The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Good evening, leading the news this Tuesday. President Reagan promised to follow the will of Congress on giving more military aid to the countries. A gunman with complaints about the government is holding a group of schoolchildren hostage in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Major banks lowered their prime lending rate to 8.5 percent. We'll have details in our news summary in a moment. Jim? To the news summary, we look at tomorrow's important come to aid vote with a Charles Cross report from Nicaragua and the perspectives of two undecided members of Congress. Then Koki Roberts reports on the most recent outbreak of congressional port barreling and our stump speech series continues with the words of Democrat Michael Dukakis. Funding for the McNeil-era news hour is provided by AT&T. Combining everything people like about telephones, with everything they expect from computers to make everything about information easy, AT&T. Funding is also provided by this station and other public television stations.

And the corporation for public broadcasting. For the second day in a row, there was a major hostage taking in this country to armed men and ski masks. He's control of a private school building in Tuscaloosa, Alabama this morning. More teachers and some 60 children were taken hostage. The two gunmen said they had complaints about the government. They talked with the mayor of Tuscaloosa and one of them surrendered. Late this afternoon, there were reports that a number of hostages had been released, but more than 30 children and two teachers were still being held. The remaining gunmen said he wanted to help the homeless. A similar incident in Lumberton, North Carolina ended peacefully last night. In that case, two heavily armed American Indians took over the local newspaper office and held 17 people hostage. They demanded that state officials investigate the sheriff and other local law enforcement officers. The governor's office agreed and the hostages were released.

Today, the two Indians were scheduled to be arraigned before a federal judge in Raleigh, North Carolina. Robin? President Reagan put on a last minute blitz of lobbying for country aid as the House of Representatives prepared to vote tomorrow. Earlier today, he tried personal persuasion on key congressman and tonight, in a nationwide address, he made another concession. Tomorrow the House of Representatives will be voting on a $36 million bill of support package to the freedom fighters. 90% is for non-lethal support, such as food, clothing, medicine, and the means to deliver it. 10% is for ammunition. That amount will be suspended until March 31st to determine whether the Sandinistas are taking irreversible steps toward democracy. I'm hopeful this will occur. However, there is no progress toward a negotiated cease-fire. I will make a decision to release these additional supplies, but only after weighing carefully and thoroughly the advice from Congress and the Democratic presidents of Central America.

Strongly repeating his charge that the Sandinistas are bent on establishing a massive base for Soviet aggression against the United States, the president concluded by saying there would be no second chance. It is up or down for Central America. It is win or lose for peace and freedom. It is yes or no to America's national security. The Democratic response came from Congressman Lee Hamilton, who said more aid to the countries could undermine the peace plan of Costa Rican President Arias. United States has valid security interests in Central America, but the countries do not and cannot protect them. President Reagan should begin now to negotiate with the Sandinistas and the Soviets about our legitimate security concerns. The president says his request is an insurance policy to make the peace plan work. But he is also called the peace plan fatally flawed. An insurance policy for a fatally flawed plan makes no sense.

The president's request is not enough to win the war, but as the Central American presidents have made clear, it is enough to sabotage peace. FBI Director William Sessions said today that the Bureau's investigation of a group opposing Reagan policy in Central America was not properly directed in all instances. Last week, a group of civil rights lawyers said FBI surveillance of hundreds of people constituted political harassment. Sessions said if the matter had been reviewed by top FBI officials at the time, I would hope that it would have been directed differently. There were economic developments today, several major banks in New York and Chicago lowered their prime lending rates, a quarter of a percentage point to 8.5 percent. Prime is the rate banks charged their major business customers, but is considered a benchmark for other interest rates as well. In Washington, the Commerce Department reported its index of leading economic indicators

was down 0.2 percent in December, the third month of decline in a role. And the Securities and Exchange Commission said computerized trading had a negative effect on the market that led to the October 19th crash, but it was not the only cause. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan also spoke of the crash in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. He said it was inevitable. Once you get market levels up to historic peaks, when anything will knock it down, it is got to come down. Any series of events which exist at the time when a stock market breaks are given the credit or blame for that particular break, but what I'm arguing is that that same set of economic circumstances had they existed when the Dow Jones industrial average was at 700 or 800 and not at 2700, but have had no noticeable effect.

