The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday the Pentagon proposed closing dozens of military bases. The U.S. stepped up its relief effort for the Kurdish refugees. Consumer prices dropped for the first time in almost five years. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff's in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: On the NewsHour tonight, the Kurdish crisis is where we go first. We get an eye witness account from a refugee camp. Then analysis of the way the Bush administration has handled the situation and other news developments from our regular Mark Shields, joined tonight by journalist Fred Barnes. Next, the new book on Nancy Reagan, has the press overplayed it? Haynes Johnson of the Washington Post and Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal disagree. And finally, the last of Charlayne Hunter-Gault's series of conversations on murder in America.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Sec. of Defense Dick Cheney today recommended closing 31 major military bases around the country. Included on the list were Ft. Ord in California, Ft. Dix, New Jersey, Lowry Air Force Base in Colorado, and the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The plan also proposed closing 12 minor U.S. installations and realigning 28 others. Sec. Cheney said the closings were necessary to reduce the defense budget. Even before he made the announcement, members of Congress were raising objections.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, [R] Pennsylvania: The Navy is going to be in for a real fight on the closing of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, because that decision does not make any sense in terms of national security. We just finished fighting a Gulf War and we had six carriers in the region and the Philadelphia Navy Yard is indispensable if we are to have enough carriers to undertake the kind of commitments which we have worldwide and which we just had in the Gulf War.

SEN. BILL BRADLEY, [R] New Jersey: Closure of the Philadelphia Naval Yard it's estimated will increase unemployment in the region by almost 2 percent, about 40,000 overall, including the personnel associated directly with the base and in the peripheral service jobs.

MR. MacNeil: Some Democrats accused Cheney of playing partisan politics with the base closings. Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts said, "There is treachery here." Cheney answered the charge at a Pentagon news conference this afternoon.

SEC. CHENEY: There is nothing to be gained by a Secretary of Defense trying to play base closings for some political purpose. I've got a job to do. Congress, in its wisdom, cut my budget some $13 billion in '91. Then we came to an agreement on what the top line was going to be for the next five years. I not only have to close bases, I've got to deactivate units. I'm going to have to lay off as many active duty military personnel, nearly as many, as we sent to the Persian Gulf. So the suggestion that somehow there's any political benefit to be gained from hitting any one of these states strikes me as just goofy. It simply isn't true.

MR. MacNeil: The proposed closings will be reviewed by an independent commission with the power to make additions or subtractions. The President and Congress will then vote on the final plan. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: The U.S. stepped up its relief effort for the Kurdish refugees today. The Turkish foreign ministry said U.S. forces had begun an extensive operation to aid 500,000 Iraqi refugees on its border. U.S. officials said American planes, helicopters and trucks from Incirlik Air Base were delivering food to the border area. Sec. of State Baker said today that Iran had given U.S. planes permission to deliver aid to refugees in its territory. Iranian Pres. Rafsanjani said more than 1 million refugees were in Iran. He also accused the West of ignoring their plight after encouraging rebellion in Iraq. Thirty-two refugees reportedly died overnight in a refugee camp in Turkey. The Turkish media said 23 were children. Another report said seven refugees were killed when air bundles dropped by Western planes fell on them. We'll have more on the refugee story later in the program. The Soviet Union expressed reservations over creating a safe haven for the Kurds in Northern Iraq. A foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow said doing so would mean taking away part of Iraq's sovereignty which would contradict United Nations charters.

MR. MacNeil: Sec. of State James Baker has won promises from Syria and Jordan at least to pursue the idea of a Middle East peace conference. Mr. Baker wrapped up his week long peace mission in Geneva today where he met with Jordan's foreign minister. After the meeting, the minister said Jordan will attend a peace conference and peace for Jordan is a strategy and not a tactic. Syria's foreign minister said his country would support a peace conference based on UN resolutions urging Israel to give up land. He and Mr. Baker spoke to reporters at a news conference in Damascus this morning.

FAROUK AL-SHARAA, Foreign Minister, Syria: The ultimate objective is to reach a comprehensive and just settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian question.

SEC. BAKER: You know what's important here? Substance. Substance is important, not form. Names are not as important as whether or not there is truly a desire on the part of the parties to this conflict to seek true reconciliation.

MR. MacNeil: The first members of the United Nations peacekeeping force arrived in the Middle East today. The 32 nation, 1,440 man force will begin replacing allied troops along Kuwait's 120 mile border with Iraq. They will patrol a de-militarized zone along that border to enforce the formal UN cease-fire declared last night.

MS. WOODRUFF: In this country, there is some good news on inflation today. Lower energy costs helped push down consumer prices .1 percent last month. It is the first drop in consumer prices in almost five years. Many analysts said the news could provide an incentive to the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates again to fight the recession. That's it for the News Summary. Just ahead, the plight of the Kurdish refugees, political analysis from Mark Shields and Fred Barnes, press treatment of the Nancy Reagan book and Part 5 of our conversations on murder in America. UPDATE - MISERY'S CHILDREN

MR. MacNeil: The tragedy of the Kurds is once again our lead focus tonight. The countries that defeated Iraq in the Gulf War are discussing how short of military force to help the thousands of Kurdish people stranded on the borders of Turkey and Iran following the unsuccessful rebellion of Saddam Hussein's government. We begin with a report on conditions at the Turkey-Iraq border from Richard Vaughn of Worldwide Television News.

