The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Tonight, a security scare at the White House. New words from Moscow on nuclear missiles. Israel and the Palestinians manage a major exchange of prisoners. We have those stories, and we examine why Nicaragua has begun sending Cubans back home. And we look at the lobbying efforts of a top anti-Sandinista leader in the U.S. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Otherwise, the wire service machines and other sources of so-called breaking news were pretty quiet today except for reports on the good things Americans did for one another on this Thanksgiving day, and updates on the bad weather in some parts of the country. It gives us a chance to look at a story that has quietly developed over a long period of time about a dying industry that still lives, and to hear from a man who has lived for 90 years.

KARL MENNINGER: Can you think of any case you're treating that's hopeless? Then why are you treating it?

LEHRER: They call him Dr. Karl for short. He's a psychiatrist; he lives in Topeka, Kansas; and you'll recognize the last name: Menninger.

MacNEIL: For security reasons, seven dump trucks loaded with sand were placed at some entrances leading into the White House grounds today. The State Department also blocked its entrances after receiving bomb threats. It was not stated whether those threats involved a car or truck bomb like the one that exploded at Beirut airport. President and Mrs. Reagan, of course, were spending the holiday at their ranch near Santa Barbara, California. The dump trucks were placed in front of four entrances into the White House grounds, but the two main entrances, which have heavy iron gates, were not blocked. A spokesman for the Secret Service said the trucks were stationed at the White House for security reasons, but he declined to say what specifically was the nature of the security threat. Jim?

LEHRER: The Soviet Union will respond to the deployment of new U.S. missiles in Western Europe with new deployments of its own. In a statement carried by the Soviet news agency Tass, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov said today there would be three counteractions: more of its SS-20 medium-range missiles will be deployed in the Soviet Union itself; new short-range missiles will be placed in East Germany and Czechoslovakia; and an unspecified number and type of nuclear missiles will be put in ocean areas and seas. That presumably means aboard submarines. The Andropov statement said the Soviet decision to walk out of the medium-range missile talks in Geneva yesterday was caused by NATO and its decision to go ahead with the Pershing II and cruise missile placements in Britain, Italy and West Germany. That action made further reduction talks impossible, said Andropov. A spokesman for President Reagan in Santa Barbara responded to the Andropov statement saying Mr. Reagan was disappointed in the Soviet position, but the U.S. still stood ready to resume the Geneva talks at any time. Robin? Mideast Prisoner Exchange

MacNEIL: There was something like a Thanksgiving atmosphere in Israel today. After months of secret negotiations, Israel persuaded Yasir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization to release six Israeli soldiers held as prisoners. In return, Israel released more than 4,000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners. The exchange, supervised by the International Red Cross, was hastened by Israeli fears that their soldiers might become victims of the fierce fighting between Arafat and PLO rebels in Tripoli. That city was quiet today, and an indefinite ceasefire was announced.

[voice-over] The six Israeli prisoners left the port of Tripoli in an Arab fishing boat for a French ship waiting off the coast of Lebanon. Two rubber boats from an Israeli warship headed towards the French ship which had picked up the Israelis. Halfway across the Israeli boats met two French boats. The prisoners climbed from one to the other, and they were back among their countrymen. These pictures were taken from the deck of the Israeli warship, which was not identified, for security reasons. It was a short, happy ride from the meeting point back to the side of the Israeli ship to start the voyage home and the second step in a day-long series of welcoming smiles and welcoming handshakes and knowing they were back among friends. Then a helicopter took them to a mass welcome at a military airfield near Tel Aviv, where families and friends were waiting. It was a joyful scene for them and for all of Israel. One of the Israeli soldiers released today was 21-year-old Danny Gilboa. When he arrived home in Tel Aviv he was greeted by his parents and hundreds of relatives and friends.

REPORTER: How does it feel to have your son home?

MOTHER GILBOA: It's incredible. I am so happy, so happy. I can't tell you with words.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: But Danny's father is still worried about the remaining Israeli soldiers imprisoned in Syria.

FATHER GILBOA: We are thinking about the two others, and when this trauma will be over, within a day or two, I'm sure that all the families will be united again to help to encourage and to do everything so that the two will come back.

REPORTER: What were your darkest fears about your brother?

SISTER GILBOA: Oh, I cannot describe them. I wasn't sure I would see him again. I really wasn't -- that's why it's difficult for me to understand that this is reality; I'm not dreaming anymore.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: While the Israelis were on their way home by sea, the Palestinian prisoners were released by Israel and flown to Algeria. All but a few of the Arab prisoners were released from the Ansar prison camp in southerm Lebanon where most of them have been held since the Israeli expedition to Lebanon last year. The prisoners were dressed in bright-colored warmup suits provided by the International Red Cross, which supervised the whole procedure. The prisoners said their treatment had been good. The first 1,000 were Palestinian guerrillas who were taken by bus to Ben-Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv, where they were put aboard jumbo jets chartered from France for a flight to Algiers. About 100 guerrillas who had been held in Israeli jails also were put aboard the planes bound for Algeria. As they went up the boarding stairs, some of the freed prisoners showed their sentiments were still with the cause of Palestine. The rest of the prisoners were released from their light plastic fetters at Sidon in southern Lebanon. Most of these were Lebanese who had chosen to return to their own country rather than to go to Algeria with the Palestinians. They received a brief greeting from a few Lebanese, nothing like the tumultuous welcome the Israelis got in Tel Aviv. They were released without conditions, which means that the Arabs may return to fight Israel again, and as they left some of them declared they would do just that.

