The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Here are today's news headlines. The government reported the best economic growth in three decades. President Reagan told thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators, "The momentum is with us." The Eastern cold wave began to moderate, but was blamed for 117 deaths. In Peru, more than 1,000 people were reported missing and believed dead in a crackdown by security forces. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: The abortion decision anniversary gets major attention tonight on the NewsHour. Our focus segment on it has two parts, a debate between between representative of the state of Washington about the violence against abortion clinics. Our other focus segments are on the newest numbers and forecasts on the economy and on the continuing saga of Bernhard Goetz, the man who shot the four teenagers in a New York subway. We will close tonight with an essay by Roger Rosenblatt on the kind of time that measures our days.News Summary

MacNEIL: The government reported today that last year the U.S. economy had its best growth in more than three decades. The Commerce Department figures showed the gross national product up 6.8% in 1984, the best growth since 1951. At the same time, inflation remained relatively low for the year, at 3.7%. The White House was ecstatic. Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said, "If this were almost any other country in the world, the economic performance of the United States would be termed a miracle." Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige told a news conference that economic growth would probably continue uninterrupted this year.

MALCOLM BALDRIGE, Commerce Secretary: You know, we have to worry about the budget deficit, but everything else is falling into place. I'm very happy with this morning's figures, and why? Because they show we're keeping inside our target areas.There is nothing slipping on the downward path. There are no surprises that could lead to overheating on the upward side. We've estimated these kinds of inflation numbers and these kinds of growth numbers consistently in the last, well, well over a year. So that it shows that everything is on course.

MacNEIL: Later in the program an economic forecaster who saw this good news coming tells us how long it will last. Wall Street reacted with heavy but mixed trading, with the fourth-highest trading volume ever. But the Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks which rose 34 points yesterday closed down 1.87 today, at 1259.50. Jim?

LEHRER: It was 12 years ago today that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its abortion decision, the one that said abortions were legal.The anniversary was marked by both sides in the emotionally charged debate that has raged about that decision ever since.

[voice-over] The anti-abortion or pro-life side was out in huge numbers in Washington as thousands made the movement's annual March for Life to the Supreme Court building. They gathered first on the Ellipse, just south of the White House, where, through the magic of a telephone and a public address system, President Reagan addressed them from the Oval Office.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN [by telephone]: Hello, Nellie?

NELLIE: Hello, Mr. President!

Pres. REAGAN: Well, thank you and thank all of the participants in this 1985 March for Life for coming here and demonstrating your overwhelming support for the right to life of the unborn. I feel a great sense of solidarity with all of you. It's been a long, hard struggle the past dozen years, but I know all of us are feeling hopeful about a positive resolution of this issue. And I don't think our feeling of hope is inappropriate. There are already signs that we have changed the public attitude on abortion. The number performed each year is finally leveling off. The general feeling that abortion is just a small. harmless medical procedure that's simply a matter of choice has almost disappeared.

LEHRER [voice-over]: Then came the march through downtown Washington, up Capitol Hill to the Supreme Court. There the demonstrators chanted slogans and filled the street between the court and the Capitol Building. The march was peaceful, but police arrested 30 people who reportedly carried a baby's coffin up the court steps.

[voice-over] The other side was also busy in Washington. A group called the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights held what they called a speak-out against the recent bombings at abortion clincs. Their speak-out took place at a church near the Supreme Court.

FREDRICA HODGES, Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights: As clergy and lay leaders, we are dedicated to the principlesof peace and harmony among all people, and therefore deplore the use of fear, intimidation and harassment to influence public policy on serious social questions. Our Judeo-Christian heritage teaches us to resolve conflicts by non-violent means with love and respect for each other. Let our differences be settled by debate, our disagreement fought with words. Let us work together to create an atmosphere in which the problems of our society can be solved by reason, respect and concern for all people.

LEHRER: Our lead focus segment tonight is on the abortion decision and the passions and the arguments that still rege about it.

MacNEIL: A cold spell that's been blamed for 117 deaths began to taper off in the Northeast today, but in the Southeastern states record low temperatures were recorded in some two dozen places, from Tennessee to Louisiana and Florida. In Tallahassee, Governor Bob Graham of Florida declared a state of emergency to let trucks carry heavier loads so that frozen fruit and produce could be rushed to packing plants. But the governor remained optimistic about the outlook for agriculture in his state.

Gov. BOB GRAHAM, (D) Florida: Agriculture in Florida has shown tremendous resiliency. We've been hit over the past few years with Mediterranean fruit flies, citrus canker, freezes, international competition, and the industry has come back. It will come back again. This series of freezes has been unprecedented, and the freeze that we had over the last 48 hours in terms of its depth and severity was of record proportions.

