The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, James Baker resigned as Treasury Secretary to head the Bush Presidential campaign, the unemployment rate rose slightly in July. CongressmanMario Biaggi resigned his House seat following conviction for racketeering. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, the Vice Mayor and an NAACP official from Yonkers, New York, argue their city's being held in contempt of court [Focus - Yonkers - Defiant City]. Our regular analysts David Gergen and Mark Shields look at the political week [Focus - 88 - David Gergen & Mark Shields]; Tom Bearden reports [Update - Pistols & Palms] from Florida on that state's liberal gun law; and we close with a Conversation with Michael Harrington, America's best known socialist. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: James Baker stepped down and over to take charge of the Bush Presidential campaign today. He resigned as Secretary of the Treasury. President Reagan immediately named former Senator Nicholas Brady as his nominee to replace Baker. Misters Reagan, Baker, and Brady appeared together in the White House briefing room for the White House announcement. The President had both words of praise and encouragement for his outgoing Treasury Secretary.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: You're a friend whom I will miss. You've been a secret of our success. Now, Jim, go do it for George.

JAMES BAKER: Thank you, Mr. President.

MR. LEHRER: Secretary Baker then explained his long-term objectives in taking his new jog.

JAMES BAKER, Secretary of the Treasury: The Vice President has asked that I assume the chairmanship of his Presidential election campaign. And it does seem to me that in seeking to advance your Vice President's candidacy, I can best help ensure the survival of your legacy and assure that your remarkable contributions are extended on toward the 21st century.

MR. LEHRER: Baker is a longtime personal and political friend of Vice President Bush. He served as White House Chief of Staff in the first Reagan term. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: The Senate Judiciary Committee today held hearings on the nomination of Richard Thornburgh to replace Edwin Meese as Attorney General. It was a friendly hearing, except that Senators repeatedly asked Thornburgh why a 1975 Justice Department report about drug trafficking by Panamanian leaders was withheld from Congress. Thornburgh was Assistant Attorney General at the time but said withholding the report was not his decision. He promised to make fighting drugs his top priority as Attorney General.

RICHARD THORNBURGH, Attorney General Nominee: For I would make within the Department of Justice my No. 1 priority ensuring that in every constitutional way the resources of the Department of Justice in the law enforcement field are devoted to cracking down on those who conduct the business of trafficking in organized, in narcotics and dangerous drugs.

MR. MacNeil: The Iran/Contra trial of former White House Aide Oliver North was postponed today until after the November 8th Presidential election. Judge Gerhard Gesal issued the order to give lawyers for both sides more time to study hundreds of thousands of secret documents.

MR. LEHRER: The unemployment rate went up to 5.4 percent in July. The Labor Department said today the .1 percent increase came with the number of jobless rising 170,000. Most of those were teenagers. A House/Senate Conference Committee has agreed to a compromise drought aid bill. It would cost $3.9 billion and includes a three month price support increase for dairy farmers. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Mr. Reagan supports the compromise and would sign it into law. Final passage is expected next week.

MR. MacNeil: New York Congressman Mario Biaggi, convicted yesterday of racketeering in the Wedtech trial, said today he's resigning his seat in the House. The 70 year old, ten term Democrat from the Bronx held a news conference in his office.

REP. MARIO BIAGGI, [D] New York: Through my 20 years in Congress, I have always tried to put the interests of my constituents first. It is because of this that I announce my resignation from the House of Representatives effective immediately. It is obvious to me that the appeal will be filed to yesterday's Wedtech verdict and continued work on my appeal in the Drydrock case will consume all of my time during these coming months.

MR. MacNeil: Biaggi maintained that not a single penny, gift, trip, not a share of stock ever came to him from the Wedtech affair.

MR. LEHRER: It will cost 7 percent more on average to attend college this year than last. That news came today from a survey conducted by the college board. The survey found that several private liberal arts schools for the first time will be charging students in excess of $20,000 a year. Board President Donald Stuart urged students and their parents not to be discouraged because financial aid programs are available. Deputy Undersecretary of Education Bruce Carnes said he saw little effort being made by colleges to restrain their costs.

MR. MacNeil: NASA officials decided today to replace a valve that caused the scrubbing of yesterday's shuttle engine test. The valve swap will take five days and will push back Discovery's September 29th launch date. The Ford Motor Company is recalling more than 15,000 ambulances. Ford said an engine compartment hose in the ambulances had been linked to 21 fires. A company spokesman said another six fires were linked to faulty mufflers. Ambulances affected by the recall are mounted on 1983 to '87 Econoline chassis. Last year, Ford recalled more than 200,000 Econoline ambulances and vans because of faulty fuel systems.

MR. LEHRER: Overseas there was another bombing of a British army facility today. The bomb blew up the British barracks at Dusseldorf, West Germany. Three soldiers and one civilian were injured, none seriously. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but West German officials said the Irish Republican Army was suspected. There has been a wave of IRA attacks against British installations and personnel in recent weeks.

MR. MacNeil: Not much has been heard recently about Vietnam's boat people. But today in Hong Kong, a group of them ended a three day hunger strike to protest efforts to return them to Vietnam. Brian Barron of the BBC has this report.

