The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening.The lead stories on this day before Thanksgiving are these. In a NewsHour interview, Libyan leader Muammar Khadafy denied involvement in the Egyptian airliner hijacking. Egypt asked Malta to extradite the surviving hijacker. Soviet leader Gorbachev said it was President Reagan's fault there was no arms agreement at Geneva, and the monthly U.S. trade deficit figure went down for a change. We'll have the details of these and the day's other major stories in a moment. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: First after the news summary, our exclusive satellite interview with Libya's strongman, Muammar Khadafy. Then a debate over how much the U.S. puts up trade barriers. A report on the fever over the visit of Halley's Comet, and an essay on two ways of approaching the Soviets -- Reagan's and "Rocky's". News Summary

LEHRER: Colonel Khadafy answered Egypt today. He said Libya had nothing to do with the Egyptian airliner hijacking in which 59 people died, and he said he had no desire or intention of going to war with Egypt. It was Khadafy's first public reaction to the Malta tragedy, and it came via satellite from Tripoli in an interview with Robert MacNeil.

MacNEIL: Egypt says that the hijackers were an anti-Arafat group of Palestinians led by the man known as Abu Nidal. Do you agree that that is the group?

MUAMMAR KHADAFY, Libyan leader: We have no information about the nationalities of these people, and you know there are many Palestinian forces against each other. But in accordance with the declaration that they made, they are Egyptians. They belong to Egyptian revolutionary movement called Revolution of Egypt or something like this. The airplane is Egyptian; the hijackers are Egyptians. And the troops that attacked this innocent people and killed them are Egyptians. The whole responsibility is Egyptian one.

LEHRER: A State Department spokesman in Washington said today there is now evidence that points toward a Libyan connection to the hijacking, but the U.S. has not yet reached a firm conclusion about it. Robin?

MacNEIL: Egypt demanded today that the wounded survivor identified as the hijack leader be extradited for trial. The 20-year-old Tunisian, Omar Marzouki, is under heavy guard in a hospital in Malta recovering from unspecified wounds. Maltese officials say he's been questioned by police, but his condition hasn't permitted an in-depth investigation. Egypt's state security prosecutors said that if extradited he would face charges carrying penalties ranging from lengthy imprisonment to death. On Malta, autopsies were performed to determine whether the 58 people killed aboard the plane died by Egyptian commando bullets or from the effects of grenades exploded by the hijackers. The bodies of seven victims were returned to Athens, where the flight originated.

LEHRER: There was much news on the spy front today. Israel recalled a senior diplomat from Washington for allegedly being the contact with the U.S. Navy intelligence employee who allegedly passed U.S. secrets to Israel. The accused American, Jonathan Pollard, and his wife, who is charged with possessing classified documents, appeared in a Washington federal court late this afternoon. Prosecutors want them denied bail. Two other accused spies also made court appearances today. Ronald Pelton was denied bail in Baltimore. He is the former National Security Agency analyst charged with selling secrets to the Soviets. And Larry Wu-Tai Chin, a former CIA man charged with spying for China for more than 30 years, appeared in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court. There was no bail for him either. A Chinese Foreign Ministry official in Peking today denied Chin spied for China. "We have nothing to do with this man," said the official.

MacNEIL: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev reported to his parliament, the Supreme Soviet, today on his summit meeting with President Reagan. Gorbachev continued his attack on Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative and accused the U.S. of putting forward one-sided arms proposals aimed at military superiority. He appealed to Washington as well as Britain and France to join Moscow in a moratorium on nuclear weapons tests Moscow announced in July. Summing up the summit, Gorbachev said the outcome was positive.

LEHRER: It was a year ago today that anti-apartheid protests began in front of the South African Embassy in Washington. The organizers of the protest returned today to mark the anniversary. Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested since last year on charges of protesting closer than 500 feet from an embassy. All of the charges against all have been routinely and automatically dropped. No demonstrator has yet been convicted or jailed overnight.

MacNEIL: America's monthly trade deficit, the gap between imports and exports, narrowed in October to $11.5 billion. In September it had hit a record $15.5 billion, and the difference was attributed to a big drop in car imports.

There was a big pre-Thanksgiving rally on Wall Street today. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks rose nearly 19 points to a new high of 1475.69, the tenth time this month that the index has set a new record.

LEHRER: Morelos B is now in orbit above the earth. It is a communications satellite owned by Mexico. Astronauts aboard space shuttle Atlantis successfully launched it today, one of three such communications payloads they will put in business on their week-long flight. Morelos B will drift without power until 1989, when it will be put into use by the Mexican government. It went up four years early because it is cheaper now.

And, speaking of space, Halley's Comet today came close to the earth on its way around the sun, the closest it will come until April. The only way to see it late last night and early this morning was with binoculars or a high-powered telescope.

