The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, the White House said President Reagan has no plans to pardon Poindexter and North. Envoy Terry Waite said new fighting prevented him from returning to Beruit to try to release more hostages. China cracked down on student demonstrations for democracy. The experimental Voyager aircraft is due to land tomorrow to complete its historic global flight. We'll have details in our news summary coming up. Jim?. JIM LEHRER: After the news summary we look at why the students are demonstrating in China, at where the Iran contra affair leaves the drive to free the American hostages in Lebanon, and at a young man from Indiana with a special gift.News Summary MacNEIL: The White House said today that the President has no plans to pardon former National Security aides John Poindexter and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North. The two men are at the center of the Iran contra affair and have refused to testify before Congress claiming their Fifth Amendment protection. Some have suggested that it might take a Presidential pardon to get them to talk. But spokesman Larry Speakes said, ''The President is not planning a pardon for them, but of course, as Chief Executive, always retains the right to executive clemency. President Reagan's only public appearance today was to sign a proclamation calling for a national day of prayer. Mr. Reagan said prayer was woven into fabric of this country and Presidents had often turned to prayer in times of crisis. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, the retiring Republican Majority Leader, said in an interview today he didn't think the President had done enough to convince the public that he had done all he could to get the truth out. Dole told the New York Times the President had told him the other day, ''People like me, but they don't believe me. And Dole added, ''There it is, in seven or eight words. '' Jim? LEHRER: There were two developments today concerning the U. S. hostages in Lebanon. The speaker of the Iranian parliament said his country remained willing to assist the United States in securing the Americans' release. But Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani said, in return, the United States must end its hostility to Iran by releasing arms bought during the regime of the shah and by considering the Lebanese kidnappers' demand for freedom for seventeen of their comrades being held in Kuwait as terrorists. And in London, Anglican Church official Terry Waite said that fighting in and around Beruit made it unlikely he would be able to reopen negotiations for the hostages before Christmas. Waite was the middleman in the talks that led to the earlier release of two Americans. MacNEIL: The Chinese government cracked down on mass protestsled by students after three days of letting them happen. Thousands of students massed in the Shanghai People's Square yesterday demanding more democracy and press freedom. Today, when groups of students tried to enter the square, large numbers of police moved in to disperse them. Shanghai radio broadcast warnings about troublemakers, and the leading newspaper said criminals took the opportunity to make trouble. The protests were reported to be the largest spontaneous mass demonstrations since the cultural revolution ended a decade ago. LEHRER: Andrei Sakharov goes home to Moscow tomorrow. He told Western reporters he planned to speak out when he felt it was the right and necessary thing to do. The Nobel laureate physicist spent seven years in internal exile in the Soviet Union for his dissident activities. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev freed him from that exile Friday. Sakharov's wife Yelena Bonner received a pardon and will be allowed to go with her husband to Moscow. In London today, Soviet poet Irina Ratushinskaya thanked Gorbachev and British Prime Minister Thatcher for her freedom. She was released in October after three and a half years in a Soviet labor camp. She held a news conference today. IRINA RATUSHINSKAYA [through translator]: As a actual physical blows were not used. They didn't need this. They'd refined it down to extreme cold, extreme filth, extreme hunger. MacNEIL: Israeli censors lifted a ban today, allowing a jailed nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, to tell the world how he'd returned to Israel. Vanunu claimed he was kidnapped in Rome last September, and he used a unique method to make this claim. Mike O'Driscol of Visnews has a report. MIKE O'DRISCOL [voice over]: Mystery still surrounds the events which brought Mordechai Vanunu back to Israel. He disappeared after allegedly leaking Israel nuclear secrets to a British newspaper. On his way to court, he took advantage of the media attention to make his side of the story known. On his upraised palm, the scientist had written, ''Hijacked in Rome, Italia flight 2100, 30 October.'' For 24 hours, the military censors, who have wide ranging powers, kept that information and these pictures from broadcast. MacNEIL: The U. S. State Department announced today that George Shultz will meet in Washington next month with exiled South African leader Oliver Tambo. Tambo is the head of the African National Congress, the main opposition group outside South Africa. Today's announcement followed last week's meeting in Zambia between Tambo and Undersecretary of State Michael Armacost. LEHRER: CIA Director William Casey's condition remains stable today, four days after brain surgery. Georgetown University Hospital spokesman in Washington said there'd been no change in his condition. A cancerous tumor was removed from Casey's brain in a five hour operation last Thursday. MacNEIL: The airplane Voyager was nearing the end of its around the world flight today. The experimental craft is scheduled to land tomorrow morning in California's Mojave Desert, the place where it started. Tonight, the Voyager is bucking strong headwinds as it moves up Mexico's Pacific coast, often at speeds less than 100 miles an hour. The pilots, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, are reported to be extremely tired in the ninth day of their flight, but they're still running a day ahead of schedule. LEHRER: And finally, a most unusual flood warning. