "Life is not a rehearsal."

Laurel, a dedicated professional with a wide variety of talents. She had a perpetual smile and would never send an e-mail or phone if she could find you in person.

Mike, he was a perfect choice for the payload commander. Organized, thorough, someone you could absolutely count on. A gifted leader. He was the quiet type unless you asked him about his family or his Porsche.

Smiling Dave, or "Doc" to his friends, quiet and observant with piercing blue eyes. Doc also loved cameras and always had a camera with him. Riding out to the pad, I've never seen anybody's as intent on making sure he filmed every bit of what was going on with his crew as Doc.

Willie was incredibly humble with exceptional talents. He enjoyed surprising people with flowers and Hawaiian leis. Willie was also uncharacteristically punctual for an astronaut, and his training team was dismayed that over the seven years of training he was only late for one event.

Rick. Rick was a terrific human being and a great leader. He was my pilot on his first flight. I grew to really appreciate all of his talents, his gifts, and laugh at all of his Amarillo sayings. His favorite saying -- and I can hear him saying it right now -- was, "You know, I feel more now like I did than when I first got here."

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Last Wednesday, as the Columbia crew was circling the globe, Kalpana took a rest from her duties to take in the stunning view of the Earth at sunset. A view that only a select group of space explorers had been privileged to witness. Now she told us from the flight deck that the entire Earth and sky could be seen reflected in the retina of her eye.

She called her crew mates to come over to see this amazing sight. It is this image, the image of Columbia's crew joyfully joining Kalpana to see our beautiful planet reflected in their friend's eye that we will remember and treasure forever. And for these and for them, and their memories, we will persevere.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The memorial service this afternoon here in Houston. Today's service planned down to the last detail, but from the beginning we've been taken, as you know, by the spontaneous outpouring of emotions. By people making a pilgrimage literally to NASA's front door.

They come from just down the road and miles beyond that. Parents bringing their children not so much to make sense of it, we think, but just to be at one with it and to be together with people feeling the same way. We've all seen it before, haven't we? The teddy bears in Oklahoma City and Columbine, the notes and the tears at ground zero, and now Houston joins that long, sad list. Here's CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRSPONDENT (voice-over): They came to sing, hold hands, pray, cry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just had to come and at least be close to the memorial service.

FLOCK: At the makeshift shrine outside the main gate, they brought signs and flowers and balloons.

BUSH: And we lost them so close to home.

FLOCK: Then gathered around portable radios to hear the service. Eight-year-old Bianca Bernard's mother brought the family.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's almost magical in a way. You can feel the sense of love just all around.

FLOCK: They gathered too in the dark at the Outpost Tavern just across from the space center, where photos of their heroes line the walls. Most watched in silence. NASA budget analyst Vicki Ostene (ph) bowing her head in prayer at the bar.

VICKI OSTENE, NASA BUDGET ANALYST: It pulls everyone together. And there's a big sense of family out there right now, a big sense of togetherness.

FLOCK: Back at the memorial, one woman showed us a yellowed copy of a Beaumont, Texas newspaper from the day Columbia was first launched in 1981. It says about a dozen thermal tiles fell off then.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that right there is just absolutely appalling to me. That all these years later, 22 years later, the same shuttle was being used that caused trouble from the very first day it went up.

FLOCK: But most everyone here agrees with this sign: "Keep NASA Alive."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't quit. Don't quit and don't even slow down.

FLOCK: Dennis Barber (ph) is a NASA contractor. Penny Stanch (ph) a NASA engineer.

PEGGY STANCH, NASA ENGINEER: It's like getting back on that horse that threw you. You have to get back up there.

FLOCK: There are plenty of volunteers.

(on camera): Would you like to be an astronaut someday?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.

FLOCK: Did what happened here this week scare you away at all?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. The first thing that came to my mind was how did it happen, why did it happen and where did it happen?

FLOCK: Questions they can get back to now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This space program is going to live on. It's not going to end with this. There's no way it's going to end.

FLOCK: I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We have more on the shuttle disaster later in the program. But up next on NEWSNIGHT, we begin to deal a bit with what will be tomorrow's lead story: the secretary of state goes to the United Nations. The subject: Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. From Houston, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Tomorrow, Secretary of State Powell lays out the administration's case against Iraq. It is an important day for the administration and important, too, for the U.N. Security Council. Today's developments inside Iraq set the stage. U.N. inspectors found another empty chemical warhead at an ammunition depot north of Baghdad. The Iraqis claim they'd simply lost track of it.

And during an interview with a British peace activist conducted over the weekend, Saddam Hussein said this: he said "Iraq is free of all weapons of mass destruction and I challenge anyone who claims we have them to come forward with their evidence and present it before public opinion." Saddam Hussein also denied any connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Until recently, the Bush administration has seemed to bristle at the need to prove either of those two things to the rest of the world. Only lately has it buckled down to the effort which is expected to reach climax tomorrow at the U.N. For the last couple of days, Secretary of State Powell has been trying to tamp down expectations some. Perhaps an impossible job when you consider the stakes.

Here again, our senior White House correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): High stakes diplomacy on the eve of a critical presentation to the United Nations Security Council, where China has veto power. Administration officials say Secretary Powell will detail contacts between al Qaeda operatives and Iraq, but be careful not to suggest any formal alliance.

RICHARD ARMITAGE, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: We don't want to overstate it for the obvious reasons. Some intersections with various and sundry terrorist groups, and that's our real fear with Iraq, sir. KING: Powell's overwhelming focus, officials say, will be to show the Council what the White House considers detailed proof of Iraqi deception: satellite photographs showing evidence moved just before weapons inspections, intercepted conversations in which Iraqi officials talk about hiding evidence and coach scientists to mislead inspectors. And intelligence suggesting Iraqi imports of banned weapons materials as recently as the past month or so.

The goal is to win enough backing for a second Security Council resolution that sets a final deadline for Iraqi compliance within several weeks and gives the U.N.'s blessing for military action if that deadline is ignored.

JOHN NEGROPONTE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: The Council must face up to its responsibilities and serious consequences will have to be faced.

KING: President Bush called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Powell's presentation, that U.S. officials are increasingly confident of Russia's support. Lobbying France fell to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but President Chirac says he still favors giving inspectors more time.

JACQUES CHIRAC, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) my case and I believe, in fact, it's everybody's case. And we have to allow them the freedom to have the amount of time that they need.

KING: The administration views the Powell presentation as one of two critical dates for the Security Council as a decision on war draws closer. Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix briefs the Council again on the 14th. And the White House then wants key decisions made within days.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The CIA director, George Tenet, will be on hand at the United Nations when Secretary Powell makes that presentation. And a few hours earlier here at the White House, the president and his national security advisor will give a preview to key members of Congress. We're also told by top aides the president will make the case to the bipartisan congressional leadership that his patience for finding a diplomatic solution is wearing quite thin -- Aaron.