Nicholas Brady told the Committee earlier today that the Federal Reserve must play a more active role in the nation's financial markets, or a crash could happen again. Brady chaired the Presidential Commission which studied the causes of the October 19th Calamity, but Greenspan said the Fed preferred not to take on a larger role. In Montgomery, Alabama, 12 black leaders were arrested today when they threatened to take down a Confederate flag from the Dome of the State Capitol, saying it represented racism and depression. Crowds gathered for a march sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, when Thomas Reed, President of the Alabama NAACP, tried to climb a fence, he and 11 others were arrested. Reed said he did not consider he was violating state law. He said the Confederate banner is resented by blacks and what he called better-thinking whites. The child actress Heather O'Rourke is dead. Her manager said the 12-year-old girl died yesterday in Los Angeles, apparently from the flu. She had starred in the movie Poltergeist

and two sequels and had appeared in Happy Days, Webster and other television series. And in Detroit, longtime Democratic figure G. Minnan-Sopey Williams died. He served as governor of Michigan and later chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage last night and never regained consciousness. He was 76 years old. That's it for the news summary tonight. Now, the contra-vote Capitol Hill Park and the New Caucus Stump Speech. Tomorrow is another of those crisis days for contra-aid. Once again, the House of Representatives will vote to continue or to kill assistance to the anti-government rebels in Nicaragua. Once again, President Reagan and the Democratic Congressional leadership are bitterly splamped. And once again, it promises to be close, with it coming down to the votes of some 20 House members who are considered swing votes. Two of those 20 will be with us after this report

by correspondent Charles Kraus from Santo Tomas, a town in Nicaragua with a big stake in the outcome of tomorrow's vote. Military strategists in Washington call the Rama Road. Nicaragua's Ho Chi Minh Trail. That's because the narrow highway now heavily defended by the Sandinese to Army is a vital military supply line to Nicaragua's Atlantic coast. There at the port of Bluefields, Cuban and Soviet ships unload roughly two-thirds of the Sandinistas military supplies. The arms and ammunition are worth an estimated $4 to $500 million a year. From Bluefields, the weapons are sent first by riverboat, then by the Rama Road to Managua, and from there to military bases throughout the country. Not long ago, there was no question the government controlled the highway. As a result,

the Sandinistas were assured of a steady flow of arms. But over the past year, a force of about a thousand countries has moved into the mountains along the road and struck repeatedly at military convoys. Today, the Sandinistas are forced to deploy thousands of their troops just to keep the highway open, and if Congress approves more aid for the countries fighting along the Rama Road, especially here in Chantales Province, is expected to intensify. Chantales is cattle country, like Texas. Its people are stubborn, strong and politically independent. They never really embraced the Sandinistas after the revolution in 1979, and now an increasing number appeared to support the contrast. Father Peter Dabelli is an American priest who's lived in Chantales since 1982. It's not that the contrast is so good, it's that the Sandinistas is so bad, that it's

the only option left. You know, as you've spoken to the people, and they say they'd rather not be in the army, they'd not rather not be in the reserve. They'd rather be out there in their think of milking their cows. When they're not left alone, when they're not given any other option, when they're forced into one way or another, they'd rather go with the contract. Because the Sandinistas have attacked family life, and they've attacked the church. They're very conservative, in the sense that they, whatever they produce, when they want to keep it for themselves, and they have the right to sell it, the way they want it. And this crime has been very strong since the very beginning of the revolution to take actions against the people, the homeland. Romero Gurdion is president of an association of private farmers and cattlemen, and a leading opponent of the Sandinistas. He says many ranchers in Chantales have turned against the government because they've come to believe the Sandinistas plan to confiscate their property, all

in the name of a Grarian reform. The environment, you know, is a law that is very, does not take the land on away from you if you're a good producer or you're a bad producer or no. The idea is, if you back the revolution or you don't back the revolution, and that's the big issue there. And they're having a lot of us more composemos with, let's say, tank acres, complicated expropriation, and that's why those people have take arms. Nicaragua is a country that depends on agriculture. Cattle from Chantales once provided an important source of export earnings. A decade ago, just before the revolution, Nicaragua exported 65 million pounds of beef worth an estimated 75 million dollars. But by last year, beef exports had dropped by more than 90 percent. As one former rancher put it, the only thing Nicaragua exports now is news. Along the

Rama Road, those private ranchers still in business. Men like Chester Nogara walk a fine line. Their haciendas are patrolled by the Sandinistas during the day, then visited by contrast, looking for food and supplies at night. Last week at Nogara's hacienda called Santahulia, Sandinista soldiers told us of their most recent encounter with the contrast. It occurred in mid-January just a few miles from where we stood. There was a firefight, they said, but no one was killed. We asked a Sandinista officer if he thought the contrast was still around. Yes, of course he said, this is a war zone. They could attack at any moment. The contrast strategy in Chantales is both political and military. Politically, their

aim is to win over this affected ranchers and their ranch hands called Voceros, who support in terms of intelligence and recruits is vital to any guerrilla army. Nogara, who heads the National Cattlemen's Association, claims to be neutral. But he understands why other ranchers have turned against the Sandinistas. We have less confidence in the government because sometimes they say that they are not going to be more confiscation. But the next time you know, the next week, maybe, they were some time to be funny to complain that they had been confiscated. We don't know. We don't know if we really owns the land, everybody is going to happen next week or next month. Militarally in Chantales, the contrast continued to take out bridges along the Rama Road

