The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Tuesday, we have a campaign issue and debate segment on when and how the United States should use its military power and a David Gergen and Mark Shields preview of tonight's vice presidential debate. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The three major candidates for vice president will debate tonight in Atlanta. Vice President Quayle arrived this morning. He called it "an opportunity to tell the American people why we need for more years of George Bush." Sen. Gore, his Democratic opponent, was already in Atlanta, making final preparations. He and Ross Perot's running mate, James Stockdale, will make the case for their respective tickets. The debate will be held on the campus of Georgia Tech University. None of the presidential candidates made campaign appearances today. But President Bush and Gov. Clinton exchanged charges about the governor's draft record, and the President's knowledge of the Iran- contra scandal. Mr. Bush appeared on NBC's Today Show. He was asked about Democratic accusations he knew about the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan contras.

PRESIDENT BUSH: In terms of the contra part of it, absolutely not. And no one has suggested I did. Diversion of arms for support for the contras, no. And no one's challenged that. But to equate this with whether you've told the truth on the draft, I'm sorry, I've been under oath on this. And it's -- it's strange -- strange.

MR. LEHRER: Gov. Clinton later responded to the draft criticism. He spoke with reporters in Charlotte, North Carolina.

GOV. BILL CLINTON: I've told what the facts are. And the meager evidence we have supports my account. The evidence we have on Iran- contra directly contradicts his account.

REPORTER: Do you think the President is not telling the truth?

GOV. BILL CLINTON: No. I just said that the documentary evidence, the phone call between two of his cabinet members, the records of the meetings he was in, all that stuff, contradict his account.

MR. LEHRER: We will preview tonight's vice presidential debate with Gergen & Shields later in the program. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: The director of the FBI was reported today to be under investigation. According to several news agencies, the Justice Department is reviewing records to determine whether William Sessions' wife misused government planes or cars for personal travel. It's also investigating a complaint that a close aide of Sessions used FBI credentials in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent her son from getting a speeding ticket. Sessions confirmed to the Reuters News Agency that an investigation was underway.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court refused today to think again about flag burning. The Justices rejected without comment a request to reconsider its 1989 decision which threw out a Texas law banning flag burning. The opinion in that five to four decision said flag burning is a form of political expression protected by the Constitution's First Amendment. The court also declined today to allow former Navy Intelligence Analyst Jonathan Pollard to withdraw a guilty plea for selling U.S. secrets to Israel. It rejected Pollard's argument government lawyers coerced his guilty plea. Pollard was arrested in 1985, and admitted to selling stacks of classified documents to Israel over an 18-month period. He is serving a life sentence.

MR. MacNeil: The death toll from the earthquake in Egypt rose today to more than 400. Thousands more were injured. The quake caused damage and casualties in half of Egypt's 26 provinces, but the capital, Cairo, was hardest hit. Amidst the wreck of crumbled buildings, the search for victims and any possible survivors continued. David Chater of Independent Television News reports from Cairo.

DAVID CHATER: Somewhere above the noise of the earth movers tearing at the debris of this block of flats once 14-stories high a human voice was heard today crying out from the rubble. The excavation was immediately halted. Silence was called for. Teams with listening devices located survivors crushed beneath the concrete slabs but still alive. The struggle to free them has been going on now for three desperate hours. It's a scene being repeated in suburbs throughout Cairo. The earthquake devastated the poorest parts of the city. Many were lucky to escape with their lives as their substandard housing collapsed around them. This morning, people were still in a state of panic, trying to come to terms with what was happening. The worst shock waves lasted for 14 terrifying seconds. School children were trampled to death in the stampede for safety. The death toll is climbing by the hour, but the number of injured is already put at more than 4,000, many of them in a serious condition. The hospitals are so overcrowded they're having to treat some patients in the corridors. They're also running short of medical supplies. In the last few minutes, they've pulled what they thought was another survivor out of the rubble, but he died just as safety was at hand. The specialized French rescue teams have now arrived on the scene. All hope has not yet gone. They hope other survivors will be found.

MR. MacNeil: The International Red Cross today appealed for aid to help survivors of the earthquake. So far, Saudi Arabia has promised $50 million, while Kuwait has offered 20 million, plus drugs and emergency supplies.

MR. LEHRER: This year's Nobel Prize for economics will go to University of Chicago Professor Gary Becker, it was announced today. He was honored for his work connecting economic with sociology. His research has looked at issues such as divorce, race, crime, and education. Former CBS and ABC newsman Hughes Rudd died today in France of complications from an aortic aneurysm. He was often critical of his line of work, telling a group of broadcasters once any complicated or serious subject can't be explained on television. He retired from the business in 1986. He was also an accomplished writer of short stories. He was 71-years-old. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to when to use U.S. military force and a vice presidential debate preview with Gergen & Shields. ISSUE & DEBATE - '92 - INTERVENTION

MR. MacNeil: Our major focus tonight is another in our campaign issue and debate segments: When and how the United States should intervene beyond its borders. We're going to explore how the three presidential candidates differ on this issue basic to the presidential role as Commander in Chief. We'll have representatives of the Bush, Clinton, and Perot campaigns, and two outsiders. We start with a background report prepared by Correspondent Charles Krause.

