The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, the pilot of the United DC-10 said he made it up as he went along. Hearings began on alleged wrongdoing by high officials of the Internal Revenue Service and most striking coal miners returned to work in the Soviet Union. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary we go first to extended excerpts from the news conference of the pilot of the ill fated DC- 10, next the strange spy case involving U.S. Diplomat Felix Bloch. We'll hear from former KGB official Stanislav Levchencko, former CIA official George Carver and author David Wise. Then Tom Bearden reports on cars that don't run on gas, and finally arts correspondent Joanna Simon on a new push to save old Hollywood movie music. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Al Haynes was released from the hospital in Sioux City, Iowa, today. Haynes was the pilot of the crippled United Airlines DC-10 that crashed at the Sioux City Airport last week. Haynes told a news conference today that once the plane lost its hydraulic systems, he and the others in the cockpit were on their own.

CAPT. AL HAYNES, United 232 Pilot: We realized that we had more than just an engine failure. It was apparent to us that we had lost all of our hydraulic fluid and when I asked Dudley for the procedure for that, he said, there isn't one. So we made it up as we went along.

MR. LEHRER: We will have a longer excerpt from that news conference right after this News Summary. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In the Soviet Union, most striking coal miners returned to work today, but warned that they would walk out again if the government didn't keep its promises. We have a report from Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

LOUISE BATES: On the evening news, Soviet television told the nation that the miners' strike was officially over. The quiet scene outside the mines reflected little of the explosion of despair behind the strike. Faces smudged with dust, the men were back ofthe coal face following personal guarantees from Soviet Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev that they would get pay rises, longer holidays, better housing and food. Soviet television was quick to show the conveyor belts moving once again after the crippling strike which halted work first in Siberia and later in the Ukraine. At the height of the strike hundreds of thousands of miners were involved. The Supreme Soviet added its promises too, promising to pass laws by the autumn to give groups of workers more say over management and profits. The miners also wanted and got raised hands in favor of a law to ensure democratic local government elections. The end of the strike came after the Soviet leader's second impassioned plea in as many days on Monday. He, himself, called it the greatest crisis of his four years in power.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Poland, there was a meeting of sorts but not of minds between Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa and Communist Party Pres. Woczek Jaruzelski. Walesa went to the presidential palace to talk to Jaruzelski about forming a new government. Speaking to reporters later, he said he told Jaruzelski that he still opposes joining a coalition government with the Communists. He also said that the new government should be run by Solidarity, but he said he and Jaruzelski did not come to any agreement.

MR. LEHRER: Back in this country, the House of Representatives today lopped $1.8 billion off spending for SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative. The House vote was 248 to 175 for trimming Pres. Bush's $4.9 billion proposal. Mr. Bush had made a personal plea for the full amount at a White House meeting with House leaders yesterday. Also on the defense beat there were three accidents in 24 hours involving U.S. military aircraft. Two crew members died when a Navy radar plane crashed on take-off from a North Island Naval air station in San Diego, California. A Navy F- 14 jet fighter went down near San Clemente Island in California. Its two man crew parachuted to safety. And a B-52 bomber caught fire while being refueled at Kelley Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. One person was killed; eleven others were hurt.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Washington, a House subcommittee today opened hearings into alleged abuses at the Internal Revenue Service. So far, investigators say their year long probe at the agency reveals serious integrity problems and wrongdoing.

RICHARD STANA, Congressional Investigator: Unfortunately, the cases we have examined and the information provided by many current and former IRS employees who have been reported problems to us strongly indicate that there has been a significant erosion of ethical standards among many at the highest levels of the service. A pervasive fear exists among IRS employees that reporting the misconduct of their superiors or cooperating in investigation of those superiors will result in retaliation against them. As a consequence, misconduct often goes unreported or is reported anonymously outside of official channels.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: On another front, President Bush said today that he will extend steel import quotas against 29 countries in an effort to spur negotiations on ending unfair trade practices abroad. The quotas were extended 2 1/2 years. They were due to expire on September 30th. And on another September deadline, Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner today defended Exxon's plans today to stop the clean-up of the Alaskan oil spill September 15th, but Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan said the company's obligation does not end in September, and Alaska's Governor said he expects Exxon to fulfill a promise to stay until the job was done.

MR. LEHRER: Bond was set in New York today for Saudi Arabian financier Agnon Khashoggi. The amount was $10 million. Khashoggi is in jail after being extradited to the United States from Switzerland. He is charged with helping former Philippine Pres. Ferdinand Marcos in a giant real estate fraud. There was no immediate word on if or when Khashoggi might post the bond. And finally in the news today there was a report from China of a new student protest. The Associated Press said some 300 Beijing University students gathered outside their dormitory Sunday night. They sang satirical songs, banged drums and mourned the students who died in the June pro democracy confrontations. The report said none of the students have yet been arrested or otherwise punished.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's our News Summary. Still ahead, the DC- 10 pilots' first news conference, the strange spy case of Felix Bloch, a report on cars that don't use gas, and a look at the race to save the music from aging movies. FOCUS - AT THE CONTROLS

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: First tonight Captain Al Haynes the pilot of the United Airlines Flight 232. The DC10 crashed last week when it was attempting an emergency landing on Souix City, Iowa. The Crew had lost almost all their controls after an explosion in the rear engine severed the planes hydraulic lines. 111 of the 298 people onboard died. Capital Haynes still with some cuts on his face met the press today before checking out of the hospital. He was accompanied by family and second officer Dudley Devorak. Because the accident is a subject of an on going National Transportation and Safety Board investigation Captain Haines stayed away from technical answers but did talk about the difficulty the crew had control the aircraft yolk or steering wheel. He began with a brief opening statement.

