The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Early election fever has pushed the Congress into swift action on Mr. Reagan's agenda. The Senate approves Social Security cost-of-living increases; the House, silent prayer in schools. On the even of the official opening. Lybia dropped out of the Olympics. Moscow says Washington is making space weapons talks impossible. Washington says Moscow is misrepresenting the U.S. position. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: We're going to devote major time tonight to two of the day's major stories. On the space weapons talks. Soviet watcher William Hyland will tell us what he thinks is really going on. On the Olympics, Kwame Holman will set the scene from Los Angeles and we'll hear again from Jim Fisher of Kansas City on the journey of the Olympic torch. Also tonight, the Baby Doe legislative compromise with its key sponsor, Senator Orrin Hatch and its main detractor, the president of the American Medical Association, Dr. Joseph Boyle. And the story of Fisk University, a story of a black college's fight to stay alive.

MacNEIL: The abrupt start of the presidential election campaign this week has galvanized Congress into swiftly passing three measures, all requested by President Reagan. Last night the Senate approved a cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients. The vote was 87 to three after only a few minutes discussion. At the same time the House passed a measure saying individual students have the right to pray silently in public schools. On Wednesday the House passed a bill giving student groups the right to hold religious meetings on school property. All three measures were urged on Congress by President Reagan at his news conference Tuesday night. House Democratic leader Jim Wright of Texas accused the President of posturing in proposing the Social Security payment. Wright said, "He knew the Congress was going to do it all along." He predicted the House would pass the measure next week. Another Texas Democrat, J. J. Pickle, chairman of the Social Security subcommittee, said the increase will mean higher payroll taxes for millions of American workers next year. Pickle said he accepts the political inevitability of the cost-of-living increase, but added, good election-year politics is not always responsible policy. Jim? Baby Doe Debate

LEHRER: The Congressional debate over the so-called Baby Doe case also all but ended last night, and the ending was a unanimous 89-to-zero vote in the Senate for a compromise that apparently pleased everyone except the medical profession. The measure would require doctors to give medical treatment if they believed it would "most likely" correct a child's life-threatening condition. Failure to do that would make doctors or parents subject to state child abuse laws. But the law does not require doctors to give any treatment they believe would be futile or merely prolong the dying process. A similar bill already has passed the House. The issue of withholding medical treatment from severely handicapped newborn children grew out of the so-called Baby Doe case in Indiana a year ago. The chief sponsor in the Senate of yesterday's compromise legislation was Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah. Senator, unanimous votes are a rarity. What is there about this bill that was so acceptable to so many?

Sen. ORRIN HATCH: Well, this was a truly compromise bill where we brought together people from all over the country, including most of the medical associations and most of the doctors in the country that specialize or deal with babies and with pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology, including the American Nurses Association, the American Hospital Association, etc. But we also were able to work together -- Senator Dodd, for instance, and Senator Cranston on the Democratic side, along with Senator Denton, for instance, and Senator Cranston on the Democratic side, along with Senator Denton, Senator Nickles, Senator Cranston on the Democratic side, along with Senator Denton, Senator Nickles, Senator Kassebaum, myself on the Republican side and a raft of others worked together to fashion a compromise that we think will work well, will solve a lot of these problems, and which really amounts to the civil rights bill for the handicapped that is long overdue.

LEHRER: Well, let's see if you can give me some specific example cases of where now under this law a doctor would be required to continue treatment of an infant.

Sen. HATCH: Under the present law, if somebody is concerned about a Baby Doe case, they have to call a hotline in Washington, D.C., and allow some federal government bureaucrat to make the major determinations. Under this bill, we define what is called medically indicated treatment. Whenever that treatment is necessary, whenever that treatment is determined to be necessary, by intra-hospital forces pursuant to guidelines that we give in this particular bill, then we believe that the emphasis will be on saving life and saving the lives of these handicapped children rather than just allowing them to die, as Baby Doe did in Indiana and has has happened all over this country. So basically what this law is going to do is it's going to really decide an awful lot of these cases in favor of the handicapped child and in favor of life for the handicapped child and the best medical treatment for that handicapped child, except where that treatment would not save the life anyway, where the child is comatose and irreversibly comatose, where it would be futile to try to save the life of the child, where it would only prolong dying. But in all other cases I think the option would be, and the necessity would be to try and save the life of the child.

LEHRER: Well, how are charges to be brought under this law?

Sen. HATCH: Well, whenever -- what we would do is have an intra-hospital approach. The states are directed to come up with a procedure that will resolve this problem. Instead of having bureaucrats in Washington resolve problems that are purely local, the state will resolve these problems within the guidelines and frameworks that we've given. And we think that's far superior.

LEHRER: Well, each hospital, each locality, each state would decide --

Sen. HATCH: But pursuant to guidelines that are very clear and very well defined. What happens is if there's a Baby Doe case arises, that intra-hospital team will probably decide whether medically indicative treatment can be provided and, in the final analysis, if that is unacceptable, then people can go to the appropriate support services in the state to see that the law is enforced.

LEHRER: So there would be no decision to be made by the individual physician or the individual parents?

Sen. HATCH: Well, I think --

LEHRER: It will be made by these committees in these hospitals.

