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INTRO
ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Here are today's news headlines. Seven chemical companies agreed to pay $180 million for a fund to aid victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Jose Napoleon Duarte, Washington's preferred candidate, claimed victory in El Salvador. The U.S. trade deficit for the first quarter of '84 broke all previous records. The Warsaw Pact called on NATO to negotiate a ban on both conventional and nuclear weapons in East-West conflicts. Jim Lehrer is off tonight; Judy Woodruff is in Washington. Judy?
JUDY WOODRUFF: Also on the NewsHour tonight, on the Agent Orange settlement we'll talk with the attorney for the Vietnam veterans who brought the suit and with one veteran who says it's not enough. In presidential politics we focus on tomorrow's primary in Ohio and find Gary Hart hanging in there, threatening to pull off a surprise. In the aftermath of yesterday's election in El Salvador, two members of Congress debate what the results mean for U.S. policy and politics. Two black leaders join us to discuss the unique problems facing America's black families. And, finally, we review a novel that looks at the paradoxes of life and love behind the Iron Curtain.Agent Orange: Vets Settle
MacNEIL: A long-awaited trial was called off today when seven chemical companies agreed to settle out of court with thousands of Vietnam veterans claiming injury from Agent Orange. The massive class action suit flowed from claims by some 15,000 veterans that they'd suffered cancer, liver, nerve damage, skin problems and their children, birth defects, from exposure to the chemical defoliant used in Vietnam. Jury selection was about to begin in what was expected to be a long and emotional trial in Brooklyn, New York, when the judge announced the settlement. The seven chemical companies named as defendants agreed to pay $180 million into a fund to pay claims for damages resulting from exposure to the chemical, which contained dioxin. Judge Jack Weinstein said he would withhold approval of the settlement until public hearings were held to determine whether it was fair. Veterans organizations were divided on that question after the surprise announcement.
STEVE ZARDIS, Agent Orange plaintiff, Boston: How can you compensate one for a severely disabled child or the loss of a loved one? Or someone with a chronic, debilitating illness? You can't put a price on it. It's a pyhhric victory for me.
RAYMOND SUAREZ, Vietnam veteran, New York: It should have been settled a long time ago. I mean, it's taken too long. Veterans can't wait.
DAN JORDAN, Agent Orange plaintiff, New York: I feel a great deal of pride both personally and for the Vietnam veterans community in general because this is something that we've come back together, 15, 16 years after Vietnam, and we stuck by each other and we fought this out, and we won. And I think that's real important.
JAMES BURDY, Vietnam veteran, New York: What's going to happen if the money stops? What's going to happen to the veterans? What's going to happen to their families? This is a good step in the right direction, but it can't stop here.
MacNEIL: We're going to talk about the Agent Orange case tonight with the leader of a veterans organization and the chief attorney for the veterans, David Dean, who has been working on the lawsuit for the last 4 1/2 years. First, Mr. Dean. Which veterans are covered in this settlement?
DAVID DEAN: All of the veterans who were named in the class; that is, all of the veterans who did not opt out by the first of May. We don't know how many. We know that there are at least 15,000. The ones that did opt out are also covered if they want to come back in again, another example of the many legal innovations that the judge has --
MacNEIL: How long will they have to come back in?
Mr. DEAN: I don't know, but long enough for them to make an appropriate decision upon advice of counsel or their family.
MacNEIL: Are there any others -- those who remained in the lawsuit, those who opted out -- are there any others who haven't done anything about it yet at all?
Mr. DEAN: The ones who haven't done anything about it are in, because the class included all of those who claimed injury.
MacNEIL: And this includes not only American but also --
Mr. DEAN: Australians and New Zealanders.
MacNEIL: And New Zealand troops. Now, before the settlement, there were many estimates to the effect that the claims would run into billions of dollars. How will $180 million compensate those victims?
Mr. DEAN: One of the veterans you have just interviewed was terribly correct when he said nothing can compensate one for the loss of a loved one or for a deformed child. We don't claim that it can. We don't claim, and I don't ever suggest, that any settlement is adequate. I've never had a settlement in which I've been satisfied, and I'd rather go to trial and get verdict. However, we know that it's the right decision as far as we are concerned. And the payment of a quarter of a billion to needy vets is terribly significant.
MacNEIL: It becomes --
Mr. DEAN: It's the first time that they've ever gotten anything.
MacNEIL: It becomes a quarter of a billion when the $180 is invested over a number of years.
Mr. DEAN: The 180 is invested as of today. The moment of settlement -- the $180 million went into the bank and the veterans have earned today $61,000 and they'll earn tomorrow a few dollars more. Yes, that's -- the payment of those sums resulted from the investment.
MacNEIL: But it's still, the total, even at a quarter of a billion dollars, is a lot less than sums were being talked about, and when divided among 15,000 or more veterans -- and some amounts put aside for research, as I understand, into the nature of their illnesses and so on -- it comes down to relatively small amounts of money, does it not?
Mr. DEAN: To divide 15,000 into that number is not fair, because some vets clearly are injured more drastically than others. Some vets will not receive a great deal of money; some vets will receive more money. But again, the great significance of this settlement, I think, is the acknowledgement to the vets that from the chemical companies, despite their denials, that yes, these problems have been caused by Agent Orange and the poison that was in it.
MacNEIL: Some of the veterans who were interviewed after the settlement was announced say that they were disappointed because it let the chemical companies off the hook. They were never required to admit liability. And, as one of them put it, "We wanted them put on trial and in the hotseat, and they weren't."
Mr. DEAN: Yes, we understand that. So did I. I would have loved to cross-examine some of the people who poisoned our veterans. I had a lot of questions to ask them. But we think that this resolution is appropriate. But we understand the vets' feelings.
MacNEIL: We'll come back. Judy?