[on camera] The prisoner exchange immediately raised speculation that it would provide a way out of Tripoli for Yasir Arafat. United Press International quoted a senior Israeli official as saying Arafat's freedom from the northern city, where he's encircled by PLO rebel forces, was a condition of the swap. But in Tripoli an Arafat spokesman said there was no connection. Whether Arafat left Tripoli was solely between Syria and the PLO. In Damascus, the Syrian capital, today, PLO rebel leaders said an indefinite ceasefire had been arranged, and both sides had agreed to settle their differences by peaceful means. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who helped arrange the ceasefire, said practical matters still remain, presumably meaning Arafat's future moves.Despite the ceasefire, officals loyal to Arafat still said they expect a rebel onslaught. One rebel commander, Ahmed Gebril, has said he will enter Tripoli unless Arafat leaves by Saturday. Jim?

LEHRER: The Sandinista government of Nicaragua sent some Cubans home and is set to finally have some elections. Sandinista leaders say both actions are designed to "test the will of the United States to achieve a lasting peace in Central America." Wire service and newspaper reports say 1,200 of the 8,000 Cubans said to be in Nicaragua have returned to Cuba in the last few weeks. Government sources in Managua call it a first step toward complying with a proposed Central American peace treaty. The election story comes today from United Press International and says Sandinista leaders will announce December 4th, a week from Sunday, when elections will be held. If they come off, they will be the first held in Nicaragua since the 1979 revolution that ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza. The failure to have elections has been one of the main criticisms of the Sandinistas by the United States, as well as others both inside and outside Nicaragua. How to read these two developments is what we want to get now from William Leogrande, a professor of political science at American University here in Washington and an expert on Cuba and Nicaragua. How do you interpret these two things?

WILLIAM LEOGRANDE: Well, I think clearly the Nicaraguans are trying to send a diplomatic signal to the United States, to the Contadora countries in Latin America -- that is to say Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia -- and also to Western European countries that they are serious about the kinds of diplomatic initiatives that they have made over the last six months or so. The principle problem the Reagan administration has had with those initiatives is its belief that the Sandinistas were not serious, that they didn't mean the promises that they were making. I think the Sandinistas have decided that they are going to make some specific, concrete gestures of a unilateral kind to indicate that they are indeed serious.

LEHRER: Does 1,200 out of 8,000 Cubans returning to Cuba add up to a serious thing?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I think that what it does is indicate the Sandinistas are willing to comply with the general regional agreement that would ban any foreign advisers from Central America. They have said in the past that they would accept such an agreement. The United States has called for such an agreement, and I think this is an indication that they're willing to go along with it.

LEHRER: You've been there. What do these Cubans do in Nicaragua?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, they do a variety of things. The bulk of the Cuban advisers are civilians and are involved in such things as health education, economic planning, but there are some security advisers as well helping to train the Sandinista army and help it with strategy and so on and so forth.

LEHRER: Now, on the election statement that a week from Sunday they are going to announce when they are going to have elections. Is that something that should be taken seriously as well?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I think so. The Sandinistas have been saying for three years now that they were going to begin their election campaign in 1984 and have the actual elections in 1985. They have held by that schedule, and I think now the fact that they're prepared to finally set a date certainly indicates that they're continuing on that schedule.

LEHRER: Any reason to believe that these will be free and open elections that we in a democracy expect?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: We'll have to wait and see. Different Sandinista leaders have described the elections in different ways. But the Council of State, the legislature of Nicaragua, recently passed a political parties law which defined the juridical basis, the responsibilities and obligations and rights of political parties. And one of the things in that law was that political parties have the right to contend for political power.

LEHRER: Finally, let me ask you this. It's already been suggested that the Sandinistas did this -- took these two steps or are taking these two steps -- because of the tough policy that the United States has had toward Nicaragua. Do you agree with that assessment?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: There's no question that the Sandinistas are very much afraid of invasion by the United States, but they don't believe that there's anything they can do, any concession they can make that is going to change the policy of the Reagan administration. What they're doing instead, I think, is trying to appeal to Latin American countries and Western European countries, demonstrate to them that they're serious about their willingness to go forward with elections and so on in the hopes, then, that Europeans and Latin Americans will be able to restrain the United States.

LEHRER: Professor Leogrande, thank you.

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Thank you.

LEHRER: Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, El Salvador, rightist death squads, leftist guerrillas and everything else about Central America is indeed a big deal to the United States. President Reagan and his then-secretary of state, Alexander Haig, made Central America a major issue nearly three years ago, and it has remained so ever since, and everyone involved in the on-the-ground struggle knows it. That's why there is seldom a week that goes by without a Washington visit from a faction of government or a something involved.They come to make speeches, to talk to the State Department, to the Congress, to the press; in short, to lobby. The most recent of these visiting lobbyists was a man from Nicaragua they call Commander Zero. Judy Woodruff tracked him while he was here. Judy? Eden Pastora in U.S.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Jim, his real name is Eden Pastora, and once upon a time he fought among the Sandinistas to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship. But soon after the Sandinistas came to power, Pastora split off on his own and accused them of betraying the revolution. What he represents, he said, is a centrist point of view, trying to reconcile opposing factions and get the Sandinistas to return to their original goal of a democratic, socialistic government run without outside interference. Pastora's guerrilla forces, 4,500 strong, known as Arde, operate in southern Nicaragua and have nothing to do, he claims, with the other antigovernment group, the FDN operating out of the north, including many former Samoza supporters and backed by the American CIA. Yet, it was his concern about the polarization in his country that made Pastora -- that Pastora, rather, made his chief message in the United States.

