The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, the House voted cuts in the B-2 bomber program, Pres. Bush signed a bill deregulating natural gas and four more pro-democracy activists were sentenced to death in China. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, we go first [Focus - The Right Choice?] to the Bush administration's controversial nomination of William Lucas to the top civil rights post in the Justice Department. We'll have a debate between the Southern Christian leadership's Joseph Lowery and the Legal Defense and Education Fund's Elaine Jones. Then John Merrow reports on the future of Chinese students in America after the Beijing crackdown, next our weekly series of conversations [Series - Talking Drugs] looking at solutions to the drug problem. Tonight we talk with former drug dealer Walter Redding and finally [Essay - Public Divide] Roger Rosenblatt has an essay on abortion.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The House of Representatives did some trimming on the $70 billion B-2 Stealth bomber program today. The vote was 257 to 160 to allow the building of only four of the eight B-2s the administration requested by 1991. They also put a so-called "fence" around the money until the plane meets certain performance standards. The plan puts off for another year the decision to defend the full program as the Senate voted to do yesterday. Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin sponsored the House plan. He explained why the B-2s should not be fully funded.

REP. LES ASPIN, [D] Wisconsin: If we go ahead with this program, and it's only $70 billion, it would be a miracle. We think that this cost is a very very expensive cost and I think a lot of people are very very reluctant at this point to sign up for that program. Secondly, we have hardly tested this plan. I mean, it just flew, and there are a number of tests that have to be conducted, there are a number of tests that ought to be conducted before we make a decision do we go ahead or do we not go ahead. What this amendment does is say slow the program down, do the R&D and sense the money.

MR. LEHRER: The B-2 also has a possible fraud problem to cope with. The Defense Department today confirmed a Washington Post report that the Justice Department has joined with Defense in investigating possible fraud by the Northrop Corporation, the maker of the B-2. The Post said the investigation centers on allegations of fraudulent billing. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Pres. Bush today removed the last vestiges of price control on natural gas. At a White House ceremony today he said the best way to deal with energy problems is to let our market economy work.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Today's legislation represents the bipartisan attainment of the administration's first major energy initiative, the elimination of an entire system of artificial price controls for one of America's cleanest energy resources, and this measure reflects a strong bipartisan belief that eliminating price controls will help this nation take full advantage of our plentiful domestic resources.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The President also said Energy Sec. James Watkins will be developing a detailed national energy strategy in the coming months to deal with future energy requirements.

MR. LEHRER: They played a game of favorites at the Los Angeles office of the Internal Revenue Service, a game that resulted in a double standard for judging agent misconduct. That was the charge heard today at a House hearing in Washington. It was leveled by a former IRS official. He said there was a cozy relationship between top managers and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division known as CID.

RUSS DAVIS, Former IRS Inspector: This professional relationship for some employees developed into a more personal one, with this interaction continuing for perhaps twelve to fifteen years. Such continuing familiarity may have negatively impacted on inspection's ability to effectively investigate CID wrongdoing, especially on the part of management.

MR. LEHRER: The IRS hearings continue tomorrow. There was an important vote today at Smirna, Tennessee. The voters were the 2400 workers at the Nissan auto assembly plant. The issue was whether they wanted to become a United Auto Workers union shop. The ballots will be counted tomorrow. If the UAW wins, Smirna would be the first unionized auto plant owned solely by a Japanese company.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Beijing, the Chinese government sentenced four more people to death today and announced the arrest of more than 3000 others. This report carried in the Beijing Evening News said that the four condemned had committed crimes of robbery and violence during anti-government unrest in May and June.

MR. LEHRER: The ethnic conflicts in the Soviet Union grew worse today. Two bombs exploded in Soviet Georgia as thousands continued to riot, demonstrate and even fight among themselves for various political and economic rights. Twenty-one people have died since the unrest began in Georgia July 15th. There were also problems in Estonia today, where ethnic legislation triggered strikes in 19 factories. In Washington, the Senate Intelligence Committee had harsh words today for security at U.S. embassies. A committee report said the State Department and other agencies have ignored their own warnings. The report was written before the recent revelations about Felix Bloch, the U.S. Foreign Service officer who is suspected of being a Soviet spy. On the case today, his wife broke the family's silence. Lucille Bloch told the Newshour in Washington, "I along with other members of my family are definitely disturbed by the allegations about my husband and are sticking with him.". She said she could not give an answer one way or another about the truthfulness of the espionage charges against her husband.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Poland today, Solidarity lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to back Lech Walesa's refusal to join the Communists in a coalition government. The Solidarity caucus also adopted a resolution saying that it would not be useful for its individual members to accept government posts. That's our News Summary. Still ahead, a debate over the William Lucas appointment, the future of Chinese students in America, a conversation with a former drug dealer and a Roger Rosenblatt essay on abortion. FOCUS - THUNDER OUT OF CHINA

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: As we reported, there were more executions and arrests in China today. This is of special concern to the 40,000 Chinese students studying in the United States. Many of them were aggressive supporters of the pro-democracy movement which has been crushed by the Chinese government. This weekend there will be a gathering in Chicago to discuss the creation of a nationwide movement of Chinese pro-democracy supporters in this country. Correspondent John Merrow recently sampled the views of some Chinese students here in the U.S.

