The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, a terrorist group holding Americans in Lebanon called for the release of all prisoners worldwide. President Bush called the demand broad and confusing. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Roger Mudd's in Washington tonight. Roger.

MR. MUDD: After our News Summary, we'll analyze the latest developments in the hostage story with diplomats from Iran and Israel. They'll be followed by three journalists who've been covering different angles of the story. Then Lee Hochberg takes us to the arctic tundra where drillers smell oil, conservationists smell trouble. And we close with a Roger Rosenblatt essay on the angry voices in the abortion debate. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Islamic Jihad, the group holding at least three of the ten remaining Western hostages in Lebanon, has said it will free them, but as a condition they demanded the release of what they called their freedom fighters from prisons around the world. Israeli officials stuck to their position on a hostage deal. They said they would not release Lebanese prisoners until they receive information about the fate of seven Israeli soldiers missing in Southern Lebanon. The offer by the Islamic Jihad came in a letter to the United Nations Secretary General that was made public today. We have a report from Libby Wiener of Independent Television News.

MS. WIENER: The UN Secretary General, Javier Perez DeCuellar, spent most of the day locked in talks with his advisers at his hotel suite in Geneva. He emerged briefly to tell ITN that he alone had been given a mandate in the letter from Islamic Jihad to solve the hostage problem.

JAVIER PEREZ DE CUELLAR, U.N. Secretary General: And I will make every effort in order to obtain the release of all hostages, all hostages, and very, very clearly all hostages.

MS. WIENER: The letter was made public at the UN after it emerged that the Secretary General had already met the Israeli envoy, Uri Lubrani. It suggests a deal could be reached within 24 hours and the Secretary General said he was a little bit more hopeful.

SEC. GEN. JAVIER PEREZ DE CUELLAR: The first reactions I have heard from the Israelis, they've been a positive one. Of course, I have to see them again in order to know, but it is a clear cut official position.

MS. WIENER: But what of the seven missing Israeli servicemen?

SEC. GEN. JAVIER PEREZ DE CUELLAR: Well, I won't say that they are a sticking point, rather, they are one of my very, very serious concerns.

MR. MUDD: President Bush, who is vacationing in Kennebunkport, Maine, was briefed on the letter at 5 o'clock this morning by his top National Security advisers. Later as he began a round of golf, reporters asked him where things now stood in the light of the hostage takers' latest conditions.

PRES. BUSH: Really I don't have any detailed information -- rumor -- broad demands -- release people all around the world and nobody quite knows what that means. So it's, you know -- really nobody knows much.

REPORTER: Can you see that as a possible framework for a deal though? Do you think that's the way we're going?

PRES. BUSH: It's a framework for a deal for a long time in terms of people releasing all hostages but I think we just don't know that much about it.

MR. MUDD: But later White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the letter was a basis for discussion. He said it contained positive aspects, including the Islamic Jihad's request that the UN Secretary General helped negotiate and he said the letter discusses a readiness to release all hostages. Fitzwater repeated the U.S. policy is not negotiating with hostage takers. He acknowledged that even though there was an active network of diplomatic and private activity to bring about a hostage release, the U.S. is not making any deals, period.

MR. MacNeil: It was a day of medical tests, de-briefings, and American food for Edward Tracy, the ex-patriot American who was freed by his Lebanese captors yesterday. Tracy, who is 63 years old, is staying at the U.S. military hospital in Wiesbauden, Germany. The chief of the hospital told reporters the former hostage was in good physical condition, but he said he'd promised Tracy he would not give many details about the physical and mental examinations. It was revealed that Tracy ate heartily today starting with a breakfast of ham, eggs, toast, juice and coffee.

MR. MUDD: Two California-based banks announced today the largest merger in banking history. BankAmerica and Security Pacific will become the nation's second largest, with assets of $190 billion. The new institution will be called BankAmerica. This is the third big bank merger in recent weeks. A federal bankruptcy judge in New York today approved the sale of almost all of Pan Am's assets to Delta Airlines. Delta will pay nearly $1.4 billion for Pan Am's Northeast Shuttle, its roots to Europe, and for planes and equipment. Pan Am will remain in business but as a smaller carrier with service to Latin America. Pan Am had been operating under bankruptcy protection since January.

MR. MacNeil: That's our Summary of the news. Now we focus on the next step in the hostage drama, controversial oil in Alaska, and Roger Rosenblatt on the abortion debate. FOCUS - RANSOM DEMAND

MR. MacNeil: The hostage story is our major focus again tonight. As we look at the prospects for freedom for the remaining U.S. and European captives. Over the weekend hopes were raised that the release of Edward Tracy and the French aid worker, Jerome Leyraud, foreshadowed an end to the entire Lebanese hostage ordeal. There was much speculation about the shape of the deal that would make it official. Yesterday President Bush publicly thanked Iran for its help in gaining Tracy's release. Mr. Bush came close to explicitly calling on Israel to release several hundred Lebanese and Palestinians being held in Israel and in South Lebanon. Israel, in turn, has demanded information about seven Israeli military men missing in Lebanon since the early 1980s. Michael Nicholson of Independent Television News filed this report from Israel.