and ambush convoys. Probing, waiting for the day, they'll be strong enough to cut the highway and with it, the Sandinistas' principal source of military supplies. Perhaps the rebels' most daring raid came last October in Santo Tamas, a market town on the Rama Road not far from Chester Nogara's farm. Never before had the contrast attacked a major population center in Chantales. The battle began before dawn last October 15. In the mountains surrounding Santo Tamas, the contrast managed to penetrate to within only a few blocks of the central plaza. Although there are conflicting reports, the contrast killed at least two Sandinista soldiers before they withdrew. One of their major objectives was to convince the civilian population that collaborating with the contrast isn't a lost cause.

You were here and I'm sure you've talked with a lot of people since then, what do you think the impact of that attack was you're in Santo Tamas? I think by and large, apart from being scared, everyone was, I think it impressed them because no one really believed that Santo Tamas would ever be attacked by the contrast. By the contrast, it was too large. It's always been a military base. There's a fuel depot down below as the helicopter paired up above. It's always been kind of a center of operations. And the fact that they had the audacity to attack it and to get as far as they did, I think impressed a lot of people. But not everyone in Santo Tamas was in class, nor have all the ranchers and campacinos in the countryside rushed to join the counter-revolution. The Sandinistas have retained the loyalty of many Nicaraguan because of their efforts to improve health and living conditions among the poor. In Santo Tamas, the government feeds 350 poor children daily, 130 of

them from families forced to flee rural areas. Children displaced by the war and by the suburbs. Aurora Baez is director of the nutrition program called El Comidor in Fontillo. A committed Sandinista, she acknowledged that Los Borgeses, as she called them, the middle and upper middle class in Santo Tamas, have in many cases turned against the government. But the poor majority, she said, still supports the Sandinistas. For his part, Father de Belly says that only about 10% of those who live in Santo Tamas actively support the government. While at the other extreme, 10% actively support the contrast. And then you get the vast majority in the middle. But this middle group isn't neutral. This middle group does not side with the Sandinistas, so that their tendency is, I'm just

not going to cooperate. Theoretically, in Chantales and elsewhere in Nicaragua, the government has restored basic freedoms, including freedom of the press as part of its compliance with the R.E.S. peace plan. But based on what we heard and our own experience, word of the new policy has yet to reach the army and the police in Santo Tamas. Last week, military officials here in Managra assured us we could work in Santo Tamas without any problems. But after two days of being followed and harassed, the security police told us we had to leave the town, and then the army told us we couldn't return. Clearly, despite the Sandinistas' promises, freedom of the press, and political tolerance do not yet exist in Nicaragua. Because of our decision to interview Father DeBelli and other critics, our request for interviews with government officials in Santo Tamas were denied.

In Managra, we were able to interview Daniel Nunez, a member of Nicaragua's National Assembly, a leading Sandinista Party official and president of UNAG, the pro-government union of farmers and cattlemen. We asked Nunez if the government fears it could lose control to the countries in Chantal's province. Come on, what have they done? Let's look at concrete acts. Their whole strategy has been to destroy the Rama Bridge and cut off the highway. They've been trying to do this for months, but they haven't captured Rama nor have they destroyed the bridge. So, with respect to the countries, I tell you, that much is fantasy. Perhaps. But last week in Nicaragua, the prospect of more USAID to the countries was very much a reality. There's no direct media impact. What it's going to mean is, is the war going to be longer

or shorter, or is all the hopes of a democracy here going to be snuffed at one shot. If they don't vote, they say, then you have to accept that this is going to become a Cuban satellite. They say, where Marxists let it is, that we don't believe in God, but for us, Reagan is the atheist. Instead of sending us tractors, instead of sending us food, instead of sending us products for our development, he's sending guns to kill our people. I don't trust this and it's in nothing. I don't trust this and it's even going together to math, because they have lied to us all the time. We have signed a different pact with them, and they never have fulfilled them. That peace plan is a total democratic plan, you know, and the Sandinita have told me. It's not that somebody told somebody else, no, it's not. It's after me. That the only

way they're going to keep power up is by bullet. That's decided part. The tragedy is that pluralism and compromise are not a part of Nicaragua's political history. When Carciola Martinez Miranda died in central to Moss last week, she was 73, yet she had never once voted in a free election. Nor had she ever witnessed a change of government in Nicaragua that wasn't accompanied by bloodshed and violence. Tomorrow's vote in Congress marks the ninth time since 1983 that the House has voted on a bill specifically providing money for the countries. Whether those bills pass or fail depends on whether they get the approval of a critical swing group of House members who have backed some country aid requests but have spurned others. Two of those swing voters are with us now. Glenn English is a Democrat from Oklahoma. He was in a group that met

