The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, Hurricane Hugo landed a devastating blow on Charleston, South Carolina. A summit and arms control dominated day one of the Baker/Shevardnadze talks in Wyoming, and the IRA claimed credit for a bombing that killed at least 10 people at a British Marine barracks. 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, first we look at Hurricane Hugo and its devastating attack on Charleston, South Carolina [Focus - In Hugo's Wake]. We hear from Gov. Carroll Campbell, then Grant Peterson from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and George Hutchens from the American Red Cross join us. Next a documentary report [Update - Flight Delays] on the battle field that is Eastern Airlines. Then on to our weekly political wrapup with David Gergen and Mark Shields, [Focus - Gergen & Shields] and finally Essayist Roger Rosenblatt [Essay - Poetic Ending] on the last of the modern poets.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Hurricane Hugo's worst is finally over. It crashed ashore last night at Charleston, South Carolina, with 135 mile an hour winds and high waves, leveling many buildings and houses. At least 10 deaths in South Carolina and North Carolina were blamed on Hugo. It had killed as many ass 26 in the Caribbean Islands before it hit the U.S. mainland. Tonight Hugo is headed Northeast through the Eastern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania area and on toward Lake Eerie and into Canada. Its winds were down to 50 miles an hour and it was no longer considered a major threat. Charlotte, North Carolina and other inland cities and towns were battered by heavy winds and rains after Hugo left the coast, but nothing was of the magnitude of what happened in Charleston. South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell asked Pres. Bush to declare his state a disaster area. Mr. Bush did so, freeing up federal aid and loan funds for seven counties. The governor spoke to reporters about the destruction.

GOV. CARROLL CAMPBELL, South Carolina: You know, I guess we're used to in the state dealing with high water in low areas. We're not used to dealing with high water in high areas. We're going to be a long time digging out of this and rebuilding but the spirit of the people of this state trying to pull together to offer their assistance to all the people that have been out I think is going to serve us well over the next few weeks and months as we try to put it back together.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have a fuller report on Hugo right after this News Summary. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Prospects of a super power summit next year and new arms control agreements were raised by Secretary of State James Baker today. The encouraging words were spoken at the start of two days of talks with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The mood of theso-called "mini summit" between the two leaders was decidedly upbeat as they posed at a spot overlooking the Grand Titans Mountain Range. As the session began, Sec. Baker explained why he picked such an unconventional site for the meeting.

JAMES BAKER, Secretary of State: I also think that there is something symbolic by our meeting in this kind of an unusual - place. I really believe relations between the United States and the Soviet Union are entering a new phase. I believe and I think most would agree that there is a new openness and candor in our relationship and I think hopefully we'll be able to take some steps that are unprecedented so it shouldn't be unusual for us to take the unprecedented step of meeting in a place like this.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Back in Washington Colin Powell was confirmed by the Senate today to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The 52 year old Powell was the youngest person and the first black to hold the nation's highest military post. Approved by unanimous voice vote, Powell succeeds Adm. William Crowe, who is scheduled to retire next month.

MR. LEHRER: At least 10 people died today in a terrorist bombing of a royal marine music training facility Great Britain. The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the murders at Deal in Southeast England. The explosion flattened a three story barracks. Police were unsure how many of the dead were either marine bandsmen or civilians; 22 others were injured. There was another new claim of peace in Lebanon today. A spokesman for the Arab League said the head of the Christian forces, Gen. Michele Aoun, had agreed to a 7 point peace plan. Nearly 900 people have died and another 3400 have been wounded in the six months of fighting between Syrian backed Moslem militia Aoun's Christians. The peace plan calls for an immediate cease-fire, the lifting of blockades and the reopening of the Beirut. Several earlier Arab League sponsored peace initiatives have failed when one or both sides refused to honor them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In South Africa today, black trade unions launched a nationwide consumer boycott of white owned stores as a part of an ongoing broad based national defiance campaign. At the same time some 25,000 protesters staged marches in two separate cities. We have a report narrated by Tom Browne of Worldwide Television News.

MR. BROWNE: Until recently marches like this one in Durbin would not have been allowed to happen, but today as they have since the country's news President, F.W. DeKlerk, eased the emergency regulations, police were keeping a low profile. With the line of clergymen leading the way, the marchers sang and waved placards, denouncing alleged police harassment and brutality. So cordial was the mood that as the marchers wound up their protests in front of the city hall, opponents politely shook hands before a cheering crowd and a petition calling for changes in police behavior was handed over. A similar rally in the quiet farming community of Uts Horn was led by a leading anti-apartheid cleric, the Rev. Allan Boesak. South Africa's justice minister has warned protesters against testing the government's new found tolerance, but for now opposition groups are reveling in even this limited freedom.

REV. ALLAN BOESAK, Anti-Apartheid Leader: The people have come up in the thousands, as you see. And for a country town like this, this is just much much more than I expected. The people have an ebullient feeling and so much joy in here. It's going to be a great march.

MR BROWNE: Three more marches are planned for the weekend, as well as labor action to protest a new law which the unions say curtails their right to strike.