[voice-over] In New York, leftist groups protested outside Pastora's first U.S. news conference, accusing him of coming here to get CIA assistance to overthrow the revolutionary government he helped install. Inside, the welcome was warmer.

MODERATOR: Eden Pastora, as you know, is the legendary Commandante Zero.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: It was Pastora's celebrity that drew a large turnout. Journalists had come to see the bold revolutionary who once held Somoza's National Assembly hostage for an exchange of political prisoners. Pastora insisted he would not accept CIA money, one of several themes he wanted the news media to get across to the American public.

EDEN PASTORA, "Commandante Zero" [through interpreter]: We came here to talk to the American people, to their political and intellectual leaders, about what exactly is going on in Central America, what the political situation is in Central America and in Nicaragua. We came here to also show and to demonstrate to the Democrats and to the liberal sectors of the U.S. that in Nicaragua you not only find the dialectic of the extremes, but there's also a center that we find ourselves in.

WOODRUFF [voice-over): In Washington, Pastora's search for acceptance focused on Congress, trying to make inroads with liberal Democrats and with Republicans who would be sympathetic. Although he had been received by Reagan administration officials, he wanted to establish a larger base of credibility, so like a seasoned Washington lobbyist, the guerrilla leader shuttled between House and Senate members eager to meet him.

Rep. MICHAEL BARNES (D) Maryland: We know you've had a difficult schedule. Some of the members had dinner with you last night, and I just had lunch with you, so we appreciate your continuing to make yourself available.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: After seeing House members, Pastora called on a Republican senator with moderate views. Nancy Kassebaum has split with the Reagan administration on some Central American issues, especially on funding military operations. She was impressed with Pastora's goals, but doubtful about his chances, having just met with his former colleagues in the Sandinista government.

Sen. NANCY KASSEBAUM, (R) Kansas: I guess I would have to say, from hearing the leadership of the Sandinistas when they were through a couple of weeks ago, it would seem to me almost a little naive at this point to really feel that political efforts alone on the part of Pastora were going to be successful.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Pastora's next meeting was with Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat strongly opposed to Reagan administration policy toward Nicaragua, and also an occasional critic of the Sandinistas. Senator Dodd, a former Peace Corps worker in Central America who speaks fluent Spanish, said Pastora is charismatic and made a solid case for the centrist position, a position Dodd said the U.S. has often failed to identify in Latin America.

Sen. CHRISTOPHER DODD, (D) Connecticut: We've seen almost everybody in Latin America as either being an Anastasio Somoza or a Fidel Castro, and there was no one else in between, and were we to recognize earlier on that there are center elements, we'd be better off. We agree on all of that, and his point is now he needs support. If he reads that into financing a military operation, he and I are going to disagree.

Mr. PASTORA [through interpreter]: No, we're not here to ask for any kind of specific financial support, although we do need it badly. But we believe that political support, since we are magicians, we can transform it into financial support.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Leaving Capitol Hill, Pastora's next stop was a graduate school in international studies, an opportunity to appeal to some leading academics.

Mr. PASTORA [through interpreter]: We are also here to tell the United States that they shouldn't start any kind of war in Nicaragua, that they shouldn't send the American youth to die in Nicaragua.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Just what these students and their professors wanted to hear, and Pastora repeated it at other universities. It was a warning he wanted the American public to hear as well, that a U.S. invasion would unite Nicaragua behind the Sandinistas. Pastora was extremely news-media conscious in his U.S. visit, squeezing in interviews with both American and foreign journalists, here giving an interview to Swedish television. He also arranged a quick huddle with a Democratic Party official who wanted to talk about the issue that Democrats will confront in 1984. While not writing off Republicans completely, Pastora said Democrats and liberals have been the main targets of his campaign for credibility.

[interviewing] What sort of reaction are you getting from those people you meet with, especially the Democrats and the liberals?

Mr. PASTORA [through interpreter]: The answers are very -- I've had surprises. We've had heated discussions and serious discussions as well. We've coincided on certain points, and I've been able to see certain misgivings that they have.

WOODRUFF: Do you think you've been able to change any minds, specifically on the role that the United States should play in Nicaragua?

Mr. PASTORA [through interpreter]: Some of the politicians that I've met with who have something to do with U.S. involvement in Nicaragua, but I know that for sure that at least I have left a seed of doubt or a seed of concern in their minds.

WOODRUFF: Pastora came to the U.S. at the invitation of Freedom House, a non-partisan organization that monitors political and civil liberties around the world and is involved in foreign policy analysis. The director of the Center for Caribbean and Central American Studies at Freedom House is Bruce McColm. He is a frequent visitor to Central America and he's with us this evening. Mr. McColm, why did Freedom House invite Pastora to this country?

BRUCE McCOLM: Well, I had met with the officials of Arde this past summer, and they had already -- they were already planning a trip to only Miami and San Francisco for fundraising among the Latin Americans. So I thought it was natural to invite Eden Pastora to New York, particularly to get his point of view across to the media. Generally the coverage of the Nicaraguan crisis has left him as sort of a footnote to history, and I thought it was very important for Eden Pastora particularly to come back to the United States to voice his view as a dissident Sandinista.

WOODRUFF: Do you think the trip was a success, on balance?

