The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, Soviet Pres. Gorbachev asked the people of Lithuania to stay in the Soviet Union, President Bush praised China for lifting martial law, and the Pentagon announced a plan to save $39 billion. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: After the News Summary, we go first to Lithuania and its straining for independence [FOCUS - BREAK WITH MOSCOW]. Joining us are three experts on the region and the Soviet Union. Prof. Stanley Vardys of the University of Oklahoma, Richard Pipes of Harvard, and George Breslauer of the University of California at Berkeley. Next a report of cable television [FOCUS - STATIC], consumer complaints lead to talk of government re-regulation. Then college sports [FOCUS - STUDENT ATHLETES], an interview with Dick Schultz, the Executive Director of the NCAA, on new rules voted at this week's convention, and finally [ESSAY - REVOLUTIONARY ARTISTS] Essayist Amei Wallach looks at the artists in East Europe's revolutions. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Mikhail Gorbachev today asked the people of Lithuania not to defect. He pleaded with them to stay in the Soviet Union. He made the extraordinary appeal in the Soviet republic's capital of Vilnius. Bill Neely of Independent Television News reports.

MR. NEELY: Mr. Gorbachev flew into his rebel republic and his biggest challenge today to be greeted by the Lithuanian Communists whose split with Moscow threatens his authority and the unity of the Soviet Union. He headed straight for the streets to confront a people who now want independence. For the next 40 minutes, there was an extraordinary public argument. At every turn, he fought Lithuanian nationalism blow for blow. As the arguments raged, Lithuanian flags were unfurled and dozens more militia men were ordered in to hold back the crowd. In Lenin Square where Lithuanian nationalists were hanged by Russians in the last century, Mr. Gorbachev laid flowers. Lenin gave Lithuania its brief independence 70 years ago. As the Soviet leader left the Square, Lithuanians were preparing another act of defiance. By mid afternoon, a third of a million people had gathered to chant for freedom. Mr. Gorbachev hasn't convinced them. Leaders of Lithuania's independence movement told the crowd, our freedom was stolen, we want it back. Then there was a five minute silent protest at Soviet rule, the rally ended with the anthem of a nation that in the presence of the Soviet leader is being reborn.

MR. LEHRER: Late today, Gorbachev said the Soviet parliament would soon consider a law setting out the terms under which a republic could break away from the Soviet Union. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: East Germany's new Communist premier responded to growing dissent in that country today by offering to include opposition groups in his still shaky government. Hans Mudrow made the offer in an attempt to diffuse a controversy over the formation of a new secret police force. The premier also said he would allow parliament to oversee the police's work, which he said was needed to prevent a security vacuum. An independent trade union movement is threatening a nationwide strike over the issue, and many workers protested Mudrow's plan in front of the parliament building today. Opposition parties fear a recreation of the dreaded secret police force which operated during the previous regime.

MR. LEHRER: China's Tiananmen Square was reopened to the public today for the first time since the June massacre. Chinese troops left the Square at midnight signaling the end of martial law. Hundreds of Beijing residents arrived this morning. Police were seen mingling with the crowd. They quickly silenced one woman's attempt at free speech. A government spokesman said the number of troops in Beijing had been increased to safeguard public security. President Bush made his first public comments today on the ending of martial law. He spoke at a White House photo session.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I view the lifting of martial law as a very sound step for those that are interested in human rights and the reform that was on the move and that we'd all like to see go forward. There's no way you can look at that but not say it is very positive and we will continue to watch this situation very closely, but I've taken a position that I do not want to isolate China by no contacts and set the clock back, and of course we welcome the lifting of martial law. It's a good sign.

MS. WOODRUFF: Defense Sec. Dick Cheney said today that his department could save $39 billion in the next five years by reforming the way the Pentagon spends money. One of the cost saving measures he proposed involves reducing personnel mostly through attrition. Cheney said dollars saved by his plan would prevent cuts in force structure and readiness. He outlined the plan in a Pentagon news conference.

DICK CHENEY, Sec. of Defense: For fiscal year 1991 we expect to reduce our acquisition and related management work force by 8,000 civilians and 8,000 military personnel. That's in '91. This will be the result of a more efficient structure in the acquisition system and the overall management of the department. At the end of five years, reductions associated with those changes we'll talk to you about today, those reductions will amount to some 18,000 civilians and 24,000 military personnel or a total of 42,000 positions. As I've said before, the changes in the nature of the threat around the world and the realities of the budget deficit clearly mean the defense budgets are going to be leaner in the years ahead.

MR. LEHRER: There was a problem this morning aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. Astronauts worked to fix a leaky humidifier which sent drops of water floating through the cabin. They spent two hours soaking it up with towels and a vacuum. Water could damage the shuttle's electronic instruments if it seeped into them. Tomorrow Columbia will attempt to rescue a scientific satellite which is falling from orbit.