MR. VAUGHN: Ten long days have passed since the world woke up to the tragedy of the Iraqi refugees on the Turkish border. But they're still there, starving and cold. The Turkish prime minister, Yoldarim Akbulla toured one camp at Isic Barain. He said Turkey was reviewing a request by Iraq for talks on the refugee issue, agreeing that it would be better to solve the problem through dialogue. He did say that the United Nations would have to step in Baghdad continued with its negative attitude. There's clearly a strong feeling inside Turkey about who's to blame for the refugee crisis. After prayers at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul people poured into the streets chanting slogans condemning Saddam Hussein. Back in the camps there are reports of more deaths, but this time refugees have been killed by aid bundles dropped by Western planes. Two children, a woman, and a man are said to have been killed by falling crates. Four other refugees were injured. Sadly though tragedy is nothing new to the people of these camps.

MR. MacNeil: For more on the plight of the Kurds, we turn now to Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: With me is a man who traveled to the Turkish- Iraqi border earlier this week on assignment for a Turkish newspaper. Orhan Pamuk is a novelist whose latest book, "The White Castle", has just been published in this country. Mr. Pamuk, what was your first impression as you surveyed the scene at the border?

MR. PAMUK: Horrible. It was really horrible. Basically I'm not a journalist. I'm a novelist. I went there to report for a Turkish daily. I have seen journalists crying, not doing their job, just crying, and the situation was really horrible. There was hunger. There was cold. Children were dying every night. People are showing you graves. People are grabbing you from your arm to show you his wife or his children dying and asking for help. People are asking for your clothes, people asking for food. It was really horrible.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: This was happening to you. I mean, are they just grabbing anybody who hasn't --

MR. PAMUK: No. People are grabbing whoever comes from outside. Basically, the basic problem is hunger. Three times a day Turkish military officers bring along a car full of breads. It's so disorganized that people attack -- Kurds attacked the cars and people --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: With the bread in it.

MR. PAMUK: With the bread in it. Practically people kill each other just to get to grab a piece of bread. Along with the cold, disorganization helps -- helps the tragedy. People are dying, but not because of the cold, but also because of hunger.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So that the level of civility is starting to degenerate.

MR. PAMUK: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I mean, people are fighting among themselves.

MR. PAMUK: Yes. Basically, it's so disorganized. I was at the top of a mountain and the mountain which divides Iraq from Turkey. People, the Kurds had to walk over the mountain on the terrain, running away from Saddam's chemistry, Saddam's gas, they called. Actually, at that part of Iraq, Saddam did not use gas, but memories of Halkcha where he used gas in '88 were so strong after the first day of Saddam's artilleries, of Saddam's attack, the people were practically panicked and begin to run away towards Turkey.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is there any evidence that Iraq is still killing Kurds?

MR. PAMUK: This I haven't seen in the camps. I was only in the camps, but spurious fights are still going on and the people I had met in the camps were not fighting, but families, children, women, or people who were not really soldiers.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What was your impression of how much difference the aid is making in the camps? We just heard of this horrible situation where the air drop actually allegedly killed some people.

MR. PAMUK: As far as I saw, there is no difference. Aid is somewhere down. It was not at the top of the mountain.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's not getting to them.

MR. PAMUK: It's not getting to them. First, the road was blocked. Second, there was Turkish bureaucracy not handling everything. Then even if the bread arrives, it's so disorganized. People are in such condition that you do not expect them to go into a line and pick up their bread.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We heard predictions on this program and elsewhere that thousands of people are going to die in the next several days unless some dramatic and drastic change takes place and the method of aid and the amount of aid, is that your perception?

MR. PAMUK: I agree, especially the children will die because there is still cold, in some of the camps it's still snowing, and there's not enough food. I walked into camp -- you know, some comes up to you and says, look, my wife had triplets last night, would you like to come and see them, because they are going to die, or some other person pulls you, my son will die, we need milk, and you can find milk somewhere down say 10 kilometers or perhaps someone had sent some aid, but it's disorganized.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Pamuk, this may be an unfair question, especially to ask you to even do it briefly, but what was the worst part of it all for you?

MR. PAMUK: Well, seeing all of these things, seeing that in such conditions there is nothing called human dignity. In order to survive people should give up their dignity. Those who stuck to their dignities, to their basic human values die, while on the other, people who grab each other, people who attack the food trucks in the end manage to survive.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Pamuk --

MR. PAMUK: Also the other thing is that American policy was also very disgraceful.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The people --

MR. PAMUK: I have talked to many people and they said that first Pres. Bush encouraged them to uprise, then left them all alone.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And the fact that they're dropping in aid now has not mitigated that feeling.

MR. PAMUK: It's just a show really. I mean, if aid comes, it should be organized, it should come in a proper, organized place, but now it's just a show. It doesn't help people. People cannot consume, reach that food.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mr. Pamuk, thank you for joining us.

MR. PAMUK: Thank you.

MR. MacNeil: In Washington, there's been growing debate over how actively the Bush administration should intervene on behalf of the Kurds and whether it wasted an opportunity to help the Kurds topple the Saddam government. Sec. of Defense Cheney was the latest administration official to defend their policy. He was asked at a Pentagon news conference what the U.S. could do to guarantee the safety of the Kurds now.