BRIAN BAR

RON, BBC: This is Haling Jal today, a prison island off Hong Kong, where 2000 newly arrived boat people were on a hunger strike. No one's allowed to land. But as we hovered above, the defiant message was plain. They'd rather die than be sent back to Vietnam. Two miles away beside another island prison camp these refugees are slightly luckier. Because they came before Hong Kong began its tough new screening policy in mid June, they can stay. Today they're being moved nearer Hong Kong to make way for the latest wave of boat people who are deemed to be a greater security risk. Such is the crisis in accommodation that this shipload of refugees are being moved to a disused factory. A police convoy brought them the final leg of a journey which was guarded all the way. A thousand children are among those locked up here with no space to exercise.

MR. MacNeil: There are now nearly 23,000 boat people in the Hong Kong camps. Seven thousand have arrived since Hong Kong ended its 13 year old policy as classifying all arrival as political refugees.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Yonkers' contempt of court argument, Gergen & Shields, pistol packing in Florida, and Michael Harrington. FOCUS - YONKERS - DEFIANT CITY

MR. MacNeil: First tonight we look at a fight over low income housing that's threatening to bankrupt a city and send some of its city council members to jail. The city is Yonkers, located on the northern border of New York City. It's a blue collar community lying among some of the richest suburbs in America. In 1985, a federal judge, Leonard Sand, cited Yonkers for a 40 year history of housing and school segregation. While the city put in place a school desegregation plan two years ago, it has drawn the line on housing. Yonkers already has low income housing, unlike some of its more affluent, almost entirely white neighbors. But Judge Sand ruled that Yonkers deliberately discriminated against minorities by placing its low income housing in only one section of the city. Earlier this year, the city council agreed to build 200 additional low income units on seven sites in white neighborhoods. But when the city was ordered to build 800 middle income units this week, the issue divided the city.

BLACK MAIL CARRIER: I'll sum it up in two words. These people are living in the past. They don't want to go forward.

YONKERS RESIDENT: You get a halfway decent home, you try to put your kids through a decent school and then they're going to come and tell you they're going to put a low housing which brings in crime, prostitution, dope. It's very unsafe for kids.

BLACK RESIDENT: There's a lot of good people here. There's a lot of good people here that's stuck here that would love to get out, love to live in a nice decent area, have their kids brought up in a nice decent area, go to a nice respectable school, but the chances of that happenin' is based on the city.

YONKERS HAIR STYLIST: Where you work for your money that's where you should live. If you can't afford to live in an area that you can't live in, you shouldn't be there. Nobody should get nothing for nothing.

MR. MacNeil: On Tuesday, the council voted 4 to 3 to defy the court-ordered plan and Judge Sand cited the city for contempt. He imposed daily fines of $100 which double each day. The city estimates it will run out of money by August 19th. The defiant city council members were also held in contempt and unless they change their votes, they will be jailed on August 10th.

MR. MacNeil: Joining us now are two protagonists on different sides of the housing desegregation issue in Yonkers. Henry Spallone, Vice Mayor of Yonkers, is one of the four city council members who voted to defy the court order. Herman Keith is a Westchester County legislator who represents the Western District of the City of Yonkers. He's also immediate past president of the Yonkers Chapter of the NAACP which filed the original suit against the city that led to the court's order. Mr. Spallone, why did you defy the court order?

HENRY SPALLONE, Yonkers Vice-Mayor: Well, I think there's a serious question here. No. 1, I think when you're an elected official, you have a commitment to the community you serve. What really disturbed me here was we had a meaningless resolution submitted by a judge with tremendous fines of $500 and going to jail if we did not vote for it. Now it seemed to me that if we have a sunshine law in this state and we have a right to have a public hearing, it sets a very dangerous precedent, and I think it causes a constitutional question or a crisis. At what point does the judiciary dominate the legislator and perhaps the executive in voting? I think that was wrong. I think the judge miscalculated and I think he made this error because he didn't understand municipal law. He didn't realize when he issued his order which altered the resolution that he needed a public hearing. He made a mistake and by making that mistake, he actually threw the entire City of Yonkers on a meaningless resolution into a serious state with financial bankruptcies a threat. I wonder about the Eighth Amendment on that. There are so many other questions coming up now we really don't know where we're at.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. That's how you see the legal and judicial side of it. What about on the substance of the issue itself? You voted against his order that the city on top of the low income housing that you agreed to build, build 800 middle income public housing units and you voted against that. Why did you do that?

MR. SPALLONE: I think one of the reasons it disturbed me was first of all I didn't vote for the entire plan. That entire plan also encompasses 200 units of low cost housing. I recently did a survey on low cost housing in Yonkers in our area. I think the question now becomes culpability. Does a city and its citizens get blamed for a federal mistake? And the mistakes here have been in public housing. Now public housing encompasses two things. We have the low cost housing, but we also had in 1966, I believe, the model cities program when we were supposed to set quotas. What we're doing here in essence is setting quotas. Those quotas are now becoming difficult legal problems. I think Sterrit City is one of them; Co-Op City is another. What we're really doing instead of fashioning something that makes sense, were going back to the old tired worn out bankrupt approaches to housing. And by the way, in those public housing area, we have crack as one of the main economies. That sends a message to me to say, hey, federal government, you've been talking about reducing drugs and drug traffic and fighting drug wars, I'm an old detective. I remember heroine. I remember the ups and downs in the acid. Crack is the most dangerous thing to occur in our country.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Let me ask you so that I understand. You're going to have to at some point explain to your voters and your family why you personally may go to jail and why the City of Yonkers may go bankrupt. Put in a few words, what is the principle you're standing for in doing that?

MR. SPALLONE: I think you look at the framers of the constitution, what they had to go through, the Boston Tea Party, and I think the right to vote, the right to serve your citizenry is important, it's American, and I think this is an immoral act by a judge.

