The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. The major news this Friday night includes a consumer price report which says inflation is still in check. French President Mitterrand's continuing to make waves in Moscow. Gary Hart's charged President Reagan's ethics, among other things, make him unfit for a second term. And Miami's launching of an aerial attack against the Medfly. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: Health, politics, crime and the arts are areas we explore in our in-depth segments tonight. We have a debate about the controversial new report claiming high blood pressure is related to too little salt, not too much. Hart, Mondale and Jackson representatives tell us what their men got and didn't get in the Democratic platform talks. An expert on computer crime talks about the reported break-in that let computer buffs see millions of confidential credit files. We look at a novel program that introduces New York City school children to grand opera.And John Aldridge reviews the novel, The Spectacle at the Tower by Gert Hoffman.

LEHRER: There was both sweet and sour news today on the economy, the sweetest of it about inflation. The Labor Department reported consumer prices rose a scant 0.2% in May for an annual, and manageable, inflation rate of 4.6%. It was a sharp decline in food prices, and a moderate increase in gasoline prices that kept those figures down. Also, the Commerce Department reported factory orders for big-ticket durable goods -- machinery, household goods and so on, increased 3.3% in May over the previous month. The sour news was about mortgage rates, the Department of Housing and Urban Development reporting the average rate nationally for new homes has hit 14% for the first time in nearly a year. And, let it be known, House and Senate budget negotiators struck a deal today to save $11 billion, mostly by raising the premiums paid by Medicare beneficiaries. The next step is for them to agree on a tax package that would raise another $50 billion. It's all part of that effort to make a down-payment on the federal budget deficit. Robin?

MacNEIL: French President Francois Mitterrand finished two days of talk with Soviet leaders today and said relations between their two countries had warmed up. He told a press conference in Moscow that relations between the Soviets and French were better than those between Washington and Moscow. But Mitterrand said France was not a mediator between the U.S. and Soviet Union, and he had not got involved in the stalled Soviet-U.S. arms negotiations. Diplomats said the Mitterrand visit ended on a cordial note despite his outspokenness about human rights in the Soviet Union. At a Kremlin banquet last night, Mitterrand mentioned the case of Andrei Sakharov, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist the Soviets have exiled to the town of Gorky for his human rights activities. Mitterrand's spokesman said it was the first time, face-to-face in the Kremlin, that a foreign leader has spoken so frankly, but, he added, the Soviet leaders did not leave the table. Here is a report from Allister Clarke of Visnews.

ALLISTER CLARKE, Visnews [voice-over]: The warm greeting President Chernenko had reserved for Francois Mitterrand disguised Soviet annoyance at the French backing for U.S. missiles stationed in Western Europe. That annoyance grew into private anger among the Soviet leadership when Mitterrand decided to break with diplomatic protocol and name names. During an official Kremlin speech, he raised the issue of dissident Andrei Sakharov and referred to him directly. Though it was couched in conciliatory language, Mitterrand told his hosts Sakharov's case provoked emotion in the West because it implied a threat to the Helsinki human rights agreement. Mitterrand also criticized Soviet policy on nuclear missiles, Afghanistan and Poland. His criticisms were cut out of a version of the speech reprinted in the Communist daily newspaper Pravda. Normally the speeches of visiting heads of state are reported in full. But on this occasion Pravda just said the President had spoken on the need to observe human rights in all countries, and left it at that.

MacNEIL: At his news conference Mitterand said he found the new Soviet president, Konstantin Chernenko on the warm side, always ready to crack a joke between sentences.

U.S. intelligence officials today confirmed press reports that a huge explosion ripped through a Soviet Navy ammunition depot at Severomorsk on the far north Kola Peninsula, taking aheavy toll in lives.The explosion happened last month, and it was so powerful it was first thought to be a nuclear explosion. It was detected by U.S. reconnaissance satellites and other intelligence means. The Reagan administration apparently plans to avoid any public statements so as not to give away its intelligence sources. The officials said the blast cost the Soviet Navy a large quantity of surface-to-air missiles, but had no way crippled the powerful northern fleet.

In Washington today, President Reagan told an audience of teenagers on the White House lawn that he hoped Soviet rejection of a summit meeting was not final. "Maybe we can get that around to a 'maybe,'" he said. The President was asked by reporters about a prediction this week by a Marine general that war with the Soviets was almost inevitable. The prediction was made by General Bernard Trainor, deputy chief of staff for plans, policies and operations, at a Naval War College conference in Rhode Island. General Trainor said, "Soviet land and naval challenges made conventional war with the Soviets in this generation almost inevitable probability." Asked if he agreed, President Reagan, in a comment, said this.

REPORTER: Do you agree with the general who thinks war is -- a limited war is inevitable with the Russians in today's paper -- American general.

2nd REPORTER: General Trainor, sir.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: No, I don't. And I think one of the most dangerous things in the world is for anyone to get in their -- fixed in their mind the inevitability theory.

MacNEIL: The President also told the teenagers he did not think peace demonstrations would help end the arms race. Jim?

LEHRER: An eight-week aerial campaign to stop the Mediterranean fruit fly began in earnest today in Miami. A helicopter flew over the Little Havana section of downtown, spraying the pesticide malathion. Today's opening target was nine square miles. It will cover 81 square miles by the time it's completed.Four of the Medflies, which devastate fruit trees and other plants, were found in Miami Tuesday, a fifth yesterday. Health officials said the pesticide should cause no health problems for residents.

