The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. These are the main news headlines today. The U.S. threatened retaliation against Libya for backing Europe's airport terrorists. Winnie Mandela was arrested in South Africa. In Seattle, 10 people were convicted in the trial of a Nazi-like group called The Order. Details of these stories in a moment. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: After the news summary, two Palestinians and an Israeli journalist continue the discussion about the airport terrorist attacks. Paul Warnke and Richard Perle exchange differences over stopping nuclet all the evidence in the airport massacres in Europe points to the radical Palestinian splinter group headed by Abu Nidal with backing from Libya. The White House said Libya had given Nidal financial assistance and an operating base and had applauded the attacks in Rome and Vienna last Friday. Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes also indicated that the U.S. might take action against Libya. He said, "Our policy is that you seek out those responsible and have at it, go at them." At the State Department Charles Redman spelled out the charges against Libya.

CHARLES REDMAN, State Department spokesman: Libya has applauded the attacks at Rome and Vienna airports, calling them, according to their own news agency, "heroic actions." We believe Qaddafi has given Abu Nidal, his group, a considerable amount of financing and assistance. We know that Abu Nidal and many other terrorist groups have benefited from, and perhaps could not have survived without, the assistance of countries which have supported terrorism. The weapons, the explosives, the training, rest areas, safe houses and other such facilities have been invaluable.

MacNEIL: The administration refused to specify what form of retaliation against Libya it might take. The White House spokesman said, "We believe that other governments now recognize the need to take action. We are ready to work with them on coordinated efforts." Austria's interior minister said that the terrorists who attacked Vienna airport were not on a suicide mission. Interior Minister Karl Blecha said they intended to take hostages on an Israeli plane to Tel Aviv and carry out further acts of terror there. The Tunisian government said it had traced three passports used by the terrorists in Vienna to Libya. A Tunisian official said one had been lost in Libya eight years ago and two others were confiscated last fall from Tunisian migrant workers. Jim?

LEHRER: The youngest to die in the Friday attacks was buried today in Rome. She was 11-year-old Natasha Simpson, daughter of the Associated Press news editor in Rome. Her father, Victor Simpson, and her nine-year-old brother were wounded as they were all preparing to fly home to the United States for the holidays. More than 300 people, including U.S. Ambassador Maxwell Rabb and a representative of the Pope, attended today's mass for Natasha.

In the Middle East today, King Hussein of Jordan arrived in Syria for his first visit in six years. Hussein is to meet with Syrian President Assad. Here is a report from Rob Muir of Visnews.

ROB MUIR, Visnews [voice-over]: For Jordan's King Hussein it's been a long time between visits -- almost seven years. The last time he set foot on Syrian ground was in 1977, but at that time relations between the two countries were at breaking point. Syria had accused Jordan of being partly responsible for several anti-government attacks in Damascas, and it was only five years ago that the neighboring countries were on the brink of war. But now, thanks to an Arab League committee established earlier this year by Syrian President Assad and King Hussein, they're talking again. The purpose of this visit was merely to seal the pact. Jordan's press are hailing the occasion as a great step towards overall Arab unity. Syria expects the meeting to forge a better understanding on the Arab struggle against Israel. The Israelis see it as nothing but a hindrance to finding peace in the Middle East.

MacNEIL: In South Africa, Winnie Mandela was arrested for the second time in eight days. The wife of the jailed leader of the African National Congress was defying an order banning her from her home township. Here's a report by Michael Buerk of the BBC.

MICHAEL BUERK, BBC [voice-over]: Winnie Mandela had stayed out of trouble as long as she was visiting her husband Nelson in prison in Cape Town, but she said all along she was determined to defy her banning order again and arrived with her grandson at Jan Smuts Airport outside outside Johannesburg, intent on doing so as publicly as possible. Mrs. Mandela regards herself as an irresistible force, the government as an immovable object.

WINNIE MANDELA, activist leader: I can only explain that I am doing what any normal human being does. I am going home. If the state regards that as defiance, of human behavior, then be it.

BUERK [voice-over]: Mrs. Mandela left the airport pursued by a convoy of security police and press men. It began as a stately cavalcade, ended like a race track. As she passed the magisterial boundary and into illegality, she was pulled over to the side of the highway by the police and arrested.

Ms. MANDELA: Don't threaten me. Don't threatou.

POLICEMAN: I am waiting for you.

Ms. MANDELA: I'm coming along with you. [unintelligible] What you think you're doing?

POLICEMAN: I'm taking her --

Ms. MANDELA: What you doing?

POLICEMAN: Come, come with me.

Ms. MANDELA: Don't push me.

MacNEIL: Mrs. Mandela was taken to a police station 30 miles from Johannesburg and put into a cell for the night.

In Pakistan, President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq declared an end to more than eight years of martial law and restored basic civil rights. He said that the new democratic order, as he called it, would be an extension of military rule and cautioned against radical changes. Pakistan's opposition party denounced Zia's declaration as lies and frauds.

LEHRER: On the economy today there was some good news, but just barely. The index of leading indicators, the government's major forecasting tool, rose a scant 0.1% last month, said the Commerce Department. That's the smallest gain since June, and would have been even worse -- a loss, in fact, if it had not been for the rise in stock prices, one of the indicators measured. Most economists said it added up to a forecast of sluggish growth in the economy during 1986.

