captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: army officials said today the suspected gunman in that deadly fort hood shooting may have had a verbal altercation with another soldier and was being treated for a variety of mental health issues. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. also ahead this thursday: a veteran war correspondent wraps up her 13-year stint in afghanistan with a look at suspected collusion between the taliban and pakastani intelligence. >> woodruff: plus, recreating the drama of the 1978 camp david middle east peace talks on stage. >> what i was trying to do is retrieve something that's very important, that's been neglected, and it was an extraordinary achievement.

>> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> and by bnsf railway. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: the number of confirmed dead in the washington state mudslide rose again today to 30. the local medical examiner's office released the names of two more victims, and it lowered the number of missing to 15, down from 18 yesterday. meanwhile, the search continued in the tiny community of oso. it was buried last month when a hillside collapsed. the senate intelligence committee has voted to declassify parts of a report on c.i.a. interrogations after 9/11. the report concludes methods such as waterboarding were often cruel and ineffective.

today's vote comes as senators accuse the c.i.a. of spying on their investigation and deleting files. the c.i.a. says senate staffers accessed the information illegally. hopes for progress in middle east peace talks are fading. israel announced today it will not release another group of palestinian prisoners after all. it blamed palestinian president mahmoud abbas for resuming a push for u.n. recognition. abbas had cited delays in the prisoner release for his decision. in algeria today, secretary of state john kerry appealed to both sides. >> the leaders have to lead. and they have to be able to see a moment when it's there. there's an old saying you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. now is time to drink and the leaders need to know that. >> ifill: kerry had set the end of april as the deadline for getting a framework peace agreement. the government of chad announced today it's withdrawing more than

800 peacekeepers from the central african republic. the troops had been accused of opening fire on a crowd there last week, killing 32 civilians. chad's forces also allegedly backed a muslim rebel government that was forced from power in the c.a.r. in january. at least one million syrian refugees have now fled to lebanon to escape civil war in their homeland. the united nations refugee agency announced the figure today and called it a "devastating milestone." >> we have now a million refugees here in lebanon, which is one quarter of the population. and every single refugee reflects a life that has been absolutely devastated by this crisis. we're doing our best to keep up. the lebanese society is incredibly strained by the additional burden that these refugees are bringing to bear. >> ifill: the u.n. also warned the total is likely higher since many of those who fled to lebanon never registered as refugees.

it's estimated at least 2.5 million syrians have fled to neighboring states. turkey lifted its ban on the social media site twitter today. the country's constitutional court ruled yesterday the ban violated basic freedoms. it was imposed two weeks ago after users posted allegations of government corruption. the video-sharing web site youtube remains offline. wall street had a relatively quiet day. the dow jones industrial average lost about half a point today to close at 16,572; the nasdaq fell 38 points to close at 4,237; and the s&p 500 slid two points to finish at 1,888. still to come on the newshour: the investigation into the fort hood shooting; u.s. efforts to use social media to sow unrest in cuba; collusion between the taliban and pakistani intelligence; recreating the drama of the camp david peace talks on stage; plus, loans,

grants and the other ins and outs of paying for college. >> woodruff: another shooting rampage on an army base, and again at fort hood in texas. this time, three people were killed and 16 wounded before the gunman, an iraq veteran, committed suicide. police and emergency vehicles raced toward the nation's largest army base yesterday after the second mass shooting there in five years. first word came in a tweet from fort hood officials: hours later, when the lockdown ended, the base commander laid out the gunman's moves. >> it is believed that he walked into the unit building, opened fire, got into vehicle, fired from a vehicle, got out of vehicle, walked into another

building and opened fire again. >> woodruff: about 20 minutes after the incident began, the gunman shot and killed himself. today, general mark milley confirmed his identity as specialist ivan lopez of puerto rico. as for what sparked the shooting... >> we're trying to figure out what the trigger event was. it was mentioned yesterday there may have been a verbal altercation with another soldier or soldiers, and there's a strong possibility that that in fact immediately preceded the shooting. but we do not have that definitively at this point, but do have strong indications of that. >> woodruff: more information emerged at a senate hearing today. the secretary of the army, john mchugh, said there's no documentation that lopez suffered traumatic brain injury, or t.b.i., in iraq despite one official's citing reports that lopez had "self-reported" this. >> he did have two deployments, including one approximately four-month deployment to iraq as

a truck driver. his records show no wounds, no involvement, no direct involvement in combat. as general milley said, there's no record of purple heart or any injury that might lead us to further investigate a battle- related t.b.i. or such. >> woodruff: mchugh said there's also no evidence of ties to extremist groups, but lopez was being evaluated for possible post-traumatic stress disorder. >> he was undergoing a variety of treatment and diagnoses for mental health conditions, ranging from depression to anxiety to some sleep disturbance. he was prescribed a number of drugs to address those, including ambien. >> woodruff: general milley echoed that statement at his briefing today. >> we have very strong evidence that he had a medical history