MR. MacNeil: Immoral act by a judge. How do you see it, Mr. Keith?

HERMAN KEITH, NAACP: Well, I think what Mr. Spallone has laid out is that he and three other city council members have done in their vote against the housing ordinance plan is un-American. This is America. We're a land of laws and justice and freedom. And what they have done is violated the constitution of these United States. I think it's important for your viewers to understand that this didn't just start yesterday or this week. 1975 was the beginning of this lawsuit and I remember being on this show talking to you about the same issue with another mayor. It started in 1975, with the NAACP saying to the city there is a question or concern of racial isolation in the schools. And the cityhas had since that time to work out the kinks and work with us to make this thing work. The city has had an opportunity to vote in favor or even participate in the designation of sites. They have refused to do this. Understand, George Sand rendered his decision in November 1985, the court of appeals upheld that decision. It went to the Supreme Court of these United States who refused to hear this case. What else do we need? Now if Mr. Spallone and his three other counselors want to go down in history as being the Bull Conners and the George Wallaces of the 50's, then that's fine. I have no problem with Mr. Spallone as an individual. I do have problems with his bigotry.

MR. MacNeil: How do you respond to that, George Wallace -- I guess you meant the 80's, did you?

MR. KEITH: I was referring to the George Wallace --

MR. MacNeil: I know who you meant.

MR. SPALLONE: Let me say this to you --

MR. MacNeil: Are you a bigot?

MR. SPALLONE: I don't think so and people that know me know I'm not a bigot. In fact, I've been in Herman Keith's district and I've been talking to the people that live in the projects in his area and I'm appalled that nothing has been done. Had I been the representative of that district, you can be sure that condition wouldn't exist today. And by the way, it's time we start to blame the right people, the federal government. And Mr. Herman Keith was on CDA many years ago when they dealt with federal funds. And by the way, those federal funds, if you look at the target areas and you see how they were spent, you have to question the wisdom of some of the decisions, and if I were sitting there at that time, I most certainly would have been fighting very hard not to destroy the community.

MR. KEITH: Let me just say, HUD was, the Department of Housing & Urban Development was a party to this lawsuit along with the City of Yonkers, the Board of Education, and the Yonkers Community Development Agency. HUD agreed to participate in a resolution, in a remedy, by agreeing to fund 200 units of housing. That was HUD's party to that lawsuit. It has been the City of Yonkers, not the federal government, and not any other agency, it has been the City of Yonkers who has refused to participate in the remedy because Mr. Spallone along with his other four members of the board, of the City Council are more concerned about their political survival as opposed to the survival of the city. See, there's a perception out here that low income people have low character and low morals. The majority of people who live in public housing are decent, law abiding people who want a decent place to live.

MR. MacNeil: I was going to come to Mr. Spallone on that. We heard the young white woman on the little tape we saw and many others have been quoted, citizens of Yonkers have been quoted in the newspapers in the last couple of days saying, you bring in more public housing, there's going to be more crime, crack, prostitution, and so on. Is that what you believe? Is that why you're opposing it?

MR. SPALLONE: Let me say this to you.

MR. MacNeil: And lower the value of all the other houses --

MR. SPALLONE: When you have a bankrupt policy, when you don't provide the services, when you have a housing problem like we have where the economic welfare of that housing is depending on drugs, where we don't address the single parent that needs help, where we're having babies dealing with having babies, where we're having severe problems and you don't recognize that, then you're really doing a disservice. You know it's very easy to say --

MR. MacNeil: I'm trying to understand what you're saying. Are you saying, yes, that's why you oppose it, because if you put more public housing in, you're going to have more of that?

MR. SPALLONE: No. What I'm saying to you is, and it's about time we looked at this across the nation. The program has failed in most places in the nation. I know very few places that talk of success. And it's compounding the problems of upward mobility for the poor, because we're not putting together a package that really works. You know, it's very easy to say race. It's much harder to put an intelligent program together that addresses the needs of the people. We're not doing it. Herman can say all the things you want about race as being the problem here. That's not true.

MR. MacNeil: The problem is not race?

MR. SPALLONE: No.

MR. MacNeil: What is the problem?

MR. SPALLONE: I think the problem begins with putting together a good program that makes sense. You know, if I give you the house and I don't give you anything else, what have I accomplished? If I give you the school and I don't give you the other components, what happens?

MR. MacNeil: What's the answer to that?

MR. KEITH: I'm saying race and class, economics, are interwoven. You can't have one without the other. We have as a people, we have never had equal access to education, equal access to employment opportunities and equal access to housing opportunities. And it's not based on what my earnings are. It's based on my complexion. In 1978, I and my wife saw a house in Northwest Yonkers, we wanted to buy that home. We were told by the real estate person that that house was not for sale for blacks. We were denied that home. Now, I had the economics, but it was my color that made the difference. It should be pointed out here is that the units that we are talking about putting in East Yonkers are not the typical public housing development that we see throughout this country. We're talking about low rise, two to three stories maximum, semi- detached, those kinds of units, and the maximum number per site, and we're talking seven sites, is thirty-five units. So when Mr. Spallone talks about the typical housing development for low income families, this is not what we're proposing.

MR. MacNeil: We just have a minute or so left, Mr. Spallone. How do you feel as a representative of some of the people of Yonkers? Isn't the damage that may be done to the city by causing it to go bankrupt going to mean a bigger burden on the taxpayers of Yonkers than to accept the court thing, more sort of damage to its fiscal reputation and otherwise than to accept the thing would damage the community in your view?

