The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, thousands defied a Soviet ban and marched through Azerbaijan, and in Washington, both sides marked the 17th anniversary of the Supreme Court's major abortion decision. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in New York tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: After the News Summary [FOCUS - SOCIAL SECURITY - TAX DEBATE] Social Security is our lead focus and a controversial proposal to cut out the recent increase in the payroll tax. The author of the proposal, New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, will debate a critic, Bush administration budget director Richard Darman. Then one of the Keating five [FOCUS - FIGHTING BACK] fights back. Roger Mudd reports on the latest efforts undertaken by Arizona Sen. DeConcini, one of the lawmakers accused of improper help towards a failing savings & loan. Next a look at what happened [FOCUS - PIZZA PROTEST] when the owner of a pizza company decided to take an outspoken stand against abortion rights, and finally [ESSAY - TECHNOLOGY TRAP] Essayist Anne Taylor Fleming and some thoughts on the gadgets that surround us.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Thousands of Azerbaijanis held a funeral mass on the streets of their capital today. They did it despite a Soviet ban on public gatherings. It was in honor of Azerbaijanis killed by Soviet troops over the weekend. The Soviet news agency Tass said the number of dead was 83. Azerbaijan's parliament today threatened to secede if Soviet troops do not withdraw. Fighting between Moslem, Azerbaijanis and Christian Armenians has been going on now for more than a week. We have a report from the Armenian side of the border by Bill Neely of Independent Television News.

MR. NEELY: Soviet troops and tanks poised to enter the Western half of the rebellious republic of Azerbaijan. The 11 troop carriers and 17 tanks will move into a territory that has declared its independence from Moscow, its people still bitter at the army killings of Azerbaijanis in Baku. Other army units today took control of the border with Iran, preventing Azerbaijanis crossing freely. The guns of Armenian guerrillas are in place, ready for any breakdown in a fragile cease-fire between the two republics. Six thousand feet up in the border mountains near the village of Hashik guerrillas protect an Armenian weak spot. Cut off on three sides by the Azerbaijani enemies, they keep watch day and night for an attack. Target practice is their pastime but their hunting rifles don't match the automatic weapons held by the Azeris. These men once served in the Soviet army. On Friday, they fought against another Soviet republic in a battle that left dozens dead and injured.

MR. LEHRER: Late today Armenian and Azerbaijani politicians agreed to withdraw armed groups from those border areas, but it's not clear if the local groups will go along with that. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Back in this country activists on both sides of the abortion issue took to the streets in many cities around the country today. In Washington, anti-abortion organizations held their annual march for life to protest the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision. The ruling legalizing abortion was handed down 17 years ago today. The marchers gathered in a park across from the White House. Pres. Bush spoke to them by telephone.

PRES. BUSH: The continuing strong presence of the march for life reminds those of us in decision making capacities in the White House and in the Congress and in the Court that millions of Americans care fundamentally about this issue and are committed to preserving the sanctity of life. Let me assure you that this President stands with you on this issue of life and that my prayers go out to all of you for your faith and courage. God bless you and God bless life.

MS. WOODRUFF: Abortion rights activists were also making their views known. A small group demonstrated in front of the Supreme Court. Others briefed Congressional aides on abortion related issues coming before Congress this session. Sen. Bob Packwood, Republican of Oregon, told the group that recent election results showed strong anti-abortion positions were hurting his party.

SEN. BOB PACKWOOD, [R] Oregon: If my party has any more Florios and Wilders and Dinkins kinds defeats, you will see the anti-choice platform out of the Republican policy platform plank in 1992. I'm not saying there's going to be a pro-choice platform, but it's going to be out because many many many of my party understand that they can no longer skin by, playing to the pro-life forces.

MR. LEHRER: NAACP Pres. Benjamin Hooks spoke out today about Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry's arrest on drug charges. He said it was part of a pattern of harassment of elected black officials. He talked to reporters after a meeting at the White House.

BENJAMIN HOOKS, Pres., NAACP: There's no question about the fact that we at the NAACP across the past few years have felt that there has been undue emphasis on harassing black elected officials. We had a meeting right here in this city a few weeks ago and Mayor Arington gave some graphic examples of what we consider to be undue harassment of black elected officials and to that extent, the Barry case might fit into it. We have to deal with that. And what we would like to do is have the time to sort of examine it. I read the paper and I'm not sure that that's always accurate but it said that the search had finally paid off. We spent all of these years trying to find him with a grain of cocaine and by God, we did it.

MR. LEHRER: Attorney Gen. Dick Thornburgh issued a written response to Hooks. He said Justice Department investigations are not targeted toward any race. He said any suggestion to the contrary is sadly misinformed. The Supreme Court ruled on a drug testing case today. It rejected an appeal from a group of federal workers who claimed that random drug testing violated their civil rights. The suit was brought by Justice Department employees with top security clearances and civilian drug and alcohol counselors for the army. In another case, the justices ruled 5 to 4 that the right to a fair trial is not violated when blacks are excluded from a jury. The case involved a white defendant in an Illinois rape case. The court said the exclusion of black jurors was not a factor, because race had nothing to do with the legal issue.