BROWN: John, you referred to intercepts of conversations. And we saw a report earlier that part of the presentation may include National Security Agency tapes of conversations. Is that one in the same?

KING: It is one in the same. We are told Secretary Powell is bringing a number of audiotapes with him. He will also bring a translator. Those tapes are in Arabic.

And the message to the Security Council and every one of its members is by 15 to nothing you signed on to a resolution that said if Iraq interferes this time with the inspections regime, there will be serious consequences. Here are the voices of Iraqi officials conspiring to obstruct the inspectors. What will you do now? Your credibility is at stake. That will be the secretary's message when he plays those tapes.

BROWN: John, thank you. I expect we'll talk tomorrow. John King at the White House.

A side note tonight to the run-up to the war, or at least the possibility of one. It involves the general in charge, General Tommy Franks. A side note is how the general's boss sees it, and it may turn out to be nothing more than that. But the allegations are potentially at least quite serious. So here again from the Pentagon, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): General Tommy Franks, the general who has planned and will lead any war against Iraq, is under investigation by the Pentagon's inspector general. That would not be known except for a leak to "The Washington Post," which revealed in its Tuesday edition that Franks was accused by a subordinate of improperly allowing his wife Cathy to sit in on classified meetings, assigning her a bodyguard and military assistant to which she may not have been entitled, and failing to reimburse the government for her travel on military planes. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decried the leak as unfair to Franks and quickly indicated he doesn't think Franks is in any real trouble.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: There isn't a chance in the world that it will have any possible interference with his role as the combatant commander in the central command. Tom Franks is doing a superb job for this country, and we are lucky to have him there.

MCINTYRE: Franks says he's cooperating with investigators but said it would not be appropriate to comment. Rumsfeld's effusive praise of Franks puzzled many in the military who are very sensitive to the prohibitions against what's known as command influence. Rumsfeld is not supposed to make statements that would indicate how he wants the investigation to turn out. Even though as Franks' boss he's the one who would decide if he is to be punished. Rumsfeld seemed to be taken aback at the suggestion that he may have violated the rules himself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is so awkward, but why do you get to do this and no one else?

RUMSFELD: You know maybe I ought to consult a lawyer, how's that?

(END VIDEOTAPE0

MCINTYRE: Afterwards, Rumsfeld's aides said that his original written statement in support of Franks was, in fact, cleared by legal authorities. And he afterwards argued that he himself was only commenting on Franks' role as a commander, not on the specific facts. And he argued, by the way, he said, I can't influence myself unduly. But the issue here is whether the investigators would have been influenced by Rumsfeld's comments. Pentagon officials suggest the IG (ph) report is virtually done. And so they say the conclusions will not be affected by Rumsfeld's public statements -- Aaron.

BROWN: And briefly, when will we see the conclusions, if we see the conclusions?

MCINTYRE : Well it should be a couple of weeks or so. I think they want to clear this up. These DODIG (ph) investigations can sometimes go on for months because they want to be very thorough, but Rumsfeld has indicated that he wants to dispose of this issue quickly. And as I said, sources have indicated the report is virtually done.

And of course it will be up to Rumsfeld to decide if it's a big deal. And he's pretty well hinted he doesn't think it is.

BROWN: Thank you, Jamie. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, presidents in crisis. We'll talk with former presidential advisor David Gergen when we return to Houston in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It has been said that the Bush presidency was changed forever by the events of 9/11 and that the country's view of the president was changed by the speech he made to Congress a little more than a week after that. It often happens that way, the unexpected moment or tragedy and the words chosen to explain it. Fairly or not, we tend to think it is in those words and in those moments that we see the real measure of the man we call the president.

Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Abe Lincoln was right at first, when he said the world will little note nor long remember his tribute to the fallen at Gettysburg. The speech was short, too short, his critics said. And if they'd had polls back then, they would have shown little political benefit. A year later, Lincoln's reelection was very doubtful. Only a string of Union military victories saved him.

But when it takes minutes, not days or weeks, for news of a disaster to girdle the globe, we expected the president to comfort, to reassure, to reaffirm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Challenger now heading downrange.

GREENFIELD: When the grief comes from an accident, a twist of fate, we want reassurance, a sense of strength.

President Reagan after the Challenger blew up in 1986: (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1986)

RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: More often, presidents must speak when great loss of life comes at the hands of enemies. Here, the reassurance comes with the promise of vindication. The day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, President Roosevelt simply said that many American lives had been lost, then declared war on Japan with this promise:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1941)

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: That was the tone struck in more earthy words by President Bush when he stood at ground zero three days after September 11 and said this to the crowd that said they could not hear him.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people...

(CHEERING)

BUSH: And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!

(CHEERING)

GREENFIELD: And when the Congress gathered a week later, the words were more polished, but equally tough.

BUSH: Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.

(APPLAUSE)

GREENFIELD: But not every act of murderous violence brings tough presidential words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1963)

LYNDON JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For me, it is a deep, personal tragedy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: When President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, an act of violence almost unthinkable back then, President Johnson used a speech to Congress to promise strength and continuity, saying, "We meet in grief, but let us meet in renewed dedication and renewed vigor."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About a third of the building has been blown away.

GREENFIELD: And when President Clinton went to mourn the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the act not of a worldwide conspiracy, but of two Americans, his words spoke of a more personal response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1995)

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it. In the face of death, let us honor life. As St. Paul admonished us, let us not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD (on camera): In every one of these cases, presidents have succeeded in striking the proper note. And maybe that shouldn't surprise us, because, unlike a normal political speech, where roughly half the country listens in a skeptical frame of mind, these sudden disasters seem to shock us into a very different state of mind.

We want to believe. We want the president to succeed in his words and his gestures in bringing us a measure of comfort. And so they do.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Santa Barbara, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There may be no one around who knows more about presidents in crises than our next guest. David Gergen has been an adviser to four presidents. And Mr. Gergen joins us again tonight from Boston.

David, nice to see you.

DAVID GERGEN, "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": Good to talk to you, Aaron.

BROWN: Do we put, in any sense -- and perhaps we meaning the media and certainly the country -- too much emphasis on this? Does it really tell us about the president or does it tell us that the president has good speechwriters?

GERGEN: Presidential rhetoric is enormously important, Aaron.

One historian has written that, if Jefferson Davis had been president of the Union and Lincoln had been president of the Confederacy, considering their powers of rhetoric, the Confederacy might have won. Lincoln's eloquence during the war, and his first inaugural, his second inaugural at Gettysburg, and in other places, made an enormous difference in rallying the Union.

