The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. In the news tonight, a second carrier joined the U.S. task force in the Mediterranean to be ready if President Reagan ordered any action against Libya. The House of Representatives passed a weakened gun control law. A nuclear test was conducted under the Nevada desert after two days of delays. Details of these stories in our news summary coming up. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: After the news summary, Navy Secretary John Lehman and former Defense Department official Robert Komer debate the need for a 600-ship Navy. Congresswoman Pat Schroeder and Chamber of Commerce lawyer Virginia Lamp debate the need for a federal maternity and paternity leave law. And finally, special correspondent John Merrow reports on the high cost of higher education.News Summary

MacNEIL: The U.S. aircraft carrier Coral Sea left Spain today to join the carrier America in the central Mediterranean. Navy Secretary John Lehman said the fleet is ready if President Reagan orders it to strike against Libya. The President told his news conference last night the U.S. was prepared to respond militarily if there was evidence that Libya directly supported recent terrorist action. Lord Carrington, the secretary-general of NATO, said today that the European allies would sympathize if the U.S. did something, but added, "I don't think you could say anything the United States would do would be supported by the Europeans." The White House had nothing to say about Libya or Qaddafi today. Jim?

LEHRER: The U.S. Army general who commands allied forces in Europe said today the French had thwarted a Libyan plot to terrorize the U.S. ambassador to France. General Bernard Rogers told an audience in suburban Atlanta of the recent expulsion by the French of two Libyan diplomats. He said the two were party to a planned terrorist attack against the U.S. ambassador in Paris, Joe Rodgers. The general also said there was indisputable evidence of a connection between the weekend disco bombing in West Berlin and a worldwide terrorist network said up by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

A French airline office in Lisbon, Portugal, was the target of a bomb attack this morning. The Air France office was severely damaged, but there were no casualties. An anonymous caller to a Lisbon news agency said the attack was the work of a French terrorist organization called Direct Action, and was in protest of French collaboration with the U.S. against Libya. There was no way to authenticate the claim.

MacNEIL: After two days of postponements the U.S. today conducted an underground nuclear test in Nevada. For two days there's been speculation that the test was postponed because of negotiations with the Soviets. But officials today said it was because of winds blowing towards populated areas. The Soviet news agency Tass said the test demonstrated contempt for world opinion. The Reagan administration has rejected Soviet calls on the U.S. to join its own unilateral moratorium on tests.

On another issue, a bipartisan group of 52 senators today urged President Reagan to stick with the SALT II treaty. To do so, the U.S. must scrap two nuclear submarines next month. So far President Reagan has followed a policy of observing the treaty if Moscow does, a policy known as "no undercut." Two of the senators urged him not to abandon that policy.

Sen. PATRICK LEAHY, (D) Vermont: that scrapping the no-undercut policy would not serve U.S. national security interests; it would damage relations with our NATO allies; probably destroy any chances for arms control for the rest of his administration, and would also give the Soviet Union a propaganda field day.

Sen. JOHN CHAFEE, (R) Rhode Island: We believe that SALT II, the no-undercut policy, which we've been following, is of benefit to us. We win by it.

MacNEIL: In Australia, Defense Secretary Weinberger said today that the Soviet Union was posturing on arms control, and this indicated a lack of seriousness about reaching verifiable agreements.

LEHRER: The government of Vietnam today turned over 21 sets of human remains to the United States. They are believed to be those of U.S. servicemen who have been listed as missing since the end of the Vietnam War.

MacNEIL: The House of Representatives today passed a bill weakening gun control legislation enacted in the late '60s. In that sense, the gun lobby could claim a victory. But so could their opponents, whose lobbyists included many uniformed policemen. Before final passage the House adopted an amendment retaining a ban on interstate handgun sales. The House version will go to the Senate, which has passed a bill easing controls and permitting interestate sales.

LEHRER: Irish police are looking for the kidnappers of the wife of one of Ireland's leading bankers. The kidnappers demanded a $2.6-million-dollar ransom for Jennifer Guinness, a member of the Guinness Brewery family. Hundreds of police in Ireland and Northern Ireland are involved in the investigation. Officials said the Tuesday crime might have been done by ordinary criminals, but it was similar to past kidnappings blamed on the outlawed Irish Republican Army.

MacNEIL: There were wild scenes of rejoicing today in the Pakistani city of Lahore, when the daughter of former prime minister Bhutto returned from two years' exile in Britain. Benazar Bhutto now heads the Pakistan People's Party, founded by her father, who was overthrown and later hanged by President Zia, who permitted her return today. Here's a report by John Suchet of Worldwide Television News.

JOHN SUTCHET, Worldwide Television News [voice-over]: Pakistan had seen nothing like it for nine years simply because martial law had forbidden it. And in one important respect, what Pakistan saw today was a mirror image of what the Philippines saw only two months ago when Mrs. Cory Aquino unleashed a depth of emotion which swept her into the presidency.

[on camera] Just as in Manila, this is clearly a genuine outpouring of enthusiasm. But unlike in Manila, these people will not have the opportunity to translate this enthusiasm into votes.

[voice-over] And that will be General Zia's problem. Now that this emotion is unleashed, he will have to find a way to contain it. The route to the city park, only eight miles, took 11 sweltering hours. But it was there that for the first time it became possible to gauge the sheer size of Benazar Bhutto's support. As far as the eye could see they packed into the park. Three quarters of a million came to hear her first address.