SEC. CHENEY: We cannot guarantee the safety of people around the world who live under regimes that from time to time violate their human rights and we're not in a position today to be able to guarantee the safety of people inside Iraq who live under Saddam Hussein's rule. We have, in fact, taken steps by virtue of the messages we've sent the Iraqis to stay out of the way as we provide relief assistance, that they should not get involved in any way in interfering with that effort. So I expect that for the time being those refugees are safe from Iraqi prosecution where they're at. The future clearly is more uncertain in that.

REPORTER: Mr. Secretary, what would you say to those in Congress who say that the military victory has now turned to a moral failure,and those who say the clean wind has been soiled by this blood bath? How would you respond?

SEC. CHENEY: I just fundamentally disagree with that.

REPORTER: Why?

SEC. CHENEY: I would guess that most of the people who were making the statements also are people who vote and opposed our involvement in the first place, that for the most part they argued against any involvement by U.S. forces at all, but now a number of them are suggesting we ought to get involved in the conflict inside Iraq. On more occasions than I count the President and I and others involved in the effort made it clear that our military objective is to liberate Kuwait, and to destroy Saddam Hussein's offensive military capability, his capacity to threaten his neighbors. We did that. We did it very successfully and once we have achieved those objectives, we stopped further military action. We are now in the process having achieved our military objectives of withdrawing our forces. Now to suggest that we ought to take U.S. military force and get involved in the conflict in Iraq violates a number of those same basic principles. You don't have a clear cut military objective. You probably if you're going to go in and try to talk to Saddam Hussein have to go to Baghdad. Once you get Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. Those who are suggesting somehow we ought to go a little way into Iraq or just deal with one part of the problem inside Iraq I think misread the situation. I am not eager, nor is the President, to send young Americans in harm's way into a situation where they may go into combat unless we can send a whole load, everything we can get our hands on to support them to make certain they prevail at the lowest possible cost. Unless you're willing to go for the total involvement and a massive introduction of U.S. force into Iraq, then you're risking American lives for no defined purpose, for a very fuzzy set of objectives, and that's not what we're there to do. We have achieved our military objective. We feel very good about having achieved it. I think the U.S. military performed in a superb fashion, but for us now to get bogged down in the quagmire of an Iraqi civil war I think would be the height of foolishness. I think it would guarantee that the tremendous success we've enjoyed would be judged to have been tarnished, but it has not yet.

MR. MacNeil: The Secretary of Defense also said he thought private relief agencies, not the U.S. military, should supply and staff hospitals for the Kurdish refugees. FOCUS - POLITICAL TALK

MS. WOODRUFF: We turn now to some political analysis of not just the Kurdish situation but other events of the week just past. A Washington Post poll released today showed Pres. Bush's approval rating has dropped from a record 90 percent high at the end of the Gulf War to 78 percent. The poll also reported a significant increase in those who feel the country is seriously off on the wrong track. In late February, 39 percent felt that way as compared to 51 percent now. For more on this and other developments, we turn to Mark Shields, syndicated columnist with the Washington Post, who along with the vacationing David Gergen is a NewsHour regular. Joining Mark tonight is Fred Barnes, a senior editor at the New Republic. And Fred, thanks for joining us.

MR. BARNES: Glad to be here.

MS. WOODRUFF: Let me ask both of you, how do you explain this popularity drop for the President and this change in public opinion and how much of it, Mark, has to do with this post war situation over in Iraq?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, he's plummeted to 78 percent. I mean, George Bush, if anybody had said George Bush at this point in his Presidency had a 78 percent approval, they would have been asked to go to the Menninger Clinic waiting room and be examined. This is still phenomenally high. The only problem I see for the President is this. He fell from 90 to 78 with -- it wasn't like he had spent the capital in a particular -- you could feel good about itif you tried to push an education bill or package or some particular initiative of yours and it had cost you political support, but it's kind of dribbling away. And it's going to dribble away down to more realistic levels in time, regardless of what he does do.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why is it dribbling away, Fred, and how much of it has to do with this whole Kurdish business, or does that have anything at all to do with it?

MR. BARNES: I think that has something to do with it, but a lot of it was merely inevitable. It was never going to stay in the 90s. That's unheard of. Even 78's higher than I think Bush was on Inauguration Day, on the day he was elected. So it's still very high. It is going to go down more. Bush has gotten several weeks of bad television. He's looked cautious, not bold. He's looked like a politician. He hasn't looked like the very forceful leader he did during the whole Gulf crisis and the Gulf War. So that's bound to take some toll.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why is that, Mark? I mean, what's changed? What's happened?

MR. SHIELDS: I think, Judy, that the lack of apparently a compelling plan as to what to do in Iraq after the war, that Radio Free Iraq we said, we'll stand with you to the Kurds, do whatever you want and be on your side, or words to that effect, and encouraging them. Apparently, the message was intended for Iraqi generals, but it went to a wider audience of people who did believe, who did act, and who now find themselves more than in harm's way, I mean, facing death, and I think that that bothers Americans immensely. And the idea that we don't have any concern with the internal goings on of another country just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I mean, especially a country that we to our efforts in large part reduced to a pre-industrial age.

MR. BARNES: But, Mark, it's not a situation where the public is forcing Bush to go in and send the humanitarian aid in. The public doesn't have much interest in what goes on in Iraq now. There's no -- the public isn't driving Bush in any particular direction and his problem is he's been caught by surprise. There was a lot of planning for post war Iraq by the Bush White House, but they didn't plan for rebellion by the Kurds or rebellion by the Shiites.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, where is the pressure coming from. The President looked shaken yesterday.