MacNEIL: In Seattle, a federal jury convicted 10 members of a Nazi-like group, The Order, which the prosecution said planned to overthrow the U.S. government and establish a white, racist state. Ten defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to racketeer, and six on additional criminal counts. Sentences will be imposed in February. The maximum is 40 years on the racketeering counts, and the maximum varies on the criminal counts.

LEHRER: And that concludes our summary of the news of this day. We move now to a look at what the Vienna and Rome killings have done to the Palestinian cause, to Warnke versus Perle on the question of nuclear testing and to a report from Washington state about gambling on Indian reservations. TerrorRaids: Who Did It?

MacNEIL: Our first and major focus tonight is the fallout from the two terrorist airport attacks, in Rome and Vienna, last Friday, and we look first at reaction among Palestinians. In Tunis, Yasir Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, condemned the raids.

YASIR ARAFAT, chairman, PLO: I am sorry to say that some intelligence service, Arab intelligence service are behind this. They are gathering small youth, training them, arming them, financing them, then putting them. Then they are putting them to do these operations in different parts of the world to spoil the picture for the Arab nation and the beleaguered Palestinian resistance and the struggle. So this terror will never stop until we have to do all our bests to cooperate, to find a peaceful, just, comprehensive, lasting peace.

MacNEIL: Wire service reports say a majority of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank also condemned the attacks. For an unofficial Palestinian view we have two Palestinians, Emile Sahilyyeh, visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a professor at Bir Zeit University on the West Bank, and Rashid Khalidi, professor of political science at Columbia University's Middle East Institute.

Mr. Khalidi, first of all, the remarks we just heard by Yasir Arafat disassociating the PLO from this, will that carry weight generally, or are Palestinians as a whole in their movement going to get blamed for this, do you think?

RASHID KHALIDI: I think there has been a tendency to blame the PLO for a number of incidents which it would seem it had nothing to do with. I think this is partly the objective of the people who are carrying these attacks out, and I think it's partly a result of an attempt by Israel to sort of stick everything onto the PLO in the hope that it can be portrayed as too horrible, too bestial, too terroristic to deal with in negotiations.

MacNEIL: Mr. Sahliyyeh, what do you see as the intention of these terrorists?

EMILE SAHLIYYEH: In fact they could be playing the inter-Palestinian, inter-Arab rivalries. One of the motives, it seems to me, behind the attack is to prove and to disprove Arafat signing of the Cairo Accord, where Arafat declared that the PLO will no longer carry out military activities or operations outside the occupied territories. So, in a way, the attacks on Rome and Vienna were directed to disprove such a pledge, plus it is used by certain Arab regimes against the PLO and against Arafat in particular. I think it is senseless, that it leads nowhere, such terrorist activities. They only harm our cause and, as Dr. Khalidi said, it only serves the interests of those who want to picture the Palestinians as terrorists and not worthwhile talking to.

MacNEIL: One of the terrorists who survived apparently told Austrian officials today that he was born in one of the refugee camps in Lebanon, the Shatila refugee camp, and that the others were recruited there. What is the appeal of such extremist terrorist groups to young men in those refugee camps to get them to come and, almost inevitably, give their lives, as they do in these things?

Dr. KHALIDI: Well, you have an extraordinary degree of frustration in the refugee camps in Lebanon and, I would guess, also some of the camps under Israeli occupation. In the case of Lebanon you have a situation which has gone from bad to worse. Before the '82 war, before the '82 Israeli invasion, the situation was very difficult, there was a lot of pressure. Since then it has gotten much, much worse. The massacres in '82 and fighting around --

MacNEIL: In those camps?

Dr. KHALIDI: In those camps. Economically it's gotten worse. The economic situation in Lebanon is terrible, and people in the camps have suffered, and politically it's very, very bad.

MacNEIL: Well, what is the nature of their frustration? I mean, apart from conditions living in those camps, what is the political nature of the frustration?

Dr. KHALIDI: The conditions are the background. The political roots of the frustration lie in the fact that it would seem to most Palestinians that avenues towards a negotiated settlement, which they could get, their minimum national aspirations, are being blocked off. The idea of direct Palestinian participation, the idea of a Palestinian state, which is what seemed to be the consensus of Palestinian politics a few years ago, seems to be getting further and further away.

MacNEIL: But Professor Sahliyyeh just says that their aim is to prevent a negotiated settlement, or to prevent moderate steps towards a negotiated settlement.

Dr. KHALIDI: Well, I think you have to distinguish between the young men who carry out the attacks and the people who plan them. I think the people who carry out the attacks are frustrated, angry, bitter, resentful. They've lived through massacre and so on, mayhem. The people who plant them do, I think, have exactly the objective that Professor Sahliyyeh talked about.

MacNEIL: Who are cynically manipulating the frustrations of the young?

Dr. KHALIDI: I would think so, yes.

MacNEIL: Now, are such groups, such radical or extremist groups within the Palestinian community, are they gaining support? Are they gaining recruits, Mr. Sahliyyeh?

Prof. SAHLIYYEH: Let me just comment on the same question that you asked Dr. Khalidi, and then I will come back to the second question. I think the question of frustration is also witnessed within the occupied territories, whereby we have a whole generation of young men that have been born shortly before or after the 1967 June War. For these people, they have no dreams, no hopes. Their whole experience has been with settlers, soldiers, settlements, expropriation of land. And the Arab as well as Palestinian and international attempts to extricate them from Israeli occupation have so far failed. So for this group of young men the only example for them is that Israel was forced to withdraw from southern Lebanon only under the pressure of arms. That's why you see the increase in the level of violence in the occupied territories within the last few months.

