The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, Gromyko and Dobrynin were among the casualties of a major shake- up of the Soviet leadership. All is well in space with the shuttle Discovery and its five astronauts, and the FBI was found guilty of discriminating against its Hispanic agents. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, the big shake-up in the Kremlin is our lead focus. Two Soviet experts offer different views. Then to the political front, we'll look at what the candidates are saying in their TV ads and get reaction to that and the political week from Regional Editors Ed Baumeister of the Trenton Times, Lee Cullum of the Dallas Times Herald, and Jerry Warren of the San Diego Union, joined by our regular analysts David Gergen and Mark Shields. We'll close out politics with a Dukakis stump speech and finally we remember Cartoonist Charles Addams. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Moscow, in what as being described as a major power shift in the ruling Politburo, Soviet President Andrei Gromyko and four other top figures were dropped from the Kremlin leadership today, a Soviet official said. The dramatic changes took place on the first day of a hastily called meeting of the policy making central committee. For more on the story, here is Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

LOUISE BATES: The Soviet Evening News Bulletin BPEMR brought the developments of major shape-up in the Communist Party's Central Committee, however, only the faces of the newly-elected members of the ruling Politburo were announced. The official news agency neglected to mention that four committee members were dropped. The Soviet Union's most experienced politician, Andrei Gromyko, retired from the committee, setting the stage for his removal as President when the Supreme Soviet sits on Saturday. At a press conference, newly-elected Politburo member, Vadim Medvedev, said that the long-serving foreign minister asked to be relieved of his duties. Despite his prominence on the world stage, Gromyko yielded little power in Moscow. As a member of Russia's old guard and the Soviet's most experienced politician, he did nominate Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader in 1985, but the relationship has appeared uncomfortable since.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Today's shake-up also included switching the Kremlin's No. 2 man, Yegor Ligachev, from his post as party chief of ideology to agriculture, and the retirement of Anatoly Dobrynin, long-time Ambassador to Washington. At the United States this afternoon, Soviet Spokesman Gennady Gerasimov downplayed today's developments.

GENNADY GERASIMOV, Soviet Foreign Ministry: It's no dismissal. The people are just retiring. You know, actually, if you want my comment, it's change of generation. The generation which is coming, of course there may be exceptions about that, the generation which is coming into power waited in the wings maybe for too long and now it's coming into power.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In New York, Secretary of State George Shultz said the message to be drawn from today's Soviet events is that Mikhail Gorbachev is a strong and determined person who intends to pursue a program of reform. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Five U.S. astronauts are in orbit 184 miles above the earth tonight. They are the crew of the space shuttle Discovery, which had a smooth second day in space. The shuttle was launched successfully from Cape Canaveral yesterday morning. This day began with an unusual wake up call for the astronauts courtesy of Robin Williams, star of the movie "Good Morning Vietnam".

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Good morning, Discovery. Rise and shine, boys. Time to start doing that shuttle shuffle --

MR. LEHRER: The astronauts spent most of the day doing scientific work. They observed ocean currents and detailed the impact of Hurricane Gilbert on Mexico. They also demonstrated the effects of weightlessness on cell separation. Astronaut David Hilmers talked about the medical value of that experiment.

DAVID HILMERS, Astronaut: I've been spending the morning working on TPE, The Phase Partition Experiment, and it's the only experiment that tries to look at the fluid dynamics of separating two different phases of materials and it can be used in a lot of ways. One of the ways might be in medical experiments where you have malignant and non-malignant cells.

MR. LEHRER: They also got the good word that the communications satellite they deployed last night ended up in its proper orbit 22,000 miles above the earth. Once it goes into operation, the satellite will act as a switchboard for up to 24 other satellites. It will also improve NASA's ability to communicate with future space missions.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Texas today, a federal judge found the FBI guilty of discriminating against its Hispanic agents in promotions and working conditions. The rulings stem from a lawsuit brought by most of the agency's 437 Hispanic agents who make up about 4.5 percent of the total. In other news, 27 pilots who allegedly lied about drug and alcohol-related convictions have been indicted in a Florida court. The 27 could face up to 5 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 each. And in other transportation news, a federal appeals court today upheld Eastern Airlines' decision to lay off some 3,000 employees when it eliminated services to 14 cities.

MR. LEHRER: The Republicans made another move against House Speaker Jim Wright today. The Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee asked the full House to vote to investigate Wright. The issue is whether he violated House rules when he charged publicly that the CIA had fomented domestic unrest in Nicaragua.

REP. DICK CHENEY, [R] Wyoming: There is no way the House of Representatives can claim a significant role in the national security decision making process unless we have access to classified information. And we can't very well expect Presidents to share classified information with us if we aren't able to safeguard it once it's provided. We think there are major institutional questions at stake, questions that go to the integrity of the House, itself, to the integrity of the oversight process in the area of intelligence, to the operations of the intelligence committee in the House, and for those reasons we felt constrained, that we do, in fact, have to pursue the matter, and that's why we've taken the action we have and why we intend to introduce this resolution and call for its immediate consideration as soon as possible next week.

MR. LEHRER: The welfare reform bill was passed and sent to President Reagan today. Today's final vote was in the House. It was an overwhelming 347 to 53. The Senate passed it 96 to 1 yesterday. President Reagan has said he will sign it into law. It marks the first major reform of the welfare system in more than 50 years. Its centerpiece is a requirement that welfare recipients work or go to school in exchange for improved and more predictable benefits.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The United States today denied a report that it had struck a deal with Iran to free eight American and one British hostage being held in Lebanon. The unattributed report was made in an Israeli newspaper. It said the hostage release would hinge on the return of billions of dollars of Iranian funds frozen in US banks and resumption of diplomatic relations with Tehran. Meanwhile, Britain announced it would resume full diplomatic relations with Iran. Britain pulled its diplomats out of Iran last year after a British envoy was beaten and kidnapped. The kidnapping was in apparent retaliation for the arrest of an Iranian consul in Manchester, England, on shoplifting charges.

