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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Robert Stack, June Carter Cash Die

Aired May 15, 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.


JUDY WOODRUFF, GUEST HOST: Good evening everyone. I'm Judy Woodruff sitting in for Aaron Brown.
It would be convenient if true crime stories were like the show "Law and Order" where the bad guys like clockwork are caught in the first half hour and get justice in the second half.

But this crime story is one that will follow a script impossible to predict, a small team from the FBI arriving in a faraway land that may not want them there, trying to hunt down the terrorists who killed eight Americans and dozens more.

It is hardly a given that these criminals will get justice at the end.

And we begin tonight with that investigation in Saudi Arabia. We start off this whip tonight with Kelli Arena at the Justice Department with the latest on the investigation, Kelli the headline please.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. team, including CIA and FBI agents, is on the ground in Riyadh trying to help the Saudis find those responsible for Monday's attacks -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Thanks, Kelli, back to you later.

An effort to guard against the terror threat posed by shoulder- fired missiles, Patty Davis is working on that story for us, Patty the headline.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Department of Homeland Security is asking companies to test technologies that could be put on U.S. commercial airplanes to repel terrorist missiles. Now, this follows a warning by the U.S. and the U.K. that airlines could be targets in East Africa -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Allegations of a vast anti-French conspiracy, Dana Bash is on that from the White House, Dana the headline.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, the French have decided that they're not going to take a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) attitude toward what they call an American smear campaign against them. The White House says no campaign exists but they do admit that relations are rocky -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Dana, we'll be back to you in a few minutes. To Iraq now and the efforts to bring some semblance of law and order, Jane Arraf has the latest on that story from Baghdad, Jane the headline.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The new top U.S. administrator in Baghdad pledges to restore security to the city and to pull the Ba'ath Party up by the roots. It's a tall order -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jane Arraf, and did you notice it's an all woman line up tonight. Thank you all and we'll see you in just a moment.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, the political fight that has put the president in a very delicate spot; whether Congress should extend the ban on assault weapons.

Sex and the White House intern, not the intern you're thinking of. We will look at a salacious story from the days of Camelot that took decades to emerge.

Also, the latest on the Texas standoff between Republicans in the State House of Representatives and the Democrats who fought their rivals by fleeing the state.

All that to come in the next 90 minutes, and we begin with a late development in the war on terrorism, the State Department says it has received a report warning that of a possible attack on the city of Jetta in Saudi Arabia's west coast. Now the report is unconfirmed and the time frame is not certain but Americans in Jetta are being notified nonetheless.

This comes as a six-member FBI team arrived in Riyadh, the capital, a very small team, its mission a delicate one. Get the investigation going without stepping on Saudi toes.

Here now, CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): U.S. investigators are now in Saudi Arabia to help hunt down the terrorists who killed eight Americans but it's still unclear how much of a role the Saudis will let the U.S. team have.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We expect full cooperation in the investigation and I think all indications are from the FBI assessment team is that Saudi Arabia is cooperating.

ARENA: A top priority reconstructing the truck bombs, just as FBI agents did in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing.

DAVE WILLIAMS, FORMER FBI AGENT: We were able to determine exactly what it was and based on the way it was put together we had a fairly good idea who may have laid that down.

ARENA: There is still some question about what the U.S. told the Saudis before the attacks. U.S. government sources say that when top White House aide Stephen Hadley met urgently with Crown Prince Abdullah he did not provide intelligence about a specific target.

Instead, a senior U.S. official says the Saudis were given an analysis that al Qaeda was in the final phases of planning a major attack in Saudi Arabia and that it would most likely try to hit targets like businesses and housing compounds.

PRINCE BANDAR BIN SULTAN, SAUDI AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: Our security agencies took the request seriously, assessed the situation, and decided the measures were adequate.

ARENA: A week before the attacks, the Saudis did discover a safe house and weapons cache near one of the compounds hit and some U.S. government officials say it is very likely the terrorists used it to case the targets.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Saudi Arabia must deal with the fact that it has terrorists inside its country.

ARENA: U.S. officials say that is imperative because intelligence suggests al Qaeda is planning more attacks in the kingdom.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Well, meantime today was the start of a very quiet weekend in Riyadh, the weekend in much of the Arab world falling on Thursday and Friday. Local papers are reporting fewer people are out and about and very tight security in strategic locations around the capital.

"TIME" magazine's Scott MacLeod is there tonight. He joins us now by phone. Scott, what are the prospects that the FBI is going to be able to conduct a thorough investigation of all this?

SCOTT MACLEOD, CAIRO BUREAU CHIEF, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, you know, there's a difference in investigative cultures between the FBI and the Saudi Interior Ministry, which will be conducting the investigation or leading the investigation on the Saudi side.

They've had difficulties before, differences of opinion, differences of approach, and suspicions when they investigated the Riyadh bombing of 1995 which killed several Americans as well as the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed about 19 Americans.

So, they have had their differences in the past. I think U.S. officials here are somewhat optimistic that the cooperation will be much, much better this time, in part because the Saudis as never before at the highest levels are clearly acknowledging that they do have a terrorism problem. They do have a problem with Islamic extremism, which they tried to brush aside in the past.

But, when you have a major systematic well-planned terrorist attack by al Qaeda in the heart of your capital, it begins -- it becomes much more difficult to pretend it's not there. So, the U.S. officials here anyway are hoping for much better cooperation and mind you they've also had the experience of those past two investigations so they know each other a little bit better. They know what is expected this time.

WOODRUFF: Scott, it was reported here that the Americans -- at least the Americans said that they asked the Saudi government to beef up the security at this compound and they didn't do that, so what makes them think that they're going to get the sort of cooperation now that they need?

MACLEOD: Well, it has to be put into context. I mean we've had officials here saying to us that on both sides that you can't expect total protection of well over 1,000 housing compounds around Saudi Arabia that house foreign workers and many of them include or house American workers.

In this particular case, there was a belief that this particular housing complex was going to be targeted because they had discovered a week or so earlier the safe house within. It had a clear view of the housing compound, was clearly being used not only as a stake out, as an observation post but they discovered about 800 pounds of explosives there which may have been used for an attack on that particular compound.

But they had actually discovered that safe house and eliminated the people living there and using it and the weapons and so on that they were stashing there. There may have been some feeling on the Saudi side that because they had discovered that safe house that had eliminated the threat to that nearby housing complex.

But be that as it may, that housing complex still had three layers of security making it among the best protected in the kingdom. So, although in hindsight it is easy to say wow, you know, you really screwed up by not doing something more, especially since the Americans pointedly asked you to.

Nevertheless it remains the case that the security at that position was good and in the event when the attack took place at that housing complex the good security did actually foil the intruders from getting inside the complex and they had to detonate their bomb outside the complex an only one resident of that complex was killed in that attack because of the improved or the relatively high level of security.

So, in hindsight it's easy to blame the Saudis for not really stepping up security at that particular one because of the warning that the Americans had given but the Saudis were in a situation of having to deal with a threat. No one knew exactly which housing complex would be targeted or when.

WOODRUFF: Scott.

MACLEOD: So, that was a difficult call that the Saudis didn't come through on.

WOODRUFF: Right. Well, Scott MacLeod thanks very much. Essentially you're saying it could have been a lot worse. Well, I know you'll be watching that investigation very closely. Scott McLeod is with "TIME" magazine reporting for us tonight from Riyadh.

And now we move on to the burning question that comes up whenever one of these attacks takes place. What if anything does it say about whether Osama bin Laden is still in control of al Qaeda?

CNN's Jamie McIntyre has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Despite the failure of the United States to capture, kill, or otherwise account for Osama bin Laden. U.S. officials believe any involvement he may have had in this week's bombings in Saudi Arabia was probably limited.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: If he is alive and functioning and playing a role, which I don't know, it is a much more difficult role than it had been previously. It's more difficult in terms of raising money. It's more difficult in terms of moving people and things and weapons.

MCINTYRE: U.S. intelligence believes bin Laden remains holed up in an ungoverned region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, so while bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda leaders may support or inspire the attacks, U.S. officials argue they likely lack the communication and freedom of movement to effectively direct them.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Our suspicions are they're living in areas where they can bribe the local, the tribals, that are implying to support them and protect them and they're in very difficult areas on this earth.

MCINTYRE: U.S. intelligence experts are divided about what the attacks say about the strength of what's left of al Qaeda. Clearly, it shows the terrorist network, or at least one cell, can still carry out a coordinated strike resulting in significant casualties. But the latest tactic may also reveal a weakness, having to go for easier targets that kill Arabs and Muslims as well as Americans and westerners.

MYERS: I think one thing that the bombings in Riyadh remind us of is that one thing that has not changed is the intentions of this terrorist group.

MCINTYRE (on camera): So, why can't the U.S. find bin Laden? The Pentagon offers three reasons, the difficulty of finding any single individual, the ease of hiding in ungoverned areas, and the support of countries like Iran who continue to harbor al Qaeda leaders.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WOODRUFF: Well, regardless of who runs it, al Qaeda has a lot of very rough customers still at large. One is thought to have returned recently to the East African country of Kenya and his M.O. involves a threat to airliners that security experts are taking very seriously indeed.

Here again, CNN's Patty Davis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVIS (voice-over): British Airways canceled its flights from London to Nairobi Thursday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I tell you what I feel disappointed for all those people who are going to try to fly out tomorrow.

DAVIS: The cancellations came after Britain's Department of Transport advised its airlines to suspend flights to and from Kenya due to a credible terrorist threat to western interests.

Wednesday, another warning, this time from the U.S. State Department that the threat to aircraft by terrorists using shoulder- fired missiles continues in Kenya, including Nairobi.

Such an attack happened in Mombasa, Kenya in November but terrorists missed their target, an Israeli airliner. Members of Congress say it could happen in the U.S.

REP. STEVE ISRAEL (D), NEW YORK: The more we know about his threat, the more we know we have to act to defend against it.

REP. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: These weapons have a range of about 12,000 feet, well within the flight paths of thousands of planes which fly in and out of airports.

DAVIS: The U.S. military has been using technology to repel missile attacks for years. At lawmakers' urging the Department of Homeland Security is asking companies to build prototype devices on commercial planes that would do the same.

On the ground, the agency says it is already beefing up security with fences and increased patrols at airport perimeters, the hope to keep terrorists with shoulder-fired missiles far from commercial planes at their most vulnerable point during takeoff and landing.

MICHAEL BARR, AVIATION SAFETY PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: You would have to move the security out probably two to three miles from the normal perimeter of an airport and you would almost turn it into a police state and I don't think that will ever happen.

DAVIS: While U.S. officials say there is no credible intelligence that terrorists plan to use shoulder-fired missiles against commercial airplanes in the U.S., they say they are not taking any chances.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DAVIS: Thousands of the weapons are available on the black market overseas and officials worry they could be smuggled into the U.S. -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Patty, what sort of technology are we talking about here?

DAVIS: Well, we're not talking about what you saw on those military aircraft which are those flares which are thrown off by the pilot off of the aircraft when they see that a shoulder-fired missile has been fired in their direction, another heat-seeking source from a heat-seeking missile to deflect that missile.

What we're talking about here is a technology such as lasers whereby there would be sensors on the wing perhaps of the aircraft sensing a missile coming in. The laser beam then hones in on that missile, jams its tracking technology, and sends it off course.

It's a passive technology. The pilot wouldn't have to do anything. It would just take place but the thing is that these are very expensive. We're talking $1 million to $1.5 million a piece, a question whether that will be something the airlines want to spend money on. Maybe Congress would have to go ahead and pay for it itself -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: I have a feeling it's going to be a while before we see many copies of that. All right, Patty Davis, thanks very much, appreciate it.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to go to Baghdad where the new top man held a press conference and acknowledged there's a lot of work ahead.

And later, complaints from the French who say they're being unfairly blamed for not cooperating in the war. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: It was a serious show of American muscle today in Iraq. Forces raided a village near Saddam Hussein's hometown. They rounded up dozens of men including a wanted Iraqi general.

In Baghdad, meantime, soldiers carried out several hundred patrols overnight arresting dozens of people. This show of force is intended to send a message that the United States will no longer tolerate disorder.

And, as CNN's Jane Arraf reports, there is much to be done.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): Chaos in Baghdad's daytime streets, fear at night. The man chosen by U.S. President George W. Bush to run Iraq concedes he has a lot to tackle.

PAUL BREMER, U.S. IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION ADMIN.: We have to deal with the criminal elements here in Baghdad and we will.

ARRAF: It was the first news conference in Iraq by former ambassador and counterterror expert Paul Bremer.

BREMER: And as far as I'm concerned, it can not come too soon that the people of Baghdad and the other cities of Iraq can walk about the streets in peace, the children can go to school, the hospitals can get their supplies. It can't come too soon and you may be sure that it is the top priority.

ARRAF: Bremer said courts are reopening to try criminals, jails reopening to have somewhere to put them, and soon there will be more U.S. forces in the street to deter them.

(on camera): More troops, reopened prisons, and an emphasis on security, Iraqis here say they want and need more security but the preoccupation with law and order seems to be putting establishing the government on the back burner.