Franklin Roosevelt's rhetoric when he took office in 1933, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," seemed to lift that gloom of the moment and gave people hope. Presidents can't and leaders can't solve every problem, but they can give people hope to get through a problem and give people a chance for other things to change and their lives to change.

So, rhetoric does make a difference. It's not the only thing. Judgment, as we found out with President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy's judgment was as important as his rhetoric. So, it's not the only thing, but it is important.

BROWN: I always thought -- he said it spoke to the gloom of the moment -- that the brilliance of President Reagan's speech after the Challenger disaster was in that last line, because it took us from the gloom of the moment, the image of explosion, to the joy of the astronauts walking to the capsule.

GERGEN: That's absolutely right.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who is a student of rhetoric from the University of Pennsylvania, has written a wonderful book in which she has a chapter on Reagan, which looks very closely at that speech. And what Reagan did -- and it was Peggy Noonan, with Peggy Noonan's help as his speechwriter -- everybody all day had watched the pictures of the Challenger exploding in the air, especially American school children.

Half the school children in the country were watching the takeoff of that Challenger because Christy McAuliffe, the teacher, was aboard. And we were all left with that indelible picture of the explosion in the air. And instead of hearkening back to that picture, President Reagan, in the concluding paragraph of his speech in 1986, went back to the picture instead of the human face, of Christy McAuliffe and the fellow astronauts waving goodbye.

And then, as you recall that moment, he said, we will always remember seeing their wave goodbye and recalled the lines from that poem about slipping the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God. And it was a wonderful, poetic and uplifting moment.

Today, President Bush in Houston put a human face on the astronauts who died this weekend. He talked about each of them individually. And I think that gave his speech lift.

BROWN: This may seem a little off the wall, but I'm wondering if you see any connection between what happened over the weekend and what the president needs to do with Iraq. Does it help him? Does it make it more difficult?

And let me throw in one other thought here. Does it raise questions in the country's mind about the fallibility of technology that would come into play, about the fallibility of humans in making calculations, those sorts of things? GERGEN: Well, Aaron, I think that the events of the weekend certainly increase people's apprehensions about what may be ahead of us in Iraq, a sense of fragility in our institutions and technology, a sense, as you say, that the technology that will be so important to us to achieving military victory is fallible and the Americans and many innocent Iraqis may die in this process.

So, I do think people are -- there are many people who read into what happened over the weekend perhaps an omen of what's to come. And yet, at the same time, at a moment of crisis like this, Americans do gather together. They do rally behind the president. They do hug their kids a little more closely. And I think they pray together in a different way for the future. And I think that will support the president in these very difficult decisions in the days ahead.

BROWN: David, it's always good to talk to you. Thanks for your time tonight.

GERGEN: OK, Aaron. It's good to talk to you again.

BROWN: David Gergen from Boston.

Our special edition of NEWSNIGHT from Houston continues in just one moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Next on NEWSNIGHT from Houston, we'll get you caught up on some of the other stories that made news around the country and around the world -- a short break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A few stories to fit in tonight, beginning with the murder case involving the record producer Phil Spector. The victim in that case has now been identified as a young actress named Lana Clarkson. Mr. Spector was freed today after posting $1 million in bail. He was arrested yesterday on suspicion of first-degree murder. The DA's office has yet to receive the case, as no formal charges have been filed.

On to the Clara Harris murder trial going on here in Texas: Ms. Harris accused of killing her husband by running him over with her car after she discovered he was having an affair. The other woman testified today, saying that she believed the Harris' marriage to be an open one -- her words there.

On to a few stories from around the globe tonight: Residents along the east coast of Australia are getting soaked by a cyclone. Fortunately, the soaking and the flooding and all the rest aren't expected to take too great a toll. The storm weakened quite a bit before it got to Australia and may even be a blessing to areas coping right now with forest fires.

And a taste of the elements for Marines in Kuwait: They were planning to spend their time fine-tuning their gun sights. Instead, as you can see, a sandstorm hit. It was all they could do to hunker down and tough it out. This, we guess, is a case of true grit.

More of our special edition of NEWSNIGHT from the Johnson Space Center Houston in a moment with a look at what the astronaut families go through at such a time with someone who knows, June Scobee-Rodgers, whose husband was killed aboard the shuttle Challenger.

This is NEWSNIGHT around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we talk with June Scobee-Rodgers, whose husband was the commander of the space shuttle Challenger.

A short break -- right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The fraternity of astronaut families is a small one. The members of that fraternity who have experienced this sort of tragedy is, thankfully, even smaller.

But in Houston, the Challenger families met today with the Columbia families, consolation from those who know best. Not an easy task, either, for the Challenger families, for it was full of memories, good and very sad.

We talked today with June Scobee-Rodgers, whose husband Dick Scobee died aboard Challenger.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: When we walked in, you said it's hard to be in this particular building again. Tell me about that.

JUNE SCOBEE-RODGERS, WIDOW OF DICK SCOBEE: Well, this was the first time to come back in this room of simulated space aircraft. And it took my breath for a moment, because I had so many fond memories of being here. And then, just, it reminds me quickly that I'm without my soul mate, Dick Scobee, who I love so much, who was commander on Challenger.

But they're fond memories, great, fond memories. He and I used to bring guests here or my college students. And, most of all, it was the -- helped to be -- the ideas have birthed these Challengers Centers that we've created. And we said the world knew how they died. We wanted the world to know how they lived. And we created opportunities for youngsters for fly.

BROWN: And they are -- those centers are operating all over the country, right?

SCOBEE-RODGERS: There are 46 of them, two in Canada, one in England. The queen has visited recently. And they're called Challenger Learning Centers. And youngsters every day climb aboard and fly into space. We say we bring the space frontier to Earth for them. But they fly a mission, just like the astronauts do. They work as a team solving their problems. And they're terrific.

BROWN: You've obviously been through this sort of tragedy before. And you spent time with families today.

SCOBEE-RODGERS: Yes.

BROWN: What do they need right now?

SCOBEE-RODGERS: I think the families are tired. Sometimes, rest helps you with everything.

They have deep, abiding faith. They have a close relationship with God. And they're comfortable with their loved ones. Whether they're in heaven or they're angels or they're in their hearts, they all have a comfort level there.

There's so many questions in their minds about what's going to happen: What should I do? Where should I go? And not that I can help that much, but I encourage them to take one day at a time and that NASA will provide so many of their needs, whether it's, you know: I've never balanced a checkbook. How do I do that? To care for a child, all kinds of counseling and medical, physical concerns, that will be taken care of.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: I'm sorry.

Are they aware, and were you aware 17 years ago, of how the country, and, in many cases, the world, is reacting to their loss?

SCOBEE-RODGERS: That's an interesting question. I felt the kinship to the nation, and especially because I was so closely tied with Christa McAuliffe, the teacher. We knew we were presenting the lessons to be taught around the world.