MR. LEHRER: At least 60 people were shot to death in Pakistan today. They were killed by gunmen who opened fire on crowds in the City of Hadirabad. Another 150 persons were wounded. Officials said the reason for the apparently indiscriminate attack was not known. The Reuters News Agency said it may have been connected to recent ethnic fighting.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In the U.S. Presidential campaign today there were more attacks. Democratic Candidate Michael Dukakis told a farm rally in Idaloo, Texas, that George Bush rural policy could be summed up in two words, "Tough luck." Republican Candidate Bush said a Dukakis-supported prisoner furlough program in Massachusetts was a revolving door for murderers. That's our News Summary. Still ahead, the big shake-up in the Kremlin, campaign ads and other political news of the week. FOCUS - RUSSIAN ROULETTE

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We first focus tonight on the shake-up in Moscow. The surprise meeting of the policy making Communist Party's central committee that sent Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze rushing home from the United Nations earlier this week, yielded major changes in the Kremlin line-up. Yegor Ligachev, the Kremlin's No. 2 man and widely regarded as Soviet leader Gorbachev's leading opponent, lost his powerful hold over ideology to assume responsibility for agriculture. Another key Gorbachev critic, KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov, was appointed a secretary of the central committee and head of a new commission on legal policy. Among the chief casualties were two of the names most familiar to Americans. Soviet President and former Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko announced his retirement from the ruling Politburo. Longtime Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Dobrynin lost his post as Communist Party Affairs Secretary. For more on what all of this means for Gorbachev, his reforms and U.S./Soviet relations, we're joined by Steven Sestanovich, Soviet Affairs Specialist at the National Security Council from 1984 to 1987, now Director of the Soviet Studies Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Stephen Cohen, Professor of Soviet Politics and History at Princeton University, and Author of Rethinking the Soviet Experience, Politics and History since 1917. Starting with you, Steve Cohen, just how dramatic is this shake-up?

STEPHEN COHEN, Princeton University: Well, the headlines tomorrow, I would guess, because that's what the wires out of Moscow are reporting is that this is a great victory for Gorbachev. It isn't so. The most you can say is is it's a complex compromise where he's gotten something and he's given something. But some of the aspects look like very serious setbacks for him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. We'll get to those in just a minute. Let me get your view on it, Mr. Sestanovich. Is this really a big, dramatic shake-up?

STEPHEN SESTANOVICH, Center For Strategic Studies: I think it's not the decisive shoot-out that a lot of Americans expected, but it is a partial victory, an important one for Gorbachev. He's ousted some conservative veterans from the Politburo. Even more, he has attacked the power base of his main rival. The party bureaucracy is really the source of a great deal of the power of Mr. Ligachev. Gorbachev has said he is going to cut that down to size, and that may be the biggest news of the day's events.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Let me ask you this. Why did it happen so suddenly and why did they do it this way? I mean, it was really almost kind of melodramatic, summoning Shevardnadze back from the United Nations and diplomats from all over the world. What's your reading into that?

MR. SESTANOVICH: Gorbachev may have thought it was better to catch some of his opponents unawares. He may also have thought it was important to show that after the dramatic party conference of last summer that the air hasn't gone out of his program for change, that he can keep things moving, keep people off balance. That's part of his strategy is to keep others off balance and to show that he's moving forward and that there is a kind of turmoil that only he can control in the Soviet Union.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you have a different view of this, all of this drama?

STEPHEN COHEN: I think Steve Sestanovich might be right, but there is no evidence that he's right. All we know for certain is that push came to shove in the last two weeks. And meetings that were supposed to be held at the end of October got pushed up to today and tomorrow. There's a fierce struggle going on over very important political reforms which were in the process of legislation. Let me point out two very dramatic things that happened today. Gorbachev has two very radical reforms in the works. One to is, in effect, decollectivize agriculture. Peasants are being said you can have a 50 year lease on land if you want it. There is enormous opposition in the lower party apparatus to this agricultural reform. Today Mr. Gorbachev's strongest rival, Mr. Ligachev, has been put in charge of that reform. He's been made the head of the new agricultural commission.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What does that mean?

MR. COHEN: You can guess. That's like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop. Now take a look at the political reforms. The adhesive, the dynamic of the new political reforms of democratization, is Mr. Gorbachev's so called "legal reforms", new criminal codes, a liberation of the criminal codes. Who has been put in charge of that? Mr. Chebrikov, who currently is the KGB boss. Now he'll be removed from the KGB tomorrow presumably, but nonetheless, he has been promoted to full secretaryship of the central committee, which makes him a very powerful figure. And he has been put in charge of political liberalization, that is, the man who has run the KGB is in charge of political liberalization. The fox here is in the chicken coop. This is very hard to explain as a great victory for Gorbachev.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you account for that happening?

MR. COHEN: Look, it's compromise. Gorbachev did get some things he wanted, but the opposition is fierce for the reasons Steve mentioned. Gorbachev is assaulting the party apparatus and Gorbachev is in position to dictate to the party what he wants and if he wants something he has to give something.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you see those two moves just described?