(voice-over): The civilian administration was to have organized at the end of May a conference to choose an interim Iraqi government but that could be delayed as the Americans grapple with security and restoring basic services to Baghdad, one of the trickiest elements dealing with the remnants of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party. Bremer said they would pull the party up by their roots.

BREMER: The Coalition Provisional Authority disestablished the Ba'athist Party on April 16. Shortly, I will issue an order on measures to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Ba'athists and Ba'athism from Iraq forever.

ARRAF: But in a country in which the Ba'ath Party for decades ruled almost every element of public life, that may be an even more difficult task than making the streets safe again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: Now, Bremer noted some achievements. He said the north and the south of Iraq have more electricity than they've had in a long time and also noted that in some northern cities there have been elections for local city councils.

But here in the capital of Baghdad, the heart of Iraq, all of those things remain a problem -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jane, two questions I'm going to combine into one. Has the former man in charge, General Jay Garner, disappeared into thin air, and second what exactly is Paul Bremer doing that's so different from what General Garner was doing?

ARRAF: That's a really interesting question and one that I asked him at the press conference. He said nothing should be read into this really, although the talk was when he arrived that the reason he was arriving handpicked by George W. Bush was that things had gone wrong, that the U.S. had failed to recognize this massive effort of reconstruction. They had, in fact, had been thinking there would be a refugee crisis and another humanitarian crisis, epidemic hunger, that didn't really develop.

Jay Garner is going to stay. He's going to be working with Paul Bremer. Paul Bremer is going to be pulling it all together but he said at the press conference that the fact that he's there shouldn't be taken as an indication that they did make mistakes that they did anything wrong, just that there was always going to be a civilian administrator and here he was -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, Jane Arraf, and he's taken over and we didn't see General Garner at that news conference. Thanks very much, Jane, reporting for us from Baghdad.

Well, on now to what you might call the Franco-American war, part deux. By now the battle lines are pretty well drawn between the two but today you can add another complaint.

The French say they are being unfairly picked on. The French government has put together a letter signed by the French ambassador and it is sending it to the White House and to members of Congress. In it, a two-page list detailing what the French government calls an organized campaign of disinformation from within the Bush administration.

Here again, CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): France could have been upset with any number of things, elected officials taking French off the menu...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throughout the capital it will be Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.

BASH: Ribbing from the White House podium.

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I have heard people, particularly some of those who wear these type of shirts, wonder whether you call it a Freedom-cuff shirt or not.

BASH: But the French ambassador's letter to the White House and Capitol Hill complaining of a "disinformation campaign aimed at sullying the French image and misleading the public" points to eight media reports he calls ugly and false attempts to link France to Saddam Hussein's regime.

A story that French companies sold spare parts to Iraq for military use, one quoting Bush officials alleging a French company brokered a deal to supply Iraq with long-range missiles through Syria, and what France says was the last straw, a report last week that the French government supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports.

JEAN-DAVID LEVITTE, FRENCH AMB. TO U.S.: Because it's attributed to officials, it raises a question of what is the purpose of these false accusations against France?

BASH: Paris is concerned that the allegations left unanswered could mushroom and even lead to congressional investigations. The White House denies there's a concerted effort to slander France but does admit their rapport has seen better days, pointing reporters to this comment from the secretary of state.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: The United States and France we've been in marriage counseling for 225 years. Guess what, the marriage is there, and it will be there.

BASH: Privately, sources on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, designed by French architect Pierre (UNINTELLIGIBLE), say this move could backfire because of lingering anti-French sentiment in the U.S.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And in just a few weeks there could be an opportunity for (UNINTELLIGIBLE) when President Bush visits France for the G8 summit -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Oh, Dana, I like the way you got that word in. There is real animosity still at the White House, isn't there, about the French role in all this?

BASH: There is. There is animosity really here at the White House and on Capitol Hill frankly about the French role leading up to the Iraqi war, particularly about the fact that they believe that they not only disagreed with the United States but worked aggressively, lobbied other countries, to make sure that the U.S. didn't get what they wanted at the U.N.

But having said that they do say that these reports that the French are talking about today really aren't coming from the White House particularly from a concerted campaign at the White House. The one that the French really are most upset about is this accusation that they were helping senior Iraqi leaders with passports to get out of the country.

Ari Fleischer when this was first brought up last week basically said, you know, ask the French. That was something that the French really were upset about because they expected the White House to defend them more strenuously.

They didn't but they are saying that they don't know very much about these accusations and they're saying that they do admit that the relations could be a lot better and they hope -- they're saying that they hope that in the future they will be.

WOODRUFF: All right, Dana Bash at the White House. And, I know from talking with a French official just last week that they do believe that the White House could be more supportive than it has been. All right, Dana thanks very much.

And, coming up on NEWSNIGHT the assault weapons ban and the fight between Republicans and Republicans over whether to extend it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WOODRUFF: If President Bush can pull it off, it'll be a masterful display of political Jujitsu. It has to do with gun control, where politicians of both parties need all of the fancy Matrix-style moves that they can muster. Can Mr. Bush support extending a ban on assault weapons? Something that appeals to many moderate voters, without alienating his many supporters in the National Rifle Association. But Democrats say, the president is trying to have it both ways. And they are calling him on it. The story from CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Outside the capitol, President Bush renewed his warm relationship with the Fraternal Order of Police.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Officers training and preparing for many threats, yet preparation that will never take the danger away from a hard profession.

FRANKEN: One of those threats, the deadly weapons police face daily. Inside, the Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was stepping back ever so slightly from his Majority Whip Tom DeLay.

Two days ago, DeLay proclaimed that extending the existing ban against 19 different assault weapons would not even be brought up for a vote. But the speaker insisted he had not made that decision. He hasn't spoken with the president, who says, he supports an extension. Democratic leaders want him to prove it.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: I hope the president will use his good offices and his considerable political capitol to have the assault weapon ban brought up on the House floor.

CHIEF RON BATTELLE, ST. LOUIS COUNTY POLICE: He needs the to support it fully. I think he needs to get behind it and get the Congress behind it.

FRANKEN (on camera): Many, if not most, cops believe the assault weapon is just another danger in a very treacherous world. But and extension of the ban is anything but certain, because the world of politics is very treacherous too.

(voice over): The truth is, members of both parties will just as soon avoid the issue.

GOV. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: I don't think shifting the weight back onto a gun control issue is going to -- at least in Southern states and many Midwestern states is going to move the Democrats forward.

WAYNE LAPIERRE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, NRA: Bill Clinton told the congressmen in '94, they'd be real popular if that they did that. And 90 million gun owners deeply resented it and many, many congressmen were voted out of office.

FRANKEN (voice over): A not so subtle reminder from the NRA. And not every cop supports the assault weapons ban.

PATROLMAN BUTCH PUCCETTI, KITTANING, PA. POLICE DEPT.: If someone is intent on, you know, getting a police officer, they come after you with a knife and a handgun, a shotgun.

FRANKEN: So, the president and the congressional leaders to their political dance. There is a good chance the assault weapons ban will expire. Those who oppose gun control seem to have the upper hand.

Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: And more now on the political fight involving the assault weapons ban with Michelle Cottle. She is a senior editor at "The New Republic".

Michelle, thanks for being here tonight.

MICHELLE COTTLE, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": Thanks, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Can the president get away with this? Can he get way with saying I believe this ban, I want this ban to be extended, but I'm not going to lobby for it?

COTTLE: This is the great thing about having your party in control of the Congress, and especially having a strong man out front like DeLay.

DeLay wants to make this as easy as possible for Bush. This way DeLay can be the bad guy. And Bush says, oh, I'd love to support, but the House won't go along. And at the point, the Democrats are too afraid of this issue to really get out there and slap the Republicans around for it.

WOODRUFF: But today, you had a little wrinkle thrown in when the speaker of the House, who technically is more powerful than the House majority leader, Mr. DeLay said, We haven't even discussed this. I haven't talked to the president. We, in the Republican leadership, haven't discussed it. This is there something significant about this division between DeLay and Hastert?

COTTLE: Oh, I wouldn't to continue as a big division here. I mean, technically, is the key there. DeLay has a lot of power and he's got a lot of influence in getting the member to do what he wants. But it does look a little bad. I think he probably overstepped his bounds in terms of the public relations effort.

WOODRUFF: DeLay did?

COTTLE: Yes, DeLay did. When it looks like they're not even going to consider this. And Bush, he kind of makes Bush look a little weak in this area.

WOODRUFF: Now, this ban, Michelle, doesn't expire until the end of next year, of 2004. Do we know why this has come up right now?

COTTLE: Well, the closer you get to the presidential election -- I mean, the less people are going to want to tackle this. The reality is that while Democrats talk a good game about how they like, you know, how it is the big bad Republicans who are doing the bidding of the NRA, they're still a little gun shy, so to speak, about how Al Gore suffered in kind of strongholds like Tennessee and West Virginia. And that was blamed a lot, certainly the NRA wants everyone to think that is because he wasn't pro-gun enough. So Democrats are really skittish on this.

WOODRUFF: What is the best posture then, for the Democrats? To say, Gee, we really want the president to come forward and put his weight behind this?

COTTLE: Yes, I think a good thing to do is -- you know, Bush has said, I support this. I want to extend it. So the Democrats need to pile on. Do they say, OK, you say that you support it, well you need to get in there and lobby. The House will do what he wants and Bush has proved himself more than able to exert some pressure when he really wants something like a tax cut. So if he really wants this, there's no way that the House is not going it back him up on it.

WOODRUFF: I don't know if we actually want to weigh into this, but I have to ask you. Today we talked to both -- people from the gun control side of this argument. We also talked to somebody from the Gun Owners Association of America. They have completely different definitions of what assault weapons are.

The gun owners would have you believe these are very innocuous weapons, if you will. The gun control people will have you believe these are monstrous weapons that are used only in wartime. What's the public to think? I mean, how do you find out what's the truth here?

COTTLE: Well, this is -- the gun owners always on some level kind of want it to be a slippery slope. This is what regular hunters and what regular Americans like to use. And, you know, we're talking about AK-47s.

WOODRUFF: I mean, these are assault weapons.

COTTLE: These are assault weapons. This is not what you are going out and shooting deer in the woods with. There is also the case of the want -- the gun-control people want to make sure that the kits, where you can transform certain guns into these kind of assault weapons, are tackled under this as well. So, this is -- there is a lot of rhetoric flying around with this.

WOODRUFF: I guess we need an encyclopedia of guns and ammunition and all of the rest of it.

COTTLE: Yes, get your subscription to "Guns & Ammo" and you'll be fine.

WOODRUFF: Michelle Cottle with "The New Republic". Good to see you. Thanks for coming in. COTTLE: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.

Well, as NEWSNIGHT continues, we will check some of the other stories of the day. And later, the president and the intern, going back 40 years, this time to the case of JFK and his affair with a 19- year-old intern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: And later on NEWSNIGHT, John Kennedy and the intern, a 40-year-old secret revealed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: When it came out yesterday, that more than a dozen illegal immigrants had died in the back of a truck, hoping for a better life in the United States, the first thought is the tragedy of it all. But more than tragedy happened on that terrible journey across the border. Crimes were committed as well. And the crime part of the story was the focus today in Victoria, Texas. Here now is CNN's Gary Tuchman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Tyrone Williams arrived for his initial appearance in court of charges of smuggling aliens well after he divulged disturbing details to police, according to court records.

A federal affidavit indicates Williams, from Schenectady, New York, acknowledged entering into an agreement with two men at the Mexico border to transport the immigrants. Williams told authorities he was to be paid $5,000 to take them from Harlingen, Texas to Houston.

MICHAEL SHELBY, U.S. ATTORNEY, SO. DISTRICT OF TEXAS: This was clearly done for profit. This was the motive behind this is greed on the part of all of the individuals that were associated with this.

TUCHMAN: Williams says in the affidavit he saw a light dangling from his trailer. So, he decided to stop at this truck stop in Victoria, Texas. He heard banging and screaming coming from the trailer. When he opened the back, he told the police looked like there was, "Something wrong with them". He heard a female yell el nino, which means in Spanish means "the little boy".

A seven-year-old boy was one of the 18 people who died.

SHELBY: The individuals that died apparently died from both asphyxiation and from heat stroke. The internal temperature of the truck was well beyond 100 degrees for an extended period of time.

TUCHMAN: Even though he had been advised of his Miranda rights, authorities say Williams kept talking saying he bought 20 bottles of water for the immigrants, but then panicked and unhooked his tractor from the trailer and drove off.

He went to a hospital in Houston where nurses say he looked very anxious and nervous. Police say Williams was taken to custody there after revealing details of the story. A woman who Williams claims drove with him on the journey was also at the hospital, but left the scene. And police are now on the look-out for her.

TUCHMAN (on camera): Is it possible some of them can't end up permanently living in the United States?

SHELBY: Given their individual circumstances that is possible, but right now, we are viewing them as witnesses to a federal offense. We will handle them that way.

TUCHMAN: The trailer is equipped with a refrigeration system that was not on. Authorities wanted to test it to see if it was broken or just left off. A source tells us that when the switch was flipped the temperature quickly went from over 100 to 62.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Victoria, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Terrible story.

Well, some other stories now from around the country. The first one can be seen from one end of the country, literally, to the other. This is a live picture from a camera in Indianapolis, courtesy of our affiliate WTHR, a total -- what's going to be, that is, a total lunar eclipse, the first one in three years.

