The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, George Bush chose Brent Scowcroft to be his national security adviser, President Reagan will pocket veto a new ethics in government bill, and South African President Botha commuted the death sentences of the Sharpeville Six. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary, we have an extended excerpt from George Bush's news conference today. Then following the Reagan veto announcement, we debate the need for a new ethics in government bill with Reagan Interior Secretary Donald Hodel and Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank. Next, Tom Bearden updates the dispute over what to do with radioactive waste from a Colorado nuclear weapons plant. Representatives of passengers and airlines discuss today's new higher air fares, and we close with a Bob Maynard essay on John F. Kennedy. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Brent Scowcroft is coming back to the White House as national security adviser. The retired Air Force Lieutenant General held that job in the Ford administration. This morning President-elect Bush said he had asked Scowcroft to do the same job for him.

PRESIDENT-ELECT GEORGE BUSH: Brent is a trusted friend and he understands the White House, he understands the military, the State Department, the way the Hill works, and the Intelligence community as well. He knows too the importance of approaching our foreign and national security policy on a bipartisan basis and he brings to the White House the respect of many of our nation's leaders on both sides of the aisle. He also has earned the respect of world leaders around the globe and he's made and will continue to make important contributions to the design of U.S. foreign policy.

MR. LEHRER: President Reagan has decided to kill a new ethics bill. In a written statement, he said he will allow the Friday night signing deadline to pass without signing the bill, a process called a "pocket veto". The bill would have placed new restrictions on the lobbying activities of former government officials. The President called it excessive and said it would stop top rate people from choosing government service. He also criticized Congress for provisions which treat former Executive Branch employees more harshly than former Congressmen and their aides. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Major changes in airline fares, including many increases, went into effect today. As Americans began one of the biggest travel weekends of the year, major airlines began eliminating some of their cheapest discount rates, reducing others and generally relating the cost of travel more closely to the number of miles traveled. With longer flights costing more and shorter flights less, roughly 2/3 of fares are rising and about 1/3 falling.

MR. LEHRER: Tropical storm Keith came ashore on the Western coast of Florida last night. It crossed the mid section of the state today and headed out into the Atlantic. It brought winds of 65 miles an hour, up to six inches of rain, and several tornadoes. Power lines were knocked down and streets were flooded. No serious damage was reported. Another storm also hit the Pacific Northwest. Most of Oregon was struck by winds of 75 miles an hour and heavy rain. The major damage was to power lines.

MR. MacNeil: South African President P.W. Botha today reprieved six blacks, including one woman, who were due to be hanged after worldwide protests over their sentences. The clemency for the group known as the "Sharpeville Six" came only hours after an appeals court refused to retry the case. We have a report from Johannesburg by Kevin Dunn of Independent Television News.

KEVIN DUNN: For Prakesh Diar, lawyer for the Sharpeville Six, the day had begun badly with no warning of a 91 page ruling which rejected their last possible appeal against the death sentence. Mr. Diar then conveyed that news to the six on death row, where they have spent more than a thousand days.

PRAKESH DIAR, Defense Attorney: They were very disappointed. They were very dejected, but they said it hasn't come as a total surprise to them. They are not losing all hope though.

MR. DUNN: And before tonight's announcement, their relatives knew where their only hope lay.

JOYCE RAMASHAMOLA, Mother of Defendant: The only hope that I can say to you is to hear to the state president where my hope lies.

MR. DUNN: The Sharpeville Six were convicted of having so-called "common purpose" with a mob killing, even though they were not directly linked to the murder. Their death sentences provoked an outcry, and after a key witness admitted he lied, the international pressure for their reprieve became a clamor. It was one of the most sensitive issues facing President Botha. One he has now grasped and which he'll hope will diffuse some of the international criticism of his government.

MR. MacNeil: President Botha's decision drew this reaction from one of South Africa's leading anti-apartheid church leaders.

REV. ALAN BOESAK, Anti-Apartheid Activist: This was one of the rare occasions when the international community were quite unanimous in their condemnation of something that the South African Government was about to do, and they were also quite clear, which is equally rare, in what they were going to do if the Sharpeville Six should have been condemned to death and should have been hanged, in fact, and I think this teaches us that if there is a clarity of mind in the international community and if there is unanimity of action or at least the intention of action should the South African Government overstep its bounds like in this case, the South African Government is not immune to such kind of pressure.

MR. LEHRER: New violence has been reported in the Western part of the Sudan. Officials in Khartoum said armed bandits from Chad have killed more than 133 people in the last week and burned 37 villages to the ground. They said more than 3000 civilians and 100 policemen have died since the bandit attacks began in 1984.

MR. MacNeil: In South Korea, former President Chun Duh Wan made an extraordinary public apology for abuses of power. Speaking on national television Chun said he was sorry for corruption in his administration, that some of his opponents of his regimes had died in internment camps, and for his handling of a 1980 uprising in which police killed about 200 people. He offered to turn over political funds and property worth $24 million. He and his wife then left their home in Seoul for what he called "internal exile in the countryside." Opposition leaders and radical leaders said the apology was not enough and that Chun should be put on trial. Fifty students tried to rush his house with fire bombs and steel bars, but were held back by police.

MR. LEHRER: There have been fresh and violent riots of the Azerbaijan region of the Soviet Union. The Associated Press said three soldiers died and one hundred and twenty-six people were injured. The riots were triggered by disputes over land between the Azerbaijanis and the Armenians. They prompted states of emergency to be declared in two Azerbaijani cities. Yugoslavia, which has also been hit by widespread ethnic unrest, today banned all public demonstrations in a major Southern province. The authorities said the action was taken between of the threat to public order the demonstrations were causing.