MacNEIL: That's our news summary. Coming up on the NewsHour tonight, our interview with Libya's Colonel Muammar Khadafy, a debate over trade protectionism, a look at why all the interest in a comet called Halley's, and an essay on "Rocky" and the Russians. Libya's Side

MacNEIL: First tonight we talk to Libyan strongman Muammar Khadafy. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday said there was a very clear connection between Libya and the hijacking of the Egypt Air plane to Malta. As a show of force, Egypt has reinforced its military presence along its border with Libya and declared a state of alert. Libya has denied the charges, but there has been no statement from Colonel Khadafy himself until now. I talked by satellite with Khadafy in the Libyan capital of Tripoli earlier today.

@i0100Colonel Khadafy, thank you for joining us. Did Libya play a role in the Egypt Air hijacking this week?

Col. KHADAFY: It is far from the reality. It is very strange to look for any relation between Libya and this sad event. And you know our policy and our moral is absolutely against the hijacking planes, and we are against this kind of action or even struggle. We support the just causes of the freedom in the world. We are very, very sorry to hear about this bloody and sad event that took place in Malta, and the president of Egypt is responsible for this sad event.

MacNEIL: Why is he responsible?

Col. KHADAFY: Because he killed many innocent people who stays in the airplane. He's responsible for this loss of life.

MacNEIL: He says that there is a very clear connection between your country and the hijackers.

Col. KHADAFY: We challenge anyone to provide any evidence to prove it is true. I am sure there is no relationship between Libya and this evidence of hijacking.

MacNEIL: Cairo Radio said you provided the funding and the incitement for the hijacking.

Col. KHADAFY: It is just propaganda. But I don't think and all the world doesn't think this action needs any money or any financing.

MacNEIL: How do you explain that your ambassador in Malta went to the plane as it was hijacked on the runway and had some talks with the hijackers and then was recalled to Tripoli? How do you explain that?

Col. KHADAFY: Why don't you ask why the ambassador of America, the ambassador of Greece and the ambassador of Egypt and the ambassador of Algeria, for example, all of them were there in the airport, and it is, I think, in accordance with the demand of the Maltese government to help, or the hijackers themselves made a demand of these people to talk with them. But it means nothing for my country. If we accuse Libya we can accuse in the same time America and Egypt and other countries which their ambassadors were there.

MacNEIL: Egypt says that the hijackers were an anti-Arafat group of Palestinians led by the man known as Abu Nidal. Do you agree that that is the group?

Col. KHADAFY: It does nothing really. We have no information about the nationalities of these people, and you know there are many Palestinian forces against each other, but as, in according -- in accordance with the declaration that they made, they are Egyptians. They belong to Egyptian revolutionary movement called Revolution of Egypt or something like this. The airplane is Egyptian, the hijackers are Egyptians, and the troops that attacked this innocent people and killed them are Egyptian. The whole responsibility is Egyptian one.

MacNEIL: The man who is being held in Malta, the wounded man whom some former passengers on the plane identified as the leader of the hijackers, is said by the Maltese to be a Tunisian.

Col. KHADAFY: What we have to do with this if he is Tunisian or not? Why ask me about this man?

MacNEIL: Let us talk about the consequences. Egypt is reported to have sent military reinforcements to its border with Libya. What have you done on your border?

Col. KHADAFY: Everything in our side is normal. We have no troops there, and if Egypt launches a war against the borders of Libya, that means it will attack civilian targets, cities, and civilian people. We have no troops there, no military force there, and everything in our side is normal. And we don't take this military Egyptian movement seriously because we see no justification for war between the two countries in this moment.

MacNEIL: You do not expect an Egyptian attack on Libya?

Col. KHADAFY: Yes, because there is no -- there is no -- there is no justification at all. Otherwise these people are mad.

MacNEIL: Are you confident that if you ordered it to that your army would come out of its bases and fight Egypt?

Col. KHADAFY: We have no intention at all to fight against Egypt because Egyptian army is an Arabic one and officers and Egyptian soldiers are our brothers.

MacNEIL: It has been reported that you do not trust your own army because when you ordered them to make a raid against Tunis, Tunisia, they in fact turned around and attempted to attack you, but that was stopped.

Col. KHADAFY: It is a funny thing. How you believe that? First of all, we didn't order our army to attack Tunis at all. There were -- there was no reason for war between Libya and Tunis. And if I order my army, they can do. And these officers who are controlling the army, I ordered them in 1969 to throw the King Adris and to change the whole system of Libya from the monarchy to a republic, they accepted my order. In that time I was a lieutenant.

MacNEIL: It was widely noted that on the16th anniversary of that revolution you just referred to, the 16th anniversary in September, for the first time you did not have a military parade, the army stayed away in its base, and there was speculation that you were worried that if the army came out of its base, there might be a revolt against you.