with President Reagan this morning. He voted for a country aid in 1986 but for a moratorium on military aid last year. Olympia Snow is a Republican from Maine. In March 1986, she voted against country aid, but three months later she voted for it. Congresswoman Snow, are you really on the fence this evening or are you leaning? Well, I'm leaning more towards providing some support to the countries. I think in the absence of doing nothing, we don't do anything to leverage the peace process and I have to evaluate whether or not the package that we will be voting on tomorrow will be an effective element in advancing the peace process. I'm concerned there will not be any options. If we defeat this package tomorrow that the President is presenting to the Congress, then we will have nothing to vote on in the future. I know the Democrats have suggested that they will develop a package that would be considered by the House in three weeks, but there's no certainty and there's no specificity with respect to that package.

Congressman English, are you really on the fence? Are you leaning and what effect did Mr. Reagan's persuasive talk have on you today? Well, I think the real issue for me comes down to the question of what's going to promote the peace process. I think that the real option that we have is the question of whether we're going to settle this matter, namely through the peace process or whether we're going to see years and years more fighting. Also, we do have the possibility that the peace process is not lived up to. Then I believe it's Mr. Arries who has even suggested that perhaps the U.S. military should be involved and I certainly don't support that option. So the real question comes down to me is what can we do to promote the peace process. We've seen a lot of changes have been taking place over the past few weeks. In fact, over the past few hours, as the President struggles, I think the game will support. Certainly, I would like to have some involvement with those Central American presidents so that they, too, could at least register some indication as to whether they think the peace process is working and whether, in fact, we should continue

to pursue the peace process. President Arries, the main mover of the peace plan, sent his ambassador today to the Hill who spoke to some members of Congress. I don't know whether either of you were among them, saying that President Arries is against military aid. How does his opinion affect your view of it, Ms. Now? Well, first of all, that's not surprise because the President Arries has opposed any assistance to the countries in the past. On the other hand, as Glenn has indicated, the concern that I have is making sure that we prevent the introduction of American troops in Central America. We want to prevent the worst-case scenario from developing. So, President Arries and the other presidents in Central America fully realize that they would have a full backing of American military support if the worst should develop in Central America. He understands that. He's not in a position to publicly advocate. I think, given the fact that he's the author of the Arries' peace plan, support for the countries. But he also understands

that he would have the support of the American military. So that puts him in a different position than we're in. And I view the contrast as the leverage and also a preventative effort to make sure that American troops are never needed in Central America. Congressman English, on the question of the military aid part of this package, about three and a half million dollars to be put in escrow until the President, maybe with the help of Congress, decides that the plan has not been lived up to by the Sandiniesen and then to be released. Do you think the peace plan would be affected? Are you concerned by the mere effect of voting for lethal military aid, even in escrow, or only when the release of that aid happened? I've got to say, in all honesty, I have trouble following the logic and the line of thinking that says, well, if you remove the pressure, people are more likely to participate the process. I do not trust the Sandiniesters. I've got to say that flat out. And I think the bottom line comes down that we need to put as much pressure as we can for Mr.

Take and the Sandiniesters to follow through with the commitments that they've made in the peace process to live up to those commitments. And if we do that, I think that we can see this matter brought to a speedy end and we'll see peace. However, if we take the other road and we remove the pressure on the Sandiniesters, then I'm fearful of the fact that we're going to find ourselves in a position to where we're slide by for months and perhaps a year or two, and there's nothing that comes of it and finally one of these days, Mr. Aris is going to come to us and say that the U.S. should invade Nicaragua and I certainly cannot abide by that. Sounds like you're more impressed with the keeping pressure on the Sandiniesters than you are worried about the danger to the peace plan from voting for military aid. Is that correct? That's exactly correct as far as I'm concerned. Now let me also address the other side of this issue. There's a great deal of concern, I think, not only Congress

but throughout the country, with regard to the sincerity of the President to follow through as far as the peace plan is concerned. A lot of people indicate that they don't really believe that the President strongly supports the peace plan and some concern about it. Well, I've got to say that I've got a little bit of concern. There's a little bit of nagging doubt there, and that's the reason that I've been very interested to see what steps the President's going to do to assure us that, in fact, that lethal aid will not be released until and unless the Sandiniesters and Mr. Artega do not follow through with their commitments to the peace process. How do you feel about the lethal aid part of the package, Congress and this now? Well, again, I think it does provide dimension of pressure in the Sandiniesters during the period of time in which the United States Congress did not provide any military assistance to the countries. The Sandiniesters were not interested in reaching a accommodation with the other Central American countries. It was only until the Congress provided $100 million in military and humanitarian assistance to the countries where the Sandiniesters planning to reach any kind of peace option as means of settling the problems in Central American.