WOODRUFF: The original lawsuit over Agent Orange was brought by a group called Vietnam Veterans Agent Orange International. Its president is Frank McCarthy, who served in Vietnam from 1965 to 1966. Mr. McCarthy, does this settlement put an end to the controversy?
FRANK McCARTHY: It doesn't put an end to it at all. What it does is it punches a hole into the controversy, and it forces our Senate to pass the legislation that's lying before them at the present time. It's already been passed by the House. So any senator that doesn't vote for that legislation after this settlement should be tarred and feathered and run out of this country on a rail.
WOODRUFF: All right. Before we get to the legislation that's pending in the Senate -- it's already passed the House -- why isn't the settlement itself adequate? That's a lot of money, $250 million, after interest, isn't it?
Mr. McCARTHY: Yes, it is, but you have to realize that we didn't file this suit for any money for any particular veterans. This suit was designed for a remedial measure. It was designed to set up an ongoing body of money that would generate more money, and the money would be used to compensate the veterans who have become disabled, used for research and to use to repair the damage done to our children. You have to realize that, like Steve Zardis said, there's not enough money in the whole world to pay anyone for their life, for their child's life. So when you have thousands of veterans -- 40,000, we estimate -- around the country, there's not enough money in this entire country. We would bankrupt the country and the chemical companies, and that doesn't resolve anything. This way, now we've set a precedent. We have money. We have a way of remedying some of the catastrophe.
WOODRUFF: But the money does go a way toward remedying the problem?
Mr. McCARTHY: I beg your pardon?
WOODRUFF: The money does go a certain distance, some way, towards alleviating some of the grief, some of the pain.
Mr. McCARTHY: Absolutely. And it shows that there is justice for Vietnam veterans in this country. There hasn't been in any other way -- education, healthwise, home loans. All the way across the board the Vietnam veterans have been left out in this society. The court has said, "We will not let them out with this catastrophe. We will help them."
WOODRUFF: What will the money be used for? You just alluded, I think, to some of the ways it'll be spent.
Mr. McCARTHY: Well, for instance, chloracne. It's a rash that is manifested through dioxin poisoning. There's no cure for it. There's no cure because the chemical industry hasn't put the proper amount of money into research to create it. Now, we can do that. We can also provide genetic counseling for the veterans. Like for myself. I don't believe I'm affected, but I fear for having a child, because my friends in Vietnam had children born with multiple birth defects. So I'm scared to death to have a child. Now we have an on-going body of money that can be put into genetic research and provide us with genetic counseling so we can answer these questions and have a child without fear of having birth defects.
WOODRUFF: Is there proof even now that there is a clear link between Agent Orange and the problems, the health problems, of these men?
Mr. McCARTHY: There is a clear link on some of the illnesses. Some of the other illnesses, like immunological damage, is very difficult, very, very difficult to prove. But if you put together the proper case histories of the veteran, if you go back into their families' histories, if you go back into their entire health histories, bring all their medical records up -- when we went to Vietnam we were aged 20 -- average age was 20. We were in top physical condition. We were combat-ready and medically fit. So, if you go in that kind of health, you walk into a defoliated area, you become sick, and for 10, 15 years later you become ill or you contract various soft-tissue sarcomas -- which forest workers and agricultural workers had the same kind -- when you see that pattern of illness through civilian exposures throughout the world, not just the Vietnam veterans -- we're the tip of the iceberg compared to the population in this country affected.
WOODRUFF: Thank you, Mr. McCarthy. Robin?
MacNEIL: Mr. Dean, does this let government off the hook?
Mr. DEAN: Not at all. The government is not off the hook as far as we're concerned, and as Frank McCarthy alluded to a moment ago, there is a bill pending that will establish a causal relationship between injury and Agent Orange victims. And that should be passed, and if it's not passed, with the greatest of pleasure some of us lawyers are looking to the government. I want to take a swing at the government, too.
MacNEIL: Because it was the government that used -- that ordered the defoliant used in Vietnam.
Mr. DEAN: You bet it was.
MacNEIL: Now, you went after the chemical companies because you claim the chemical companies knew that it contained dioxin which could cause this kind of damage.
Mr. DEAN: And because the government is immune, or has been up 'til now, immune from claims from veterans. It's only been, in some areas, the wives and the children. I'd like to do our part to change that law. We don't think it's fair. And if the government doesn't do what's right, if the government doesn't start paying our vets disability for the injuries that we know resulted from Agent Orange poisoning, we're looking to them. We want to go to work.
MacNEIL: Now, are veterans who are members of your organization and who claim they are injured by Agent Orange, are they going to seek money from this fund set up by the chemical companies and also go and seek some kind of compensation from the government?
MacNEIL: Well, it's a little premature right now because the whole mechanism for administrating the trust fund hasn't been set up. There's going to be a public hearing to determine that. The veterans will give their input and to try to explain the various economic and social as well as medical and scientific questions that are involved with the Agent Orange issue. So we don't know the mechanism that'll be set up, but yes, if the legislation for it as it stands before the House will only compensate for the rash, chloracne, liver damage and soft-tissue sarcomas. The trust fund covers everything. It covers our future generations, and it also covers veterans like myself who may manifest symptoms tomorrow. They were excluded before. Now everyone's in there. So we have two mechanisms for remedying the situation right now. Well, we don't have it until the Senate finally passes the legislation.
MacNEIL: Judge Weinstein, as I said earlier, said he would not approve this settlement until public hearings were held to determine whether it's fair. That's a very unusual step.
Mr. DEAN: No, it's not. The law requires him to hold a fair hearing. Section 23e of the federal rules requires such a hearing. It should be held. It must be aired publicly. We are in favor of that. We'd like the fairness of this settlement evaluated.
MacNEIL: Do you think there are going to be enough disgruntled vets who don't think it's a good settlement or enough who will, at such a hearing, create a sense that the settlement is unfair?
