The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour; 94

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. The death of a U.S. helicopter pilot on the Honduras-Nicaraguan border has further inflamed relations between the U.S. and Nicaragua. Tonight, with U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and a critic of U.S. policy, what really happened and where may it lead? Also, the thoughts of Secretary of State George Shultz as he prepares for the first high-level talks with the Soviets since the recent chill in superpower relations. Jim Lehrer is off, judy Woodruff is in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Also tonight we look at the new secretary of the interior's new policy on offshore oil leases, which didn't make some environmentalists very happy. We review the work of some medical detectives who think they've identified the culprit behind the nation's number-one killer. And, finally, now that most of the hoopla about 1984 is over, we take another look at what this year really means.Nicaraguan Pretext?

MacNEIL: Tensions between the United States and Nicaragua rose today following the death of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot forced down in Honduras close to the Nicaraguan border. The U.S. government said Nicaraguan forces killed the pilot by shooting at him as he walked around the downed craft. The U.S. lodged a strong protest with the Nicaraguan government.Nicaragua called on the U.S. not to use the incident as a pretext for increasing military pressure. Nicaragua said its forces had fired at the helicopter and forced it down, but did not acknowledge shooting at the pilot on the ground. The pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Jeffrey C. Schwab of Joliet, Illinois, was the first American combat death in Honduras. Two Army engineer officers who were passengers in the helicopter were not injured and were rescued by Honduran soldiers. The Pentagon said the chopper was on a flight from San Lorenzo in southwestern Honduras to the eastern province of Olancho as part of U.S. military exercises called Big Pine Two. U.S. officials said it was blown off course by a windstorm that pushed it close to the Nicaraguan border. Pentagon spokesman Michael Burch gave this account of what happened then.

MICHAEL BURCH, Defense Department spokesman: After the pilot radioed that his craft had been hit, he made a controlled emergency landing on a Honduran road near the border in Nicaragua. We know from talking to the passengers that were on board that he had a rotor bight come on. Now, that could have been from a hit; it could have been from some mechanical malfunction. We don't know. That's part of what we're investigating. What I gave you is what the pilot radioed. The pilot got out of the craft and was in good shape, and he was killed by ground fire from the Nicaraguan side of the border while he was clearly in Honduran territory. The only weapons which were on the helicopter were three 45-caliber pistols, and I'm not aware of any reports that they returned fire.

MacNEIL: In this country the incident brought questions and protests from critics of the U.S. policy in Central America. Congressman Michael Barnes, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, called the incident "simply incomprehensible." He added, "On numerous occasions I and others have been given assurances by the administration that no U.S. forces were going to be anywhere near the border. This is another instance where the administration has misled Congress and the American people about the nature of our involvement down there." Some reports today said that administration officials were meeting to consider the U.S. response, including possible military retaliation against the Nicaraguan government. But in a news conference Secretary of State Shultz ruled out after expressing outrage at the attack.

GEORGE SHULTZ, Secretary of State: Well, it's unacceptable to fire from one country into another country at people, and wind up killing somebody. And we have protested both here and in Nicaragua, and we're waiting to see the response and the results of whatever investigation the Nicaraguans make. Obviously the whole problem is a complicated problem, but nevertheless there is a very simple fact of an unarmed helicopter that did finally make it down in Honduran territory and was fired on from Nicaragua, and the pilot was killed. That is not a kind of behavior that is a tolerable kind of behavior.

REPORTER: Kissinger Commission report, it said that the use of force in Nicaragua was not something that the commission, at least, would rule out if our national security was involved. Does this sort of thing answer that description?

Sec. SHULTZ: Well, there is no -- if what you are asking is, is there a plan or an instinct on the part of the administration to undertake a military operation directly in Nicaragua, the answer is no.

WOODRUFF: For insight now into how the Nicaraguans view this helicopter incident, we talk with William Leogrande, professor of political science at American University. Professor Leogrande travels frequently to Central America, and formerly served as a staff member of the Senate Democratic policy committee. Mr. Leogrande, why do you think the Nicaraguans fired at an unarmed helicopter?

WILLIAM LEOGRANDE: Well, we have to understand that this area is a war zone. There are 10,000 members of a counterrevolutionary army trained by the Central Intelligence Agency fighting against the government of Nicaragua in that area. The counterrevolutionary forces are very often supplied by helicopter. And so I think it's not surprising that a helicopter, a military vehicle, penetrating Nicaraguan airspace would receive ground fire.

WOODRUFF: Are you convinced that it had to be over Nicaraguan airspace for them to have fired at it?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: I think that's probably likely, and the reports from the Pentagon suggest that the helicopter was blown off course and might well have been in Nicaraguan airspace.

WOODRUFF: Do you believe their accounts, or do you think that there's a possibility that this craft could have been on some sort of covert mission, which is, of course, what the Nicaraguans have suggested.

Prof. LEOGRANDE: I don't know. We have no way of knowing. We know that the Central Intelligence Agency has been active in support of the counterrevolutionaries. At this point I think we have no reason to doubt the Pentagon's account that it was part of the military traning exercise, but that in itself raises an important issue. Here we are involved in a covert war against Nicaragua, and at the same time have placed our own forces in Honduras in a position which puts them in danger of becoming involved in that very war.

