The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, Iran and Iraq agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations and Iraq offered free oil to third world countries. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: In our coverage of the Gulf crisis tonight, from Baghdad, Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on food shortages caused by the international embargo.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now people are having to arrive often as early as 4 o'clock in the morning to get the few loaves apportioned to each family according to the size of the household.

MR. MacNeil: Judy Woodruff talks to a freed American on conditions in Kuwait [FOCUS - HOSTAGE STORY], then analysis of the Bush-Gorbachev summit [FOCUS - SUMMIT SUM-UP] and a conversation with an adviser to many Presidents [CONVERSATION], Paul Nitze. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Iran and Iraq announced the resumption of diplomatic relations today. They were broken off in 1987 during their eight year war. The agreement was reached during talks between the Iraqi and Iranian foreign ministers in Tehran. There was no word on whether Iran would now help Iraq break the United Nations embargo. Iraq agreed to most of Iran's formal peace demands last month. Iraq's Saddam Hussein today offered to give Iraqi oil to third world nations free of charge. The offer was read on Iraqi television by a government spokesman. He said the third world countries would have to pick up the oil themselves in their own tankers, but he said the offer does not violate the U.N. embargo since nothing is being sold. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the free oil offer and the new ties with Iran are signs of desperation and show the embargo is pinching. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Sec. of State Baker is going to Syria Thursday to meet with that country's leader, Hafas Asad. Syria is on the U.S. list of nations that sponsored terrorism, but it has sided with the U.S. against Iraq. It has already sent about 5,000 troops to Saudi Arabia, and today it said it will send more. Baker made the announcement in Brussels, where he briefed the NATO allies on the Bush-Gorbachev summit. He called on them to send more ground troops to Saudi Arabia and to send ships and planes to help transport troops. Baker also revealed he was promised $12 billion by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait's government in exile. Half of that will help pay for the U.S. military build up in the region. The other half will help nations supporting the embargo.

MR. LEHRER: Another plane load of Americans arrived in the U.S. today from Kuwait and Iraq. Most of the 161 were women and children. They landed at the Baltimore-Washington Airport late this afternoon. Later in the program we'll talk with a woman who returned yesterday. The International Red Cross said today it had been denied access to foreigners held in Iraq and Kuwait. A Red Cross spokesman said no reason was given by the Iraqi government. Under the Geneva conventions, the Red Cross as the right to assist foreign nationals displaced by international conflicts.

MR. MacNeil: In this country, four days of budget negotiations between Congress and the White House ended today with no progress reported. The negotiators met at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. They're trying to cut $50 billion from the deficit. The Gramm-Rudman law would trigger automatic across-the-board spending cuts if no agreement is reached by October 1st. Treasury Sec. Nicholas Brady said today the negotiations were going nowhere fast, but House Speaker Tom Foley said he was confident an agreement would be reached before the end of the month. Japan's Toyota Motors announced today it is considering several sites for a second U.S. assembly plant. Toyota is expected to sell about 1.1 million cars and trucks in the country this year. The company wants to increase U.S. sales to 1.5 million by the mid 1990s. An announcement of the site is expected within 60 days.

MR. LEHRER: Cambodia's government and a coalition of three rebel factions agreed on a transition government today. The agreement is part of a United Nations plan to end the country's 11 year civil war. Under the plan, the U.N. would run most of the government until free elections are held. In Africa, Liberia's president, Samuel Doe, was reported killed today. State Department officials said he died after a weekend shootout with forces of rebel leader Prince Johnson. Johnson said he would run the country until elections are held. A spokesman for a rival rebel leader vowed to fight on. More than 5,000 civilians have died in the eight and a half month civil war.

MR. MacNeil: Ahead on the Newshour, Charlayne Hunter-Gault on food shortages in Iraq [FOCUS - INSIDE IRAQ], a freed American woman on conditions in Kuwait, the meaning of the Helsinki summit, and a conversation with Paul Nitze. FOCUS - INSIDE IRAQ

MR. MacNeil: Our coverage of the Gulf crisis begins with a report from Charlayne Hunter-Gault on how the United Nations' embargo is starting to affect daily life in Baghdad, both for Iraqis and foreigners trapped there. Like all foreign television journalists in Baghdad, Charlayne and her crew were accompanied by an official from the Ministry of Information which reviews all footage transmitted from Iraq. Charlayne's report was filed by satellite from Baghdad, through Amman, Jordan, accounting for some distortion in the audio.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The early morning message delivered to the almost empty American Embassy was loud and insistent. It was a message that resonated throughout the streets of Baghdad, where the effects of the United Nations' embargo were beginning to be seen and felt in increasingly concrete ways. Take this restaurant where we enjoyed one of our first and best meals only a few days ago. Why are you closed?

RESTAURATEUR: We are closed because we have no bread, no oil, no rice, no milk, no meat.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You were a waiter here at the restaurant. How is this affecting you?

WAITER: I don't know, believe me, because if the restaurant is closed, we must eat and sit down at our home. We have no money. There is nothing. I have a baby, a child, little baby. We have little milk enough. He's so little. What do you do?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: If not one of the longest, the milk line is certainly one of the most agitated. The manager here says his milk supply is down from 8,000 bottles a week to 1,000. His prices have risen, but so has his anger.