that indicates unstable psychiatric or psychological condition. going through all the records to ensure that is in fact correct, but we believe that to be a fundamental underlying cause. >> woodruff: as for those wounded yesterday, nine were taken to a hospital in nearby temple, texas. trauma doctor matt davis updated their condition this morning. >> our critical patients have specifically they have some injuries to the neck. we have a potential spine injury, and we have an abdominal injury. those three i would still consider in critical condition. >> woodruff: fort hood was also the scene of the worst mass murder at a military installation in u.s. history. in 2009, 13 people died and more than 30 were wounded when major nidal hasan, an army psychiatrist, opened fire. he was sentenced to death and is now in a federal prison. last night, president obama said

he was "heartbroken" that it's happened again, and today at the white house he pledged support for fort hood soldiers. >> they've done their duty, and they're an inspiration. they've made us proud. they put on their uniform, and then they take care of us. and we've got to make sure when they come home we take care of them. >> woodruff: back at today's senate hearing, the army's chief of staff, general ray odierno, said there were lessons learned from that 2009 shooting. >> the alert procedures that were in place, the response, the training that has gone into the response forces that responded i think contributed this to making this something that could have been much, much worse. >> woodruff: base security is increasingly an issue around the country, with an incident just last month at norfolk's naval station and the mass shooting last fall at the washington navy yard. to help us make sense of all of this, we turn to: dr. stephen xenakis, a retired army brigadier general who had a 28-

year career as an army psychologist-- he's also the chief medical officer at mindcare solutions, a medical software development company; and phillip carter, a senior fellow with the center for a new american security-- he served nine years as an army military police and civil affairs officer, including one year in iraq. he also served at fort hood. we thank you both for being here. doctor xenakis, let me start with you. we're talking about a 34-year-old soldier who did spend four months it in iraq after the end of combat operations. he was being treated, we are told, for a variety of mental health and behavioral issues. he was taking some medication. he was being evaluated for ptsd. there may have been an argument. what does all this is a to you? >> well, i mean, it's a tragic event. it's sad for everyone, and really sad to see another one of these incidents happen at ft. hood.

it just goes to show that these people who come in and soldiers or veterans, need to be really looked at carefully. and i know people are trying and doing their best. but there are a number of factors that affect their mental state, and really can lead to what i think is more important to focus on is the disposition to be dangerous, to harm themselves orñr others. and so there's, like a checklist. i know when i see a soldier or a veteran, i have in my head, and i'm a psychiatrist, by the way, as a physician i have a checklist that i consider and make sure to figure out how much of these, each of these factors are influenced a state of mind and how much should i be concerned and, in fact, instruct the individual to be concerned about their propensity to commit something that would hurt themselves or others. >> woodruff: i'm glad you corrected that, we did mean to say psychiatrist, that

was my mistake. phillip carter to you, you see the profile of this individual, specialist lopez. what stands out? >> well, it's like you've got a puzzle but just a few of the pieces right now. so we know you have got a four month deployment which puts them at the low range of combat exposure and experience for this cohort. he had a combat record or a military record that was undistinguished t was average. not a lot of combat decorations, not the sort of thing you would expect to see for someone who had served upwards of 13 years total active reserve time. he had also moved around a lot. he started in the puerto rico national guard. he moved to the active military in about 2008. changed jobs. he had been an infant ree man, in the band. he had been a truck driver. and so trying to piece that together is very hard right now. even the fact that he was prescribed ambien doesn't necessarily mean that much given that it is essentially dispensed like candy within today's military. >> woodruff: that's right.

and we are told, we know there may have been other medications, as well, but ambien is one that official said that he was taking. dr. xenakis, when you look at someone in the military who is being treated for, again, a variety of mental health an behavioral issues, and they mentioned depression and anxiety, one question that comes to mind is at what point does this disqualify someone from serving in the military? >> well, theñr whole-- there is a set of guidelines and regulations having to do with who is he vig-- eligible or should be considered for separation for medical reasons. and they've been around for decades. and it really boils down to does their medical illness or injury impair their duty performance. and the focus is on the duty. and does the problem mean that they can't do their job and or that they are going to put other soldiers in

danger and not finish, complete the mission. >> woodruff: staying with you, dr. xenakis, what does it is a to you that he was being evaluated for ptsd, post traumatic stress disorder, and that there was no record of a traumatic brain injury? >> that's common. and so it really doesn't say a lot to me. and in fact, when i look at the record, which is important, what i really want to focus on is the patient. because the facts are, when you sit down and people start to disclose their lives and the circumstances, there are impneumerable ways that these things kind of come together and bear down and bear stress on them. not much is known about specialist lopez. one of the factors that is known that i saw on the news, and haven't confirmed, is i think his father died in october, his mother died in november. these are very stressful on an individual.