It happens when the earth comes between the moon and the sun. And if you'd like to know more, there is a great animation available at our Web site, Cnn.com.

About 1700 residents of Marquette, Michigan, are staying elsewhere tonight. Their homes in jeopardy after a pair of dams gave way. Heavy rain over the weekend set things in motion. No injuries so far, but the concern tonight is that other dams in the area may not be able to handle the strain.

The autopsies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son are complete. That, according to the Contra Costa coroner's office. However, both defense and prosecution in the case have agreed to seal the reports so that we may not know the contents until Scott Peterson goes on trial.

And Hollywood has lost a tough guy. Robert Stack died yesterday of an apparent heart attack. He was 84. Mr. Stack is best known for his portrayal of gang buster Eliot Ness, in the "Untouchables". But in his first role, he played a lover giving one of 1939's most popular ingenues her first on-screen kiss.

And before we take a break, we want to bring you up to date on some other stories that are making news around the world. The first stop is Gaza, where Israeli forces have occupied the town of Beit Hanoun (ph). Five Palestinians were killed in the operation, which according to the Israeli government were aimed at stopping Palestinian rocket attacks. It comes at an especially sensitive moment. Today is the day that Palestinians mourn their losses in the 1948 creation of Israel.

Britain, today, confirmed its first case of SARS. British authorities say the patient has recovered. And did not spread the disease. They say they are carefully monitoring three other potential cases tonight.

And in the Straits of Florida, the U.S. Coast Guard plucked six Cubans from the water before they could reach freedom on the shore. After receiving medical treatment, all of them may wind up back in Cuba.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the John F. Kennedy story and the Manhattan grandmother who says she had an affair with the president 40 years ago.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: A former White House intern is speaking out in public today, and we are not talking about Monica Lewinsky, who -- by the way is speaking out as this week's co-host on the ABC TV program, "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

No, this is a woman you have likely never heard of, who says she had an affair with the president decades ago. In a time when such matters were not fit for polite discussion much less front-page treatment. A former intern's story now from CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Marion Fahnestock, Mimi for short, is a Manhattan grandmother, mother and churchgoer. She is also a former White House intern who says when she was 19 years old, she had an affair with President John F. Kennedy, from June 1962 to November 1963. Ending two months before she married. Now, 60, Fahnestock released a statement saying:

"I was involved in a sexual relationship with President Kennedy. For the last 41 years it is a subject that I have not discussed. In view of the recent media coverage I have now discussed the relationship with my children and my family, and they are completely supportive."

So are members of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church where Fahnestock works as a Web site manager.

TOM TEWELL, PASTOR: She is a very respected, trusted member of our church and our staff family. And we all love her and we stand by her 100 percent.

CARROLL: Fahnestock grew up as Marion Beardsley (ph) in a wealthy New Jersey suburb. One childhood friend, who is now her neighbor, was surprised to hear the revelation. JOAN TATNALI, CHILDHOOD FRIEND: She is the least likely person that I would have expected to have had a romance, but I think probably Jack Kennedy would have gone to bed with anybody, so

[LAUGHTER]

Not that Mimi is just anybody, very attractive, smartest girl in our class, very good at track.

CARROLL: Fahnestock went to a prep school in Connecticut, Miss Porter's, also attended by the future first lady, Jacqueline Bouvier. Fahnestock attended Wheaton College, but did not graduate. She spent her freshman and sophomore summers in the White House. According to an oral history by a former Kennedy press aide, who also alluded to the affair, historian Robert Dallek uncovered it while doing research for his new biography of the former president.

ROBERT DALLEK, AUTHOR: She had 17 blacked out pages in the oral history the Kennedy Library. I asked her and she gave me access to them. I guess almost 40 years later, she felt there was no harm in doing it.

CARROLL: The alleged affair gets only a few lines of attention in a 700, plus-page book. Dallek did not name the intern, but described her as a tall, slender, beautiful 19-year-old college sophomore. Quoting a press aide who said, she had no skills and she couldn't type. The unnamed former intern came forward and only after the "New York Daily News" tracked her down.

CARROLL (on camera): Fahnestock asked the media to respect her privacy and the privacy of her family. That may be difficult given the statements she has made about her relationship with one of the most popular and scrutinized presidents.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

WOODRUFF: A story that has us all shaking our heads. We will have more on the JFK story, in a moment, with presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: White House affairs were not invented by the 42nd president, or by the 35th either. This kind of salacious history goes back as far as the founding of the nation, more salacious than history, but history nonetheless. A look back from CNN's Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR ANALYST (voice over): In the history of presidential affairs, there's a long history of presidential affairs. Thomas Jefferson's alleged long-term affair with the young slave girl was reported at time, but largely ignored.

In the 1884 campaign, Republicans tried to make an issue out of charges that Democrat Grover Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child. The GOP turned it into a campaign song, "Ma, ma where's my pa?" But Cleveland still got elected, and Democrats respond, gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha.

It was just politics in those days. It didn't matter because the president was a party leader. In the 20th Century, presidents became popular leaders, but there was a lot about them people didn't know.

Warren G. Harding continued to see his mistress in the White House and reported to have received her in the coat closet. Franklin D. Roosevelt had an affair with his wife's personal secretary, who was with him when he died. Love letters disclosed years after he left office revealed Dwight Eisenhower had an affair with his driver Kay Sommersby (ph) during World War II. People didn't know about John F. Kennedy's affairs with Marilyn Monroe or with Judith Campbell Exner, who had ties to organized crime figures. Actually, some people knew --

HUGH SIDEY, TIME MAGAZINE: I was fully aware of John Kennedy's relations with various girls. I never saw that it got in the way of Kennedy being president. And so we just kind of shoved it aside.

SCHNEIDER: That's all changed. Press coverage has become more personal.

BILL KOVACH, HARVARD DEAN AND FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM: I think it's the celebrification (ph) of everything including the presidential office.

SCHNEIDER: Television gives the president a personal relationship with the American people that Cleveland and Harding never had. You never saw Eisenhower go on MTV and talk about his underwear. The private has become public, much more than in the Kennedy years.

LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: John F. Kennedy's affairs would have resulted in a presidential resignation had people known about it at the time. So John Kennedy was very lucky that the press corps did have the rules it had in the early 1960s.

SCHNEIDER (on camera): In fact, the revelations about JFK probably helped Bill Clinton survive in office, many people said, hey, Clinton didn't do anything Kennedy didn't do. Why should he be driven out of office?

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

WOODRUFF: Well, it is remarkable to think that the revelations of this White House intern were just a few lines within an 800 (sic) plus-page book by author Robert Dallek.

And as historian Douglas Brinkley puts it, quote, "It is an asterisk to the Kennedy legacy."

Douglas Brinkley joins us now to talk about JFK and about another fascinating figure of 20th Century, Henry Ford, who is the subject of his new book "Wheels for the World." Doug Brinkley, I'm going to ask you about Henry Ford in just a minute, but first about this new intern, the woman, the new woman in John Kennedy's life. What are we to make of this, 40 years later?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN, UNIV. OF NEW ORLEANS: Well, that we now have it documented that John F. Kennedy saw many women while he was president. There is not clear evidence how it effected his presidency. Dallek, in his book, says it didn't hurt him at all and in fact it was just a -- his nickname was the Minute Man ,with the Secret Service. And it was a way of a sexual release while he was in the White House.

But it's adultery, and I think people frown on it. And other people don't seem to care, but it is certainly now part of the permanent Kennedy record.

WOODRUFF: Is history well served by our knowing this?

BRINKLEY: Well I think so in only this regard, that we're looking at the real person who was John F. Kennedy. And one looks at Joe Kennedy and the misogyny he held towards women. And them we're learning more about John F. Kennedy's Addison's disease and the medication he's on, and trying to live every day to the fullest because he may be dead the next day.

Hence this problem, one might even call him -- kindly people are saying Kennedy was a sexual athlete, and other people are calling him a sexual addict. But it does help us to understand some of the dysfunctionalism. And remember it is a strange breed of person who wants to be president and the ego has to be at a certain hyped up level. So it does help us understand the character of a president even though it doesn't, you know, change to history of the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Berlin Wall going up.

WOODRUFF: What's your best estimate? Do you think this woman, Ms. Fahnestock will be able to disappear, as she says she'd like to?

BRINKLEY: I think if she wants to, she largely be able to. I am sure publishers are going to want her to do a memoir. I'm sure there is going to be money offered her. She seems like the kind of woman who really wants to get this behind her now. She came public because she had to, with people starting to hound her. I think she dealt it with really well.

I think it really will remain an asterisk to the Kennedy years. The big story here is that word "intern". And as you rightly mentioned, and Bill rightly mentioned, 40 years ago, this -- you know, you have this situation. Well in 1998, you got impeached for the intern. That's a big difference and I think Watergate and Bernstein and Woodward and the revelations of Nixon, and also the Vietnam War changed journalism forever. And no president could have a 19-year-old intern anymore and not be found out.

WOODRUFF: Well, we may or may not have the opportunity to know that. Doug Brinkley, I do want to ask you about your book, "Wheel for the World: Henry Ford". Why did you write this? BRINKLEY: Well, I was trying to write a big story about the 20th Century and there was Henry Ford. And he was 1863 at the time of the Civil War. He died in 1947 during the Cold War and at the end of the 20th Century "Forbes" magazine and "Fortune" picked him as the businessman of the century. He's one of "Time" magazine's main people and he's the person who put the world on wheels with the Model T in the people's car. And then also the innovations of Highland Park with the moving assembly line and the $5 day on and on.

And I started realizing just how significant not just Henry Ford was but Ford Motor Company, which today is run by Bill Ford, Jr., the great-grandson of Henry Ford, and 40 percent of the Ford Motor Company's stock is in the -- controlling stock is in the family's hands.

So it's a big American story, and I try to make characters out of the factories and the cars from the Model T all the way to the Taurus and the SUVs.

WOODRUFF: He was uniquely American. What about him? What do we learn about U.S. history by studying Henry Ford?

BRINKLEY: Well, if you could beam yourself 100 years ago, there was a World's Fair in St. Louis where really the hot dog and cotton candy and iced tea got its debut. And there were -- the automobile was a newfangled contraption in many ways. There were over 150 auto companies there. Hundred and forty-nine of them are gone, but Ford Motor survived.

And that revolution of the Model T, you started getting the first of everything in the 1920s, the first motel in San Luis Obispo, the first drive-in restaurant in Dallas, you know, the first parking garage in Detroit, or the first shopping center in Kansas City.

And there was no asphalt. There was just -- you know, the first asphalt rolled -- road was in Ohio in Bellefontaine, Ohio, in the 18 -- late 1890s. So we're starting this whole change of America.

And it got us dependent on oil, because Henry Ford pushed forward for the internal combustion engine in his People's Car, run on oil, not electric car, not steam car, and hence 20th century, as Jack London once said, "stinks of oil," and say oil century, and Henry Ford is the...

WOODRUFF: Sure.

BRINKLEY: ... vortex of all that.

WOODRUFF: It sure is hard to imagine this country without the automobile.

BRINKLEY: Absolutely.

WOODRUFF: Doug Brinkley, the book is "Wheels for the World." Thanks for talking to us about Henry Ford and about John Kennedy. Good to see you again, Doug, thank you. BRINKLEY: Thanks, thank you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Well, in our next half hour here on NEWSNIGHT, the latest on the attempt to get a tax cut plan through Congress. It is moving.

Then the missing Democrats from Texas, about to end their self- imposed exile.

And we'll talk about all that and more with New Mexico's governor, Bill Richardson, after a break and the latest news headlines.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: If there's one lesson the George W. Bush White House learns over and over again, it is that every vote counts. Florida may have been the first time, but today they learned it again when they eked a vote for Mr. Bush's tax cut package out of a Democrat.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative, and the amendment of the senator from Oklahoma is agreed to.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With a tie- breaking assist from the vice president, Republicans scored a significant, if not complete, victory for the president's economic plan.

SEN. JON KYL (R), ARIZONA: This was a real victory tonight not only for President Bush and for the Republican Senate and the Finance Committee and the leadership, but of course for the American people.

KARL: The victory comes after President Bush aggressively courted key Democratic senators, especially Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Nelson, however, insists his support has nothing to do with White House pressure.

SEN. BEN NELSON (D), NEBRASKA: I don't mean to in any way to demean the presidency, but it's not about pressure from the White House or anything like that. It's about the contents of the plan, because I think that's what's the most important part of what we're doing here.

KARL: Republicans won Nelson's backing by agreeing to include $20 billion in aid to cash-strapped state and local governments.

The bill would completely eliminate the tax on dividends, the White House's highest priority. But it took some creative accounting to do that.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D), MONTANA: This is a huge Yo-Yo tax provision. Now you see it, now you don't.

KARL: The dividend cut would last just four years, and the bill includes approximately $90 billion in so-called offsets, effectively tax increases to keep the total cost of the tax cuts at $350 billion.

In addition to temporarily eliminating the tax on dividends, the bill would reduce income tax rates, increase the child tax credit, and give small businesses a tax break on new equipment purchases.