Mr. McCARTHY: I don't think you'll find very many victims. They've been -- they've had the government and everyone else turn their back on them for years. We've been called all kinds of names: it's all on our head, we're just looking for money, we're deranged, psychopathic killers. And it's all been a travesty of justice, but now -- it's over now. Now we've punched that hole through that controversy. This is an admission of guilt with the chemical companies. Whether they like it or not, that's what it is. They don't give $180 million unless they are caught. And they're caught lying to the American public and the Vietnam veterans and now they're going to have to pay.
MacNEIL: Right. Well, thank you both, gentlemen, Mr. Dean, Mr. McCarthy, for joining us this evening, and in conclusion say that none of the chemical companies involved agreed to come on with us this evening. Judy?
WOODRUFF: The three Democratic presidential candidates carried on their fight today, looking ahead to tomorrow's Super Tuesday #2, with primaries in four states -- Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina and Maryland -- and they are contesting a total of 368 delegates. Walter Mondale had tucked under his belt an important weekend victory in the Texas caucuses, and predictions that he might be on the verge of sewing up the Democratic nomination. On the trail in Ohio, Mondale hit President Reagan for not being concerned with people who are suffering. Jesse Jackson also had a weekend win, his first state primary victory, in Louisiana. For a change, Jackson went on the attack against Mondale and his connections to the economic policies of the Carter-Mondale administration in campaign appearances today in Ohio. A national poll done by The Los Angeles Times had bad news for all three Democrats. It showed that President Reagan would beat Jackson in a race held today, 63 to 19 percent, and it showed Mr. Reagan beating Hart and Mondale by virtually the same margin, 52 or 53 percent Reagan to 41% for either Democrat. As for Senator Hart, he said today in Indianapolis that it was up to Mondale to make peace gestures to unify the Democratic Party. Hart said, "There is more patching up to be done from Mr. Mondale's side than from my side." Hart is expected to win caucuses being held today in his home state of Colorado. The biggest delegate prize tomorrow, though, will come in Ohio, where there are 154 delegates up for grabs. It is a state that many political observers say Hart must win if he is to keep any credibility in his campaign. We sent correspondent Elizabeth Brackett to investigate Hart's chances there. Ohio Primary: Hart Fights On
ELIZABETH BRACKETT [voice-over]: He must do well here, and he knows it. Hart reaching out for voters in Ohio, reaching right into what has been Mondale turf, the blue-collar labor vote. How successful he is with this effort may well determine whether or not Gary Hart remains a contender for his party's nomination this year.
VOTER: The way he smiles, I like him.
BRACKETT: But you're still undecided?
VOTER: Yeah.
BRACKETT [voice-over]: Hart does have one plus in this state he has not had in many others -- a well-tuned organization. State Chairman John Kulewicz has been working nonstop for the past year, something he says Walter Mondale has not been doing.
JOHN KULEWICZ, Ohio State Coordinator: We do have a state where our principal opponent is taking it for granted, has doing very little here. He's making no effort to reach out beyond his basic constituency, has done very little to create an organization. And, on the other hand, we have an organization throughout the state --
BRACKETT [voice-over]: And the candidate says he has had one other valuable commodity in Ohio -- time.
Sen. GARY HART, Democratic presidential candidate: We've had more time to get the message across. I just had four or five days to campaign in Pennsylvania. I'm not talking traditional political rhetoric. I am putting forward a new message, a different message using different language, and talking about different policies. You don't do that in four or five days.
BRACKETT [voice-over]: One area in the state ready to hear a different message is the economically depressed Mahoning Valley, an area dominated by the silent smokestacks of what were once some of the most productive steel mills in the nation. In 1978, not long after the steel mill shut down, MacNeil-Lehrer came to the Mahoning Valley and listened to the voices of the newly unemployed.
JOHN BASARA: We don't know which way to turn. I've been laid off before, and been able to accept it. But when they tell you you're on unemployment and then they tell you your job's gone, that's a different story.
JOE CARCHEDI: This is where all the steel people come from. This is their livelihood, they know this is their livelihood and this is their bread and butter. They raise their family, pay their homes out, and then know that this is their life. And now it's just like somebody cut your legs from underneath you. Down you go.
BRACKETT: And many steelworkers here in the Mahoning Valley remain bitter. After seven years the mills have not reopened. For many, new jobs have not been found. And it is just that bitterness that may work to Gary Hart's advantage.
[voice-over] Hart has tried to tie Mondale to the Valley's past problems. One controversial but influential Democrat who agrees with Hart is the Democratic Party chairman in Mahoning County, Don Hanni.
DON HANNI, Democrat Party Chairman, Mahoning County, Ohio: The steel mills closed in this community in 1977. We were one year into the Carter-Mondale administration. They had three years to give us a helping hand -- '78, '79 and '80. And nothing startling happened in those three years, and of course we've got no reason to believe that anything startling will happen if Mondale is the nominee.
BRACKETT [voice-over]: The talk in the Valley's bars and restaurants is that even Mondale's labor union endorsements don't carry much weight, not with an unemployment rate in the Valley nearly twice the national average.
BETTIE SMALIS: I feel that if Mondale's nominated we're going to have four more years of Reagan.
BRACKETT: So you wouldn't support him?
Ms. SMALIS: No, absolutely not.
BRACKETT: Now, he has the support of most of the labor people in the country. Does that make a difference to you?
Ms. SMALIS, Campbell, Ohio: It makes a big difference here, honey. What labor -- who is the labor here to support Mondale?
BRACKETT [voice-over]: Hart has tried to make the most of these feelings with a new set of commercials shot in and for Ohio.
VOTER [in Hart TV commercial]: What we're all saying is that Mondale had his chance, and he did nothing. Why take him again?
BRACKETT [voice-over]: The effort Hart has poured into the Valley and into Ohio indicates the high stakes. Hart must show an ability to pick up the votes of blue-collar Democrats, many of whom defected to Ronald Reagan in 1980, or run the risk of losing not only the nomination this year, but his chance for a future in the party as well. But here in the depressed Mahoning Valley, Hart's efforts may be blunted, not by Walter Mondale, but by Jesse Jackson. In an area where there is so little hope, Jackson's more radical message is appealing.