MS. WOODRUFF: The Bush administration today indicated it is ready to allow the sale of high technology goods to Eastern Europe. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the plan is under final consideration by Pres. Bush. The U.S. now restricts sales of computers and telecommunications equipment to Eastern Europe for national security reasons. Fitzwater said the new policy is made possible by the Democratic changes going on in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, two more Communist countries announced reforms in their systems. Yugoslavia's Communist Party today said it would give up its 45 year old monopoly on power. It promised to allow a multi- party system. And in East Germany, Communist Premier Hans Modrow today said that he would open up his government to more members of the non-Communist opposition. He made the offer during talks with reform groups. That's it for our News Summary. Just ahead on the Newshour Moynihan and Darman on Social Security, Sen. Deconcini defends himself. Domino's Pizza caught up in the abortion debate and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. FOCUS - SOCIAL SECURITY - TAX DEBATE

MR. LEHRER: We go first tonight to the latest Washington spectacular about taxes. It centers on the hot proposal by Sen. Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, to cut Social Security taxes, also known as the payroll tax. It has triggered an uproar among members of Congress and columnists, but the most triggered have been Pres. Bush and the officials of his administration, Mr. Bush, himself, calling it a charade. Sen. Moynihan is here to speak for his proposal. The President's Budget Director, Richard Darman, is here to speak against it. Senator, first to you, tell us exactly what it is you are proposing.

SEN. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN, [D] New York: Well, first, may I get clear what we're talking about. You use the term Social Security taxes, Jim, and we all have used that term. It's a kind of usage, you might say, but these are not taxes. If you look at your paycheck, you'll see a little FICA, that's Federal Insurance Contribution Act. These are premiums paid on insurance. It's insurance for old age benefits, for survivor's benefits, for disability benefits. The government, and this is, if I have any point I'd like to make, it's this, the government does not own this money. The government holds this money in trust called a trust fund, and what we have been doing, however, is acting like we did own it and using it for the general revenue as if it were general revenue paying for general purposes of government.

MR. LEHRER: In other words, borrowing it from the trust fund in order to pay some of the costs of government.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Everything from thumb tacks to --

MR. LEHRER: You want to stop that.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Right. A year ago, we had two documents that came out, a year ago the General Accounting Office took a look at the enormous growth in these trust funds that is coming on line, just now coming on line and said, look, we can save them, we should save them, but if you're not going to save them, you mustn't betray this trust, go back to pay as you go, when you have a year's reserve or a year and a half reserve. We'll have a year's reserve next year. I'm proposing to roll back that increase on January 1, then next January 1 go back to a pay as you go system. That's the way the system was founded. Incidentally the first Social Security check went out 50 years ago this month to Ida Mae Fuller in Vermont. She'd paid $24.75 and she collected Social Security for the next 25 years. There's nothing unusual about pay as you go. It's normal. Could I just point to a chart about how big these surpluses are?

MR. LEHRER: Sure. There it is right there.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: The top line is the deficit. It's $200 billion and it continues to grow, but it is being wiped out by the trust funds and well, that would happen, yes, but what of the trail of trust? We now have the most regressive tax system of any Western democracy, it all happened in the '80s, we feel that this is an issue of integrity. And I know Dick Darman, who is a friend and has been an associate over many years, I think he will share, I think he'd agree with many of these facts, I think he would have a very different judgment about how to proceed.

MR. LEHRER: Let's find out. Mr. Darman, do you agree with your President, that this whole thing that he just outlined is a charade?

RICHARD DARMAN, Budget Director: Yes, I do. I do think it's a charade, and let me get to that in a minute. Before being disagreeable, let me say I also have respect for Sen. Moynihan and I believe his analysis of the problem is in the right direction and indeed is largely correct. I think it's his solution, his latest solution which is incorrect. In fact, I like one of his earlier solutions better, but let me just say everyone, of course, would like to cut taxes. What we would like to do and what the Senator used to wish to do and probably still does is protect workers' benefits, and the whole purpose of the build up of the trust fund was to be able to pay the benefits of today's workers when they retire in the future. Now he's correct, we've got to make sure that we can finance the payment in the future, which means that we can't mask today's deficit with the Social Security surplus, but I think --

MR. LEHRER: But that --

MR. DARMAN: I respectfully differ, what you're now proposing, Senator, would essentially give up on three things. It would give up on the 1983 compromise which you had a major role in producing.

MR. LEHRER: Now let's explain what that was. That was the commission, the so-called Greenspan Commission that worked out - -

MR. DARMAN: Yes, it was a bipartisan commission. It's one that the Senator has spoken very highly of over the years. It was a commission that said we've got to prepare for the retirement of the baby boom generation, we've got to solve the Social Security financing crisis, we've got to build up reserves and make sure we can pay those benefits in the future. Now what happens under his latest proposal is you give up on the '83 compromise, you say we can't build up those reserves, forget it, it just isn't happening and we're not even going to try. We say it's way too soon to give up on the '83 compromise. We say it's way too soon to give up on paying the benefits to the workers of the future, and finally he pulls out from the revenue stream $55 billion in fiscal year '91, and a rising amount each year thereafter under this proposal.

MR. LEHRER: You mean, he pulls out the surplus that is used as part of the revenue?

MR. DARMAN: Correct, correct, and would give it back to today's workers. That's attractive. But on the other hand, of course, it increases the deficit and the borrowing, and we end up in an even worse position in the future with a much higher debt and higher deficits along the way so he's giving up on the workers, he's giving up on the '83 compromise and he's giving up on the deficit.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: But I'm not giving up on you, Dick Darman.

MR. DARMAN: And I'm not giving up on you, Senator.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Have we saved one penny of the Social Security surplus?