MacNEIL: Well, is the recruitment -- and are these increasing? Are these groups expanding as a proportion of the Palestinian community?

Prof. SAHLIYYEH: It seems to me one of the main variables that will determine whether such radical groups will be on the rise or they will diminish is what will happen with the peace process. If the current attempts -- and, unfortunately, they are not going anywhere -- were to lead to an endless situation, this will most likely tip the balance in favor of the hardline minority who believes that the Israelis as well as the United States are not at all determined to bring a just settlement to the Palestinian question, and therefore, the resort to arms will be the only feasible option. So it all depends upon what will happen with the peace process.

MacNEIL: Do you see these extremist groups, these anti-Arafat groups, groups opposed to negotiation, do you see them increasing in size?

Dr. KHALIDI: I think that since 1982 it has probably been the case that there has been a proliferation of opposition to the idea of a negotiated settlement as far as political manifestations are concerned. I don't know, as far as popular opinion is concerned. Nobody asks most Palestinians. In the occupied territories the last time they were asked was in 1976 when they voted in elections and elected a PLO slate of mayors. Nobody asks people. So I would suggest that probably in terms of manifestations, organizations, secret terrorist groups, there has probably been an increase. But popular opinion, it's hard to say.

MacNEIL: Now, you both said at the beginning that this could harm the cause of peace. What is this specific incident going to do to whatever momentum there was in what's called the peace process?

Dr. KHALIDI: I tend to think that if there is really momentum, an incident like this would not have a major impact. I think that when things are not really moving along, and I agree with Professor Sahilyyeh, they're not moving right now, something like this can be seized upon by those who don't want progress. Something like this becomes an almost insuperable obstacle, and we go off into side alleys.

MacNEIL: So that's where we are now?

Dr. KHALIDI: I'm afraid so, yes.

MacNEIL: Do you agree with that, Professor Sahliyyeh?

Prof. SAHLIYYEH: Oh, certainly. Their problem is that the incidents of this sort will only serve for the Israelis to reconvince that sector within the Israeli public that the Palestinians are not worthwhile talking to. It will also deter the moderate Palestinians within and outside the occupied territories from moving forward and taking more bold initiative. At the same time it will also probably deter Jordan from moving forcefully in the direction of peace, particularly since the diplomatic activism of the United States has been extremely, and unfortunately, very low.

MacNEIL: Well, we'll come back in a moment, gentlemen. Jim?

LEHRER: Next, an Israeli perspective from Wolf Blitzer, Washington correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, and author of a new book on U.S.-Israeli relations entitled Between Washington and Jerusalem.

First, the anti-Palestinian view within Israel, is it bolstered by what happened Friday in Vienna and Rome?

WOLF BLITZER: Yes. I think it's clear that whenever these types of terrorist incidents occur, those in Israel who don't see any profitability in entering into real negotiations with the Palestinians, those views of course are strengthened.

LEHRER: What is the official Israeli view now as to who is responsible for these attacks?

Mr. BLITZER: Well, the defense minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, has publicly said that it looks like Abu Nidal, a splinter group of the PLO opposed to Yasir Arafat, backed by Libya, occasionally by Syria, is probably responsible and this is, of course, the opinion that the United States government expressed today as well.

LEHRER: The U.S. position, do you smell that some kind of attack on Libya is now in the works?

Mr. BLITZER: Well, I wouldn't be wholly surprised if something were in the works against Libya, I don't know if an attack per se. I don't anticipate an immediate Israeli military response to this particular action.

LEHRER: Why not?

Mr. BLITZER: Generally whenever the conventional wisdom is that Israel will respond militarily, Israel doesn't. When no one expects it, the element of surprise is there, then Israel usually does. In this particular case, yes, El Al was a target, and one Israeli citizen was killed, several were injured, but there were other countries also involved. The incidents occurred in Italy and in Austria. Americans were killed, Greek nationals, all sorts of other nationals were involved. And since everyone assumes that Abu Nidal, backed by Libya, were in fact the culprits, then it seems like an opportunity for Israel to work together with the United States and the Western European nations in trying to force some sort of joint strategy. Whether that's a military strategy, a diplomatic strategy, an economic strategy is of course unclear, but I don't think right now Israel's going to unilaterally try to locate Abu Nidal or his people and strike militarily. I would be surprised if Israel were to do so. And of course if Israel were to go into Lebanon now and try to seek out some sort of PLO groups or Palestinian groups in Lebanon or Syria, there is this added complication of the recent deployment of new surface-to-air missiles by Syria on both sides of the Lebanese border, which could cause a major escalation.

LEHRER: Now, Friday, Rabin, the defense minister in Israel, said that he held Yasir Arafat responsible. Now, that has changed as of today, correct?

Mr. BLITZER: Right, but indirectly the Israelis still continue to hold Arafat responsible. The logic is that since the PLO under Arafat, the mainstream of the PLO loyal to Arafat have themselves over the past few months undertaken terrorist actions -- specifically the incident in Larnaca, Cyprus, when three Israelis were killed, and other incidents as well -- the argument, the Israeli argument, is that they create a climate in which all of the various Palestinian groups sort of have to compete to see who's going to cause the most spectacular type of operation against Israel. So indirectly the Israelis see the PLO as partially responsible for this, even though they didn't specifically organize this incident.