MR. SESTANOVICH: Well, I think they may turn out to be as Steve Cohen describes them, but there is another way to look at them and those could be very significant for Gorbachev. He may have succeeded in moving Ligachev out of the No. 2 job. To give him agriculture is surely significant but if he can move him out of this so-called second secretary's position, the No. 2to Gorbachev, that will be big score for Gorbachev. If he can get Chebrikov out of the KGB, that's another way of weakening the institutional bases of power of his rivals, and that will strengthen Gorbachev's position, no doubt about it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you think about Steve Cohen's point that to put Ligachev in charge of agriculture, which is one of the great big reform steps that Gorbachev has taken, is really going to end that? He said it's like putting, what was it, the fox in charge of the chicken coop? Only its agriculture, it's not a chicken coop.

MR. SESTANOVICH: We know that Ligachev has some disagreements with Gorbachev on agriculture, but we don't know what kind of power he's going to have in this position. This may be a kind of retirement job. Gorbachev may be gambling that he can keep Ligachev under control here better than in his current job.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So you don't think it perhaps signals the end of the reform or the move toward privatization of the agricultural farms?

MR. SESTANOVICH: What may be happening is that Gorbachev is willing to sacrifice some of the early progress on agricultural reform for the sake of consolidating his personal power. That's his judgment.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But wasn't Ligachev also in his former position in charge of ideology and to move him out of that. Does he get his own man out of that?

MR. COHEN: Look, as the struggle has been going on, it's also been in the area of ideology. That means control of the media, control of textbooks, control of education. He's been sharing that with Mr. Yakovlev, who is Mr. Gorbachev's strongest ally on the Politburo. As I understand it, Mr. Yakovlev now takes over the central committee commission that oversees foreign policy. That is essentially he's taken on now what Dobrynin did but at a higher level, because he's a member of the Politburo. Let me try to make the lager point. We keep waiting for Mr. Gorbachev's final consolidation of power. It is never going to happen so long as Mr. Gorbachev remains a reform. It is an absolute law virtually of any politics, but particularly Soviet politics, that reform leader constantly creates new enemies new opponents at the very moment that reforms are becoming successful, because more and more vested interests are threatened. To wait for some consolidation of power, or to assume this is it, is seriously misleading.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Did he lose any allies, Mr. Sestanovich, in this?

MR. SESTANOVICH: Nobody who lost a job was important to Gorbachev's political power.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Did he gain any?

MR. SESTANOVICH: He probably gained extra power for himself personally and probably extra prominence for his main ally, Mr. Yakovlev.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What were the biggest surprises? I shouldn't throw you a line, but what Gromyko a big surprise?

MR. COHEN: No, it's not a surprise, because a month and a half ago at the party conference, Mr. Gorbachev got through legislation that's going to create a new kind of presidency, a more powerful, less ceremonial presidency. It was clear that he wants that job and since Mr. Gromyko now holds it that he would be leaving. After all, he's almost 80. He's leaving in honor by the way and that's very important.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: He said he was sad to go.

MR. COHEN: Well, but he said that it was time for him to go, that age had caught up with him, and Mr. Gorbachev said some nice words about him. Incidentally, one of the interesting things is is there's people that Mr. Gorbachev would like to have on the Politburo who did not get on the Politburo today and there's at least one person he would like to get off the Politburo, Mr. Strabitsky, who runs the Ukraine, who remains there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Sestanovich, Drobynin, many of them see him as the key architect of Soviet foreign policy, the sort of new thinking that helped to bring about the rapprochement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. What do you think it means that he is now being retired?

MR. SESTANOVICH: A lot of Americans thought Dobrynin was very important because they knew Drobynin. He would return their phone calls. He is not as important as we have tended to think. He has been overshadowed by Shevardnadze and by Yakovlev and his removal his confirms that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So that you don't see any interruption in the present course of U.S./Soviet relations as a result of all of this including that?

MR. SESTANOVICH: One thing that is interesting here though is that there have been criticisms from Gorbachev's rivals that Soviet foreign policy hasn't been quite ideological enough. Dobrynin is a symbol of that. He is not a traditional party figure. Replacing him and putting a party ideologue in charge is a sign that Gorbachev is trying to take seriously the criticisms that have been leveled against him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you think about that, the Dobrynin thing?

MR. COHEN: I think we should wait till tomorrow because there are a number of positions that are going to have to be filled tomorrow. Presumably, Chebrikov will step down from the KGB. That's a state, not a party position, so the state parliament will make that appointment. It's not impossible that Mr. Dobrynin will get another position. We just don't know. After all --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you don't see any interruption in --

MR. COHEN: His position has been made redundant because of this new commission that Yakovlev is going to head. He couldn't continue to hold the position he had. It's not clear whether he's retiring altogether, but there is a struggle over foreign policy in the Soviet Union and as a symbol of Mr. Gorbachev's Soviet policy, it's possible that Dobrynin had to take the fall.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So you think it's possible that there could be a change in the course of U.S./Soviet foreign relations, or is this one move not enough to make it so?

MR. COHEN: What do we know for a fact? We know for a fact that there is a struggle over the course of Soviet foreign policy, that as Steve says, some people believe that Gorbachev is abandoning the Marxist/Leninist ideology in his conciliatory approach toward the West. Now, what's going to happen as a result of this? I think much of it depends on what we do.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's interesting, I was just looking at the piece of wire copy that came down just before the program where Secretary Shultz said today that if there is any message from this, it's that Gorbachev, who is a strong and determined person, intends to pursue the reform program. Is that the message you get, Mr. Sestanovich?

MR. SESTANOVICH: I think today's events show that Gorbachev doesn't really need our help. He is saying loud and clear that what's wrong with the Soviet Union is not that it doesn't have enough help from the outside. What the problem is in the defects of the Soviet political system and economic system, he's moving to attack those to make them work better. That's his job. He is showing himself pretty successful at it. There's not a lot we can do to affect it.

