The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. These are the main news headlines tonight. Rescuers pulled hundreds of survivors from Colombia's volcano disaster, but an estimated 20,000 died. Britain and Ireland signed a historic agreement giving Dublin a say in Northern Ireland. Wholesale prices showed the largest monthly rise in four years. The Soviet press said President Reagan was trying to downgrade the summit. Details of these and other stories coming up. Judy Woodruff is in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: We have three focus segments on the NewsHour tonight, beginning with the volcano in Colombia. We hear about U.S. efforts to aid the Colombians, and a volcano expert explains what led to its eruption. Then a senior Irish official and an American congressman debate the new accord for Ireland. Next, the Geneva summit. We continue our series of preliminary reports by looking at the personal chemistry likely between Reagan and Gorbachev. And finally a cross-section of news editors on their expectations for the summit.News Summary

MacNEIL: In Colombia, rescue workers pulled survivors from the sea of mud that engulfed the town of Armero after the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano. Hundreds were found alive, but thousands remained buried in the mud. At daybreak today, rescue helicopters resumed shuttling survivors to hospitals in Bogota. As a dark column of steam and ash rose from the volcano, tremors were felt today, but only light seismic activity was recorded. Our report from the scene is by Jan Fisher of Independent News.

JAN FISHER, Independent News [voice-over]: For two days, helicopters have been making dramatic rescues in this mountain valley near Armero, Colombia. Men, women and children, their skin burned by volcanic ash, their bodies caked in mud, faces dazed and in shock. Some of them awakening from a nightmare caused by the eruption of the volcano Nevada del Rio Ruiz. Wednesday night its roar shattered the quiet countryside and smothered an entire town 50 kilometers away. Homes disappeared in a cascade of water and mud. Today nearby villagers stood in awe as others searched for signs of life. There wasn't much to be found. Farm animals trapped with nowhere to run tell a morbid story. At another corner, the statue of Armero's patron saint somehow miraculously escaped the devastation. Carlos Marina used a bulldozer in hopes of finding pieces of his home. Marina's wife and four-year-old daughter may still be here. This sign used to mark the location of a gas station. Now it is all that's left. As far as the eye can see, the land is gray and flat. It smells of death.

[on camera] The destruction here is more than unbelievable; it is awesome. Over there used to be a country club, and still, down there, the town plaza and a church. And somewhere, 15 feet below the mud, could be 32,000 people.

MacNEIL: In Washington, President Reagan sent a message to Colombia saying he was stunned to learn of the devastation and promising help. The Agency for International Development said three Air Force transport planes flew today from bases in Panama with support equipment for 12 helicopters as well as 500 tents and 4,500 blankets. This afternoon the Colombian ambassador to the U.S., Rodrigo Lloreda, met with American disaster relief specialists. The ambassador said even while rescue and cleanup efforts continue, there is a fear of new eruptions.

RODRIGO LLOREDA, Colombian Ambassador to the U.S.: There is a real threat that the volcano might be reactivating in the near future. It's hot, it's melting the glaciers and the snow in the high areas of the mountains. And it could -- new rivers could be flooded and mud slides could form, and towns could be threatened. And evacuation proceedings are taking place at this point, especially in the low areas, that could eventually be harmed.

MacNEIL: The American Red Cross cautioned against sending food or clothing directly, but suggested sending checks to the Red Cross or one of the many private groups involved in relief efforts. Judy?

WOODRUFF: History was made in Northern Ireland today. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain and Irish Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald came there to sign an agreement giving the Irish government a voice in running Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland while keeping British sovereignty over the province. We have a report from John Simpson of the BBC.

JOHN SIMPSON, BBC [voice-over]: The agreement which Mrs. Thatcher and Dr. FitzGerald had come here to sign was based on recognition of the two traditions within Northern Ireland: the unionist and Protestant one as well as the nationalist Catholic one. Mrs. Thatcher wasn't handing Northern Ireland over to rule from Dublin. Dr. FitzGerald wasn't giving up the aspiration to a united Ireland. What they were doing was trying to make the present system, including the police, the courts, the UDR, acceptable to the Catholic minority and to make a genuine devolved government possible in Northern Ireland.

MARGARET THATCHER, Prime Minister, Britain: I went into this agreement because I was not prepared to tolerate a situation of continuing violence. I want to offer hope to young people particularly that the cycle of violence and conflict can be broken.

GARRET FITZGERALD, Prime Minister, Ireland: Our purpose is to secure equal recognition and respect for the two identities in Northern Ireland. Nationalists can now raise their heads knowing that their position is and is seen to be on an equal footing with that of members of the unionist community.

SIMPSON [voice-over]: This time, unlike last year's summit, Dr. FitzGerald seemed confident with what had been decided, and Mrs. Thatcher, though she made no secret of which side she was on, was careful not to be dismissive in setting out her view of the agreement. Whether unionists and loyalists here will recognize Mrs. Thatcher as one of their own after this seems hardly likely. But there is a conscious attempt to make the whole thing easier for people here to swallow. And there's a sweetener of a big American aid package. And as Dr. FitzGerald had put it, delicately, countries in Europe and elsewhere might want to show their solidarity, too.

WOODRUFF: The reaction in the United States was led by President Reagan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who put aside their political differences long enough today to hail the new agreement. They met a crowd of news reporters and photographers in the Oval Office at the White House.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: We'redelighted that this has come about, and we hope in a bipartisan way that we can go forward with anything we can do to help, and they have agreed to -- the two governments to help in restoring sound economics there. And anything we can do to encourage private investment that would provide prosperity and employment for their people. It has been, we think, a great breakthrough and shows great promise.

