The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. There's a wide variety of news to report tonight, from the sad return of the body of a dead American pilot to the happy return of 1,700 U.S. Marines, an airliner tragedy in Spain, William Clark's first public words as interior secretary, George Shultz's willingness to meet with Andrei Gromyko, and the opening of a truly unique exhibition of American art. Robin?

MacNEIL: And in between we look at the choice facing President Reagan in space: does the success of the current Spacelab justify spending billions on a permanent space station? We hear from Mary Louise Smith, who was dropped by President Reagan from the Civil Rights Commission. And we examine the belief of organized labor that more and more employers are deliberately busting unions.

LEHRER: Syria today released the body of the American pilot killed Sunday in Lebanon. Navy Lieutenant Mark Lange of Fraser, Michigan, died when Syrian anti-aircraft fire downed his fighter plane, one of 28 involved in a U.S. raid against Syrian gun positions. The Syrians accompanied today's gesture with new rhetoric about the United States, officials saying Syria is ready to talk to U.S. Middle East envoy Donald Rumsfeld or anyone else. Rumsfeld is on his way to Lebanon tonight. Syria's state minister for foreign affairs, Farouk Charaa, said he would tell Rumsfeld Sunday's air raid constitutes tangible proof U.S. troops are no longer peacekeepers. They are involved on one side in the Lebanon fighting. He also said the release of the American flyer captured after the crash that killed Lange depended on the development of relations between the U.S. and Syria.

Meanwhile, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, 1,700 U.S. Marines arrived home from Lebanon. They are members of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit which spent six months in the bunkers at the Beirut international airport. Most of the 240 men who died in the October 23rd suicide truck bombing were from the 24th. High school bands and cheering spectators waving flags and wearing yellow ribbons greeted the returning Marines today. Many of them acknowledged their happiness at being home was tempered by the news they received aboard ship Sunday -- that eight Marines in the unit that replaced them died in an artillery attack at the airport. The names of those eight have now been released by the Marine Corps: NAVY

M. Lange, Fraser, Missouri MARINES

Lance Cpl. S. Cherman, Woodside, N.Y.; Sgt. Manual A. Cox, Union City, N.J.; Cpl.

D.L. Daugherty, Eastlake, Ohio; Lance Cpl. J.T. Hattaway, Pensacola, Fla.; Lance Cpl.

Todd A. Kraft, Devils Lake, N.D.; Cpl. S.D. Biddle, Valley Head, Ala.; Lance Cpl.

Thomas A. Evans, Conrad, Mont.; Lance Cpl. Marvin H. Perkins, Franklin, Tenn.

MacNEIL: Secretary of State George Shultz said today he'd be more than ready to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. He made the statement as NATO defense ministers said the U.S.-Soviet negotiations on medium-range nuclear missiles should resume as soon as possible. Defense Secretary Weinberger, who attended the NATO meeting in Brussels, said the U.S. is ready to hold arms talks with the Soviets at any table anywhere in the world. Secretary Shultz, who was in Bonn on his way to a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, spoke of a possible personal meeting with Gromyko at the European Disarmament Conference in Stockholm in January.

GEORGE SHULTZ, Secretary of State: Surely if we are both there I will be more than ready to meet with Mr. Gromyko. But of course that depends upon whether we all go, as I believe probably the Western decision will be to go, and whether he's there. And, at least from my standpoint, we will work on our schedules in any way necessary to make such a meeting possible if it is desired by Mr. Gromyko.We'll certainly be ready to meet.

MacNEIL: At the same news conference Secretary Shultz also said he didn't think events in Poland justified lifting economic sanctions against the Polish government. That was proposed yesterday by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.

In Madrid today, two airliners collided on an airport runway, setting off a fiery explosion that killed 93 people. In a thick fog covering the airport, a DC-9 of Aviaco, a Spanish domestic airline, got lost and collided with an Iberia Airlines Boeing 727, which was accelerating for takeoff on a flight to Rome. Both planes exploded in flames, and bits of wreckage were scattered along the runway. It was the second air disaster in Madrid in the last 10 days. Fifty passengers and one crew member died aboard the 727, and 37 passengers and five crew aboard the DC-9. Thirty-six people, including three Japanese honeymoon couples, survived aboard the 727. Twenty-three of them were taken to hospitals. Jim? Space Budget

LEHERER: The six Spacelab astronauts had time for a few last experiments today before they started doing what everyone does before going home -- packing up. Their space shuttle Columbia is due to land tomorrow in a dry lake bed near Edwards Air Force Base in California. NASA officials and scientists who guided the astronauts through their 10 days of experiments hailed the mission a success. An Italian physicist said the crew's ingenuity in repairing and adjusting various experiments proved for sure nobody has the right to ask anymore why a man is needed up there. His words fit NASA's agenda because the agency is pushing for a permanent manned space station. But multibillion-dollar projects like that are tough to get right now, as Judy Woodruff reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Dreams of putting a permanent place for people in space have existed for decades -- before human beings even knew how to get there. But it has taken until now for Americans to set the stage for the real thing.