MR. KRAUSE: For the past half century every President, from Franklin Roosevelt to George Bush, has sent American soldiers into combat. By one count, including the Gulf, the United States has intervened abroad at least 60 times since the end of World War II. It was Harry Truman who first defined the parameters for intervention that would guide his successors during the Cold War. That came in 1947, when Truman asked Congress to authorize economic and military aid to stop Communist advances in Greece and Turkey.

HARRY TRUMAN: One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed upon free peoples by direct or indirect aggression undermine the foundations of international peace, and hence, the security of the United States. Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far reaching to the West as well as to the East.

MR. KRAUSE: Truman used military force at least six times during his presidency. In the end though, he sent only money, not combat troops to Greece and Turkey. Americans have generally supported the use of military force since the end of World War II. Still, there's no more difficult or politically risky position for any President than sending young Americans to fight and die far away from home. Yet, despite the risks, every post war President since Truman has deployed military force abroad, citing a variety of justifications to accomplish a variety of political and military objectives. The first and most clear cut use of force in the post war era has been to repel outside aggression, as in Korea 40 years ago. There, working through the United Nations, Truman committed a vast army to roll back Communist North Korea's invasion of the South. A more controversial use of force has been to oust unfriendly governments, as in Panama two and a half years ago. There and in other cases Presidents have acted without a formal declaration of war, under their own authority as Commander in Chief. Since Truman, Presidents have also used force to prop up friendly governments or to repel threatened Communist takeovers, as in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In Southeast Asia, Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all tried without success to use conventional military force to fight unconventional battles. In the end, Vietnam defined the political and military limits of intervention for a generation. Finally, throughout the post war period, the United States has used its military forces for what are essentially humanitarian purposes, most recently to transport food to Russia this past winter. Even in the post Cold War era, President Bush has used force in ways similar to his predecessors. Since 1989, he's sent U.S. troops to fight or into potentially hostile situations at least five times, in Panama, in Liberia, in Zaire, and the Philippines, and in the Gulf. At the same time, Mr. Bush has refused to intervene to save the Aristide government in Haiti. And so far, he's avoided the use of force in Somalia and in Yugoslavia. At the Republican convention, the President defended his record and said he would not shrink from using force again if he's re-elected.

PRESIDENT BUSH: There will be more foreign policy challenges like Kuwait in the next four years, terrorists and aggressors to stand up to, dangerous weapons to be controlled and destroyed, and freedom's fight is not finished. And I look forward to being the first President to visit a free democratic Cuba. Who will lead the world? Who will lead the world in the face of these challenges? Not my opponent. In his acceptance speech, he devoted just 65 seconds to telling us about the world.

MR. KRAUSE: For is part, Gov. Clinton has accused the President of too often defending the status quo. If elected, he said he will reconfigure U.S. ground, air, and naval forces to meet changing contingencies in the post Cold War era.

GOV. CLINTON: We can never forget this essential fact. Power is the basis for successful diplomacy, and military power has always been fundamental in international relationships. So a President must provide the American people with a clear explanation of our enduring security interests and a new estimate of the threats we are likely to face in the post Cold War era. So far, in my judgment, this administration has failed to supply that rationale, failed to give a clear strategy for a new national security, and that is fueling isolationism here at home from both the left and the right.

MR. KRAUSE: Throughout the campaign so far there's been remarkably little debate about foreign policy or about the use of military force. But Sunday President Bush was asked why the United States had not intervened militarily to end the suffering in Somalia and Yugoslavia.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Both of them are very complicated situations. And I vowed something, because I learned something from Vietnam. I am not going to commit U.S. forces until I know what the mission is, till the military tell me that they can be completed, until I know how they can come out. We are helping. American airplanes are helping today on humanitarian relief for Sarajevo. It is America that's in the lead in helping with humanitarian relief for Somalia. But when you go to put somebody else's son or daughter into war, I think you got to be a little bit careful and you have to have - - be sure that there's a military plan that can do this. You have ancient ethnic rivalries that have cropped up as Yugoslavia has dissolved or getting dissolved, and it isn't going to be solved by sending in the 82nd Airborne. And I am not going to do that as Commander in Chief. I am very concerned about it. I am concerned about ethnic cleansing. I'm concerned about a tax on Muslims, for example, over there. But I must stop short of using American force until I know how those young men and women are going to get out of there, as well as get in, know what the mission is, and define it. And I think I'm on the right track.

ROSS PEROT: I think if we learned anything in Vietnam, it's you first commit this nation before you commit the troops to the battlefield. We cannot send our people all over the world to solve every problem that comes up. This is basically a problem that is a primary concern to the European Community. Certainly we care about the people. We care about the children. We care about the tragedy. But it is inappropriate for us just because there's a problem somewhere around the world to take the sons and daughters of working people -- and make no mistake about it -- our all- volunteer armed force is not made up of the sons and daughters of the beautiful people -- it's the working folks who send their sons and daughters to war, with a few exceptions -- it's very unlike World War II when FDR's sons flew missions. Everybody went. It's a different world now. Very important that we not just, without thinking it through, just rush to every problem in the world, and have our people torn to pieces.