Col. KHADAFY: First of all, you must know it is impossible for a parade to make a coup because it is parade, for parade. This troop is for parade without weapons, without ammunition, anyhow, in other words. How I hear of this, and I am among my people everywhere, among my soldiers everywhere, and we deliberately make a parade of production, industrial and agricultural, and parade of our revolutionary force. The masses, the revolutionary committees everywhere, to show to the world our revolutionary force and our productive force, and our army is available or is on ready.

MacNEIL: Do you fear to be overthrown? You have many unfriendly countries around you now, whereas you used to have friendly countries; for instance, Tunisia. After expelling all the Tunisian workers abruptly, Tunisia is now an unfriendly country to you. Egypt is not a friendly country. President Reagan is reported to have authorized the CIA to assist in clandestine or covert actions against you. Do you fear that your regime may be ended by a coup?

Col. KHADAFY: I am not afraid, and it is not my regime. It is people are the regime. You must know the system, political system in Libya, is people's -- popular one based on people's conferences and people's committees everywhere. The authority now is in the hands of the Libyan people, not in my hand. I am not a president to make a coup against me. If I am out, Libya, the revolutionary system, the popular system which based on people's conferences and people's committees are still strong, and no one can make a coup against the whole people who is carrying all the authority now in Libya. It is jamahiriya, it is the state of masses. There is no government to make a coup against it, no president to make a coup against it, no ruling party to make a coup against it. But also these countries are not my enemy. We distinguish between the rulers, governments, and the peoples. The peoples are with me. Tunisian people, Egyptian people, Chadian people, all these peoples support me and support my revolution. And we are not concerned about these tendencies of the governments and the rulers. They will disappear in future.

MacNEIL: Are you -- would you like to help them disappear? Let's take President Mubarak. You call President Mubarak a traitor to the Arab cause for continuing the deal with the peace with Israel. What do you want to do with President Mubarak? Do you want to overthrow him?

Col. KHADAFY: If he is still supporting our enemy and this support will create danger for the future of our nation, we have to support the Egyptian people and incite this people to make a revolution and to form the Arab unity, and Arabs must stand in one rank against their enemies. And now the demonstrations are starting against the Mubarak regime, and the Egyptian people is against him, and all these peoples around us are against these governments, these traitors, and this -- reactionary political systems, and they will disappear anyhow, with me or without me.

MacNEIL: So your policy is to incite the Egyptian people to rise against Mubarak, is it?

Col. KHADAFY: My policy is a revolutionary one for liberation, for unity.

MacNEIL: Well, you think that you have the right to send an assassination squad into Egypt to try to assassinate the formerLibyan prime minister? Such a squad was caught by Egyptian authorities earlier this month.

Col. KHADAFY: First of all, this person, I sent him and allowed him to go there, and he means nothing. And if he wants to come back no one will do anything against him because he is zero now. And anyhow I am against assassination.

MacNEIL: You are against assassination?

Col. KHADAFY: Pardon?

MacNEIL: You are against assassination?

Col. KHADAFY: I'm against assassination, you must know this.

MacNEIL: Well, it was not a Libyan squad that the Egyptians arrested just as they were about to move in to assassinate your former prime minister in a country house in Egypt?

Col. KHADAFY: It is an individual responsibility.

MacNEIL: I didn't understand. I'm sorry?

Col. KHADAFY: I mean, it is an individual responsibilty, personal responsibility. People in Libya have the right to do what they want.

MacNEIL: That was just somebody acting on his own, you mean?

Col. KHADAFY: Pardon?

MacNEIL: You are saying that assassination group was just a group of Libyans acting on their own?

Col. KHADAFY: Yes.

MacNEIL: And to come back to the hijack incident this week, the hijack incident was not an example of using force to achieve Arab unity?

Col. KHADAFY: No, no. I told you. I am against hijacking planes and to kill hostages, to kill innocent people. I am against this. You must know my motto is revolutionary one. I support the revolution.

MacNEIL: What do you see as the possibility of improving your relations with the United States?

Col. KHADAFY: We declared many times we are ready to resume our relations with the United States of America, but the American administration refused many times to resume these relations. We are sorry to go to this conclusion.

MacNEIL: Did you believe the report that was in the press here that President Reagan had approved a CIA covert activity against you? Did you believe that when you read that report?

Col. KHADAFY: I think it is true, and it is a political scandal like the scandal of Watergate, and I -- we are waiting to see Reagan to be tried in the court because he acted against the Constitution and against the American laws.

MacNEIL: How?

Col. KHADAFY: Because American law doesn't give the President the right to make conspiracies of assassination against other heads of states in the world, and he did that. That means he violated the American law and American Constitution. He must be tried.

MacNEIL: Coming back to your revolution, is the economic situation in Libya, your oil revenues having gone down dramatically over the last four years, is that undermining the popularity of your revolution?