JOHN HODGE, NASA: It's a sort of maturation in a way because many of the missions that we have done to date can be thought of as "Gee whiz!"-type things.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: John Hodge heads the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's space station task force.

Mr. HODGE: What we have done is expanded our capability in the space business as a whole in the technological side of it, and now it's time to consolidate those pieces of knowledge and get about the business of doing things in space of a more normal nature -- commercial things. People are beginning to make money out of space, and that's very good.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: The basic design for a manned station includes one unit housing a crew of up to 12; another, a research lab; and a third, outfitted as a commercial factory for manufacturing new drugs and metal alloys, easier to do out of reach of earth's gravitational pull. Eventually the station would be expanded for far-sighted space chores, like building huge solar satellites to beam energy back to the earth. But in the beginning its biggest appeal is commercial. That's why manufacturers have emerged as NASA's most enthusiastic supporters. Jerry Grey has written a book about commercial opportunities in space.

JERRY GREY, space author: But if you look at some of the market projections that they have for some of the products that can be made in space and can't be made anywhere else, we're tooking at a market in the annual range of $20 billion by the early 1990s. That's when we would have a space station in orbit if we were to go ahead next year and implement one.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: With a space station, production of drugs for treating diabetes and cancer, for example, could proceed year-round, cutting costs through mass production. That appeals to American business people, who already see competition from foreign manufacturers leaning on their own governments to develop the capacity to produce metals and drugs in space.

Mr. GREY: Unless U.S. industry gets the kind of governmental support that is offered to the Japanese and to the Europeans, we are likely to find ourselves falling behind in that as we fell behind in steel manufacturing, in automobile manufacturing, in electronic products manufacturing, and so on.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Just last week the Germans announced plans to put their own manufacturing unit in space if the Americans don't let them participate in theirs. But for NASA chief James Beggs, aiming to win the President's backing, it's not the Europeans and the Japanese who are the biggest reason to proceed with a space station, but the Soviets.

JAMES BEGGS, NASA administrator: It's true that Soviets are off in developing a space station. That's been clear for the last five years. And in the sense of a competitive situation vis-a-vis the Soviets, it would be clear that a space station capability on the part of the United States is necessary in order to maintain one's competitive posture with the Soviets.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: By all appearances, the Russians are taking this competition seriously. Not only did they just complete another marathon in space aboard this temporary Salut 7 station, but last week they announced plans to begin work on a permanently manned space station, and that's enough of an argument for Victor Reis, who until three months ago was one of the President's science advisers. He says a U.S. space station is worth the investment, if only for the prestige.

VICTOR REIS, former presidential science adviser: I believe that a manned space station will be very good for NASA, and NASA has been very good for the nation. It's an area that we do very, very well in this country, and if we're going to maintain our feeling about ourselves as a great nation, I think we should continue to push forward in those areas where we've done very well, and I believe manned space is clearly that type of an area.

Sen. WILLIAM PROXMIRE, (D) Wisconsin: That's the kind of vague, indefinite kind of proposal that I think I would not buy at all.After all, we've shown our great ability technologically in space. We were first on the moon. We were first with a shuttle. I don't think we have to go along in being first in all these areas.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Senator William Proxmire has long criticized expensive space programs that he says NASA needs more than the country needs.

Sen. PROXMIRE: We have to challenge every bit of spending. When we're cutting and must hold down money for food stamps, money for health, money for the people who need their full Social Security benefits. So, under these circumstances, how can we justify spending billions of dollars? And my experience, and I think experience that most people have had in watching either defense or space work in a new technology area is that it costs a great deal more than they estimate. They always underestimate.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: And that is just the argument Budget Director David Stockman is using to oppose NASA. He says to get the station in orbit by 1992 will cost close to $20 billion -- more than twice the $7 - to $9 billion NASA estimates. And, he says, that doesn't even include the $100,000 a day that it would cost to operate the station once it's in orbit. Some say Stockman would reconsider if the Pentagon endorsed the station for part-time military use. But the Defense Department says it doesn't need a manned space station, that a simple, unmanned platform would do.

Lt. Col. ROBERT BOWMAN (Ret.), military space consultant: Oh, I think the Defense Department rightly feels that if they come out strong and say, "Yes, we need a space station; we have many missions that can't be done without it," that the Congress will rightly say, "Fine, you put up part of the cost." And I think they're trying to avoid that, and I think that the Defense Department's position is an honest one because I don't think there is a critical military requirement for a space station at this time.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Even the National Academy of Sciences says there's no need for a space station in this century. any experiments in manufacturing could be carried out instead, it says, on the existing space shuttle. Many space scientists put their opposition in even stronger terms.

