The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. In the headlines this Wednesday, President Reagan said the Soviets are developing a new first-strike nuclear missile. Former Defense Department official Paul Thayer was given a prison term for insider stock trading. Artificial heart patient William Schroeder has a severe neurological problem, and the United States, the Soviet Union and the nations of Europe celebrated the 40th anniversary of VE Day. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: Here's what you'll find on the NewsHour tonight. After the news summary, two focus sections, an update and an essay. President Reagan's tough speech to the Europe Parliament and what it says about U.S.-Soviet relations is analysed by former Undersecretary of State George Ball and present State Department official Mark Palmer, Then we have a focus report on the battle over Amtrak funding, an update from Massachusetts on efforts to raise state drinking ages, and an essay by Roger Rosenblatt on the meaning of Europe.News Summary

MacNEIL: President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev traded sharp public attacks today as both East and West marked the 40th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. In a VE Day speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, President Reagan accused Moscow of trying to spread its dominance by force and of developing a dangerous new mobile missile capable of a first strike. The President was heckled and booed by left-wing members, as we hear in this report by Gene Gibbons of UPI Network Radio.

GENE GIBBONS, UPI Network Radio [voice-over]: Today was a national holiday in France with ceremonies all over the country commemorating the 40th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, and the President came to Strasbourg from Spain to join in the celebration. In a speech to the European Parliament, he recalled the joy of May 8th, 1945 and added a personal reminiscence.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: On that day 40 years ago, I was at my post at an Army Air Corps installation in Culver City, California. Passing a radio I heard the words, "Ladies and gentlemen, the war in Europe is over."

GIBBONS: Celebrating the 40th anniversary of VE Day was only part of the reason for Mr. Reagan's presence before the legislators of the European community. He also came to discuss his ideas for avoiding another world war. White House National Security Advisor Robert MacFarland said the President wanted to set forth a definitive framework for a stable and enduring relationship between the free world and the Soviet Union.

[voice-over] The President came to talk about East-West relations, but he learned first hand not all European politicians share his views. When he connected the Soviet threat to Central America, some parliamentarians objected.

Pres. REAGAN: Today we see similar Soviet efforts to profit from and stimulate regional conflicts in Central America. [booing, protests] They haven't been there. I have. [footstomping and catcalls]

GIBBONS [voice-over]: And, later, a few members of the audience walked out.

Pres. REAGAN: You know, I've learned something useful. Maybe if I talk long enough in my own Congress some of those will walk out. [cheers]

GIBBONS [voice-over]: Mr. Reagan departed from his prepared script and ad-libbed his concluding remarks.

Pres. REAGAN: We've seen evidence here of your faith in democracy, in the ability of some to speak up freely as they preferred to speak, and yet I can't help but remind all of us that some who take advantage of that right of democracy seem unaware that if the government that they would advocate became reality, no one would have that freedom to speak up again.

MacNEIL: In Moscow, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev delivered an hour-long speech in which he said "American imperialism is at the forward edge of the war menace to mankind." At the same time, both leaders exchanged polite letters marking VE Day and the wartime partnership of their countries. In our lead focus section after this news summary, we analyze today's Reagan speech and the current direction of U.S.-Soviet relations. Jim?

LEHRER: His attorneys had pleaded for clemency, for probation and forced community service. Today a federal judge said no to that and sentenced Paul Thayer to four years in prison. Thayer, who is 65 years old, was the number-two man in the Defense Department under President Reagan until he resigned in January, 1984. The crime he committed was giving false information to the Securities and Exchange Commission during an insider stock trading investigation. It happened before he joined the government, when he was chairman of the LTV Corporation in Dallas and a board member of Anheuser Busch. Thayer admitted he passed on inside information on Anheuser Busch to a stockbroker friend who in turn made lucrative investments on behalf of Thayer's girlfriend. The prosecutor in the case said sending Thayer to prison was the right thing to do.

JOSEPH DI GENOVA, U.S. Attorney: The fact that the judge chose to impose a term of imprisonment in this case is significant in that it obviously sends a very clear signal to people in stock brokerage houses and corporate officials who have access to inside information that this kind of conduct is going to be dealt with severely. The four-year sentence in this case does that, as it should have -- as it should have -- and it gets a very clear message across, and that's what it should do.

LEHRER: Thayer's stockbroker friend, Billy Bob Harris of Dallas, also pleaded guilty to the SEC violation and also drew a four-year prison sentence today.

MacNEIL: Senate Democrats today presented two alternative budget proposals that would restore some proposed domestic spending cuts and raise taxes to reduce federal deficits. Both were rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate. The Democratic alternatives followed defeats in the Senate for parts of the package agreed by President Reagan and the Republican leadership. Senator Lawton Chiles of Florida, ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee and co-sponsor of one of the proposals, said he had expected both plans to be defeated but hoped they would lead to efforts to draft a bipartisan plan to cut the deficits. One of the proposed cuts under discussion is Amtrak, and after this news summary we have a focus report on the battle over Amtrak funding.

LEHRER: Artificial heart patient William Schroeder has a severe neurological problem. That was the word today from Humana Hospital in Louisville, where he is recuperating from Monday's stroke, the second he's suffered since receiving his mechanical heart 165 days ago. Hospital spokesmen said the cause of the stroke and the neurological problem are not known. They said he was improving. He responds to verbal commands, but he does not speak.

MacNEIL: Starting tomorrow Americans buying used cars will get a measure of protection from new Federal Trade Commission regulations. Used car dealers will be required to attach stickers telling buyers what is covered by warranty and thus who pays for repairs if the car needs any. The regulations were explained at a news conference today by the director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Carol Crawford.

