The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, the Oliver North trial judge said President Bush will not have to testify, but former President Reagan might, the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan was closed and President Bush appealed for Americans to help each other. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, we go to a News Maker Interview with the Governor of Alaska about the cold wave gripping his state, then a debate over a controversial immigration plan that could affect thousands of Central American refugees. Next, a documentary report on what many are calling trash TV and on to a special series of black history month conversations. Tonight we hear from psychologist and author James Comer, and finally a Roger Rosenblatt essay on living with dangers.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President Bush will not have to testify at Oliver North's trial but former President Reagan may. That was the ruling today in Washington by U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesal. He will preside over the trial of the former White House aide beginning tomorrow. In throwing out the Bush subpoena, Gesal said North's lawyers had failed to show President Bush had any information that was relevant to the charges against North. He said he would keep the issue open on whether to order Reagan's testimony as well as parts of the former President's diary. North will be tried on 12 felony charges ranging from destruction of government documents to lying to Congress. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: America's top ranking diplomat in Afghanistan, Ambassador John Glassman, closed the U.S. Embassy in Kabul today, ending a 40 year U.S. presence in that country. The move came amid growing concern for the safety of U.S. diplomatic personnel after the Soviet Union completes its troop withdrawal by February 15th. We have a report from Nick Gowling of Independent Television News.

NICK GOWLING: The Embassy has spent months preparing for possible evacuation. Washington had been steadily scaling down the number of diplomats, Marines and staff over the past year. In recent weeks, sensitive documents and equipment had been shipped out to the Indian capital, Delhi. For the Marines withdrawal marks a welcome end to what's become one of the most dangerous postings in the world. There's always been the worry of revenge attacks by supporters of the Soviet backed government as well as invasion by asylum seekers. The closure ceremony was simple, no bugle, the minimum of formality. The message of taking the flag back to Washington was clear. American diplomats fear for their safety. The State Department does not believe Kabul is safe with the present regime in power. Mr. Glassman underlined the danger by leading his staff across the compound to a small memorial to the former American Ambassador "Spike" Dubs. Mr. Dub was kidnapped, then murdered during a bungled rescue attempt here in 1979. Today's closure came several days sooner than expected. The plan had been to fly out at mid day but snow has closed the airport and the 11 Americans now remain grounded here indefinitely.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Soviet backed Afghan President Najibullah denounced the U.S. move. Back in Washington, State Department Spokesman Charles Redman accused the Soviets of continuing what he called a scorched earth policy, mounting heavy bombing and artillery attacks during its withdrawal.

MR. LEHRER: President Bush sounded a call for volunteerism today. He did it in a short talk before Elizabeth Dole was sworn in as his Secretary of Labor, and he did it in spite of a bad cold that continues to plague him.

PRESIDENT BUSH: John Kennedy challenged us to ask ourselves what we could do for our country and let us also each day ask what can I do for another person, how can I make someone else's load a little lighter, how can I hope to go a little farther, how can I be a friend to someone lonely, or a comfort to someone in pain. Each of us can make this a kinder and gentler nation just by the way we treat one another each day.

MR. LEHRER: Washington Lawyer Ron Brown today was moved another big step toward the chairmanship of the National Democratic Party. His remaining opponent, former Oklahoma Congressman Jim Jones, pulled out today. The formal vote of the Democratic National Committee is February 10th. Brown will be the first black to hold the top Democratic position. He was the national convention manager for Jesse Jackson in the 1988 campaign.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Canada pulled out of joint cold weather exercises in Alaska today as the death toll rose to eight from the crash of a Canadian Forces transport plane on Sunday. It was not known whether the record cold in Alaska contributed to the disaster, but the crash occurred as the large C-130 was trying to land in icy fog at 50 degrees below zero.

MR. LEHRER: Former Olympic star Bruce Kimball was sentenced to 15 years in prison today. It was his punishment for killing two people and injuring four others in Tampa, Florida, last August. The 25 year old diver was found guilty of driving his car into a group of teenagers. Tests showed him to be legally drunk at the time. Kimball won a silver medal in the 1984 Olympics. Today in Tampa, the judge also placed Kimball on probation for an additional 15 years.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In West Berlin, an extreme right wing party led by a former SS soldier has won its first seats in the city parliament. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl today called the results a clear warning signal and several thousand West Berliners demonstrated against the right wing party last night and today. We have a report from Tom Brown of Worldwide Television News.