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said exceptionally high tides could hit the Northeast and Northwestcoasts between December 28 and January 4. A rare alignment of the earth, moon and sun could trigger the tides, and if storms develop at the same time, heavy flooding would be the result. And that's it for our news summary tonight. Now it's on to the student unrest in China, to the prospects for the U. S. hostages in Lebanon, and to a gifted young man from Indiana. Protest for Change MacNEIL: There was a fourth day of extraordinary demonstrations in the streets of Shanghai today -- demonstrations for democracy. It followed on yesterday's rally, which drew tens of thousands of people to the streets in the largest spontaneous public protest since the cultural revolution 20 years ago. We're going to look at what these demonstrations mean with two China experts, but first a report from Peter Gould of the BBC. PETER GOULD [voice over]: The scale of these latest demonstrations may have come as a surprise to the authorities, but student discontent has been growing over what they see as the slow pace of political and economic reform within China's one party system. The current wave of protests began in Hunan Province at Changsha at the end of November. Four thousand students marched through Hefai between the 5th and 8th of December, and on the 9th sympathetic posters first appeared in the capital, Peking. The following week saw mass student demonstrations at Chengcheng in the south of the country, then in the southwestern city of Kunming before the latest and biggest marches in Shanghai. So far, the protests have been viewed fairly tolerantly by the Chinese authorities. Some observers believe the students have the tacit support of party leaders. And Chinese diplomats have been at pains to portray the unrest as a healthy sign in a country where big changes are taking place. XIE JUNZHEN, Chinese embassy official: China is undergoing a very important period. And I think that, on the whole, I think our government and our people, we are happy and we are doing what we should be doing. But certainly, I think, some things you can not be doing in a very quick way. You see, China, after all, is a developing country. You can not change it into a modernized country just overnight or in a few weeks' time. GOULD [voice over]: But tonight, it looks as if Chinese tolerance has reached its limit. The students have been warned that from now on they should not hold any more unauthorized demonstrations. MacNEIL: Student activism has changed the course of Chinese history before, and in the current climate of political and economical reform, it may be poised to do so again. We discuss this with two China experts. Andrew Nathan, a political scientist at Columbia University, has written a book about democracy in China. And Michel Oksenberg, who was President Carter's China expert on the National Security Council, now teaches political science at the University of Michigan. He joins us from public station WTVS in Detroit. Mr. Nathan, what are the students demonstrating for? ANDREW NATHAN, Columbia University: Well, from the press reports I've seen, they seem to be demonstrating partly about local issues on the campuses, including some elections that are going on now, and partly about their anxiety that political reform go faster. MacNEIL: And what do they mean by political reform? Mr. NATHAN: Well, last spring -- that is, the spring of '85 -- Deng Xiaoping announced that there should be political reform and, through that, open for discussion. People have been talking about freedom of the press, freedom of discussion, reform of the bureaucracy, division of powers within the bureaucracy and all kinds things like this. And what the students mean by it is not very clear right now, but it's probably similar to what has been discussed by higher level intellectuals. MacNEIL: That BBC report suggested -- or some thought that the students had, at least until today, the tacit support of people in the Chinese government for this. Is that credible to you? Mr. NATHAN: That's quite possible, but I don't know if it's true. At least the situation would have to be that the leaders have been talking about implementing the constitution. The Chinese current constitution permits freedoms of demonstration and petition, and the earlier constitutions used to be pretty much ignored, and the leaders have said this one is for real. So even if they hadn't supported the demonstrations, they were more or less stuck, I think, having to say these demonstrations are legal, until the demonstrations began to interfere with traffic and public order, at which point you have other laws in China that make that improper. MacNEIL: Michel Oksenberg, would that be their only fear -- that the demonstrations were simply becoming unwieldy and might interfere with traffic -- or that they might have a snowballing effect and a life of their own and become out of control? MICHEL OKSENBERG, University of Michigan: Oh, very much the latter. I think that the leaders are very sensitive to the cultural revolution, to the turmoil that that brought on -- MacNEIL: Incidentally, can I clear up one thing. I said in our news summary, ''cultural revolution which ended ten years ago,'' and then in introducing this section that it started 20 years ago. Give me the exact dates for that, would you? Mr. OKSENBERGWell, it went from 1966 to 1969 -- the most intense period -- and then the aftermath lasted until the death of Mao Tse-Tung in '76. So we generally count it as the decade '66 to '76. MacNEIL: I see. So it ended ten years ago and began 20 years ago isn't so wrong. Okay. But they would be worried that on the model of the cultural revolution, they could what? Mr. OKSENBERG: There could be a great deal of spontaneity, that the leaders lose control of it. This is a leadership that feels they are presiding over a boiling cauldron in a lot of ways. They're very sensitive to the problems of disorder. They tend to react to some of those early signs of disorder frequently with excessive harshness and excessive swiftness, really. MacNEIL: We are not used to -- perhaps we're naive in this -- in looking at the communist world and seeing spontaneous demonstrations. We're much more used to seeing demonstrations that have been organized by one faction or another or usually the party in power for their own purpose. What -- can you put this in a context for us? Why would they would be allowing students to demonstrate in this way for things we don't usually associate with a communist state? Mr. OKSENBERGOne has to say that the leaders of China are now grappling with a wide range of very difficult issues. They've