I would say that it'd be sheer folly for us to underestimate the intentions of Mr. Artega and the Sandiniester government. They have done very little in recent years to convince us that they really intend to move on a plan towards democratization. President Artega has indicated in the past that without democracy in Nicaragua, you cannot have peace and stability in Central American. I would fully agree with him on that score. So we have to support a dual approach. Unfortunately, this issue has been polarized by many of the Democrats in Congress and by the President of the United States. If we could merge both positions, I think we would have advanced the peace process much further along than we're presently facing. What do you need to be convinced of to come to a decision before the vote tomorrow? As far as I'm concerned, to understand and evaluate this package in terms of advancing the peace process, hopefully that it will undergird the peace process. I want to make sure that and get all the facts with respect to the amount of weaponry the the country's need in the event that that money is released, that

it is effective in leveraging the process and the Sandinistas in moving along and bringing about the concessions and guarantees that are necessary to establish an open political process in Nicaragua and ultimately stability in the Central American region. Congressman English, what do you need to be convinced of to make up your mind? I think the bottom line for me has to be the fact that the Central American presidents, other than of course Mr. Artega and including Mr. Artega, are actively taking part in this process. I would like to see some kind of assurance, for instance, that a majority of those Central American presidents would agree that the peace process is not working or the Sandinistas are not following through and living up their commitments before the president makes his decision to release any lethal aid. I think that that's a very important factor. I think it's important not only for us here in the United States, but certainly it's important throughout the world. In Oklahoma, among your constituents, for you every Congressman has to evaluate these things politically as well as nationally and in terms

of foreign policy and so on, is there for you tonight Congressman? Is there a politically safe way to go on this vote and a politically risky way? Would you discuss what they are? I think basically what we're looking at is a situation that we've got in my district and I'm sure this is true probably most members districts. You've got a group of people that are strongly in favor of aid to the countries. You've got those that are strongly opposed to the countries and you've got a lot of folks that are in the middle. I've got to say in my own state of Oklahoma, we're facing some hard times like this and one of the considerations that I have to make is this money that's going to be taken away from assisting people in Oklahoma and would be going to aid the countries. I have been assured that that is not the case. If the money doesn't go to the countries, it's not going to be going to people in Oklahoma. I'm not sure that's the case, but the bottom line that I think it has to come down to is what we're going to be looking at in the future. What the cost might be to my people in Oklahoma and to the United States government. If this matter is not settled peacefully, that is the cheapest course of action for us to pursue

and that's the reason that I'm insisting that we strengthen the peace process as much as we possibly can. It's going to cost us far more in the future if we don't. Congressman Snell, as you sit here tonight, you just know that if you go one way or the other on this, there's going to be more political heat on you that you just don't want to trade off considering the other things you have to deal with your constituents on. Do you know which is the risky way and which is the safer way? Well, I think that ultimately comes down to judging the merits of the issues and what is in the interest of the United States and the Central American countries. I've had the opportunity and numerous occasions to discuss this issue with my constituents who have a very active interest on this issue in general. Recently, I had town meetings and there are a number of people who express their position in favor of the country's assistance and many of whom expressed opposition to the country's assistance. Again, I think they understand that I have to make an evaluation based on the facts and the input from my own district and ultimately decide what I think will serve the security interest of the entire hemisphere.

Are the Democratic leaders, is the Democratic leadership right that there's going to be defeated tomorrow? Congressman Snell, do you think? I'm not convinced that it's going to be defeated tomorrow. I think it's going to be a very close vote as it has been in the past and it will continue to be. That's the unfortunate aspect of this entire debate. Just have a few seconds. I just wonder what Mr. English thinks on that. Is your leadership right and saying this is going to be voted down tomorrow? No, I really don't know. The only thing that I can say, though, in judging this vote tomorrow compared to this issue in the past, it does not seem to be the degree of intensity on either side that we've seen in our past and that would lead me to think that the vote may not be as close as summer projecting. Okay, well, Congressman English, Congressman Snell, thank you both and good luck with your decisions, Jim. Still to come on the news hour tonight, a pork update from Capitol Hill and the stump speech of Michael Dukakis. Now a pork story. The House of Representatives wrote the end to an embarrassing piece of

it today by a vote of 384 to one. It flushed away eight million dollars to build schools and France for North African Jews. The removal followed an unprecedented confession of error by a United States senator, Democrat Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. He took to the Senate floor yesterday to say he was sorry. Mr. President, I have made an error in judgment and I intend to correct that error. I fear that I have embarrassed my colleagues. It is my intention to move as quickly as possible to bring before the Senate a proposal to rescind the eight million dollars earmarked in the continuing resolution for the construction of schools and France for Jewish refugees from North Africa. I have heard my share of criticism and some of it just and some of it well deserved. But never before have I felt the lash of such unjust and unfounded accusation. Never before have I been accused of taking 30 pieces of silver.