MR. LEHRER: The Justice Minister of Colombia has quit. The resignation of 32 year old Monica Ms. DeGreiff was confirmed today in Bogota by a Ministry spokesman. Ms. DeGreiff had been the target of numerous death threats since taking the position two months ago, but she said in an interview today that she was forced to resign by Pres. Virgilio Barco who wanted another type person in the job. On the drug front in Washington, White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater confirmed a Washington Post story today about how Pres. Bush got the drugs he held up to camera during his September 5th drug speech. Fitzwater said undercover agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency lured a drug dealer to Lafayette Park across from the White House. Fitzwater said the specific purpose was so Mr. Bush could hold up crack and say it was bought across from the White House. The press secretary said it was a legitimate sting operation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Federal Aviation Administration today suspended the licenses of the pilot and co-pilot of a U.S. Air jet that crashed on take-off in New York Wednesday night, killing two people. Federal officials said that the two men were interviewed today by investigators. A report in today's New York Times said investigators were looking into reports that the co-pilot said he had been operating the jet when the captain started mumbling and acting irrationally. A National Transportation Safety Board official said today that analysis of the flight recorder did not reveal a reason for the crash. That's it for the News Summary. Still ahead, Hurricane Hugo, Gergen & Shields, Eastern Airlines, and Essayist Roger Rosenblatt. FOCUS - IN HUGO'S WAKE

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: First tonight the impact of Hurricane Hugo. The communities along the East Coast hit by the massive storm are beginning to dig themselves out and determine the extent of the damage done. We start with a look at Hugo's devastating visit to the Coastal Town of Charleston, South Carolina. Kwame Holman reports.

MR. HOLMAN: It was midnight Thursday in a battened down Charleston, when Hurricane Hugo came ashore. Winds reached, then exceeded, the predicted speed of 135 miles per hour. Water in the form of rain and a surge of ocean, aided by high tide, drenched this beach front city of 70,000. Fortunately, an expected 15 foot ocean wave never developed. Producer Jim Bunn drove into Charleston during the hurricane.

PETER BUNN: As we drove through the hurricane's outer bands, we encountered a light mist to blinding heavy rains. There was water everywhere and no way to know just how deep it was.

MR. HOLMAN: By morning, the extent of Hugo's destruction could be seen. Most structures still stood, but 30 buildings in downtown Charleston were destroyed. A small percentage of homes and many trailers also were devastated. The evacuation of more than 100,000, mostly off-coast, island residents, plus the city's preparations, apparently combined to limit the death toll in Charleston to 1. Elsewhere in South Carolina, eight died in storm related incidents, one in North Carolina. Among the first to venture out after the hurricane were scattered bands of looters. Police and some of the 2400 National Guard troops dispatched in South Carolina entered the looting, arresting 25 people. Tonight Charleston is under a dusk to dawn curfew. Meanwhile, city and utility crews worked to remove large and small debris, and power and water slowly are being restored to Charleston blacked out Hurricane Hugo. For now, shelters are home to more than 35,000 in South Carolina. Many of them are likely applicants for some of the disaster relief funds made available today by Pres. Bush.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell talked today about Hugo and compared it to previous hurricanes in the region. Here are excerpts from his news conference.

GOV. CARROLL CAMPBELL, South Carolina: We've had some glancing blows from storms like Hazel that went into North Carolina and really we only got the backwash of and we've had Gracie and some of those that came in at angles, but we've never had one to hit directly and like this one did in my lifetime. It's been back in the 1800s according to the experts since we've had anything approach it. We have sustained in South Carolina a major disaster. We've got public institutions where people are that had huge trees fall on them. We've just got all kinds, anything you can imagine from what we have back has happened one way or the other and you know, it's going to be miraculous the way that thing came in if we don't have a heavy loss of life in there, because, you know, when we have concentrations of people, we're trying to put them in a safe place and then you get a huge variance in a storm and the winds hit, and trees fall on the building and roofs go off, the ability of the local people and the guardsmen and the local law enforcement, the local volunteers to move these people quickly in the face of all this, you know, it's just tremendous. We had, you know, a few instances of people that just wouldn't go. I'll give you an idea of one. We had some people in a 200 year old house out the battery and down in there, saying that it had lasted 200 years and they would stay and they were rather elderly and we maintained the telephone communications through to them. As it began to hit, a roof came off next door and hit, they went to the basement, the basement started flooding and they were in a panic and there was nowhere to take them. They couldn't get out. We ran into this same thing in other areas where local people in many instances said that they weren't going to go and at the last minute realized and it created some confusion.

REPORTER: What happened to that elderly couple?

GOV. CAMPBELL: We don't know. We lost the communication. That's what's happened. We were monitoring. We hear things. We were trying to keep up. We had people in. We had to pull our people, our security personnel, off the streets, you know, shortly before the storm hit up and down for their own safety. And at 5 o'clock, we found out they had people in shelters very close to the front. Between 5 o'clock and 7:30 we were basically able to mobilize in local vans, trucks from the Guard, everybody else, and pull those people out of that area from 5 to 7:30, and they had 150 people sitting in a hospital lobby with nowhere to go. We were able to get all of those people out at the last minute. I guess we're used to in the state dealing with high water in low areas. We're not used to dealing with high water in high areas. We have not confirmed it, but we were told that the estimated water wall up the coast toward Georgetown that came in was approximately 17 feet on top of a high tide. Now we have a lot of small communities like Santee and McClellanville and places like that that we've got people going into now, trying to get in and find out what's going on. We tried to evacuate all of those and did get most of them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We are joined now by two men involved in the national relief effort for victims of Hurricane Hugo. They are George Hutchens, the Vice President of Programs and Service for the American Red Cross, and Grant Peterson of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And starting with you, Mr. Peterson, the President, we just heard, declared this area a disaster area today. Specifically what does that mean in terms of the problems that you confront now?