MR. SPALLONE: Let me say this. I think one of the things you have to understand is that this plan has the potential to destroy the financial structure of the city. We're talking about an educational improvement plan at $170 million, two new schools and tearing down schools that we have that are in perfect, good shape, site acquisition where the federal government is supposed to be paying for the so-called housing that Herman Keith is talking about, and I still haven't found out how much money they're going to give us, we add it up, we've got $1/4 billion the next five years, and I'm not sure where that money is coming. And imagine yourself as a senior citizen living in a home with a fixed income.

MR. MacNeil: And you're prepared to go to jail to resist this?

MR. SPALLONE: I think it's wrong and I think the whole process by Judge Sands is wrong. I think he was immoral. And I have to stand up for what I believe and what my people believe.

MR. MacNeil: Do you have a final comment on this?

MR. KEITH: Yes. I'm prepared to work with the Yonkers City Council, with the responsible elected officials of the city, even with the Governor to make this thing work. Yonkers has the potential to be one of the greatest cities in the Northeast. There's an old African proverb that says, "Together we shall win. We shall win together." That's what I'm about.

MR. MacNeil: We have to leave it there. Mr. Keith, Mr. Spallone, thank you both for joining us. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the Newshour tonight, Gergen & Shields, Florida's gun law, and a conversation with Michael Harrington. FOCUS - 88 - DAVID GERGEN & MARK SHIELDS

MR. LEHRER: This week in Presidential politics is where we go next. President Reagan held a large hunk of center stage despite the fact that he is not even a candidate. He declined to veto the plant closing law, but did veto the defense bill. He called Michael Dukakis an invalid to give steam to a story about the Democratic nominee's medical records, Vice President Bush who is the Republican nominee heightened his policy attacks on Dukakis, and so it went. David Gergen and Mark Shields are here to evaluate and analyze after we see a news tape review of what happened.

MARLIN FITZWATER, White House Spokesman: In order to end these political shenanigans and to get on with the business of the nation, especially enacting responsible trade legislation, the President has decided to allow the plant closing bill to become law without his signature.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: I have just now vetoed the defense authorization bill in the oval office. I think my reasons for this action can be plainly stated, if not seen. I have been patient as the liberals in Congress attempted to erode our military strength, the strength that has provided the basis for our diplomatic success. But I can be patient no longer. Congress needs to get back to work and come up with a bill that I can sign. These are issues of national security and they must remain above partisan politics.

VICE PRESIDENT BUSH: On the subject of the freeze, the Democratic platform had no comment, on Grenada no comment, on Trident missiles and these ASAT weapons no comment, on the air strike on Libya that put a damper on this mad man Gadaffi's terrorism no comment and that was another proud moment. On aid to the Afghan Freedom Fighters who are forcing the Soviets now for the first time in history to get those tanks and turn them around and go home, no comment on that either. It's a black hole, that platform, a black hole of American politics, and issues get sucked into it and lost and never to appear again.

REPORTER: Do you feel that Michael Dukakis should make his medical records public? He has refused to make his medical records public, the first official for high office since Eagleton in 1972. He has had his campaign representatives call up, unsolicited phone calls to newspapers saying he never had psychiatric care. He walked away from a question about that Friday. Do you think the American people deserve to know whether he's fit to govern by having his medical records made public?

PRESIDENT REAGAN: Look, I'm not going to pick on an invalid.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: I was down in the press room and I attempted a joke in response to a question and I think I was kidding, but I don't think I should have said what I said. But with some of those who were present in that room, I think I should tell them I do believe the medical history of a President is something the people have aright to know, and I speak from personal experience.

REPORTER: Did you base your remark on any knowledge?

PRESIDENT REAGAN: Nope. I was just trying to be funny and it didn't work.

GOV. DUKAKIS: Oh, I, no apology was needed really. You know, we all occasionally misspeak and I don't really think the President had to apologize. I appreciate --

REPORTER: -- campaigning -- .

GOV. DUKAKIS: I just don't want to characterize it. You know, these things happen occasionally and he really didn't have to apologize. It was perfectly okay.

REPORTER: Were you upset?

GOV. DUKAKIS: No, no, no. We all occasionally make mistakes and that includes Governors and Presidents.

DR. GERALD PLOTKIN, Dukakis' Physician: He has had no psychological symptoms, complaints or treatment. The only prescription medications he has taken since 1971 have been occasional antihistamines or allergic rhinitus, that is, hay fever, or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication, Neproxin, similar to aspirin for muscular strains and aches.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, as Jim Baker would say, it's finally a done deal. I say so long but not good-bye to a friend today. I've accepted with regret the resignation of James A. Baker III as Secretary of the Treasury. Jim is leaving to become Chairman of George Bush's Presidential campaign, and, as you go, let me tell you this, you're a friend whom I will miss.

MR. LEHRER: Now to Gergen and Shields, U.S. News and World Report Editor David Gergen and Washington Post Political Columnist Mark Shields, who is with us tonight from the studios of WGBH in Boston. David, your magazine ran an article this very week with a large headline "Can Jim Baker Save George Bush?" What's the answer, sir?

DAVID GERGEN, U.S. News & World Report: The answer is no. Jim Baker alone cannot win this campaign for George Bush. Only George Bush can, however, Jim Baker can be an enormous asset for this campaign and he comes none too soon. He, what we faced here in the Bush campaign is a campaign that's been run essentially by a committee, talented people but still formed in a committee structure. As a result, it's been a Hawk in nature. There has been uncertainty about what direction George Bush was heading in. There's been a lack of strategic planning. Jim Baker will bring focus, will bring strategy to that campaign. I anticipate that once this convention is over in New Orleans, he'll pull the campaign off the road and try to hammer out a strategy for the fall with a new Vice Presidential nominee and with the candidate.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, what's your view of that, of Jim Baker?