Rep. THOMAS P. O'NEILL, Speaker of the House: I think it is very courageous on the part of the leaders of the English government and the government of Ireland to get together to try to work out, to solve the problems of Northern Ireland. Any means that we can use in the Congress of the United States to help bring peace in Northern Ireland, I assure you that they'll have the full cooperation of the Congress -- there's no question in my mind.

WOODRUFF: Back in Ireland, however, the reaction was not all supportive. Most of the criticism came from Protestants who don't want an Irish hand in running Northern Ireland. Militant leader Ian Paisley said his forces would resist to the death what he called any sellout by the British government. But the Catholics who want no British involvement weren't quiet either. The predominantly Catholic Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for a land mine that went off near the Irish border, killing one policeman and wounding another.

MacNEIL: President Reagan, who flies to Geneva tomorrow, got final pre-summit briefings today. He also got a letter from 34 senators saying they backed his Strategic Defense Initiative. The White House said the senators urged the President to stand firm and refuse to use Star Wars as a bargaining chip.

The Soviet press accused Mr. Reagan of trying to reduce the importance of the summit. Reacting to last night's televised speech stressing the need for wider cultural exchanges, the commentator of the government press agency Novosti called it "a last-ditch attempt to steer the summit away from arms limitation matters in the direction of secondary and peripheral issues."

WOODRUFF: The war of words between CIA director William Casey and senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee heated up another notch today. It all started when committee chairman Republican Senator David Durenberger was quoted in a news story as criticizing Casey and the CIA for lacking a sense of direction. Then last night, Casey fired off a public letter to Durenberger in which he among things accused the committee of compromising sensitive intelligence sources by talking to the news media and abusing the committee's oversight responsibilities. Today the Democratic vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, came to Durenberger's defense.

Sen. PATRICK LEAHY, (D) Vermont: What I am concerned about is that there seems to be a wholesale attack within the past few weeks on the oversight mechanism itself. The CIA and the other intelligence agencies have to realize that, first, oversight has actually helped them. We've improved their position in the government, certainly improved their budgets and improved their capabilities. We've also improved by oversight their credibility. Secondly, if anybody thinks it's going to go back to the good old days of the Bay of Pigs and Salvador Allende and Patrice Lumumba(?) and those -- that's not going to happen. That's simply not going to happen. The American people are not going to stand for it.

MacNEIL: Wholesale prices took a big leap in October, but economists did not take it as a sign of new inflation. The wholesale price index rose 0.9 , the largest rise in four years. The major factor was higher prices for new cars as manufacturers dropped discounts used to clear out inventories.

WOODRUFF: Disciples of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh said today that they would sell their 93 Rolls-Royces now that the Indian guru has left the United States. But they vowed to maintain their commune in Oregon on a smaller, less affluent scale. Rajneesh left the country early today after pleading guilty to two federal immigration charges. He was expected to arrive in his native India by the end of the day, where he planned to live in an undeveloped area of the Himalayan mountains.

In the African nation of Liberia, head of state Samuel Doe said today that the military officer responsible for an attempt to overthrow his government three days ago has been shot and killed by one of Doe's bodyguards. In a radio broadcast, Doe also said that the Liberian capital of Monrovia was tense, and he imposed a dawn-to-dusk [sic] curfew. He said anyone found on the streets after a certain hour would be executed on the spot.

MacNEIL: That's our news summary. Coming up, in the aftermath of the Colombian volcano, the recovery effort and the science of what causes them. Then the new agreement between Ireland and Britain, the summit chemistry for Reagan and Gorbachev, and what some American newspaper editors are expecting from Geneva. Colombia: Dealing with Disaster

WOODRUFF: In the past two days, the American government has sent helicopters, planes, tents, blankets and technical assistance to aid the survivors of the volcano disaster in Colombia. That effort has been orchestrated by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Jay Morris is the agency's deputy administrator as well as the President's acting special coordinator for disaster assistance.

Mr. Morris, first of all, are those items that I mentioned what AID is sending to Colombia?

JAY MORRIS: That's what we've sent thus far. In the past 24 hours these items have totaled a million dollars' worth of assistance to aid in the search and rescue and evacuation of those that were affected by this disaster.

WOODRUFF: Now, are you able to get through to the most devastated areas around the volcano?

Mr. MORRIS: Through the helicopters, yes.

WOODRUFF: So you feel confident that you're getting through?

Mr. MORRIS: Yes.

WOODRUFF: What sort of figures do you all have at this point on the death count?

Mr. MORRIS: None, really. As your film clip showed so graphically, bodies are scattered as far as the eye can see in some places, and of course many others are probably not visible to the eye in 20-feet-deep mud slides that have occurred. We don't know, no one knows. Estimates range between 10 and 20,000, as they have for the last day, and that hasn't changed.

WOODRUFF: What about the number who are now without homes? Is it the same situation?

Mr. MORRIS: Same thing. In the remote area there are isolated pockets of individuals, and we won't know much more substantively I don't think for another 24 or 48 hours.

WOODRUFF: How much more difficult does that make your job in getting through to these people? Because you just don't know the magnitude of this disaster.

Mr. MORRIS: Well, it's frustrating in the sense that we've done a number of things to be prepared to do more. We have rescue experts on standby in Dade County and Boise, Idaho. We have supplies ready to be loaded in Panama and New Windsor, Maryland. But we don't want to send in people and things that may not be needed or in quantities that are too great or inadequate. And until we get more specific details, we just have to wait.

WOODRUFF: Well, how are you finding that out? You've got people down there, I presume, and you're --

Mr. MORRIS: Yes. We and the Colombian government are working very, very closely together. As you noted earlier, the ambassador from Colombia and I met, and met with our disaster specialists in AID this afternoon. And the Pan-American Health Organization, whom we're relying upon for medical advice, has a team assessing medical needs in the field now. All these people are out there doing these surveys, and we'll be hearing from them very shortly.