But my son, an F-16 pilot, recently told me that, that day, he lost his dad and that he didn't even care if he met the president. He was so lost in his -- and sad about his loss. But he said, recently, he spoke to a group of people and to reporters in Phoenix, Arizona, to say that: Now I am a citizen of this planet, of this nation. And I understand why people walk up and tell me, "I know where I was at the time of that accident," and the national outpouring of love.

He, in his wisdom these days, understands it. He's a pretty special guy.

BROWN: All right, you're pretty special as well. It's nice to meet you. I wish the circumstances were better.

We thank you for your time.

SCOBEE-RODGERS: Oh, thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

SCOBEE-RODGERS: My pleasure. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: June Scobee-Rodgers -- we talked to her earlier today.

Our special edition of NEWSNIGHT from the Johnson Space Center in Houston continues with some thoughts on the day from Bruce Morton.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight: an elegy for the quiet heroes of Columbia.

It seems quiet was how they liked it. And maybe those of us who grew up with the boisterous bunch from the early days of the space program weren't quite so used to it. Bartenders didn't necessarily know the names of these astronauts, but their neighbors did. The teachers at school did. The local pastor did.

But quiet, of course, does not mean timid. These were seven adventurers, courageous, like the ones who came before them. So what becomes now of their dream?

Here's CNN's Bruce Morton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When I was a kid in Chicago, our apartment building was next to a railroad track and the westbound trains would go by, Santa Fe, Union Pacific, trains with names like the City of Los Angeles, City of San Francisco. And I knew, age 6, I wanted to go all those places.

And I did, and many others besides, but never, of course, into space, where today's real explorers go. The wreck of Columbia reminds us that exploration is risky. The pictures of young men and women bound for a probable war remind us that life is risky. The arrow of death flies at high noon, a Puritan preacher wrote. And, of course, it does, just not every day.

News is surfacing now that suggest the government had reports worrying about shuttle safety, what with budget cutbacks and all, just as some reports worried about terrorist attacks before 9/11. With NASA, maybe it's time for a long look at what it does and what it ought to do: experiments on a space station in near-space, a journey to Mars? The part of me that watched those trains would vote for that. But would any government spend what that would cost?

It would be difficult, but that's why John Kennedy wanted to go to the moon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, JULY 20, 1969)

NEIL ARMSTRONG, NASA ASTRONAUT: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORTON: Or is space simply another military battleground, in which case, who needs a NASA? Whatever the answer, it's a debate worth having. Has the old urge to see what's out there finally waned?

Anyway, on this day of memorial services and warning, some words for the seven who died. An English poet named Stephen Spender wrote them, thinking of people who are truly great. But they've always seemed to me to fit those who search the heavens: "Those who in their lives fought for life, who wore at their hearts the fire's center, born of the sun, they traveled a short while towards the sun and left the vivid air, signed with their honor."

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Tomorrow, in the strange way the world works, the news focus will shift to Iraq. We'll be back in New York for that. We'll see you at 10:00 Eastern time.

Until then, I'm Aaron Brown. Good night from Houston and NEWSNIGHT.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Powell Speaks to U.N. Security Council Tomorrow>


Aired February 4, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: And good evening, again. We're back at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, as Larry mentioned.
At some point, even the great and important stories can be reduced to their simple and essential core. And for us, today was that day with the tragedy of the shuttle. We so care about the investigation we want to know what happened. And we're still following the search for the debris, now believed scattered as far west as California.

But it was something else that spoke loudest to us today. It was a picture, one picture of a young boy leaning on his father's shoulder. A boy who had lost his mom. He and all the children of the grieving families were told to be proud of their parents. That they could take comfort in someday remembering how the world honored seven lives of great purpose and achievement.

That's no doubt true. But what cold comfort in the years between today and that distant tomorrow. We think of Sydney (ph). She didn't lose Payload Commander Anderson, the lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, who had already logged 211 hours in space, she lost a dad.

And we think of Ian (ph). He didn't lose Mission Specialist Clark, the Navy commander and flight surgeon. He lost mom, and it was all over his face.

Today the children of Columbia lost the person who got out the Band-Aids when they fell down, who stayed up late to help them with their homework when it got tough, who picked them up off the ground when they learned to ride a bike, who sent them off to proms and rooted for them at soccer practice. Not the stuff of heroes, just the simple great purpose of being a good parent.

We can imagine that for the kids that title means the most to them as the one that will not be etched in some memorial years from now. It's mom and it's dad. And as much as the world will now hug these children, they have truly lost that which is irreplaceable, and that is the most heartbreaking thing of all.

More on the memorial today in a moment. But we begin "The Whip" with the investigation as we have. And as we have, we begin with Miles O'Brien. So Miles, a headline, please.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, the search for evidence continued today. And there was a fair amount of success. A piece of landing gear, some computer circuitry, some fuselage, a nose cone. But perhaps most important some credible reports of debris perhaps from Columbia's wing found as far west as California.

BROWN: Miles, thank you. Back to you at the top tonight.

This tragedy here comes just as the issue of Iraq and the possibility of war comes to a head. Our senior White House correspondent John King reporting on that tonight. John, the headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Secretary Powell delivers a critical presentation to the U.N. Security Council in the morning. On the eve of that presentation, Saddam Hussein said in an interview he has no ties to al Qaeda, no weapons of mass destruction, and is cooperating fully with the United Nations inspectors. Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld put it this way: he said listen to the secretary in the morning -- Secretary Powell -- and you will find out that Saddam Hussein is a liar.

BROWN: John, thank you.

And some controversy tonight over the man who would run the war if it comes to that. Jamie McIntyre following that from the Pentagon. Jamie, a headline from you.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well Aaron, on what may be the eve of another Gulf War, as you said, the man who would lead the way, General Tommy Franks, is under investigation for possibly sharing too much with and doing too much for his wife. Now his supporters insist it's all a bunch of silliness, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld seems to agree even before all the facts are in -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, you never hear reporters ask a presidential candidate, just how well would you deal with national tragedy? Yet they can be some of the most important moments of any presidency. Jeff Greenfield tonight looks back at how past presidents have coped. And we'll talk with David Gergen about how this president has handled the tragedy at a time when matters overseas are looming so large.

And after the tributes and the tears, after all the mourners go home, what becomes of the dream to explore space? Bruce Morton on that tonight in "Segment 7." It's a very full hour from Houston tonight at the end of a very full day.