Col. KHADAFY: No, no, no, because my people is in the authority. The authority is in the hands of my people, and they know the crisis -- economic crisis in the world, the people knows very well the problem of oil and how many money can they get every year and what they want because it is not the responsibility of the government -- in Libya it is not government. All the people is government -- people's congresses, people's committees are everywhere. And all these things are in the hands of the people. The people [unintelligible] itself. No other one is responsible. [unintelligible] think, and they are responsible for everything in Libya.

MacNEIL: Well, Colonel Khadafy, thank you very much for giving us your time today.

Col. KHADAFY: Thank you. Thank you very much. Good-bye.

LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a debate over whether the United States should protect its industries from foreign competition, a look at why there's so much excitement about a comet called Halley's, and an essay on Rocky IV and the Russians. Over-Protected?

LEHRER: The U.S. trade deficit went up at a 26 slower rate in October than it did in September. That is what is called good news by those in the international trade business and creates a most appropriate time to mount a debate over protectionism, which we do now under the auspices of Judy Woodruff. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Despite the temporary good news about the trade deficit, most economists expect it to resume its dangerous climb next year. That has given rise, as Jim suggested, to a flurry of calls in Congress for new protection for American goods. At the same time, there are those who believe we already protect too many goods. It is estimated that almost a quarter of the goods produced in the U.S. are protected from foreign competition by restrictions on imported goods. These protections cost consumers here billions of dollars each year. A stiff quota on sugar imports, for example, inflates domestic prices. Sugar sells for an average of 20 a pound wholesale in the U.S., four times what it sells for on European wholesale markets. Tariffs also raise the price of clothing, steel, shoes, motorcycles and other consumer goods. Yesterday I spoke with Gary Hufbauer, a professor at Georgetown University, and Robert Kuttner, economics correspondent for The New Republic, about trade policies in the United States. I asked Professor Hufbauer just how protectionist this nation is.

GARY HUFBAUER: Putting this in overall perspective, we control about 20 of our imports, as you said, and the overall cost to U.S. consumers of all this protection is about $60 billion a year. Now, how does that compare with Europe, how does that compare with Japan? Estimates of this detail that I've given you have not been done for Europe or Japan, but my impression is that we are somewhat less protectionist than either of those countries, but we're not miles apart; we're yards apart.

WOODRUFF: What does that mean for our economy? Is it good or bad?

Prof. HUFBAUER: Well, in my judgment it's terrible. In my judgment what we're doing is taking resources, money, from my pocket and your pocket. It comes to about $500 per working person per year.

WOODRUFF: Five hundred dollars?

Prof. HUFBAUER: Five hundred per person per year to give to a whole range of industries -- the ones you mentioned, maritime, dairy; the list goes on indefinitely, or seemingly indefinitely -- to keep these industries alive. Now, I don't advocate that this protectionism ought to be terminated immediately, but some of them we have kept alive since the beginning of the Republic, some since 1890. It's time to take a very different tack. So it's a very expensive proposition, and it diverts our resources into, I would say most charitably, sunset lines of production.

WOODRUFF: You say it's time to take a different tack. What do you mean? Just withdraw some of it?

Prof. HUFBAUER: Sure. What I mean by a different tack is take some of those resources that we're putting into protection and put them into retraining, relocation and early retirement for the workers so that they can go into new areas, so that we don't have another generation of apparel and textile workers, as this generation has been, trapped in a low-paying industry and kept from opportunities elsewhere in this economy. That's what I mean by something new, something different.

WOODRUFF: Robert Kuttner, let me go to you. Do you agree with Mr. Hufbauer's description of how protectionist the United States is?

ROBERT KUTTNER: I think the question is not whether to protect or not to protect, because everybody engages in some degree of protection. The question is whether you engage in protection simply in a defensive, ad hoc way, guiltily, as we do, and then deny that you're doing it, or do you engage in some strategic protection in service of the development of new dynamic industries?

WOODRUFF: What about the argument, though, that this is so very costly for American consumers, that we end up paying billions of dollars more than we would otherwise?

Mr. KUTTNER: The costs that you calculate, that you ascribe to this protectionism are very much a function of the assumptions that you crank into your equations. This sort of static analysis that says that since you can get the same products cheaper overseas and therefore it takes so many billions of dollars out of consumers' pockets totally leaves out of the calculation the dynamic gains of developing an industry in your country. Again, I would give you the Japanese or the Brazilians. Any orthodox economist advising a developing country whether to target a particular industry for development would have said, using this sort of static calculation, that you can buy this product cheaper abroad; therefore, you shouldn't develop that industry. And yet these developing countries, very rightly so, ignored the advice of these orthodox economists and decided that they would do better off targeting these industries, so they were perfectly free to protect and, using the shelter of this protection, develop some industries that otherwise would not have been available to them. So I think you have to look at this dynamically.