WOODRUFF: So in the meantime what do you do? You just send what you think is needed, and until you know --

Mr. MORRIS: What we know is already needed in quantity, and we get the rest ready to go as soon as we get the specific amounts and locations where it's required.

WOODRUFF: Do you feel confident that you're going to have what's needed when it's needed?

Mr. MORRIS: Yes.

WOODRUFF: You feel that it's there; it's just a matter of waiting for the specifics.

Mr. MORRIS: Yes. One point, though. Earlier in the newscast someone mentioned that an appeal was made this afternoon for cash donations. I want to underscore that. Whenever there's a disaster like this -- in Colombia, earlier in Mexico, and before that in Bangladesh, with that typhoon -- Americans naturally want to step forward with what they have in hand -- canned food, clothing, whatever. That really isn't the answer. Quite often those things aren't what are required. Cash enables us to buy supplies in the country, or immediately next door,

WOODRUFF: It's not needed -- it's not wanted because you don't know if that's what --

Mr. MORRIS: It may not be appropriate. If you need to buy 10,000 syringes, it might be faster if we had the cash to buy it if they were made in Colombia or nearby in Panama, than to ship down 20,000 cans of food.

WOODRUFF: So if somebody wants to help, what should they do?

Mr. MORRIS: Well, the Colombian government has set up a bank account in the National Bank of Washington, Van Ness branch on Connecticut Avenue. The exact address is 4330 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington. And cash donations will be received there and passed through to American private and voluntary organizations like Save the Children and Catholic Relief and CARE and Partners of the Americas, and they will buy in the field the things that are needed. Cash is what is needed.

WOODRUFF: But people could also send donations to those agencies directly themselves.

Mr. MORRIS: Directly. Absolutely. Certainly.

WOODRUFF: Okay. Jay Morris, we thank you very much for being with us.

Mr. MORRIS: Sure. My pleasure.

WOODRUFF: Although scientists couldn't predict exactly when the volcano would erupt, Wednesday's explosion was not entirely unexpected. The Nevada del Ruiz volcano is part of a huge belt of volcanos and earthquake zones that roughly encircles the Pacific Ocean, an area known as the "ring of fire." It's a chain that includes Washington State's Mt. St. Helens, which erupted in May of 1980, and the Indonesian island of Krakatoa, where the worst volcano disaster in history killed 36,000 people in 1883. Here to tell us more about what led up to Wednesday's disaster and what may be brewing elsewhere is Robert Tilling, a volcano expert with the U.S. Geological Survey.

First of all, Dr. Tilling, we've been hearing that this may not have been the end of this volcano, that there may be further eruptions. What can you tell us about that?

ROBERT TILLING: Well, certainly by analogy to other volcanos of similar type around the ring of fire that you mentioned, the typical -- or if there is a typical pattern for such eruptions, is to have a climactic eruption such as we had two days ago, to be followed by a series of smaller eruptions. These may involve ash emissions; these may involve lava flow. In any case, I think the probability's low that we have another large eruption like we've had, but we expect continued activity for days or weeks.

WOODRUFF: So the people there are still in some danger, is that right? I mean, how serious could the followup eruptions be?

Dr. TILLING: Well, I think the greatest hazard right now are those still posed by the mud flows. If indeed the volcano continues to be active or becomes active again, this would trigger more mud flows down already these unstable valleys, with then consolidated mud and debris. And so that's the greatest danger right now.

WOODRUFF: In other words, it's not the lava; it's whatever bit of lava comes out, melts the ice and --

Dr. TILLING: Exactly. Precisely. I think that will continue to constitute the greatest source of hazard, would be the lava -- the mud flows, sorry.

WOODRUFF: Some of the survivors, we read, were complaining today that the officials at first, when the ashes started coming out of the mountain, told them not to evacuate. How do you explain that?

Dr. TILLING: Now, I myself have not heard direct accounts of that. In some cases I would imagine that in such situations people are usually reluctant to leave their homes and their farm plots and so forth. If that indeed is the case, people were advised to evacuate but chose not to, I don't know in such case whether the government would feel compelled to enforce evacuation. For example, in Mt. St. Helens, we advised people to leave, and some people chose not to leave.

WOODRUFF: Now, one of your own people, I think his name is Dr. Derrel Herd, has been down there after the September -- I guess the smoke and whatever started coming out. And he was involved in a process of working out some sort of plan with the government. Now, what happened to that? Why wasn't that --

Dr. TILLING: Well, that was actually a major step, because the volcano actually started to become restless in December of '84, and there was a very small eruption in March; then perhaps the largest one, up until recently, was this event on September 11th. Dr. Herd and several other scientists went to assist the local scientists in increased monitoring, but equally importantly they helped the local scientists prepare what we call a volcanic hazards assessment map. This map shows the areas of the volcano most vulnerable to certain types of hazards, be they lava flows or mud flows and so on. And this map was the basis for the officials to make at least a probability forecast of 60-70 that the eruption might take place.

WOODRUFF: But then nothing was done. I mean, no one was evacuated.

Dr. TILLING: Well, this I don't know for sure whether evacuations were ordered or not. In one particular place, because of the eruptions a natural dam had formed, and blocking the river, letting water to build up behind it, and the towns of Mariquita and Honda downstream from that were indeed ordered to be evacuated.

WOODRUFF: But in general most of the people were still where they had been living previously when the thing blew.

Dr. TILLING: The news is not clear on that. But just the fact that the estimated casualty might be fairly high suggests that perhaps a lot of the people chose to remain where they were.

