MonitoRadio Daily Program; [1990-04-27]

From Boston, this is Monitor Radio, a broadcast service of the Christian Science Monitor. I'm Bob Dunn, sitting in for Maddie Haas. Coming up on this Friday, April 27th, there are some problems, but NASA declares the Hubble Space Telescope opened for business. Experts express concern over the future of democracy in Latin America, and aspiring law students find the courtroom isn't exactly LA law. Those stories just ahead on Monitor Radio right after a summary of the day's news with Lisa Watts. Japan has been taken off the U .S. trade hit list. President Bush today announced that Japan and Brazil are no longer on the U .S. list of countries engaged in unfair trade practices. He cited recent improvements in trade relations for his decision. But many congressmen urged Bush not to make the move, saying that U .S. pressure would do the trade problems good. Fried hostage Robert Polhill didn't speak with reporters his second day back to the United States. His throat was giving him some problems. So instead, his Lebanese -born wife, Farrell, read reporters a statement written by Polhill that said he was glad to be free, and he urges Americans to look to the future when the

hostage issue is finally put to rest. Polhill is currently staying at Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he is undergoing some more tests. Is a crack house a fit home for children? No way, says drug policy chief William Bennett, and he says kids who have to live around crack should be put into orphanages if necessary. Bennett told a drug conference in Orlando, Florida, that getting the kids into safe places away from their homes may become a government growth industry. In some neighborhoods, he says there is no positive influence on children's lives. The ANC Exiled Leadership has arrived in South Africa to take part in historic talks with the government. The meeting between the formerly banned organization and Pretoria begin next week. Geraldine Farley reports. The five -person delegation flew into Cape Town from Zambia, setting foot on South African soil for the first time in 30 years. The ANC veterans have been living in exile in Lusaka since the organization was banned in 1962. The five expressed joy and excitement at their homecoming and Communist Party Chief Mr. Joe Slobo said it was a remarkable

experience to be back again. He said the team returned in the spirit of conciliation to enter talks with the government about obstacles in the way of negotiation. The ANC delegation led by Deputy President Mr. Nelson Mandela meets the government next week. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Geraldine Farley in Cape Town, South Africa. In Israel, outgoing Prime Minister Itzat Shamir has gone to work forming a new hardline coalition government after receiving the appointment as Prime Minister designate. Mark Levy reports from Jerusalem. Mr. Shamir has 21 days to piece together a coalition. His father is the failure of Labour Party leaders Shimon Terris to form a moderate government. Mr. Shamir and Jesse will pursue his initiative for elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. I think we are committed all of us to the efforts left to make for peace and to the peace initiative confirmed and accepted by the government. But his potential partners on the far right reject the initiative, and Mr. Shamir himself refuses to go

along with the Americans' monster talks with the Palestinian with the Christian Science Monitor. I'm Mark Levy and you're with them. What to do with leftover nuclear arms was an issue discussed today at the conventional arms talks in Vienna and at the Confidence and Security Building talks. This is a concern now that the confrontation between the East and West no longer seems as threatening as it has in the past. Evecughan reports. The Soviet Union presented a proposal that would allow some of the conventional arms above agreed ceilings to be converted into other items for economic reasons. They want heavy duty equipment made into trains, firefighter vehicles, bulldozers and oil rigs. However, NATO wants most of the excess conventional equipment to be destroyed. Destruction does not mean polarization that U .S. Ambassador James Wusley items may be salvaged such as radios off of tanks in a reasonable way. One thing is sure, the Warsaw Pact loyalties have drastically changed since

both talks began in Vienna. For the Christian Science Monitor, Mrs. Evecughan in Vienna. Lithuanian officials said they will consider a proposal from France and West Germany that the Baltic Republic hold off on its independence drive and seek a solution acceptable to all parties. Diplomats in Paris say the proposal effectively sounds the death knell for Lithuanian hopes of receiving strong Western support. In Paris, Soviet and U .S. negotiators sought to work out remaining differences on a trade pact for President Bush and Gorbachev to sign their next summit. The head of the American delegation refused to identify the issues that still divide the two sides. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney today challenged Congress to stop talking and start voting on defense budget cuts. Cheney told reporters in Washington that if anyone has a better plan, he'd like to see it. And finally, on Wall Street, the Dow fell 31 .5 points, causing a 26 .45 .05. Bigboard volume 131 million shares. I'm Lisa Watts. That

was Shuttle communicator's story Musgrave and astronauts Steve Hawley confirming that the lens cover of the giant Hubble Space Telescope had been successfully opened. If it hadn't opened, two of the astronauts would have taken a walk in space to open the lens manually. This is not just any lens. It's on a one and a half billion dollar telescope, which astronomers the world over are watching closely. NASA astronomers Steve Moran says he and his colleagues have high hopes for Hubble. We expect to find out how big the universe is, how old it is, and possibly even what it's long -term fate will be that is whether we'll expand forever and thin out or whether the expansion will come to an end and the universe will all come together in a great crunch billions of years from now. What are some of the bigger holes in our current understanding of those issues? Well, we think that the universe is expanding and began in a big bang somewhere around 14 to 20 billion years ago.

