The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Here are today's news headlines. President Reagan agreed to review U.S. troop strength in Spain, but he and Spanish Prime Minister Gonzalez disagreed about communist tyranny in Nicaragua. The condition of artificial heart patient William Schroeder was stabilized after a brain hemorrhage. Christian-Muslim shelling killed at least 23 people in Beirut. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: On the NewsHour tonight there are three focus segments after the news of the day. Focus one, two Democratic congressmen debate the Nicaraguan sanctions and the new effort to get contra aid through the Democratic House. Focus two, NAACP President BenjaminHooks, Civil Rights Commissioner Morris Abram and Indianapolis Mayor William Hudnut debate affirmative action. And focus three, the opening of a very different kind of Vietnam War memorial in New York City. News Summary

MacNEIL: President Reagan agreed today with Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez to review American troop strength in Spain. The U.S. has 12,000 troops in the country, and the socialist prime minister wanted to discuss reducing them to lessen popular opposition to Spanish membership in NATO. But on Nicaragua the two leaders disagreed. According to Secretary of State Shultz, the Spanish prime minister opposed the trade boycott Mr. Reagan has ordered and disagreed with the President's view of what he today called the communist tyranny in Nicaragua. Later, Spanish demonstrators shouted noisier complaints against American policies. Here's a report from Peter Mayne of the BBC.

PETER MAYNE, BBC [voice-over]: Tonight's demonstration was the biggest since President Reagan's arrival. Several thousand protestors gathered close to the American Embassy, chanting the slogans that have dogged his visit -- no to NATO, no to U.S. troops in Spain, no to the Nicaraguan trade embargo. When Mr. Reagan, accompanied by King Juan Carlos, spoke earlier to senior Spanish political and community leaders, he did nothing to soften his line or his language.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Today for the first time ever the exceptions to the democratic tide in Spanish-speaking America can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They number four: two, Paraguay and Chile, have entrenched military rule; the two others, Cuba and Nicaragua, are communist tyrannies.

MAYNE [voice-over]: Later the President and Spain's prime minister, Felipe Gonzalez, met for more talks. Senor Gonzalez has often criticized Mr. Reagan on Central America. Today it was Mr. Reagan's turn to tread on his toes, though quite accidentally. Senor Gonzalez pressed Mr. Reagan to reduce the number of U.S. troops based in Spain, with some success. Talks will begin soon.

LEHRER: The U.S. trade embargo of Nicaragua was the issue before a House subcommittee here in Washington. Some House members questioned whether the action will have any real effect on Nicaragua's ability to sell its products abroad. But Assistant Secretary of State Langhorne Motley said the embargo was a useful way to apply diplomatic pressure.

LANGHORNE MOTLEY, Assistant Secretary of State: It is one of several tools made available to the President in trying to reach a peaceful solution in Central America. Let me tell you, I'd much rather sit here at this witness table pleading for economic and military assistance for Nicaragua as a part of the family of nations in Central America with a democratic government than I would in fact explain to you trade sanctions. But that isn't the facts the way they are today. We would like to welcome them back, but we don't see much on the part of their actions that is leading that way. And so we use what tools we can to try to modify their behavior in that direction.

LEHRER: Two Democratic congressmen who see the embargo as well as aid to the contras differently will be with us right after the news summary.

MacNEIL: Civil rights activists picketed the Justice Department today to protest against Reagan administration opposition to affirmative action. The picketing was peaceful. The protestors carried placards saying, "We shall overcome," and made speeches. The Justice Department's civil rights division has written to local officials in some 50 cities, asking them to modify affirmative action plans. The administration contends that preferential hiring and promotion based on numerical quotas is discriminatory. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed a court suit last week to block the department's action. NAACP leader Benjamin Hooks and Judy Goldsmith, President of the National Organization for Women, both spoke today.

JUDY GOLDSMITH, President, National Organization for Women: We are shocked, we are outraged at a department that still pretends to call itself a Justice Department when it is trying to turn us back against a national commitment that we've had for 20 years to end discrimination on the basis of sex and race.

BENJAMIN HOOKS, NAACP: Here the Justice Department is unilaterally stirring up trouble in Washington. An administration that came to power on the premise of get the government off the backs of the people is now going into cities and localities where the cities have not indicated a complaint, where the cities have not made any outcry, and they are deliberately stirring up trouble, opening up old wounds.

MacNEIL: Later in this program we have a focus section on the controversy with the mayor of Indianapolis, Benjamin Hooks of the NAACP and Morris Abram of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

LEHRER: Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole told the Democrats today it was now their turn. He said he would like to see a Democratic budget reduction plan before proceeding with votes that could further unravel his and President Reagan's plan. "Before we dismantle our package further, I'd like to see the strength of one of their packages," he said. The Republican-controlled Senate last week undid three key parts of the Republican proposal involving Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and defense spending. Dole, who spoke from the Senate floor this morning, drew no answer from the Democrats who are known to be widely divided over three different approaches. The Democrats were heard today, however, on farm issues. A group of 12 Democratic senators and House members proposed a new farm policy that includes higher government price supports and thus higher income for farmers, among other things. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa said it would not be a budget buster.

Sen. TOM HARKIN, (D) Iowa: Sound farm economy and budget reductions are not mutually exclusive. This populist farm bill that we're introducing today is the only bill that will increase net farm income immediately, and it's the only bill that will save taxpayers more money than any other program so far proposed. Now, some people say that this bill will raise consumer prices. Well, here's an 18-ounce box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. At the local store it cost $1.65. The farmer who produced the corn in this box got 16. The price to the corn farmer under our bill in the first year will go up 19% -- the price received by the corn farmer. The price estimated to go up on this box of corn flakes would be about 3 a box.