TOM BROWN: A strong showing by the Republican Party led by former Nazi SS soldier Franz Shoenhuber sent shock waves throughout West Germany. Thousands turned out into the streets of West Berlin to protest shouting anti-Nazi slogans. Shoenhuber and his party of right wing extremists clinched 11 seats in the West Berlin state legislature on a platform of ridding the city of foreign workers and those seeking asylum. Foreigners, mainly Turks, make up more than 10 percent of the population. The victory highlighted the fears among West Germans of competing with foreigners for jobs and housing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Two Shiite Moslem militias that have been fighting each other in Lebanon for more than a year signed a peace accord today. It was signed in Syria by leaders of the pro Syrian Amal militia and the pro Iranian Hezbollah. Amal's leader says he thinks the peace pact will help win the release of the Western hostages, many of whom are believed to be held by the Hezbollah.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to the cold in Alaska, a debate over an immigration policy, a report about television programming, some thoughts on black history and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - SEEKING ASYLUM

MR. LEHRER: We go first to an argument over an immigration problem. The problem has to do with people from Central America who come to the United States seeking political asylum and specifically what to do with them while they wait an answer to their asylum request. The U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service has ordered them to stay where they entered the country, meaning mostly the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. There is a lawsuit pending now which challenges that policy. We will hear both sides of the argument right after this brief background report by Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Sunrise over the Rio Grande. As another day begins, immigrants seeking legal entry into the United States crowd the bridge between Mexico and Brownsville, Texas. Not far from the bridge are more immigrants, mostly Central Americans, trying to enter the country illegal. Scenes like these are as predictable as the sunrise. But in recent months, the flow of illegal immigrants has increased dramatically due to the number of Nicaraguans fleeing economic and political conditions in their own country. Many of those who enter illegally come here to Immigration & Naturalization Service offices in Harlingen, Texas. They come to apply for political asylum, the only way they can stay in the country legally.

JERRY SEWELL, District Director, INS: In the last week of May of 1988, we had 408 applicants. We're up to the point that we've had 2000 applicants per week.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In the past six months, almost 29,000 illegal immigrants have applied for political asylum. Under the old rules, applicants were allowed to stay with friends and relatives elsewhere in the United States while the applications were being processed, but in December, that system was changed. Applicants were required to wait at their point of entry. The change meant more work for immigration officials in Harlingen, but they were confident it would help in the long run.

VIRGINIA KICE, Public Affairs, INS: The change will help in two ways. First of all, it will provide more efficient service for those individuals who have bona fide asylum cases. And secondly, I think what it's going to do is I think it's going to be somewhat of a deterrent for those individuals who are simply coming here for economic reasons and want a travel authorization to fan out all over the country. We hope the word will quickly get back to Central America that Harlingen is no longer providing a free ride.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The new rules stretched Harlingen's social services to the limit. Public and private shelters were quickly filled. People were forced to camp out wherever they could. As the numbers grew, so did the resentment of local residents.

LOCAL RESIDENT: Well, we've got enough people over here. Let 'em go back. They're not fleein' from hunger; they're fleein' because they want to get into our country.

SPOKESMAN: You don't think there's war down there --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But earlier this month, the rules were changed again. A federal court issued a temporary restraining order barring the INS from restricting the travel of immigrants applying for asylum. The lifting of restrictions touched off a mass exodus of refugees. Many of those who fled Texas came to Miami, where they hoped to find shelter and work in the city's large Latin community. City officials trying to cope with the sudden influx of refugees offered them temporary shelter in Miami Stadium. Maria Flores says she and her family fled from Nicaragua after her husband led a protest against low wages for construction workers.

INTERPRETER FOR MARIA FLORES: She says my husband was ill, we feared that the persecution would keep on going.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The number of Nicaraguans in Miami has grown to 100,000 in the last decade. Miami officials fear that number may double in a few years. They say social services have reached a breaking point and the city desperately needs federal assistance. Last week, city officials had to close the shelter at Miami Stadium to make way for the Baltimore Orioles' spring training. With the help of $100,000 in private donations, they were able to find housing for most of the 380 refugees. Another 200 taken in by the Catholic Archdiocese are still waiting.

CESAR ODIO, Miami City Manager: The immediate crisis is solved, but unless the Immigration Department and the federal government have a new national refugee policy, you will have crises like this many many more times.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Not yet solved is the question of whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to leave their point of entry while waiting asylum. That issue will be taken up tomorrow in a hearing before a federal judge in Texas.

MR. LEHRER: And now to a debate over that issue with E.J. Flynn, a staff attorney for Proyecto Libertad, one of the refugee advocacy groups suing the INS over its new policy. He joins us tonight from Houston, and Patrick Burns, Assistant Director of the Federation For American Immigration Reform, a non-profit organization working to end illegal immigration. INS declined to send a participant tonight. Mr. Flynn, why should these refugees be allowed to leave their point of entry?

E.J. FLYNN, Proyecto Libertad: That's included in the regulations that affect people applying for asylum under our immigration laws.

MR. LEHRER: No, but I'm asking you why should they be allowed to do so.

MR. FLYNN: They should be allowed to do so because presently in South Texas we're simply unequipped to deal with the problem and people are entitled under the law to present full asylum claims and to have access to counsel, to sources of evidence to demonstrate their reason for leaving their home country. Tomorrow we will be requesting that the judge order that the Immigration Service comply with the Administrative Procedures Act which allows for public comment before the Immigration Service or any federal agency can impose a new policy. And while that is pending, people will be allowed to move on as they had been previously.