MacNEIL: That's our news summary. Coming up, focus sections on the need for a 600-ship Navy, maternity leave, and the soaring cost of going to college. Beefing Up the Navy?

LEHRER: We talk first tonight to the secretary of the Navy, John Lehman. He and former Defense Department official Robert Komer have come to argue the merits of Lehman's drive for a 600-ship U.S. Navy. But before we go to that debate, a few questions about the growing military confrontation with Libya and Colonel Qaddafi.

Mr. Secretary, NATO commander General Rogers, as we just quoted, said today there was indisputable evidence of a connection between the disco bombing in West Berlin and Muammar Qaddafi of Libya. Why can't that evidence be released, so the whole world will know what it is?

JOHN LEHMAN: Well, of course I can't comment on the evidence or the intelligence, and really my responsibility is to see that the forces we have are available when a decision is made to do whatever is required of them at any time. We have a force out there, thanks to the buildup that the President has carried out these last five years that is ready, 100 manned, the best quality we've ever had. Every single missile and weapon system is at capacity, and we are the readiest that we have ever been in, in peace or war.

LEHRER: Ready to do what, sir?

Sec. LEHMAN: Ready to keep the peace.

LEHRER: In what way?

Sec. LEHMAN: And deter terrorism in all its forms.

LEHRER: I mean, what are you prepared to do in the central Mediterranean?

Sec. LEHMAN: Well, I think that as you know, the nature of a battle force is such that we have the capacity to maintain command of the seas, the surface, the air mass above it, the seas underneath it and to project power ashore if that is required. So we have all of those capabilities in the battle force that is kept all the time in the Mediterranean. And really the force we have there today has not really been beefed up. The normal peacetime complement has been 1.3 carriers average, which means that a third of the time we always have two carriers in the Med. So this is not a particular buildup. We don't have additional ships as we did when we had the turnover when we had three carriers. But Saratoga has now gone home; she's on her way back to Florida and we're back to a more normal level.

LEHRER: But the Coral Sea is on its way there to join the America, right?

Sec. LEHMAN: Coral Sea is in the Med at the end of her six-month deployment. She is operating in the Mediterranean. But that, as I say, is -- it is not at all unusual. The norm for the last 30 years has been two carriers in the Med.

LEHRER: Do you expect action soon?

Sec. LEHMAN: Well, I -- you know, we have action every single day out there. I am sure you've been aboard carriers and you see the action that goes on 24 hours a day launching and recovering, training in real time. That's why the Achille Lauro intercept and the recent action in the Gulf of Sidra were simply carrying out in a different environment the things we do every single day -- launching and recovering, intercepting, jamming and those kinds of things.

LEHRER: I got a hunch you're not going to tell me any more, is that right, Mr. Secretary? Right. Okay. Let's go now to the argument over building up a bigger and better fleet of ships for the U.S. Navy. It has been the mission of the Reagan administration since it took office.

[voice-over] A Navy buildup was a key element of the Reagan $1 trillion defense program, and in his first year in office President Reagan visited the fleet to promote that goal.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN [August 20, 1981]: We're committed to a 600-ship Navy, a Navy that is big enough to deter aggression wherever it might occur.

LEHRER [voice-over]: When Mr. Reagan took office the ships in the U.S. fleet numbered 479. The fleet has grown to 546 today, and another 84 Navy ships are under construction. The administration is nearing its goal of a 600-ship Navy. The Navy's budget has nearly doubled since 1981 to more than $100 billion. The plan has three key elements: expanding and modernizing the carrier fleet, the task forces of carriers and their accompanying escort from 12 to 15; taking four World War II-era battleships out of mothballs and adding their massive firepower to the fleet; and the construction of 100 new attack submarines. The man behind the buildup is Navy Secretary John Lehman.

Sec. LEHMAN: Our purpose is to gain control of the seas that are vital to us. And that has to be done immediately, which requires a forward strategy.

LEHRER [voice-over]: He said he needs the 600 ships to deal simultaneously with conflicts in the Far East, the Near East, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the oil lifelines around Africa to the United States and Europe, the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. His goals have been criticized as both too costly and strategically unsound.

Rep. THOMAS DOWNEY, (D) New York: What do you need a 600-ship Navy for? I mean, what is the purpose? Because you once had it, does that mean you need it again?

HAROLD BROWN, former Secretary of Defense: So far as I can tell, the 600-ship Navy was picked out of a hat. It doesn't follow very clearly from any believable plan and scenario.

LEHRER: Secretary Lehman and a critic of his 600-ship strategy are here now. The critic is Robert Komer. He was undersecretary of defense for policy in the Carter administration. He's now with the Rand Corporation and the author of a recent book on maritime strategy.

Mr. Secretary, was 600 just picked out of a hat, as former secretary Brown said?

Sec. LEHMAN: No. Secretary Brown knows very well that the 600 number was derived from the original National Security Council study that I participated in in 1975 and '76 that formed the basis of the last Ford administration naval recovery budget, the one that was thrown out by Harold Brown the following February. And that was the origin of the 600-ship Navy, and it was rejected by the Carter administration. It was based on two years of very detailed strategic analysis deriving in a simple logic from where we had to be in wartime, where our web of 40 treaty alliances required us to be, where our dependencies on oil and trade were, and from that the force structure of where we had to be if war broke out gave us the 600 size.

LEHRER: And you're almost there. Do you consider yourself there?