i mean he is set up to have a grief reaction. and you start grieving deeply. and then you're having other issues that come along with who knows what the factors are because of that exposure in combat. certainly could be one of them. cohave had a traumatic brain injury. but the cum latif effect will really start to have an individual spiral down which means they can be at risk. these are risk factors to be considered of can they be dangerous. can they harm themselves or others. >> woodruff: an we're still trying to piece all the parts of this story together. phillip carter, i want to ask you about the gun. he had in his possession a concealed weapon, a .45 calibre handgun which he bought off base. what are the rules? i'm reading reports today that the rules are kind of an honor system at ft. hood. >> that's right, most soldiers don't carry weapons. the only soldiers that would

have weapons on them in ft. hood are the military police, soldiers lock their weapons up and use them to fight. because when they are doing their jobs they don't carry them. that said the access control points at a massive base like ft. hood simply wave traffic through if you have got an i.d. card or a base decal. there is no tsa like check that pats you down or checks for weapons. we trust soldiers, or contractors or government employees to and follow the rules, which mean no carrying weapons. an in this case, we had a bad actor who appears to have done that. >> woodruff: but this is even after what happened it in 2009 with major hasan? >> it is even after the military's experience there at the navy yard and more recently the militaryñi trusts those people who have that access, who have that preexisting connection to the military to come on board and follow the rules. and it's hard to imagine practically how would you do this. ft. hood is a base of 40,000 plus troops. most of which live off base

there are a number of other employees. i think the line would stretch halfway to austin, texas f they tried to check everyone at the gate. >> woodruff: but is this something that you think should be rethought, reconsidered in the light of these incidents like these? >> i don't think so i think we trust our soldiers and our other service members to do the right thing in a variety of contexts. whether it's holding weapons at the range or driving vehicles around post. and i think we should not distort the system to reflect the fact that we have a few actors like this. we ought to, instead, do what i think dr. xenakis was just saying is find better ways to find these people an get them the treatment they need. >> woodruff: all right, we will leave it there phillip carter we thank you. and dr. steven zen axe-- xenakis. >> ifill: what would happen if the u.s. government used social media to undermine a hostile foreign government? that may be exactly what the u.s. agency for international

development tried to do in cuba with zun zuneo, a twitter-style social media platform secretly controlled by the u.s. government. an associated press investigation reveals that thousands of private cuban cell phone numbers were used to circumvent tight controls on internet communication and to gain valuable information about the users themselves. u.s.a.i.d. says that the program existed only to "create a platform for cubans to speak freely among themselves, period." joining me now to talk about this operation is jack gillum, one of the reporters on the a.p.'s story. welcome, jack, good job, tell me why would anybody, why would a government use twitter in this way? >> so we use twitter here in the united states in many different ways, he want to talk to friends, we want to share information. we also use text messaging as a basic function of our phone, hey, let's meet in the park at 3:00 today, let's go hang out. but in cuba because of these tight controls on the internet it's hard to really

use twitter in the way that we would like to use it. so they needed to use a sort of a bare bones messaging system n this case sms, text messages to re-create what, essentially s a cuban version of twitter. and the idea was is to get people involved, you know, get buy-in so people, in a system they felt comfortable using, they could talk to each other an grow it from there. >> ifill: people who are not familiar with twitter this way you can get followers and reach a lot of people with a single text messagement it wouldn't just be like text messaging other individuals. >> sure, so you would go, you would sign, you would sub vibe to different group, and when you send out a message it would go through the servers, in this case, sometimes to ireland, to spain, get sent back again and then it would be distributed to the group. >> ifill: and it is fake down to the point where you had fake banner ads on these sites. >> sure there was a very professional marketing campaign that ent with this. i mean when this usaid funded project got off the ground there 2009 they sent out text tests-- test text

messages to say is this something we can do, is this something that the cuban government will approve of or rather will they not notice and not get shut down. by 2010 this project which is cuban's slang for hummingbird's tweet was got off the ground and it was something that they marketed, you know, just like any other-- like twitter or facebook or any other type of social media platform. >> ifill: you say usaid funded, that raises two questions. one is how much did it cost. and the other is why was the u.s. international development agency, humanitarian agency involved in this and not say the cia or a spy agency? >> sure, so it cost about-- the government says now about 1.2 million dollars. we think it maybe is more about 1.6 million based on the money that they spent, the equipment they had to do, the payroll, that sort of a thing. and the question to be asked here is why usaid. i mean the government says that they are proud through u.s. aid to do these democracy programs. and they're proud of their work in cuba. and i think that's the