MR. BARNES: The pressure is coming from one place, and that is the pictures on television, and they are compelling and people are starving.

MS. WOODRUFF: And in the media overall.

MR. BARNES: And in the media overall, and actually, remember during the Gulf crisis, Bush was a leader. Now he's following Prime Minister Major and Pres. Mitterrand, they're leading the way on this.

MS. WOODRUFF: We were just showing the cover this week from Newsweek Magazine and some of the other news weeklies that all are highlighting this Kurdish catastrophe.

MR. SHIELDS: I think Fed does underestimate the American people. I think there is a growing concern and a growing sense of rage and compassion about these people. I don't think it's as widespread as the euphoria after the victory, but there is in the country -- I've been out all week and people are talking about it.

MR. BARNES: But the President probably will be able to satisfy that rage by what he's doing now.

MS. WOODRUFF: You mean just by dropping bundles of food and clothing?

MR. BARNES: No. But the President basically has a policy now, though he hasn't explained it fully, and that is to provide humanitarian aid, guarantee an enclave for the Kurds, and he's not going to be able nowto let Saddam Hussein go in and attack the Kurds again. He'll have to intervene militarily I believe.

MS. WOODRUFF: But we just heard Sec. Cheney say that we're not going to do that.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right. We did hear Sec. Cheney. I don't know how you carve an enclave out. I mean, I'm happy that they are being spared further military assault, and I hope that they have a chance to live their own lives in peace and some sense of domestic tranquility, but I don't know how you guarantee within a country an enclave, Fred, that somehow they're going to be treated with the civil libertarians concerns.

MR. BARNES: Well, the only way you can guarantee it is to tell Saddam Hussein not to go in there and promise to use military force. Air power would probably be enough, but that's military force. You'd have to do that.

MS. WOODRUFF: But you believe the administration is committed to that end?

MR. BARNES: Well, they haven't said so. I wouldn't say committed, but how can they now let Saddam Hussein go back over the 36th Parallel and attack these Kurds? They can't do that. It's morally impossible.

MS. WOODRUFF: Let me ask you, Mark, first about this announcement from Sec. Cheney today on another subject, closing 30 some odd military, major military bases around the country, a big uproar from members of Congress who don't want these bases closed.

MR. SHIELDS: Big uproar from members of Congress who have been talking for generations now about the peace dividend and cutting the defense budget, and it's the old NIMBY, not in my backyard. I mean, I could tell you, Judy, I'm from Massachusetts. There isn't a more pacifist state in the union. And the idea that the Soviets and their plan for world domination, which has somewhere been shelved I think, I think after the collapse of Communism, that Ft. Devons was going to hold back the Soviets from really invading West Germany is absolutely incomprehensible. What we're down to now is Democrats acting like Republicans, like Reagan Republicans. It's a me first attitude. They aren't looking at the big picture, which is let's really get this money for a peace dividend. It's a very, it's a very selfish, self-concerned --

MS. WOODRUFF: Are you going to let him get away with that?

MR. SHIELDS: -- self-absorbed, Reaganesque approach.

MR. BARNES: No, really, it has nothing to do with Reagan, but it has to do with Republicans and Democrats. This is bipartisan. You saw Sen. Specter saying that we could not have won the war in the Persian Gulf without the Philadelphia Navy Yard. I mean, absolutely exceptional.

MS. WOODRUFF: So does the administration stand a better chance than they did last year with these base closings?

MR. BARNES: The way it's set up is you have to vote up or down on the whole package and that makes it a little harder to vote against, but there are a lot of people that are going to be against this and it could well go down.

MR. SHIELDS: I think it's a sure winner for the administration. I think it's a dividend from the victory, it's a step in the right direction, it's arms control, it's a conquest of Soviet imperialism, and I think --

MR. BARNES: Those are all the high tones. I'm not sure how good the politics of it are, because every Congressman objects to losing any military installation in his district.

MS. WOODRUFF: Last and maybe least as well, this book that's gotten so much attention this week, the unofficial, unauthorized biography of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, how much is there in there, Mark, that really matters, that really is going to change the Reagan legacy, or is there?

MR. SHIELDS: I was in three bookstores Monday where it was sold out. I mean, it was just absolutely incredible. I don't know. I think it's more than any --

MS. WOODRUFF: You were trying to buy it?

MR. SHIELDS: I was just kind of fascinated. I was looking for something else and I was fascinated at the sales. I have to say that it was raw meat for the non-believers, I mean, for people who were skeptical or had their doubts or even more than disliked Nancy Reagan or the Reagans in general, there was plenty of fodder there to sustain them through cold winter nights, but I think it's interesting, Judy, that Ronald Reagan has had a lousy post Presidency by any definition, and it seems to work out in our system that if a President has been a failure or left office under a cloud, that that President in his post Presidency devotes more time and energy to rehabilitating his public record.

MS. WOODRUFF: Jimmy Carter.

MR. SHIELDS: Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover. And Ronald Reagan, I mean, the first thing he did out of the box was take the $2 million from the Japanese to go over there for a speech. Immediately he was tarnished and I think has been hurt ever since, never recovered.

MR. BARNES: Well, the non-believers in this case, Mark, include the media. The media has played this book up in a way as if to say it should be taken seriously, it's important, look at this book and think about it seriously. The New York Times did that. Other newspapers did that Sunday, and it's not. Here's a book -- this is National Enquirer journalism. It's the kind where you look for everything, you vacuum up everything that's unfavorable, use all of it, whether it's rumor, fact, innuendo, hearsay, use all it, and don't let a kind word get in the whole thing. This is not serious history.

