on our broadcast tonight, making a deal to cut the number of nuclear weapons. can president obama take the chill out of relations with russia? state of transition. as she walks ay from the governor's job, big questions remain. why did she do it, and what's next for sarah palin? drawing a crowd. last-minute preparations for michael jackson's massive memorial. reports of upwards of a million people showing up, while the whole world will be watching. and the architect of america's long and costly war in vietnam. tonight remembering robert s. mcnamara. "nightly news" begins now. captions paid for by nbc-universal television

good evening. we've come a good, long way since the cold war but relations with the russians have been downright chilly for a good number of years. tonight the president of the united states is in russia, and when those two leaders talk, the whole world has a stake in it. as "time" magazine put it this week, between them, let's not forget they own enough firepower to blow us all to kingdom come. they talked about that firepower today as a new u.s. president now gets to deal with the russians. it's where we begin tonight. our chief white house correspondent chuck todd traveling with the president in moscow. chuck, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. well, it was a very busy first day in moscow for president obama, because in the words of the russian president, the two are dealing with a backlog of problems. those problems include that nuclear proliferation issue you were talking about, iran, even u.s. beef exports.

flying all night, the president arrived in moscow early monday with his entire family in toe. unlike his previous overseas trips, the pomp and circumstance was kept to a minimum by his host, russian president dmitry medvedev, a subtle reminder that the two cold war adversaries were in danger of falling back into old habits. >> the president and i agree that the relationship between russia and the united states has suffered from a sense of drift. we resolve to reset u.s./russian relations so that we can cooperate more effectively in areas of common interest. >> reporter: the areas of common interest -- nuclear arms reduction and the war in afghanistan. the major achievement of the day, a framework for a new nuclear arms treaty to be hammered out by year's end. it includes a reduction of nuclear warheads from the current limit 2,200 to a new lower range between 1,500 and 1,675. and eliminating as many as one-third of the two country's

long-range missiles capable of carrying those warheads from 1,600 to between 500 and 1,100. as for afghanistan, the u.s. military can now use russian air space to move supplies and troops in and out of the country. but those were the easy topics. >> as president medvedev indicated, we had some frank discussions and there are some areas we still disagree. >> reporter: most notably, an american plan for expanding missile defense near the russian border. >> president medvedev has been very clear that this is a point of deep concern and sensitivity to the russian government. >> translator: our understanding is that these decisions do concern us, and we'll will have to come to terms on this position. >> reporter: the russian president took pains not to mention iran by name today, simply referring to nuclear issues in the middle east. but as mr. obama's top russia adviser put it, the u.s. is receiving indications the russians want to cooperate on iran. >> if they wanted to have an adversarial relationship with

us, with iran right now, there are all kinds of things they can do very easily that would make our situation a lot worse there, and they're not doing those things. >> reporter: another reason for u.s. optimism, the personal chemistry between the two leaders. harkening back to the trust but verify days of the cold war, a wary mr. obama said he trusted medvedev to a point. >> president medvedev and i are committed to leaving behind the suspicion and the rivalry of the past so we can advance the interests that we hold in common. >> reporter: now, brian, tomorrow the president meets with prime minister vladimir putin. now, today the president was quite nimble in trying to deal with the question of whether medvedev or putin really hold the power here. he said, quote, my strong impression is that president medvedev and prime minister putin are working very effectively togeth. i think he'll get a firsthand look about putin tomorrow, brian. >> all right. chuck todd at the meeting of these two leaders in moscow tonight. thanks. we'll have more on just who is in charge in russia these days a bit later on in this

broadcast tonight. now to domestic politics and the bombshell from alaska governor sarah palin's announcement. she's quitting her job, getting out of the game. but why, and then what? our own andrea mitchell is in wasilla, alaska, tonight with more on that story. andrea, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. after widespread criticism in political circles of that surprising announcement, sarah palin is fighting back today through friends and advisers and tweets. with some of the palin family at the lake house in wasilla, sarah palin went on twitter to say she and husband todd had gone fishing. at a commercial fishing site in western alaska, on bristol bay, she wrote, "grateful todd left fishing grounds to join me this weekend, but now he's back slaying salmon and working the kids at the site. anxious to join him." she has in the past, palin was picking fish. but the political world is still picking over that resignation speech. >> it would be apathetic to just kind of hunker down and go with the flow. we're fishermen.