MacNEIL: Just outside Reno, two propeller blades were found about half a mile from the spot where a chartered airliner crashed yesterday, killing at least 67 people. Officials said the blades might hold the key to what happened to the Galaxy Airlines turbo-prop and whether the cause was engine failure.

In Chicago, more than 20 farmers were arrested when they tried to enter the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in a protest against low prices. About 100 farmers in all demonstrated at the Mercantile Exchange, where contracts are traded on future prices of cattle, hogs and pork bellies.

LEHRER: There were two developments today on the arms control front, both involving President Reagan. He received a letter from four U.S. senators urging both the United States and the Soviet Union to agree to abide by all existing arms control agreements while the new negotiations are underway. They ask that there be a formal declaration by both to that effect. The senators who wrote the letter are Republicans John Hines of Pennsylvania and John Chaffee of Rhode Island, and Democrate Dale Bumpers of Arkansas and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. There was no immediate response from the White House.

But at the White House Mr. Reagan signaled his second-term concern for the coming arms negotiations by meeting with his three-man negotiating team. After the meeting Mr. Beagan said the U.S. will have concrete ideas to put on the negotiating table, but he said no when asked whether the Soviet Union had yet proposed a time or place for the talks.

MacNEILL: Amnesty International, the London-based group which monitors human rights around the world, said today that more than 1,000 people had disappeared in Peru after a government crackdown on guerrillas. The report said many of the missing were feared dead. Scores of bodies mutilated by torture had been found dumped in mass graves. The report said that disappearances occurred in an emergency zone in remote Peru where government forces have been fighting guerrillas knownas the Shining Path [Sendero Luminoso]. Amnesty International said it compiled its report from documents and testimony from people living in the area, the church, professional and trade union groups and lawyers. Debate Without End

LEHRER: We focus first tonight on an old issue that is always fresh, always the source of much emotional heat and disagreement. It's abortion and a woman's right to have one. On January 22nd, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court said women did have such a right. That decision has been the subject of much attack ever since, from President Reagan and other politicians, from the Catholic Church and others on religious grounds, and still others on moral and legal grounds. The decision has also been stoutly defended by those in the pro-choice movement, who argue the high court was right 12 years ago and is still right. Both sides were heard from today on this anniversary in various ways, and they will be heard from now. From the pro-life side we have Judie Brown, president of the American Life Lobby, a Washington-based organization with 200,000 members. And, from the pro-choice side, Faye Wattleton, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the largest pro-choice organization in the country. Ms. Brown, to you first. From your perspective, what has been the effect of that Supreme Court decision 12 years later?

JUDIE BROWN: Well, obviously the most horrifying effect is the deaths of over 18 million human beings, because we must recognize the fact that the pro-life movement bases its entire argument on the reality that human life begins at the moment of fertilization, and that each time an abortion is performed a brand new human being's life is terminated viciously and violently. We call that warfare within the wombs of mothers. Over the course of the last 12 years the pro-life movement has matured. It has grown tremendously and continues to grow even as I speak. And I think what we have learned are two things. First of all, we must continue to legislate -- educate politicians because the kind of legislation we ultimately need requires an understanding by politicians that they are dealing with human life and therefore they cannot compromise on even one life. But our second assignment is to continue to educate the public at large, to bring the issue of abortion to a personal and emotional level with each and every person with whom we come in contact. For if we were successful in educating each and every American in this country about the humanity of the little people who reside within the wombs of their mothers, we wouldn't need a law to stop abortion because people automatically would realize that abortion is repugnant and totally tasteless.

LEHRER: Ms. Wattleton in New York, how does it look to you 12 years later?

FAYE WATTLETON: Our sense is that the strength of the pro-choice position is as great as it ever was. Repeated national polls have shown that Americans continue to support the right of women to have abortions and to be able to make that choice. People are deeply disturbed by the recent incidents of violence and harassment and intimidation that the anti-choice movement has chosen to use because it has been frustrated in its efforts to pass laws to advance its agenda. And we are very optimistic that we will continue to remain a country in which individuals will be free to make their own decisions based on their own religious and ethical beliefs.

LEHRER: Ms. Wattleton --

Ms. BROWN: I hope I can respond to that.

LEHRER: Yeah, just a second. Ms. Wattleton, first to you on President Reagan's decision for the first time since he's been President, to address the anti-abortion rally today. What effect do you think that's going to have?

Ms. WATTLETON: Well, Mr. Reagan has been a very outspoken advocate of the anti-abortion position. In previous years he has met directly with leaders of the anti-abortion movement. This year he chose to address the rally instead of meeting with the leaders; that is my understanding. So that we are not surprised that Mr. Reagan made this address. We're not surprised at his words. We feel that his admonition to the group is very useful in that he called upon them to seek through peaceful means their objectives and not to resort to the violence and destruction that we have witnessed over the past year as a way of fostering their endeavors.

LEHRER: What is your reading of President Reagan's statement today?