MR. NICHOLSON: The divide over what to do next may now be as great within the Israeli cabinet as between it and Western governments. Till now Prime Minister Shamir has managed to come in front, he and his ministers declaring no deal until they get their own POWs back. The West wants collaboration. They're calling it extortion. But now perhaps a change of heart -- the defense minister Arens, once the most defiant, says Israel may now be prepared to be more compromising. According to General Antoin Yahad, the South Lebanese army commander who works closely with the Israelis, must include either the return of Israeli POWs or news of their whereabouts dead or alive. New information on that comes from Dr. Amad Tibi, a Palestinian who has close contacts with Hezbollah under whose umbrella Yahad works. He says that of the seven Israelis missing he has been told that only the air force navigator, Ron Arad, is still alive. So the arithmetic of exchange is this: News of the Israeli POWs, and in the beginning only that, for the 350 or so prisoners held by the Israelis, among them the most celebrated Sheikh Obeid, leader of Hezbollah.

MR. MUDD: We now take up the diplomatic dealmaking story, including the question of what effect the release of Sheikh Obeid would have on the process. Late this afternoon I talked with Iran's acting ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif. Thank you for joining us, Ambassador Zarif. The White House today has said both good and bad things about the letter to the United Nations from the Islamic Jihad. What is your interpretation of the letter?

AMB. ZARIF: Well, my interpretation of the letter is that a positive gesture has been taken at this stage by releasing two hostages. This has come about as a result of a very tedious process of trying by my country as well as others to influence the people in Lebanon to release that hostages. What is important now, as it seems from the letter and as it has been stated by many who know the situation and have dealt with this issue, is that governments in the West which can exercise substantial pressure on Israel to use that leverage and to exercise that pressure in order to bring about the freedom for the Lebanese who are in Israel or in the occupied Lebanese territory, in order to allow this process to continue, that has -- is the most important ingredient of the situation at this stage and that is what we have to concentrate on.

MR. MUDD: Do you feel the United States is, in fact, exercising pressure on Israel, sufficient pressure?

AMB. ZARIF: Well, I don't know. Only the results will tell us whether this pressure has been sufficient or not. We have a new ingredient in the present situation and that is the involvement of the Secretary General in whom we have a great deal of trust. It seems that others have trusted him as well and it is important to use this opportunity and not to let this momentum die down because of lack of response from the other side on this important issue. We have the opportunity to bring the situation to a close. My government will continue to exercise whatever it can in terms of humanitarian responsibility to bring about the release of all hostages. It's important that others do the same so that we could put an end to this unfortunate chapter.

MR. MUDD: Tell me, Mr. Ambassador, how you interpret the wording of the letter which talks about a worldwide release of our freedom fighters. Are they talking about the 400 Shiite prisoners in Lebanon and Israel, or are they talking about 9,000 held on the West Bank and in Gaza?

AMB. ZARIF: Well, I'm in no position to interpret a letter that was written by an organization in Lebanon, but what I can tell you is the important step that should be taken at this stage in order to allow the process to continue and bring about a full release of all hostages is for the government in the West to exercise their influence to bring about a reaction from Israel on the part of that -- of Israel with regard to the prisoners that it's holding.

MR. MUDD: But where -- specifically where would the UN Secretary General and his staff go to get the precise interpretation of what the Hezbollah means or the Islamic Jihad means by that letter?

AMB. ZARIF: Well, I cannot determine for the Secretary General the course of action that he wants to take. I know that he has had many contacts during the past few days and I'm sure that he will continue to take every necessary measure to bring about a comprehensive release.

MR. MUDD: Mr. Ambassador, the Israeli foreign minister, David Levy, expressed disappointment today that the letter contained no mention of the seven Israeli soldiers that are still being held. What do you make of that?

AMB. ZARIF: Well, it is very unfortunate, but it seems that Israel is not prepared to release a number of prisoners who have been captured illegally, abducted actually, from a foreign country, and most of them are innocent civilians who have been abducted, kidnapped from their villages, and then it makes it conditional upon some demand which relates to POWs, an issue that has to be resolved between them and the Lebanese.

MR. MUDD: Do you know, Mr. Ambassador, or does the Iranian government know the condition of those seven Israeli soldiers?

AMB. ZARIF: No, we don't.

MR. MUDD: You have no information about them, whether they're alive, one of them or any of them?

AMB. ZARIF: No, my government has no information on them.

MR. MUDD: What, what influence now does the Iranian government have with the Hezbollah? Are you able to lean on them, to nudge them toward more releases?

AMB. ZARIF: Well, we have limited influence and we have exercised this limited influence over the past. What you have seen -- what you have witnessed in the past few days has been the result of a very long process of our work, along with the work of others, to bring about this release. We will continue to use whatever influence that we have as a humanitarian gesture to bring about the release of all hostages. But as I said, this is important, and this is our interpretation, our reading of the situation, that in order for us to succeed in our effort it is absolutely necessary that other governments with substantial influence use that influence to bring about the release of these prisoners in Israel.

MR. MUDD: The Israeli government today used the phrase "sheer wantonness" to describe the pressure brought by other governments on Israel to release its hostages before there was any counter- release by the Islamic Jihad.