MARK SHIELDS, Washington Post: I think, Jim, that David makes sense. I would say that the Bush campaign has had a stop and start quality for several weeks, months now. It hasn't decided quite what its message is, what its agenda is, what issues it wants to introduce and address, and what the Vice President's position necessarily ought to be on the most important issues, and I think that Jim Baker brings a decisiveness and a singular leadership to a campaign that is in need of both. If one thinks about it in recent American history, he is probably closer to his candidate, Jim Baker is closer to George Bush, than any campaign manager since Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy.

MR. LEHRER: But, Mark, isn't the element of puppeteer mechanic to this, that the thing that can save the Bush campaign is somebody else coming in and running it, I mean, rather than what's said and what the candidate does?

MR. SHIELDS: No. I mean, obviously, those of us who are campaign managers and are nowborn again virgins and sages and pundits like to give a certain --

MR. GERGEN: Which one were you born again to, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: I was a sage before I was a pundit. Then I was Rosemary, David. But the fact is that we like to think that we're important. But 97 1/2 percent of it is the candidate. It is. It is George Bush's to win or lose.

MR. LEHRER: Bush went on a strong offense against Dukakis this week. We heard some of it on the tape and he also said that this would be a risk, the world would be at great risk if Michael Dukakis was elected President, David. Did he bring that off? Is that good stuff?

MR. GERGEN: What I'll tell you I think is going to work for him and it's moving toward, Michael Dukakis in his acceptance address, as you will recall, said this is not a campaign about ideology, it's a campaign about competence. If George Bush allows this to be a campaign about competence, Dukakis has a very very good chance of winning. Because once the electorate is sort of assured by Bush, there's no real difference between the candidates except on competence, Bush can well lose. On the other hand, if he can make this a conservative versus a liberal race, he can make it a more ideological race, and by seizing upon foreign policy he's trying once again to paint Dukakis as a liberal, he's got a much better chance of winning.

MR. LEHRER: Did he do well at that this week, Mark, do you think?

MR. SHIELDS: He did a lot better. I think it's a good issue for him and this was his defense week. I don't know what it will be next week. It was child care last week. I don't know -- it was environment two weeks ago. I'm not sure. I think this is where he has to win or lose the campaign is on the whole national security foreign policy agenda. I think that's where Dukakis is most vulnerable and where Bush must make his case.

MR. LEHRER: Let's talk about the Dukakis medical story here for a moment. We saw here again on the tape President Reagan said, used this word "invalid". You know President Reagan, David Gergen. You worked at the White House. You worked for this man. What's your interpretation of how something like that could have happened?

MR. GERGEN: Well, I think he did, it was a gaff -- clearly he felt -- I was in the room when he apologized that day and he was deeply apologetic. On the other hand, I think that President Reagan had no doubt about what he was about out there in that press room. He was trying to hype that story.

MR. LEHRER: He was trying to hype the medical records --

MR. GERGEN: He was trying to take the medical records story and take it out about No. 8 in the network line-up that night and move it up to No. 1. He succeeded on one network and he got a lot more press play because he was so tough that the press suddenly had to say, we've got to take this more seriously, it's now a campaign issue as well as being a substantive issue. But I think that, you know, this issue is now dying at the end of the week.

MR. LEHRER: It's over, isn't it?

MR. GERGEN: It's almost over, and I think in retrospect, we'll probably look back upon all of this as sort of mid-summer madness.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, mid-summer madness, is the issue over?

MR. SHIELDS: Mid-summer madness, we'll certainly find out whether it is, whether it does survive. I think David is probably right. I would say that the President knew what he was doing. Ronald Reagan is calculated, calibrated, the words that he uses. He's a very very shrewd man on a public podium, and as one Democrat said to me, there's something pernicious about it, once you inject that little heroine into the body politic, into the bloodstream of the body politic, invalid. The Republican strategy is pretty obvious. Michael Dukakis's job is to reassure voters that he is a stable, competent leader, not an ideological leftist or out of the mainstream, and part of that reassuring task is made a lot more difficult by Republicans raising questions about whether, in fact, he is a stable figure.

MR. GERGEN: But, Mark, don't you think it's also true that when the President goes over the line or any politician goes over the line, the opponent begins to look like a victim and Dukakis looked fairly stable in responding to it, so in that sense Dukakis helped himself some?

MR. SHIELDS: Absolutely, David. I would say that Michael Dukakis had a week in which he played very good defense. His answer to Ronald Reagan's apology was deft, it was magnanimous. He looked like a confident leader when he did it. He had had a very bad earlier part of the week --

MR. GERGEN: I agree with you.

MR. SHIELDS: -- when he for reasons that totally escape me in his talk about government ethics in Louisville at the press conference, talked about the dead fish stinking from the head down. First of all, that's a metaphor that makes anybody wince, especially in hot weather. It's not a very attractive metaphor. But you don't need --

MR. GERGEN: You're up near the cape. I can tell, Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: We've had trouble at the beaches, Jim. But you don't need to burden your candidacy by running -- he's been granted God's good gift of running against George Bush rather than against Ronald Reagan. What he did in that one move was to make it a Reagan/Bush campaign again.