question that members on the hill might have, is why is th work to the being done through the cia and intelligence. >> ifill: so it would be legal if it was democracy promotion but illegal if it is covert intelligence. >> that is the distinction the white house tried to make. they said this is not a covert operation, that is very specific under u.s. law. >> -- we described it as secret, they say it's more discreet, either way, you know, whatever sin nonwe use, the bottom line was that the people who use the service, the c.e.o.s interviewed to run the service were never aware what it was backed by uncle sam. >> ifill: and in the documents that you got hold of they took great pains to con seat u.s. government involvement. >> they did. so you know, if we were to do this in the united states, we could, you know, set up a server down the street if we wanted to, pay them, have the messages get routed through there and back again. the problem was that in order to maintain the credibility of this program,

for two reason, you didn't want the people using it to know it is backed by washington because they would think it's just, you know, some u.s. plot. the cuban government, you certainly can't have them find out that it was a u.s. government-backed thing. and if you set up servers in the united states it's very easy to look at where those serves are based in a couple of seconds, so they had to set them up overseas, use a bank account in the cayman islands and really make it have a look and feel of an overseas operation. >> ifill: disguise the money trail. >> right. >> ifill: who was the target audience in all of this. >> the target audience were younger folks, people who had used-- who, you know, would be using sms texts to begin with. and in order, it was sort of like they sent out all these text messages am they obtained about a half a million phone numbers. broadcast those messages out. and they wanted to see what were the type of people who would respond back. they got about 40,000 at one point and they collected this demographic information, you know, maybe no differently than other companies do. and they were trying to put together these sort of demographic profiles before, you know, it really took off

and it ended in 2012, i think before it may have grown bigger. >> ifill: did it end. >> so there are a couple reasons why. when we asked the government about it and a couple people involved, they say simply the money stopped. this grant that it was under ended. but we also have spoken to people who used it and help set it up. and they said just like in turkey where they are trying to block twitter through these dns routings, and that is dn is like the phone bock of the internet, you type in an address, you get sent one place, when you really want another. this he were sort of doing this monkeying around that is the cuban authorities. and these engineers basically said this is getting hard for me to do my job and keep up the system. so it could have been a little bit of both. >> maybe they had gotten wind of it. >> since 2009 there has been an american citizen who has been held in cuba, alan gross who was also there a contractor for usaid is there any connection between his situation and what we're seeing unfold here? >> the only connection i think we see is cron logical and that is when alan gross is arrested in late 2009. this is as thises with about ready to be publicly

launched, it launched around january, february, of 2010. so a few weeks after that senator patrick leahy who oversees the appropriations for usaid programs an state department programs was disturbed by this very fact saying that, you know, we have an american contractor down there who is arrested. and now-- for doing technical work and now we're starting this project that he says could have put people at riting. >> ifill: this bigs the question f this was happening in cuba y wouldn't it have been happening someplace else? do we have any evidence to support that idea? >> when we tried to unspool these contracts and it was a combination of both looking into internal documents and government documents and interviews with people, you know, even when we were able to dig down and get to very detailed contract numbers and be able to punch those into federal databases to say hey, how is your money spent, even then when you plug that in, it looks like it went, you know, it was for a project in pakistan. so you know, even in the sliver of information that

is publicly available there is no indication. so you know, absent doing reporting or freedom of information requests, or a congressional oversight it's really hard to know. although aid say these don't conduct covert programs and what they do come ports with u.s. law. >> ifill: i guess there will be congressional oversite, great reporting, thanks a lot. >> thank you. >> ifill: the united states has been fighting in afghanistan for 13 years, but have we been going after the right enemy? the author of a new book says no. hari sreenivasan has more. >> srennivasan: this coming saturday afghans will go to the polls to elect a new president. it will the third popular election since 2001 when the united states invaded the country following attacks on september 11th. one reporter who has covered the war in that country from the beginning is "new york times" correspondent carlotta gayle gail, also the awe sore of the new book the wrong enemy, america and afghanistan 2001 to 2014.