MR. LEHRER: What was the harm in holding them in Harlingen?

MR. FLYNN: There was tremendous harm in holding them. The human suffering was extreme. These are people who had come up here who were fleeing literally for their lives in many situations who did have family members in other parts of this country who anticipated the support of those family members. With the new policy implemented by the Immigration Service, people were obliged to sleep in the fields, to sleep outside in the cold, and the harm was very apparent because people just had no source of support in South Texas.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Burns, you feel differently. You think the folks should stay where they come in, is that right?

PATRICK BURNS, Federation For American Immigration Reform: We do. What the Immigration Service is trying to do is to provide better services to speed asylum processing so that people can be either given asylum or denied asylum and put back over the border. Now the reality is is what Mr. Flynn has said, is that instead of having the asylum seekers stay in South Florida, where they are competing with Hispanic Americans and poor Americans on the bottom of the economic ladder, they should be allowed to go to Miami, where they compete with poor black Americans on the economic ladder. What we're saying instead is that we ought to enforce the law at the border and have a regular orderly process of admitting refugees, we should continue to take refugees, and we should probably continue to take refugees out of the refugee camps in Central America. There is a place for a legitimate refugee to go and that's refugee camps that exist all over Central America and Mexico.

MR. LEHRER: But what about Mr. Flynn's point that the living conditions for these people in Harlingen was so terrible and they also were deprived the right to go see their friends and their family members who were already here?

MR. BURNS: Well, their claim for coming to the United States was not to see friends or family members. Their claim was that they feared political persecution due to race, religion or politics. Now they didn't fee political persecution while they were in Mexico. They crossed over a thousand miles of Mexico to come to the United States. And, furthermore, I mean, if we look at what's happened in Miami, they've gone, if you believe Mr. Flynn, from the various road sides of Texas to the stadium in Miami. It's hardly an improvement. And what we have seen I think in low income housing across the nation is limits. We simply cannot take all of the world's displeased and dispossessed. We have to have limits. We should have an orderly process of admitting refugees.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Flynn, what about his point that these people are fleeing political persecution, why don't they just stay in Mexico? Aren't they coming here for other reasons?

MR. FLYNN: Well, these people are coming to the United States because this country is recognized as a country that offers refuge to people fleeing persecution. Unfortunately, people do not feel that they would have that opportunity in Mexico and possibly with good reason. I mean, in the United States we are party to international conventions, and we have domestic legislation and our point is that people should be allowed to present their case and they should be able to do so in places where they have some source of support. The immigration law does allow people to apply for asylum at their place of residence and that also is a part of due process because where people have sources of support, they can properly present a claim.

MR. LEHRER: What about his additional point? What's the -- he asked the question -- what's the difference between living on a road side in a difficult situation, Harlingen, Texas, and living in a baseball stadium in Miami?

MR. FLYNN: Well, certainly there are some people who don't have homes to go to in Miami. That simply demonstrates the desperation that they felt when they left their situation in Central America, but by far the great majority of people who have gone to Miami and to other parts of the United States, they do have a place to go and it's only the unfortunate few who end up requiring social services which it's very important to provide. I might point out that it isn't nearly Nicaraguans or only Nicaraguans. Nicaraguans comprise about 50 percent of the people who are coming across. People are also fleeing very desperate conditions in El Salvador and Guatemala at the same time.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Burns, what is the harm in letting these people to go wherever it is if their family lives in Minnesota, or lives in Miami, or wherever, to go and wait the process? What's wrong with that?

MR. BURNS: I think the danger is that once people disappear into the United States, especially if they're not legitimate refugees or legitimate asylum applicants, that they simply will not show up for a hearing, it will abscond.

MR. LEHRER: Is there evidence that that is actually happening?

MR. BURNS: Oh, absolutely. We have thousands and thousands of abscondees every year and most of the Nicaraguans present very little evidence to justify their asylum claim. What we really have going on here is a Mariel boat lift.

MR. LEHRER: Let me make sure I understand. What they do is they go to an INS office say in Harlingen and say I request political asylum and then they disappear?

MR. BURNS: And then they disappear. They apply for asylum because the paper work in and of itself gives them a status to work and to continue. We have the new Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, and so we actually see an increase in asylum applicants because people are looking for paper in order to work.

MR. LEHRER: Does your study of the situation confirm that as well, Mr. Flynn, that many of these people just come and use this as a way to get in the country rather than to be legitimately fleeing political persecution?