MS. WOODRUFF: The Food & Drug Administration has banned further use of the only artificial heart approved for permanent human use, the so-called Jarvik heart. The FDA said it took the action because of serious deficiencies in the way the device is constructed, tested and followed up. The manufacturer, Symbion Incorporated of Tempe, Arizona, said it would respond to the FDA order at an appropriate time. The Jarvik heart was first used seven years ago on Barney Clark, a Seattle dentist who later died of complications. The decision does not mean an end to all artificial heart procedures. Short-term implants are still available for patients waiting for a donor heart. In Pennsylvania today, a federal judge stopped part of the nation's toughest abortion law from going into effect next week. The judge blocked a section of the law that would require women to notify their husbands and wait 24 hours before an abortion. The judge let stand bans on abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy and abortions to select the sex of the child. Today's ruling will remain in effect until a lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania's abortion law is decided.

MR. LEHRER: Nine broke savings & loans associations went on the auction block today. The S&Ls are currently under the control of the Resolution Trust Corporation, the government agency managing the thrift industry bailout. The nine S&Ls are located in seven states and have assets of more than $13 billion. The largest is Western Savings & Loan of Phoenix, Arizona. The government expects to sell 40 more insolvent thrifts next week.

MS. WOODRUFF: That's it for our summary of the day's news. Just ahead, Gorbachev's Lithuania problem, regulating cable TV costs, new rules for college athletes and East Europe's revolutionary artists. FOCUS - BREAK WITH MOSCOW

MR. LEHRER: The Gorbachev mission to Lithuania is where we begin tonight. The Soviet President was there to dampen some fires of independence in that Soviet Republic. Lithuania was once an independent nation and many of its people want to get it to be so again, We'll have three perspectives on their chances as we have some background. Lithuania is about the size of West Virginia. Its population is 3 and 1/2 million. The people speak Lithuanian although the schools are required to teach Russian. For centuries Lithuania and its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia were ruled by various German, Russian, Polish and Swedish monarchs, however, the people held on to their distinct culture through it all. The Baltic States gained independence after World War one and Lithuania become a relatively democratic and prosperous nation. But its freedom was short lived. In a secret pre World War II pact between Hitler and Stalin the Soviet Union made the Baltic nations Soviet Republics. For the next 50 years Moscow tried to make Lithuania more Russia and to wipe out its predominately Catholic Religion. The people resisted. Now Gorbachev's programs of perestroika and glasnost have rekindled their desire for independence. A strong non communist independence movement has become a major political force. Facing local elections later this year the Communist Party is trying to play catch up/ Last month a local Party organization declared its independence from the Kremlin setting the stage for the crisis that brings Gorbachev to Lithuania. He is the first Soviet Leader in 50 years to visit the Republic. David Smith from Independent Television News has that story.

MR. SMITH: The President arrived in Lithuania with little going for him except like Lenin the force of his intellect the power of his personality and the an unshakable believe that he can turn things around and talk the people of the Baltics in to a compromise. Judging by the response that he got from some here who chanted his name the charisma might yet work and from the Word go the President made it perfectly clear that he wants a dialogue not a confrontation.

PRESIDENT GORBACHEV: We don't need what there was before. We need things to be better. It is terrible if somebody succeeds in separating us. Then we will have disaster. You have to encourage initiative. We have to be all together in the Republics and cities.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Gorbachev has then come here to fight his corner and the stakes for him personally have never been higher.

PETER FRANK, Essex University: The question of the Party in these Republics is really quite critical. Gorbachev sees himself as having made certain concessions to the Republics. They are not very great but he thinks he has made concession but they are all conditional upon the various Republican Communist Parties remaining part of the centralized party of the Soviet Union. If that goes then he sees the whole policy collapsing.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Gorbachev may stick publicly to Lenin's Philosophy, one State, one Party one Nation but he knows that the Party is breaking apart just as the country is. Today with the President on his travels the leading conservative in the Polite Bureau Liagachev warned in Moscow that what is happening in Lithuania could be the beginning of the end for the Soviet Communist Party and that is a warning for Mr. Gorbachev not to go any further than he has already. The President's attitude has changed dramatically as this crisis has mounted. Last September for example he told Baltic Leaders that any attempt to break away from the Soviet Union will be crushed. He warned them in December that if you cross this line there will be discord and death. Yet last week he confided to Lithuanian Communists summoned to Moscow. We will not stop you. No obstacles will be put in your way. Mr. Gorbachev's handling of this crisis then has been anything but consistent. The question has to be whether Mr. Gorbachev can offer anything of substance to these people. Much as they admire the man, indeed without his perestroika they would not have gone as far as they have. They believe there is no turning back from the road to independence.

CITIZEN: We want to see him because he is a very important political leader but all people who stand here they want only on thing independence, independence for Lithuania.

MR. SMITH: Throughout the day Mr. Gorbachev has hammered the theme home. Don't turn your backs on our revolution he has been saying. In effect don't betray me. It is a powerful message because these people owe so much to Gorbachev. The freedom they have today and the hopes they cherish for tomorrow. He is letting them know that he is fighting for his political life for his very survival.

PRESIDENT GORBACHEV: We have to find some kind of solution. We have to talk about economic independence and political sovereignty and work about this. It is difficult and you can not solve it all at once.