MS. WOODRUFF: And that really is my question. Is anything going to seriously change about the way Ronald Reagan is perceived and Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan are perceived in history because of the information in this book?

MR. SHIELDS: I think it contributes to an essentially negative post Presidency for Ronald Reagan. I mean, I think it's just one more factory. The Wall Street Journal-NBC Poll in which the former President, if we're going to add any fact to Mt. Rushmore, Americans would go for it, only 6 percent chose Reagan, and this is a man that left after two successful terms just two years ago, and that's really, I mean, that is plummeting.

MR. BARNES: Look, there are bound to be things that people remember from this book whether they've read it or not that are unfavorable to Nancy Reagan. She's going to be hurt by this. In the long run, Ronald Reagan won't be hurt though because he's going to be judged by whether his terms were successful or not. And Mark, you're right, they were both successful.

MR. SHIELDS: He had two successful terms in the judgment of the people, of the country. He left with the approval of the people of the country.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right, Mark Shields, Fred Barnes, thank you both. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, how the press handled the Kitty Kelley book on Nancy Reagan and the last of Charlayne Hunter-Gault's conversations on murder. FOCUS - HISTORY OR HYPE?

MR. MacNeil: As we've heard, Kitty Kelley's unauthorized biography of Nancy Reagan hit the bookstores on Monday and instantly became a best seller, thanks in large measure to the sophisticated marketing strategy adopted by Simon & Schuster, the publishers. Advance copies of the book were sent only to news organizations which agreed not to publish their stories or talk to any of Kelley's sources before Monday. But the New York Times and the Daily News obtained their own copies and on Sunday ran front page stories highlighting Kelley's juicier items like Mrs. Reagan's alleged affair with Frank Sinatra and her daughter's rumored abortion. By Monday, the book was the stuff that banner headlines were made of all across the country. Critics have questioned the quality of Kelley's reporting and the orchestrated hype surrounding the book. Until her publishers abruptly cancelled her book tour, Ms. Kelley was a regular on talk shows like CNN's Sonya Live.

SONYA: [CNN "Sonya Live"] Were any of the people who gave interviews paid for the material that they shared with you?

MS. KELLEY: Absolutely not.

SONYA: They all came forward on their own. And did you substantiate everything you said with at least one other source?

MS. KELLEY: You try to. You absolutely try to.

SONYA: But in some cases that would not --

MS. KELLEY: Well, if I was doing, you know, an interview where only you took, you were there with Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Reagan won't give an interview, then I only quote you.

SONYA: But do you ever suspect the motives behind the reason that someone might give you this information?

MS. KELLEY: Oh, unquestionably. Sonya, I live in Washington, D.C. I interview politicians. I suspect it all the time.

MR. MacNeil: Now to discuss how news organizations have handled this story, we have two people who see it differently. Haynes Johnson of the Washington Post, whose own book on the Reagan era, "Sleepwalking Through History", was published recently, and Dorothy Rabinowitz, editorial writer and media critic of the Wall Street Journal. Haynes Johnson, Richard Cohen, a columnist in your newspaper, the Post, says it's not the Reagan reputation, it's the press that's been soiled by this affair. Do you agree with that?

MR. JOHNSON: In part, I do. I think that they're the hype. We play a part in all these things. This isn't the first, Robin. We're going to see it again and again and again. We live in an age of media exploitation. The politicians do it. We do it. We're all sort of part of a willing complicity, not all of us. It depends on what part of the press you're talking about. There is serious journalism that looks at the sources, that takes it carefully, and examines something. This book was made for exactly what you've seen happen. It came at the end of a Reagan period that is now being looked back on with some dismay, heavy issues to be reckoned with, and also a portrait of Reagan from his own intimates and from his own family that was not very flattering, and so here comes this juicy, big bomb that hits the books, as it did, and it was all hyped up, and there we are. We're in the middle of it. We're off and running.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think the press has been soiled by this?

MS. RABINOWITZ: Well, I think that what we're seeing is the National Enquirization of culture through the press. In fact, we may even say this is the National Enquirization of the New York Times which put this on its front cover, and it told us a number of things on the front page of the Times, and one is that the good, gray lady that the New York Times was and it stood for standards has really changed.

MR. MacNeil: They should not have put this story on the front page in your view?

MS. RABINOWITZ: To say nothing of -- they did it, but look at how they did it. They gave it the most enormous credence. They treated it so respectfully, as though this were deep scholarship, as though we had not heard all of this before in Donald Regan's book and elsewhere. So, I mean, what we're seeing here is a general, if I may be stuffy, but I think it's true, I think it's the barbarization of the culture one more step in it, where you can write anything, say anything, and then there's the other aspect, the Reagans themselves, Ronald Reagan was the Teflon President. No one could get to him. You remember when Ronald Reagan departed. Reporters were asking themselves, I like this guy, I mean, you can't help it. They said that for eight years, you've got to like this guy. Well, I think some part of them didn't want them to like this guy. Then he went away and then you had Nancy Reagan. Now this is a way to expiate a lot of liking this guy.

MR. MacNeil: Let me ask Haynes whether as a journalist himself he thinks the Times should have published this on the front page. Your paper didn't.