(on camera): The differences between the Senate bill and a larger one passed by the House still need to be worked out, but at the end of the process, the president is expected to be able to sign into law a tax cut that is considered to be the third-largest in American history, and an economic plan that includes most but not all of what he asked for.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Never dull over there.

Well, if the folks at the Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma, weren't political junkies before this week, they probably are now. The Ardmore Holiday Inn became the war room and the safe house for those Texas Democrats who hightailed their way out of the state early this week.

It effectively shut down the Texas House of Representatives, preventing Republicans from going ahead with a congressional redistricting plan.

Well, now the Democrats are going home, victorious for now, even if they had to endure the indignity of being branded the Chicken D's.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we didn't hear from our house speaker, but we did hear from a powerfully important Texan, from Willie Nelson. "Way to go. Stand your ground."

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before the Texas Democrats get on the road again back to Austin, Texas, Willie Nelson treated them to bandannas and bottles of Scotch. That might be the last gift they see for a while.

Ron Wilson is one of the few Democrats that didn't make the middle-of-the-night dash to Oklahoma. He says his fellow Democrats better hope their chairs are still on the house floor when they get back Friday.

RON WILSON (D), TEXAS STATE HOUSE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) say there's going to be retribution, but there's going to be a natural, I think, tension. I think if they come back and assume that everything's going to be hunky-dory, I think they're, you know, they're mistaken.

LAVANDERA: Republicans aren't talking about political retribution, but they say about 500 bills were killed because of this political stunt, bills which, Republicans say, would have generated $600 million in revenue for the state.

(on camera): What this has done to the reputation of Texas politics, what do you think?

TOM CRADDICK (R), TEXAS HOUSE SPEAKER: Well, I think it's harmed it. I don't think there's anything else you can say but that. It's -- we're on the late-night talk shows and things like that, and I think that harms the image of the state overall.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): While the words "chickens" and "cowards" aren't being thrown around any more, the political fighting hasn't slowed down. The latest fight is over Democratic allegations that state police asked federal authorities to trail the plane of former house speaker Pete Laney (ph) as he was flying to Oklahoma Sunday night.

Republicans deny any involvement. Homeland Security director Tom Ridge says he'll look into whether anyone used federal resources improperly. But he's skeptical of the charges.

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: They're trying to find a bunch of disgruntled legislators. That's not part of our mission, nor would it ever be.

LAVANDERA (on camera): There will be an early morning political rally for the Texas Democrats when they return to the state capitol in Austin, Texas, and one state Democratic official says they're planning to put on a big show, because in Texas, we like things hot and spicy.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Austin, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Well, if anyone has made a career out of dealing with disgruntled legislators, whether they are state, federal, or even foreign legislators, or dictators, as the case may be, it is New Mexico's governor, Bill Richardson. He joins us tonight from New York.

Governor, Texas Democrats in the state legislature, did they do the right thing, or not such a smart thing?

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), NEW MEXICO: They did the right thing, Judy. You can't all of a sudden, just because you have a huge Republican majority, in years that are not redistricting years, it's every 10 years, the year 2000 they had a redistricting in Texas, all of a sudden, just because you have a huge Republican majority, you say, as Tom DeLay wants, a new redistricting plan that would probably bring four new Republican seats to congressman from Texas.

You know, it's unfortunate the way it ended in the sense of theatrics, but it achieved its objective. I think the Texas Democrats are heroic. I think it's -- I'm disappointed they didn't come into New Mexico. We would have taken care of them there. They went to Oklahoma.

But you can't just...

WOODRUFF: Well, now that...

RICHARDSON: ... you can't just arbitrarily decide when you're going to redistrict.

WOODRUFF: Well, now that the Republicans have tried this in Texas, a state that, as you point out, they've just taken over the legislature, they've taken control of the legislature, why shouldn't the Democrats, your party just took over the legislature in New Mexico, why shouldn't you try something similar in New Mexico?

RICHARDSON: Well, I think the reality, Judy, is that, you know, we have laws in this country. We redistricted two years ago for legislature for the Congress. If somebody all of a sudden assumes a majority role and says, Well, let's redistrict, I think you've got organized chaos. And we have the courts, we have redistricting plans approved by legislatures in Congress. It's every 10 years.

Let's stick to that. I think that here's a case...

WOODRUFF: But...

RICHARDSON: ... where there was a little bit of an abuse of power, and the Democrats took...

WOODRUFF: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

RICHARDSON: ... the right steps and didn't do it.

WOODRUFF: But you've got a state senate president in your own state, Mr. Romero, Richard Romero, who was quoted today as saying, this is -- you know, they did it, it's infectious, suggesting they're going to try it in New Mexico.

RICHARDSON: Well, I'll work with the legislators. And I think what Condolay (ph) has done is, he's prompted Democrats to seek revenge. And he shouldn't have done this. And now we may have other legislators doing the same thing. I want to see Richard Romero in the Congress. He's probably going to run. But at the same time, I think it's important that we do look at order and fairness. And we do it every 10 years.

WOODRUFF: Let me ask you about the tax cut bill that passed the Senate earlier this evening, governor. The Senate, what they ended up doing was applying a tax -- a cut -- or rather an elimination of a dividend tax cut, but only for a short time. It's going to go away and then come back in a few years.

Whether you focus on that or not, is this a tax cut that is going to stimulate, that's going to help the economy overall? RICHARDSON: Well, Judy, I think -- I'm a governor, I represent states. I like the tax cut that passed because it contains $20 billion in assistance for Medicaid and homeland security and education for the states.

On the other hand, a dividend tax, if you eliminate it, hurts the states because of the state and federal tied so closely together.

I passed tax cuts in New Mexico, a personal income tax reduction, capital gains tax reduction. I hope my fellow Democrats don't always oppose all kind of tax cuts. I think the Senate provision is more sensible than the House. It's more measured, it's shorter term. It contains spending cuts to offset the tax cuts...

WOODRUFF: Would we be better off with no tax cuts coming out of Washington this year?

RICHARDSON: No, we need some tax cuts to stimulate the economy. On the president's tax cut, I think the marriage penalty, child care tax credit, rural...

WOODRUFF: But...

RICHARDSON: ... economic development tax cuts, tax cuts for the middle class, I think those...

WOODRUFF: BUt this...

RICHARDSON: ... make sense.

WOODRUFF: But this particular formula, doing away temporarily with dividend taxes.

RICHARDSON: Well, I would have voted against it. I don't think that is going to be a significant measure. I don't think it's going to survive in the end. But I do think a tax cut package along the lines of $350 to $400 million, offset by spending cuts, as, I think, is in this plan that passed the Senate. I just think it's essential, Judy, that aid to the states, the $20 billion, stay in there, because we really need it.

States are hurting. We're hurting bad, with budget deficits, with job losses, with high unemployment. It's important that we keep it.

WOODRUFF: And it's not clear that that sort of aid is going to be in the final product.

RICHARDSON: That's right.

WOODRUFF: All right. Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, always good to see you, governor.

RICHARDSON: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Thanks for talking with us tonight. RICHARDSON: Thank you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Thanks.

Well, as NEWSNIGHT continues, a step back in time to look at one of America's original war heroes. The story of John Paul Jones from author Evan Thomas, in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Perhaps it has something to do with the eclipse, because the planets are surely aligning. We mentioned earlier the death of actor Robert Stack. Well, one of the actor's more than 30 movies was "John Paul Jones," about the life of America's first great naval hero, a film that perhaps influenced our next guest to write his current book.

He is Evan Thomas. His latest work is about the Revolutionary War hero, and he joins us now from New York, that is, Evan Thomas joins us.

Evan Thomas, you know, we hear a lot about Benjamin Franklin, of course, and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. John Paul Jones was not of that caliber, presumably, or was he?

EVAN THOMAS, AUTHOR, "JOHN PAUL JONES": Well, he was not a great thinker or a visionary, but he was a great fighter, and we needed those. We were long on thinkers but short on fighters in the Revolution. And he was somebody who understood that you had to fight, you had to take the fight to the enemy.

WOODRUFF: You -- I was interested to read about how you had access to something like two -- several thousand pages of his personal papers. Tell us a little bit about what you saw and what you had to work with.

THOMAS: Well, he wrote a lot of letters. That was an age when people did, and diaries and journals. And they very much reveal the personality of somebody who today we'd say was manic-depressive. He was a war lover, he loved war. And right after he'd been in battle, he'd write euphorically about his saucy, hair-breadth escapes and so forth.

And then the next letter would be drenched in gloom and doom, and he would feel underappreciated, and everybody was out to get him. And so he had a very mercurial character, but he was a very fierce man, and when he was in battle, he was both euphoric and smart.

WOODRUFF: If he was such a hero, if he was so courageous, why was he overlooked for so long?

THOMAS: Well, he was...

WOODRUFF: I mean, it was Teddy Roosevelt, right, who sort of resurrected him. THOMAS: Right, he was -- I mean, he -- Romantic writers, James Fenimore Cooper and Kipling and a lot of Romantic writers of the 19th century, wrote about him.

But the U.S. government didn't really discover him till Teddy Roosevelt wanted to build a navy in 1900, and they dug up Jones, who was -- had buried and forgotten in Paris and brought him back and built a magnificent temple to him, the casque beneath the chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy.

WOODRUFF: What is this that I saw, Evan, about the famous line, "I have not yet begun to fight"? You report that he may not have even said that.

THOMAS: No, he probably didn't. His first lieutenant remembered that 45 years after the battle. But he did say something defiant. Contemporaneous accounts suggest it was something like, I'll sink before I surrender.

The important that is that he really was defiant. He took his ship into battle against a far superior British ship. He locked himself in a fatal embrace. When his ship was burning and sinking and his own gunner's mate tried to strike the flag and surrender, Jones threw a pistol at his head and knocked him out.

And then when the British captain demanded to know if he was going to surrender, he said, he said no, and he just outlasted them and finally won.

WOODRUFF: But when he died, he was all alone, right, in Paris.

THOMAS: Yes, he was. He was not a popular figure. He had a lot of enemies. Not -- he was not only paranoid, but even paranoids have enemies, and he did have them. He was a lonely figure. He was a great rake and a ladies' man. He had a lot of girlfriends, and I have him chasing all sorts of countesses and chambermaids and all that through the book.

But he had few real friends, no wife, and he died a lonely man.

WOODRUFF: Talking about several ladies' men tonight.

Finally, a completely different story I want to ask you about, Evan Thomas. You've been with "Newsweek" magazine for a long time. You were with "Time" magazine before that. People read about Jayson Blair, the "New York Times" reporter who was let go this week after some pretty egregious plagiarism.

People may hear about this, Evan, and think, There must be a lot more of that going on in journalism than I know. What is the public to make of this?

THOMAS: Yes. Well, it's a horrible thing, because "The Times" really is the greatest of all news organizations. And it's like one true church for a lot of us journalists. But it would be a mistake to think that this is commonplace. It's not. It was a tremendous screwup. It's a tragedy for the people involved.

But I've been doing this for 25 years, and I was shocked by the facts in that case. It is not business as usual.

True journalism can be a sausage factory, it can be not so pretty to walk around inside of it. And we do make mistakes. But that kind of scale of mistake, that persistence, that kind of epic quality, is, I'm glad to say, pretty unusual.

WOODRUFF: Well, we're glad to hear it. Evan Thomas, one of the best of the practitioners of journalism, and also an historian, and the book, "John Paul Jones." Evan, thanks very much.

THOMAS: Thanks, Judy.

WOODRUFF: It's good to see you tonight.

THOMAS: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate your coming by.

When NEWSNIGHT continues, a long and rich history of music. The life of June Carter Cash.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: And finally from us tonight, a death in the family. June Carter Cash died today of complications from heart surgery. She was 73.

In a music business often described as crass and predatory, where the business comes first, June Carter Cash belonged to a distinct minority. In her world, the business came third. Music came second. And family always came first.

A remembrance tonight from CNN's Andy Culpepper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDY CULPEPPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: June Carter Cash was born a member of country music royalty. Her mother, aunt, and uncle formed the Carter Family, pioneers in country radio, whose hits included "Can the Circle Be Unbroken?"

Later, June recorded with her mother, Maybelle, and with her sisters, Helen and Anita. She was typically modest about her own talents.

JUNE CARTER CASH: I'd always felt like I couldn't sing so much as my sisters, you know, they had these great voices. And so I always felt like, Well, I'll just do something else to get a laugh or to be an entertainer enough to get through this. I'll play the banjo and I'll play the autoharp and I'll the piano, I'll play anything.

CULPEPPER: In the 1960s, she crossed paths with Johnny Cash, later co-writing his signature tune, "The Ring of Fire." They were married in 1968.

CASH: He's been a great, wonderful man to me, and he's been a great husband and a lover and a father to my children. Together we have six girls, and one son together.

CULPEPPER: Though she was an accomplished musician herself, she chose to put family and her husband's career ahead of her own.

CASH: It was a choice I made a long time ago, that that's what my first priority would be. And I could have recorded, you know, I just didn't think about it.

CULPEPPER: With her children grown, she did return to recording. She finished her last CD in early 2003. The album, "Wildwood Flower," was named after the Carter Family's biggest hit.

CASH: My goodness, I stop and think about it, it's 60 years of my life that I've sung and participated in music. I've never been out of it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Johnny Cash was at his wife's side when she died today.