launched, as you know, a major economic reform. They carried out a number of reforms. They now have to decide whether to continue to have capital markets, to have real estate markets, a labor market, so that people can select their own jobs freely, rather than be assigned to them. In other words, whether they are to embark on a second wave of reform. The leaders also have to decide whether they carry out political reform at the same time as they have economic reform. What is the relationship between the two? Andy has correctly mentioned a number of those political reforms that the leaders are considering. One has to add to that a very significant one -- namely, what is the role of the Chinese Communist Party going to be in the years ahead? How closely will the whole political system be managed by the party? And so, as the leaders debate these issues -- and they really don't know in exactly in what direction they move -- the rest of the populace can sense the indecision at the top. And they make use of these opportunities to press their own demands at the local level and to join the national debate. Andy Nathan was quite correct in stressing that a lot of this debate has been invited by Deng Xiaoping himself. MacNEIL: Now, would this be the leaders using the mass of students to create a stir for a more rapid movement of political reform and a kind of climate for it in the country, or would it be the students on their own trying to speed up the progress of the Chinese leaders? Mr. NATHAN: Well, this time my sense of it is that it's the latter of those two. Back in late '78 when there were demonstrations in Peking, it was pretty clearly something that was stimulated by the reform leaders -- by Deng because he was in the middle of a sharp struggle for power at that time and needed support out on the streets. But at this time, my sense is that he's in pretty firm control of the central government, and his main-- the main people that he has to grapple with are those local and middle level bureaucrats who are moving very slowly with reform. And that perhaps it's the students who are impatient that discussion is going on and is probably going to be going on for about a year without much actual reform action in political terms. And I think my hunch would be they have taken the initiative this time. MacNEIL: Not one faction in the leadership playing off another and using the students, Michel Oksenberg? Mr. OKSENBERG: Well, I think that I agree with much of what Andy has said. I also think, however, that a diverse range of leaders may all, at least for a very brief period of time, welcome these expressions of public opinion. The people who support the reforms can look upon these expressions of discontent and say, ''Look, we have to do more. We're now basing our legitimacy on satisfying popular demand, and this is what the demand is. '' On the other hand, there are opponents of the reform who look upon this and say, ''You see what's going to happen if we move too far? We're going to have chaos in our hands. '' So I think that you have both sides willing to tolerate something like this at the apex for a brief period of time, but then they both -- both sides will recoil when they see the prospects of the student movement possibly linking up with young workers, and that's potentially a very explosive situation. MacNEIL: Do you see that as two factions -- the sort of faster reformers versus the slower reformers? Mr. NATHAN: I think there definitely are at least those two factions in the leadership and that they will respond as Mike suggests. MacNEIL: When the students are calling for freedom of the press, echoing Deng Xiaoping, and more expression of political opinion and so on -- in other words, a marketplace of political ideas, as well as an economic marketplace -- how far on our scale of things is that intended to go and could it go? Mr. NATHAN: Well, the Chinese views about freedom of the press and other democratic values are somewhat diverse. I can identify different kinds of views about this. But I think those Chinese who favor a truly Western style of freedom of the press are very, very few. And the big mainstream, I think, feels that freedom of the press is something with a purpose -- a constructive purpose of bringing the nation together, of exposing corruption, of creating unity -- and it's intended for that and should be limited by what is constructive. MacNEIL: I read one suggestion today that the students in Shanghai particularly -- a sort of city more exposed to Western contacts -- might have read about or heard on the Voice of America or the BBC about the success of the opposition party in recent elections in Taiwan and that this was somehow feeding into their political psyches. Does that make any sense to you, Michel Oksenberg? Mr. OKSENBERG I think it may be a factor, but I think that the internal dynamics here are the main ones driving the protests. There is discontent. The students are dissatisfied with the rate of reform. The way I'd put it is that these demonstrations show how far the reforms have come, and yet, how much further they're going to have to go before some new equilibrium point is reached, and it's the internal situation that's really driving the thing forward. MacNEIL: The internal -- I see. The internal situation, and the conditions the students live in themselves. Mr. OKSENBERG: Of course. That's very important to realize. MacNEIL: There were reports today that it was the quantity -- the quality of their housing and things like that. Is that -- Mr. NATHAN: In fact, I read one report that one element in the protest was the wattage of light bulbs in the student dorms. MacNEIL: Well, Michel Oksenberg and Andrew Nathan, thank you both for joining us. Jim? LEHRER: Still to come on the News Hour, where the fate of the U. S. hostages in Lebanon stands now, and the special talents of a young man from Indiana. Hostages LEHRER: Next, where the Iran contra arms affair has left the American hostages in Lebanon. It was the pressure and the desire to gain their release that at least partly gave birth to the arms deal with Iran, which led to the current Washington crisis. What now for those five remaining Americans is what we ask of two former hostages, a man who has spoken directly to the kidnappers and a Washington columnist who has had much to say on the subject. Correspondent Charles Krause sets it up with a reminder of what the connection has been between the arms sales and the hostages.