MR. LEHRER: Okay, we have 23 seconds left, gentlemen. The two veto decisions, to not veto plant closings but veto the defense bill, does that help George Bush?

MR. GERGEN: Yes, both of them help George Bush campaign, and in fact, I they were very much directed by the George Bush campaign.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Mark, yes or no?

MR. SHIELDS: He removed a negative for Bush, Jim, on plant closing.

MR. GERGEN: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: And the fact that Oliver North is going to be tried after the election, that's good news?

MR. GERGEN: One of the best gifts Bush has had in this campaign.

MR. LEHRER: And do you agree with --

MR. SHIELDS: Good news for Richard Viguerie, yes.

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you again very much. UPDATE - PISTOLS & PALMS

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight an update on gun control. Nearly a year ago the State of Florida passed a new gun law making it the easiest state in which to purchase and carry a concealed firearm legally in the country. At the time, there was fierce debate about the new regulations. For a look at what has happened in Florida, Tom Bearden reports.

TOM BEARDEN: Leland Johnson is an acoustical ceiling contractor in Miami. After he was held up recently at gunpoint, he applied for a concealed weapons permit.

LELAND JOHNSON, Businessman: I want to work for myself and some clown keeps coming in and robbing you, stealing your stuff, and I think that they need to be dealt with appropriately.

MR. BEARDEN: And that means --

MR. JOHNSON: If you've got to blow them away, you've got to blow them away.

MR. BEARDEN: As part of his application, Johnson attended this firearms class taught by an undercover Miami police officer. The officer didn't want us to show his face.

UNDERCOVER POLICE OFFICER TO CLASS: That's who you people have to watch out for. Okay. Somebody knows you've got it on you, you're going to cause a problem. The idea is to carry it where nobody knows you have it.

MR. BEARDEN: In Florida, the state with the highest crime rate in the nation, the struggle over the issue of gun control has been raging since 1981, when an unprecedented wave of violence resulted in 576 murders in Dade County, which includes the City of Miami. Last October, under pressure from the National Rifle Association and rural legislators in Florida, state lawmakers consolidated a haphazard county by county permitting system and put in its place a statewide law that made it easier in Florida to carry a loaded weapon than anywhere else in the United States. The law requires that you pay a $146 fee, have your background checked for recent felony convictions and take a brief certified course in the use of firearms. The course covers only the most basic instructions on when to use a handgun. There is no required training on how to fire a gun. This class included some tips as a bonus.

UNDERCOVER POLICE OFFICER: This is not a course to teach you how to shoot, only that you make a lot of noise, period. The state says you don't have to qualify on nothing. So you're just here for fun. You people out there are just taking your time. By the time you get the gun and find your sites, they've got three shots in your face.

MR. BEARDEN: Since the law went into effect, about 20,000 concealed weapons permits have been issued in Dade County. The new permits instantly tripled the number of concealed weapons being carried in and around Miami. The homicide rate is also up in Dade County. Fifty-two more homicides through the first five months of this year and then in 1987, a 45 percent increase. Marion Hammer is a national chairwoman for the National Rifle Association in Florida, a powerful lobby in this state.

MARION HAMMER, National Rifle Association: There's absolutely no correlation between the increase in homicides in Dade County and our new gun laws. The people who committed those homicides were not law abiding license holders.

MR. BEARDEN: The Florida Police Chiefs Association recently asked its 350 chiefs to track specific cases of violence or murder that could be attributed to the new law. Willis Booth is the association's executive director.

WILLIS BOOTH, Florida Police Chiefs Association: There has been no documented evidence that any person that has been issued a concealed weapon permit that went through the required procedure has gone out and used that gun, the permit, to hold up a bank or to kill anybody. If it has happened, I am not aware of it.

MR. BEARDEN: But State House Majority Leader Ron Silver, a Democrat and a 30 year resident of Miami, believes the higher rate of homicide is the result of the new gun law.

RON SILVER, Florida State Representative: We have seen recently an increase in the amount of police officers that have been shot doing their job and protecting the public. There has to be a reason for that and I would suggest to you that one of the reasons for you is the easy access to guns.

MR. BEARDEN: The new law has made a difference in the daily lives of police officers. Officer John Buchanan is currently assigned to a residential section southwest of Downtown Miami.

OFFICER JOHN BUCHANAN: You have to be really cautious now in checking people before you arrest them since it's legal for them to carry guns. You know, before they used to hide them and everything and now they're not really scared about it because they have permits for them.

MR. BEARDEN: Walter Hopwood is a friend of Officer Buchanan's on the Dade County Police Force. He patrols a crime-ridden area called Richmond Heights.

WALTER HOPWOOD, Dade County Police: There's people, they drive down the street, start shooting out the window, they shoot into houses. Like I said before, they shot out the windows here. You can even some of the cars of people that live in the area, they've got gun holes in the sides where they're involved in shooting, and 99 percent it's drug related. Right now it's just too easy to get a gun now.

JOHN BUCHANAN, Dade County Police: A lot of the ideas of the police are the less guns, you know, on the streets, the better off we are, you know, but now that it's legal to carry them -- you see, we have, his point of view is different from my point of view like I told you. If somebody is trained and knows how to use the gun and they can get a permit and they don't have a criminal past or anything like that, then I'm not opposed to it.

MR. BEARDEN: The most bitter disagreement about the new law is between urban and rural communities where the idea of citizens owning and carrying handguns is staunchly defended as a basic American freedom. In the City of Belle Glade, just south of of Lake Okechobe in Central Florida, Police Chief Mike Miller says the new gun laws have had no impact on the violence in his city.