MILK MANAGER: [Speaking through Interpreter] There is no humanity in this decision.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: No humanity in the decision.

MILK MANAGER: [Speaking through Interpreter] I think for example United States and Russia would not accept this situation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: While the growing scarcity of milk triggers deep emotional responses, there also exists for the time being at least an Iraqi resolve to withstand the sanctions. But though Iraq has always relied on food imports, it's producing a growing amount of its own. And since the crisis, a government that requires all of its men to serve in the army has taken the unprecedented step of exempting farmers. Agricultural specialists like Sal Mitlok are confident they can feed Iraq's people.

MR. MITLOK: I'm an agriculturist. It is our chance now to do some progress in agriculture and my belief that the production will be at least double this year as comparison to last year.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That being the case, the big problem is not vegetables but grains. Iraq produces wheat, but not enough of it to feed the growing lines of Iraqis of all classes outside the Baghdad bakeries, a phenomenon of the crisis. Are the lines getting longer and longer?

IRAQI CITIZEN: Yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: They are.

IRAQI CITIZEN: All the bread shops.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All the bread shops, yes. Iraq normally gets a lot of its grain from the United States. But now people are having to arrive often as early as 4 o'clock in the morning to get the few loaves apportioned to each family according to the size of the household. Nowhere is the food problem more severe, the tension more intense, than the makeshift camps for transient refugees. Some are off limits to the media, but we visited the Indian camp on the outskirts of Baghdad with their ambassador, K.N. Bakshi, a special U.N. envoy. Temperature and tempers were hot. What is he saying?

AMB. BAKSHI: He says nobody is helping us, not even the embassy. Women and children are hot, they are in miserable condition, when are you going to help?

K.N. BAKSHI, Indian Ambassador to Iraq: In the market today, no wheat flour, no rice, no sugar, no tea, no lentils or beans are available.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And this is what your people eat?

AMB. BAKSHI: They can't afford to eat anything else. You see, this is the cheapest food around and that food is not available. "We are eating whatever we brought along with us from Kuwait. We do not know what we'll do when that finishes". [Speaking for Indian woman]

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How long will the beans --

AMB. BAKSHI: [Speaking for Indian woman] "We have been here for about five days. This, what we have, might last two, three days. We have 15 people."

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Fifteen living off of this rice. Hello. Camp officials told us that the local Iraqi officials had been trying to help improve the living conditions and provide some medical help. But this young woman, eight months pregnant, last saw a doctor two months ago before she had to make the arduous journey from Kuwait. Her husband is worried. How's she holding up? How's she feeling?

AMB. BAKSHI: "She is very frightened," he says. "I tried to tell her there is nothing to worry about, everything is all right, but she is very, very worried."

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The ambassador told the couple that he would try to get them on a priority list to leave on the next bus to Amman, welcome news, although it would be another 12 to 14 hour journey. Across town at Baghdad's best hotel, the state owned El Rashid, British evacuees were also preparing for the journey to Amman, theirs by air only 1 1/2 hours away. Stress aside, their experience in Baghdad in sharp contrast to the Asians. How have you been treated here in the hotel?

EUROPEAN WOMAN: Absolutely A-1. They've gone out of their way to treat us. Nothing has been too much trouble.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about food, have you had enough of it?

EUROPEAN GIRL: Oh, there's loads, loads of it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Yeah?

EUROPEAN GIRL: Yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And were they running out of anything?

EUROPEAN GIRL: I don't think so. It didn't seem like it, because there was so much there.

YOUNG EUROPEAN GIRL: I went into Baghdad, and I saw some Filipino people that are in tents and starving and everything, which wasn't very nice, so --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why do you think there's such a difference between the way people like that are being treated and some of the other -- you haven't had a problem at all --

YOUNG EUROPEAN GIRL: No, I'm not exactly sure. I think it's to do with the government.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It is a feeling echoed by a growing number of people, including U.S. special envoy Koffi Annan. You'll be growing back to the United Nations this week presumably. What would your recommendation be?

KOFFI ANNAN, UN Envoy: When sanctions were introduced to enforce compliance of the Security Council resolutions and if, indeed, it has had a negative effect on women and children, knowing the men and women who run the organization, the members of the organization, I'm sure they will perhaps reconsider. I do not believe that the purpose of the Council decisions was to starve Iraqi children and women as has been implied in some circles, just as starvation at Valley Forge was not the objective of the revolution.

MR. LEHRER: The United Nations Sanction Committee has been meeting in New York City to consider exempting food from the embargo. This weekend, some 300 American evacuees from America and Kuwait flew home to the United States from Jordan. One of them was Karen Glass, an investment banker employed by an international bank. She arrived in Kuwait a week before the Iraqi invasion. Judy Woodruff spoke to her this afternoon.

MS. WOODRUFF: Ms. Glass, thank you for being with us.

MS. GLASS: You're welcome.

MS. WOODRUFF: What was life like? What was it like in Kuwait after this invasion?