we know that only dead fish go with the flow. >> watching sarah palin is sort of like watching a moose on roller skates. it's never particularly graceful but it's always riveting. and certainly we can put this into that category. >> reporter: today her advisers rallied. a friend of 40 years, from grade school, crystal cole, now overseeing palin's legal defense fund. >> i think she feels at peace about it. she feels good. she feels it was the right decision for the right reason >> reporter: palin's lawyer, who denies any scandal yet to come, and got the fbi to say she's not under federal investigation, as some blogs have claimed. >> there are no legal shoes to drop. we are aware of nothing going on that could compel the decision of the governor to resign. >> reporter: he says she's accomplished everything she wanted to in alaska. but since returning from last year's national campaign, palin has lost battle after battle with the state legislature. some hometown supporters, like john and dale reed, wish she had stayed to finish the job. >> she's letting us down by quitting midterm.

>> reporter: to that, palin political adviser megan stapleton says -- >> i've heard that, too, that others calling her a quitter when it's actually quite the opposite. she's just taking her fight elsewhere. >> reporter: taking her fight elsewhere could make palin a very rich woman indeed. with her book deal, with speeches, possibly a talk show. it's a long way from wasilla. brian? >> andrea mitchell in wasilla, alaska, for us tonight. andrea, thanks for your reporting. now we go to southern california and the elaborate preparations for tomorrow's elaborate memorial for michael jackson. a report that upwards of a million people might show up put everyone on notice today. our own lee cowan is at the staple center in l.a. with more tonight. lee, good evening. >> reporter: well, good evening, brian. yeah, this is an event unlike anything the lapd or really any other agency has had to deal with here. and the fear, which is a very real one, is that now that l.a. is the epicenter for what's really become worldwide grief over michael jackson, no one is

really sure how all of this is going to play out tomorrow. ♪ never has a drive-thru offered this kind of excitement. >> oh, my god! i couldn't believe it. >> reporter: without ever leaving their car, thousands of jackson faithful picked up their tickets for tomorrow's star-studded good-bye, one the jackson family said could include stevie wonder, smokey robinson and jennifer hudson, just to name a few. ♪ >> i felt like i was charlie and the chocolate factory, golden ticket. >> reporter: for real jackson fans, money is no object, whether they drove from near or flew from far. >> he will watch from heaven and see all of these people love him and that's what i want. >> reporter: the problem, more than a million and a half fans who registered for tickets were told they didn't get one and that's what has the lapd pulling out all of the stops. >> this is 21st century policing at its finest. >> reporter: in an underground bunker below city hall, officers will be monitoring every angle from above.

>> it is literally impossible to do athing without us seeing you. >> reporter: but despite police warnings, many who want to pay their respects to michael jackson say they came too fast and too far to sit on the sidelines. >> i'm coming with or without a ticket. >> reporter: it's a circus no matter how you look at it. and the wall-to-wall tv coverage of jackson's death has prompted outrage. neyork congressman peter king posted a video on youtube blasting the media for often forgetting jackson's troubled past. >> this guy was a pervert. he was a child molester. he was a pedophile. >> reporter: words he later defended. >> to get people's attention, i wanted to use everyday language, the way people talk and the way i believe a lot of people really feel. >> reporter: debbie rowe, jackson's former wife, had some pointed words for the media, too. >> do not touch me! >> reporter: she's been unded since jackson's death and now says she's not attending jackson's memorial because she fears she wod be a distraction. now, amid all of this is more debate over jackson's will.