However, the observations of the radiation from the big bang so that the show that the newborn universe was totally smooth and yet we have found recently that there are gigantic structures in the universe, hundreds of millions of light years in size. There's a sort of like chains of galaxies or whole walls of galaxies in space and it doesn't seem as though there's been enough time for structures that large to form since the big bang. We don't understand that and we hope maybe Hubble will tell us why. You know, the Great Wall of China was built in a day and it's not clear that the Great Wall of galaxies kind of been built in just 20 billion years. How far can a Hubble see? We don't know the answer to that both because we haven't evaluated performance on orbit but mostly because we don't know the size of the universe right now. Assuming Hubble gets to see to the end of the universe, what would that look like? Well, you really can't guess if we could make a good guess we might not need the

Hubble and we don't know how the galaxies with their spiral shapes and their football shapes and all the other shapes. We don't know why some galaxies got one shape and some another. We don't know how they started out and that's what we want to find. We all got to see some pretty spectacular images from the Voyager spacecraft. How soon can we expect to see things from Hubble? Well, the very first pictures are now deferred to at least the middle of next week as a result of the setbacks we've had in putting a telescope in operation today. But the really first -class pictures are certainly weeks away and if you went by the formal schedule they could even be months away. Steve Moran is a senior staff scientist working on the Hubble Space Telescope project. On Wednesday,

Villetta Chamorro was inaugurated President of Nicaragua. It was a historic moment for Nicaragua, the latest Latin American country to become a democracy. But the future of democracy in Latin America is far from certain. The monitors Paul Miller explains why. Since 1979, a dozen countries have become democracies. Yet today, many experts on Latin America are pessimistic about the region's future. You're going to see Latin America being reduced the condition of despair. Larry Burns is with the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Burns points to economic problems in Brazil, Peru, and Nicaragua, all of which have experienced an annual inflation rate of at least a thousand percent. Argentina's inflation rate reached nearly four thousand percent last year. And foreign debt is still a problem, especially for Brazil, which has the third world's largest $114 billion. Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela are also deeply in debt. Burns says such

economic chaos does not bode well for the future of Latin America's budding democracies. Unless major relief is at hand very soon in the future, I would say that we're going to witness a return to military rule in perhaps seven or eight countries with the next two years. The problem with most Latin American countries is most of the voters are poor and demand higher living standards. At the very time, governments need to impose austerity measures to stop inflation and modernize their economies. Former ambassador to Chile, George Landau, says newly elected leaders should not buckle under to immediate public demands. If they do the economic restructuring, if there is economic growth in their countries, they will be competitive and they will do well. If they forsake it and get inward oriented, they will fall apart. But the Council on Hemisphere Affairs Larry Burns questions how much time the countries have. The amount of disaffection with the government is proceeding so rapidly.

The standing of these constitutional civilian rule is plummeting so fast that unless a dramatic reversal in terms of standard of living, income, the ability of these people to survive economically, that you're going to see a nostalgic remembrance of military rule, forcefully, of course, as a golden era and one that wants to go back to. However, Mark Falcalf of the American Enterprise Institute does not see Latin America returning to its military past. I think that we will probably not have any military coups in Latin America in the near future because the armed forces don't want to take on the economic mess. And Falcalf warns Latin American countries may have to solve their problems on their own. The United States may not do much to help. Falcalf says that's the way it should be. We're going to have to learn to live with a

world in which large parts of the globe, including parts like Latin America that we've associated with in the past, may indeed be abandoned to instability simply because of our unwillingness and our actually our inability to finance their economic systems. Experts say Latin America's image in the United States is one of drugs, corruption, and instability, making legislators increasingly wary of providing the aid. Howard Ryorta is a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts. Quite honestly, the Congress after 10 years of grappling with Central American issues is tired of Latin America. Seizes it as a black hole into which we pour billions of dollars of aid and get nothing but grief in return. The United States seems headed back to what some experts describe as its traditional indifference towards Latin America. They say now that the cold war is over and the threat of communist expansion diminished, the United States is losing interest. And they say it would be ironic if the winding down of the Cold War, which they believe

helped end the Nicaraguan Civil War, also meant an end to the recent growth of democracy in Latin America. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Paul Miller in Washington. The vast majority of Americans and their representatives in Washington agree that the war on drugs is worth waging. But in these days of budget deficits and political inertia, more of the drug war seems to be fought on the podiums and in the conference halls than on the streets and in the classrooms. That's why a novel funding proposal issuing drug war bonds has won some enthusiastic supporters on Capitol Hill.