MacNEIL: The Republican Party today launched a campaign to win over 100,000 Democratic converts in the next 100 days. The Democrats said it wouldn't work. GOP National Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf called a news conference to say why he thought the time is ripe for Democrats to switch.

FRANK FAHRENKOPF, GOP National Chairman: The day she joined our party a few weeks ago, former United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick alluded to the problems that confront many mainstream Democrats today. "The Democratic leadership," she said, "still clings to the policies of the past, which cannot solve the problems of today and tomorrow." Millions of Americans who have not yet made the decision to switch, we believe, feel the same things and have the same feelings that Ambassador Kirkpatrick spoke of, and that is why we're announcing this program today. Today we say to those Democrats, our door, the Republican door, is open.

MacNEIL: Democratic Party chairman Paul Kirk called the GOP campaign "a transparent public relations blitz" to attempt to salvage the remnants of an opportunity that is steadily going down the drain. "It won't work," he said. "Political opportunists who change their stripes will find themselves caught in a revolving door."

LEHRER: William Schroeder remains in critical but stable condition tonight in Louisville. Schroeder, who has lived with an artificial heart for 164 days -- that's longer than anyone else has -- was taken back to Humana Hospital last night after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Schroeder left the hospital to live in an apartment across the street 30 days ago. Hospital spokesmen said doctors are now trying to find out what caused the brain hemorrhage and to determine the damage it caused. Late this afternoon Schroeder was reported to be alert and responding to verbal commands.

MacNEIL: In Beirut, at least 23 people were killed and at least 70 wounded in 15 hours of shelling that ended at dawn today. It was the heaviest fighting between Muslims and Christians in more than a year. Later, the government radio station said Lebanese President Amin Gemayel and Syrian President Hafez el-Assad had agreed that the fighting should be stopped without saying how.

In South Africa a black labor union said one of its senior shop stewards died of head injuries within a few hours after he was released from the custody of the police in Johannesburg. The police confirmed that the man is dead and said they're investigating.

LEHRER: And finally in the news of this day, New York City finally threw a ticker tape parade for the veterans of the Vietnam War. Some 25,000 veterans marched, led by several Medal of Honor winners, General William Westmoreland and New York Mayor Ed Koch. The mayor said it was a very special parade, one that should have been held a long time ago. The parade went across the Brooklyn Bridge through the financial district to the Battery at the tip of Manhattan. Some of the veterans rode in their wheelchairs, some marched with their canes. Many of them wore bits and pieces of their old uniforms and displayed their ribbons and medals. The crowds were not large compared with other parades in lower Manhattan, but the air was filled with the traditional streamers and several veterans said it was a thrilling moment 10 years late. Last night a unique Vietnam memorial was dedicated in New York. We will have a report on that later in the program. Nicaragua Debate

MacNEIL: At midnight last night the trade embargo on Nicaragua ordered by President Reagan went into effect. The President heard opposition to the embargo today from the Spanish prime minister, Felipe Gonzalez. We devote our lead focus section tonight to the consequences of the embargo and the new moves to aid the contras, but first a look at how the embargo will affect one prominent part of trade with the United States, bananas. Last year the U.S. imported $57 million worth of Nicaraguan goods; one-third of that was bananas, all shipped through California. Here is a report by Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET, Los Angeles.

JEFFREY KAYE, KCET [voice-over]: Since 1982 one boatload a week of Nicaraguan bananas has been arriving at Port Hueneme north of Los Angeles. Sunday night the last banana boat before the start of the embargo pulled into port. As it did, truckers waited to unload their last shipments of Nicaraguan bananas and several of the independent drivers realized they would have to start looking for work.

VON GARABEDIAN, independent trucker: I just started hauling bananas. I gured I was going to haul about two loads a week, and, you know, with the boats being cut off, I don't know where I'm at on it. I imagine it's going to affect me , you know, drastically.

KAYE [voice-over]: Because of the embargo deadline of midnight last night, dockworkers rushed to complete what is normally a four-day job in a day and a half, knowing as they worked that 50 of them would lose their jobs because of the embargo.

MARK PRO, longshoreman: I'm out of a job rather abruptly. I go from making $800 a week to making nothing.

BOYD HONEYMAN, longshoreman: I don't think it's fair, really, because it's just putting a lot of people out of work here.

DARREL FULMER, Vice President, Pandol Bros., Inc.: I mean, we're out of the banana business, temporarily, anyway.

KAYE [voice-over]: Farmer and fruit shipper Darrel Fulmer is vice president of marketing for the company which is the sole importer of Nicaraguan bananas in the United States, Pandol Brothers, in Central California. Pandol Brothers has lost 5% of its business because of the embargo. Last year it shipped $18 million worth of bananas from Nicaragua, an amount that accounted for only 2.5% of the banana market nationally. But, because bananas from Nicaragua make up more than 8% of the share of the market in the West, Western consumers can expect prices to increase.

Mr. FULMER: On the short term in the western part of the United States we expect that the consumer can expect prices of bananas to rise at the retail level from five to 10 cents a pound. The long range, we feel that within 30 to 60 days that there will be other supplies to supplement these, either from ourselves or our competitors, and the prices will stabilize at that time.

KAYE [voice-over]: Because of the embargo, the major fruit importers will now not have to compete against traditionally cheaper Nicaraguan bananas. Wholesalers believe Pandol's rivals will benefit from the President's order.

FRED MARRIOTT, wholesaler: Whoever is bringing merchandise, like Chiquita and United, those are the two companies going to be benefited because now they're going to move more fruit because there's not going to be Nicaraguan fruit.