MR. MacNeil: In India, a group of Sikhs went on a shooting rampage in a Hindu town last night. Twenty-two people were killed and thirty-seven wounded. Witnesses said the gunman rode through a shopping bizarre in a jeep, firing into the crowds with automatic rifles for 20 minutes. Today troops patrolled the town, which is near the Punjab, a part of India where Sikh militants have been fighting for an independent nation. That's our News Summary. Still ahead, the Scowcroft appointment, ethics in government, hauling nuclear waste, rising air fares, and remembering J.F.K. FOCUS - SECURITY ADVISER

MR. LEHRER: The Brent Scowcroft announcement is first up tonight. President-elect Bush chose the former Air Force Lt. General to be his national security adviser, the same job he had under President Ford. The announcement came at a morning news conference in Washington. Here is an extended excerpt from it featuring Misters Bush and Scowcroft.

REPORTER: Mr. Vice President, could you define the role that Gen. Scowcroft will have.

PRESIDENT-ELECT GEORGE BUSH: Well, I have very clearly in mind what a national security adviser is and I would say that both Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft before him represent the ideal. He is not a policy maker in the sense that policy -- the Secretary of State will be the chief spokesman obviously on foreign policy matters. He will be an honest broker. He will convey to me exactly the feelings of the cabinet members that are involved in international affairs, national security affairs, whether it's on the economics side of the House or on the policy side or on the defense side. He will bring those together, but because of his tremendous experience obviously, he will convey to me unvarnished his own view on policy matters of tremendous importance, so I see it as in the Scowcroft NSC leadership will be modeled after the Scowcroft NSC leadership, and I think people around the country, particularly in this room, understand what that is. It's an honest broker and yet, it's an honest broker possessed of enormous experience and a person in whose judgment I have confidence.

REPORTER: President Reagan had some problems with the National Security's staff during the Iran-Contra era. Do you feel any further changes are needed in the way it operates to make sure you don't have similar difficulties?

PRESIDENT-ELECT BUSH: I don't think so. I think -- well, crediting Gen. Scowcroft, I think the changes that should have been made were not only recommended by the Scowcroft Commission but have been made.

REPORTER: You mentioned the long hours Gen. Scowcroft -- in recent years -- about the President not being told till morning about the --

PRESIDENT-ELECT BUSH: Keep me informed.

REPORTER: -- midnight --

PRESIDENT-ELECT BUSH: Wake me up, wake me up, shake me and wake me, but I don't know how well you know this guy, but he'd do it anyway. That's one of the reasons I'm just delighted he's willing to do this.

REPORTER: Gen. Scowcroft has expressed some caution on how fast we should go on arms control with the Soviets, and just caution in general on dealing with the Soviets. Is that caution one reason why you picked him, and are you comfortable with that?

PRESIDENT-ELECT BUSH: I don't think he was reading my lips, but he and I have been in touch for a long time in this and I think we are in agreement that caution is called for, but if your question is, do I share the caution that he has sometimes signaled, the answer is, yes, but that should not be taken as a negative sign that I don't want greater progress with the Soviet Union. And I will have an opportunity early in December to make that very clear to Mr. Gorbachev. But I won't be able to make clear to him is here's our detailed arms control formulation. I want to have a new look. And that doesn't mean we're not going to build on the record of this administration, which I salute, the administration of which I've been a part.

REPORTER: Given that many of the weapons systems that have been approved in the Reagan administration have the bills falling due during the Bush administration, given that there are budget problems everybody knows about, how severe a crunch do you see the financial side of security?

GEN. BRENT SCOWCROFT, NSC Adviser Designate: There's no question that we have serious problems with the defense budget. It is substantially underfunded and Sec. Carlucci has already taken some very courageous steps in the direction of readjusting the defense program. More has to be done, and in line with the previous question, one of the things that is important for the new administration to do is to develop a strategic concept which will help us set the kinds of priorities that need to be made in dealing with a serious question.

REPORTER: Gen. Scowcroft, Secretary of State James Baker is a very close friend of Mr. Bush's. Some think that he will be extremely powerful. Some talk about him being a Prime Minister of sorts. Are you concerned because of that special relationship that you might not have, the influence that national security advisers traditionally have had?

GEN. SCOWCROFT: Not at all.

REPORTER: Can you talk about that relationship with Mr. Baker. Will he be, his role as Secretary of State be different, stronger, somehow different than past Secretaries?

GEN. SCOWCROFT: There are all different kinds of Secretaries of State. They each have their own individual style. As I say, it's important and the President-elect thinks it's important to put together a team that can work together. I think he's doing that. I'm very comfortable with Jim Baker, whom I've known for a number of years, and I just don't anticipate any problems at all. I have worked with strong Secretaries of States before. FOCUS - A MATTER OF ETHICS

MR. LEHRER: Next, a veto and ethics argument. It's about a new ethics bill just passed by Congress that President Reagan today announced he would not sign by Friday, thereby committing what is called a "pocket veto". Most reports said he took the action because he has been strongly urged to do so by several members of his cabinet. The bill tightens restrictions on lobbying by former federal officials and extends some rules to include former members of Congress. We hear both sides of the debate now with one of the cabinet members who urged the veto, Interior Secretary Donald Hodel, and Congressman Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, the chief author and sponsor of the bill in the House. I recorded the discussion earlier this evening. Congressman Frank was at public station WGBH in Boston.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, what's your objection to this bill?

DON HODEL, Secretary of the Interior: My objection to the bill is it implies a double standard, it doesn't apply to the Congress in the same fashion that it applies to the executive branch, and for too long, the Congress has exempted itself from ethics and fair practices laws, and this shouldn't be perpetuated, and I think the President has done a courageous act in disapproving this bill.

MR. LEHRER: But it does extend some of the provisions to Congress, does it not?