she joins me now. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> srennivasan: why the title the wrong enemy who is the right enemy? >> this is why i wrote the book. because we've been fighting a war for ten years, that i covered it, in the afghan villages against the afghan people. and against the taliban. and i came to realize that the taliban is supported by the neighboring country, pakistan. and really more than just supported, run, strjically pushed there to get leverage over afghanistan, to have control, to have a proxy army there for pakistan benefit. and i saw so much over the years. i just felt i had to write it and lay it out. and show that all the effort of the west and america was concentrated on fighting in the villages in afghanistan when really the source. problem what over the border in pakistan. >> srennivasan: to give us an example. you go into painstaking

detail of how the isi, intelligence services of pakistan essentially support the taliban in afghanistan while the u.s. were trying to fight them. >> yeah. and pretending to be an ally. so you had president musharraf in pakistan saying it he was an an ally in the war on terror but in fact the things he was doing, aiding and abetting the taliban. organizing a meeting right after in 2001 right after the fall of the taliban to how to regroup them and get them back on their feet and to divide up the responsibility to go back in and run an insurgency. and one idea was to trip america up. and that sounded strange when he was being an ally of the west in the war on terror. and he was handing over some al qaeda people that were caught in pakistan. but the real idea was to keep the taliban going as a proxy force which is, you know, aimed to then in the end have influence in

afghanistan for pakistan so they could control them or have them as a client state. and that's always been the aim of pakistan income fact. since the beginning of the taliban and you could argue even before when they supported the mujahideen against russia, that they wanted a stake in what they regard as their backyard. >> srennivasan: doesn't pakistan have a vested interest in having a stable neighbor? >> they keep saying that. and musharraf kept saying that and the leaders since have always said and the pakistani military say we want a stable afghanistan. but actually what they are doing is the opposite. the training militants, they're indoctrine ating suicide bombers to go there and cause mayhem. i was just there last week in kabul. we had four suicide bombings in five days in kabul city. and so and they're coming from pakistan. there is to doubt that they are training-- that is what i cover, i show in the book. that there is a lot of training camps and indoctrine ating recruitment

of young afghans and pakistanies that are sent in. >> srennivasan: you went to one of the madrasas where many of the suicide bombers were coming from. and you were able to speak to some people from there, what did you learn? ness we learned that families give their sons to the madrasases they go for religious instruction, because it is free, so they give their sons and then their sons are disappearing, they are told they had gone on off on a training exercise or to some other cause somewhere. and in fact, then they have been sent into afghanistan. and then days later or weeks later they would be told your son is being martyred in a suicide attack. and it was a complete shock to these families. i went around to try and find out what was happening. and i was amazed how these families didn't know and then they were terrified to speak. so it really showed me that there was some covert war that had to be exposed. >> srennivasan: so one of the piece of your reporting

that has a lot of attention from americans is the idea that there was a special desk in pakistan that was devoted to protecting osama bin laden. >> that was the bombshell i learned right at the end, two years after he cass willed in the raid, that killed bin laden. i did a lot of reporting and finally i found this inside force inside that there was this one desk and it was run by one man, so it was a totally deniable, typical special secret service type of thing. and that his job was to handle him but obviously to protect him. but to use him for pakistan benefit so they used to him to talk to other militant commanders, to rally them, to persuade them to go in the direction that was suitable for pakistan. >> srennivasan: one of the last chapters of your book you talk about a community that actually began to take their own responsibility and rise up against the taliban. was it zingobat.

and so i'm wondering, is that an anomaly or is that a beacon that other communities might follow? >> i think it's a sign of what can happen if things-- if there is enough security on the ground. because that came on the back of the american surge that was ordered in by obama. so you had a flood of troops going in, a lot of concentration of afghan police and army as well. and so there was great security. suddenly you could drive around and suddenly people could contact people in the remote regs could contact the government. and so suddenly when the balance of security changed, these people came over. they were really fed up with the taliban and i believe all of begans-- afghans, i really don't think they support them out of a great choice, it's just they are intimidated. they are encouraged, they're paid. but if there was security, they would think differently. and so i think that shows that when you get the

security right, when you get enough of a strong government, and it was the local government being strong that really mattered, not that there were foreign troops doing it. that was when they turned. and they came over to the local government because the police chief they trusted and believed in. so i think it's emblematic of what could happen. it is not happening all over the place because the taliban is still very strong. >> srennivasan: we're going to continue this conversation on-line but for now car loll-- carlotta gail from "the new york times", thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: from afghanistan and pakistan, we turn to another war-weary area: the middle east. in fact, the last time leaders achieved a significant peace deal for the region was 36 years ago, at an unlikely spot close to the nation's capital. a new play in washington, d.c. looks back at how against

overwhelming odds it came to be. >> wooduff: all eyes were on former president jimmy carter back in 1978 when he launched a bold effort to make peace in the middle east by bringing bitter enemies together at the secluded presidential mountain retreat at camp david. and there was shock 13 days later when they emerged with an agreement. it was enough of a drama on its own, but now a it's a drama come to the stage. >> i've brought you here to camp david because i thought the isolation would help us focus on the big issues. i always think better when i'm surrounded by nature. >> wooduff: egyptian actor khaled nabawy plays egyptian president anwar sadat. ron rifkin is israeli prime minister menachem begin, and richard thomas is carter. >> i know we can't forget the past, but we need to keep the future in mind. we just might leave this world in a little better shape for our children and grandchildren. anwar, would you begin? >> no, no, mr. begin first.