MR. MERROW: Sympathetic Chinese students demonstrated across the Country following the crackdown on Tienaman Square June 4th. In Washington D.C. angry students filled the streets in front of the Chinese Embassy. China's harsh crackdown on protest leaders some of whom were identified from U.S. News Broadcasts has made many students here reluctant to speak out publicly or even to be seen in circumstances that could be construed as anti Government. Only two dozen of more than the one thousand Chinese students in New York City came out recently to hear an eye witness account of the events on Tienamen Square from Zha Jianying a graduatestudent at Columbia University who was in China visiting her family when the violence occurred.

ZHA JIANYING, Graduate Student Columbia University: Actually there were people dropping around me. There was a lot of people discussing something together and all of a sudden a young man dropped and got shot down and immediately you saw, I mean, it was like shot through his head.

MR. MERROW: More than half of the Chinese students in the audience chose not to have their faces shown on television.

MS. JIANYING: There was no excuse for shooting. You know it was just cold blooded killing.

MR. MERROW: Four students in the audience agreed to be interviewed. Three on condition that their faces not be shown. The fourth to be identified by his American name Gordon. Two are studying computer science, one is a law student, the other a medical student. All in their late 20s they represent China's intellectual elite. Do you worry that the Chinese Government is keeping track of what you are doing.

CHINESE STUDENT: I don't care about what they do to me but I do care about my family and that is why I don't want to show my face on the television.

CHINESE STUDENT: They give your family members a demotion, give your family members punishment in terms of denying your bonuses, denying your access to good schools, denying your access to get promoted.

MR. MERROW: When you go to a demonstration are you afraid that some body will video tape.

CHINESE STUDENTS: We know that some people must be videotaping the demonstrations but we thought that what the hell. People in the square were dying they were giving their blood, they were giving their lives. We were here just because they videotape then we would not go out there and have our voices heard. No way.

MR. MERROW: Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Washington say that their policy is to " maintain contact" with students here but they deny that they are keeping track of or planning to punish those who demonstrate. The students themselves feel that the time for demonstrations has passed.

CHINESE STUDENT: Talking about killings, talking about sufferings is fine but I think that we should get down to our reasons that we should write something, we should discuss something that is more substantial, more important for the future of China.

CHINESE STUDENT: I think President Bush said that he wants these students here to go back to China and tell the Chinese people the truth, tell Chinese people what is real democracy. This is illegal in China. What President Bush ask us to do is illegal in China.

MR. MERROW: Go back and talk and tell the truth?

CHINESE STUDENT: Yes we could get arrested just by doing that.

MR. MERROW: You seem in a way to be the most angry and I guess the most frustrated. Have you given up on your Government, on your country.

CHINESE STUDENT: Almost.

MR. MERROW: Almost?

CHINESE STUDENT: Yes because as I said nobody seems to have a real solution and not Chinese people, not Chinese student, not even the United States Government.

MR. MERROW: Would you endorse violence. Try to over throw the Government by force?

CHINESE STUDENT: Yes if that is the only way. But I think that another solution would be to have democracy way to solve the Chinese problem.

MR. MERROW: Not use force but democratic change?

CHINESE STUDENT: More people would know about democratic and as time going on things get better and better.

MR. MERROW: While Gordon and the other students endorsed the idea of democracy for China they have yet to define what form it might take or just how it might evolvebut they have created a World wide communications network to share information as well as news from China. As coordinator for Chinanet on his campus Gordon spends four more hours a day sending and receiving messages. Nearly 100 U.S. universities and another 30 in Canada, Europe and Asia are linked by three computer networks. Every participating university has computer coordinators like Gordon to keep the electronic mail system from becoming flooded with messages. There are six regional headquarters including the University of Maryland which has the most Chinese Students 485 the most on the East Coast.

XHANG XIAOCHUAN, President, Chinese Student Association: Here is the good news and the bad news

MR. MERROW: Xhang Xiaochuan is President of the Chinese Student Association at the University of Maryland. He has been publicly identified with the pro democracy movement from the beginning and has appeared on local and national television. Mr. Xiaochuam says whether his parents back in Bejing approve of his political involvement.

MR. XIAOCHUAN: I still don't know if what they were telling me on the phone is what they really believe or that they were afraid that the phone line could be bugged.

MR. MERROW: What did they tell you on the phone?

MR. XIAOCHUAN: Well they are saying just stop doing this. We heard you on Voice of America, you know, we know that you are a student leader and probably we think that you are doing something that you really want to do probably you were driven by the students here but I was telling him that is exactly what I am fighting for. That is my belief.