Another form of devastation continued to hit the Midwest as more rain fell in the Dakotas, where there was already heavy flooding. Parts of Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and South Dakota remained underwater as well, all from a 10-day storm that has caused an estimated $1 billion in farm-crop losses and will not go away. Robin? Salt and Blood Pressure

MacNEIL: Yesterday we reported on a controversial new study suggesting that salt may not be to blame for high blood pressure. Today that study has the medical world still reeling. Doctors from the National Instittes of Health and the American Heart Association said they were skeptical about the findings that high blood pressure may be linked to too little salt rather than too much, as well as a deficiency of dairy products. That flies in the face of conventional wisdom and conventional advice from doctors, who normally tell patients with high blood pressure to eat less salt. The study, by a team of researchers at the Oregon Health Sciences University, was officially released at a press conference this morning in New York. Here to discuss the controversy that has surrounded it is its chief author, Dr. David McCarron, who is with us from Toronto. Also joining us is one of the critics, Dr. Allan Forbes, director of the Office of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the Food and Drug Administration. Gentlemen, if we could divide this into two parts and discuss salt first and then move on to calcium and the other parts of the study. Dr. McCarron, how do you explain that your findings appear to contradict all the conventional teaching about too much salt and high blood pressure?

Dr. DAVID McCARRON: Well, Robin, there is something very distinctly different about this study. There have been quotes in the press today that this does fly in the face and contradicts other studies. But you know, really, I'm not sure we can compare this study to anything else we have. I'm not sure this is an issue of somebody is right and somebody is wrong, so much as we have new information. And I'd like to, rather than focus too much on the controversy around sodium and whether or not --

MacNEIL: Sodium, meaning salt.

Dr. McCARRON: Salt -- whether it's appropriate for people to eat more or less, because it would be a mistake if anyone read this article and decided to add sodium to their diet.But certainly for myself, for other bio-medical investigators, for individuals like Alan, who is involved in setting health policy in this country, it may be very important as a warning that perhaps some policies we've initiated, some advice we've given in the past must be re-evaluated.

MacNEIL: But it is fair to say that your report, which, as I understand it, is an analysis of previous reports, of data published by the government, a re-analysis of that data? Is that correct?

Dr. McCARRON: What it is is actually the first in-depth analysis -- it's not a re-analysis -- of a study that was initiated, designed and supported by the U.S. government in the mid-1970s. and I might say that Alan was partly aware of this data some years ago.

MacNEIL: Alan being Dr. Forbes, whom we're going to talk to in a moment.

Dr. McCARRON: That's correct.

MacNEIL: And is it fair to say that your findings at least raise the question of whether salt/sodium is implicated in high blood pressure?

Dr. McCARRON: It certainly does, Robin, because what we noted was that the tendency was that in individuals who did not know that they had any problems with blood pressure, who thought they were healthy, those who tended to eat more sodium actually had lower blood pressures, and tended to have a lower risk of being hypertensive in America in the mid-1970s than those who ate less sodium. And I'm sorry, but the -- those are data and those are not really our data. We are really acting like yourself right now, as a reporter in this whole thing.

MacNEIL: All right. Well, let's go to Dr. Forbes. What troubles you about this finding, Dr. Forbes?

Dr. ALLAN FORBES: Well, there are a number of things. First of all, if you look back at the concept of moderation of salt and sodium intake as a method for control or prevention of high blood pressure, that has been studied for a great many years, and there is a broad general consensus amongst many advisory groups in the country, not just the government, by any means, that it is a reasonable thing to moderate sodium and salt intake as a means of prevention of hypertension or high blood pressure, possibly, and in particular, to control the disease once it is in place. So that's a fundamental issue, as I see it. Now, I want to hasten to add that we have followed Dave's work, Dave McCarron's work, ever since he began his studies on calcium with a great deal of interest, and feel very strongly that his recent observations add additional information to a knowledge base of an extremely complicated disease, which is multifactoral, many different factors involved.

MacNEIL: Right.Could we reserve the calcium discussion for just a moment.Just so that we're clear, so the audience will understand, do his findings raise any doubts in your mind about the validity of the conventional understanding of the relation of salt to high blood pressure? Does it give you any doubt?

Dr. FORBES: To be direct, no. My feeling is that these types of data have been reviewed for a great many years, and I am firmly convinced that sodium moderation is a very useful thing to do for the control of high high blood pressure.

MacNEIL: All right. Dr. McCarron, what's your comment that Dr. Forbes is not given any fresh ground for doubt by your study?

Dr. McCARRON: Robin, both Dr. Forbes and myself are scientific investigators. We both know science is not stagnant, that it is dynamic, that data does change; new information is available. The facts are that Allan is wrong. We have never looked thoroughly at a data base like this within the U.S. population. I think Allan would have to agree that this is the first time that this data base has been analyzed for all the nutrients in the fashion in which we analyzed. And the data speaks for itself, and I challenge Dr. Forbes that he must present data that counterbalances. And I would remind him that Health and Human Services published a document, authored by individuals from Michigan a year ago, that has in it information that is very consistent with what we noted, and that was that if you used a salt shaker in America, if you use salty snack foods, the facts were you tended to have lower blood pressure. Those are data. I don't want to -- I don't want to hear about conventional wisdom. I don't want to hear about opinions. We are investigators; we must talk data.

MacNEIL: Dr. Forbes?

Dr. FORBES: Well, Dave is, of course, absolutely right in the scientific sense.But I think what will happen quite obviously as a result of the study that Dave and his colleagues have just issued, there will be an intense scrutiny of the precise methodology that was used in that study to be very certain that the conclusions that he has reached will be accepted by his peers or mine. And, of course, I have no doubt that both he and I will be intimately involved in that in the months --

MacNEIL: In the time remaining, Dr. McCarron, could you briefly describe what your finding is about calcium and heart disease? I'm sorry -- and high blood pressure

Dr. McCARRON: Yes, Robin. Well, actually, you're correct in relating it to heart disease because high blood pressure is a major contributor. We really identified two much more important observations than the sodium issue. And I'm sorry that we've focused on that so much. There were nutritional differences between hypertensives and normals, and those were other deficiences.And the two that were most striking were low levels of calcium in a diet and low levels of potassium. And it turns out that really one food group is a source of that, and that happens to be dairy products. It's not my doing; it's Mother Nature. We happen to have a nutrient that is isolated to one food group, and that is calcium, and it comes from fluid milk, cheese, yogurt and, believe it or not, ice cream.