Sen. HATCH: No, no. I think that the individual physicians would be the major say. The only problem is that is they realize that it would be considered neglect if they withhold medically indicated treatment except in the cases that we outlined in the guidelines. It would be -- it would be true neglect and child abuse if they don't operate properly. So this gives the parents some leverage. This gives the physician leverage. It gives a system that will work. It defines it for the first time. It takes it out of this nebulous area, undefined area of what should we do with regard to the ethics and morality of these problems. And I think we've defined a very good set of guidelines, which, like I say, most of the specialists in this area -- in fact, I think all the specialists in this area find to be satisfactory and workable.

LEHRER: Senator, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: As Senator Hatch indicated, the compromise has won the support of many divergent groups, from the National Right to Life Committee to the American Academy of Pediatrics.But one group that continues to oppose it is the American Medical Association. Its president is Dr. Joseph Boyle, and he's here to tell us why. Dr. Boyle, what is your objection to the law?

Dr. JOSEPH BOYLE: First of all, the American Medical Association does not believe that it is appropriate to have the federal government intrude itself into an area that is best left to the privacy of -- traditionally decisions being made by families with their physicians, physicians whose responsibility is to protect the interest of the patient; the patient is the infant. Our medical ethic says that life is to be cherished under all circumstances, despite handicap or disability, but that we should refrain from performing procedures that are really harmful, that are inhumane or unconscionable. And we believe that this legislation does not provide for those guarantees.

MacNEIL: Why do you take that position when associations of pediatricians and obstetricians and nurses who have, as it were, the hands-on dealing with these problems, approve it?

Dr. BOYLE: The organization representing pediatricians and obstetricians and nurses in this country did participate in discussions attempting to develop some compromise language between that which they felt would be most appropriate and that which was contained in a bill which has already been passed by the House of Representatives. They believed that this was the best they could do and if they did not accept this so-called compromise, that something worse would be adopted. We don't believe that that was necessarily true.

MacNEIL: Are they going along with it because, frankly, they fear many charges of either malpractice or child abuse, technical child abuse?

Dr. BOYLE: I believe that primarily all physicians in this country are concerned with the -- what is right for the patient. The fear of malpractice lawsuits or other kinds of criminal justice actions, I don't believe, are the primary concern of doctors in this country, but rather what is the best for infants that are born with severe handicaps, with severe disabilities, that can only leave them in a life of pain and suffering for the remainder of their lives.

MacNEIL: Do you fear that this bill is going to force treatment and intervention in many cases that will result in what you've just said -- infants growing up or surviving as long as they can with pain and with a very poor quality of life? Is that your fear?

Dr. BOYLE: We are concerned that there will be some. We would not want to characterize this as producing a large number of infants who would be subject to this kind of treatment. We believe that right now the overwhelming majority of infants that are born, even with severe handicaps and severe disabilities, that do require surgery to correct life-threatening conditions, are treated appropriately, that they are treated, that they are rehabilitated and that many of them do live to comfortable, productive and satsifying lives. But, on the other hand, we also recognize that there are infants for whom intervention would be, in our view, as inhumane as forcing an older person with a cancer, in constant pain, to be continued on some life-support system without narcotics, without any kind of treatment which would allow them comfort. We think you need to put this in its proper context.

MacNEIL: And you think that some of those cases will, under this legislation, be forced -- that treatment will be forced on them? Is that it?

Dr. BOYLE: We expect that some of that will happen, but we think that what is more likely to occur is that there will be considerable confusion and chaos in many hospitals in which both physicians and parents and hospital personnel will feel that they are unable to make some of these decisions unless they have the advice of an intra-hospital committee that may in turn feel unable to make that kind of a decision, and then will follow the course that is dictated in this bill; that is, go to court, have a guardian appointed, have all of these decision taken away from the parents, have all of the advice of the families and the infants' physicians taken away and put in the hands of some impersonal third party. And, in addition, if the parents were to disagree, or if the physician's advice was that this kind of treatment was inhumane, the physician might be then forced to provide treatment that in his or her judgment was unconscionable.The courts already have said that they do not feel that they are competent to make these decisions. We believe that the -- all the apparatus that is needed to provide the protections that Senator Hatch and other supporters of this bill believe are needed are already contained in the avenues that are available to people in their own states.

MacNEIL: Dr. Boyle, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Senator, is Dr. Boyle wrong?

Sen. HATCH: Yes, he is. This is a total mess in the federal government right now. Nobody knows what to do, where to go or how to do it. As a matter of fact, you're limited to calling some bureaucrat on a hotline here in Washington to resolve these problems. Secondly, I might mention that this bill actually emphasizes the position, it emphasizes the family; it emphasizes the local hospital in the state and local areas. It doesn't really bring the federal government in. It provides the mechanism whereby we can save lives.But what it does do is it basically forces the doctor to have to realize that just because a child is born handicapped that doesn't mean that -- or it may be severely handicapped. That doesn't mean that that child can's make tremendous contributions in our society today as that child grows up and its life is saved. Where we've been losing some of those people just because doctors make the decisions they're not worthwhile keeping.

LEHRER: Dr. Boyle, are we talking about the same law?

Dr. BOYLE: Nobody has to force doctors in this country to make decisions in the best interest of infants -- newborn infants or children of any age. A part of our code of professional ethics, the opinions of our judicial council of the American Medical Association says that life is to be cherished under all circumstances without any regard for handicap or disability or what is the convenience of society or economics or the convenience of the family. That life, the infant's life is what is important, and what kind of a life you are subjecting that infant to is of equal importance.