LEHRER: But you think it's very unlikely that Israel would take retribution directly against a PLO headquarters or a PLO camp per se, is that correct?

Mr. BLITZER: Against the PLO group loyal to Arafat?

LEHRER: Yes.

Mr. BLITZER: I would be surprised right now. And I also have to suggest that there is this element of public relations. Israel went through a rough period in recent weeks with this Jonathan Pollard spy scandal, and strains between the U.S. and Israel --

LEHRER: This was a Defense Department intelligence man who sold U.S. secrets to the Israelis.

Mr. BLITZER: Right. And there were serious strains that erupted in U.S.-Israeli relations and Israel suffered in terms of PR quite extensively. Right now that relationship, the U.S.-Israeli relationship, is getting back together, back where it was, and I don't think Israel is going to want to do anything right now that is going to exacerbate its relationship with the United States. If Israel were to respond militarily within the next few days, it would be only, in my opinion, if they have a clear green light from the Reagan administration, "Go ahead and do it and we will support you." If Israel does it, it's going to be only if it has that kind of authorization from Washington.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Mr. Khalidi, does Arafat, the terrorism or the attacks that he sanctions, create a climate for terrorism which people like Abu Nidal compete to excel in?

Dr. KHALIDI: I think that most of the operations that the PLO has engaged in -- and you have to make a distinction between Abu Nidal -- whose group was never a part of the PLO, who has been sentenced to death by the PLO, who has tried to kill, whose group apparently killed a member of the PLO executive committee and several PLO ambassadors -- you have to distinguish between them and between the mainstream factions. Those mainstream factions generally have carried out operations which they describe as resistance to occupation, and they've focused on the occupied West Bank and Gaza and sometimes Israel itself. That's what the Cairo declaration, which Arafat said that would be the only kind of thing the Palestinians would engage in

MacNEIL: But the killing of three people aboard a yacht in Cyprus wouldn't fall into that category.

Dr. KHALIDI: It certainly wouldn't. It certainly wouldn't. It would seem that a lot of the attacks that take place abroad, perhaps a very large number of them, are the work of factions that are opposed to Arafat. That is to say, people who are trying to blacken the name of the PLO and people who are in fact very much opposed to the PLO itself. There is some information now that some of the passports used in the Achille Lauro affair have links with passports that have been used by some of the people who carried out this attack. So the initial condemnation of the PLO, for example, for that, which was perplexing in view of the fact that it seemed to be an illogical operation for the PLO to carry out, may well have been part of this hounds baying after the hare sort of process where everybody blames things on the PLO, even in those situations where it's not responsible.

MacNEIL: Mr. Sahliyyeh, what do you know about Abu Nidal and his group? Mr. Khalidi's just told us that he's never been a member of the PLO proper.

Prof. SAHLIYYEH: In fact Abu Nidal group split from the PLO after the civil war in Jordan in 1970, and the Abu Nidal group first went to Iraq and was hosted by the Iraqi government for almost a decade and was operating against the PLO. In the early '80s Abu Nidal group was given some sort of refuge in Damascus, and most recently they have been courted by the Libyans. Abu Nidal group is opposed to or sees that the diplomatic maneuvering that Arafat is engaging in as counterproductive. They would not lead to peace. It would lead to a liquidation of the Palestinian cause, and it deviates from the principle of liberating all of Palestine. So basically they feel that they have to liberate all of Palestine, and the means to be used is armed struggle. They see Arafat deviating sharply from such policy through his diplomatic accord with Jordan and willingness to attend an international peace conference.

MacNEIL: And, Mr. Khalidi, is there a man, Abu Nidal, an actual individual?

Dr. KHALIDI: There is indeed. He is a former member of the Fatah leadership.

MacNEIL: The Al Fatah, which is the military wing of the PLO.

Dr. KHALIDI: Which is one of the main constituent groups of the PLO. And he was reported to have been killed about a year ago. He has either resurfaced or --

MacNEIL: Someone is using his name.

Dr. KHALIDI: Or his group goes on. Apparently the individual known as Abu Nidal was very, very violently opposed to the shift in course taken by the PLO early in the '70s. And he has managed to recruit a large number of young, frustrated individuals who in many cases are very, very very, much brainwashed, apparently.

MacNEIL: Now let's turn to the question, if Libya is giving him the aid and comfort that the U.S. and the Israelis and others say, if the U.S. and the Israelis were to retaliate against Abu Nidal in Libya, what would the Palestinian movement as a whole think about that?

Dr. KHALIDI: Well, the PLO has suffered greatly at the hands of Abu Nidal. It has lost a half dozen ambassadors and two or three other senior leaders. If Abu Nidal himself or the group were the target, I don't think very many tears would be shed by the bulk of the Palestinian movement.

MacNEIL: Do you agree with that, Mr. Sahliyyeh?

Prof. SAHLIYYEH: Yes, I do.

MacNEIL: And what would the feeling be if some of the other options for retaliation were taken? For instance, Wolf Blitzer mentioned possible targets in Lebanon. Mr. Sahliyyeh?

Prof. SAHLIYYEH: I don't think to hit targets in Lebanon will be at all possible because, as reports have indicated, Abu Nidal is responsible, or the group of Abu Nidal is responsible for the operation. And attacking Lebanon will only lead to further violence and counter-violence. It would only help to produce additional groups that will carry out such activities in terms of revenge.