MR. DARMAN: No, sir, and let me say, this is where I go back to what I tried to say at the outset, we agree about the problem and indeed we agree about the possible solution. The Senator used a chart. May I use one more of the prior works on this subject? I'd like to quote from the National Economic Commission report, the report with which he was associated also. This was in 1988. "We do know one other thing," he wrote. "We are certain of one other thing. This is that there already exists an immense revenue stream, which if properly used, which is to say saved, would raise our savings rate significantly and thereby at least presumably perk up all the indices that follow from savings." At that point, not very long ago, a matter of months ago, the Senator was I think correctly saying we have to make sure we save this surplus. Well, in the first instance, what that really means is that we have to make sure we don't keep piling up debt. How do you do that? You've got to bring the fiscal deficit down and then you've got to make sure that these revenues are in the first instance used to buy down this $3 trillion worth of debt that we're building up. Otherwise we won't be able to finance the benefits in the future.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Now, Jim, there's been another historic first on the MacNeil/Lehrer show. That is the first member of the Bush administration who has ever given any evidence of having read one line of the National Economic Report. I wrote that passage. I wrote that a year ago this month, and yet a few pages later, I also wrote, having said this revenue stream is there, we should save it, it would doubled the savings rate, it would double the Dow Jones, it would bring down interest, my heavens, what we could do, I said, but be on notice that if we won't save it, it won't be there. We are not going to, it already takes half the personal income tax to pay the interest on the money borrowed during the Reagan administration, the largest transfer of wealth from labor to capital in history. We are not going to use the Social Security Trust Fund to pay the rest. That's what we said, did we not close out, Dick Darman, didn't we close out --

MR. DARMAN: Absolutely, Senator, but as I suggested earlier, I think you're giving up on your own good work too soon. We can get that debt down, we can get to where we don't have to pay that $175 billion --

SEN. MOYNIHAN: How soon, Dick?

MR. DARMAN: Senator, I'd love if we could debate how quickly we could get there. We believe that we can start buying the debt down in fiscal year '93. We could do it sooner if you could tell us how to cut the deficit even more rapidly, but when our budget comes out, you'll see we will be in surplus in '93 and buying down debt or at least proposing to as soon as --

MR. LEHRER: Let me make sure I understand where we are on this. Mr. Darman, you're saying you agree with the Senator that it's wrong to misuse the money in the trust fund, however, you're also saying that if we don't continue to use it to cut down the deficit, then the deficit will continue to grow and we'll have even a bigger problem.

MR. DARMAN: No.

MR. LEHRER: You want everything to stay the way it is.

MR. DARMAN: No, I don't want everything to stay as it is. Wehave a new proposal which we will be introducing when we introduce our budget next Monday which is a proposal to assure the integrity of Social Security, make sure we can build up the reserves and pay the benefits --

MR. LEHRER: What happens to the reserves?

MR. DARMAN: The reserves keep growing.

MR. LEHRER: And --

MR. DARMAN: The reserves keep growing just the way Sen. Moynihan used to want.

MR. LEHRER: And they cannot be borrowed and to offset the federal deficit?

MR. DARMAN: That's exactly correct, but that's not enough to assure that. To assure that you have to also bring the operating deficit of the budget into balance and then with the surplus that is coming in from the Social Security funds, which he used to want and as we know, he used to think would have very favorable effects on the economy, with that, we first start buying down the $3 trillion in debt, and we have a proposal which --

MR. LEHRER: What do you mean buying down?

MR. DARMAN: Decreasing it, paying it off.

MR. LEHRER: Paying it off.

MR. DARMAN: Getting it down. If we get it down to zero, when the baby boomers retire, that $175 million in interest that we're now paying on that enormous debt, that will be down to zero. That's $175 billion that's available to make sure we can pay the Social Security payments.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Let me help you here. This is a technical thing, but the only way you can actually save this money is to reduce the privately held debt which thereafter goes into privately held investment and that increases savings. Now, look, the proposal the President is going to make in his budget is almost identical to a bill I introduced a year ago this month, S-219, the first day of the 101st Congress. I put it there. I said this what to do, get to a zero operating deficit by '93, and then over the next four years, go to a complete, a true balanced budget, so that all of the surplus is saved. They didn't do a thing. They now --

MR. DARMAN: Just when we're moving in the direction you so wisely advocated I don't think it would --

MR. LEHRER: Let's go to the --

MR. DARMAN: To start, you see what worries me, if I could just say one further thing --

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MR. DARMAN: I believe the Senator might agree that there's this risk. You start talking about a Social Security tax cut. It's naturally overwhelmingly popular. If we could do it without hurting today's workers, we'd be for it. We're not exactly known for wishing to raise taxes. Now the problem is that just as with the peace dividend where we've got people spending at 50 times over, we're now about to have 50 times 50 ideas of what to do with either how to replace the Social Security revenue that's lost or how to make the system voluntary or ultimately we may end up --

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Dick, you've got to break out of your, you are a great budget director and budget directors, any time they see money, they call it revenue. This is not revenue. This is a trust fund and the point is, Mario Cuomo came out with this today and said something I hope we could both agree on, here's a chance to have a decent debate. The whole first year the Congress went by with no debates on this, muffled discussions and a little bit about capital gains. Let's bring it out and say what do we want to do with our savings? The lowest savings rate of any industrial democracy in the world, of OECD countries I think we're 21, Ecuador is 22 or something like that, but let's talk about this. Let's have the President sit down with us. He can sit down with Mikhail Gorbachev at any given moment. Why doesn't he sit down with us?