SEC. HODEL: Yes. There is a minor extension to the Congress. For instance, there is a one year ban on Congressmen and a lifetime ban on federal employees at the executive level, very substantial difference.

MR. LEHRER: Well, let's talk about this lifetime ban. Now that's a lifetime ban on lobbying. Explain that and explain why you don't like it.

SEC. HODEL: Well, the extension is that it's a lifetime ban and it also makes it improper to participate or advise people who are dealing with the government and it renders a very very serious impediment to people. Up until now, I can't leave the Department of Interior and come back and lobby or advise the Department of Interior, and that's quite reasonable and you know, I think practical in many ways. But I'm not going to be affected by this, because I intend to leave by January 20th, as you know, but my successor would find himself in a position he would leave. He couldnot come back and work for somebody who was dealing with other federal agencies even.

MR. LEHRER: Now why is that bad?

SEC. HODEL: Well, I think the effect is that many people who find themselves willing to serve in the federal government for a time but can't or won't make a career out of it would be unable to come back afterwards and earn a living and unless people are, therefore, independently wealthy for career permanent federal employees, they wouldn't be in a position to come and participate in the government. In fact, you know, under President Carter in 1978, a very stringent ethic law was passed and Carter had to have it changed when he found out that at the Department of Defense many high level, technical experts suddenly began to turn in their resignations before that act became effective, because they were going to lose some of the best people that they had in the technical areas in the government. Now what I keep saying is the most important thing is that if the Congress will pass laws which apply equally to the Congress as to the executive branch, they will be both fair and equitable laws, but when the Congress exempts itself, excludes itself, or only applies a part of the law to the Congress, that's a step in the direction of tyranny.

MR. LEHRER: A step in the direction of tyranny, Congressman Frank?

REP. BARNEY FRANK, [D] Massachusetts: What we have here is another step in the most outrageous example of misrepresentation I've seen. When Marlin Fitzwater had his press conference, he gave some examples of what he said this bill would do which were just flat out wrong. He said, for instance, that George Bush couldn't apply for a camping permit, or that Ronald Reagan couldn't talk to Gerald Ford. They were just flat out wrong, and what Mr. Hodel says is also wrong. This bill is very tough on Congress. This is a bill which this administration didn't expect us to pass. And we ought to remind people George Bush asked us to pass the Senate version of this bill which is even tougher in many ways that the bill was passed. It was no tougher on Congress, but it was tougher on the executive branch. I think the administration was hoping that we wouldn't pass it, so they could have their cake and eat it too. Now that we've passed it, their general opposition to an ethics bill comes out. With regard to what this does to Congress, Mr. Hodel has mis-stated it. Yes, there is a lifetime ban for executive branch agencies of the narrowest sort. It is not a lifetime ban on lobbying in areas where you have worked. It is a lifetime ban in one very narrow set of cases, where you made a specific decision for a specific company and a specific case. In other words, if you decided that Company X was going to get the contract for this product, you should not ever come back and work on that company's decision to get that product. You could work for that company in another area. You could work for other companies with that product. The lifetime ban is a very narrow one. It doesn't apply to Congress for one reason. Members of Congress don't make specific company contract decisions. But with regard to the general principle that having worked in the government for a year, or for a long time or for a short time, you shouldn't come back until a year has passed and lobby your ex-colleague, it's identical. Members of the executive branch can't at the highest level lobby members in the executive branch for one years. Members of Congress can't lobby members of Congress. There is a specific lifetime ban in a very very narrow class of cases. It says if you have made a specific decision, and it says in a particular matter for a specific party, you can't come back in here with that exact issue, but you can deal with that company on other issues, you can advise them in other issues. So what we have here is a smokescreen. I think this is the kind of ethics, shmethics approach that the Reagan administration has given us. They didn't expect us to pass the bill, George Bush postured during the campaign and I would add finally that the reasons the President is giving for vetoing this bill he never articulated during the two years that we worked on this, and this was not the House alone. This was Strom Thurmond. This was bipartisan. Never did the administration tell us what it found objectionable because they would hope it wouldn't pass.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Congressman, are you saying the Secretary is just dead wrong when he says this applies in a broad way, a person cannot come back? And your example a moment ago, where somebody, you say your successor could not come back and in any way lobby anybody afterward in the federal government, is that how you read it?

REP. FRANK: Not for a lifetime; that's flat wrong.

MR. LEHRER: He says that's wrong.

SEC. HODEL: What he can't escape, Jim, is the fact that this bill simply doesn't wrap Congress into the same kinds of rules that it wraps --

REP. FRANK: Jim, you notice he's not giving you an answer here.

MR. LEHRER: Hold on.

REP. FRANK: You're not getting a specific answer here.

SEC. HODEL: We have one year cooling off periods currently applicable to the federal government and a two year period and a lifetime exclusion on matters of particular activity. But this expands into an area on the executive branch where it says you cannot, you cannot advise people who are dealing with the federal government. For instance --

REP. FRANK: No, that's just wrong. You're getting a flat set of mis-statements. You notice the only lifetime ban is that you can't come back and deal and advise the specific company on a specific issue. Of course, there is no lifetime ban on advising people with the federal government. There's a one year ban on lobbying or advising, but the argument that there's a lifetime ban is an inaccurate as Marlin Fitzwater's statement about camping permits. These are just campaigns of misinformation. There's no lifetime ban, except in a specific case. If the Secretary were to give a particular company a particular permit for offshore drilling, he couldn't for the lifetime come back and deal with that specific company for that specific drilling permit. But he could represent that company in other drilling permits. He could represent other companies in the same tract.