MR. COHEN: I like and I admire Steve Sestanovich, but he must be studying a different country than I am, because if he thinks that Gorbachev can reform the Soviet Union while pursuing an arms race with the United States, he is just fundamentally wrong. Obviously, he needs our help. He needs us to meet him halfway in these arms talks and in dismantling the cold war.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Steve. Sestanovich.

MR. SESTANOVICH: The big decisions that Gorbachev is going to make in reforming the Soviet Union don't have to do with the arms race. They have to do with the structure of the Soviet System and Gorbachev can attack those, is attacking them. He's even going to be able to attack resource allocation, the military spending. Sure he wants concessions from the United States. He is willing to pay in the coinage of very large concessions of his own in order to get agreements. He is ready to make those concessions because he understands that that is the only way the system can be reformed.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Just very briefly, I don't see a crystal ball in either of your hands, but if you can give me an educated guess, there is more to come tomorrow when the Supreme Soviet meets. Just what do you expect might happen, the other shoe to drop, or the other head to roll or what?

MR. COHEN: Probably Chebrikov, who has been promoted in my view, will leave the KGB, and it will be interesting to see who gets that position, what type of person they put there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Very briefly, Mr. Sestanovich.

MR. SESTANOVICH: Steve Cohen is right. If a Gorbachev man gets that job, it's an important step forward for him. One other question will be whether Gorbachev, himself, takes Gromyko's job.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's right, as the president.

MR. SESTANOVICH: Right.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, we may have to come back to this next week when more things happen. Thank you very much for being with us both, Steve Sestanovich and Steve Cohen. Jim. FOCUS - '88 - HANDICAPPING THE RACE

MR. LEHRER: Now some American Presidential politics with Gergen & Shields and three regional newspaper editors. Gergen and Shields, of course, are our analytical regulars, David Gergen, Editor at Larger of U.S. News & World Report, and Washington Post Syndicated Political Columnist Mark Shields. Their first topic tonight is advertising. The current commercials the Bush and Dukakis campaigns have put on the air, what's their point, and how well do they make it, are among the questions. The first commercials are among the campaign of Vice President Bush. BUSH CAMPAIGN AD

VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: I want a kinder and gentler nation.

ANNOUNCER: It's the President who defines the character of America.

VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: I'm a quiet man, but I hear the quiet people others don't, the ones who raise the family, pay the taxes, meet the mortgage, and I hear them, and I am moved.

ANNOUNCER: The President, the heart, the soul, the conscience of the nation.

ON SCREEN: George Bush - Experienced Leadership For America's Future BUSH CAMPAIGN AID

VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: For 7 1/2 years, I've worked with a great President, I've seen what crosses that big desk. I've seen the unexpected crisis that arrives in a cable in a young aide's hand. And so I know that what it all comes down to this election is the man at the desk. And who should sit at that desk? My friends, I am that man.

ON SCREEN: George Bush - Experienced Leadership For America's Future RNC AD [I remember you - song] ANNOUNCER: You're seeing what America was like just seven years ago. The Republicans have worked very hard to make sure you'll never have to see it again.

ON SCREEN: Seven Years of Jobs, Peace and Economic Growth. The Republicans.

MR. LEHRER: What's your verdict, Mark? Are these things working for George Bush?

MARK SHIELDS, Washington Post: I don't think the advertising has become the dominant theme in this campaign or the dominant means of communicating the Bush message. Obviously what George Bush is trying to do is go with his strong card. The White House, he's been there, the experience, the unique selling point is what it's called in advertising.

MR. LEHRER: David.

DAVID GERGEN, U.S. News & World Report: Well, the Bush campaign has tried some advertising in the past in a few states, a handful of states, and the ads they tried have worked for them. The ads they tried, frankly, were more attack ads than the ones we saw. I did think that there were two ads here that were particularly good. The first one, the kinder, gentler nation, which I think is an advertisement aimed at women -- as you know, Dukakis has had more strength among women than Bush has and there has been the gender gap which is closed to a large degree -- but I think that clearly the kinder, gentler notion is aimed at women to reassure them he's going to be a caring President. The other ad which I thought was particularly effective was the attack ad by the Republican National Committee, and that recalls, of course, Carter and what the Bush people have found in their own focus groups during the debate, the line that scored heavily for them was when George Bush turned to Michael Dukakis and talked about interest rates under Jimmy Carter. And they do find that when they recall the past, and they can run against Carter just as of course Democrats ran against Hoover for so long, that is effective.

MR. LEHRER: Just as a matter of technique, what is it, to use his words, George Bush's words from his acceptance speech, which most people consider the most successful speech he's ever made, it's kind of a subtle reminder of that too, Mark, is it not, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: It is a subtle reminder of that, and George Bush, prior to that acceptance speech, had not been a man known for eloquence, not been a man known for verbal aggressiveness or assertiveness, and in that speech he was. He was far better than he had been or was in the debate on Sunday night in a spontaneous unstructured situation. I think David is right. There's a terrible temptation in politics as far as that institutional ad of the Republican Party to go back to what's worked. Now Ronald Reagan twice won the Presidency by asking the same question. Are you better off today than you were four years ago? In 1980, the American voters said, nope, we sure aren't, and they voted for Ronald Reagan. In 1984, the American voters said, yup, we are, let's put Reagan back in. Now, they're going back and it is --

MR. GERGEN: It's a question of it's still working in their favor.

MR. SHIELDS: I think it's a good ad. I mean, there are certain things you don't see anymore.

