The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, more than a thousand new East German refugees entered the West German embassy in Prague, President Bush met Egyptian Pres. Mubarak as Washington stepped up pressure on Israel to talk to Palestinians. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, we'll have a News Maker interview with Vice Pres. Dan Quayle about his recent trip to Asia. Then come a report from Los Angeles and fetal viability testing, an update of the garbage problem in Seattle, Washington, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay about the East German run to freedom in the West. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: The exodus from East Germany resumed today as the flood of new refugees poured into West German embassies. More than a thousand East Germans made their way to the West German embassies in Prague and Warsaw. The East German Government claimed that by allowing this Bonn had broken its words. A Bonn spokesman replied, "This republic does not build walls around its embassies." We have a report narrated by Tom Browne of Worldwide Television News.

MR. BROWNE: East German refugees approach the West German mission in Prague and make a sudden dash for asylum. Despite an increasingly strong police presence in the streets outside, the flood continues. There were scenes of near desperation with the would-be emigrants trying to climb over the railing into the embassy grounds and the police trying to pull them away. It was a tug of war with those inside the compound joining in. The incident threatened to escalate but help was at hand. To a roar of approval, a West German diplomat came out and led the man away to safety. Over the weekend, another 6000 East Germans were allowed to leave from Prague and Warsaw for the West. Already the compounds are filling up again, an estimated 1300 here and another 200 in Warsaw. It's all proven a huge embarrassment for East Germany, which claimed it had sanctioned an evacuation for humanitarian reasons, especially in the interest of small children.

MR. MacNeil: A West German Government spokesman disclosed today that the Soviets may have played an important role in winning freedom for many of the East Germans. The spokesman said Foreign Minister Shevardnadze helped in the release of the East Germans from the Prague and Warsaw embassies over the weekend. The spokesman added that Soviet President Gorbachev was in constant touch with the West German leader, Helmut Kohl, since the exodus began. In Moscow today, so many would be Soviet emigrants applied for visas, the U.S. embassy ran out of forms and had to turn thousands away. More than 30,000 applications were distributed on the first day of new rules limiting to 50,000 the number of Soviets to be accepted as revenues and resettled with U.S. Government help. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Two high level foreign visitors came to Washington today. The Soviet Defense Minister, Dimitri Yasov, came to the Pentagon, where he was met by Defense Sec. Dick Cheney. It is the first visit ever by a Soviet defense chief to the United States. Yasov will spend a week visiting military installations, making speeches, and sight seeing. Meanwhile, Pres. Bush welcomed Egyptian Pres. Mubarak to the White House. They discussed Mubarak's plan to encourage an Israeli/Palestinian dialogue. Afterwards Sec. of State Baker and Pres. Mubarak spoke with reporters. Baker said the United States hoped for a positive response from Israel to the Egyptian efforts.

JAMES BAKER, Secretary of State: What we would like to see happen, of course, is for the Israeli cabinet, which I understand is going to be meeting on Thursday, to conclude that they would like to go forward with discussions respecting a dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians that could lead to elections, that is lead to the implementation of their proposal.

HOSNI MUBARAK, Pres., Egypt: Today we believe that the potential is great for further progress. We can achieve that by convincing the parties to enter into a dialogue with preconditions. If the dialogue bears fruit, as we sincerely hope, it will pave the way for other steps on the road to a comprehensive settlement for the whole problem.

MR. LEHRER: Sec. Baker said the U.S. saw Mubarak's proposals as complimentary to a plan put forth by Israeli Prime Minister Shamir. He said Mubarak's 10 point proposal was a way to get the dialogue started.

MR. MacNeil: The U.S. Supreme Court opened its fall term today. In addition to major abortion cases they face, the justices agreed to take cases on drunk driving and bail. The court said it would rule on whether police checkpoints set up to find drunk drivers are an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. It'll also consider giving the federal government more power to deny bail to keep some accused criminals in jail while they await trial.

MR. LEHRER: The war over drugs continues in Colombia. Seven people were hurt in a series of nineteen bombings over the weekend at factories, theaters, and political offices. Also Colombian authorities took custody from Ecuador of a man described as one of the key leaders of the powerful Medillin drug cartel. He had changed his appearance and name and was living in Ecuador.

MR. MacNeil: There was another massive protest march in South Africa today that went unchallenged by police. Twenty-five thousand blacks, most of them schoolchildren, paraded peacefully, demanding clemency for two jailed members of the outlawed African National Congress. The march took place in one of the so-called tribal homelands set up by the South African Government to create separate areas for each black tribe. That's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to Vice Pres. Quayle, fetal viability testing, Seattle's garbage problems, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. NEWS MAKER

MR. LEHRER: The Vice President of the United States, Dan Quayle, is our first and primary focus tonight. Mr. Quayle returned Friday from an 11 day trip to Asia that took him to South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Malaysia. Last week while he was gone, a national New York Times/CBS poll came out, which said 13 percent of those questioned had a favorable opinion of him as Vice President, 19 percent unfavorable, while 45 percent said they did not know enough to have an opinion. Mr. Quayle is with us now for a News Maker interview. Mr. Vice President, welcome.