WOODRUFF: Why did this volcano blow now? It had been sitting there quietly for 400 years. Why now?

Dr. TILLING: Well, actually it hasn't been actually quiet for 400 years.

WOODRUFF: Well, relatively; it hadn't had a major eruption.

Dr. TILLING: Back in the year of 1595 there was a major eruption, and very comparable to this one. Then in the 19th century there were a series of small ones. And up until last December, the volcano had been very quiet for decades. Volcanoes seem to go through their own cycle. Each volcano is individualistic and has its own pattern of behavior. Certain ones will go through a cycle of frequent eruptions and then choose to be dormant for a long while.

WOODRUFF: Now, we mentioned this ring of fire around the Pacific, that there are earthquakes and volcanoes. Any connection between this and the Mexican earthquake in September?

Dr. TILLING: There is not a one-to-one correspondence. Now, earthquakes around the ring of fire and volcanic eruptions around the ring of fire basically are manifestations of the same geologic processes -- these plates moving relative to one another. In the case of earthquakes, we have a buildup of stresses and strain until you get a discreet failure --

WOODRUFF: We're looking at a diagram, a map, right now.

Dr. TILLING: Right. And these moving plates are moving at average rates of a few inches per year. But when there's sufficient stresses built up, you can have an instantaneous failure and then you get a discreet earthquake. In the case of volcanic eruptions, this movement brings down material to great depths and high temperatures and pressures, and then you get the rocks beginning to melt, to form magma, molten rock plus gases; then these are more buoyant and then they start to rise.

WOODRUFF: So you're saying there's some connection, but not --

Dr. TILLING: There's a general connection -- they're responding to the same forces. But it is not reasonable to interpret that the Mexican earthquake was directly related to the current volcanic eruption.

WOODRUFF: And clearly you're looking for other volcanoes in this same section.

Dr. TILLING: That's correct.

WOODRUFF: Dr. Tilling, we thank you for being with us.

Dr. TILLING: My pleasure.

WOODRUFF: Robin?

MacNEIL: Still to come on the NewsHour, the London-Dublin pact on Northern Ireland, the summit in terms of personal chemistry, and three regional editors' views of Geneva. Role for Dublin

MacNEIL: Next tonight we focus on the limited but historic agreement signed today by Britain and Ireland. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has the story. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, today's agreement, hammered out in secret over the past 14 months, marks the first major attempt in a decade to put an end to the violence in Northern Ireland. The last such initiative in 1974 fell apart under the strain of a two-week general strike launched by Protestants opposed to it. Today's agreement is the most far-reaching initiative on Northern Ireland since the island was partitioned in 1921. For more on today's accord, as well as some reservations about it, we have one of the key players, Michael Noonan, the Irish minister of justice, and Mario Biaggi, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Ad Hoc Congressional Committee on Irish Affairs.

First to you, Justice Noonan. Briefly, what are the aspects of this accord that make it so historic?

MICHAEL NOONAN: Well, first of all, it's a historic agreement, and it's a substantial agreement. It gives the Irish government a substantial involvement in Northern Ireland. This will be done by the presence of a permanent Irish ministerial representative atmeetings of an intragovernmental conference in Belfast. I'm using conference, and the agreement uses conference, in the sense of a committee or commission. This will be an ongoing conference. The conference will be served by a joint secretariat consisting of Irish and British civil servants. Almost all matters which are Badrema to the administration of Northern Ireland will be matters which can be raised and discussed at the conference.

HUNTER-GAULT: Like what, for example?

Justice NOONAN: Like everything with the exception of defense and foreign policy. Like security matters, like political matters, like matters of civil rights, like matters concerning the community in Northern Ireland. And this will bring about a historic change in the attitude of -- to the nationalist community in Northern Ireland. For the first time, by the presence and involvement of the Irish government, the nationalist identity and the legitimacy of the nationalist aspiration is being recognized by both governments. And this is being done without diminishing the identity of the unionist community.

HUNTER-GAULT: That is the Protestant group.

Justice NOONAN: Yes, the Protestant group. It also says that if a majority of the people of Northern Ireland want to enter a united Ireland, that both governments, including the British government, will introduce and process legislation through their respective parliaments to do so. But it also says that we absolutely reject violence as a political approach, that we will not in any way condone a campaign of violence, and that unity can only come about by consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland.

HUNTER-GAULT: But in this whole new arrangement, isn't Dublin's role only advisory?

Justice NOONAN: No, it's not only advisory. It's a substantial role. This agreement, when it passes through our Parliament and the House of Commons, will be registered as an international agreement at the United Nations. Written into the text of the agreement is an obligation to make determined efforts to reach agreement in the interests of peace and stability, and this is a very significant part of it. These matters will be raised by our permanent ministerial representative who will jointly chair the conference with the Northern Ireland secretary of state. When other matters are being discussed, for example, matters of trade or tourism, the relevant minister will attend, and his civil servants and advisors. So in effect we're being given a major and substantial role in the day-to-day running of Northern Ireland.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let me just say, both Catholics and Protestants today have denounced this accord, with Protestants calling it a recipe for war; minutes after it was signed the IRA killed a policeman, claiming responsibility, and using this as an example of opposition to the accord. What makes you think it's going to work in the face of such strong opposition?

Justice NOONAN: Well, first of all, the major constitutional party which represents the nationalists, the Catholics, in Northern Ireland, is the SDLP, whose leader, John Hume, I presume is widely known on this side of the Atlantic. John Hume has endorsed this agreement fully -- he fully supports it and has the unanimous support of his party in so doing. The provisional IRA have little support in Ireland. The Constitutional Nationalists met in the New Ireland Forum. They represent over 90 of nationalist opinion on the island of Ireland, and they fully agree with the policy of rejection of violence and they would require a majority in Northern Ireland to consentto unity before that could come about. On the other side, the reaction of the unionists, like Mr. Paisley, was entirely predictable. It was --

HUNTER-GAULT: The Protestants.