Sec. LEHMAN: Yes, they're all either deployed or under construction. So we will have 600 ships in the fleet by 1989. That's done, and it's been done for two years. But we now have settled down to about 20-a-year maintenance, which is the steady state to keep that fleet. And aircraft carriers come up very infrequently because they last 45 to 50 years. So they're only 2 of our overall shipbuilding plans stretched over time, and they're the smallest part but really the most valuable part, because they provide the license to live for all of the Army's transports and our surface combatants, our destroyers that hunt submarines and so forth. So the carriers would be the last to go if we had to shrink, again because they provide the air superiority without which no surface ships can move.

LEHRER: What's the matter with the Lehman plan, Mr. Komer?

ROBERT KOMER: Three carrier battle groups too many. A hundred billion dollars over a couple of years.

LEHRER: Let's define a battle group. Obviously you've got a carrier. What else have you got?

Mr. KOMER: Well, a battle group is a carrier plus some aegis cruisers, some aegis destroyers if we ever build them, some frigates, some regular destroyers, an under way replenishment group, and don't forget the nuclear attack submarine.

LEHRER: That's three more than we need, you're saying?

Mr. KOMER: Three more battle groups than in the Carter administration we thought were necessary.

LEHRER: Now, why did you --

Mr. KOMER: Or in the Reagan -- I'm sorry. Or in the Nixon administration or the Ford administration, for that matter.

LEHRER: Why are they not necessary?

Mr. KOMER: Because 12 will meet your minimum requirements while providing enough for the buildup, the sustainability, the readiness of the other services.

LEHRER: Mr. Secretary?

Sec. LEHMAN: Well, a fundamental flaw in Bob's argument, which he articulated in his book, is that he believes we can vacate the Pacific. And things have changed significantly since Bob was in the Pentagon. When he was in the Pentagon our trade balance, for instance, was about even between our Atlantic trading partners and our Pacific. Today there -- in the Pacific 140 of our trade volume goes to the Pacific compared to the Atlantic. In addition, the Soviet fleet now has a permanent fleet in the Pacific, which wasn't there then. Our oil dependencies have shifted enormously. We got a significant proportion of our imported oil from the Persian Gulf when Bob was in the Pentagon. Today we get eight times as much oil from this hemisphere as we get from the Middle East. The Middle East has disappeared as an oil source for us. So we can't vacate the Pacific today; we can't swing the strategy which underlay the smaller-size fleet.

LEHRER: What do you say to that, Mr. Komer?

Mr. KOMER: Well, I have to acknowledge that since I was in the Pentagon things havechanged. That was six years ago.

LEHRER: For the better or for the worse?

Mr. KOMER: Well, I think very much for the worse. But that's not John's fault because he's in there pitching all the time. But you know, if the overseas sources of oil imports have shifted from the Middle East to the Caribbean or to Africa, the requirement for a Navy goes down, not up, because then we don't have to worry about the very long Pacific sea lines of communication. But basically my argument is we face a lot of serious constraints. The defense budget went down last year in real terms or the year we're in now. The defense budget will almost certainly go down again for fiscal 1987. Under those circumstances, are we investing too much in a big carrier-heavy Navy at the expense of the rest of our defense posture? Or should we put more and more of it into the Navy and forget about the Army, the Air Force and a lot of other things?

LEHRER: And your answer to your questions is yes, it's a mistake, right? We're putting too much into the Navy?

Mr. KOMER: That's absolutely right.

LEHRER: Who's getting hurt? What is getting hurt as a result of what they're doing for Lehman?

Mr. KOMER: Well, let's look at force structure, how many forces --

LEHRER: What's that?

Mr. KOMER: Well, what kind of units we have. How many air squadrons, how many naval squadrons or air wings, how many army divisions, brigades, etcetera. The Navy is the only one of the services that has had a significant increase in force structure. The Navy's got a lot more ships, and that's the way it counts force structure.

LEHRER: And more people to man those ships?

Mr. KOMER: And some more people to man those ships, though not enough. The Army has gotten no increase in force size. Now, they've formed some new light divisions, but they essentially have formed them so far by taking them out of the reserves or dividing a heavy division in two and making two light divisions. The Air Force has I don't think any more wings than it ever had. It would like 40; it would really like to go up to 44. So essentially the force structure requirements of the other services have been put aside, they've been put into the out-years, the later years' defense program, while the Navy has gotten its right now.

LEHRER: Now, why is that, Mr. Secretary?

Sec. LEHMAN: Well, first of all, it's not true. The Army has been raised from 13 divisions active to 18 divisions active, and has carried out all the modernization programs.

LEHRER: He's shaking his head.

Sec. LEHMAN: Yeah, it's true.

Mr. KOMER: No, John, it was 16 at the end of the Vietnam War.

Sec. LEHMAN: It was raised in the Carter administration from 13 to 16, by the Reagan administration from 16 to 18, where it is now. But more importantly, the eight major infantry and artillery and armor systems that were deferred in the Carter administration are being bought now. We are deploying all of the tanks and the APCs. And though many of them are controversial because of the flaws in their design back in the olden days, they're still being bought and deployed. But I am really looking forward -- this is almost to the week the fourth year since Bob and I four years ago appeared on this same debate. And Bob's principal concern then was that this buildup would be done at the expense of the services and the Navy would get the biggest share. I look forward confidently, because I have such high respect for the intellect of Bob and his honesty, because he's made great contributions to NATO -- the fact is --

LEHRER: In the past.