KAYE [voice-over]: Those who handled Nicaraguan bananas hope the effects of the embargo will be temporary. Pandol, which trades with 27 countries besides Nicaragua, is trying to avoid layoffs by increasing its business elsewhere. Those at the port also hope the impact will be shortlived.

[interviewing] How long will you wait before you lay people off?

GERHARDUS ENZERINK, shipping agent: Well, maybe one or two months at least, and we do anticipate to be able to come up with another activity to keep those people employed.

KAYE [voice-over]: Among those most affected by the embargo, opinions about its political wisdom range and are tinged with a degree of self-interest.

Mr. GARABEDIAN: Well, I back the President, you know. I'm 100% with the government, but I'd like to see the boats come in because it would help me if they do come in.

Mr. ENZERINK: I do not believe in embargos for political reasons. My experience is that it has not worked in the past, and I cannot see how it can possibly work in the future.

Mr. FULMER: We've got to believe that there is a good reason for it. And again I think that as time goes along if there isn't a good reason for it, then will be the time to act.

LEHRER: That report was filed by Jeffrey Kaye of KCET, Los Angeles. The embargo issue now is seen by two Democratic congressmen who disagree on it and other key Nicaragua issues, Don Bonker of Washington State, chairman of the House Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade, and Dave McCurdy of Oklahoma, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, who tomorrow plans to introduce a new bill for giving aid to the contra guerrillas. But, first, on the embargo issue, do you agree, Congressman McCurdy, that this is an effective tool?

Rep. DAVE McCURDY: Well, I think the administration should have considered this remedy at a much earlier date. We felt, many of us felt on the Intelligence Committee, that we should have exhausted these remedies before resorting to military force. I've been an opponent of aid to the contras since the inception, but I think we had to explore this option. I wish the President would have consulted Congress before he enacted the embargo and tried to work with us in establishing some clear objectives of what the embargo should achieve.

LEHRER: But do you think -- but it's there now and you think it's something he should have done, right?

Rep. McCURDY: In conjunction with the legislation that we're proposing, if he ties that to specific negotiations and objectives, yes, we could support that.

LEHRER: Why would you support it?

Rep. McCURDY: I recently returned from Nicaragua and I feel that the economy there is virtually a basket case and that there has to be and that there is continuing pressure building on the Sandinistas. We feel that the pressure from the people themselves within Nicaragua to get the Sandinistas to change their behavior is the best method.

LEHRER: And you think the embargo will help that effort, correct?

Rep. McCURDY: There is popular dissension growing within Nicaragua as to the Sandinistas. The draft issue is a big one; the shortages is another one, and I think the overall deterioration of the economy. These pressures will force the Sandinistas to respond, I think, to the people themselves, and I think they want some opening up of the political process.

LEHRER: Congressman Bonker, you disagree.

Rep. DON BONKER: I certainly do. Unilateral controls for foreign policy reasons have never worked in the past, and they're not going to work in this instance. And the law that the President uses for his authority is very explicit. It says that there must be unusual and extraordinary circumstances that pose a threat to our national security or our foreign policy. And that's a rather substantial authority. And yet, as important as that is, the President failed to consult Congress, as he was required to do by law. But, in any case, Secretary Shultz has stated that it's not an overwhelming event, it's not going to be significant, and that was before this administration decided today to preserve existing contracts. In other words, the embargo really will not go into effect for another six months, thus allowing the Sandinistas to find new markets for their commodities and their products. So it's a big, big bark but a very, very little bite.

LEHRER: So what about Congressman McCurdy's point that it's part of the pressure on the Sandinistas to change their ways because of the financial pressure that it puts on them?

Rep. BONKER: Well, it could be symbolic pressure, but it's not going to have any substantial effect, and I think that's one of the reasons, with our policies in Central America -- you know, we're engaging in covert activity, we're trying to arouse revolutionary efforts and support those kinds of activities. John Kennedy attempted that in the case involving Cuba and Castro 25 years ago. That was Bay of Pigs and it didn't work. However, when the Russians attempted to plant missiles in Cuba, everybody in this country knew that our national security was at stake, and we were willing to draw the line and dare the Russians to pass it. Now people are confused as to what consists of our national security in Central America.

LEHRER: Do you agree with that?

Rep. McCURDY: Well, I would disagree to the extent that I believe there is pressure building on the Sandinistas and, again, they've been taking steps to address that pressure. If we relieve the pressure today and have a non-policy, which is really where we are, then I think the Sandinistas are going to be able to consolidate their power and continue the repression, the censorship of the press and moving closer to the Soviet Union. And because of that I think it would be an absolute mistake to walk away.

LEHRER: How do you see the direct connection between the economic embargo and those very things you're talking about?

Rep. McCURDY: If the administration will accept legislation that's been proposed in the Senate and in the House that ties these steps to negotiations with specific objectives. Living up to the promises that the Sandinistas made in 1979 when they came into power -- they've not lived up to those promises, in spite of open assistance to them in 1980 and now to pressure that they are finally starting to realize that they are in trouble, and I think they will be better able to negotiate with the United States.

LEHRER: Why are you so convinced pressure like this won't work on them, Congressman Bonker?

Rep. BONKER: Well, the economic pressures won't work, and Secretary Shultz has stated as much. If Congressman McCurdy is concerned about driving the Sandinistas closer to the Soviet Union, bringing about economic dependence on the Soviet Union, as we did with respect to Cuba 25 years ago --

LEHRER: You think that's what'll happen? You think that's what'll happen?

Rep. BONKER: Well, yes. They'll have to find new markets somewhere, and I imagine the Soviets want to become more heavily involved in their economic planning.