MR. MERROW: Like the vast majority of Chinese students here Mr. Xiaochuan holds a visa called a J1 that requires him to return to China for a minimum of two years before reapplying to return. Mr. Xiaochuan has been involved in demonstrations like this one to get the J1 rules changed. After the violence in China President Bush announced that any Chinese holding a J1 Visa could apply for a 1 year deferment through June 1990. Mr. Xiaochuan along with many other Chinese students is pleased with the Presidents gesture but unhappy about the so called deferred status. They fear that the very act of applying for a deferment will invite trouble.

MR. XIAOCHUAN: The fact that you refuse to go at least indicates your dissatisfaction with the Government with the policy and that puts you in an extremely difficult situation to say the least if not to say that you are in danger. They could charge you a traitor.

MR. MERROW: Many Chinese students have their attention focused here on the U.S. Congress. They are supporting legislation introduced by Representative Nancy Polarcy of California and Senator Alan Dixon of Illinois. That Bill would grant all Chinese Students holding J1 Visa's automatic extensions no application necessary past June 1990 and it would get rid of the provision requiring them to go home for two years. Chinese Students have flooded Capitol Hill with messages written, phoned and faxed and whenever possible they have come here to lobby personally. This delegation meeting with Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine represents students from 8 universities. After the meeting the Senate unanimously agreed to permit Chinese Students to stay in the United States for four years and permanently if the Administration determines it is still unsafe for them to return home. It's impossible to predict how many Chinese students would choose to extend their stay here. For that matter no one knows how many of the 40,000 actually support the pro democracy movement. Some like XIAOLIN LI a Doctoral student at Maryland are ambivalent.

XIAOLIN LI: Originally I had mixed feelings toward the students demonstration because they are so young they do not really realize the political situation in China. They started with some very good objectives, self government, free press, and equal balance with the Government but they changed during the process, they changed and they do not know how to compromise with Government. So from my point of view I thought that both student and government make some mistake.

MR. MERROW: So you are in the middle?

MS. LI: Yes in the middle but after the marshall law I thought the Government was more responsible to the crack down to the blood shed. It can be stopped. We can have other ways to solve this crisis. I don't think the military power should be involved.

MR. MERROW: The events of June 4th did that end the student movement, did that kill the student movement?

MS. LI: No I don't think. It has just temporarily been pressed down but it is going to resume because the seeds are still spread among the people and among the students.

MR. MERROW: What I have read in Diang Speeches he has said time for more political education of the young to prevent this student movement. Is that what is going to happen. if your son stays will he get more teaching.

MS. LI: Yes they are going to have more we call it ideological indoctrination or political propaganda campaign but it is becoming more and more artificial people just do it as lip service.

MR. MERROW: Chinese students here are beyond the reach of political indoctrination but the Government has a strong hold on them anyway. Most students came here alone. Family members are left behind. Not only for economic reasons but also to insure that the students come back to China. Xiaolin Li has been here since 1987. Her husband got out China only 4 weeks ago and brought this video tape with him. Their son is now 11 and his application for a Visa has been rejected 6 times. Ms. Li hasn't seen her son for more than two years.

MS. LI: He has been to Tienaman Square twice by himself but before that marshall law. After the marshall law we told our relatives to watch him very carefully because young kid is to active they are so curious they want to go outside and to watch by themselves.

MR. MERROW: Is it hard for you to be here without your son?

MS. LI: Yes I have experienced a lot of sufferings, psychological, emotional break downs. Sometimes I share my experience I cry sometimes weekly. I think that most of the Chinese students that is the big problem. Everybody is so lonely sometimes missing our family members.

MR. MERROW: Xiaolin Li and her husband intend to return to China. The pull of family and country they say will override their fears but Chinese intellectuals have reason to be fearful. Modern China has a history of turning on its intelligencia first in the 1950s and again in the so called cultural revolution of the late 60s and early 70. The students we spoke fear that history is already repeating itself. FOCUS - THE RIGHT CHOICE?

MR. LEHRER: Now the fight over William Lucas. Lucas is President Bush's Nominee for one of his Administrations top civil rights jobs. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the nomination. Lucas is black and much of the fight over his nomination is among and between blacks and others involved in the Civil Rights Community. We will sample that argument right after this set up report on the Senate battle by Quame Holman.

SENATOR ROBERT DOLE, [R] Kansas: The President chose a man who doesn't have to read a book about Civil Rights or growing up black in America or knowing first hand the cruelest thing in discrimination. Bill Lucas has lived it, all of it yet Bill Lucas is getting the cold shoulder from the Civil Rights establishment and its dribble special interest allies who talk a good game on fairness and compassion but are out to destroy this decent, dedicated, highly qualified black American and frankly it is a disgrace.

MR. HOLMAN: This morning on the Senate floor Robert Dole reflected the frustration of supporters of William Lucas. Senate confirmation of George Bush's Nominee to head the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division was never thought to be easy but now Lucas's Republican supporters are scrambling to save Lucas in the face of recent defections by those who once supported his nomination.