It was a sad day, that goes without saying, but it was also a tremendously busy one. And few other places to heart and head fly in such tight formation. True in triumph and true also in tragedy, and especially true today. President Bush was here to tend to the broken hearts, and there are a lot of them at NASA and all around the country. But even as he did, and he did what he could, the ones with the lumps in their throats were busy with the task at hand. So we begin tonight with the investigation. And we begin again with CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Even as many of the investigators paused to reflect, the hunt for clues pressed on. 9-1-1 tapes in Nacagdoches...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know there's nothing you can do about it, but the " Challenger was coming in this morning and it blew up. It always comes in right over our driveway out here on Route 333 (ph)...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes ma'am?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it blew up. I don't know how, but it...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand, ma'am. Well that's what we think we heard, but we're not really sure, ma'am.

O'BRIEN: And most important, credible reports of pieces of what appears to be Columbia's wing in California, Arizona and New Mexico, much farther west than the debris found so far. NASA is dispatching teams to check these reports out.

MICHAEL KOSTELNIK, NASA ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR: Early material in the debris field is extremely important to the early events of the recovery that would shed important light on what the ultimate cause was, because we feel these results are potentially credible. We have dispatched NASA recovery teams to go and take a look at this material.

O'BRIEN: And near Hemphill, Texas, in the so-called debris belt, some other potentially key discoveries, including wreckage from the landing gear, the fuselage, and some computer circuitry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not just confined to the gear. It's the whole vehicle. It's understanding where all the debris is in relation to the flight path and looking at the debris that's returned and seeing what kind of damage it suffered so that you can put together a playback, if you will, of the sequence of events that led to the breakup.

O'BRIEN: Meanwhile at the Kennedy Space Center, workers got back to the business of processing shuttles. NASA engineers also conducted a flotation test to test a long shot, whether any tiles knocked off during launch could have floated back to shore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now we're told ultimately the pieces of Columbia will end up at the Kennedy Space Center, where they will be pieced together in an effort to try to determine exactly what caused this whole disaster. One other note to give you, Aaron, just to show you evidence can come from odd places, an apache helicopter on a routine training mission in Texas might have captured some interesting images of the shuttle. The investigators are trying to get their hands on that tape as well.

BROWN: Let's talk about the importance of -- at least the possibility that something as far west as California might be found. Why is that so critical?

O'BRIEN: Well, we know from the timeline that's where the trouble began, right around as the Columbia screamed across the coast and into California. That's when you see those temperature spikes on the left side underneath the wing and on the left side of the fuselage. So whatever was happening began at that point. And whatever fell off at that point was probably right at the origin, the root cause.

Now, if you can link that location of that tile to the place where the foam struck 16 days prior during the launch, you're getting closer to coming to a conclusion.

BROWN: And each individual tile is identifiable of where it would sit on the shuttle?

O'BRIEN: They all have serial numbers on them. The serial numbers are designed to withstand the heat of reentry. If they're intact enough, you'll get a serial number and you can pinpoint its location on the fuselage.

BROWN: Thank you, Miles. Miles O'Brien with us tonight.

Well if you have ever lost someone very dear to you, then you know that in some ways the memorial service is the hardest part. Up until then you try to pretend it isn't true. You want it not to be true. But once you put on the black clothing and look at the pained eyes of those who have gathered to grieve with and to comfort you, the pretending is over and the truth finally begins to sink in. And it was that way in Houston today.

The president and the first lady were here to spend private moments with the families and serve a public function for the country. Someday they will find comfort that their family was important enough for the president of the United States to come to honor them. Someday, but not likely this day. Not yet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today we remember not only one moment of tragedy but seven lives of great purpose and achievement. To leave behind earth and air and gravity is an ancient dream of humanity. For these seven it was a dream fulfilled.

CAPT. KENT ROMINGER, ASTRONAUT: This diverse crew functioned flawlessly together, but each individual brought much more than just technical ability to that crew. Let me go on.

Ilan, he was the perfectly poised fighter pilot with a sparkle in his eyes. His instructors remember a moment prior to getting in his launch and entry suit where he was standing there in dark blue thermal underwear with a Santa Claus cap and quipped. "Life is not a rehearsal."

Laurel, a dedicated professional with a wide variety of talents. She had a perpetual smile and would never send an e-mail or phone if she could find you in person.

Mike, he was a perfect choice for the payload commander. Organized, thorough, someone you could absolutely count on. A gifted leader. He was the quiet type unless you asked him about his family or his Porsche.

Smiling Dave, or "Doc" to his friends, quiet and observant with piercing blue eyes. Doc also loved cameras and always had a camera with him. Riding out to the pad, I've never seen anybody's as intent on making sure he filmed every bit of what was going on with his crew as Doc.

Willie was incredibly humble with exceptional talents. He enjoyed surprising people with flowers and Hawaiian leis. Willie was also uncharacteristically punctual for an astronaut, and his training team was dismayed that over the seven years of training he was only late for one event.

Rick. Rick was a terrific human being and a great leader. He was my pilot on his first flight. I grew to really appreciate all of his talents, his gifts, and laugh at all of his Amarillo sayings. His favorite saying -- and I can hear him saying it right now -- was, "You know, I feel more now like I did than when I first got here."

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Last Wednesday, as the Columbia crew was circling the globe, Kalpana took a rest from her duties to take in the stunning view of the Earth at sunset. A view that only a select group of space explorers had been privileged to witness. Now she told us from the flight deck that the entire Earth and sky could be seen reflected in the retina of her eye.

She called her crew mates to come over to see this amazing sight. It is this image, the image of Columbia's crew joyfully joining Kalpana to see our beautiful planet reflected in their friend's eye that we will remember and treasure forever. And for these and for them, and their memories, we will persevere.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The memorial service this afternoon here in Houston. Today's service planned down to the last detail, but from the beginning we've been taken, as you know, by the spontaneous outpouring of emotions. By people making a pilgrimage literally to NASA's front door.

They come from just down the road and miles beyond that. Parents bringing their children not so much to make sense of it, we think, but just to be at one with it and to be together with people feeling the same way. We've all seen it before, haven't we? The teddy bears in Oklahoma City and Columbine, the notes and the tears at ground zero, and now Houston joins that long, sad list. Here's CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRSPONDENT (voice-over): They came to sing, hold hands, pray, cry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just had to come and at least be close to the memorial service.

FLOCK: At the makeshift shrine outside the main gate, they brought signs and flowers and balloons.

BUSH: And we lost them so close to home.

FLOCK: Then gathered around portable radios to hear the service. Eight-year-old Bianca Bernard's mother brought the family.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's almost magical in a way. You can feel the sense of love just all around.

FLOCK: They gathered too in the dark at the Outpost Tavern just across from the space center, where photos of their heroes line the walls. Most watched in silence. NASA budget analyst Vicki Ostene (ph) bowing her head in prayer at the bar.

VICKI OSTENE, NASA BUDGET ANALYST: It pulls everyone together. And there's a big sense of family out there right now, a big sense of togetherness.