MR. FLYNN: No, I should point out that these people are turning themselves into the Immigration Service in South Texas with addresses and they are remaining within the system for one thing because of their need for employment authorization. So it's incorrect to say that these people are absconding in great numbers. Some people might be dropping out at the present time, but beyond that, it's incorrect to characterize people as taking advantage of the system and it does this country wrong because the fact is that people are fleeing extremely desperate conditions which have been documented by international groups such as the UN and Amnesty International, and we should err, if at all, on the side of providing people an opportunity to present their case, and the reason that they are coming to the United States, and following that, we should address the conditions that are causing people to flee. The condition is extremely desperate right now and the situation in this country is desperate, but it's a mistake to speak in terms of manning the barricades and keeping the people out. What we should do is take care of the problem that exists and then try to address its causes.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Burns.

MR. BURNS: Well, I think one of the things we saw with the Mariel boat lift is that solutions often can compound the problems. I remember in April of 1980 when the New York Times said that we should send the largest possible boat to the Port of Mariel and start taking the Havanna 10,000 as they were then called. And then a few months later we had 110,000 people in South Florida. This is the same sort of situation. The word has gone back to Nicaragua that we will take anybody who comes and that by applying for asylum, that simple act, you are able to legally circumvent the new immigration law. What we're seeing is the kind of refugee policy that we had for Southeast Asia, an orderly departure program in which people went to camps, refugee camps, and second and third nations. We will then admit them through an orderly system after looking at their documents that way. If I might address also one of Mr. Flynn's points, there has never been a case of anyone deported from the United States, backed either Nicaragua or El Salvador, who has come to personal harm due to anything he ever claimed on asylum application.

MR. LEHRER: Is that true, Mr. Flynn?

MR. FLYNN: No, I think that's absolutely false. I know that the Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have done studies on what does happen to asylum applicants when they return to their countries. I think that is simply untrue and it severely under plays the severity of the situation in those countries. We must acknowledge that people are coming here for their lives and they will not be deterred. You cannot use the concept of deterrence with refugees. It's like suggesting that people won't flee a hurricane but would remain to face the consequences.

MR. LEHRER: Finally, gentlemen, let me make sure that I understand this lawsuit tomorrow. There is a federal judge -- there is a temporary restraining order in effect now that keeps INS from enforcing this new policy and you all, those of you all on that other side in the lawsuit are asking for a permanent injunction and that's what he's going to rule on tomorrow, is that correct?

MR. FLYNN: That's correct. We're simply asking the judge to order the Immigration Service to publish their new policy requiring people to remain in South Texas so that there'll be an opportunity for public comment because it's a major policy change and this sort of change really deserves public scrutiny.

MR. LEHRER: If the judge rules that way tomorrow, Mr. Burns, what would be the impact?

MR. BURNS: I think the impact is that we will see a tremendous influx of Nicaraguans and El Salvadorans to the United States and unfortunately, it won't do anything to really solve the problem, because legitimate refugees coming to the United States should be going to refugee camps and they have an alternative to coming to the United States, an alternative to breaking our laws and an alternative to absconding.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Flynn, you see the impact, if the judge were to rule your way tomorrow, the impact would be different, is that correct?

MR. FLYNN: Yes. Well, of course, the people would continue to travel to the various parts of the United States where they have sources of support and quite frankly it's a difficult problem for this country and it's important to address it now and not to try to close it off and relegate it to refugee camps elsewhere in the world. The United States does play a major role in this hemisphere and it's time that we take responsibility for some of the consequences of our actions.

MR. LEHRER: All right, Mr. Flynn, Mr. Burns, thank you both very much. NEWS MAKER - BRRRRR

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now the Alaskan deep freeze. For more than two weeks, Alaska has been suffering from some of the coldest weather ever recorded even for Alaska. It's so cold in some parts of the state today that thermometers can't even record the low temperatures. Mid morning today in Fairbanks the temperature was minus 50, while in Prudhoe Bay, it was minus 39. But the Weather Service said the wind chill factor made it feel like 96 degrees below zero. Further South in Anchorage, it was only minus 1, but it was snowing and the wind chill made it feel like minus 55. Over the weekend, the coldest spot was in the Village of Tanana, West of Fairbanks. The temperature hit minus 76. Meteorologists are predicting this arctic freeze will hit the Continental United States by the middle of the week, but for now the cold front is stalled over Alaska, and the Governor has declared a state of emergency. Here with us now from public station KTOO in Juno, the state capital, is Alaska's Governor, Steve Cowper. Mr. Governor, welcome. First, just how cold is it right now in Alaska?

GOV. STEVE COWPER, Alaska: Well, Charlayne, it's pretty cold depending on where you are. The temperatures that are now in Western and Northern Alaska have been lower on the average last two to three weeks than at any other time in recorded history. So it's a matter not only of how low the temperature is but how long that kind of weather has been with us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Alaska is traditionally associated with cold temperatures, but this one has caused you to call a state of emergency. Why?

GOV. COWPER: Well, calling a state of emergency gives us the flexibility to respond to individual situations that might merit attention. For instance, a village may run low on heating oil. If that's the case, it allows us to get that heating oil on an airplane, get it out to the village and distributed so that people won't freeze.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why is that? I mean, the state of emergency does what exactly? Does it mobilize vehicles, resources, or just what?

