The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, new fighting in El Salvador left at least 245 dead, the East German parliament elected a reformer as prime minister, but there were new mass demonstrations demanding free elections. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, we continue our coverage of events in Eastern Europe with a report from East Berlin and a News Maker Interview with former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. Then two of America's leading Democrats, Jesse Jackson and Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia, discuss different futures for their party. And we close with an Anne Taylor Fleming essay about high- tech fertility. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: At least 245 people were reported killed and 378 wounded in El Salvador in the worst fighting in 8 years between leftist guerrillas and government troops. The fighting reached into poorer suburbs of the capital San Salvador held by rebels of the Farabundo Martin National Liberation Front. Government helicopter gunships were in action and bursts of machine gun and mortar fire echoed through the city. The rightist government of Pres. Alfredo Cristiani declared a state of siege and an overnight curfew. In Washington, the Bush administration blamed Cuba and Nicaragua for the new rebel offensive but said U.S. involvement was not anticipated. State Dept. Spokesman Richard Boucher offered support for the actions of the Cristiani government.

RICHARD BOUCHER, State Department: The imposition of the state of siege of limited duration by the government we believe is a responsible measure to protect civilians from the FMLN's latest campaign of terror. The U.S. position as I've outlined here is one of urging people to get back to the negotiating table, urging Nicaragua, as we have recently, to stop its supplies to the FMLN, as well as supporting the government of Pres. Cristiani.

MR. MacNeil: The United States has 55 military personnel serving as trainers in El Salvador. But they are not supposed to accompany Salvadoran armed forces on military missions. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: On the East German story today there were developments in government and in the streets. In East Berlin, the parliament chose a reformer as the new premier. He is Hans Mudro, the mayor of Dresden. And they voted in their first non-Communist speaker, Gunther Maleuda, Chairman of the Democratic Peasants Party. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 East Germans took to the streets in Leipzig to demand immediate free elections. It was in Leipzig that demonstrations against the East German government began 8 weeks ago. In West Germany, the weekend of celebration came to an end. Today authorities began dealing with some new realities, including a mounting number of refugees from the East. We have a report from Bill Neely of Independent Television News in West Berlin.

MR. NEELY: The 6th new border crossing in 24 hours opened today. The West German president visited the wall to shake hands with East German guards. It all seems normal in the new Berlin. But the reality of change is sinking in. Eight thousand East Germans in three days have decided to stay and West Berlin is feeling the strain.

HARALD FISS, Refugee Camp Official: There are too many people in a very short time. That's the problem and they all want to be registered. They all need accommodations.

RITA HERMAN, West Berlin Housing Department: What we think is that people will prefer their nice houses in East Berlin to a bed in one of our domestic halls.

MR. NEELY: They need homes and they want jobs, but neither comes easily and there's frustration at the housing office. The British army is helping and it's welcome.

SPOKESMAN: They had to support Berlin in a partnership with Berlin, and I think it's wonderful that they're actually able to do that in such a material way.

MR. NEELY: The Americans too are helping, but this crisis is beginning to hit home. They've begun preparing for the next wave of refugees. But many are now hoping these rooms won't be filled.

MR. LEHRER: West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl today continued his interrupted visit to Poland. He told a university audience it would be implausible to re-unify Germany without the consent of the rest of Europe. Poland also began to hold the attention of Washington today. Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa arrived this evening for the beginning of a 10 day visit to the United States. The trip is under the auspices of AFL-CIO. He visits with Pres. Bush tonight and will address a joint session of Congress Wednesday. He will also be with us for a News Maker Interview tomorrow night.

MR. MacNeil: The Soviet Republic of Estonia today called into question its relationship with Moscow. It voted to annul the 1940 decision to join the Soviet Union, but stopped short of secession. The Republic also voted to set up its own currency for the first time. In Czechoslovakia, Communist Party Leader Milosh Yakesh said younger people must be brought into the party because a new generation must be introduced to the process of change, but Yakesh issued a warning against pro-democracy demonstrations. He said a dialogue cannot be conducted through such street demonstrations. A Czech man who recently tried to help organize such a demonstration was sentenced to a year in prison. And in Bulgaria, the Supreme Court has agreed to review a ban on an environmental group that organized that country's first public demonstration in 40 years. Several activists described the move as a positive step towards more openness.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court today approved a random drug testing program for Boston police. The court let stand a lower court ruling that said mandatory drug testing for Boston officers did not violate their privacy rights. And the Boeing Company today pleaded guilty to two felony counts. Company lawyers admitted in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court that it accepted classified Pentagon documents from a defense consultant. Boeing agreed to pay more than $5.2 million in fines and restitution.