That's it for NEWSNIGHT. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thanks for joining us.

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Aired May 15, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, GUEST HOST: Good evening everyone. I'm Judy Woodruff sitting in for Aaron Brown.
It would be convenient if true crime stories were like the show "Law and Order" where the bad guys like clockwork are caught in the first half hour and get justice in the second half.

But this crime story is one that will follow a script impossible to predict, a small team from the FBI arriving in a faraway land that may not want them there, trying to hunt down the terrorists who killed eight Americans and dozens more.

It is hardly a given that these criminals will get justice at the end.

And we begin tonight with that investigation in Saudi Arabia. We start off this whip tonight with Kelli Arena at the Justice Department with the latest on the investigation, Kelli the headline please.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. team, including CIA and FBI agents, is on the ground in Riyadh trying to help the Saudis find those responsible for Monday's attacks -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Thanks, Kelli, back to you later.

An effort to guard against the terror threat posed by shoulder- fired missiles, Patty Davis is working on that story for us, Patty the headline.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Department of Homeland Security is asking companies to test technologies that could be put on U.S. commercial airplanes to repel terrorist missiles. Now, this follows a warning by the U.S. and the U.K. that airlines could be targets in East Africa -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Allegations of a vast anti-French conspiracy, Dana Bash is on that from the White House, Dana the headline.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, the French have decided that they're not going to take a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) attitude toward what they call an American smear campaign against them. The White House says no campaign exists but they do admit that relations are rocky -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Dana, we'll be back to you in a few minutes. To Iraq now and the efforts to bring some semblance of law and order, Jane Arraf has the latest on that story from Baghdad, Jane the headline.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The new top U.S. administrator in Baghdad pledges to restore security to the city and to pull the Ba'ath Party up by the roots. It's a tall order -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jane Arraf, and did you notice it's an all woman line up tonight. Thank you all and we'll see you in just a moment.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, the political fight that has put the president in a very delicate spot; whether Congress should extend the ban on assault weapons.

Sex and the White House intern, not the intern you're thinking of. We will look at a salacious story from the days of Camelot that took decades to emerge.

Also, the latest on the Texas standoff between Republicans in the State House of Representatives and the Democrats who fought their rivals by fleeing the state.

All that to come in the next 90 minutes, and we begin with a late development in the war on terrorism, the State Department says it has received a report warning that of a possible attack on the city of Jetta in Saudi Arabia's west coast. Now the report is unconfirmed and the time frame is not certain but Americans in Jetta are being notified nonetheless.

This comes as a six-member FBI team arrived in Riyadh, the capital, a very small team, its mission a delicate one. Get the investigation going without stepping on Saudi toes.

Here now, CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): U.S. investigators are now in Saudi Arabia to help hunt down the terrorists who killed eight Americans but it's still unclear how much of a role the Saudis will let the U.S. team have.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We expect full cooperation in the investigation and I think all indications are from the FBI assessment team is that Saudi Arabia is cooperating.

ARENA: A top priority reconstructing the truck bombs, just as FBI agents did in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing.

DAVE WILLIAMS, FORMER FBI AGENT: We were able to determine exactly what it was and based on the way it was put together we had a fairly good idea who may have laid that down.

ARENA: There is still some question about what the U.S. told the Saudis before the attacks. U.S. government sources say that when top White House aide Stephen Hadley met urgently with Crown Prince Abdullah he did not provide intelligence about a specific target.

Instead, a senior U.S. official says the Saudis were given an analysis that al Qaeda was in the final phases of planning a major attack in Saudi Arabia and that it would most likely try to hit targets like businesses and housing compounds.

PRINCE BANDAR BIN SULTAN, SAUDI AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: Our security agencies took the request seriously, assessed the situation, and decided the measures were adequate.

ARENA: A week before the attacks, the Saudis did discover a safe house and weapons cache near one of the compounds hit and some U.S. government officials say it is very likely the terrorists used it to case the targets.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Saudi Arabia must deal with the fact that it has terrorists inside its country.

ARENA: U.S. officials say that is imperative because intelligence suggests al Qaeda is planning more attacks in the kingdom.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Well, meantime today was the start of a very quiet weekend in Riyadh, the weekend in much of the Arab world falling on Thursday and Friday. Local papers are reporting fewer people are out and about and very tight security in strategic locations around the capital.

"TIME" magazine's Scott MacLeod is there tonight. He joins us now by phone. Scott, what are the prospects that the FBI is going to be able to conduct a thorough investigation of all this?

SCOTT MACLEOD, CAIRO BUREAU CHIEF, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, you know, there's a difference in investigative cultures between the FBI and the Saudi Interior Ministry, which will be conducting the investigation or leading the investigation on the Saudi side.

They've had difficulties before, differences of opinion, differences of approach, and suspicions when they investigated the Riyadh bombing of 1995 which killed several Americans as well as the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed about 19 Americans.

So, they have had their differences in the past. I think U.S. officials here are somewhat optimistic that the cooperation will be much, much better this time, in part because the Saudis as never before at the highest levels are clearly acknowledging that they do have a terrorism problem. They do have a problem with Islamic extremism, which they tried to brush aside in the past.

But, when you have a major systematic well-planned terrorist attack by al Qaeda in the heart of your capital, it begins -- it becomes much more difficult to pretend it's not there. So, the U.S. officials here anyway are hoping for much better cooperation and mind you they've also had the experience of those past two investigations so they know each other a little bit better. They know what is expected this time.

WOODRUFF: Scott, it was reported here that the Americans -- at least the Americans said that they asked the Saudi government to beef up the security at this compound and they didn't do that, so what makes them think that they're going to get the sort of cooperation now that they need?

MACLEOD: Well, it has to be put into context. I mean we've had officials here saying to us that on both sides that you can't expect total protection of well over 1,000 housing compounds around Saudi Arabia that house foreign workers and many of them include or house American workers.

In this particular case, there was a belief that this particular housing complex was going to be targeted because they had discovered a week or so earlier the safe house within. It had a clear view of the housing compound, was clearly being used not only as a stake out, as an observation post but they discovered about 800 pounds of explosives there which may have been used for an attack on that particular compound.

But they had actually discovered that safe house and eliminated the people living there and using it and the weapons and so on that they were stashing there. There may have been some feeling on the Saudi side that because they had discovered that safe house that had eliminated the threat to that nearby housing complex.

But be that as it may, that housing complex still had three layers of security making it among the best protected in the kingdom. So, although in hindsight it is easy to say wow, you know, you really screwed up by not doing something more, especially since the Americans pointedly asked you to.

Nevertheless it remains the case that the security at that position was good and in the event when the attack took place at that housing complex the good security did actually foil the intruders from getting inside the complex and they had to detonate their bomb outside the complex an only one resident of that complex was killed in that attack because of the improved or the relatively high level of security.

So, in hindsight it's easy to blame the Saudis for not really stepping up security at that particular one because of the warning that the Americans had given but the Saudis were in a situation of having to deal with a threat. No one knew exactly which housing complex would be targeted or when.

WOODRUFF: Scott.

MACLEOD: So, that was a difficult call that the Saudis didn't come through on.

WOODRUFF: Right. Well, Scott MacLeod thanks very much. Essentially you're saying it could have been a lot worse. Well, I know you'll be watching that investigation very closely. Scott McLeod is with "TIME" magazine reporting for us tonight from Riyadh.

And now we move on to the burning question that comes up whenever one of these attacks takes place. What if anything does it say about whether Osama bin Laden is still in control of al Qaeda?

CNN's Jamie McIntyre has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Despite the failure of the United States to capture, kill, or otherwise account for Osama bin Laden. U.S. officials believe any involvement he may have had in this week's bombings in Saudi Arabia was probably limited.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: If he is alive and functioning and playing a role, which I don't know, it is a much more difficult role than it had been previously. It's more difficult in terms of raising money. It's more difficult in terms of moving people and things and weapons.

MCINTYRE: U.S. intelligence believes bin Laden remains holed up in an ungoverned region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, so while bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda leaders may support or inspire the attacks, U.S. officials argue they likely lack the communication and freedom of movement to effectively direct them.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Our suspicions are they're living in areas where they can bribe the local, the tribals, that are implying to support them and protect them and they're in very difficult areas on this earth.

MCINTYRE: U.S. intelligence experts are divided about what the attacks say about the strength of what's left of al Qaeda. Clearly, it shows the terrorist network, or at least one cell, can still carry out a coordinated strike resulting in significant casualties. But the latest tactic may also reveal a weakness, having to go for easier targets that kill Arabs and Muslims as well as Americans and westerners.

MYERS: I think one thing that the bombings in Riyadh remind us of is that one thing that has not changed is the intentions of this terrorist group.

MCINTYRE (on camera): So, why can't the U.S. find bin Laden? The Pentagon offers three reasons, the difficulty of finding any single individual, the ease of hiding in ungoverned areas, and the support of countries like Iran who continue to harbor al Qaeda leaders.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WOODRUFF: Well, regardless of who runs it, al Qaeda has a lot of very rough customers still at large. One is thought to have returned recently to the East African country of Kenya and his M.O. involves a threat to airliners that security experts are taking very seriously indeed.

Here again, CNN's Patty Davis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVIS (voice-over): British Airways canceled its flights from London to Nairobi Thursday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I tell you what I feel disappointed for all those people who are going to try to fly out tomorrow.

DAVIS: The cancellations came after Britain's Department of Transport advised its airlines to suspend flights to and from Kenya due to a credible terrorist threat to western interests.

Wednesday, another warning, this time from the U.S. State Department that the threat to aircraft by terrorists using shoulder- fired missiles continues in Kenya, including Nairobi.

Such an attack happened in Mombasa, Kenya in November but terrorists missed their target, an Israeli airliner. Members of Congress say it could happen in the U.S.

REP. STEVE ISRAEL (D), NEW YORK: The more we know about his threat, the more we know we have to act to defend against it.

REP. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: These weapons have a range of about 12,000 feet, well within the flight paths of thousands of planes which fly in and out of airports.

DAVIS: The U.S. military has been using technology to repel missile attacks for years. At lawmakers' urging the Department of Homeland Security is asking companies to build prototype devices on commercial planes that would do the same.

On the ground, the agency says it is already beefing up security with fences and increased patrols at airport perimeters, the hope to keep terrorists with shoulder-fired missiles far from commercial planes at their most vulnerable point during takeoff and landing.

MICHAEL BARR, AVIATION SAFETY PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: You would have to move the security out probably two to three miles from the normal perimeter of an airport and you would almost turn it into a police state and I don't think that will ever happen.

DAVIS: While U.S. officials say there is no credible intelligence that terrorists plan to use shoulder-fired missiles against commercial airplanes in the U.S., they say they are not taking any chances.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DAVIS: Thousands of the weapons are available on the black market overseas and officials worry they could be smuggled into the U.S. -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Patty, what sort of technology are we talking about here?

DAVIS: Well, we're not talking about what you saw on those military aircraft which are those flares which are thrown off by the pilot off of the aircraft when they see that a shoulder-fired missile has been fired in their direction, another heat-seeking source from a heat-seeking missile to deflect that missile.

What we're talking about here is a technology such as lasers whereby there would be sensors on the wing perhaps of the aircraft sensing a missile coming in. The laser beam then hones in on that missile, jams its tracking technology, and sends it off course.

It's a passive technology. The pilot wouldn't have to do anything. It would just take place but the thing is that these are very expensive. We're talking $1 million to $1.5 million a piece, a question whether that will be something the airlines want to spend money on. Maybe Congress would have to go ahead and pay for it itself -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: I have a feeling it's going to be a while before we see many copies of that. All right, Patty Davis, thanks very much, appreciate it.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to go to Baghdad where the new top man held a press conference and acknowledged there's a lot of work ahead.

And later, complaints from the French who say they're being unfairly blamed for not cooperating in the war. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: It was a serious show of American muscle today in Iraq. Forces raided a village near Saddam Hussein's hometown. They rounded up dozens of men including a wanted Iraqi general.

In Baghdad, meantime, soldiers carried out several hundred patrols overnight arresting dozens of people. This show of force is intended to send a message that the United States will no longer tolerate disorder.

And, as CNN's Jane Arraf reports, there is much to be done.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): Chaos in Baghdad's daytime streets, fear at night. The man chosen by U.S. President George W. Bush to run Iraq concedes he has a lot to tackle.

PAUL BREMER, U.S. IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION ADMIN.: We have to deal with the criminal elements here in Baghdad and we will.

ARRAF: It was the first news conference in Iraq by former ambassador and counterterror expert Paul Bremer.

BREMER: And as far as I'm concerned, it can not come too soon that the people of Baghdad and the other cities of Iraq can walk about the streets in peace, the children can go to school, the hospitals can get their supplies. It can't come too soon and you may be sure that it is the top priority.

ARRAF: Bremer said courts are reopening to try criminals, jails reopening to have somewhere to put them, and soon there will be more U.S. forces in the street to deter them.

(on camera): More troops, reopened prisons, and an emphasis on security, Iraqis here say they want and need more security but the preoccupation with law and order seems to be putting establishing the government on the back burner.

(voice-over): The civilian administration was to have organized at the end of May a conference to choose an interim Iraqi government but that could be delayed as the Americans grapple with security and restoring basic services to Baghdad, one of the trickiest elements dealing with the remnants of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party. Bremer said they would pull the party up by their roots.