Ms. WATTLETON: Well, there are several errors in Mrs. Wattleton's statement.After he addressed the march today he did meet with several of us. I arrived here today immediately after a meeting with the President.

LEHRER: What did he tell you? Is he going to -- what is he going to do?

Ms. BROWN: I think the President's message to us was the message that I've already given to you, that through education, through the new Nathanson film that shows ultrasonically how a baby is killed in the womb of his mother -- that film is available for anyone to see -- it is no longer necessary for us to speak about abortion because we can now show murder as it occurs within the womb. But I hasten to add that Ms. Wattleton also has accused unjustly the organized pro-life movement of perpetrating the destruction of bricks and mortar, the buildings in which these killings occur. We are opposed to the killings that are going on within the abortion chambers in this country and certainly would not be the people to encourage the destruction of bricks and mortar.

LEHRER: Let me say to both of you that we have a tape on that very thing from the state of Washington that in a minute we're going to show to both of you and we'll talk about that particular thing, the violence against abortion clinics, in a moment. But what is your goal now of the pro-life movement? What are you working for, the end result?

Ms. BROWN: As an end result this year, politically and realistically looking at the Congress, we have formed a massive coalition, now numbering over 55 organizations nationwide, to push for the passage of S-46 which is the new Helms-Humphrey civil rights act for unborn children. We feel that that is within our reach. We have measured the Congress and feel that we have a majority in both houses. Again, it's going to take a lot of pressure, but the momentum is already starting to build behind that bill.

LEHRER: Did the President tell you today that he would support you on that, that he would support that bill?

Ms. BROWN: He supports all of the concepts in the bill and, unfortunately -- but he's a politician, fell short of endorshing the bill by the number. But I hasten to add again that we do not sit by and wait for President Ronald Reagan to lobby on our behalf.We are quite capable of lobbying on our own, and I am sure that when it comes to the point where we feel we need him to actively support us in Congress he'll be there for us.

LEHRER: Ms. Wattleton, do you plan to mount a major opposition to this bill?

Ms. WATTLETON: We will certainly be continuing to oppose any legislation that would deny the rights and the civil rights of women to make decisions within their constitutionally protected rights. We have been able to mount such opposition in previous years, and we expect to be successful in this Congress should this legislation be introduced. We believe that women have the right to make these decisions for themselves, and when we are balancing the right of women over the rights of fetuses, we must recognize that women are living human beings and they must make choices. These issues are never easy and the decisions are often difficult. But we cannot legislate morality and personal conduct. We must leave that to the ethicists and the theologians to guide us as a free people.

Ms. BROWN: I disagree. I think that what she just said is absolutely correct as it applies to human beings. We cannot kill human beings. Human beings reside in the womb. She was once a fertilized egg; so was I. We are human beings today, but our genetic data was all present at the moment of fertilization. So if we're going to talk about making choices, let's give those little people a chance to be born and make choices of their own.

Ms. WATTLETON: And I simply say that those choices should be made by the mother and not by the government, not by Mrs. Brown and her followers, but by the individual who is involved in making that decision and who would be confronted with carrying that pregnancy to term and the results of the outcome of that pregnancy.

Ms. BROWN: The government is making choices for people right now. The government, thanks to court actions led by Planned Parenthood, denies parents the right to consent before an abortion is performed on their unemancipated minor daughter, denies parents the right to know in advance when dangerous chemicals and devices are given to teenage girls. So I think what Mrs. Wattleton says is right. I want the government out of the bedroom, too, and if she'd stop lobbying for the involvement of the government in the bedroom, I would also.

Ms. WATTLETON: That simply is a misrepresentation of the fact, and we're talking about the issue of abortion here. Our belief is that we're talking about a matter of personal privacy and individual liberties --

Ms. BROWN: We certainly are.

Ms. WATTLETON: We recognize that people often consider the abortion issue as wrong and unacceptable inappropriate in their lives --

Ms. BROWN: But parents have personal --

Ms. WATTLETON: -- but because Mrs. Brown -- but because Mrs. Brown may view these issues and may view the abortion issue as unacceptable in her life does not mean that I or others may not view it as acceptable in my life in a given period of time --

Ms. BROWN: Well, again --

Ms. WATTLETON: We're simply saying that the Constitution protects our rights to make these decisions. It protects the rights of women not to have to give their life and their health because they want to have -- they do not want to have a pregnancy and they do not want to be confined to pregnancy --

Ms. BROWN: Well, I have to interrupt because as I understand the Constitution, parents then have rights to control their own children. And Planned Parenthood has literally made it impossible for parents to be involved in the most personal of decisions made by children. Now, I agree with you that we live in a free country; however, I do not think that the scientific proof that life begins at fertilization is a dogma of any church, at least no church that I'm familiar with. I think it's scientific evidence. It has been proven over and over again, and we will this battle because of scientific fact, not religious dogma.