>> no, sir, you are the president. you should begin. >> wooduff: i met up recently at arena stage with lawrence wright, the pulitzer-prize winning playwright, who wrote the play, and the producer, jerry rafshoon, who lived the events as president carter's communications director. >> i saw that this was a story of when a devout muslim, an orthodox jew, and a born again christian went behind the closed doors, or the closed gates of camp david, and came back with the only peace treaty that has stood the time in the middle east. american officials defy reports that the talks almost fell apart last night >> wooduff: i, too, lived these events, as white house correspondent for n.b.c. news, part of the press corps kept outside. i can remember days of tension and uncertainty, and i was curious to know how 13 days of talking could become the stuff of great theatre. when the camp david peace talks

took place, what made you think this could be turned into a play, something dramatic? >> well, i was back and forth to camp david, and i'd been with carter for many years, and i saw that as the classic story of jimmy carter. that it was an example of when leaders put aside their political wellbeing and do the right thing, even though it could cost them their major consequences. everybody, all the foreign policy experts, told carter this was not a good idea, that you don't have a negotiation between heads of state, or heads of government, unless you know how it's going to turn out. he never flinched. it could have been a nuclear war. israel has nuclear weapons, and the russians were on the other side, so the stakes for the

united states were the highest ever. and carter knew that, and he knew that it was worth staking his presidency on it. >> woodruff: larry wright, you could have your pick of subjects to write about, to turn into a play. what was it about this story that you decided, i can make something out of this? >> well, for one thing, i felt intimately connected. i had lived in georgia when carter was governor and when he ran for president. i lived in egypt when nasser died and sadat became president. and i reported a lot in israel so i felt, you know, it was my turf. and i also know how meaningful this treaty is. i can't imagine the middle east without this treaty. >> woodruff: you are a journalist, that's what you started out doing, and you took a journalistic approach to this. i mean, you and jerry went and talked to people who were part

of the begin team, and the sadat team, and in the white house. why was that so important for this production? >> it had to have three different points of view that are in collision, because that's what it was all about. each of these people represents the interest of their country, they were very strong personalities, and we had to go actually be in those places and see the feelings that the surviving members of those delegations had, and try to re- capture some of the passion. >> what am i supposed to sacrifice? the sinai, jerusalem, the palestinians? you tell me how you can actually achieve peace without resolving all those problems? >> maybe not all at once. >> oh, just push the problem down the road. >> till your next term. you have to think of your own political situation. >> peace is more important than my reelection. >> we should mention rosalynn carter, then the first lady, was involved. >> rosalynn was very vital to the success of camp david. >> it was her idea. there is a scene that i thought

might be kind of striking, it's... it's really the last time the three of them are together. >> no more. >> how is the peacemaking coming along? (laughter) >> wooduff: in this scene, the first lady, played by hallie foote, tries to make peace among the peace-makers. >> they were do opposed to each other, and carter was, he literally had to bar the door to try to keep them from leaving the room. and into that rosalynn walks with a tray of tea, and she very subtly reminds them what they're here for.

diaries and the papers of --. >> it was like anti-chemistry, like explosives mixed together. they hated each other. carter had an idea that he could just get these three men in a room together in a quiet spot, away from the press and they would come to trust each other and like each other. after the second day he had to separate them. >> after the second day, he had to separate them, they couldn't be in the same room together at all, and it was carter moving back and forth, his own shuttle diplomacy in a golf cart, that was able to try to bring some kind of deal between two men whose countries have been at war with each other for 30 years. >> remember, in the middle east there is always a price to pay. >> i hear what you're saying. >> i am willing to pay any price to bring peace, jimmy, but i don't want to die for half measures. >> each of them had so much to overcome and to sacrifice. and sadat's delegation, there wasn't a single person in his delegation that agreed with him trying to make peace with israel.