BREMER: The Coalition Provisional Authority disestablished the Ba'athist Party on April 16. Shortly, I will issue an order on measures to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Ba'athists and Ba'athism from Iraq forever.

ARRAF: But in a country in which the Ba'ath Party for decades ruled almost every element of public life, that may be an even more difficult task than making the streets safe again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: Now, Bremer noted some achievements. He said the north and the south of Iraq have more electricity than they've had in a long time and also noted that in some northern cities there have been elections for local city councils.

But here in the capital of Baghdad, the heart of Iraq, all of those things remain a problem -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jane, two questions I'm going to combine into one. Has the former man in charge, General Jay Garner, disappeared into thin air, and second what exactly is Paul Bremer doing that's so different from what General Garner was doing?

ARRAF: That's a really interesting question and one that I asked him at the press conference. He said nothing should be read into this really, although the talk was when he arrived that the reason he was arriving handpicked by George W. Bush was that things had gone wrong, that the U.S. had failed to recognize this massive effort of reconstruction. They had, in fact, had been thinking there would be a refugee crisis and another humanitarian crisis, epidemic hunger, that didn't really develop.

Jay Garner is going to stay. He's going to be working with Paul Bremer. Paul Bremer is going to be pulling it all together but he said at the press conference that the fact that he's there shouldn't be taken as an indication that they did make mistakes that they did anything wrong, just that there was always going to be a civilian administrator and here he was -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, Jane Arraf, and he's taken over and we didn't see General Garner at that news conference. Thanks very much, Jane, reporting for us from Baghdad.

Well, on now to what you might call the Franco-American war, part deux. By now the battle lines are pretty well drawn between the two but today you can add another complaint.

The French say they are being unfairly picked on. The French government has put together a letter signed by the French ambassador and it is sending it to the White House and to members of Congress. In it, a two-page list detailing what the French government calls an organized campaign of disinformation from within the Bush administration.

Here again, CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): France could have been upset with any number of things, elected officials taking French off the menu...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throughout the capital it will be Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.

BASH: Ribbing from the White House podium.

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I have heard people, particularly some of those who wear these type of shirts, wonder whether you call it a Freedom-cuff shirt or not.

BASH: But the French ambassador's letter to the White House and Capitol Hill complaining of a "disinformation campaign aimed at sullying the French image and misleading the public" points to eight media reports he calls ugly and false attempts to link France to Saddam Hussein's regime.

A story that French companies sold spare parts to Iraq for military use, one quoting Bush officials alleging a French company brokered a deal to supply Iraq with long-range missiles through Syria, and what France says was the last straw, a report last week that the French government supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports.

JEAN-DAVID LEVITTE, FRENCH AMB. TO U.S.: Because it's attributed to officials, it raises a question of what is the purpose of these false accusations against France?

BASH: Paris is concerned that the allegations left unanswered could mushroom and even lead to congressional investigations. The White House denies there's a concerted effort to slander France but does admit their rapport has seen better days, pointing reporters to this comment from the secretary of state.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: The United States and France we've been in marriage counseling for 225 years. Guess what, the marriage is there, and it will be there.

BASH: Privately, sources on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, designed by French architect Pierre (UNINTELLIGIBLE), say this move could backfire because of lingering anti-French sentiment in the U.S.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And in just a few weeks there could be an opportunity for (UNINTELLIGIBLE) when President Bush visits France for the G8 summit -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Oh, Dana, I like the way you got that word in. There is real animosity still at the White House, isn't there, about the French role in all this?

BASH: There is. There is animosity really here at the White House and on Capitol Hill frankly about the French role leading up to the Iraqi war, particularly about the fact that they believe that they not only disagreed with the United States but worked aggressively, lobbied other countries, to make sure that the U.S. didn't get what they wanted at the U.N.

But having said that they do say that these reports that the French are talking about today really aren't coming from the White House particularly from a concerted campaign at the White House. The one that the French really are most upset about is this accusation that they were helping senior Iraqi leaders with passports to get out of the country.

Ari Fleischer when this was first brought up last week basically said, you know, ask the French. That was something that the French really were upset about because they expected the White House to defend them more strenuously.

They didn't but they are saying that they don't know very much about these accusations and they're saying that they do admit that the relations could be a lot better and they hope -- they're saying that they hope that in the future they will be.

WOODRUFF: All right, Dana Bash at the White House. And, I know from talking with a French official just last week that they do believe that the White House could be more supportive than it has been. All right, Dana thanks very much.

And, coming up on NEWSNIGHT the assault weapons ban and the fight between Republicans and Republicans over whether to extend it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WOODRUFF: If President Bush can pull it off, it'll be a masterful display of political Jujitsu. It has to do with gun control, where politicians of both parties need all of the fancy Matrix-style moves that they can muster. Can Mr. Bush support extending a ban on assault weapons? Something that appeals to many moderate voters, without alienating his many supporters in the National Rifle Association. But Democrats say, the president is trying to have it both ways. And they are calling him on it. The story from CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Outside the capitol, President Bush renewed his warm relationship with the Fraternal Order of Police.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Officers training and preparing for many threats, yet preparation that will never take the danger away from a hard profession.

FRANKEN: One of those threats, the deadly weapons police face daily. Inside, the Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was stepping back ever so slightly from his Majority Whip Tom DeLay.

Two days ago, DeLay proclaimed that extending the existing ban against 19 different assault weapons would not even be brought up for a vote. But the speaker insisted he had not made that decision. He hasn't spoken with the president, who says, he supports an extension. Democratic leaders want him to prove it.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: I hope the president will use his good offices and his considerable political capitol to have the assault weapon ban brought up on the House floor.

CHIEF RON BATTELLE, ST. LOUIS COUNTY POLICE: He needs the to support it fully. I think he needs to get behind it and get the Congress behind it.

FRANKEN (on camera): Many, if not most, cops believe the assault weapon is just another danger in a very treacherous world. But and extension of the ban is anything but certain, because the world of politics is very treacherous too.

(voice over): The truth is, members of both parties will just as soon avoid the issue.

GOV. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: I don't think shifting the weight back onto a gun control issue is going to -- at least in Southern states and many Midwestern states is going to move the Democrats forward.

WAYNE LAPIERRE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, NRA: Bill Clinton told the congressmen in '94, they'd be real popular if that they did that. And 90 million gun owners deeply resented it and many, many congressmen were voted out of office.

FRANKEN (voice over): A not so subtle reminder from the NRA. And not every cop supports the assault weapons ban.

PATROLMAN BUTCH PUCCETTI, KITTANING, PA. POLICE DEPT.: If someone is intent on, you know, getting a police officer, they come after you with a knife and a handgun, a shotgun.

FRANKEN: So, the president and the congressional leaders to their political dance. There is a good chance the assault weapons ban will expire. Those who oppose gun control seem to have the upper hand.

Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: And more now on the political fight involving the assault weapons ban with Michelle Cottle. She is a senior editor at "The New Republic".

Michelle, thanks for being here tonight.

MICHELLE COTTLE, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": Thanks, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Can the president get away with this? Can he get way with saying I believe this ban, I want this ban to be extended, but I'm not going to lobby for it?

COTTLE: This is the great thing about having your party in control of the Congress, and especially having a strong man out front like DeLay.

DeLay wants to make this as easy as possible for Bush. This way DeLay can be the bad guy. And Bush says, oh, I'd love to support, but the House won't go along. And at the point, the Democrats are too afraid of this issue to really get out there and slap the Republicans around for it.

WOODRUFF: But today, you had a little wrinkle thrown in when the speaker of the House, who technically is more powerful than the House majority leader, Mr. DeLay said, We haven't even discussed this. I haven't talked to the president. We, in the Republican leadership, haven't discussed it. This is there something significant about this division between DeLay and Hastert?

COTTLE: Oh, I wouldn't to continue as a big division here. I mean, technically, is the key there. DeLay has a lot of power and he's got a lot of influence in getting the member to do what he wants. But it does look a little bad. I think he probably overstepped his bounds in terms of the public relations effort.

WOODRUFF: DeLay did?

COTTLE: Yes, DeLay did. When it looks like they're not even going to consider this. And Bush, he kind of makes Bush look a little weak in this area.

WOODRUFF: Now, this ban, Michelle, doesn't expire until the end of next year, of 2004. Do we know why this has come up right now?

COTTLE: Well, the closer you get to the presidential election -- I mean, the less people are going to want to tackle this. The reality is that while Democrats talk a good game about how they like, you know, how it is the big bad Republicans who are doing the bidding of the NRA, they're still a little gun shy, so to speak, about how Al Gore suffered in kind of strongholds like Tennessee and West Virginia. And that was blamed a lot, certainly the NRA wants everyone to think that is because he wasn't pro-gun enough. So Democrats are really skittish on this.

WOODRUFF: What is the best posture then, for the Democrats? To say, Gee, we really want the president to come forward and put his weight behind this?

COTTLE: Yes, I think a good thing to do is -- you know, Bush has said, I support this. I want to extend it. So the Democrats need to pile on. Do they say, OK, you say that you support it, well you need to get in there and lobby. The House will do what he wants and Bush has proved himself more than able to exert some pressure when he really wants something like a tax cut. So if he really wants this, there's no way that the House is not going it back him up on it.

WOODRUFF: I don't know if we actually want to weigh into this, but I have to ask you. Today we talked to both -- people from the gun control side of this argument. We also talked to somebody from the Gun Owners Association of America. They have completely different definitions of what assault weapons are.

The gun owners would have you believe these are very innocuous weapons, if you will. The gun control people will have you believe these are monstrous weapons that are used only in wartime. What's the public to think? I mean, how do you find out what's the truth here?

COTTLE: Well, this is -- the gun owners always on some level kind of want it to be a slippery slope. This is what regular hunters and what regular Americans like to use. And, you know, we're talking about AK-47s.

WOODRUFF: I mean, these are assault weapons.

COTTLE: These are assault weapons. This is not what you are going out and shooting deer in the woods with. There is also the case of the want -- the gun-control people want to make sure that the kits, where you can transform certain guns into these kind of assault weapons, are tackled under this as well. So, this is -- there is a lot of rhetoric flying around with this.

WOODRUFF: I guess we need an encyclopedia of guns and ammunition and all of the rest of it.

COTTLE: Yes, get your subscription to "Guns & Ammo" and you'll be fine.

WOODRUFF: Michelle Cottle with "The New Republic". Good to see you. Thanks for coming in. COTTLE: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.

Well, as NEWSNIGHT continues, we will check some of the other stories of the day. And later, the president and the intern, going back 40 years, this time to the case of JFK and his affair with a 19- year-old intern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: And later on NEWSNIGHT, John Kennedy and the intern, a 40-year-old secret revealed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: When it came out yesterday, that more than a dozen illegal immigrants had died in the back of a truck, hoping for a better life in the United States, the first thought is the tragedy of it all. But more than tragedy happened on that terrible journey across the border. Crimes were committed as well. And the crime part of the story was the focus today in Victoria, Texas. Here now is CNN's Gary Tuchman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Tyrone Williams arrived for his initial appearance in court of charges of smuggling aliens well after he divulged disturbing details to police, according to court records.

A federal affidavit indicates Williams, from Schenectady, New York, acknowledged entering into an agreement with two men at the Mexico border to transport the immigrants. Williams told authorities he was to be paid $5,000 to take them from Harlingen, Texas to Houston.

MICHAEL SHELBY, U.S. ATTORNEY, SO. DISTRICT OF TEXAS: This was clearly done for profit. This was the motive behind this is greed on the part of all of the individuals that were associated with this.

TUCHMAN: Williams says in the affidavit he saw a light dangling from his trailer. So, he decided to stop at this truck stop in Victoria, Texas. He heard banging and screaming coming from the trailer. When he opened the back, he told the police looked like there was, "Something wrong with them". He heard a female yell el nino, which means in Spanish means "the little boy".

A seven-year-old boy was one of the 18 people who died.

SHELBY: The individuals that died apparently died from both asphyxiation and from heat stroke. The internal temperature of the truck was well beyond 100 degrees for an extended period of time.

TUCHMAN: Even though he had been advised of his Miranda rights, authorities say Williams kept talking saying he bought 20 bottles of water for the immigrants, but then panicked and unhooked his tractor from the trailer and drove off.

He went to a hospital in Houston where nurses say he looked very anxious and nervous. Police say Williams was taken to custody there after revealing details of the story. A woman who Williams claims drove with him on the journey was also at the hospital, but left the scene. And police are now on the look-out for her.

TUCHMAN (on camera): Is it possible some of them can't end up permanently living in the United States?

SHELBY: Given their individual circumstances that is possible, but right now, we are viewing them as witnesses to a federal offense. We will handle them that way.

TUCHMAN: The trailer is equipped with a refrigeration system that was not on. Authorities wanted to test it to see if it was broken or just left off. A source tells us that when the switch was flipped the temperature quickly went from over 100 to 62.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Victoria, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Terrible story.

Well, some other stories now from around the country. The first one can be seen from one end of the country, literally, to the other. This is a live picture from a camera in Indianapolis, courtesy of our affiliate WTHR, a total -- what's going to be, that is, a total lunar eclipse, the first one in three years.