LEHRER: Congressman McCurdy?

Rep. McCURDY: Well, Don, after we voted to cancel the aid to the contras, Daniel Ortega immediately went to the Soviet Union and asked for assistance. And I think those two are contradictory.

LEHRER: There is a term in television called segue, and you just gave me a great one because we want to go now to that contra aid question. Yesterday House Speaker Thomas O'Neill said he saw the possibility of an aid bill passing the House now primarily because of what Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega did. The day after the House voted to kill further aid to the anti-Sandinista fighters Ortega went off to visit Moscow. O'Neill said Ortega's action embarrassed many Democrats who had argued and voted against contra aid. Tomorrow Congressman McCurdy will introduce a new aid bill, which will be opposed by Congressman Bonker. What is in your bill, Congressman McCurdy? Fourteen million dollars again?

Rep. McCURDY: Fourteen million dollars aid to the resistance forces through AID, Agency for International Development, with specific prohibitions of the CIA and Department of Defense using funds to provide military assistance tothose forces.

LEHRER: Were you one of the Democrats that Speaker O'Neill was talking about who was embarrassed by Ortega's going to Moscow?

Rep. McCURDY: No, I wasn't embarrassed. It didn't surprise me a bit. We had tried, moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, to try to forge a bill, through the Hamilton-Barnes bill, to try to keep the pressure alive but at the same time to set up some specific negotiations. The bill that I introduce tomorrow will have a package of negotiations along the Contadora principles that the Sandinistas already say that they support. We'd like to see it in writing, we'd like to see some confirmation of that. If they agree to a 90-day ceasefire in negotiations with the resistance forces, then we will remove the military presence in Honduras, the exercises there, suspend those exercises, and that is somewhat of a carrot to offer the Sandinistas. If they are serious, if they are serious about achieving peace and demilitarizing the region, then they should grab this proposal immediately. And I think the same is true with the administration. We don't want secondary actions through the CIA and we prohibit that.

LEHRER: Congressman Bonker, you're going to oppose it, though?

Rep. BONKER: I am, and it's very similar to Congressman Michel's amendment, which also provided $14 million for this kind of assistance.

LEHRER: Congressman Michel is the House minority leader, the Republican.

Rep. BONKER: Yes, and that was more or less the administration's alternative at the moment, and the House defeated it. Congressman McCurdy wants to link it with some objectives which I think are laudable, but still they're not sufficient for my support. I'm among those Democrats who would like to see heavier reliance on the Contradora process so that we find a regionally based solution to the vexing problems of that area. And I think we ought to accelerate bilateral talks with Nicaragua so that we could bring about better relations between the two countries. But if we continue to support either military or non-military assistance to revolutionary forces within that country, there is going to be no peace. It'll be elusive and we'll be responsible for some of the problems.

LEHRER: Congressman McCurdy?

Rep. McCURDY: I disagree. I agree that we need to move towards Contadora. That's in my bill. We also need to have bilateral talks. That also is in my bill. But if the Sandinistas feel that they can get off scot free and not move towards the promises that they made in 1979 and that all the pressure from the United States is relieved, I think you'll see continued action in movements towards the Soviet Union and Cuba.

LEHRER: You Democrats got a real problem on this, have you not? I mean, here are two of you are opposed. The speaker, your leader, said today that probably a bill similar to what you're introducing is going to pass. You are aligned with the leadership on many issues, Congressman Bonker, yet you're opposed. What's going on up there?

Rep. BONKER: Well, foreign policy is very difficult to legislate, and the President lacks consensus support in the Congress for his policies in Central America.

LEHRER: But don't you Democrats have just as big a consensus problem as he does?

Rep. BONKER: Oh, certainly, which is one reason why congressional action in foreign policy is not very desirable. But if a President embarks upon policies that are unpopular in the country, as the Central America policy is today, the Congress, or at least certain members, feel compelled to speak out and to establish limits to that authority.

Rep. McCURDY: I would just like to say that what we are trying to propose is an alternative to the Reagan administration policy, which has failed. The co-sponsors of my bill are members who have voted consistently against aid, military assistance to the contras. What we are saying to our Democratic leadership and also to the White House is, let's stop playing partisan games, let's get serious about developing a policy that is realistic, that is going to enable the countries in the region to feel safer and to try to move the Sandinistas to the promises that they've ascribed to in the past.

LEHRER: Do you feel, Congressman McCurdy, that the Democrats have a political problem if this does not pass in terms of the image with the American people, that you voted against -- or let's say you voted for the Communists in Nicaragua?

Rep. McCURDY: I don't believe that's a problem in itself if we provide an alternative. But if we do nothing, if we're just negative, if we just vote against the administration, regardless of how messed up their policy may be, then I think we have failed, and I think we will be held responsible for that.

LEHRER: Congressman Bonker?

Rep. BONKER: Well, we're all going to be accountable. I just want to help shape the right policies in Central America, and I don't think providing covert aid to military or paramilitary or revolutiory forces there will bring about a peaceful solution.

Rep. McCURDY: Nor do I.

LEHRER: All right. Gentlemen, thank you both very much. Robin?