AMB. ZARIF: Well, it is very unfortunate that the faith of a large number of innocent civilians have been involved in this type of activity.

MR. MUDD: What is it that prompts the Iranian government now, Mr. Ambassador, to become involved, so involved in this negotiation?

AMB. ZARIF: This is not a new affair. My government has been involved for the past many years in trying to release all the hostages in Lebanon. Let me just remind you that we as Iranians have four hostages in Lebanon who are the longest held hostages actually in that country. And we understand this problem, this human tragedy. We want to bring it to an end. We have been involved. Our efforts have succeeded in the past. Unfortunately, in the past, there was no positive gesture from the other side. This time also as a result of a long process we have been able to achieve this with the help of others. And as I stated earlier, since the Secretary General of the United Nations is involved in this process now, it is a very important, a golden opportunity, to be used in order to bring about an end to this chapter.

MR. MUDD: In the few seconds we have left, Mr. Ambassador, what would be the effect on the story, the negotiations of Israel were to release its Shiite hostage, the cleric Sheikh Abdul Karim Obeid?

AMB. ZARIF: That would bring about the possibility of continuing this process until all hostages are released, and we would be very hopeful in that case.

MR. MUDD: Things would move rather rapidly if that were the case.

AMB. ZARIF: I certainly hope so and we will continue to do our best to bring about that.

MR. MUDD: Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador, for being with us.

AMB. ZARIF: Thank you.

MR. MUDD: Now to the views of the Israeli government. With us is Israel's acting ambassador to the United States, Michael Shiloh. Mr. Ambassador, good evening.

AMB. SHILOH: Good evening.

MR. MUDD: You've just heard the acting UN ambassador from Iran say again and again the key was for the Western governments to put pressure on Israel to begin the release of those it holds. What is your response to that?

AMB. SHILOH: Well, Israel doesn't have to be pressured. Israel holds, so they say, 375. Some of them are held in Lebanon. Some of them are held in Israel. I don't think that Israel needs any urging. We wish to bring this to an end. We wish to bring into the package seven Israeli soldiers, part of them missing in action, part of them held in Lebanon. And as soon as this is arranged, we would go ahead with it.

MR. MUDD: As soon as information, hard information, is received about the seven Israeli soldiers?

AMB. SHILOH: Well, this would be the first phase of it. We think that the International Red Cross should go in. They are not really prisoners of war. Some of them are missing for nine years. We know that they survived the battle of 1982. And we did not hear since whether they are alive or dead. Now the -- you are used to standards of Western civilizations where if there are prisoners of war, the International Red Cross goes in and sees whether the people are kept properly, held properly, and whether they are in good health. This never happened in this case, and the one thing we would like to know before the process goes ahead is that somebody would go in and say if some of the seven are alive, if not, what, what happened to them, and to other captives.

MR. MUDD: The Red Cross, do you feel, has fallen down on the job? I mean, why hasn't the Red Cross done that?

AMB. SHILOH: They have not been permitted in.

MR. MUDD: Have they even tried?

AMB. SHILOH: I think that at a certain time they did try, but we do know that we have one who we are sure is alive.

MR. MUDD: You're sure of that?

AMB. SHILOH: We are sure that one is not alive. We are sure that one is alive. We do not know the fate of five. And regarding the one who is alive, he is kept for five years in Lebanon, and we don't know where he is kept. We don't know what his health is. And the International Red Cross and nobody else was ever permitted to see him.

MR. MUDD: Mr. Ambassador, LeMond is reporting in its issue today that the United States, Britain, and Shiite Muslims have convened in Paris and have agreed on a timetable, that they will release first the Briton, John McCarthy, then Tracy, the American, and next will be Sheikh Obeid. Does that sound like a deal that the Israeli government would join?

AMB. SHILOH: That sounds like a rumor and what I can confirm is that the rumor exists, and I've seen it like you've seen it. It came out of Paris, but I am not able to confirm it to you from any independent source.

MR. MUDD: But would the release of the Sheikh Obeid be -- be the key that would really open the door wide, that would precipitate a full release in a quick time?

AMB. SHILOH: This we don't know. We were not told so. We were not promised this, and we were not told that -- that or how the seven people, the seven Israelis are going to fit into the scheme. As you do know, I mean, you, yourself, and all your colleagues in your own journalistic profession now obviously know the names of 10 Westerners held. You know the names of their mothers, and sisters and brothers. But I'll be surprised if you do know the names of the seven Israelis. They were never brought in. They were never mentioned, although I assure you that they have mothers, and brothers and sisters in children in Israel, and we are very anxious to bring this in. It is a question of humane significance to ask like it is to American families and British families.

MR. MUDD: The MIA, the missing in action issue in Israel is considerably larger in the life of your country than it is in this country, is that correct, and if it is, why is it?

AMB. SHILOH: Well, it is very important to us. We send people into battle and we feel that collectively nationally, but also individually, we are responsible for what happens to them, and we wish to know that they are well or if they -- God forbid -- are not alive, we wish to know that they are not alive.

MR. MUDD: I'm sure you've talked through your diplomatic channels to Mr. LeBrani in Geneva. What can you tell me, the Israeli adviser in Geneva with the UN Secretary General's staff, what can you tell me about his role and what he's, what progress he's making?