MR. SMITH: Tonight though there have been huge demonstrations here. Hundreds of thousands of people waving Lithuanian flags and holding candles in a vigil for independence. It began with five minutes of silence for Lithuania the country and its people. This is a dramatic response to Mr. Gorbachev's response for help and clear evidence that the Baltics are in no mood to wait for their demands to be met.

SPOKESMAN: For the people of the Baltic countries today is the beginning climb for Baltic solidarity. We go our own way Baltic way. Baltic way for Baltic Independence of Baltic countries.

MR. LEHRER: Now for our perspective on the Gorbachev visit. They are those of Lithuanian born Stanley Vardys of the University of Oklahoma. He joins us from Norman. Richard Pipes Professor of Russian History at Harvard University. He was Director of Soviet Affairs on President Reagan's National Security Council Staff. He is at Public Station WGBH in Boston. And George Breslauer Professor of Political Science and Chairman of the center for Slovak and East European Affairs at the University of California at Berkeley. His most recent book Can Gorbachev Reform Succeed will be published next week. he joins us from San Francisco. Mr. Vardys to you first in Norman, Oklahoma. There is this late news this evening that Gorbachev told a local interviewer in Lithuania quote we need a mechanism on how a Republic could leave the Soviet Union. We need to discuss the time frame for leaving. Defense, Communications and entire series of questions. Those who simply think they can leave the Soviet Union must remind themselves not seven times but a 1000 times or more that there is a constitutional order in this country. This process needs a mechanic. How do you read that? What is he saying there Mr. Vardys?

MR. VARDYS: The way that I read it is this. First of all indeed it is true that the Soviet constitutions guarantees the right of secession but doesn't provide for any mechanism. Second that Mr. Gorbachev wants to delay the decision. He wants to have an orderly procedure. he does not want a confrontation. He thinks that if he waits a while and perestroika succeeds throughout the Soviet Union he might have a chance to keep the Balts in or very close in under his tuteledge or in the Soviet Union and I think basically this is a ploy. Indeed I don't think that the Balts want to simply pullout without any preparation. I think they are proceeding in a very orderly fashion. They do not expect to be free tomorrow but they expect that this will happen and Gorbachev's procedure, of course, will provide an orderly way for doing so. Of course, it is not very clear what kind of procedure it would be and this again gives Mr. Gorbachev some chances to argue and to cajole and to cater to certain feelings and to pressure and in this way try to keep the Balts and the Lithuanians in the Soviet Union.

MR. LEHRER: You don't think that it will work?

MR. VARDYS: Well.

MR. LEHRER: I mean just on the immediate question is he going to be able to convince them to at least wait until he says a new law has to be passed by the Soviet Parliament as you say to lay out what the procedures might be. You don't think that the Lithuanians will wait?

MR. VARDYS: I don't think that the Lithuanians want to wait but I think that Lithuanians and the other Balts are not unreasonable to go to the barricades or start shooting or doing anything else. They have been very peaceful and have been expounding a very peaceful philosophy. So they will be willing to wait. They question is how long. I think they do not want to wait long. They already have created a commission to prepare them for independence chaired by distinguished party leaders and writers and so on and so on. So they don't want to wait and they are not going to wait pressure all the way until finally Moscow gives in or says something else which they expect Moscow will now do.

MR. LEHRER: And what they want is full complete independence. Is that correct?

MR. VARDYS: I think they want full complete real independence but also my impression from various readings and conversations with those people they would not be averse to very close ties to the Soviet Union which would provide for continued economic cooperation and various other arrangements.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Pipes do you see this late statement from Gorbachev as a ploy for delay or do you think that he is making a concession of some kind?

MR. PIPES: No it is very typical Gorbachev. He always says no at first then he says maybe, and then retracts. He is a desperate man. Things in the whole country are getting out of control. I don't think that it is a deliberate ploy I think that it is just an act of desperation.

MR. LEHRER: And he has no choice, He is going to have give or figure out a way to give independence to these Republics?

MR. PIPES: Well, either that, or he will have to crush independence movement and have another Tiananmen Square situation which may torpedo his whole perestroika procedure.

MR. LEHRER: So you don't think he'll do that?

MR. PIPES: I think it will be absolutely a last resort. I think he's desperately trying to avoid it and trying to argue. It's an unprecedented sight of the chairman of the Soviet Communist Party standing on the street in front of a car and arguing with people. This is only a man who's very desperate would do this sort of thing.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Breslauer, do you agree these are the actions of a desperate man?

MR. BRESLAUER: Well, to some extent, yes. He went to Lithuania knowing that he was in something of a no win situation. He had to prevent them from declaring independence from the Soviet Union and actually attempting a formal secession. At the same time he knew that he couldn't get them to buy the conservative hardline position of so scaling down their aspirations that they would both acquiesce to remaining in the federation as constituted and acquiesce to the discipline of the Central Party apparatus over the Regional Party apparatus, however, the fact that they announced that a law is going before the parliament indicates that he didn't go there believing that there was no way out. I think he went there hoping to temper their aspirations enough to buy time, as Prof. Vardys mentioned, but not to buy time for many many years, rather to buy time, I think, for about six to twelve months. He did mention earlier today that drastic changes are coming and now we've heard later this afternoon that some of these drastic changes might entail setting up a mechanism whereby a republic could legitimately vote itself out of the Soviet Union. I think he's trying to strike the kind of a balance that might, in fact, lead him to accept and perhaps even lead the Central Party leadership to accept an orderly secession mechanism somewhere down the line. I think we should never under estimate this man.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Vardys, you don't read it that way?