Prof. THOMAS GOLD, astronomer, Cornell Unlversity: If I thought that the space station was any advance towards a manned expedition to other planets, I would be all in favor of it. But it is not. It is merely taking money away from other scientific and technological space endeavors, and a great deal of money -- much more than has gone into those, and this constant preoccupation with manned space flight -- restricted as it is for the time being, close to the earth -- is just an absolute disaster to the scientific space program.

Mr. HODGE: As far as the fundamental question of whether science and applications dollars will go down as a result of this, I just think the facts do not support that. It's remained at a relatively fixed percentage for the last 25 years.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: There is an even more fundamental disagreement over whether any space station needs to be manned.

Prof. GOLD: I'm sure that it is all just a show in space because I can demonstrate to you that every instrument that is discussed as being put into the Spacelab is much cheaper or better when remotely controlled from the ground without the men there.

Mr. HODGE: There is a value to man and his cognitive abilities. You can do things with machines that you can dream about. Once you know what the answer is and how to go about it, then you can make a machine do it. But you cannot do something which is unexpected. The genius of man is his ability to adapt to situations which you cannot think about. And it is there, I think, that we've got to be able to use a man in his adaptive qualities, his cognitive qualities, his managerial capability and so on. And there are many things that we just simply cannot build machines to do.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Last week, President Reagan was briefed on all these arguments and one more -- the one made by his political strategists. They think the space station is perfect for stealing some limelight from Democratic presidential hopeful John Glenn, the former astronaut.

NASA OFFICIAL [January 1962]: God speed, John Glenn!

WOODRUFF: But if NASA gets its way, it'll be for a combination of reasons, including the fact that the President and his advisers decided that the national prestige to be gained from going ahead with a space station outweighs any crimp it puts in the federal budget. But no doubt what will have been just as large a factor is the realization that having the President come forward with a bold vision for the country's future never hurts, especially in an election year.

MacNEIL: Students of environmental politics turned out today to listen carefully for clues about future policy when William Clark gave his first public speech as secretary of the interior. Speaking to the National Wildlife Federation, the secretary was conciliatory to environmental concerns, but not very revealing.

WILLIAM CLARK, Secretary of interior: If we're to work as partners, the Interior Department and the conservation and resources communities, then it requires mutual commitment, ladies and gentlemen. We will look for your positive ideas, your support, not only for the protection of wildlife in the environment, but for reasonable and legitimate economic and national security goals as well. All those involved must avoid partisan snares that I'm afraid so often polarize us and make it really difficult to promote the common good. But without wise economic development of resources, we cannot provide the jobs and products to meet social and environmental goals. And, conversely, I think it should be noted that impoverished nations possess inadequate environmental safeguards. Civil Rights Commission

MacNEIL: Last night we reported that in naming members to the new Civil Rights Commission President Reagan had dropped Mary Louise Smith, former chairperson of the Republican National Committee. Well, that's had some repercussions. Agreement on the new eight-member commission, half appointed by the President, half by Congress, was reached after long stalemate. Democrats claimed today that the reappointment of Mrs. Smith, a Republican moderate, was part of the deal. One of the Democrats involved, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, said he was shocked that a specific commitment like this would have been violated. But the White House said there were no deals on reappointing Mrs. Smith. The White House declined to provide someone to discuss it this evening, but we have Mary Louise Smith, who is with us in the studios of lowa Public Television in Des Moines. Mrs. Smith, good evening.

MARY LOUISE SMITH: Good evening.

MacNEIL: Did you understand that you would be kept on the commission?

Mrs. SMITH: No. I didn't have an understanding of that at all. I wasn't part of those negotiations. If there was that kind of an understanding during those compromises and during those talks, it was done with members of the Senate or whoever were doing the negotiating. But I didn't know about any of that until after the fact.

MacNEIL: Did you expect to be reappointed?

Mrs. SMITH: I didn't have any expectations. I had a desire to serve. I thought thay my two years on the commission had given me some background and experience and certainly some insight into the vast civil rights problems that still remain facing this country today. And I felt that if I could be a contributing member of an independent commission that I would like to serve in that capacity.

MacNEIL: White House officials were quoted last night -- in fact, we quoted them on the air -- as saying President Reagan was not happy with your support of affirmative action quotas and busing. Is that the nub of this, do you think?

Mrs. SMITH: Well, I don't think the reason for my failing to be appointed is because President Reagan bears any personal ill will toward me. I think that we did have differences, and you've mentioned a couple. I've taken a position favoring court-ordered busing if it is necessary to succeed in desegregating schools. I've also taken a positive approach to affirmative action. And if that means numerical objectives or quotas as a tool of last result -- last resort, I have no philosophical objection to that at all. those are differences, but whether that was the reason or not, I don't know.

MacNEIL: The United Press quotes you as saying, "This will be perceived as a negative message to women and blacks." What did you mean by that?