MacNEIL: Wolf Blitzer, if they went after Abu Nidal himself, wouldn't that tend to sort of cleanse Mr. Arafat's reputation, which some people, according at least to our two Palestinian guests, some people in Israel haven't been too anxious to do?

Mr. BLITZER: Well, it's not going to be that easy to go after Abu Nidal. If in fact he's in Libya, the Libyans have their own surface-to-air defense system, and the Libyans have been backed quite extensively by the Soviet Union. Even in the past few weeks as all of these reports have surfaced in Washington that the Reagan administration itself was considering some sort of contingency plans to undermine Qaddafi's regime in Libya, the Soviets in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Mediterranean in general have undertaken all sorts of maneuvers and actions which have been interpreted, at least by responsible authorities here in Washington and elsewhere, as representing an indication that the Soviets would respond to some sort of provocation or outside action against Libya. So it's by no means certain that an aerial surgical strike against Libya is feasible, at least at this stage.

MacNEIL: Well, gentlemen, a complicated situation. We will leave it there. Wolf Blitzer, Emile Sahliyyeh and Rashid Khalidi, thank you all for joining us.

LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, veteran arms negotiator Paul Warnke and Defense Department official Richard Perle disagree on stopping nuclear tests, and we have a report on how gambling helps pay the bills on Indian reservations in Washington state. To Test or Not?

LEHRER: Tomorrow night at midnight a self-imposed ban on nuclear testing expires for the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Gorbachev offered to extend it if the United States would join the ban, but it was an offer the United States found easy to refuse. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle is here to tell us why, former arms negotiator Paul Warnke to say why he thinks that was a mistake. We set up that exchange of differences with this background report by Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN [voice-over]: To motorists traveling Interstate 95, this appears to be just another vast expanse of Nevada desert. There is nothing to indicate that just beyond a town called Mercury is the only place in North America where nuclear weapons are routinely exploded. Off the main roads, behind this gate, is a complex nuclear facility.

ROBERT NELSON, Nevada test site manager: Just about everything that's known on nuclear weapons has been tested and proven here. All of the weapons systems and all of the new developments and the events, types of tests that are over the horizon yet coming, will be tested at the test site.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: The Nevada test site is where science and philosophy merge. Learned minds contemplate the forces that could destroy modern civilization. Nearby, as if to remind the scientists of the awesome power they deal with is this nuclear ghost town, its crumbled concrete and twisted steel all that remain of the atmospheric tests of the 1950s. In more than 30 years of U.S. testing, an estimated 750 nuclear devices have been exploded. Most of those were underground detonations. The U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed in the 1963 test ban treaty to stop atmospheric testing. Later both sides said they would limit blasts to 150 kilotons, about 10 times the size of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Richard Wagner is assistant to the secretary of defense for atomic engery.

RICHARD WAGNER, Assistant Secretary of Defense: There are four reasons why we conduct nuclear tests. The first is to study their effects and ensure the invulnerability of our own weapons systems. The second is to develop new warheads for new military systems. The third is to ensure that the physical and chemical changes that occur during a weapon's lifetime in the stockpile, which may be many years, have not caused its performance to deteriorate. And the fourth is simply to understand the fundamental physics of what is going on in this extremely complicated process inside a nuclear explosion.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Wagner says over half the detonations every year are for research and development of new weapons. The Energy Department conducts those tests in deep shafts drilled like oil wells. After the nuclear device is in place, the shaft is backfilled and capped to contain both the force and the radiation of the blast. Tests by the Defense Department concentrate exclusively on how well U.S. weapons would withstand a nuclear attack. For some of those tests, the vacuum of outer space may be re-created in a tunnel like this one before the explosion is set off.

Sec. WAGNER: Insuring that weapons are invulnerable to enemy attack is one of the prime criteria for what is we call crisis stability. If one's own weapons systems are vulnerable in a crisis of some unprecedented kind, the enemy might be tempted to take advantage of that vulnerability and attack, and you don't want to offer that opportunity.

HOLMAN [voice over protest singer]: Protest groups like this one gather regularly outside the Nevada test site. Opponents say a halt in testing would halt the nuclear arms race. No nation could confidently deploy a new, untested weapon.

RICHARD GARWIN, test ban advocate: I don't think one can do useful military development without having nuclear explosions. And that's the advantage of a comprehensive test ban treaty to us. It would keep the Soviet Union from making even modest military advances by further testing, and of course we would have to pay for that and for the non-proliferation gains by forgoing nuclear testing ourselves.

LEHRER: Now to Warnke versus Perle. The Warnke is Paul Warnke, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Carter administration, now chairman of the private Committee on National Security and a Washington lawyer. The Perle is Richard Perle, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, and a key Reagan administration arms control advisor and policy maker.

Mr. Perle, why did the United States reject the Soviet offer to mutually ban nuclear testing?

RICHARD PERLE: I think there are several reasons. The first and most important is that our security depends on the maintenance of a nuclear deterrent, and in order to have a safe and secure and reliable nuclear deterrent, it is necessary to test nuclear weapons.

LEHRER: Why is it necessary to test them?

Sec. PERLE: For one thing, one wants to be sure that they will work as they are constructed, that they will perform as they are intended to perform, that older weapons in the inventory are still effective, and that new, safer, more reliable weapons can be developed through the testing necessary to assure that they are competent and capable weapons.