LEHRER: So what you're saying, essentially, Senator Hatch, is that you do not trust the judgment of physicians.

Sen. HATCH: No, as a matter of fact, this bill gives very heavy weight to the judgment of physicians.

LEHRER: But that's how you read it, right, Dr. Boyle?

Sen. HATCH: If I could add, this bill also gives some definitive guidelines which protect life so that we don't reach the problem that we have in some medical clinics, where doctors have literally decided to use formulas such as whether a child is able to come from a -- able to have an economic existence and not be worthwhile and using all kinds of what I consider to be irrelevant formulas to determine whether a child lives or dies. And that has arisen in more than one case around this country, and we want to prevent that because it's wrong.

LEHRER: Should that sort of thing be prevented, Dr. Boyle?

Dr. BOYLE: In our opinion, Mr. Lehrer, what really is at stake here is whether or not the federal government is going to be able to intrude into these kinds of decisions. At the present time we believe that the love that parents have for their children is such that they will make compassionate decisions.If they do not, then physicians traditionally have gone to courts in order to protect the interests of children under their care. In just practically every jurisdiction there is in this country this is what we are concerned about. Beyond that, when these discussions were being held as to try and reach a compromise, the American Medical Association participated in those discussions. There was just one simple four-word addition to this amendment that we believed was important, and that was there would be exempt from the provision of being called child abuse or child neglect those instances in which providing treatment would be either inhumane or unconscionable. The sponsors of this amendment [sic] were unwilling to accept that addition, and as a consequence the American Medical Association had to say, we are sorry, we cannot support it.

LEHRER: Why would you not buy that?

Sen. HATCH: Because I think we cover that very well in here. By the way, I have the Government Activities Report from the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is one of the leading organizations of physicians who enthusiastically supports this bill because they realize there's a problem here. They realize it needs to be defined, and they realize the federal government's in it anyway, and we now have defined it, and, frankly, there is no way that any doctor -- and what he's talking about is they want the right to determine -- to let the doctor determine whether that baby will have a quality of life in the future that that doctor thinks it ought to have.

LEHRER: Is that it?

Sen. HATCH: And that is not a decision to be made solely by a doctor.

LEHRER: You don't see it that way?

Dr. BOYLE: No, that is not correct, and as a matter of fact, the policy of the American Medical Association is, first, that the physician taking care of a newborn infant is primarily responsible to that infant. And in trying to help a family make decisions, the responsibility of the doctor is to share that information with the family, and we would hope that in each hospital, in each community there would be available other resources. We are not talking about quality of life that the child is going to be happy and whole and all that sort of thing. Our ethics says that life should be cherished despite disability and handicap.

LEHRER: Gentlemen, we have been unable to fashion a Hatch-Boyle compromise tonight, and I have a hunch there'll be follow-ups to this. Thank you. Right?

Sen. HATCH: One other thing.This is an 89-to-zero vote, and I think bringing all elements of the Senate together, and I think all elements of Congress. And I really think that can't be ignored.

LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you both very much.

Sen. HATCH: Thank you.

LEHRER: Robin?

MacNEIL: The 1984 summer Olympics open tomorrow in Los Angeles, and politics were still evident on the eve. Libya said its six-man team would withdraw from the games. That follows U.S. refusal to admit three Libyan journalists on security grounds. Olympic officials said two of the three journalists were barred because their names were on a list of known terrorists. The other political matter concerned who would actually light the giant Olympic flame. Normally an athlete from the host country is the final torch bearer, but there's speculation that a well-known former U.S. athlete, perhaps the 1960 decathalon hero Rafer Johnson, might share that honor with the retired Rumanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci. Rumania and Yugoslavia are the only two Soviet Bloc countries refusing to join Moscow's boycott of the games. The Soviet news media today issued a stream of stories and commentaries denigrating the games, which President Reagan will officially open tomorrow. Kwame Holman reports on the last-minute preparations and headaches for the city of Los Angeles. On Your Mark, Get Set

KWAME HOLMAN [voice-over]: The Olympic torch is getting closer and closer to Los Angeles, closer and closer to the site of the 23rd Olympic Games. And Los Angeles is ready for the games to start. The city has put up thousands of flags, repaved dozens and dozens of roads and hosted party after party. City Council President Pat Russell can't wait.

PAT RUSSELL, president, city council: We've looked forward to them for so long it's hard to believe they're really here, and the mood is this week, well, here we go.

HOLMAN: Despite the enthusiasm of city and games officials, several problems still loom over these Olympics. The most visible one is smog. Every day the Los Angeles area produces 12,000 tons of air pollutants, and though the smog has been on an easing trend since the late '70s, this Olympic summer it's at its worst in six years.

[voice-over] Los Angeles wrote the book on air pollution research, but on the eve of the Olympics much remains unknown about how smog will affect Olympic athletes. So as the games are about to begin, Dr. Henry Gong is performing experiments on Olympiclevel athletes. He is exposing them to ozone, one of the primary air pollutants in Los Angeles.

Dr. HENRY GONG, Jr., associate professor, UCLA: It's a poweful oxidant. It changes the structure of materials, including our cells, our enzymes. We inhale the ozone, and it reacts almost instantaneously with the various cells that are lining our windpipe, for example. And that's why some people get a little hoarse, and they get a little -- a raspy voice. They may develop irritation in the throat, a cough, and just discomfort in their chest, a vague feeling.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Studies have been done on the effects of smog on people with breathing problems, but this study focuses on the strong, highly trained marathon cyclists. Dr. Gong is intrigued by the early results of the tests.