Mrs. SMITH: I think that the message that it sends will be a negative one. I've been rather prominent in the women's movement and in speaking out rather assertively for equality for women, and I've been outspoken now in the field of civil rights, as I've just mentioned to you, on those issues and others. And I think that it will be perceived -- again, we go back to that old word "perception." I think it will be perceived as a negative action, unfortunately, by this administration. But I think one of the most tragic things is that it also says to me and sends a message that there isn't any real understanding of the role of the Civil Rights Commission.

MacNEIL: Understanding where, Mrs. Smith?

Mrs. SMITH: Well, in the administration. Whether it be with the President himself or with his advisors. I just think there isn't any great deal of appreciation of that role of independence that must be there for the Civil Rights Commission to function adequately. And I think he got some very bad political advice in that area.

MacNEIL: Do you think the independence of the commission is not assured now with the new membership of four appointed by Congress from the two parties and four appointed by the President? That independence is not assured?

Mrs. SMITH: I would hope it's retained. I hope they retain their independence. But I think that story's yet to be told. I don't know -- many of the people that are being appointed there I don't even know, and so I don't know how they'll perform, whether they feel that they must act as a mouthpiece for administration policy? And, in most cases, I understand that an administration wants and expects that, but the one exception that I know of must be that the Civil Rights Commission does not become that. It's always made presidents of both parties unhappy, and that's a sign that it's doing its work. It sometimes is a bearer of bad news.

MacNEIL: But do you think that the Reagan administration does not want it to be that? Is that what you intended to say earlier?

Mrs. SMITH: I think that's what people fear.

MacNEIL: Including yourself?

Mrs. SMITH: Yes. I'ill wait for the outcome to see how they perform on the commission. and I'll reserve my judgment on that. But if it's going to be -- if it's going to foreclose discussion of some of the problems or some of the solutions, then I would have to say that the usefulness of the Civil Rights Commission has been diminished.

MacNEIL: Well, Mrs. Smith thank you very much for joining us from Des Moines.

Mrs. SMITH: Thank you very much.

MacNEIL: Jim?

LEHRER: Two state governors told a group of national educators today the time has come to shut up and put up. The Republican governor of New Jersey, Thomas Kean, and the negative reports about public education. Now they want results. Both spoke to a national forum on excellence in education in Indianapolis. President Reagan is to address the meeting tomorrow. Graham said the key to improvement is better pay for better teachers, but warned something must be done about it soon while the public is willing to invest in needed resources. Kean agrees, saying the public is unwilling to support higher levels of funding without meaningful reform and measurable results. Robin?

MacNEIL: Now another kind of Washington story. No TV star or movie idol ever had the American public more fascinated by her rocky love life than the giant panda Ling Ling, so it is necessary to report that Ling Ling is seriously ill. She didn't look it in her quarters at the National Zoo today, but the chief veterinarian, Dr. Mitchell Bush, had a gloomy diagnosis.

Dr. MITCHELL BUSH, chief veterinarian, National Zoo: The clinical problems that they have we don't see signs and symptoms as early as we would like to see, so basically she looks a lot better than we believe she is by the results of her lab test. But to give an exact date of how long she has to live is not possible from the information we have at this time. It wouldn't be totally surprising if, you know, if something would happen to her in a very short period of time. But we hope that this is not the case. I think we've pretty much ruled out a transplant. Dialysis would probably only be considered as a short-term answer to the problem in the hopes that the kidneys would again regain function. In other words, we're hoping that by giving dialysis that we're not dealing with kidneys that are totally shot or cannot return to function. Our hope is that the kidney disease is not irreversible and that, if we can give her a little bit of help, possibly the kidneys can take over and start functioning again properly. Ling Ling's had her ups and downs through her history here, and I think she's not feeling good, but some of the medication and the blood transfusion that we gave her yesterday I think is making her feel fairly good right now. In other words, the short-term supportive care has her feeling, I think, fairly good right now. Her prognosis is very poor, but again, hopefully we'll be able to modify that prognosis after -- or change it one way or the other after we have more information. From the information I have now. I have to say her prognosis is poor.

[Video postcard -- Fire Island, New York]

MacNEIL: Depending on whom you listen to, there may or may not have been a breakthrough in the search for the cause of Alzheimer's disease, a type of senility that affects two million Americans, and is the fourth leading cause of death in the country. Up until now, doctors have not been able to find either the cause or the cure for the disease, but yesterday a team of researchers from the University of California reported that a tiny infectious agent, called a prion, which acts like a virus, may be identical to a substance found in the brains of Alzheirner victims. Dr. Stanley Prusiner, of the University of Califormia at San Francisco, says this finding may mean the prion actually is the cause of Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain disorders. But one of his co-author's, Dr. George Glenner, of the University's San Diego branch, told us today that Dr. Prusiner is jumping to conclusions and that there's no solid evidence to support the theory that the prion may cause Alzheimer's. Dr. Glenner says the research amounted to a very small finding of similarities between the two substances, and added that it's "mindboggling to draw any conclusions from that." Dr. Prusiner, meanwhile, called it "an astounding finding with enormous implications." Both men, remember, are talking about the same report that they both worked on and signed their names to. The report appears in the current issue of the scientific journal, Cell. Jim? Union Busting