Mr. McCOLM: The trip was a tremendous success for a number of reasons; first, in New York, he had a great impact on European media. He was shown on television all over Europe and got great press coverage in Europe. This is crucial because of the support and the -- or ambivalence, I should say, in the support of the Socialist International toward the Sandinistas. And in addition, we were virtually swamped by media requests. This allowed him to get his viewpoint across to the American people. In addition, he was granted several prestigious forums to voice his views to people who do know Nicaragua, who could put him under severe questioning about his trip and also his political projects.

WOODRUFF: So it was really a public relations mission more than anything else? Is that what you're saying?

Mr. McCOLM: I would say the Washington component to this trip was not as important in its initial planning as it later became. What he wanted to do in Washington was renew old ties with those liberal Democrats who had supported the Sandinistas against Somoza, and he wanted to raise questions in their mind why they were giving the Sandinistas what he thought was a blank check.

WOODRUFF: Did he do that? I mean, do you think he changed any minds?

Mr. McCOLM: I think he raised considerable doubt. One of the objects, he told me, was to try and create -- if he's centrist alternative in Central America, he also wanted to create a possibility here in the United States for a more centrist policy towards Central America and not have a polarization as we see today on the domestic political scene. And I think in that regard he was successful.

WOODRUFF: Well, Professor Leogrande is still with us. Would you agree with Mr. McColm that the trip of Eden Pastora was a success?

Prof, LEOGRANDE: Well, it certainly was a public relations success. I think Eden Pastora's biggest problem is that Nicaragua is at war with the couterrevolutionary forces in Honduras, and in that war Pastora's organization is really a minor player. And as long as the principal conflict is between the Nicaraguan government and forces fighting out of Honduras, Pastora's ability to moderate the internal politics of Nicaragua is very marginal.

WOODRUFF: Well, are you saying there is no point in his coming here then?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I think anyone has the right to come and talk to members of Congress, talk to members of the press, put their point of view across. I think that that's healthy. But what I'm saying is I think that Pastora probably received more attention during this trip in this country than the role that he will play ultimately in the resolution of the Central American crisis really merits.

WOODRUFF: Mr. McColm, how would you respond to that?

Mr. McCOLM: I would look at this really as Eden Pastora setting up the first of what's going to be a very long and extensive campaign. He plans, in fact, to really open his military operations in a larger way in January. So this is really a kick-off for what he plans internally in Nicaragua. Now, whether he's successful or not I don't know, but we will see.

WOODRUFF: Does that make sense to you, Mr. Leogrande?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, we'll see. We were told a very similar sort of thing about a year ago. Pastora spent a good long time saying that he was not going to take up arms against the Sandinistas. He was going to try and talk with them, negotiate with them. When that didn't work he said that he was going to begin to fight. But there hasn't, in fact, been very much fighting on the southern front since that time. So we'll have to wait and see.

WOODRUFF: Mr. McColm, back to the news story of today that the Nicaraguans have asked more than 1,000 Cubans to leave. Would you agree with what Mr. Leogrande said earlier, that this is a significant move, that it's a serious attempt on the part of the Nicaraguans to show that they're serious about negotiating?

Mr. McCOLM: I think we'll have to look at that in greater depth. First of all, the Cubans that are leaving are not military. That's one aspect. They're only leaving a month before they were supposed to return for vacation anyway. And we've had a similar phenomenon in 1981 where large numbers of Cubans went back to the island. It did not lead to dimishing of the Cuban presence in Nicaragua. Likewise, on the election issue. One will have to look very closely at the electoral law. Right now, the opposition of the democratic parties still remaining in Nicaragua are complaining-- in fact, I heard a complaint last week from one of their leaders, that there is nowhere for them to register as opposition parties. So is this just simply another type of public relations, or does this reveal a deeper desire on the part of Managua to negotiate? We'll have to wait and see on this.

WOODRUFF: Well, Mr. Leogrande, how do you respond, first, to Mr. McColm's point about the Cubans leaving?

Prof. LEOGRANDE: Well, I think the fact that the Cubans were leaving so publicly on this occasion and so many of them at one time, and the fact that the government of Nicaragua expressed its desire just recently to withdraw foreign advisers from Central America indicates that it's more than just them going home for vacation early.

WOODRUFF: Well, but they were going home for vacation, though, isn't that right? I mean, that was going to happen anyway?

Mr. McCOLM: There is a regular rotation. We will see -- we will see, indeed, if new Cubans come to replace those. But this also takes place in the midst of a whole series of other events, a liberalization of the press censorship law so that La Prensa now is able to publish more freely than it was a few of months ago, the election date and several other initiatives.

WOODRUFF: All right, thank, you once again, Professor Leogrande and Mr. McColm. Robin?

MacNEIL: The Vatican today issued what it called a new charter of rights of the family. The charter was requested by a conference of bishops held in 1980, and is intended to be a model for legislation and public policy on family matters. It says homemakers should be paid for their work, and couples should be allowed to have as many children as they want. Also among the 12 articles in the charter are statements that mothers should not be required to work outside their home and that economic aid to poor countries should not be tied to efforts to limit population, and that parents have a right to educate their children as they see fit.

We'll be back in a moment.