LEHRER: Mr. Warnke, that seems like a simple proposition, but you disagree.

PAUL WARNKE: I disagree. The issue is a very simple one. Is our security best advanced if both we and the Soviet Union continue to test nuclear weapons, or is it better advanced if we both stop? Now, back in 1963, at the time of the limited test ban treaty, we committed ourselves to pursue an end to all testing of all nuclear weapons for all time. Now, from that point on until the Reagan administration, that has been the American policy. The Reagan administration has been very consistent. Since 1981 they've announced that they're against a comprehensive test ban because they want to test. Now, one of the reasons that's been given by Mr. Perle is in order to retain confidence in the reliability of the nuclear stockpile. Well, I say let's lose confidence on both sides. If neither side is confident that its nuclear weapons will work, there's far less chance of a first strike.

LEHRER: Mr. Perle?

Sec. PERLE: No, I think that first of all we want to have weapons that are safe and secure, and that seems to me rather more important than, in a world in which both sides have vast nuclear arsenals, taking the risks that are entailed on both sides in terminating the necessary and ongoing testing of those weapons. I don't believe that the Soviets are seriously interested in the comprehensive test ban.

LEHRER: Why do you think they made the offer, then?

Sec. PERLE: Well, I think they are in the position that we are not in, disingenuously to make a proposal knowing that it will be rejected by the United States. When Paul Warnke ran the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency he attempted to negotiate a comprehensive test ban and was unable to achieve one that was verifiable, one where we would know that the Soviets had terminated all testing.

Mr. WARNKE: That is just not so. As early as November of 1977 the Soviet Union had conceded on all four of our major objectives. They agreed no exception for peaceful nuclear explosions. They agreed on on-site inspection. They agreed on American seismological detection equipment on Soviet territory, and they agreed on an indefinite duration of the treaty. Now, the reason we don't have a treaty is because we don't want one. It's just that simple. If we wanted one we could get it.

LEHRER: We didn't want one in 1977?

Mr. WARNKE: In 1978 and 1979 there was a debate within the Carter administration. There were some, like myself, that felt we ought to complete a comprehensive test ban treaty. There were some who felt, as Mr. Perle does, that it was unwise. There were others that thought it was politically inexpedient, that it might interfere with the ratification of SALT. So there were a whole variety of reasons. But basically the talks stopped because we decided we did not want to pursue them.

LEHRER: Not because the Russians --

Mr. WARNKE: Not because the Russians didn't. See, the Russians worry much more about proliferation than we do. And I think they recognize that a comprehensive test ban in which we and the Soviet Union both stopped would make it much more difficult for other countries to get into the business.

LEHRER: Now, you just read the Soviet motivations entirely different, right?

Sec. PERLE: I do indeed, yes.

LEHRER: How do you read them?

Sec. PERLE: Well, I think there's a history of Soviet nuclear testing at least as abundant as ours; some would say they've done more testing than we have. And they know very well that we are not prepared to agree to a comprehensive test ban, because we believe it is vital to have safe and secure weapons and so they can afford to make proposals. But they have never been prepared, in my judgment, to agree to a comprehensive test ban that would be truly verifiable. And tests at the lower levels, in the kiloton range, the low kiloton range, which is sufficient for a number of important developmental purposes, cannot now be detected by technologies available to us, even with the sorts of devices that the Soviets may have been prepared to agree to.

LEHRER: What about Mr. Warnke's overall point, that if reducing the risk of nuclear war is the main objective here, that if you cut out testing, both the United States and the Soviet Union would sooner or later lose confidence in their nuclear weapons and thus be more willing to negotiate arms control? Did I paraphrase you correctly there?

Mr. WARNKE: That's just about correct, and of course that's got nothing to do with safe and secure weapons. Blowing up nuclear devices has nothing to do with ensuring the safety of nuclear weapons. Those are non-nuclear devices that ensure safety and security.

Sec. PERLE: I disagree entirely with that. I think the weapons in our inventory today are vastly safer than the weapons in the early 1960s, the period that Paul referred to earlier. We've made enormous strides in making weapons safer. We've reduced the potential --

Mr. WARNKE: Which has nothing to do with testing.

Sec. PERLE: -- for accident to very low levels indeed, and I don't see how you can validate those weapons designs without testing from time to time.

LEHRER: What about the idea of confidence and the tendency to use them or not to use them?

Sen. PERLE: There's another alternative to a declining confidence in the validity of one's stockpile and that is, either surreptitious testing or testing that violates the terms of the moratorium, which, if the circumstances are such that both sides have abandoned testing for a period of time could make an enormous differnce. It seems to me that --

LEHRER: I'm not sure I follow you there.

Sec. PERLE: You have a comprehensive test ban.

LEHRER: Okay.

Sec. PERLE: The confidence of each side in the quality and workability, reliability of its weapons declines, and then one side, and the Soviets have done this before, breaks out of the moratorium and is very quickly able to vindicate, establish the reliability of its weapons, and we are left without confidence that we have a reliable deterrent force.

LEHRER: And the result of that would be?

Sec. PERLE: It would be an immediate and abrupt shift in the balance of power that I think can be dangerous and destabilizing. In the meantime we are attempting to get the Soviets to agree to permit the measurement of their current test program and we're happy to have them come and measure our current tests, because we are both bound by a 1974 treaty not to test above a certain level, 150 kilotons.