Mayor JAMES VARGO, Campbell, Ohio: We have to focus on people that are familiar with the problems of our valley. We've been turned away, we've been turned down, and I'm sure Reverend Jackson knows what we've been going through because he's been going through it for years.
BRACKETT [voice-over]: Vargo is the mayor of Campbell, Ohio, a town that has essentially gone bankrupt since the mills have closed. Last night, at Mayor Vargo's inviation, Jesse Jackson spent the night in Vargo's home. This morning Jackson led a march to the town's shuttered Youngstown Sheet and Tube Mill. Jackson is more at home and has more credibility with the economically depressed than Hart does. And Ohio media consultant Jerry Austin says Hart's attempt to link Mondale to the closing of the mills in the Youngstown area in the Mahoning Valley may have come too late in the campaign.
JERRY AUSTIN, Ohio media consultant: I think that's a message that can be effective, but I don't think it's going to sell in Youngstown as much as they want it to. They haven't had enough time to sell that message, to do the kind of media necessary, and to do the kind of scheduling events to get people to believe that Hart can do a better job.
BRACKETT [voice-over]: Hart's other problem in Ohio is the same that has plagued him in other states, the inability to pick up major political endorsements. The biggest prize in Ohio would have been the endorsement from former opponent and Ohio favorite John Glenn. Glenn was able to joke about his abortive candidacy at a Democratic Party dinner.
Sen. JOHN GLENN, (D) Ohio: Now, I do wish we'd done a couple of things differently, like Iowa and New Hampshire, and a couple of little things like that.
BRACKETT [voice-over]: But Glenn told reporters he was not able to make an endorsement.
Sen. GLENN: I have not chosen to endorse because I wanted to feel free to speak my own mind on the platform committee matters, and I also felt that it didn't make much sense for me to turn off 50% of the potential contributors when I'm trying to reduce this debt, also, to be quite frank about it.
BRACKETT [voice-over]: Many of Glenn's supporters, however, have endorsed Walter Mondale. Glenn's former national chairman, Governor Richard Celeste, endorsed Mondale, and threw a well-attended pig roast over the weekend. The governor says the Hart campaign claim that Mondale has taken the state for granted is overrated.
Gov. RICHARD CELESTE, (D) Ohio: Fritz Mondale is a Midwesterner who understands our basic industry and who has been a fighter historically for that. He's been in Ohio 37 times since 1977. He didn't start coming here this year for a campaign.
BRACKETT [voice-over]: Hart has fought hard for Ohio, and it is a state where much has come together for him. Organization, major newspaper endorsements, and the chance to make inroads into the blue-collar traditional Democratic vote.It may also be Hart's last chance to pick up enough convention delegates to stave off a pre-convention victory for Walter Mondale.
WOODRUFF: Even if Hart doesn't win Ohio, he says he will stay in the race, and says he's thinking about challenging some of the Mondale delegates on the floor of the Democratic convention in San Francisco. Robin?
MacNEIL: There were two important elections in Central America yesterday. Panama held its first direct presidential election in 16 years, and, with counting still incomplete, both sides were claiming victory today. Ex-President Arnuifo Arias Madrid, who in the past has been ousted three times by the military, claimed that he had won. So did the candidate with military backing, Nicolas Ardito Barletta. Each candidate is considered friendly to the United States, and neither wants to change the status of the 9,000 American military personnel stationed in Panama.
Counting was still incomplete from yesterday's presidential election in El Salvador. Today Jose Napoleon Duarte, the candidate preferred by Washington, claimed he was the winner. Duarte is the candidate of the moderate Christian Democratic Party. He ran on a pledge to end death squads and negotiate with the left-wing rebels. His right-wing opponent, Roberto D'Aubuisson, has not conceded defeat. D'Aubuisson, who worried Washington with his rumored connections to the death squads, promised, if elected, to defeat the rebels militarily. Duarte, basing his victory claim on computer projections by his own party, said he had 54% of the vote. Duarte said he was considering a visit to the United States to discuss Salvador's problems with the Reagan administration. The White House had been reported eager to have him, if he is elected, come to Washington to help make the case for more aid to Congress.
President Reagan told reporters today he was pleased with projections showing Duarte as the likely winner. The President also said he plans to address the nation on the Central American situation, probably on Wednesday night.
Judy? Salvador Votes: Shaping U.S. Policy
WOODRUFF: Tomorrow the focal point in the El Salvador story shifts to the Congress where the administration's aid proposal will be considered. The fight over the aid bill is expected to be a tough one. As Robin said, on Wednesday President Reagan is reportedly scheduled to make a televised address on Central America. Today, two leading House Republicans, Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Henry Hyde of Illinois, issued a report that, among other things, blasted Democratic critics of the Reagan administration's Central American policy, accusing them of moving to the left on the issue. For more now on the upcoming political battle in the House, we turn to two principal players, Republican Henry Hyde, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Democrat Bill Alexander of Arkansas, the chief deputy majority leader. First of all, Mr. Hyde, does Duarte's apparent victory now mean that the administration's going to be able to get this aid package through?
Rep. HENRY HYDE: I don't know, but I'm encouraged, of course, because Napoleon Duarte has more acceptability among more people. If Mr. D'Aubuisson had won I would say the game would be up. We wouldn't get any money. I think Mr. Duarte's reputation, his platform, his campaign are very acceptable, and I'm hopeful that the Democrats will relent and help send some money down there.
WOODRUFF: Mr. Alexander, does it cinch it now that Duarte has apparently won?