Sec. LEHMAN: In the past, okay. He's confusing the debate a little now. But the reality is, he said then that what would happen is that we would see the Navy scarf up the bigger share of the budget and the growth of the Army and the Air Force would decline. The facts are that in the Carter administration the share that the Army got of the defense budget, a smaller, as you saw earlier, half the size total defense budget, got 24 of the defense budget average. The Navy got 33 . The Air Force got 33 to 34 . Today in the Reagan administration the Navy's share has declined 1.1 ; we now get 33 . The Army has risen to 26 of the defense budget. The Air Force has gone up to 34 .

LEHRER: I got a hunch we're not going to resolve that one here. But let's go back to the strategic problem, Mr. Komer, because the reason obviously that Secretary Lehman has gotten his way is that he's made his case for the need of a larger Navy, or whatever.

Mr. KOMER: I agree.

LEHRER: All right. Now, we've got a real-live situation going now. We just had it a few weeks ago in the Mediterranean; we've got it again. He's sending two carrier task forces -- are in the Mediterranean now. Does that argue for -- doesn't that argue for a bigger Navy? No?

Mr. KOMER: Jim, it's essentially irrelevant to the argument. That is, in terms of our overall naval capabilities or requirements, a piddling, a pipsqueak case. We could have sent two carriers or three carriers in the Carter administration or in the Nixon administration, or at any time since the end of World War II. So you know --

LEHRER: We've always had that kind of force in the Mediterranean.

Mr. KOMER: Always have. We've always had, as John just said, two carriers in the Med, and adding one more from Norfolk is no big deal.

Sec. LEHMAN: Yeah, the difference is that in the Carter administration the average manning of those carriers was 91 . The readiness rate was an average 60 . Today they're manned at 100 and they are a readiness 40 higher than they were during the '70s, and particularly the latter part of the '70s. The difference is these carriers are readier and they're able to be there on a rotating basis because we now have one more, which makes a difference in the Atlantic, in the availability of a ready deck, and we'll soon have two more above that for 15.

LEHRER: Mr. Komer, what is your feeling for why, your interpretation of why Lehman has done so well?

Mr. KOMER: Well, I think he's a better propagandist than those other fellows. He obviously has political clout with the White House, and he has a complacent secretary of defense who doesn't really know when he's being taken to the cleaners.

Sec. LEHMAN: The overwhelming logic, Bob --

LEHRER: Are you serious? I mean, you think --

Mr. KOMER: I am serious. Absolutely.

LEHRER: It's just a matter that Lehman is a better politician than the guys who run the Army and the Air Force?

Mr. KOMER: He's a hell of a lot better, a hell of a lot better. The admirals are better than the generals at scarfing up money from Sec Def and from Congress.

LEHRER: What's Sec Def?

Mr. KOMER: Secretary of defense.

LEHRER: Secretary of defense, I see.

Sec. LEHMAN: Well, William James once said that the best propaganda for the Navy is the naked event. The fact is that what you saw out in the Gulf of Sidra, what you saw in Grenada, what you saw in the intercept of the Achille Lauro is what demonstrates to every common-sense person why you need a large Navy where you have vital interests. Not everywhere in the world. But the fact is the world has changed now. The Soviets have deployed that fleet that we saw building during the '60s and '70s and we can't vacate the Pacific and large areas that we could otherwise do, and do with a smaller Navy,. We can't do that today.

Mr. KOMER: Navies of the type John has built and he's building are splendid for peanut-size wars. I'm glad he finally got around to the Soviets, because they're a more formidable opponent than Muammar Qaddafi. But, you know, you put the Army up against the Libyans, if John could deliver it there, and they'd do pretty well too. The strategic question is, how do we, essentially an island nation, cope with the threat posed to us by the Soviet Union, which is in the heartland of Eurasia? They're a land and air power primarily. They've got a pretty formidable Navy, almost half as formidable as our Navy claims, but you know, basically the threat in a non-nuclear sense is by land -- by land to Western Europe and by land to the Persian Gulf.

LEHRER: All right, I'll make a deal with the two of you. We'll have you both back in four years and we'll pick it up from there and see what the count is and how the argument has changed, if at all.

Mr. KOMER: I'm game.

LEHRER: Okay. Mr. Secretary, Mr. Komer, thank you both very much.

Mr. KOMER: Yes, indeed.

LEHRER: Robin?

MacNEIL: Still to come in the NewsHour tonight, a report and a debate on the growing issue of maternity or parental leave, and a documentary report on how students cope with the rising cost of college education. Debating Maternity Leave

MacNEIL: Next tonight, the issue of maternity leave and jobs. Both Congress and the Supreme Court are grappling with this subject. A House committee today heard testimony about a bill that would provide for a minimum of 18 weeks of unpaid leave for any employee who wants to stay home with a newborn child. We begin by looking at an important California case that will probably come before the U.S. Supreme Court later this year. We have a report from Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET-Los Angeles.

JEFFREY KAYE, KCET [voice-over]: When Lillian Garland gave birth to her daughter, Kekare, in 1982, she expected to take a maternity leave, then go back to work within four months. She says her boss led her to believe she'd continue in her job as a receptionist for California Federal Savings & Loan Association in Los Angeles.

LILLIAN GARLAND: I expected them to have me return to work when I was supposed to, which was 4/21/82. Otherwise why all this big to-do about when are you leaving, when are you coming back? I thought I would be returning to my job.

KAYE [voice-over]: But it didn't turn out that way. California Federal hired a replacement. Garland lost her job, although she eventually did return to the company. She now works as a real estate agent, but she claims her firing in 1982 resulted in seven months without an income and severe hardships.