GOV. COWPER: Well, it basically cuts the bureaucratic red tape that otherwise we'd have to go through. Normally what we'd do is to declare an emergency for a specific place but that is about a half day exercise to get that done. We know that if something happens now in a community we'll have to respond in a hurry.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What kinds of things are happening?

GOV. COWPER: Well, we have actually a pretty good result so far. In Northern and Western Alaska, there are mostly Eskimo and Athabascan Indian people. They are accustomed to dealing with this kind of temperature and things are doing okay, but as it begins to carry into its third week, there is a substantial chance that we are going to have to bring fuel to some of the villages as well as make food drops. You have to bear in mind that those villages and towns in Northern and Western Alaska are not connected with the rest of Alaska by a road system. We have to do all of our supplying by air and, in fact, some of the airplanes don't work at very low temperatures. So we have to think about what we're doing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is that being affected now, the transportation system, in any significant way? Because I read, for example, that the gasoline was not freezing but becoming so thick that it wouldn't run through the cars.

GOV. COWPER: Well, actually that's more of a problem with fuel oil than anything else. Fuel oil in some of the villages where the temperature's down in 60 to 70 below range, it turns into sort of gel and it doesn't run. So that kind of situation can be rectified and people have to know how to do it. The supply situation isn't critical at the moment but it could be very soon. In most of the small remote villages the schools are the place where people can go in case they run out of heating oil in their homes. They can go to the schools. The schools have a pretty sure supply of fuel oil and incidentally food, so we think we have it under control but you never can tell when a situation might arise that we have to respond to in a hurry.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is the most serious problem that you think you're facing right now?

GOV. COWPER: Well, I think probably the potential that some of the villages could run out of food or fuel in a situation where the temperatures would be so low that we couldn't, that we might not be able to respond to it. For instance, if we had to fly an airplane over a village there the temperature was 70 below 0, we'd probably have to fly fairly high and make an air drop because ironically the air is warmer above those kinds of temperatures. We could operate a C-103 for instance and make an air drop there but that would be a very tough situation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But there was some speculation that the C-130 that the Canadians were using to participate in these military exercises that crashed and caused the death of 8 people was due to the weather. Do you have anything specific on that? Has that been determined?

GOV. COWPER: Charlayne, I don't know what the particular determination of the cause of that crash would be. But my guess would be that the pilot probably had no experience in dealing with the so-called ice fog which develops around Fairbanks during extremely cold periods of time. What it is is frozen car exhausts, the matter that comes out of chimneys, that freezes right over the city and creates an impenetrable fog. And probably that pilot had not seen anything like that before. That could very well have been the case. That's just a guess on my part. I don't have anything official. It was a very tragic thing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I remember from my school days going to school in Alaska that it was always really cold walking to school in 40 degrees below. What is so unusual about this? I mean, were people just not prepared forthese extremes and wind chill or whatever, what makes this one so different?

GOV. COWPER: Well, I think actually the record has shown that people were, in fact, prepared for this, particularly in the villages. What is so different about this year's temperature is that it's gone down lower than any other winter on record and it's stayed in that extreme range for much longer than anybody can remember.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are people taking it with very good humor, or getting a little worried about it?

GOV. COWPER: Well, I think people are pretty philosophical about it. I know I talked to a radio announcer in McGrath, Alaska, yesterday, and it was only 40 below he said and everybody in town was enjoying the sunshine; it had been 75 below a couple of days previous to that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Gov. Cowper, on that sunshiny note, we wish you some more warmth and thank you very much for being with us.

GOV. COWPER: Thank you. FOCUS - TRASH T.V.?

MR. LEHRER: Last week representatives of television stations from all over the country gathered in Houston looking for programs to buy for their buyers and they found the producers of many controversial programs, both old and new, competing for their attention. Betty Ann Bowser of public station KUHT Houston reports.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: San Francisco television station owner Jim Gabert is on a serious shopping expedition. [Sales pitch]

MS. BOWSER: After listening to the sales pitch, Gabert decides to buy the Gong Show for his West Coast Independent Station. Then he moves across the convention floor to look at more product. Gabert is among the thousands of men and women who are trying to figure out which shows to buy at the National Association of Television Program Executives meeting in Houston. The choices this year are many from the sublime to the ridiculous -- tried and true game shows -- talk shows -- and this new show which challenges viewers to pit their brawn and wit against a troop of American gladiators. Millions of dollars are made and lost in syndicated television where four out of every five shows fail, but when a show makes it, it's big bucks for the station, for the syndicator, and the talent. Oprah Winfrey is queen of the talk show circuit. In most every market she's unbeatable. Subject matter ranges from star interviews to violence in the streets, but always, Ms. Winfrey says, her show is based on reality.