MacNEIL: And you're saying that Americans are eating too little of that, those who have high blood pressure?

Dr. McCARRON: Actually, I think there is fairly good agreement in the medical community that this is really a fairly major nutritional deficiency in the U.S. diet, and it is really a paradox that we have this nutritional deficiency at a time whenwe have support of the industry that supplies the only source of this nutrient; that is, the dairy industry.

MacNEIL: Dr. Forbes, can I have a comment on that?

Dr. FORBES: Well, as I started to mention earlier, we think the calcium hypothesis, which I emphasize is a hypothesis, is a very interesting one that deserves vigorous support to get on with additional research, hopefully in multiple medical centers, to ascertain whether there really is a solid relationship between calcium intakes and blood pressure -- the higher the calcium, the lower the blood pressure being the hypothesis. Well worthy of study.

MacNEIL: Gentlemen, thank you both for joining us, Dr. Forbes in Toronto -- sorry -- Dr. McCarron in Toronto, Dr. Forbes in Washington.

Dr. McCARRON: Thank you, Robin.

MacNEIL: Jim?

LEHRER: Senator Gary Hart today declined to rub any more salt of a political kind in the wounds of the Democratic Party, turning instead to President Reagan, his ethics and his handling of the job as president. In a National Press Club speech he accused Mr. Reagan of creating a crisis through the spread of corruption and cynicism, by the spread of unethical behavior by his appointees in the administration.

Sen. GARY HART, Democratic presidential candidate: This administration has one of the worst records in history of tolerating unethical behavior by key government officials. To date, well over 50 high-ranking officials of the Reagan administration have faced serious allegations involving criminal wrong-doing, unethical behavior or abuses of power and privilege. And more than 25 of those individuals have been forced to resign or withdraw their nominations in the wake of scandals involving their own individual integrity. and what is Ronald Reagan's response to this unprecedented volume of self-dealing of his aides? He doesn't care. He simply doesn't care. We can no longer tolerate an administration which keeps people in office as long as they cannot be found guilty of criminal offenses. And, finally, there's President Reagan's problems with facts. He makes so many documentably false and misleading statements that audiences around the country have taken to asking, is it real or is it Reagan? This President not only regularly says misleading things, but he also hasn't a clue as to how -- as to the many true things that are essential for a president to know Ronald Reagan takes the role of the empty-handed child who tells the teacher, "The dog ate my homework." "The Congress," he says, "caused my runaway deficits. Other countries," he says, "caused my foreign policy failures. And someone else" -- perhaps it was the dog -- "has appointed all those self-serving officers and tolerated their conduct." I pose this challenge to the President. Mr. Reagan, if you don't know what's going on in these areas of ethics and law and facts, you should. If you do know, you have betrayed the American people.Either way, you have forfeited any claim to a second term in office. Nailing Down the Platform

LEHRER: And after the speech, in a question and answer period, Hart reiterated that he will remain in the race all the way to the convention because he intends to be the nominee. Meanwhile, back at that struggle for the nomination and the soul of the Democratic Party, Hart's representatives continue to parry and deal with those of Walter Mondale and Jesse Jackson over a party platform as the platform committee, meeting here in Washington, worked at having a final draft ready by the end of the weekend.The major representative of each of the threepresidential candidates at those sessions is a Democratic U.S. representative: Timothy Wirth of Colorado for Hart; Michael Barnes of Maryland for Mondale; Walter Fauntroy, the delegate from the District of Columbia, for Jackson. Gentlemen, all three of you and all three of your candidates are liberal Democrats. I would assume, Congressman Wirth, that what's going to emerge in platform is a liberal platform. Correct?

Rep. TIMOTHY WIRTH: Well, I think that we've moved the center of gravity of the Democratic Party in this platform toward the future. That's what many of us were very much hoping we could do, and I think it's a platform that all three candidates can happily run on.

LEHRER: It's going to be a liberal platform, though, right, Congressman Barnes?

Rep. MICHAEL BARNES: I think it's going to reflect -- if it holds up the way it's been going for the past few days, the document is going to end up reflecting the mainstream in the Democratic Party. I think it's going to be a document that Democrats of a broad spectrum -- 95% of Democrats -- from the left and right are going to be able to run on comfortably.

LEHRER: But would it reflect the mainstream of the American people generally, Congressman Fauntroy?

Delegate WALTER FAUNTROY: I'm confident that it will reflect the mainstream of the American people, if we spice it up as we want to, to indicate that this is not just a platform to talk about but a commitment that we make to provide jobs and economic growth in this country, to provide a foreign policy that is demilitarized and frees resources necessary to train our young people to -- in the skills required for the future, at the same time that we rebuild the failing infrastructure of this nation as a basis for revitalized economic and commercial activity.

LEHRER: Well, specifically, the Jackson folks have not gotten all that you wanted in this platform as we speak, correct?

Del. FAUNTROY: Well, that's true. We have been surprised at the impact, however, of the Jackson candidacy. We have energized a wing of the Democratic Party that has been missing from elections for many years. And, as a result, we've been pleased that both the Hart and Mondale forces have accepted language which details what the nature of the problem is and our need to provide the kinds of job training, education, infrastructure rebuilding, tax policies that will enable us to reverse the Reagan revolution that has taken place in the last four years.