FLOCK: Back at the memorial, one woman showed us a yellowed copy of a Beaumont, Texas newspaper from the day Columbia was first launched in 1981. It says about a dozen thermal tiles fell off then.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that right there is just absolutely appalling to me. That all these years later, 22 years later, the same shuttle was being used that caused trouble from the very first day it went up.

FLOCK: But most everyone here agrees with this sign: "Keep NASA Alive."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't quit. Don't quit and don't even slow down.

FLOCK: Dennis Barber (ph) is a NASA contractor. Penny Stanch (ph) a NASA engineer.

PEGGY STANCH, NASA ENGINEER: It's like getting back on that horse that threw you. You have to get back up there.

FLOCK: There are plenty of volunteers.

(on camera): Would you like to be an astronaut someday?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.

FLOCK: Did what happened here this week scare you away at all?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. The first thing that came to my mind was how did it happen, why did it happen and where did it happen?

FLOCK: Questions they can get back to now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This space program is going to live on. It's not going to end with this. There's no way it's going to end.

FLOCK: I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We have more on the shuttle disaster later in the program. But up next on NEWSNIGHT, we begin to deal a bit with what will be tomorrow's lead story: the secretary of state goes to the United Nations. The subject: Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. From Houston, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Tomorrow, Secretary of State Powell lays out the administration's case against Iraq. It is an important day for the administration and important, too, for the U.N. Security Council. Today's developments inside Iraq set the stage. U.N. inspectors found another empty chemical warhead at an ammunition depot north of Baghdad. The Iraqis claim they'd simply lost track of it.

And during an interview with a British peace activist conducted over the weekend, Saddam Hussein said this: he said "Iraq is free of all weapons of mass destruction and I challenge anyone who claims we have them to come forward with their evidence and present it before public opinion." Saddam Hussein also denied any connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Until recently, the Bush administration has seemed to bristle at the need to prove either of those two things to the rest of the world. Only lately has it buckled down to the effort which is expected to reach climax tomorrow at the U.N. For the last couple of days, Secretary of State Powell has been trying to tamp down expectations some. Perhaps an impossible job when you consider the stakes.

Here again, our senior White House correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): High stakes diplomacy on the eve of a critical presentation to the United Nations Security Council, where China has veto power. Administration officials say Secretary Powell will detail contacts between al Qaeda operatives and Iraq, but be careful not to suggest any formal alliance.

RICHARD ARMITAGE, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: We don't want to overstate it for the obvious reasons. Some intersections with various and sundry terrorist groups, and that's our real fear with Iraq, sir. KING: Powell's overwhelming focus, officials say, will be to show the Council what the White House considers detailed proof of Iraqi deception: satellite photographs showing evidence moved just before weapons inspections, intercepted conversations in which Iraqi officials talk about hiding evidence and coach scientists to mislead inspectors. And intelligence suggesting Iraqi imports of banned weapons materials as recently as the past month or so.

The goal is to win enough backing for a second Security Council resolution that sets a final deadline for Iraqi compliance within several weeks and gives the U.N.'s blessing for military action if that deadline is ignored.

JOHN NEGROPONTE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: The Council must face up to its responsibilities and serious consequences will have to be faced.

KING: President Bush called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Powell's presentation, that U.S. officials are increasingly confident of Russia's support. Lobbying France fell to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but President Chirac says he still favors giving inspectors more time.

JACQUES CHIRAC, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) my case and I believe, in fact, it's everybody's case. And we have to allow them the freedom to have the amount of time that they need.

KING: The administration views the Powell presentation as one of two critical dates for the Security Council as a decision on war draws closer. Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix briefs the Council again on the 14th. And the White House then wants key decisions made within days.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The CIA director, George Tenet, will be on hand at the United Nations when Secretary Powell makes that presentation. And a few hours earlier here at the White House, the president and his national security advisor will give a preview to key members of Congress. We're also told by top aides the president will make the case to the bipartisan congressional leadership that his patience for finding a diplomatic solution is wearing quite thin -- Aaron.

BROWN: John, you referred to intercepts of conversations. And we saw a report earlier that part of the presentation may include National Security Agency tapes of conversations. Is that one in the same?

KING: It is one in the same. We are told Secretary Powell is bringing a number of audiotapes with him. He will also bring a translator. Those tapes are in Arabic.

And the message to the Security Council and every one of its members is by 15 to nothing you signed on to a resolution that said if Iraq interferes this time with the inspections regime, there will be serious consequences. Here are the voices of Iraqi officials conspiring to obstruct the inspectors. What will you do now? Your credibility is at stake. That will be the secretary's message when he plays those tapes.

BROWN: John, thank you. I expect we'll talk tomorrow. John King at the White House.

A side note tonight to the run-up to the war, or at least the possibility of one. It involves the general in charge, General Tommy Franks. A side note is how the general's boss sees it, and it may turn out to be nothing more than that. But the allegations are potentially at least quite serious. So here again from the Pentagon, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): General Tommy Franks, the general who has planned and will lead any war against Iraq, is under investigation by the Pentagon's inspector general. That would not be known except for a leak to "The Washington Post," which revealed in its Tuesday edition that Franks was accused by a subordinate of improperly allowing his wife Cathy to sit in on classified meetings, assigning her a bodyguard and military assistant to which she may not have been entitled, and failing to reimburse the government for her travel on military planes. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decried the leak as unfair to Franks and quickly indicated he doesn't think Franks is in any real trouble.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: There isn't a chance in the world that it will have any possible interference with his role as the combatant commander in the central command. Tom Franks is doing a superb job for this country, and we are lucky to have him there.

MCINTYRE: Franks says he's cooperating with investigators but said it would not be appropriate to comment. Rumsfeld's effusive praise of Franks puzzled many in the military who are very sensitive to the prohibitions against what's known as command influence. Rumsfeld is not supposed to make statements that would indicate how he wants the investigation to turn out. Even though as Franks' boss he's the one who would decide if he is to be punished. Rumsfeld seemed to be taken aback at the suggestion that he may have violated the rules himself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is so awkward, but why do you get to do this and no one else?

RUMSFELD: You know maybe I ought to consult a lawyer, how's that?

(END VIDEOTAPE0

MCINTYRE: Afterwards, Rumsfeld's aides said that his original written statement in support of Franks was, in fact, cleared by legal authorities. And he afterwards argued that he himself was only commenting on Franks' role as a commander, not on the specific facts. And he argued, by the way, he said, I can't influence myself unduly. But the issue here is whether the investigators would have been influenced by Rumsfeld's comments. Pentagon officials suggest the IG (ph) report is virtually done. And so they say the conclusions will not be affected by Rumsfeld's public statements -- Aaron.

BROWN: And briefly, when will we see the conclusions, if we see the conclusions?

MCINTYRE : Well it should be a couple of weeks or so. I think they want to clear this up. These DODIG (ph) investigations can sometimes go on for months because they want to be very thorough, but Rumsfeld has indicated that he wants to dispose of this issue quickly. And as I said, sources have indicated the report is virtually done.