CAROL CRAWFORD, Federal Trade Commission: There are about 10.5 million used cars bought from dealers in this country every year, for a total expense of about $60 billion. So we're talking about a very, very large market here with a very, very large impact. And, for the first time ever, used car shoppers will be able to walk onto a used car lot and know up front and in writing exactly what warranty coverage is being offered.

MacNEIL: Dealers who do not provide the stickers starting tomorrow will be subject to fines of up to $10,000. But the FTC rule was criticized by consumer groups because the agency dropped the proposed requirement that dealers tell customers anything they knew was wrong with the car.

LEHRER: There was more violence and death in both South Africa and Lebanon today. In South Africa it was blacks killing blacks in a segregated township east of Johannesburg. The fight was between migrant workers and permanent residents and involved hatchets, knives and stones. It lasted more than 24 hours and was finally broken up by police using rubber bullets and tear gas. The Associated Press said reasons for the outburst varied widely. Some blamed it on tribal differences, others on a dispute over how to protest continued white rule. In Beirut the fighting was again between Moslem and Christian militiamen. Thirty-seven people are said to have died in the last two days in their exchanges of artillery, rocket and mortar fire across the so-called Green Line which separates mostly Moslem West Beirut from mostly Christian East Beirut.

MacNEIL: In addition to the VE Day speeches by President Reagan and Chairman Gorbachev today, there were ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of the end of the war in many cities in Europe. In London, Queen Elizabeth attended a service in Westminster Abbey; in Paris President Mitterrand laid a wreath at the Arc de Triomphe. There was also a ceremony in Washington attended by Secretary Weinberger and the Joint Chiefs.

CASPAR WEINBERGER, Secretary of Defense: On this 40th anniversary of victory in Europe, we would do well to reflect not just on that magnificent day but also on the years of indecision which had led up to -- indeed, many think caused -- that war in Europe and the years of strength that have followed in its wake. On this great day 40 years after the victory of freedom in Europe, the members of NATO remain united, they remain determined, and because of that they remain free. This time no aggressor will mistake our sense of purpose.

MacNEIL: Later in tonight's program we have an essay by Roger Rosenblatt on the meaning of VE Day. Assessing Relations

LEHRER: President Reagan's speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, led the news today and is the subject of our lead focus segment tonight. Mr. Reagan was there to mark the 40th anniversary of Nazi Germany's surrender and thus the end of World War II in Europe, but his subject was mostly the present and the problem of controlling nuclear arms. He accused the Soviets of developing a new mobile missile, and he defended U.S. plans to develop the Strategic Defense Initiative known as Star Wars. The U.S. interest, he explained, was only in having nuclear weapon equality with the Soviets, not superiority.

Pres. REAGAN: The Soviet Union, however, does not share our view of what constitutes a stable nuclear balance. It has chosen instead to build nuclear forces clearly designed to strike first and thus disarm their adversary. The Soviet Union is now moving toward deployment of new mobile, MIRV'd missiles which have these capabilities plus the potential to avoid detection, monitoring or arms control verification. In doing this the Soviet Union is undermining stability and the basis for mutual deterrence. One can imagine several possible responses to the continued Soviet buildup of nuclear forces. On the one hand, we can ask the Soviet Union to reduce its offensive systems through equitable, verifiable arms control measures. We are pressing that case in Geneva. Thus far, however, we've heard nothing new from the other side. A second possibility would be for the West to step up our current modernization effort to keep up with constantly accelerating Soviet deployments, not to regain superiority but merely to keep up with Soviet deployments. But is this really an acceptable alternative? Even if this course could be sustained by the West, it would produce a less stable strategic balance than the one we have today. Must we accept an endless process of nuclear arms competition? I don't think so. We need a better guarantee of peace than that. And fortunately there is a third possibility. It is to offset the continued Soviet offensive buildup in destabilizing weapons by developing defenses against these weapons. In 1983 I launched a new research program, the Strategic Defense Initiative. The state of modern technology may soon make possible for the first time the ability to use non-nuclear systems to defeat ballistic missiles.

LEHRER: We look at the sum, substance and message of Mr. Reagan's words now with an administration critic, George Ball, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and undersecretary of state in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and a defender, Mark Palmer, deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs who played a major role in drafting the Reagan speech.

First, Mr. Palmer, did you and others at the State Department anticipate that one-third of the members of the European Parliament would either heckle or walk out during the speech today?

MARK PALMER: Yes, there is a long tradition in European parliaments of a certain amount of boisterousness and we did anticipate that this sort of thing was going to take place.

LEHRER: So you're not upset about it?

Sec. PALMER: No, we weren't concerned at all. I think those who are familiar, for example, with the British Parliament know that a certain amount of back-bench heckling and other things is quite common in Europe.

LEHRER: Mr. Ball, do you agree that that's just the way things are done?

GEORGE BALL: Well, I think it's the way that things are often done, but I think this is significant in that it expresses a very deep concern in Europe about Nicaragua and a good deal of skepticism in Europe about the President's Star Wars program.

LEHRER: You wouldn't read that into it, Mr. Palmer?

Sec. PALMER: No. In fact, I think those who watched carefully the segment saw that there was a lot of applause as well as some heckling, even during the Central American portion of the speech.

LEHRER: Okay. Mr. Ball, let's go to the substance of the speech. Mr. Reagan stated the point about the new mobile Soviet missile as a reason for the SDI or the Star Wars proposal. You have spoken out and written against the Star Wars proposal in the past. Did the President change your mind?