WOODRUFF: Professor Hufbauer, you heard what he said, that there are industries that need to be protected if they're going to get on their feet and survive.

Prof. HUFBAUER: If I can, let me summarize what I understand to be the Kuttner syllogism. Here it is. Japan has done very well indeed. Japan has targeted and protected some dynamic industries; therefore, the United States should target and protect dynamic industries. I have many problems with this syllogism, but let me just give you a few of them. Problem number one is that Japan's growth is essentially caused by the very high savings rate and the very high literacy in that country, achievements which have nothing to do with trade policy. Problem number two is that the trade policy which Japan could use, namely, seeing in 1950 or 1960 that the steel industry was the industry to go with, was a trade policy which the United States cannot use. In 1950 you could say, look, our productivity is, let's say, 100 tons per year per man, and the U.S. productivity is 300 tons, and we can do a lot better. The Japanese had a target to focus on --

WOODRUFF: All right. I was just going to say, let's bring this as much as we can back around to American industry because that's what we're discussing.

Prof. HUFBAUER: Okay. Well, getting right to that point, what are we going to target on today? Which country can you look at which is so far in advance of the United States today that we should say, oh, good, let's copy that country? Now, point three, Mr. Kuttner --

WOODRUFF: You mean we're really doing very well?

Prof. HUFBAUER: We're doing very well. We're very close to the frontier in nearly all our industries. Sure, there's competition in 256K rams, there's competition in biotechnology. But we're not way behind the Japanese. We may be in some areas a little bit behind. Now, problem number three is that in this industrial targeting area the landscape is littered with failures. In his writings Bob Kuttner does not mention the failures. Let me mention a few of them. Concorde.

WOODRUFF: In other words, you're saying it hasn't always worked overseas?

Prof. HUFBAUER: It hasn't always worked, and it hasn't always worked in this country, either. Oil shale. Remember oil shale. We put a lot of targeting in that industry, and it has not succeeded.

WOODRUFF: All right, Mr. Kuttner, what about that, and are you saying -- let me ask you. Are you saying we should be protecting every industry in this country, or just certain industries?

Mr. KUTTNER: No. First of all, I'm certainly not saying that we should be protecting every industry. I'm saying simply this. Contrary to what they teach in Economics 101, the real world is a complicated mix of some free trade and some planning and some protectionism. Rather than being the only kid on the block that plays by free trade rules or that tries to pretend that we play by free trade rules, we ought to acknowledge that reality, and we ought to sit down with our trading partners and negotiate a set of ground rules that accurately describe what the world actually does and what the world wants to do. And that reality, I think, is as follows. In some product areas, most countries want to have open trade, but at the same time most countries want to be free to have industrial policies in certain products, and I think we ought to recognize that reality. As Professor Hufbauer indicates --

WOODRUFF: So you're saying we need a mix?

Mr. KUTTNER: We need a mix of planning and free trade, we need to recognize that that's the reality, and we need some ground rules that everybody can agree to.

WOODRUFF: Let me just go back on that point to Professor Hufbauer. What about that? He's saying that we need a mix --

Prof. HUFBAUER: Right. My argument to that, or my response to that is the other guy is shooting himself in the foot, so let's shoot ourselves in the foot. Sure, he's absolutely right that many countries practice this managed trade and so forth. I don't think it's good for the United States. And we do it, too, but I'm not saying we should do more of it. I think he's saying we should do more of it. I'm saying we will be much better off doing far less of it.

Mr. KUTTNER: I want to take issue with two particular things that Professor Hufbauer said a moment ago. First of all, I don't think the other guys are shooting themselves in the foot. Japan has had a higher growth rate than we have; they've had higher productivity growth. On the whole they've had a pretty good success rate of targeting advanced technologies for development. and now that they've become the leader they can be more in favor of free trade. But if you go to Japan, you find that the Japanese are all in favor of free trade where their exports are concerned, but they're still fairly protectionist where their imports are concerned.

WOODRUFF: You're not buying that?

Prof. HUFBAUER: I'm not buying that at all, but -- if I can get a word in.

WOODRUFF: One more, quickly.

Mr. KUTTNER: On Professor Hufbauer's other point about the history of this, it is true that in the '50s Japanese planning looked to what the United States was doing and sought to emulate it. But in the '80s Japan and the United States are both at roughly the same technological frontiers, and when Japan targets 256K rams or photovoltaics or ceramics or other advanced technologies, they are not targeting in order to imitate. They are targeting in order to lead.

WOODRUFF: Okay, anyway, you're saying they set a great example and we ought to follow it, and you're saying --

Mr. KUTTNER: No, I'm not saying that simply because there are a lot of things culturally about Japan different from the United States. We have to develop our own version of this.

WOODRUFF: Okay, all right.