MR. GERGEN: Yes, the music is nice. I think what you find in general, Jim, is that the Republicans have had more experience in making these kind of advertisements, and in general, I think the quality of the advertising they have is by the opinions of most analysts, most experts, I think is generally better.

MR. LEHRER: Let's compare that. Let's go now to a sampling from the Dukakis Campaign. DUKAKIS CAMPAIGN AD

ANNOUNCER: Leadership, it's meeting the tough problems head on. That's how Mike Dukakis fought crime in Massachusetts. In the last four years, he's put 20 percent more cops on the street and five times as many drug offenders behind bars. Leadership, it's getting real results, crime down in Massachusetts by 13 percent and the lowest homicide rate of any industrial state. Look at the record. That's leadership, leadership that's on your side. Michael Dukakis for President. Let's take charge of America's future. DUKAKIS CAMPAIGN AD

GOV. DUKAKIS: We have an opportunity working together to build that future, to build a better America, to build a best America. Because the best America doesn't hide, we compete. The best America doesn't waste, we invest. The best America doesn't leave some of its citizens behind. We bring everybody along. And the best America is not behind us. The best America is yet to come. Thank you very much for listening.

ANNOUNCER: Michael Dukakis for President. DNC AD

SPOKESMAN: I voted for the Republicans but they didn't make me a Republican. The Republicans haven't been votin' for me and that's for sure. They're against health care. Now my folks can't afford to get sick. They're against student loans. My kids can't afford to go to college. They're against day care. My wife can't afford to work. They're against affordable housing. Now we can't find a decent place to live. Now they want me to vote Republican. I can't afford to be a Republican. I think it's time to check out those Democrats.

WRITING ON SCREEN: Let's bring prosperity home.

MR. LEHRER: Your analysis, Mr. Gergen.

MR. GERGEN: I liked that last ad.

MR. SHIELDS: It's time to check out those Democrats.

MR. GERGEN: I thought that the advertisement coming out of the debate was a very effective ad. As you know, that was the closing statement he made in the debate. That's also a closing statement that he has used on the stump a lot. It hasn't been that effective on the stump, but in the last several days since the debate was held, he's been using that out on the stump and it's been very very good with crowds. People are repeating the lines after him. I thought it was one of the high points of the debate for him. I thought that was a good ad.

MR. LEHRER: So he's doing the same thing in a way that Bush was doing.

MR. GERGEN: That Bush is doing.

MR. LEHRER: Saying howwell I did, this is to remind you of how well I did in my closing statement in the debate, right?

MR. GERGEN: Right.

MR. SHIELDS: And it's to remind you of the debate and the fact that, the context of it, where they went one on one, the two of them, and again unrehearsed. I mean, you think about the debate, and he didn't have a speech, it wasn't a teleprompted event.

MR. GERGEN: Yes. That was sort of an unrehearsed statement.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right. The other thing -- the fact that it wasn't on a teleprompter, and the other thing is that he emphasized optimism, which is an antidote for the doom and gloom part of it. What is missing from that ad is it is a stark ad. You don't get the crowd and the response until you hear the audience at the end. And I think that takes away some of the effectiveness. The Bush speech at the convention shows a lot more cutaways and shows faces and shows people reacting positively.

MR. GERGEN: Mark, I think what's still missing from those Democratic ads is the theme. There is no consistent theme through those three ads.

MR. LEHRER: You don't the leadership, the record works?

MR. GERGEN: Well, I don't think that that's, if you look across those three ads, there's no one, I think one single theme that comes out, and I think that's been the problem still with the Dukakis campaign.

MR. LEHRER: Generally, obviously, there are a lot more. We'd be here tonight if we ran all of them, but generally speaking, you said at the very beginning, Mark, that you didn't think the advertising campaign had yet to have any impact. Well, chart that for me. What's going to happen?

MR. SHIELDS: I think this weekend the Dukakis campaign is starting their negative commercials, comparison, contrast, whatever you want. They're controversial.

MR. LEHRER: Give me an example.

MR. SHIELDS: It's four people sitting around talking about the Bush campaign and saying, well, gee, what are we going to do about health insurance, how are we going to answer that, 37 million people without health insurance, well, not's talk about that, maybe during the flag event. Now they are not trying to make George Bush the villain, because I had breakfast this morning with John Sasso in Boston, and they don't believe that's credible. The core, that is what has to be, in all advertising it has to be believable. And that's why I don't think that Democratic ad worked.

MR. LEHRER: You mean, they cannot blame the seven or eight years on George Bush.

MR. SHIELDS: They can make George Bush into a nominee who is not strong, who is not independent, who is not forceful, who doesn't understand the way ordinary Americans live and the problems they deal with, but you can't make George Bush into a villainous figure. He is not seen as a villainous figure.

MR. LEHRER: What would you expect us to get for the Republicans when we get into the nitty gritty time now?

MR. GERGEN: I think that the national advertising will tend to be more of a kinder, gentler nation. I think that in selected states, I would imagine they'd go for the attack ads, whether it be the flag or particularly I think you're going to see crime and the furlough issue coming up, particularly crime coming up very hard. I think you're going to see more on the Boston Harbor and the sludge in the Boston Harbor. But let me make one more point about this. Why these are so important now is that people are starting to make up their minds. We're seeing more stability now in the public opinion and attitudes are going to start form harder, and these ads are the best way to communicate directly to the country.

MR. LEHRER: And the campaigns look upon these things as very important from here on out, do they not?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, just in a budgetary sense. Two-thirds of their entire campaign budget, that's where they're going.

MR. LEHRER: Two-thirds.