It happens when the earth comes between the moon and the sun. And if you'd like to know more, there is a great animation available at our Web site, Cnn.com.

About 1700 residents of Marquette, Michigan, are staying elsewhere tonight. Their homes in jeopardy after a pair of dams gave way. Heavy rain over the weekend set things in motion. No injuries so far, but the concern tonight is that other dams in the area may not be able to handle the strain.

The autopsies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son are complete. That, according to the Contra Costa coroner's office. However, both defense and prosecution in the case have agreed to seal the reports so that we may not know the contents until Scott Peterson goes on trial.

And Hollywood has lost a tough guy. Robert Stack died yesterday of an apparent heart attack. He was 84. Mr. Stack is best known for his portrayal of gang buster Eliot Ness, in the "Untouchables". But in his first role, he played a lover giving one of 1939's most popular ingenues her first on-screen kiss.

And before we take a break, we want to bring you up to date on some other stories that are making news around the world. The first stop is Gaza, where Israeli forces have occupied the town of Beit Hanoun (ph). Five Palestinians were killed in the operation, which according to the Israeli government were aimed at stopping Palestinian rocket attacks. It comes at an especially sensitive moment. Today is the day that Palestinians mourn their losses in the 1948 creation of Israel.

Britain, today, confirmed its first case of SARS. British authorities say the patient has recovered. And did not spread the disease. They say they are carefully monitoring three other potential cases tonight.

And in the Straits of Florida, the U.S. Coast Guard plucked six Cubans from the water before they could reach freedom on the shore. After receiving medical treatment, all of them may wind up back in Cuba.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the John F. Kennedy story and the Manhattan grandmother who says she had an affair with the president 40 years ago.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: A former White House intern is speaking out in public today, and we are not talking about Monica Lewinsky, who -- by the way is speaking out as this week's co-host on the ABC TV program, "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

No, this is a woman you have likely never heard of, who says she had an affair with the president decades ago. In a time when such matters were not fit for polite discussion much less front-page treatment. A former intern's story now from CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Marion Fahnestock, Mimi for short, is a Manhattan grandmother, mother and churchgoer. She is also a former White House intern who says when she was 19 years old, she had an affair with President John F. Kennedy, from June 1962 to November 1963. Ending two months before she married. Now, 60, Fahnestock released a statement saying:

"I was involved in a sexual relationship with President Kennedy. For the last 41 years it is a subject that I have not discussed. In view of the recent media coverage I have now discussed the relationship with my children and my family, and they are completely supportive."

So are members of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church where Fahnestock works as a Web site manager.

TOM TEWELL, PASTOR: She is a very respected, trusted member of our church and our staff family. And we all love her and we stand by her 100 percent.

CARROLL: Fahnestock grew up as Marion Beardsley (ph) in a wealthy New Jersey suburb. One childhood friend, who is now her neighbor, was surprised to hear the revelation. JOAN TATNALI, CHILDHOOD FRIEND: She is the least likely person that I would have expected to have had a romance, but I think probably Jack Kennedy would have gone to bed with anybody, so

[LAUGHTER]

Not that Mimi is just anybody, very attractive, smartest girl in our class, very good at track.

CARROLL: Fahnestock went to a prep school in Connecticut, Miss Porter's, also attended by the future first lady, Jacqueline Bouvier. Fahnestock attended Wheaton College, but did not graduate. She spent her freshman and sophomore summers in the White House. According to an oral history by a former Kennedy press aide, who also alluded to the affair, historian Robert Dallek uncovered it while doing research for his new biography of the former president.

ROBERT DALLEK, AUTHOR: She had 17 blacked out pages in the oral history the Kennedy Library. I asked her and she gave me access to them. I guess almost 40 years later, she felt there was no harm in doing it.

CARROLL: The alleged affair gets only a few lines of attention in a 700, plus-page book. Dallek did not name the intern, but described her as a tall, slender, beautiful 19-year-old college sophomore. Quoting a press aide who said, she had no skills and she couldn't type. The unnamed former intern came forward and only after the "New York Daily News" tracked her down.

CARROLL (on camera): Fahnestock asked the media to respect her privacy and the privacy of her family. That may be difficult given the statements she has made about her relationship with one of the most popular and scrutinized presidents.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

WOODRUFF: A story that has us all shaking our heads. We will have more on the JFK story, in a moment, with presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: White House affairs were not invented by the 42nd president, or by the 35th either. This kind of salacious history goes back as far as the founding of the nation, more salacious than history, but history nonetheless. A look back from CNN's Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR ANALYST (voice over): In the history of presidential affairs, there's a long history of presidential affairs. Thomas Jefferson's alleged long-term affair with the young slave girl was reported at time, but largely ignored.

In the 1884 campaign, Republicans tried to make an issue out of charges that Democrat Grover Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child. The GOP turned it into a campaign song, "Ma, ma where's my pa?" But Cleveland still got elected, and Democrats respond, gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha.

It was just politics in those days. It didn't matter because the president was a party leader. In the 20th Century, presidents became popular leaders, but there was a lot about them people didn't know.

Warren G. Harding continued to see his mistress in the White House and reported to have received her in the coat closet. Franklin D. Roosevelt had an affair with his wife's personal secretary, who was with him when he died. Love letters disclosed years after he left office revealed Dwight Eisenhower had an affair with his driver Kay Sommersby (ph) during World War II. People didn't know about John F. Kennedy's affairs with Marilyn Monroe or with Judith Campbell Exner, who had ties to organized crime figures. Actually, some people knew --

HUGH SIDEY, TIME MAGAZINE: I was fully aware of John Kennedy's relations with various girls. I never saw that it got in the way of Kennedy being president. And so we just kind of shoved it aside.

SCHNEIDER: That's all changed. Press coverage has become more personal.

BILL KOVACH, HARVARD DEAN AND FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM: I think it's the celebrification (ph) of everything including the presidential office.

SCHNEIDER: Television gives the president a personal relationship with the American people that Cleveland and Harding never had. You never saw Eisenhower go on MTV and talk about his underwear. The private has become public, much more than in the Kennedy years.

LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: John F. Kennedy's affairs would have resulted in a presidential resignation had people known about it at the time. So John Kennedy was very lucky that the press corps did have the rules it had in the early 1960s.

SCHNEIDER (on camera): In fact, the revelations about JFK probably helped Bill Clinton survive in office, many people said, hey, Clinton didn't do anything Kennedy didn't do. Why should he be driven out of office?

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

WOODRUFF: Well, it is remarkable to think that the revelations of this White House intern were just a few lines within an 800 (sic) plus-page book by author Robert Dallek.

And as historian Douglas Brinkley puts it, quote, "It is an asterisk to the Kennedy legacy."

Douglas Brinkley joins us now to talk about JFK and about another fascinating figure of 20th Century, Henry Ford, who is the subject of his new book "Wheels for the World." Doug Brinkley, I'm going to ask you about Henry Ford in just a minute, but first about this new intern, the woman, the new woman in John Kennedy's life. What are we to make of this, 40 years later?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN, UNIV. OF NEW ORLEANS: Well, that we now have it documented that John F. Kennedy saw many women while he was president. There is not clear evidence how it effected his presidency. Dallek, in his book, says it didn't hurt him at all and in fact it was just a -- his nickname was the Minute Man ,with the Secret Service. And it was a way of a sexual release while he was in the White House.

But it's adultery, and I think people frown on it. And other people don't seem to care, but it is certainly now part of the permanent Kennedy record.

WOODRUFF: Is history well served by our knowing this?

BRINKLEY: Well I think so in only this regard, that we're looking at the real person who was John F. Kennedy. And one looks at Joe Kennedy and the misogyny he held towards women. And them we're learning more about John F. Kennedy's Addison's disease and the medication he's on, and trying to live every day to the fullest because he may be dead the next day.

Hence this problem, one might even call him -- kindly people are saying Kennedy was a sexual athlete, and other people are calling him a sexual addict. But it does help us to understand some of the dysfunctionalism. And remember it is a strange breed of person who wants to be president and the ego has to be at a certain hyped up level. So it does help us understand the character of a president even though it doesn't, you know, change to history of the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Berlin Wall going up.

WOODRUFF: What's your best estimate? Do you think this woman, Ms. Fahnestock will be able to disappear, as she says she'd like to?

BRINKLEY: I think if she wants to, she largely be able to. I am sure publishers are going to want her to do a memoir. I'm sure there is going to be money offered her. She seems like the kind of woman who really wants to get this behind her now. She came public because she had to, with people starting to hound her. I think she dealt it with really well.

I think it really will remain an asterisk to the Kennedy years. The big story here is that word "intern". And as you rightly mentioned, and Bill rightly mentioned, 40 years ago, this -- you know, you have this situation. Well in 1998, you got impeached for the intern. That's a big difference and I think Watergate and Bernstein and Woodward and the revelations of Nixon, and also the Vietnam War changed journalism forever. And no president could have a 19-year-old intern anymore and not be found out.

WOODRUFF: Well, we may or may not have the opportunity to know that. Doug Brinkley, I do want to ask you about your book, "Wheel for the World: Henry Ford". Why did you write this? BRINKLEY: Well, I was trying to write a big story about the 20th Century and there was Henry Ford. And he was 1863 at the time of the Civil War. He died in 1947 during the Cold War and at the end of the 20th Century "Forbes" magazine and "Fortune" picked him as the businessman of the century. He's one of "Time" magazine's main people and he's the person who put the world on wheels with the Model T in the people's car. And then also the innovations of Highland Park with the moving assembly line and the $5 day on and on.

And I started realizing just how significant not just Henry Ford was but Ford Motor Company, which today is run by Bill Ford, Jr., the great-grandson of Henry Ford, and 40 percent of the Ford Motor Company's stock is in the -- controlling stock is in the family's hands.

So it's a big American story, and I try to make characters out of the factories and the cars from the Model T all the way to the Taurus and the SUVs.

WOODRUFF: He was uniquely American. What about him? What do we learn about U.S. history by studying Henry Ford?

BRINKLEY: Well, if you could beam yourself 100 years ago, there was a World's Fair in St. Louis where really the hot dog and cotton candy and iced tea got its debut. And there were -- the automobile was a newfangled contraption in many ways. There were over 150 auto companies there. Hundred and forty-nine of them are gone, but Ford Motor survived.

And that revolution of the Model T, you started getting the first of everything in the 1920s, the first motel in San Luis Obispo, the first drive-in restaurant in Dallas, you know, the first parking garage in Detroit, or the first shopping center in Kansas City.

And there was no asphalt. There was just -- you know, the first asphalt rolled -- road was in Ohio in Bellefontaine, Ohio, in the 18 -- late 1890s. So we're starting this whole change of America.

And it got us dependent on oil, because Henry Ford pushed forward for the internal combustion engine in his People's Car, run on oil, not electric car, not steam car, and hence 20th century, as Jack London once said, "stinks of oil," and say oil century, and Henry Ford is the...

WOODRUFF: Sure.

BRINKLEY: ... vortex of all that.

WOODRUFF: It sure is hard to imagine this country without the automobile.

BRINKLEY: Absolutely.

WOODRUFF: Doug Brinkley, the book is "Wheels for the World." Thanks for talking to us about Henry Ford and about John Kennedy. Good to see you again, Doug, thank you. BRINKLEY: Thanks, thank you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Well, in our next half hour here on NEWSNIGHT, the latest on the attempt to get a tax cut plan through Congress. It is moving.

Then the missing Democrats from Texas, about to end their self- imposed exile.

And we'll talk about all that and more with New Mexico's governor, Bill Richardson, after a break and the latest news headlines.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: If there's one lesson the George W. Bush White House learns over and over again, it is that every vote counts. Florida may have been the first time, but today they learned it again when they eked a vote for Mr. Bush's tax cut package out of a Democrat.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative, and the amendment of the senator from Oklahoma is agreed to.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With a tie- breaking assist from the vice president, Republicans scored a significant, if not complete, victory for the president's economic plan.

SEN. JON KYL (R), ARIZONA: This was a real victory tonight not only for President Bush and for the Republican Senate and the Finance Committee and the leadership, but of course for the American people.

KARL: The victory comes after President Bush aggressively courted key Democratic senators, especially Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Nelson, however, insists his support has nothing to do with White House pressure.

SEN. BEN NELSON (D), NEBRASKA: I don't mean to in any way to demean the presidency, but it's not about pressure from the White House or anything like that. It's about the contents of the plan, because I think that's what's the most important part of what we're doing here.

KARL: Republicans won Nelson's backing by agreeing to include $20 billion in aid to cash-strapped state and local governments.

The bill would completely eliminate the tax on dividends, the White House's highest priority. But it took some creative accounting to do that.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D), MONTANA: This is a huge Yo-Yo tax provision. Now you see it, now you don't.

KARL: The dividend cut would last just four years, and the bill includes approximately $90 billion in so-called offsets, effectively tax increases to keep the total cost of the tax cuts at $350 billion.

In addition to temporarily eliminating the tax on dividends, the bill would reduce income tax rates, increase the child tax credit, and give small businesses a tax break on new equipment purchases.

(on camera): The differences between the Senate bill and a larger one passed by the House still need to be worked out, but at the end of the process, the president is expected to be able to sign into law a tax cut that is considered to be the third-largest in American history, and an economic plan that includes most but not all of what he asked for.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Never dull over there.