V. STANLEY VARDYS, Political Scientist: Well, my view is not very different from the other views expressed here, especially the last view. I was not suggesting that it would take years. It would take some time. I do not know whether it is six months or what not. Indeed, I think the party is preparing to announce some drastic reforms and the like and this certainly is going to happen quickly, but it is simply that the decision I don't think is going to be made right now, but it will take some time till this thing will come to pass. In other words, it's not just years.

MR. LEHRER: I hear you.

MR. VARDYS: It's probably more like months or a year or something like that.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Pipes, are Gorbachev's fears of a domino effect among the other 14 republics if Lithuania goes justified?

MR. PIPES: I think entirely so because we know what goes on in Trans-Caucasia. Not only is there a great deal of violence, particularly on the part of the Azerbaijanis who are Turks, Shiite Turks, but also the Georgians and the Armenians. A poll taken in Georgia not long ago showed that 89 percent of the population favors independence from the Soviet Union. Now in Azerbaijan, the figure probably will not be very different. Now if that continues, you will have the Soviet Union basically reduced to the Russian territories, which is still a mighty state, 150 million or so inhabitants, but no longer the kind of super power that it is today. I find it very difficult to see how they can agree to this and this may well spell either Gorbachev's downfall or Gorbachev being forced to impose martial law on the Baltic republics to prevent this from going on.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Breslauer, do you see it in those dire terms as well?

MR. BRESLAUER: No, I don't see it in terms quite as dark as that. I think this can be looked upon, especially the late news regarding the new laws, in the context of Gorbachev's attitude towards what's happened in Eastern Europe. In a sense, this is his East German solution. Let's open the wall and if you let people leave, perhaps more of them will choose to stay. The lesson he draws from Brezhnevism and from martial law in Poland is that the price of holding on to a repressed, surly population that is going to give you as little voluntary compliance as possible may very well exceed the price of letting them go. Moreover, I think that he is looking toward a mechanism of constitutional review leading toward possibility of secession that would guarantee minority rights within whatever states chose to secede. It's important to bear in mind that most republics of the Soviet Union are not as ethnically homogenous as Lithuania.

MR. LEHRER: So you think, you disagree with Mr. Pipes, you think it's possible for all of this to shake down in a way that does not mean that Gorbachev goes or the Soviet Union goes, one way or another, or both, or martial law to be declared?

GEORGE BRESLAUER, Political Scientist: Yes, I think martial law, as Prof. Pipes said earlier, martial law would be a very much of a last resort, but I think it's really quite unlikely as long as Gorbachev is at the helm, and I think he's fairly secure at the helm. I think also that what he's trying to impress upon people and what a process of secession would impression upon people is the possible price they'd have to pay for secession, and Armenia, for example, would not necessarily have the protection of the Soviet Union in the international system, and they've got a very sad history in that international system. And Azerbaijan might seek to ally with Northern Iran, the Azerbaijan section of Northern Iran, but that might in turn lead to significant troubles with the government in Tehran. So I don't think that many of the other republics in the Soviet Union would have as easy a time separating from the Soviet Union as many of the Baltic republics would.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Pipes, you do not believe that Gorbachev is as secure as Mr. Breslauer does then, right?

RICHARD PIPES, Former National Security Council Staff: No, I do think Gorbachev is in a very solid position. He controls the Politburo, he controls the Central Committee, and he has his appointees way down in the provincial party apparatus. He's quite secure I think but it seems to me the situation is getting out of control. His reform program, which I think he designed originally five years ago as something very limited, has required a momentum of its own and he will have to do something. I just don't know quite what he plans to do and I don't believe he, himself, knows. But I think that if the reaction comes, and I rather think it will come sooner than later, than it is an re-imposition of martial law, or imposition of martial law for the purpose of quelling the disturbances not only among the minorities but also among the miners and other social groups, it will be Gorbachev who will do it as Deng Xiaoping, the reformer, did it in China.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Vardys, finally, can you give us a feel for how Gorbachev is regarded by the average people of Lithuania? Is he seen as a hero or as a villain in this for denying independence or what?

V. STANLEY VARDYS, Political Scientist: He certainly is not seen as a villain in any way. He is a respected person, but he is looked at as a person who is well meaning possibly but Lithuanians are concerned with the state as an institution and what happens to them. I think I would like to make two points here. One is that the case of the Baltic Republics is a bit different from the other national republics for a variety of reasons for which we do not have time here to elucidate, and I think that Gorbachev and the party and as a matter of fact Ligachev today in Sweden said that force would not be used in the Baltic Republics because it would not pay to do so, so I think this is a bit different case and he can organize a bit different arrangements for the Balts in seeking compromises as he is.