KAREN GLASS, Former Hostage: Well, to begin with, there was a great deal of numbness and just this wasn't really happening, and then sort of you sat and you waited for what was happening here, you didn't really know. So people the day after the invasion, everyone was at home, I've never seen such a quiet place in my life, but as time went by, you sort of got out and you walked around and you looked around the city and you drove around and then about ten or fifteen days after the invasion, the Iraqis, whose presence had been there but they were sort of, there was a stand- off between them and the people, there wasn't much going on in terms of either side.

MS. WOODRUFF: You mean contact.

MS. GLASS: Contact. But all of a sudden they started, looting became noticeable, and myself, for instance, one day was walking down the street not far from where I was staying with a Kuwaiti gentleman, we were just walking to another place, and a truckload of at that time the people's army, they weren't really in uniform, but they had guns on them, stopped and came up to me and pushed me around a little bit, and kept saying in Arabic to me, "What nationality are you, what nationality?". The gentleman that I was with screamed at them in Arabic that I was his wife, I had children, she's a lady,leave her alone. That was at that time for them just enough -- they looked like hooligans basically -- to run away. At that time we realized there's something different going on here, and it was within the next day or two that they took hostages from, took people from the hotels and at that time it became very tense, because people who were Western knew they couldn't leave the place, wherever they were staying. And people changed their houses then. They moved from wherever they had been living either into a Kuwaiti house or some other place that they felt might be safer.

MS. WOODRUFF: How did people manage to survive?

MS. GLASS: You're looking at me right now at the end of a time where it was very tense. The first maybe week or couple of weeks for me, people were going back and forth to houses, talking over the situation, listening to BBC, sitting by the radio, wondering what was going on, glad to hear George Bush and Margaret Thatcher standing strong, glad to hear that there were American troops coming, a lot of hope, and it's not that it's still not hopeful, but reality is the reality of the fact that there is an invading army sitting there who has no other intention, has no intention of giving up the land and really from the point of view of someone sitting there only has the intention of looting the place, destroying the place, just destruction.

MS. WOODRUFF: How much looting was going on?

MS. GLASS: It's incredible. From the small guy who walks into a store and doesn't pay for what he's taking to truckloads going up to scientific institutions or the one, I've forgotten the name of it now, but it employed 3,000 people, and they've just emptied the place. They pull out the bathroom fixtures, the carpeting, the mainframes.

MS. WOODRUFF: Computers.

MS. GLASS: Right. They pull all of that out.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about violence? You mentioned what happened to you, but what did you hear? What do you know of happening to other people?

MS. GLASS: Well, of course, there are many instances of rape that we've heard about, some of them, you know, you don't know whether they're all true or not.

MS. WOODRUFF: Were these Westerners or --

MS. GLASS: No, mostly the cases I heard were usually people from third world countries, that perhaps they were servants, people who were more vulnerable perhaps than a Westerner who was on their guard, so to speak. Violence, I can't really say or know of any violence really done to any Westerners. The people who seemed to have been rounded up seemed to have been rounded up fairly orderly from my experience, but that is only my experience. Other violence, of course, is what they have done to various Kuwaitis, especially people that have been involved in the resistance. They also do violence to their own kind. There was, the third week or so, there were a lot of reports of people who were looting being shot in front of other people. I know one Kuwaiti gentleman came to where I was staying and said he had found his car, his car that had been looted the first couple of days on the road, and so he went and told an officer, and the officer shot the man through the mouth in front of him, but that's, you know, as the officer's standing in front of his looted car. So it's very, it's not proper, it's not proper.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about the resistance movement? We keep hearing that there is one. How widespread is it?

MS. GLASS: The resistance is, how do you define resistance? Is it the person who's out killing Iraqis, yes, there is a core group of people who are planning and trying to kill as manyIraqis as they can. There's also resistance in every other way. Resistance, there's a lot of women who have gone out and marched. I don't know if that was ever reported in the news here.

MS. WOODRUFF: Somewhat.

MS. GLASS: And people who are within neighborhoods, there are neighborhoods in Kuwait which the Iraqis do not enter, because the neighborhoods, themselves, are very well organized. You know, they have children going to the hospital to help. They have children picking up the garbage. There's a lot of organization by the people that have stayed.

MS. WOODRUFF: What is your feeling having come out of this experience?

MS. GLASS: From my perspective, the thing that I find most frightening for all of the people that I left there is that it can only grow, it can only get worse, because there's pressure being put on them.

MS. WOODRUFF: You mean the fear?

MS. GLASS: The fear, and what will the Iraqis do. What people don't understand is that they are not as organized as anyone would suspect so that your fate as a human being nine times out of ten lies with the person, that Iraqi that you're having to deal with for whatever reason. So if he decides to not issue an exit visa, if he decides to push you around, if he decides to, you know, maybe shoot you, that's the way it is and when you know that, there's almost more fear. For me, there's more fear in that because your fate is left up to that individual that you happened to run into.

MS. WOODRUFF: You said earlier that the most vulnerable groups might be the non-Westerners who were caught in Kuwait. What did you mean by that?

MS. GLASS: Vulnerable I mean by the fact that unfortunately there's not as many people worrying about their lives, but they came to Kuwait to work and send money home to their families.