CAPT. AL HAYNES, Pilot United Flight 232: While this is a happy day for many of us we must not forget that 111 people perished in this accident and to their families and their friends I would like to say that this crew and in fact the entire industry is dedicated to finding the cause of this accident so we can never have it happen again. We have a procedure at United Airlines, I think United Airlines was the first Airline to start it, called CLR which is Command Leadership Resources and it is a program designed to maintain or to pull the maximum knowledge and ability and cooperation from anyone pilot in the group so that we all work in a very cohesive group and we will have to listen to the tapes in order to find out if it happened but I am firmly convinced that we use that to the utmost ability in the incident last week. Everyone either helped at running the airplane, flying the airplane or doing the many many radio reports that are required, dealing with the flight attendants, dealing with the passengers, dealing with the center. Everybody kicked in. Everybody offered their own assistance without being told and everyone acted as a group. We agreed among ourselves before anything particular thing was done and that was of course, I think, a very important part of the survival. As Hank told you we have a lot of experience here and it showed up in the cock pit. There is no substitute as far as I am concerned in experience. I am sure that you want to know a little bit about what happened and that is we were flying along when a very loud report from the number 2 engine. We didn't know which one at the time of course. And United has its standard operating procedures for engine failure in flight and we all three reacted immediately to the situation. I was not flying. Bill was flying the airplane so he immediately took control of the airplane and I was to shut the engine down and Dudley was to get out the book which we used constantly to and go through to make sure that all the procedures and steps were done. It was very shortly after this that we realized that we had more than just an engine failure. It was apparent to us that we lost all of our hydraulic fluid and when I asked Dudley for the procedure for that he said there isn't one so we made it up as we went along.

REPORTER: Captain Haynes did you have any control or were you able to move the plane at all after the engine exploded?

CAPT. HAYNES: Well I will have to answer that with the question are we here.

REPORTER: No I mean did the yolk moved?

CAPT. HAYNES: Oh yes the yolk moved but I don't know how effective it was. That will again will have to be for the NTSB to decide from the tapes.

REPORTER: Would you describe to us the physical forced needed to move this airplane around and hold steady.

CAPT. HAYNES: Well let's just say that Ben and I were at the yolk the whole time.

REPORTER: A lot of people are very curious about thoughts in your mind after the engine failure and after you found out what the situation was. At that point did you have any doubts about being able to bring the plane down doubts that perhaps were relieved by something else that happened.

CAPT. HAYNES: Well I will tell you I felt with the crew that I had that I didn't even consider it. I just considered one step at a time and what we were going to do next.

REPORTER: And never at any point did you say I don't think we are going to make it?

CAPT. HAYNES: I don't believe I ever said that. I don't really believe that I did.

REPORTER: Captain you were coming in very fast to that runway right before you crashed. Did you think that you and the passengers would survive?

CAPT. HAYNES: I honestly can't tell you what I was thinking. We were fast because we had to be we were in our speed parameters the whole time but other than that I can't say.

REPORTER: Capital you have extended you thanks to United but what are your impressions of the response on the ground at the time of the crash. Were you a witness to any of the events?

CAPT. HAYNES: Most of what happened after the crash is hearsay. I was unconscious and I can't report on that.

REPORTER: What are you thoughts on what you heard?

CAPT. HAYNES: What I heard? Fantastic.

REPORTER: Captain after the crash landing you mentioned that you were unconscious. Do you remember regaining consciousness when that was and what your thoughts were and what the discussion was with who?

CAPT. HAYNES: I was on the ground in the cockpit I assume and I was pinned in and couldn't move and telling myself don't hyperventilate wait for someone to come.

REPORTER: What happened then?

CAPT. HAYNES: Somebody came.

REPORTER: How do you feel health wise now?

CAPT. HAYNES: Well I am healthy I have some stitches and they are all out now and all I have some bumps and bruises and as far as the emotion part of it. I would have to ask a psychologist or psychiatrist about that.

REPORTER: Captain Haynes apparently the last radio transmission you thanked everyone and said we'll see you shortly conveying a sense that the crew believed that you were going to make it in. Is that so?

CAPT. HAYNES: How can we operate if we didn't believe that.

REPORTER: Captain some of the survivors I am sure that you have read what they have said in the paper and they are very greatful to you and the crew for what you did. They believe you saved their lives. Your reaction to that. They call you a hero.

CAPT. HAYNES: I am not so sure that I know how to answer that. There is no hero there is just a group of four people who did their job and it was an unusual circumstance that we put our best resources and knowledge together and did what we thought was best. FOCUS - I SPY?