Prof. HUFBAUER: All right. Mr. Kuttner has chosen one country which has been very successful, Japan. India follows nearly the same commercial practice as Japan; India has not succeeded nearly to the same extent as Japan. Many, many countries have followed these commercial practices. I submit to you that Japan's success is not due to these commercial practices. Japan has lots of failures, and they're not mentioned. Petrochemicals, aluminum. Shipbuilding is now a sick industry in Japan. Many, many problems from this targeting policy. And I submit to you Japan would be far better off if they went to freer trade.

WOODRUFF: I have a feeling that the two of you didn't come any closer together tonight in your views, but thank you both, Robert Kuttner and Professor Gary Hufbauer, for being with us.

Prof. HUFBAUER: Thank you. Comet Craze

LEHRER: Halley's Comet is now, right now, 57.7 million miles from earth, and that is as close as it will get to us this year as it begins its first loop around the sun since 1910. Watching Halley's Comet now and in the spring, when the sight gets more spectacular, is a big deal to a lot of people, some of whom live in Los Angeles. Our report on them is by Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET-Los Angeles.

JEFFREY KAYE, KCET [voice-over]: Griffith Observatory used to be a place to get away from it all. Not any more. These days tourists and residents alike say this is one of the best spots in Hollywood to see the stars, the celestial kind. Even overcast skies do not keep the crowds away.

ANNOUNCER [voice-over]: Seating is now available in our planetarium theater for Griffith Observatory's current planetarium show entitled "Comet Halley's 1985-1986 World Tour."

KAYE [voice-over]: Twenty thousand people a week have been streaming to the observatory, providing Director Ed Krupp with a logistical headache.

ED KRUPP, observatory director: Our attendance, general attendance, has doubled. Our attendance at planetarium shows has better than tripled. The sale of merchandise is up by a factor of four, and the same is true for the people coming to the telescope.

KAYE [voice-over]: Halley's Comet is a box-office smash, even for those who are seeing it as a rerun. It was last visible from earth in 1910. The co-producer of the home video about Halley's Comet, science writer Roger Bingham, sees the comet's regular earthly visits as a large part of its attraction.

ROGER BINGHAM, science writerfiproducer: It's a huge snowball that comes and visits our solar system once in every 76 years on average. That's a fairly impressive thing to happen. You see, it stitches the generations together, links the generations so there are people in the observatory there who are called second-timers, who actually saw the thing when it came by in 1910.

KAYE [voice-over]: This time around the reception for the comet is a far cry from the hysteria which greeted it in 1910, as Nell Christian and Lillian Little remember.

LILLIAN LITTLE: Well, everybody's crazy when they see it and everything, and they're not scared. They're not scared anymore. They were just petrified.

NELL CHRISTIAN: People were afraid the tail would come off that comet and it'd be the end of the world. We're not afraid nowadays, you know.

KAYE [voice-over]: The show at the Griffith Observatory teaches as much history as science, with special attention devoted to the entrepreneurial spirit surrounding the comet's previous visit.

NARRATOR, planetarium show: Two men sold hundreds of comet pills to superstitious Texans. The pills were a harmless mix of sugar and quinine. Almost everyone got into the act. In fact, the following music is called, "The Halley Rag."

KAYE [voice-over]: The current return visit of Halley's Comet is not without its commercialism. The observatory's gift shop is selling everything from face painting to replicas of the 1910 comet pills.

PHILLIP DAVED, store clerk: There's a lot of Halley's Comet fever on these days. Everybody is buying things, no matter what it is. Tee shirts and pins seem to be the hottest-selling items, and other items that sell well tend to be the pencils, the bandannas, the books and the hats.

KAYE [voice-over]: Buying related memorabilia is one thing, and actually seeing a comet is another. At Griffith Observatory, guide Mike Anselmo gives lessons on looking at the comet. He recommends binoculars over expensive telescopes, particularly if you want to see the comet's long tail, which should appear in mid-December.

ED ANSELMO, guide: Again, it's a wider field of view, it's a lower magnification, and they're cheap. You can take them anywhere. A telescope takes a long time to set up. Binoculars, have them around your neck and, boom, you're looking right at it within seconds if you know exactly where to look.

KAYE [voice-over]: Knowing where to look is another trick. Here again the observatory comes to the rescue with a handy-dandy chart.

Mr. ANSELMO: This will tell you more or less where to look for the comet and what it's going to be looking like. So if you look right now, in November, it's still a little blotch, a little dot.

KAYE [voice-over]: This little dot is what the comet looks like now, as seen through a 40-power telescope. The blinking lights are static on the tape. This blotch falls short of the expectations of many children, who seem to be expecting a vision of biblical dimensions.

[interviewing] What do you think you're going to see?

1st KID: A big ball of fire.

2nd KID: A planet, just flying around.

3rd KID: I don't know. A reball.

4th KID: A ball with a tail that's flying through the sky.