MacNEIL: Still to come in tonight's NewsHour, three views of the Reagan administration efforts to modify affirmative action hiring plans in U.S. cities, and a report on another moving Vietnam memorial. Affirmative Action

LEHRER: Next, the new war over affirmative action between the Reagan administration and others on the one hand and several leading civil rights organizations and others on the other. Judy Woodruff has more. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Jim, as we reported earlier, civil rights groups demonstrated outside the Justice Department today to protest the administration's latest attempts to roll back affirmative action plans. It was simply the latest skirmish between two sets of adversaries, whose most recent battleground has been in the job market and has centered on the question of whether race- or sex-conscious employment practices, including the use of quotas, are legal and moral means to correct for past discrimination. Earlier this year the Justice Department, in the person of the assistant attorney general for civil rights, William Bradford Reynolds, wrote to some 50 cities, asserting that a 1984 Supreme Court decision does not permit racial quotas and that the ruling covers preferential treatment in hiring or promotion as well as layoffs. At least, that's the Justice Department's reading of the six-to-three high court ruling that white firefighters in Memphis were laid off unjustly to make room for black workers with less seniority. But critics of the Justice Department say that its reading of the Memphis case is much too broad, that it has taken a narrow legal position expressed by the Supreme Court and used it to make a broad political attack against any affirmative action. Robin?

MacNEIL: The Reagan Justice Department is doing more than writing letters. Last week it filed suit against the city of Indianapolis, which has had a court-ordered affirmative action plan in effect since 1978. Ironically, that plan resulted in part from Justice Department pressure during the Carter administration. With us tonight is the Republican mayor of Indianapolis, William Hudnut, who joins us from public station WFYI, Indianapolis. Mr. Mayor, what's your reaction to the Justice Department lawsuit?

Mayor WILLIAM HUDNUT: Well, I think it's unfortunate because Indianapolis has had a pretty good experience over the last eight years working with the consent decree, and for two years before that, in January of 1976, when I was elected mayor, I issued an executive order requiring that every police and fire recruit class have at least 25% minority or women in it. And then that was confirmed two years later by the consent decree and we've been laboring under that. And I suppose to simplify it I'd say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We have not yet arrived at the goal that we want to be at whereby the minorities in the fire and police department are roughly equivalent to the minority population in our labor force, which is about 19%. We've made some progress. We've achieved some things, and I think we have to keep on moving in that direction. The problem with the Justice Department's lawsuit against us asking us to modify the consent decree is that everybody will shrug their shoulders and walk away from this problem, and then we'll regress back to where we were in the 1960s before the civil rights movement. And I think that's morally and constitutionally wrong.

MacNEIL: You have a personal commitment to this, don't you? I mean, you campaigned for mayor on affirmative action as part of your platform.

Mayor HUDNUT: Well, I said that I thought that we ought to have those population percentages reflected in the police and fire department. And I can tell you that we're going to fight the Justice Department. We're going to move here in the courts in the next 60 days to dismiss the suit. If it prevails, all I can say is that voluntary affirmative action is not dead in Indianapolis, and I hope it's not dead in a lot of other cities around the country, because there are a lot of women out there and a lot of hispanics and a lot of blacks who need the help of government if they're ever going to be mainstreamed into community life.

MacNEIL: What do you think of the Justice Department's interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling last year?

Mayor HUDNUT: We wrote them in February after we heard from them in January. We said that we thought that their decision or their interpretation was much too broad, much too expansive and that we felt that within the four corners of our consent decree we could still fit in a strong priority commitment to the goals, if not necessarily the quotas -- I realize quota is a loaded word -- the goals of our affirmative action program. And we don't want the Justice Department saying to Indianapolis -- and, I suppose, by extension, any other city in the country or any other jurisdiction -- you ought to have less affirmative action goals now than you did eight years ago when you started on this program. Why force us to do less than we want to do? And also, why interfere with us? Part of the ideology here is the new federalism, and that means that you should let local governments do their own thing, if you want to put it that way, and here we have the heavy hand of the Justice Department coming in and saying retreat.

MacNEIL: Why do you think they're doing it?

Mayor HUDNUT: I think they're doing it basically for ideological reasons, for the feeling that quotas are divisive and that affirmative action in some instances has caused disruption and is unpopular, particularly with many in the majority who probably voted for this administration. And I'm saying this as somebody thatvoted for this administration, so please don't misinterpret me. But I think that affirmative action and the effort to provide equal opportunity for blacks, for women, for hispanics, etcetera, is something that is much more fundamental than partisan politics. It's part of the Constitution, and it's part of, I think, the moral baggage that we brought with us from the Hebraic-Christian civilization that we all are the beneficiaries of.

MacNEIL: Well, what do you say to the Justice Department? You mentioned divisive. Edwin Meese, the new attorney general, has said that numerical quotas in this field are discriminatory.

Mayor HUDNUT: Well, they may be, and of course you have the problem of reverse discrimination. But somehow, if you don't say that we're going to strive to get 20 or 25 percent of our new recruit classes constituted by minorities and women, blacks and hispanics and women, we're going to retreat back and we're never going to move forward in terms of filling the ranks of our police and fire department with representation of the population that they're serving. If it's divisive, we'll have to work that out in the courts. But basically we've had a pretty good working relationship over the last eight years. We haven't had a lot of problems here. We haven't had all kinds of lawsuits and counter lawsuits. It's all been working pretty well. So again I repeat, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

MacNEIL: Do white employees of your city government who might be passed over for a promotion because there is a black or a hispanic or a woman in the promotion line because of affirmative action, do they not resent that action as they have in other cities and take some action to stop it?

Mayor HUDNUT: Well, sure. Some of them do. We don't live in a perfect world. We don't live in a color-blind world, which is one of the reasons why I think we have to have a commitment to affirmative action. And there are some whites who feel aggravated, just as, 10 years ago in our police department there were a lot of blacks who felt aggravated because they didn't think that the blacks were getting a fair shake. Now we have a black assistant chief. We have blacks and we have women sprinkled throughout the ranks of the police department. We have eight women in our fire department, which is eight more than we had 10 years ago. And I think that if we don't move in this direction and if government doesn't somehow express a moral and legal obligation to help those who are disadvantaged and those who are outside looking in, then we will never have the realization of the American dream of community that we ought to, where everybody has a full and equal share of the American pie.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Don't go away. We'll be back in a moment.