MR. QUAYLE: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: First let's talk about the trip. What did you see as the purpose of it when you left here?

MR. QUAYLE: The purpose of the trip was to reestablish and recommit our strategies and our themes to our Asian friends and allies. I went to four very important countries, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Malaysia and as the President and Secretary of State were meeting with Minister Shevardnadze here, talking about a thawing of the U.S./Soviet relations and making progress on very important issues like arms control and regional issues, I was in Asia reaffirming our alliance, our strategy and particularly with Korea and Japan, the alliance that we have with the Philippines and the very important base issue that we will have upcoming, and then Malaysia, talking about the very important issue of the refugees and Cambodia. So it was a trip that talked about security, it talked about how some countries and particularly Japan, can participate in a global partnership and it also reaffirmed our commitment to being a Pacific power as we are.

MR. LEHRER: Let's go through some of the specifics. The Philippines, while you were in the Philippines, there were the demonstrations and then there were the awful killing of those two Americans, all designed to send you a message, obviously. How did you read that?

MR. QUAYLE: Unfortunately, it was designed to send me a message and to send our country a message and the message that these terrorists, the MPA, which are Communist guerrillas in the Philippines --

MR. LEHRER: Is there any question now that they're the people who did that?

MR. QUAYLE: There's no question in my mind and there's no question in Pres. Aquino's mind. We'd like to be able to find them and bring them to justice. But there's no question in her mind, there's no question in my mind on who the organization was. And what they're trying to do is use terrorism to exploit and to drive a wedge between the United States and the Philippines. When Pres. Aquino and I met after these tragic killings, and one of her security guards was also killed right before I got there, we recommitted that terrorism alone is not going to drive the United States from the Philippines, and we both had very strong words in condemning these terrorist acts, but I went out and I met with the widow of the Philippines security officer, I met with the widow of the American civilian and the family, and it was a very telling moment where as Vice President of the United States I was over there on a very important political diplomatic mission. To have terrorists try and send this very ugly message to us, United States, get out, we're going to intimidate you, well, they're not going to intimidate us and terrorism is not going to drive us from the Philippines.

MR. LEHRER: The terrorism issue aside, do you agree with those who say that the days of the U.S. bases in the Philippines, nevertheless, are numbered, those days are numbered?

MR. QUAYLE: I hope not. It's very important that we come to an agreement on the bases. I was able to take a letter from the President requesting Pres. Aquino and her government to commence negotiations in December. Within 24 hours Pres. Aquino hand delivered back to me a response to Pres. Bush's letter indicating her willingness to begin those negotiations. Now there are a couple of firsts here. This is the first time that the United States has formally requested negotiations on the basis, our Clark Field Base and the Subic Naval Base, Clark is an air force base, and the Subic Bases.

MR. LEHRER: They're major installations for the United States, aren't they?

MR. QUAYLE: Jim, they're major installations and they really are almost irreplaceable. Obviously if the Philippines and the Philippine government does not want the United States to continue there, we will not continue there and we'll find other options, but the negotiations are going to go forward. They're going to go forward in December and I was very heartened by the quick turnaround by Pres. Aquino accepting Pres. Bush's request to begin these negotiations. But the question will ultimately be decided by the people of the Philippines and that question is shall the United States continue at Clark Air Field and Subic Naval Station for a long period of time, or as you said, are our days numbered. And I don't believe they are and I'll tell you why. The issue of stability is very important to the Filipinos. The issue of stability is very important as this democracy begins to emerge. I am convinced beyond any doubt whatsoever that our bases and our facilities there are a stabilizing influence. When you have a stabilizing influence, investments and particularly private investments are going to be more attractive to go to the Philippines if you have stability. Not only do we offer stability for the Philippines, but we also offer stability in the region and it's very important as we are on a mission of peace and those have been peacekeeping forces that they remain there. And I hope that we can come to a mutually agreeable settlement on this issue and that mutual agreement will be a long-term involvement of the United States continuing in the Philippines.

MR. LEHRER: Did Pres. Aquino either directly or indirectly give you any indication of how she felt about it?

MR. QUAYLE: She did not give me an indication on what the final outcome would be. Nor did I anticipate one, but we had a good discussion about the importance of the facilities in the Philippines. Her willingness to engage in negotiations right away I thought was a positive sign. I also had time to visit with other people when I was there. One of the people that struck me as a person that has a strong feeling for what the true attitude of the Philippine people really is was Cardinal Sin and at a breakfast, I turned to him and I was discussing our facilities there, and I said, tell me, Cardinal, do the people of the Philippines support or oppose our continuation here of our facilities. Then he told me, he said that thought a significant majority of the people now actually supported our bases. Now we do have a strong vocal shrill, anti-American segment. We do have terrorists over there that would like to drive a wedge between us and have us get out so it goes with the territory that there are many people in the Philippines that don't want us there. But I think that the long-term resolution hopefully will be our continuing as is in the Philippines.

MR. LEHRER: What did you think of Pres. Aquino's decision not to allow the remains of former Pres. Marcos to come back for a funeral service and burial?

MR. QUAYLE: That decision was made after I departed. It is an internal matter. We did not discuss whether Mr. Marcos' remains would be coming into the Philippines or not. It is a decision that she will make and a decision she alone will make.