WOODRUFF: All right, well before we get into that, as you heard Secretary Shultz say, the pilot was on the ground, on Honduran territory, walking around when the Nicaraguans shot at him and killed him. Now, what would be the justification for that?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, there is no justification for one country shooting across the border of another. The problem is that that's a normal occurence, a daily occurence on that border. Nicaraguan and Honduran soldiers exchange ground fire and artillery barrage on a daily basis, and so although it's unfortunate and unjustifiable, it's rather normal.

WOODRUFF: Well, you heard a moment ago the quote from Congressman Michael Barnes that he finds it incomprehensible because the President, he said, at a news conference had promised that the United States, American forces, wouldn't go near that border. Is that your understanding of what the administration's position has been?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, there's no question that the administration gave assurances to the Congress that the troops involved in the exercises with Honduras would stay well away from the border area precisely because it's a war zone. But this Kind of incident, whether it was intentional or unintentional, shows the danger of having U.S. forces permanently deployed in Honduras, which is what they are now, for all intents and purposes, when Honduras is on the verge of a war or involved in a war against Nicaragua.

WOODRUFF: Well, do you think, then, that this was a breach of that promise? I mean, is that what it amounts to, in your view?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: If in fact this helicopter was intentionally flying close to the border, then it really does involve a breach of the kind of assurances that were given to the Congress. I think what we will see over the next few weeks is the Congress taking a very hard look at the kind of military deployment that we have now in Honduras.

WOODRUFF: Do you think the Nicaraguans are concerned that this may lead to greater tension in their relationship with the United States?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Oh, I think no doubt. I think they're probably very concerned, or ought to be concerned, that this might provoke some kind of military response by the United States, given the Reagan administration's open hostility towards the Nicaraguan regime for the last three years.

WOODRUFF: Well, what sort of military response would you think would be realistic?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I think that's difficult to predict. We ought not be in the business of military response for this incident, I think, because it will simply heighten the tensions on the border. It runs the risk of creating a war between Honduras and Nicaragua. And, in point of fact, we have already retaliated -- pre-emptive retaliation. If you will, by the fact that we are supporting a covert war against Nicaragua itself.

WOODRUFF: What do you think this incident is going to mean in the larger scheme in terms of American-Nicaraguan relations, or can we really say at this point?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: I think that in the near term it's going to mean continued deterioration of relations or holding relations at the present very low level. Hopefully in the long run it might sober up the leaders on both sides and perhaps move both the United States and Nicaragua towards some sort of discussion or negotiation of the differences between them.

WOODRUFF: And what do you think the Congress may do as a result of this?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I think the Congress is going to be very concerned about the deployment of U.S. combat forces in Honduras under the Big Pine exercises, which now we've had Big Pine One and we're now in the midst of Big Pine Two, and the Pentagon has just recently announced that we're goint to start Big Pine Three. All these exercises are arranged back to back so that U.S. forces are permanently deployed in Honduras. I think that's going to be a focus of considerable congressional attention over the next few weeks.

WOODRUFF: All right, thank you, Professor Leogrande.

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Robin?

MacNEIL: Also with us tonight is Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Ambassador Kirkpatrick, you just heard Professor Leogrande say this will lead to a deterioration or continued deterioration of relations between the U.S. and Nicaragua. Is he right?

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: Well, certainly we are very deeply shocked and appalled by the act of Nicaraguan army units shooting an American inside Honduras, on the ground in Honduras. We think, as the President has said, that that's unacceptable behavior. And relations between the United States and Nicaragua are not -- already not very good. I would suppose, yes, this is certainly constitutes an additional negative factor in those relationships.

MacNEIL: Now, the Nicaraguan foreign ministry put out a statement today calling on the United States not to use this as a pretext, in their words, for further military pressure. Is it a justification for further U.S. military pressure?

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, I don't know what you mean by "further U.S. military pressure" --

MacNEIL: Well, there is --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: After all, the United States is not involved in shooting in Nicaragua. I very, very deeply disagree with the formulation Mr. Leogrande was just using about the United States being engaged in a covert war against Nicaragua as though there were Americans fighting Nicaraguans in some secret way. There are not U.S. troops and U.S. soldiers --

MacNeil. There is U.S. --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: -- firing into Nicaragua.

MacNEIL: Well, there's U.S. money -- there is U.S. money --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, they are firing at us.

MacNEIL: -- and U.S. training.

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Yes, well, you -- you know, there's a lot of foreign money in Central America these days. There is a very great deal of Soviet and Soviet bloc money in Central America today, and it would, given the massive amounts of support that the government of Nicaragua gets from the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc, be really quite appalling if the democratic countries in Central America couldn't count on some help from the United States, I think --

MacNEIL: Well --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: So of course there's some U.S. money, but there isn't any U.S. war against Nicaragua, and the United States is not shooting in Nicaragua or at Nicaraguans, nor do we expect that Nicaraguans will shoot at us --

MacNEIL: Well, let's just --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: -- in Honduras or anyplace else.

MacNEIL: Let's look at the particular incident. As Congressman Barnes has pointed out, Mr. Leogrande has just repeated, the administration assured Congress and the public that its forces on Big Pine Two would not go anywhere near the border. Why was this helicopter so near the border?

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: I have read the comments from our government about that. I take it that the weather was quite bad and that the helicopter was blown off of its track. Let me just say -- I couldn't help remembering another occasion where another country shot at a plane that strayed off its course. Let me just -- this was an unarmed helicopter. It was on a routine mission, and it was carrying two American flight engineers, and it landed in Honduras. Now, if in the course of a flight between two points in Honduras, it was, in inclement weather, blown near the Nicaraguan border, I don't think civilized people anyplace would say that would give the Nicaraguans a right, as it were, under international law, to shoot at it. Much less to shoot at the pilot when he got out of the plane inside Honduras and had landed there and was then shot at and killed.