Rep. BILL ALEXANDER: I think Duarte's election is a step in the direction of Democratic support for the President's policy, especially in El Salvador. But I've just returned from a six-day trip to Central America, and I found an escalating military strategy without a compatible and equal diplomatic initiative. If the President wants a bipartisan support in the Congress he can achieve it. What he should do is, when he addresses the nation on Wednesday evening, come out solidly behind a negotiated settlement of the hostilities in Central America, and the Democrats will support the President's policy. Negotiation, I believe, is a way to end the violence in Central America, and it is an indispensable part of a settlement and peace in that region.
WOODRUFF: All right, before we get to the President's pitch, let me ask you now, Mr. Hyde, is there support out there for the President's policy? Do you think the American people understand what it is Mr. Reagan wants to do? I know Bob Michel was quoted last week as saying there's no constituency.
Rep. HYDE: Well, I think that's the purpose of the President's speech Wednesday or Thursday, whenever he makes it. I think to highlight the significance of the entire area, I would like to see geography mandated to be taught in all our schools instead of basketweaving or whatever it is we study instead of Geography. I think the importance of Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, cannot be overstated, and I think once the people realize that, then the policies that we're trying to implement to keep Soviet projection of power out of the area will make a lot more sense.
WOODRUFF: But you don't think they realize it now? Is that it?
Rep. HYDE: Not sufficiently. That's correct.
WOODRUFF: Who's fault is that?
Rep. HYDE: I think just Americans generally are more involved in domestic affairs and less involved in foreign affairs, and traditionally foreign aid does not have the constituency. People recognize their own problems at home and don't see the relationship between what's happening hundreds, if not thousands of miles away and our own domestic security and economy.
WOODRUFF: Mr. Alexander, do you think people understand what's going on?
Rep. ALEXANDER: I think it depends on the area of the country from which we come. People in the South have a long association with Central America and with Latin America. We are taught Spanish in school. People in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas have traveled to that region frequently. I visited every Central American country as a high school trip. I went to Mexico when I was 16. We have an association and a friendship of long standing character with Mexico and Central America. I think that is also true out West where you have a large hispanic population. In New Mexico and Arizona and California. As you move to the north and to the east I think that is less true, and I think the foreign policy interests shift to Western Europe in the East and to the Middle East. In the Far West they shift to Japan and the Orient.
WOODRUFF: Well, specifically, though, do you think people understand this administration's policy? Do you think the American people understand, many of them, understand what it is Mr. Reagan's trying to do in Central America?
Rep. ALEXANDER: Yes, more and more each day my constituents are expressing themselves and their concern for the President's policy in Central America. I had a retired Corps of Engineer colonel come to me at Calico Rock on Saturday, where we dedicated a new city hall, and he said to me, "Congressman, we're losing against the communists in Central America." He was expressing his concern for what he perceived to be the failure of the President's policy in that region.
WOODRUFF: So --
Rep. HYDE: Well, if I can just respond, Bill Alexander personifies the point of view, which he articulates very well, that somehow you can sit down and negotiate without any military component. Unfortunately, the communist forces in Nicaragua and in El Salvador are shooting and killing and bombing and maiming. And, as the Kissinger Commission, the bipartisan commission with some very prominent Democrats thereon, agreed, that until there's peace down there, which involves a settlement of the shooting, it's pretty hard to develop the country economically. So we must do both.We must have peace as well as economic development. And the negotiations will proceed, depending on the power relationships. So there must be military support as well as economic support. That's the Kissinger bipartisan commission report that I hope the Democrats will support.
WOODRUFF: But you're saying the American people haven't bought that idea yet, and he hasn't convinced the Democrats --
Rep. ALEXANDER: But let me respond because I think it will join the issue.I support the idea of military strategy in Central America. It is essential to provide stability in that region where there is a power vacuum in that area. My concern is that we have a military strategy without an equal effort for a diplomatic initiative. General Gorman is a strong, effective, forceful leader and spokesman for the United States in Central America. He is in charge; he is the commanding general --
WOODRUFF: General Gorman is?
Rep. ALEXANDER: In charge of the southern command that's stationed in Panama and having jurisdiction over Central America. But we have no equal person of that statute in the diplomatic area that is working with the Contadora nations of Mexico, Venezuela, Panama and Colombia in order to try to bring about a cessation of the hostilities in that region. The question is where to go from here. The Contadora countries, through their foreign ministers, are saying that peace is at hand if we stop the violence, if we cease firing, if we stand down with ourarmies --
Rep. HYDE: You mean if we stop --
Rep. ALEXANDER: -- and move forward with diplomatic initiative to end the violence in that region.
WOODRUFF: Let me just turn the conversation. I want to ask you all what it is that the President needs to do in order to get this aid package through the Congress. What is the argument that he needs to make --
Rep. ALEXANDER: I think the President --
WOODERUFF: -- that he hasn't already made.
Rep. ALEXANDER: I think the President needs to forcefully, effectively, clearly support the Contadora initiative, saying that the full force of the United States supports that initiative, he will join the initiative, he will dispatch his secretary of state to meet with the foreign ministers of the Contadora countries --
WOODRUFF: Is the President likely to do that, Mr. hyde?
Rep. HYDE: Well, certainly we've supported the Contadora process, which is simply four countries which surround the arena. They made 21 points which involve getting the foreigners out. Now, when Nicaragua indicates it'll chase the Cubans out and the Bulgarians and the PLO and the Libyans and the Soviets, I'm sure we can make some progress -- and stop shipping arms and ammunition into El Salvador. That's the first thing to be done.
WOODRUFF: We read that some of the President's advisers are going to be urging him to run against the -- not run against the Congress but to appeal to the Congress and say, "If you don't help me here you're going to be to blame if El Salvador goes down the tubes."
Rep. ALEXANDER: I will accept that debate with the President, and I challenge his strategy. I don't think that a military strategy will serve our best interests. In fact, I think a military solution has failed all nations.
Rep. HYDE: Just like it did in Vietnam.