MR. MacNeil: There may be a settlement in the Northeast phone strike. The president of the Communications Workers of America announced today that the union had reached agreement on the frame work of a new contract with the NYNEX Corporation. Sixty thousand workers struck the company more than three months ago over shifting the cost of health benefits to employees. Details of the agreement were not disclosed but the union president said, we saved our health care, there are no premiums. And that's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to an update from East Germany, the former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, Charles Robb versus Jesse Jackson on the future of the Democratic Party, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. FOCUS - REUNION

MR. MacNeil: We focus first tonight on the German story. After a weekend of dizzying celebrations in which millions of East Germans visited the West we talked to former West German Chancellor and Mayor of West Berlin Willy Brandt. That conversation follows an extended report by Correspondent Nik Gowing of Britain's Independent Television News in East Berlin.

MR. GOWING: These are the images that the new East German leadership wanted to see. The vast majority of East German citizens who rushed to the border in this week end of exuberance returning home. In the tens of thousands they drifted back across the numerous border crossings throughout the evening and into the early hours. It is estimated only two percent do not plan to return. Those like this teacher who did return were anxious about what they would find at work this morning.

TEACHER: We've got lots of problems at school. A lot of children are not coming back. At least 5 in every class because their parents have gone to West Berlin and to West Germany. On Monday morning, I expect a lot more won't come on time.

MR. GOWING: And before dawn this morning it was back to work. No one sure whether colleagues and friends would still be here, whether absence meant they had permanently left East Germany or simply at home recovering from this extraordinary weekend, or whether they were just lingering a little longer in the West before coming back. Some had not even tried to go to the West.

EAST GERMAN CITIZEN: I think the whole think was very hysterical. It was so demeaning to the West.

MR. GOWING: Others at this electro mechanical factory a stones throw from the Berlin Wall in the Kelptow District had been across. There were no second thoughts though about returning to work today. They had not even considered staying in the West.

EAST GERMAN CITIZEN: My work, my life, my family are over here. I would not stay over there.

EAST GERMAN RESIDENT: It's just normal day but I will go back for another look because there is so much to see there.

EAST GERMAN CITIZEN: We must get back to normal. We must build up the economy now.

MR. GOWING: This morning at the border crossing the East German Authorities were determined to establish a new bureaucratic order. Over the weekend, the weight of numbers going West had forced the suspension of planned visa formalities. From 8 o'clock this morning, no East German was allowed across without getting the correct exist and travel permits here from an office hastily set up in a bus. By this morning, 4 million visas had been issued since Thursday night and the people were still coming in great numbers taking time off work to get the permit which had been denied to them for so many years. Meanwhile today at the Volkscamera for years a no more than rubber stamp parliament for Communist Party decisions there was the next stage for East Germany's rush to over turn the past. Few but the party faithful have ever seen these MPs as more than token politicians chosen in unfair elections. But until free elections, they have the task of approving a new Prime Minister the Reformist Dresden Party Leader Hans Mudrow. The first vote for a new parliamentary president was for the first time ever split between 5 candidates. No one got a majority the vote went to a second ballot. The favored candidate from the minority liberal Democratic Party did not get the post. It went to little known Gunther Maleuda leader of the Democratic Peasant Party. For Egon Krenz, the new party leader this was the start of the new democracy in action.

EGON KRENZ, East German Leader: Every MP must decide for himself. If we talk of having a parliamentary democracy each member must make up his own mind on behalf of his voters according to what the voters want him to do.

MR. GOWING: Those words from Egon Krenz have never before been heard before from an East German Leader. They are a beacon for the future. Although no one yet knows whether a genuine pluralism will be permitted between any political groups who choose to stand in elections. Across East Germany, the new freedom to travel has greatly boosted morale. It has raised hopes for the future. But for the millions that want to stay the key issue even in a tiny village is the hunger for democracy, an end to the Communist Party's political monopoly.

CITIZEN: When we have free elections, there must be lots of parties in the coalition.

MR. GOWING: The workers who have long been the bedrock of this socialist state are now prepared to give the leadership time to prove they really are reformers. They say the final proof of that will be when the Communist Party actually produces a genuine political pluralism.

WORKER: The Communist Party will not be in power. They will have to cooperate with other political parties. They will not be the leadership.

WORKER: They must not have a leading role any more.

WORKER: We will wait a little longer but if things to not change enough then we will pack our cases and go.

MR. GOWING: But some who have toiled in the least attractive jobs in East Germany remain deeply skeptical. They believe that reform has come to late.

WORKER: The elections, they should have had them a long time ago. They will not make much difference now.

MR. GOWING: Tonight at Communist Party headquarters the Central Committee is meeting to discuss urgent demands from reform minded party members. They want the special party assembly called for December to be upgraded to the full blown Party Congress which was not due to be held until next March. After last week's resignation by first the whole Government and then the entire Polite Bureau the existing central committee of the Party with a 157 members is the last remaining legacy of the Honecker era. Although an unknown number of central committee members are reform minded there has been intense pressure from reformers at all levels of the party to clear the decks and send the unequivocal message that the central committee too is reform minded, something that can only be achieved by a full party congress.