GRANT PETERSON, Federal Emergency Management Agency: What that means is when the President so rapidly made this declaration after the Governor requested it, it means that we have the responsibility for tasking and coordinating all of the federal agency's resources that can be brought to bear to resolve and mitigate the life threatening situations within the area. It also means that we have now the access to funding that is authorized by Congress every year under the disaster declaration act and those funds can be used for many things to be applied directly to citizens and people within this stricken area to mitigate the trauma that they're under right now.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In terms of the trauma that they're under right now, I mean, what kind of priorities are you setting and how are you going about meeting those, dealing with those?

MR. PETERSON: The first thing is we are to support state and local governments, not supplant state and local governments. Our teams have been directly with the state officials and the governor all the way through this. We can now begin to apply by setting up disaster assistant offices as an example. Temporary housing for disaster victims, we can provide funds for essential repair to owner occupied residents. We can give up to $10,000 immediately in cash to disaster related victims for necessary housing and to support their families. We can provide legal services as well as providing many funds for governments, such as repairing of roads, bridges and power systems, et cetera, so we have direct access to funds for this.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Hutchens, your people have been on the ground since I guess before this thing started. How do you assess the situation as we speak?

GEORGE HUTCHENS, American Red Cross: Well our people are having the same problem of local authorities of getting in and access the smaller communities and see what is actually going on. The fact that without the power and as darkness settles we probably won't know what the assessments are until tomorrow sometime. We are concerned with food clothing and shelter. We want to make sure that we meet those needs. We work very closely with the local authorities and with the Government people, FEMA, to make that sure that happens. Our first concern is that they are taken care of now then we will have them as other assistance becomes available.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you feel that you are gaining access, I mean, what percentage of the population do you feel that you have managed to reach at this point?

MR. HUTCHENS: Well we had about 40,000 people in the shelters that we were concerned with last night. A large percentage of them have tried to find other places and have gone back. We still have several shelters open and the feeding operations will be going on and the assessments of as to what people are going to need as the power comes back on and the water is made available. We just all have to work together to make sure that people get what they need.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How adequate are those shelters that you have set up now. I understand that you have 35,000 people in there. Have you provided shelter for all the people at this time who need it as far as you know.

MR. HUTCHENS: I think the figure if correct is probably a 150,000 people got out of there. This is one thing that is great about this particular storm. The pre planning the cooperation of all the agencies, to see that the people got the proper message and this isn't to say that the shelters are first class motel operations when we set them up but having a roof over their head, having something to eat is about the best we could do. What we have to assess now is do we need long term shelter, working with FEMA about emergency temporary housing and things of that type. Those are things that we will work with now.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Peterson do you know about the hospitals, medical facilities things like that what they are facing right now and how they are coping?

MR. PETERSON: Well immediately they are facing the very difficult problem in the vicinity of the center of the storm where they have no power and that is a traumatic situation for medical services. They have power generation back up and we are currently looking at what kind of immediate support they may need to bring those power levels up so we can get the emergency services and response groups capable of dealing with that issue.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are there are a lot of injuries and how serious are they?

MR. PETERSON: This is a very serious situation because we have everything from deaths in this circumstance to people who have been injured, cut and abrasions. So we have pretty much the full gamut and I think the Governor who should be commended for his pre planning and for getting people of those lying areas. he saved hundreds of lives by doing that and I think that the Governor is assessing that and reacting very well.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Hutchens with the Red Cross I am sure that you have been involved in other disaster situations like this, I mean, how does it compare?

MR. HUTCHENS: This is about as bad as you get especially in the Charleston area. You know we are involved in the Islands, Puerto Rico and St. Croix, which is absolutely devastated, We are concerned about that. We are getting spread very thin as the FEMA people are. Our operation in Charleston was damaged, the Chapter and blood center. The Blood Center will probably be shut down for a week so we are making plans to make sure that the Blood supplies are met from the surrounding areas but it is as bad as you would want to see it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Peterson I don't know if you heard the Governor a few moments ago talk about this elderly couple they were in touch with by phone who went in their basement and then suddenly realized that the waters were rising and then they lost communications, I mean, how serious a problem is communications and what can you do at this point about improving that?

MR. PETERSON: It is very serious and as we've seen in St. Croix on the Virgin Islands it so devastating not to be able to communicate. Fortunately we have emergency communications capabilities in FEMA where we can out in direct satellite ties, UHF, VHF and high frequency communications. We can come in a provide multiple telephone circuitry to begin to re- establish those communications in the emergency response areas where we have to have communications with the State and where we have to have communications with the other Federal Agencies to task them to bring resources in.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Has that already started, I mean, all the things that you are talking about is your capabilities but how much of that is already in place?