LEHRER: But you haven't gotten everything you wanted.

Del. FAUNTROY: Without question we've got --

LEHRER: What's the big thing that you still want that you haven't got?

Del. FAUNTROY: The big thing that we must do is to prevent this party from electing --

LEHRER: No, but I mean specifically, what is it that you want in the platform that you haven't gotten yet?

Del. FAUNTROY: I was about to say that.

LEHRER: Okay, all right.

Del. FAUNTROY: The important thing is that we got -- we cannot invest in our young people, invest in our cities, invest in the kind of sunrise industries that will be required for us to survive as a nation in the future if we do not make a substantial reduction in military spending. We have had --

LEHRER: So you want a platform plank that calls for less government spending than the Mondale and the Hart people agreed to, correct?

Del. FAUNTROY: Yes. Less government spending ultimately because we feel that it would not take as much to rebuild our cities, to revitalize our economy as it is now costing us in unnecessary military spending.

LEHRER: Congressman Wirth, from the Hart perspective, what is not in there yet that you still want in?

Rep. WIRTH: At the top I think I would again emphasize the unity I believe that has come out of this, surprisingly so. We were surprised, just as Walter Fauntroy and the Jackson forces were surprised. There is language on an approach to U.S. policy in the Middle East, there is language in an approach to training of individuals, there are some approaches that we would take related to the economy and inflation strategies -- various policies on that front. While we didn't get everything we wanted, but we think the platform has come a long, long way toward the ideas and approaches that Senator Hart's been advocating.

LEHRER: Obviously from the Mondale perspective, you all were the 500-pound guerrilla in this operation. You have the majority on the platform committee, you've got a candidate that looks like he's going to be the nominee, so obviously you're happy, correct, Congressman?

Rep. BARNES: Well, Walter and Tim should not be surprised that they're getting a lot of their language, a lot of their proposals into the document. That's been very much our desire. Walter Mondale, you know, said a couple of weeks ago that he wants to earn the support of the people who supported other candidates during the primaries, and that's been what we've been trying to do is reach out, bring in as many of their proposals, as much of their language as possible into the document, obviously without undercutting any of the fundamental positions that Fritz Mondale has taken.

LEHRER: But is the platform, to go back to my first question, is the platform going to make any attempt to reach out to people who are independents, people who are more conservative than the three of you and the three of your candidates?

Rep. BARNES: I hope that people will take a look at this document.

LEHRER: They're not going to, are they?

Rep. BARNES: I'm a little bit cynical about that, quite frankly. I think the process is probably more important than the document itself. But I think that if people pause and reflect a little bit on what the Democratic Party is advocating this year in the platform, they're going to be very pleased. I think the business community, if it looks at this and sees how we're prepared to promote trade, it's a pro-business document.

LEHRER: You don't really mean that, do you, that this is a platform that American business, who normally supports the Republican Party, is going to like what your three candidates --

Rep. BARNES: After what the Reagan administration has done to this economy, the business community in the United States better take a hard look at the alternative that exists for economic policy.

Rep. WIRTH: And let's historically look at where the Democratic Party has been.The Democratic Party has served this country extraordinarily well economically when the Democratic Party has recognized that it had two jobs -- the equality of opportunity and of promotion of economic growth. I think we lost the latter, in large part during the 1970s, that commitment to economic growth. That is back in this platform loud and clear. You've heard Walter Fauntroy talk about it, we've been talking about it for a long, long time; the Mondale platform has moved in our direction on that front; Vice President Mondale's talked about it. I think you're seeing the Democratic Party with a very, very clear commitment that all of us could support that will reach out to an awful lot of people on that issue of economic policy.

Rep. BARNES: The first chapter of the platform is entitled "Economic Growth and Prosperity." That's the theme that we're pushing this year is how to create and stimulate economic growth.

LEHRER: Let me ask you, Congressman Fauntroy. Congressman Barnes says he's a little cynical about this, that there's really a process here that's important; nobody's going to read this thing; nobody cares about it. Isn't that the truth?

Del. FAUNTROY: We hope that it won't be the truth.

LEHRER: Hasn't it always been the truth?

Del. FAUNTROY: The fact is it has been the truth in the past, and that's why Ronald Reagan could get away last time with saying to the American people that, "If you elect me I'm going to cut taxes, I'm going to cut programs that speak to the needs of human beings, and I'm going to increase military spending by an unprecedented --

LEHRER: But I'm not talking --

Del. FAUNTROY: Just a moment.

LEHRER: Okay.

Rep. BARNES: -- two trillion dollars and we'll have no deficits." Now, the American people said, first Bush said, "That's voodoo economics." They said, "shh, don't say that.Tell the people that --

LEHRER: No, but he --

Del. FAUNTROY: And they have produced the largest deficit in the history of this country, one that is threatening not only the recovery here but the stability of the world. Now, if we do not go forward with a program that is taken seriously by the public generally, and particularly by the margin that Jesse Jackson has energized in the party that has been missing from the last elections, and, by missing, has robbed us of the ability to continue to lead this nation --

LEHRER: Okay --

Del. FAUNTROY: If we don't do that, we're going to be in trouble.

LEHRER: Let me try the question on you, Congressman Wirth. There is no precedent that I'm aware of, and I checked today, where a party platform of either party has mattered at all, that whoever gets the nomination usually ignores it, runs on his or her own platform, from county judge, Democratic Party, to the presidential nominee. Is this going to be any different?