AMB. SHILOH: Well, yes, I think that he who is or will be the Israeli negotiator in this will be Mr. LeBrani. I know that Mr. LeBrani together with Amb. Bein, who was ambassador to the United Nations, is now heading our UN office in Israel, went to Geneva and met with the Secretary General today and I know that they are back in Israel. I know to tell you that they had a good and friendly meeting with Mr. Perez DeCuellar. They exchanged information with him. I don't know to tell you more details of their conversation.

MR. MUDD: Or what progress is being made or lack of it.

AMB. SHILOH: Or what progress has been made.

MR. MUDD: The reaction of the Israeli government to the letter from the Islamic Jihad seems mixed on. On the one hand, Foreign Minister Levy was discouraged, disappointed that there was no mention of the seven Israeli soldiers. On the other hand, your defense minister, Moshe Arens, says it's an opening for hope. How should Americans interpret the letter?

AMB. SHILOH: Well, it's an opening for hope in the sense that if they say that all should be freed, it doesn't seem it wants to be absolutely unjust -- that we won't ask that if you put on one side of the scale 375, to ask that you would put on the other side of the scale not 10, but 17 people, this doesn't seem in Middle Eastern terms to be totally out of proportion, and this is -- this is what we're asking for. Now if we will be able through the efforts of the Secretary General to arrive at that, then I think the road is open.

MR. MUDD: Do you interpret the letter -- or does your government interpret the letter, Mr. Ambassador, that the Jihad is demanding a release of the 9,000 Palestinians who are held in Israel prisons?

AMB. SHILOH: No, I don't think that this is --

MR. MUDD: Is it a separate issue?

AMB. SHILOH: -- the issue. This is a separate issue. We're speaking, I understand, and they're speaking of 375 people from Southern Lebanon who are detained by -- in Southern Lebanon and in Israel.

MR. MUDD: But the letter talks about a worldwide release of our freedom fighters. It doesn't specifically say 375.

AMB. SHILOH: Well, I'm -- I'm not really exactly qualified to interpret letters of the Islamic Jihad. But I understand that the talk is about 375.

MR. MUDD: Would you in the moment or two we have, would you venture a diplomatic look ahead to tell us what you think will unfold in the next week or two?

AMB. SHILOH: Well, I think it is very much in the hands of the Secretary General. I think that a dialogue started through the good offices of the Secretary General with our people, perhaps with the Iranians and the Syrians. The role of the Iranians and the Syrians today proves beyond doubt that we are not speaking of a bunch of miscellaneous riff raft who is hijacking and taking hostages but that the whole thing is fully orchestrated and conducted out of Iran and out of Syria so we know an address now and we know with whom one should talk and United States knows and the President in thanking the Iranians and the Syrians shows that he knows the address. So there is a hope, knowing the address and knowing who the negotiating partners are that there is some hope that the thing will move ahead.

MR. MUDD: Good. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Now we get three different perspectives on the hostage puzzle and the prospects for a prisoner swap. Joshua Friedman is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist for Newsday. He's covered the hostage story at the United Nations and abroad for many years, and just recently visited Iran and Israel. He's also chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Yoav Karny is a Washington columnist for the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz. Michael Duff is White House correspondent for Time Magazine and joins us from Kennebunkport, Maine. Mr. Friedman, from all we've heard and all that's happened in the last day or so, is this a golden opportunity? Are we now close to a general release of hostages?

MR. FRIEDMAN: I think it's a lot more encouraging than it was even a few days ago, but basically the parameters of the deal are no different than they were three months ago when the Iranians and the Israelis were dealing quietly through the UN. They're still hung up on the issue of the seven missing guys, especially Ron Arad, the navigator.

MR. MacNeil: I'll come back to that in a moment. Mr. Karny, in Washington, do you think we're close to a general release?

MR. KARNY: Well, that's anyone's guess. A lot of implications are made around that there is some pragmatism in the Middle East and that's always a doubtful proposition. People are bent on making statements even at the expense of other people's life, rather than reaching solutions, but I think that it goes very much insofar as Israel is concerned into the depths of the Israeli psyche, which means that anything you have seen in the United States in the past few weeks concerning the MIA issue in Indochina pales in comparison with the Israeli collective problem and under no circumstances is it even imaginable to suggest that the Israeli government would go ahead with some grand scale gesticulation on the issue of Sheikh Obeid and others short of having the Israeli MIAs released or at least whereabouts being told to the Israeli government or to the world.

MR. MacNeil: Mike Duffy in Kennebunkport, is the atmosphere at the summer White House that a deal is close and are they very optimistic?

MR. DUFFY: No. Officials here caution that at this point it's too early to expect a general release, as you asked. The end game of releasing more hostages or a general release could be more difficult than what we've already been through, and they've remained just very wary about it. They're trying to I think actually lower expectations now and not send any signals that this is going to be a cathartic couple of days here.

MR. MacNeil: Does the White House see the Islamic Jihad letter as a hopeful sign?