Rep. ALEXANDER: It has failed the United States; it's failing the Nicaraguans; it is failing the Cubans. A military solution is not the solution to problems in Central America.We must have a diplomatic settlement there.
Rep. HYDE: You keep saying --
Rep. ALEXANDER: The problem --
Rep. HYDE: -- Bill --
Rep. ALEXANDER: The problem -- communism is part of the problem; it is not the entire problem. Poverty, hunger, malnutrition, oppression --
Rep. HYDE: Where do you disagree with the Kissinger Commission --
Rep. ALEXANDER: -- are also part of what --
Rep. HYDE: Where do you disagree?
Rep. ALEXANDER: Well, we're --
WOODRUFF: We don't have time to --
Rep. ALEXANDER: -- talking about the President now and not the Kissinger Commission. Well, I'd love to debate you on that issue at some time when we have time.
Rep. HYDE: Well, you see, we shouldn't debate it, we should support it.
Rep. ALEXANDER: I will support a bipartisan policy when the administration adds to the military strategy an equal effort for a diplomatic initiative in order to stop the hostilities in Central America.
Rep. HYDE: You haven't been paying attention. They've been working very hard for diplomatic solutions. Ambassador Stone, his successor, Ambassador Shlauderman, Tony Motley. They worked very hard at that --
Rep. ALEXANDER: I just came from there, and I don't agree with you.
Rep. HYDE: The Soviets --
WOODRUFF: We'll have to leave it at that, and watch on the floor of the House when this comes up. Thank you, Congressman Hyde, Congressman Alexander. Robin?
MacNEIL: In Lebanon, Prime Minister Rashid Karami reported progress today in his efforts to form a national unity government in an effort to end the nine-year-old civil war. A Shiite Muslim leader was named to a special post representing the interests of south Lebanon, which is occupied by the Israeli army. However, Karami still has not resolved the problem of who will represent an important Christian faction in north Lebanon.
And in the South Pacific, the government of the Solomon Islands expelled 11 people, including seven Americans, after learning of an alleged plot to sieze the British Embassy. There was speculation that the plot was backed by Libya, which had a confrontation with Britain after a policewoman was shot outside the Libyan Embassy in London last month.
Judy.
WOODRUFF: The Communist countries of the Warsaw Pact urged the North Atlantic Treaty Organization today to begin negotiating on a treaty that would ban the use of both conventional weapons and nuclear weapons in any conflict between the East and the West in Europe. Forbidding the use of all weapons would be, in effect, a non-aggression treaty, which the Soviet bloc proposed in 1983. The NATO bloc rejected the idea then as too vague.The West proposed instead continuing detailed negotiations on the reduction of weapons. Today the Warsaw Pact told the ambassadors of all the NATO countries in Moscow that it is time to start talking about the Communist proposal.
[Video postcard -- Wahweap, Arizona]
MacNEIL: Still to come in the NewsHour tonight, Charlayne Hunter-Gault with a discussion of the growing awareness of the special problems in the black family; also, a review of the latest book by the internationally known Czech novelist, Milan Kundera. Judy?
WOODRUFF: The Commerce Department today announced that the U.S. had a record trade deficit for the first three months of this year. The U.S. imported almost $80 billion worth of goods, $26 billion more than it shipped out. The silver lining in this cloud of economic statistics is that U.S. exports were up 4% over the last quarter of 1983.
And in Arizona, the National Guard has been called out because of fears that a 10-monthold copper strike will return to violence. Governor Bruce Babbitt urged leaders of 13 strking unions to offer concessions, but said that the struck company, Phelps Dodge, had the worst record of labor relations in Arizona. There is a report in Arizona that 150 non-striking workers on the job at Phelps Dodge had brought weapons into their plant to resist any invasion by strikers.
Robin?
MacNEIL: The Reagan administration has changed its position on a major piece of civil rights legislation before the Congress. The bill is a proposed amendment to Title IX of the 1972 Education Act. It would cut off all federal aid to a college found guilty of sex discrimination in any federally funded program.The Supreme Court recently ruled that the government may not cut off all aid to a college in such cases, but only aid to the particular program in which sex discrimination was found. The Reagan administration, in its arguments before the Court, supported that position. But women's groups took it as a defeat. Today white House spokesman Pete Roussel said the administration is not opposed to the passage of the bill, which would in effect reverse the Supreme Court ruling.
Our next major story tonight also falls into the civil rights area.It concerns the economic and social problems experienced by black families. Over the weekend there was an important conference on the subject in Nashville. In other cities members of a nationwide black women's group began discussing a program of economic support for the nation's two million black single mothers. Discussing these problems insuch a public manner represents a change in strategy for many black leaders. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has more. Charlayne? State of the Black Family
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The problems of black families haven't been the subject of widespread public debate since the early '60s. At that time the problems of black families got lost in the debate over a report on the subject written for President Lyndon Johnson. The author of that report, who has since moved on to the U.S. Senate, was Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It pointed out the higher number of broken marriages and out-of-wedlock births, which leads to more female-headed families and a growing dependence on welfare. "A tangle of pathology" is how Moynihan described the cycle. Some black leaders took heavy exception to that phrase as well as to the entire report, calling it racist in part because of the negative images of the black family that it portrayed. Such public criticism forced the issues onto the back burner, but the problems grew worse. In the 1970s the number of black children born out of wedlock grew from 38% to 55%, and the number of families headed by black women rose dramatically, from 8% in 1950 to 47% last year. White families showed a similar trend, but from a much lower base. Why black leaders are now going public on these problems is what we discuss with two of them tonight. Hortense Canady is president of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, one of the country's largest and oldest black public service organizations. Over the weekend the Deltas held the first of 43 meetings in cities around the country to explore ways of helping single mothers. She joins us from public station WKAR in East Lansing, Michigan. And, in New York, we have John Jacob, president of the National Urban League, which along with the NAACP cosponsored the black family summit in Nashville this past weekend.