LEHRER: The air controllers went on strike and the federal government fired them. Workers at the Phelps-Dodge Mining and Smelter Works in Arizona went on strike and were replaced. Continental Airlines reorganized and cut wages.There was a strike and the company continued to fly, with non-union personnel. And now there's the Greyhound bus strike with a settlement now up to 12,700 union workers who will vote on it by December 19th. Organized labor sees this string of bitter labor-management clashes as part of an evil trend, a trend toward breaking unions and the power of the worker.Management representatives say that's nonsense. These and other episodes grow out of new economic realities born of the recession, deregulation and other marketplace factors. It's an argument we air tonight with two men who not only disagree on what's happening, but on just about everything else as well. First, the union perspective from William Winpisinger, president of the International Association of Machinists, AFL-CIO. How would you describe what's happening?

WILLIAM WINPISINGER: Well, I don't think there's any question that we are now seeing in reality the absence of power that workers allegedly have had for a long time. It's a great myth in this country that workers have some kind of power. And, assuredly, if we had any, or if their leaders had any, we wouldn't be tolerating and/or experiencing these negatives that you've just outlined. The fact is, we don't have any, have not had any for a very long time, and you can trace it to a great many factors, including the inability of our government to enforce the laws that deal with the subject.

LEHRER: Well, if you say unions have lost power or never had power, why is it that all these things are happening now? Why have there not been these kinds of things in the past?

Mr. WINPISINGER: Well, clearly the President of the United States sets the tone for much of what happens in the country, and he has certainly set the tone for labor-management relations or relationships in his administration by the fact that he engaged in the crushing of the PATCO strike and, thereafter, their organization, in the court system.

LEHRER: That was the union of the air traffic controllers.

Mr. WINPISINGER: Air traffic controllers, yes. Many Americans cheered, and I think mistakenly, because what they were cheering was the spectacle of a president of the United States who had for weeks exhorted Solidarity in Poland to prosecute the establishment of a free trade union movement in that country, promised them the moral support of the American people and the government of the United States, and then the very moment somebody who worked for him dared conduct themselves in any way similar to what Solidarity was doing, he snuffed them out just as ruthlessly as the worst of the Communist masters.

LEHRER: All right, but what's the connection between that and, say, what Continental Airlines has done, what Greyhound did --

Mr. WINPISINGER: Well, Continental Airlines is a classic in which a company negotiating, or attempting at least to negotiate with our union, first -- a settlement of wages, hours and working conditions in the traditional collective bargaining arena, on the eve of a strike deadline wiped everything off the table, said, "There is no offer; tomorrow morning if you want to work the wages are going to be thus and such" -- a fraction of what people formerly made -- "or else we're going to go on from there."

LEHRER: All right. And they have continued to operate, as Greyhound has continued to operate. What's wrong with that, with continuing to operate through a strike?

Mr. WINPISINGER: Nothing -- if that's the kind of society we want. If we want the kind of society in which business is going to tell workers unilaterally, arbitrarily how much money they're going to make, what fringe benefits they're going to enjoy, and any other aspect of their relationship on the job. Fine. We'll have it, because that's exactly what's happening.

LEHRER: Do you reject the arguments out of hand that some of these have grown out of new competition in the marketplace as a result of deregulation, some of them are recession problems, and that sort of thing?

Mr. WINPISINGER: Not at all. We have never rejected that out of hand. As a matter of fact, we've bargained more carefully, more thoroughly and more consciously than probably any time in our past in assessing the position of an employer if he pleads that he is in a bind, that he needs relief, and that he must have it in the collective bargaining process.But the problem is that everyone wants to view this in the framework of, "Worker, you give!" And there is the measurement of power. If we're going to take it back from the worker, we're taking it back from the least defenseless [sic] of the whole production equation. We haven't yet assessed what management is willing to give back. We haven't asked what the investors are willing to give. We haven't asked what the receivers of interest are willing to take in terms of lowering interest rates. We haven't stretched out amortization on vehicles like airplanes and others. We simply turn to he who is defenseless and say, "Worker, you got to give it." And I submit to you, if that's the kind of society we want and we're going to say, "Worker, you must pay the price for whatever evolutions there are in the American economy -- and therefore, society," fine. I know where that leads us. And I don't like the spectacle, because any rat, when you push him into the corner, is going to fight, and you just push the workers of this country back to where they were in 1932 by these arbitrary excesses of the use of power, and we'll fight again. No question about it!

LEHRER: Thank you.Robin?

MacNEIL: For the employers' perspective we have a lawyer who specializes in management-labor matters. He is Stephen Cabot, a partner in a Philadelphia law firm. Mr. Cabot, you've just heard Mr. Winpisinger say what's really happening is that the unions are powerless and so their workers are being made to bear the burden and pay the price of the evolution in the American economy.