MR. JOHNSON: No, but we had signed an agreement, as others had too, and you're in a competitive box here, Robin. I can't judge what the Times' news judgment on this or not was, but I wanted to say --

MR. MacNeil: Would you -- if you had been the editor of the Post, would you put it on the front page?

MR. JOHNSON: Probably not.

MR. MacNeil: No. Why not?

MR. JOHNSON: If I was sure it didn't have new disclosures in it, I probably would not have done that, but I'd have to be very careful because this is a book that comes from a big publishing house with a reputation, one of the two giants, worked four and a half years, one thousand interviews and all of that. I think you'd have to do a very careful job to determine what you thought was the truth about that book.

MR. MacNeil: I see. Now are you talking about the truth of the book, or are you --

MS. RABINOWITZ: Well, both things, both things. For example, we had the book on Chappaquidick by Leo Demore which was many serious scholars thought this was the definitive book. This could never even get a review in the New York Times. And one could say this might have told us a good deal about Chappaquidick. It's - -

MR. MacNeil: Well, why is that relevant to this?

MS. RABINOWITZ: It's relevant to this because that was never covered at the Times and here you have a muckraking book, which is a very kind way to describe Kitty Kelley's book about the Reagans, put on the front page. And so you could see that there's a certain interest in one political side as opposed to another. What did this tell us new that you didn't know about the Reagans? That you could --

MR. MacNeil: Well, let me go back to Haynes Johnson. You wouldn't call the Washington Post a conservative newspaper.

MS. RABINOWITZ: Certainly not.

MR. MacNeil: And yet the Washington Post has played it very differently --

MS. RABINOWITZ: That's right.

MR. MacNeil: -- from the New York Times. Haynes.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, it has, of course, and the way we played it was to treat it as though there were not that many new disclosures. There were new things in it, and I do not think it's correct to suggest that this was all some sort of a conspiracy by the liberals and those who didn't like Ronald Reagan to get back at him now. The most damaging things, what happened in this book, what prepared the way for it, were all the disclosures about the Reagan intimates. When Donald Regan wrote his book about that there was an astrologer sitting next to Nancy Reagan, charting all the Presidential movements and meetings and heads of state and so forth, that seemed so incredible, but that's only -- we've had terrible disclosures by his own intimates. And now comes after two years when the policies of the period look not so good, here comes a book that promises to give you more. I think it's bound to have had exactly the kind of reaction it did have.

MS. RABINOWITZ: Well, I mean, I think it's really important to say that this isn't a case of liberal bias. That is not what this is about. What this is about is who is a fit target, Sen. Ted Kennedy and the Kennedys are not a fit target, not nearly as much as this President about whom no one could puncture this general halo and sense of good feeling about this President. Now he is not before us, and I greatly disbelieve that this will tarnish his reputation.

MR. MacNeil: You do not believe it will tarnish his reputation?

MS. RABINOWITZ: Oh, heavens no!

MR. MacNeil: But let me just come back on something you said a moment ago. Surely, the same press that has been giving such publicity to this book and especially the very now more competitive New York newspapers have been giving everybody as much publicity to the incident in Palm Beach involving Sen. Kennedy and his son and his nephew.

MS. RABINOWITZ: I don't think the New York Times has been putting it on his front page, do you?

MR. MacNeil: I haven't seen it on the front page.

MS. RABINOWITZ: Well, yes.

MR. MacNeil: Now Haynes, do you believe this will not affect on Dorothy's point, do you believe this will not affect, tarnish the Reagans' reputation?

MR. JOHNSON: Robin, I think this is one more pebble in the pile. I think there has been a collective, damning portrait arriving about the Reagan Presidency, and I think this is just one more. These books will find their own level. But it will be, people will comb back on much like the Harding era when they look back at the memoirs, some of them sensational, some of them inaccurate. You will sort out what was true and what wasn't true later on in history, and there will be -- I'll tell you, the one portrait about this book that I thought most chilling was further evidence of the problems internally in the family of the Reagan household, with Patty, the daughter, and the allegations of being beaten, which she says is now true. I find that adds to the -- I think it's going to be another blow at the myth of the happy Reagan portrait that was forged. Yes, I do.

MS. RABINOWITZ: This is exactly it. We've really heard about this myth that has now been dispelled, but the fact is that for eight years we have heard very little else but oozings from various gossips about Ron Jr. and about Patty as though this were new. It is to laugh to hear as though we were getting something brand new. What we have here is a repackaging of all of this. I don't think there's a family in America that isn't on Jupiter that hasn't heard, oh, things have been very nasty at the Reagan family hot side, what with stories about the son, the adopted son and all of that, so the notion that this is giving us something brand new and something very important and historical, don't make me laugh.

MR. MacNeil: Well, there are stories in the book that certainly have not come out before, if at least allegations that have not come out before, about the circumstances of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan's getting married, about her daughter's alleged abortion, and so on, those things haven't come out before.

MS. RABINOWITZ: Yes. And I say yes, this may be a piece of trivia, but you know, in the tabloids if they wrote I have given birth to a two-headed baby in the tabloids and someone says yes, but I can't prove this, but I've been told.

MR. MacNeil: You said that earlier, that this is the National Enquirization of this sort of thing. Do you agree with that? Is this on a level with the National Enquirer, Haynes Johnson?