REP. JOHN CONYERS, JR., [D] Michigan: I have know Bill Lucas probably longer than anybody that will testify before you excluding his family members present.

MR. HOLMAN: Just last week Michigan Democratic Congressman John Conyers introduced and endorsed Lucas before the Senate Judiciary Committee which vote on Lucas's nomination.

REP. CONYERS: I am here based on the fact that I have known and worked with him as a Democrat and as a Republican so I am very pleased to introduce to you William Lucas to be the next Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.

MR. HOLMAN: But within hours Conyers reversed himself announcing that he was withdrawing his support of Lucas.

REP. CONYERS: Anybody going into that job with these cases hanging over head that wants some more time. You will not get this member of Congress advocating his nomination.

MR. HOLMAN: Some speculate that Conyers reversal is related to his announcement this week that he will run for Mayor of Detroit where both he and Lucas made their political careers. Lucas also started the confirmation process with the tacit support of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden of Delaware.

SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN, [D] Delaware, Chairman Senate Judiciary Committee: I am favorably inclined toward you. I think that you are an honorable decent man.

MR. HOLMAN: Now Biden too has changed that Favorable stance indicating he is inclined to vote against confirmation of Lucas. What made the difference was Lucas's own testimony. The Committee's questions brought out inconsistencies and statements Lucas made about his law career, his lack of courtroom experience and charges he tolerated police brutality when he was a Sheriff in Michigan but the testimony thought to be most damaging to Lucas came in response to questions on Lucas's view on a spate of recent Supreme Court decisions that many say set back Civil Rights.

SENATOR ALRLEN SPECTER, [R] Pennsylvania: Do you think that any of the recent Supreme Court decisions in the Affirmative action field changed existing law.

WILLIAM LUCAS, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Nominee: I think what they did was to make. They refined the decisions. I don't think that they will have a significant impact on cases that will be brought before the Court. I think they clarify to some degree.

SENATOR SPECTER: Then I will represent to you that I will re read the cases and I would ask you to re read the cases. But are you saying that there is no change in any of these 5 big recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative actions.

MR. LUCAS: Sir to my limited venture into the law I do not see any significant change.

MR. HOLMAN: But this morning Senator Specter went from undecided to support for Lucas after Specter got assurances that Lucas would monitor civil rights laws.

MR. LEHRER: Now two Civil Rights activists with very different views on whether Lucas should get the job. Both testified at his conformation hearings. Elaine Jones opposed the confirmation. She is a Deputy Director of Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The Reverend Joseph Lowery supports it. He is the President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. he joins us from Public Station WPBA in Atlanta. Ms. Jones what is your problem with William Lucas.

MS. JONES: The question is not Bill Lucas's honor or his commitment or whether he is an honorable person or a man of integrity for us the Legal Defense Fund. The question is whether he has the competence, the background, the training and the skills to handle this particular job. What we are talking about is an Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, Head of one of the Litigation Divisions of the Justice Department where he will supervise 150 lawyers. Two qualifications that he must have he ought to have. One he ought to be a litigator to understand the litigation process. Not to be a trial lawyer necessarily but to understand how the law can be used a tool to make a difference in peoples lives.

MR. LEHRER: You are saying he is not?

MS. JONES: He is not and Mr. Lucas says that. Mr. Lucas tells us at his confirmation hearing that he is new to the law. The second point is that Mr. Lucas ought to know something about Civil Rights law. Now I am willing to put the Civil Rights cases aside and understanding the Civil Rights Law aside and say I will give that up if at least he understood the litigation process then he could learn the Civil Rights law but he has neither.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Lowery why do you support him?

MR. LOWERY: Well I support him for several reasons. We had a man with the kind of experience that

MS. Jones calls for, for 8 years the result was the emasculation the devastation of Civil Rights. That is not what we need. We need a person who knows first hand the pain and agony inflicted by racial discrimination. A man who has administrative experience, management experience and this man managed one of the largest counties in the country, has an excellent affirmative action program. That is what he brings to this office and that is what he should bring and some of the people who are opposing him never opposed his predecessor. With all his experience he reeked havoc with Civil Rights. They never opposed mr. Meese who had no sensitivity to hunger or pain or discrimination in this country and I find it strange and I find it strange that now they are so gung ho to oppose a black man who comes with a commitment to civil rights and a record of strong affirmative action and a good record of management and administration. That is what we need in this office.

MR. LEHRER: He finds it strange?

MS. JONES: Mr. Lucas does have a background yes he does but it in as a police officer, as sheriff, as an FBI Agent, its been in law enforcement and wonderful, I mean, if mr. Lucas were put in the Marshall Service or the Secret Service or at the FBI this individual in my organization would be supporting him. The problem is we are asking Mr. Lucas to be the Chief Civil Rights Lawyer, litigator in the land ,and I am saying that sure pain and agony is good have someone who understands that. Commitment to Civil Rights we should have. Mr. Bert Reynolds did not have it.