OPRAH WINFREY, Talk Show Host: So it doesn't surprise me that television is becoming more reality based, because I have always known that is what people wanted to see. They want to see their lives, their neighbors' lives reflected as accurately and as real on television as possible because that's just the way we live now.

MS. BOWSER: Another more controversial talk show delivering good ratings is Geraldo, hosted by former ABC newsman Geraldo Rivera. His show is even more reality based, some say too much so, and when a fight broke out on one of Rivera's shows leaving him with a broken nose, many of the critics cried foul, accusing him of trash television.

MS. BOWSER: And what do you consider to be trash television?

GERALDO RIVERA, Talk Show Host: I consider those articles to be trash articles actually. I think that the term, the pejorative term, is yet another example of frustrated critics seeking to define something that they can't control and something that puts them into shock and dismay as it continues to prosper. I'm sure that jealousy is part of the equation. You know, it's impossible for me to get into the minds and souls of these critics if theyhave any souls, but I'm sure jealousy is a factor.

MS. BOWSER: The term "trash television" is most frequently used when the critics talk about this man, Morton Downey, Jr. He doesn't even pretend to be a talk show host. He's famous for throwing guests off the air, haranguing members of the audience and screaming at anyone who may not share his point of view.

MORTON DOWNEY, JR., Talk Show Host: I'm an advocate, I'm not a host.

MS. BOWSER: Why do you have to make so much noise being an advocate?

MORTON DOWNEY, JR.: Because no one's listened to us, no one's listened to the middle class in this country for too long. We went from 83 percent in this country being middle class after World War II down to 49 percent of this country being middle class today. That is a disintegration of our middle class.

MS. BOWSER: Is what you do trash?

MORTON DOWNEY, JR.: Trash is something you find in garbage pails outside of every home in the United States. When you reach in and you pull out a piece of that trash, it represents a piece of someone's life. It's something that had a part to do with their life. What's wrong with finding out what that meant to them?

MS. BOWSER: The success of Winfrey, Rivera and Downey has led to new shows this season more daring than ever in their approach to what's now called reality or tabloid television. In the running is Crimewatch, a pilot that if successful would take a look at the nation's worst crimes each week, no actors, no simulation, real crimes involving real people. Crimewatch is hosted by former CBS newsman Ike Pappas.

IKE PAPPAS, Host, Crimewatch: I'm asked all the time how can you work on a tabloid television program, after all, you've covered the Pentagon, you've been traveling with Presidents all your life, State Department officials, you've covered four Secretaries of Defense -- and, you know, all sorts of councils with princes and secretaries -- how can you stoop this low --

MS. BOWSER: How can you?

IKE PAPPAS: -- and I say wait a minute, I say, wait a minute, there's tabloid television and there's tabloid television. Yes, this is tabloid television, there's no doubt about it, this is tabloid, but it's very good tabloid.

MS. BOWSER: Good tabloid, reality based television, or just plain trash, the new developing genre has many critics.

REX REED, Media Critic: How many lesbian midget shows can you watch? I mean, you just can't have that many shows about abused truck drivers with three arms. You're going to run out of subject matter after a while.

ROBIN LEACH, Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous: Trash television will die its death. We are about one step away from its finality. That finality will come when somebody launches a show called Man Fights Shark To Death and nobody cares which one of them wins or loses. Now that's not too far from an awful joke.

MS. BOWSER: But the purveyors of the new television say there are limits to what they will do.

GERALDO RIVERA: Is anything appropriate? Obviously not. I mean, masturbation, you know, some forms of, of, you know, relationships, some perverse, necrophelia -- there are some things that you don't get into because they're not of general interest.

MORTON DOWNEY, JR.: I won't do a show on NAMBLA, the North America Boy Love Association. Who cares what some sick old degenerate what's to do with a three year old kid.

MS. BOWSER: Geraldo and Downey are hits, controversial or not. Crimewatch and others like it are struggling for stations sales, but Pappas thinks because the number of TV channels is growing the future is bright.

IKE PAPPAS: I mean, there is a channel now to tell you what's wrong with you, if you don't feel well. There's a sewing channel; there's a doctor channel. You know, there may even be a bowling channel and an ant house channel some day for people who like ant houses. Yeah, it's gonna become more and more refined. There will be more special information as we have freedom in the air waves and as more and more channels open, you got to fill those channels with information, and that is what the state of play is right now. The state of play is with more channels open, with more air time, there are many many more opportunities for people with ideas for programs.

MS. BOWSER: Thirty-five year old Bob Pittman discovered Downey after successfully launching the cable network MTV.

ROBERT PITTMAN, President, Quantum Productions: If, indeed, we have 60 channels of television available to the American public 24 hours a day, on the 60 channels it seems to me everything that there is a significant interest in ought to be represented. What's curious to me is a lot of the critics say oh, we shouldn't offer that. Why shouldn't we offer it? I mean, that's like saying we've got a library but we're going to vote on which books are going to be in the library and we're only going to put these 20 books in the library because those are the only ones we can all agree upon are good books. That's baloney. We ought to put every book in the library and let people choose what they want to read so they can develop.