What could be wrong with raising money for a good cause and getting ordinary citizens involved at the same time? Plenty say skeptics. Correspondent Gary Sturgis has our story. We're faced with over $150 billion financed drug war, financed by the drug traffickers, and we are spending a measly $10 billion in trying to confront these drug traffickers in battling them on five major fronts of trying to reduce supply and demand at the same time. Congressman Benjamin Gilman of New York summing up the problem with the war on drugs, two little money chasing too many drugs before the Houseways and Means Committee. But the idea of drug war bonds which Gilman supports sounds simpler than it is. Many in Congress, including Dan Rostenkowski, believe government should be funded on a pay as you go basis. And Rostenkowski has other problems with the drug war bonds despite an initial attraction to the idea. He asked California Congressman Jerry Lewis, one of the authors of the bill, how a special bond was justified.

At this moment in any community forum across the country, the number one, not the number five, the number one concern is the impact of drugs and its fundamental impact upon our institutions. Congressman Lewis's bill provides for the issue of the new savings and bond stamp. It requires the Treasury Department to issue up to four billion dollars worth of drug war savings bonds over a three -year period. The money received would be sent to a special trust fund. Congressman Lewis says this would help ensure that the money would be spent for anti -drug efforts and not detour to other accounts. The possibility of the money being spent on other programs and not exclusively on anti -drug measures is a serious concern because of the changes made to the original bill. Those changes which would put the money in the general account are sharply criticized by Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel. The only thing you're doing is just borrowing more money. Using

the kids to do it, subjecting it to Grand Rodman and allowing Mr. Domin and the Office of Management and Budget to make the same priority to save. And even with Congressman Lewis's changes to the bill, Treasury still wouldn't support the bond proposal citing long -standing opposition to all special borrowing programs. It also addresses the administrative cost of issuing bonds, Treasury official Michael Basham. High administrative costs without a doubt issuing stamps, administering such a program is the most expensive form of borrowing that we could attempt to undertake in the Treasury Department. Congressman Lewis chiefly promoted his bill on educational grounds as a means of mobilising citizens and children in an all -out effort against drugs, similar to the effort made during World War II. Alicia Miller,

a six -grade student at a Maryland Elementary School. As it turns out, the drug war bond might not be the way to raise money. Tom Cochran of the U .S. Conference of Mayors says however it is raised, more money is needed. We've got people out on the streets every night dealing with automatic weapons. If you go into LA County, it's like being in Vietnam, you've got mass units all in those hospitals out there. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Gary Sturgis in Washington. You're listening to Monitor Radio, a broadcast service of the Christian Science Monitor on American Public Radio. I'm Bob Dunn. Iran's vice president, Mohad Jarani, yesterday called for direct negotiations with the United States. He stressed that such contacts could serve the interests of Iran. It was the first such

call from a top Iranian official since the 1979 Islamic Revolution which toppled the Shah. The late Shah's son, Reza Palavi, agrees that Iran should reopen contacts with the United States. But Palavi told the monitors Skylar Sackett that Iran is doomed as long as its current system of government is in place. In today's world, we are seeing a wave of democratic regimes replacing all the totalitarian form of governments. And I think that when it comes to my country, the model of a constitutional monarchy would definitely fit in the picture. This not only relates to the history and the past of my country and its identity with the institution that I represent. But I think that in view of the future, I personally believe that this is the institution that we most likely be capable of preserving our nation in a united form and also being out by a government that is based on pluralism and participation of all factions. If you will, pretty much a model that you could find an example in Europe, for

instance, like in Spain. However, what I've said and what I've maintained through my efforts to free Iran is that the question of what will be the kind of regime in the future is not something to be determined now. It will have to be determined by the Iranian people once they are freed from the current bondage in which they find themselves. But didn't the people of Iran 11 years ago turn away from the idea of a monarchy and support the idea of a religious government for the country? At the time there were, of course, difficulties and we had reached a level of political crisis that led eventually to this revolution. Some of the people who had the motive behind it thought that they might bring better change and perhaps more of a political openness and a more free system of government. However, the current situation in Iran is definitely not what was sought and therefore it's time for another change. What do you have in mind when you say the current situation in Iran is completely intolerable? The country