MS. WOODRUFF: These are the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Filipinos.

MS. GLASS: The Pakistanis, the Filipinos that have come to Kuwait, and a lot of them spent a great deal of money coming to Kuwait for entry visas, whatever, and whatever possessions they had put together and they are a source of income to whatever country they're from and it's gone. As I'm getting on the plane in Amman to fly out of here on my nice 747 with all the amenities that we had, I'm seeing masses and masses of Indians at the airport lining up with their possessions on their head. There must have been two or three thousand of them, just this massive snake line. And luckily they're getting out, but they're going out and their families, they don't have job opportunities there, their families have been depending on their income. You know, there's so, any way you look at this, it's been a tragedy for everybody. It's very difficult, but I'm very glad to be home and I'm very appreciative of my government getting me home and I can't say enough good things about that.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, we thank you very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour, analyzing the Bush- Gorbachev summit and a conversation with Paul Nitze. FOCUS - SUMMIT SUM-UP

MR. LEHRER: Now some analysis of yesterday's Bush-Gorbachev summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland. They talked for seven hours, mostly about the crisis in the Gulf. Our analyzers are our regular summit analysis team of Rozanne Ridgway and Andrei Kortunov plus one. Ms. Ridgway was a career foreign service officer who was assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs during the Reagan administration. She participated in five U.S.- Soviet summit meetings. She's now president of the Atlantic Council, a policy institute in Washington,D.C. Mr. Kortunov is the head of the North American section of the Soviet Institute of U.S.- Canada studies. He's also a political columnist for the Soviet weekly "Moscow News". The plus one is Richard Murphy, a foreign service officer who served in the State Department's key Middle East job for five years as assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs. He's affairs. He's now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. Ms. Ridgway first, was this a successful summit for the United States?

ROZANNE RIDGWAY, Former State Department Official: I think so.

MR. LEHRER: Why?

MS. RIDGWAY: In U.S.-Soviet relationship terms, it gave a different dimension to the President's dialogue with President Gorbachev. It's rather nice to see a one day summit instead of a four day panoply. It's a complex question. It relates to the new regional complex agenda that we always knew had to be developed. So I think in terms of what the President probably had in mind it was a success. But one quickly goes on to the next day.

MR. LEHRER: Right. And we'll get to that in a minute. From the overall point of view, was it a successful summit for the Soviets?

ANDREI KORTUNOV, Foreign Policy Analyst, Soviet Union: Well, I think for the Soviets it was even more successful than for Americans, because first of all, the United States recognized the legitimate role of the Soviet Union in the region. Second, the United States agreed not to dramatize the differences in the Soviet and the American positions on the crisis and it is important because the Soviet Union cannot just become a junior partner of the United States in this issue, and finally I think it was important for Gorbachev personally because it shows that Gorbachev is the person in charge of Soviet and foreign defense policy and I think in a way it strengthens his positions at home.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Murphy, from a point of view of resolving the crisis in the Middle East was it a successful summit?

RICHARD MURPHY, Former State Department Official: It could be, but it's a little early to say. I think the show of unity was very important. It was a reiteration of the message that had come out of New York, out of the Security Council. To have it coming from the two leaders side by side is a further message to Saddam Hussein. There are no loopholes, no real gaps between us. That's a very important message.

MR. LEHRER: And yet, as you said, Ms. Ridgway, there were some differences. The basic difference was the whole situation as far as force was concerned or using military force. How do you read that?

MS. RIDGWAY: I think they did a very good job of saying here are the areas on which we agree, let's not try to unfold too many of the next steps at the present time. Let's work the current situation. Let's see the extent to which our cooperation on the current issues has an impact on bringing the message home to Saddam Hussein, and for the future. There may be differences, but let's find some language that leaves the choices open for both sides. It was I think a predictable area of difference and rather well handled by the two leaders in Helsinki.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kortunov, why, what is the Soviet position on why no Soviet troops are going to go to this UN effort in the Middle East?

MR. KORTUNOV: My feeling is that politically for Gorbachev it is extremely difficult to take such a decision. After all, there is a basic difference between the United States and the Soviet Union. For the United States, Vietnam is already history. For the Soviet Union, Afghanistan is still a reality, and I think that Gorbachev would meet a huge opposition at home if he would try to join such a multilateral effort outside the Soviet borders.

MR. LEHRER: But, Ms. Ridgway, isn't essentially the difference being that the Soviet Union is saying that this is a really big deal in the Middle East, but it's not a big enough deal to spill blood over, the United States is saying it is a really big deal in the Middle East, and it is worth spilling blood over if it comes to that?

MS. RIDGWAY: That's one possible analysis, but I'd go to what Mr. Kortunov was saying. For the Gorbachev, for the Soviet Union, this represents a period in which they are revising their view of the Middle East, the United States is revising its view of the Soviet Union in the Middle East, and it may need time for the Soviet side to decide what, in fact, it really can do. But it has taken a real course change in the way it is viewing its role in the Middle East and wanting to be a part of an international group. It's just premature to ask of them some of the things that I think we would, we think they should be doing right now.