Rep. WIRTH: I think you're seeing in the process this time around many, many so-called superdelegates. There are some 160 members of the House and members of the Senate, governors, elected officials from the Democratic Party who are delegates who are deeply involved in this process. The fact we have three members of Congress here who are committed to this platform, working on it, is a very good sign. I think this is -- the themes that are in this are found in much of the work that many of us have been working on in the House and the Senate, trying to develop legislation in this direction. I think you're going to see a set of legislative proposals very easily flow right out of this platform and become law when the Democratic Party captures the White House this November. I think this is a really doable proposition. You've got the merge of all the elements of the Democratic Party together. You've got the leadership behind it completely, and I think as Walter points out, you've reached out to new constituencies -- their new constituency and our new constituency.

LEHRER: Well, I know you all have to say this. Obviously, you've devoted a lot of time to all this. I'm just wondering this time whether or not there is any particular effort is going to be made to make this particular platform any different than the others that have been ignored through the years.

Rep. BARNES: Frankly, in the past platforms -- you're right. They tend to get put on library shelves and not very many people read them. But the process has had the potential in the past to destroy the party. I mean, if you look at 1968 and the battles over Vietnam in Chicago; you look at 1948 and the civil rights walkout of the convention over the platform. And we've had real problems in our party historically with pulling the platform together. '80 is a good example of that -- the battle between Kennedy and Carter over the platform never really did heal before the election.

LEHRER: And you were involved in that.

Rep. BARNES: I was involved in it. We were all involved in it.

LEHRER: So you -- you would agree with that, would you not, Congressman Fauntroy?

Del. FAUNTROY: No, I want to state that for us in the Jackson campaign the platform is of critical importance, and that we think there is a body out there that has rejected the party in the past that is prepared to come back in now, particularly since we don't have a third-party candidacy that had been the vehicle for many of the progressive-wing members leaving. They want to come in, but they're not going to come in if the platform is conceived as promises and not commitments, and around personality rather than programs.

Rep. BARNES: But let me not leave the impression that Fritz Mondale thinks this document isn't important, because he does. And we do. We also think that the process can be and has been tremendously beneficial to the party. This process is actually uniting the party. We now have the top people in the Mondale campaign, the Hart campaign, the Jackson people working together very closely, coming up with the document.And that's been a very positive process.

LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you all for being here. Robin?

MacNEIL: Several major segments are still to come in tonight's NewsHour. Judy Woodruff examines what it means that computer buffs reportedly broke into computers holding 90 million credit histories. Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on a New York program to introduce school children to grand opera. And John Aldridge reviews the novel The Spectacle at the Tower by Gert Hoffman.

[Video postcard -- Painted Desert, Arizona]

MacNEIL: The Reagan administration said today it supports the goal of banning leaded gasoline because the evidence is unmistakeable that lead fumes hurt children. But Joseph Cannon, assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, told a Senate committee that the administration prefers doing away with lead by regulation, not federal legislation. He said that by year's end the administration expects to issue a rule ending the sale of leaded gas by 1988. And that would probably make a bill now in the Senate unnecessary. Cannon and the sponsor of the bill, Republican Senator David Durenberger of Minnesota, debated the need for legislation.

JOSEPH CANNON, Environmental Protection Agency: Of course we and the sponsors of the bill share the goal of getting lead out of gasoline; however, there are some subsidiary issues best addressed in an open and orderly regulatory process where all parties have had an opportunity to present their views and a careful analysis performed. In short, then, I certainly agree with the sentiment of the bill, but believe that EPA is well-equipped, not only well-equipped, but has the intention and the will at this stage to deal with this issue in an expeditious but orderly fashion.

Sen. DAVID DURENBERGER, (R) Minnesota: I don't believe that the bill precludes regulation. In fact, it mandates that the administrator issue regulations. Isn't that also correct?

Mr. CANNON: That's right, yes.

Sen. DURENBERGER:And the bill would allow you to authorize the sale of gasoline with low amounts lead. Is that not correct?

Mr. CANNON: Yes, sir.

Sen. DURENBERGER: So, in fact, the only way in which it might interfere with your rule-making is if you decided to allow the sale of leaded gasoline or, that is, gasoline with large amounts of lead, after 1988. Is that not correct?

Mr. CANNON: Yes, although I want to say one thing. I don't think I said it would interfere with our process. I just said that we think because of the actions we're taking at the agency that it's not necessary. But I just --

Sen. DURENBERGER: "At this stage."

MacNEIL: The EPA official also said that motorists are still illegally using leaded gas in cars designed for unleaded at an alarming rate. He said leaded gas, which is cheaper, still accounts for 45% of the gasoline sold, when it should account for only 35%. All cars built since 1975 are meant to burn unleaded gasoline.

In the last few days newspapers have reported that computer buffs, using home computers, have broken into one of the world's biggest confidential files. They are the credit histories of some 90 million people stored in the computers of TRW's information services division. TRW today denied that its security had been breached. Judy Woodruff has more on that story. Judy? Computer Prying

JUDY WOODRUFF: Robin, according to Newsday, the Long Island newspaper which originally broke this story, computer criminals got hold of a secret password that gave them access to the data banks of the largest credit reporting bureau in the country -- TRW Information Services.The password was reportedly obtained from a Sears Roebuck & Company store in California a year ago, but TRW officials were not notified about it until three weeks ago. In the meantime, the Newsday article quotes sources in the so-called computer underground who say the people who broke into the system have obtained dozens of credit reports and have used the information to commit credit-card fraud. As Robin said, TRW today issued a statement confirming that a password was stolen, but saying nobody had tapped into the company files. To tell us more about the breach of security -- apparent breach of security -- at TRW and to discuss its broader implications, we turn to Robert Ellis Smith, an expert on computers and privacy. Mr. Smith publishes a monthly newsletter called The Privacy Journal. First of al, Mr. Smith, for those of us who don't know, what is TRW? We know it's a credit bureau, but what is it?