Sec. BALL: Well, this was fairly transparent propaganda. The SSX-24 which he spoke about has been discussed and known about for the last five years. There is nothing new at all about it, and as far as it being a first-strike weapon, we're producing two Tridents a year, which are clearly first-strike weapons by the same standard. I think that this rather transparent effort to sell the Star Wars program which, by and large, the Europeans now are looking at with very great doubt because they see it as it is, which is simply a mechanism that will result in an almost open-ended escalation of the arms race. It certainly will defeat any proposals for serious arms control.

LEHRER: Mr. Palmer?

Sec. PALMER: I'm surprised, frankly, Mr. Ball, to hear you say that the Europeans believe this or the Europeans believe that. I think in Europe there are very many different views and some uncertainties about the Strategic Defense Initiative. People are there, as in this country, trying to think through, as is the President, what potential new technology may offer in this area. A number of Europeans have spoken out indicating interest in joining with us. Chancellor Kohl has, for example, in the research phase. So I think it's too simple to say that the Europeans are opposed to SDI or are uncomfortable with SDI.

LEHRER: What about Mr. Ball's additional point, though, that this was just transparent propaganda to sell SDI, that the so-called new Soviet missile, everybody has known about that for five years?

Sec. PALMER: Well, I think our concern about this particular missile is because it's very close now to deployment. We think it will be deployed in the next few years. So that is what is bringing the issue more to a head right now. We are concerned, as the President said, that the Soviets have an enormous capability already to launch a first strike against our land-based missiles, and this will simply worsen that problem.

LEHRER: Mr. Ball?

Sec. BALL: Well, I remember very well that this is following a familiar pattern. There was a time when we decided that we would have to MIRV our weapons, which we now deeply regret --

LEHRER: MIRV meaning putting more warheads on them.

Sec. BALL: Yes, more warheads on a single bus, rocket. For the simple reason that the Soviets had two systems, the Galosh and Nataleen, which were defensive systems which were going to keep our missiles from getting through. Well, afterwards we found that they didn't amount to anything. And I think that the tendency to exaggerate the Soviet performance while at the same time saying that the United States could do much better if we tackle it is simply following a very familiar pattern which I nd rather fraudulent when it's pursued over a period of time, and I think the American people are going to catch on sooner or later just as I think that the European people are beginning to catch on. And I agree that the initial reaction in Europe might have been favorable among some of the leaders. The fact is they're rethinking it. They're now deciding that this is simply going to result in greater escalation, and you will find, I am sure, that particularly as the Geneva talks begin to break down, which I think they will if we insist on pursuing this Star Wars fantasy, that the Europeans will feel very badly deceived by this whole project.

LEHRER: Mr. Palmer, "fraudulent," "fantasy;" those are strong words Mr. Ball has used.

Sec. PALMER: Well, obviously we profoundly disagree, and I think, more importantly, the Soviet Union also disagrees. They're spending enormous sums on strategic defense. They already have a deployed strategic defense system around Moscow. They clearly feel there is potential in this area. And it would be very irresponsible for this country not to pursue its own research program to see whether it is feasible at some point in the future -- and, as the President says, it will be another president who makes the decision about deployment -- to see whether we could develop a system that would protect us from offensive missiles from any quarter -- the Soviet Union or, conceivably, a terrorist state, a bomb by a nation that really was wholly irresponsible. So it would be irresponsible not to look to see whether or not technology can strengthen our defenses and to secure a better deterrence.

LEHRER: What's wrong with doing the research, Mr. Ball?

Sec. BALL: Oh, we've been doing the research for a long time. There's absolutely nothing new about it. What is new is that the President is suddenly conjured up this vision which seems to me to be totally unrealistic, that somehow we're going to have a nuclear-free world because we'll neutralize the nuclear weapons. This isn't going to happen, and I think that anyone, with very few exceptions, who is scientifically qualified, who has looked at this, has come to the conclusion the best we could do is some kind of a partial system and in the meantime the Soviet Union is going to concentrate on developing all kinds of weapons which will deflect and neutralize the effectiveness of this, and at the same time build more offensive weapons in order to be able to overcome it. So that all we're really doing is simply escalating the arms race in the name of freeing the world from the nuclear weapons. It's a curious kind of paradox. And if I use the word fraudulent, that's exactly the context in which I use it.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: In other parts of his speech the President focused on specific ways to improve relations between Washington and Moscow. Mr. Reagan said the United States wants to conclude fair and equitable arms control agreements with the Soviet Union as part of a sustained effort to reduce tensions. He went on to describe what he called a useful way to proceed.

Pres. REAGAN: I propose that the United States and the Soviet Union take four practical steps. First, that our two countries make a regular practice of exchanging military observers at military exercises and locations. We now follow this practice with many other nations to the equal benefit of all parties. Second, as I believe it is desirable for the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union to meet and tackle problems, I am also convinced that the military leaders of our nations could benefit from more contact. I therefore propose that we institute regular, high-level contacts between Soviet and American military leaders, to develop better understanding and to prevent potential tragedies from occurring. Third, I urge that the Conference on Disarmament in Europe act promptly and agree on the concrete, confidence-building measures proposed by the NATO countries. The United States is prepared to discuss the Soviet proposal on non-use of force in the context of Soviet agreement to concrete, confidence-building measures. Fourth, I believe a permanent military-to-military communications link could serve a useful purpose in this important area of our relationship. It could be the channel for exchanging notifications and other information regarding routine military activities, thereby reducing the chances of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. And, over time, it might evolve into a risk-reduction mechanism for rapid communication and exchange of data in times of crisis. These proposals are not cure-alls for our current problems. They will not compensate for the deaths which have occurred. But, as terrible as past events have been, it would be more tragic if we were to make no attempt to prevent even larger tragedies from occurring through lack of contact and communication.