GOV. CLINTON: I agree that we cannot commit ground forces to become involved in the quagmire of Bosnia or in the tribal wars of Somalia. But I think that it's important to recognize that there are things that can be done short of that and that we do have interest there. There are, after all, two million refugees now because of the problems in what was Yugoslavia, the largest number since World War II. And there may be hundreds of thousands of people who will starve or freeze to death in this winter. The United States should try to work with its allies and stop it. I urged the President to support this air cover and he did, and I applaud that. I applaud the no-fly zone and I know that he's going back to the United Nations to try to get authority to enforce it. I think we should stiffen the embargo on the Belgrade government, and I think we have to consider whether or not we should lift the arms embargo now on the Bosnians since they are in no way in a fair fight with a heavily armed opponent bent on ethnic cleansing. We can't get involved in the quagmire but we must do what we can.

MR. MacNeil: And now to our discussion. From the Bush/Quayle campaign, Peter Rodman, who served on the National Security Council Staff under President Bush, and is (was) head of policy planning in the State Department during the Reagan years. He is now a fellow at the Johns-Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington. From the Clinton/Gore campaign, Michael Mandelbaum, he's a professor of political science at the Johns-Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and has written on U.S./Soviet relations. From the Perot/Stockdale campaign, Richard Fisher, who was the foreign policy issues coordinator in the original Perot campaign. He served in the Treasury Department in the Carter administration, now owns a financial management company in Dallas, where he joins us. And we have two outside perspectives; Richard Barnet is a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and served in the State Department during the Kennedy administration. He's the author of several books on foreign policy. Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist who has written extensively on the U.S. role in the post Cold War world. Starting with you, Mr. Rodman, from the Bush campaign, if not in a case like Yugoslavia, when should U.S. forces be used, what are U.S. forces for nowadays?

MR. RODMAN: Well, history shows that you can't predict where the next challenge is going to come from. I think it's premature to come to the conclusion that the traditional kinds of threats have disappeared. Look at North Korea. Look at Iran. I think we still need to be prepared for the kind of contingencies that threaten U.S. interests in a variety of ways. And in addition, as the piece pointed out, there is a new set of missions that American forces can perform, including the humanitarian kind. So I think we still need a military force of some considerable capability. It's certainly a lot less of a burden than it used to be, but I think we need to be ready because the world looks to us as really the only -- the only power with that kind of capability.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Mandelbaum for Gov. Clinton, what should U.S. forces be used for nowadays?

MR. MANDELBAUM: Well, Robin, I think Gov. Clinton's approach to the issue of intervention, and especially military intervention, is based on four considerations. First and foremost, we have to get the economy going. Unless we improve on the dismal economic performance of the Bush administration, we're not going to have the resources or the domestic consensus for any kind of foreign policy. Second, Gov. Clinton has said that this is a new world that has new challenges and new opportunities, and, therefore, we have to rethink our policies. And we have to look for new solutions and new approaches. Third, he said there are dangers, there are interests that may have to be vindicated by force, and, therefore, we do need a robust military capability, but he differs with President Bush in that he believes we need more flexibility and more mobility. Fourth and finally, he's emphasized that the end of the Cold War gives us greater opportunities than ever before to act on a multilateral basis. We have greater possibilities for making use of the United Nations now than we did during the Cold War, and Gov. Clinton has complimented President Bush for the way he put together an international coalition to fight the Gulf War. Gov. Clinton also recognizes that there may be times when we need to act alone. So he has said that when intervention is necessary, as it may be, we should act multilaterally, where possible, but unilaterally where necessary.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Fisher, for Mr. Perot, when should U.S. forces be used in the new world order?

MR. FISHER: Well, first, let's go back to the beginning of that clip. You showed President Truman and rightly pointed out that for all practical purposes, we have been operating under iterations of the Truman doctrine since it was declared basically in 1945. In essence, that's the architecture that has defined when we commit forces, and how we conduct diplomacy, principally to contain the Soviet threat. It's important for people to understand that the enabling mechanism was the National Security Act of 1947, and under that act we created not only the Defense Department, as we now know it, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, and the R&D Board under what became the Defense Department. In essence, what we are saying is that this kind of architecture, this enabling mechanism, needs to now be reconsidered under the conditions that now prevail. We're structured to conduct a Cold War diplomacy and a military architecture, and we now have to consider a post Cold War architecture and enabling mechanism. Now, when should we use forces? Clearly, in the first instance will be or would be when our own immediate national security is threatened, and Mr. Perot, were he President, or I would think any President, would reserve the right to take into our own muscular hands any direct threat to our national security if it were clear and dangerous. Secondly, of course, we need to honor our current alliances, not only our alliances across the Atlantic, but also across the Pacific. These are obligations we have and we are held by them. A third critical point is, as Mr. Perot has said in some of the debates the other night, we learned from Vietnam that we have to have the public will behind us. And he has also declared that if we were to engage in a foreign expedition, as it were, that he would want to not only secure that public will but perhaps levy a public tax in order to fight that engagement. And the last principle which is important, one should not engage in a military engagement unless you complete the job.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Rodman, listening to what Mr. Perot's representative has outlined, is there anything President Bush would disagree with in that?