ROBERT ELLIS SMITH: It's mainly known as a defense contractor. One of its divisions runs a credit bureau. It's one of five major credit bureaus throughout the country. These are highly sophisticated, computerized operations that keep track of how people spend their money, whether they pay their bills on time with various stores, bank loans that they might have and the like.

WOODRUFF: What exactly do we think happened here?

Mr. SMITH: Well, this much we know, that the password was stolen, taken into the hands of somebody else --

WOODRUFF: Well, what is a password? That --

Mr. SMITH: In this case it's a three- or four-digit number. After a credit grantor, like Sears and Roebuck -- an individual there who has a credit application would want to check with TRW to see how the person's credit rating is. So he or she would use a computer terminal and type in Sears and Roebuck's code and then there would be the four-digit code that's sort of a password that indicates to the computer at TRW in Southern California that the person on the other end of the line is authorized to have access to the system.

WOODRUFF: So by using -- by typing this number into their computer, they could -- it could --

Mr. SMITH: You're entered into the whole system then. TRW says that by having that password you have access to all these 90 million files, but you would not be able to alter any files or to delete them.

WOODRUFF: How easy was it for whoever did this to get the code?

Mr. SMITH: Oh, I think the simplest thing in the world. You could, I suppose, bribe somebody. There are 35,000 computer terminals around the nation that feed into the TRW system. So I think security is virtually impossible in a system like that. You can do it just on a buddy-buddy system by asking for the code from somebody. I don't think we'll ever know who gave it out.

WOODRUFF: Well, if it's so simple, then why isn't there more of this, or is there more of it and we just don't hear about it?

Mr. SMITH: Well, I think there's a lot of idle shopping around, a lot of curiosity-seeking, on the part of the so-called computer underground. We don't hear about it because I suppose it doesn't result in any real abuses. And those who are doing it don't think it's particularly harmful.

WOODRUFF: What is the computer underground that you just referred to?

Mr. SMITH: These are people who -- mainly young, who are addicted to these machines and probably have the computer capability in their homes and have what's called a modem, which will attach them into the telephone system. And with a touch-tone telephone and a little bit of savvy they can tap into a lot of different systems. Most of the systems they've tapped into so far have been those that don't have personal information in them. They've been systems that have various data that doesn't relate to people.

WOODRUFF: Now, TRW of course says that it's security wasn't actually breached. Do we know whether there was credit-card fraud committed? I mean, can we say --

Mr. SMITH: We don't know at this point, but we do know they had the password for a whole year; they had the capability. I talked to somebody at TRW about two hours ago, and he compared it to having the car keys stolen. I think it's much more serious than that. This is a major breach. This is the first time we have known that so-called computer hackers have had access to data files that concern people, that have sensitive information about each of us in the files.

WOODRUFF: Why is it so easy for somebody to break into a system and get the code? Why is it as easy as it is?

Mr. SMITH: Well, a lot of common-sense steps aren't taken. That password should be changed every month, or even every day it could be changed by various encryption devices. There ought to be spot-checking. There ought to be some sort of a callback system so that TRW knows, when they get an inquiry from Sears that in fact somebody on the other end of the line is authorized. A lot of just common-sense steps are not taken. I think it's because a lot of these organizations like credit bureaus are rather new to the whole business of collecting personal information. They have no long tradition of confidentiality and of maintaining accuracy. And we've entrusted all this information to them, and they have an awful lot of computer capability. What they don't have is a sort of a trustee respect for the information that they have.

WOODRUFF: Do you think there's anything being done? I mean, do you have any reason to believe they're rethinking this whole process, this whole concept of security?

Mr. SMITH: Well, the scarey part is TRW is probably the best of the lot. I think their competitors have a more spotty record.

WOODRUFF: Now, they're the biggest one of all.

Mr. SMITH: They are, and they are the most sophisticated in terms of automation. But there are four other major competitors. Mostly credit bureaus divide up the business regionally. I've been to trade shows and meetings with bank people and they're just relying on blind luck. They really will admit to you that they haven't taken the precautions that are necessary.

WOODRUFF: You alluded to this: what are the implications of something like this?

Mr. SMITH: Well, I compare this TRW breach to the Three Mile Island accident in terms of nuclear power development. This is to the privacy movement what Three Mile Island was to the nuclear power movement. It finally will crystallize concern about this. We've always been told, you know, this is just a potential problem. And now I think we've seen it in its actuality. It means that for the first time those who have easy access to computer files now are getting access to personal information as opposed to getting access to rip off money or assets from a system.

WOODRUFF: What about the laws that are on the books now to protect us, all of us, from this kind of thing?

Mr. SMITH: It's kind of a mixed record. There are 25 states that have computer crime laws that would prohibit the use or misuse of a computer system like this. California's law doesn't seem to punish just idle trespassing, mere curiosity, although some of the new laws like that in Virginia and the one in Pennsylvania do punish just shopping around in a system.

WOODRUFF: But is there a federal law that applies here?

Mr. SMITH: There's a proposal now before Congress. There are about three or four. The most notable one is from Representative Nelson of Florida, who passed Florida's computer crime law, which is regarded as pretty good. I would think we could expect various committees of Congress to move quickly now on these laws because of the TRW breach.

WOODRUFF: Do you think that -- maybe the answer is obvious to this, but do you think most people are aware that there is that much information about them that's stored that is potentially available to so many different sources?

Mr. SMITH: No. People always tell me, "What do I have to hide?" or "Why should I be concerned, I have nothing to hide." But TRW's story, I think, shows that even if you have nothing to hide, there are those that can get access to these systems, apparently fairly easily, and can use it to construct a credit profile of you and thereby manufacture a fraudulent credit card.