Mayor HUDNUT: All right.

MacNEIL: Judy?

WOODRUFF: We invited Assistant Attorney General Bradford Reynolds to appear on this program, but he declined. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration is not without its supporters on this issue; one of the most outspoken is the vicechairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Morris Abram, a New York attorney. He joins us tonight from Chicago. And one of the administration's most severe critics is a man who led today's demonstration outside the Justice Department. He is Benjamin Hooks, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Let me begin with you, Mr. Abram. You heard what Mayor Hudnut just said. He says they're making progress with affirmative action in his city of Indianapolis, so why shouldn't they be permitted to go right ahead as they have been?

MORRIS ABRAM: Because the Supreme Court of the United States just a very few months ago said that the use of quotas in firing people on a reduction of force was unconstitutional, illegal and a violation of the Civil Rights Act. And the language of the court very clearly says that race preferences either in hiring or promotion are illegal. So if there's a demonstration, it ought to be in front of the Supreme Court of the United States. Now, not only that; I think the real issue, Judy, is this. The Civil Rights Commission applauded that decision, that is, a majority. The minority, the old holdovers from the Carter administration, including Commissioner Mary Frances Berry, put it straight right on the line. She disapproved of the Supreme Court's decision. She said that the civil rights laws of this country were not passed to protect all Americans, as a majority of the Commission believes. The majority does believe that, the American people believe that. I applaud the mayor of Indianapolis for his attitude, and that attitude should go forward in this country. And there's no reason why it won't. But equal opportunity for all, special privileges for none, regardless of race, was the focal point of the civil rights movement. Race preferences, I despised them when I grew up in the South. They were known as white supremacy. I'm opposed to any kind of racial preference, and so is the Civil Rights Commission.

WOODRUFF: But you heard Mayor Hudnut say that without some percentages they can't make progress.

Mr. ABRAM: Oh, they could. The mayor himself, he is in control of the city and he will make progress with his attitude. I congratulate him. Moreover, the laws of this country, specifically now the civil rights laws, thank God, prohibit discrimination on account of race or sex. All that is required is the equal application of the law to prohibit discrimination. And then let people be hired on the basis of their individual merit, not because of their race, their blood or their religion or their sex. You know, you said they're divisive. He's right. [audio interruption] -- not be permitted in this country because in a society as mixed as ours they will divide the society. We'll become another Lebanon. He admitted quite frankly that in Indianapolis there are people who are very, very keen about this.

WOODRUFF: All right. Let me stop you there and ask Mr. Hooks to respond to what you just said.

BENJAMIN HOOKS: Well, first of all, Mr. Abram is absolutely, positively incorrect. A majority of the Supreme Court has never ever said what he said they said. That's his reading. That's Bradford Reynolds' reading, but that is not what the court said. The Stotts firefighters case in Memphis -- and I was involved in that case, and I understand more about it, perhaps, than he does, and I invite him to read it -- the decision was very simple. It was a very narrow decision involving the question of seniority versus affirmative action in a situation involving a layoff. And the court was very clear that the consent decree had not covered that and that the lower court judge could not in fact impose that. I don't like that decision but I accept it. But it does not say that they have a right -- the Justice Department has a right to go into Indianapolis and 55 other cities and try to upset consent decrees which have been painfully gotten out. It puzzles me. President Reagan went to Bitburg, Germany, to heal the wounds of 40 years ago, and yet the Justice Department is going to Indianapolis to open old wounds. It's an inconsistent, schizophrenic approach which cannot be justified by the law or by morality.

WOODRUFF: But, Mr. Hooks, what about the argument that the other side would make that it's also discriminatory, it's reverse discrimination, when you lay off a white worker who has tenure, or when you don't hire somebody who does better in a test score?

Mr. HOOKS: I think that's a loaded question. Let me put it this way. In 1940, if there were 600 policemen in Memphis, they were all white, they were all male; if in 1985 there's still a universe of 600 police people, some of them are black and some are women. Now, if we take the position that every time you hire a woman or a black that you have somehow taken away that which belongs to a white male because for all of the history of this country they had all of the positions -- in the medical schools, -- whites had all of the positions in most of the medical schools in the North and all of the positions in the South. Are we saying that that can never be? That if you're born black you must forever remain in chains because you cannot change anything, you cannot take away the favored status of a white male because he was born as a white male and he must forever, as long as he lives, have every opportunity he had, even though it was wrongfully gained in the first place? It's just that simple. It's not a question of reverse discrimination. It is a question of undoing a reversal of discrimination.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Abram, is that what you are saying?

Mr. ABRAM: Absolutely not. In the first place, the Supreme Court went out of its way to say that the rule with respect to no quotas in firing or layoffs applied with respect to promotions and applied in respect to appointments. So Mr. Hooks is wrong about that. He should read Mr. Justice White's opinion. Secondly, I don't think that there should be any advantage to being a white male. The law prohibits it. The point is that every individual should be judged on his own merits. That is what equal protection of the law means. Now, if Mr. Hooks agrees with Mrs. Berry that the civil rights laws of this country were passed only to protect blacks and hispanics, then I understand his position. But a majority of the commission, a majority of the American people, both political parties and the Supreme Court doesn't believe that.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Hooks?