LEHRER: You mean, in other words, if the Soviets wanted to come to Nevada and see the tests that are going on, they're welcome to do so and vice versa?

Sec. PERLE: We've invited them to come. We've invited them to bring with them whatever equipment they need to verify that we are in compliance with the existing treaty arrangement between us. And we have asked --

Mr. WARNKE: Let me make a couple of points with regard to that. First, I think that Mr. Perle has confused two things -- testing for developing new weapons and testing to determine the reliability of the stockpile. Now, most of the testing, most of the over 750 tests that we've conducted, has to do with developing new weapons, not safer weapons, not more secure weapons, more sophisticated ones, and I think that that's against the security interests of the United States. Now, as far as the Soviet Union breaking out of a previous moratorium, that is just not the case. In 1958 both countries agreed on a moratorium. At the end of 1959 President Eisenhower announced that the moratorium was no longer in effect. It was continued de facto for a period of time, then the French started testing and the Soviets announced that they would resume too, and did. But when they did there was no moratorium in effect.

Sec. PERLE: It was a peculiar announcement, Paul. It was a 50-megaton test that took place on the day on which a conference of nonaligned nations open

Yeah, but the point is --

Sec. PERLE: It was followed by the largest test series in history.

Mr. WARNKE: -- there was no effective moratorium in that period of time.

LEHRER: Let's get back to tonight and tomorrow and the day after. What do you see the harm that could come from the United States refusing to go along with the Soviet offer, if any?

Mr. WARNKE: It's not a question of harm coming from it. It's really a question of our forfeiting a real opportunity to put an end, or at least a partial end, to the nuclear arms race. Now, basically the argument between Mr. Perle and myself is whether arms control is in the interests of the United States. I think it is, and I think therefore to have passed up this opportunity is a bad mistake, contrary to our national security.

LEHRER: Mr. Perle?

Sec. PERLE: No, I think the difference between us is what kind of arms control is good for the United States and our security and the security of the world. Our view is that the way to get at the problem of nuclear weapons is to reduce them and reduce them significantly, something that one can do if one has confidence in a shrinking stockpile, and our stockpile has in fact been shrinking from the 1960s, in part because we have introduced new and more effective weapons and in smaller numbers than the numbers we previously had. We've reduced some 8,000 weapons.

LEHRER: What about those who say even the non-experts, other than Paul Warnke, who say well, why not call the Soviets' bluff? Let's just see if they're really serious by taking a small step with them. What would be the harm in that?

Mr. WARNKE: The Reagan administration would be afraid to do it, because they might find out that the offer is genuine and they want to keep on testing. They've announced that.

LEHRER: Mr. Perle?

Sec. PERLE: We're testing because we have a deterrent force based on nuclear weapons. We would much prefer to have security without nuclear weapons, but as long as we have them it's necessary to test and I think one's kidding oneself to believe that the solution to the problem of a balance in the two nuclear arsenals is to stop testing and introduce all of the uncertainties that would flow from that.

Mr. WARNKE: So essentially what he's saying is that we've abandoned our commitment in the limited test ban treaty, that we no longer want to have a comprehensive test ban. So I think that's wrong. At least it's consistent.

Sec. PERLE: We think the next step is to bring about the conditions that would permit us to ratify the treaty to which Paul is referring. That is a treaty that we have been unwilling to ratify because we think the Soviets are probably violating it. And in order to determine whether they are complying with it or not, we've made a simple, straightforward proposal. Let our technicians go to the Soviet Union and measure the yield of their tests so that we can satisfy ourselves that they're not cheating. And if they will agree to that, then we will ratify that agreement.

LEHRER: Is the decision firm and final between now and tomorrow night on this particular deal?

Sec. PERLE: Yes. Our response to the Soviets has laid great emphasis on the importance we attach to verifying the existing treaty between us before we talk about negotiating further treaties.

Mr. WARNKE: Of course the overwhelming body of scientific opinion is that there has been no violation of the 150-kiloton limit on either side. There's almost unanimity on that.

LEHRER: There's also unanimity on the fact that we have to go. Gentlemen, thank you both very much for being here.

Mr. WARNKE: Thank you very much.

Sec. PERLE: Thank you. Reservation Bingo

MacNEIL: Our next focus is very different -- the efforts of American Indian tribes to make some money. Like many state governments setting up lotteries to raise revenue, Indian reservations are setting up gambling operations. Today nearly a third of the nation's 300 tribes conducts some form of high-stakes bingo. We have a report by Victoria Fung of public station KCTS, Seattle.

VICTORIA FUNG, KCTS [voice-over]: It's a familiar scene on a Friday night at the Tulalip Indian Reservation 30 miles north of Seattle, this cavernous hall packed to capacity with 1,450 avid bingo players. There is the fast exchange of money, tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of hours. Many self-professed bingo junkies play for big cash prizes and jackpot items like posh recreational vehicles. Flourishing bingo operations on reservations across the nation have made gambling a major growth industry for the American Indian. About 85 of the nation's 300 tribes run high-stakes bingo games that rake in an estimated $100 million each year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

For generations tribes like the Tulalips made money the old-fashioned way, fishing the waters of Puget Sound and selling their catches to local canneries, or logging the forest on reservation land. Now a lucrative new source of revenue brings comfort to one generation and economic hope for the next.

TONY HERRERA, Muckleshoot Tribe: It's tough to find another business that's going to create 150 jobs for a $2.3-million investment and return the rates of revenue that we believe this place will do once it is established and running on its feet.