WOODRUFF: And is there anything the average person can do about it?

Mr. SMITH: You've got a right by federal law to make sure that the information in credit bureaus is accurate. That's something. But to prevent these breaches there is very little we can do at this point except exert pressure on the companies to come up with some more precautions.

WOODRUFF: All right, I have a feeling we'll hear about all this again.Robert Ellis Smith, thank you for being with us. Jim?

LEHRER: There's another plan floating around to keep Chicago's Continental Illinois National Bank afloat.This new plan involves loans and guarantees of $4.6 billion from the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. It also includes placing the bank's $4 billion in overdue problem loans into a newly created bank, making Continental more attractive for a takeover or a merger. The chairman of the FDIC, William Isaacs, said today his agency could not let Continental fail because hundreds of smaller banks and businesses would collapse along with it. Robin? Old Songs, Young Fans

MacNEIL: Our next major story tonight is about education of an unusual kind. It is a New York program to draw young school children into the world of grand opera. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has a report.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: These professional singers are preparing for a lavish new production of Jacques Offenbach's comic opera, Les Bavards. In another part of New York City, these third-graders at PS 97 in the Bronx are preparing for the same production. In a short while, both these groups will come together at the same place, at the same time, and hopefully, with the same appreciation of the experience.

That's the objective of the Children's Free Opera, a program designed to introduce school-aged children in New York to opera. It came into being nine years ago as a result of New York City's fiscal crisis; one of the first casualties of that crisis had been music programs in schools. But thanks to private grants and corporate contributions, the Children's Free Opera has not only grown, but has become a permanent fixture in classrooms all over New York. To prepare the students for the performances, the program provides teaching guides, the history of the opera, a biography of the composer, details of the story line. These third-graders at PS 97 are being prepared by their teacher, Charles Kolataze who also plays piano in the classroom.

CHARLES KOLATAZE, teacher: Next week we are going to see an opera called Les Bavards. Can anyone read what the English translation of that French title is? Suzanne.

SUZANNE: "The Chatterboxes."

Mr. KOLATAZE: "The Chatterboxes." What is a chatterbox? Let's have Richard. What is a chatterbox?

RICHARD: A person who talks a lot.

Mr. KOLATAZE: Yeah, okay. And how would you stop a chatterbox from talking? If you had a friend, or a husband had a wife or a wife had a husband who was a chatterbox, how would you stop that person from talking so much? Wayne?

WAYNE: I would stop the person by not talking to her. She'd probably say, or he would probably say, "Why isn't anybody talking to me?" and no one else would talk to her, so she wouldn't have anybody to talk to her. That's the way you can stop a chatterbox.

Mr. KOLATAZE: Very, very good. And, actually, you don't even know it, but you're getting into some of the story line to this opera.

[voice-over] I really think the St. Luke's Children's Free Opera is one of the most important experiences the children could possibly have in their school life. It enables them to see a live, professional performance in a professional hall.

Now, remember, this is the very beginning of the opera, and Offenbach, the composer, he wants to suggest to everybody in the audience that a lot of action is going on on the stage. Roland is being chased by the people to whom he owes money, okay? And what are they saying?

[voice-over] At an early age, if you learn these skills, it in many cases stays with you. It's almost like a root that's lying dormant many years, and 10 years later, when they're 19, 20 years old, it could blossom from just one occasion going to an opera. They might remember what they had seen.

Now, I want you to sound angry. Remember, we're characters in an opera. You're chasing a person who owes you a lot of money.Okay? I really want you to shout this out now. [singing]

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: But even with all this preparation, the students still approach the coming event with mixed emotions.

1st STUDENT: It's going to be exciting and some of the parts are going to be boring, like when there's a TV show and it first starts, nothing happens.

2nd STUDENT: My mother says if -- she says that operas are so boring. She says she'd rather be seeing a scary movie in the movies.

3rd STUDENT: It's nice getting out of class once in awhile to go on a trip.

4th STUDENT: I think I'd rather go see "The Chatterboxes" in a play with not all singing. Like mostly talking, just a couple of singing.

5th STUDENT: I'd rather go see Michael Jackson or Boy George or Duran Duran 'cause I think operas are boring.

QUESTION: How many operas have you seen?

5th STUDENT: None.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: During its lifetime, the Children's Free Opera has changed the minds of more than three-quarters of a million young people who thought that opera would bore them. During a rehearsal break, Children's Free Opera founder Michael Feldman explained how he did it.

MICHAEL FELDMAN, founder, Children's Free Opera: In the deepest sense education is not my first priority. My first priority is to entertain them, that if it doesn't succeed on the level of being entertainment, it won't work. Every youngster I think of as having a right to see these performances. That's one of the reasons it's free. We don't want any resistance. Even having to put up a buck, you know. I don't want that. I don't want the teacher to say, "Well, if I have to collect dollars, maybe I won't do it." You know, let them only make a telephone call and they can get in to see the performance.

HUNTER-GAULT: What is your ultimate goal with this program?

Mr. FELDMAN: To bring it to every kid in New York.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: This company of young professionals will do about 30 performances a year of three different productions, all intended specifically for children.

[interviewing] Will you coach them to do it differently for children than you would for adults?

Mr. FELDMAN: No. No, not at all. It's just that they have to do it better.

HUNTER-GAULT: Why?

Mr. FELDMAN: Because of this immediate audience reaction. They have to do it better. It has to be sharp, it has to be clean. The enunciation has to be perfect. There is not going to be politeness on the part of the audience.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Michael Best, one of the Metropolitan Opera's young bright lights, was one of he originals of the Children's Free Opera.