Ms. GARLAND: I would not want any other woman in life to have to go through what I had to go through because I chose to have my baby. I was eventually evicted from my apartment because I could not afford to pay the rent, naturally. I ended up losing custody of my child. Her father now has custody of her because I didn't have a place to live.

KAYE [voice-over]: According to California Federal, Garland's troubles were of her own making. She did turn down positions the company offered her. But Garland claims she either wasn't qualified for those jobs or couldn't get to them because she didn't have a car. California Federal vice president William Callender says the company never guaranteed Garland she would have the same job after she had her baby.

WILLIAM CALLENDER, California Federal Savings: She was told that when she was ready to return from disability that she would be given the same job if it was available or a comparable job or any other job for which she was qualified. When she came back in April, we did not have that job opening. The individual that she had trained was in that position.

KAYE [voice-over]: Garland took her complaint about California Federal to the state's Fair Employment Department. The state of California sued the S&L, claiming California law requires employers to offer reasonable maternity leaves. California Federal Savings has fought back, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The company contends it is caught in a conflict between federal and state laws. Federal law requires businesses to offer men and women the same disability leaves. But California law goes further. It allows women to reclaim their old jobs after maternity disability leaves.

Mr. CALLENDER: If we had accorded her priority treatment different from -- in kind from what we would have accorded to, say, a male employee returning from disability leave -- in other words, if we had guaranteed her the same job on her return from disability leave due to pregnancy that she had when she left, and we didn't do the same thing for all male employees, we would be in violation of federal law.

KAYE [voice-over]: California's chief assistant attorney general, Andrea Orden, disagrees. She sees nothing discriminatory in the state law requiring reasonable maternity leaves.

ANDREA ORDIN, assistant attorney general: Because of the unique biological difference between men and women, our ability to have children, that we are placed or potentially placed in a disadvantage in the workplace if we can't have disability leave for that short reasonable period of time. It is women only that are disabled because of pregnancy, and therefore we have attempted to remedy that, to allow an unpaid disability leave that's reasonable, but in any event no longer than four months. And what we're saying and what our state legislature has said is that's a way toward equality. It is not preferential treatment.

Mr. CALLENDER: That argument has an emotional appeal. If you start creating preferential treatment for one group of people, even though here you have a biological difference, it is going to have a chilling effect on the employment of women and could have repercussions far beyond what are manifest at the time that you enact the law.

KAYE [voice-over]: Today Lillian Garland is busy in her new career. She specializes in selling homes to veterans. When Garland is not ringing up sales, she is speaking out about her case, which has generated national attention.

Ms. GARLAND: I think if a woman is capable of working, don't stop her. If she wants to work, allow her to work, and don't make her have to make a choice between having a child, bringing a life into the world to keep the U.S. going, and working.

MacNEIL: The legislation currently being considered in Congress would give parents of newborns up to four months of unpaid leave. It was introduced by Democratic Congresswoman Pat Schroeder of Colorado. Among opponents of the bill is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Virginia Lamp is a labor attorney for the Chamber.

Congresswoman, on the report we've just seen, where do you come down on the Lillian Garland case? Do you think she should have had her particular job back?

Rep. PATRICIA SCHROEDER: Absolutely. I certainly do, and I think actually they misread the federal law. We said that youcan't narrow benefits, you can only expand them. So I would read the California law in an expansive manner to say the same thing should be permitted for males also, so it wouldn't be a special privilege that she was getting.

MacNEIL: And wouldn't be discrimination against --

Rep. SCHROEDER: Absolutely. I don't think it's discrimination.

MacNEIL: Ms. Lamp, which side do you support in the Lillian Garland case?

VIRGINIA LAMP: Well, it's funny. I think we need to separate the two issues, the federal legislation from this California Federal legislation. One of them is trying to interpret federal law versus state law, and that is the question. The Chamber of Commerce filed a brief with the National Organization of Women, which is not the typical duo, and both groups say it is preferential treatment and it is an incorrect interpretation of federal law to be able to provide preferential treatment, special disability benefits for women exclusively.

MacNEIL: Now, Congressman, to your bill, is that why your bill specifically says that such parental leave would be available to men and women equally?

Rep. SCHROEDER: Yes. First of all, you're seeing more and more men get custody of their children, so really it's becoming a very critical, unique problem, and we don't want the Congress saying no, only one group can deal with children. We know that doesn't fit America today. But parental leave is really the way everything is going. Most countries are moving in that direction also. And there's another part of the bill that's especially appealing to men, and that is if a family has a young child who gets very ill. We had testimony about this today. Say you have a family of four, both parents are working and one child gets very ill and requires some very intensive treatment over a period of time. Now, no one knows which parent's going to be best able to go with that child for the treatment, but obviously the whole family can't go, and obviously the child is going to come along much faster if a parent is with him and helping through that period. So that's why we have all sorts of groups, including coal miners, backing this, because they understand that this isn't just for women.

MacNEIL: So what you just described, though, is something in addition to leave because of a newborn child, to have a child or look after it in the first four months of its life.

Rep. SCHROEDER: Or to adopt a child.

MacNEIL: Or to adopt a child.

Rep. SCHROEDER: We also add to adopt a child, because we are seeing men who are also adopting children, and I think that's certainly in preference to leaving them in an institution.

MacNEIL: Now, just very briefly, why is this new legislation needed? Why isn't the existing legislation enough?