MR. LEHRER: What about the issue that has been raised, Senator, about your proposal? Mr. Darman hasn't raised it yet, but I think I will raise it for him, the President has raised it, which is all you're really talking about here is a way to raise taxes. In other words, if you take the trust fund off the revenue table, then something else has to replace that and that would be, some other tax would be raised, that that's what you Democrats and that's what you, Moynihan, really have in mind.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: And what he really has in mind is continue to avoid that, to avoid that by continuing to use the trust fund as if it were general revenue. I think the question of integrity in government is very real here and this is, as I say, it's not a tax. It's an insurance premium.

MR. DARMAN: I think it's terribly important, Senator, but I respectfully suggest did you answer the question -- are you proposing a tax to replace the 55 billion as the way to get the operating deficits down?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: We'll see what the President has to say in his budget. If you say you are going to get to a true zero operating deficit in '93, you are not going to do that without --

MR. DARMAN: No, we will not get a zero deficit in '93. We'll make our first contribution to the debt buydown in '93.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: So what you are going to plan at least in the minimum is to use $1/2 trillion of Social Security moneys to balance the budget on general government revenues, you will do --

MR. LEHRER: What you're saying, Senator, is that everything should be actually what it's said to be, in other --

MR. DARMAN: We agree with that.

MR. LEHRER: You do agree with that?

MR. DARMAN: We have no problem with that. In fact, as you'll see, our budget may surprise the Senator. He'll be pleased to discover we're actually going to separate out in the presentation of Social Security funds and the deficit --

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Then there has been some good come of this debate already, but it's not over. We really have to face the question of truth in borrowing. It's one thing to borrow the money from the Japanese. It's another thing to take it from people's savings, which is what this trust fund is.

MR. DARMAN: Could I make one further point?

MR. LEHRER: Yes. Let me ask Sen. Moynihan this question. Why do you think your proposal has caused such an uproar that it's caused? What is there about it that has triggered all of this?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: A sense out there that the trust funds are being betrayed, that there is a betrayal of trust. You feel it. You talk to people. They say, you know, we went to a partially funded system in '83, and yet it hasn't been saved. That was about seven years ago.

MR. LEHRER: You used the term yesterday on one of the Sunday programs, grenade. You said that what Moynihan has done has dropped a grenade in the middle of the Congress.

MR. DARMAN: Yes.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: I had the EOB more in mind.

MR. LEHRER: I was going to ask.

MR. DARMAN: Well, unfortunately it landed first in the Congress and what is about to happen perhaps is a grenade is about to explode and we'll have all this shrapnel in the air and people will be running around, trying to figure out how they can shape all the pieces into a beautiful vase. Sen. Hollings has said it's a great idea and let's replace that revenue with a value added tax which will come back and tax the exact same workers the Senator would be interested in helping, and at the same time, we would then have the two proposals together, not such a beautiful vase, because the workers won't get their Social Security benefits funded and they will get a chance to pay a new tax. We don't want that.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Are you going to drop that capital gains tax for the wealthiest 2/10 of 1 percent of the country which would be paid for out of Social Security?

MR. LEHRER: Is this what you had in mind, Senator, when you came up with this proposal? Did you really want this or did you want to trigger a debate?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Bob Myers, one of the great men of this subject, 1934, he helped plan the Social Security system, he's a good Republican, 24 years as chief actuary, he was the executive director of our committee, the National Commission on Social Security Reform in '83. We held hearings on this. All last year we were holding hearings. He came to us last May and said, no, it will never work, you won't save it, you might have the best intentions, go back to pay as you go. And that's my position now. We gave it seven years and good faith. We never even got a postcard about this report.

MR. DARMAN: Until tonight, I'm pleased to give it a little bit of attention this evening.

MR. LEHRER: But you're between a rock and a hard place, aren't you and the President on this? I mean, you've got a position of saying, we do not want to reduce, you don't want to reduce the amount of money that people --

MR. DARMAN: I hate to say it, and I may be misleading myself, but I think we've got the high ground. We'd like to protect the benefits for the workers and we'd like to have truth in budgeting and we'd like to get the deficit down and we'd like to get the debt down and we have a proposal that will do all of those.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: It is not fair to say anybody is putting any benefits in jeopardy. We have, 50 years the Democrats have protected this program. We have never been a day late, or a dollar short in half a century. The bill I propose it will actually tick up another rate in the year 2045, because we like to have a 75 year actuary --

MR. DARMAN: The problem is, Senator --

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Don't talk threatening --

MR. DARMAN: I'm not. I'm about to quote what I think is you. Back at the time of the '83 compromise, I believe you were in the forefront of saying we couldn't rely on the old system exactly because the baby boom generation is so large and the generation following it is small, so if we're to keep the implied promise to the baby boom generation, today's workers, when they retire, we have to do something extraordinary, which is what the commission did, and we and you applauded that.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: And then we didn't follow through.

MR. DARMAN: We're prepared to follow through.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: If you are not going to save the money, you are --

MR. DARMAN: I agree, but we're prepared to follow through. I hope you'll at least take a serious look at our proposal.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: We certainly will and let's say we got a debate going. It's a big subject. It's about the next era of American --

MR. DARMAN: Yes, but I hope that the debate could also be, and I don't mean to suggest that yours isn't, but I hope it could be a responsible debate. The idea that some have that it's fun to start a debate by proposing to simply eliminate a whole tax could be applied across the board. Why don't we get rid of the income tax and start the whole thing all over?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: And you practically did. You went from 70 percent to 28.

MR. LEHRER: We'll leave it there.

MR. DARMAN: You've taxed seven years of growth.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Darman, Senator, thank you.