MacNEIL: Mr. Palmer, are these regarded as significant and important new proposals?

Sec. PALMER: Yes, they are significant. We've seen with the Soviet attack on the Korean airliner and with Major Nicholson's death in East Germany that there is a need obviously for greater contact and communication with the Soviet military. This is the first time that these four proposals have been put together as a package.

MacNEIL: They've been made separately or individually before?

Sec. PALMER: In one way or another, that's correct. But we think that by bringing them together in this way we are providing some momentum behind them. Next Tuesday Secretary Shultz, in his meeting with Foreign Minister Gromyko, will be going over them, as I did yesterday with the Soviet Embassy here in Washington. And we think that they have considerable promise. It would be, we think, very good for Secretary Weinberger, for example, to get together with Marshal Sokolov to discuss a range of threats that we both see, to discuss our doctrines, our concepts, and to figure out how we can improve confidence and communications between our military.

MacNEIL: Mr. Ball, do you think these are promising proposals?

Sec. BALL: Well, obviously I am not unsympathetic to these proposals, but I don't think they're very practical. Certainly the idea of meetings between the representatives of the military on both sides -- it would be much more useful to us than it would be to the Soviet Union for the simple reason that they maintain a much higher degree of secrecy than we do, and so what we're in effect saying is, "Look, we're already fairly open to the world. We'll add a little bit, but you open up your military processes to us so that we can really see what's going on." They won't do it. So that it's a nice thing to say, but I don't think it's very practical. As far as the improved communications are concerned, well, we have a hotline. This would be a military communications system, as I understand it. Again, it's a fine thing to do, but you're not going to solve these problems by gimmicks, by physical, technical means. You're going to solve them by coming to grips with the fundamental issues between the two countries and trying to resolve them.

MacNEIL: Mr. Palmer?

Sec. PALMER: Well, I'm afraid again, Mr. Ball, I have to disagree. I think as a professional in this field I think one of the most significant things we've had over the years is our navy-to-navy talks, which go back to the Nixon administration, which have been extremely important in preventing incidents between our navies at sea. And I think both navies feel very strongly that this is a constructive process. To say that this is impractical I think is also demonstrably wrong. At the summit between President Carter and Mr. Brezhnev, Harold Brown was very eager to have the Soviet defense minister, Mr. Ustinov, and General Ogarkov there, and they did come and we had a discussion. It was a beginning. Granted, there's a long way to go, but we believe this is possible and useful for both sides.

Sec. BALL: Well, again, I say I'm not against it. If it could be achieved I think it's fine. I'm very dubious about it, and if it's already been sounded out I think the chances of getting the Soviets to agree are very much better if it's done quietly in a communication with the Soviets than if it's on a speech to the Western allies.

MacNEIL: Do you think there are proposals Mr. Reagan should be making to the Soviets that he's not making?

Sec. BALL: Well, again, the principal point at issue right now is the conduct of the arms reduction talks in Geneva, the arms control talks. And here I think that he's thrown a complete spanner in the works with the Star Wars proposal. I can't imagine that they're going to get anywhere if he refuses to negotiate that particular item.

MacNEIL: Mr. Palmer, comment on that and tell me whether the mood in the administration has turned pessimistic and sour after the experience of the first six weeks of the arms talks.

Sec. PALMER: Well, whether this is now an insurmountable problem, the question of Star Wars or strategic defense, if we look at the history of SALT I and SALT II, the Soviets said then also that unless British and French systems, our own forward-base systems in Europe, unless those were taken account of, there wasno possibility of progress and yet we did in fact have a SALT I agreement and a SALT II agreement. So I think it's much too early to say that unless we ban research, for example on strategic defense, that it will be impossible to have progress in Geneva. The question of the mood -- I don't think the mood is very pessimistic. I would say it was sober after the first round in Geneva. It was not a good round, but we do have the talks next week with Mr. Gromyko and we start another round at the end of this month in Geneva, and we will go to that with serious purpose and see whether the Soviets are prepared to join us.

MacNEIL: Mr. Palmer, we heard this speech described by the national security adviser, Robert MacFarland, as the definitive Reagan statement on East-West relations. What is the definitive message that it's intended to send to Moscow?

Sec. PALMER: The central message of the speech is one of balance and coherence, that we must recognize we are basically adversaries, we're going to continue to be adversaries. But at teh same time there are areas where we can work together, particularly in strategic weaponry, both on the offensive and the defensive side, that we have a mutual interest, we've reached agreements before, we can do so again. I would say that coherence between competition and working where we can together, that's the central message.

MacNEIL: How do you read the definitive message from this speech?

Sec. BALL: Well, I think it's just more of the same thing. It's a very harsh message from the President. I don't see that it offers anything very serious. The rhetoric is there, of course, but it seems to me that nothing new was said today other than that the United States wants to go ahead with Star WJxDars and this is the thing that is worrying the world the most at the moment. And I can assure you it's going to worry them more and more as time goes on. Now, on the question of balance, that's again a rather fine thing because we get into a constant counting of the numbers and I think that what illustrates the problem most graphically is to think of two children sitting on an open keg of gasoline and one has five matches and the other has six. Now, which has the superior advantage?

MacNEIL: Mr. Palmer?

Sec. PALMER: Well, I think we can all agree the best thing to do would be to do away with the matches as well as the powder keg, and that is precisely what the President wants to do. He wants to move to a situation in which there are no nuclear weapons.