STEPHEN CABOT: In all due respect, I think Mr. Winpisinger is projecting a situation that almost resembles Alice in Wonderland. I believe he knows that the issues are a heck of a lot more complex than talking about employers being all omnipotent and the worker being defenseless. I think it's quite silly to perceive the situation in that light. I think that unions in this country are powerful. They are as powerful today as they were five or 10 years ago. One only needs to look at the track record of labor unions, for example, in the '60s and the '70s, when they boasted about bringing employers to their knees when they obtained double-digit types of contracts -- increases that went 10 and 12 and 13 percent; benefits that equaled the increase. We have some of the highest-paid truck drivers in the world. We have some of the highest-paid steelworkers and rubber workers in the world. So to say that unions, which brought that situation about, are powerless, I think is a little bit naive.

MacNEIL: What about his point that President Reagan -- the president set tones in labor-management relations and President Reagan has set a different one, starting with the PATCO strike?

Mr. CABOT: In all due respect, I disagree very, very strongly. I think one only needs to ask the working man, ask employers throughout the United States and others, that the PATCO situation is a very, very limited example. We took a look at a situation where workers had defied the law. What would we expect the president of our country to do in a situation like that?

MacNEIL: So you don't -- leaving that case aside as a special case, you don't think that the President has set, or that there is a new tone of hostility to unions created by the administration?

Mr. CABOT: Absolutely not. I would hope that Mr. Winpisinger would not condone the violation of federal law that the workers in PATCO undertook. I would hope that he, upon reflection, would say that the President wasn't all so wrong. I think that we all, upon reflection -- I would hope, at least -- would come out with that conclusion.

MacNEIL: Would you -- if the union says that these various tactics that we listed -- Jim listed at the beginning, by Continental and Greyhound and others, if that adds up to union busting in their eyes, what would you say those tactics are?

Mr. CABOT: Well, I would say that description, if you can again pardon the expression, is pure poppycock. That's the kindest way, and the kindest words I can use to describe it. Let's just take a look at Continental and we'll take a look at Greyhound Bus Lines.It wasn't the employer that struck the employees. It was the union that struck those companies. And I'm not here to debate necessarily that they were right or wrong. They felt they were right. They exercised their own proper legal prerogative -- power, if you will -- to strike, which I don't think indicates that labor, at least at that time, felt that they were the weak, defenseless, helpless soul. Management, in return, in order to survive -- merely to survive, which is really maybe the critical issue here, survival -- sought to maintain as a counterbalance its legal prerogative and right, which is to hire permanent replacements. It was merely a response in order to assure survival that it undertook that task to hire other workers.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes, gentlemen, let's take these points one at a time. Mr. Winpisinger, you heard what Mr. Cabot says. You're naive when you say unions don't have power.And he just said they have the power to strike.

Mr. WINPISINGER: I'll just rest on the record. We've always had the power to strike, but let's talk about the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which was passed many years ago and said that no one can resort to the use of a federal injunction in a labor dispute, and the courts have emasculated that right; an injunction is issued in every one of them these days, as though the law was never passed. That's an erosion of power. That's an erosion of our rights, and that's an erosion of what we are able to do.

LEHRER: You're saying then that going on strike just doesn't mean anything anymore?

Mr. WINPISINGER: No, it really doesn't if an amalgamation of capital has made up its mind that they are going to snuff out a strike, if they are going to violate the statutes of this country, which say -- the public policy of the United States still is -- and Mr. Cabot is supposed to be a friend of the court; he's a lawyer. And he doesn't go around perpetuating what the law says, which is that workers have the absolute right to foster, create, join and perpetuate a union of their own choice and engage in the process of bargaining over wages, hours and working conditions. He prefers that it be unilaterally done, based on his advice, in violation of the law. If you really want to look at the charge of a lawyer.

LEHRER: Mr. Cabot, is that how you look at it?

Mr. CABOT [laughing]: I don't know where to begin. Firstly --

Mr. WINPISINGER: Take your pick.

Mr. CABOT: -- let me respond as succinctly as I can. Firstly, I am glad that Mr. Winpisinger remembers the Norris-LaGuardia Act. I think that's a very important law that we all should keep in mind. And --

Mr. WINPISINGER: When did you last preach for it?

Mr. CABOT: The Norris-LaGuardia Act essentially states that if unions engage in peaceful picketing, that injunctions may not issue. When there is an injunction issued in our courts today, it's because the unions violated the law --

Mr. WINPISINGER: Now I'll use your expression. Poppycock!

Mr. CABOT: Mr. Winpisinger, I think I was polite in listening to you. Please don't --

Mr. WINPISINGER: I don't intend to be polite --

Mr. CABOT: I understand that --

Mr. WINPISINGER: Not when you abuse the truth!

Mr. CABOT: The courts --

LEHRER: Well, I intend for both of you to be polite. Go ahead, Mr. Cabot.