MR. LEHRER: She did it on the grounds that the return of his body would cause instability in the country. Based on your readings, are things that frail there?

MR. QUAYLE: There certainly is the potential for instability. I can't make a judgment call like that, whether that decision will create stability or instability. She's the President, she was elected, she's in command, but there are some problems in the Philippines, one economics. I was really struck by the poverty in the Philippines, particularly going from the Philippines to Malaysia, two asian nations. The per capita income in the Philippines is way below where it is in Malaysia. When you have massive poverty, you have this potential for terrorism and guerrilla warfare which is going on, and that's why I think that the bases are so important, because there is a direct relationship to economic growth, the development, the maturing of the democracy, and the economy in the Philippines to our facilities remaining there. I hope that the people of the Philippines see it that way because it is in their interest first and our interest in a collective basis.

MR. LEHRER: Moving on to Korea, there's also a military issue there. We have 43,000 troops there. Several members of the United States Senate, your former colleagues in the Senate, have introduced legislation that would start trimming that figure down. What's your impression coming away from Korea as to whether or not those troops are still needed?

MR. QUAYLE: My impression was quite strong coming away from there, quite strong in the fact that not only Pres. Noh, who is the duly elected President of the people of Korea, but also the three main opposition leaders, commonly referred to as the three Kims, when I met with the three opposition leaders, they all stated to me now is not the time for the United States to talk about reducing their forces and their presence in Korea. There are a number of things that went into that statement. First, this is not an issue in Korea, they all agree. Secondly, they know that the presence of the United States offers a force of stability and offers the potential for peace. Also, with the uncertainty in China, in that region of the country, by us maintaining stability in Korea, it is very important for us to maintain a presence. So I was struck by the unanimity with the people of Korea, and the leadership of Korea, particularly the leadership of Korea that we ought to stay. There is again much smaller than in the Philippines, a small shrill minority that says, that has a very anti-American attitude. But in Korea there is an overwhelming support for us continuing and the political support is very solid for us continuing our presence as is and not having the reductions.

MR. LEHRER: But the Senators, Sen. Bumpers, Sen. Levin, Sen. Johnston and others, aren't arguing from that point of view. They're saying that in a time of reduced resources of this country, that that ought to be recessed, whether or not we can afford to keep 43,000 troops there.

MR. QUAYLE: You know, if that was the argument, I could tell them in no uncertain terms that it is much cheaper for us to keep our forces in Korea than to bring them home and to house them here. Now if they're talking about just unilaterally getting them out of the services, in the short-term, it's added cost. In the long-term, you can save money. But if that was the issue in and of itself, it is cheaper to have them in Korea because of the host nation's support. Korea pays a fairly hefty contribution in the buildings, in some of the administrative costs for us keeping our forces over there. I was gratified to see the Bumpers amendment in the Senate go down overwhelmingly. It was almost a 2 to 1 vote. I believe that members of the Senate saw it the way that I did and also the way the President sees it and that now is not the time to start talking about reductions.

MR. LEHRER: There's no suggestion that North Korea is on the verge of invading South Korea, is there?

MR. QUAYLE: I'm not saying there's new evidence that would increase the threat from North Korea, but let me put it in perspective. I went up to the DMZ, the demilitarized zone. It's 25 miles from Seoul. Seoul has 10 million people now. When I was up there and you look across the border and you realize that there are 600,000 North Korean troops in a forward deployed basis, you know how fragile and how sensitive our peacekeeping mission is. North Korea continues to get funding and financing from the Soviet Union. This is a regional issue that has not been resolved. We strongly support the reunification of Korea where all the Korea people on the peninsula can make the determination. North Korea has forward deployed 600,000 troops within 25 miles of Seoul, Korea, Seoul, South Korea, is a rather threatening aspect.

MR. LEHRER: Let's move to economics and trade and Japan. I read one report that you followed a hard line in your conversations with the Japanese officials about trade. I read another one that said, no, you followed a softer line than other administration officials. What exactly did you say to them?

MR. QUAYLE: I followed the line that had a two prong approach, one on the trade matters, the 301, which deals with our satellites, the supercomputers and wood products where we feel that we have been unfairly locked out of the Japanese market. I was very direct with the prime minister and other officials that we will have to have progress, that we simply are not going to be able to sweep this under the rug. We are in a discussion period right now. We do have a new prime minister in Japan, Prime Minister Kaifu, who was just recently put in in the last several months. And I was very direct that we have to make progress on those talks and we also have to make progress on what is called the SII talks, the Structural Impediment Initiative. Those get into the culture aspect, the distribution aspect, the way that Japan goes about doing its business. In those talks --

MR. LEHRER: Keeping U.S. products out.