MR. PETERSON: As an example in our communications capability we have pre positioned those last night and began rolling them into the area as soon as the weather cleared substantially to do so.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: As you know in St. Croix there was a real security problem with looting and so on and it was a reference to that some small amount of that taking place as a curfew in place in the South Carolina Region now. How concerned are about that and how bad has that gotten?

MR. PETERSON: I am not nearly as concerned about this situation as we are in St. Croix because the Governor has control of the situation. he has forces available to deal with patrolling and while this is a very devastating situation we do have immediate support coming in and I think the citizens know that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Hutchens what would you say at this point for people all over the Country who want to do something to help people in the Region. What kind of advice would you give to them at this time.

MR. HUTCHENS: Well one of the things of course is that it is going to take considerable amounts of cash in order to do this. We have all kinds of offers in kind equipment and some of the things that we will take advantage of. Everyone wants to become involved as have offered donations and so forth and we screen those very carefully because what we need to do now is to determine what do they really need and that is the type of thing that we want to accept especially in the Island areas.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So where do people call to find out. Do they call the Red Cross?

MR. HUTCHENS: Yes they can call the Red Cross.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Their local Red Cross?

MR. HUTCHENS: Yes their local Red Cross Chapter and that information comes into National Headquarters. For those who want to donate we have an 800 number, 800-453-9000. that they can make donations and pledges.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: 800-459-9000. Well Mr. Hutchens and Mr. Peterson thank you so much for being with us.

MR. HUTCHENS: Thank you.

MR. PETERSON: Its a pleasure thank you. UPDATE - FLIGHT DELAYS

MR. LEHRER: The Eastern Airlines strike is next tonight. It has been seven months now since Eastern's mechanics called a strike and the pilots and flight attendants honored their picket lines. Correspondent Tom Bearden reports on how the divisions between unions and management remain as strong as ever.

MR. BEARDEN: It happens seven days a week six times a day. In a kind of ritual, the striking mechanics at Eastern Airlines report to union headquarters to begin their four hour shift on the picket lines. Miami Airport is a big place, so the union bought a ramshackle school bus for a few hundred dollars to shuttle members around. It bumps across 36th Street in the oppressive South Florida heat, dropping a few pickets at the entrance to corporate headquarters, around the airport to the fuel tank farm. Like changing the guards, fresh pickets replace the old. Into the airport, itself, they hand off the placards as indifferent passengers hurry past them into the Eastern terminal. Six months ago, the mechanics strike had emptied the terminal and all but grounded Eastern. It was the climax of more than a decade of bitter confrontation between Eastern management and the unions. The crisis forced the airlines into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and into a rebuilding process that continues to this day. And so it is that there's another happier ritual away from the hot sun, in an air conditioned company auditorium. Every week Eastern throws a graduation ceremony for each class of newly hired pilots as they finish their training. Back in March, people predicted Eastern could never hire and train enough pilots fast enough to get back in the air in any meaningful way, they were wrong, and tonight the pride showed. There were speeches, an upbeat slide show, and a welcome from Eastern Pres. Phil Bakes.

PHIL BAKES: Billy, when he opened, said that 1989 is the year of the birth of the airline of the 1990s called Eastern, and that it is. Little did we know it was going to be a Cesarian, however.

MR. BEARDEN: Rebuilding Eastern has one of the biggest pieces of corporate surgery ever. A new corporate culture has been transplanted in the last few months.

SPOKESMAN: I believe in Eastern 100 percent. I've given it 115 and I plan to give it 200 percent more and this airline is going to fly if I've got to push every airplane off myself.

MR. BEARDEN: The double strand of razor wire inside the Eastern perimeter fence was strung for security, but it may also symbolize management's determination to keep the old attitudes out. For all its problems, the old Eastern had a strong sense of family. That may account for the sense of betrayal and baffled exclusion so many strikers now feel. Flight Attendant Betsie Romano had been with the company for 20 years. Now she spends her time in the converted bungalow that houses her union office organizing demonstrations of strikers.

BETSIE ROMANO, Striking Flight Attendant: I would not like to see Eastern go. It has become obviously part of my life. I'm an Eastern brat, as they say. I started at 21 and matured into an older person. I like the traveling benefits. I miss seeing my family. I miss the camaraderie that we had on the airplane with the friends that you've developed over the years. It's a big change in your life when you no longer have it.

MR. BEARDEN: Mike and Wendy Rexon are both pilots who met during their training. They married the company and each other. Flying got into her blood early. Her father was a pilot for Northwest. He learned to fly in the military. The Rexons believed management was deliberately carving up the airline.

WENDY REXON, Striking Pilot: The reason that we went out on strike was because we felt that there was no future with the airline. It was continually assets being sold off, the Northeast shuttle, airplanes. It was a situation where if we didn't stop the process, it would be dissolved into nothing.

MIKE REXON, Striking Pilot: We felt like we had no choice. It was really, we just felt like we had no choice. We had to take a stand to save our jobs.

MR. BEARDEN: Mechanic Joe Cimino has a briefcase full of commendations for outstanding work over the course of his 16 years in the automotive shop, but despite the praise, he says he was continually harassed by his supervisors.

JOE CIMINO, Striking Mechanic: Working conditions were intolerable at Eastern Airlines. I had no choice or we as union members had no choice but to leave.