Mr. CABOT: The courts will only issue an injunction, which would be one of the exceptions under the Norris-LaGuardia Act, where, for example, there are violations of law committed. Examples would be, taking the Greyhound Bus Lines strike, where there is mass picketing, where there is -- where rocks are being thrown --

Mr. WINPISINGER: What's unlawful about mass picketing?

Mr. CABOT: -- in the windows of buses, where people are threatened and intimidated; in those particular types of situations, the courts do issue injunctions. And I would hope that they would continue, because it maintains a sanity, a balance, a more peaceful situation. Now, with respect to the other point raised by Mr. Winpisinger, I do agree that the Wagner Act and subsequent amendments -- the Taft-Hartley Amendments to the Wagner Act -- specify that employees have the right to adjoin, assist, negotiate in terms of having unions work with them, for them to engage in collective bargaining --

Mr. WINPISINGER: They are the union.

Mr. CABOT: -- but Mr. Winpisinger did not make the complete quote accurate. The act, as stated, also provides that workers have the right, the free choice, to reject labor unions, to reject collective bargaining as a process, and to deal directly and individually with their employers.

Mr. WINPISINGER: But not aided and abetted by the employer or his hired gun like you. The law never contemplated and the Congress never said that the employer has the right to engage in the retention of hired guns like yourself to thwart those rights, to negate those rights, and to abridge them in any way, spape, manner or form.

Mr. CABOT: Mr. Winpisinger, I have a high degree of respect for you. I'm a little surprised that you would make that last statement.

Mr. WINPISINGER: Why?

Mr. CABOT: Well, if you'll listen --

Mr. WINPISINGER: You made the record; I didn't.

Mr. CABOT: Well, if you'll listen to me, perhaps you'll understand.

Mr. WINPISINGER: All right, I'll try.

Mr. CABOT: Workers today -- we can't look at the 1930s. They're past. We can't look at the 1940s and talk about employers and employees, their attitudes and mentality --

Mr. WINPISINGER: I'm talking about the 1980s.

Mr. CABOT: And I'm glad that we're focusing on that because the workers of the 1980s are brighter, more independent, in my opinion, at least, than ever before --

Mr. WINPISINGER: Then why does the employer hire you to thwart their ability to organize into a union, when you then decide how much they're going to make, how many hours they will work? You want the employer to reserve that and keep unto himself the ability to determine that, and not let them have an organization of their choosing, which thwarts the national policy of the 1980s as well as the 1930s.

Mr. CABOT: Mr. Winpisinger --

Mr. WINPISINGER: And as long as guys like you are around to tell them how smart they are, they're being hoodwinked by the fact that they haven't the right to exercise their lawful rights.

Mr. CABOT: Mr. Winpisinger, I would presume that your particular union hires attorneys, and I would expect that you would demand of your attorneys their ability to provide you with the best legal, practical and strategical advice that money can buy. Now, my role --

Mr. WINPISINGER: And, what, in your mind, is practical, and what is tactical --

Mr. CABOT: Mr. Winpisinger, my role as a management labor attorney, as you well know, in representing employers throughout the United States and throughout all of North America, is to really, in a sense, do the same thing that you demand of your attorneys, except that I don't represent labor unions. I represent employers, and I try --

LEHRER: Gentlemen --

Mr. WINPISINGER: You also thwart the national policy.

LEHRER: I'm going to have to thwart this discussion. Gentlemen, thank you both very much. Robin?

Mr. CABOT: Thank you. American Art

MacNEIL: A change of pace. Spectacular or blockbuster exhibitions of art have become the normal thing in recent years to lure the mass public into museums and galleries. But most of them involve European art or the treasures of ancient Egypt or Greece or China. Now Americans can see the greatest collection ever assembled of American painting, from the 17th century to 1910. it's been drawing record crowds at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and today it opened at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has more.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: There are 110 paintings by 49 painters, each with its own style, its own story.

[voice-over] Some are familiar. "George" and "Martha," both by Gilbert Stuart; "Whistler's Mother"; Winslow Homer's "Fog Warning" and his "Snap the Whip." When taken together as a whole they tell one story, one that is distinctly American. Few know the story better than Ted Stebbins, the curator for painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the curator of the show. He took us on a special tour before the exhibit left for Washington. He began with this striking portrait of Boston matron, Rebecca Boyleston by the 17th century artist John Singleton Copely.

THEODORE STEBBINS, curator, Boston Museum: Here's Rebecca Boyleston. Copely had to paint an acceptable likeness. It had to look like her. And he did that. He also painted her directly and realistically, and all American paintings have this layer of realism, an underlying layer of practicality. She looks out directly; you'd recognize her anywhere. But also, there's a romantic level, and this also exists in almost every American picture. She probably didn't even own that dress; he painted her as she wanted to be seen, as part of her dream, as being an aristocratic, well-bred European.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: This distinctly American mixture of romanticism and realism is also evident in the work of John Singer Sargeant, Boston society painter of the late 1880s.