MR. DUFFY: Yeah. I think one of the reasons Marlin Fitzwater came out this afternoon is they were -- this morning, is that they were worried that President Bush's comments at the golf course might have been a little too dower, and today he said there were positive aspects, several positive aspects. They're particularly pleased that the letter calls for the release of all hostages, not some segment of them, not one or two, but all. That's a big step. And they put a lot of faith here in the fact that the Islamic Jihad is turning now to the UN and Perez De Cuellar, who they and the White House regard as a serious channel.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Friedman, do you think we should read the Islamic Jihad letter as hopeful?

MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, first of all, the White House has known for months that either the Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah, whatever you want to call it, has been in touch through the United Nations, so this is -- to everybody except the general public, this has been a non-story. The Jihad letter really doesn't say anything that hasn't been said for months and years, except --

MR. MacNeil: But the fact of their using McCarthy to send it and push it and make it public in the world is a new step obviously.

MR. FRIEDMAN: What it says is [a] it empowers Perez DeCuellar to negotiate much more aggressively, which is good, because the negotiations were stalled by the fact that there was no central authority coordinating it; [b] it indicates even further that Iran is desperate to get out of the hostage mess. They have a lot of other things to do, including improving their relations with the US and the hostages are in the way. So in that sense, yes, it's an optimistic sign.

MR. MacNeil: All right. Let's discuss the question of the seven missing Israeli personnel. Mr. Karny, why from your understanding of this can't Israel find out what happened to those people?

MR. KARNY: Lebanon is a jungle. Very few people in the Middle East have managed to find out their way in Lebanon and Israelis should know best how easy it might be to get lost there. You see, I think that to the extent that there is any hopeful dimension here insofar as Israel is concerned is that the Israelis have been far less squeamish about talking to people they consider terrorists than otherwise believed. In fact, Israel has been in the traditional striking -- however reluctantly -- deals with terrorists at least since 1968. The thing when it comes to Lebanon is that Lebanon is another national trauma that Israelis are eager to get rid of. Lebanon was the ultimate strategic defeat Israel has ever suffered. The leading players in the Israeli government that ordered the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 are the leading players of the present government, and a way to close the chapter, much like the American attitude toward Indochina, is by getting the boys home or getting the MIAs or getting the remains of the MIAs home. And, therefore, the Israelis may be a bit more willing to compromise than otherwise suggested.

MR. MacNeil: Why can't they find out what happened to those seven? Who has that information and why can't the Israelis find out?

MR. FRIEDMAN: I've been trying to find this out for a while because it is the obstacle. Basically I believe that the Israelis know what happened to six of the seven. The seven who --

MR. MacNeil: We just heard the minister say, in fact, they do, they know that one is dead, that one is alive, and they don't know what happened to five.

MR. FRIEDMAN: The one who is alive, I believe he means Ron Arad, the navigator. I don't know if they have really hard evidence that he's alive, but they suspect that he's alive. The Hezbollah has admitted it holds -- sometimes it says the bodies -- sometimes it just refers to holding two people. And the Ahmed Jabrille Palestinian group under Syrian control has held three. So that leaves Ron Arad. Basically, Ron Arad disappeared off the radar screen 18 months ago. Western intelligence people and even the Iranians will admit when pressed that they knew where he was. The Israelis claim that 18 months ago he went into the hands or remained in the hands of Iran. The Iranians say they have no idea where he is and then they bridle when you suggest that they would even know that, because, after all, they're a government, not a revolutionary group, et cetera. What is needed now, and the Red Cross, itself, has been passive, as was mentioned, they've sort of thrown up their hands, someone has to step in between Iran and Israel and verify the location and the fate of Arad. And I think - - the reason I'm hopeful is that perhaps the Israelis and the Iranians are moving closer in coming to terms on what they would accept as a mutually acceptable judge.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Duffy, Mike Duffy in Kennebunkport, what is the American administration's view of this dilemma? The Iranians, as we heard earlier in the program calling on the West, and presumably being the US, to put pressure on Israel, Israel saying, we're ready to do a deal, but we must know about those seven people, how is that viewed in the administration?

MR. DUFFY: Well, I think today the President must be fairly pleased with Israel inasmuch as yesterday they appeared to come off an earlier demand for release of the seven, or at least turning over what is left of the seven to just saying, we'd like some evidence, some information about where they are. So that's a significant movement, at least officials here view it that way. And yesterday, of course, President Bush had come out and called explicitly as he ever has on Israel to release what he called people held not under procedures of law, which was his way of saying illegally without saying illegally. So this is one of those foreign policy issues where we can actually see George Bush working in public. And what we're seeing in public is very much I think what's going on behind the scenes. He's thanking Syria. He's thanking Iran for their help today. Yesterday he came out and put pressure on Israel. That's really what's happening and I don't think that what's going on behind the scenes is that much different.

MR. MacNeil: Is there more pressure? Does the White House feel that more pressure on Israel is going to produce some token release or some gesture, like the release of Sheikh Obeid?

MR. DUFFY: Apparently not. They feel at least today that things are moving their way as fast as they can expect them to move. The pressure put on Israel yesterday they feel was I guess successful and it's really -- they're not sure what the next step is, but I don't think more pressure is immediately what's going to happen. We're going to see George Bush come out and say optimistic things, guarded things, but nothing more I guess.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Karny, how is the pressure do you think that the President has put on Israel, virtually calling some of those held by Israel hostages, how is that regarded?