News papers which I had always regarded as responsible publications have ignored the facts and have charged with my efforts in support of refugee schools in France took place in quote, the secrecy of the closed door house senate conference and of quote. I have an accused of actions which are quote shabby and self-serving and of quote. Some have even said that I sold my reputation and my honor for a thousand dollars. Mr. President, I did not sneak a pet project of a campaign contributor into the continuing resolution. I do not behave that way. President, I value my close and abiding relationship with my colleagues. The fact show that I did not do anything to mar the record of achievement and honor that I have tried to contribute during my life in public service. Nonetheless, I have concluded that if this avalanche of criticism is allowed to continue,

this institution, this senate, which I honor and respect, could suffer. I continue to believe that what I have done is appropriate, but to fight the criticism and to prolong the controversy in order that I might win vindication would risk a further loss of public confidence in the senate. There is more to it than 8 billion dollars for North African Jews, as the senator said. It is also about the public's loss of confidence and how the Congress of the United States budgets the public's money. Congressional correspondent Koki Roberts takes a look at that larger story. President Reagan used his state of the union address to issue a threat. This shouldn't send another one of these. No, and if you do, I will not sign it.

The Democratic leadership led the applause from their side of the aisle. House Speaker Jim Wright has pledged to change the system, which created the mammoth legislation President Reagan was referring to. Congress passed that so-called continuing resolution at 2 30 in the mornings, three days before Christmas. It amounted to a $604 billion bill lumping together the 13 appropriations bills Congress must pass for the federal government to function, and most members hadn't a clue what they were voting on. We're going to have one vote on a conference agreement of over 2,000 pages, which not a

single member has read or understands. The senator approved the spending bill an hour later, then left town, leaving the media to discover what the measure contained. It included a $10 million subsidy for sunflower growers, $6.4 million for a ski resort in Kellogg, Idaho, $8 million to build a school in France for North African Jews, $25 million to build an industrial airport near Fort Worth, Texas, $2.6 million to develop fishery products in Alaska. The Reagan administration claims the total amount of pork came to almost $4.5 billion. This bill came about as a result of a legislative stalemate between the White House and Capitol Hill. Budget negotiations through the night dealt with President Reagan's call for more spending for defense in foreign aid, and the Congress's insistence on domestic programs.

On the end, they put everything together in a must-pass package where everyone got something, the Democrats, social spending, the President, military money, and aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, House Republican leader Robert Michael. Whether any advantages to this big bill from your perspective, after all, you got contrary to it. That's true, but that whole log rolling operation, that's an announcement for me. I just don't like it. I think it's a terrible way to do business. You mentioned the good part so far as my own personal feelings in the President, but how about those other items in there that individual members had put in, but frankly, none of us really had read or had the opportunity when you have a reference number and a citation in the bill only by sectioned by paragraph. You've got to have your counsels in the committee reading that stuff, or you don't know what's in there. That given rise then to you folks in the media then pointing up, how could that happen? How could this happen?

How could that happen? And that's what happens in megabuck bills, terrible way to legislate. Well, Republicans have been complaining for a long time that omnibus bills are a terrible way to legislate. Now they have the agreement of liberal Democrats like Massachusetts Barney Frank. When you get a bill as late in the session and as important as a omnibus continuing resolution, the temptation to stick in $8 million for your shiver and France, and to put in a little bit here and a little bit there, is greater than most elected officials or flesh and blood can resist. And it's not a good idea. Some of those things are useful, put a lot of them on it. And that's another problem. The continuing resolution is an attractive nuisance in legal terms. And it just causes people to do the wrong thing. Both Democrats and Republicans now agree they must change the way they do business and send the president separate bills. But those bills are easier to veto. That fact creates problems of its own.

You win some, you lose some, that's the name of the game. But to deny the president that opportunity then to exercise his right of vetoing an individual bill, that's why he's asking for a line item veto. Senator Reagan has repeatedly asked Congress to give him the line item veto, the power to discard parts of legislation without vetoing the whole bill. He asked for it again in January. Give the president the same authority that 43 governors use in their states. The right to reach into massive appropriation bills, pair away the waste, and enforce budget discipline, let's approve the line item veto. Congress has traditionally argued the line item veto erodes the legislative power of the curse. But the omnibus spending bills may be winning converts for the line item veto. That's a concern for Democrat Barney Frank. I think the honor veto is a terrible idea, but if we keep this up, we're going to build up too much support for the item veto notion.