MR. RODMAN: I think the truth is that President Bush is way ahead of these other fellows. As Michael acknowledged, he's written a book on how to engage multilaterally, how to use other nations in support of enterprises that we feel are essential. Secondly, the whole point about restructuring, the President made a speech in Aspen, Colorado, in August of 1990, where he laid out a blueprint for a restructured military, precisely the kind of military that is geared less toward the European war that is no longer relevant, and more toward the kind of contingencies in the rest of the world. He talked about mobility and agility and flexibility, all of the things that this administration is already undertaking to rebuild into our military structure.

MR. MacNeil: But has he done what we heard Mr. Fisher say, rethink the defense architecture that was set up as a result of the Truman doctrine to fight the Cold War? Has that been substantially rethought by this administration?

MR. RODMAN: Well, absolutely. There was a time when the major focus of our military planning was the Soviet threat, principally in Central Europe. Now that is no longer the obvious problem for the United States, and the problem has essentially gone away. But the kinds of challenges are a new set of challenges from all sorts of directions. And Saddam Hussein was sort of the perfect demonstration of the kind of thing that we may fact in the future. So we need flexibility. We can't predict the source of the kinds of challenges that may come up. This is the kind of military force that I think the administration is already building.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Mandelbaum, what is your comment on what Mr. Fisher had to say and -- and the response we've just heard from Mr. Rodman?

MR. MANDELBAUM: I do not think President Bush has done a good job in adapting American foreign policy to a post Cold War era. First and foremost, he's so mismanaged the economy that, as Gov. Clinton said in his Los Angeles speech, which you excerpted in the -- the piece preceding this, he is perhaps unintentionally fueling isolationism. Unless and until something is done about the economy of the United States, it will be difficult to get the public support necessary for an active engagement in the post Cold War world that Gov. Clinton favors. Second, Mr. Bush has done almost nothing to explain to the American public his idea of the kind of world the United States faces and the American role in it. Let me know that Gov. Clinton has given four major foreign policy addresses in which he has spelled out his vision of the challenges and opportunities of the post Cold War era. He believes that in the first instance the task of leadership in this era is to tell the American people what your vision is, what obligations you think we ought to undertake, and why. Gov. Clinton has made, I think, a very good start on doing that. Mr. Bush has not.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Fisher --

MR. FISHER: May I make a point. May I make a point, Robin?

MR. MacNeil: Yes.

MR. FISHER: I think Mr. Mandelbaum has made two very important points that should be seriously considered. The first is with regard to the economy. I'm given to quoting Eisenhower, which is a rare thing to do, but he had two wonderful statements to this effect. First, you cannot have a strong foreign policy unless you have a strong economic policy, and secondly, and very importantly, you should not run the risk of undermining from within that which we seek to protect from without. Without question, if one travels around the world today, there is concern about our economic predicament. There is hand wringing about our public deficit. And it's not just a matter of doing what needs to be done for the sake of domestic purposes. But it's also to give us a moral authority, a sense of strength in the world. We are, after all, the exemplar of democracy. And when you travel abroad, when the President, for example, sends his undersecretary of the Treasury, Mr. Mulford, to Germany to try to get them to move on economic policy, they basically say, look, go tend to your own backyard before you tell us what to do. Now, the second point is one of laying out an architecture, a vision. I think this is one of the disappointments of the Bush administration. Again, we are basically driving a 1947 Chevy in a world of Honda, Accords and Mercedes Benzes, that is, we're operating on laws that were enacted in 1947, or earlier under the Truman and Roosevelt doctrine, and were not explaining to the people, that is, the President has not explained to the people what is the new architecture, what is the new vision, what's the new enabling mechanism to take us into the future? Military force is part of a whole. And let me just make one last comment about the United Nations, if I may.

MR. MacNeil: Briefly, if you could, yeah.

MR. FISHER: Yes. The United Nations was created in 1946. It's a vehicle that again needs a tune-up, as it were. NATO was created in 1949. These are institutions that need to be retrofitted or restructured or abandoned or replaced. And I think we should talk about this, if we can, during this period.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Let's go to our two independent observers here. Richard Barnet, and then I'll go to you, Mr. Krauthammer. Have any of the three candidates, to your satisfaction, clearly defined the role for U.S. forces in the new world order and come up with the appropriate philosophical explanation of that?

MR. BARNET: No, I don't think they have because they haven't made clear what they think are the vital interests of the United States, the national interest of the United States, as it has to be redefined in a post Cold War world, and most important, I don't think they have talked in frank terms about the nature of the world we face, the threats that actually exist. There's a lot of talk about possible threats, but let's look out at the world.

MR. MacNeil: Well, how would you -- if you say they haven't how, briefly, would you define these threats?

MR. BARNET: Well, I think what we're seeing is a good -- a tremendous escalation of anarchy and disorder across what used to be the Soviet Union, across Eastern Europe. Nations are breaking up and in the course of this independent forces are becoming highly armed. The arms race is continuing. We have helped to escalate that race by military sales. There is great concern in Asia about arms shipments. There's concern in the Middle East about arms shipments. And we have not exercised the leadership that we ought to be. What we ought to be asking for and seeking is a world that is considerably less violence prone. If we say we want a world in which borders are open and goods are exchanged, a world in which we have a chance of development across the planet, these wars are absolutely destructive of the environment and of the economy. And we -- I haven't heard either candidate talk about making a priority the danger and risk of nuclear and conventional proliferation, the concern about the arms traffic, and some ideas on how we can take the lead as the most armed nation to bring down levels of armaments around the world and get some control. It's a very hard job, but I think a President has an obligation to set that as a prime goal.