MR. PIPES: Let me just interfere. I disagree. I think if Lithuania is allowed to declare independence, Georgia will do it the next day.

MR. VARDYS: Well, it is probably, you are probably correct, but I think, but I think --

MR. LEHRER: Go ahead really quickly.

MR. VARDYS: But I think the Balts have a variety of grounds for doing so that would be accepted by Moscow leadership or by the rest of the nation.

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you all three. We really do have to go. Thank you very much. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Still ahead, re-regulating cable TV, new rules for college athletes, and artists in East Europe's revolutions. FOCUS - STATIC

MS. WOODRUFF: Next tonight cable television under attack. The Federal Communications Commission voted four to nothing today to study competition in the cable industry. FCC Chairman Alfred Sykes said the goal of the study would be to stimulate more competition. The issue of whether the cable industry needs more competition and more regulation will also be on the congressional agenda this spring. All this follows growing consumer complaints about poor and increasingly expensive cable TV service. But as Spencer Michels of public station KQED in San Francisco reports, the cable TV industry is riding high in fending off those attacks. [PROMOTIONAL VIDEO]

MR. MICHELS: At latest count, 55 percent of all American homes are hooked up to cable. Subscribers can watch a slew of programs that cannot be picked up off the air waves. At the same time, many cable viewers are angry about the poor service they receive and the rates they are being charged, which now average $24 a month nationwide. In Santa Cruz, California, before the October 17th earthquake, cable TV was a major source of frustration. This is a town where off air TV reception is poor and cable a necessity for a decent picture.

MR. PATTON: And they were milking our community and that was our problem and has been our problem historically.

MR. MICHELS: The service didn't measure up to the promises according to county supervisor Gary Patton.

GARY PATTON, Santa Cruz Official: Very few channels, not a good array therefore of services that are commonly available everywhere there are cable systems and excessively bad signal quality and poor customer service, so that the joints in the cables were corroded, the salt air had corroded them, they hadn't replaced them for 20 years, the signals would go out for two or three days. You would call up the people and get a busy signal. They were taking profits out of our community which they acquired from monopoly positioning and investing them and using them elsewhere, not putting the money back.

STEWART BUTLER: We have started work on a $23 million project.

MR. MICHELS: When Santa Cruz cable manager Stuart Butler talks to service clubs about plans to improve the system, he faces skeptical audiences.

CUSTOMER: To try to get somebody to give us a definitive answer on a problem, you either have to wait till the next day or some day in the future.

MR. BUTLER: We are now trying to expand our staff. We are actively recruiting, seeking additional technicians that we will bring in and expand our night crew to have two or three people there so we can address the service problems.

MR. MICHELS: Aggravation with the Santa Cruz cable system to dismayed resident Thomas Karwin that he became an activist. He now writes a national newsletter on the cable industry. He's critical of the way programming is delivered by cable systems in Santa Cruz and elsewhere.

THOMAS KARWIN, Cable TV Activist: Programming services are bundled in such a way that you have no choice in most cases but to take 20 channels at a time, many of which you're not interested in and wouldn't watch, but nonetheless, you're going to pay for them. And in addition, if you want a premium service, one of those premium channels that are available, you almost always have to buy the basic service first, and that's a curious arrangement. It's really possible only in a monopoly.

MR. MICHELS: Fifty miles away in Fremont, California, complaints about all municipal services are lodged at city hall. Cable TV leads the list. One who gripes regularly is John Cullen, who's tried to get cable installed for four years.

JOHN CULLEN, Fremont Resident: So every two or three months I'd call back and give my whole story and they would say, okay, we'll take care of this, we'll get back to you, and nobody ever did. Finally I called the city one time. And the first time they ever called, the city said they would talk to them, and somebody from cable the very same day. I told them the whole story and they said they would do something, they would come out, talk to the construction man, and they would come out and do something about it. They never did anything. Nothing came of that.

MR. MICHELS: Local officials take these grievances seriously, but they believe they have little leverage to force changes. Fremont Mayor Gus Morrison.

GUS MORRISON, Former Mayor, Fremont, California: And now our citizens don't understand when we say we can't do anything about their rates, we can't do anything about the fact that they dropped your educational channel, Channel 54, or they dropped your religious channel. We have no vote on that. They just do it and tell us.

MR. MICHELS: As a result, politicians at local and national levels are looking at ways to reregulate an industry that has made spectacular gains over the past three decades. Cable officials concede they owe much of their recent success to being able to charge what they want without rate regulation by the government. From its inception, cable TV had been regulated by local government. But during the Reagan administration, Congress banned some 20,000 local governments from approving or disapproving subscription rates. In the two years since that ban went into effect, a federal study shows average rates jumped nearly 30 percent. Cities and counties can still regulate where the companies put their cables and can impose other rules concerning standards of service, but local officials say that isn't enough. The mayor of Fremont would like to exercise some control over cable rates.