in the past 11 years has seen nothing but destruction. It had been isolated from the rest of the world. Not only there hasn't been any progress whatsoever in any field, but there has been a complete regress back in the medieval ages. The countries ruled by a clique of thugs and terrorists that will stop at nothing to preserve themselves and they don't have the slightest feeling towards their country and their people. And we have seen throughout the years in their irresponsible conduct either in the case of the war or the general management of the country, the current leadership has proven itself completely unworthy of showing that they have anything to offer to the nation except for violence and brutality and terror. Certainly the flowering of democracy is a great worldwide trend that we have seen in recent years. But another major trend that has been noted in many parts of the Islamic world is the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism and your father has been criticized, having criticized for underestimating the power and the intensity of that Islamic fundamentalism. Do you think that you right now are underestimating it yourself?

No, I don't think I'm underestimating it. I think actually when you deal with Iran, one has to know Iran and what the clergy in Iran means, the Shiite tradition, and Islam in Iran. Islam in Iran, true, has been a major part of our country's heritage. But let's not forget that before the advent of Islam, Iran was a country then called Persia, a great empire with many principles of government and statehood and other traditions that grew in there. In our country, Islam is just treated as religion and I believe that the traditional clergy in Iran is the first element that recognizes that whenever religion gets involved in the matters of government, it is not only against the interests of the church itself, but against the interests of the nation. And I think that in Iran you will find today that there is a clear understanding of separation in church and state. Reza Palavi, son of the late Shah of Iran, spoke with the monitors Thursday nights for many

Americans who's meant curling up in front of their TVs and watching the courtroom drama on LA Law. But the show has done more than merely give viewers an idea of life in a law firm has also been a source of inspiration. LA Law must be credited for really bringing in a lot of good new blood to the legal profession. Richard Mall is a former college admissions counselor and author of The Lure of the Law. Even the Harvard Law School says today that LA Law is partly responsible for the considerable increase in law school applications the last a few years. Other reasons I think would be all of the hoop loss surrounding the Iran contra hearings, the board hearings, so much has been going on of public notice in law that the young people's imagination interest I think is peach to this profession. There are more than 700

,000 lawyers in the U .S. twice the number we had in 1970. Despite this apparent abundance of lawyers, the nation's law schools enroll more than 100 ,000 aspiring law students each year. Unfortunately, Mall says many enter law school with a somewhat naive point of view. I think a lot of young people would like to go into law thinking that they're going to set things right in society. And yet most of the work that a lawyer does is it really is intellectual word games and it's figuring out legal codes and precedents and one's own sense of right versus wrong very rarely comes into play within the legal profession. I think that disappoints a lot of young people as they begin the law career. Francis Fisher is familiar with that disappointment. Fisher is the former director of the office of career services at Harvard University. He says some students enter law school partly by

default. You think you have to go to graduate school for something? You know you're not a doctor. What do you know? Law school seems like a good idea. It doesn't seem to defer any of the restrictions. So a lot of students go to it for that reason. Fisher admits many enter law school because they aspire to make the high salaries associated with being a lawyer. He says there are also many who want to represent the public interest. But author Richard Mall says this idealism can be shaken by the reality of paying off large student loans. A lot of people leave Yale law school as many other law schools enormously in debt. Rather than going to public interest law they say I will try to collect the funds to pay back the institution. They compete once again to get into the top firms. And then somehow they get sort of drawn in and they're on a treadmill and they can't leave. They're making too much in a way to leave.

They enjoy it well after the bills are paid off for law school and college. And the public interest seems to greatly suffer. There's currently no sign of a slowdown in student enrollment in law schools. And it remains to be seen once the profits are made whether lawyers will pursue careers in the public interest. 17 dancers, eight rolls, one musical. That's the simple structure of the longest running Broadway show in history. Tomorrow night a chorus line will be staged for the 6137th and final

time. One, two, three, four, five, six. What accounts for the enormous success of a chorus line? If you're one of the six and a half million people who have seen the show your guess is probably as good as anyone else's. Some like Leslie Woody's who played the leading role of Cassie say it's because those dancers up there are pretty much like the rest of us. All of the lines were actually taken from conversations with people in the business. So for every different character on the line there's some some part of you that's there. I don't care if you're in show business or not. I mean the show is all about putting yourself on the line. Maybe what really attracted people to this show is not just the music and the mirrors and the dancing, but the show's poignant and intimate message. We are all one. And that's it for monitor radio for this Friday April 27th.

Thanks for listening. I'm Bob Dunn and this is the American Public Radio Network.