MR. KARNY: I suppose deeply resented. The Israelis may be the bad guys on many other issues, but perhaps they are far less so on this one. What the Israelis are interested in is basically what the Americans have been interested in. The American political process and the American political culture has been affected so dramatically in the past 20 years by the absence of a few people in Indochina. So has the Israeli system. And the thing is that probably by exerting unduly public pressure on Israel, one would have the normal effect in such cases of alienating public opinion and you have to say insofar as Israeli politics are concerned this is not a matter of one's hawkishness or dovishness. That is held in unanimity, the absolute insistence on getting the boys home. I suppose that if I can venture a guess, the likely scenario would be of the detainees being released, Sheikh Obeid being released, and eventually at some point, at least so as to make it look unrelated to that release, some other people may well be released. That has happened before, as I indicated earlier, as early as 1968.

MR. MacNeil: Is the U.S. just a bystander in this now, or is, is there a role for the United States and President Bush to be playing further than he's played?

MR. FRIEDMAN: I can't speak for the last few days because I just don't know, but I can tell you that in the last several months the U.S. has been virtually passive according to the people I've spoken to who have been trying to push this, namely just a couple of people at the UN who have been pretty dedicated and courageous whose stories will come out later. I think that the US has been so burned by Iran hostages and any combination of the words, and especially now that delegations have been made that President Bush was somehow involved in Iran-Contra and earlier in trying to delay the release of the hostages that they got scared off. The White House, according to the people who have dealt with them in the last few months when Iran was really banging on the door saying, let's finish this hostage thing, the White House would say, yes, that's interesting, that's nice, tell me more, tell me more, but I've never -- I haven't come up with any evidence that they've done any more than that, and especially any intervention in the sticking point, which was the problem of verifying the fate of the seven Israelis.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. Friedman, Mr. Karny, and Michael Duffy in Kennebunkport, thank you all. Roger.

MR. MUDD: Still ahead, drilling for oil in the arctic and a Roger Rosenblatt essay on abortion. FOCUS - ENERGY VS NATURE

MR. MUDD: Next, another environmentalist vs. developer showdown with Congress trying to referee. The playing field is the Alaskan tundra near the Arctic Circle. Oil companies want to drill in the wilderness of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Conservationists say that would destroy a national treasure. Correspondent Lee Hochberg of public station KCTS in Seattle recently visited the site and prepared this report.

MR. HOCHBERG: Canadian biologist Don Russell has dropped into a herd of 120,000 caribou. Every year this herd makes a bewildering 1000 mile migration from wintering ground in the Canadian Yukon to calving grounds in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR.

DON RUSSELL, Canadian Wildlife Service: I've been at it for 20 years and I'm always -- it never fails to inspire you that, that there is something like this in North America, in the world.

MR. HOCHBERG: At ANWR, the summer sun never sets and the tundra explodes with life. Five hundred musk oxen roam the coastal plain. There are majestic doll sheep, polar and grizzly bears, packs of wolves, and arctic foxes and moose, millions of migratory birds and golden eagles, and almost 200,000 caribou. Beneath the tundra may lie a richness of another sort. The oil industry predicts petroleum reserves rivaling those of nearby Prudo Bay are buried here. The Bush administration says America needs to drill for that oil now to the dismay of the Canadian government and biologists on both sides of the border.

DON RUSSELL: Oil developments with its pipelines have no place in this, in this eco system. If you were going to do activity anywhere in the range, say it was like a dart board, you couldn't throw a dart in a worse spot than right here as where we're standing. This happens to be where they want to develop.

MR. HOCHBERG: In the late 1950s, pioneer conservationists Ol Aus and Marty Murray and others convinced the Eisenhower administration to protect this land with the Arctic Wildlife Range. In 1980, Congress renamed it the Arctic Refuge, or ANWAR, and expanded it, but it ordered the Interior Department to assess the oil and gas potential of this 125 mile long plot on ANWAR's coastal plain. The Interior later recommended that the plain be opened for development. It falls to Congress now to decide if America's need for oil justifies drilling in a wildlife refuge.

GOV. WALTER HICKEL, Alaska: Well, it wasn't a wildlife refuge when God put it there.

MR. HOCHBERG: The state of Alaska stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars off of ANWAR, as it did off Prudo Bay. Gov. Walter Hickel says critics didn't want drilling there either.

GOV. WALTER HICKEL, Alaska: There was opposition to Prudo Bay for the same reason. You've just got to fight this. It was a tie vote in the Senate in 1973, and so not Prudo Bay, not in the Keani and not offshore, not, not, not -- people need the resource. If you don't get it there, where? You don't go to the J.C. Penney and buy what you need. You have to go where God put it.

ROGER HERRERA, British Petroleum: See, what we have here is a sandstone. It's very friable and porous and in most places, the brown coloration is just weathered oil, enough if you break off a fresh piece, you can smell it.

MR. HOCHBERG: It's not clear how much oil is at ANWAR. Roger Herrera, an executive with British Petroleum's Alaska office, says oil in sandstone formations like this signals up to 3.2 billion barrels below.