And at some point, we might lose control of the Congress and get that done. Because the process looks so bad and causes so much criticism, the voices for reform are growing louder. Members of both parties, of all ideological stripes, are currently circulating letters and introducing legislation to restrict the use of omnibus measures. But some members see the benefits in big bills, and they're likely to resist altering the process, per fear of losing on matters of policy and politics. David Obie is a liberal Democrat from Wisconsin. When you have divided government, when you have a president with the view that you ought to got every domestic program in order to provide more military aid and more foreign aid, and you have a majority party in the Congress that disagrees with that, we would be ludicrous if we allowed him to maximize the power of the veto so that he could turn one-third of the Congress into a functioning majority just by the use of that veto.

Republican Senator Dan Evans of Washington has introduced legislation to separate omnibus spending bills into individual appropriations bills before sending them to the president. And Evans does not believe the president Reagan would veto those spending bills. I think that he would have perhaps vetoed some that he thought were excessive. But frankly, I think he would assign the very large share of them. Most of them are fairly straightforward. They're not very large in terms of their share of the total budget, but it just comes down to a matter of fairness. I think that the constitutional right of veto of a president is a pretty important one. The law says that the budget act says that we should have 13 separate appropriation bills, and we're not doing that. But Wisconsin Democrat David Obie sees some merit to one huge bill. When a family makes a decision to buy a car, they don't do that independently of what their house payment is.

When you take a look at what you're paying for transportation, you also want to know what you're going to be paying for food, what you're going to be paying for housing, what you're going to be paying for property taxes and all the rest. And so you make those decisions in a family on the basis of your overall spending pattern. Whatever the merits of the continuing resolution, members don't like the last minute aspects of the bill, the unseemly side of goodies stuck into legislation in the dead of night. If the people from the outside have an extraordinarily negative perception of the Senate as an institution or Congress as an institution, I think it really hurts our ability to do what we ought to be doing, and to successfully carry on the business of the country. It's our credibility, it's our respect for the institution we ought to have to keep it from becoming more and more tarnished with the general public out there. It's their house of the representatives and their Senate and the people's house and the way to do more to clean up our act.

Given that concern about the institution, change in the way Congress handles money bills is likely to come unless the White House and Capitol Hill are once again unable to agree on individual spending items and a continuing resolution is the easiest way out. Now we continue with our series of major excerpts from the stump speeches of all the presidential candidates. These speeches contain the essence of the candidate's message to voters, but are usually heard in full by only a few voters at a time. The next is the turn of Democrat Michael Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts. This speech was made to supporters at a rally in El Paso, Texas. I believe 1988 used by the very, very good year. We're going to say goodbye to Edward B. Smith.

The year we say hello to strong and responsible leadership of the White House, leadership provided today's turn on any indication by an adopted Senate, Texas who also have to be a man for Massachusetts, and I'm grateful to you for your reception and your support. There's one thing I've learned campaigning across this country now for nine or ten months. It is that we Americans are ready for a change, and 359 days from today, we're going to get it. 359 days from today, we're going to get a change in this country. Because we're ready for a president who will challenge us again, who will stand up for what is right, who will revive our national strength and purpose, who will face the future and renew the promise of America, the promise of genuine opportunity for every single

citizen in this country. We're ready for a president who will respect the law, and will fight to guarantee equal protection under the laws for every American. Because all of you know, I've been a chief executive now for nine going on ten years. I go twenty cabinets, and I've worked with legislators. I've inherited deficits, and I've made the tough choices required to balance the budget every year I've been in office. I started dozens of new and exciting and innovative programs, and I made those programs work in ways that have made a real difference in the lives of real people. We need a president who understands how you build a strong economy and who has done it, who knows how to pop up Republican-ready and balance a budget, and who has done it.

With our economy and storming in on certain seas, we need a president who will have a steady hand at the helm and a clear eye on our future. We have to invest in good schools and good skills, and we've got to make teaching and value and honor and profession once again. I will make those investments. We won't create opportunity by soaking the middle class or providing more tax cuts for the wealthy and the president of the vice president of both proposals, more tax cuts for the whole thing. Nothing has been learned in the past seven years. And before we raise taxes, or the vast majority of Americans are already paying their taxes and pay the one time and it's full, let's go out and collect every time we can of billions and billions and billions of dollars of taxes on the jimmyd income that are owed in this country and aren't being paid. That's the first order for the next president of the United States to make sure that everybody is coming.