CHARLES KRAUSE [voice over]: The Reverend Benjamin Weir, a 61 year old Presbyterian missionary, was the first hostage to be released. That was on September 14 of last year. President Reagan made the announcement without mentioning that to secure Weir's freedom, Israel had made two secret arms shipments to Iran. Pres. RONALD REAGAN: I talked with Reverend Weir on Air Force One this morning, and I'm happy for him and his family. But I will not be satisfied and will not cease our efforts until all the hostages -- the other six -- are released.

KRAUSE [voice over]: The other six hostages at the time were Terry Anderson, chief middle east correspondent for the AP; William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beruit; Peter Kilburn, a librarian at Beruit's American University; Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, head of Catholic Relief Services; David P. Jacobsen, director of the American University Hospital in Beruit; and Thomas Sutherland, Dean of the university's agriculture department. In October of last year, Islamic Holy War announced that Buckley had been killed. Then in April, despite two more arms shipments, Kilburn was also executed, in retaliation for the U. S. bombing of Libya. But in July, after two more arms shipments, Father Jenco was released and flown to Washington, where he was welcomed by President Reagan. Pres. REAGAN: Certainly, his being here is in answer to a great many prayers by all of us.

KRAUSE [voice over]: After Jenco's release, it may have appeared to the White House that the opening to Iran was succeeding. But in September and October, three more Americans were kidnapped: Frank Herbert Reed, director of Beruit's privately owned Lebanese International School; Joseph Cicippio, chief accountant at the American University; and Edward Tracy, a poet and author of children's books. Despite the kidnappings, there was one more U. S. arms shipment to Iran in late October and one more American hostage released as a result. He was David Jacobsen, who met with President Reagan just as the arms sales to Iran were first becoming known. Jacobsen pleaded with reporters not to jeopardize the lives of the hostages still in Lebanon. DAVID JACOBSEN: In the name of God, would you please just be responsible and back off? Thank you.

KRAUSE [voice over]: But not all of the former hostages agree with Jacobsen. Yesterday, Father Jenco criticized administration policy. Fr. LAWRENCE JENCO, former hostage: My feeling was, I would have said no to the fact that if I knew that I was to be exchanged for the exchange of arms for my release, I would have said no, and I would have stayed.

KRAUSE [voice over]: Whatever the wisdom of selling arms to Iran, the results have been a disappointment. When the shipments began in August of last year, there were seven Americans held hostage in Beruit. Two of them were executed, three released, and three more were kidnapped. Today, there are five Americans still held hostage in Lebanon -- only two less than when the arms shipments began. LEHRER: We pursue the future for those hostages with two men who were there in the past. The Reverend Benjamin Weir was released in September, 1985, after a transfer of arms to Iran through Israel. He joins us tonight from San Francisco. Journalist Jeremy Levin was held hostage in Lebanon for 11 months. He works for Cable News Network here in Washington. Mr. Levin, to you first. What do you think the hostages' chances for release are now? JEREMY LEVIN: I think that they're probably worse than they were a month and a half ago, or whenever this all began, because I think that it's quite possible that with the last two of the first group, certainly, that we are very probably back, at a minimum, to the demand, which was a release of the prisoners in Kuwait. LEHRER: Reverend Weir, do you agree? Rev. WEIR: Yes. I think the situation is probably considerably worse for them, and it's far more difficult now to negotiate their release. LEHRER: Do you think that attempts to negotiate with Iran and all others should continue? Rev. WEIR: I do think that negotiations with Iran and other parties should continue, but without, of course, trying to introduce the arms equation. LEHRER: You agree with Father Jenco that that was a mistake -- to trade arms even for your own freedom? Rev. WEIR: If it is finally shown that my freedom was contingent upon an arms delivery, I would be very sorry about that. I would hope that would not be part of any future negotiation. LEHRER: If somebody had come to you, Reverend Weir, and said, ''Your freedom can be had if the United States would transfer arms to Iran,'' would you have said, ''No, forget it. I'll stay here. '' Rev. WEIR: That's a very hypothetical question, of course. But I would hope I might have the moral fortitude to say, ''I wish you would try some other method than arms deliveries. '' Mr. LEVIN: Jerry Levin, you've been very close to the hostage families here, and it's been suggested by some that it was the pressure -- the public pressure, the criticism that they made of President Reagan -- that caused him to negotiate this deal. Are you willing to accept that? Are the hostage families willing to accept that, and do they have any regrets about it? Mr. LEVIN: Well, I can't speak for them -- whether they have regrets about it. I don't believe so, but I may be wrong on that. But since part of what they were trying to do was to try to get the President in a negotiating posture, I certainly don't regret it. That's what we asked for. The question is, when did he make up his mind to do this? It looks as if it began after TWA 847. And that was about the time that the families were beginning to be more vocal and beginning to have some effect. It would be hypocritical of me to say, if that's what it took to get him into a negotiating posture, that he shouldn't have been negotiating. That's what I had been campaigning for all along. LEHRER: So, as far as you are concerned, from your perspective, there's nothing wrong with what President Reagan did. He was answering a call -- a legitimate call -- Mr. LEVIN: You mean broadly, in terms of negotiating? LEHRER: That's right. Mr. LEVIN: Yes. I -- broadly speaking, no. We asked that he negotiate, and we are glad that he began to move in that direction. However, I have some question as to the motivation and whether the hostages were