MR. LEHRER: It may be premature, but I'm going to ask Amb. Murphy anyhow, I mean, from Saddam Hussein's point of view, this is a big difference is it not? I mean, if you've got the President of the United States saying we're willing to use military force and you have the Soviet Union saying we're not, doesn't Saddam Hussein say, okay, fine, we'll wait him out?

MR. MURPHY: But the Soviet President didn't say it quite so cut and dried. He said that it may develop, that given a Security Council mandate, further actions, decisions, that we would be ready to commit force, but not now, and it would have to be on a specific Security Council authorization, so I don't think there's any comfort for Saddam Hussein in the outcome yesterday.

MR. LEHRER: How do you react to what Mr. Kortunov said, the explanation of why the Soviets have not joined in the military action there?

MR. MURPHY: Well, I don't disagree with your explanation about Afghanistan, but I think it is also a fact that the Soviets are hoping to salvage what was for them their principal Arab relationship in the last generation. They invested enormously in sales, in exchanges with Iraq. It was a real lynch pin of Soviet- Middle East relations, and I see it also in part as the Soviets hoping to come out of this with something to build on for the future.

MR. LEHRER: Is that a legitimate hope, Mr. Kortunov? After all, the Soviet Union's turned their back on Iraq, has it not?

MR. KORTUNOV: Well, I think to some extent of course, it did turn its back to Iraq, but I think that Gorbachev wants to keep the channels of communication open, and therefore, he wants to use all possibilities that exist now to find a solution that would allow to avoid military outburst in the region.

MR. LEHRER: And do you think there's a role for Gorbachev to play? Do you think this is a high enough priority for him to really get involved and try to work this thing out?

MR. KORTUNOV: Well, I think now he feels that he's involved and the whole philosophy of new thinking is at stake. In fact, after all, we should face the problem. Either the cold war model of international relations were more suitable to further regional conflicts, or we're entering a new sphere of Soviet-American cooperation which will facilitate to solve the regional issues. I think it's very important for Gorbachev to show both to his own people and to the international community that in this new environment, a lot more can be done to stop road from disintegrating.

MR. LEHRER: But why, Ms. Ridgway, should Saddam Hussein pay any attention at all at this point to what Gorbachev wants?

MS. RIDGWAY: Well, I doubt that he will. Amb. Murphy may have more background on this than I, but I think that the role of mediator for the Soviet Union is a very difficult one. If they want to try to still have channels of communication, fine, but I think Saddam Hussein will look elsewhere for channels of communication.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Murphy.

MR. MURPHY: Well, he hasn't blinked yet. The summit was only yesterday. Let's not get too worried about the effect of it, but the fact is he has not yet changed course. People are talking about his desperation. You've just shown footage about the food shortages. I think it's premature to even talk about any serious crunches in Baghdad, but there are real grounds out there that he should be concerned about there and that his people should be concerned about.

MR. LEHRER: Well, let's talk about the crunch anyhow in Baghdad. Ms. Ridgway, is there a danger that Saddam Hussein could be squeezed and crunched and squeezed and crunched to a point where he only has a military option, there is no option left to him, and that this whole thing could actually precipitate the very thing that Mr. Gorbachev and the Soviets and a lot of people are trying to prevent?

MS. RIDGWAY: It could, and that's an analysis of any potential conflict when you ask now how do we deal with the person who's at the center of the conflicts or the current studies of conflict resolution, I have no way of knowing what Saddam Hussein might feel or how he might strike out if he feels pushed, and I don't know anyone who does. He's been unpredictable so far.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kortunov, this film that we just saw was shown in the Soviet Union. Will the Soviet people, do you think, say, wait a minute, that's not right, the Iraqi people shouldn't be squeezed on food?

MR. KORTUNOV: Well, first of all I think that these shortages of food will not impress Soviets, at least these days because --

MR. LEHRER: They've got their own.

MR. KORTUNOV: -- they can see the same shortages in their own supplies. Soviets in general, I cannot say about Central Asians, but at least in Russia, I think there is very little sympathy to what Iraqis are doing in Kuwait. I would say that probably emotionally people in the streets would like to see even closer cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union, the subject something similar to the Second World War, because emotionally the idea of Soviet-American alliance is very appealing to people, but of course, if you take the case of political elite in the Soviet Union, the situation is much more comprehensive. And it is evident that the Soviet military are trying to make a case out of the situation in the Gulf, especially because they are facing discussions on the defense budget. In September in the Supreme Soviet, they would like to see defense cuts as minimum as possible. On the other hand, liberals would like to enlarge this issue and there arise questions about Soviet relations with Ligber, with PLO, with Yemen, with the countries that supported Iraq and they want more transparency, they want more information about Soviet advisers, they want more information about Soviet arms deals, and they want to be sure that the progress in Soviet attitudes towards regional conflicts will not lag behind progress in Soviet-American relations.

MR. LEHRER: Amb. Murphy, that's an amazing sea change, is it not, in terms of what's going on with the Soviet Union and the attitude toward the Middle East?

MR. MURPHY: Sea change and their attitude towards the Middle East.