MR. MacNeil: For more on the East German story, we turn now to Willy Brandt. Willy Brandt was the mayor of West Berlin when the wall was put up in August 1961 dividing Berlin into 2 separate cities. He was very critical of Pres. Kennedy for not doing more to stop the wall from going up. At the time, Brandt said the entire East is going to laugh at us and Kennedy is making mincemeat out of us. But he was on the podium with Kennedy two years later at West Berlin's City Hall when Kennedy made his famous, "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" speech. Brandt went on to become chancellor of West Germany from 1969 until 1974. He tried to promote a policy of detente with the East, became known as "Aust Politique". Brandt was born Herbert Fram but adopted Willy Brandt as a cover name during World War II. He spent the war years in Norway and participated in that country's resistance movement. I talked with the chancellor from Bonn earlier today and asked him how he felt seeing the wall opened.

WILLY BRANDT, Former Chancellor, West Germany: It was really a moving thing. I think one of the most emotional things I have experienced in my life, thousands and thousands coming, and I went to East Berlin a few days ago, and all the people coming back from the West to the East, and so much friendliness, and without any aggressiveness. I think this was quite an experience and I think it gives a great hope for the future of the community between the parts of Europe, a good experience, yes.

MR. MacNeil: How do you feel about the response in Washington to what's happening?

MR. BRANDT: I think there is nothing to be criticized. We have had very friendly reactions. What I'm looking forward to, of course, is in addition to the friendly elections we've had is the forthcoming visit between the President of the United States and the leader of the Soviet Union when they meet in a few, couple of weeks time in the Mediterranean. I think they will have to in addition to all the other items they have to discuss their attitudes vis a vis changing conditions in our part of Europe and as far as the two parts of Germany are concerned.

MR. MacNeil: Let's talk about what happens now. What is your vision of what is going to happen to the two parts of Germany now?

MR. BRANDT: Well, it mainly depends upon developments within the Eastern part of Germany. They have achieved by now considerable degree of freedom of information. They have achieved as the result of the will of the people a high degree of movement of people from the East to the West and back from the West to the East. They are closed to achieving a good deal of political pluralism. They will have to come, I don't know at which time of the year, '90, which is ahead of us, they will have come close to elections, elections which will become the base of a new government in that part of our country. So I think things are moving in the right direction, and then it depends on the Germans in the Eastern part of our country, what kind of relationship do they want with West Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany. In any case, I'm sure they want a much closer relationship, closer economic ties, ties in the field of culture, ecology and what not, cultural ties. Then I think we will have to leave it to the future. Either this develops into a kind of confederation between the two Germanies as they exist, or this will develop into a kind of a common nation state. I don't know. I think the main thing is that people decide upon their own future within the frame work where they live. This is much more important than either we have a nation state or a confederation type of our future living together.

MR. MacNeil: Does your, putting on your politician's hat now, does your political nose tell you that if they actually get free elections, the people in East Germany will want to keep some kind of socialism, state socialism, or they will want to go to a market economy and the West German form of capitalism?

MR. BRANDT: Well, I think there are areas where they might want to have a higher degree of social security than what we have. When I speak to some of these young ladies now who come to West Germany now under that kind of exodus which we have experienced through the last few weeks, some would say, on the other side in the East, we could send our children to the kindergartens and we would know that they would be, they would find their place there; we are not sure they find it on the Western side. They would say that there are certain elements of the system of social security which is not so bad on their side, but as a whole, I think all of them understand that whatever the degree of public responsibility or even public ownership may be, they need a great influx of market economy and the impulses which derive from market economy. Expressing it in another way, the other day when I discussed this with Jacques DeLores, the president of the European Commission in Brussels, he said in all of the countries of the West we have various kinds of mixed economy. He said but why should the mix be exactly the same on the other side? So even if a good deal of private initiative, not just the mechanism of the market has been introduced there, why should the mix be exactly the same we have on our side, knowing that even on our side there are different kinds of a mix in France and in Germany, and in Spain, and in Italy for example?

MR. MacNeil: Many people in Western Europe and elsewhere are immediately expressing anxiety about the possibilities of the political reunification of Germany, either confederation or some other form. How realistic is some kind of political union?

MR. BRANDT: It couldn't be so bad because the West has been asking for it all the time as long as everyone thought it wouldn't become a reality. Why should we be afraid at a moment where it might become a reality? I can only tell you that here in the Federal Republic, either you look at Mr. Kohl's government or at the strong social democratic opposition to which I belong. All of us are convinced that we must stick to our obligations, commitments within the EEC, the European, the West European Community. We will not jump out there. We will go on living with the obligations we have been handed. But we will ask that the European Community and the Western alliances also will be as cooperative as possible to create stronger links with the other parts of Europe, including the other part of Germany.