MacNEIL: Is it not the case, as Professor Leogrande has pointed out, that it is not very rare for there to be shooting across that border, since it happens all the time?

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, it's very rare for Nicaraguans to shoot at Americans across that border, and Americans don't shoot at Nicaraguans across that border. So that's very rare indeed. Now, you know, it is a fact that the border is deeply troubled. For example, on February the 9th the -- January the 9th, I'm sorry -- the Nicaraguans sent troops across the border to attack a Miskito Indian camp and a number of Miskitos were killed to the north of where this is. But it's certainly absolutely unprecedented for Nicaraguans to fire on an American helicopter. That's not only rare; it's unprecedented. It's never happened --

MacNEIL: To make the case the Nicaratuans do, since we're unable to have one of them here this evening, might they not have been justified in shooting down this helicopter when they -- I just want to make their point because they said today there had been 17 helicopter and plane overflights of that area of Nicaragua since Sunday in support of rebel activities in that area. Might they not have been justified in thinking this helicopter was in support of those reble activities?

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: I'd like to just say that, if I may, Mr. Leogrande is quite skillful at stating the Nicaraguan case in most instances, so I think we've heard, basically, the Nicaraguan case already. I think that the Nicaraguans can distinguish between an insurgent Nicaraguan helicopter and an American government helicopter, and you know, even if they had confused markings on a helicopter and fired at it over Nicaraguan territory -- if, indeed. the helicopter ever was blown over the border, which we do not know, let me say -- certainly it wouldn't justify them shooting at the pilot inside Honduras after he had landed and was on the ground. That, I think, is really without justification, and I don't by the way, think that the government of Nicaragua attempts to justify it. I think they try to explain it.

MacNEIL: Professor Leogrande, what's your comment on that?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I must say I take offense at the way the ambassador has characterized my views. It doesn't seem to me that it is somehow the Nicaraguan view to say that a military vehicle in a war zone is likely to get shot at. It seems to me that's only common sense --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: I'm sorry, this was not a military vehicle in a war zone; this was an American helicopter inside Honduras --

Prof. LEOGRANDE: But it was --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: -- whose pilot was shot after he got out of the helicopter inside Honduras --

Prof. LEOGRANDE: But it was a military helicopter operating in an area which is in fact a war zone. As I've said, there is no justification for shooting across borders, but if we are going to --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: I would agree on that.

Prof. LEOGRANDE: -- to have a policy which puts American combat forces in or proximate to a war zone, it's not surprising if some of them are going to end up being engaged in hostilities.

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, one would wonder, Mr. Leogrande, if you would find it equally unsurprising if it were U.S. soldiers firing across the border into Nicaragua in that war zone. Now, we haven't done that, and we don't intend to do it, let me just hasten to say. But it would be the equivalent, and that's not only not a rare occurence; it's something that just doesn't happen.

MacNEIL: Mr. Leogrande?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I would assume if American forces were fired at from Nicaragua they are under standing orders, is my belief, to defend themselves and return fire if that's necessary.

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: But they did not do that today. They were more prudent than that. They did not do that.

Prof. LEOGRANDE: I think that's to their credit.

MacNEIL: What about Professor Leogrande's point that with Big Pine One, Two and now Three following each other closely there are going to be U.S. forces, in effect, permanently in Honduras?Is he right in that?

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, I don't know how long "permanent" is. Permanent -- you mean for 20 years, as there are U.S. forces permanently in Germany --

MacNEIL: What did you mean, Professor Leogrande --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: -- permanently in Korea?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, that this has gone far beyond the normal scope of military exercises, which ordinarily last a few weeks. We now have had U.S. forces involved in these exercises for -- since at least July, and the Big Pine Three will begin this June and will carry it onwards. So we're talking about a deployment which is far beyond the norm for exercises.

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, I think it's quite true that it's far beyond the norm for the deployment of U.S. forces in Central America because normally there had not been a hostile military base for the projection of Cuban and Soviet power in the region. I think that with the militarization of Nicaragua and the presence in Nicaragua of 10,000 or so Cuban advisers, many of whom are military, and the persistent export of weapons and guerrillas by Nicaragua, the conduct of a guerrilla war based in Nicaragua against El Salvador -- since this is an area where vital U.S. security interests are involved, I think we can expect that there will be regularly -- I don't think permanently, but regularly -- maneuvers carried on between the United States and friendly governments, of which Honduras is certainly one, in the region, to protect our interests and to protect their independence and sovereignty.

MacNEIL: Professor Leogrande, what's your comment on that?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I would say if we're going to have combat forces deployed in Honduras at a time when Honduras is supporting the counterrevolutionary war against Nicaragua, there is a danger that those U.S. forces will in the future become involved in those hostilities, as they did, unfortunately, today. And I think that that's a danger which needs much closer examination than it's received thus far.

MacNEIL: Let's come back to the proximity to the border of this helicopter, whatever its mission was. The Defense Department said today that the U.S. forces had orders to go no closer than five miles to the border. Is "no closer than five miles" -- does that conform to administration assurances that U.S. forces would be "nowhere near that border." not anywhere near that border?