MR. MacNeil: Charles Krauthammer, do you think any of the three candidates have clearly, to your satisfaction, defined the role for the U.S. and its military in the new world order?

MR. KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I hate to damp down the sparks of this debate, but I see a rather broad national consensus on this issue. I think particularly the President and Gov. Clinton have outlined very good and interesting visions of the new post Soviet era. The President made a speech at the UN which was largely overlooked in which he did speak of nuclear proliferation and the spread of ballistic missiles, for example, as very -- a very high priority for the United States. And I think the governor has spoken about the threat arising from nationalism and the threats to democracy in the -- in the newly liberated areas of Eastern Europe and elsewhere. I -- I think there's a national consensus that where our national interests are deeply engaged, where there's a threat to our security, and the security of the West, that we ought to at least think of intervention, particularly if there is a high chance of success. And I think the fact that you do not have a clamor for American action in East Africa, for example, or a clamor for any precipitous action in -- in Bosnia, I think is indicative of the national consensus that unless our national interests are deeply engaged, as they were in the Gulf, for example, and unless there's a clear plan of action and a chance of success, we ought not intervene. And I think that's a healthy -- that's a healthy position. And the fact that the two major candidates agree on that, broadly speaking, I think speaks to a coming together of what used to be left and right on this issue with the decline of communism.

MR. MacNeil: Well, let me ask you, Mr. Krauthammer, could you just put very succinctly, selecting out of what you just said, when should U.S. forces be used in this new order?

MR. KRAUTHAMMER: I think that the paradigm for a successful and necessary action was the Persian Gulf War. There was a direct threat to the security of the West. There was the direct threat of a nuclear arms dictator in control of this huge resource in the Persian Gulf armed with ballistic missiles, and I think there was a recognition that was a necessary action. There was also the notion that we had an excellent chance of success, and third, that there was no other country in the world in a position to act as we did. So that I think is the paradigm. And when people speak of having this old architecture, the 1947 Chevy, well, I would remind you that that Chevy got us all the way into Kuwait City and halfway to Baghdad.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Mandelbaum, would you agree with that definition that Iran was -- the Iraq War was the model?

MR. MANDELBAUM: Well, I think it's a good first approximation and a good working definition. And, of course, Gov. Clinton supported the President in the Gulf War, and felt that that was a justified and effective use of American military power, although obviously he and Sen. Gore have grave reservations about the policy of appeasing Saddam Hussein that came before that war. In addition, Gov. Clinton has said that in the post Cold War world there will be many different kinds of instabilities and conflicts. The United States cannot act in all of these conflicts, as we did in Desert Storm, but we ought to be working, Gov. Clinton has said, with the United Nations and with our allies to find new mechanisms and new programs and new ways of trying to cope with the violence that's spreading across the world in the wake of the collapse of communism.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Fisher, was the war to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait the model, even though it used a 1947 Chevy to get there?

MR. FISHER: The '49 Chevy -- I wouldn't mind owning one, by the way, because they're probably pretty valuable -- the point I'm trying to make is this. Again, we are organized to fight a Cold War. We should be organized for the world as it is and will be, not the world that was. In terms of the Gulf, Mr. Perot has been very outspoken on that matter. And that is that he is not pleased with the way we approached that warfare from the standpoint of how Saddam Hussein was set up in the first place, and again, he's reiterated one shouldn't coddle tyrants because they always come back to strike you. And in terms of doing a job and getting it done, well, I think the public can decide on their own whether or not the job was actually completed. But I want to come back to a point, a very important point that Mr. Barnet raised. Military wherewithal is not just limited to manpower or conventional weaponry. It's also deeply of course integrated with use of nuclear weapons. And during the debate on Sunday night, a key point was made, which is about the nuclear arsenal, the strategic arsenal that exists in four of the CIS countries. Those weapons are still there, intact. Although accords were reached in Lisbon, the follow- up to those accords has been rather weak. We're not exactly sure of the inventory of those weapons. To be sure, for example, the tactical weapons, which were referred to, are in Russia, but under whose control? Can you rely on an agreement written and signed by Boris Yeltsin? We know the situation there is rapidly deteriorating. Mr. Barnet has made a very important point that I think should be discussed during the campaign in much greater depth.

MR. MacNeil: In fact, there's a report earlier this week that a number of weapons have been sold, nuclear weapons had been sold by Pakistan to Iran. And that report has not been confirmed by Iran, but --

MR. FISHER: Robin, may I make one quick point on this. If you look at how the weapons production enterprises worked in the former Soviet Union, like all state enterprises, there were years where there was excess production, that is, the plant managers would worry about being able to meet the next year's target. It's not clear what happened to that inventory. And, again, without frightening the American people, because this is a deadly serious matter, it needs to be discussed and how it will be dealt with, how we can help these four nations disarm and get away from arms control in the conventional sense, but to deal with nuclear proliferation is a key question that I think all the candidates should discuss.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Rodman, the -- your opponents here are saying that Iraq may have been a good model for the execution but a bad model for the -- as they put it -- the preparation -- the coddling or appeasement, to use their terms, of Saddam Hussein before it. Why don't you reply to that point before we come to the nuclear proliferation.