[Video postcard -- Otto, North Carolina]

LEHRER: There were the usual and delightfully familiar Thanksgiving stories from around the country today. Greek immigrant Bill Mihalopolous served 400 free Thanksgiving dinners at his Iowa City, Iowa, restaurant. Raul Jimenez turned his tortilla and tamale factory into a Thanksgiving dinner factory to prepare meals for 10,000 needy people in San Antonio, Texas, and for another 7,500 in Fort Worth. A citywide church effort in Indianapolis provided meals for 10,000. Postal workers in Braintree, Massachusetts, set extra places for 30 elderly people. The list of such stories is endless, and there's probably not a city or a town in the nation that couldn't contribute at least one or two. There was also the usual sour note. It came from Shreveport, Louisiana, but it had an extraordinary happy ending. Thieves broke into a Shreveport charity and stole $1,000 worth of Thanksgiving meat, but after word of the theft spread through the city, residents responded with hundreds of turkeys and pies and $10,000 in cash. For other Americans, it was bad weather that soured things a bit, particularly in the upper Midwest, which was hit by a heavy snowstorm; 11.4 inches fell in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and a record 19.7 inches in Duluth. Another storm of rain and wind as well as snow also came into the Pacific Northwest this morning, and winter storm warnings are out as far south as northern Arizona because of it. Robin?

MacNEIL: The second of the two small Korean children brought back by President and Mrs. Reagan underwent corrective heart surgery today.In a four-hour operation, four-year-old Lee Kil Woo had a plastic patch inserted to mend a hole in his heart. His seven-year-old girl companion, Ahn Ji Sook, had a similar operation yesterday. Doctors at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, New York, said there were no complications and both children were doing fine. The two children arrived with the Reagans aboard Air Force One. The hospital telephoned Mrs. Reagan in California today, and she was quoted as saying, "You have given me Thanksgiving and Christmas all rolled into one."

There are two other medical stories involving hearts. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston say a type of drug designed to prevent sudden cardiac arrest may actually cause it in a few patients. The drugs are called anti-arrhythmic and are used to control rapidly fluttering heart rhythms which can cause the heart to stop. Today's New England Journal of Medicine says that researchers found the drugs themselves appeared to bring on cardiac arrest in six of 98 patients in a study. Some 400,000 Americans die of cardiac arrest every year. One of the researchers, Dr. Hasan Garan told us today that patients should not take the findings as a sign to stop taking anti-arrhymics which he said are beneficial, even life-saving, in more than 90% of the cases. He added that doctors should be more cautious in prescribing the medication, particularly for the most seriously affected patients.

Another group of researchers reported in the journal of the American Medical Association that smoking was the most important risk factor for heart attacks in women under 50. A study of more than 1,000 women showed that 65% of all non-fatal first heart attacks due to decreased blood supply were the result of cigarette smoking. Jim? Amenican Shoe Industry

LEHRER: It is Thanksgiving, and thus there was a temptation to seek a Thanksgiving angle to as many stories as we could tonight, no matter how awkward and tortured it may be. So our next story is about shoes, the kind we all wear to go to Grandmother's house for Thanksgiving dinner, and how a very thankful old-line U.S. industry is fighting foreign competition, but that is as far as I will go. Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Computers will design the American shoe of the future; lasers will cut the pattern; and robots will assist in the assembly. The old American shoe industry is turning to new technology in its struggle for survival against foreign import competition. A few years ago the shoe industry appeared to be losing the struggle for survival. Domestic production had dropped by a third. Thousands of workers had lost their jobs as factories closed. American shoppers were buying half their shoes from overseas. It took a combination of government help and self-help to cut the losses. Now, as the vitality at this shoe fair demonstrated, the American industry is alive and kicking. Factories and jobs continue to disappear, but more survive, an example that old American industries don't have to die when confronted with cheap labor imports. Most of the companies that emerged from the shakeout are more modern, more productive and more profitable now.

For the American industry and for American unions, these workers are the problem. In Korea and Taiwan, workers average between 90" and $1.50 and hour. Their American counterparts earn at least five times More. From Korea imports are up by 46% from last year. Taiwan imports have grown by a third. Brazil's are up by 49%, and Span's by 15%. By the end of this year American consumers will be buying almost two-thirds of their shoes from abroad. The U.S. industry thinks its time to draw the line.

RICHARD SHOMAKER, chairman, Footwear Industries Association: We are the most open and practically the only open market in the world for footwear. We think there should be some reasonable restraint to retain a domestic industry which is an important industry and to preserve jobs.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: The question for American consumers and shoeworkers is whether continued survival must come at the price of new restrictions on imports.

MacNEIL: To protect what remains of the American shoe industry there are calls for new import quotas. One group supporting that is the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers, the leading union in the shoe industry. Art Gundersheim is director of international trade affairs for the union. Why does the industry need quotas? They have already gone through a period of having them once and reaped the benefit of that.

ART GUNDERSHEIM: The quotas have been effective during the four years they were in place between 1977 and 1981. They held the imports to roughly 50% of the American market. Since that period, in only two short years, the imports have skyrocketed now so they roughly hold two-thirds of our market. And if we can get back down to the 50% ratio and put back to work some of the 15,000 workers who have lost their jobs just in these last two years, I think the industry would be significantly better off.

MacNEIL: Fifteen thousand workers, you say, have lost their jobs in the last two years?

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Yes, since the removal --

MacNEIL: Because of the volume of imports?

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Absolutely. The imports have skyrocketed, literally, since the quotas have been removed.

MacNEIL: What happens if you do not get new quotas? What happens to the industry and employment in it then?

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Well, the industry basically has been cut in half over the last 15 years, and I think what you're in effect saying is even less than 15 years there will be no more industry here.

MacNEIL: Which would mean the loss of how many jobs in it?

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Well, there are currently roughly 130,000 people still earning their living in this industry, and the important fact is that they're in states and in areas where there are no alternative job opportunities. It's the largest job opportunity in Maine, in New Hampshire, other areas in New England. It's concentrated in Missouri and Arkansas -- places which the other opportunities for employment just don't exist.