GUS MORRISON: We've given a franchise to somebody, they tear up our streets, and things like that to run the service end. We need to be able to regulate them. We need to be able to respond to our community who says my cable TV is no good, they don't answer their phone, I don't get service, the thing is down, and I have to pay for it anyway. We need to have those kinds of controls.

MR. MICHELS: Cable TV companies and their lobbyists want no part of fee regulation.

DENNIS MANGERS, Cable TV Lobbyist: About the only aspect of cable that's actually unregulated is rates and as a business, it has to stay that way, and I think most people realize that, or it won't remain viable as a business. There's just too much competition out there.

MR. MICHELS: Dennis Mangers, who served four years as an elected member of the California legislature, today works as a full-time lobbyist in Sacramento for the cable television industry. His organization contributes money to every one of California's 120 legislators. But at the grassroots level, rising rates that followed deregulation brought an outcry from angry customers, frustrated local officials, would-be competitors, and from national politicians like Sen. Albert Gore. He and Sen. Howard Metzenbaum have introduced bills to re-regulate cable.

SEN. ALBERT GORE, [D] Tennessee: They have such a dominant position in the entertainment industry, in the communications industry now, they've started to throw their weight around in a bad way frankly. They have been raising rates dramatically and there's nothing that stands between them and the consumer's pocket book.

ED ALLEN, Cable TV Official: Sen. Gore ran into a situation in Tennessee, about one company that raised rates in Western Tennessee, but he used it as a national platform.

MR. MICHELS: Ed Allen runs a new cable partnership and is former president of the National Cable Television Association.

MR. ALLEN: If we were to revert back to 19,000, 20,000 different cable television policies, the industry couldn't do what it's doing right now. There would not be the addition of new programming, the NFL Football and Major League Baseball, the comedy channels, the cowboy networks, the cultural networks like Bravo and Arts & Entertainment and the C-Spans and the Black Entertainment Network. These things cannot thrive and succeed where you're under a local political thumb.

MR. MICHELS: Allen says cable's success is proof of its integrity.

MR. ALLEN: The reason it's a good business is because the people like us. It isn't just Wall Street that likes us. It's Main Street.

MR. MICHELS: Not Main Street in Fremont, says Mayor Morrison. Here a subsidiary of cable giant TCI holds the franchise.

GUS MORRISON, Former Mayor, Fremont, California: You sign the contract with one firm, it's sold to somebody else, and it winds up being owned by the largest conglomerate who doesn't care about Fremont. They care about subscribers and they don't provide public service or they don't answer their telephones.

MR. MICHELS: City officials believe they have little leverage to force changes except when a franchise has expired and the cable company is applying for a new one. In Fremont, TCI's 20 year franchise has expired and negotiations between the company and the city are underway. City officials are considering whether to allow companies other than TCI to make proposals. In Santa Cruz, forcing changes to the outmoded cable system took years.

STEWART BUTLER, Cable TV, Manager: Overall, we're going to spend some $23 million and completely replace the plant. It'll be, we're going to build it like there was not cable here before. So everything is going to be new.

MR. MICHELS: The earthquake which devastated parts of Santa Cruz didn't affect the cable system significantly, but community pressure did. It resulted in getting the company to spend money on the system and it came in the form of crowded meetings, attempts by local businessmen and activists to take over the system and costly lawsuits. Critics say those pressure tactics were needed because cable is a powerful monopoly, an allegation the industry has always denied.

MR. MANGERS: Make no mistake, cable television is not a monopoly. We have to compete for the discretionary entertainment dollar everywhere we have cable.

MR. MICHELS: What lobbyist Mangers and most of the cable industry fear perhaps even more than rate regulation is what they consider unfair competition from the nation's phone companies. The Bell systems are currently forbidden by federal law from providing cable service, but they want to overturn that law and are now lobbying Congress, state legislatures and various regulatory agencies seeking permission to enter the cable business using their new fiber optic technology. Cable executives worry that with thephone company's vast resources and access to practically every home in America, they could initiate a cable war that eventually could force cable companies out of business. So the specter of new rate regulation and new competition has the cable industry on political guard as never before. FOCUS - STUDENT ATHLETES

MS. WOODRUFF: Next up tonight college sports and two actions taken this week by the National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA, which held its annual convention in Dallas. In one move, the NCAA members who are college coaches, athletic directors, and administrators, voted to modify a controversial rule passed last year that would have cut off all financial aid for freshmen with low high school test scores and grade averages. In a compromise, the NCAA decided to let those students be eligible for regular financial aid even if they can't play sports, and yesterday, the NCAA voted to begin random testing for steroid use among football players and to impose stiff penalties for violations. To tell us about the new rules, we have a News Maker interview with Dick Schultz, the Executive Director of the NCAA. I spoke with him this afternoon. Mr. Schultz, thank you for being with us. On the steroid testing vote first, the vote to have mandatory steroid testing at random in major football programs around the country, why was this considered necessary? How much steroid use do you think there is right now?