MR. RODMAN: Well, I think that's absurd. I think it's absurd to think that the United States created the problem. I think Saddam Hussein got his weapons from Europe and the Soviet Union. Iraq was always a major power in the Middle East. I think when the time came to face up to the problem of Iraq it was George Bush who produced an international coalition and led the country to support it. I also have to quibble with Michael. I think Gov. Clinton's position during that Gulf War was a total waffle. So I don't think we should let that pass. But I'd like to respond to some of the issues that Mr. Fisher raised. Nonproliferation with the former Soviet state; here too it's George Bush that wrote the book on these issues. I mean, he's the one who's reached some extraordinary agreements with Boris Yeltsin and the other ex-Soviet states to try to deal with the nuclear problem. He's the one, you know, who showed in the Gulf War how you face up to the kind of new military problems that are going to be more characteristic of the time period. I think what we're hearing is a "me too" foreign policy from Gov. Clinton and Mr. Perot. I agree with Charles. I think there's a kind of consensus forming which is healthy for the country, but I think it's President Bush who's been doing it. And I'm delighted to hear some of the other people here basically supporting it.

MR. MacNeil: Let me ask you as devil's advocate here, as a taxpayer might say, it sounds as though all three of you and with differences want the taxpayer in this country to continue to support a very large military presence, somewhat smaller than was needed during the Gulf War, but to do very little really that is going -- you are going to pick and choose so carefully any one of you as President among the range of threats that might be presented and be very finicky about -- about using this -- why is it necessary to keep so many men under arms and to keep so many elaborate weapons systems? Let me start with you, Mr. Fisher.

MR. FISHER: Well, Mr. Perot has proposed in his budget proposals to cut military spending by roughly $90 billion over the next five or six years, in essence, $40 billion less than what the President has proposed in terms of --

MR. MacNeil: It's about the same as Gov. Clinton's proposal.

MR. FISHER: Roughly the same as Gov. Clinton. And, again, we need to use our ability, our diplomacy when others can help us get the job done. I don't think any President would contemplate mothballing the military. The real issue is when do you use your forces, when do you put into the battlefield the children of middle class people, the workers of this nation, as Mr. Perot said on Sunday? It's a very tough decision to make. What we're saying -- and I think there is a difference between us and the Bush administration in particular -- and that is we need to have more burden sharing here. The Europeans have a very good capacity now. They are certainly talented and capable. It's not necessary for the United States to always take the lead and insist on being in command. And similarly, in the Pacific, we have allies that we can work more cooperatively with. We're not talking about dramatic departures, but we are talking about moving this architecture, moving this ability to commit force into the modern world, and not continuing to fight a war that's already over.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Barnet, could the United States do with considerably less military force than any of the three candidates are saying, despite their cuts?

MR. BARNET: I think we have to. I think ultimately we're going to have to cut the military budget much more to deal with our domestic problem, but also I think we are going to have to realize that the only way we're going to be able to use our military forces, either alone or in conjunction with other countries, or through the United Nations in a genuine police function, that is to accomplish humanitarian purposes or to try to damp down conflict, is in a world in which everybody has substantially lower levels of forces. This level of forces Gen. Powell is absolutely right when he made his statement a few weeks ago about the fact that you have to know what you're going to do before you commit military forces. And you have to be sure that the people are going to support you when you go in. Well, that's not going to happen if we are rash enough to send our forces into -- into Yugoslavia, into Somalia, and the kind of hand wringing which we have seen in various places in the world does not add either the power or credibility to the United States. What could add to it, I think, is genuine leadership in moving to what I think people all over the world desperately want, and for the first time with the end of the Cold War, we have a shot at getting, and that is substantially lower levels of armaments.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Krauthammer, what do you think about the size of forces necessary to do what you envision as the new role for the U.S.?

MR. KRAUTHAMMER: I think it would be a tragedy if we so cut our forces that we will be faced some day with a threat that we cannot meet. We have a history of demobilizing radically after World War I and World War II under the allusion that these are wars to end all wars. The Cold War was not a war to end all wars. There will be other threats, and Richard speaks about, you know, living in a world in which others don't arm as much as they have in the past. I don't see how leading by example will induce the ayatollahs in Iran to disarm. And if they, as an example, continue to arm themselves, the United States has to have the largest military in the world, not as large as it needed in the Cold War, but large enough to be able to meet a threat because it is the force of last resort for ourselves and for the entire Western world.

MR. MacNeil: Let's come back in our final minutes to the United Nations question. Mr. Rodman, many have called for a stronger U.N. role, and the President has put a lot of emphasis on this, but he hasn't offered to either reform the U.N. to -- to reflect the increased power of Japan or Germany, for example, or to commit U.S. forces in advance to a U.N. peacekeeping operation. Does he intend to do that? Is that part of his vision, or does he want to keep U.S. forces for unilateral action only?

MR. RODMAN: Well, first of all, I'm not -- I'm personally not eager to see Germany and Japan take on a great -- much greater military role in the world. I think we already see them --

MR. MacNeil: I was talking about membership of the U.N. Security Council.