today a judge ruled jackson's longtime attorney as well as a family friend will take over the $500 million estate. that's taking it away from jackson's mother katherine. but all of this is to be discussed again at a court hearing at the beginning of next month. brian? >> lee cowan, on the eve of the big event in l.a. tonight. lee, thanks. a program note here, we'll have live coverage of the memorial for michael jackson tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. eastern, 10:00 a.m. pacific time here on nbc. this was a deadly day for u.s. forces in afghanistan. seven deaths in all, including four killed in a roadside bomb attack on u.s. military trainers in the northern part of afghanistan. two killed in another attack in the south. one more who died after a fire fight in the eastern region of the country. it was the worst one-day toll in almost a year of fighting. and it was a violent day in china, where authorities continue a brutacrackdown on ethnic unrest that has exploded into rioting and bloodshed, as you'll see over the past two days.

china's ownencws agey says a mo15 tn ophapere0 ale dead, hundreds more injured. our own ian williams is in china, where he filed this report. >> reporter: the deadly clashes were shown on state television. muslim minority uighurs rioting and battling with chinese security forces. it was the wst unrest to hit xinjiang province in decades, as ethnic tensions erupted. the violence left at least 156 dead and hundreds injured, according to officials who blamed muslim separatists. the main hospital struggled to treat the wounded, who claimed they were targeted because they were hand chinese. but exile groups blame a police crackdown against the peaceful protests by uighurs. >> many of the uighurs were holding chinese national flags to prove that they were nonviolent but still the chinese government what we believe is committing massacre against the uighur people.

>> reporter: tensions never far from the surface in xinjiang, as nbc news discovered during a visit last year. we found mosques under close surveillance and widespread resentment among uighurs, who mostly work on the margins of an economy dominated by chinese migrants and a vital source of china's energy supplies. there were several bomb blasts here ahead of the olympics. china labels uighur separatists as terrorists. there is now a heavy police and army presence in a city of more than 2 million people. a crackdown is under way. the authorities say they've rounded up hundreds of rioters. internet and mobile phone services have been cut. tonight the authorities claim to have the situation in arumchi under control. but there are reports of clashes in another city and of rising tension right across that region. ian williams, nbc news, beijing. when we continue this monday night, more on the summit in moscow and the lingering

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wee back here tonight with nbc news "in depth." the meeting in moscow today with president obama and president medvedev, was it truly a meeting of equals? there is another power center, there has been for years, not as visible today. the prime minister vladimir putin. he meets with obama in the morning. our report from moscow tonight from nbc's jim maceda. >> reporter: over the past decade, vladimir putin's morphed into more roles than a hollywood star. from president boris yeltsin's shy, obedient, yes man, to the imperious leader, the action man, bomber pilot, artist and, lately, the people's prime minister, combatting russia's

deep recession and a hand, harassing a supermarket manager for marking up pork prices. "they're very high," says putin. "it will be lower tomorrow" was the quick reply. and this showdown at a cement factory near st. petersburg. when orders dried up, managers shut the plant, laying off hundreds. so putin shamed the bosses, even tossing a pen and ordering one of them to sign a promise to rehire every worker. now other towns are hoping for some of putin's special attention, like this area outside moscow, once known for the factory that builds russian buses. recently more than half of the plant's 3,500 workers were fired. "nothing will change here unless putin comes," he says. "he can smack them on the head, and then they'll rethink things." what's behind the populism? some think putin's already campaigning for the 2012 presidential election. >> his message to the people is don't forget about me. and not only don't forget about me, but still believe in me as a savior. >> reporter: and while medvedev gets more of the

international spotlight these days, anybody whdeals with russia knows the pecking order. >> we are negotiating with the leadership. the senior person in that leadership is putin. >> reporter: vladimir putin seems to exert the same power and flair here from his offices at the so-called white house, as he did here from his old address just a couple of miles down the moscow river at the kremlin. putin watchers say he's pleased with the new arrangement, where medvedev can hobnob with influential leaders, while he pulls all of the levers behind the scenes. jim maceda, nbc news, moscow. when we continue in just a moment, a former comedian getting serious. mr. franken goes to washington. nbc news, moscow. when we continue in just a moment, a former comedian getting serious. mr. franken goes to washington. you're the colon lady!