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, first of all -- wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! I don't know to whom the administration ever gave any such assurances or what the status of such --

MacNEIL: Well, Congressman Barnes quoted President Reagan --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, you know, Congress --

MacNEIL: -- at a press conference --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: -- Congressman Barnes quoted -- President Reagan said that there would be no U.S. forces closer than five miles --

MacNEIL: That the U.S. forces would not go anywhere near the border, according to Congressman Barnes.

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Right, well, you know, ideas -- I don't -- you know, I don't know quite what that means, first of all, and I don't know quite where those troops and planes are. I am not a representative of the Defense Department, frankly, and I don't know that much about --

MacNEIL: The question is --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: -- about the maneuvers.

MacNEIL: The question is, are they close enough to be a provocation which can lead them into incidents which will involve them in --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Oh, look, I would say that -- I mean, provocation indeed! That's an outrageous concept. I would suppose in principle that, since Nicaragua and the United States are not at war, that the Americans ought to be -- journalists or military personnel or tourists or whomever ought to be able to be anyplace in Honduras without being shot at by Nicaragua or Nicaraguan troops across the border. That's -- I mean. I think that goes without saying. Now, the exact precise deployment of U.S. forces in those maneuvers is simply something I don't know about.

MacNEIL: Well, if they can go anywhere, should be able to go anywhere in Honduras, why did the administration go out of its way to give assurances to the Congress --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Oh, I don't know --

MacNEIL: -- that they would not be?

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: -- you know, frankly, I don't know anything about that, and I don't even know that the administration went out of its way. I don't know that it did it, much less that it went out of its way to do it --

MacNEIL: What is your understand --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: I suppose they did it in response to a question and, quite frankly, I doubt if Mr. Leogrande is an expert on what the administration has said to the Congress on this issue, too.

MacNEIL: Well, let's ask him what his understanding is of it, nevertheless.

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I take Congressman Barnes at his word. He said today that he received that sort of understanding from the administration. I don't think he would have any reason to make that up. And it would be, in fact, a prudent policy on the part of the administration to try and keep the U.S. forces out of the war zone there.

MacNEIL: Your understanding is the administration -- or your belief is the administration didn't give any understanding, is that it?

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: No, I didn't say any -- I said I don't know --

MacNEIL: Whether they did or whether --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: -- anything about it, frankly. I just simply don't know anything about it.

MacNEIL: I see. I see.

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Since I don't know anything about it, I won't comment on it.

MacNEIL: I see. Where is this going to lead, do you think, this particular incident?

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, I don't know, but I would like to say that it leads to a new awareness on the part of everybody that it is not acceptable for the government of Nicaragua to fire, to conduct forays by Nicaraguan troops, to send Nicaraguan troops either across the boundaries of Honduras or across the boundaries of Costa Rica, which it has also done, or -- nor that it is permissable for the government of Nicaragua to seize Americans in boats -- fishing boats, for example, in Costa Rican waters, which the government of Nicaragua has also done in the last year. That sort of behavior is not acceptable. It's a violation of international law. And it's dangerous for everybody concerned, and I would hope it would lead to a revision of those practices.

MacNEIL: When a country like the United States says that behavior is unacceptable, it usually implies that if it doesn't stop something's going to be done about it.

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: Well, I think -- when I say it's unacceptable, I mean it's unacceptable by civilized standards of behavior and that it should stop in fact. I don't know what the President meant.

MacNEIL: Mr. Leogrande, what do you and people who look at it the way you do fear may happen as a result of this incident and the others that there have been in the waters around Nicaragua and the borders recently?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, the obvious danger is that any one of these incidents might provoke a wider war. Most concern up until now has been of a war between Nicaragua and Honduras, since they're ordinarily the forces that are trading fire across that border. It's hardly a one-sided sort of situation. They shoot at one another, and the reason they shoot at one another is because there are Nicaraguan exiles who go back and forth across that border in their effort to overthrow the govenment of Nicaragua --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: May I just say that, you know, I think that that is really not an accurate description of what happens on that border, and I think that the case may be clearer in the Costa Rican case because in the -- on the Costa Rican border there have been several instances where Nicaraguan army units have entered Costa Rica in pursuit of some goal, violating Costa Rican territory. Costa Rica is a country without an army, even. There was a case not very long ago in which the Costa Rican foreign minister brought to the attention both of the United Nations and the OAS. Now, the Nicaraguans also -- Nicaraguans also have a habit already of sending army units into Honduras as, for example, to attack the Miskito camps, which they just did earlier this week. And there is not a similar pattern of the violation of the Nicaraguan territory by the government of Honduras. Now, it is a fact that there are rebels operating in Nicaragua, and around Nicaragua's borders. It is also a fact that there are rebels operating in El Salvador continuously directed from outside Managua.None of that should be used, however, as an excuse, in my opinion, to justify behaving as though there were a war between the government of Nicaragua and the government of Honduras --

MacNEIL: Okay --

Amb. KIRKPATRICK: -- or the government of Nicaragua and the government of Salvador. much less the government of Nicaragua and the United States.

MacNEIL: Ambassador Kirkpatrick, Professor Leogrande, thank you both. Judy?

WOODRUFF: The chief Soviet arms negotiator has charged that the U.S. was about to accept Soviet terms for limiting nuclear missiles in Europe when the deal fell apart last November. Yuli Kvitsinsky said his American counterpart offered to cancel NATO's plan to deploy new missiles if Moscow would destroy nearly two-thirds of its rocket force. Kvitsinsky said the compromise fell apart when it was made public by the U.S. and by the West Germans. The American arms negotiator, Paul Nitze, has denied the Soviet version of events, and says the offer was from the Soviet Union. A Reagan administration official repeated that again today. All these renewed charges by the Soviets came as Secretary of State Shultz prepares to travel to Europe for a meeting with the Soviet foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko. At his news conference today Shultz outlined his approach to dealing with the Soviets.