SEC. HODEL: You understand that that is currently the case, that I cannot --

REP. FRANK: Right, and the law doesn't change it, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. HODEL: I could not currently represent somebody vis-a-vis the federal government, I couldn't represent somebody with the federal government --

REP. FRANK: And that's all this law does is restates it.

SEC. HODEL: I couldn't do that now. That's the current law.

REP. FRANK: And the law doesn't change it.

SEC. HODEL: But the Congress has no comparable prohibition on the members of the Congress and it is a smokescreen when the Congressman suggests that there is this vast difference between the way the Congress works and the way the executive branch works --

REP. FRANK: Jim, you're letting him get off -- wait a minute. Mr. Secretary, you made an inaccurate statement on the lifetime ban. There is no lifetime ban.

MR. LEHRER: Now he's right about that, is he not, Mr. Secretary? The lifetime ban --

REP. FRANK: He made an inaccurate statement!

MR. LEHRER: My reading of it today --

SEC. HODEL: There is a lifetime ban.

MR. LEHRER: Yes, but it's very narrowly drawn, is it not?

SEC. HODEL: It's narrowly drawn, but it is a lifetime ban and there is no comparable life --

REP. FRANK: -- on advising a specific company on a specific contract --

MR. LEHRER: All right.

SEC. HODEL: There is no comparable lifetime ban on Congress.

MR. LEHRER: On Congress. All right. Why is there no lifetime ban on Congress?

REP. FRANK: Because the only lifetime ban -- and it's clear that Mr. Secretary is backing away from this mis-statement -- there is a lifetime ban in a very narrow case, and he says it's already there in the law, and we just made it very much more clear -- it's only because they make the specific decision for a specific company. Congress doesn't pass specific bills for specific companies, but the fact is that the anti-lobbying law applies to both, and with Ronald Reagan's veto, by the way, Congress isn't covered at all. So the argument that he had to veto the bill because it was too easy on Congress is nonsense. It isn't covered.

SEC. HODEL: That, Jim, is a very important argument. Let me make this point. If the President had signed this bill, which would have been the easy thing for him to do, because he wouldn't have been subjected to the kind of assault that Congressmen and others will make on him, had he signed that bill, there would be no way the Congress would come back later and say, well, now let's toughen up these provisions, let's make them apply equally. These provisions --

REP. FRANK: That's wrong --

MR. LEHRER: Let him finish, Congressman. Go ahead.

SEC. HODEL: These provision do not apply equally to members of Congress or to members of the Congressional staff. You know, the Congress exempts itself from the ethics in government law, from the job safety law, from the Freedom of Information Act, from the Civil Rights Act, and until recently from the Fair Hiring Practices Act. And so it -- I really think that it is a principle that is very important. One other thing, this bill would not have been effective for nine months. So there's plenty of time for the Congress and the new administration to come back, iron out the problems that are in this bill, and get a good bill that applies fairly to both.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you both this question, beginning with you, Mr. Secretary. If this bill had been signed by the President, your objections to it aside, what would have been the harm that it would have done?

SEC. HODEL: The major harm in my estimation would have been that Congress would have, I think, hoodwinked the American people into believing that they had now taken a step to apply very important restrictions to themselves when, in fact, comparatively speaking, they are not nearly as stringent as the ones that are applied to the executive branch, which is wrong. And secondly, these particular provisions I think would have made it extremely difficult for the Bush administration to be able to acquire and induce people to come to the work for the federal government.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman, what is the harm that was done by President Reagan deciding not to sign this into law?

REP. FRANK: First, you get the hypocrisy which I think is bad for our political system. When George Bush during his campaign volunteered, he came to Capitol Hill and made a big issue of endorsing the Senate bill, which is subject to all the criticism that Mr. Hodel made and all the criticisms the President made, when you do something for campaign purposes and then repudiate it within a few weeks -- and George Bush was part of backing away - - I think that harms the political system when people are that misled. Secondly, you poison the atmosphere for getting any legislation because Mr. Hodel has continued the pattern, as he tried to, of misinformation about this bill. There is no significant expansion of a lifetime ban for the executive here. He wildly overstated it. In fact, this is the first time Congress has applied this law to itself. The administration all year was saying to Congress cover yourself under this law. We covered ourselves. They didn't expect us to. By the way, this was overwhelmingly passed by both Houses in a bipartisan way, Republicans and Democrats, Strom Thurmond's bill as well as mine, so this is no trick by Congress. What you get, and this is the harm, when the administration has George Bush tell us to pass the Senate bill, when they don't make any of these criticisms during the year, and then after an election, when we surprise them by passing a tough bill which covers us, they veto it, they are discouraging people from acting in the future. They're poisoning the atmosphere in a way that's going to make it very difficult to get a bill. And I think the point is they think they've got a right to merge their private interests and their public interests to make money in the private sector, they go into the public sector. It's a combination of the Ed Meese/Lynn Nofsiger approach.

SEC. HODEL: From a Congressman who's in the majority and who has had members prosecuted even though the Congress hasn't chosen to include itself under most of these kinds of rules previously --

REP. FRANK: We're really getting into red herrings now, aren't we? Of course, I'm glad they were prosecuted. Mr. Hodel, you can't win the argument on this -- you can't win this argument, so you want to bring in another subject. I understand that tactic.

SEC. HODEL: One of the red herrings that has to be dealt with here is that President-elect Bush in the campaign urged the House to adopt the Senate bill, as was acknowledged. That was a different bill and it had more application to the Congress.

MR. LEHRER: Well, he said today --

REP. FRANK: No, it did not. Mr. Secretary, that's another mis- statement. It was very identical in coverage of Congress --

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen --

REP. FRANK: -- it was virtually identical to this bill. That's another mis-statement by the Secretary, a flat out mis- statement.