MR. QUAYLE: Within the distribution system, they do keep U.S. products out, but it's very interesting how those discussions have gone so far. Each side sits down and criticizes the other side. Japan sat down and said, well, to the United States, if you'd get your deficit lower, if you'd get your savings ratio higher, you wouldn't be in this problem. We, on the other hand, have taken a very direct approach saying, Japan, it's not our savings rate, it's not our deficit, it's the fact that you, in fact, exclude us from fair and free competition. We want our people to go in and compete on quality and we want them to be able to go in and compete on price. And we feel that we can do both. So I was very direct. But I had another message and that is that Japan is now an economic superpower, Japan is an economic exporter superpower. It is a superpower because of the exports, and I said the true definition of an economic superpower which Japan is is also to be one of an economic importer and to be a superpower from the import sense, and as I was discussing that, the Minister of MITA, which is like our Secretary of Commerce, Minister Matsunaga, came and shared with me a new initiative that Japan is going to take on the import stimulation program where they're going to offer tax credits, they're going to offer loans and they're also going to send people over here to stimulate imports into that country. That was very positive. And I also talked to Japan about global issues. She is now an economic superpower. Along with the status of an economic superpower comes additional responsibilities on a global basis. For example, helping us out in the war against drugs. We signed a very important space agreement over there. A lot of people have asked us how we're going to be able to pay for Pres. Bush's visionary imaginative speech on July 20th of this year. And the way that we're going to help pay for it is through some international cooperation and Japan will help us. Japan can also be very helpful to us in Eastern Europe and particularly in Poland. These are some of the global partnership issues that I also emphasized. So I took a very direct message on trade, that we've got to make progress. But I always emphasized some of the ways that our relationship can be managed better. Let's face it. Japan is an important ally of ours. Japan and the United States of the Western industrialized capacity, 60 percent of the GNP, two countries. That's a statement in and of itself.

MR. LEHRER: Let's go to a couple of things that are in the news today. Pres. Mubarak of Egypt is here. As I read what Sec. Baker said and correct me if I'm wrong, is the United States is endorsing his 10 point plan for a dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians, is that correct?

MR. QUAYLE: What the President and Sec. Baker are endorsing is the idea of dialogue. Now the 10 point plan are 10 points that Pres. Mubarak has laid out. What we want to see, and what the President wants to see and the Secretary of State is trying to work out is how do you get the dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians so we can move this process forward. We had the Shamir plan which called for elections but the Shamir plan had not yet engaged in dialogue. We have Pres. Mubarak has put forth a 10 point that could be a discussion piece. And as Sec. Baker said on your program earlier, that he is understanding that the cabinet will meet this Thursday to discuss the possibility of moving forward. So the endorsement was for dialogue, not necessarily the 10 points of the Mubarak plan, but we are very grateful for Pres. Mubarak taking a very strong interest in working toward a resolution of a very complex, sensitive matter. We feel that Pres. Mubarak has a lot to contribute and the President and Secretary Baker are very grateful for his interest in this particular area.

MR. LEHRER: Another thing as a domestic issue that re-emerged again today, the Mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, a man named Jerry Abramson, had a piece on the op ed page of the Washington Post this morning. Did you happen to see that?

MR. QUAYLE: I did not read that, no.

MR. LEHRER: Well, he, it was his city. A man took an AK-47 assault rifle and mowed down 20 people, former co-workers of his, 8 of those people died. And the mayor this morning pleaded this morning for your administration and Congress to ban all assault rifles, all assault weapons, not just the foreign made as exists now. What's your reaction to that?

MR. QUAYLE: My reaction is the President has put forth a good proposal and his proposal does call for the ban of the imports of the AK-47s. Jim, if the President thought for one moment that a comprehensive ban would solve and prevent situations like Louisville, I am convinced that he would be all for it. But that's not going to stop insane acts. This was an act of madness. You heart goes out particularly for the families that are involved. Louisville is a town just south of the border of Indiana, I know the people in Louisville, I know the particular situation, and it struck home to me. But just to talk about a ban is simply not going to do justice nor is it going to prevent these types of things.

MR. LEHRER: What's the difference between a foreign made AK-47 assault rifle and an American made AK-47 assault rifle in terms of what it does in the hands of the person firing it?

MR. QUAYLE: In terms of capacity, of course, there is no difference, but in terms of regulating and getting enforcement, there's a world of difference and you can, in fact, regulate and impose a ban on the foreign imports, what the President is going to do, and it's very difficult, far more complicated, to get that enforcement on a domestic basis. We ought to be focusing on deterrence. The President's crime package is a good package, it's a tough package. The sooner the Congress passes it, the better. So this is not a simple answer, it's a very complicated answer. You've got to look at the terms, you've got to look at law enforcement. You have to look at the social problems that caused this particular thing. A ban is a very simplistic approach, unfortunately.

MR. LEHRER: Let me read you how the mayor ended his piece this morning. He quoted the wife of one of the men who was injured in this Louisville attack. "Anybody who thinks a private citizen needs an assault gun, please justify it to this child, to my husband and to his grandchild, he will not justify it to me." How do you respond to her?

MR. QUAYLE: Murder cannot be justified. Killings cannot be justified. I'm not going to justify what happened in Louisville. Nobody's going to justify that. The question is: Can you work to prevent it? Would a ban on domestic AK-47s prevent that in the future? I doubt it. It's far more complicated than that. But clearly nobody's going to defend --

MR. LEHRER: The mayor said in his piece, of course, as I'm sure you are aware, that the man was able to buy this rifle -- and the police in Louisville said if that rifle had not been available, he would not have been able to shoot 20 people as quickly as he did, that's the only point the mayor is making, that it might help.