Well, if the folks at the Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma, weren't political junkies before this week, they probably are now. The Ardmore Holiday Inn became the war room and the safe house for those Texas Democrats who hightailed their way out of the state early this week.

It effectively shut down the Texas House of Representatives, preventing Republicans from going ahead with a congressional redistricting plan.

Well, now the Democrats are going home, victorious for now, even if they had to endure the indignity of being branded the Chicken D's.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we didn't hear from our house speaker, but we did hear from a powerfully important Texan, from Willie Nelson. "Way to go. Stand your ground."

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before the Texas Democrats get on the road again back to Austin, Texas, Willie Nelson treated them to bandannas and bottles of Scotch. That might be the last gift they see for a while.

Ron Wilson is one of the few Democrats that didn't make the middle-of-the-night dash to Oklahoma. He says his fellow Democrats better hope their chairs are still on the house floor when they get back Friday.

RON WILSON (D), TEXAS STATE HOUSE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) say there's going to be retribution, but there's going to be a natural, I think, tension. I think if they come back and assume that everything's going to be hunky-dory, I think they're, you know, they're mistaken.

LAVANDERA: Republicans aren't talking about political retribution, but they say about 500 bills were killed because of this political stunt, bills which, Republicans say, would have generated $600 million in revenue for the state.

(on camera): What this has done to the reputation of Texas politics, what do you think?

TOM CRADDICK (R), TEXAS HOUSE SPEAKER: Well, I think it's harmed it. I don't think there's anything else you can say but that. It's -- we're on the late-night talk shows and things like that, and I think that harms the image of the state overall.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): While the words "chickens" and "cowards" aren't being thrown around any more, the political fighting hasn't slowed down. The latest fight is over Democratic allegations that state police asked federal authorities to trail the plane of former house speaker Pete Laney (ph) as he was flying to Oklahoma Sunday night.

Republicans deny any involvement. Homeland Security director Tom Ridge says he'll look into whether anyone used federal resources improperly. But he's skeptical of the charges.

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: They're trying to find a bunch of disgruntled legislators. That's not part of our mission, nor would it ever be.

LAVANDERA (on camera): There will be an early morning political rally for the Texas Democrats when they return to the state capitol in Austin, Texas, and one state Democratic official says they're planning to put on a big show, because in Texas, we like things hot and spicy.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Austin, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Well, if anyone has made a career out of dealing with disgruntled legislators, whether they are state, federal, or even foreign legislators, or dictators, as the case may be, it is New Mexico's governor, Bill Richardson. He joins us tonight from New York.

Governor, Texas Democrats in the state legislature, did they do the right thing, or not such a smart thing?

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), NEW MEXICO: They did the right thing, Judy. You can't all of a sudden, just because you have a huge Republican majority, in years that are not redistricting years, it's every 10 years, the year 2000 they had a redistricting in Texas, all of a sudden, just because you have a huge Republican majority, you say, as Tom DeLay wants, a new redistricting plan that would probably bring four new Republican seats to congressman from Texas.

You know, it's unfortunate the way it ended in the sense of theatrics, but it achieved its objective. I think the Texas Democrats are heroic. I think it's -- I'm disappointed they didn't come into New Mexico. We would have taken care of them there. They went to Oklahoma.

But you can't just...

WOODRUFF: Well, now that...

RICHARDSON: ... you can't just arbitrarily decide when you're going to redistrict.

WOODRUFF: Well, now that the Republicans have tried this in Texas, a state that, as you point out, they've just taken over the legislature, they've taken control of the legislature, why shouldn't the Democrats, your party just took over the legislature in New Mexico, why shouldn't you try something similar in New Mexico?

RICHARDSON: Well, I think the reality, Judy, is that, you know, we have laws in this country. We redistricted two years ago for legislature for the Congress. If somebody all of a sudden assumes a majority role and says, Well, let's redistrict, I think you've got organized chaos. And we have the courts, we have redistricting plans approved by legislatures in Congress. It's every 10 years.

Let's stick to that. I think that here's a case...

WOODRUFF: But...

RICHARDSON: ... where there was a little bit of an abuse of power, and the Democrats took...

WOODRUFF: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

RICHARDSON: ... the right steps and didn't do it.

WOODRUFF: But you've got a state senate president in your own state, Mr. Romero, Richard Romero, who was quoted today as saying, this is -- you know, they did it, it's infectious, suggesting they're going to try it in New Mexico.

RICHARDSON: Well, I'll work with the legislators. And I think what Condolay (ph) has done is, he's prompted Democrats to seek revenge. And he shouldn't have done this. And now we may have other legislators doing the same thing. I want to see Richard Romero in the Congress. He's probably going to run. But at the same time, I think it's important that we do look at order and fairness. And we do it every 10 years.

WOODRUFF: Let me ask you about the tax cut bill that passed the Senate earlier this evening, governor. The Senate, what they ended up doing was applying a tax -- a cut -- or rather an elimination of a dividend tax cut, but only for a short time. It's going to go away and then come back in a few years.

Whether you focus on that or not, is this a tax cut that is going to stimulate, that's going to help the economy overall? RICHARDSON: Well, Judy, I think -- I'm a governor, I represent states. I like the tax cut that passed because it contains $20 billion in assistance for Medicaid and homeland security and education for the states.

On the other hand, a dividend tax, if you eliminate it, hurts the states because of the state and federal tied so closely together.

I passed tax cuts in New Mexico, a personal income tax reduction, capital gains tax reduction. I hope my fellow Democrats don't always oppose all kind of tax cuts. I think the Senate provision is more sensible than the House. It's more measured, it's shorter term. It contains spending cuts to offset the tax cuts...

WOODRUFF: Would we be better off with no tax cuts coming out of Washington this year?

RICHARDSON: No, we need some tax cuts to stimulate the economy. On the president's tax cut, I think the marriage penalty, child care tax credit, rural...

WOODRUFF: But...

RICHARDSON: ... economic development tax cuts, tax cuts for the middle class, I think those...

WOODRUFF: BUt this...

RICHARDSON: ... make sense.

WOODRUFF: But this particular formula, doing away temporarily with dividend taxes.

RICHARDSON: Well, I would have voted against it. I don't think that is going to be a significant measure. I don't think it's going to survive in the end. But I do think a tax cut package along the lines of $350 to $400 million, offset by spending cuts, as, I think, is in this plan that passed the Senate. I just think it's essential, Judy, that aid to the states, the $20 billion, stay in there, because we really need it.

States are hurting. We're hurting bad, with budget deficits, with job losses, with high unemployment. It's important that we keep it.

WOODRUFF: And it's not clear that that sort of aid is going to be in the final product.

RICHARDSON: That's right.

WOODRUFF: All right. Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, always good to see you, governor.

RICHARDSON: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Thanks for talking with us tonight. RICHARDSON: Thank you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Thanks.

Well, as NEWSNIGHT continues, a step back in time to look at one of America's original war heroes. The story of John Paul Jones from author Evan Thomas, in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Perhaps it has something to do with the eclipse, because the planets are surely aligning. We mentioned earlier the death of actor Robert Stack. Well, one of the actor's more than 30 movies was "John Paul Jones," about the life of America's first great naval hero, a film that perhaps influenced our next guest to write his current book.

He is Evan Thomas. His latest work is about the Revolutionary War hero, and he joins us now from New York, that is, Evan Thomas joins us.

Evan Thomas, you know, we hear a lot about Benjamin Franklin, of course, and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. John Paul Jones was not of that caliber, presumably, or was he?

EVAN THOMAS, AUTHOR, "JOHN PAUL JONES": Well, he was not a great thinker or a visionary, but he was a great fighter, and we needed those. We were long on thinkers but short on fighters in the Revolution. And he was somebody who understood that you had to fight, you had to take the fight to the enemy.

WOODRUFF: You -- I was interested to read about how you had access to something like two -- several thousand pages of his personal papers. Tell us a little bit about what you saw and what you had to work with.

THOMAS: Well, he wrote a lot of letters. That was an age when people did, and diaries and journals. And they very much reveal the personality of somebody who today we'd say was manic-depressive. He was a war lover, he loved war. And right after he'd been in battle, he'd write euphorically about his saucy, hair-breadth escapes and so forth.

And then the next letter would be drenched in gloom and doom, and he would feel underappreciated, and everybody was out to get him. And so he had a very mercurial character, but he was a very fierce man, and when he was in battle, he was both euphoric and smart.

WOODRUFF: If he was such a hero, if he was so courageous, why was he overlooked for so long?

THOMAS: Well, he was...

WOODRUFF: I mean, it was Teddy Roosevelt, right, who sort of resurrected him. THOMAS: Right, he was -- I mean, he -- Romantic writers, James Fenimore Cooper and Kipling and a lot of Romantic writers of the 19th century, wrote about him.

But the U.S. government didn't really discover him till Teddy Roosevelt wanted to build a navy in 1900, and they dug up Jones, who was -- had buried and forgotten in Paris and brought him back and built a magnificent temple to him, the casque beneath the chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy.

WOODRUFF: What is this that I saw, Evan, about the famous line, "I have not yet begun to fight"? You report that he may not have even said that.

THOMAS: No, he probably didn't. His first lieutenant remembered that 45 years after the battle. But he did say something defiant. Contemporaneous accounts suggest it was something like, I'll sink before I surrender.

The important that is that he really was defiant. He took his ship into battle against a far superior British ship. He locked himself in a fatal embrace. When his ship was burning and sinking and his own gunner's mate tried to strike the flag and surrender, Jones threw a pistol at his head and knocked him out.

And then when the British captain demanded to know if he was going to surrender, he said, he said no, and he just outlasted them and finally won.

WOODRUFF: But when he died, he was all alone, right, in Paris.

THOMAS: Yes, he was. He was not a popular figure. He had a lot of enemies. Not -- he was not only paranoid, but even paranoids have enemies, and he did have them. He was a lonely figure. He was a great rake and a ladies' man. He had a lot of girlfriends, and I have him chasing all sorts of countesses and chambermaids and all that through the book.

But he had few real friends, no wife, and he died a lonely man.

WOODRUFF: Talking about several ladies' men tonight.

Finally, a completely different story I want to ask you about, Evan Thomas. You've been with "Newsweek" magazine for a long time. You were with "Time" magazine before that. People read about Jayson Blair, the "New York Times" reporter who was let go this week after some pretty egregious plagiarism.

People may hear about this, Evan, and think, There must be a lot more of that going on in journalism than I know. What is the public to make of this?

THOMAS: Yes. Well, it's a horrible thing, because "The Times" really is the greatest of all news organizations. And it's like one true church for a lot of us journalists. But it would be a mistake to think that this is commonplace. It's not. It was a tremendous screwup. It's a tragedy for the people involved.

But I've been doing this for 25 years, and I was shocked by the facts in that case. It is not business as usual.

True journalism can be a sausage factory, it can be not so pretty to walk around inside of it. And we do make mistakes. But that kind of scale of mistake, that persistence, that kind of epic quality, is, I'm glad to say, pretty unusual.

WOODRUFF: Well, we're glad to hear it. Evan Thomas, one of the best of the practitioners of journalism, and also an historian, and the book, "John Paul Jones." Evan, thanks very much.

THOMAS: Thanks, Judy.

WOODRUFF: It's good to see you tonight.

THOMAS: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate your coming by.

When NEWSNIGHT continues, a long and rich history of music. The life of June Carter Cash.

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WOODRUFF: And finally from us tonight, a death in the family. June Carter Cash died today of complications from heart surgery. She was 73.

In a music business often described as crass and predatory, where the business comes first, June Carter Cash belonged to a distinct minority. In her world, the business came third. Music came second. And family always came first.

A remembrance tonight from CNN's Andy Culpepper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDY CULPEPPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: June Carter Cash was born a member of country music royalty. Her mother, aunt, and uncle formed the Carter Family, pioneers in country radio, whose hits included "Can the Circle Be Unbroken?"

Later, June recorded with her mother, Maybelle, and with her sisters, Helen and Anita. She was typically modest about her own talents.

JUNE CARTER CASH: I'd always felt like I couldn't sing so much as my sisters, you know, they had these great voices. And so I always felt like, Well, I'll just do something else to get a laugh or to be an entertainer enough to get through this. I'll play the banjo and I'll play the autoharp and I'll the piano, I'll play anything.

CULPEPPER: In the 1960s, she crossed paths with Johnny Cash, later co-writing his signature tune, "The Ring of Fire." They were married in 1968.

CASH: He's been a great, wonderful man to me, and he's been a great husband and a lover and a father to my children. Together we have six girls, and one son together.

CULPEPPER: Though she was an accomplished musician herself, she chose to put family and her husband's career ahead of her own.

CASH: It was a choice I made a long time ago, that that's what my first priority would be. And I could have recorded, you know, I just didn't think about it.

CULPEPPER: With her children grown, she did return to recording. She finished her last CD in early 2003. The album, "Wildwood Flower," was named after the Carter Family's biggest hit.

CASH: My goodness, I stop and think about it, it's 60 years of my life that I've sung and participated in music. I've never been out of it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Johnny Cash was at his wife's side when she died today.

That's it for NEWSNIGHT. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thanks for joining us.

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