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen, today the Vice President, the President- elect, said today at a news conference that he was going to very quickly after he came into office offer another bill if the President went ahead and vetoed this one.

REP. FRANK: Because he was embarrassed when people pointed it out --

SEC. HODEL: And the important thing about that is they have plenty -- if the Congress will get its act together and proceed expeditiously, they can adopt that bill, they can adopt that bill before the nine month period within which this one would have become effective.

REP. FRANK: George Bush's embarrassment led that. He said he --

MR. LEHRER: We have to --

REP. FRANK: -- he backed off. Now he's giving an empty promise. I'd be glad to get the bill, but I'll be very skeptical of its coming.

MR. LEHRER: All right, gentlemen, thank you very much, both of you, for being with us tonight.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the Newshour disposing of nuclear weapons waste, higher air fares, and an essay on John Kennedy. UPDATE - WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

MR. MacNeil: The Governors of three states and the Department of Energy are currently locked in a four way confrontation that threatens to shut down a nuclear weapons plant in Colorado. The problem is radioactive waste. Colorado generates it but doesn't keep it. Neither does Idaho where Colorado has been sending it. The federal government has built a storage site in New Mexico, but now state officials there are balking. Correspondent Tom Bearden explains.

TOM BEARDEN: This is the Rocky Flats plant a few miles West of Denver. The government builds critical components of nuclear bombs here. That involves handling plutonium, the most toxic substance know to man. Plutonium contaminates everything it touches, gloves, clothing, pipes, conduit. Eventually those things have to be discarded, but plutonium remains dangerous for thousands of years and must be handled extremely carefully, because inhaling even a tiny amount can be fatal. Rocky Flats has been packing the material called transuranic or true waste in sealed 55 gallon drums and boxes and shipping to INEL, the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, near Idaho Falls. INEL is primarily a nuclear research center. The first reactor to generate commercial electric power was built here and is now a national monument. Sending transuranic waste from Rocky Flats to INEL was supposed to have been a temporary measure, but the shipments have been coming here for 40 years. There are now 120,000 drums and 11,000 boxes of waste, most of it buried beneath a layer of plastic sheeting and dirt. Governor Cecil Andrus is fed up.

GOV. CECIL ANDRUS, Idaho: They promised they would have all of the low level and transuranic waste out of Idaho, into a permanent repository during the decade of the 70's. They broke that promise.

MR. BEARDEN: Last month, Andrus took the unprecedented action of closing Idaho's borders to further shipments.

GOV. ANDRUS: Idaho is through being the poor country cousin. We're not a bunch of bumpkins out here that don't understand what's happening and they're going to take their garbage someplace else.

MR. BEARDEN: This is the someplace else nearly everybody would like it to go, the Department of Energy's billion dollar waste isolation pilot project, also known as WIPP, near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Huge mining machines are hollowing out scores of 300 foot long chambers in a salt bed half a mile below the surface of the desert. They plan to put nearly a million containers of transuranic waste here in the next 20 years. DOE had planned to start shipping waste from the Idaho site, Rocky Flats, and dozens of other locations last month. But Congress failed to pass enabling legislation because critics have raised troubling questions about the project. WIPP is based on the idea that salt acts like a plastic when under pressure. In theory, WIPP's underground chambers would close themselves up over time, encapsulating the waste forever. But some independent scientists have been waving red flags. They say the salt has far more water trapped in its crystals than predicted, that it would seep into the caves, dissolving the waste and creating a radioactive slurry, preventing the cavities from sealing completely. Such a cavity might be breached by future oil drilling, allowing the slurry to spurt to the surface. It could keep WIPP from meeting EPA standards that require the material be kept away from the surface environment for 10,000 years. That and other objections were enough to keep WIPP from opening on schedule. Gov. Andrus thinks the objections are trumped up. He thinks some New Mexicans are trying to welch on the deal after having got the benefits from federal construction and highway improvement dollars.

GOV. ANDRUS: If you can't store radioactive safely in that environment, then you can't store it safely anywhere in the world, and if that be the case, then we have no right to generate it.

MR. BEARDEN: The Governor's decision to stop accepting waste has had a domino effect. Rocky Flats, which generated most of the waste that was shipped to INEL over the years had a railroad car full of waste en route when Andrus closed the border. DOE asked Andrus to take one last shipment. The Governor said, "No dice". He made them send it back.

GOV. ANDRUS: If you take one Western state, you have to be practical enough in the political arena to know that a lone voice doesn't exert the pressure, and all the power brokers are around Rocky Flats or Argon Laboratories or the Three Mile Island disaster, Ohio, and the others. If you get all of them concerned, then maybe you can get something done. And frankly, I guess part of it was frustration, Tom, to the point where I said, look, I've had it. Now some of the rest of you have to recognize that it's your problem too.

MR. BEARDEN: That car is now sitting on a siding at Rocky Flats, and Colorado's politicians don't want any "temporary storage" at Rocky Flats either. Congressman David Skaggs.

REP. DAVID SKAGGS, [D] Colorado: I don't think it makes any sense at all for the country to be expanding a temporary nuclear waste storage facility in the plant that is closest to a major metropolitan area.

MR. BEARDEN: Colorado told DOE and its contractor, Rockwell Corporation, they could fill up whatever space they had left in buildings and on the rail siding, but no more. Rockwell Spokesman Patrick Etchart says that started a clock ticking.

PATRICK ETCHART, Rockwell Corp.: We estimate at present that we have about four months of storage capacity on site where we can hold the material safely.

BRUCE TWINING, DOE Regional Manager: We would eventually get to the point where we had to begin curtailing operations at Rocky Flats. Even if that whole plant was shut down, however, we don't get to the point where there's zero true waste generation.