MR. LEHRER: Yes, that's what I mean. I mean, standing with the United States, and Mr. Kortunov just went through the list of their past allies, and now in some ways they're with them, in some ways they're against him, but the whole thing is going through a major change and from your perspective, watching this through many years.

MR. MURPHY: Well, that's true. Of course, the whole Middle East is going through a major change as well.

MR. LEHRER: Sure, sure.

MR. MURPHY: The alliances are shifting very quickly. I think it's frankly a very good development from our standpoint that we can find common ground with the Soviets despite the differences. They're out there, they were clear yesterday, there are differences, but it's very exciting that here is a serious regional conflict on which we can cooperate.

MR. LEHRER: And yet you said in the very beginning you're not sure that it's going to lead to anything as far as resolving the crisis?

MR. MURPHY: Well, I'm just saying that I can't say in all honesty that yesterday was a crossroads and we took one step towards peace and we took one step towards war. I don't know how Saddam is going to react. He may feel cornered. He came out fighting. On the other hand, he has in the past, found a number of excuses or a number of rationales which have preserved his position and enabled him to take a new tact. At the moment he's moving towards Iran. He's offering free oil to Iran. I mean, it is a sign of flailing about, so he does remain unpredictable. I don't rule out that he may find that he accepts the cost of what he's done is so enormous the human tragedy that you've seen, the hundreds of thousands of people, Asians, Africans, that are streaming across those deserts, he may recalculate now and change policy.

MR. LEHRER: How do you see that?

MS. RIDGWAY: I just find him so unpredictable I don't know how he's going to do it. What I feel most comfortable talking about are the things that Mr. Kortunov mentioned on the Soviet side. We are seeing changes in the Soviet foreign policy. They create tremendous opportunities for the United States and the Soviet Union. We can't push them too far.

MR. LEHRER: But opportunities to do what? In other words, if Amb. Murphy is right, that it's great that the Soviet leader and the U.S. leader stood there and talked together for seven hours in Helsinki and yet they don't have the power to resolve the crisis, what does it lead to, other than the fact that the United States and the Soviet Union are now cooperating?

MS. RIDGWAY: It frees the international community from having to look over its shoulder that every step it takes might, in fact, be a mis-step leading to confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. That was a feature in foreign policy for decades and kept the international community from being able to act because states said, well, this is going to precipitate conflict between the super powers. That's now out of the way. It opens up a broader area of diplomacy. It allows nations to talk in a different way, to associate themselves with different kinds of actions. It doesn't resolve the differences; the United States and the Soviet Union will view the world differently today and in the future, but it does mean that those people around the world who want to have conflicts with their neighbors can't count on being able to play us off against each other or being able to stop the international community from acting because of a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kortunov, is your reading of why this meeting was ever held in the first place, do you think it was a preventative measure on the part of President Bush and President Gorbachev to keep differences from escalating, or do you think it was done to send a message to Saddam Hussein? What do you think the point of it was?

MR. KORTUNOV: Well, I agree with you that from the American point of view it was important to show that basically the Soviet Union is on the American side, and I think that it was a signal to Saddam Hussein and as you know, Saddam Hussein tried to pre-empt this meeting by saying that the role of the Soviet Union is tested, that if the Soviet Union wants to remain a great power or a super power, it has to reject cooperation of the United States, and I personally am very satisfied that Gorbachev did not yield to the psychological pressure. And I think that the Soviet public at large also didn't take this pressure seriously. I think it's important that it took a place in Helsinki at this particular moment and may make just another comment saying that although the Middle East issue was, of course, the focus of the meeting, yes, it was important for the sides to revise some of the other issues of bilateral relations, specifically arms control. They are firm to their commitment to have both the STAT agreement and agreement on conventional forces this year. I think it's important because you know these days the progress in both negotiations was not very spectacular and I think that delegates need another push from the leaders of the states.

MR. LEHRER: It's a sensitive issue, isn't it, Ms. Ridgway, this question about what the role of the Soviet Union is, whether it's going to be a super power, a second rate power or this and that and what this whole new world is, and this is a piece of the future we saw yesterday?

MS. RIDGWAY: I think so, and behind it lie very real questions that we don't understand. I'm just back from the Soviet Union, myself, with fresh impressions of the challenge facing the people of the Soviet Union or the republics, or however they now describe themselves, and it's going to make it very difficult for the Soviet Union to play a substantive role in many of the issues that might well face the world in the years ahead. But the Soviet Union is a powerful actor on the world scene and I think needs to be accommodated somehow in these future fora that we build. But the challenge for the Soviet Union today is at home in my view.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree?

MR. KORTUNOV: I do agree, and I think that in this particular case the pragmatic interest of the Soviet Union coincides with the moral dimension, because the Soviet Union is interested in rounding off some of its relations with former allies, and at the same time I think morally it is important that Gorbachev subscribe to new foreign policy.

MR. LEHRER: Yes.

MR. MURPHY: It is to say that in that sense and given that explanation of why Mr. Gorbachev acted as he did, I don't think we can assume such quick identity views and a number of other problems. Let's hope so, but each one is going to have its own peculiarities. It worked nicely yesterday. Let's try to keep it working, but don't assume that we stop being competitive.