MR. HERRERA: We do need domestic oil, especially when we can't afford to pay for the oil we import, as is shown by a balance of payments deficit, especially when foreign oil tends to result in wars and people get killed, which is not really very pleasant. We're running out of oil as an energy form in this country and, therefore, I think there is a need to replenish that and this represents the best opportunity to do that.

SEN. TIM WIRTH, [D] Colorado: There is a myth that has been put together by two or three big energy companies that drilling in ANWAR is going to save the country's energy future and that is simply untrue.

MR. HOCHBERG: Opponents of drilling at ANWAR like Colorado Senator Tim Wirth say ANWAR's oil optimistically will amount to only 10 percent of current US production, not enough to make a dent in the country's long-term energy picture. Wirth says what's needed instead is a national policy promoting conservation and alternative energy sources.

SEN. TIM WIRTH: The consensus is that the arctic might produce 200 days of oil for the United States. We can produce vast amounts more than that with fuel efficiency in automobiles, increasing just by a small amount the average mile per gallon that the automobile gets.

MR. HOCHBERG: As the debate rages thousands of miles away, 7,000 Gwichin Indians, who live in 15 native villages adjoining ANWAR, fear for their centuries old society. People in the town of Arctic Village hunt the caribou to meet their nutritional needs. Gwichin have harvested the caribou for 2,000 years for food, tools, and furs. In her native Athabascan language, 85 year old Martha James says she believes the Gwichin way of life is in peril.

INTERPRETER FOR MARTHA JAMES: She said that if they start oil drilling in that area, then, then the caribou will eventually move out of that place and then we, we won't have caribou here, and what will happen is people will start, will starve and they won't have much to eat because that's the only thing that they live on.

MR. HOCHBERG: The mayor of Arctic Village wonders what oil portends for the land he has lived on all of his life and the bucolic community he leads. Trimble Gilbert has seen how fast oil money disrupted other simple but self-sufficient Alaskan communities.

MAYOR TRIMBLE GILBERT, Arctic Village: They don't look at how we live. They think we are poor. Even one person asked if there is no development up there, do you want to continue to lead the poor, that's what he told me one time. I don't understand what he's talking about. I'm not poor -- poor person. I've got everything I need on this land, resources, all the fish I need and all the game I need on this area for thousands of years and I never go hungry, my kids never go hungry.

MR. HOCHBERG: Some North slope villages do want the additional money that ANWAR oil might bring, Cacktovic is a community of 200 Eskimos nestled on the Arctic Ocean. It's a whaling village dependent on muc tuc or whale blubber, not caribou. Cacktovic's leaders support drilling for the additional tax dollars it would bring. So does the larger government of the North Slope Burough. It's more than a billion dollars in debt after overspending on public works projects. Spokesman Warren Matumeak says oil money has become critical.

WARREN MATUMEAK, North Slope Burough: The things that we didn't have we now have, like roads, schools up to 12th grade, with swimming pools in all of our villages and clinics in all of our villages that we never had and senior centers.

MR. HOCHBERG: Despite that, an increasing number of these Eskimos are beginning to challenge ANWAR exploration as something they don't need or want, a sentiment drilling supporters are trying to muzzle. The oil industry and state of Alaska officials and some ANWAR managers repeatedly warned us to stay out of Cacktovic. They said the village of Eskimos would resent our presence here. Several told us they only resented the pressure to keep quiet.

LILLIAN AKOOTCHOOK: Yeah, we've been pressured, you know. Even we say we don't want no oil here, they're going to go ahead and do it anyway.

ROBERT THOMPSON: To have an oil field right inside of us with roads and activity and several jet ports and deep water harbors and pipelines, you know, to me it's just ugly to look at, you know.

MR. HOCHBERG: The industry is giving Congressmen aerial tours of the hard to get around North Slope trying to convince them that oil development and wilderness can coexist. From the air, Prudo Bay is an immense industrial scar on the North Slope wetlands, with some 1500 miles of roads and pipelines, abandoned buildings and chemical waste pits. The industry says it's prepared to leave a smaller imprint at ANWAR and British Petroleum's Herrera says animals that live there aren't bothered by development anyway.

ROGER HERRERA, British Petroleum: Animals couldn't care less whether they're in the middle of an oil field or in the middle of untouched tundra so long as the oil field doesn't harm them in any way.

MR. HOCHBERG: Scattered caribou can be seen grazing in the oil fields. The industry says the enormous gravel pads it built to support roads, pipelines and drilling platforms actually offer animals relief from the harsh conditions of the tundra. ARCO's Mike Joyce.

MIKE JOYCE, ARCO: The gravel pads act as an insect benefit to the caribou. We frequently find them coming up onto the gravel roads and the drill sites to get away from the insects.

DAVID KLEIN, University of Alaska: It's too simplistic to say that just because some caribou are in the oil field that, therefore, oil development's compatible with caribou.

MR. HOCHBERG: University of Alaska biologist David Klein answers that Prudo Bay oil fields have harmed the caribou herd that summers there. A state study found caribou cows are producing significantly fewer calves than a decade ago. Biologists say they could be spending so much time avoiding oil field obstacles that they're unable to graze and properly nourish their unborn calves. The impact of development on ANWAR's caribou herd might be even greater since drilling is slated for that herd's critical calving grounds. Alaska's governor says the animals will just have to adapt.