the principle motivation. I feel that if the hostages had been the principle motivation, in terms of the negotiating he did, that he very well might have pursued other courses that would have gotten them out all at once. In other words, I think that this was linked more to the geopolitical aims than it was to the hostages. LEHRER: Reverend Weir, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament repeated today what he had said earlier -- that Iran remained willing to help the United States try to secure the freedom of these remaining hostages if the United States would consider the demand to try to get Kuwait to release the 17 people who are being held there in Kuwait for being terrorists. Do you think that's what the United States should do -- move directly to negotiate this kind of thing? Rev. WEIR: I think there should be direct negotiations with them, but I think, as Mr. Levin has said, that the negotiation for political clout with the Iranians was primary, and the hostage issue was peripheral. LEHRER: Do you -- Mr. LEVIN: May I add a point? As outlandish as it seems to a lot of people about trying to persuade -- not pressure; trying to persuade Kuwait -- if we were going to give weapons away as we have to Iran, who is ostensibly an enemy and hostile to us, why not have given them to Kuwait -- a friend and an ally -- to perhaps have made it feel more secure about trying to arrange something vis a vis these citizens? I think that we were going in the wrong direction. LEHRER: Do you agree, Reverend Weir? Rev. WEIR: Yes. I think that every effort should be made to find out what can be done to try to solve the issue with Kuwait toward the release of the hostages held in Lebanon. Mr. LEVIN: Deporting political prisoners in Kuwait -- although these are ones, granted, that have been convicted of capital crimes -- is not unknown in that country. In the last year, according to Reuters a few weeks ago, Kuwait deported over 26,000 people for security reasons. LEHRER: Reverend Weir, what about the other comment that's come out in recent weeks since the Iran contra affair became such a big deal -- was the suggestion that you and others who are Americans being held hostage should have known better. You knew what the situation was, you went into a dangerous thing, and it shouldn't be the responsibility of the United States government to negotiate with Kuwait, Iran or anybody else to get you out of there. Rev. WEIR: I think there's been a misunderstanding about all of this. There -- I and others were there doing what we understood were very serious tasks, and I think our presence did a good deal to try to bolster up confidence in the United States. That was not my purpose, but I think it was one side effect. I was aware, of course, that there was danger. And I was trying to be as careful as I could. But there was at no time a directive from the State Department saying, ''Leave Lebanon. '' They left it up very much to the discretion of persons who were tourists there on nonessential business to leave. But there was no indication that those who were there on serious business should leave at that time. Mr. LEVIN: May I add a point to that? I think that it's tragic, in a sense, that this group of hostages has been singled out in this way. In a sense, the victims are being victimized by this particular approach. Nobody suggested that the hostages in the original Iran situation should have been left to their own devices when it was clear that six or seven months previous when a raid had been made on the embassy, they were in great danger. Nobody used that argument against them. But they knew about the dangers. Nobody used the argument in relationship to the passengers on TWA flight 847, when it was known and warned for quite some time that the Athens airport was a dangerous place to be. And nobody used that argument on Nicholal Daniloff who knew dog gone well that he was in a pretty prickly situation. It just, I think, is sad that this group has been singled out. LEHRER: Thank you. Robin? MacNEIL: We get another view now from Mohammad Mehdi, president of the American Arab Relations Committee. He recently spent three weeks in and around Lebanon talking with people, including those or representatives of those holding the hostages, about the plight of the remaining Americans held there. Mr. Mehdi, do you agree that the chances of getting these hostages out are worse since this crisis blew up? MOHAMMAD MEHDI, American Arab Relations Committee: I wouldn't say worse, but the position of the hostage holders has been hardened. They feel by now that they have been made as if they are tools of Iran. And this is a very important point in our judgement, as a result of our meetings with them. And possibly I know their psychology their thinking. They are an independent group -- stubbornly so. They're not tools of Iran. MacNEIL: But does Iran still have influence over them to make it worthwhile to continue working through Iran? Mr. MEHDI: Not to the best of our judgment. Their relationship is like this: American Catholics have spiritual ties to the Vatican, but Rome has no political authority over the American Catholics. Likewise, the Lebanonese Shi'ites have a relationship to Khomeini but Khomeini has no political power over them. He may suggest, but his suggestions will not -- MacNEIL: So the Iranian route is a dead end now? Mr. MEHDI: It was the wrong start, and it has brought the whole problems. The U. S. should negotiate with Iran, of course, on hundreds of issues. But if the concern is the hostages, it should negotiate to the hostage holders. MacNEIL: And it is not negotiating with the hostage holders? Mr. MEHDI: Well, we were pleased in the White House the other day to be told that the U. S. is willing to talk to the hostage holders. This was an important development. Prior to that, with all the rhetoric of the President, ''no dealing with the terrorists'' gave the impression that there was no talking. MacNEIL: You say you talked to these people in Damascus and in Beruit. You know their psychology. Can you get from them a clear, coherent idea of what they now want to release these Americans? Mr. MEHDI: What we did was try to establish a rapport with them in the first place, to understand them. Our purpose was to see what are their grievances, what has made people to take such extraordinary measures. Their