MR. BEARDEN: The view from inside the corporate fence is equally sincere, but so different that it's hard to believe they're talking about the same airline. One reason may be that all of this is brand new to people like Flight Attendant Elizabeth Dominey. She's been on the job just two weeks. Before this, she sold hot tubs and drove a hotel van. Dominey saw a job with a potential for future advancement.

ELIZABETH DOMINEY, Eastern Flight Attendant: It was just at the right time in my life. I was unhappy at my present job and I wanted a career and I really felt that this was the way to go, take a chance and go to the interview, and look where I am.

MR. BEARDEN: She knows next to nothing about the company's previous labor relations problems and she believes management is on her side.

MS. DOMINEY: I think they're going to watch out over us because we are the people who are dealing with the customers one on one and they want us to be happy.

MR. BEARDEN: The enthusiasm of new hires like Dominey is echoed by veteran captain Jim Foster who stayed on the job because he thought his union was wrong.

JIM FOSTER, Eastern Pilot: This is the best I've felt in 30 years since I've been with it, the camaraderie, the can do, the cooperation amongst all the employees, not only the flight crews, the flight attendants, but the ground personnel, everyone wants to work that is here. And the hatred is sitting outside the gate.

MR. BEARDEN: The major problem in the rebuilding effort was that in the beginning there weren't nearly enough people, especially pilots. Training director Bert Beach was the man on the hot seat. On top of having to start from scratch and train a whole new airline worth of pilots, he even had to board up the windows of his office after demonstrators threw rocks through them. He also had the pilots union looking over his shoulder and doing their best to discredit the program. The union rented a hotel room overlooking Eastern headquarters to contact newly hired pilots in hopes of converting them to the union point of view. One of the people who came to them was Peter Winter. He has all the necessary pilot licenses plus some 15,000 hours of experience flying for charter and commuter operations. In the past, people like Winter would have started with a major airline at the flight engineer's position, the second officer's job. After years on that job, he would have been promoted to co-pilot, a first office, and finally, he'd become the captain in command, after being with the airline for perhaps 20 years. That's the progression Winter expected. He was astonished at what actually happened.

PETER WINTER, Pilot: I was amazed the second week of training and they announced our seat assignments and they made me, they told me that I was going to Houston for two weeks for systems training and that I was going to be captain on the 727.

MR. BEARDEN: Winter was shocked because he'd never flown a large jet aircraft before.

MR. WINTER: It didn't make any sense. It wasn't realistic to take someone such as myself without any transport category type of experience and put me in that position.

MR. BEARDEN: Mark Bathurst has been monitoring the training program for the pilots union.

MARK BATHURST, Air Line Pilots Association: None of the established ongoing carriers have ever put a person immediately into a captain's seat like Eastern has done. They completely sort of inverted the seniority system by hiring people to be captains, co-pilots, wherever they needed people, as opposed to an orderly progression that allows not only experience in the airplane, but also experience again with the operating procedures of that particular airline.

BERTON E. BEACH, Director of Training: If they feel that one has to progress from one seat to the next to the next, they're wrong, in my opinion they're wrong, and I think we have proven that that's not so.

MR. BEARDEN: How have you proved it?

MR. BEACH: By having an airline that's operating better than any other airline going with just the kinds of people who they think can't qualify.

MR. BEARDEN: Winter eventually dropped out of the training program because of his concerns.

MR. BEARDEN: How was the quality of instruction?

MR. WINTER: Not good. Not good. We spent a lot of time turning pages in the manual, in the aircraft operating manual, and we never got indepth into any particular system. I got more studying and I learned more on my own in the hotel room. There was a lot of story telling. The instructor would tell a story, this happened to this guy or that happened.

MR. BEARDEN: The pilots union questions not only the quality of the instruction but the background of the people who were getting it, people they say wouldn't have been hired by anybody but a carrier in a crisis.

CAPT. BATHURST: A lot of them have been flying in an environment that wouldn't be normally found in a commercial carrier. In other words, they may be flying at night, freight, they may be flying into small airports with small airplanes, as opposed to the large commercial type of airplanes that Eastern's flying.

MR. BEARDEN: They say the people flying Eastern Airlines today are not as good as they used to be and there's going to be a crash.

MR. BEACH: They're in some cases better than they used to be. Is there going to be a crash? Not because of who the people are, or not because of the training they have received. I believe that right now the people who are flying the line are every bit as anybody who's on a picket line and in many cases far safer.

MR. BEARDEN: The questions aren't confined to the quality of the new pilots. There are serious doubts about Eastern's business plans, whether the new company will ever be viable. On the surface, Eastern appears to be recovering nicely. The terminals are crowded and the planes are fuller than they ever have been before. Management credits low ticket prices and enthusiastic new employees. Pres. Phil Bakes says the basic long-term strategy begins with cost reduction.

PHIL BAKES, President, Eastern Airlines: We always had a higher cost structure than our competition. We would throw a seat up in the air and fly it one mile. It would cost us 5 to 10 percent more than our major competition when they threw that same similar seat and flew it one mile. And day after day, month after month, year after year, that produced over a billion dollars in losses in the 1980s for Eastern Airlines. That was one of our major problems. That problem is now solved. We have lowered our cost structure.