MR. LEHRER: You are talking about the predecessor Mr. Reynolds.

MS. JONES: Yes the Predecessor that Mr. Lowrey just mentioned. But the problem here is when I have to go to court I need a lawyer. Sure he may empathize with me but he or she must have the technical competence and we are talking about entrusting the rights of not only minorities. We are talking about people disabilities. People that suffer from religious discrimination and the rights of women to Mr. Lucas who candidly admits he has no experience no experience at all in the area.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Lowery how does Mr. Lucas get around his lack of experience as a litigator, as a lawyer as Ms. Jones just laid out?

MR. LOWERY: I think that he will do just as well as Robert Kennedy did who became Attorney General over the whole Justice Department without courtroom experience. That was one of the severe criticisms against him and as my distinguished colleague and attractive colleague knows that this is not a trial office. This is a management office. We had a man there with extensive trail experience. He turned back or tried to turn back civil rights for 25 years. I think the other thing that you have to be aware of is that the person that Ms. Jones supported for President and person I supported for President lost the election. Mr. Bush won. I think there may come a time during his administration when we throw down the gauntlet and say we can't tolerate this appointment to the Supreme Court for example but here Mr. Bush is putting together his Administrative team. I think he is entitled to have his team, to make his case and we will hold him accountable for the Civil Rights posture of this division. Let me also add that even before Mr. Lucas gets there to show you what is coming. The Division has already gone into a case in North Carolina supporting the North Carolina Minority set aside program in its Department of Transportation against a white contractor who is suing to this set aside program derailed because of the Richmond decision of the Supreme Court. The Justice Department is saying where Mr. Lucas will be there to manage it already influencing, that one the contractor has no standing because he can't prove the set asides hurt him. That there is a history of discrimination and that the minority set aside program is perfectly legitimate and the Richmond decision is narrow and does not reach out to North Carolina. That is what I expect Mr. Lucas to do to manage and administer a division that will be fair objective and positive in supporting our civil rights unlike his predecessor who was experienced in litigation but totally ineffective in fact totally opposed to affirmative action.

MR. LEHRER: What about the politics of this Ms. Jones? Mr. Lowery says correctly that Pres. Bush won the election. Doesn't he have a right to have his policies implemented? And you also heard what Mr. Lowery just laid out. Those policies aren't that bad, at least the early signs.

ELAINE JONES, NAACP Legal Defense Fund: On the question of the policies, you know, I really don't know what Mr. Lucas's views are on many of the civil rights rulings that the court has held over the past fifteen or twenty years. I mean, no one has given him an examination on civil rights laws and what his views are on that. I am coming in assuming commitment. I mean, I am assuming commitment and I am saying even with commitment, that doesn't take him as far as he needs to go on this one. When you look at the qualifications and at those who litigate in the other litigating divisions of justice, look at the tax division of the person that they're nominating, someone who's an expert in tax law. Look at the lands and natural resources division, someone who's an expert in environmental law. Look at the anti-trust division, someone who's an expert in anti-trust and civil litigation. But yet, you look at the civil rights division and we don't get anyone who understands not only civil rights law, but understands the litigation process as well.

MR. LEHRER: What's your reading of that? What do you think that is?

MS. JONES: I'm wondering why that is, why that is.

MR. LEHRER: What's your answer?

MS. JONES: It's disturbing. It's disturbing. I think, and I hate to say it, but it may be that Mr. Lucas may be being set up because he is clearly not a lawyer. He won't be able to tell those lawyers what to do and won't be able to monitor their work.

MR. LEHRER: Set up by whom?

MS. JONES: I have no idea. I mean, I have no idea someone with these qualifications is being nominated for this particular job. It's very disturbing.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Lowery, how do you answer that?

REV. JOSEPH LOWERY, Southern Christian Leadership Conference: Well, it's very interesting and it's not just white people who do it. When black people get the ball right down to the goal line, we want to expand the qualification and change the rules. Mr. Lucas' record is clear. For women, for handicapped, for minorities, his administrative direction was pro-affirmative action, pro-setaside, fair and objective, and I don't know why we're not giving him an opportunity to answer the call of his President, to serve his country, and give the President an opportunity. Ms. Jones knows that I didn't support Mr. Bush, but right now he's the President and at this level of his administrative team, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and then hold him accountable. Mr. Lucas can hire 200 more lawyers with litigation experience than the Legal Defense Fund has, SCLC has and all of our advocacy groups together have. I looked at his record. I trust him. I did not expect him on the witness stand to contradict the administration policy. I do expect him, if he's confirmed, and I hope he will be, to put into practice the policies that he put in practice when he was county executive of one of the nation's largest counties and influence the Bush administration toward a strong positive stand as they're already taking in this North Carolina setaside case.