MR. LEHRER: We go next to the strange case of Felix Bloch. Bloch is a 54 year old career U.S. diplomat. His is a strange case because he has been named publically in news reports and by others including the President of the United States as being a suspected Russian Spy. He has not been arrested or charged with anything and remains at large under surveillance and under investigation. Bloch was the number 2 man in the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, Austria from 1983 to 1987. Vienna is considered a neutral city home to many International agencies and a hot bed of espionage since World War II. Bloch is a native of Austria whig fled Naziism there in the 1930s. he has held a State Department post in Washington since returning from Vienna two years ago. News reports attributed to unnamed U.S. Officials say he was videotaped handing a briefcase to a known KGB man or contact and has been under heavy surveillance for about a month but as recently as last week he represented the State Department at a Public Seminar. Yesterday President Bush addressed the question why the investigation has not yet produced any charges.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well I think that any time there is allegation of this nature it is most serious and any time a person potential, I want to be careful because this matter is being investigated, or allegedly involved in betraying his country that to me is a very serious matter and it will be thoroughly investigated and I'll have noting else to say about it until the facts are known but I've known about this matter for some time and the minute I heard about it I was aggrieved because it is a very tragic think should these allegations be true.

MR. LEHRER: Now to three other views of the Felix Bloch case. They are those of David Wise, Author of the Spy Who Got Away, and nine other books about intelligence and spying. George Carver a retired CIA officer who served as special assistant to 3 CIA Directors. He is now Senior Fellow for Strategic and International Studies. And Stanislav Levchencko a Former Major in the Soviet KGB who defected the United States in 1979. George Carver first this last 5 days of publicity of a man who has not been charged with anything. What is your assessment of what happened? What in the World is going on?

MR. CARVER: Well it is very hard to know has happened in the absence of knowledge you can only speculate. I am wondering the publicity or the leak that started it was perhaps not stimulated by some of Bloch's supporters or the KGB with the idea of making it extremely difficult to ever file an effective charge against him. I can see no purpose being served on the part of the U.S. Government by letting word of an impending investigation of an arrest get out before the arrest is made.

MR. LEHRER: Well carry your theory the next step why would the KGB want that leak why wouldn't they want to help Bloch out of the Country.

MR. CARVER: Well Jim if you pursue this theory for a second that is the best way to help him. You want to preserve your man. You want to insure that he never spends a day in jail and you want to insure that is never a convicted a felon so he can keep his pension etc. Nowif you try to force the Government to bring a charge before they really have one prepared and it gets thrown out on procedural or other grounds of inadequacy he has the life time protection of double jeopardy. With all the publicity that is generated a second law student could make the case that he couldn't get a fair trial. he would perhaps stand the best chance if the KGB thought the Government really had a case by protecting by taking the preemptive option. It is only a theory, perhaps a fairly wild one but nothing else makes sense so I thought I would try that .

MR. LEHRER: Alright what do think about that theory David?

MR. WISE: Well some of my best friends work for ABC News and I don't think that they are getting leaks from the KGB. I really don't agree with Mr. Carver on that. I think that it is much more likely that since the FBI has had this man under surveillance for several weeks and neighbors have been interviewed that there is a real possibility that some one who realized there was an investigation under way talked to some one else and it eventually reached the ears of the news media.

MR. LEHRER: Isn't that rather unusual David Wise for a case where a man is under surveillance, a U.S. diplomat, Under surveillance for possibly being a Soviet Spy that that kind of thing would leak to a Network news Division.

MR. WISE: Well I understand that Mr. Bloch lives in the Calarama section of Washington which is in the heart of Northwest residential WAshington and that there has been a lot of FBI cars parked out there and a lot of neighbors interviewed and I think that the FBI has anticipated for some weeks now that this story was going to leak in that direction.

MR. LEHRER: And the FBI probably didn't mind that is the reason?

MR. WISE: Oh no they minded. Look they are trying very hard to get probable cause to make an arrest as they do in every case of suspected espionage and that involves interviewing a lot of people and that includes associates of Mr. Bloch in the State Department, neighbors, friends, everybody they are all over the thing and of course they anticipated that it would leak but I don't think they wanted it to leak. As a matter of fact I think that it is pretty clear that the FBI and the Justice Department did not want the State Department to confirm that the story was true. The State Department did do but I have seen no evidence that Mr. Thornberg and Mr. Baker, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State chatted about this problem. I think the State Department went ahead and did it over the objections of the Justice Department.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Levchencko what makes the most sense to you that it was a KGB plant or it was just the heavy foot prints of the FBI finally got found?

MR. LEVCHENCKO: I think either version has some grounds to it but I would agree with Mr. Wise's version that there is probably a lot of activity at Calaram it is a very small place and it just might have went out of hand. However there were cases before when you know when some Friend will warn the other friend that, you know, that he or she is under a certain investigation. There was a rather historical case which I knew related to Chovenko the Soviet defector who before he defected was under the Secretary General of the United Nations and he was exposed to serious Soviet secrets at some point the Soviet KGB suspected him with cooperating with the U.S. Government and allegedly at least one friend of his from the Soviet Foreign Ministry visiting New York told him that he would get a cable that they want you back for consultations and that means that the KGB will grab you in the airport.