Rep. SCHROEDER: Well, because there really is hardly any existing legislation. The existing legislation says that if you offer a disability package you must include pregnancy benefits. That's all it says. But there's the big "if," and it says nothing about parental leave. You've got 117 other countries that have acted on this. The United States has done all the studies on child development, but we haven't done anything about putting them into the law. And it is time we finally put in a bare minimum federal floor, which is leave without pay; the only thing you're guaranteed to get back is your job, but at least you have that bare floor and then states or employers or anyone else can build on it. And I think it'll really make everything much better.

MacNEIL: Ms. Lamp, why is the Chamber of Commerce opposed to that?

Ms. LAMP: Well, I guess I want to clarify that the U.S. Chamber is not opposed to companies providing parental leave policies. In fact, we encourage that if that suits their workforce best. Ninety-five percent of the Fortune 1500 companies do provide some sort of paid maternal benefit, maternity benefit. And so that's not -- it's not the benefit itself that we have a problem with; it's the role of Congress mandating this federal benefit. Because you find that Congress mandates Social Security, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation, but they haven't gotten into things like vacation pay, pension benefits, health insurance benefits. And it's a precedent that the Chamber of Commerce quite frankly is fearful of.

MacNEIL: Why does it need to be mandated, Congresswoman?

Rep. SCHROEDER: Well, I'm glad you let me respond to that, because I think -- well, first of all, most women aren't working for the very large Fortune 500 companies that we're talking about or the Fortune 1500. Most of them are working for small employers, and they are really running a high risk. I keep saying to people -- I probably get the most unique questions of anyone in Congress. I am constantly being asked by young women when is a convenient time to have a baby. I have to say in this society there isn't one, and that breaks my heart. But we have really said in this society, if you have a baby you're running your own risk. I think in this government it is time that we do what every other government has done and say that children are not consumable items; they are the future of this country. They're very important, and families and children are going through incredible stress because we don't have these laws changed.

MacNEIL: Ms. Lamp, who would be hurt if Congress mandated what they want to do, four months' compulsory or mandatory parental or maternity leave? Who would be hurt by that?

Ms. LAMP: I think the people who would be hurt the most are small business. Congress kind of has this image that all employers out there are like the size of AT&T, and that just isn't the case. Ninety percent of our members are small business people, and they simply can't afford, whether it's an unpaid leave, it requires them to replace a person. And say you have 10 people on your workforce, one person would have to be replaced for four months or maybe six months. It takes a replacement, it takes continuing their health benefits, and there's a cost involved. If it's unpaid, the funny thing is it discriminates against the people who can't afford the benefit, and if it's paid it's really going to cripple small business, which are the ones who are creating jobs in this economy.

MacNEIL: Wait, back up a moment about it would discriminate against those who can't afford the benefit. What do you mean by that?

Ms. LAMP: Well, I mean, by providing unpaid leave. Most women, as I read it, are in the marketplace because of economic necessity. They need those jobs in order to supplement either their husband's income or have their own single-family income. And so by providing unpaid leave you're going to make someone take time off without getting paid, and there's not a lot of people who can afford to do that.

MacNEIL: Okay, let's go back to the congresswoman. First of all, it'll hurt small companies who can't afford to give this, and it'll hurt poorer women who can't afford to take the unpaid leave because they have to work.

Rep. SCHROEDER: Well, let me respond to both. Number one, we have a small employer exemption of five employees or less in the bill. They are exempted from it. Number two, we have done terrific surveys -- actually, we haven't, but we've seen the surveys that very distinguished institutions have done, such as the Yale Bush Center, where they've looked at all sorts of small employers and found that above five employees it works; it works very well and it's very feasible. And we've seen the same kind of surveys go on in other countries where they're dealing with this legislation every day. Now, the problem of the unpaid leave, yes, I agree, it's a great problem. I have two worlds I have to live in, the world of political reality and the world of personal wishes. My personal wish is we could have paid leave. We will be very lucky to get unpaid leave. What we have in the bill, though, is for a commission for two years to study the feasibility of phasing in to a paid leave, whether it's at all possible in this country, how costly it would be and so forth. And then the Congress could look at it. But no matter how low income you are, if you have that four months of unpaid leave at least you're guaranteed your job back. And usually people will loan you money for that short a time if they know the income stream is returning, and you would still be able to keep your health benefits and so forth. [TEXT OMITTED FROM SOURCE] Tung both things. You're saying --

MacNEIL: Very briefly.

Rep. SCHROEDER: Well, you don't like the bill because for people who are low income there's no paid leave, and then you're also worried that there may be paid leave. So I don't see how you do it both ways. I think we need to move on.

MacNEIL: Ladies, thank you both for joining us.

Ms. LAMP: Thank you. Paying for College

LEHRER: Finally, if you were with us last night you saw and marveled at special correspondent John Merrow's behind-the-scenes report on the college admissions process. Well, tonight the next step. You will see and marvel at the process the selected ones must follow to pay the ever-rising cost of going to college. It centers on five different students with five different bill-paying problems.

JOHN MERROW: For many American families, the biggest single expense these days is incurred right here, on a college campus. Sure, a home costs more, but you can take up to 30 years to pay it off. You don't have that luxury with a college education, an education which can end up costing more than $70,000. Here at Johns Hopkins, a private university in Baltimore, the yearly tab is more than $16,000. It was only $6,000 just 10 years ago. Rising college costs, as well as continuing cuts in government student aid, are forcing students and their families to make some very tough choices.