MS. JONES: If Rev. Lowery had needed a civil rights lawyer, he would not have gone to Mr. Lucas as a civil rights -- to take his case to court --

MR. LOWERY: Listen now dear.

MS. JONES: One point though, one point. If -- my turn -- one point. If Rev. Lowery says that the civil rights division doesn't litigate and that he'd have to go to court, he can manage, well, he's wrong on that. He doesn't understand the working division. The assistant attorney generals for civil rights argue the cases in the Supreme Courts of the United States, they argue cases in the Court of Appeals, and whether or not they do it themselves, they need to know how to do it so they can manage it.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you this, Rev. Lowery. If you say the man is qualified, you've gone through it, then what's going on here? Why is it that Elaine Jones and so many others in the same group with you, the same civil rights group with you, the same civil rights community with you, are so adamantly opposed to William Lucas?

MR. LOWERY: I think there are two or three reasons. One is I think we don't want to accept the fact that our candidate lost and I think we are expecting Mr. Bush to make the same kind of appointments our candidate would have made. That simply is not going to happen and we're going to have to be wise enough and smart enough to try to get the maximum benefits for civil rights and justice out of Mr. Bush's appointments and his choices for this job. I don't think this is the place to throw down the gauntlet. Now let me say one final thing. I think Elaine Jones is one of the most skillful trial lawyers in this country. I, if I were President, would not appoint her to head the civil rights division. Her talents would be wasted. She's not as good a manager as she is a trial lawyer. I'd want a manager to head that division. I'd want Elaine to stay where she has to go to court. Mr. Lucas can employ a hundred Elaine Jones and let them do the work but he will manage it and he will see that the policy is followed out and vigorously pursue affirmative action as we're doing in North Carolina.

MS. JONES: Mr. Lucas has to discuss a trial with Elaine Jones and Mr. Lucas does not understand the law enough to do that.

MR. LEHRER: All right. There should be a vote tomorrow in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Eventually it'll go to the floor of the Senate. We'll see which one of you all turns out to be right at least on this one.

MS. JONES: Which one wins.

MR. LEHRER: Right. That's right. Wins. Thank you both very much. SERIES - TALKING DRUGS

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next our regular Wednesday conversation series looking at solutions to the drug problem. Tonight we talk with a former drug dealer whose base of operation was San Francisco's tenderloin district. It was at the first national conference on the black family and crack cocaine that Walter Redding was moved to go public with his story. The conference was organized by the Glide Church and its pastor, the Rev. Cecil Williams, as a part of the church's ongoing drug rehabilitation program. It was through this program that Rev. Williams got involved with Redding, who had been arrested on drug charges and was facing a stiff prison term.

REV. CECIL WILLIAMS, Glide Church: Walt came to me and wanted me to write a letter in his behalf. Well, I knew Walt was into some stuff see, and I said, no, I don't want to write no letter. And then I said, let me think about this.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Despite his initial reluctance, Williams intervened with the District Attorney and got Redding out of jail and out of his life of crime.

REV. WILLIAMS: I wrote the letter and then the DA called and said, Cecil, you know what you're getting into? I said, yeah, but I made a decision. I said, I want that man.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Redding's life of crime started three years ago when he arrived in San Francisco from Chicago. He has a degree in psychology, but he said he couldn't find a job and that had made him more vulnerable to the drug business. He's now a consultant to the Glide Church's drug rehabilitation program. Redding told us how he was introduced to the drug business by a teen-ager.

WALTER REDDING: I was approached on the street by a miner approximately around 14 years old to watch her back while she sold drugs and she would give me something like maybe $100 for two hours' worth of worth. It's obvious what type of ethics I had at that time. I was out of work; I was pretty much frustrated; not trying to make that as an excuse, but those were the reasons why I did it. I said, well, if I'm not going to have any drugs on me and I can alert you when police are around the neighborhood, a hundred dollars for a couple hours of work would be great for me.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And that's how it started.

MR. REDDING: That's how it started. I started being a lookout for a minor.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Then what?

MR. REDDING: It went on for a couple of weeks. At the end of seven days, I had $700. At the end of 14 days, I had $1400. So what I decided to do was take some of the money and invest it in the product that she was selling. She arranged me to meet a supplier. I discontinued my work for her and I worked myself and hired lookouts for myself. I secured myself an ounce of crack at the price of about $600 at that time. I cut it up into about between thirty-five and fifty $20 rocks and commenced to distributing it to runners. These are people that were basically crackheads or pipeheads who smoked more than anything else; that's all they cared about. But I could employ them for a menial fee, maybe half a rock, to sell anywhere from between 200 and $2000 worth of crack in a day's time for me, so I proceeded to hire different runners and when they would get busted, they would never snitch on me or anything, so after that, I started associating with other dealers, and I learned the different spots, the different methods of dealing, which I didn't agree with too much, because to me I saw vulnerability in their program. So what I did was went to the library. I didn't have a library card, so I wasn't able to get the books, so I hired somebody, the pipeheads, to go steal the books for me on criminal arrest procedures and things like that and I did a lot of personal research on it, went through all the legal loopholes and devised a plan for myself and my staff how to get around some of the police arrests and different things and hassling the police, and I also started to train my staff to train other people and to recruit different youngsters and everything. In fact, I just built the business off of it. From that point on, I did an in-depth research on ways to approach people to break down their value systems, ways to help create difficult situations in their lives and then seemingly rescuing them out of these situations monetarily and making them feel like they owed me a favor and seducing them into letting me rent or lease their children or them and themselves for my purposes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What was driving you?