MR. BEARDEN: But some analysts say low cost may not be enough. Sales of aircraft have generated cash for creditors but have forced the company to shrink. Eastern plans to concentrate on Atlanta. Some analysts don't think they'll be big enough to successfully compete with Atlanta's dominant carrier, Delta. 7:30 PM, the picket bus loads up for the fifth time this day. The heat is less oppressive in the evening, but the ride is still rough, the future still a cipher. They've been doing this for more than six months now, but emotions are still raw. Cynicism comes easily. So does hatred, more than wages, benefits or job security, it is hatred of Frank Lorenzo, the man who controls Eastern, that brought the pilots, mechanics and flight attendants together in this unprecedented show of solidarity. Hatred sustains the strike. They've created a virtual Lorenzo demonology, posters, targets, bumper stickers, even earrings.

BETSIE ROMANO: I will not work for Frank Lorenzo. I think I've proven that to my peers. I've given up a lot and I'll continue to give up if I have to. I will not work for Frank Lorenzo ever.

MS. DOMINEY: I think it's an excellent career to get into, a lot better than I had before.

MR. BEARDEN: Any complaints?

MS. DOMINEY: No, none at all.

MR. BEARDEN: At the moment, it may appear that Frank Lorenzo. The planes are flying, thestrike is going nowhere, but it's far too early to tell whose parade is really being rained on. Eastern's business strategy simply may not work. The bankruptcy plan could easily come unraveled and the creditors could demand liquidation. And for most workers, there will clearly be life after Eastern. Joe Cimino and his two partners started a car repair business and say they're making as much money as they did before. Pilots Mike and Wendy Rexon each draw $2400 a month from the ALPA strike fund they've contributed to over the years. It will give them a cushion to look for new opportunities and ponder what has happened to them.

MR. BEARDEN: Do you feel like a winner or loser in this situation?

WENDY REXON: A winner as far as personal integrity and the way I feel. I feel good about what I did, however, I feel like a loser as far as the system.

MR. BEARDEN: Eastern management and employees have been waging an exhausting, inconclusive war for 10 years. They may have finally ended that conflict by simply going their separate ways.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead, Gergen & Shields and the last of the modern poets. FOCUS - GERGEN & SHIELDS

MR. LEHRER: It is Friday and hurricane or no hurricane Gergen and Sheilds are here to analyze. David Gergen is Editor at Large of U.S. News and World Report. Marl Sheilds is a Syndicated Columnist for the Washington Post. Gentleman first the Baker, Chevardnadze, meeting in Wyoming, the smell of partisan politics has crept in to all of this, Secretary Baker, Senate Majority Leader Mitchell has been exchanging charges over timidity. We talked it about here last night. Mark how do you read the politics of this?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Well I think first of all Jim Baker is a politician. There is no two ways about that is one of the charges he has to plead guilty to that. He was the Campaign Manager for Jerry Ford in 76, top political person for Ronald Reagan in 81 and Campaign manager for George Bush in 88 as he had been in 80. So he is deep in politics and I think that you have to say that Jim Bakers political skills played a very large role in the resolution of what was the thorniest foreign policy problem that the Administration inherited namely that of Central America. In that sense politics has served him well. I think that Jim Baker made a serious mistake is saying the opposition party in casting the criticism of the Administrations timidity in dealing with the events in Eastern Europe in sort of pollster terms saying the President is 70 percent. He can take a leaf from his old bosses note book. Ronald Reagan always framed the critics in terms of liberals or spenders. he never got down in the trenches that way and I don't think the Americans expect their Secretary of State to think and express himself in those terms.

MR. LEHRER: David.

DAVID GERGEN, U.S. News and World Report: We I have a qualifier. He is a Friend and I have worked for him and I am admirers of Jim Baker's. I think that it is important to understand the context. Senator Mitchell, the Democratic Leader of the Senate criticized Baker and the Administrations Foreign Policy for being to timid. Baker was asked about in a press conference. The first time he answered the question he answered in substantive terms about policy. He was asked again and he talked politics. And I think that in a way symbolizes what the Administration sees going on with Mitchell and others. Yes they are legitimate grounds and they think for the opposition or the Democrats to raise questions about foreign policy that is always with in bounds but I think the Administration also believes that there is a political effort being made by the Democrats, a fairly concerted effort now. It started out with the President's drug speech and we've seen it since then to start opening up on the Administration, to take the gloves off. Mario Cuomo went to the West Coast and said it is time to stop being deferential. We've had Senator Mitchell come and criticize the Administration, Ron Brown the Chairman of the Democratic party has criticized the Administration. So I think that the Administration saw the Mitchell attack as being doubled barrelled. On one side it was substantive and on the other it was also political. It doesn't seem to me that it is wholely uncalled for the Administration to respond in kind.

MR. LEHRER: Mark what do you think, do you know for a fact that the Democrats have made a decision. let's go all guns on all these fronts particularly on the timidity issue?

MR. SHIELDS: Well I think it is whether a decision has been made through out the Party I don't know.

MR. LEHRER: Things like that aren't made in the Democratic Party.

MR. SHIELDS: It was great to see the Republicans this week in disarray with the White Chief of Staff John Sanunu criticizing Lee Atwater and Ed Rollins for the loss of Jim Wrights seat in Texas.

MR. GERGEN: That is a good diversion Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: No it is a new headline Republicans in disarray.

MR. LEHRER: To the question.

