The MacNeil/Leher Newshour; 1986-05-15

Good evening. In the headlines this Thursday, the House passed a 1987 budget with more taxes and less defense than President Reagan wants. An American doctor predicted in Moscow, other deaths were still to come from the Chernobyl accident, and the search continued for eight mountain climbers in Oregon. We'll add the details in the news summary in a moment. Charlene Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlene, after the summary of today's news, we'll get details of American medical efforts in the Soviet Union. We go to the second of our three-part series on the effect of Chernobyl on nuclear power in this country. We ask the question, can it happen here? And finally, a documentary on one state's desperate attempt to save its malpractice coverage. Funding for the McNeil-Lera News Hour is provided by AT&T. Whether it's telephones, information systems, long-distance services, or computers, AT&T. Funding also is provided by this station and other public television stations, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The House of Representatives passed a 1987 federal budget today, and as expected, they chose the Democratic version. It calls for tax increases and defense spending cuts not wanted by President Reagan. The House rejected a Republican alternative before passing the Democratic bill by a vote of 245 to 179. The vote followed five hours of spirited debate, largely focused on the defense differences. It ended this way. It's quite obvious that the Democratic strategy was to beat the hell out of the defense program in order to placate all the social welfare pleaders. And I'll be frank to say that I really feel what the majority has done on the defense figure is irresponsible. Democrats won a strong defense. Many of them have voted that way. But let me tell you what the difference is. The difference between our budget and their budget is 2% on defense. Over three years, they're going to do $865 billion of new defense spending. We're going to do

$848. Now certainly no one in America in their right mind thinks that because of a $17 billion difference, the Russians are coming up the Potomac. Just before the final vote, President Reagan called the Democratic bill a breach. This is Melanie Lawson. The release of the two is the end of a long process of negotiation between Congressman Mickey Leland and the Cuban government. On Friday, Leland met with Fidel Castro and requested the couple be released. Castro agreed to that and indicated that a third person might also be let go.

Neil Nichols of El Paso, who's been held in Cuban prisons for two years, longer than any other American. But bureaucratic paperwork kept Nichols from being released this time, although Leland said he anticipated he would be let go within the next few weeks. Nor was Nichols the only other American Leland took an interest in. These three women were allowed to meet with the congressman just prior to the release of Hofstetter in Strickland. They are three Key West Florida women charged with drug trafficking and entering Cuba illegally. They admitted there was 800 pounds of marijuana on the boat on which they were traveling but they claimed it was brought there by three men they were with unbeknownst to them. Leland says his interest in coming to Cuba is not to get criminals off who may be guilty but to establish a line of communication with Castro. I'm not here to question the innocence of guilt of American citizens. I'm only trying to exercise humanitarian concern but he feels

very strongly that if in fact we had some kind of diplomatic approach to this matter that indeed a matter of diplomacy could solve a lot of problems. There may also be a problem with the two people released. There were cues by the Cubans of carrying close to a thousand pounds of marijuana when they're playing crashed but they've denied that saying there were several packages placed there by unidentified uniformed officials in Jamaica. They said they were told the packages held engine parts from a plane that crashed and that the officials demanded at gunpoint they be transported to. I think sounds so legit because the people I would be dealing with in Jamaica had to do with the army that somehow that this plane was protected through the army and the people that I were delivering the merchandise to in the Bahamas were the Bahamas customs immigration and the police. In the meantime as is now known the plane crashed in Cuba on November the 12th and the two were charged with drug trafficking. Melanie Lawson I witness news.

I think you are thinking about this. I want you to meet Melanie Lawson.