MS. WOODRUFF: Still ahead on the Newshour, one of the Keating Five fights back, abortion rights activists try their consumer muscle, and Anne Taylor Fleming on our high-tech lives. FOCUS - FIGHTING BACK

MS. WOODRUFF: Next tonight the continuing story of the so-called "Keating Five". They are the five U.S. Senators who intervened with federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating and his failed Lincoln Savings & Loan Association. Two of the five are from Arizona, and one of them spent much of the Congressional recess back in Arizona talking about his involvement in the Keating affair. Congressional Correspondent Roger Mudd reports.

MR. MUDD: The scene is a happy one for Arizona, the dedication of a brand new space science lab near Phoenix, bringing into the local economy 200 more jobs and $25 million from a federal contract. And Arizona's two Senators, Dennis DeConcini and John McCain, helped do it.

SEN. DENNIS DeCONCINI, [D] Arizona: There was the ability to sell it, to float it politically, that this was a good investment for America. I'm glad to have John McCain as a colleague to work for a $25 million contract because it was not just good for Arizona, because it was good for small business and good for the nation, a partnership of the private sector and the federal government. Thank you.

MR. MUDD: Yet, these are not happy times for DeConcini and McCain. They are both under a cloud. They are both under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. And they are both scrambling to convince Arizona that what they did to help the Orbital Science Corporation and other companies in Arizona like McDonnell-Douglas and Hughes Aircraft was nothing more, nothing less, than what they tried to do for Charles Keating and his scandal ridden Lincoln Savings & Loan Association, and that was to protect Arizona jobs. Not only was Keating a political contributor, but also his various companies employed 2,000 Arizonans. His main office, the American Continental Corporation, is located in Phoenix, and his $300 million resort hotel, the Phoenician, is in Scottsdale. When the Keating scandal broke last fall, McCain tried to talk it to death, but DeConcini held back and watched his approval rating in the polls drop from 63 percent to 39 percent. After the Congress adjourned in December, DeConcini changed direction. DeConcini's switch in strategy has brought him home here to Arizona to launch a multi-part campaign to counter what he says is the misinformation about him, and the campaign has everything from press conferences and radio talk shows to citizens forums and newspaper ads and $190,000 worth of TV commercials. The commercials, which have been running in Phoenix and Tucson, were produced by Ray Strother, a Washington, D.C., political consultant.

SEN. DeCONCINI: [TV COMMERCIAL] Serious questions have been raised about my integrity in the conduct of your Senate office. I bought this television time with personal funds because I am distressed to have my integrity questioned, and think it's past time for some simple answers to complicated charges concerning Charles Keating, Lincoln Savings and American Continental. Though I know I've done nothing wrong, I understand your doubt, and I want to say plainly for all to hear I have never violated my public trust.

MR. MUDD: DeConcini says he had every reason to believe Lincoln Savings & Loan was solid, and he shows letters to that effect from Alan Greenspan and from the Arthur D. Young accounting firm. He does not mention that both were on the Keating payroll, or that the Greenspan letter was two years old at the time. DeConcini also quotes Chairman William Seidman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to buttress his argument, but Seidman has expressed irritation at the Senator's selective use of his quotes.

SEN. DeCONCINI: [TV COMMERCIAL] Some of the questions raised about my involvement with Lincoln were the results of a $48,000 contribution to my campaign. Many of you may not know, however, that I gave the money back out of my personal funds.

MR. MUDD: DeConcini returned the $48,000 three days after the federal government indicted Keating for racketeering. But those shadings and omissions get lost in the shuffle as DeConcini tells his audiences that he was simply doing what Senators do, interceding on behalf of constituents, big and small.

SEN. DeCONCINI: [Mesa] Did we do anything wrong by interceding? Well, that's what I do for you, ladies and gentlemen. That's my job. Maybe you didn't know it, but that's what I do. That's what I did for McDonnell-Douglas. They came to me and said, you know, Sec. Cheney is only going to procure the grand total of 60 Apache helicopters; we think they ought to procure a lot more. What did we do? Sen. McCain and three Congressmen, including your Congressman here, went to see Mr. Cheney at his office with no staff. We sat down and we talked, we talked tough.

SEN. DeCONCINI: [Tucson] What was I able to do in the appropriations committee for Fema County? Get $17 million for a flood project on the Rito River. How did I do it? How did I do it? I called in the director of the OMB, Mr. Darman, I said I've got to have this, and it falls within the guidelines, the Department of the Army has approved it, the Corps of Engineers approved it, and you're the only guy stopping me.

TALK SHOW HOST: [KAET, Phoenix] Did you intervene on Lincoln's behalf with increased, perhaps inappropriate vigor because they were a major contributor to your political campaign?

SEN. DeCONCINI: Absolutely not, absolutely not, because that's what I do as a Senator, as I've said many times.

MR. MUDD: But for all the time, the trouble and the money he has spent on this campaign, DeConcini has yet to overcome the public's disillusionment that pervades American political life. This is Melodee Jackson, the executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party.

MELODEE JACKSON, Arizona Democratic Party: We believe that now that Dennis has "come home to tell the truth" that the people of Arizona will listen to the whole story and that the feelings of those of us who know him well have of him will be understood by all Arizonans. Certainly he's got some problems, some perception problems, some popularity problems, or else he wouldn't be spending $1/4 million explaining his point of view to the citizens of Arizona, but we're not worried about Sen. DeConcini's present or future political career.

MR. MUDD: What are the problems he's got.

MS. JACKSON: Well, he's go the problems that any politician has among people who naturally distrust politicians. There are a lot of people who think all politicians are crooked and that money fuels politics and that the small person doesn't mean anything. He has those problems.