DICK SCHULTZ, Executive Director, NCAA: I think the membership feels that it's very difficult to determine really how much steroid use there is. some of the institutions have their own testing programs but a number of those are not testing for anabolic steroids because of the extreme cost. In our own testing program that we've had now for the past three years, we've had a very very low positive rate, less than 1 percent. But 60 percent of those positives have been for anabolic steroids, and I think what this indicates is a real concern for the sophistication in anabolic steroids, the ability to cycle drugs if you know that you're going to be tested around championship time, so the year round unannounced testing is an effort to prevent this cycling.

MS. WOODRUFF: You were quoted as saying that right now with the testing only at championship time that you're catching only the dumb ones. What did you mean by that?

MR. SCHULTZ: Because of the sophistication, the water based steroids, the advice that people that are serious about anabolic steroids can get from the supposed drug gurus, that if an athlete knows that he or she is going to participate in a championship event, they know the approximate date of that event, so they can cycle the steroids so that they will not test positive or mask the use of that through some other chemical so when the actual test is taken at the championship site, they would test negative, even though they've had the benefit of the performance enhancing drug.

MS. WOODRUFF: We were talking over the last day or so with some experts, and they point out that there may still be a loophole for those athletes you just referred to in that there won't be testing in the summertime, in other words, out of the sports season, is that correct?

MR. SCHULTZ: No, that is not correct. We have the ability to test at any time throughout the year. And I would anticipate that some of that testing would take place during the summer.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about another point that they've made is that there are some steroids or other performance enhancing drugs that cannot be tested for, are you concerned about that?

MR. SCHULTZ: Well, we're concerned about performance enhancing drugs in general just as I think most of the nation is today and actually today most of the world. If you take a look at what the USOC and the international sports federations are doing because of their concern for drugs and particularly anabolic steroids, I think that what has been decided here will provide us with some protections that are not there not.

MS. WOODRUFF: On the other side of this argument though is the point made by some of the ivy league schools I read who were attending the convention this week, and that is that they didn't want to distinguish the student athlete from other students at their schools. Why single out the athlete with this sort of random testing?

MR. SCHULTZ: I think it goes back to the premise that has always been involved in that a performance enhancing drug if used by an athlete at any level, whether it's the college or professional level or high school level, is really just a form of cheating because steroids do work. They do add strength, at least from the information we have. And the athletes that take these are gaining the competitive edge. There probably isn't any competitive edge for the student body in general. And our rules of course only apply to athletes and only apply to those that are participating in NCAA events.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Well, then what about other college sports? I mean, we read about steroid use in swimming, in track and field, but this is limited only to football, is that correct?

MR. SCHULTZ: The legislation does not limit it only to football. The legislation provides the association from testing in all sports, but the drug testing committee and the competitive safeguards committee have indicated that for the first two years in more or less of a pilot program they want to limit it to football, but after that point in time, it could be expanded to any of the other intercollegiate sports.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why football to begin with?

MR. SCHULTZ: I think they feel that of all the NCAA sports, that's probably most likely the area where there's most likely some abuse.

MS. WOODRUFF: But do you expect it to be expanded after that?

MR. SCHULTZ: I would expect it to be expanded after that if this study proves to be feasible and productive. I think the next step would probably be to expand it to the other sports that do have NCAA sponsored championships.

MS. WOODRUFF: The other big story coming out of your convention this week was the vote that affects incoming freshman athletes who have poor academic or testing test scores. Remind us first of all about Prop 42 from last year, that controversial new rule. Exactly what would it have done. Refresh our memories about that.

MR. SCHULTZ: The original initial eligibility rule which is commonly referred to as Proposal 48, sets standards for initial eligibility. It says you have to have a 2.0 and an established core curriculum and then you have to have minimum scores on one of the national testing scores. However, there was a provision to Proposition 48 that if you were not a qualifier, you could become a partial qualifier by having one of the two components or a 2 point overall grade point in high school, not including core curriculum, and if you met that, you couldn't play or practice the first year, but you could receive financial aid based on athletic ability. Proposition 42, which was introduced by the Southeastern Conference and passed by a very narrow vote would have eliminated totally the partial qualifier, so you either would have met the core requirement and the test requirements and receive financial aid, or you would not have been eligible for any type of financial aid.

MS. WOODRUFF: Now why did some people feel that these rules had to be modified?

MR. SCHULTZ: I think there were a number of concerns. I think first of all they felt that if an athlete or any individual that wanted to go to an institution and qualified for financial aid based on need that was offered to all students, they should have the right to do that. I think the second part of that was we're in the process of a five year evaluation study on the original initial eligibility rule and many people felt that there shouldn't be any modifications to that until the study was completed. Then we might take a look at the whole thing and determine other changes that should be made. Another part of that is that the test score itself has been the heavy critic in all of this and we have been working with the national testing agencies during the past few months and they have told us that by June 1st, they'll have several other models for the membership to take a look at in addition to the one that's being used. And I think with all of those things in the mix that the membership wanted to go back to the status quo or at least wanted to provide some relief for the partial qualifier until this new material could be looked at.

MS. WOODRUFF: Let's just jump ahead then to what you did this week, the vote, Proposition 26, as it was labeled, now says that incoming freshman athletes, even if they have lower academic or lower test scores can still qualify for aid, financial aid, but they still, as I understand it, will not be able to play sports, is that correct?