MacNEIL: What about Mr. Ball's point that there was nothing new in this speech beyond the reiteration that the U.S. wants to go ahead with the Strategic Defense Initiative?

Sec. PALMER: Well, every speech doesn't have to have things that are brand new or we'd be in rather a hectic situation of which every week we were changing our strategy. But I think that the speech was innovative in that it had a very coherent message. It had, in the area of confidence-building measures, some fresh things to say. I think that the Soviets will receive happily the additional message that he sent today to Mr. Gorbachev commemorating the Victory in Europe Day. So altogether I think this has been a good day for our policy with the Soviet Union.

MacNEIL: And Mr. Palmer, thank you in Washington; Mr. Ball, thank you in New York. Jim?

LEHRER: Still to come tonight on the NewsHour, Judy Woodruff takes us down the two lobbying tracks over Amtrak funding. We have an update on the drunk driving, raise-the-drinking-age controversy, and essayist Roger Rosenblatt talks about VE Day. Lobbying for Amtrak

LEHRER: Amtrak says in its ads and commercials that America is back into training, but President Reagan, David Stockman and others say it's time to get America's government out of training. Judy Woodruff has the story and our focus segment. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Jim, at a time when Washington's budget-cutters are looking for ways to trim a $200-billion deficit, Amtrak's price tag of $684 million a year hardly seems worth losing sleep over. But, as you point out, it's a program the Reagan administration is aiming all its big guns at, and that has sparked a heated debate over whether the national rail passenger system could or should survive a cutoff of funds.

LEAFLETTER: The White House is very serious about shutting down Amtrak. This is some additional information. If you enjoy riding the trains, please write to Congress.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: If you ride the train very often, chances are someone's tried to enlist you in the battle to save Amtrak. It's one piece of this year's federal budget fight that consumers are being urged to sign on for.

LEAFLETTER: There is a better chance of this happening than you probably think.

Pres. REAGAN [February 6, 1985]: It's time we ended this huge federal subsidy.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: From Amtrak's point of view the villain in this drama is President Reagan himself, who has used every opportunity, from his State of the Union address to speeches defending his budget cuts --

Pres. REAGAN [March 4, 1985]: Every time a passenger boards an Amtrak train, the American taxpayer pays about $35. But on the New York to Chicago train it's much higher. In fact, on that run it would cost the taxpayer less for the government to pass out free plane tickets.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: -- to his recent budget pitch on national TV --

Pres. REAGAN [April 24, 1985]: Eliminating Amtrak will save $8 billion over the next decade.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: -- to try to get rid of the nation's passenger rail service. Mr. Reagan gets some formidable backup from his budget director David Stockman, who is using even tougher language to argue for Amtrak's demise.

DAVID STOCKMAN, Budget Director [April 29, 1985]: And I will tell you that there are few programs that I can think of that rank lower than Amtrak in terms of the good they do, the purpose they serve, the national need that they respond to. And I think the symbolic litmus test comes down to this. If we don't have the courage, if we don't have the foresight, if we don't have the comprehension of our problem sufficient enough to get rid of Amtrak, I don't think we're going to save much out of the budget at all.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: In other words, if you can't kill Amtrak, you can't cut anything, a pretty powerful argument. But so are the arguments offered by those who want to save Amtrak, like its president, Graham Claytor.

GRAHAM CLAYTOR, President of Amtrak [April 29, 1985]: We carry 20 million passengers a year. That is more than any except the four largest airlines carry. In the Northeast corridor the 17,500 people that we carry between Washington, New York and intermediate stations is 46 more than the airlines carry between those points. It will be a disaster if that disappears.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: What the Reagan administration hoped would be an easy sell to the Congress has turned out to be one of the most visible and most hotly contested of all the proposed budget cuts.

Sen. MARK ANDREWS, (R) North Dakota [March 6, 1985]: Have any of you sat at National Airport at 5:30 in the evening trying to take off for someplace? Think of what it's going to be if you put 17,000 more passengers into National Airport.

Sen. ERNEST HOLLINGS, (D) South Carolina: We'd be the only industrialized, civilized country in the world that didn't have intercity passenger service.

Sen. JOHN DANFORTH, (R) Missouri: The only thing that Amtrak does really is provide a little stroll down memory lane.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Amtrak officials themselves can't lobby because they are part of a quasi-government agency. But the National Association of Railway Passengers, representing Amtrak's riders, does lobby and has been doing a great deal of it lately.

1st LOBBYIST: Those are some facts that we put together to counteract some of the information that the OMB has put out.

2nd LOBBYIST: We would hope, Senator, that the cut you referred to, the 10%, would be the limit because I don't think Amtrak as you know can go beyond that.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: The argument these lobbyists made to Nebraska Democratic Senator James Exon was that if Amtrak is cut more than the 10 rail officials have said they can absorb, it will have to shut down. Exon stressed he wouldn't go that far, but said some cut is necessary.

Sen. JAMES EXON, (D) Nebraska: I would certainly emphasize that we are going to have to make some cuts because I'm concerned about this deficit and I'm ready to make some cuts. But I'm not ready to eliminate a program like Amtrak that would probably be the most expensive government program to eliminate, given the investment that we have in the new equipment, if anything else.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Amtrak also gets lobbying help from the labor unions that represent Amtrak workers worried about losing their jobs. Regional union directors from all over the country have converged on Washington in recent weeks to contact members of Congress. Officials of the United Transportation Union reported to their head office one day last week on the progress they were making.