MR. MUDD: DeConcini, who is a real estate millionaire, first came to the Senate in 1976 after three years as a county prosecuting attorney. He has been re-elected twice since then, his winning margins have averaged 57 percent. DeConcini is not up again until 1994, but already some Republicans in the state, like Burton Barr, the former Majority Leader in the Arizona House, think he's in trouble.

BURTON BARR, Former Arizona Republican Leader: I've known him a long long time. I've never known him to just willingly go out and do something bad for himself, or to help himself in any way, and certainly he wouldn't do anything to hurt the State of Arizona. Now this happened. I think he went too far on the whole thing but he did it, it's over with. Now he's back to explain it all. So I say in the final deal it goes like this. John McCain can survive this politically if there is nothing else of any major magnitude that comes out and he gets on with doing his job as Senator. And I think that there will be less resistance in trying to knock him out of the box. Dennis, on the other hand, I think people eye that seat now as something that they see as a possible opportunity, and some people even say that maybe he won't run. I don't know that or believe it but I think the contest for Mr. DeConcini's seat will be significant.

MR. MUDD: But if 35 year old Ed Buck has his way, neither DeConcini nor McCain will be around long enough to run again. Buck, the free booting political activist who helped bring down ex-Gov. Evan Meecham by collecting more than 300,000 signatures for recall, is back again.

ED BUCK, Political Activist: I think Dennis DeConcini and John McCain both are the personal personification of the bought politicians, of the politicians who are simply out there worried about their re-election and worried about how much money they can raise and they will go great lengths in order to raise that money. Sen. DeConcini said, and I'll paraphrase, I believe it's even a direct quote, I would literally go any place for somebody who would raise me $10,000. What we have here is the highest priced prostitutes in Arizona.

MR. MUDD: Have you reached the decision to embark on your recall movement yet?

MR. BUCK: No, I haven't reached that decision, although I can tell you I will begin organizing at this point.

MR. MUDD: Mr. Buck, I heard you printed up a lot of phony money in your recall campaign. Where is the money now?

MR. BUCK: Well, actually the money is as real as the Senators are and so we printed up some dollars that are I think very much to the point. The note says, "Use this note to buy influence in Arizona".

MR. MUDD: And it's got a $10 billion with not Hamilton's picture, but McCain on one side and --

MR. BUCK: DeConcini on the other.

MR. MUDD: DeConcini on the other, signed by Charles Cheating?

MR. BUCK: Did we misspell that?

MR. MUDD: Use this note to buy influence in Arizona, illegal tender for favoritism from your U.S. Senator. If you're a U.S. Senator and won't accept this note call 997 -- that's pretty rough, isn't it?

MR. BUCK: I thought --

MR. MUDD: Don't you think?

MR. BUCK: I thought it was pretty mild actually.

MR. MUDD: Did you?

MR. BUCK: Sure.

MR. MUDD: Later that afternoon, the Secret Service came by Buck's Phoenix home and seized the bogus bills because they looked too much like the real thing. Buck loved the publicity and said it brought in a whole new wave of recall volunteers. It also gave DeConcini a rare chance at some humor at Saturday night's Democratic Party fund-raiser.

SEN. DeCONCINI: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to be here. Sue Lavey just told me a recent announcement about Ed Buck and the recall. He has made the announcement that he is not going to take any out of state money; he is going to print it himself.

MR. MUDD: How seriously do you take the recall movement?

SEN. DeCONCINI: Well, I've been through recalls before and I don't discount them but I'm not afraid of the people of Arizona. I trust them. I'm a native son. I've worked here all my life. My mother was born here. She's 83 years old. They came from Utah in a covered wagon down here and I know my family, my wife's family, we were homesteaders here, we know Arizona.

MR. MUDD: Senator, is it fair to say that you made a major political mistake and you're trying to talk your way out of it?l

SEN. DeCONCINI: That's not fair to say, Roger. What I did is what I do for Arizonans. As I have said many times, if I'd known in '87 what I know now, I wouldn't have intervened. It has turned out to be a political mistake. And I'm not trying to talk myself out of it. I'm not running in 1994. That's not my purpose. My purpose is my reputation has been impugned, I relied on good solid evidence, I want the Arizona people to know why I did what I did at the time.

MR. MUDD: Burton Barr, one of the state's leading Republicans, says the state is waiting for you to declare whether what you did was right or wrong.

SEN. DeCONCINI: I have said in my commercials, or in my statement to the people say I make no apologies, but I take full responsibility for my actions. That's exactly the way I feel, Roger, because I help Arizona. I'm an activist Senator, I'm not going to let the bureaucracy and the Washington bureaucrats, whether it's a cabinet member or federal regulator, push somebody around if they're being mistreated.

MR. MUDD: So for you it's not an issue of right or wrong?

SEN. DeCONCINI: No, sir.

MR. MUDD: Senator, you've said repeatedly that you're not fighting for your political life, you're fighting to defend your reputation.

SEN. DeCONCINI: Yes.

MR. MUDD: But aren't they one and the same?

SEN. DeCONCINI: Well, they could be if I'm going to continue to run for office and stay in office. I don't know what I'm going to do in '94. That's not where my focus is. My focus is to represent Arizona today and tomorrow and the next year.