Mr. HOOKS: Well, I would, without agreeing or disagreeing with Mrs. Berry, I would simply ask one question. When there was a ferment for the passage of the civil rights laws, I certainly don't think it was passed to make sure that white males got jobs, because they had them all. If one reads the transcripts of the testimony, if one goes back into the history of the congressional action, why was it necessary in the first place to have civil rights laws? Because this country had a long history of openly, overtly, actually discriminating against women and against minorities and the law was passed in order to redress that. But it's important to note one thing. I'm not here speaking for reverse discrimination. That's something that's just a red herring, that has nothing to do with reality. The fact is that we are for a qualified pool of applicants, and once you have that qualified pool of applicants, then in order to reverse the discrimination of the past, which is obviously apparent -- I just use the illustration that at one time the police departments and the fire departments of every southern city were altogether white male. Now, how do you change that? Are blacks supposed to wait 300 years before that is changed, or do we have some remedial action to make sure that the results are different?

WOODRUFF: Mr. Abram? And then I want to bring Mayor Hudnut back in.

Mr. ABRAM: Let me just say this. Hubert Humphrey, who was a friend, I'm sure, of Ben Hooks and myself, was the author of that bill. He said if you could find in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is the act under consideration, anything that permitted racial preferences or quotas, he would eat the pages one by one. That bill was passed on a race-neutral basis to stop discrimination against blacks and against other people. It should and it has to a certain extent. We've got a long way to go, and with mayors like Mayor Hudnut we'll move the arena to the point that I think America will be very proud without reverse discrimination and without adding a racial component to the laws of the United States, which is the worst thing we could do in a society as diverse as ours.

WOODRUFF: Mayor Hudnut, does that make sense to you?

Mayor HUDNUT: I feel as though I'm caught in a crossfire here, and I'm not sure which way to look in this pingpong match. But let me just say that I think that it's very important, if you want to quote Hubert Humphrey, that you remember also that he said that government has a special and particular obligation to those who live in the shadows and the twilight and the dawn of life. And the shadows of life includes, I think, those who have been discriminated against, those who have not had equal opportunity, those who have been left out of the mainstream. And it seems to me that government has an obligation to see to it that they are brought back in and that they are given this equal opportunity. I haven't used the word quotas. I disagree with the Civil Rights Commission's interpretation and the Justice Department's interpretation of the Stotts decision. I think that it's too narrow. It had to do only with seniority. It didn't have to do with affirmative action through the length and breadth of this great land of ours.

And all I can say is that even if the Justice Department prevails against the city of Indianapolis and these 55 other jurisdictions that it's going after right now, as long as I'm the mayor of this city and I'm in the firing line, so to speak, and have to do everything I can to build a community here where people get along with each other, I'm going to see to it that without going overboard and going too far in one direction, we nonetheless do sustain a strong commitment to equal opportunity, to aggressive affirmative action, even if it's voluntary, to aggressive recruitment policies so that we can have a fire and police department that reflects the population mix in this community. Not to do that, it seems to me, is to vote to go all the way back to the situation that Dr. Hooks was describing where many, many Americans, many, many of God's children were left out and had no place in the sun. And I don't think we should do that.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Abram?

Mr. ABRAM: I agree with the spirit of the mayor, but I would like to point out that when he speaks of Hubert Humphrey addressing the problems of need, I have no objection. I think the problems of need and disadvantage ought to be addressed wherever they are. They ought to be addressed in the case of that large Appalachian white population which inhabits Indianapolis and which feels the effect of a hiring policy that prefers blacks over whites. As a matter of fact, the Congress of the United States ordered the Civil Rights Commission, Mayor, to look to see what effect these programs such as you have in Indianapolis have had on southern Europeans and other ethnic groups who also want their place in the sun. The only way to give every American a place in the sun is to abide by the Constitution, which speaks of equal protection of the law and of individual rights and which knows no group rights and knows no individual preferences on the basis of creed, sex or blood.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Hooks, what do you think will happen if the administration prevails?

Mr. HOOKS: Well, two things will happen. First of all, I think Mr. Abram has made it very clear that from his viewpoint in Indianapolis if blacks happen to get 19% of the jobs because they're 19% of the population, that somehow that discriminates against the white males who at one time had 100% of the jobs. If that's the position one takes, we can never make progress, and that's what this action of the Justice Department would do. It would throw us back in the days when the only thing that was right was for white males to have all the jobs. And when you try to include all of the people in, it is obvious that somebody will not have as many jobs as they once had unless the universe of the total number expands. Secondly, it is opening up old wounds, renewing old hostilities, raising again the spectres of things which we thought we had won, and we could move on. It is not a healing process, and it brings the heavy hand of the federal government to bear on local governments when this administration has said that they want the local municipalie Department formerly worked to bring about so that all Americans, black and white, male and female, Jew and gentile, would have an opportunity not only to compete but that at some point it will result in some changes actually being made.

WOODRUFF: All right, just one quick word. Mr. Abram, what do you think will happen if the administration prevails?

Mr. ABRAM: I think what will happen is that the court will then strictly enforce non-discrimination in hiring and firing, as it should and must. I think the mayor will extend his recruiting efforts and try to bring in those who have been overlooked regardless of whether they're black or Appalachian or women. I think we will have the kind of society that we ought to have in this country without the force of a rule which violates, in my judgment, the Supreme Court's rule.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, gentlemen, all three of you, Mr. Abram in Chicago, Mayor Hudnut in Indianapolis and Mr. Hooks here in Washington. New York City Veterans Memorial

MacNEIL: As we reported, some 20,000 Vietnam veterans and their families took part in an emotional ticker tape parade in New York today. It was the climax of two days of events officially welcoming the veterans home, a decade after the end of the war. For our final focus section tonight, we look at the unusual memorial illuminated in their honor last night.[voice-over] The monument was dedicated in a blaze of fireworks and music. Mayor Ed Koch heralded the veterans.