MR. JOHNSON: No. I really don't think so, Robin. I think there's something deeper here. I really do believe what we're watching right now, you look at all the news that we're seeing about the economy and the junk bonds' collapse and the savings & loan people still floundering, I think we're seeing a hunger in the country to look back on the period and see what happened. And this is, to be sure, it's titillation, it's scandal, it's gossip, but it's also got some serious allegations in it, and I think it's all part of a piece. And I think it suggests the country is, in fact, looking back on this time, what really happened, what was it really like, and what do we really know about it?

MS. RABINOWITZ: If I might say that if there is a hunger in the country, it is not to go back and find out that the Reagans were not the gods which nobody thought they were. I mean, if there is a hunger in the country, it is to think well of ourselves as we did during the Gulf War, and I fear do not think so well of now. I think it is -- I think there is no more idealistic people in this earth than the American people and to undermine their notions, this President of whom they were fond, so deeply fond, maybe that's the most definitive feeling that they have, who gave them their sense of themselves, he stood up for them and represented them, which is why you love a President, after all. Why did they love George Bush? Because they loved him personally when he brought us into the Gulf War? No. Because he gave Americans their idea of themselves, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

MR. MacNeil: Haynes, you were laughing.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I was smiling about the Ronald Reagan -- it sounded as if she was suggesting that we shouldn't really look at the warts of the Reagan period, that he was so wonderful --

MS. RABINOWITZ: Oh, no.

MR. JOHNSON: -- and we loved him and all that. And I think that's, of course, not the case. And I think that yes, we're idealistic people, but we're also -- I hope we're realistic people. I hope we're practical people. I hope we're smart. I hope we want to find out what went wrong. And if it did, this is part of the process. This is only one, as I said before, one pebble in the beach, but it's part of it.

MS. RABINOWITZ: I'm very willing to bet, Mr. Johnson, a copy of these memoirs that what the Americans are not hungering for is to find out all about the Reagan decade and to find out the real truth about it. I dare say no more -- they used to go around telling us that what we were most interested in was the deficit.

MR. MacNeil: Well, why are they buying more than 600,000 copies in the first week of a book, if they're not hungry?

MS. RABINOWITZ: Because it's fun. It's fun. No one is sitting there saying, now I'm going to discover the truth of this darker truth about this. It's fun to read titillating stuff. We all love it. We may not love this one. I may not love this one. But fun is a very different thing from moral imperative. And what is so remarkable about the press discussion of all of this is the incredible seriousness with which this is taken, and the conflict. One day they're writing about how important this is as history and the next day, if I may be forgiven for saying, Mr. Johnson writes a column today about how silly all of this is and what are we doing all of this for?

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Johnson, I'm sorry, there isn't time for you to reply to that.

MR. JOHNSON: I'm sorry too.

MR. MacNeil: Oh, wait a moment. They just told me in my ear I have time to get a response from you.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I think there is a serious element to this and I did write -- there's both silly and frivolous and very serious. I think it's telling us something. The more you can find out about the truth of our public figures, the better. I do not defend this as history. Don't put me in that place at all. But I think it is one of the areas that we're looking at and I think that's not bad.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Haynes Johnson, Dorothy Rabinowitz, thank you both. SERIES - MURDER IN AMERICA

MS. WOODRUFF: Finally murder in America. We conclude our series of conversations on why so many Americans are killing each other. Tonight Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks with a New York State Supreme Court Justice.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: This is the Bronx courthouse, its visibility most recently enhanced by its role in the movie, "Bonfire of the Vanities." Some 38 State Supreme Court Justices work here in real life. Even off the screen, their courtrooms are rarely idle. It's one of the busiest courts in the nation, handling some 11,000 criminal cases a year. Among the Justices, Ivan Warner, who was elected to the bench 23 years ago. Last year, Justice Warner heard about 100 homicide cases. Of the 121 criminal cases pending before him today, 13 are homicides. Justice Warner, can you tell me what you think is the reason for the climbing, soaring murder rate?

IVAN WARNER, NY State Supreme Court Judge: Oh, I see it as the position in which high society finds itself today. We've lost all sense of values throughout the entire society. At one time these things would happen among the poor, the poverty stricken, the illiterate who felt hopeless. And now we find that society has taken a shift and we've glorified murder. We're now glorifying, actually glorifying, murder at a time when we are as a society in general in America have made life, itself, less, much less valuable.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Where do you see that justification?

JUSTICE WARNER: Movies -- television -- media -- and just, just day by day living, living in the population you see it. A mere fender bender, two automobiles, maybe less than $100 worth of damage to either car can create a murder, that kind of attitude, that kind of thing, that kind of thinking in this society, the relationship of one to another, total disregard for life.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But haven't movies always been violent? I mean, what is so different about today?

JUSTICE WARNER: At that time when we glorified the cowboy and the Indians, we did have to counteract that family structures. We had churches, we had religious institutions to counteract this kind of behavior, so we went to the movies on Saturday morning to see the cowboys and the Indians in a shoot 'em up, we went to Sunday school Sunday. You sat through dinner with your family, fathers and mothers, which we don't have today. But in the best homes today that family unit very, very rarely sits together.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you see in your courtroom that gives you insight into this problem?

JUSTICE WARNER: It tells me the same thing that it tells me as I walk down the streets of the community, that this indifference, indifference to human life, the total respect for the human life of another person means absolutely nothing. The slightest provocation, a stepping on a toe, a pushing in a line, a gasoline line, if you will, anything of that, or a ball game, a shove, an elbow, a look at someone's wife, a look at someone's husband, or ask someone for a dance at a dance hall could bring about your death.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why?