decision is political even though they call themselves Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah. And in a press conference in Beruit, I said, ''Please remove the name Islam from your names and act on a political level against political decisions made by the USA. '' Their political gripes and grievances they have against America, they explained, is that America has been responsible for the death of 20,000 Lebanese. MacNEIL: How? Mr. MEHDI: By its weapon to Israel in 1982. Israel invaded Lebanon with 1,000 American tanks. What they want now is a measure of human appreciation of their tragedy, a little bit of give by America, a little bit of recognition that America has done wrong things to them. And in reality, all we have from the President, damning them as the terrorists and forgetting that America has been responsible for so much of the tragedy and death in Lebanon. MacNEIL: So you're suggesting that if American negotiators went and contacted these people and said we are really sorry for what the United States directly or indirectly did in Lebanon, that that would produce results? Mr. MEHDI: Well, the States would not do this, but there are better niceties, other expressions. For example, I was expecting to hear a call from the hostage holder who talked to me in Damascus. He didn't call. The next night, I received a phone call in Beruit, and immediately the man says, ''Dr. Mehdi, you are here to seek the release of the hostages, yet your American government in the Security Council of the United Nations vote in support of Israel and its violence against the Palestinian students. '' I was unable to argue with the man. The U. S. 's policy weakened our position. Now, simply what the U. S. could have done could have joined Brittan, France, Russia, China, the rest of the Security Council of the U. N. , and considered Israel as having been guilty for killing four Palestinian students. MacNEIL: We'll come back. Jim? LEHRER: Another opinion now from syndicated columnist and New Republic magazine Senior Editor Charles Krauthammer. He has written extensively and critically about how hostage family and press pressure led the administration to equate the interests of the hostages with the interests of the nation. First, Charles Krauthammer, how do you -- what do you think of Mr. Mehdi's propositions -- that if the U. S. were to give some sign that our support of Israel, particularly in the Lebanon situation a couple of years ago or so, was a mistake, that this might help get the hostages released? CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, New Republic: I think that's an absurd proposal. First of all, to make that proposal during the same time that the Shi'ites in Lebanon are now at war with the Palestinians in Lebanon and at the same time argue that what the Shi'ites are worried about is the well being of Palestinians, and that's why they're holding the Americans, is simply absurd. Secondly, it's a way of condoning the blackmail. It means that anybody could grab an American hostage and dictate American foreign policy. It seems to me the real issue here is the holding of hostages by Shi'ites in Lebanon. And their demand is quite explicit. Their demand is the release of other people -- co religionists who blew up embassies and other installations in Kuwait. Now, the man who's holding out on all of this is the amir of Kuwait. He's not exactly a Zionist agent, so I wouldn't attribute the Arab Israeli issue any importance in this hostage holding right now. LEHRER: What about his additional point that to go through Iran as a way to secure the freedom for the hostages is the bad way, is the wrong way to go; we should go to them directly? Mr. KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I'm not sure if either way would work. Obviously, Iran has it's demands. It wanted arms in the past. It got them. It released hostages one by one. It certainly has influence. It's not exactly the relationship of Catholics and the Pope. Certainly there's a coincidence between the arrival of arms in Iran and the release of individual American hostages. So Iran has influence. However, I think with the scandal now, that side of the equation is over. The problem is that the demand of the hostage holders in Lebanon now is against the people of Kuwait, and it is the Kuwaitees who have the influence over this situation, and not Americans. LEHRER: Well then, Charles, what happens? What should the posture of the United States be toward demands that are going to increase again, probably, from families and others that President Reagan and the administration do something to get those Americans out of there? Mr. KRAUTHAMMER: It has to be now what it should have been a year and two years ago, which is, a government has to resist those kinds of pressures. LEHRER: Now, that's easy to say, but on what grounds should they be resisted? Mr. KRAUTHAMMER: On the grounds that the national interest supersedes individual interests. Unfortunately, that's the way the world is. The President of the United States is not in the helping professions. He has to look after the interest of his country. In this issue, he can't allow himself to be blackmailed. LEHRER: And do you think that that's essentially what happened? Is that what caused this, as you call it, scandal to happen -- that he really got himself caught up in the hostage thing? Mr. KRAUTHAMMER: Well, the President is known to be an anecdotal man who cares about individuals, who remembers individuals and who acts in response to individuals. And he met often with hostage families who, I believe, have every right to ask a President to act on their behalf. But unfortunately, I think he succumbed to his sentimental instincts, which in this case were disastrous. LEHRER: What can he do now to save it? Mr. KRAUTHAMMER: Unfortunately, he can't. I mean, I think right now his concern is saving his Presidency. I'm not sure he can do anything dramatic or even important right now to rescue hostages. LEHRER: What about the point that's been made by some critics that the hostage families were out there publicly criticizing the President -- ''Why don't you do more, why don't you do more?'' Well, it turned out that he was doing an awful lot. In fact, he risked his Presidency to try to release the hostages, and the hostage families have been less than supportive of him in this time