MR. BEARDEN: Bruce Twining is DOE's Regional Operations Manager.

BRUCE TWINING: Rocky Flats is an integral part of the weapons production complex. If it is down for an extended period of time, that would roll into the rest of the complex, and there are deliveries that DOD's expect and they wouldn't get.

MR. BEARDEN: A ripple effect through the whole system?

BRUCE TWINING: Yes.

MR. BEARDEN: Ironically, Rocky Flats is already partially shut down because of a problem that has nothing to do with waste. A key processing building was closed last month after three workers were exposed to plutonium, the latest in a long series of accidents at the troubled plant. The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory also has problems. In the 50's, transuranic waste was dumped haphazardly, sometimes even in cardboard boxes. Janice Burnt is with a citizens group called the Snake River Coalition which operates out of a basement office in the YWCA building in Boise. She says there's a clock ticking at INEL too.

JANICE BERNDT, Snake River Coalition: The place has been flooded. We've already had problems with toxic chemicals and radioactive materials reaching down into the aquifer and the Snake River Plant aquifer is the life blood of Idaho. It provides water for the potatoes, for the trout industry. That water is very important to our economy here.

MR. BEARDEN: DOE denies there has been significant contamination of the aquifer from the old buried waste. They point to extensive testing methods to ensure safety in the current containers, including x-rays to verify materials destined for WIPP. And in any case, they expect all the transuranic waste to be removed before any significant groundwater contamination would occur. DOE has recently revealed that weapons plants all over the country have health and safety problems like these. And it has a lot of people asking tough questions about the agency's managerial competence.

JANICE BERNDT: Just like all these other places we're hearing about, Fernald, Rocky Flats, Savannah River, the Department of Energy has been more interested in so-called "national security", bomb making, than they have in the safety of the workers and the people that live around there, and I think IDEL is no different from these other locations.

MR. BEARDEN: Jim Wilson in Colorado is wondering too. He's the President of the state-appointed citizen oversight group, the Rocky Flats Monitoring Committee.

JIM WILSON, Rocky Flats Monitoring Committee: If you sit here in Colorado next to Rocky Flats and think that that kind of management tone might be what is governing the decisions at Rocky Flats, you become far more nervous than you were prior to, you know, the disclosure of some of these national events and conditions.

MR. BEARDEN: Twining says all the problems with weapons plants safety and waste storage are a good sign that DOE is cleaning out its own nest.

BRUCE TWINING: What has really been going on over the last several years is a very deep introspective look on the part of DOE and some others into its operations. That's identified problems. We're trying to put programs in place to deal with those problems and in the meantime, there's a lot of people watching.

REP. DAVID SKAGGS, [D] Colorado: A lot of people are suggesting that the new found vigor with which DOE is dealing with some of these health and safety issues is a way of pre-empting the Congressional efforts to set up an independent agency. It doesn't make any sense at all for the Department of Agency to be policing itself in this whole range of environment, health and safety matters. We need independent regulatory authority to do that in an agency outside of DOE.

MR. BEARDEN: In the meantime, what does the agency do in the short run? Transuranic waste is still piling up at Rocky Flats. Some politicians say DOE ought to move it somewhere else temporarily, but Twining says it isn't that easy.

BRUCE TWINING: The issue, no matter where you go, is going to be a political issue, in addition to a regulatory issue, and to go to a new site that is not used to dealing with this waste stream involves quite a lengthy permitting process.

MR. BEARDEN: But a final resolution, the eventual certification of WIPP as a final resting place for this kind of waste, may be a long way off. Many scientists believe the remaining technical problems can be dealt with, but there are serious doubts that the political problems will yield as easily. FOCUS - TICKET TO RISE

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight we focus on air fares that started going up today. Seven million travelers are expected to fly this Thanksgiving weekend, but anyone buying tickets now will find that some of the most popular discounts have been eliminated. Here are the changes that all major airlines put into effect today. With the old pricing systems, there were 25 percent discounts for tickets purchased three to seven days in advance. The new system eliminates those discounts. The old system gave 50 percent discounts for some seven day advance purchases, with 50 percent cancellation penalties. Those fares still exist under the new system. The cheapest tickets in the old system, the non-refundable max savers, gave 60 percent discounts for tickets purchased at least 14 days in advance. They'll still be available but on the whole, they'll be more expensive. For example, a coast to coast flight from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles used to average about $258 round trip. It will now cost about $318. Another change in the new system, discount fares will be more closely tied to the distance of the flight. Here with two perspectives on today's changes are an airline executive and a consumer advocate. A.B. Margary is the Executive Vice President for Marketing at Northwest Airlines. And he joins us from station KTCA in Minneapolis-St. Paul. In our Washington studio is Con Hitchcock, Legal Director for the Aviation Consumer Action Project founded by Ralph Nader.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Margary, while are the airlines raising the fares now?

A.B. MARGARY, Northwest Airlines: Well, this increase really does not affect the most popular fares. This increase affects only the so-called "junk fares", which are one way fares that are available at discounts for advanced purchase, or in some cases just one way discount fares that were put in on the spot by one competitor or another over the past few months.

MR. MacNeil: But it affects, you say it doesn't affect the most popular fares. It does affect those most popular discount fares where the pricing is going to be tied more to the distance than it was in the past. It affects those.

MR. MARGARY: Well, that's true. The max saver fares which are the deep discount fares, the non-refundables, have gone back onto a distance formula, which is really where they started. What's really happening here is that some of the more recent discounts for the longer trips are being eliminated.

MR. MacNeil: But what is the airline's reason for doing this now?

MR. MARGARY: Well, these fare changes were introduced by Continental Airlines which had previously been responsible for introducing the discounts. When Continental was willing to pull back on the discounts, many other airlines also decided that it was also time to do that.