MR. MacNeil: Gennady Gerasimov, the spokesman in Moscow, the foreign ministry spokesman, said yesterday, reunification is being talked about by people who are not in office, people in authority are not discussing it. How do you react to that comment?

MR. BRANDT: Well, he is a very good journalist and he told me when I met him in Moscow last month that he would return to journalism after he has served his government for three years time he said. But I think he is right. It is easier to talk about certain principles while one has not to deal with implementing them, putting them into political life, but I think we now are experiencing unity. I mean, I saw my people in Berlin hundreds of thousands coming from the East to the West and going back from the West to the East. The unity of the people is growing from day to day without aggressiveness which is good, with so much friendliness, openness. So the question is then what do you add to this attitude of the people? They belong together, they speak the same language. They have the same background. So then what kind of links can be created between the two German states as they have come out as a result of the last war? How could they then establish closer relations? How do they come close to national unity beyond these close links between the people and in addition to economic links to be strengthened? I do not know where this will lead to but I am convinced this will only be possible in a way where the desire of the Germans on both sides of dividing lines will correspond with the interests of our neighbors. And wehappen to have more neighbors than anyone else in Europe. That's part of our geo political situation, and it's not only a question of the direct neighbors. It's also a question of the, how did George Kennan call it, the half European big powers being the United States and the Soviet Union, we know that our national desire has to be reconciled with the interests of the great powers and with those of our European neighbors.

MR. MacNeil: What do you say to a lot of people in Israel who have been talking over the weekend and to others who suffered under and from Nazi Germany about their fears of a reunited Germany? How do you reassure them?

MR. BRANDT: Well, I think as some of our American friends would know, I did not belong to the strongest followers of Hitler, so I feel close to those in Israel who think about the bad past of Germany. But having said this, it's not sure that a divided Germany is a better guarantee for the future than if the Germanies came closer to each other and had a greater possibility to develop their legitimate national ambitions not in an aggressive way but to get together in developing their common national heritage, this thing is a good national cultural heritage and also take care of common economic, ecological and other tasks. So I do not see that our friends in Israel and elsewhere have a reason to be afraid that Germany is coming together, by coming together became a new danger to their neighbors, direct or indirect neighbors. I don't think this is a legitimate fear.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Brandt, let me ask you finally one historical question. In August 1961, you at first were very unhappy with the way the Kennedy administration responded, unhappy they did not take physical action to prevent the wall being built or knock it down. Do you now think 28 years later that Kennedy's refusal as they put it to risk starting World War III was the right decision and that to leave the wall in place was the right decision?

MR. BRANDT: Yes. I never asked Pres. Kennedy to take military action. What I was angry about at the time, in any case sorry about, was that there had been so much talk about full power responsibility for Berlin as a whole, and when it came to a critical point we had to acknowledge that full power responsibility had to be reduced to a three party responsibility for Western Berlin. I was happy that we could count on that protection, responsibility and protection. No, I think looking back at it, it was the right thing not to take the kind of military action which could have brought us into a new world war.

MR. MacNeil: Willy Brandt, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour tonight Jesse Jackson and Charles Robb on the future of the Democratic Party and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. FOCUS - DEMOCRATIC DIVIDE

MR. LEHRER: Charles Robb, Jesse Jackson and the future of the Democratic Party are next. Last week's election sweep by Democrats was proclaimed by pundits as a victory for the mainstream politics of Democrats such as Sen. Robb, and a defeat for the liberal politics of those such as those held by Rev. Jackson. The evidence, black candidates everywhere, but particularly David Dinkins in the New York City Mayors Race, and Doug Wilder in the Virginia Governors race were moderates who appealed to all voters, not just the kind who backed Jackson in his unsuccessful races for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Rev. Jackson has taken strong exception to this thesis. But Sen. Robb has taken it another step. This morning he keynoted a conference of the Democratic Leadership Council, the moderates major organization, with these words: "The time has come for Democrats to choose, to decide between competing visions for our party's future, stand pat with liberal fundamentalism or build a new agenda on mainstream values. That is the choice." Sen. Robb of Virginia is with us here in Washington tonight. Rev. Jackson is in the studios of public station KCET-Los Angeles. Sen. Robb, what are mainstream values?

SEN. CHARLES ROBB, [D] Virginia: Well, they're mainly traditional values, the kinds of values that most Americans, middle America would identify with. At the Presidential level we're talking about security issues, national security, defending our basic freedoms, defending our basic liberties, economic security, providing some sense of trying to make the pie grow bigger in the usual way that it's described, personal security in providing some sense of security for individuals. In the 1988 campaign, Pres. Bush very successfully created a great sense of doubt in the American people as to whether or not the Democrats would stand up and defend individual Americans on any of these areas. And we're suggesting that we ought not to cede that to the Republicans. We've got to be credible in those areas.