GOV. WALTER HICKEL, Alaska: I believe that deeply and this world was made basically to take care of people. People are the most precious thing on earth. Do you think caribou is more important than people?

CONSERVATIONIST: [Looking at Tundra With Caribou] Oh, it's so beautiful!

MR. HOCHBERG: Concerned that a go-ahead for drilling is coming soon, conservationists are streaming to ANWAR for the kind of tour few Congressional visitors are taking, a float trip through ANWAR's back country where under the midnight sun ANWAR's true wilderness values can be appreciated. The conservationists wonder if coming face to face with ANWAR's wilderness like this would move Congress to protect this last nugget of untouched American arctic.

ALLEN SMITH, Wilderness Society: Here we have probably the pinnacle value of our wilderness system available to us to save for all generations for all time, and they're talking about developing. It's a metaphor for the failure of our energy policy.

MR. HOCHBERG: In May, the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee voted to open up the refuge to drilling as part of a national energy bill. The measure awaits debate in the full Senate this fall. Competing bills to preserve the refuge as wilderness are being readied for what promises to be a bitter fight over the nation's energy future. ESSAY - SHOUTING MATCH

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, essayist Roger Rosenblatt, editor at large for Life Magazine, has some thoughts about the sound of the national debate on abortion.

MR. ROSENBLATT: Will we ever talk with one another about abortion? Yes, we will scream at each other about abortion, carry placards bearing coat hangers and accusations of murder. We will protest in front of abortion clinics or in front of those in front of abortion clinics. We will march in mass demonstrations in Washington or in hometowns. But will we ever talk about the subject? If we did, we might be surprised by a couple of things. One is that we are closer in our feelings than the extremists would have it appear. The other is that the solution to both the problem of abortion and the turmoil it generates may actually be within reach. An interesting development has occurred in the nation since the Supreme Court Webster decision of July 1989. That decision, you'll remember, weakened the Court's Roe V. Wade decision of 1973, which allowed unrestricted abortions in the first trimester. The Webster decision, which barred the use of public employees for abortions in Missouri, did not overturn Roe V. Wade, but did open the matter to the states to create their own laws. From what we've read in the paper since Webster, severe anti- abortion laws passed in Utah and Louisiana, for instance, it would seem o the country is headed toward a no abortion position. But, in fact, more states have supported abortion rights since Webster than have shot them down. What Webster did was to invite the states to openly divided on the issue, so that we now face the dangerous and illogical situation of women, American citizens, being able to exercise their rights in some states and not in others. What's missing in this display of division is the opinion of ordinary people. Yet, the opinion of ordinary people is there to be tapped. Most Americans know very well how they feel about abortion. 75 percent of us want to preserve abortion rights, yet, 60 percent also deem abortion as murder. One needs to know nothing else to see how conflicted a matter this is in the American mind. And yet the conflict is potentially useful -- if only we would speak it aloud. All important elements of American life are conflicted. In a way, we survive on conflict. We are for both free speech and proper conduct. We are for both privacy and the community good. We are for both federal assistance and states autonomy. We live with perpetual conflict in such matters and conflict creates its own balance of power. Our conflict with abortion is that we want it permitted but that we want to discourage it too. We want to permit abortion because we recognize a woman's right to claim her own destiny. If abortion means killing, the woman's right to choose still prevails. Yet, the community, that is the national community, still has the obligation to stand in the way of what it abhors -- permit abortion but discourage it. Discourage it through more sex education. 43 percent of all American women get pregnant before the age of 20. Discourage abortion through improved contraceptives. Discourage it by attending to the needs of the poor. Discourage it by supporting family structure and spiritual values. Permit and discourage -- one way or another -- this is how most Americans feel about abortion. Yet we say nothing. Were we to say what we feel, we would never unit entirely, but those who describe themselves as pro life would see that those who describe themselves as pro choice share many of their qualms and anxieties. Abortion touches on the human mysteries of birth, free will, and the nature of the soul. Human mystery is a good meeting ground for different points of view -- to say that affirming a right is not the same thing as doing right, to say that the ability to choose is only one part of living responsibly in America, to say that we are not mortal enemies and that we recognize in one another the same painful plight and confusion, that we might actually comfort one another -- that would make a start. I'll lay down my slogan -- you lay down yours. Here we are. RECAP

MR. MUDD: Once again the major story of this Monday involved the Middle East hostage situation. The United Nations released the contents of the letter from the Islamic Jihad to Sec. Gen. Perez DeCuellar. The hostage taking groups said all hostages could be released if prisoners sympathetic to their cause were also freed by Israel and other countries. President Bush said the letter was confusing and did not contain any detailed information. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Roger. Before we go, a correction. Josh Friedman, the journalist from Newsday we interviewed earlier is not the present chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists, he's still a board member. The present chairman is James Goodell. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with the first in a series of conversations about the world's biggest bank fraud. We begin with the man who traced Manuel Noriega's drug money to the Bank of Credit & Commerce International. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.