Dr. GONG: There are some people who can adapt or become tolerant of ozone to reasonable levels better than others. Those people who are sensitive to ozone, they may never really get to adapt to the ozone. These athletes will probably do worse and not do as well as expected, than if they did their events in clean air.

HOLMAN: And the flip side of that, is there any indication that the athletes who have trained in smog, perhaps adapted, might have an edge?

Dr. GONG: That's possible.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: The final results of Gong's testing won't be released for months, too late for this year's Olympians, too late for the athletes who will be here Sunday to play field hockey in one of the smoggiest areas in Los Angeles. For those athletes and others, the forecast is for first-stage smog alerts at four Olympic sites.

[on camera] If smog concerns people, the possibility of violence at these games terrifies them. The memory of 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich games in 1972 has not disappeared. And the fresh horror of 22 people shot to death at a McDonald's restaurant in San Diego just down the coast has raised the level of anxiety here.

[voice-over] Security here is extensive. Over 200 police agencies and 30,000 men and women are creating an anti-crime network that stretches from Oregon to Mexico and, not surprisingly, the security measures are secret. The press was allowed a brief glimpse of the coordinating center. Few question the need for all this protection, but on the eve of the Olympics, some worry about a city that clears out its transients to welcome its tourists. They worry that the influx of crime-fighting technology in preparation for the games will move Los Angeles closer to a police state.

RAMONA RIPSTON, executive director, ACLU: The police department has used about $800,000 from an Olympic trust fund to buy state-of-the-art equipment that will be used during the Olympics to surveil people but will also stay with the police department once the Olympics has finished. And, given the history of a department which has so violated people's rights, I think there is cause for concern about what happens after the Olympics are over.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Ramona Ripston is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU recently won a $1.3 million lawsuit against the Los Angeles police department for illegal surveillance, and successfully fought on Olympic committee rule that would have forbidden protest pins and t-shirts at the games.

Ms. RIPSTON: I understand the need for security. But we don't want Los Angeles turned into a police state. I mean, that is hardly what the games are all about.

DARYL GATES, Los Angeles Police Chief: There's no attempt here, and there never has been, to engage in any unwarranted violation of people's privacy or their rights.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Daryl Gates is the controversial police chief of Los Angeles.

Chief GATES: I just think it's a question of us staying modern, being as effective and as efficient as new equipment might allow us to be.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: A different criticism of security came from Washington. The federal government has moved to pump in an additional $88 million in personnel and material, mostly for security, after a study showed that early measures were inadequate, and the state of California is paying $3 million for extra state police. Those developments brought forth a new criticism. The Los Angeles games were supposed to be self-supporting, and suddenly tax dollars were being spent. California Congresswoman Bobbi Fiedler was angry.

Rep. BOBBI FIEDLER, (D) California: Originally we thought that services were going to run about $69 million in total. It's all the way up to $88 million, and it seems to me that if they were going to finance it they indeed should have done that, rather than asking the federal taxpayer to carry the additional burden of subsidizing their program.

HOLMAN: Not only was this first privately-financed Olympics expected to cost taxpayers nothing, it was expected to make extravagant profits for businesses and citizens with something to sell to Olympic visitors. The high expectations were fueled by lots of talk about big money.Thirty-one companies paid $4 million each for the privilege of becoming official Olympic sponsors. The ABC network paid $225 million to broadcast the games. And ticket prices for some popular events were set at $100 each. But for some of those with visions of a new California gold strike, the reality of making money from these games is disappointing.

Council Pres. RUSSELL: As soon as we announced that we were going to have the Olympics here, I think some of the hotel people and tourist people thought it was just going to be an enormous bonanza, and they began to plan for that. Then, as we've gotten closer to it, I think a little more realism has set in.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: That reality is 8,000 empty hotel rooms in Los Angeles and an even worse situation in neighboring Orange County, home of several standard tourist attractions, including Disneyland. Fear of Olympic congestion has pushed hotel occupancy 40% below normal. Joel Rothman is general manager of the Marriott Hotel in Anaheim.

JOEL ROTHMAN, Marriott General Manager: For us it's adisaster, and for Anaheim it's a disaster. We see a net loss in room revenue for the summer of about $15 million in room sales in the city of Anaheim alone.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: The problem is that in order to become official Olympic establishments, hotels had to commit 80% of their rooms to Olympic guests. Now the Olympic Committee is having trouble getting companies to fill those rooms, and the hotels are stuck either with the bill or with suing some of the same people they do business with year-round.

TICKET SELLER: Two tickets for the opening in Section 6. Gentleman here has two tickets for the opening in Section 6.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Also stuck are those who thought they could make a profit on reselling Olympic tickets. The demand for tickets has been nowhere near what was expected.

HOWELL PINKSTON, Los Angeles resident: This whole plan was to rent out my house for a lot of money this summer and to use the tickets as a kind of enticement to bring people into the house. That didn't quite materialize. Things looked a lot more promising a year ago than they do right now.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: If he can't sell his tickets at this special swap meet, Howell Pinkston will get stuck with dozens of them. For this travel agent from India, the situation is worse. He has 1,500 tickets he couldn't sell in Bombay, and now he can't sell here.