MR. LEHRER: What then is liberal fundamentalism?

SEN. ROBB: Liberal fundamentalism you could define in a variety of different ways. But for the most part it's simply going back to the traditional approaches that involve programs that are seen by the American people as more responsive to individual constituencies, individual interests, than having a broad national purpose. In many cases most of suggest that we ought to be appealing clearly to the same basic groups of citizens, we're an inclusive group. We're suggesting that we appeal to them not on basis of individual litmus tests for an organization, but on the basis of a broad national interest.

MR. LEHRER: Rev. Jackson, do you agree that that's the choice for the future of the Democratic Party between those two?

REV. JESSE JACKSON: I'm not sure that I realize what liberal fundamentalism is. I know that for example in our campaign we focus an awful lot more on education. I've spent more time in schools [a] trying to get adequate funding and equal funding and better pay for teachers than almost any advocate in this country. I further argue that you fight a war on drugs with a war on poverty. We took the initiative on the issue of a war on drugs, beyond that a commitment to reinvest in America. It does not make sense to me to be spending $150 billion a year defending Europe and Japan, when they could now better share the burden of their own defense, use some of that money to reinvest in the American people. To me that is very basic and it is also very mainstream. If we're going to bail out the savings & loans to the tune of $200 billion, it should be linked to community reinvestment and ending red lining. For example, to me these issues are the economic common ground issues that most Americans identify with as necessary and proper.

MR. LEHRER: In other words, my question was, do you see the division or the choice as Sen. Robb has laid it out for the future of the Democratic Party between mainstream values and liberal fundamentalism? Or do you disagree with his definition?

REV. JACKSON: Based upon that definition, I do not know who in our party's leadership is not the mainstream values. If mainstream values is family continuity, if it's education, if it's affordable housing, if it's fighting crime, if it's a strong national defense, all of us have those values. But I'll tell you what I do recognize that we must expand our party. You know, in 1983, we kicked off a major voter registration campaign to bring in new voters, and the result is that we won Senate seats in Virginia and Alabama and Georgia, and Louisiana with fewer than 20 percent white vote, for example, but the new voters made the difference, and we got the Senate back in 1988, we won significant campaigns this past Tuesday, and everywhere we won Tuesday, North Carolina or Durham or Virginia or New York, New Haven, or Cleveland or Seattle are all places I won in 1988 with an expanding coalition.

MR. LEHRER: Senator, how do you respond to that?

SEN. ROBB: With the exception of the dates, and I think Jesse would agree that the dates were a year or two off in terms of his suggestion as to which races were won when, on the basis of what he's suggested, there's not that much difference. We can find common ground and have previously. The concern here is also with style. And I would have to say that first of all Jesse Jackson is clearly the most talented, most gifted political leader today in terms of raw political skills. And if he could place the same emphasis many of us would like to see on things like these mainstream values, if he could achieve the kind of credibility in terms of willingness to defend our basic interest, rather than always attacking the Defense Department, I can agree with Jesse on any number of issues that we ought to find ways to cut spending. As a matter of fact, in terms of cutting spending, I'm not going to yield to much of anybody, certainly here in the Washington area. But we need to express our priorities in a way that doesn't threaten people, that lets people know the things that are important to us and again the things that we talked about we can find common ground there.

REV. JACKSON: If the issue really is style and not substance, we build a coalition on that basis, we build it on direction. For example, I believe that we should have a strong defense, but building 100 Stealth bombers at $1/2 billion each and no money left for a national health plan is neither good for defense nor domestic tranquility. These matters we should debate and if we serve the American people we are going to win and we are going to deserve to win.

MR. LEHRER: Is that division right, Senator? You would agree that Rev. Jackson has drawn a distinction between the two wings in the party with that particular example, health care versus Stealth bombers?

SEN. ROBB: I think if you pose it always in terms of trade-offs and always take a particular side of the equation, that that gives some hint of where the divisions are. But the way that Jesse Jackson posed the question in this particular case, it's hard to argue seriously. I'm not at this point going to suggest that a particular number of Stealth bombers are going to hold up throughout the whole budget process and through the priorities they're going to be established down the road. But the willingness to accept the fact that the B-2 may have a role in our long range defense posture, that the MX may have a role, whatever the case may be, is important. It's a matter of which of the areas you choose to emphasize. In foreign policy, whether you emphasize relationships with some of the 3rd world countries or whether you're interested in some of the things that are happening in Central Europe today, which seems to me critical to some of the things that we're all looking to happen in the near future.

REV. JACKSON: Well, one thing is clear, if the walls are coming down in Europe and the fences are coming down, the defense budget should also come down, and while we should maintain a strong defense right within our own country, there are 3 million homeless people and that's real. We have more children with good minds who cannot afford to go to school and that's real. We have 15 million more working poor people. And so to reinvest in America is to stabilize the middle class while lifting those who are stuck at the bottom. And that becomes a way to allow the American dream to be real for everybody.