TOM RETTERATH, Washington United Transportation Union: Well, they're not too good as far as voting for Amtrak right now. The senators from my state, the state of Washington, they're pretty much committed to the Reagan program right now.

SPEAKER, UTU: In the Northeast I don't think we really have a problem.

HOUSTON KITTS, UTU: Getting the real hard commitments is pretty tough because they want to see how the budget as a whole flies with all these amendments.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: In the Senate, where the vote is thought to be close, lobbyists include pro-Amtrak senators who have gone all out to show their concern over its possible elimination.

Sen. JOSEPH BIDEN, (D) Delaware: We don't think about it very much, and apparently the President doesn't seem to think it's much of a factor. But mass transportation as a whole in the cities of Philadelphia and in Baltimore and in New York City and in other areas along the route would be devastated.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Democrat Joe Biden commutes by train daily to his home in Delaware. He and other senators from the heavily rail-traveled Northeast held a news conference at Washington's Union Station, and two of them, including Maryland Democrat [sic] Charles Mathias, boarded a train to Baltimore to talk with passengers.

Sen. CHARLES MATHIAS, (R) Maryland: I mean, you could drive, you could get on an airplane. Why are you on the train?

PASSENGER: Because it's convenient, it's efficient, and it's comfortable.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Amtrak critics say the reason it's survivedas long as it has is the so-called pork barrel, support members of Congress give to projects that benefit their home state or district.

Sen. WILLIAM ARMSTRONG, (R) Colorado: I think Amtrak is a program which, if carefully studied, does draw one's attention to the worst impulses in members of Congress. Just historically, if you'd look over the years at where Amtrak passenger trains go, you'd find that they go through certain cities and certain districts which just happen to be the areas which have been represented historically by people who have been very influential in Congress. Sure, it's been in that sense a pork barrel kind of proposition.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: But Amtrak's defenders say while there may have been some pork involved in the rail service's early days, that's no longer the case. In fact, they say now just the opposite is true, and that's what's made the Reagan administration decide to go after Amtrak. Republican Congressman Silvio Conte of Massachusetts.

Rep. SILVIO CONTE, (R) Massachusetts: Numbers. Numbers. You figure that there are more congressmen and more senators who don't have Amtrak and they're playing numbers. And they figure this is an easy one to wipe out.

WOODRUFF: How smart a tactic is that on their part?

Rep. CONTE: Well, I think it's pretty smart.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: But that doesn't stop Amtrak's President Claytor from defending the system's efficiency.

Pres. CLAYTOR [March 15, 1985]: Now, revenue-to-cost ratio, which I look upon as my bottom line, what percentage of our total costs are covered by our own revenue, has improved from 48% a few years ago to 56% in '84, 58% this year, and I'm shooting, and I will make, 60% in 1986.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: But before another congressional committee, Claytor acknowledged that Amtrak will always need some federal subsidy.

Pres. CLAYTOR [April 29, 1985]: But I don't want to leave the impression with this committee that we can break even. I don't think it can be done ever unless and until something that won't ever happen, which is the total elimination of all indirect subsidies to air and bus transportation.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Budget Director Stockman argues, however, that the 25,000 people who work for Amtrak are one of the best reasons to do away with it.

Mr. STOCKMAN [April 29, 1985]: It carries 54,000 people a day and it employs 25,000 people to do it. In other words, we hire one person for every two we move. That's just an indication of the economic nonsense that we're involved with in this system.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: But Claytor argues that it's those very employees that make dismantling Amtrak so foolish. He says it would cost the government several billion dollars in pay to laid-off workers, instead of the savings the administration is looking for.

Pres. CLAYTOR [April 29, 1985]: If you discontinue service you incur this labor protection. With the labor protection costs as a new liability, they eat up between 80 and 90 percent of the savings resulting from taking the train off. It was my phrase that I've used before. We're in a Catch-22 situation.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: As persuasive as that argument is, even Amtrak supporters like Indiana Republican Dan Quayle say some cuts are inevitable.

Sen. DAN QUAYLE, (R) Indiana: I believe that when you're looking at a $200-billion deficit, you're looking at a subsidy of $684 million last year, many are requesting that again this year, that there are going to have to be some alternative plans. That was not the thinking up until this year. I think up to this year it's fairly well settled that the federal government would subsidize -- would continue to subsidize it very, very heavily. Things have changed.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: However, another Amtrak supporter, Congressman Conte of Massachusetts, isn't ready to concede anything. In fact, Conte says the move to wipe out Amtrak is largely an effort by one man in the administration.

Rep. CONTE: If I were to rate it I'd say about 75, 80 percent is a personal crusade conducted by Dave Stockman. As I said, he never liked Amtrak. I don't think he understands Amtrak. I don't think he ever rode an Amtrak. It's fine and dandy for the administration, most of them ride in private airplanes, and they really don't know what Amtrak means to the traveling public.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Another Republican Amtrak supporter, Senator Mathias of Maryland, sees the administration motivated by a desire to reduce government's role in society.

Sen. MATHIAS: They have tried to use it as a symbol of the fact that this is something which traditionally in the American past has been a private company and therefore it's wrong, it is morally wrong, for the government to be having anything to do with it.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: A Republican opponent of Amtrak bears out Mathias' point.

Sen. ARMSTRONG: I love passenger railroad trains. The question is whether or not taxpayers ought to be forced to subsidize it or whether it ought to be paid for by the people who use it. And my conviction is that the people who ride on trains ought to pay to ride on them. But the reality is that long-distance railroad passenger service is an anachronism. It's like the stagecoaches of 100 years ago.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: For those reasons and others, many Amtrak supporters say while the Reagan administration may not get everything it wants, it likely will win at least a 10- or 15-percent cutback in Amtrak this year.