MR. MacNeil: So you're just following the lead of Continental Airlines in this case?

MR. MARGARY: Essentially.

MR. MacNeil: I see. Mr. Hitchcock, do you think these changes are fair to air travelers. Do the airlines need to make these changes?

CON HITCHCOCK, Aviation Consumer Advocate: Well, it's obviously a disappointment seeing these fares increasing now just as the holiday travel season is starting, but in a sense, if I look at it objectively, I can understand why the airlines are doing it. As Mr. Margary mentioned, some of the deep discounts were put into effect by Continental Airlines in response to some of the problems they were having after their merger when they acquired Frontier and People Express and had enormous service problems and were trying to attract more people onto the planes, because Continental has the lowest costs. Others had to match these fares in order to keep business and to keep people on their airlines. And now that Continental's fares are moving up, Continental I guess thinks that it has overcome some of the service difficulties. The other airlines seem to be more than happy to move them along. I think it's important to put this in perspective too. The industry is more concentrated today than it was a couple of years ago. There are fewer mavericks around. Continental was the principal price leader in terms of discounts and it's becoming more difficult to find some of these fares that are disparagingly called junk fares but are quite popular, I took one of them just last week to California, because of that, and it'll be interesting to see if this is a portent of something more to come, further increases in the future, or whether this is a response to the fact that travel is pretty good, the economy is doing well, and this is a time when a lot of people are traveling.

MR. MacNeil: Well, to put what you said simply, does this mean that because of the concentration, this is a much less competitive business now in the pricing?

MR. HITCHCOCK: It's a competitive business, but because of the consolidation, there are fewer mavericks around who are willing to say, no, we're not going to go along. There are a couple in the business now who have not gone along and you're seeing some competition on those particular routes in the sense of prices going up, but there are not as many as there were a couple of years ago and there is not as much concentration -- there's not as much -- there aren't as many airlines who are willing to break ranks. Continental has really been the leader as prices went down and now they're the leader as prices are going up.

MR. MacNeil: Do you agree, Mr. Margary, that this is the fruit of more concentration now, that you can all more or less price together?

MR. MARGARY: I certainly do not. I really feel that all Continental was doing is setting the stage for their next discount announcement which may occur next month or in the next two months. Continental has a history of putting in some sort of a discount once every couple of months for the publicity value of it and to maintain their position as a price leader in the industry.

MR. MacNeil: And you expect -- did I understand you correctly, they're just setting the stage for another discount announcement?

MR. MARGARY: That's my prediction.

MR. MacNeil: So will you all follow them down again?

MR. MARGARY: Usually that happens, because no airline likes to be stuck with no traffic on its airplanes.

MR. MacNeil: Do you see it that way, Mr. Hitchcock?

MR. HITCHCOCK: I think it'll be interesting to see what does happen after the first of the year, as Mr. Margary points out. That is a time when air travel does slacken off. I mean, last year you saw things like the triple miles offered for frequent fliers as an incentive to get people to fly. It'll be interesting to see whether there is some new announcement after the first of the year, or whether traffic holds up.

MR. MacNeil: So in that case, then Continental would qualify as the maverick? I mean, there still would be a maverick if Continental kept doing that?

MR. HITCHCOCK: It would, but it's somewhat risky, and I guess from a consumer's standpoint, I always prefer to have a couple of mavericks rather than one. If it's easy to move up or down depending on what one does, that's not quite as comforting as if you had several in the field, which used to be the case until fairly recently.

MR. MacNeil: Who, Mr. Hitchcock is going to be affected by these fare changes chiefly, what kind of traveler?

MR. HITCHCOCK: As I understand it, looking at it preliminarily, I think some of the business travelers will be affected, people who can't plan as far in advance and who need flexibility in terms of making travel plans so they can come back early if their business is concluded, but I think you're going to see some of the vacation travelers, people taking personal trips, who are going to see some upward movement as well. But it seems to me in looking at that the principal aim is for people who have to travel on relatively short notice and who cannot take advantage of some of the cheaper fares with the advance purchase requirements and the non-refundability element.

MR. MacNeil: Is that right, Mr. Margary, this is aimed chiefly at the business traveler?

MR. MARGARY: I'd say that's really a very accurate statement. It's the business traveler who has been the beneficiary of these one way discounts and is the one who's going to have to do a little more planning ahead if he expects to maintain the same discount he's been enjoying recently. I would point out on the lowest fares, the max saver fares, that while there are increases on longer trips, in fact, this new structure in the case of our own Northwest Airlines system will actually reduce the max saver fare in approximately 6,000 markets.

MR. MacNeil: That is max saver fares that are over shorter distances?

MR. MARGARY: That's correct.

MR. MacNeil: I see. But come back to the business traveler for a moment, the business traveler who's been taking advantage of these discount fares, he is the main bread and butter, is he, for a lot of the larger airlines and on the main routes?

MR. MARGARY: The U.S. airline industry is very dependent upon the traveling businessman.

MR. MacNeil: Is this, is this now a permanent and stable pricing structure, Mr. Margary, or are there going to be tactical changes all the time? In other words, is the consumer going to have to stay on his toes to know where he's, how he's buying airline tickets?

MR. MARGARY: Well, the fare increase went into effect this morning, and we're all amazed that it's lasted this long. The fact of the matter is that this is a highly volatile, highly competitive business, and nothing in this business is permanent.

MR. MacNeil: I see. Well, how does it actually change -- describe to me the mechanism of what you at Northwest Airlines did when you saw Continental changing its fares. How quickly could you react and did you react? How does it work?