of crisis. How do you respond to that kind of comment? Mr. KRAUTHAMMER: I don't criticize the hostage families. Look, their interest is to rescue loved ones. Anything they do in that interest is legitimate. They aren't Republicans. They don't have to worry about the standing of the President. I think the real issue here lies with the weakness of the President in succumbing, and also in the fickleness of the press, which for years and years has exerted enormous pressure on governments to act to release hostages. You remember, that was the story during the hijacking last year of the TWA airliner. And it has an influence overall. Pressure in the press, day in day out, ''American held hostage,'' does exert an influence over political leaders. But I wouldn't lay any of the blame at the hostage families. LEHRER: Well, Jeremy Levin, back to you first. How do you -- you think that kind of pressure is a healthy pressure right? Whether it comes from the press or comes from the families or whatever, and that it's up to the government official like the President of the United States to do what when he's up against it? Mr. LEVIN: Whether it's healthy or unhealthy, I couldn't say. It's certainly not illegal, it's not immoral, it's not unethical. This is a reflection of these people's feelings. If that's what the press felt when they editorialized certain aspects of it, that was a reflection of their feelings, and this is a country where we are entitled to reflect those feelings. So I'm not sure that the context in which you put it in is appropriate. It happened, and there's nothing wrong with it having happened. LEHRER: Do you agree with Charles that it's a Kuwaitee problem now, more than it is an American problem? Mr. LEVIN: No. It still remains an American problem. It certainly is -- Kuwait is still, of course, part of the equation. But perhaps, if we had done the things I had talked about earlier, perhaps it very quietly could have been handled and handled in such a way that Kuwait would have felt secure about doing it. Kuwait quite properly took the position all along that it couldn't -- it wouldn't succumb to pressure, or whatever. But what would have happened if it had been asked very quietly and we had given the weapons to them? LEHRER: Mr. Mehdi, you heard what Charles Krauthammer said about the proposition on behalf of kidnappers. He says it's absurd. Mr. MEHDI: Well, he really is unaware of the intense feelings of the people. His reference to Kuwait is irrelevant. I talked to these people. I talked to them one whole hour in Damascus, half an hour once in Beruit, a minute and a half in Beruit. The Kuwait issue never came up. That may be their tenth item of priorities. And the whole issue of Kuwait didn't come up. So to devote time and energy on the Kuwait issue is irrelevant. LEHRER: You mean they talked solely about U. S. policy toward Israel -- Mr. MEHDI: That was their primary -- not about Israel; about the destruction in Lebanon. To the tune of $12 billion, that country has been destroyed. Now, true that Shi'ites are killing Palestinians and Palestinians are killing Shi'ites. But this is not mutually exclusive with the fact that they are also unhappy with what the U. S. did to them. LEHRER: Charles Krauthammer? Mr. KRAUTHAMMER: But it does give lie to the proposition that people who are now engaged in a war with Palestinians are holding Americans for the explicit reason of having America express sympathy with the plight of Palestinians or -- Mr. MEHDI: No, no, this was part of the story -- Mr. KRAUTHAMMER: -- regret over past abuses of Palestinians. Well, it seems to me to be an extremely idiosyncratic part, at least as reported by Mr. Mehdi. After all, all of the public statements of the hostage holders has regarded Kuwait, and we know also that hostages have been released in the past in response to arms in Iran. So these, obviously, are the things that the hostage holders are after. LEHRER: Let me ask Reverend Weir in San Francisco about this. I'm sure in the course of your captivity you talked to your captors. How would you perceive what their priorities -- you've been hearing this conversation. What would you say about it? Rev. WEIR: They consistently and repeatedly said that their main objective -- their single objective was to bring about the release of the men held in Kuwait and that they expected the United States to put pressure on Kuwait to bring about the release of those men. I think that's really a very primary issue in their concern. LEHRER: I guess you wanted to add something to that? Mr. LEVIN: I think it's a primary issue too, although these objections, I think, were there. I mean, they stated those type of objections to me. I believe they stated them at times -- political objections -- to Reverend Weir and Jenco and the others, but they'd have to speak for themselves on that. Really, I think to a great extent why I said earlier that we're down to Kuwait now, in order for these people that are directly holding the hostages to be willing to cooperate with their mentors, if you will, I think there had to be a bottom line somewhere in their relationship with Iran that, ''Yeah, we'll go along with this, so that you can have your fun and games and get your arms. But there's going to come a point then where our interests have to be taken into account too. '' And it's very possible that that may be where we are now. I'm concerned that the President may have been so burnt by this that he may back off -- LEHRER: Completely -- Mr. LEVIN: -- entirely, and then where will his compassion be? LEHRER: Do you think that's going to happen, Charles Krauthammer -- t for all practical purposes, even at this point trying to negotiate release of those hostages is so much on the back burner that nothing's going to happen for a while?tha Mr. KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I don't think anything can happen during the current scandal inquiries in Washington. But I think ultimately the only answer to hostage takers is to say it doesn't pay. That's the only answer in the long run. LEHRER: Well, gentlemen, all four, thank you very much. Destined for Greatness MacNEIL: Finally tonight, we look at a remarkable young man who's been given a remarkable gift. His story is an excerpt from a documentary called 'The Gift' produced by Michael Tobias of public station KQED San Francisco.