And of course it will be up to Rumsfeld to decide if it's a big deal. And he's pretty well hinted he doesn't think it is.

BROWN: Thank you, Jamie. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, presidents in crisis. We'll talk with former presidential advisor David Gergen when we return to Houston in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It has been said that the Bush presidency was changed forever by the events of 9/11 and that the country's view of the president was changed by the speech he made to Congress a little more than a week after that. It often happens that way, the unexpected moment or tragedy and the words chosen to explain it. Fairly or not, we tend to think it is in those words and in those moments that we see the real measure of the man we call the president.

Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Abe Lincoln was right at first, when he said the world will little note nor long remember his tribute to the fallen at Gettysburg. The speech was short, too short, his critics said. And if they'd had polls back then, they would have shown little political benefit. A year later, Lincoln's reelection was very doubtful. Only a string of Union military victories saved him.

But when it takes minutes, not days or weeks, for news of a disaster to girdle the globe, we expected the president to comfort, to reassure, to reaffirm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Challenger now heading downrange.

GREENFIELD: When the grief comes from an accident, a twist of fate, we want reassurance, a sense of strength.

President Reagan after the Challenger blew up in 1986: (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1986)

RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: More often, presidents must speak when great loss of life comes at the hands of enemies. Here, the reassurance comes with the promise of vindication. The day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, President Roosevelt simply said that many American lives had been lost, then declared war on Japan with this promise:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1941)

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: That was the tone struck in more earthy words by President Bush when he stood at ground zero three days after September 11 and said this to the crowd that said they could not hear him.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people...

(CHEERING)

BUSH: And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!

(CHEERING)

GREENFIELD: And when the Congress gathered a week later, the words were more polished, but equally tough.

BUSH: Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.

(APPLAUSE)

GREENFIELD: But not every act of murderous violence brings tough presidential words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1963)

LYNDON JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For me, it is a deep, personal tragedy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: When President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, an act of violence almost unthinkable back then, President Johnson used a speech to Congress to promise strength and continuity, saying, "We meet in grief, but let us meet in renewed dedication and renewed vigor."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About a third of the building has been blown away.

GREENFIELD: And when President Clinton went to mourn the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the act not of a worldwide conspiracy, but of two Americans, his words spoke of a more personal response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1995)

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it. In the face of death, let us honor life. As St. Paul admonished us, let us not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD (on camera): In every one of these cases, presidents have succeeded in striking the proper note. And maybe that shouldn't surprise us, because, unlike a normal political speech, where roughly half the country listens in a skeptical frame of mind, these sudden disasters seem to shock us into a very different state of mind.

We want to believe. We want the president to succeed in his words and his gestures in bringing us a measure of comfort. And so they do.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Santa Barbara, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There may be no one around who knows more about presidents in crises than our next guest. David Gergen has been an adviser to four presidents. And Mr. Gergen joins us again tonight from Boston.

David, nice to see you.

DAVID GERGEN, "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": Good to talk to you, Aaron.

BROWN: Do we put, in any sense -- and perhaps we meaning the media and certainly the country -- too much emphasis on this? Does it really tell us about the president or does it tell us that the president has good speechwriters?

GERGEN: Presidential rhetoric is enormously important, Aaron.

One historian has written that, if Jefferson Davis had been president of the Union and Lincoln had been president of the Confederacy, considering their powers of rhetoric, the Confederacy might have won. Lincoln's eloquence during the war, and his first inaugural, his second inaugural at Gettysburg, and in other places, made an enormous difference in rallying the Union.

Franklin Roosevelt's rhetoric when he took office in 1933, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," seemed to lift that gloom of the moment and gave people hope. Presidents can't and leaders can't solve every problem, but they can give people hope to get through a problem and give people a chance for other things to change and their lives to change.

So, rhetoric does make a difference. It's not the only thing. Judgment, as we found out with President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy's judgment was as important as his rhetoric. So, it's not the only thing, but it is important.

BROWN: I always thought -- he said it spoke to the gloom of the moment -- that the brilliance of President Reagan's speech after the Challenger disaster was in that last line, because it took us from the gloom of the moment, the image of explosion, to the joy of the astronauts walking to the capsule.

GERGEN: That's absolutely right.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who is a student of rhetoric from the University of Pennsylvania, has written a wonderful book in which she has a chapter on Reagan, which looks very closely at that speech. And what Reagan did -- and it was Peggy Noonan, with Peggy Noonan's help as his speechwriter -- everybody all day had watched the pictures of the Challenger exploding in the air, especially American school children.

Half the school children in the country were watching the takeoff of that Challenger because Christy McAuliffe, the teacher, was aboard. And we were all left with that indelible picture of the explosion in the air. And instead of hearkening back to that picture, President Reagan, in the concluding paragraph of his speech in 1986, went back to the picture instead of the human face, of Christy McAuliffe and the fellow astronauts waving goodbye.

And then, as you recall that moment, he said, we will always remember seeing their wave goodbye and recalled the lines from that poem about slipping the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God. And it was a wonderful, poetic and uplifting moment.

Today, President Bush in Houston put a human face on the astronauts who died this weekend. He talked about each of them individually. And I think that gave his speech lift.

BROWN: This may seem a little off the wall, but I'm wondering if you see any connection between what happened over the weekend and what the president needs to do with Iraq. Does it help him? Does it make it more difficult?

And let me throw in one other thought here. Does it raise questions in the country's mind about the fallibility of technology that would come into play, about the fallibility of humans in making calculations, those sorts of things? GERGEN: Well, Aaron, I think that the events of the weekend certainly increase people's apprehensions about what may be ahead of us in Iraq, a sense of fragility in our institutions and technology, a sense, as you say, that the technology that will be so important to us to achieving military victory is fallible and the Americans and many innocent Iraqis may die in this process.

So, I do think people are -- there are many people who read into what happened over the weekend perhaps an omen of what's to come. And yet, at the same time, at a moment of crisis like this, Americans do gather together. They do rally behind the president. They do hug their kids a little more closely. And I think they pray together in a different way for the future. And I think that will support the president in these very difficult decisions in the days ahead.

BROWN: David, it's always good to talk to you. Thanks for your time tonight.

GERGEN: OK, Aaron. It's good to talk to you again.

BROWN: David Gergen from Boston.

Our special edition of NEWSNIGHT from Houston continues in just one moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Next on NEWSNIGHT from Houston, we'll get you caught up on some of the other stories that made news around the country and around the world -- a short break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A few stories to fit in tonight, beginning with the murder case involving the record producer Phil Spector. The victim in that case has now been identified as a young actress named Lana Clarkson. Mr. Spector was freed today after posting $1 million in bail. He was arrested yesterday on suspicion of first-degree murder. The DA's office has yet to receive the case, as no formal charges have been filed.