Sec. SHULTZ: And it's important to be realistic in our attitude toward the Soviet Union, to be candid with ourselves, with them and others about how we see it. And if there are unpleasant facts, to put them forward, and also to be very mindful of our own strength and our alliances and their strength and our capacity to defend our values and defend our interests. And on the basis of that, to be ready for reasonable discussion and dialogue with the Soviet Union.

REPORTER: You said earlier today that it takes two to thaw.Do you think the Soviet Union --

Sec.SHULTZ: I don't know about that. I've been thinking about that image and it sort of came to me. Don't push it.

REPORTER: Do you think the Soviet Union is ready to tango and thaw?

Sec. SHULTZ: I don't know. I think that there are great tensions in various parts of the world, and so it's desirable to have a dialogue, and it's desirable to reduce those tensions if we can.

WOODRUFF: On Monday, two days before Shultz meets with Gromyko, President Reagan will make a speech on U.S.-Soviet relations. A White House spokesman said today that Mr. Reagan wants to make the Soviets know that Americans are determined to maintain a realistic and productive relationship; a relationship, he said, the President has a genuine desire to improve.Meanwhile, in Moscow, Soviet President Andropov was quoted as saying that the Soviets would never resume talks on limiting medium-range weapons in Europe unless NATO first canceled its deployment. He blamed the Americans for the breakdown of the arms talks last fall.

Back in Washington, Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang wound up an official visit today, saying it had helped put U.S.-Chinese relations on the road to steady development. In a farewell ceremony at the White House, President Reagan told Zhao he was more convinced than ever of the importance of good U.S.-Chinese relations.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: It was clear during our discussions that China and the United States agree on a number of questions and that the leaders of our two nations should come together regularly to compare notes. Even on matters of disagreement the Premier and I were able to clarify our respective positions.Though our strategies sometimes converge and sometimes differ, our goals remain the same. We both are committed to peace and stability in the world so that we can concentrate our energies and resources on improving the well-being of our people. With respect to our bilateral relations, I think that Premier Zhao would agree that we've made considerable progress.

WOODRUFF: The two leaders signed a new agreement on industrial and technological cooperation expected to help pave the way for a bigger U.S. role in China's modernization drive. And in Peking, China's state-run press announced that Zhao's visit proves that a good Chinese-U.S. relationship is an irresistable historical trend.

Robin?

MacNEIL: There was more fighting between Lebanese factions around Beirut today while prospects for the much-heralded new security agreement looked dimmer. Walid Jumblatt, the Druse Moslem leader whose objections are holding up the agreement, flew off to Moscow from Damascus for talks with Soviet leaders. U.S. Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld, who met with Jumblatt yesterday, conferred with the Lebanese government today and was going back to Damascus to discuss the plan again with the Syrians.

Today's fighting consisted of artillery, mortar and tank exchanges between the Lebanese army and Druse militias in the southeastern edge of Beirut.

We'll be back in a moment.

[Video postcard -- Chimney Corner, West Virginia]

WOODRUFF: The Reagan administration extended what appeared to be an olive branch to the environmental community today, but some environmentalists aren't viewing it that way. Interior Secretary William Clark announced that there could be cutbacks in the amount of offshore land available for oil and gas drilling. It seemed to be a major departure from the views of his predecessor, James Watt, who had begun a policy of making huge tracts off the U.S. coastline available to be leased to oil companies. Secretary Clark promised to be more open and to act more quickly on suggestions that inappropriate areas be stricken from lease offerings.

WILLIAM CLARK, Secretary of the Interior: We're proposing to make more key decisions in the fourth month of the leasing process, which is, as you know, the stage when the area of leasing interest is defined for analysis and review in a draft environmental impact statement. If a given tract does not meet the essential test of potential energy value versus other multiple-use values, such as fishing, military concerns or environmental or scenic considerations, then a tract can be dropped from further consideration in that fourth month. If an area does measure up in this early analysis of benefits versus liabilities, it would be further analyzed and refined at each decision stage or level in the 22-month process. This must be done on a case-by-case, sale-by-sale basis, since every area is different and some unique. We can work as partners, the federal, state, local governments, various industries, interest groups, to harvest the riches of the sea and under the sea while protecting its grandure and life-sustaining qualities.

WOODRUFF: Clark said he still supported Watt's basic concept of area-wide leases, but promised more opportunities for states, environmentalists and other groups to influence the leasing process. The California secretary of the environment called the changes "magnificent." California has been a leading state in suing the government over Watt's leasing program. But some environmental groups expressed disappointment that Clark didn't go further. Sarah Chassis of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the changes are very limited in nature and are unlikely to affect the overall magnitude and pace of offshore oil leasing. She noted that Clark has not deleted or postponed any current leases.

Robin?

MacNEIL: Former Congressman Richard Kelly, the Florida Republican who was seen on television during the Abscam trials stuffing a $25,000 cash bribe into his pockets, was sentenced today to six to 18 months in prison. The sentence also includes three years on probation. But it is still the lightest term given to any of the six representatives and one senator who were convicted in the Abscam investigation. Judge William Bryant of the federal district court in Washington was evidently sympathetic with Kelly's argument that the government had induced him to accept a bribe after he had first rejected the offer, but the judge said, "I can't do anything about it."