MICHAEL BEST, opera singer: If you are rejected by a child, somehow it seems much more personal than if you are rejected by an adult. So performing for children, when they bestow their approval, has a wonderful kind of satisfaction about it. They live in their own world, and if you pull them out to take a look at what you're doing, and what you're doing is not interesting, they will go right back to their own world and they are gone forever.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Occasionally students are given an opportunity to perform as well. Thanks to Offenbach's inclusion of a chorus in Les Bavards, the all-city high school chorus got its chance. John Motley, director of music for the city's school system, sees a lot of good coming out of this kind of participation.

JOHN MOTLEY, New York City Schools director of music: This is a great program. It's a great program for the students that are involved in the production, and a great program for those youngsters that would never have a chance to see an opera. The elementary school children that will see this opera, and probably junior high, what have you, this is training for them. So it's training both for the performer and training for the consumer.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Despite the kudos from adults, the proof of the performance still lies with the audience.

1st STUDENT: I really liked it a lot and I thought it was real interesting.

2nd STUDENT: I'd say it's pretty good, yeah, because this is my first time being to an opera, and "The Chatterbox" is nice. I liked it.

3rd STUDENT: It was really great. And we ought to watch them more often.

4th STUDENT: The opera was real nice, and I want to see more of Offenbach's operas.

5th STUDENT: It's really pretty good because, if I had my choice between seeing Michael Jackson and seeing this opera, I'll see the opera. Book Review: The Spectacle at the Tower

MacNEIL: Finally tonight we have a book review. It's by a German writer named Gert Hoffman who is new to American audiences. His book is called The Spectacle at the Tower, and our reviewer is John Aldridge.

Who is the author, Gert Hoffman?

JOHN ALDRIDGE: He is apparently a well-established West German writer who has done a number of works of fiction, some plays, but this happens to be the first novel of his to be translated into the English.

MacNEIL: And what do you think as a quality of writer?

Mr. ALDRIDGE: I think he's a marvelous writer. And I have to assume, you take it on faith that this man who translated the book did a superb job, because clearly the prose is superb. Even though I haven't seen it in the German, it is very effective. But it's essentially a book, I would say, that tries to create an atmosphere of gothic horror at the same time that it's a book with strong ambitions to become a parable, a moral parable or an allegory, to make some statement about the human condition. It takes place in Sicily, where a young German couple who are about to get divorced are on holiday, and they get stranded in this very ugly and impoverished town in Sicily when their car breaks down. While they're waiting to have it repaired, they get involved in a whole series of bizarre and terrible events. They're approached by a native Sicilian who calls himself the supervisor. And he, quite against their will, insists that they go to -- through the town and see the sights. And all of these are macabre places. One is a place where several obviously catatonic and ancient women are sitting on a rod placed against the wall; another place is called the foundlings' home, where what he calls superfluous children of the village are shoved through a hole in the wall and got rid of that way. And, finally, he takes them to a mysterious tower which is supposed to be the sort of piece-de-resistance of the tour. And the German couple finds to their horror that there is about to be staged a spectacle or a performance involving a young boy who has been paid to climb to the top of the tower and throw himself off to his death, this for the entertainment of quite a number of tourists who had gathered. The town has no other possible attraction for tourists.So the supervisor has dreamt up this brutal spectacle in order to attract these people and save the town from dying.

MacNEIL: Now, if this book is a parable, what is it a parable of?

Mr. ALDRIDGE: Well, it seems to me that it does fall into line with some of Thomas Mann's fiction, Kafka's, Conrad's, in which you have a situation of characters who are sort of uprooted from their normal every-day, safe, orderly existence. They are thrown into something strange, violent, disruptive, which causes them to be utterly deranged. They have no way of understanding what is happening to them. But as a result of this, they sometimes break through into a new perspective on themselves, on the nature of reality and so on, and so they grow and change as a result of being shocked into sensibility, in effect, rather in the way that a man going through a particularly brutal war might have his whole view of life changed. Now, this sort of thing happens to Thomas Mann's Aschenbach in Death in Venice, and Kafka's Joseph K in The Trial. And it's a kind of parable about becoming morally aware, awake to the truths which one did not see before.

MacNEIL: How would you sum up your opinion of the book?

Mr. ALDRIDGE: I think it succeeds as a very macabre story, a gothic horror story. I think it's almost completely successful as a moral parable. But not entirely. I think there is a certain ambiguity at the end which makes it -- which leaves it uncertain as to whether the narrator, who is also the husband of the couple, does really arrive at some significantly changed view.

MacNEIL: But you're grateful to be introduced to a new writer to you, Gert Hoffman?

Mr. ALDRIDGE: Absolutely, because I think above all he writes so remarkably well that one is put into possession of exactly what this couple's experiencing in all of its horror and strangeness, and his style is so flexible and so vivid, so very supple in its ability to accommodate these changes of mood, the colors of the very ugly events which occur. And I think it's the style, finally, which makes this book. And it seems to me that this book does introduce to English-reading audiences a writer -- a remarkable power and great originality. And I certainly look forward to reading other translations of his books.

MacNEIL: John Aldridge, thank you.

Mr. ALDRIDGE: Thank you.

MacNEIL: Once again, the book we've been discussing is Gert Hoffman's The Spectacle at the Tower, published by Fromm International. Jim?

LEHRER: And again the major stories on this Friday night. Consumer prices rose only 0.2% in May, meaning inflation is not a problem. French President Mitterrand talked for more hours with the Soviet leaders in Moscow, continuing to twit them about human rights, Sakharov, human rights, nuclear missiles and Europe, among other things. And aerial spraying against the Mediterranean fruit fly began in a downtown section of Miami.

Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good Night, Jim. That's all for tonight. We will be back on Monday. Have a nice weekend. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.