I just hope that they are the next president of the United States to make sure that everybody is coming. I just hope that they are the next president of the United States. We want to be an opportunity by telling our workers and our farmers that we've got a job full of the $3.35, so that our folks, you can't support a family like you agree by them. Now, you know that, and I don't think. We've got to build the kind of fiber, the state economic growth that will create good jobs in the good future and good wages for every single citizen and every region of this country. As president, I want to build that kind of economic future. I am, as you know, the governor of the state that last month had an unemployment rate at 2.9 percent, 2.9 percent. I hope I can bring that same kind of goal to our past over the West Texas and the communities and states all over this country.

This state has a self-west of abundance, supplies, and natural gas. One of the cleanest and most efficient fuels there is, one of the most non-polluting. I also have to be the governor of the state that has more acid in its rain than any other state in the country. And lakes and ponds are gate cod in the Berkshires and other parts of my state are today, time, biological, because of acid rain. We want your natural gas. You can produce it for us, and if we are a president with a national energy policy, we will get that pipeline capacity expanded, get that gas up to us. We want to use that gas to create energy for ourselves. And if the next president of the United States is going to reflect the values of all the people, he must restore decency and honesty to our foreign policy. It's about time we have a president who understood that with 12,000 strategic nuclear war hit, not the fault of the Soviet Union 40 times over, and by the way, they have 11,000. They can do the same to us.

Our priorities for defense have got to be our conventional capability, our conventional defense capability. If we have to use military force in the future, it is much more likely that it will have to be conventional and not nuclear. And that's where we've got to focus our resources. We have to have a president who understands the idea of the agreement, which I hope is sent up around by just a first step on the road toward our control and our introduction. My friends, we have the best opportunity to stop the arms race, to bring some sanity to a race without end, a race that cannot be won by either side, right now and today. And if we have a president who understands that, one who stands for the Soviet Union is in very serious trouble in cello. And that's why we have this opportunity. We can make great progress, I believe, in calling a halt to the arms race, and bringing arms control as something that is real and meaningful, and reducing the balance of terror. And maybe slowly but surely we'll leave some of these resources from military users to peacetime users in a way that can create the jobs that people have outpass them.

And the people of communities and regions all over this country isn't about time that we had a president who gave us star schools and that's our award. And let me say to you here in the city, the city that is so close to our neighbor in Mexico, and I hope beginning of 1989, we're going to spend a lot more time building a strong partnership with a local Mexico, and a lot less time to be brought back to us. Thank you. Thank you. It's our third biggest training partner, it's our second biggest agricultural customer. And the next part of the United States has better understand that at least of 85 million people right up against our order.

A nation that ought to be a friend of the neighborhood of partner, and that's the kind of relationship I hope we can build with Mexico and the people of Mexico, you know, for nine or ten months, I've been campaigning across this country, I've listened, and I've learned a lot. It has been exhilarating at the same time, it's been sobering. There are a fight, decent heart-working people in this country who are prospering, and they're right, decent heart-working and hard-pressed people who are unable to make ends meet. But every city in town and farm like visiting every boat I've talked to, and listened to has reinforced for me a very simple and yet profound message, but there is something far more basic than personal self-interest that lies a part of our democratic system, that there is something very powerful and very successful, special, that sustains this nation and keeps it strong, and that something comes not from our interior possessions,

but from our principles, from the values that our people bring to the everyday challenges of life, from our basic decency, from our willingness to look beyond the borders of our individual lives, but care about, and it gives something back to the communities of which we were part of. Our friends on the son of immigrants came to this country 75 years ago seeking the American dream and seeking opportunity, and they found it for themselves and their sons, and my parents never let me forget that this was the land of opportunity, and that those of us particularly who were first generation of immigrants, those of us whose parents had come to this country, a country which opened up its arms and its hearts to our parents had a special responsibility to give something back. I believe in the American dream, I'm a product of it. I want to help make it come true for every single citizen in this country. The stump speech of Michael Dukakis, the present governor of Massachusetts, not as

I inadvertently said the former governor. Tomorrow night we'll have the presidential stump speech of another candidate. Once again, the top stories of the day, winding up a last minute blitz of lobbying for the Contra AID vote tomorrow, President Reagan promised to follow the will of Congress in delivering more weapons and ammunition. Representative Lee Hamilton delivered the Democratic response to the president's message. He said Mr. Reagan's aid request was not enough to win the war, but such aid could only sabotage the Central American peace process. A gunman is holding 26 schoolchildren and a teacher, hostage in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And a final note about last night's program, we ran short of time, and the people and organizations who helped us in the preparation of the Suzanne Farrell profile were left off the credits. We apologize, and we'll correct that tonight. That's the news hour tonight.

I'm Robert McNeal. Good night. Funding for the McNeal-era news hour is provided by AT&T, combining everything people like about telephones with everything they expect from computers to make everything about information easy, AT&T. Everything is also provided by this station and other public television stations. From the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Well, thank you.