MR. LEHRER: How does that apply here. For instance one of the stories, one of the many pieces of many many stories these last few days is that the KGB tipped Bloch that the FBI was on to him.

MR. CARVER: That is one of the reasons why I wonder if the KGB knew that the FBI was on to it if they warned him that some bright resident officer wasn't trying to figure a way to help him. Now getting a leak planted just to take issue with David, getting a leak planted in this town is no trick. That doesn't imply that the person who picked up is consciously working for the KGB we all know that this town is awash in leaks and rumors and a leak about an impending investigation or an ongoing investigation of a very high ranking State Department officer. It would be absolute cat nip it would one that any reporter would have to follow up. I would like to know incidentally to shed light on this which none of here knows whether the rather intrusive surveillance predate the ABC story of last Friday or whether it came since then and I simply don't know.

MR. LEHRER: Do we know?

MR. WISE: I see the point. It depends on how you define intrusive and I certainly agree if Mr. Carver is moving in one direction here that needs to be talked about, which is that in a sense today's report that he was tipped off, that Mr. Bloch was tipped off by someone does raise an alarming possibility which in a sense is even more alarming than whether or not Mr. Bloch was a spy. And of course, he hasn't been convicted or anything as you point out, and that is that there might be a mole, a Soviet agent, inside the U.S. Government.

MR. CARVER: Or to put it slightly differently, that Bloch wasn't the only one that the KGB had in its strength.

MR. LEVCHENCKO: Yes. I think we shouldn't be naive in that respect and yes, it is Mr. Bloch allegedly probably cooperated with the KGB, but seriously speaking, it is a well known fact that security within the U.S. Department of State unfortunately for a long period of time until relatively recently was very lax. And when we're talking about very large organizations, with thousands of people spending their entire career abroad, tiny minority, one, two, three, you know, could have shown certain vulnerabilities and could have been recruited by the Soviets. So it is possible, unfortunately, that Soviets do have somebody inside.

MR. WISE: But, Jim, if I just may add --

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MR. WISE: -- that there are other explanations of how there could have been a tip-off, if there was one. For example, as Mr. Levchencko just suggested, Mr. Bloch could have had a friend in the State Department who was interviewed in the course of this investigation by State Department security and/or the FBI who called him up and said, Felix, I'm not supposed to do this, but you're under investigation.

MR. LEHRER: They're on to you.

MR. WISE: There are other possibilities. There could have been a communications intercept by the KGB. There doesn't have to be a mole, but still it's something to consider.

GEORGE CARVER, Intelligence Specialist: Well, I think the warning that Bloch might have gotten from a friend who then intentionally or inadvertently leaked to the media, that's one question. The source of the KGB's warning to him is a different question. I think you need to keep those separate.

MR. LEHRER: Let's go to the question of if, as the President said, that if this man was, in fact, a spy, that's a very serious matter. Do you agree with that, David, that he could have access to things and it could be a very serious breach?

MR. WISE: Sure, if it's true, and again I emphasize he hasn't been charged, let alone convicted, of anything, he's a free citizen at the moment, but if it were true, it would be the highest ranking official of the State Department ever charged with espionage because Alger Hess, first of all, was convicted of perjury, not espionage and he wasn't as high ranking as a deputy chief of mission, which Mr. Bloch was in Austria, and Irvin Scarbeck who was convicted in 1961 was I think second secretary, he was not a high official, so this would be very serious.

MR. LEHRER: From a KGB point of view, Mr. Levchencko, would Bloch be a great asset?

STANISLAV LEVCHENCKO, Former KGB Official: Surely he would be a great asset if, in fact, he really was cooperating with KGB, because KGB knows the structure of U.S. Foreign Service you know perfectly well, and they, of course, know what deputy chief of mission is and they know that deputy chief of mission knows almost everything ambassador knows or sometimes more than ambassador knows. He has access to all traffic, not only regarding current U.S. policy towards certain country, but what is far more important, traffic regarding the secret plans of U.S. Government, regarding certain country or the whole area of the world around that country. He also would know, of course, who is intelligence officer, who is not intelligence officer.

MR. LEHRER: At the embassy.

MR. LEVCHENCKO: At the embassy.

MR. LEHRER: Who's under this kind of cover.

MR. LEVCHENCKO: That's right. And also, you know, again, if Mr. Bloch really was cooperating with the Soviets, and Vienna is a special place, it's not only spy haven, because Austria is a little country with unfortunately rather weak obviously country intelligence, it has border line with the Soviet Union. Thousands of Soviet officials, non-officials, whoever, you know, they not only fly from Moscow to Vienna, you know, they can take train, they can drive by car. So it is very easy place for them to operate and it is much easier for them to figure out who is the most vulnerable person in American community. Let me make just one more point. Immediately we read now a lot of stories that if Mr. Bloch really cooperated with KGB, it was probably because he had grudge about two American ambassadors under whom he worked. On the other hand, there are some newspaper accounts that probably allegedly he was cooperating with the Soviets for long years.

MR. LEHRER: Before that.