Sen. QUAYLE: I just don't believe that they really feel in their heart of hearts that they have the votes to zero it out in one year. I just don't find that support here in the Senate. I'm fairly certain that the support does not rest in the House of Representatives. But I do believe that they can claim victory at the end because the final resolution will be less money than what they spent last year on Amtrak. I don't think there's any doubt about it.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Even Amtrak's strongest backers are worried about its fate in the long run.

Rep. CONTE: I think a lot of people are laying back saying, "Oh, God, they're never going to kill Amtrak," you know. I'm not so sure about that.

WOODRUFF: What has Amtrak supporters most concerned is that the procedure the administration's allies will use to try to cut Amtrak and other domestic programs is an up-or-down vote on an entire package of spending cuts, a move that will appeal to senators' desire to cut the deficit across the board. Even if Amtrak survives in a single vote to restore most of its funding, something it is likely to do, it is not at all clear that its support is strong enough to counteract a drive to hold the line on federal spending overall. Too Young To Drink?

MacNEIL: Last year President Reagan and Congress joined forces in an effort to establish a nationwide 21-year-old drinking age. As a result, states have until October of next year to raise their drinking age limits or lose 5% of their federal highway funds. Charles Bennett of public station WGBH-Boston updates us now on the situation in Massachusetts, where the drinking age will go from 20 to 21 on June 1st.

CHARLES BENNETT, WGBH [voice-over]: Boston College; 8,600 students. Clean-cut, middle-class kids on a stately campus on the edge of the city.

WESTON JENKS, counselor, Boston College: Ninety-five or more percent of the students drink.

BENNETT [voice-over]: Northeastern University. Nearly 50,000 students in the heart of the city.

LEE KERRY, student: You're away from your parents, you're with all your friends. You know, go out and get drunk.

FERN SMITH, student: And there's nothing else to do.

Ms. KERRY: Yeah, it's pretty boring, you see? Go out and get drunk, that's right.

Ms. SMITH: There's nothing else to do.

Ms. KERRY: I mean, no matter what people do there's always the drinks involved.

BENNETT [voice-over]: Drinking, legal and illegal, has been a fact of life on campuses as long as anyone can remember. Since the Vietnam era in the early '70s, when many states lowered their drinking ages, many schools have opted to run their own pubs, like this one at Boston College, in the belief that sanctioned drinking on campus is better than unsanctioned drinking off campus.

PAUL CHEBATOR, Dean, Boston College: We're trying to promote the idea of responsible drinking for those people that are of legal age. I think that's basically what we're trying to do. I think if we go out and totally ban the use of alcohol, and I think in some ways we're doing a disservice to our students because we're not giving them an opportunity to learn how to use alcohol responsibly.

JOHN O'BRYANT, V.P., Northeastern University: We work very hard on this campus at trying to educate students relative to doing things in moderation. You know, it's unrealistic for us to tell students not to drink. I mean, you can't say to students, "Don't do as I do, do as I say do."

BENNETT [voice-over]: But the reality is that within months drinking, moderate or otherwise, will be legally out of bounds to the majority of college undergraduates across the country, and the question now is, will the new laws work?

JEFF ARMENTI, student, Boston College: I'd put a couple of C-notes down there about half the people are under 20.

BENNETT: Have all of you gotten in somewhere where you weren't allowed to go in? [affirmative] Is there anybody here who hasn't gotten in to someplace?

STUDENT: It's more, you know, frequently -- you get in more often than you won't get in. I've never been turned away, and when I came up here I was 17. And I've never had a problem.

BENNETT: Do you have a fake ID?

STUDENT: Yeah.

ROBERT LAWRENCE, police detective: It's at epidemic proportions now with false identifications and phony drivers licenses and so forth.

BENNETT [voice-over]: Boston police detectives Robert Lawrence and John Dennehy are part of a stepped-up enforcement effort already underway to curtail underaged drinking and the use of fake IDs in Boston.

JOHN DENNEHY, police detective: We've had problems at this market over here on the right, and we've made several arrests. They have violations for selling to minors.

BENNETT [voice-over]: The enforcement campaign focuses on the sellers of liquor rather than the buyers, since bars and package stores are at the mercy of the Boston Licensing Board and number only in the hundreds, while college student drinkers in Boston number over 100,000. Detectives Lawrence and Dennehy nab maybe one or two liquor-license holders a week for selling to underage kids. That's enough to make them minor heroes here at the Licensing Board, but hardly enough to solve the problem. Bar and liquor store owners complain that they are now the primary casualties of a law really aimed at their young customers.

STORE OWNER: We are ready, willing and able, if we would, to prosecute this young man. He's got a damn nerve coming in there and doing this to these people who've got their life savings stuck in this market.

STORE OWNER: They're jeopardizing a person's ability to earn an income.

ANDREA GARCIULA, Boston Licensing Board: Don't come into this board afterward and say, "I saw an ID." I don't even care if it wasn't a duplicate Mass. license. There are real Mass. licenses going around that aren't duplicates that are being doctored and that people are using. Just take a risk on losing the sale of a case of beer rather than losing your license, and then you won't have anything to worry about.

BENNETT [voice-over]: For those who get caught, the price can be high. This store owner had his license suspended for two weeks for selling beer to two underage kids. But in the long run such a suspension may look cheap to a store compared to the alternative. This package store across from Northeastern's main quadrangle sells several hundred cases of beer a week to a largely college crowd. A tough ID crackdown might drive away thousands of dollars every week in crucial student sales.