Justice NOONAN: Yes, the Protestants. It was a Pavlovian stimulus-reflex response this morning at the signature of the agreement. But they couldn't possibly at this stage be in a position to give a reasoned response. As you said, it took intense negotiation over 14 months. They couldn't even have read the document this morning before they reacted in the way they reacted. I think that long-headed, serious-minded unionists will consider the implications of this document, and they will see that in their interest to have peace and stability on the island, to have their wives and their husbands and their children feel secure again, and to grow in peace and prosperity. I hope they will support the agreement.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Let me just ask -- turn to Congressman Biaggi, because you've read the agreement and you have reservations. What are your major reservations?

Rep. MARIO BIAGGI: Well, to begin with, I think it's a step, a fragile step, albeit, a fragile step that depends upon what they will do in the future. Also they have a very shaky foundation. It'll be met with considerable skepticism. I think it's salutary, but it depends a great deal upon what further action the agreement contains the provision for intergovernmental council, with intergovernmental conferences. As Mr. Noonan says, these conferences will be ongoing. At least that's the proposal. We'll have to see whether it is or not.

HUNTER-GAULT: But you said that you thought the agreement was more symbolic than significant. What did you mean by that?

Rep. BIAGGI: Because there has been an informal discussion between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland for a considerable period of time. The difference, and I think the important difference, is the intergovernmental conference and structure that will be established. That in my judgment is very important.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, someone else did raise this, that these informal conferences have been going on for years, so what's the big difference now?

Justice NOONAN: First of all, I'd like to welcome what the congressman has said. I appreciate his support. We've had significant support from the United States already. As a member of the Irish cabinet, I was immensely proud to see President Reagan on television making a very strong statement of support. And I think it was symbolic, and the symbolism was real, in the Oval Room in the White House to see Tip O'Neill beside him also advocating support. And I know the Friends of Ireland and Senator Kennedy have also endorsed it, and I'm glad of the endorsement here now again, even though it's limited. I hope that Irish America and democratic America -- America is a democratic country -- I hope that those who came in Irish ancestry and all those who believe in peace and stability would help us by their support both in their support as was done this morning and in the more tangible support that was suggested by the President.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Congressman Biaggi, what major problems do you see?

Rep. BIAGGI: I think the reaction on the part of all parties. I witnessed the reaction of Dr. Paisley, who is really reflective of a temperament that has been the basis of the problem over the years. He said they would fight this proposal to the death. And he's a demagogue, no question, but he's reflective of a considerable body of thought in that area.

HUNTER-GAULT: So you think there's more to his threats than Minister Noonan seems to think. Minister, he did bring down the previous accord in 1974. What's different now? Why doesn't he still have the power to do that?

Justice NOONAN: There's one major difference: there's an absolute commitment by our government under our prime minister, Garret FitzGerald, and the British government under Mrs. Thatcher, not to let this be brought down. There's an absolute commitment by Mrs. Thatcher to face down opposition to this in Northern Ireland.

HUNTER-GAULT: But how can they do that? I mean, more violence, more force, perhaps?

Justice NOONAN: Anything that the unionists, the Protestants, have said up to now would suggest forms of constitutional protest rather than violent protest. They have already suggested things like resigning their seats and organizing a series of by-elections. But to come back to a question you put to me just earlier, the agreement sets up a formal structure. It's not informal. The meetings weren't informal. The meetings were an ongoing negotiating process. This is an agreement that will be ratified by both parliaments, and I have no doubt about that. It will be registered at the United Nations. It's as a result of the agreement that the formal structure will be set up. Then there will be ongoing ministerial meetings with their advisors, and at the first meeting, for example, one of the greatest problems of Northern Ireland was listed on the agenda, and that's the problem of the acceptability of the security forces in the nationalist areas, and also the cooperation between police forces north and south to fight terrorism. And that would be very significant, and we've already strong indications that substantial progress will be made in those two respects in about a month's time in the first meeting.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, just very briefly, Congressman.

Rep. BIAGGI: What I think is important is President Reagan is into the picture, which is something that the Ad Hoc Committee of Irish Affairs in the Congress, of which I chair, has been advocating for a considerable period of time. There's the possibility of economic assistance, which will be of immeasurable help. But I'm confident that -- I'm confident there is a genuine commitment that can be properly implemented and that will assure many of the people who are involved in this issue -- it will give them greater assurance about the integrity of the agreement if they see proper implementation. And frankly, I think more people should be parties to the conference.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let's hope it goes a long way towards ending the violence. We'll be looking for that. Congressman Biaggi and Minister Noonan, thank you very much for being with us.

Justice NOONAN: Thank you very much indeed. Road to the Summit: Chemical Reaction

WOODRUFF: Much of the speculation about how next week's summit will go has to do with how two very different leaders, Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev, will get along. Some experts are saying the issues are so big the personalities won't make any difference. But others say when it's the sort of face-to-face personal encounter that these two men will have, personal chemistry is bound to play a role. Jim Lehrer took a look at that question before he left for Geneva himself.

JIM LEHRER [voice-over]: Franklin Roosevelt, trying to work his patrician charm on World War II ally Joseph Stalin. But Harry Truman's blunt talk to the man he later called Uncle Joe came with the coming of the Cold War. The mood was friendlier when Eisenhower met Stalin's heirs, and that Geneva summit briefly arousedhopes for peace. But Kennedy's meeting with Khrushchev turned grim, and the Cold War took a serious turn for the worse. Lyndon Johnson tried to reason together with Aleksei Kosygin. Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev were strictly business, but grew congenial in three summits, a tradition Gerald Ford tried to sustain, but one that Jimmy Carter could not, with the seriously ailing Soviet chief.