MR. LEVCHENCKO: Maybe ten, fifteen, you know. So if that is true, then it was quite possible that he who could have been recruited somewhere in East Germany, where there is 1500 active KGB officers at any time, where there is highly sophisticated East German Intelligence Service, and then all these two ambassadors, the issue can be doubly irrelevant.

MR. WISE: And that East German service specializes in long-term human recruitments.

MR. LEHRER: George Carver, do you see a likely resolution of this?

MR. CARVER: I don't see a likely resolution, just one quick thing on the damage. Don't ever forget that Bloch was chargee, acting ambassador, from the time that Helene Van Dam resigned in June of 1985, until Ronald Lauder appeared on station 10 months later.

MR. LEHRER: Yes, in Vienna.

MR. CARVER: In '86 in Vienna, so not only would he have had all the access of DCM, for 10 critical months, he would have run the embassy. Also don't forget that Bloch would have known of Clayton Lone Tree's confession at the embassy Christmas party in December of '86.

MR. LEHRER: That's the marine sergeant.

MR. CARVER: The marine sergeant, and he could have tipped the KGB to the fact they had a problem, and the KGB could have ensured that by the time we started investigating Moscow, there was nothing to find, so all kinds of damage could have been done.

MR. LEHRER: David, you wrote a book, your book was about Mr. Howard, who was an FBI man, who did get away, the Spy Who Got Away.

MR. WISE: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Is there any way Bloch could get away?

MR. WISE: No. And I think that's an important point, that after Howard escaped, even though there was a light FBI surveillance around Santa Fe, New Mexico, I think the FBI since that event in September of 1985, is determined there'll never be another Howard case, and I think that's one reason there all over Mr. Bloch right now, and you see 10 cars chasing Mr. Bloch, and then the press chasing the FBI, and it's all taking on a slight circus atmosphere. But they don't want that to happen again.

MR. LEHRER: This whole thing is strange. I mean, here we are sitting, talking about a man who has served as a career diplomat in the United States, may be sitting at home somewhere or watching this very program. We're talking about the possibility that he's a traitor to his country. What's going on, George?

MR. CARVER: We obviously have to talk about it in hypothetical terms. He's entitled, as we've all said, to his constitutional presumption of innocence.

MR. LEHRER: -- on that though --

MR. CARVER: But there is enough smoke that, there is some suggestion that there is a fair bit of fire somewhere, and the question is if the government has a case, why hasn't it moved, and my own feeling, I don't mean to be excessively paranoid, but remember the stag cartoon with the little nebbish in the box with the caption, "Even paranoids can have enemies.". I feel that in the fault of any explanation that makes sense on the part of the government not to move, the government isn't prepared to move, and I think something spooked it before it was ready and I think its being spooked was probably the best thing that's happened to Mr. Bloch in many a month.

MR. LEVCHENCKO: I think it is true, I also have feeling that the case was blown before really time came because this country fortunately is democracy. It is in the Soviet Union and they first can arrest the person and try to figure out how to accuse -- here you have to get enough of clear evidence that will satisfy certain judge, so it does look like that the case was leaked far before the time.

MR. WISE: I think what's extraordinary here is that the State Department in their initial reaction last week said in speaking of Mr. Bloch, said that a security compromise has occurred, and that's a quote, has occurred. In other words, they didn't leave any question so there isn't an awful lot of due process floating around here in this situation.

MR. LEHRER: As I say, a very strange case. Thank you gentlemen for being with us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead, clean air with cars without gas and efforts to save old movie music. FOCUS - ONE FOR THE ROAD

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight we look at one important part of the President's new clean air bill which has just been sent to Congress. The bill requires the auto industry to develop alternative fuel cars. These are vehicles that run on fuel other than gasoline. Under the terms of the proposed Clean Air Act, there will be 1 million such cars on the streets of our most polluted cities by the year 1997. Correspondent Tom Bearden reports. [Scene from "Back To The Future"]

TOM BEARDEN: While Hollywood fantasizes about nuclear powered cars for the future, America is wrestling with the consequences of today's fuel, the dangerous emissions that result from burning gasoline. Engineers and scientists are now considering a host of alternatives to gasoline a lot less exotic than plutonium in hopes of reducing air pollution. Each has its benefits, but also serious drawbacks. First, there's hydrogen. BMW and Mercedes are working on that idea. Nothing but water comes out of the tailpipe, but it's prohibitively expensive and probably decades away from being economically useful. People in British Colombia and several other countries are already using another gaseous fuel, natural gas. It's cleaner than gasoline and has another advantage.

CONSUMER: It is cheaper than gasoline, that's for sure. I've noticed of a difference of about half of the bill I usually get in gasoline, in other words, I spend half as much.

MR. BEARDEN: But using natural gas requires expensive changes in the nation's fuel delivery system. Another clean fuel alternative is ethanol, a form of alcohol that can be distilled from corn and other agricultural products, but like hydrogen, it's very expensive. Electrically powered vehicles are another intriguing possibility. They produce no emissions at all, but current battery technology limits their range to about 100 miles per charge. One state that has examined all the alternative fuel options is California. The state is heavily dependent on the private automobile, and as a result, several parts of the state, especially the Los Angeles basin, live under a blanket of smog, so it's not surprising that California is out front in the efforts to find an alternative to gasoline, and they think they've found one.