MR. RODMAN: I know. That's what is involved. At least, that is what has often been the reason for excluding them from permanent membership. There are many different possible ways of accommodating the German and Japanese, I think, and acknowledging their greater role in the international community. As far as a permanent U.N. peacekeeping force, I think this is something that we can think about now, but I, you know, as an American and knowing what the sentiment has always been in this country, I don't think the United States would ever want to relinquish its -- its freedom of action. I think what we're now seeing is the extraordinary event that the Security Council was working the way its founders hoped in the first place, that the cooperation among the major powers would just make possible the kinds of cooperation for international peace and security. I mean, we're seeing the great success of the U.N. in the way it was originally intended. I'm not sure we need a lot of new structural arrangements.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Mandelbaum, what plans does Gov. Clinton have for either reforming or making greater use, or contributing U.S. forces in advance to the United Nations?

MR. MANDELBAUM: Well, Gov. Clinton has called for giving Germany and Japan permanent membership on the Security Council. Mr. Rodman is incorrect. This does not mean necessarily that they will become major military powers, and it's part of Gov. Clinton's general view that in the post Cold War era we have to adapt old structures to new realities. We're not going to be able to cope with the new problems that we face unless we have new institutions and new policies. And Gov. Clinton has offered the expansion of the U.N. Security Council as one example of the way we need to adapt ourselves and our institutions to this new world.

MR. MacNeil: Well, we must leave it there, gentlemen. Mr. Fisher, Mr. Mandelbaum, Mr. Rodman, Krauthammer and Barnet, thank you all for joining us. FOCUS - '92 - GERGEN & SHIELDS

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, Gergen & Shields are here to preview tonight's vice presidential debate. That's David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, and syndicated columnist Mark Shields. He joins us tonight from Portland, Oregon. Mark, the conventional wisdom back here in Washington at least tonight is that tonight's debate could be the most interesting because it's the least important, is that correct?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, who am I to quarrel with the conventional wisdom, Jim, but from out here, I don't think it's unimportant. I think it's true that people don't vote for vice president generally speaking. They certainly didn't in 1988 when Lloyd Bentsen had a -- had a big -- big advantage over Dan Quayle. But I think what's fascinating tonight is the high expectations the challenger carries with him. That's going to be a burden for Al Gore. He's going in with three to one people expecting him to win, very favorable. He's played a very easy schedule up to now. He hasn't had many tough moments. He's had very few reality kicks, almost nothing but uncritical praise of his candidacy since the Democratic convention, and he's -- he's stepping into prime time tonight. I would not bet against Dan Quayle.

MR. LEHRER: How do you feel about that, David?

MR. GERGEN: Well, I'm so surprised that Mark's out there saying oh, it's going to be so tough for Al Gore.

MR. LEHRER: Are you accusing Mark of --

MR. GERGEN: Dan Quayle went to public schools and Al Gore went to those wonderful schools. I think it's going to be interesting not because it means so little -- in fact, I think it means quite a lot -- but because the wraps are going to be off Dan Quayle tonight. I assume because the Bush campaign is so far behind right now they're looking not just at a possible loss but a possible landslide by Clinton. They have to generate some momentum. I mean, Dan Quayle has to go on the offensive in a way the President did not in the first debate, and you also have got Adm. Stockdale coming into this debate, who is much more philosophical than both of these other men. At least that's his background. He's out there writing a book on Epictetus, this ancient Greek philosopher. He's into moral philosophy. He's not been seriously exposed to public policy questions but it may bring a different perspective, so I think that makes it -- intellectually it's going to be much more interesting.

MR. LEHRER: When you say that Dan Quayle must go on the offensive or probably -- the offensive on whom and on what?

MR. GERGEN: He clearly has to take the offensive against Bill Clinton in a way that the Bush campaign --

MR. LEHRER: Not Gore specifically.

MR. GERGEN: No. The whole idea is to go through Gore to get to Clinton, not to go after Gore per se because that doesn't get you anywhere. The question is Bill Clinton. And so far the Republican attacks have not worked, of course, whether it's been the draft, whether it's been the trip to Russia, whether it's been a variety of other things that they've raised. And I think at the same time, Dan Quayle has this very interesting dilemma. He wants to be loyal to George Bush, that means going on the offensive, but Dan Quayle also has to be interested in 1966. If he goes too hard, if he's too strident, he can destroy his own prospects as a Republican candidate in 1996. So this is an interesting task for Dan Quayle.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: I do, Jim, mostly. Let me just add this. Dan Quayle has an enormous advantage going into this. Dan Quayle knows he is better than most Americans think he is. He is a more able, he knows his issues better, he knows what he believes more. He's more comfortable with himself, far more than he was four years ago when -- when an awful lot of Americans saw him as Bambi caught in the headlights at his introduction to the national audience. But he has -- his mission I think coming into tonight has been changed because of what happened on Sunday night, and I think David's right.

MR. LEHRER: You changed -- what do you mean?

MR. SHIELDS: Changed in the sense that, yes, Dan Quayle wanted to come in, he wanted to make his case. I think in some respects it may very well have crossed his mind that there would be this valedictory, that this would be the most lasting impression he would leave on the American people to rehabilitate the image of 1988 and all the rest because there's no question that defeat is certainly a real possibility for the Republicans in 1992. But now I think he's probably under enormous pressure from Jim Baker and the other leadership of the Bush campaign because George Bush, himself, failed in -- on Sunday night -- he didn't even lay a glove on Bill Clinton. So now they're turning to Dan Quayle and they're saying you've got to be the attack dog, and you've got to go out there and rough him up, you got to raise the question that Bill Clinton has lied on the draft, you've got to do those things that George Bush failed to do on Sunday night.