KAYE [voice-over]: For those who came to the observatory this weekend to see the comet, a picture was the best they could get. The sky was so overcast you could barely see the moon. Still, the cloud cover was no match for comet fever, even if would-be viewers had to settle for the lights of the city instead of the heavens. Those without telescopes or binoculars made the best of it.

LEHRER: That report was the work of Jeffery Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles. The director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles is astronomer Edwin Krupp. He wrote a children's book about Halley's Comet called The Comet and You, which, among other things, describes the comet's orbit as being as long as 72 trillion hot dogs. The book won the American Institute of Physics annual science writing award. Dr. Krupp is with us now in Los Angeles. First, Dr. Krupp, how did you go about establishing the fact that it's 72 trillion hot dogs long, the orbit of Halley's Comet?

EDWIN KRUPP: Well, clearly we know how long the orbit is in miles. It's about seven billion miles. But when you think of a number like that it's hard to make sense of it, and so I was trying to come up with an image that was a little bit more familiar and concrete, and noticed that the orbit is sort of flattened like a hot dog, and the next thing I knew I was calculating hot dogs.

LEHRER: By orbit you mean literally orbit around the sun. Halley's Comet is going around the sun, right?

Dr. KRUPP: Right. It takes 76 years, of course, to complete that circuit. It takes it all the way out to the eighth planet and beyond it, really, planet Neptune, and then comes back again. So it was making its turn back our way around 1948.

LEHRER: All right, now, it's very close to us now, very close meaning 57 million miles, but there really isn't that much to see last night and today. Is that right?

Dr. KRUPP: No, it's quite true. The comet is still developing, and of course right now it hasn't become a really bright object, and the moon is giving trouble, too, at this time. As the year goes by and the weeks go by into the next year, we'll get a better view of it. It will brighten up. It's actually a little brighter than it should be. We expect the end of December, the first couple of weeks in January to be pretty good, and then spring, too, ought to be better.

LEHRER: Now, what will it look like when it's at its best?

Dr. KRUPP: I would imagine if we're lucky, and you're in a southern location, especially, say, around the middle of April or so, you can look out to the south and you'll see something that does look like a comet. It has a head and it has a tail, just as it should, about as bright as the North Star, with a tail maybe as bright as the Milky Way and as long, perhaps, as, well, 40 full moons strung one after another. So it will look like a comet, no question about it, but it's not as close to us this time as it was in 1910, so it won't be as bright as it was then. If you can't see the Milky Way where you are, you won't see the comet.

LEHRER: Will it be moving? I mean, streaking across the sky, as we are led to believe comets do?

Dr. KRUPP: Now, that's a really good question and an important point. Most people kind of associate comets with shooting stars or meteors that are there just for a moment. But the comet comes -- well, it rises as a star or the moon rises and crosses the sky over a slow and stately pace and sets again. So you would see the comet each and every night over a course of many weeks, even months, as we'll have the chance to do.

LEHRER: And the best place to go is the furthest south you can go, is that right? You mean literally south of the United States into Mexico, South America, the whole bit?

Dr. KRUPP: As far south as you can go, the better off you'll be. I suppose Antarctica is a destination of diminishing returns, but many people are taking cruises and trips to the southern hemisphere. Of course, the southern half of the United States does have a pretty good chance of seeing the comet in April, even though it'll be low in the sky, provided they out where it's dark.

LEHRER: Is there anything to this at all, really, though, Dr. Krupp, other than just seeing something pretty in the sky?

Dr. KRUPP: Well, sure there is. Now, I think for all of us there is the meaning, the story that the comet tells us. This is a comet that does have human value. After all, the first emperor of China saw this story when he was building the Great Wall for the first time. Julius Caesar saw it when he was a boy. So this comet has a human value that we each get to partake of, and it's a reference, really, in our own lives as it passes by.

LEHRER: But how do you know it's the same comet that Julius Caesar saw?

Dr. KRUPP: Oh, that's also a good question. We are able to look over the records that people in the past have kept of the comet coming by and, indeed, this is why it's named after Halley. He was the first person to recognize that a comet seen in 1531 and 1607 and that he saw in 1682 were all the same comet, based on his analysis of its motions. Of course, he got Newton and his law of gravity to help him figure that out. And then he predicted it would come back in 1759. A cold Christmas night in 1758, almost the next year, a Saxony farmer named Johann Palitzsch was the first person to see Halley's Comet again.

LEHRER: I see. And when it comes and goes this time, when will be the next time it'll come back?

Dr. KRUPP: Well, the comet will return to our territory again in 76 years, which is about the year 2061. So the kids of today will be grandparents then, but they'll have a chance to see the comet perhaps two times. In fact, we're even putting together a time capsule with photographs and letters from kids of today. They come back to the observatory [in] 76 years, open it up and see what they looked like when they first put those cards and letters in there.