Now Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev follow the paths of their predecessors to the summit. This marks the first time either leader has ever sat down face to face with his counterpart from the rival nuclear superpower. What lures them to these politically high-risk meetings? The President offered one explanation to Soviet journalists.

Pres. REAGAN: I've always believed that a lot of the ills of the world would disappear if people talked more to each other instead of about each other.

LEHRER [voice-over]: A sentiment that puts him squarely in an American tradition.

WILLIAM HYLAND, editor, Foreign Affairs magazine: I think a lot of American presidents are persuaded that the trouble with the Soviet Union is a result of a misunderstanding, and if they could just sit down and explain our position, that that would clear it up.

McGEORGE BUNDY, former National Security Advisor: Well, if you were the head of one of the two great centers of power in the world and you had a chance to work face-to-face with the person who was the head of the other, would you regard it as better or worse to have a chance to do that?

LEHRER [voice-over]: The Soviets have their own reasons for coming, says former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, former National Security Advisor: Don't forget, for the Soviet Union they measure their international status in terms of their relationship with us. And anything which puts them on the same level as we makes them feel that they're getting there, that they're reaching that top elevated status. Secondly, don't forget that for Gorbachev, who's not yet a really fully entrenched leader, this is a tremendous opportunity to establish his credentials.

LEHRER [voice-over]: History sends mixed signals about the importance of personal chemistry in summit diplomacy. Eisenhower's meeting with Khrushchev and Bulganin in 1955 was friendly, but the spirit of Geneva evoked that summer proved to be short-lived.

HENRY KISSINGER, former Secretary of State: Sixteen months later we had the Middle East crisis. Three years later we had an ultimatum on Berlin. And many things that are now being said about Gorbachev were said about Khrushchev at that time. And therefore I think it is very dangerous to base policy on the personality of an individual Soviet leader.

LEHRER [voice-over]: At Vienna in 1961, a new and young American President locked horns with a tough and flamboyant product of the Soviet revolution.

Mr. HYLAND: Kennedy went there with the idea of arguing and debating, and Khrushchev, being a natural combative person, fought back and they had a very, very bad summit.

LEHRER [voice-over]: Many historians think bad chemistry helped create the sharp tensions that drew the U.S. and Soviets to the edge of nuclear war in 1962.

Mr. HYLAND: Kennedy wanted a summit, I think, because he felt if you can sit down with the Soviet leaders you've got to be able to make progress. It totally failed, and it led to, not directly, but it led to the Berlin wall and indirectly to the Cuban missile crisis.

LEHRER [voice-over]: No matter how nasty, the experience helped Kennedy deal with Khrushchev later, says McGeorge Bundy.

Mr. BUNDY: He did think that it would be to the point for each man to have a direct exposure to the other. And in the long pull I think that was a sound judgment. And the real payoff on that did not come in 1961, nor by a single short meeting; it came over a long process of communication, both in public statements and in private messages, between those two men. And the real test of it came at the time of the missile crisis, and I think it proved useful then.

LEHRER [voice-over]: A decade later, the Nixon-Brezhnev summit in Moscow ushered in an era of U.S.-Soviet detente. But Henry Kissinger, an architect of that policy, says the Moscow accords had little to do with personal relations between the two leaders.

Sec. KISSINGER: I think the Soviets operate best in a framework of reciprocity. And after all, I don't think it's insulting President Nixon to say that charming people was not his forte. But he made great progress with the Soviets because he was cool, insistent on reciprocity, and calculable.

LEHRER [voice-over]: By the time Jimmy Carter met with Brezhnev in 1979, the Soviet leader was seriously ill and no longer on top of details. In effect, the absence of chemistry restricted business to the signing of the SALT II agreement.

CYRUS VANCE, former Secretary of State: Brezhnev essentially operated from a piece of paper from which he was reading, rather than being the vigorous person that I remember when I rst talked to him, who could sit there without a piece of paper in front of him and argue with you or discuss with you important subjects. It was sad, I think, that that was no longer possible, because I think the summit might have made more progress than it did if, that had been the case.

LEHRER [voice-over]: Now for the first time in nearly a decade, the Soviet Union is being led by a young vigorous man, university-educated. This alone has created a new personal dynamic for the summit, say those who know the Soviet Union well, like former Washington Post Moscow correspondent Dusko Doder.

DUSKO DODER, Washington Post: Of course style affects substance. I mean, this man is -- rst of all, he's the first Soviet leader since Lenin who went through school in a regular way. He's an excellent public speaker, which I got to know only after he became the leader. But he knows how to handle audiences, he's articulate, he's a quick study, he has a definite point of view, and he knows the substance.

LEHRER [voice-over]: Soviet analyst Marshall Shulman, a former State Department advisor, told reporter David Shapiro, Gorbachev has been well conditioned to take on the Americans at a summit.

MARSHALL SHULMAN, Columbia University: Gorbachev has come up out of a very tough survival process. He is bright and he is alert and his mind is active; he's vigorous, but he's not a softie. He's a man who is tough and has been hardened by his experience. He has risen through one of the toughest political processes there are anywhere.

LEHRER [voice-over]: And what will Gorbachev and his new generation of Soviet leaders make of the American politician sitting across the table?

LYN NOFZIGER, former Reagan aide: With Ronald Reagan, what you see is what you get. And I am sure that because Ronald Reagan is open and friendly and casual, that he'll say -- that Gorbachev will say, "Well, what's behind all this?" you know. "Where's the real Ronald Reagan?" Well, the real Ronald Reagan is going to be sitting right in front of him.