Paul Tsongas, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, announced today that for health reasons he will not seek re-election for a second term this fall. Tsongas, who is 42, served two terms in Congress before running for the Senate in 1978. In his freshman term he emerged as a critic of traditional Democratic libeal policies and called for a new vision for the party. At a news conference today in the Massachusetts State House in Boston, the senator said he made the decision to leave the Senate when his term runs out next year in order to avoid further sacrifice for his wife Nikki and their three daughters.

Sen. PAUL TSONGAS, (D) Massachusetts: A year from now I will begin a new career, and I'm looking forward to it. But more than that, I'm looking forward to being with Nikki and Ashley and Katina and Molly in a way this office would never allow. At this moment I would like to acknowledge the professionalism and the love of my staff. They served you very well. I hope that they would be appreciated [unintelligible due to applause]. Cholesterol Warning

MacNEIL: Our next major story comes from our medical beat. Today scientists said they have significant new evidence of how the risk of heart attacks and heart disease can be substantially reduced. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has the story. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The debate that has raged for years in the medical community over the role of cholesterol in heart disease may be at an end. In their major study released today researchers at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, concluded that lowering blood cholesterol with low-fat diets and drugs can actually reverse the process that leads to hear attacks. Cholesterol, a form of fat that looks and feels like liquid soap, contributes to the buildup of fatty deposits along the walls of vital arteries to the heart. That creates a condition known as atherosclerosis. The trouble comes if a blood clot forms and lodges in the narrowed portion of the artery. The result is that the flow of blood to a portion of the heart is choked off, causing a heart attack. Atherosclerosis is the nation's leading killer, claiming more than a half-million lives a year. Today's report was based on a comprehensive, 10-year study of 3,800 men with high levels of cholesterol in their blood. At a press conference this morning. Dr. Basil Rifkind, one of the head researchers, summarized the results.

Dr. BASIL RIFKIND, project director: The risk of coronary heart disease can be reduced by lowering cholesterol. This study provides a heretofore missing link in the chain relating cholesterol to coronary heart disease. These results have widespread implications for many millions of Americans, and if applied, have the potential to markedly reduce the large numbers of heart attacks and heart attack deaths presently experienced in this country and elsewhere. If we estimate that, for example, the top 20% of Americans were to reduce their cholesterol by half through the use primarily of diet, then it can be estimated that perhaps 100,000 deaths could be eliminated each year through these measures.

HUNTER-GAULT: For more on the significance of the study we have the director, Dr. Robert Levy.Until 1981 Dr. Levy was head of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. He is now vice president for health sciences at Columbia University, and is also a cardiologist on the university's hospital staff. Dr. Levy, why is this study likely to end that raging debate about the role of cholesterol in heart attacks?

ROBERT LEVY: Charlayne, up until this time we've had striking, incontrovertible evidence that cholesterol is a risk factor. That is, those who have high cholesterol will have heart disease. We've had a lot of evidence to show that by diet and use of drugs you could lower cholesterol. We could not get the American public or anyone else to the health care physician to act or move until we had this final piece of evidence. That is, that lowering cholesterol would indeed do more than just lower number, would reduce the risk of heart attack, reduce the risk of heart attack death. And that was the incontrovertible evidence, the missing link, presented today.

HUNTER-GAULT: And you did this study with a control group; in other words, a -- I don't have to explain to you what a control group is, but a group that had high cholesterol levels that were treated with low-fat diet and drugs and one that wasn't?

Dr. LEVY: That's right, and in fact, it allowed us to do two things. First. we showed that treatment reduced the risk of heart disease. Then we could demonstrate in that the response to the treatment was different -- some people lowering their cholesterol more than others -- that the explanation for the reduced risk was the lowering of cholesterol. Those individuals who took full medication, who followed the diet and the regiment of drug completely, lowered their cholesterol by 20 to 30 percent, and had over a 50% reduction in heart disease event rates -- bad events, like heart attack death, heart attack.

HUNTER-GAULT: That's bad.

Dr. LEVY: That's bad.

HUNTER-GAULT: There were 3,800 men in this study. How many people in the overall population are we talking about that have these high levels of cholesterol in their blood?

Dr. LEVY: The level that we chose so that we would have more events and could do the study was 265 milligrams percent. That's about one out of 20 Americans. However, the relationship between cholesterol and heart disease is not a cut special one, is a graded risk, and so we think that the message from this study goes down to those who have cholesterols of 250, 240, probably lower than that. And the message is, the lower your cholesterol is, the better you're going to be.

HUNTER-GAULT: But are we talking about a significant portion of the population?

Dr. LEVY: Well, one in 20 is about 265. If we took just down to 240, we're talking about 25% of the adult population in the United States.

HUNTER-GAULT: And the fact that the study was just done on men doesn't mean that it's conclusions don't apply to women as well, is that --

Dr. LEVY: I've been accused of being a chauvinist, but the study was done on men because there would be more event rates. We feel that the study is immediately extrapolatable to women, most certainly. LDL is a risk factor for women, and just like men --

HUNTER-GAULT: LDL?

Dr. LEVY: Cholesterol is a risk factor, and just like in men, heart disease, heart attack, is the major killer in women. It just occurs a little later.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what exactly causes these very high levels of cholesterol? I mean, isn't a little bit of cholesterol in the body good for you or necessary?