LEHRER: And it looks essentially the same each 76 years?

Dr. KRUPP: Well, it looks like a comet each 76 years, but this of course is the real value in studying comets as well. We want to see what kind of changes they undergo. Now, I think for the most part Halley's Comet will look like Halley's Comet the next time around, but the differences that sometimes occur are just how close we happen by chance to pass to the comet. In 1910 we were closer and we got a better view. This time we're not going to get quite so good a view.

LEHRER: All right, well, Dr. Krupp, I'll see you here in 76 years and we'll talk about it again.

Dr. KRUPP: My pleasure.

LEHRER: Thank you, sir. Patriotic Punches

MacNEIL: Finally tonight, an essay on U.S.-Soviet relations. Last week the world's attention was focused on Reagan and Gorbachev in Geneva. This week the focus is on a boxing ring in the Soviet Union where the American Rocky Balboa goes toe to toe with the Russian, Drago, in the just-released movie Rocky IV. Our essayist is Nina Darnton, who writes for The New York Times' Arts and Leisure section.

NINA DARNTON, The New York Times: Now that the summit conference is safely behind us, the commentators are calling it a split decision. Neither President Reagan nor Mikhail Gorbachev laid a glove on the other. All in all, it seemed more like a welterweight bout than the heavyweight title match we'd been expecting. But don't despair, sports fans. The real fight takes place tonight in theaters around the country. In Rocky IV, untroubled by subtlety and unhampered by reality, East meets West, head on.

PROMO NARRATOR: Rocky IV.

DARNTON [voice-over]: Rocky Balboa is back, and he's a long way from Philadelphia. He's headed for Siberia to fight none other than Drago, Soviet man of the future, genetically engineered, trained by the most modern scientific computers, a machine man, impossible to defeat -- except, of course, by virtue. And who in the American cinema is more virtuous, if less articulate, than Rocky Balboa?

SYLVESTER STALLONE, as Rocky Balboa in "Rocky IV": Can't change anything. All we can do is just go with what we are.

DARNTON [voice-over]: No one, except maybe Rambo.

Mr. STALLONE, as "Rambo": Murdoch, I'm coming to get you.

DARNTON [voice-over]: Both characters are designed to extoll the frontier values of American individuality and plain old-fashioned guts, and both characters never lose. Rambo rewrites the history of the VietnamWar, as it might have been, according to Sylvester Stallone's fantasy, if the bureaucrats and politicians had just allowed Americans to be Americans. Rocky, the only underdog who always comes out on top, stands in the ring with his American-flag boxer shorts and shows us that even if you're losing you can win by going one more round and not giving in to despair. Perhaps it's no accident that the movie's opening and the summit conference occur within a week of each other. Maybe Mr. Stallone was courting comparisons in order to help sell the film. But the summit is pale stuff compared to the larger-than-life images on the movie screen, where we hear the sound of super-amplified punches as fists pound relentlessly against bleeding flesh.

Which images will Americans, especially the young ones, remember a few months from now? President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev walking through the gardens of a Geneva chateau, or Rocky and Drago sneering at each other across a boxing ring? What image of the Russians will be more persuasive and longer-lasting? The summit image -- a smiling, affable Mr. Gorbachev, or the movie villain, a monstrous, neo-Nazi machine man? My money is on the movie. There is something very appealing about Mr. Stallone's world view. Perhaps that's why his films are so popular. Americans are longing for a clear-cut, down-for-the-count victory, a simpler world where time is measured and conflicts resolved in three-minute rounds instead of decades, where there are winners and losers and old-fashioned virtues come out ahead. We're tired of the real nuclear world with its endless compromises, diplomacy and complexities. Not that there is no complexity in a "Rocky" film. Of course there is. Occasionally he sees several sides of the same issue.

Mr. STALLONE, as Balboa: I see three of them out there.

TRAINER: Hit the one in the middle.

DARNTON [voice-over]: But, alas, the world refuses to live up to Mr. Stallone's ideal. Outside the boxing arena, the greatest victory is compromise, a message Rocky refuses to learn, and a lesson his fans will never accept.

LEHRER: And we close with the Lurie cartoon of the day, another post-summit view of a post-summit view.

[Lurie cartoon -- President Reagan relaxes in front of the television to see, "what my new friend, Gorby, really thinks about our summit," when a Soviet arm reaches out from the set and dumps a drink on the U.S. commander in chief.]

MacNEIL: Once again the main stories of the day. On the NewsHour, Libyan leader Muammar Khadafy denied involvement in the Egyptian airliner hijacking. Egypt asked Malta to hand over the surviving hijacker. Soviet leader Gorbachev blamed President Reagan for the lack of an arms agreement at Geneva. The monthly foreign trade deficit went down in October. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin. Have a great Thanksgiving Day, and we'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.