MR. SHIELDS: As far as the Democrats are concerned this past week you had John Dingell the Chairman of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce, one of the most powerful men on Capitol Hill and Dick Gephardt and Danny Rostenkowsky all testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on increased aid to Poland. I mean there is now two ways about it the Democrats see America's response to events in Eastern Europe and especially I think that Jim Baker is on the defensive on the Eagleburger Speech which almost seemed nostalgic about a bi polar World. Instead of looking forward to a World where the opportunities are seemingly remarkable and that Jim Baker as the Secretary of State went from August when Solidarity took over to September last week was the first time that he had even commented in events and I think that Americans do expect their Secretary of State and their President to comment.

MR. LEHRER: So you think there is good politics in there for Democrats?

MR. SHIELDS: I think that it is a legitimate issue and I think that legitimate issue translates in to good politics.

MR. GERGEN: I know, of course, the Democrats will not setup to partisan politics on anything but the fact is when the President went out and made his speech on drugs the Democrats bought an Ad with Ron Brown in it to play on CNN the night of the speech attacking the speech. The Ad was cut before he made the speech. So I think we are in a more partisan season and I think Baker was saying that. I think Baker was saying if I were in the opposition Party and I saw a President 70 percent in the polls I'd be frustrated too. He doesn't blame them for lashing out but I think that we ought to understand there is partisan politics on both sides right now.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you about Baker, as you say you know Baker very well. The New York Times did a really tough analysis piece on the front page a couple of days ago about this whole matter and it raised the question of whether or not that Baker is so much a domestic politics man. Mark outlined his history which is failure to you as well to be the foreign policy man in this Country, the Secretary of State, he just can not move from politics, domestic politics, to be coming a clean foreign affairs man. Is that true?

MR. GERGEN: Well I don't think that Jim Baker will be a pure foreign policy specialist. His politics are in his blood. Now that does that serve the Country well or badly? I think that is the more interesting question and I think that you can make the argument given the kind of partisanship that has entered in to foreign policy in the past, the kind of deep divisions that have split the White House and the Congress in the Reagan Administration on several issues such as Nicaragua. That is made sense to have some who could help to heal those wounds and Baker has spent a lot of time trying to do that with the Democrats on Hill and I think generally speaking is fine. Baker has made no bones about the fact that he has made some transitions in his life. he went from purely political jobs, domestic political jobs, to the Treasury Job which was in effect both domestic and international in character and now he has gone to a foreign job but I don't think that he wants to remove domestic politics from that job.

MR. LEHRER: Well Mark what about another issue that the New York Times raised which was that Bakers sees as his number one job no matter what his real job is, I mean what his title is, his number one job is too keep George Bush popular with the American people.

MR. SHIELDS: I don't know if that is a fair assessment. If it is I think that he makes a mistake because David's rush to judgement on the politics of this are interesting because it is the one area where the Republicans have consistently over the past 10 years asserted a dominate profile among the American voters as the party that is stronger in dealing with the outside world and this is a time when we are redefining what National strength is and redefining what national leadership is. I mean it was always nice just to stand up against the Russians and say let's vote more defense and more hardware and now we are in a different World and I think that is a change. I don't think that is a fair commentary on Jim Baker because I will tell you why. Jim Baker at Treasury, when he was at Treasury didn't have the kind of slips that he had this past week and that was a slip that he had at the Press Conference, that was a mistake that he made.

MR. LEHRER: You mean using the 70 percent poll bit?

MR. SHIELDS: He doesn't want to cast in those terms. I mean the American people really do want a President to be able, George Bush is a man really without poetry, public poetry and they want some one to express sort of the mission in high ideals nobel vision and great ambitions of the United States and I think in the absences of a President who is able that, as Ronald Reagan did so splendidly. I think that we kind of look to the Secretary of State and when he starts talking like a Ward healer he doesn't help the President.

MR. GERGEN: I don't think that it was a consequential as the New York Times thought was. It was said to laughter. Everybody knows that Jim Baker is a political animal but he also has the capacity to do international affairs and he is taking that job quite seriously.

MR. LEHRER: Alright let's take capital gains. The Democrats want to replace it now with a tax increase for the upper income levels. What do you think is that going to fly?

MR. GERGEN: At the moment it is a toss up in the House. The Republicans and some Democrats are pursuing an alternative which is to cut capital gains. The Democratic Leadership in the House now has come forward with a proposal which combines a tax break for middle income tax payers with the IRAs being restored to a degree with a tax increase on the wealthy and the Democratic alternative right now has about a 50 to 50 chance of flying. I do think that the politics of do not help the Democrats very much. I think the Republicans are going to make this argument. It really amounts to what you said it is. It is the Democratic version does give a tax break of 15 or 16 billion dollars over 5 years but it increases taxes by 35. It is a net tax increase of 20 billion dollars. The Democrats everything that seems to come up they go for tax increases and I can't see how that is good politics for them.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: You know Jim I have heard David Speak eloquently, convincing, with passion about the deficit and how it is necessary for us to really resolve this deficit, do something about it. In the final analysis that is what really contributes to the high interest rates in the United States and yet he is a for a capital gains cut for the richest one percent of the people. The Democrats want to raise taxes and I think what we have to recognize is what both parties have really put forward for what it is and that is it is a unraveling of the 1987 tax law which I think is a disaster. I mean the very fact that we are going to take this law which for the first time eliminated loop holes, it eliminated the idea of just putting money in tax rather than economic return and treated all income the same and whether it is the Republican plan that is adopted which I think is really a disaster.