MR. MARGARY: Essentially when Continental changed their fares, we first discover it when they file their tariff electronically and the tariffs which are accessible to computerized reservation systems throughout the country note the changes that Continental has made. When we discovered that Continental was removing some of the discounts that they had previously had in place, which we did not ever have any agreement with philosophically, we responded as quickly as we could to also remove those discounts.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Hitchcock, do you see their being frequent tactical changes between the airlines in the future, or do you see it sort of settling down into a kind of fixed price structure as it used to be years and years ago?

MR. HITCHCOCK: What I think is notable about the recent increases I think Mr. Margary suggested was the fact that the key elements did largely stay in place within a relatively short period of time. There was a little movement back and forth, some airlines like Midway in Chicago not following pace and several others. What's happened before, what makes this one a little different, is in the past there would be announcements of a change, other airlines may or may not match what the principal carrier proposed, or it might end up with a lot of regional variations. I think it's fair to say that this one went into place with a number of the key elements intact. The effective day was pushed back for a week or so, but there seems to be more consensus among individual airlines that this was the right direction in which fares ought to be going, and it'll be interesting to see whether they continue to move in that direction in the future. Continental which we talked about as the industry leader has been quietly raising prices on a spot basis, or trying to raise prices in markets earlier this year. This is perhaps the most dramatic and most noticeable increase that the public has been aware of coming right as it does the day before Thanksgiving, but we'll have to see. I think it's still a little too early to make any kind of larger or long range predictions.

MR. MacNeil: Would you, the airlines have been quite, the major airlines have been quite profitable recently, would you say that there was a case of need for more revenue that they could make, or they're just doing it because Continental did it, and competitively they can do that and it's gravy for them? How do you see that?

MR. HITCHCOCK: Well, there was considerable, I think, happiness in the industry as I read some of the comments of the fact that they were able to push the fares up. I see some sentiment from some airline executives who've been quoted about the so-called "junk fares", of the sentiment that a lot of these are business travelers who ought to be paying more, who can pay more. I mean, it's true that the airline industry has not been as profitable as some other industries, although that doesn't take account of the fact that some airlines are doing quite well this year. Overall figures don't reflect individual performance. But I think the key element is still a question about is this the start of an upward trend, a continuing upward trend, or is this just a response to the fact that it's the holiday season when people are traveling, or to the fact that you've got the economy that's still fairly strong.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think it's the start of an upward trend?

MR. HITCHCOCK: I think the jury is still out. I think the thing to do is to look and see what happens next quarter, if there are major discounts, as Mr. Margary was suggesting, or whether there is an ability to hold the line. The airlines have done pretty well in terms of holding the line.

MR. MacNeil: Let's ask Mr. Margary briefly, because we have to go, is this the start of an upward trend, Mr. Margary, a general upward trend?

MR. MARGARY: I would say categorically it's not a start of a new trend. I wish it were, but I think we're just going through yet another cycle.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Well, thank you for joining us from Minneapolis, and Mr. Hitchcock in Washington. ESSAY - J.F.K.

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, we continue our week of essays commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Tonight's essay is from Oakland Tribune Editor Robert Maynard.

ROBERT MAYNARD: Those of us who came of age in the 50's remember a decade dominated by the mushroom cloud, the symbol of mankind's lost innocence. As we remember the atmosphere, there were few brilliant blossoms of color. It was a time that stands out in the memory for its vague shades of blue and gray even though our newspapers, magazines, and television were in black and white. That too seemed fitting, because the rigid coda of our time placed great emphasis on the matter of color and those distinctions of race, cast and class. And horizons of change were forever distant. The name Kennedy at that time meant little in the narrow precincts of the average American of color. Presidents came and went but bigotry seemed a permanent fixture on our landscape. You could dream of life without Jim Crow's foot on your throat, but it was just that, a dream. Then in that chilled January of 1961, we saw the dawn of a new age and heard its siren call in the inauguration speech of John F. Kennedy.

PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY: [January 1961] And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

ROBERT MAYNARD: This was indeed my age, I remember thinking, anything suddenly was possible. Those dreams became suddenly more realistic to people all over America. Ask not, indeed.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: The first thing that we must do here tonight is to decide that we aren't going to become panicky and we're going to be calm and that we are going to continue to stand up for what we know is right and that Alabama will have to face the fact that we are determined to be free.

ROBERT MAYNARD: By then, Martin Luther King, Jr. had progressed beyond the bus boycott and developed a distinct notion of what he could do for America. He would build within its borders a new ethic of love and justice to replace the old one of hatred and discrimination. King's idea was the beloved community, a place of caring that had not existed for his people.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: With this faith, we will be able to transform the tangling discourse of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith --

ROBERT MAYNARD: It was an odd combination, the Kennedy of Camelot and King from Christian Witness. One was bred on the hard ethic of Northeast liberal politics, which has always been soft on the outside and hard in the middle. The other came from the Southern black Baptist tradition of suffering and redemption with an overlay of teaching of Ghandi and Leo Tolstoy. When they were thrown together by history and fate, one writer likened them to ill fated lovers. Each side knew how much it needed the other; each hated needing the other. Yet, the names Kennedy and King are irrevocably tied together. They stand for the most sweeping social changes in our century. Their combined abilities and forces galvanized a generation. They brought us from the hazy visual discomforts of black versus white to a new America. They did it together in spite of each other, one in the White House, the other facing fire hoses and police dogs. Far fetched though their friendship in life, they suffered the assassin's fate. Their memories, their legacies, invite the best from us, even though in the end they were cut down and deprived of the chance to see what their distinct gifts have wrought for the nation they both loved and changed. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again, the main stories of the day, George Bush named Brent Scowcroft as his national security adviser, the White House said President Reagan will veto the new ethics in government bill, and South Africa's President commuted the death sentences of five black men and one woman. Good night, Jim.

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