PURSHOTAM CHHATPAR, travel agent: I arrived here on Saturday, and when I saw the present situation over here I couldn't see any Olympic fever over here in L.A. I was really shocked and surprised.

HOLMAN: Obviously the Olympics are a massive undertaking, and large-scale events create large-scale problems. The fears about security, smog and finances only head a long list of potential nightmares. But the best hope now is that the people of Los Angeles will take these games and run with them.

Council Pres. RUSSELL: Our response as officials to our constituents is, "Okay, folks, we've spent four years getting ready. The last two years have been intense. We've done the best we know how. Now it's up to you.

LEHRER: That report by Kwame Holman.

John W. Hinckley, Jr. told a federal judge today he was well and ready to be released from a mental hospital. Hinckley shot President Reagan and three other men in 1981 and was committed to a hospital here in Washington. Under the law he can petition for release every six months, but this is the first time he has made such a move. He told U.S. District Judge Barrington D. Parker at a hearing today he would file a formal petition shortly. There would then be a hearing on the request.

Still to come tonight on the NewsHour, a look at the backs and forths of the U.S. and the Soviet Union talking about weapons in space. Charlayne Hunter-Gault guides us through the story of a black college trying to survive, and Kansas City columnist Jim Fisher talks again about the meaning of the Olympic torch.

[Video postcard -- Hart County, Georgia]

LEHRER: Not yet, President Castro. That was the gist of the State Department's response today to Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Last night Castro celebrated his revolution's 31st [sic] birthday with a call for improved relations with the United States. Today State Department spokesman Alan Romberg said the U.S. would not hold comprehensive talks with the Cubans until they changed their foreign policy.

"No, President Reagan." That was the point of an arms talks statement issued in Moscow today. The deputy Soviet foreign minister said it was impossible for Moscow to start talks on banning space weapons with the U.S. in September. He said the U.S. had not accepted Moscow's proposal limiting the talks to space weapons. This afternoon White House spokesman Larry Speakes claimed the Soviets had misrepresented the U.S. position. On Capitol Hill there was a sense today's Soviet rejection might not be the last word. Here is reaction from Republican Senator Larry Pressler of South Dakota.

Sen. LARRY PRESSLER, (R) South Dakota: Any assessment of it is that it's -- we should not take it as final, that the United States should plan to go to the talks, that we should make it clear that we do want to have talks. And I also think that we should be more flexible in terms of limiting the agenda, if that will help. But that's my assessment of the situation. I hope it's part of maneuverings, part of the rain dance before the powwow, as we would say in the Midwest, or whatever. But it'll be tragic if these talks are really called off. What's Happening to the Talks?

MacNEIL: For more on the diplomatic ballet being danced on the space weapons stage in Washington and Moscow, we turn to a man who knows these steps first-hand. He is William Hyland, editor of Foreign Affairs magazine. Former Soviet affairs analyst at the CIA, Mr. Hyland served as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs during the Ford administration. Is this part of a rain dance?

WILLIAM HYLAND: I guess you could use that phrase. It's certainly part of a long preliminary that began at the end of June and is continuing and is likely to continue for at least during the election period, if not into next year. Both sides are maneuvering very carefully, not taking the blame for the collapse of the talks, trying to blame the other, trying to put the other side on the defensive.So it's a rather long and clever game.

MacNEIL: The Soviets today used -- said the United States has made the talks impossible now. Are the talks impossible? Won't they happen?

Mr. HYLAND: I think it's inevitable. I think the subject is such that both sides have an inerest in the talks, and, depending on the tactics, will be there, if not in September, I would say no later than next spring.

MacNEIL: What do you interpret the Soviets to want right now? What is their motive behind their side of the maneuverings?

Mr. HYLAND: I think they're trying to put pressure on the administration to agree to a moratorium on the testing of anti-satellite weapons. That is one of the Soviet conditions to entering the talk, and that has been turned down by Washington.

MacNEIL: And to start that moratorium as the talks themselves start.

Mr. HYLAND: As the talks begin, which would be September 18th. That would rule out, if the United States agreed, a scheduled test, I think for November, of an anti-satellite weapon system by the United States. I think that's part of the game. The other part of the game is that the Russians would like to maneuver the administration into saying no, and then saying, "See, we told you so."

MacNEIL: And what would be the benefit of that, if it is in their interest ultimately to have these talks?

Mr. HYLAND: Well, I think they're putting some pressure on the Reagan administration and they're trying to demonstrate to Europeans and others that you can't do business with Reagan. At least through the election campaign I think that is their central strategy. Afterwards, perhaps, it might change.

MacNEIL: Now, we've had two readings on this by various people over the last few months. There was a growing kind of consensus that Moscow had decided it couldn't -- or had decided to demonstrate it couldn't do business with the Reagan administration. Then, as all the polls began to show Mr. Reagan way ahead, some people were suggesting that maybe the Russians thought that, "Well, after all, perhaps we should do a little bit of business with the Reagan administration. We may have them around for another four years." Are you suggesting they've now seen the very latest polls that have the Democrats coming even with the Republicans?

Mr. HYLAND: No. I don't think their policy is that fine-tuned. I think some months ago they made a decision to put this on the agenda, a moratorium on testing, talks on space weapons, especially, or not so much anti-satellite weapons but those -- the Star Wars defense that President Reagan has been talking about -- to have that on the agenda so no matter what happens in the elections, that will be at the top of Soviet-American relations after the elections. And they will have defined the terms. Those talks limited to that subject, plus a moratorium, and that would be quite advantageous for them.