[on camera] The consensus on campuses is that, law or no law, kids who want to drink will always find a way to do so. They always have.

Ms. SMITH: You want to be liked. And it seems like the college attitude is, as a freshman, you have to be social. Social means drinking and getting to know one another with alcohol.

Mr. JENKS: Most students begin to drink very early on. We're discovering now that many students began to drink as early as while they were in grammar school. The vast majority of them will not cause themselves or anyone else any trouble. I don't think the passage of a law restricting drinking will have the effect of changing social mores or attitudes or outlooks, which are really what controls the drinking and the use of drugs in this country.

MacNeil: That report was by Charles Bennett of public station WGBH-Boston. VE Day Remembered

LEHRER: Finally tonight, VE Day. V for victory, E for Europe. Forty years ago today Nazi Germany surrendered, ending its failed, cruel, horrendous war to dominate Europe and eventually the world. The anniversary was remembered in various ways in Europe. Here are two reports from Visnews.

JOHN HALE, Visnews [voice-over]: The commemoration service at Westminster Abbey was attended by veterans from all the armed forces, Her Majesty the Queen and politicians. They heard the head of the English Church, Archbishop Runcie, say only war could have destroyed the Nazi regime.

ROBERT RUNCIE, Archbishop of Canterbury: It was not a panacea for every ill, but the victory which closed down Belsen, Buchenwald and Auschwitz is in itself sufficient cause for thanksgiving.

HALE [voice-over]: Across the Channel in France, the main commemoration ceremony took place near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Surrounded by a sea of regimental flags, President Mitterrand, a former member of the French Resistance, laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier.

STEVE ROWE, Visnews [voice-over]: And they were wreath-laying ceremonies too in Washington. In a VE Day message to the Kremlin, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev emphasized that divide when he launched a blistering attack upon the United States, describing American imperialism as a real threat to world peace and a war menace to mankind. There was a final thrust by Russian soldiers into the heart of Hitler's German Reich that helped end the war. Forty years on, Soviet politicians and soldiers joined East German leader Eric Honekker in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Soviet war memorial. The onset of peace divided Germany into two political ideologies personified by the heavily guarded Berlin Wall. In West Germany, President Richard von Weizacker said Germany's division should be blamed on Hitler, not the victorious allies. In a somber address to the Parliament in Bonn, he described the Nazi capitulation as a day of liberation from tyranny. He said Hitler's National Socialism had been a reign of terror with its utter contempt for human life. Painful memories of Nazi Germany were sharpened in a ceremony at Cologne Cathedral attended by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The cathedral had been one of the few buildings left standing in the bombed city when the end of the war came and a new chapter in German history began.

LEHRER: Roger Rosenblatt, essayist for us and Time magazine, also has some thoughts about VE Day.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Toward the end of his life in 1827, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe rode out for a picnic in the woods near Weimar, a place of serenity for the German poet in his youth. A few years earlier he had observed that inevitably one must think of death sometimes. But, he said, I'm fully convinced that our spirit is indestructible. It is like the sun which seems to set only in our earthly eyes but which in reality shines unceasingly. The woods in which Goethe walked became known as Buchenwald. One hundred years after Goethe, Europe's sun did set in places like Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

World War II brought a special kind of darkness, first because the war touched everywhere, not just the Western Front, but Piccadilly and the Champs Elysee. Second, because it was not only a war but a crime, an act of national murder against the helpless and innocent. On May 8th, 1945 the world saw something of both Goethe's sun and Hitler's night as Europe emerged from six years in a dark and terrifying room into sudden light. Oh, the cheering in the streets. Kiss me for victory, sweetheart. There on display was the indestructible human spirit and there were the dead in piles in ditches. There was also the promise of a peaceful future that would soon show itself to settle somewhere between the night and the sun, a Europe neither dead nor wholly revived.

No more grand, expanding empires. No more romanticism like Goethe's, the egotism and sentimentality of 19th century European romanticism having found its deadly end in the Nazis and the Fascists. Victory in Europe may be said to have lasted one day. American and Russian soldiers met and embraced one another at the Elbe River. Andy Rooney, then a staff writer for the Army publication Stars and Stripes, exulted, "You get the feeling of exuberance, a great new world opening up."

So how should we celebrate VE Day 40 years later with the Europe that was set free now cut in half? Behold, the great new liberated world. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland. Come see the greatest wall since China's. One notices little hugging at the Elbe these days. Only a few weeks ago a Soviet soldier in East Germany shot and killed a U.S. military officer for trespassing. Perhaps VE Day requires a more moderate reaction than celebration. There are things simply to consider. The pain of proud nations at the sight of thugs in uniform blackening the streets. The rows of white crosses extending into a green silence. Families back home clustered by the radio. One must also consider how quickly and easily the world allowed a madman to seize it by the throat.

Whatever else the victory in Europe represented, it was centrally the triumph over pitiless evil. A British journalist who witnessed the liberation of Bergen-Belsen wrote in his dispatch, "It is my duty to describe something beyond the imagination of mankind." But the death camps were not beyond the imagination of people. They were the inventions of people whose spirit, we learned, can be bright as sunshine, black as night.

MacNEIL: Once again the main stories of the day. President Reagan said the Soviet Union is developing a new first-strike missile. A former official of the Defense Department was sentenced to prison for insider trading on the stock market. Artificial heart patient William Schroeder was reported to be suffering from a severe neurological problem. The U.S. and its allies in World War II celebrated the 40th anniversary of VE Day. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.