SEN. ROBB: Again I don't really fundamentally disagree with some of the concerns. I think we both have the concern about compassion and helping those that are less fortunate. I do think that there may be a difference in emphasis here. One of the things that many of us who have been involved with the Democratic Leadership Council and others have been trying to develop a sense of reciprocal obligation to substitute for the politics or the mentality of entitlement. We're trying to make sure that there is a recognition that society, i.e., the government, has a responsibility to its citizens and its citizens in turn have a responsibility to government.

MR. LEHRER: You mean people on welfare have an obligation to try to get work.

SEN. ROBB: To try to get work, to accept job retraining, to obey the law, to send their children to school, whatever the case may be. These are some of the core values. And again it's a matter of emphasis. Jesse is absolutely right. When it comes to talking about some of the challenges we have with respect to staying in school, staying away from drugs, there's nobody that does that any better than Jesse.

REV. JACKSON: I for example espouse the notion that we must put forth an incentive program to earn and learn the way off of welfare. I further contend that since we have a generation of young 19 year old mothers with 6 year old children and 28 year old grandmothers, we should provide incentives for them not only to take their children back to school, but themselves to reenter school and take a second chance and to develop some basic skill training. This is mainstream values but I say now that we have Doug Wilder as governor and now that we have Dave Dinkins as Mayor of New York, these officials now need resources. It means suppose we build 75 Stealth bombers, Chuck, rather than 25, so they cost $1/2 billion each, it means that these Democrats can then deliver basic human services. They can deliver affordable housing, can deliver for our children scholarships and for our teachers basic pay. And for those coal miners in Big Storm Gap, Virginia, and St. Paul, Virginia, deliver to them some kind of national health care plan given the dangerous work that they're engaged in and the risks that they take.

SEN. ROBB: Jesse, I've got a suggestion for you. Come on down to Washington and get yourself elected either to the Senate or the House or Mayor and work on some of those issues with us, because many of those suggestions that you are making this evening, I've heard you make before, make sense. There's an awful lot particularly in the cool environment of television that you can suggest that would be very very useful.

REV. JACKSON: I think it's really a good idea of running for Senate. And if we affirm the fact that since Washington, D.C., has more people than 5 other states and pays more taxes than 10 other states, since every other capital in the Western world has a vote except D.C. has a vote in its Congress, if we as Democrats stand for D.C. statehood as we did in Atlanta, two Senate seats will open up in D.C., and a Governor's seat, and federal judges. If we expand democracy and make room for more people in the Senate, we'll have a more progressive Senate.

SEN. ROBB: I'm not sure whether that's a declaration of candidacy for the United States Senate if we go that far along. As you know, you and I don't have any argument on that particular point.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you this question about Mr. Dinkins and Mr. Wilder. You heard what Rev. Jackson just said, Senator. Do you consider those two gentlemen mainstream Democrats?

SEN. ROBB: Very much so but more important they ran on mainstream platforms. I'm much more familiar with the race in Virginia, and Doug Wilder, in fact, I introduced him today at the Democratic Leadership Council Luncheon where he spoke, and I suggested that he was elected governor of Virginia the old fashioned way. He earned it. He spent 16 years in the State Senate, he chaired 3 major committees. He was also chairman of the, a steering committee. He served as lt. governor. He served as chairman of the Democratic Lt. Governors Association; he had a total of 20 years of solid experience in state government, and many many Virginians knew what he could do, knew the kind of response that they would get from a Doug Wilder as governor of Virginia, and elected him. Let me share one other point we're not really making here. He received more votes than any candidate has ever received for governor of Virginia, and he also received not only more black votes but more white Virginians voted for him than for any other governor in Virginia's history.

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me one second. Let me just follow that up, Senator. Do you consider Doug Wilder more your kind of Democrat than a Jesse Jackson kind of Democrat?

SEN. ROBB: Well, let's just say again he ran on a platform of being a mainstream Democrat. He talked a lot about the kind of continuity that would be important and would reassure Virginia voters. And he has continued to espouse the same kind of message, the same kind of priority since his election as he did before his election. This is very reassuring because you're crossing for some regrettably still an important milestone, an important divide.

MR. LEHRER: Rev. Jackson.

REV. JACKSON: It is very significant that all of those candidates who won on Tuesday were more progressive and liberal than their predecessors. Doug Wilder and Dinkins did not run on more gains for those who have capital, they did not run on more military build up. They ran on pro-choice and self-determination.

SEN. ROBB: Their predecessors didn't run on any of those issues either, Jesse.

REV. JACKSON: In New York, Dave Dinkins ran on building a broad based coalition, an extension of our campaign there in '88. And so it's significant that Dave, that Doug Wilder and Dave Dinkins' election thrust were coalition building but they were also progressive in their orientation.