LEHRER [voice-over]: At this summit, the leaders, communicating through interpreters, will have limited time to take each other's measure.

Sec. KISSINGER: Let's look first of all -- the meeting will be two days. They will meet at most three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon. Much more usual would be two hours. That means one hour of real conversation.

LEHRER [voice-over]: And even less time for posturing if they want to conduct serious business.

Mr. HYLAND: I think the beginning of the summits, there's something -- there's a phase, perhaps the first day or the first hour, in which both sides have to present their case for the record -- for their own people, for their own political history and so forth. But once you get beyond that, chances are it will not be mutual recriminations and accusations.

Mr. NOFZIGER: Ronald Reagan's not going to argue. He's going to discuss and he's going to be tough and he's going to want some answers of his own. But I don't see that this is going to be a name-calling, shouting argument. He's just not that way.

LEHRER [voice-over]: And Henry Kissinger cautions that a summit is still as much a meeting of competing political systems as of two individuals.

Sec. KISSINGER: Given the nature of the Soviet system, given their belief as Marxist-Leninists and so-called objective factors, the absolutely last thing that can happen is that Gorbachev comes home to Moscow and says, "I've just met the most charming American president you can imagine, and we're going to have to make some concessions to this terrific guy that we have not previously considered."

LEHRER [voice-over]: And as Lyn Nofziger told producer Michael Mosettig, no amount of personal contact will alter the President's long-held convictions.

Mr. NOFZIGER: I don't think Ronald Reagan's attitude has changed. I think that if you got him privately and said, "Mr. President, do you still think it's an evil empire?" he'd say yes. Certainly by our standards it's an evil empire, and I think he's going to go in there remembering that. You can't take away 30 years or 40 years or whatever it's been of strong anti-communist feeling and all of a sudden have him walk in there and say, "Hey, these are the good guys." He knows better.

LEHRER [voice-over]: But across this chasm of conviction and ideology, there remains a slender possibility that the two leaders can find some common ground which can emerge only from their face-to-face encounters.

Prof. SHULMAN: Though these are different men and these are different societies, the question is whether there are some overlapping interests between them. And it may be that if that comes through in their exchanges, and both men sense it in the other, that that may be not inconsequential. Summit Prospects

MacNEIL: A national poll published today says that only half the American public expects the summit meeting to improve Soviet-American relations. The New York TimesfiCBS News poll also found that just a third of Americans thinks it will lead to an arms control agreement. Tonight, several American journalists in different parts of the country share their expectations of the summit. They are Joe McQuaid, editor-in-chief of the Union Leader of Manchester, New Hampshire. He joins us from public station WENH in Durham. Molly Ivins, columnist with the Dallas Times-Herald, from public station KERA-Dallas. And George Neavoll, editor of the Wichita Eagle-Beacon, at public station KTPS in Wichita, Kansas.

Mr. Neavoll, how interested are your leaders in the summit -- your reader?

GEORGE NEAVOLL: I think they're interested, Robin. We aren't really hearing much from them about the subject. I think people are really a little confused and not knowing what quite to expect. I think the President's speech last night did more than anything else to this point to put everything in perspective.

MacNEIL: Mr. McQuaid, is there big interest among your readership in the summit?

JOE McQUAID: No, sir. No. I think there's a big interest in seeing what -- how television is going to cover it and what kind of nice graphics they're going to use. And an up-country editor friend of mine likened it to the ABC's chess set pieces going back and forth. But I talked to some people before I came down here today, and not a great deal of interest.

MacNEIL: Molly Ivins, in Dallas, what do you think?

MOLLY IVINS: Well, the excitement here is running at considerably less than fever pitch, particularly a scientific public opinion survey down at Boogers Lounge in Elm Mott today, and I kind of got the reaction for the big meeting -- "Who's playing?"

MacNEIL: What are your expectations, Molly Ivins? Your own personal expectations of this summit meeting.

Ms. IVINS: Well, I think we'll probably be lucky to get some Russian ballet out of it. It does seem to me that there are few people less likely to expect to be signing any kind of serious arms control agreement and friendship treaty with the Soviet Union than Ronald Reagan, and Mr. Gorbachev doesn't look like any kind of pacifist himself. I did hear some people actually express concern about whether this might -- such a meeting might actually make things worse than they already are between the two countries, and I heard that expressed on two levels. One was that Gorbachev and Reagan, both being very ideological people and very much opposed to one another's systems, just might really tangle. And of course, the spokesmen would come out and say, well, the discussions have been frank and candid, in which case we should all take serious alarm. The other is that the President, as you know, sometimes is vague on details, and I've heard, last time he went to Europe he sort of fell asleep on the Pope. The idea that maybe he might accidentally, because he sometimes gets details wrong, trade away something. I'm sure his handlers wouldn't let him do that. But I did hear that expressed.

MacNEIL: Is that a fear you share, Mr. Neavoll?

Mr. NEAVOLL: Well, I have some feelings of hope, actually, for the summit meeting. I think we all have a tendency to expect something really great to come out of such a historic gathering as this, and then if nothing does, we tend to regard it as a failure. I don't think that's so at all. I think the very fact that the two world leaders are getting together is a sign for hope. I thought the President, his address last night gave us further signs for hope. He was saying things last night that, to my memory at least, he has not ever said before. Many others have been saying those things, but here the President was saying them. I think he'll be saying basically the same thing to Mr. Gorbachev in Geneva. I think these are two very human types of persons, and I think there's a good chance that they will listen to one another and that we might get something substantial out of this.

MacNEIL: Joe McQuaid, in New Hampshire, do you see signs of hope in what the President said last night or in the leadup to the summit?