ED KOCH, Mayor of New York: We have heard the voices of a lost generation. We have opened the eyes of a new generation to the lessons of the past.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Over 2,000 Vietnam veterans jammed the plaza for the event. The monument itself is a 70-foot long glass wall. Among the things etched in its surface are the letters 75 soldiers wrote to those at home. Most of the letters were engraved at a small firm in Brooklyn. Now 27 years old, Jerry Morrell was in high school when the war ended. The experience of working on the letters has weighed heavily upon him.

JERRY MORRELL, engraver: They were very, very emotional and heart-wrenching, but the worst thing of the entire process of putting them down on glass was that you be working on a letter that stretched over six or seven blocks, and you start out with "Darling." Then a comma and a bunch of stars and copy that you couldn't really make any sense of -- letters, words all split up. So you slapped that down and you put that one aside and you do the next one and the next one and the next one. And pretty soon you start to piece it together. And you never -- because these blocks weigh 160 pounds, you never really see them all lined up, at least until we got to another part of it that we started doing that. So pretty soon things would start to hit you. You'd see "bags dangling" and "stretcher" here and "wounded" there and "razor-sharp grass" here. And catch phrases that would kind of make you stop and think. And then, at the end of everything, at the end of working for two or three days on this section you'd come to the block that said, "Major Michael O'Donnell, killed in action," and you'd realize that this person that you're reading his most intimate thoughts died after writing the letter, the next day.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Bill Broyles, a journalist, was on the selection committee which helped to choose the design for the monument. He served in Vietnam from 1969 to '70, a time when the country was divided about its mission there.

BILL BROYLES, Vietnam veteran: Now, I went there as a 24-year-old lieutenant and I commanded a platoon of men who were 18, 19, 20 years old under -- out in the jungles of Vietnam in a war which by then we knew we weren't going to win and we really had no reason to be there beyond negotiations. So you were in this remarkable kind of war situation without any of the support that you normally have when you go to war. There wasn't some big mission and the country wasn't behind you. We really felt like we were out there alone. So it's this sort of absurd situation which we had to do all those things which Americans who fought in World War II or Korea or World War I had to do, but completely divorced from any sort of overall goal or overriding effort. So we really felt just remarkably alone. It was a very lonely sort of experience. And letters were the one link between who we were becoming, men at war, and who we had been -- sort of young Americans doing what other Americans did. And it was like, "I write, therefore I was still alive." And people were writing in the most bizarre circumstances where you would have just finished going somewhere, you would have just been in an ambush and people would be -- stopped in the middle of digging their foxholes and write letters or they would lean over and write letters on the back of someone who's passed out from exhaustion. And it was just this effort, it was like confirming that you were alive.

MacNEIL: Tom Pellaton is a Vietnam veteran. Two of his letters are on the monument.

TOM PELLATON, Vietnam veteran: Letters meant everything. I wrote maybe 30, 40 letters a week to my family but also to my friends, who I could write more clearly, exactly what was happening.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: In 1971 Pellaton was an intelligence officer in Hue Fu Bay. Today he's a maitre d' at New York's swank Carlyle Hotel.

Mr. PELLATON: I never thought anything good would ever come from those years in my own life, and I carried around a great deal of pain about those years. And I view the monument and any participation I may have in it as a healing, a focus for healing for all those who went through the war, those who did not but may have suffered losses or conflicts. Those of us who went through it remember the nation as a whole in tremendous conflict. And I feel honored that maybe something I may have said could be used as that focus to heal that time.

Mr. BROYLES: We underestimate ritual in life, and this was a war that didn't have a beginning or an end. It had only a first death and a last death. And those of us who fought there, and in some ways feel like we're still left on stage, that it's like there was no third act. We didn't come home, there was no parade, there was no sort of end of the war. It never ended because it never ended officially. And in some ways it never ended for the people who fought there. "If you are able to save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go, be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own. And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind." By Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, written on January 1st, 1970 in Dak To, Vietnam.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Michael O'Donnell was a pilot and a poet. His helicopter was shot down during a rescue mission somewhere in Southeast Asia. His last poem is the centerpiece of the monument. Patsy McNevin is his sister.

PATSY McNEVIN, soldier's sister: When I read it the first time, I thought that he must have -- I thought he must have lost someone who was really close to him. The other poems, you knew that he was seeing death and that was our first indication because his letters never told us anything about that. And I thought it was eloquent and I also felt so terrible that he must have experienced so much loss, so much loss of life and so many godawful things that I think he wrote it as a eulogy to friends he had lost.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Michael O'Donnell's remains were never found, so for Patsy and her family the monument, etched with her brother's last words to them, has become his final resting place.

Ms. McNEVIN: It means that he has -- he will have immortality and most of us will never have that.

Mr. BROYLES: What this monument does is put on glass the experiences of the people who fought there. It lets us get them out of us and put them up there for everyone to see. And in some way making those experiences public, putting them on the wall, I think really helps round out the larger experience of the war. It helps us say the war is over. Here's what it was like.

MacNEIL: Some of the letters etched on the wall have been collected in a book entitled, Dear America, published today by W.W. Norton. Most of the profits from the book will go to the New York Vietnam veterans job training program. Jim?

LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this day. President Reagan agreed to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Spain. Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole told the Democrats it was now their turn to submit a budget deficit plan. Artificial heart recipient William Schroeder remained in critical but stable condition after suffering a brain hemmorhage, and at least 23 persons died in more fighting between rival religious factions in Beirut, Lebanon. Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.