On to the Clara Harris murder trial going on here in Texas: Ms. Harris accused of killing her husband by running him over with her car after she discovered he was having an affair. The other woman testified today, saying that she believed the Harris' marriage to be an open one -- her words there.

On to a few stories from around the globe tonight: Residents along the east coast of Australia are getting soaked by a cyclone. Fortunately, the soaking and the flooding and all the rest aren't expected to take too great a toll. The storm weakened quite a bit before it got to Australia and may even be a blessing to areas coping right now with forest fires.

And a taste of the elements for Marines in Kuwait: They were planning to spend their time fine-tuning their gun sights. Instead, as you can see, a sandstorm hit. It was all they could do to hunker down and tough it out. This, we guess, is a case of true grit.

More of our special edition of NEWSNIGHT from the Johnson Space Center Houston in a moment with a look at what the astronaut families go through at such a time with someone who knows, June Scobee-Rodgers, whose husband was killed aboard the shuttle Challenger.

This is NEWSNIGHT around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we talk with June Scobee-Rodgers, whose husband was the commander of the space shuttle Challenger.

A short break -- right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The fraternity of astronaut families is a small one. The members of that fraternity who have experienced this sort of tragedy is, thankfully, even smaller.

But in Houston, the Challenger families met today with the Columbia families, consolation from those who know best. Not an easy task, either, for the Challenger families, for it was full of memories, good and very sad.

We talked today with June Scobee-Rodgers, whose husband Dick Scobee died aboard Challenger.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: When we walked in, you said it's hard to be in this particular building again. Tell me about that.

JUNE SCOBEE-RODGERS, WIDOW OF DICK SCOBEE: Well, this was the first time to come back in this room of simulated space aircraft. And it took my breath for a moment, because I had so many fond memories of being here. And then, just, it reminds me quickly that I'm without my soul mate, Dick Scobee, who I love so much, who was commander on Challenger.

But they're fond memories, great, fond memories. He and I used to bring guests here or my college students. And, most of all, it was the -- helped to be -- the ideas have birthed these Challengers Centers that we've created. And we said the world knew how they died. We wanted the world to know how they lived. And we created opportunities for youngsters for fly.

BROWN: And they are -- those centers are operating all over the country, right?

SCOBEE-RODGERS: There are 46 of them, two in Canada, one in England. The queen has visited recently. And they're called Challenger Learning Centers. And youngsters every day climb aboard and fly into space. We say we bring the space frontier to Earth for them. But they fly a mission, just like the astronauts do. They work as a team solving their problems. And they're terrific.

BROWN: You've obviously been through this sort of tragedy before. And you spent time with families today.

SCOBEE-RODGERS: Yes.

BROWN: What do they need right now?

SCOBEE-RODGERS: I think the families are tired. Sometimes, rest helps you with everything.

They have deep, abiding faith. They have a close relationship with God. And they're comfortable with their loved ones. Whether they're in heaven or they're angels or they're in their hearts, they all have a comfort level there.

There's so many questions in their minds about what's going to happen: What should I do? Where should I go? And not that I can help that much, but I encourage them to take one day at a time and that NASA will provide so many of their needs, whether it's, you know: I've never balanced a checkbook. How do I do that? To care for a child, all kinds of counseling and medical, physical concerns, that will be taken care of.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: I'm sorry.

Are they aware, and were you aware 17 years ago, of how the country, and, in many cases, the world, is reacting to their loss?

SCOBEE-RODGERS: That's an interesting question. I felt the kinship to the nation, and especially because I was so closely tied with Christa McAuliffe, the teacher. We knew we were presenting the lessons to be taught around the world.

But my son, an F-16 pilot, recently told me that, that day, he lost his dad and that he didn't even care if he met the president. He was so lost in his -- and sad about his loss. But he said, recently, he spoke to a group of people and to reporters in Phoenix, Arizona, to say that: Now I am a citizen of this planet, of this nation. And I understand why people walk up and tell me, "I know where I was at the time of that accident," and the national outpouring of love.

He, in his wisdom these days, understands it. He's a pretty special guy.

BROWN: All right, you're pretty special as well. It's nice to meet you. I wish the circumstances were better.

We thank you for your time.

SCOBEE-RODGERS: Oh, thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

SCOBEE-RODGERS: My pleasure. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: June Scobee-Rodgers -- we talked to her earlier today.

Our special edition of NEWSNIGHT from the Johnson Space Center in Houston continues with some thoughts on the day from Bruce Morton.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight: an elegy for the quiet heroes of Columbia.

It seems quiet was how they liked it. And maybe those of us who grew up with the boisterous bunch from the early days of the space program weren't quite so used to it. Bartenders didn't necessarily know the names of these astronauts, but their neighbors did. The teachers at school did. The local pastor did.

But quiet, of course, does not mean timid. These were seven adventurers, courageous, like the ones who came before them. So what becomes now of their dream?

Here's CNN's Bruce Morton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When I was a kid in Chicago, our apartment building was next to a railroad track and the westbound trains would go by, Santa Fe, Union Pacific, trains with names like the City of Los Angeles, City of San Francisco. And I knew, age 6, I wanted to go all those places.

And I did, and many others besides, but never, of course, into space, where today's real explorers go. The wreck of Columbia reminds us that exploration is risky. The pictures of young men and women bound for a probable war remind us that life is risky. The arrow of death flies at high noon, a Puritan preacher wrote. And, of course, it does, just not every day.

News is surfacing now that suggest the government had reports worrying about shuttle safety, what with budget cutbacks and all, just as some reports worried about terrorist attacks before 9/11. With NASA, maybe it's time for a long look at what it does and what it ought to do: experiments on a space station in near-space, a journey to Mars? The part of me that watched those trains would vote for that. But would any government spend what that would cost?

It would be difficult, but that's why John Kennedy wanted to go to the moon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, JULY 20, 1969)

NEIL ARMSTRONG, NASA ASTRONAUT: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORTON: Or is space simply another military battleground, in which case, who needs a NASA? Whatever the answer, it's a debate worth having. Has the old urge to see what's out there finally waned?

Anyway, on this day of memorial services and warning, some words for the seven who died. An English poet named Stephen Spender wrote them, thinking of people who are truly great. But they've always seemed to me to fit those who search the heavens: "Those who in their lives fought for life, who wore at their hearts the fire's center, born of the sun, they traveled a short while towards the sun and left the vivid air, signed with their honor."

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Tomorrow, in the strange way the world works, the news focus will shift to Iraq. We'll be back in New York for that. We'll see you at 10:00 Eastern time.

Until then, I'm Aaron Brown. Good night from Houston and NEWSNIGHT.

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