Starting with you, John Jacob, what has changed since the Moynihan report that now allows this kind of open airing of the problems of black families?
JOHN JACOB: Well, I think, Charlayne, one of the factors is that some of us were simply bold enough or arrogant enough or stupid enough to surface it as a major issue --
HUNTER-GAULT: Now, you mean?
Mr. JACOB: Now. When I assumed the position some 2 1/2 years ago, having looked at all the evidence about the plight of black communities, it was very clear that if we were to elevate the standard of living of the black community we were going to have to deal with some very critical issues confronting it. Issues like the high incidence of pregnancies among black teenagers, issues like the large number of black families headed by single women, and the ancillary problems associated with that. Given those realities, it was my judgment that we could not afford to ignore the issues anymore, and therefore we began to challenge our own community to do something about them.
HUNTER-GAULT: Well, how much of a difference does it make that blacks are addressing the issue now? I mean, aren't we still talking about the "tangle of pathology" here?
Mr. JACOB: Well, I think what is the difference is that when blacks deal with the issue they also deal with the external forces giving rise to the issue. It is not simply a look at a victim and what that victim has done to him-or herself. It is a recognition that, yes, there were problems like racism; yes, there are problems like institutions providing services and, indeed, servicing that population. But aside from all that we have said that we can no longer simply deal with those excuses or deal with those problems. We must confront the issues and begin to try to do something with them ourselves.
HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Canady, how do you see that?
HORTENSE CANADY: I think in terms of Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King said, back in the early 1960s, that the black family is not just in trouble; it's always been in trouble. And that anyone who doesn't understand that really doesn't know what's happening in America. His other comment was to the effect that it's a miracle that the black family has survived at all, and it's certainly a testimony to those men and women who have kept it together.
HUNTER-GAULT: Well, in terms of what the problems that you and the Deltas are addressing -- single parent families -- is there any one thing that's at the root of that that you can get a hold on and come up with a solution that will have a significant impact?
Ms. CANADY: I would certainly like to say that there's one thing that we can put our fingers on, because we know there are no simplistic answers.And I think that one of the major reasons that we have begun to define the problem ourselves is for the simple reason that there are no simple answers. And we have often found that others describe the problem with simple answers -- that it's either the aggressive black woman's fault or it's the promiscuity of women, and that sort of thing.
HUNTER-GAULT: So how does your view then differ? How does your perspective, looking at the problem, differ from those simplistic ones that you've just described?
Ms. CANADY: We are looking at the forces that have created the problems, and we are not trying to go into the philosophic discussion. In fact, we have disdained to do that. We are addressing the problem with consultation of women who are in the condition, and we are defining the condition not as just young women who are having teenage pregnancies or children out of wedlock, but it is the whole spectrum of the black woman that is in that type of difficulty.
HUNTER-GAULT: And what do you see as being at the root of that?
Ms. CANADY: Of the -- unemployment is one factor, but even a greater factor is underemployment. Black women, by and large, still earn far less than anyone else in the society, and yet they are being responsible for the majority of the children.
HUNTER-GAULT: Well, how -- excuse me. How, for example, can a black woman's organization address that issue?
Ms. CANADY: An organization like ours, incidentally, is a college-trained women's organization, and persons on the outside would say, "Well, nothing's wrong in that organization. Most of your women are employed." But as we began to really examine the issue, many of our women also are single heads of household and really relate to and understand the problems that women even with lesser economic security face.
HUNTER-GAULT: But what I'm saying is, having an understanding of the problem is one thing. What do you propose to do about it?
Ms. CANADY: Coming out of the consultations that we are having in 43 cities will be specific recommendations. Some of them we assume will reinforce programs that we already have underway, but there certainly will be other programs suggested to us that we can do that we've not been engaged in before, but that will meet some of the needs for support -- and I underscore support -- support for black women who are single heads of household.
HUNTER-GAULT: John Jacob, the accounts I've been reading of the meetings indicate, as Ms. Canady seems to be indicating, that there's going to be a shift away from dependence on the federal government and more towards black self-help and self-reliance. Can the black private sector address what clearly are just an enormous array of social problems relating to the black family? Can the black private sector do that alone?
Mr. JACOB: Well, first of all, I think we ought to put it into perspective. This is not a movement to get government or the private sector off the hook. We recognize fully that public policy creates private misery, but we also recognize that government is not and has not, in a major way, addressed these specific kinds of problems and these specific kinds of issues. Therefore, we have concluded, that until the black community itself provides the leadership in mobilizing the resources of the black community, we are not going to get very far in this. The thrust of the meeting over the last weekend was to mobilize black organizational strength to bring to bear what forces, what resources, what people we had available to service this particular population.
HUNTER-GAULT: And what forces are they?
Mr. JACOB: Well, indeed, we brought in examples that participated in the conference of programs that are working now with little or no government monies. We brought in a program from Washington, D.C., that is operated by the Shiloh Baptist Church. It is a family life center where they are servicing that whole community with all kinds of recreation, counseling, unemployment -- just a host of services that is built by the church, funded by the church and supported by the church. We brought in, for instance, a program out of Los Angeles -- adopt a family -- where we demonstrated how people in that community have put together an organization to adopt families who are in need to bring to bear the middleclass support system that is available. And so we see evidence of programs that are in existence now that could be replicated around the country if other people knew how these programs were operated, what it took to get them started, and how you keep them operating.
HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Canady, has the political dynamic changed enough in this country that you don't run the risk of the fear of airing these problems in public that you feared back in 1963? I mean, can you turn this into a positive thing, do you think?
Ms. CANADY: I think that the problems were aired whether they were aired publicly or not. The difference is that we are saying we are going to define them. We are going to examine them. And we will determine our own destiny and our own destination as a people and as an organization.
HUNTER-GAULT: All right, well, Ms. Canady, think you for being with us from Michigan and thank you, John Jacob, for being with us here in New York. Robin?