MR. MUDD: But the fact is the Senate Ethics Committee will probably decide DeConcini's future before the voters of Arizona do. The case of the so-called Keating Five will not be an easy one for this committee. The facts are not in dispute, and so far there is no evidence of any political bribery, only bad staff work, the presence of major political contributions, an aggressive eagerness to believe Keating and not the bank regulators, and an unprecedented number of Senators in the same room at the same time. What this committee must decide is whether that sort of constituent service constitutes improper conduct that reflects on the Senate of the United States. FOCUS - PIZZA PROTEST

MR. LEHRER: Today marks the 17th anniversary of the Roe Vs. Wade Supreme Court decision on abortion. Both sides in the abortion battle were out today to mark that milestone. That battle has never been more intense than it is now, and it has even spilled over into the consumer marketplace. We have a story about some spillover, the boycott of Domino's Pizza chain by abortion rights groups. Fred De Sam Lazaro of public station KTCA-Minneapolis-St. Paul, reports from Detroit.

MR. LAZARO: It's been a familiar spectacle outside courtrooms and clinics, but there's a new venue for demonstrations over the abortion issue, Domino's Pizza locations. From California to South Carolina, to the streets outside company headquarters here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, local chapters of the National Organization for Women have picketed Domino's. They are angry with its conservative founder and chairman, Tom Monaghan. He's outspoken in his opposition to abortion, but when itcomes to the boycott those views have triggered against his company, Monaghan leaves the speaking to Domino's public relations executive Ronald Hingst.

RONALD HINGST, Domino's Corporation Spokesman: We feel Tom Monaghan is entitled to his opinion as a citizen. Domino's Pizza is apolitical. We don't have a side on this.

MR. LAZARO: But picketers insist Domino's and Tom Monaghan are inseparable. Monaghan, they note, owns 97 percent of the stock in the world's second largest pizza company. Until recently, Domino's and the Domino's story was the subject of widespread admiration, spectacular business success.

TOM KINNEAR, Business Professor: Domino's is one of those great stories where boy put in an orphanage becomes multi-millionaire.

MR. LAZARO: The orphanage raised boy, Tom Monaghan, began with a single store opened with a $900 loan. He developed a quick baking method, allowing for the 30 minute delivery guarantee that's become a Domino's hallmark. It seemed to catch on with customers and with the 800 franchisees who purchased the Domino's idea. Today there are over 5,000 outlets in 17 countries. Tom Kinnear is a business professor at the University of Michigan.

MR. KINNEAR: The success was, it seems pretty simple in retrospect but nobody else came up with it, it's basically a story of finding a niche, sticking to it, surviving adversity, and sleepy competitors, quite frankly. Pizza Hut was asleep during all of this period.

MR. LAZARO: Today Tom Monaghan is one of the richest men in the world. Besides the Domino's Corporation, he owns the Detroit Tigers baseball franchise and one of the largest collections of Frank Lloyd Wright memorabilia and rare automobiles in the world. They are displayed in the sprawling Domino's farms complex in Ann Arbor, which also houses the company's headquarters.

TOM MONAGHAN, Founder, Domino's Corporation: I believe that any time you accomplish anything and have a success, you should celebrate.

MR. LAZARO: However, just as he celebrated business success with his employees, Monaghan began to speak out on social issues, reflecting values he said he learned from the Catholic nuns who raised him. For example, when a religious group objected to the content of the television show Saturday Night Live, Domino's pulled its ads from the program. Monaghan was also a key player in a state referendum to band Medicaid-sponsored abortions.

JAN BENDOR, Abortion Rights Activist: His funding alone and the funding from his friends probably accounted for the lopsided vote that probably if it had gone just according to the polls, Michigan would still have the same rights for the poor that we have for everyone else.

MR. LAZARO: Jan Bendor heads the Ann Arbor chapter of the National Organization for Women, which actively campaigned against the Medicaid abortion ban. Ironically, for one of its early fund- raisers, Bendor says the group chose Domino's Farms.

MS. BENDOR: It looked like a good place for a family fund-raiser, with hay ride, bonfire, pizza, of course, and a tour. We called and asked again if we could charge more than their price and keep the difference for a fund-raiser. They said no problem, they have lots of groups do that.

MR. LAZARO: When word of the fund-raiser got to Monaghan, however, the reservation was promptly cancelled.

RONALD HINGST, Domino's Corporation Spokesman: He felt that he withheld the right to not host that sort of event and it was cancelled.

MS. BENDOR: Our attorney who was worth us reminded them that that was not allowed under Michigan civil rights laws. That didn't seem to deter them.

MR. LAZARO: It did spur the local NOW chapter to launch a boycott of Domino's. Other groups with diverse causes joined in, unified in their opposition to Monaghan. The so-called Coalition to Boycott Domino's is demanding that Monaghan cease his support of Contra rebel causes in Nicaragua. Closer to home, they allege his real estate projects are environmentally harmful. Another faction fears he might even move the Detroit Tigers out of Tiger Stadium.

MS. BENDOR: When you buy a pizza from this company, you're really making a contribution to a whole range of reprehensible causes.

MR. LAZARO: It's clear, however, that the big issue is abortion, especially on a national level, and it's here that Domino's spokesman Hingst says the boycott is especially off target.

MR. HINGST: Here at Ann Arbor, you know, maybe Domino's Farms and Tom Monaghan go a little more hand in hand, but once you get around the world, Domino's Pizza is 800 franchisees. To become a franchisee, they don't have to stand up and say I agree or I disagree with Tom Monaghan on the societal issues. The tactic is misdirected. You're hurting your local business person.

MR. LAZARO: Even in Monaghan's Ann Arbor home base, Hingst notes that most Domino's pizza is sold by franchisees. Becky Bellknap and her husband own eight stores here. She may be the closest Domino's franchisee, but Bellknap says ironically on abortion, she and Monaghan are far apart.