MS. BOWSER: Do you think television should be as expansive as it's become today?

MORTON DOWNEY: Absolutely. It's okay for Playboy to do what they do, it's okay for Penthouse, it's okay for the Enquirer, for the Star. Why isn't it all right for television? Why are we so sacrosanct, why are we so elite that we can't burn once in a while? I think in five years people will say, yeah, Morton Downey, Morton Downey, Jr., yeah, oh, that was that guy, that meek, mild nice guy who was on television a couple of years ago. I think I'll be looked upon as a wimp.

MS. BOWSER: As the new tabloid reality shows grow in popularity, the old timers like program executive Philip Corvo are philosophical.

PHILIP CORVO, President, National Association Television Program Executives: The viewer is somewhat responsible for this because if they continue to watch the programs, naturally the producers are going to continue to make them available. As long as the viewer keeps watching, as long as the viewer is interested, then there will be more. Once the viewer begins to get bored with all of this, then some of them will fall by the way side. It all has to do with the viewer.

MS. BOWSER: What's next?

PHILIP CORVO: What's next? Gosh, I don't know.

MS. BOWSER: Many programers attending this convention say the popularity of the new shows will continue. That's because they believe the producer's claim that reality television offers the viewer a connection between what's on the screen and what goes on in everyday life. SERIES - BLACK HISTORY

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight we begin a weekly series of special conversations as we move into the month of February since 1926, a period set aside to take special note of the contributions of African Americans to this country's history. Our first black history month conversation features Dr. James Comer, a Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale University Child Study Center and most recently author of Maggie's American Dream, the Comer family history as told in part through the oral history of his mother, Maggie, born in poverty in 1904 in Mississippi. Through resourcefulness, courage, and hard work, Mrs. Comer and her husband Hugh raised four healthy children and after his untimely death, she carried on, putting each one through college. Recently I spoke with Dr. Comer about his views on black history.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What does your book add to black history?

DR. COMER: I've always been trying to tell the black experience and it's difficult to tell it without the story and some of the problems that the average black person had to deal with on an ongoing basis and deal with because of social policy that was harmful to blacks, and so as my mother attempts to get my sister into the band where the racist band leader didn't want her in, you see what was necessary on the part of blacks was not necessary on the parts of the average white person. So what the story shows is that blacks made the same effort to overcome poverty, to overcome all the obstacles that every other group made but that they had greater obstacles to overcoming those problems and it shows that in a way that is much more difficult so show when you talk about abstract principles and concepts and problems in general in history.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The history of immigrants though is that most immigrants are mistreated, have a hard time. What's different about blacks?

DR. COMER: The difference first of all is that most immigrant groups came from the old culture with their language intact, with their religion intact, and often they came in the same place in the old country and suddenly in the same place in the new country and were able to get into the political mainstream of the society in one generation. That allowed their leaders to go out into the society and get political, economic social power in a way that they could then protect the rights and opportunities of their people. Most people didn't make it because they worked hard or because they had exceptional talent or because they were educated. Most people made it because of the rising tide of affluence in this country so that people could go into the steel mills and into a variety of other areas and earn a living, take care of themselves and their family without an education. Now during the period that most immigrant groups were still doing that, blacks were still located in parts of the South where they couldn't vote, where they couldn't participate in the mainstream of the society, they couldn't get economic power. Moreover, there were many black people who have experienced slavery and the detrimental effects of slavery, forced dependency, a sense of inherent superiority, no future no matter how hard you worked you couldn't prepare yourself or your children for a better tomorrow.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Because you were owned.

DR. JAMES P. COMER: Because you were owned. All of those are harmful, they have detrimental psycho social consequences, and in addition to that, blacks were cut off from a culture and the social institutions within that culture that were direction giving, value setting, that gave people a sense of adequacy or well being, all of those are important psychological needs and blacks were cut off from those, and in many cases, the detriment of being cut off from one's own culture and the imposition of slave culture and consequences of that were transmitted from generation to generation. Now in some cases, in many cases, certainly in the case of many blacks that were able to overcome all and be successful despite all of the trauma, people were able to find institutions like the black church and to create extended families that function well and that made it possible then for them and their families to succeed. And that in a way is what my book shows. Maggie's American Dream shows that my father's family that found the church and that was enmeshed in that church culture worked reasonably well and functioned reasonably well, and they were in a position then to give their children and their children's children the opportunities needed to function in school and the larger world. My mother's family had more trouble. Her father was really a victim of slavery. His attitudes, the requirement that his children stand and fan him while he was eating his dinner is really a need that he had because he felt inadequate as a man as a result of his position in the society, a black man in the society. He was really imitating the white slave master under those circumstances. Now many families that were traumatized in that way have been traumatized generation after generation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What's the antidote? I mean, because there was a time when the Roots phenomenon of a few years ago made people want to go back and discover their past, including slavery, but there also seems to be this other part of black identity that wants to forget that ever happened.