Dr. LEVY: Cholesterol is part of every cell in the body, but we don't need all the cholesterol we have in our blood, and cholesterol in the blood can shipwreck in a way. You can think of it in the blood vessels producing a rusting -- what we call atherosclerosis. And too much of that over time is what interferes with blood flow and gets us into trouble.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, where does it come from?

Dr. LEVY: The cholesterol that's in our blood --

HUNTER-GAULT: I mean the increases, the things that cause the increases.

Dr. LEVY: Sometimes it's genetic in origin, but often it's environmental in origin. When it's environment, it's usually diet. And what are the factors? Eating foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol.

HUNTER-GAULT: Like what?

Dr. LEVY: Like dairy products, whole milk, butter, cheese; like prime Grade A meat, especially forgetting to trim the fat from the meat; like eating organ meat, like pancreas or brain or liver --

HUNTER-GAULT: Liver?

Dr. LEVY: Like eating egg yolk. Liver.These are foods that are high in saturated fats and cholesterol, and one can still eat very well. There are gourmet cookbooks that describe ways to reduce the saturated fat and cholesterol content of the diet, and we could get the message across, but not as loudly as we would like to before because we didn't have that last piece of evidence.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, specifically, how -- I mean, aside from getting the gourmet diet books, which may not be written yet if you've just concluded this study, but how could people change their diet habits to help them achieve this level of health?

Dr. LEVY: By making some simple substitutions. Skim milk has much less fat in it than whole milk; it still has all the calcium and the protein. It's cheaper. Margarines, the vegetable margarines, are cheaper than the butters. One can look for meat, meat products that have less fat in them.

HUNTER-GAULT: Should one give up meat?

Dr. LEVY: Oh, that certainly would not be indicated from just this result, but we can certainly, all of us in America, lower our average cholesterol, and the average cholesterol in America is high, by changing the habits, by just eating less foods that are fatty. And perhaps we ought to add that the message is especially important for those who have other risk factors. Yesterday -- last evening you talked about smoking. Smoking and blood pressure are two other big risk factors for heart attack. If one has one or both of those factors, this message about cholesterol is even more important.

HUNTER-GAULT: As you might imagine, we have quite an interest in this subject on this program. Our colleague is recovering now from a heart attack. But if you say that you have drugs that also can control this, I mean, why would anybody change their diet? Why not just take a pill?

Dr. LEVY: Well, that's a risk. We use the drug in this study not because we wanted to demonstrate that the drug would prevent heart attack, but because this was the best method we had available to show that lowering cholesterol would prevent heart disease. We did not have the number of the patients, the dollars, to do this with just diet alone. It may be tempting for people to try the drug alone, but all drugs, including this drug, which is only working in the gastrointestinal tract, still have some side effects. Gastrointestinal. And I would say, I would recommend to the American public that, and we've been recommending this for over 15 years when we talk about cholesterol, diet has to be the first step. Diet will also often make it unnecessary to think about anything else.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, as you probably know, the American public is a public that enjoys eating out. How can you control what you get in a restaurant or even, in fact, what you buy in a supermarket? I mean, the hidden things. Like, you can't see egg whites in prepared mixes and things. I mean, is there anything going to change in the preparation as a result of this study?

Dr. LEVY: I have no doubt that now that we have the evidence that cholesterol lowering is beneficial, that the FDA, the USDA will be more likely to allow the full labeling of products -- and there is extensive voluntary labeling now -- that will allow the public to identify the foods high and low in fat, low in cholesterol, and even more important, it's quite clear that many areas, especially areas related to the lipid clinics that were in this trial, the 12 different clinics, have found that a menu with one or two or three low-cholesterol, low-saturated-fat items sells. And I'm sure we'll be seeing more of that available to the American public in the gourmet restaurants as well as the quick eateries.

HUNTER-GAULT: Overall, is heart disease on the decline now?

Dr. LEVY: We've seen an exciting precipitous decline in heart disease over the last 10 to 15 years. The big debate has not been why it is down. We have too many explanations. It's been -- is it prevention or is it improved treatment? I think there is evidence to suggest that both have played a role. The conclusive evidence that we presented today provides another strong nail into the concept that the prevention of heart disease -- Americans have lower cholesterol levels, are eating less saturated fat and cholesterol, are smoking less, have lower blood pressures, that that is the major factor in the decline.

HUNTER-GAULT: So that the prevention aspect is one that you would emphasize more than the treatment?

Dr. LEVY: For many reasons, perhaps the leading one being that it's much more cost effective to prevent the events than to try to palliate after they've occurred.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you see the decline in heart disease and heart problems going as dramatically, say, over the next 15 years as it has recently? I mean, where do you see progress, and how fast do you see it being made?

Dr. LEVY: I'm excited that with the implementation, the action on the kinds of information we got today -- that is, if the American health professional and the American public heeded the message that if you have a high cholesterol you should lower it, as well as continuing to heed themessage about controlling blood pressure, stopping smoking, and the exciting advances that we've had in our ability to treat cardiac disease, that we're going to see a continual decline. And if these messages about prevention can be taken to heart, we can hopefully at least prevent premature heart disease.

HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you, that's really good news, Dr. Levy. Judy?