CHARLES IMBRECHT: For the next twenty to thirty years, we believe methanol is the most likely fuel to be used on a broad basis.

MR. BEARDEN: Charles Imbrecht is the chairman of the California Energy Commission and one of the principal advocates of methanol, another form of alcohol that can be refined from natural gas.

CHARLES IMBRECHT, California Energy Commission: Well, methanol is a much cleaner burning fuel than gasoline, it has a higher octane rating so it provides superior performance for the driver as well, and finally because it provides the opportunity to diversify our transportation fuel mix, it means the prospect of enhancing our nation's energy security.

MR. BEARDEN: Imbrecht says it offers most of the advantages of the other alternative fuels without the disadvantages. He says it's about the same price as gas. And because it's a liquid, methanol can be pumped just like gasoline. California now has a fleet of 500 state-owned cars running on a mix of gasoline and methanol, 85 percent methanol, 15 percent gasoline. The principal reason for the gasoline is to aid engine starting. Pure methanol engines are hard to start in cold weather. To fuel the fleet, the State Energy Commission provides methanol at cost to Arco and Chevron to sell at their stations. Recently EPA Director William Reilly participated in dedication ceremonies at a Chevron station in Anaheim.

WILLIAM REILLY, Environmental Protection Agency: [June] Here in Southern California, you are bringing on the fuel and bringing on the cars that will move us toward cleaner air.

MR. BEARDEN: And Reilly's boss, then Vice Pres. George Bush, gave Reilly a ringing endorsement when he dedicated an Arco station in Los Angeles.

GEORGE BUSH: [June 1988] So I'm here today to tell you that with methanol there is no catch. It is the real thing. This is the future right here for California and very possibly for the entire nation, a future of alternative fuels.

MR. BEARDEN: In the past, the automotive industry has hotly opposed virtually all government initiatives designed to reduce emissions, but not this time. There is a growing consensus in Detroit that alternative fuels are inevitable and that methanol may be the best choice. Robert Nichols heads up the Ford Motor Company's flexible fuel vehicle program.

ROBERTA NICHOLS, Ford Motor Company: Of all the fuels that we looked at considering performance of the vehicle, fuel efficiency, supply, where it would be coming from, all of those reasons, methanol kept coming out looking best.

MR. BEARDEN: All three American car companies are now testing so- called "flexible fuel" vehicles that run on methanol, ethanol, gasoline, or a mixture of all three. The carmakers think that flexibility will be important in the transition period before methanol is as widely available as gasoline. The flexibility is possible because of a fuel system censor.

MS. NICHOLS: This is the optical censor that measures the percentage of alcohol in the tank and in turn this sends a signal to the computer which changes the fuel flow, the spark timing.

MR. BEARDEN: So this tells the computer what the fuel is in the tank and the computer adjusts accordingly.

MS. NICHOLS: Exactly.

MR. BEARDEN: Other modifications are necessary because methanol is much more corrosive than gasoline. The fuel system must be made of stainless steel and the storage tank must be larger because it takes about 1.7 gallons of methanol to drive the same distance as a gallon of gasoline. Estimates are that flexible fuel cars will cost about $300 more than gasoline cars. David Cole is the Director of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan.

MR. BEARDEN: How ready do you think the big three are to produce alternative fuel vehicles?

DAVID COLE, University of Michigan: I think basically they are quite ready in a conceptual sense, there are some details that have to be worked out and obviously when you're talking about five hundred thousand or a million units, that's a big step in terms of putting the production capacity in place. That technology is just now leaving the laboratory and is entering some basic testing or product evaluation or fleets in California. I suspect, however, by the time the middle 1990s roll around we'll have that technology pretty well in hand.

MR. BEARDEN: But if the auto industry is willing to accept methanol, the oil industry isn't. The American Petroleum Institute says many of the arguments in favor of methanol are flawed, beginning with the idea that methanol's raw material, natural gas, would provide greater energy independence.

TERRY YOSIE, American Petroleum Institute: If one looks at natural gas sources throughout the world, the Soviet Union or Iran are the two most likely sources of natural gas that are available for export. Neither of those countries have any strong affinity for the energy security of the United States at this point or for the American consumer's pocket book.

CHARLES IMBRECHT: It will greatly expand the number of countries from which we can draw our transportation fuels. Today there are about 20 countries that export petroleum products, but there are an additional 20 countries that have very very large natural gas reserves, most of which are friends and allies of the United States.

MR. BEARDEN: A switch to methanol would also mean the oil companies would have to build expensive new refineries to convert natural gas. Dixon Smith is General Manager of Strategic Planning for Chevron.

DIXON SMITH, Chevron Corporation: Right now methanol is relatively inexpensive because of the current overcapacity, however, if we have a large increase in demand for methanol because of transportation fuels we're going to have to build new plants. Those plants are very expensive. Our estimate will be that in the future methanol would cost probably about 35 percent more on a mileage equivalent basis than gasoline.