MR. LEHRER: By lowering the capital gains?

MR. SHIELDS: By lowering the capital gains because we have a capital gains tax right now of 28 percent. I mean it is awfully tough to argue that is outrageous. I mean what really contributes to the high cost of capital in this country is the deficit and this isn't going to help the deficit. It is going to create a 20 billion dollar minus. Even the Bush Administration acknowledges that. But we really have with the IRAs the Democrats is a greater appeal to more people, yes, and it is a response and reaction to what the Republicans have been able to put together with some Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee and the White House.

MR. GERGEN: What we have done is created a system which encourages savings and that is the reason the Japanese are beating us up and I know that you don't believe that. I know you think VCRs are made in America and they are not they are made in Japan and the reason they are doing that is because we are not saving enough. Now what we ought to do is do the capital gains that the Republicans want to do and do the IRAs that the Democrats want to do and put on a gas tax. We ought to tax things like energy that we are using inefficiently that are destroying our environments.

MR. SHIELDS: Yes but David has your President come up with that proposal. I mean the only proposal, the only tax proposal is George Bush's and he says I ran on this.

MR. GERGEN: No that is not the only tax proposal.

MR. SHIELDS: It is George Bush's only proposal David is to lower the tax on capital gains.

MR. GERGEN: We can argue about is.

MR. LEHRER: You are.

MR. SHIELDS: Have anybody seriously offered a proposal.

MR. LEHRER: You go ahead and I am just going to go ahead and say good by but you all keep talking. And we will see you next Friday. ESSAY - POETIC ENDING

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Finally tonight Essayist Roger Rosenblatt has some thoughts prompted by the death of the later Robert Pen Warren.

MR. ROSENBLATT: Almost all the great modern poets are dead now, at least the poets who were great and modern to me. The latest to go was Robert Pen Warren. Warren wrote a lot about time. "A clock is getting to strike, forever a clock," is one of his lines. Other moderns' time was up before him, W.H. Auden, Robert Lowell, Robert Frost, T.S. Elliott, Dillon Thomas, Marian Moore, and Elizabeth Bishop and Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, of course, W.B. Yates, Langston Hughes, and all the rest, all gone. As a kid in high school, I would carry that gang around with me in Louis Untermyer's Anthology of Modern Poets. The poets seemed so alive and with it, and they were. Auden occupied an apartment on St. Mark's Place in the lower East side of New York. Sometimes I'd go stand on the corner opposite his house, hoping like a rock star fan for an idolizing peak. As a student, I studied under Robert Lowell, growing sad with my classmates as we watched him drift with winter into his depressive state of mind. Met Marian Moore too, she showed up at a class I was taking in her wonderfully daffy tri corner hat and rewrote a stanza on the spot, sat in the audience as Bishop and Auden gave poetry readings, living icons, though none quite as alive as they were in my anthology. In that bible size book, kids of my generation held modernity in their hands, modernity as it churned and fretted and dizzied itself and argued always for the new. Even T.S. Elliott, who took a natural dislike to new things, wrote what became the nervous, hard edged language of the age. "Wipe your hands across your mouth and laugh. The worlds revolve like ancient women, gathering fuel in vacant lots." Old New England Robert Frost, as new as one could be, wrote, "Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day, I paused and said, I will turn back from here. No, I will go on farther and we shall see." Modern poetry was hard to write. They all knew that. With the old impressive mythologies defunct and the stolid religion scattered, empires were no longer imperial, heroes a joke. The word "poet" means maker. They had to make a world, these poets, to give it custom, expression, clothing, honor, all the equipment my younger generation could recognize and live with. Of modern poetry, Wallace Stevens wrote, "It has to be living to learn the speech of the place. It has to face the men of the time and to meet the women of the time. It has to think about war and it has to find what will suffice." What sufficed for those of us who leaned on these poets for guidance was square shooting, honesty of apprehension, cold staring into the ugliest compartments of existence. A little hope helped too if they had any despair. Auden offered the hope of common frailty, Marian Moore the hope of moral detail, Stevens the hope of beauty and order, Dillon Thomas the hope of sublimity. "Each truth," he wrote, "each line dies an unjudging love." But back to Pen Warren, who left us as hidden and obscure as all American poets must always be until their obituaries. If he is to be revived from now on, it will occur in the anthologies of the future, the anthologies of the establishment. They are no longer modern, the modern poets. They have joined the ancient, bearing with them their ancient art and all the antique fearness it promotes. Here are the lines Pen Warren wrote a while ago, "The death I have entered is a death in which I cannot lie down. I have forgotten literally God and through the enormous hollow of my head history whistles like the wind. How beautiful are the young walking. If I could weep. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, Hurricane Hugo headed north toward harmlessness after causing much devastation in the Charleston, South Carolina, area. Discussion of a summit on arms control dominated Day One of the Baker/Shevardnadze meetings in Wyoming, and at least 10 people died in a terrorist bombing of a royal marine music facility in Great Britain. The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back on Monday. Have a good weekend. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Good night.