MR. REDDING: The prospect of having more money and more power over other people.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is that what attracted you to drug dealing? Was it just the money?

MR. REDDING: Basically the attraction was the money initially in my particular case, but what I discovered later was there must have been some type of void, of emptiness in me in my personality structure as far as emotions are concerned because I felt a sense of false importance and status after I began to deal and I could dangle a rock in front of a woman or anybody and have them to jump through loopholes if I wanted to, anything I wanted them to do.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean drug dealers are generally that calculating?

MR. REDDING: That's why it's so hard to break the addictive cycle. Not so much -- it's just as hard to break the addictive cycle as the smoker, but it's even harder in my experience to break my addictive cycle as a seller because the things that I get from it are more intangible as far as rather than just the feeling of euphoria. I got a lot more and a sense of, false sense of reinforced and heightened self-work, a sense of godliness and superiority, a sense of ten upmanship over other people, a sense of total control. I was a crack Hitler.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You have a background in psychology?

MR. REDDING: I have a BA in clinical psychology.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There seems to be a common wisdom out there that it's the lure of the money for poor, underprivileged, unskilled black kids that brings them into the drug business. That wasn't your problem. You didn't need drugs. I mean, you had a degree.

MR. REDDING: Yeah. But what job or corporation or corporate director in America could give me the type of money I could make from drugs in one day? Why should I go punch a clock and hold a title, legitimate title, and wait a week or two weeks to get a few hundred dollars when I could make thousands a day and I could be the director?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What turned all that around?

MR. REDDING: I was coming to pick up my money from my daughters. The workers had been paid off. My daughters had the cash and had some leftover merchandise, drugs. Somebody snitched. The police rolled down on us, arrested my daughters, they arrested me, took us all down, and booked me on sales and on getting my daughters to sell too. I was already on three years probation, so that was a charge plus a probation violation, which would have gotten me about eight years, no, about five years and eight months in San Quentin.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What did jail represent and that type of sentence?

MR. REDDING: In a way, I looked forward to going to jail, for one reason because jail is an informal university. I figured I could augment my knowledge and my skill as far as the dope game goes from others in jail.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What finally changed your thinking about the life you were leading?

MR. REDDING: I realized when I started, when I would come to the visiting room to see my wife, sometimes some of the people that I had served or some of the people's parents that I had served in front of me would be there visiting someone else, and I would witness the ruin in them, and I felt twangs of guilt when I would go back to the cell, and it started getting to me because I didn't have that power trip anymore. I wasn't actively in it like I was when I was on the street, so I started looking at myself a lot closer and looking at the methods that I used on people, and it forced me to focus on myself. It forced me to look at myself and I decided to try to change my life around. At that point, I realized the one thing that was most important to me was my happiness and my family's happiness.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Was anyone in jail helping you, counseling you?

MR. REDDING: You must be in a joking mood now, because there's no such thing. The only counselors in jail were the ones incarcerated like I was. There's no, they have counselors, psychiatric counselors for people that's deemed crazy or unbalanced, but as far as dealing with a crack problem, dealer, especially a dealer, I don't know of any program in America outside the one that was just established here at Glide Church that addresses problems of a dealer which I was having problems with at that time, so there was no one I could talk to.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How hard is it now to stay out of the drug game?

MR. REDDING: It's a lot easier than I anticipated it. First when I got out of jail -- by the way, I didn't get out of jail -- Glide Church and the Rev. Cecil Williams rescued me from certain damnation, because if I had have gone to jail, I'd have been 10 times worse when I got back out. Rev. Williams intervened in my behalf through the District Attorney's Office, pulled me up out of there, got me downstairs, and told me, look, man, I'm aware of your potentials, you've to turn this around, you told me you're going to turn yourself around; you haven't been a good father, we both know that; you had the potential to do it; you caused great destruction to this community, but by your attitude now and the direction that you're going, we can use you to help reconstruct and help rebuild things that you've taken from the community, which is absolutely true, so I decided that this is what I was going to do and I have a great support group in Glide Church, not only at home but right here within the church. If not be for the support group within the church, I'd have been selling drugs again a long time ago because I've got half ounces and ounces just literally thrown in my life.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How heavy is that pressure? I mean, do you get tempted?