MIKE MILLER, Belle Glade Police Chief: Locally, there was a lot of concern and a lot of ballyhoo about that legislation. We had one isolated incident that was directly related to that legislation and it went down very non-violent. It was just something that me might refer to as the good old boy that thought he'd walk down Main Street with a firearm and we talked to him and we talked him into surrendering the firearm to us. And it was an isolated incident that we didn't have any other problems with him.

STEVE HINTON, Belle Glade Police [Patrolling Street]: There's a lot of street cocaine and things like that so when you see the guys running and ducking --

MR. BEARDEN: But one of Chief Miller's 45 sworn officers, Sgt. Steve Hinton, says even in rural areas guns are becoming more of a problem.

STEVE HINTON, Belle Glade Police: We have a lot more incidents now where teams are out shooting at people and one thing another and we're running across more teams and young adults that are armed and that in itself is a problem. If you're asking me if I'm more apprehensive now due to the amount of weapons that are out here, then the answer is yes, definitely.

MR. BEARDEN: The NRA's Hammer says police officers should not be worried about honest citizens carrying weapons.

MARION HAMMER, National Rifle Association: The fact that law abiding citizens may now get licenses and carry concealed for their own self-protection should not concern law enforcement officers. They have never had anything to fear from law abiding citizens. Their fears should be directed against the criminal element.

WILLIS BOOTH: I really don't worry too much about the law abiding citizen and his gun, because if he commits a crime, then he's no longer a law abiding citizen. If he becomes a criminal, we can deal with that.

RON SILVER, Florida State Representative: There, in fact, are two arguments to that. No. 1, we should not be making it easier for criminals to get guns. The statistics show that 21 percent of the crimes that were committed last year were committed by persons who purchased a handgun at a gun store so that's 21 percent of the crimes. The second aspect is that people who are rationale, people who have good motives at times become irrational when they have some problem that is facing them. What we want to do is protect those people from committing an act which they would not have committed had they not had a gun.

MR. BEARDEN: Silver is pushing an extension of the so called cooling off period, the period of time a person must wait to buy a handgun. It's now 48 hours. Silver wants to make it seven days. That proposal will also draw controversy, but for the people of Florida, the debate over handguns, like the growing numbers of concealed weapons, has become a fact of life. CONVERSATION - MICHAEL HARRINGTON

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight we have a conversation with America's leading socialist, Michael Harrington. Mr. Harrington is Co-Chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America and distinguished Professor of Political Science at Queens College. For more than 30 years, Harrington has been championing the cause of working men and women, the poor and disadvantaged, and trying to make American society more egalitarian. His landmark book, "The Other America", helped inspire the so-called war on poverty in the 1960's. He is the author of 15 books. The latest is "The Long Distance Runner", an autobiographical look at his career as a socialist, and his current fight against inoperable cancer of the esophagus. I spoke with Michael Harrington at the New York offices of the Democratic Socialists of America.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Harrington, you say in your autobiography, "A Long Distance Runner", "My ideas, which were so profoundly unpopular during the Reagan years, are about to have a rebirth." Which ideas in particular, and why are they about to have a rebirth?

MICHAEL HARRINGTON: Well, immediately my ideas about abolishing poverty, about dealing with homeless and the like. Even at the height of Reagan's popularity, the American people never agreed with him. But now that he is less popular, now that we have had the 1986 elections in which in many ways his ideas, his attempt to pass his popularity on to Senatorial candidates failed, I think that the American people are prepared to move again. Ironically, finally, I think that Ronald Reagan has restored confidence in the government a bit. That is to say under Jimmy Carter there was a feeling the government couldn't do anything right, but Reagan by presiding over eight years in which he emphasized the majesty of the government has convinced the American people the government can do something. And Dukakis, who is certainly no radical, who is a moderate, decent liberal, in my opinion, and for that reason superior to Bush, but Dukakis clearly intends that the government should once again try to deal with some of these outrages and I, therefore, see not an opening to socialism would that that were on the agenda, I don't think it is, but a greater openness.

MR. MacNeil: Why has socialism never caught on in the United States, when it has in so many other countries with which the United States might be compared in terms of cultural traditions and development?

MR. HARRINGTON: I think that's very complicated, but just to tick off a number of the reasons, No. 1, we're a Presidential country, not a Parliamentary country. In Canada, so much like us, there is a socialist party in the polls right now which is at about 28, 29 percent, which has been 20 percent or better for years. In part, that's because in Canada, you can vote for your socialist candidate for Parliament, and he or she can then affect the effective in the Parliament. No. 2, because the United States in the period when most European workers were becoming socialists, which was the period roughly from 1880 to 1914, in the UnitedStates that was the period in which it was more important that you were Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish, white or black, Italian, Irish, et cetera. That is to say, our race, our ethnicity, all of those complexities made it difficult to develop a class consciousness when people were much more ethnically and religiously and racially conscious. Finally the most complex of all in my opinion, there's a sense in which I think America's the most socialist country on the face of the earth right now, which is one of the reasons we don't have a socialist movement. By that I mean that the United States I think has always been one of the most egalitarian, open, non-deferential societies. We've never had any real Torries, any real conservatives in America. One of the reasons that Canada has a socialist movement is that our Torries went to Canada after the revolution and sat around and told the workers that they were human refuse, that they were no good, and one of the things that generates socialist consciousness is having a bunch of upper class snobs trying to push people down. We've never had it, and I think in a crazy way, socially I've always thought that America is really much more socialist than Sweden.