MR. QUAYLE: I'm not sure that it would help and I'm not convinced that you would prevent the future act like this. If, in fact, you could prevent acts like that by a ban, believe me, the President would reconsider his position on this. It is not that simple and it's far more complicated than that.

MR. LEHRER: All right sir, finally, this New York Times/CBS Poll about you that I mentioned at the top, is that terribly upsetting to you to realize that only 13 percent of the people in this poll at least think of you favorably as Vice President?

MR. QUAYLE: No, it's not because I've been in politics for quite some time now, almost 13 years, and most of my adult life, I've been in public service, first the House, the Senate, and now as Vice President. And you have to put it in perspective. Let's put it in perspective. When I was put on the ticket back in August, from August through the campaign, I was the lightning rod, I was delighted to be the lightning rod, received a tremendous amount of negative coverage. After the election I thought it would dissipate, but it didn't, and the negative coverage, and the mass media interpretation of Dan Quayle continued. I didn't rush out and try to change that, but it continued through November, December up through the inauguration and probably until about the first three or four weeks into my vice presidency. Then once they figured out that I was going to be first a very loyal vice president, a very normal vice president, as then Vice Pres. George Bush was to Ronald Reagan, everyone said, okay, fine, it's really not the way we described it and all of a sudden it was time out and the normal vice presidency set in. A normal vice presidency is not one of high profile. So we go another six or seven months, there's periodic coverage and then you take a poll. What do you expect the American people to think? For six months they had this tremendous negative attack. Then we now have a normal vice presidency. It's going to take time. But I'm still young. I've got time Lord willing. The most important thing in that poll is that the President is doing very good. The President is doing quite well. I think he is off to an outstanding start, his administration is off to a very good start, and I'm a part of that.

MR. LEHRER: Johnny Apple, R.W. Apple, in the New York Times said these findings were extraordinary though or unbelievable, he said, because back at the election time, only 25 percent of the people said they didn't know enough about you to have an opinion, now 45 percent say they don't know enough about you and you've been Vice President for nine months.

MR. QUAYLE: What is unbelievable is the way that this thing has come about. You had six months of a vicious negative attack on Dan Quayle, much of it personal, totally out of bounds in some respects, from my viewpoint, I'm biased, wrong, counterproductive. Then you had, as I said, a timeout, no coverage, you don't cover vice presidents. Vice presidents don't have a high profile. So what I find as unbelievable is some reporter would think that that would be unbelievable. What do you think the American people are going to be thinking? I mean, this is what they've been told. Now they're sitting back, taking a new look. They're taking a second look at Dan Quayle. They're seeing how I'm doing the job. And I think if you ask people that know me, that work with me on a day to day basis, you'd probably get a pretty good report card.

MR. LEHRER: Are you comfortable being vice president?

MR. QUAYLE: I'm very comfortable being the vice president. It's very easy, first of all, to work with a tremendous person like Pres. George Bush. But I'm very comfortable. Being a vice president is important. I feel I've learned a great deal in these first seven or eight months, but I feel very comfortable.

MR. LEHRER: There have been some very famous descriptions of the job by past vice presidents. How would you describe the job?

MR. QUAYLE: I would say some of those past descriptions are fairly accurate. But the job is, it is important. It's important to establish a very positive, confidential, personal relationship with the President.

MR. LEHRER: You have that with George Bush?

MR. QUAYLE: I believe I have that with him, And the first thing that you establish is loyalty. And I have said and I'll say it again and the President knows this, I will be loyal to him beyond any question whatsoever, as he was loyal to Ronald Reagan. And that is very important because you have sensitive private conversations that you don't want repeated anywhere. That is a relationship between a President and a Vice President. And it's very important to establish that loyalty. Also you serve him in various capacities. Experience on Capitol Hill, 12 years up there, help out from time to time. The trip I just went on, he was unable to go to those countries. I was able to carry personal messages to him, help formulate policy. There are a lot of domestic responsibilities, some political, some non-political, that are important, that a vice president must do to get around. So it is important but it's secondary. The person that is important is the President. And that's where the focus should be and that's where it is in this administration.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Vice President, thank you very much for being with us tonight.

MR. QUAYLE: Thank you, Jim.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour, fetal viability, Seattle's garbage, and a Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - TESTING FOR LIFE

MR. MacNeil: We go now to an increasingly important aspect of the abortion debate, the question of fetal viability. Last July, the Supreme Court upheld a Missouri statute that requires a physician to conduct a fetal viability test before performing an abortion on a woman more than five months pregnant. The test determines whether the fetus could survive outside the womb. Now anti-abortion activists want other states to adopt similar requirements. Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET in Los Angeles reports. [DEMONSTRATION]

REPORTER: Why are you here, Jessica?

JESSICA: [Small Child] Because I don't want babies killed.

DIANA CRAWFORD, Anti-Abortion Activist: She's seen pictures. What I don't understand is there's evidence. They pick babies out of trash cans. They show the parts, and our world says they're not babies. Does that make sense.