MR. LEHRER: So then would you agree then, David, that -- that the strategy, if there is one, could be at least that what you should do tonight, Mr. Vice President, is get out there, get Clinton somehow, and then so the President can follow up on it on Thursday night, rather than the -- the hope had been that the President would do something on Sunday night that Quayle could follow up tonight and then they would go on on Thursday, but it's a beginning rather than a middle stroke.

MR. GERGEN: Absolutely. I think that there is now a widespread view among Republicans that Sunday night, the first debate, was a missed opportunity for the President. This gives yet another opportunity but in some ways because the vice president traditionally plays the attack dog role, he can say some things in a rougher way than the President can. And then the President can come back in and, in effect, reinforce that message against Clinton.

MR. LEHRER: In other words, the President could say, well, I wouldn't go quite as far as the vice president did, but -- that kind of thing?

MR. GERGEN: Right. And I also think we'll see tonight, Jim, a better indication how the campaigns now want to play the Perot factor with Stockdale there. Are they planning to start questioningPerot? Both of them were very deferential to Ross Perot on Sunday night. I would assume they'll continue to be deferential, but it may be interesting to see because the Bush people are now making it very clear they have an interest in seeing Ross Perot grow in strength, not diminish.

MR. LEHRER: How do you feel about that, Mark, I mean, how they should or may play Stockdale tonight?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, I think -- I think first of all, the presence of Adm. Stockdale absolutely changes what -- what the Clinton people had intended originally to be the selection of Al Gore's strength. That was that Al Gore, Sen. Al Gore, had gone to Vietnam, graduated from Harvard, and gone to Vietnam and served, and that (a) it would be an antidote to Bill Clinton's own lack of service and (b) it would be a stark contrast to Dan Quayle's service in the Indiana National Guard. You can't play that card when you're standing up next to a Congressional Medal of Honor winner who spent eight years as a POW. So that's all of a sudden neutralized. I think David is right. They haven't figured out quite what they're doing. I'd be willing to predict that if Ross Perot has a good night tomorrow night in the second debate, he'll be into the twenties easily by this weekend in the polling. And then -- then you've got a brand new ball game.

MR. LEHRER: Into the twenties, David?

MR. GERGEN: I'm not sure of that. I -- I continue to believe that a fair number of people watched that debate the other night and liked Ross Perot. They enjoyed his humor. They thought he had a lot of good lines, but they didn't -- they didn't cross that threshold thinking he ought to be in the White House yet. He has come up -- he's at about 12, 13 percent right now, Jim. He may go a little higher. He could get 15, 16 percent.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, where do those people come from?

MR. SHIELDS: I'll tell you --

MR. LEHRER: Are they -- are they undecideds? Who are they?

MR. SHIELDS: They're coming from both sides. Jim, there is minimal enthusiasm for these two major party candidates. There really is. I mean, Bill Clinton has a big lead, but there is not an intensity of support. And people I talked to today, I talked to five Democrats who are now considering -- who were ready to vote for Perot after Sunday night -- and I talked to four Republicans who said exactly the same thing. So it's a -- these are people who are saying there is a qualification that many of them utter, not all of them, but many of them utter, and that is, if, in fact, Perot were going to win, they'd have to reconsider their vote. But as -- as a statement of and support of his candor, of his leadership and their dissatisfaction with the other two, there's more than a flirtation, David. It's a real enchantment with Perot at this point.

MR. GERGEN: I agree. You're in a part of the country too, Mark, which has been --

MR. SHIELDS: That's exactly right.

MR. GERGEN: -- very strong about this.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right.

MR. GERGEN: Oregon and Washington are both very strong Perot country.

MR. SHIELDS: Yes.

MR. GERGEN: The other question about Stockdale though is, of course, he has not been schooled on a lot of these issues. He could come across as very weak in public policy, and look like a wonderful man or admirable man, but not qualified to be vice president. That could throw Perot then. I think that's another question we have to face here.

MR. LEHRER: But as a practical matter tonight on this debate, is there any precedent for somebody watching two, three in this case candidates for vice president debate and then say, oh, well, that does it, I'm going to vote for that?

MR. GERGEN: No, I do not think people will reach that conclusion tonight, but they may -- it may bring them back to the presidential debates with a fresh mind, with a different way of looking at things, and that could help any one of the candidates.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: That's what you're looking for. You're looking for - - if your George Bush's campaign, you're looking for a story that puts the Clinton campaign, the Clinton candidacy on the negative and evasive side, and responding to increase tomorrow as they go into tomorrow night's debate. That's what -- that's what you want, doubts raised.

MR. LEHRER: All right, Mark, David, thank you and we'll see you later. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Tuesday, Dan Quayle, Al Gore and James Stockdale prepared to face off in the vice presidential debate just minutes from now in Atlanta. President Bush and Bill Clinton traded charges over the draft issue and the Iran-contra scandal. The Supreme Court refused to reverse its decision that flag burning is a form of political expression protected by the First Amendment. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night with analysis of the vice presidential debate, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.