MR. MacNeil: Well, you say in your book that, you describe somebody is a socialist without knowing it and say that is a common condition in America.

MR. HARRINGTON: Yes. One time I spoke --

MR. MacNeil: In what are people socialists without knowing it?

MR. HARRINGTON: Well, I spoke at a UAW meeting once out in Michigan. There was a protest at the UAW inviting me to speak. After I spoke, I got a standing ovation, two workers came up to me, and one said, there's something that puzzles us, and I said, what's that, and one guy said, we protested your speaking and we agree with every word you said. That is to say, when I put it, progressive taxation, full employment, national health, et cetera, when I laid out what was essentially a social democratic program, there was immediate sympathy. But these guys regarded themselves, that was their puzzle, as principled anti-socialists. They don't know what it is. In this country, socialism has been slandered by the right wing in order to stop decent liberalism and there is enormous and not accidental confusion in America on what socialism is.

MR. MacNeil: Is it also the fact -- I gather this from your book -- that an awful lot of energy, socialist energy, and your personal energy in particular, in the 50's, and the 60's and the 70's, was diverted into properly as you saw it, but still diverted into fighting racism and fighting for the equality of women, and that other parts of your own agenda seemed to have been pushed into the background by that, is that correct, a lot of the socialist energy got directed that way?

MR. HARRINGTON: Yes and no. Obviously, you can't deal with any problem in America, unless you deal with the problem of race, and gender is more and more important. At the same time, yes, it is a problem in that there's an American tendency to view aspects of the social system rather than the system as such and not to understand that the racism is in part a function of the occupational structure, of the economy, of the housing structure, so is the position of women in low paid, unorganized, non- influential jobs for the most part, and rather than seeing these connections, many Americans focus on the outrage of the gap and pay between blacks and whites or women and men and don't see the connections. Our job in these movements is to make the connection.

MR. MacNeil: You say in the book that Martin Luther King was actually a social Democrat because he was moving towards making those connections.

MR. HARRINGTON: Right. As a matter of fact, the first time I really talked to Dr. King at great length was in 1960 in Los Angeles, during the Democratic convention when I was organizing for him and we had to hide him out because all the politicians wanted to get him to endorse them. We hid him out in a hotel room so I talked to him for about two days and I became aware of the fact that he was in my opinion a socialist, but my feeling was I should be shot if I asked him to declare that because he had enough problems with being black, with leading a black movement, so I didn't. Since then David Garrow's fine biography of King, which won the Pulitzer Prize, has said that on occasion Dr. King would privately refer to himself as a democratic socialist. I think King understood the connections and one of the reasons why I got along with him so well is we were very sympathetic to each other's point of view.

MR. MacNeil: You said, and you said, "Unfortunately, the socialist agenda isn't about to come into the mainstream." How different would your democratic socialist agenda, a platform you would write, be from the platform the Democrats have just adopted in Atlanta?

MR. HARRINGTON: Much more explicit, but let me say Jesse Jackson, if you would pose it that way, I would say that the Jackson campaign from my point of view put on the table in America a fine program which would be pretty much what I would want to put on the table as an immediate program. The difference is Jesse Jackson is not a socialist. Well, you might say so what? You're talking about the same thing. I think the difference is that if you're a socialist, your attitude towards reform is that you always want to use it to change fundamental structures, not simply to solve this or that problem, not simply to balance the budget in a progressive way, but to redistribute income and wealth, not simply to have national health, but to have some kind of input from patients and communities into the health system, to de- bureaucratize it. So I think that we socialists on many issues meet the best of the liberals. Somebody like Ted Kennedy I find a fine political leader. He is absolutely no socialist, but yet on immediate questions we can agree but I am always looking at the immediate questions we are from the point of view of changing basic structures.

MR. MacNeil: You have been an influential commentator on the state of America from the time your first book, "The Other America", dealing with American poverty was published. These 30 years later, how do you see the condition of America now?

MR. HARRINGTON: Oh I think it's better. That is to say I find that the 80's under Reagan were nowhere near as bad as the 50's with Joe McCarthy and the 50's under Eisenhower. The students have not been totally cowed. We have not forgotten the poor. I think the media have done a good job. I think the media have really, everybody knows about homelessness. You don't need a book about the invisible poor. I mean, you can't miss the homeless anymore. So I think that the consciousness of America is in fairly good shape and the conscience of America is in fairly good shape. That's why I'm optimistic. I think we have gone through an interregnum with a President who was enormously popular as an individual but not as a thinker, if you can call Reagan a thinker in any way, shape or form, and I think that now there is a sense that let's get on with it, let's begin to deal with these problems, we just can't have these people lying out on the streets. And that means we have to deal with the problem of housing. That means that we have to deal with the problem of the working poor. Many many of the homeless are working poor people, they aren't welfare poor people. So I happen to be an almost sentimental patriot. I love this country very very much. I think this country has got a very decent heart. Sometimes its head upsets me but not its heart. And I think we're about to enter a period where its head might get halfway as good as its heart.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Harrington, thank you very much for joining us. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again the major stories of this Friday, Treasury Secretary James Baker resigned to take control of the Bush Presidential campaign, President Reagan said he would nominate former Senator Nicholas Brady to replace Baker at Treasury. The unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percentage point to 5.4 percent and Democratic Congressman Mario Biaggi of New York announced he was resigning because of his conviction yesterday on racketeering charges in the Wedtech case. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the Newshour tonight. Have a nice weekend and we will see you on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.