MR. KAYE: When is a fetus able to become a baby and live outside the mother's womb? To activists that is not merely a medical riddle. It's a significant legal and political issue. The Supreme Court's Webster decision in July pushed that issue to the forefront of the abortion controversy. To the delight of those in the anti- abortion movement, the court upheld a Missouri law requiring a doctor planning an abortion on a woman 20 weeks or more pregnant to "first determine if the unborn child is viable". Medical science has made great strides in keeping premature babies alive. Dr. Elizabeth Barrett heads the neonatal intensive care unit at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center.

DR. ELIZABETH BARRETT, UCLA: In my lifetime, babies of a thousand -- and I'm talking about my professional lifetime -- babies of a thousand grams weren't put on a respirator, and that's about two pounds and three ounces. Now I expect that baby to have a 95 percent survival rate. We've gone backwards to 900 grams, 800 grams, and I have two babies here now who weighed one pound six ounces at birth, neither one of whom any longer requires a ventilator.

MR. KAYE: Ventilators provide respiration to undeveloped lungs. Careful monitoring by humans and machines warns of problems before they become chronic. Delicate operations and blood transfusions also boost the survival rate of newborns. But pre-term infants often suffer serious complications and handicaps such as lung and brain disease.

MR. KAYE: Does that mean typically the prognosis of these children is not particularly good?

DR. BARRETT: It depends on how you look at it. If one looks at babies under let's say 2 pounds, probably 1/3 will be completely normal.

MR. KAYE: Developments in neonatal care give hope to anti- abortion activists. They believe medical advances bolster their argument that abortions kill viable human beings.

MS.MC MILLAN: I'm glad finally to stand here after being involved 10 years in this movement and say I'm on the winning side.

MR. KAYE: Susan Carpenter-McMillan, president of the Southern California Right to Life League, says developments in neonatal care serve as educational tools for the anti-abortion movement.

SUSAN CARPENTER-MC MILLAN, Right to Life League: We have always known that this is a human being inside the womb. The other side has gone out and been very successful in saying no, no, it's just tissue, they can't live, they can't survive outside of the mother's womb. We are saying wrong, here are these children that are surviving outside of the mother's womb. Look at this baby and so technology has indeed been our friend as the Supreme Court Justices. I think she summed it up probably the greatest, Sandra Day O'Connor. She said, "Roe vs. Wade is on a collision course with modern technology.".

MR. KAYE: But there are limits to what technology can do in keeping premature infants alive. That's because the lungs of young fetuses are so immature, they won't function outside the womb, even with the aid of respirators.

MR. KAYE: Is there a limit a past which medicine will not be able to push back the survival age?

DR. BARRETT: I think so and I think that's somewhere around 24 weeks at which point or beyond which point there is just not a thin enough membrane to permit gas exchange. There have certainly been many modifications in the way we treat immature babies that permit better survival at younger ages. But I think there is an absolute number beyond which it can't be pushed.

MR. KAYE: And that number, doctors regardless of their views on abortion, agree is about 24 weeks. That's the earliest a fetus can live outside the womb. So what tests, if any, could determine fetal viability? The Missouri legislation leaves that up to the judgment of doctors. One common test on fetuses is ultrasounds. It outlines shapes and can determine the age of a fetus. Another more complicated procedure is amniocentesis. In this test, which has a small risk of miscarriage, a doctor inserts a needle into a woman's abdomen to extract some of the fluid in the uterus. Analysis of the amniotic fluid can provide information about the condition of the fetus. But experts say these tests at the 20 week period, that is five months into pregnancy, provide little useful information about fetal viability.

DR. BARRETT: There's nothing that a test can show at that age that would indicate whether or not a fetus about to be born as a baby could survive.

MR. KAYE: Nothing?

DR. BARRETT: Nothing.

MR. KAYE: What about amniocentesis?

DR. BARRETT: Amniocentesis can be done to tell us if lungs are mature, but a result indicating immature lungs doesn't tell you if a baby will live or die.

MR. KAYE: Like other aspects of the abortion controversy, medical facts become entwined with politics, especially when physicians offer their testimony to lawmakers.

PHYSICIAN: The medical evidence concerning the safety of induced abortion in the United States is clear and incontrovertible.

MR. KAYE: Dr. David Grime's speaks for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In the group's Los Angeles lab, he said the court's decision on fetal viability testing has no scientific basis.

DR. DAVID GRIMES, Planned Parenthood: What it will do is I think cast us into an endless round of wasted motion as state legislature after state legislature considers these kinds of harassing and unnecessary intrusions into medicine.

MR. KAYE: Dr. Thomas Lebherz disagrees. He belongs to the American Association of Pro Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and he believes viability testing will prevent late abortions.

DR. THOMAS LEBHERZ: I'm sure that myself as well as many doctors in this country have seen cases where abortions were done "therapeutic abortions". They weren't therapeutic abortions. They were murders of 28 week gestation infants. And this has happened again and again, and it happens because we were not forced to pinpoint viability and potential viability.

DR. GRIMES: There's really not a problem here. Ten or fifteen years ago before the widespread use of ultrasound to determine the size of fetus to help us confirm the duration of pregnancy, there were some unfortunate incidents in which there were major errors made in the determination of the length of the pregnancy. Nowadays with the routine use of ultrasound for second trimester abortions, we just don't have this problem.