in fact, one night, carter was worried that they were going to assassinate him. >> his foreign minister resigned. >> yeah, his foreign minister resigned at camp david. and in the israeli delegation, everybody in the delegation wanted to make peace more than begin did, so it was the exact opposite. >> wooduff: jerry, you've suggested, and, in fact, in your remarks just now, that president carter really hasn't gotten enough credit for what happened at camp david. can you, in a play, see that he gets credit? >> foreign policy, as you know, was never that interesting to the american people. they're interested in their day to day economy, et cetera. we used to talk to carter about the fact that he's spending so much time on this issue, and the american people are wondering what are you doing about gas lines, what are you doing about the economy, what are you doing

about inflation. >> woodruff: and it cost him politically. >> it cost him politically, and he didn't care. >> woodruff: larry wright, can you correct history, or fix history, or change history in some way with a dramatic production? >> one of the lessons of camp david, the carter camp david, is that, you know, these were flawed men. they weren't perfect men. i can't correct history, but we can remember it. you know, what i was trying to do is retrieve something that's very important, that's been neglected, and it was an extraordinary achievement. whatever you think about carter as a president or as a person, what he did at camp david was remarkable. >> i'm sure there's more for negotiation. that is why we're here. >> wooduff: the play continues at arena stage in washington, d.c. through the beginning of may. >> woodruff: joining me now to talk about the state of the

peace process today, more than three decades later, is chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner. margaret, you haven't been covering washington as long as i have as you just saw but you have watched the middle east. how important were the camp david accords. >> as they just said, really essential, because you took the two most powerful armees and sworn enemies and they cut a separate piece but they cut a piece. and that really prevented the likelihood of any kind of broad israeli-arab war again and nuclear deterrent of israel helped. but it's also remarkable how enduring it was. sadat foreshadows that he was going to be assassinated and was three years later the whole hosni mubarak, the israeli and egyptian military worked closely together. mubarak depenlded on u.s. aid, tried to help in israeli-palestinian talks though they never really bother fraught and when when

morsi came n the militaries continued to control that account and they still do. and they are fighting terrorists it in the sinai, it is important, though, to point out and some of your clips illustrate this, what it didn't get. carter came into this, president carter, wanting a comprehensive peace that would include the fate of the palestinians. >> woodruff: that's right. >> warner: that there were promises and pledges in the agreements and accords to do that, that never happened and israel didn't get what it wanted either, which was a warm peace with egypt. they got what they called a cold peace. and israel continued, i mean egyptian media continues to be filled with inveckive. and finally, of course, we have the settlers who at 3500 at the time of the play, are now 340,000. >> woodruff: so are those things that they couldn't get then part of the reason it's so hard to get peace today? >> warner: well, judy, it remains the exact same issues. when i sat down, i sort of blogged about this, when i sat down an watched this play, i thought oh my god, nothing has changed. the same issues, the settlers, the occupied

territories, whose land it is. but to me what came out of this play s you know, there is always carping about how this american president is handling it or that, or how this israeli-palestinian leader is going to step up to the plate or not. but the play brought out to me was on human terms how alike they are. theyñ)hp)e both prisoners of their past. they have deep sense of grievance about one another. and about the world and how-- . >> woodruff: you mean began and sadat. >> ands the israelis and palestinians. begun cannot-- began cannot forgive that the world stood by and let -- >> and they don't believe that the united states can ever empathetically understand what it is like to live with a blood feud. and they seem unable to escape theirs. >> woodruff: an much of that is still true today. >> warner: exactly. i that i is exactly what is going on today. >> woodruff: margaret warner, thank you >> ifill: online, margaret

reflects more on what the play "camp david" teaches us about history and the current peace efforts. >> ifill: finally tonight, navigating the maze of questions surrounding the cost of college. this week, many students are getting their final college acceptance notices. that's exciting. but now comes the crunch: calculating the potential costs and deciding what they can really afford. hari is back with a conversation on what students and families need to know. >> sreenivasan: total student debt in the u.s. is estimated to be more than $1 trillion. roughly 70% of college graduates were carrying an average debt load of $29,000 for the most recent year studied, and default rates are rising. n.p.r. is doing a month-long project called "paying for to help shed some light on all this is education reporter

claudio sanchez, a key part of that. and we also get insight from roberta johnson, director of student financial aid at iowa state university. she's testified before congress on these issues. so claudia sanchez, i want to start with you. let's look at the tuition versus the total costs or the sticker price versus the real price. what did you find in your reporting. are families aware of the difference? >> most often they are not. and the sticker price is, of course, what everybody is scared by. but if you take a look at a typical family that is sending their kid in state to a good public institution, what we found was that there has been an enormous increase in tuition. since 1980 tuition increases have been about 1,000-- have risen 1,200 percent. that's pretty outrageous. certainly in the view of parents who these days are struggling even more. in post recession, and certainly when wages are stagnant, most americans, 70% according to the latest polling is saying we can't afford higher education.