Mr. McQUAID: No. I think this is a bum rap the lady from Dallas is giving to Ronald Reagan about falling asleep. If he falls asleep in Geneva, it's with good reason, because it's boring and there's nothing going on and it's not a very pretty time of the year over there. As for his attention to detail, I think he knows exactly what he's going in for, and that is simply to placate world opinion, the world propaganda stage, which Georgi Arbatov and the Soviets seem to have done real well. One of your people asked me the other day whether we thought up here that Reagan had to go to Geneva to show Gorbachev that he didn't mean them any harm. And I thought that it was really more of a case of going to Geneva to show The Washington Post, CBS and maybe your guest from Dallas that he doesn't mean any harm.

MacNEIL: Molly Ivins?

Ms. IVINS: Well, I'm a little bit confused by that.

Mr. McQUAID: What can I help you out with?

Ms. IVINS: Well, I'm going to try again on this. It just does not seem to me that the two sides get very far. It seems to me we've all understood for a long time, and leaders of both the Soviet Union and the United States have said for years now, that the arms race doesn't make any sense, that we're not any safer now that we can explode the equivalent of 10,000 Hiroshima bombs than we were in the days when we could each only explode one Hiroshima bomb, and we're not going to be any safer or feel any more secure if we build 20,000 Hiroshima bombs. The question is, okay, we agree on that being the problem. We have never seemed to have made any progress on how you find a solution to that. We still keep building these bombs, and everyone says that's crazy, that's really instance, we need to do something about that. And we've had any number of tries, and no one's gotten anywhere. It doesn't seem to me, with this particular play, we're any more likely to get anywhere than we have before.

MacNEIL: I think you agree on that, don't you, Joe McQuaid?

Mr. McQUAID: Well, Robin, I think that President Reagan as a player has put forth the idea of a Strategic Defense Initiative, which for the first time in 20 years gets us away from this building and building and building and mutual assured destruction, and should seriously be considered. And I think that the concern about it showed by the Soviets shows that it has some real merit to it.

MacNEIL: Mr. Neavoll, George Neavoll, in Wichita, what do you think about Joe McQuaid's point about who's winning the propaganda war up to the summit?

Mr. NEAVOLL: Well, I think it's largely beside the point. That's all we've heard up until this time, is which side is producing the more vigorous rhetoric, and I think we in the news business have helped to raise expectations maybe to an unrealistic level. I think all that's beside the point. What really is to the point is that these two people are getting together and talking about the very future of this planet. And up until this time, for seven long years now, almost, in President Reagan's administration, we haven't done that. And I think the very fact that they're getting together is one cause for hope. But I don't think that we ought to sell this whole process short. Something very real might come out of it. I think that there is a real prospect for the beginning of hope and the ending of despair.

MacNEIL: To you, Molly Ivins. What has to come out of it to make this meeting successful?

Ms. IVINS: Well, I would hope for some real progress in arms control, some agreement about if, for example, Reagan has said we'd be willing to cut our nuclear forces by 50 , and the problem is they don't know how to count the beans. Well, let's figure out a system for bean counting. I mean, just to make that kind of real progress.

MacNEIL: If there weren't, and the administration's been warning there isn't likely to be, if there weren't progress on that, but there was on the sort of cultural exchange af the President was talking about last night -- you mentioned facetiously ballet dancers -- would that be a failure to you?

Ms. IVINS: Well, Russian ballet is very fine to watch. It's very lovely and very beautiful. But it really does not directly address the problem of whether or not the planet's going to be blown to bits and left to the cockroaches.

MacNEIL: Joe McQuaid, what would have to happen to constitute a successful summit for you?

Mr. McQUAID: Some clear indication that we could get a verification of any arms control treaties, without which we shouldn't go into one. Secondly, I think a good point to this summit would be if Reagan goes in there and comes out and appears on television and before the Congress, and the media get a sense and Gorbachev gets a sense, that he's not kidding around, that he is serious, that this propaganda war is not going to push him into doing something that is deleterious to the safety to the country. I think those are good things. I don't think that the Beach Boys or the Sesame Street -- I think it would take 20 years or so before that kind of stuff had any bad effect on the Russians.

MacNEIL: And George Neavoll, what would constitute a successful summit for you?

Mr. NEAVOLL: I think the beginning of some kind of process where we could start to talk to one another, yes, to have these cultural exchanges, and yes, to have some of the things that we formerly had for a very long time to show the Soviet peoples and the American peoples how their counterparts lived and worked and played. But I think that something larger, very much larger, could come of this. I think that next week we can expect to see the beginning of a framework for a very real breakthrough, and that might be a 50 reduction or it might be something very much less. But there's something there, I do believe.

MacNEIL: Well, George Neavoll, in Wichita, thank you for joining us. We're going to invite you all back next week and ask what you think of what actually did happen. Joe McQuaid, in Durham, and Molly Ivins, in Dallas -- thank you all. Judy?

WOODRUFF: As we mentioned a moment ago, Jim Lehrer is already in Geneva, and he will be leading off our coverage of the summit and all the happenings connected with it next week.

MacNEIL: And now here's tonight's Lurie cartoon. His subject is the volcanic eruption in Colombia.

[Ranon Lurie cartoon -- hill labeled "summit" is completely dwarfed by huge volcano labeled "nature's summit"]

WOODRUFF: Once again, a look at today's top stories. Hundreds of survivors have been pulled from Colombia's volcano disaster, but an estimated 20,000 have died. Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland have signed an historic agreement giving Dublin a voice in the running of Northern Ireland. And wholesale prices surged upward in October, registering the biggest monthly jump in four years.

Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Judy. That's our NewsHour for tonight. Have a nice weekend. We'll see you on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.