MR. SHIELDS: Two-thirds, placement, production, creation of broadcast advertising.

MR. LEHRER: All right. We're going to broaden the discussion now to how things are doing generally in the election right now. We have editors from three papers in so called battleground states, Gerald Warren, Editor of the San Diego Union, he joins us from public station KPBS, San Diego, Lee Cullum, Editor of the Editorial Page of the Dallas Times-Herald, she's in the studios of public station KERA, Dallas, and Ed Baumeister, Managing Editor of the Trenton, New Jersey Times. Jerry Warren, how does Bush versus Dukakis work in San Diego tonight?

GERALD WARREN, San Diego Union: Jim, it looks dead even. I think Dukakis hoped that the debate would stop the slide. As you know, he's gone from 16 points ahead to 1 point ahead in California, and I think maybe he achieved that. We have not had any California polls in the last week, but the pollsters tell us that it is still dead even and that it's within percentage points nationwide.

MR. LEHRER: Lee Cullum in Dallas, after several days now, how would you assess the impact that Sunday's debate has had on folks in your area?

LEE CULLUM, Dallas Times-Herald: Well, Jim, Bush is running ahead 6 percent to 10 percent. Republicans lean toward the 10 percent figure. Democrats hope it's only 6 percent. I don't think the debates had a tremendous effect. I think people tend to believe that Dukakis did better than Bush, nonetheless, Bush is ahead in the polls.

MR. LEHRER: It just confirmed where they already were, in other words?

MS. CULLUM: I think so, yes.

MR. LEHRER: Ed, what's the situation in Trenton as far as the race right now?

ED BAUMEISTER, Trenton Times: Well, it is, Jim, a dead heat, as it is elsewhere. What's interesting though if you talk to the people taking the polls, they find that 60 percent of the people they interview have no firm opinion of either man.

MR. LEHRER: 60 percent?

MR. BAUMEISTER: 60 percent. That's the Eagleton Institute of New Jersey, which last week found it I think 47/44, which is statistically a dead heat. So they've been through a lot. I think Mr. Bush has been in New Jersey virtually every week since his convention, but still there's a 60 percent soft factor, I guess you'd put it, in New Jersey.

MR. LEHRER: Now, Lee, both candidates have been all over Texas too, have they not?

MS. CULLUM: Oh, yes, indeed. Dukakis was in Dallas last night. He raised $1.2 million at a dinner. I don't think he necessarily raised 1.2 million votes. That's the problem in his tours in Texas. But they're everywhere. Quayle was here on Wednesday.

MR. LEHRER: What about the point that Ed made in New Jersey, that the folks there don't have a firm opinion yet, does that sound reasonable to you in Texas, or are your folks a little more decided?

MS. CULLUM: No, Texans are very opinionated. Of course, we have two Texans, as you know. We have Lloyd Bentsen on the Democratic ticket, Bush on the Republican ticket. I think that many many Texans would tell you that Bentsen is the pick of all four, but unfortunately, he's not at the top of his ticket.

MR. LEHRER: Jerry Warren, a point that we've been hearing here in Washington in the last few days since the debate, let me ask you if you've been picking it up in California, isthis kind of general revulsion to both candidates in Sunday's debates over the way they picked at each other and were not terribly President. Have you heard that in San Diego?

GERALD WARREN, San Diego Union: We are picking it up, Jim. Our letters indicate that they think both candidates are a little on the snide side. Interestingly, they seem to agree with the Newsweek poll which gave the snide edge, if you will, to Mr. Dukakis, but going beyond that, I think the point made in New Jersey is a good point. There is a softness of the support. There is no real love for either candidate.

MR. LEHRER: And nobody, neither one turns any new folks on Sunday night, is that what you're suggesting?

MR. WARREN: I think they're waiting, they probably will wait, the undecideds will wait until about the last week or ten days.

MR. LEHRER: Ed Baumeister, what are they waiting for in New Jersey? What is it that they want one of these men to say or do?

MR. BAUMEISTER: I think, Jim, they want one of them to say with more precision about what the future is going to be. You've got obviously Michael Dukakis appealing to the worry we have about the future, and George Bush saying that the past is prologue, you have nothing to worry about. But I don't think they're convinced of either at the moment by either candidate.

MR. LEHRER: Lee Cullum, the Bush campaign, as we heard in the debate and we've heard every day since the debate, is really trying to paint Dukakis as being a liberal, considering that that is good politics. That is good politics in Texas, is it not?

MS. CULLUM: Yes, it is very good politics. You know, Texans, many Texans, most Texans I would guess, are not better off today than they were eight years ago, but they are terrified of change. I think they feel that any change might be for the worse, they've suffered so much from change in the last several years, from the falling price of oil, the real estate debacle and the calamity in agriculture. So Bush is painting Dukakis into the liberal corner and it's hurting. It's hurting it a lot.

MR. LEHRER: Why is it that they do not blame the Reagan/Bush Administration for their economic troubles?

MS. CULLUM: It's odd that they don't. I think that there is some understanding, after all, that the price of oil could not be controlled by the Administration, though an oil import fee, had it been applied immediately, could have saved the state. It's impossible to say. I guess it's the innate conservatism of so many voters. They are going to gravitate in that direction even if it has meant suffering in the past.

MR. LEHRER: Are there votes to be won in California, Jerry, if Bush continues to be successful in painting Dukakis a liberal?

MR. WARREN: He has already won a number of votes in Orange County. There are those who say that he has enough votes in Orange County to overcome whatever happens in Northern California, and many of those are responding to the liberal attack.

MR. LEHRER: I mean, the word is still a pejorative term.