WOODRUFF: Mystery continues to surround the death in San Antonio of an Army Reserve general whose body was found yesterday. The body of Army Major General Robert Owenby was found hanging from the stairwell in an Army headquarters building, his hands tied behind his back, bound with a belt. A note pinned to the body said he had been executed, but there were no signs of struggle, and no one claimed responsibility. The note read: "Captured, tried, convicted of crimes by the U.S. Army against the people of the world. Sentenced and executed." Another note, found on Owenby's desk, said that he had apparently surprised some people in the building and couldn't get the telephones to work. The FBI said it was possible the victim could have placed the belt around his own wrists, and the Pentagon said it could have been either suicide or murder. Even so, in Washington Pentagon officials told senior Reserve officers to take prudent precautions for their own safety.

The Chrysler Corporation went into court today to try to stop General Motors from forming a joint venture with Toyota. A Chrysler spokesman said the GM plan to build subcompact cars violates the nation's antitrust laws, and is clearly illegal. He said it would have a devastating effect on competition in the U.S. auto market. GM and Toyota, the first-and third-largest automakers in the world, hope to build up to 250,000 small cars a year for the next 12 years at an idle GM plant in California. The chairman of General Motors, Roger Smith, defended the joint venture, and said its legality has already been certified by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC gave its tentative approval last month.

Robin? TThe Real 1984

MacNEIL: Once again, the main stories of the day.

Nicaragua said its troops shot down a U.S. Army helicopter yesterday and expressed its regrets to the family of the pilot who was killed. The United States made an official protest.

Secretary of State George Shultz expressed hope that some progress will be made toward better relations with the Soviet Union when he meets Foreign Minister Gromyko next week in Stockholm.

Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang of China ended his visit to Washington by signing an agreement on industrial and technological cooperation with the United States.

The new secretary of the interior, William Clark, announced major changes in the government's policy on leasing offshore oil concessions, cutting back sharply on the amount proposed by his predecessor, James Watt.

And government scientists said a 10-year study shows conclusively that lowering the amount of cholesterol in the blood can reduce the risk of heart attacks.

In recent weeks we've been carrying occasional essays by Roger Rosenblatt of Time magazine, and we have another tonight. Mr. Rosenblatt has been listening to all the year-end talk of how much present-day life fits or doesn't fit the bleak totalitarian world imagined by the writer George Orwell in his novel, 1984. This is how Roger Rosenblatt sees it.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: There may be something false about all the attention given George Orwell's 1984. Orwell would never have dreamed it, not the royalties, certainly, or the college conterences, or the television documentaries, all fretfully measuring reality against Orwell's fiction. There's a certain amount of intellectual game-playing in this, of course. But maybe the celebration of 1984 is another kind of diversion, a way of pumping up the year into so colossal an event that one can successfully avoid looking at the year directly. Yet, look at it directly.

[voice-over] The year has arrived, after all, and we do not see much of 1984. In Orwell's 1984 the world was divided among three vast and wholly dominant powers. In our 1984, two powers predominate, but even they do not exercise the influence over smaller countries they once enjoyed.

No thought police to be seen. No telescreen surveillance. No Ministry of Truth. Newspeak, yes, but no different generically from conventional euphemisms of the past. The rewriting of history, yes again, but even that is a traditional practice of nations on the make, and is, at any rate, far sloppier in reality than in Orwell's bureaucracy.

To be fair, there are current events that do occur in Orwell's book. Continual warfare, for one thing. Some 40 wars are being fought in the world right now. And the machinery for destroying human privacy is in place: satellites, data banks, the baby god computer. On the whole, however, at least in the West, there are greater freedoms, not fewer, than there were 40 years ago -- for blacks, for women. Emerging from the Second World War Orwell stood a lot closer to 1984 having seen Nazi Germany than he would stand among us now.

What, then, do we have to worry about this year? The triumph of totalitarianism? We see that resisted continually in places like Poland, where lights of human courage manage to ignite themselves even in the darkest rooms. What, then? Spies in the trees? The brain turned to jelly? Eyes dead in their sockets? Not bloody likely.

The world's real terrors are far more prosaic. If we are searching for nightmares this year, we ought not to look at the machinations of government but at the brutality of government, which makes thought control a piece of cake. Here is 1984 for you: death squads in Central America; a holocaust in Cambodia; a continuing gulag in the Soviet Union; executions in Iran; the sub-human treatments of blacks in South Africa; terrorists -- Arab, Irish, German, Italian, making murder a style of government, wearing masks. Nothing clever or devious about such behavior, but it can do the job.

[on camera] Orwell must have thought so himself. For all the elaborate totalitarian trappings of 1984, it helps to remember that the hero of the book is brought to his knees in the end not by the subtle manipulation of his mind, but by torture -- clean and basic.

In a way, the state loses in 1984. Oh, it beats Winston Smith, all right. But one cannot help but believe that there will be future Winston Smiths ready to scribble "Down with Big Brother!" in a blank book whose pages are like the mind, open to possibility and rebellion. Crush the head, however, and the mind will follow. One needs no thought police as long as one has a secret police and a fine, hard club.

[voice-over] If one were sincerely concerned with the realization of 1984, it might serve to concentrate on the image Orwell provided. If you want a picture of the future, he said, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever. There we have it. Nothing complicated. Nor do we have to imagine such a picture. It crops up regularly and everywhere. This may constitute the real lesson Orwell left us. Not to direct our attention to the strength of human will as opposed to ingenious devices of the state, but to the exercise of cruelty in power. We live in a mighty deadly world in 1984, and no amount of book-gazing is going to take it away.

MacNEIL: Good night, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our NewsHour for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.