MacNEIL: Won't the increased automation -- we saw a glimpse of it in that film -- necessary to compete with the foreign manufacturers, won't that cost a lot of these jobs anyway? Won't they be automated out?

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: It will cost a few jobs, absolutely no question. But in a sense it will secure their jobs, the remaining jobs, because it will make the American industry competitive worldwide; it'll allow them to overcome some of the cost advantages in other countries, and thirdly, we've seen it in many other industries that the ability to become much more productive in fact provides a secure employment base.

MacNEIL: Looking at it from the point of view of the American consumer, the person who wears the shoes, wouldn't it be a lot -- won't shoes remain cheaper if imports are unrestricted?

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: No, that's not necessarily true at all. During the four-year period where we did have the quotas on Taiwan and Korea, the cost of shoes did not increase at all in terms of the wholesale level. They -- in fact, the gap between the cost -- the rise in the cost of shoes and the general rise in the cost of living in fact widened during that period.

MacNEIL: Well, why was that if the foreigners make the shoes for so much less?

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Well, generally you have to ask the retailers that and you have to ask the importers that and ask them particularly why they seem to be collecting exorbitantly high profit levels. They don't seem to reduce their retail prices even though their own costs are significantly less.

MacNEIL: Is it true, as I've heard suggested, that you and other groups who want quotas are holding off to wait 'til you can make a greater impact in the election year next year? Is that part of the tactic?

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Well, there's no question that somehow Washington and those who run for office pay more attention during election years than they do at other times, and it's one of the calculations that goes into the decision-making in terms of when we will seek import relief. There's no question about that.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Retailers in this country are happy with the way things are, with six out of every 10 pairs being sole -- with six out of every 10 being imports. Here to speak for them is Peter Mangione, president of a group called Volume Footwear Retailers of America, which represents 20,000 U.S. shoe stores. I finally got the introduction out, Mr. Mangione, correctly. Look, you do not want any new import restrictions, correct?

PETER MANGIONE: Correct.

Mr. MANGIONE: Import restrictions, the kind that were discussed earlier, that we had from 1977 to 1981 in the United States, were an absolute disaster for the American consumer. They imposed a terribly harsh burden on the consumer. It is true that the CPI that Mr. Gundersheim alluded to earlier did not rise that sharply during the period; however, footwear from the restrained countries, on the other hand, from Taiwan and Korea, rose very sharply during that period. In fact, footwear from Taiwan rose at the wholesale level by 15% during the four-year period, and from Korea by almost 100%, while footwear prices of U.S.-made shoes only rose about 50% during the period.

LEHRER: If these were --

Mr. MANGIONE: Excuse me --

LEHRER: Yeah.

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: This would certainly -- this experience would certainly be repeated were there any additional restraints adopted at this time.

LEHRER: Meaning, the end result would be that shoes would -- the cost of shoes to the consumer would go up -- just the opposite of what Mr. Gundersheim says?

Mr. MANGIONE: Absolutely. The cost of the shoes that are restrained, in particular, are the shoes that would go up in price. You have to understand that the shoes from the restained countries during the quota period were not the only shoes sold in the United States. There were lots of other shoes and of course U.S. shoes as well.

LEHRER: Mr. Gundersheim says, you just heard him, that it's you folks, the retailers and the wholesalers, that are taking the big hunk out of all this. Is he right or wrong?

Mr. MANGIONE: Well, I would disagree. I would say that --

LEHRER: This doesn't surprise us. Yes, go ahead.

Mr. MANGIONE: I would say, based on the empirical evidence that we have, there's no question that the consumer in this country derives a substantial benefit from imported footwear.

LEHRER: In what way?

Mr. MANGIONE: Well, for example, we have had conducted for us a survey, amarket survey, of department stores and other stores -- chain shoe stores -- around the country comparing comparable products, domestic and imported products, footwear products, and the overwhelming result is that imported shoes are, on average, about 25% cheaper than footwear of comparable products made in the United States. And that is a real value and bargain to the American consumer.

LEHRER: What about the quality? Is that also a part of it, too, that some people like to buy foreign shoes simply because they think or believe they're better?

Mr. MANGIONE: Some foreign shoes are better than some American-made shoes, and some American shoes are better than some foreign shoes. The American industry that we have today that was descibed in your video earlier is a very strong industry. It's a very strong industry, and I,m happy to say that our organization not only represents retailers but many of the larger manufacturers as well. The industry today is strong, it's profitable, and the main reason it is is it's concentrated its production on higher-priced, better-grade, predominantly leather footwear, and that's the strength and the future of the American industry, and it's going to continue to thrive, I'm sure.

LEHRER: What do you say to Mr. Gundersheim's jobs argument and his statement that if something's not done, if quotas are not reinstated, the whole American industry will be eliminated in 15 years?

Mr. MANGIONE: I must take exception to that conclusion. We disagree with it. As I indicated, I do represent firms that are major manufacturers and indeed many of them manufacturers who will be seeking this protection, I suspect, who disagree with it. This industry is here to stay in the United States; it is a competitive industry; they will have to be quick on their feet, if you will, to remain competitive, but they will do that. They are automating. They are investing. It's a strong, profitable industry. As recently as this spring the International Trade Commission confirmed just how profitable shoe manufacturing is in the United States. Shoe manufacturers in this country outperformed the U.S. manufacturers as a whole for the last three years -- a substantial improvement over where the shoe industry has been historically in this country. The industry is doing very well. In 1983 alone, production is up; profits are very firm, and clearly, productivity is up, which is one of the main reasons that employment is down.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: He says the main reason employment is down is productivity is up. The industry is healthy and won't go out of business in 15 years if you let the imports in.