MacNEIL: Now, how is this viewed inside the Reagan administration?

Mr. HYLAND: One gets the impression that they are split, perhaps three ways.There are those in the administration who believe the President should always say yes, especially in the election year, so that he won't be on the defensive and he can't be blamed. He will be the man of peace during the campaign.

MacNEIL: That will be just the political reactions.

Mr. HYLAND: Those would be the political advisers, especially in the White House.I think there are others, particularly in the Pentagon, who would say we shouldn't touch it at all, that it's really a bad deal for the United States; it's a slippery slope to get into a moratorium and so forth, and it's against the national interest. Then there's a third group that tried to bridge the spectrum, I think, by saying, "Let us use the Star Wars as a bargaining chip. Let us say to the Russians, 'If you want to ban Star Wars, you must reduce your own ICMBs drastically. And then we have a bargain.'" And that seems to be the middle ground in the administration.

MacNEIL: Can you tell from the administration's side of this maneuvering with Moscow which of those three points of view has the upper hand?

Mr. HYLAND: I would say right now the first point of view, that the President should not be on the defensive, should not be caught saying no or refusing to talk, has the upper hand.

MacNEIL: The political side.

Mr. HYLAND: The political side. Because I think it's fairly clear it will be an election campaign issue. The Democratic platform calls for a freeze, calls for these talks. So I suspect it will be in the campaign, and the President's advisers no doubt want him to be in a strong position as the campaign unfolds.

MacNEIL: Mr. Hyland, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: On the economic front today, there was news and it was mostly good. The U.S. trade deficit was only $8.9 billion in June according to the Commerce Department. That's still high, but the increase over the previous month was only 0.8%, considerably under the rate it had been increasing. From Detroit, General Motors reported a $1.6 billion profit for the April-through-June second quarter. In the first half of this year the big four U.S. automakers have earned $6.15 billion. That's more than they made in all of 1983.

Robin?

MacNEIL: The President of the National Urban League, John Jacobs, said today that the White House believes the black vote is not critical in this year's election. Jacobs was complaining to reporters that President Reagan, invited eight months ago to attend the League's annual conference, had refused only two weeks ago. Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale, his running mate Geraldine Ferraro, and former candidate Jesse Jackson all plan to be at the convention next week in Cleveland. The Reagan administration will be represented by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Jacobs said Reagan's refusal suggests they do not want to tarnish the President's image in the polls because they have some doubt about how he'd be received at the conference. "It says they do not believe the black vote is critical to what they hope to accomplish." Jacobs added. "I suggest they re-examine 17 states where we hold the critical margin."

The administration made another move involving blacks today. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has the story. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, Secretary of Education Terrell Bell traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, today on a mission to help save a small private college. Not just any college, but an institution that from shortly after the time of slavery until now has been one of the nation's premier schools for educating black students.It's 118-year-old Fisk University, which has recently fallen on bad times as a result of dwindling enrollment and growing debt. Last winter the school's problems received national attention when the heat was cut off because of unpaid utility bills. Those problems prompted Secretary Bell to appoint a commission to study Fisk's plight. Today in Nashville he promised to seek more donations from the private sector to help Fisk.

TERRELL BELL, Secretary of Education: Fisk has long been one of the premier institutions in this country, and the renaissance of the universities such as this one was what President Reagan had in mind when he signed the executive order in September of 1981 that directed me to pay particular attention to the needs of these institutions. And I was gratified to learn of your decision to seek the advice and counsel of knowledgeable private-sector individuals in your rebuilding efforts. Fighting for Survival

HUNTER-GAULT: Terrell Bell isn't the only one who thinks that Fisk should survive, as Kwame Holman found last winter when he visited Fisk.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: These performers are all college students, the Fisk University Jubilee Singers. They are part of a tradition nearly as old as the college they attend. In 1871 the original Fisk Jubilee Singers toured the Northeast to raise money for their struggling young college. Only five years old, the school was not attracting the private donations it needed to survive. In six months the singers raised enough money to start construction on the historic Jubilee Hall and to buy the land on which Fisk now stands. Robin Gooch, a Nashville native, graduated from Fisk in May.

ROBIN GOOCH, Fisk student: When I first stepped upon the campus, I realized that this was a place that I always wanted to be and that this was a place that I dreamed about.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: The Fisk that Robin Gooch came to in 1979 was a lot like other small liberal-arts colleges. It was a place for study and for making friends. School spirit was strong, and the classes were challenging. Fisk does differ from most other small colleges in one respect: it was created specifically for black students at a time when they had no place else to go for an education. Today it remains a predominatly black institution and, as such, has become the target of criticism. Now that integration has come to previously all-white schools like nearby Vanderbilt University, some say the traditionally black schools are no longer needed and that their very existence promotes continued segregation. Integration has forced Fisk and other black colleges to compete with white schools for the sons and daughters of the black middle class. As a result, Fisk now also reaches out to students who previously could not afford to attend college or who need more personalized attention in order to succeed academically. Roland Robinson came to Fisk's from New York City's heavily black, heavily poor Bedford-Stuyvesant community. A former street gang member, he now plans to study psychology in graduate school.