BECKY BELLKNAP, Domino's Franchise Operator: We had an incident several weeks ago. Ten of our vehicles had been spray painted to legalize abortion. The irony of this situation is that as an individual, abortion would not be my choice, but I certainly believe people should have choices, and the irony is that it was taken out on us.

MS. BENDOR: We've suggested particularly to some of the franchise holders in this area that they look at the situation very much like a landlord-tenant relationship, where they've purchased a certain corporate image from Domino's that's not being upheld and therefore, don't they have some contractual rights to withhold their royalties until it's cleaned up. We hope the franchisees will exercise their option to affiliate with a different chain. It's certainly an option they have.

MR. LAZARO: Bendor cites Pizza Hut or Little Caesars among those options, but so far no Domino's franchisees have exercised it. Most claim they have not suffered major business losses since the boycott was called. Michigan Prof. Kinnear says to accurately measure a boycott's success could take years.

MR. KINNEAR: The grape boycott was five years, the Nestle boycott was seven years. The apartheid is now almost 25 years old. They tend to have longevity. People are willing to stick with it, but to stick with it, usually implies that organizations get involved, important organizations or important people. Cesar Chavez became a folk hero, but if you remember, Robert Kennedy was there.

MR. LAZARO: The Domino's boycott concerns abortion where emotions run extremely high on both sides. Kinnear says Domino's could actually benefit in some areas.

MR. KINNEAR: Most of the boycotts on this type of issue have been pro-life boycotts. They're mostly regional, they're mostly in the South. They've been boycotting businesses. This one has the potential, I mean, I can envision sort of in a bizarre context seeing the other side of this equation buying more pizza just to extend the fight.

MR. LAZARO: However, businesses would much rather have their fortunes determined by the strength of their products, not on the owner's political views. Domino's spokesman Hingst says Tom Monaghan knows that controversy is not necessarily good for business.

MR. HINGST: He realizes he has a business and if he's going to be involved in an issue that has the potential of impacting his franchisees in any way, he doesn't want to do that.

MR. LAZARO: Monaghan, in fact, recently announced he will sell half his Domino's holdings to a group of employees. Hingst says Monaghan wants to devote more time to the social causes he's involved with. He denies there's any link with the boycott activities, although NOW spokeswoman Bendor is quick to claim credit.

MS. BENDOR: We'd like to think that we've had some effect on that decision.

MR. LAZARO: Monaghan's possible departure from Domino's would not necessarily end the boycott. Its organizers say they expect the new owners to be like minded, people who'll preserve the corporate culture at Domino's, a culture they say encourages political, mostly anti-abortion activities by employees. But more daunting to his opponents is the prospect of Tom Monaghan launching full-time into his social activism, having just cashed in one of the largest personal fortunes in the world. ESSAY - TECHNOLOGY TRAP

MS. WOODRUFF: We close tonight with an essay. Los Angeles writer Anne Taylor Fleming has some thoughts about the impact the latest slew of economic gadgets have had on our lives.

MS. FLEMING: Be not deceived. This little bungalow is not just a bucolic oasis in the midst of this big hub of a city. No, it's the home office of two professional writers, it, itself is a hub, a technology laden, multi-use fully operational transmitting and receiving hub of information. There are within two computers, three portable phones with complimentary answering machines, one xerox machine, two TV sets, one VCR, and our latest acquisition, the piece de resistance, a fax machine. We have yet to get car phones or portable faxes or personal beepers, but those could be next. In short, we are willing participants in and beneficiaries of the biggest communications revolution in history, a galloping infestation of machinery that has completely changed the way we think, write, and relate to each other. It was just a few short years ago that the first desk top personal computer was introduced and there are now at least 40 million of them abroad in the land, the soft plunk of their keys having stilled forever the nostalgic plunk of the old typewriter. There are also nearly 3 million fax machines in use, including those in popular dining spots where the hurried and harried can fax ahead their orders so as not to waste a minute away from work. And that's the first apparent irony of this revolution. Instead of giving us more free time, it's done absolutely the reverse. So we just didn't see it coming as we raced to sign on, lemmings rushing at the latest gadgetry. But our leisure time has actually decreased from 20.62 hours a week in 1973 to 16.6 hours in 1987, as we all try to process and assimilate the daily deluge these machines spew forth. Eleven thousand specialized magazines and fancily packaged periodicals hit the mails each year. Publishers print 1,000 new titles a day, and the total sum of printed information doubles every eight years. Information? That's probably too strong a word, implying, as it does, that we're being informed, when, in fact, most of what we're doing is being flooded with factoids and data that do very little in the way of increasing our real understanding. A full 40 percent of the American work force is now daily engaged in the churning out and distributing of this data, and 40 percent of business investments go into the so-called technology of information, so that instead of becoming more creative or competitive in this country, we've created an incestuous cesspool, all of us little ants tethered to our terminals, modeming and memoing and faxing and beeping each other, technoplizing the wilderness. Anyone out there? Anyone home? Here's a present for you, a bouquet of fax lists, a fine array of stats. Hello, hello. Are you there? And that, of course, is the ultimate irony. All these tools of communication has made us less communicative in any real sense and less compassionate, so that when we look up from our various machines and screens every once in a while, glassy eyed and stiff of neck and a little lonesome, we are stunned at the world we live in now, and at the incredible consequences of a revolution we all left to join, a revolution that has wired us up to each other, while disconnecting us all at the same time. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story of this Monday, there were massive protests in Azerbaijan despite bans against them. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.