MR. WARREN: It is in Southern California, Jim, yes.

MR. LEHRER: Is it in Trenton, New Jersey, Ed?

MR. BAUMEISTER: Not in Trenton, but New Jersey is a suburban state. Its principal cities really are in other states, in Pennsylvania and New York. In the cities, the big cities of New Jersey, the two principal or three principal ones, liberal is fine. When you get into the suburbs even among people that in other Northeastern states are traditional liberals, you get some fear of liberals, especially on family issues.

MR. LEHRER: Lee, what about the negatives that Dukakis is using on Bush, the Noriega situation, Iran/Contra, any good ground there for Dukakis on those?

MS. CULLUM: Surprisingly little, Jim. You know, Dukakis was running very well in Texas after the convention, as he was all around the country. Ann Richards was a great success, she's a Texan, but somehow or other those issues aren't grabbing hold. Why, I can't say. I think that the fear of Dukakis, the fear of a candidate not well known to Texans, overrides any compelling concern about Irangate or Noriega.

MR. LEHRER: Do they work in California, Jerry?

MR. WARREN: Jim, all I know is we have one reader who wrote us this week who said he was a Democrat but he was going to vote for Vice President Bush, because the Bush/Reagan Administration that created all of these problems, Iran/Contra, the deficits, and all of others, and wants Bush to be the one to clean it up.

MR. LEHRER: To clean up the mess.

MR. WARREN: Right. He created the mess; let him clean it up.

MR. LEHRER: Ed, what about Quayle/Bentsen, do you feel that anybody in New Jersey is going to vote one way or another for the top of the ticket based on the No. 2 in the ticket?

MR. BAUMEISTER: I don't, Jim. My survey is unscientific and small, but most people I talked to are concentrating on the front- runners. It's kind of surprising given the reaction to the succession especially of Mr. Quayle, but basically they're talking in terms of the top of the ticket.

MR. LEHRER: Now of course in Texas with Bentsen there, how does Quayle play?

MS. CULLUM: Well, Marilyn Quayle was here in the state this week along with her husband. She was very well received. She had some speaking engagements on her own and they went well. You know, the curious thing about Bentsen is he is now in an interesting position with regard to his Senate contest. The Republicans are so very exhilarated by their 10 percent lead, or what they hope is 10 points in the polls, that they are seeing gains all the way down the ticket, from the Supreme Court down to the legislature, and Democrats are beginning to worry about Lloyd Bentsen's Senate seat. Could it possibly be lost to Bo Bolter in some fluke of coat tail politics? So they're working especially hard now to shore up Lloyd Bentsen for the Senate. It's most unlikely that he could lose that Senate seat, but it's a possibility that hadn't occurred to anybody before.

MR. LEHRER: What's the Quayle/Bentsen report from California, Jerry?

MR. WARREN: Well, we haven't seen much of Mr. Quayle in California. We've seen quite a bit of Bush. I think there is a general suspicion of Mr. Quayle. They're waiting to see him in the debate and then they'll make up their minds. I don't think it will make that much difference to the top of the ticket, however.

MR. LEHRER: Let's bring Mark Shields and David Gergen back into this. What's your reaction to what you've just heard, New Jersey, Texas, California?

MR. SHIELDS: That jibes, the numbers jibe with what I have learned and have been told and what both campaigns are basically saying right now. I think that the Quayle event is taking on an importance of its own.

MR. LEHRER: The debate on Wednesday?

MR. SHIELDS: Yes. And I think the Dukakis people are really concerned, because there is a sense that Dan Quayle is being so underestimated, has been so underestimated, that if he stands up there and doesn't say Oslow is the capital of Missouri or doesn't drool, that he's going to survive, and they want a tougher standard applied and so forth.

MR. LEHRER: I notice even Jim Baker was quoted in the wires yesterday as saying, well, we don't expect Sen. Quayle to do that well against Sen. Bentsen.

MR. GERGEN: We've heard that before.

MR. LEHRER: Right, right. What's your feel?

MR. GERGEN: These are three excellent reports, and I think it's important to understand the country is almost in the North/South axis in this political game right now. If you look across the Southern belt of the country, and that includes Texas, that's a place where Dukakis had wanted to be competitive, but Bush is moving into a position, just as we heard from Lee, that he's moving out front in a lot of those states. I think Texas is illustrative of what's going on. Now Peter Hart has a poll out of Texas. He's a Democratic strategist. He shows among Southern whites in Texas, a 30 point lead for Bush over Dukakis.

MR. LEHRER: Does that jibe, Lee, with what you've been hearing? Does that make sense to you?

MS. CULLUM: Yes, I think it does. I think that's absolutely right.

MR. GERGEN: So if you look across that Southern belt, Bush is gradually taking that off the board. Now, once he gets that, the Northern tier, and California, particularly Northern California is part of that and New Jersey is certainly part of that, that all becomes competitive, but it puts enormous pressure on Dukakis to win all of that in order to win. That's why the pressure is building on Dukakis, I think, even though the race is still close, if Bush gets the South and he also gets the rockies, it gets to be a much tougher race for Dukakis.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: I think it was an interesting week. I do agree with Dave in the sense that the South, if Texas goes for Dukakis/Bentsen --

MR. GERGEN: Then Florida goes.

MR. SHIELDS: -- then Florida is gone. I don't think anybody in the Democratic -- it's almost a Republican lock stand at this point.

MR. GERGEN: Absent some major change in the campaign. I mean, all of this is contingent --

MR. LEHRER: What about California?