ROLAND ROBINSON, Fisk student: I'm the first member of my family to attend college.

HOLMAN: And if Fisk hadn't been here, you might not have attended college?

Mr. ROBINSON: True. I might not have attended college.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Though he was accepted at more than one large, predominantly white university, Roland, still somewhat shy and reserved after three years of college, says he was not ready for that experience.

Mr. ROBINSON: I had not adapted -- my middle-class values, my educational background, my social background -- my environment was predominantly black. And going to a white institution would have been a gigantic step.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Roland and other students knew when they enrolled that Fisk was not the richest of colleges. Last fall the public learned that the school is in fact nearly broke. The buildings are in need of repair, and the school's endowment has been whittled down to a small fraction of the level it had reached in the late '60s. Fisk's money problems became glaringly obvious last winter when the local gas company turned off the heat in several campus buildings because of delinquent bills. Robin Gooch describes the student reaction.

Ms. GOOCH: Most of the students went to classes. They didn't stop going. They kept going to classes. And they might have been concerned about their grades, sure, but I think it was mainly that they wanted to just keep going, that, just like we want Fisk to keep going. We can maybe use Fisk as saying Fisk is sick now, but it just can't die. It has to keep going, and it has to keep moving. And that's what -- we're like its blood, and we want it to keep going. The only thing that we have that in a sense connects us to our motherland are our black institutions and the knowledge that they house. So if we close or if we let -- because it won't be anyone from the outside. It will be the black people that will let black institutions close. If we let them close, what will we have? Where will our history go?

HUNTER-GAULT: To find out more about Fisk and its future prospects, as well as those of other ailing black colleges, we talk now to a man who has a big stake in all of that. He is Henry Ponder, the new president of Fisk. Dr. Ponder is also chairman of the Council of Presidents of the United Negro College Fund, the umbrella fund-raising organization for most of the black private colleges. Dr. Ponder, did you get what you were hoping today from Secretary Bell?

HENRY PONDER: I think that it would be impossible to get everything that you hope for, but I think that the fact that the President -- that the secretary came to the campus to make his announcement certainly did an awful lot for us.

HUNTER-GAULT: But how does that translate into ways of helping you deal with what I understand is about a $1.8-million debt?

Dr. PONDER: It translates in that the secretary proved that the government through the White House was interested, and the thing for us to do now is to take that impetus and move it into support from the local community and around the nation.

HUNTER-GAULT: But I've talked with a number of black college officials who say that part of the reason that Fisk and other ailing black colleges are in trouble are because of federal cutbacks and restructuring of the federal aid packages. And I didn't hear any promise of new federal aid or any kind of insufsion of funds from the secretary.

Dr. PONDER: Well, I think we must understand that the government has to be concerned about anything that it does for one institution, it feels the obligation to do for all. So we must do that. What the government does is set aside, through its priorities, programs that we can all benefit from. And each institution then must do what must be done in order to benefit from those funds. And that's what Fisk will be doing.

HUNTER-GAULT: So are you saying that you don't feel that the federal cutbacks are in any way responsible for the plight that Fisk finds itself in?

Dr. PONDER: I would not want to go far enough to say that it has nothing to do with that, but I would say that that's very small part of it. We could have done much more than we did, and I think that's what we're trying to do now is to take advantage of those funds that are available to us through federal sources and others.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, what about this whole private sector thrust? I mean, haven't the black colleges always sought aid from the private sector, and yet you find yourself in this situation. What's going to reinvigorate enough private sector contributions to pull you out of this problem you're in now?

Dr. PONDER: I think that's where the secretary's announcement today is going to help. There were local citizens there, persons in the business and corporate community, and they heard what the secretary had to say. And I think that when we go to them now asking for support and the fact that we have proven that we are now turning things around -- for example, we have already done many of the things that the task force suggested we should do. It's simply because we knew they should be done and that we are doing that.

HUNTER-GAULT: Like what?

Dr. PONDER: One of the things is we are closing all the buildings that we don't need, just a very simple kind of thing. These things will help. We are taking more advantage of financial aid that's there. We are going to get more aid for our students this coming year than we got for last year because we're going to work vigorously at that.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, one of the -- I think the coordinator of the task force said that money was not going to solve the problem, that some fundamental changes had to be made at Fisk. I mean, isn't part of the problem that you're losing a lot of your students to schools like Vanderbilt that have integrated? Now they have more options. I mean --

Dr. PONDER: I think that we're losing more students to Morehouse than we are to Vanderbilt.

HUNTER-GAULT: The predominantly black school in Atlanta.

Dr. PONDER: That is correct. We have not aggressively marketed Fisk University because we have assumed that students will continue to come to Fisk as they once did. And now we are going to aggressively market and we're going to do that. And I think through help from the private sector we're going to be able to do that. And to me the strong point of the task force is that it is going to help us set up an advisory committee of corporate leaders throughout the country who will then help us get on the right road to doing what is necessary.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, other than for historic reasons, I mean, how would you sell to the private sector the need to preserve Fisk? I mean, you heard in the tape piece the complaint, or the charge, that schools like Fisk are perpetuating segregation and so on. I mean, why would you save Fisk?