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Unfortunately the ITC study that Mr. Mangione cited --

MacNEIL: The International Trade Commission.

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: -- in fact did not divide out who in fact were manufacturing in the United States. They used companies which in fact do large retail operations, that import themselves and in fact much of their profits, frankly, are not from their manufacturing side here, but in fact from all of their other associated businesses, in effect.

MacNEIL: But on the larger point, he says that even the manufacturers who may join with you in asking for quotas believe the industry's healthy and won't go out of business.

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Well, obviously we're going to sit here and argue that all night. I don't think the evidence of the fact that the imports went from roughly 20% to 64% of what they are, you know, in the last 15 years, why that won't continue to rise. I don't understand why --

MacNEIL: What about that, Mr. Mangione? With no restrictions, won't the imports as a proportion of American sales just continue to go up and up and up?

Mr. MANGIONE: That's not necessarily true at all. You have to understand that the market in the United States is a segmented market. There are many customers out there who don't prefer foreign shoes, who prefer shoes made in the United States. There are all sorts of types of shoes that Americans make very well -- all of the brand names that we're so familiar with, like Bass and Topsider and many others -- Florsheim and others. They're typically American shoes; they're primarily leather shoes. Those are the kinds of shoes this industry makes very well, make profitably, and there's no reason why they won't continue to make them in the future. As for lower-priced shoes, however, these shoes will continue to be imported and perhaps in larger quantities if there's a market for them in the United States. It's clear, though, that the United States industry is not in a position to make large quantities of lower-priced shoes. And by lower-priced shoes, I'm talking about shoes that retail in the $15-dollar range. Very low-priced shoes. This is the reason that imports have gone up so much since the quota period ended.

MacNEIL: What about that, Mr. Gundersheim? He said on average imports are 25% cheaper.

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Which is a little surprising, considering the fact that they're brought in at somewhat like 300 or 400 percent cheaper than they're manufactured in the United States. So it seems that the profit ratios are still excessive. But the other point to be made is the fact that while there might be a slight difference in retail, there's an additional cost that has not been talked about, and that is the cost of unemployed workers, of maintaining their income through unemployment benefits, through the various health programs and the other income-maintenance programs that the community has to absorb. And then there's the lost production. There's the lost taxes; there is the general wealth of the country, and they're part of the consuming public also, in terms of the cost side. That's never figured in.

MacNEIL: He said that quotas would be -- were a disaster for the consumer and re-imposing them would deny them a benefit the consumer gets, particularly who wants lower-priced shoes. What is your answer to that?

Mr. GUNDERSHEIM: Well, I think there is no question that sufficient lower-priced shoes could be imported. There are enough manufacturers of lower-priced shoes in the United States. In our case before the International Trade Commission, we cited a long list of low-cost manufacturers here in the United States. And the fourth issue is, with sufficient productivity improvements, I think we can bring precisely that segment of the market that our domestic producers could probably capture. And one other point I would like to make, and I'd like to ask Mr. Mangione, to ask him, why is it that Taiwan is moving in precisely into now the very high-priced level, the area which is the real heart of the American industry, if he thinks that they're not --

MacNEIL: That is a question we're going to have to take up on another occasion. I'd like to thank you gentlemen both for joining us. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes, and we'il be back in a moment.

[Video postcard -- Fairyland Canyon, Utah]

LEHRER: If you just now turned off a football game or a turkey dinner and missed the news at the top, the White House and the State Department are responding tonight to what maybe a possible suicide bomb threat. Heavey dump trucks loaded with sand are blocking four entrances to the White House. The two main entrances, which have heavy iron gates, are not being blocked. President and Mrs. Reagan are at their California ranch for the holiday weekend. The State Department said it is using cars to barricade two of its entrances, and that's all we know at this point.

Also today, Yuri Andropov said the Soviets will counter the U.S. missiles in Eurpoe with new deployments of their own.

A new deal has been struck to make PLO peace and get Yasir Arafat out of Tripoli, Lebanon.

Snow and storms are making life difficult for those who live in the Upper Midwest and the Pacific Northwest.

And Nicaragua Says elections are coming and the Cubans are going.

Robin? Karl Menninger

MacNEIL: To close tonight we go out to the Midwest to visit one of the country's more remarkable senior citizens. Charlayne Hunter-Gault made the trip for us. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It's a story about a story about a man who changed the direction of psychiatry in America years ago by insisting that the mentally ill could be treated. He is Dr. Karl Menninger, who, with his father and brothers, started the innovative Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. Dr. Karl, as he is called by almost everyone, turns 90 this year, an event marked by friends and colleagues all over the world. He could have set up shop just about anywhere in the world, but one of the few things he seems content about is his decision to remain for the past 58 years in Topeka, the Midwestern town that seems to have offered him the unusual combination of wide open spaces and the intimate comfort he has needed for his work with people. What stands out as much as his accomplishments is how he works with those people.

Dr. KARL MENNINGER: I want to ask you a question, for discussion. Don't answer now because you'll be wrong. You can't possibly be right the first time. What is a hopeless case?Can you think of any case you're treating that's hopeless?Then why are you treating it? Are you just a fraud? Think that over. Don't tell me the answer because the more you think about it the more you'll worry about it. Whose hopelessness is it, anyway? Yours or the patient's? Well, I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Dr. Karl has continually challenged the status quo. That's been his style, disarming, sometimes arrogantly insisting that people he comes in contact with change their traditional way of thinking.