MR. REDDING: I'm tempted all the time, because from what I get, the wages I earn as a consultant and a counselor here at Glide Church are feeble to the amounts of money that I made on the streets. Before I got here this morning, I was approached by somebody right there in the park who said, you're still trying to fight it, I don't know what you're wasting your time and your energies and your talent for, you were born to be a crack dealer and the best one, why not be true to your destiny.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: If you could advise Drug Control Director Bennett on a course of action he should take, where you would like to see some attention focused, where would it be?

MR. REDDING: On the drug sellers. I mean, dealing with the users is just one side of the coin. That's only going to deal with the demand end of the problem, and if you erase the demand end, there are dealers clever enough to create a new market. For every drug dealer that you take off the streets, personally I know you're replaced by 10 the next day. That's not to me really addressing the problem at all. It's addressing the symptom of the problem, but not the problem itself. Now in my estimation, personally I think, in fact, I know that there are no programs to my knowledge in America save the program that was just started here at Glide Church that directly addresses the seller, not just as far as its value systems are concerned, but addresses the seller as a person, as an individual, as an injured personality, with understanding and compassion.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are there enough people out there who know what they're doing to approach these drug dealers?

MR. REDDING: No. The best place I would suggest to approach them is in the jails. That's the only place you can get them contained, as far as my knowledge goes, because you can't approach them on the streets and be successful.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And what kind of people need to approach them?

MR. REDDING: People like myself that are ex-dealers, that can relate to them, that can talk to them in their languages, that they'll have to respect for my knowledge, they'll have to respect for my experience.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And how much of a dent do you think that kind of thing can make in this problem?

MR. REDDING: It will make all the difference in my estimation. ESSAY - PUBLIC DIVIDE

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight an essay about another divisive issue. The essayist is Roger Rosenblatt, Editor of U.S. News & World Report.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: For better or worse, the abortion issue just became public property after approximately 170 years of belonging to doctors and lawyers. The shift of authority occasioned by the Supreme Court's evident inclination to turn the matter back to the states was met with celebration and dismay, but both reactions may be premature. One can never be certain of what the American public willdo with a problem once it gets hold of it. When the people first had authority over abortion, they chose to treat it with benign toleration. From the 1660s through 1776 the colonies following English common law permitted abortion everywhere. The Constitution made no mention of abortion because most scholars agreed the practice was widely accepted. Between the 1820s and the 1840s, however, the medical profession seized authority over the issue and lobbied the states to adopt restrictive legislation. The doctors were driven by several impulses. They considered themselves sole custodians of decisions pertaining to life. They held the view that a woman's social role was to increase and nurture the population. They sought to drive non-physicians who attended women, midwives, pharmacists, homeopaths, out of business. Ten states had passed restrictive abortion laws by 1841, and between 1860 and 1880, anti-abortion laws existed in 40 states and territories. Increasingly, America's main line Protestant churches did not support the medical profession's crusade. The practice was too common in their congregations. By 1900, the doctors no longer pressed the issue, but for the next 50 years, the profession held that abortion should only be permitted when a woman's life was endangered. By 1950, when abortion was a safer procedure, physicians, non-Catholic physicians in particular, began to liberalize their views. Committees that decided upon therapeutic abortions were now part of every American hospital, thus, the question of abortion increasingly became a matter of public knowledge and concern. Ironically, when most doctors were arguing for wider latitude in making abortion decisions, the authority over the issue began to slip from their hands. In 1956, California pressed charges against 21 doctors for performing illegal abortions on women who had contracted German measles. By the late 1960s when the women's movement came into its own, physicians had reversed their former roles completely and joined, indeed, led the efforts to make abortions more available. In the fall of 1969, lawyers Linda Coffee and Sara Weddington met with Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe, and the arena of authority over abortion was about to shift again, from the medical profession to the legal. From the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision granting women a constitutional right to abortion through a half dozen other cases up to the Webster case, the Supreme Court had authority over abortion in America. With the Webster decision, it appears that the court wishes to return the issue to the American public again, a public unlike that of the 18th century, which has been through the scientific, legal and theological mills on the subject. What will the public do? Immediate reactions suggest that the country is in for years of wild political scenes. Republicans and Democrats may in this odd issue find a clear ideological dividing line at last. One may only imagine how France's new abortifacient drug would add to the fracas. The Webster decision seems to auger panic in the streets but not necessarily. As the authority over this issue has come full circle, America has the opportunity to discover its true mind on this matter, a mind likely to be troubled perpetually by abortion's complexities, but which has also shown itself capable of living with unresolved tensions before. These are uncomfortable times. Civilizations are tested by uncomfortable times. RECAP

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Once again, Wednesday's major stories, the House voted to force reductions in the administration's Stealth bomber programand against deployment of the MX mobile missile. Pres. Bush lifted the remaining controls on natural gas and China sentenced four people to death and announced the arrests of more than three thousand others as the pro-democracy crackdown continued. Good night, Jim.

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