Dr. PONDER: It's amazing to me that people are still saying that. Black colleges have never been discriminatory. Never -- except state institutions where law did that. Yet we keep hearing that. We're not perpetuating it. We're probably the only institutions of our education in the country that is trying to do just the opposite of that. Yet we get saddled with that. And I think that what we need to do is to move from that question and simply say that Fisk should be saved because it has 118 years of history. Through the same halls that I walk in now, DuBois welked! John Hope Franklin walked. This is why we need to preserve it. We have more documented history of blacks in this country at Fisk University than perhaps anyplace else in this country. That's why it should be preserved.

HUNTER-GAULT: Are the prescriptions that the secretary prescribed for Fisk today going to help other ailing black colleges? Are their problems the same as Fisk, and will this prescription work for them too?

Dr. PONDER: The problems are not the same with all of the colleges. Fisk is probably in more need than most of the colleges that you would talk about. But the prescription that has been put there can be used to help all of the private colleges in this country, black and white.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, well, Dr. Ponder, thank you for being with us. Robin?

MacNEIL: Some other stories in the day's news. There has been another collision on the recently accident-prone Amtrak passenger line. It's the second this week, the fifth this month, and the third in the state of South Carolina. Last night the northbound Silver Meteor was 15 minutes out of Charleston when it slammed into a small pickup truck at a dirt-road crossing. The 35-year-old woman driver was killed, her husband injured. In each South Carolina accident, trains collided with trucks at grade crossing. On Monday two Amtrak trains crashed head-on near New York City.

Two men well-known to millions of Americans died in Switzerland today. Actor James Mason, a three-time Oscar nominee and star of more than 100 films, died of heart failure in Lausanne. He was 75. Mason was best known for his elegant voice and the obsessed male leads he played in films like "Lolita" and "A Star is Born." And George Gallup, a pioneer in modern public opinion sampling and founder of the Gallup Poll, died at his Swiss summer home, apparently of a heart attack. He was 82 years old.

Jim?

LEHRER: Again the major stories of the day. The Senate did what President Reagan wanted on Social Security, voting a 3% cost-of-living raise for recipients. The Soviet Union and the United States exchanged another round of accustory words on negotiating a ban on weapons in space, making such talks appear unlikely before the November elections, and Libya withdrew its team on the eve of the opening of the summer Olympics in Los Angeles. And that brings us finally tonight to a repeat performance -- the essay Kansas City newspaper columnist Jim Fisher did for us several weeks ago on the Olympic torch and its journey across the United States. Tomorrow the torch arrives at its final destination in Los Angeles. Here's what Jim Fisher had to say about right after it spent the weekend at Berthoud Pass in the Central Colorado Rockies. One Man's View

JAMES FISHER [voice-over]: Even in this remote spot high in the Rockies there was a large crowd -- shouting, clapping, waving American flags, marking for one brief moment the highest altitude reached on this meandering journey of celebration of America by Americans.Now, all of a sudden it seems, the national media has discovered what's been going on in this country in the past two months -- that the American people have been having one gigantic, hand-clapping, flag-waving parade. A parade across 27 states with six more to go, a sort of transcontinental extended block party.

Newspeople have been calling what they see a phenomenon. But then ordinary folks had known all along what the Olympic torch means. Erwin Kruger said, "I could have told you. People really care about their country." People care. A simple statement by an old Marine who fought in the South Pacific 40 years ago, and who says yes, one of his wife's relatives was Scott Carpenter, the astronaut, but that moon stuff was so far away, so technological. Well, it was just hard. But this, this torch, you can understand. And the story is that America has taken the Olympic torch to its heart. Nobody told America to. It's just happened.

People have been the one constant in this relay. They've come out from the first day as the torch moved northeastward from New York and into New England. There have been people everywhere waiting, ready to clap, shout encouragement, and then, as the caravan passes by, waving one more time and going about whatever they do. Waiting people. They have been as constant as the slap-slap of a runner's shoes against the pavement.

Some people just start running along with the torch bearer. They just do it, and nobody seems to mind. A lot of the kids have American flags. There are so many and in so many sizes you wonder where they come from. Most people can't explain exactly why they come. Sure, there's festive air about what's happening, like a parade. Often there are bands. But if you ask straight out, they talk about this being something you see once in a lifetime, or this is positive about America. One woman in her '80s, leaning against her cane at Berthoud Pass, said flatly that America is going to hell in a bucket, but that this, the torch relay, was "Just wonderful. Wonderful."

Maybe one woman said it best. "We're all hungry for heroes, but not big ones, not anymore.Little heroes.People who maybe are afflicted, people who can make a kilometer in a wheelchair. Like Joe Snow. Joe took the first leg through Idaho Springs, Colorado. Joe is 32. He's had cerebral palsy since birth. His mother says Joe doesn't talk real well. It didn't matter. Joe's face expressed his feelings. Or Janis Robinson, a school librarian, whose kilometer run coincided with her 33rd birthday. During her run Janis cried. Her husband joined her, racing up on her left with her child, their video camera, both loaded in a stroller. And Janis talked about how she felt.

JANIS ROBINSON, torch bearer: These are America the beautiful, and they are.

FISHER [voice-over]: So you have Joe and Janis, runners, but what makes the others come out? This torch run has touched something elemental in America. The people come with their cameras and electronic gear. They are going to get it down, make permanent what they are seeing. Forget the newspapers and television. They are doing their own recording of history. They are seeing something special. [parade watchers singing "Star-Spangled Banner"]

LEHRER: The thoughts of Jim Fisher.

Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. Have a good weekend. We'll see you on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.