MR. KAYE: Abortion rights advocates point out that of the million and a half abortions performed each year in the United States, less than 1 percent occur after the 21st week of pregnancy. That's still too many say anti-abortion activists. They see fetal viability testing as an important tactic in their battle to outlaw all abortions.

MR. KAYE: Isn't the real reason behind this test to just put another obstacle into the way and path of a woman who wants an abortion?

DR. LEBHERZ: I think you could put it, I wouldn't quarrel with that. The reason for the law, yes, I would think that it was putting another obstacle, to deny that would be intellectually dishonest.

MR. KAYE: So since the Supreme Court upheld Missouri's fetal viability testing law, anti-abortion activists around the country are now pushing their state legislators to pass similar statutes.

REP. PENNY PULLEN: States should have the sovereignty to regulate in the area of protecting the right to life.

MR. KAYE: Illinois State Rep. Penny Pullen wants to copy the Missouri law and pass a statute requiring fetal viability testing in her state.

PENNY PULLEN, Illinois State Representative: We would like to move our law into the position that the court has now said we can to protect the greatest number of unborn babies that the court has said we can protect, although it is not our ultimate law that we would some day want, it doesn't really satisfy our goal, it is a step toward it. And it's a step that is secure. So we want to secure the ground for now.

MR. KAYE: Rep. Pullen and others in the anti-abortion movement see fetal viability testing as a stop gap measure at best. Since every fertilized egg has the potential of viability, fetal testing doesn't resolve their objections to abortion. In that respect, both sides agree that the testing controversy is a digression from the real issue. UPDATE - GARBAGE GLUT

MR. LEHRER: Next an update report. Last year we had a story on the garbage crisis in Seattle, Washington. Our update comes now from Lee Hochberg of public station KCTS-Seattle.

MR. HOCHBERG: Seattle city landfills have been filled to the brim for two years. Trash trucks pile 1600 new tons of refuse every day into borrowed space in this already teeming regional landfill. Experts say that it too will soon be jammed. Last year municipal leaders advocated burning the city's garbage. An incinerator like this model in neighboring Oregon would convert some trash to electrical energy, but environmentalists say emissions from these facilities can pollute air and water. At public hearings they angrily fought incineration and the euphemism the city leaders were using to promote it.

RESIDENT: I'm so tired of hearing energy recovery resource facility. We are going to --

JANE NOLAND, Seattle City Council: There was a lot of pressure to build a burning plant here and the citizens kept saying what if you spent as much money on recycling as you're going to spend on this burning plant.

MR. HOCHBERG: The Seattle City Council considered the question and decided to jump into the recycling business like no other major American city. Recycling has since become as easy as putting out the trash. Seattle residents put their recycle bins at the curb once a month and recycling trucks fan out across the city, collecting aluminum, glass, paper and cardboard. Municipal leaders say that's kept 30,000 tons of trash out of the landfill in the past year. 2/3 of Seattle homeowners participate in the free program. A family of four can save as much as $12 a month on their garbage bill by recycling.

TIM CROLL, Seattle Solid Waste Utility: Many of our customers with recycling will be able to reduce the amount of garbage they produce and actually decrease their rates. So we're creating a real powerful price incentive for recycling.

MR. HOCHBERG: Seattle found that with the new curbside program, 30 percent of the city's trash was being recycled, not enough to solve its garbage crisis. What continues to take up disproportionate space in the other 70 percent is plastic. Eight out of ten items consumers use contain some plastic, plastic bottles, plastic bags, plastic bags, plastic egg cartons, plastic razors, plastic covered diapers. Half of that ends up in a dump so Seattle decided to add plastic to its recycling program, everything from shopping sacks and soda pop bottles to toys and detergent bottles. 4500 residents participated in the experiment.

NORA SMITH: What we're trying to do look at plastics recycling and say is it feasible, is it cost effective, how does it affect our existing collection system, are there long-term markets, and so what we're trying to do is to answer some basic questions that are all part of the question: Can we feasibly undertake plastics recycling citywide?

MR. HOCHBERG: The city collected 50,000 pounds of mixed plastic from homeowners during the program's first five months. The question was what to do with it. There are few plastic recyclers in the United States because cleaning and separating it is very expensive, so for a while Seattle shipped its plastic to Thailand, where it's shredded into batting for comforters and remolded into products like plastic piping. Cheap labor there makes plastic recycling a feasible business. But Seattle leaders overestimated Thai demand for plastic waste. The city's recycling contractor says the Thai government suddenly raised its import fee on plastic, making Seattle's trash prohibitively expensive.

KING KELSO, Rabanco Recycling: The material was probably more contaminated than they expected, more mixed, and probably more difficult for them to process. And it probably had something to do with economics too. They probably found maybe some other products that were cheaper for them to use.