MR. LEHRER: Well, do you believe, Rev. Jackson, let me just ask you straight out, that what a lot of people have said on this program the night after the election and elsewhere, that the election of these two men, and other black officials in the election last Tuesday was essentially a defeat of you and your style of politics in which you believe?

REV. JACKSON: I find that to be patently absurd. Only those people who have only room in their mind for one African-American at a time see us on a collision course. Dave Dinkins will be Mayor of New York City. He will not be trying to settle labor-management disputes in Seattle,Washington, with workers as I have been doing. Doug Wilder will be governor of Virginia. He will not be conducting registration campaigns in Maryland or North Carolina, and Georgia, and Mississippi, we play on the same team, we have different roles and different styles and different approaches. Let me put it this way. If as a result of the Dukakis campaign last year, there were a net gain of a Greek chairman of the Democratic Party and a Greek governor of Virginia, and Greek mayors of New York and New Haven and Seattle, the journalists would not be struggling for a difference without a distinction. They would see the continuity. There's continuity. What really won last Tuesday was human rights, women's rights, workers rights and civil rights. And that's the direction that Democrats ought go in.

SEN. ROBB: I'm not sure the winning candidates would agree that their victory was limited to those four particular characteristics. They said in each case, as far as I understand, certainly in Virginia, that they wanted to provide the kind of continuity, the kind of fiscal responsibility, the kind of priorities that they'd expected their constituents, in my case in Virginia, had come to expect. Jesse, I'm not going to take anything away. Certainly the leadership that Jesse has provided has given an example, as inspired any number of Americans to reach beyond what they might have thought previously were obstacles, but it's very different, Jesse, from a Presidential nominating campaign where you have a relatively small base and they tend to be much more identified with what you would call the liberal activist wing of the party. In a general election --

REV. JACKSON: Let's put it this way. The liberal activists won on this past Tuesday. And for the record, Sen. Robb, I got 7 million votes and of those 7 million, Ted Kennedy in 1980 got 6.9 million, Mondale got 6.9 million, and of those 7 million 3 million were white. I got more white votes than any black in the history of this country. As a matter of fact, I got more white votes than any black has ever gotten black votes. Why did we score so heavily in Vermont and Maine and Michigan, and Washington, and Oregon --

SEN. ROBB: Jesse, it's --

REV. JACKSON: -- because we ran a campaign on common ground, economic justice issues.

SEN. ROBB: Jesse, though the statistic you're not quoting in this particular case is you've got I think about 15 percent of the white vote nationally. Each of these candidates in a majority white district, Doug Wilder had to get over 40 percent of the white vote. Virginia has only about 15 percent black Virginians, probably a lesser percentage, probably 15 to 16 percent that actually voted. He had to get 40 some percent of the white vote. That's just a percentage point or two less than I got when I ran for governor 8 years ago.

REV. JACKSON: He was effective to do that but let's flip it the other way around. To get those kinds of white votes, it's significant that in 1986, Gov. Sanford got 40 percent of the white vote.

MR. LEHRER: In North Carolina.

REV. JACKSON: In North Carolina. In the case of Fowler of Georgia and Shelby and Heflin of Alabama and Brough of Louisiana, all of them got less than 40 percent of the white vote, so they really got minority white vote plus majority black vote. But it was the coalition where blacks and whites found common ground. So if, in fact, blacks can supply the majority of votes for Fowler and Brough and Shelby and Heflin, it's all right for whites to provide the majority of the vote for Doug Wilder in Virginia. That's just theway it ought to be.

SEN. ROBB: They did and what I'm suggesting to you, there was a magnificent speech made on the floor of the Democratic Convention in Atlanta, and you needed all these pieces to win. And what I'm suggesting to you is that the pieces that you have helped provide are terribly important but you can't do it with those pieces alone, you're going to need this larger quilt, the larger individual component pieces in order to win an election. In each of these cases --

REV. JACKSON: I think you're right, and I'll tell you what, Chuck, if you support me --

SEN. ROBB: Doug Wilder, Jesse, Doug Wilder got more white votes, again, more white Virginians voted for Doug Wilder than have ever voted for a governor-elect in Virginia's history.

REV. JACKSON: And that's beautiful. You know what? He also got more white votes in Virginia than Dave Dinkins got in New York, which says something about certain transformations, sociological, taking place within our culture. I think the challenge now since we really have so much in common if we vow privately, as we now are talking publicly, to support each other based on substance and not amplify style as differences, we're going to win, win elections in 1990, and be much stronger in 1992.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you this, Senator and Rev. Jackson too. Do you agree with conventional wisdom that a moderate mainstream Democrat could win the election for President but could never get the nomination because the party structure is too front loaded for the liberal side?