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for balltics testing and results of other tests before ruling her death a murder or a suicide. smithfield foods, one of the nation's largest pork producers, said it will shift work to another plant after a major fire damaged a packing plant outside milwaukee. 2,000 people work at the plant, but few of them we there when the fire started last night. no injuries were reported. it's a local landmark. 100 firefighters have been battling the fire, which has been burning for more than 18 hours. it's now senator franken to you. with a tour of his new senate office building today and a meeting with the leadership, al franken's six-year tour in the u.s. senate from minnesota is set to begin officially tomorrow when he is sworn in. the arrival of the comedian turned politician gives the democrats a 60 vote so-called super majority. when we come back, remembering the longest serving and most controversial secretary of defense in american history.

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champagne-colored ford suv, the same make and color vehicle linked to the murders. tonight authorities confirm the man shot last night is, they say, the suspected killer who has terrified the residents of rural cherokee county in recent days. word arrived this morning that robert mcnamara has died. it is difficult to this day to find someone who came upuring the 1960s who doesn't have an opinion about him. mcnamara died knowing a lot of that was negative, despite his attempts to salvage his reputation. his name will always be associated with one place -- vietnam. >> he would make many, many mistakes in war. >> john f. kennedy called him the smartest man he had ever met. lbj said he was brilliant. robert "strange" mcnamara was one of the so-called whiz kids, the intellectuals of the world war ii era. a product of harvard business school, he was an accounting professor. he ran the ford motor company then at age 33.

then at age 44. he became kennedy's cretary of defense. >> i have asked robert mcnamara to assume the responsibilities of secretary of defense. >> he was in on the planning of the bay of pigs invasion in cuba, a disaster forennedy early in his presidency. then came vietnam. mcnamara admitted much later it was really just a civil war between north and south, but at the time, the height of the cold war, the u.s. jumped in to stop the domino theory from playing out, the fear of nations falling to the communists one by one. and little by little it escalated to a half million americans in the fight and 58,000 dead. it became widely known as mcnamara's war. >> south vietnam is such a complex situation. one must always look at the pluses and the minuses. >> at first the u.s. tried sheer might, a bombing campaign under mcnamara called rolling thunder. years later, the problem was how

to get out. by the time he left government and was given the medal of freedom by lbj, mcnamara was a broken man. it was clear he would always be identified with the war, and when he started to speak at his farewell ceremony, it was clear he knew it. >> mr. president, i cannot find words to express what lies in my heart today. and i think i better respond on another occasion. >> he went on to run the world bank, but then mcnamara largely disappeared from public life and public view for years. he then broke his silence with a brook "in retrospect." in it he said he and others have been wrong, terribly wrong, in executing the war the way they did. then came a powerful documentary, "the fog of war." it chronicled mcnamara's world war ii experience targeting

cities for firebombings and the staggering toll of civilian deaths. in it he admits he could have been tried as a war criminal if the allies had lost. viewers got to see mcnamara as an old man. his famously slick-back hair now thinning, his voice reedy, his level of regret not always easy to pin down. >> a lot of people misunderstand the war, misunderstand me. a lot of people think i'm a son of a [ bleep ]. >> people were amazed to learn years later that the mcnamara family offered housing to several young people who came to washington to protest at the height of the vietnam war. they slept in sleeping bags in the mcnamara living room. one of the mcnamara kids was among the protesters, even though dad was an architect of the war. it was a fairly well-kept secret back then, one of many in the life of robert mcnamara, dead tonight at 93. that is our broadcast for this monday evening as we start a new week. thank you for being with us.

i'm brian williams. we hope to see you tomorrow evening. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com