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Steve Ryfle is a former Los Angeles Times reporter. Fifty years ago Godzilla, Japan's giant radioactive reptile, made his first film appearance. Japanese director Ishiro Honda made the original Godzilla movie in 1954. The film is coming back to theaters in a new uncut version. Ryfle's book about Godzilla is Japan's Favorite Mon-Star: The Unauthorized Biography of 'The Big G.'

James Tobin is the author of a biography of World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle who was beloved by the public, the G.I.s and the generals alike. He witnessed the great American campaigns of the war -- North Africa, Sicily, Italy, D-Day, Normandy, the liberation of Paris, and Okinawa. Eleanor Roosevelt was a fan of his work, saying "I would not miss that column any day if I could possibly help it." Pyle was killed in Okinawa just three weeks short of the war's end. Tobin's book is Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II (published in 1988). Tobin's newest book, To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight has just been released in paperback. (Original airdate: 4/07/03) (This interview continues into the second half of the show.)

As Congress prepares to write a budget to guide this year's tax and spending decisions, some Senate Republicans join Democrats in calling for a "pay as you go rule," which would mandate that any future tax cuts be offset by spending cuts. House Republicans vehemently oppose such measures. The dispute reveals a GOP divided over fiscal policy. Hear NPR's Steve Inskeep and Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews music from the film The Triplets of Belleville, now on DVD.

The campaigns of President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, experiment with what works with political ads online. NPR's Robert Smith reports.

Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his top aides should be held responsible for failing to plan for Iraq's reconstruction after the U.S.-led war. Hear NPR's Steve Inkseep's extended interview with the former U.S. Central Command chief.

The National Archive releases more than 20,000 pages of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's telephone transcripts that had been held since 1976. The documents offer a view of Kissinger's approach to negotiation and crises in China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Chile. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and Tom Blanton, National Security Archive director at George Washington University.

Western New York has been particularly hard hit by the decline of the U.S. manufacturing sector and in recent years has lost thousands of jobs. But one local entrepreneur is finding success in resuscitating factories in the depressed region that others had written off. NPR's Jack Speer reports.

In an unusual editorial, The New York Times says it made mistakes when it reported on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The paper found that, in the months before the war, reporters and editors relied too heavily on Iraqi defectors and U.S. government officials eager to promote a war. Hear NPR's Steve Inskeep and Tom Rosentiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism at the Pew Center.

Colorado has moved forward with a program to issue school vouchers, but legal roadblocks have so far stalled the initiative. NPR's Jeff Brady reports the issue has now come before the Supreme Court of Colorado.