and if you look at that state, in state tuition on average we're looking at maybe $20,000 a year room and board included, including other expenses. and that translates into a four year payment of $80,000 a year, again, it's a lot of money. and that is what is making families certainly so nervous about what is next for their students, for their kids. it's a real problem. >> srennivasan: roberta johnson you speak to some of these parents sometimes. are there hidden costs that they are not calculating in? >> we try to let our families know most of the costs. but certainly we cannot control what their students are going to be spending on personal expenditures. so as claudio mentioned tuition fees, room and board are costs it that we include in what is called the total cost of attendance. we also try to estimate what books are going to cost for the student. but that will vary depending

upon the kuric lar area in which the student is enrolled. most colleges and universities will also have a suggested personal category for students. and we try to keep that quite reasonable. my institution we actually surveyed students and we really call late-- recalibrated a couple of years ago to lower that to approximately $2500 for a nine month period of enrollment. certainly we do have students that spend more than $2500 over that period of time. but many times we will find students that do live very frugally and are able to survive on far less. >> srennivasan: let's talk a little bit about the types of aid available. we've got scholarships, we've got grants, we've got loans. miss johnson, staying where you for a second, how are they different, very basically? >> well, the scholarships and grants fall into a category that we call gift aid. and basically that monies that -- means that those dollars do not need to be repaid. it's a gift to the student. generally a scholarship is something that is earned on the basis of the student's merit. so either they have academic

merit and they are awarded the scholarship because of their performance in the classroom. or they may have some sort of a talent such as musical talent or drama or something like that, that would enable them to qualify for a merit-based scholarship. some scholarships also have what is called financial need as a component of the scholarship. and in order for schools to determine that, a family does need to complete a federal document known as the free application for federal institute aid, utilizing a federally mandated formula they determine what the family should reasonably be able to pay for a student's education. and sub frakt-- subtract that from the cost av continuedance that was mentioned earlier and that is the financial need so we look at need for some scholarships but not all. need is definitely a component for many of the grant programs which are dollars that are given to institutes who-- students

who otherwise would not be able to afford to go to school if not for the grant funds. >> srennivasan: when you speak to parents are they getting the distinctions even on something so fundamental? >> absolutely not, hari. the problem with all this is that it is a very complicated process. beginning with the fafsa, in fact, which is often harder than filling your tax, the fafsa helps determine the expected family contribution. and many people think that that whole formula is out of whack and a formula set by congress. it is out of back because if you look at a family with $100,000 income, that family is expected to contribute about $1500 a month every month for four years. that's a lot of money. now when it comes to institutional aid, i mean that only constitutes about 5%, maybe only 8% of what student does get. the bullable of the financial aid out there is coming from the federal government, about 37%.

the rest does come from institutional aid, and you know, it's very difficult for families to navigate this system. it's very difficult for families to dig through the information. there is a lot of pressure on institutions these days, from the president on down, to become a more transparent and to offer more consumer-friendly information for families. but that is not happening quickly enough. and again, it's creating thisñr sense that families are being outpriced and that unless you are really savvy and unless you have that experience, you are really not going to be able to take advantage of some of the money that is available. one other point is that often people think that because poor students qualify for more assistance, pell grants, grant aid, those kinds of things and perhaps not have to take out as many loans, that's a myth. the real story is that most poor families first generation college students

are the ones having to really borrow a lot more. and going in to debt which as you mentioned early on, you know, is upwards of 29, $30,000 in debt after four years. that again is a lot of money to pay back. >> srennivasan: all right, claudio sanchez and roberta johnson thank you both for your time. >> there is more information parents and students want to know, hari continued this conversation on-line and you can find links to npr's coverage. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. investigators at fort hood, texas, focused on what drove specialist ivan lopez to kill three people, wound 16, then kill himself yesterday. the base's commanding general said lopez had a strong history of mental instability and may have argued with another soldier. the confirmed death toll in the washington state mudslide reached 30, with 15 still missing.

and the senate intelligence committee voted to declassify parts of a report that sharply criticizes c.i.a. interrogation methods after 9/11. >> ifill: on the newshour online right now, after years of taliban rule where non-religious music was forbidden, budding rock stars in afghanistan have a place to call their own. "rock school kabul" is training the afghan guitar heroes of tomorrow. read the latest report in our "social entrepreneurship" series. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks among others. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪

moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by

media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org 

. this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. criminal investigation. citi group is reportedly the subject of a federal probe, making this its second setback in a week. and should investors be concerned? class divide. google's long-awasted stock split has arrived and it is not without controversy. what the change in shares means for investors. plot twist. shares of barnes & noble plunge. but there may also be hope for the struggling book seller. we have all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for thursday, april 3rd. >> thanks for joining us. citigroup has struggled more than