SEN. ROBB: I would agree that it would be much easier for a mainstream Democrat to be elected in a general election than to get the party nomination, and that's a lot of what this whole return to priorities with mainstream values is all about. I won't concede that someone couldn't get the nomination, but at this point the nominating process clearly is dominated in a disproportionate way by those who would regard liberal fundamentalism as an entirely appropriate approach for our party to continue.

MR. LEHRER: And the party is more liberal than the general electorate, is that true?

SEN. ROBB: Absolutely. I think anyone who has taken a look at the demographics would come to precisely the same conclusion. Both parties have activists that tend to move toward the edges of the political philosophy; the Republicans tend to be dominated by more by the fairly doctrinaire conservatives. The Democrats in the nominating process have to deal with a majority in the nominating process who are clearly to the left of rank and file Democrats.

MR. LEHRER: Rev. Jackson.

REV. JACKSON: I'd rather convince Sen. Robb that this issues like reinvesting in America and expanded voter registration and D.C. statehood and the war on drugs and fight the negative impact of these Supreme Court decisions on women, workers and minorities represent mainstream stuff. And if we fight for each other, if I convince my base constituency to support you, and you convince your base constituency to support me, in that way we build a strong party and we won because we risk in order to grow, and so if you were to run and win, consider me, and if I run again and win, I certainly will consider you.

SEN. ROBB: Well, Jesse, I'd like to suggest to you that that's exactly what we did in Virginia. Doug Wilder supported me over the years very enthusiastically and effectively. I was very pleased and honored to support him this time around. We both embrace those mainstream values that Virginians and I suspect most Americans could comfortably identify with, and they're particularly looking for it in those who are going to lead them in an executive capacity.

MR. LEHRER: I have to lead us away. Rev. Jackson in Los Angeles, thank you for being with. Sen. Robb, thank you.

REV. JACKSON: Chuck, keep hope alive. ESSAY - PROCREATION PREDICAMENT

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, we have an essay. Los Angeles writer Anne Taylor Fleming shares a personal dilemma very close to her heart.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: They brought it home to Los Angeles cradled between them on the transcontinental airplane flight, a happy family portrait or possible family portrait, man, wife, and embryo, alive and frozen in its cryo preservation tank. The embryo had been retrieved after much legal rankling from a fertility institute in Norfolk, Virginia, where the company had once participated in an in vitro fertilization program. For a long time, for reasons best known to them, the doctors there refused to let the couple relocate their embryo, strange doings all this, tussling over a frozen embryo. But such scenarios are increasingly common now in the surreal high tech world of post sexual procreation, a world in which sperm and egg meet not in a body but in a dish, and voila, Louise Brown is born. Remember her? She was the first, the now 11 year old Shirley Temple of the in vitro world. There have been embryos aplenty since then conjured up in labs around the world, numbers put back into eager women, numbers frozen for future pregnancy attempts, over 4000 of them now stored around this country alone. Like the couple mentioned above and the millions of other infertile American couples, my husband and I now dwell in this world and have tried unsuccessfully any number of these lonesome clinical conceptions. We too have had a frozen embryo long since thawed and inseminated into my quirky womb where alas it did not take hold. I knew the odds, only an 8 percent chance that my embryo would bloom into a baby, but I wept for it nonetheless, for the loss of it, for who it might have become, for how we might have laughed later over the manner of its beginning. It, is that in fact the right pronoun to use here? I don't know. I had a chance to see my two day old four cell embryo under a microscopic just before it was put back into my body, and it did not look like a life, rather the barest promise of one, an unknown status, an entity with a pronoun, less than a he or she, but more than an it. I certainly did not cluck or coo to it as if it were a child but I did with everything in me silently implore it towards wholeness. But a judge in Tennessee in another big embryo custody case recently ruled that frozen embryos are indeed tantamount to children, since life, he said, begins at conception, heavy weight, moralizing stuff. He awarded the seven contested embryos to the woman in the case even though the estranged husband, her sperm giver, no longer wanted her to try to have his children. All of us in this have to reckon as they failed to do. Before any of the procedures, we all, husbands and wives, have to sign forms specifying the fate of our embryos should we no longer need or want them or should something happen to either one of us. The choices on paper are daunting. Should we in an act of haunting altruism give them to another infertile couple? Or should we in a different act of haunting altruism allow them to be used for research? Or should we simply let them thaw and die? is that the right word die? It seems too big, too grand. There just doesn't seem to be any appropriate vocabulary for this strange world, nor clearly any binding rules.We, who are making these embryos, and I include the doctors here, are procreative pioneers off on an extraordinary physical emotional and moral adventure, with no compass to guide us. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, at least 245 people have been killed in new fighting between government and rebel forces in El Salvador, and demonstrators in East Germany demanded immediate elections, while the parliament elected a reformer premier and a non-Communist as its speaker. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the Newshour tonight and we'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.