FUNG [voice-over]: Tony Herrera is business manager of the bingo operation run by the Muckleshoot tribe, not far from the Tulalips here in northwest Washington. Unemployment at the Muckleshoot reservation hovers around 58 . Without their bingo hall, tribal leaders say the jobless rate would be significantly higher. The reservation is a study in contrasts. The prosperity brought about by gambling is, to some extent, reflected in surburban-style tract housing and other signs of material wealth. But for most of these Indians poverty is a way of life. Today native Americans rely on $2.5 billion in federal subsidies each year, but the Indians want economic self-sufficiency, and gambling is one means to that end.

Mr. HERRERA: The tribe is not going to rest on bingo for its sole source of, let's say, unencumbered dollars -- non-federal dollars -- to supplement tribal programs. And if we're going to do that, then fine, maybe you could throw a rock at us and say, gee whiz, they're just relying on gaming and they're just going to sit back and count their dollars. We're not going to do that. We're going to continue on to create other enterprises with the revenues that are created from this facility as well, as well as supplement tribal programs.

FUNG [voice-over]: But there are potential pitfalls to any gambling operation.

FRANK MILLER, Assistant Attorney General, Washington State: Past history, certain cases in other states have all shown that when you have unregulated, high-stakes gambling, here bingo, organized crime will eventually follow. It's an excellent place to launder money from drugs or from other activities; it's an excellent place to skim because with no regulation there are no controls.

FUNG [voice-over]: Tribal gaming is basically unregulated because only the federal government has authority over Indian tribes and it has been reluctant to intervene in their gambling operations. Federal law also exempts the tribes from state gambling laws which regulate but do not prohibit bingo and lotteries. On the rural Lummi Reservation 90 miles north of Seattle organized crime was linked to the operatoars of the Lummi's popular blackjack game. Federal authorities shut it down in 1983. The Lummis, who maintain a highly visible commitment to law and order, said they were unaware of the crime connections. They blame the Pan-American Management Company which ran the game and which is run by Seminole Indians in Florida.

FRED LANE, Lummi Tribe: We knew nothing about Pan-American's past activities in terms of relationships with organized crime. We had absolutely no idea that Pan-American was involved with anybody.

WILLIE JONES, Lummi Tribe: They weren't honest with us to begin with, and --

FUNG: Pan-American?

Mr. JONES: Pan-American. And right now we're trying to get them subpoenaed, and I think we've got them all. We'll at least sue them for damages.

FUNG [voice-over]: Along with keeping out crime, government officials say regulation would also help protect tribes from unscrupulous management firms that demand enormous fees for their services. The Indians admit it's a problem that's getting out of hand.

SONNY BARGALA, Muckleshoot Tribe: There were a lot of tribes that said they were very disillusioned that they had entered into gaming with non-Indian entities and did not receive any benefit back. Their people weren't being employed; they weren't getting any of the profits.

FUNG [voice-over]: The Muckleshoot Tribe contracts with a company that takes 44% of their profits. Washington state officials say that's unnecessary, because the state is willing to help tribes run their games if they conform to state regulation, something the Indians have been unwilling to do. Several bills circulating in Congress call for state or federal regulation of gambling on Indian reservations. The federal prosecutor here says the states could do it better.

GENE ANDERSON, U.S. Attorney: The federal government has not much experience in gambling regulation, and so I think that from a resource point of view, probably the state is better equipped to regulate gambling than the federal government.

FUNG [voice-over]: The states would rather see their regulations apply as well.

KEITH KISOR, State Gambling Commissioner: We hope that -- and it would be our wish that Indian tribes would develop laws that are at least as restrictive as state law. We could even hope that we could work together. The last thing we want to do is stop Indian gambling.

FUNG [voice-over]: But freedom from regulation isn't something the Indians are willing to give up without a fight. For years their exempt status has meant big profits in other enterprises, like selling tax-free liquor and tobacco. The Indians say regulation is just one more form of exploitation.

Mr. LANE: There's probably no race in the history of mankind that functions under more policies and regulations than the American Indians, and we feel that the regulation is a control factor until they can figure out how to terminate us and take away what is rightfully ours.

FUNG [voice-over]: If left unrestricted, the Indians say they can make more money and better deal with the chronic poverty and high unemployment that plague most tribes. They shrug off the obvious criticism.[interviewing] What do you say to your critics who ask, if the Indians must raise revenue, why can't they do something more respectable? Why do they have to engage in gambling?

Mr. JONES: I don't see my people gambling. I see them working, and I see them taking pride in themselves and having change in their pocket.

FUNG [voice-over]: With several pieces of legislation in the works, the regulation of Indian gaming seems inevitable. The challenge will be to keep it clean without imposing restrictions that could stifle some of the best economic development native Americans have seen in years.

LEHRER: It's Lurie cartoon time again; the subject, retaliation against terrorists.

[Lurie cartoon -- two terrorists sit on the ice thinking themselves free from retaliation in Antarctica but an Israeli saw from under the ice starts cutting it out from under them.]

Again, the major stories of this day. The Reagan administration said Libya supports the Palestinian group responsible for last week's airport attacks. A White House spokesman said the terrorists behind the Rome and Vienna assaults should be found and punished. And there was a guilty verdict in the Seattle trial of 10 members of the neo-Nazi group called The Order. Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.