MR. SCHULTZ: That's correct. During the first year, they will not be able to play or practice, but would be eligible to do so in their second year if they make satisfactory academic progress.

MS. WOODRUFF: So what does that achieve? Why is that better than what you had before?

MR. SCHULTZ: The difference between what we have now and what we had prior to the passage of 42 is just the source of the financial aid. In one particular instance before we had 42, the financial aid could be in the form of a full scholarship from the Department of Athletics or funded by the Department of Athletics through the Financial Aid Office. Under Proposal 26, financial aid is available, but it must be that financial aid that's available to all of the students, need based aid, federal entitlement programs and so forth.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Well, let me ask you a question about that aid. Don't you run the risk by having this provision that scholarship money that comes from relatively scarce sources might be siphoned to the potential star athlete and then denied to some of the non-athletes who might need it just as much?

MR. SCHULTZ: I think the membership is hoping that the university admissions procedures and financial aid procedures would follow the proper lines and that there wouldn't be the deviation of funds because of those reasons.

MS. WOODRUFF: They hope that that won't happen, is what you're saying?

MR. SCHULTZ: It comes back to institutional credibility in all cases, and I would hope that our institutions would have enough credibility that financial aid would be awarded properly and that admissions would be proper.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Well, we appreciate your being with us, Dick Schultz. Thanks very much.

MR. SCHULTZ: Thank you. ESSAY - REVOLUTIONARY ARTISTS

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight our Thursday night essay. The subject is revolutionary artists. The essayist is Amei Wallach, art critic for New York Newsday.

MS. WALLACH: Here in America, artists usually fight a losing battle to make art that significantly influences our lives. A visual artist like Jenny Holzer literally tries to get her message across with moving signs to make us stop and think. But hardly anyone outside the world pays attention. A serious filmmaker like Spike Lee try as he might can't get nearly the audience he aims for to take what he has to say about race relations to heart. That's never been the problem for artists of any kind in the Soviet bloc. Their art has been relevant, whether they liked it or not. Either it was relevant to the state because it helped spread uplifting lies about the best of all socialist realist worlds, or it was relevant to everyone else, because in some way tiny or large, it did what newspapers and television couldn't do. It told the truth. No matter that Solzhenitsyn books had to be smuggled in from the West or passed around on mimeographed sheets or that few actually got to see a Havel play or a Kobikov creation. By simply having a reputation for telling the truth, artists won the very thing the state had lusted after, the hearts and minds of their countrymen. We live in abnormal times, Vaclav Havel said a few short months ago. The very fact of telling the truth regardless of consequences can make you a national figure. He was just out of prison then for hooliganism, a playwright whose plays had been banned from the Czech stage for 20 years. Even then, a friend called him, "a man who can articulate many people's feelings". Now the regime that imprisoned him has fallen and playwright Havel is president of Czechoslovakia. Most of the revolutions that have swept Eastern Europe this fall and winter have been led at key junctures by artists who could articulate many people's feelings, by musicians, poets, playwrights, photographers, actors and filmmakers. In Romania, the revolution seems to have been a poet's dream, fought by metaphor. The unrests that had been growing more vocal every day found a focus when Nicolae Ceausescu proclaimed derisively that reform would come to his country only when apple trees grow pears, so theater and film students strung the Bucharest trees with pears and the enraged dictator had students attacked and killed in their dorms. It was the last straw for the Romanian people. A popular actor led students in cat calling Ceausescu's final speech. Soon army units had joined the people, Ceausescu had fled, and a poet, Mercha Dinesku, burst onto national television shouting, "We've won, we've won." The first provisional Romanian government that followed was made up of the actors, poets, film directors, writers, military officers and student leaders of the National Salvation Front. In East Germany, the Leipzig Vegunthouse Maestro Court Mazur helped avert a blood bath after the decisive October 7th demonstration when police had bludgeoned and arrested others. He and other Leipzig civic leaders made a deal with authorities that there would be no violence on either side. And rock musicians did their part. At an East Berlin rock concert in support of the demonstrators, they announced that theater people were sponsoring a demonstration on November 4th. The concert was carried on West German television, which pretty much everyone in East Berlin gets, and over 1/2 million people gathered for that demonstration. Five days later the wall cracked and soon East German artists were painting on it. The artists have won all over Eastern Europe. They've won freedom, for themselves, the freedom to tell the truth, for their countrymen, the freedom not only to hear the truth but to speak it themselves. Sooner or later, when the heady days of revolution calm down, the artists of Eastern Europe will go back to their paint brushes and typewriters and something curious is bound to happen. They'll discover what artists in the West already know, when anyone can tell the truth and everyone claims to tell it, who will seriously care what truth an artist has to tell? RECAP

MS. WOODRUFF: Once again, Thursday's top stories, Mikhail Gorbachev said the Soviet parliament would soon consider a law setting out terms for how a republic could leave the union, and the Pentagon unveiled a plan to cut $39 billion from its budget in the next five years. Good night, Jim.

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