JUSTICE WARNER: It's a question of survival, the need to feel that you have to do this in order to survive in that jungle.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: They tell you that? Will they tell you that? Do you ever ask them why did yo do this?

JUSTICE WARNER: They don't tell you that in so many words. Man, you don't understand. Don't understand what? The streets. That's what they tell you, you don't understand these streets. And then when you say well, I grew up on these streets too, it wasn't like this. And to a great extent they're right. It was not like this. You had something, some backdrop. We had community centers. We had -- I remember growing up in this city. I was a native of this city, community centers, and at that time by the Children's Aid Society, we had schools, public schools open in the afternoon from 3 to 5, close at 5, open again at 7, from 7 to 10, five days a week. So you had some place to throw yourself, to throw this energy, this young energy that you had, this teenage energy, 13, 14, 15, you had somewhere to throw it off. You didn't have an opportunity to see the pusher on the corner with the big car, with the bouncing radios, with six speakers or eight speakers, to adulate or to try to copy.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You're saying the institutions are failing?

JUSTICE WARNER: The institutions have failed. Society tells me I'm nothing and if society continues to tell me I'm nothing and I'm nobody and I'll never be anyone, I'm going to act in that manner as a nothing. That's all I know.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you see in this courtroom that accounts for some of that?

JUSTICE WARNER: Well, a lot of it is drug-related, a tremendous amount of it drug-related.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Much more than in the past?

JUSTICE WARNER: No question about it. And there again they're younger and younger. What's been happening, what's happened when the older dealers and participants in the trade find themselves being incarcerated, arrested, what they're doing now is turning over a lot of the street activity to youngsters who because of their ages are not as prone to receive the length of time that you'll give to the older ones, so they're now turning a lot of their street activity to youngsters who, themselves, are not able we believe to handle even some of the guns that they're attempting to handle. That's why we're getting these random shootings, where people are being shot randomly even in their apartment or lying in bed. They're dealing with automatic weapons which once they set this thing in motion, you know, if you're not familiar with it, you just don't control it. These bullets start flying everywhere. There was one a couple of weeks ago. It was supposedly an organized hit, paid hit -- allegedly knew everyone else, and the victim was allegedly said to the perpetrators why this happened, why were you doing this to me, we were paid to, just like that, we were paid to do it, handcuffed and told to run, and when he started to run, they started shooting. He was fortunate. He lived, but he's in a wheelchair for life. That's right. And it's very difficult under these circumstances to even attempt to select a jury.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why?

JUSTICE WARNER: Many people will come up and say, Judge, please, not on this case. Why? You have to ask why. And this is individually, at the side with counsel and the court reporter, not in general public's ears, well, myself's been a victim, my family and my cousin and my uncle and my brother, my son, my daughter. You'd be surprised.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And they don't feel they can be objective?

JUSTICE WARNER: They cannot. Under no circumstances could they be.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's not fear?

JUSTICE WARNER: No, not fear. They just cannot stand -- they just cannot sit here as a juror and listen to the facts of this particular case without it having a direct bearing and influencing their verdict based upon what happened to them and their family, and in many cases, they, themselves.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How effective do you think what you're doing is?

JUSTICE WARNER: Not too effective.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why not?

JUSTICE WARNER: At the moment. No. 1, it takes too long before the judgment day, so to speak.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Meaning?

JUSTICE WARNER: A crime occurs today, January 2, 1991, a homicide let's say, more than likely, more than likely, January 2, 1991, that case will still be pending.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why is that?

JUSTICE WARNER: The volume of work of the system, the volume of work that we have here. That case will still be pending a year from today. Now punishment should be swift. Justice should be swift. Not guilty? Home. Guilty? Then you're incarcerated. But it should not be a drag out, drag out, prolonged situation. That's where I believe and many of us believe much of the respect has been dissipated.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: For the courts and for the law?

JUSTICE WARNER: Yes. Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Because they know they won't --

JUSTICE WARNER: That's correct. It's not swift.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And when that time elapses, what does that do?

JUSTICE WARNER: Everyone's waiting for the witnesses to disappear.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And they do?

JUSTICE WARNER: And sometimes they do for one reason or another.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: A lot of people say why should I care? It doesn't affect my community.

JUSTICE WARNER: It is their problem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why?

JUSTICE WARNER: Because we don't have a wall. You may build an imaginary wall around yourself, but you don't have a wall, because you'll find if you look far enough or close enough, you'll find that your children too are being infected. I didn't say affected. I said infected. And your family structure is being destroyed also, even with all the big bucks, it's also being destroyed, and the fine homes with the fine lawns, they're also being destroyed, so we just cannot isolate this thing, we're one nation, whether we want to believe it or not.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What are we in for as a society?

JUSTICE WARNER: A long hard road, very uncertain, very uncertain, and we just don't have any idea of the depths. I don't think we have an idea as to the depths of this whole problem, because everyone believes that it's on the other fellow's block and not mine. That's the short-sightedness of all of us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Justice Ivan Warner, thank you for being with us.

JUSTICE WARNER: Thank you. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Friday, the Pentagon proposed closing 31 major military bases around the country. Sec. Cheney said the closings are needed to reduce the defense budget. The U.S. stepped up its relief efforts for the Kurdish refugees. Officials said the shipments included blankets, tents, coats and food for 700,000 meals a day. In this country, consumer prices dropped last month for the first time in five years. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back Monday night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and have agood weekend.