MR. LEHRER: Right. I hear you. Ms. Ridgway, gentlemen, thank you both, all three. CONVERSATION

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight another in our series of special conversations on the U.S. role in the Persian Gulf crisis, tonight with a man who's been at the epicenter of the American foreign policy establishment for nearly half a century. He is Paul Nitze. He served as an adviser on national security and arms control issues to six Presidents, from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. Mr. Nitze, thank you for joining us.

PAUL NITZE, Former Arms Control Negotiator: Good to be here.

MR. MacNeil: Did the weekend summit help Mr. Bush in this crisis, or complicate his existence?

MR. NITZE: I think it complicated his existence.

MR. MacNeil: Would you spell that out a bit?

MR. NITZE: Well, as I see it, it revealed a number of problems that have to be dealt with in the future. And they're going to take time to deal with. I think primarily our relations with the USSR granted that that had made a step forward and that there was unanimity and support of the UN resolution, but when it came to other things related to the future, there certainly was a divergence between the point of view of the President and of Mr. Gorbachev, and that I think indicates that there's a real task before us in working out those issues with the Soviet Union.

MR. MacNeil: The administration is saying the agreement and the joint statement was much more important than the differences. Now is that normal sort of administration spin, or is that the truth in this case? How do you see it?

MR. NITZE: It depends whether you're looking at it from the immediate situation or whether you're looking at it from the standpoint of the long-term problems that must be dealt with. Clearly from the standpoint of the long-term problems, I think it was the differences were the ones that caught my attention.

MR. MacNeil: Which differences particularly?

MR. NITZE: Well, for instance, there was on Mr. Gorbachev's part certainly a different view as to the potential of the use of force in implementing the execution of the UN resolutions, and I think that is an important difference, and I think we have to bear that in mind. I don't believe that we want to go into anything in the way of using force there in the Middle East without the concurrence of the permanent members of the Security Council. It would make it a much more difficult thing for us politically if we had to operate contrary to the advice and the agreement of the five members of the, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

MR. MacNeil: Does that mean that Mr. Gorbachev has got himself a kind of veto over U.S. military action?

MR. NITZE: I don't think so, but he's got a very important political element there which I think we do have to take into account. I believe the chances are that with time the Iraqi problem is going to become very difficult. I would have thought that the thing for us to do was to play for time, because I think it's going to take some time for us to work out all our relations with the other members, the other permanent members of the UN Security Council.

MR. MacNeil: Because a solution is going to need their support?

MR. NITZE: Because a solution is going to need their -- at least it's very important. I'm not saying that it's impossible for us to act without the support of the permanent members of the Security Council. But I would much rather see us operate in support of that unanimity on the part of the permanent members of the Security Council. After all, there's a very strong basis for this. We have seen unprovoked aggression of the most blatant kind, which is contrary to the UN Charter, it's contrary to everything that the UN Charter stands for, so that I think that is the important thing for us to emphasize, theimpossibility or the total unattractiveness of a world in which people are free to cross borders without provocation just because they want to do it.

MR. MacNeil: Did it surprise you that Mr. Bush encountered a Gorbachev who with all his reputed weaknesses at home and his political needs at home really stood up and denied Mr. Bush some of the things he wanted, like for instance getting the Soviet military advisers out of Iraq?

MR. NITZE: Well, I was, no it didn't surprise me that Mr. Gorbachev wanted to maintain unanimity or greater support within the political structure within the Soviet Union. It seemed to me that that is quite understandable, but I think we should use time if we can buy time to work very closely trying to figure out what are the remaining things that stand between us and the Soviet Union on these important issues. One of those issues, of course, has been an ideological one. I think that has become less, of less importance than it was two to five years ago, although it's not entirely gone away. Another is the situation with respect to strategic nuclear weapons which continues to be a matter of friction between us. The Soviets have not reduced their strategic nuclear weapons. There's nothing in their program at the present time which would indicate that they intend to so do, and certainly that does rather poison our long range relations with the Soviet Union. It reduces the confidence we can have in our relations with the Soviet Union. I think the same is true on their side. I think this would be an important matter for us to try, to try to find a solution to. Then there's of course the other issue as to whether it's to the Soviet interest to see a popular based, powerful Muslim nation to the South of the Soviet Union. In the past, it's been my impression that that's the last thing in the world that the Soviets wanted to see South of them was a big powerful, Muslim nation to the South, so I can't really believe that that is to the Soviet interest, even though they've had longstanding relations with Iraq, and certainly there are real wrenches for them to change their position with respect to Iraq, but over time, it would seem to me clear that the Soviet Union has got an interest in seeing to it that there not be this pressure to the South of it. After all, they've got a big Muslim population of their own. I think their interest is not to see a revolutionary strong, powerful Muslim state to the South. So I think we can over time work that issue out with them. So one by one, I think we can work these things, but it's going to take some time.

MR. MacNeil: If it complicated Mr. Bush's life, the results of this summit, was it a good idea to have this summit now?

MR. NITZE: I think so. He didn't advertise the summit as being anything that one could really foresee as being wholly constructive, but I think it's better to get the issues out in the open at this time than rather have them develop only over time.