MR. BEARDEN: But Imbrecht has an answer for that too. He argues that California refineries are already working at capacity, that the oil companies will have to build new ones anyway.

MR. IMBRECHT: And so the practical effect is that we can say with great confidence in our judgment methanol will be very competitive with gasoline prices in the future on a miles per dollar basis.

MR. BEARDEN: Other critics say converting natural gas to methanol is a waste. Conversion loses 40 percent of the energy in the gas. Critics are even attacking the whole basis of the argument for switching to methanol, the assertion that it will reduce air pollution, particularly ozone. Ozone can cause long-term lung damage, as well as shortness of breath and coughing, particularly for people with asthma.

MS. NICHOLS: The real difference for a methanol vehicle is the reactivity of the methanol, itself, when it comes out in the tailpipe, the way it reacts in the atmosphere, it doesn't form as much ozone, so that's where the potential for improvement in air quality is derived.

MR. BEARDEN: The California Energy Commission says methanol cars will produce 50 percent less ozone causing gases than gasoline cars, but several other studies, including an EPA study, found that switching to methanol would realistically only reduce total ozone gases by 2 or 3 percent by the year 2000. Methanol generates about the same carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions as gasoline and would not less production of the so-called "greenhouse gases" linked to global warming. And methanol produces much higher levels of a cancer causing substance than gasoline, formaldehyde.

TERRY YOSIE, American Petroleum Institute: I realize they do things differently sometimes in California, but I think that as more understanding of this alternative fuel becomes available, more people are having doubts. The environmental community in this country would certainly would never be seen as a shill for either the oil or the auto industry, are expressing a lot of the same concerns we are.

JIM MAC KINSEY: In my view, there is no compelling reason to develop these vehicles.

MR. BEARDEN: Jim MacKinsey has studied methanol for the World Resources Council, an environmental group.

JIM MAC KENZIE, World Resources Council: The state of the art methanol cars are about the same as conventional vehicles are, some pollutants like carbon monoxide that actually exceed the standards.

MR. BEARDEN: Imbrecht says the formaldehyde problem will be solved by catalytic converters and he remains convinced that the numbers and the facts are on methanol's side.

MR. IMBRECHT: The questions that they're asking today have been asked and answered repeatedly from a wide variety of sources. We're confident now that the technology is mature, that we have on-road experience that clearly demonstrates that and that moreover, the American as well as international automobile manufacturing community is also confident enough that they're willing to go forward with the technology. They're confident in its maturity, we are as well, and as results, I have no doubt that we are going to see a different transportation structure for the future not only in California but for the rest of the United States.

MR. BEARDEN: Methanol skeptics point out that the majority of the pollution in the air over America's cities is generated by older cars. They say that smog will lessen as the older vehicles are replaced by cleaner, new ones. And engineers are confident that gasoline engines and the fuel, itself, can be made to burn even more cleanly than they do today. So the oil industry is working hard at developing what they think will be the real fuel of the future, gasoline. Not surprisingly, boosters of all the other alternative fuels are also optimistic that theirs will wind up being the fuel of choice. Which one will win the alternative fuel race? The likely answer is no single one of them, that some combination of fuels will emerge to supplement gasoline. FINALLY - NOTEWORTHY FILM

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Finally tonight some musical archaeology. Old movies are considered by many to be treasures to be preserved, but up to now, little attention has been paid to the music that was created for these Hollywood classics. One group hopes to change all that. Arts Correspondent Joanna Simon reports.

JOANNA SIMON: It looked like a typical classical concert at New York's Lincoln Center. But don't be fooled by the setting. There were classics here all right, but they were film classics from Hollywood. The Wizard of Oz may be pop trivia to some, but not to the sponsor of this concert, the Sundance Institute, nor to its founder, Robert Redford.

ROBERT REDFORD: Tonight we're here to celebrate classic film and classic scores, beautiful scores, scores that we feel can stand on their own in any concert hall.

MS. SIMON: Sundance Institute has thrown its reputation and resources into finding, restoring, and preserving music from old film classics. This concert was designed to spread the word. So far it's managed to revive music from such memorable films as Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, and Miracle on 34th Street. That's a harder job than it seems. No one thought much about preservation in the time that's now called the Golden Age of Hollywood. Sound movies were new back them; movie makers had their hands full trying to learn the new art of film scoring. They quickly discovered that sounds alone weren't enough. By adding the right music, they could multiply the romance, the drama, or the suspense, as in this lynching scene from the film Wells Fargo. And because the music was more important, so were the musicians. To do their jobs, they watched the finished film. Then for each scene that needed music, they wrote a short composition that enhanced the mood on the screen but didn't dominate it. The music was orchestrated with parts for each instrument, then recorded and married to the finished movie. The music that resulted was sometimes corny by today's standards, yet it lasted.

WILLIAM ROSAR, Film Music Preservation Society: I think this music is so close to us that sometimes we're not even aware of it, of how close it is to us. I mean, you find people wandering up and down the street going, da, da, da, di, di, di, humming Marios Constance Twilight Zone them, and everybody knows what da da da dum da dum da is from the Wizard of Oz. I mean, these things are part of our culture, and I think that like any cultural artifact, the documentation, everything about them, should be saved, but unfortunately that hasn't been the case.