NARRATOR [voice over]: This is Josh -- Joshua Bell, an outgoing freshman at the University of Indiana in Bloomington. Josh is a superb tennis player. He enjoys pool and has a normal social life. Joshua is also one of the greatest violinists in the world. Joshua started playingviolin at the age of five, performing at seven. Now at eighteen, he is working on his artist diploma at the university. His career has already taken him around the world, where he has performed over 150 concerts with many of the major symphonies and conductors. From Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl, Joshua Bell has startled the music world. Critics everywhere have noticed that Joshua's interpretation of music seems far beyond his years. JOSHUA BELL: I think there was always just a lot of music in the family, a lot of music going on. My father used to fool around on the violin a little bit, my mother played the piano. My teacher, Mr. Gingold, knows when a student has it and when he doesn't, and there's nothing -- it's really the thing that can't be taught. And so it's something that a teacher can maybe help bring out, but it's not something that can be taught. Mr. GINGOLD: Dah, dee, dum. Right. Josh has developed a system of fingering that is so incredible that I have no idea where he gets it from. He didn't get it from me. He has just been a seeker. Mr. BELL: You do find parents and maybe even programs that try to force the gift, I guess you'd say, and try to maybe starting the kid, you know, even when he's in the womb trying. I can't imagine that that does a lot of good. I think that the great people anyways were kind of destined to be great, and became that way on their own, especially in the arts. Today since there's not much time, I'll probably not really do an encore. But since it's Mr. Gingold's birthday, I'm going to play happy birthday for him. NARRATOR [voice over]: Renowned psychologist Alan Bell is Joshua's father. Joshua's mother Shirley is a talented pianist. Both parents are very much aware that the gift can pose serious problems, along with the blessing. Dr. ALAN BELL, professor of education: Separated, apart, ridiculed, not belonging. An American can't think of anything worse than being separate and apart so there are many people who come to Shirley, come to me, ''Is he normal?'' SHIRLEY BELL, educator: This is a big thing in our -- you know, one of the major questions. People are so relieved when they find out he plays sports. Dr. BELL: He's normal. Ms. BELL: Or they're so relieved if they find out he has a group of friends that he's going out with. I mean it's as though, ''Is he normal?'' This becomes a big issue for people. Somehow or other they have an image of a kid who's in a room practicing a violin from morning until night, and that's the story of his life, and it must be awful. NARRATOR [voice over]: When Joshua started performing, he was practicing a mere half hour a day. But he has that special ability to be completely absorbed by music or by anything he does. Many psychologists see this trait as the essence of creativity and giftedness. Mr. BELL: To be able to become very absorbed in everything you do, my friends say that even sometimes they're talking to me, and maybe I'll start thinking about something, and I'll stare into space. The other day, we were making some dinner, and I was chopping up the avocado. They said that they were looking at me when I was chopping up the avocado, and I was very intense on cutting it up the right way. So it's always been, I guess, one of my trademarks, I guess. NARRATOR [voice over]: Tonight, Joshua performs. He will play a sampling from his ever growing repertoire: pieces by Mozart, Franck, Brahms, Paganini and Wieniawski. The incredibly difficult variations on an original theme. Joshua sight read the score and played the piece perfectly the first time he ever saw it. Mr. BELL: I happen to be lucky that I happened to find something that I'm good at. I think I would probably go as far as to say that most people have something potentially they would probably be very good at, and I think many people just don't find that thing. So my parents happened to start me in music. I think that that was probably -- I would think probably the thing I had the most potential for, and so I'm lucky. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday. White House spokesman Larry Speakes said President Reagan has no plans to grant Presidential pardons to his former National Security Aides John Poindexter and Oliver North. House Speaker elect Jim White had suggested such action, so the two can tell their stories immediately. And the Voyager aircraft is due to complete its historic global flight with a dawn landing tomorrow in the Mojave Desert. Good night, Robin. MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's the News Hour tonight, and we will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.