MR. SHIELDS: California is just exactly as Jerry Warren said -- but I think what Jerry Warren touched on early, the hemorrhaging of the Dukakis slippage stopped by the debate and you could see, actually you could see the terms of the debate and the campaign change this week. I mean, they were on Dukakis's issues, and for the first time George Bush responded and reacted with that kind of silly tax deferral plan that he came up with.

MR. LEHRER: You didn't think it's silly --

MR. SHIELDS: They think it's silly now. In response to the charge of the capital gains law and that he was tilting to the rich, so for the first time it was almost his equivalent of the tank.

MR. GERGEN: I agree and I think Dukakis does look better. I believe that he stopped his freefall and that Jerry was absolutely on point with that. The problem Dukakis has got is he's stopped his free fall to the point where he is still behind. But he has to come up in order to win this race.

MR. LEHRER: But he hasn't stopped his free fall in Texas according to Lee --

MR. GERGEN: I don't know whether he's stabilized there or not but he --

MR. SHIELDS: One point the Dukakis people make is that the race is even, essentially even, and they're ahead in New York, they say, and a little ahead in Michigan, but they say its even in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California. So what you have, it's a nationalized election. I mean, you don't get --

MR. GERGEN: If Bush takes the South, Dukakis has to win almost every one of those states?

MR. SHIELDS: That's right. I think Dukakis has to be competitive in Texas.

MR. LEHRER: That's a wrap, they said in my ear. That's a wrap. We have to leave it right there, Mark, David, Jerry in San Diego, Lee in Dallas, Ed in Trenton, thank you all for being with us. SERIES - '88 - ON THE STUMP

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next, Michael Dukakis on the stump. As part of our coverage of the Presidential election, we have been running excerpts of speeches delivered by the candidates. Yesterday, Gov. Dukakis addressed students at Rutgers University in Brunswick, New Jersey. The topic was the environment. Actor Robert Redford, a strong supporter of environmental causes, shared the platform.

GOV. MICHAEL DUKAKIS, Dem. Presidential Nominee: You know, calling George Bush an environmentalist is like calling Dan Quayle a statesman. Because George Bush has been part of an Administration whose environmental policies have been hazardous to our health. How can we ever forget James Watt, a man who never saw an open field he didn't want to pave or a forest he didn't want to cut down, but a man who according to Mr. Bush, and this is a quote, had an excellent record? How can we forget Ann Gorsich, remember her, she was the head of the EPA for a while, would rather bring polluters to lunch than to justice, or Rita LaBelle, who Robert Redford reminded us went to jail for lying about what she did to the environment, and never forget this, my friends, when this Administration blocked legislation to reduce the amount of lead in the air, lead that is so very dangerous to small children, that wasn't Rita LaBelle, that was George Bush. When this Administration blocked a major plan to control toxic waste, a plan that had taken the EPA four years to design, that wasn't James Watt, that was George Bush. My friends, Mr. Bush's Administration has had eight years to clean up toxic waste and they've started the cleanup on only 137 sites on the national priorities list out of a total of 1200. Not only that, out of those 1200 priority sites, they now tell us they've only completed 36, 36 out of 1200. My friends, that performance doesn't get a "D"; that record gets an "F". And in our Administration, that cleanup will be completed or well underway at every single way at every single one of those 1200 super fund sites on the priority list by December of 1997, and that's a commitment. Finally, my friends, let me say a word about my favorite harbor, another place that George Bush just visited this year for the first time in memory. Today, my friends, we're cleaning it up. And in the course of that cleanup, we've had to fight Mr. Bush and his Administration every inch of the way, every inch of the way. We've created a brand new agency to do the job and we're bringing that harbor back to life just the way we brought old cities and towns back to life. And my friend, in my state, we're going to meet the 1991 deadline that prohibits ocean dumping. So beginning in January, you're going to have an ally in the White House and not an adversary in the battle against pollution.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Gov. Michael Dukakis addressing a group of college students at Rutgers University yesterday. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, Soviet Leader Gorbachev engineered a major shake-up of the Soviet Communist Party leadership, Soviet President Andrei Gromyko and former Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin were among those leaving power. And Space Shuttle Discovery and its five astronauts had a second and uneventful day in space. Finally tonight, Charles Addams, the cartoonist, he died yesterday at the age of 76. For 50 years, his wild sense of humor entertained readers of the New Yorker Magazine which loaned us this promotional feature about the man who once described himself as a defrocked ghoul.

CHARLES ADDAMS: Well, I was going to art school in Grand Central Station, of all places, and then commuting from New Jersey where I live, and I feel that I wanted to work for the New Yorker, the one magazine that I worked for, and I used to turn in drawings periodically when I was in art school. And I turned in a decorative spot and you know, waited a while before I came back. To my great amazement, they had taken it for $7.50, my first sale. Well, there's a natural dark side to me, I've always had it, and there is a fortunate set of circumstances that may have worked for me. I mean, for one thing, in the early days Ross was there and he is like that kind of thing and I was a great friend of Edgar Allen Poe and I liked the spooky movies and somehow it all combined with the humor that I suppose was there too and we got to doing sinister drawings and it became a kind of fad for a while, and I think latterly has evolved into more of a fanciful thing than the sinister thing it once was. I like the Christmas drawing of the carolers singing at the base of the house and the family pouring boiling lead on them. You would think a lot of people wouldn't like that at Christmas, but a lot of people did and used it as their own Christmas card. You get so you depend on sitting down in front of a blank piece of paper and doodling and you relate one doodle to another, an overheard remark, a phrase that interests you, and you try to apply it to what you've drawn, and with luck, you sometimes get something.

MR. LEHRER: Charles Addams, dead from a heart attack at age 76. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back on Monday. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Have a good weekend. Good night.