[voice-over] Take Laura Sims, for instance. She came to Johns Hopkins to study pharmacology, but her parents couldn't afford the tuition, so to pay for her education she's chosen to go heavily into debt.

[interviewing] When you graduate, how much in debt will you be?

LAURA SIMS, college student: Fifteen-sixteen thousand dollars.

MERROW: What's that feel like?

Ms. SIMS: Some mornings when you're looking for something to be upset and paranoid about, it gets a little hard to get up. And, you know, I wonder why am I doing all this work just to come out $15 or $16,000 dollars in debt, and is my education here worth the demands that it's placed on me?

MERROW: Well?

Ms. SIMS: I'm still here.

MERROW [voice-over]: To remain at Johns Hopkins, Laura works 30 hours a week in a campus laboratory, and like two thirds of the Hopkins students, Laura's receiving financial aid. The university awarded her a $6,300 scholarship. She received two federal grants totaling $3,100, and she borrowed another $3,650 from the federal government's loan program.

Ms. SIMS: The negative side of it is, it gets very frustrating. I work, you know -- I worked -- last semester I was working two jobs; this semester I'm working in the labs, you know, quite a few hours a week, plus going to class. You know, I come home, I'm tired, and then I study. You know, you spend more hours studying, and sometimes it gets very frustrating. You feel like you're not going to ever get ahead.

MERROW [voice-over]: As long as she's a student, Laura does not have to make payments on her loans. Six months after graduation, the payments begin -- just over $180 a month, every month, for 10 years. Before she's through, she'll have paid back nearly $22,000 including interest.

Ms. SIMS: People see it as like being -- you continually read it in Newsweek and things, you know, we are the generation who's conservative, we're concerned about going out and making money. I mean, I don't see $15 to $16,000 coming out in two years, how I can be any other way? I'd love to go into the Peace Corps; I think it sounds absolutely fascinating. But you know, that's still--I don't see how I could really, really warrant that.

MERROW: It was at his first press conference that the secretary of education said college students really have it too easy.

Ms. SIMS: Oh! Every time it just -- every time I think of that comment, my temperature goes up 50 degrees. I mean, it just -- it infuriates me. When he was talking about the loans given to college students and they spend it on their Florida spring breaks, and what a lie. I mean, I'm staying here during spring break probably working. If I don't work here on campus, if there isn't something to do in the lab, I will go and work outside of the campus somewhere, hopefully full time.

MERROW [voice-over]: Many students borrow money to pay for college. Others take on a different kind of debt -- eight years of military service. One such student is John Leso, a sophomore at Johns Hopkins and a close friend of Laura Sims. He won an Army ROTC scholarship to the college of his choice. Without it he probably wouldn't be at Johns Hopkins.

JOHN LESO, college student: The way it looked with my family's financial condition, I probably could have afforded a public school like the University of Maryland or something like that. But because my grades were really good and I was really involved in high school, I really wanted to try to apply for a prestigious college. But my parents really couldn't have afforded that. So I looked into the scholarship applications, and one of the things I looked into was ROTC.

MERROW [voice-over]: John's Army ROTC scholarship pays for full tuition and books, plus $100 a month. He lives at home, saving the costs of room and board.

[interviewing] You know Laura Sims. Could you have done what she's doing, gotten financial aid, borrowed a lot of money and gone through college that way?

Mr. LESO: I definitely could have. I mean, that was a way to go, but ROTC just looked like so much more of an opportunity because of -- it's not a loan, it's not something that I have to pay back monetarily, at least, whereas if I were just -- if I had accumulated many loans, that's obviously -- is nothing than just money coming out of my pocket. I'm not actually -- that's not benefiting me in any way.

MERROW: Any envy? After all, you have a pretty good deal.

Mr. LESO: From other people on campus that aren't in ROTC? Sometimes. I don't talk about my scholarship a lot to other people, but when I do they do envy the situation. People will say things like, boy, you know, I wish I didn't have to worry about tuition. For an example, Johns Hopkins just increased its tuition $800, and a friend of mine and I in ROTC were looking at that and it's just like, "Hmmm, that's a shame, but we don't have to worry about it."

MERROW [voice-over]: The ROTC scholarship John Leso earned is highly prized. Each year the armed services give only 26,000 of them, and last fall more than 3.3 million students enrolled as freshmen in college. While most students receive some form of aid, increasingly it comes in the form of a loan rather than a grant. In 1978 loans made up only 17% of federal student aid. Today close to 60 is loans. And with college costs continuing to go up, sometimes it's just too much to borrow.

LISA GALLAY, college student: I got this letter saying I was accepted, and the part telling me that I didn't get financial aid fell out of the packet, and I didn't see it until I came home from celebrating, and then I looked on the floor and there it was. And it was just crushing.

MERROW [voice-over]: The acceptance letter that Lisa Gallay received was from Bryn Mawr College, like Johns Hopkins an expensive private institution, costing more than $15,000 a year.

Ms. GALLAY: I had applied without even thinking that there wouldn't be money there. You know, I had this kind of vague idea that it would work itself out and if you worked really hard and you did the grades and you did the tests and you were very active and they accepted you, that everything else would just fall into place.

MERROW [voice-over]: Lisa ended up here, at St. Mary's, a public college in her home state of Maryland. Bryn Mawr did offer her a $40,000 loan package over four years. That gave her a choice: either a nationally known private college and a large debt, or a lesser-known but inexpensive public college. Not an easy choice for Lisa.