Dr. KARL: It's not so easy to challenge people. They have all kinds of defenses, you know. You can say -- you can make unkind remarks or sharp remarks, but that isn't very good -- that isn't very useful teaching.

HUNTER-GAULT: One student said that you made him very uncomfortable.

Dr. KARL: Well, that doesn't matter.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Dr. Karl is a sticker for detail, for the correct analysis, the correct phrase, the correct word.

Dr. KARL: Why do you say pediatric, not child? Not child occupational therapy?

STUDENT: I work with --

Dr. KARL: Mostly sick children. Pediatric?

STUDENT: I work with children of all ages.

Dr. KARL: Yeah, ages, but condition? Pediatric means, does it not, with sick children?

Dr. ROY MENNINGER: He gives everybody a hard time. He makes it very hard for complacency to survive or for casual assumptions to prevail.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Dr. Roy Menninger is Dr. Karl's nephew and the current head of the Menninger Foundation.

Dr. KARL: Come in, Dr. Roy. I've got some lunch all ready for you.

Dr. ROY: I hate to send him a letter that I've written because he'll cut it to pieces. The other day I wrote something which I did want him to see. I went through five drafts of that, and it's only two paragraphs long.And I kept saying to myself, "I want to be sure that the words I use are exactly the words I want to use and all this, because he'll ask me, 'Are you sure that's what you meant? Because if that's what you meant it's ridiculous.'"

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Dr. Karl has been trying to improve and clarify thought for over 70 years. He changed the world's outlook on mental illness by writing a book about it that everyone could understand. It was called The Human Mind. Since then he has continually challenged the status quo, not only in psychiatry but in prison reform, politics, the environment, in all areas of social justice.

Dr. KARL: I'm speaking up for the children.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Now, despite an operation for a brain tumor, he still works six days a week. His main target at the moment is child abuse.

Dr. KARL: You know that there are over a million children in the United States who have either impossible parents, cruel parents, sadistic parents, crazy parents, imprisoned parents or no parents. The number of abandoned and neglected children is only exceeded by the number of abused and seduced children.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: No matter what the cause, Dr, Karl exhorts, demands, dares his audience to think in a new way. When this task force on handicapped children asked him how to improve parenting skills, how to remove the causes of child abuse, he retorted:

Dr. KARL: You know what it is. It's the mother's lovers, the drunken fathers; it's a stupid mother. It's the ruthless tax collector who wants you to pay the taxes and they haven't enough money. It's poverty. It's jealousy. It's -- above all, it's vengeance, you know?

Dr. ROY: He can take a perfectly ordinary issue and, much as a mineralogist would pick up an ordinary stone, turn it over and suddenly help you to see wonders in it you would never have seen by yourself. He's got that capacity with ideas because it doesn't matter what issue he picks up. He manages to hook it to you. He speaks for it, pounds it into you, ridicules it, ridicules you, embarrasses you, challenges you, laughs at you, mocks you. Well, all of these things turn the listeners around. I sometimes say that I think one of his remarkable talents is his capacity to evoke a healthy shame.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Dr. Karl is not satisfied just with shaming other people into action. In 1964 he started these villages, or group homes, to help children with problems at home and children in trouble with the law.

FOSTER PARENT [saying grace]: Father, we just thank you so much for this evening. We thank you for our home and the food. We thank you that Dr. Karl and Mrs. Menninger could be with us. We thank you for their love and we thank you for your love. Amen.

Dr. KARL: What we wanted to establish was a new, an artificial home, like instead of an artificial heart, an artificial home, with a new father, new mother, new brothers and sisters.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Here at the village as well as everywhere else, Dr. Karl is unrelenting in challenging his audience.

Dr. KARL [to foster child over dinner]: How do I know that Julius Ceasar never had any mashed potatoes?

CHILE: They probably didn't know how to mash potatoes back then.

Dr. KARL: No. Think again!

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Dr. Karl challenges his youngsters and they challenge him in return.

Dr. KARL: You did that pretty well, but you're checked. You play pretty well. You haven't practiced.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: But Dr. Karl's biggest challenge is going against the current tide of opinion on the causes and cures of juvenile crime.

[interviewing] The direction of most of the policymakers in this country these days is towards sharper penalties, stiffer sentences for juveniles.

Dr. KARL: Hit 'em harder!

HUNTER-GAULT: That's right. How harmful do you think that is?

Dr. KARL: Very! We want crimes to decrease, and you don't make crimes decrease by simply abusing the offenders. They can wait. They'll take their -- they'll get their revenge. They were taking revenge on somebody in the first place.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Child abuse is Dr. Karl's latest cause, but every chance he gets, he speaks out against abuse of any kind. Against wife abuse; against vengeful punishment. He has also taken the side of the American Indian, of minorities. He has preached against nuclear war and against the neglect of the elderly. And the list of causes continues. He admits to getting discouraged these days, but he says he's too old to change course now.

[interviewing] You know there are people who say that people who think the way you do are really just bleeding hearts.

Dr. KARL: Well, that's me. I'm a bleeding heart. I got -- I see lots of things to bleed about. My heart bleeds for all the hunger in this country, and a lot of corruption in this country, a lot of greed in this country, a lot of mistreatment of one another in this country, a lot of -- do you want me to tell you all the things my heart's bleeding about?

HUNTER-GAULT: So you don't mind being called a bleeding heart?

Dr. KARL: Not in the least. I am flattered.

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin. Enjoy the rest of this Thanksgiving evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.