MR. HOCHBERG: With nowhere to send it, the mountain of plastic collected from Seattle households kept growing. In April, the city decided to revise its plastics program. On one hand, it agreed to expand its collection citywide, but it said it would pick up only plastic bottles which are easily recycled in this country. In fact, the Johnson Control Company, the nation's leading manufacturer of plastic soft drink bottles, recently sent Recycle Pete to Washington State. He was there to recover bottles made of easily recyclable polyethylene, or PET. Researchers are experimenting with technologies to make recycling of other plastics less labor intensive and thus cheaper and more attractive to American recyclers. The Partek Recycling Company in Vancouver, Washington, has pioneered a new process to sort and more effectively clean a variety of plastic containers, like these for motor oil.

VICTOR BITAR, Partek Recycling Company: The barrier was the label removal and the glue and that was not effectively done by the traditional wash and system and in fact, until we had designed and implemented our kinetic energy process, we would not have been to make the process as efficient and productive and effective qualitywise too.

MR. KELSO: We've obviously proven that the military can be collected and accumulated at a point so the challenge to industry I guess is to find a use for it.

MR. HOCHBERG: Until that happens, Seattle is turning to another more drastic way to keep plastic out of its trash, outright bans on plastic. Seattle now bans polystyrene cups and containers from any city operated concession. It's a ban that's left plastics manufacturers crying foul.

JOHN PRUATT, Dalco Packaging Company: There are some people whose agenda is simply to look for a whipping boy and polystyrene is an easy and convenient one. They tend to assume or pretend to assume that if polystyrene goes away that something totally benign will take its place that will contribute nothing to the waste stream, that will vanish miraculously from the landfills. These facts just aren't true.

JANE NOLAND: I think it's clear that you need to give a message to industry. We would like to work together with the private sector, but if we can't, we're going to ban some of these things, because they're in our waste stream forever.

MR. HOCHBERG: Seattle's political leaders hope municipal laws against using plastic force the industry to explore other ways to keep plastic out of the dump. In July, an industry trade group, the National Association for Plastic Container Recovery, did donate $60,000 toward the cost of recycling Seattle's plastic. City leaders hope that's just a first step toward creating a successful plastic recycling program that other cities might emulate. ESSAY - FLIGHT TO FREEDOM

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, regular essayist Roger Rosenblatt, Editor of U.S. News & World Report, offers some thoughts about the East German run for freedom in the West.

MR. ROSENBLATT: Everyone knows the condition of life that East Germans are escaping as they now head for freedom in the West, but what are they getting into? The scenes of their exodus from East Germany through Hungary are pure exhilaration, champagne uncorked, busloads of celebrants, teary-eyed with gratitude and shock, flood to new safety like turtles to the sea. Americans watching are delighted at the sight. Born to democracy, we take inordinate pleasure in seeing others achieve it. What now? A people accustomed to an atmosphere of restriction and oppression are suddenly confronted with a world where anything goes. Democracy may be less painful to deal with than tyranny but in certain ways it is a lot more difficult. Alexis DeTopville caught that odd truth 150 years ago. Topville comes to mind these days because a first edition of his Democracy in America has just gone on display at the Library of Congress offering a text to accompany the more dramatic display in Eastern Europe. What Topville saw as he was roved about Jacksonian America, was a series of paradoxes and contradictions connected with a social system composed of equals. Equality was the key. At the outset of his book he said, that equality is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived. With equality in place as the goal and basis of the republic, distinctions of rank may be obliterated, institutions opened, class identity lost in favor of an undifferentiated though various hole. But Topville also saw the personal consequences of equality. Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, he said, it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him. It throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart. How to prevent such isolation from leading to stagnation? Join one's fellows in a cause. Democracy, Topville observed, insists on the individual citizen's discovery that self-interest is served by voluntary connection with a group. The America he admired was already rocking in the balance between public and private good. Eventually the country would realize itself in issues as large as the tension between federal and state governments and as small as the decision of a single citizen as to whether to join a march for civil rights or make a trek to the high country and build a cabin in the wilds. The most complex idea Topville had about equality was that it is both a fact and an illusion, each distinction continually nagging and taunting the other. The trouble with equality he saw was that once you are committed to it, you are also addicted, you can never get enough. From the 1830s to the 1990s, and as long as the country held out, America would always both have democracy and be striving for democracy at the same time. Each advancement made in equality's name being merely a goad, make opportunities for employment equal, education equal, health, housing, freedom from crime, freedom from drugs, all equal, simultaneously bring new blood into the mix so that the scale must be rebalanced continuously. To such a house of arduous and subtle relationships are the East Germans making their flight. If what they are fleeing is intolerable, what they are going to is impossible. And if they are to make the impossible work, all the strengths of individuality that they have been yearning to exercise will find tests they never imagined. They will also discover what Americans knew even before Topville's visit, that the longer one lives with democracy, the more remarkable it seems. One understands how the system works, but never really why it works, so delicate are the nettings on which the success of the structure depends. What Topville detected and admired, the world now craves. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Also in the news this Monday, Pres. Bush talked to Egyptian Pres. Mubarak about Mubarak's plan for Israeli/Palestinian peace talks, on the Newshour tonight, Vice Pres. Quayle said the administration endorsed the Egyptian president's call for a dialogue in the Middle East but not necessarily Mubarak's 10 point plan. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim.. That's the Newshour tonight and we'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.