DR. COMER: I think we should know about it, but I don't think we should dwell on it excessively. We should look at it, we should look at those effects, we should understand those effects, but we should also look in the periods after slavery and we should look in the struggle that blacks made to overcome the conditions of slavery, the sacrifice of those many black parents with no education at all who made remarkable efforts to make it possible for their children to succeed. Those stories are as important as Abraham Lincoln walking miles to get an education and all the other builders of our land. What they did is no more important than what those poor black families did to make it possible for their children to get a decent education and participate in the mainstream of society. Black people should know that and white people should know that because we must destroy the myth that -- because that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you say that black people don't want to work hard, that black people are not interesting in improving their position in society, if you say that, you've set up a self-fulfilling prophecy for many, and only the remarkable then can overcome the problems and the obstacles in the society. You cannot build barriers that are difficult for the average person to overcome and expect not to have differential outcomes among most groups. If most blacks have to climb a very high mountain to succeed, then you're going to see a disproportionate number of black failures. Blacks -- life, itself, provides a certain number of obstacles and blacks should have no more obstacles than the average white person has in the society and then when that occurs, then you're going to see the same kind of productivity and performance in the society.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you think that people of all colors should look on this month, Black History Month?

DR. COMER: I think it's important that we think about the experiences of blacks in the society because what it shows that without freedom and opportunity just as our forefathers believed, our forefathers of all color, without that you can create many problems. We don't know the reality and we don't know the difference between the black and white experience in this country. That's unfortunate because, in fact, when you really stop and think about it, America has done better in race relations than many other countries. In fact, we ought to be proud of what we've done as a country as opposed to what some other places and countries have done, and we need to talk about what happened and blacks and whites need to know what happened, know the difference between the black experience and the white experience and then compensate for that in ways that are fair to everybody. ESSAY - DANGER LURKING

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight some words about murder from essayist Roger Rosenblatt, Editor of U.S. News & World Report.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Murder strikes in the safest places. At a school playground in Stockton, California, a man in combat fatigues killed five children before turning his weapon on himself. The killings left the community dazed, the parents in mourning. Equally disturbing was the previous week's story concerning the murder of Dr. Katherine Hinant, an attractive 33 year old pathologist who was pregnant. Dr. Hinant was strangled and beaten to death in her office at Bellview Hospital Center in Manhattan. The police arrested Steven Smith, a 23 year old vagrant on parole for theft. Smith lives in secret in the hospital and often wore a lab coat to pass as one of the staff. What exactly is so troubling about a murder like that? Almost immediately the Hinant case recalls similar murders of the past which create their own file in the public memory, the murder of the 30 year old violinist, her naked body found strangled and hurled down a ventilation shaft in the Metropolitan Opera House July 1983, the 33 year old Chase Manhattan Bank women executive murdered in a stairwell at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel September 1982, the 23 year old drama student stabbed repeatedly on the roof of her West End Avenue apartment house December 1984. After every such killing, one notes that the poor women of the city are murdered in anonymity every day, while public shock seems reserved for the white upper middle class who are thought predestined to live safe from harm. In the Hinant case, the shock is compounded by the fact that the murder occurred not only to whom it did but where. A killing in an opera house is incongruous, on the roof of one's apartment house terrifying, but a murder in a hospital is a contradiction of terms. Movie makers often use hospital sites for murders for just that reason. Among the life saving people and the life saving apparatus, a killer trains his eyes on a victim. The victim is assured of being in a place where people are nursed to health. A murder in a hospital. The mind keeps a list of safe houses in the world and it is shaken when sanctuaries are violated. What may trouble people especially is that normal life ought to be a sanctuary, itself, the ordinary, productive, optimistic life of a pregnant pathologist studying slides in her office, or children at play in a school yard, or of anyone else, anywhere else. To see what ought to be the absolute safety of that normality crushed by a sudden force that wishes it dead seems at once familiar and incomprehensible. Law and sociology will explain these killings as part of a failed security system or of a flawed social system or an inept criminal justice system but the public feels them more as a constant hidden menace. The Hinant case like the killings in Stockton is the story of lives that ought never to have crossed. They crossed because the killer occupied the victim's territory effectively and visible. Who is that ordinary looking stranger walking towards you right now? RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, the Judge in the Oliver North trial ruled that President Bush could not be called as a witness but said former President Reagan might. The trial is set to begin tomorrow. U.S. diplomats closed down the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, the action was taken because of the violence that is expected to follow the final withdrawal of Soviet troops, and a jury in New York City tonight returned a guilty verdict against Lawyer Joel Steinberg. He was convicted of manslaughter in the killing of his illegally adopted six year old daughter. The case with its graphic charges of child abuse received national attention. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Thank you and good night.