Mr. STEBBINS [voice-over]: And like all Americans, he was drawn both to fact and to the romance of this figure. Madame Geautreau here, who was called "Madame X" in thispainting -- Sargeant wrote letters about how lazy she was, how hard it was to get her to stand up. She was a slothful human being, he said, but he painted her as in a dream, the romantic, strong image of her, with her arched back and her beautiful white shoulders. This is no more realistic than any other American picture.

You have a painter like George Caleb Bingham of Missouri, who is one of the first to see America differently, not as a place that comes from Europe, but as a place that exists on its own, as literally a new place. Bingham is really a painter of the new land.This is a new world, and he paints the Missouri as if it were a place of perfect innocence. This is now the mid-1840s; there are all sorts of political, racial and economic troubles; the Civil War is on the horizon. But somehow Bingham is still managing to paint the American dream. This is the dream of Jacksonian democracy, the dream of manifest destiny, of a nation moving slowly and peacefully across the West. There are no Indians being slaughtered; there are no forests being ravaged and cut down. Now, this is a perfect kind of world, and Bingham is the best painter of it,

[voice-over] Bierstadt paints America as the Garden of Eden. This is the American dream. You push further west -- this is the Sierra Nevada in California. You push further west, you discover more and more Eden, a perfect place. These paintings reinforced the national feeling of well being and that there was always a further place. This is the frontier theory.We've always felt -- all through the 19th century, we felt there was an endless frontier.

[on camera] Americans use the wilderness as a metaphor for truth and for life and for morality. The wilderness is good. Things that attack the wilderness are bad. "In wilderness lies the truth," said Emerson.

[voice-over] Homer, in a way, leads into modern American painting in terms of his style becoming simpler and more abstract. Homer remains a wilderness painter. He paints the fox, who is usually the hunter, here trapped in the snow and about to die. Homer himself was sick at the time, was thinking about death, and the red berries suggest the blood of the fox that's about to flow. You don't see his eyes that are about to be bitten out by the crows, and there's this endless procession of crows coming from the sea -- an unnatural place. It's an unnatural painting, both it's tough realistically, and yet made up and dreamlike.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Unique among the artists in this exhibit is Thomas Eakins, whose work includes "Max Schmidt in a Single Skull." A contemporary of Homer, Eakins abandoned romanticism in favor of stark realism.

Mr. STEBBINS [voice-over]: Eakins paints in the age of William James, the founder of American psychology, of Freud, and so on. You can see that in these paintings. We've become introspective for the first time, because most painters still avoided, most painters, as they did all through American history, avoided fact, even psychological, unnecessary fact. "The Gross Clinic" is the heroic American painting of its time. Eakins -- in several ways, Eakins here paints someone that he admired and a great Jewish doctor, the leading surgeon of Philadelphia, someone who would never have had his portrait painted, never commissioned an artist. Here, in painting this operation, Eakins is painting the life of the mind. No longer the American painter painting superficial reality, no longer painting dream and romance, but here painting fact and intellect and insight. And that's what makes Eakins unique in American art.

[on camera] I think the show will affect the way Americans see ourselves and our past, and I think it will affect the way Europeans see us. It will show them that we're more romantic, more artistic, and that we have more character and a greater sense of morality then they thought. That we're not -- that we just didn't arrive in the world without cultural baggage.

MacNEIL: Usually when you see this symbol it means the end of a program on our network, the Public Broadcasting Service. Right here it means a news story. The president of PBS. Lawrence Grossman, announced today that from next May he'll be sporting another symbol, when he leaves to become president of NBC News. Jim?

LEHRER: Our recap of the major news of the day. Syria released the body of the U.S. Navy pilot killed Sunday in the American air raid on Syrian gun positions. The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit returned to North Carolina from Lebanon to a loud and happy welcome. Secretary of State George Shultz said he's ready to talk to his Soviet counterpart, Andrei Gromyko, in January.Ninety-three people died when two airliners collided on an airport runway in Madrid, Spain. And the Spacelab astronauts are packing up for their return to earth tomorrow.

Finally, tonight, a story of vigilance and preparedness at the Pentagon. A page-and-a-half document, Washington headquarters service regulation 83-5 has just been issued to all Defense Department personnel in the Washington area. The subject: office Christmas decorations. Artificial Christmas trees are recommended, but if real trees are used they must not be taller than four feet, should be sawed off at an angle at least one inch above the original cut and kept standing in water or moistened earth and kept away from traffic flow within the space. Lighted candles of all kinds are banned; so are holly and cornstalks, unless specifically approved by a building manager.And, in language that is 100% pure Pentagon, there is the general guideline: "Decorations and displays within assigned space shall conform to the general use of the space as appropriate." The Washington Post, which broke the WHS 83-5 story this morning asked the responsible Pentagon official for an explanation of that. "I really don't have any comment on those regulations," he said. "I think they speak for themselves."

Good night, Robin.

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