MR. LEHRER: Looking at the situation in the Persian Gulf, are you comfortable with the position this country finds itself in tonight? I mean, it has roughly 100,000 men and women over there. The force is still building. How do you feel about where the U.S. is roughly five weeks after this began?

MR. NITZE: Well, I feel confident in that for the purpose involved in the deployment of those troops that purpose was to defend Saudi Arabia against further unprovoked aggression, and in the event there were further unprovoked aggressions and an attack against Saudi Arabia, then I believe all the members of the UN Security Council would join in contributing to the defense of Saudi Arabia. I don't think that would present a political problem at all. So I don't, I think our forces in Saudi Arabia are there for a purpose which is approved by all the permanent members of the Security Council, and in the event that guarantee or that presence is called into action because of an attack on Saudi Arabia, I think everybody in the world would come to our support, so that isn't the question. The question at issue should we ever use force in order to get the Iraqis to withdraw from Kuwait? That's quite a different problem, and there I have my doubts about whether we want to do that unless there is agreement by the members of the Security Council. And perhaps we will have to do that but I doubt it, and I think we want to be very careful take time before we get into that kind of an action. That doesn't mean that it isn't, that we want to say there is no possibility of it, but I would think we'd be well advised to be very careful before we take that step.

MR. MacNeil: I was reminded in a biography of you reviewed yesterday that you were an early but private critic of the build- up in Vietnam. Some people, including guests on this program, have described this as having the potential, this as having the potential of being a quagmire. Do you share that anxiety?

MR. NITZE: Not as long as we keep the troops there for a defensive purpose, in other words to guarantee that there isn't further aggression against Saudi Arabia. If that is the purpose of our troops there, I don't see that being a quagmire, because then I think, you know, there's a military angle and there's a political angle to each one of these crises that we get into. On the military angle, I think that if there is unanimity with the Soviet Union on it, I think we could handle it and handle that well. But the political part of it is the part that worries me, and there if we would act unilaterally, I can see grave difficulties in it, and we ought to give the embargo, those things, the chance to work on Iraq. from what we saw today on this program, one can see that there are problems, incipient problems, within Iraq. It looks as though chaos is really, at least an element of chaos is taking place in Iraq. I can't imagine that Iraq is going to hold together in a responsible way for a long period of time.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think the food and medicine issue could erode the embargo or breach the embargo enough to keep Saddam Hussein going for a long time?

MR. NITZE: Well, there we're caught in a dilemma. I think it is politically unacceptable for us and democracies as a whole to starve women and children. That isn't the main thing we're about, therefore, I believe we do have to make an exception with respect to food and medicine and so forth and so on, but I don't believe that -- that isn't Iraq's problem. I think Iraq's problem is can you really maintain discipline and order in that heterogenous army that he's got, that's looting and doing this, that and the other thing, I think that's going to be the death knell for Iraq in the long run. At least we ought to let that see whether that doesn't develop.

MR. MacNeil: How long can Mr. Bush afford to wait for the sanctions to work do you think?

MR. NITZE: I think we should try to get ourselves in a position so we could wait indefinitely for the sanctions to work.

MR. MacNeil: And getting ourselves in a position means doing the political work with other members of the Security Council?

MR. NITZE: To use the time made available by having those forces there to be sure that there isn't a spread of this unprovoked aggression, but using that time to see whether we can't work out a range of issues we have with the Soviet Union primarily, but with the other countries as well.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think that the need for that unanimity within the Security Council has become more apparent to the administration as the weeks have gone by, that it was seen as clearly at the beginning?

MR. NITZE: I believe it has, but I'm not part of the administration so I don't know firsthand.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Bush is going to speak to the Congress and through them to the American people tomorrow night. What do you feel he needs to say to the American people to make these purposes clear?

MR. NITZE: If I were he, I would put all my emphasis on unprovoked aggression. That is a clear violation of the terms of the UN Charter and something that is supported almost universally around the world today, that unprovoked aggression should not be permitted, so that that is I think the central thing that puts us on the right side of the fence. Now with respect to our domestic audience, no, his domestic audience, there, of course, he's been tempted to emphasize the fact that we're dependent upon oil and this and that and the other thing and our standard of living is at stake. That may be appealing to a domestic audience, but it's poisonous as far as an international audience is concerned. I think the President, of course, is in a box where whatever he says does, in fact, affect both the international audience and the domestic audience, and I think he's got to be very careful about sorting out those issues correctly.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. Nitze, thank you very much for joining us.

MR. NITZE: Thank you, Robin. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, Iran and Iraq agreed to re-establish diplomatic ties after a decade of hostilities. Iraq offered third world countries free oil if they used their own tankers. The White House said that initiative with Tehran and the offer of free oil were signs of Iraq's desperation. Sec. of State Baker will visit Syria on Thursday to coordinate efforts against Saddam Hussein and the United States asked its NATO allies to send more ground troops to Saudi Arabia. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the Newshour tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. We'll have Charlayne Hunter-Gault's interview with Iraq's influential deputy prime minister, Sadun Hamadi. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.