MS. SIMON: So the music that's often on our minds is sometimes no longer on the studio shelves. MGM, for example, broke up its music library in 1970. The scores, including classical musicals like An American in Paris, were carted off to a dump North of Los Angeles near the San Diego freeway. The composers who worked there never dreamed their art would end up as landfill.

HENRY MANCINI, Composer: People like Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, Nick Fasrosia, did sometimes more than 10 pictures a year. They weren't conscious of what the historical value of what they were doing was doing to be. So it's as simple as that. They just didn't know, they didn't care, they thought everything would be all right at the other end of the tunnel, and it wasn't.

MS. SIMON: The final fate of those old scores was often a matter of pure chance. Entire file cabinets slated for disposal were caught just in time. At Paramount, the people who made Wells Fargo managed to save almost everything, but even there, it was less a matter of policy from on high, more a matter of a few people down in the music department like Ridge Walker and his boss who knew what was in those files and fought to save it.

RIDGE WALKER, Paramount Music Department: I think it was the particular person in charge when I started here -- he recognized the value of what we had and was able to convince the company and or keep it hidden from the company for all this period of time.

MS. SIMON: Scores written as far back as 1937 are still on library shelves in the studio attic. They range from forgotten relics to classics like the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard starring Gloria Swanson and William Holden, with music by Franz Waxman.

RIDGE WALKER: These are the actual scores. Here we have all of the orchestral parts for Q1AY, violins, bases, all the strings, flutes, horns. We could put this music on the scoring stage right now and re-record the cue.

MS. SIMON: Sundance had a much tougher job when they decided to present music from The Wizard of Oz at their Lincoln Center concert. The film is full of music. Some of the characters even have their own themes. The job was finding that music, the actual score sheets, themselves, and not just the famous songs by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, but the complete background score by MGM Composer Herbert Stothart. The search fell to Sundance Institute's Music Director, David Newman.

MS. SIMON: How much of that actually still exists?

DAVID NEWMAN, Sundance Institute: Of the Wizard of Oz? Well, nothing really exists, except these sketches. They're like -- what they would do is take the full orchestra score and they'd just, they'd pare it down to like something you could play at a piano, and sometimes you might be into working on something and find that there indeed is something more than you thought, because it's just a big detective game. It's just making a lot of phone calls and looking through piles of dusty paper and stuff like that.

MS. SIMON: Those dusty papers that once belonged to Herbert Stothart finally turned up in the home of Herbert Stothart, Jr.

HERBERT STOTHART, JR.: Out of the blue I get a telephone call from David Newman, who's going to, as I understand, conduct this concert in New York, and he tells me that they're interested in performing the cyclone scenes from The Wizard of Oz, and I said, well, he said, would you cooperate, I said, of course.

MS. SIMON: The younger Stothart still had his father's personal copies of all his movie scores bound in leather on a shelf in his living room. It was a helpful find, but it wasn't enough. The individual parts for each instrument were still missing. Ultimately, Steve Bernstein, working from a tape, tediously translated the sound track back into written music for the Sundance Concert. He had to work strictly with his ears, plus the limited score sheets borrowed from Herbert Stothart, Jr. The job was harder because the film sometimes used several themes at once to add emotional complexity. [Scene from "Wizard of Oz"]

MS. SIMON: This particular music began here as a short composition called "Trouble in School".

MS. SIMON: What does "Trouble in School" mean?

STEVE BERNSTEIN, Composer: Well, Dorothy's had some problems in school. She's having problems here and there and problems with Miss Gulch obviously and she's sort of running away from school, running to home, which is where she's happy and secure. Basically, you have this kind of accompaniment going on in the orchestra and then the melody and the violins doing this and they go up and down like this. So it's incredibly well done. It's very exciting and I don't think we really pay attention to what's going on in the music when we see this scene, but without it, it would be a totally different scene.

MS. SIMON: The Wizard of Oz would have been a totally different film without Herbert Stothart. He combined European classical training with the American vigor of his Wisconsin roots. It was a good match for this romantic fairytale centered on a little girl from Kansas. Film composers like Stothart had to have a knack for writing music that would let the stars shine but wouldn't outshine them. You had to have talent but also a taste for anonymity. It was a combination that earned Stothart an Oscar, but not much fame. All that changed at the Lincoln Center concert.

ROBERT REDFORD: This may be incidental, but I'm Robert Redford.

MS. SIMON: On this night, even the founder of Sundance took a back seat to the musicians. They were the stars of the evening, along with some film scenes in a supporting role. Here's the cyclone scene where Dorothy is transported to Oz. It was presented without a sound track, but for the first time ever with live music. [Music Score] There will be more concerts like this one across the country. Officials at the Sundance Institute hope to raise people's consciousness so that these old scores will no longer be candidates for the dump but instead will be saved to preserve this American art form. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, the pilot of the crashed United Airlines DC-10 said he and the others in the cockpit crew made it up as they went after the plane lost its hydraulic system. And most of the striking coal miners returned to work in the Soviet Union. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Thank you and good night.