Ms. GALLAY: I tried to figure out, was it really going to make that much of a difference in my education to go to Bryn Mawr? Was it that much better? And how much difference does undergraduate education make? And, you know, I felt certain that there would be a difference, that whatever that atmosphere was at Bryn Mawr that had captured my attention was there, and would be important. But I also weighed that out with the fact that I would have to live in abject poverty while I was there and have to always be worried about money, and I felt that might interfere with my enjoyment of it.

MERROW [voice-over]: She also felt that being $40,000 in debt would severely limit her career options.

Ms. GALLAY: The things that I'm considering now are things like being a historian or an archaeologist or a writer, and all of those are kind of shaky professions. And I just can't see myself compromising what I want to do, and at the same time if I had such a big debt I would feel much shakier about doing them, just because I know it's hard to get a job as a professor. And going around the world digging for ancient civilizations doesn't generally pay that much.

MERROW [voice-over]: Ironically, her college may be benefitting from situations like Lisa's. Although St. Mary's is a public institution, it attracts students with higher grades and SAT scores than many private colleges.

MICHAEL ROSENTHAL, college administrator: Indeed, we are fortunate enough to get students who might go to more expensive private colleges who find it hard to afford and see us as a wonderful educational bargain, which we are. So we benefit in that sense. And the selfish part of me says that's good, but it isn't good for society.

MERROW [voice-over]: Michael Rosenthal is dean of St. Mary's College and no stranger to what's called the middle-class squeeze. His daughter transferred from an expensive private college to St. Mary's because he couldn't afford the tuition.

Mr. ROSENTHAL: It's particularly striking when it's your own family and your own pocketbook, and you realize that finding $10,000 a year is simply not possible for you. I would like to see a society in which some combination of grants and loans and merit scholarship would allow a student who really wanted to go to that expensive school to go without penalizing the family to a degree that was really unreasonable. I think the way things are now and the direction that we're going, it simply is impossible.

MERROW [voice-over]: But despite having chosen the less expensive public college and despite a scholarship from St. Mary's for $2,300 a year, Lisa Gallay is also borrowing to pay for college. She'll be about $8,000 in debt when she graduates.

[on camera] Borrowing is a fact of life for college students today. Last year the typical college senior was $8,000 in debt on graduation day. But only half of those who enter college earn degrees. Others find the financial burden overwhelming. They drop out and go to work. That's what Ken Hackley had to do. Today instead of cracking the books, he's working the phones here at Garfinkel's, a Washington-area women's store.

KEN HACKLEY, college dropout: It takes money to go to school, and I have to drop out in order to continue to get the money. Like now I'm working full time.

MERROW [voice-over]: Ken Hackley is 21 and a college dropout. He owes the $1,000 he borrowed in order to begin going to college, and he's saving now so he can go back. He believes it's worth it.

Mr. HACKLEY: You can't get anything in this world without a degree, and if you're going to be anyone, you can't get anything in this world without having some type of degree, whether it's an AA degree, bachelor's degree or a master's. You just can't do it.

MERROW [voice-over]: Ken's father completed his own college education just last year and is now paying back his student loans.

Mr. HACKLEY: I don't ask him for anything. He's helping me out at homewise. I don't pay that much rent or anything like that. He understands that I am trying to go to school. I help out as much as I can around home. And he's helping me out now, where he's helping me out morally as much as he can. He can't help me out financially, which I understand.

MERROW: And here you are 21, you're not in college, working part time, trying to save money. Do you ever get discouraged?

Mr. HACKLEY: Discouraging -- discouraged a lot.

MERROW: Tell me about that.

Mr. HACKLEY: It's a feeling that you want something so bad and it's like it's so far away and you're just constantly trying to reach that goal, but obstacles are steadily thrown in your way. It hurts knowing that I want something so badly, and it's like just trying to reach out for it. I keep striving for it, hoping that one day something's going to pour through.

MERROW [voice-over]: So far Ken Hackley has saved just over $1,000 toward his dream of having a college degree in computer science. Ken's 19-year-old brother Darryl has the same dream. He's studying at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where tuition, room and board cost $4,400 a year. Only a freshman, Darryl Hackley is already $2,500 in debt.

DARRYL HACKLEY, collegestudent: It's hard sometime to really sit there and study when you have a financial burden over your head. You try to push it in the back of your mind, but it's still there.

MERROW: What do you mean it's there? How is it there? What's it feel like?

DARRYL: Like a leech. I don't know, maybe it may affect other people differently. But just the idea of owing money in that amount when you don't have it is something that tears at you.

MERROW: Like a leech.

DARRYL: Like a leech.

MERROW: What's that mean?

DARRYL: It tends to take away your joy, you have worries, you sit there and you're trying to do your work, but it's like -- it's a haze over things, it's a cloud. It seems like you don't -- can't find a way out.

MERROW: How do you see yourself in 10 years, besides still paying off your college loans?

DARRYL: In 10 years I see myself as a proud American, striving, trying to better myself, and in that I'm bettering my community.

MERROW: But you aren't sure if you'll be in college a year from now.

DARRYL: Exactly. I'm holding on to hope.

MacNEIL: Once again, today's top stories. A second aircraft carrier has joined the U.S. Mediterranean task force in position for any possible retaliation against Libya. The House of Representatives passed a bill weakening existing gun control laws. And the U.S. conducted an underground nuclear test in the Nevada desert after a two-day delay.

Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.