MacNEIL: The estimated population of the world increased by nearly 85 million people last year, creating a total of almost 4.8 billion people. The figures were released by the Population Reference Bureau, which said there are now twice as many people on earth as there were at the end of the Second World War. The Bureau, a private group with headquarters in Washington, predicted that at the present rate the population of the world will reach five billion by 1987 and six billion by the year 2000. The Bureau also said newborn babies in developed countries can expect to outlive babies born into the Third World by 15 years. The highest life expectancy is in Iceland, 77 years, and the lowest is in Ethiopia, Chad and Afghanistan, only 40 years. In the United States and Canada it is 74 years. BOOK REVIEW: THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
MacNEIL: Finally tonight we have a book review. Milan Kundera is a Czehoslovak author whose previous workds include The Book of Laughter and Forgetting the Joke and Laughable Loves. His new novel is called The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Our reviewer is Doris Grumbach.
DORIS GRUMBACH: Well, he is a Czech who was born in 1929. He worked as a laborer. He became interested in film, and eventually, after the 1968 invasion of his country by Russia, he left and became an exile. He lives in Paris now. And he has written three other books besides this one, each one, I think, increasingly gathering an American audience.
MacNeil: And he writes in Czech and this is a translation.
Ms. GRUMBACH: He writes in Czech, yes.
MaNeil: And what is the setting and the story of this one?
Ms. GRUMBACH: Well, it's a political novel which has sort of two themes. The themes of the infinite varieties of love and the theme of how a man suffers under the occupation of his country. They intetwine. The hero, Tomas [?], is a man who has had hundreds of lovers, who knows all there is to know, apparently, about what love is, but also goes from being a successful surgeon to dying on a farm completely stripped of his whole life.
MacNEIL: So is that what the book is, that story, or is it --
Ms. GRUMBACH: It's Tomas and his wife Teresa's[?] story, but it really is more than that. it's an exploration of what love can give and take from a person.
MacNEIL: And are there original observations on that?
Ms. GRUMBACH: Well, I've culled a couple of them. I don't know whether you're going to think they're original. One of them I like best is "Attaching love to sex is one of the most bizarre ideas the Creator ever had." Or he says in another place, and believes it, apparently, "Physical love is unthinkable without violence." He talks of love as being light. I think the title of the book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, refers to the difference between the heaviness of existence and the lightness of love. I think it's highly original, and I think it's the kind of book where you keep saying, "Aha, that's right," thinking of your own love life, which certainly is original.
MacNEIL: Did you say, "Aha, that's right" at that observation you read a moment ago, that attaching the idea of love to sex is --
Ms. GRUMBACH: Yeah, I guess I did, now that you ask me. I thought that was a very original thing. I think everything in the book tends to throw light on some way in which we love, in a very original way. Of course he's not always that original, and he tends to have a kind of voice that sometimes annoys us. There's one sentence in it -- "The crew of the soul rushed up to the deck of her body." He likes that so much that he does it three times.
MacNEIL: You don't like that?
Ms. GRUMBACH: I find that a very hard thing to imagine.
MacNEIL: What kind of mood does the book leave you with? What kind of feeling?
Ms. GRUMBACH: Admiration for his wit and his originality. And he has another interesting thing, which I like very much, which is his way of dealing with the story itself. He says at the very start that it would be senseless for the author to try to convince the reader that his characters once actually lived. They were not born of a mother's womb. They w reminding us that this is a literary experience. But so successful is he that we take it as more than that.
MacNEIL: Doris Grumbach, thank you.
Once again, the book we have been discussing is Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, published by Harper & Row.
Judy?
WOODRUFF: A final look at today's top stories.It was to have been the biggest class action lawsuit in U.S. history. Now it's one of the biggest out-of-court settlements.Vietnam veterans suing the companies that manufactured the herbicide Agent Orange agreed to a settlement in New York.
Democratic presidential candidates are getting ready for tomorrow's primary in Ohio, an especially important state for the faltering Gary Hart.
In El Salvador, Jose Napoleon Duarte, the moderate centrist candidate, claimed victory in yesterday's presidential runoff election.
The U.S. trade deficit hit a first-quarter record this year -- $25.8 billion in the red.
Good night. Robin.
MacNEIL: Good night, Judy. That's our NewsHour tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.
Series
The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour
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NewsHour Productions
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NewsHour Productions (Washington, District of Columbia)
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cpb-aacip/507-w08w951f9h
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Episode Description
This episode's headline: Agent Orange: Vets Settle; Ohio Primary: Hart Fights On; Salvador Votes: Shaping U.S. Policy; State of the Black Family; Book Review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The guests include In New York: DAVID DEAN, Veterans' Lawyer; FRANK McCARTHY, Agent Orange Victims International; JOHN JACOB, National Urban League; DORIS GRUMBACH, Book Reviewer; In Washington: Rep. BILL ALEXANDER, Democrat, Arkansas; Rep. HENRY HYDE, Republican, Illinois; In East Lansing, Michigan: HORTENSE CANADY, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Byline: In New York: ROBERT MacNEIL, Executive Editor; CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, Correspondent; In Washington: JUDY WOODRUFF, Correspndent; Reports from NewsHour Correspondents: ELIZABETH BRACKETT, in Mahoning County, Ohio
Date
1984-05-07
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Episode
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Literature
Race and Ethnicity
War and Conflict
Military Forces and Armaments
Politics and Government
Rights
Copyright NewsHour Productions, LLC. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode)
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NewsHour Productions
Identifier: NH-0176 (NH Show Code)
Format: 1 inch videotape
Generation: Master
Duration: 01:00:00;00
NewsHour Productions
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Citations
Chicago: “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” 1984-05-07, NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-w08w951f9h.
MLA: “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.” 1984-05-07. NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-w08w951f9h>.
APA: The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Boston, MA: NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-w08w951f9h