LEHRER: Ms.Brown, Ms. Wattleton, don't go away; we'll be right back. Robin?

MacNEIL: As we've heard in his anti-abortion message today, President Reagan made a point of saying that he could not condone the use of violence to protest abortion. This came as abortion clinics continue to report threats following recent bombing attacks in Florida and Washington, D.C. Just this Washington area. In the last year, more than two dozen such attacks have been reported around the country. One of the targets was in Everett, Washington, where the effects of the violence are still being felt. Here's a report by Barry Mitzman of public station KCTS-Seattle.

BARRY MITZMAN, KCTS [voice-over]: Everett, Washington is a town of 60,000 people located 30 miles north of Seattle. Traditionally a logging-mill town with a history of violent labor disputes, Everett today is a fast-growing center for high-tech electronics and aviation industries. The community reflects a blend of small-town and suburban values. Like a growing number of other American cities, Everett has become the site of a hot and sometimes violent confrontation over the issue of abortion.

The controversy has centered on a women's health clinic that opened here in 1983, providing low-cost, out-patient abortions. Even before it opened, protestors began picketing the clinic daily led by local women like Dottie Roberts and Sharon Codispoti.

SHARON CODISPOTI, anti-abortion activist: It is a slaughterhouse. It's an assembly-line abortion clinic.You go in, you kill your baby, you go out the back door and you go home. We have a slaughterhouse here in Everett and we will continue to protest in peace and in love until they leave town.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: But the protests were not peaceful for long. Within five months of its opening the clinic was gutted by a late-night arson fire. Co-director Diana Hale surveyed the damage.

DIANA HALE, co-director, abortion clinic: This window was broken out and they found traces of gasoline in the tiles from the flooring here. So the most intense part of the fire was right here.

MITZMAN: How did you feel when you came down here and saw the damage?

Ms. HALE: Devastated. I was amazed at how intense the heat was and at how, you know, everything was melted. Refrigerators were melted and destroyed. It was frightening.

MITZMAN: Angry?

Ms. HALE: At first I was just shocked and devastated and frightened, and it took awhile for the anger to come up. The anger occurred later on in the day when the anti-abortion picketers began to arrive and they were shouting hallelujah and jumping up and down and hugging each other and laughing and running around pointing in at the burned building and things, and then I began to get angry. That made me very angry.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: Clinic opponents like Dottie Roberts denied involvement in the fire, but had no regrets.

DOTTIE ROBERTS, anti-abortion activist: Well, I guess I thought about when Auschwitz was closed down. Did anybody mourn? My feeling was I am a non-violent person, I am a law-abiding citizen, but yet I had to -- I'm thankful they weren't killing babies down there.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: Other local pro-life activists, like Presbyterian minister John Pickett, thought the fire had been set by the clinic supporters themselves.

Rev. JOHN PICKETT, Lake Stevens Presbyterian Church: Yes, at the time I was convinced that that fire was started by the opposition --

MITZMAN: By the clinic itself?

Rev. PICKETT: Right. By the clinic.

MITZMAN: Why do you say that?

Rev. PICKETT: To bring -- essentially to bring sympathy for their cause.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: Everett community leaders were slow to react to the fire according, to clinic co-director Beverly Whipple.

BEVERLY WHIPPLE, co-director, abortion clinic: The establishment was, yes. We did have a lot of community support, but the city officials and most everybody else kept silent.

RAY STEPHANSON, Everett City Council President: It is really, I think, a no-win situation for a politician.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: Community opinion was fiercely divided over the abortion clinic, according to Everett City Council President Ray Stephanson and Connie Niva of the League of Women Voters. Some city leaders simply hoped the issue would go away.

CONNIE NIVA, League of Women Voters: And I think that was possibly, in retrospect, a mistake, that people should have become more interested in it and perhaps made sure that an atmosphere that would in any way condone violence was not allowed.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: The clinic reopened after two months but soon it was set afire again and then again a third time.

[on camera] All three fires started the same way, with gasoline poured through these ground-floor windows. The fire spread throughout the clinic. After the third fire the clinic was forced to vacate the building and it now has no home.

CURTIS BESEDA, convicted arsonist: I used a fire to in each case render the facility inoperative.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: This man was caught and confessed to setting the Everett Fires as well as a fourth fire at another Washington clinic. He's Curtis Beseda, 29 years old, a university graduate, a former substitute teacher. Last month he was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

Mr. BESEDA: Each child is important. I've saved one, two children? I'm going to spend 20 years of my life? It's an easy exchange, you know, and that's not a problem.

MITZMAN: Did you discuss this action with anyone else?

Mr. BESEDA: I told no one that I was going to do that, correct.

MITZMAN: Then you talked with no one about it afterward?

Mr. BESEDA: No, and I certainly didn't.

MITZMAN: Weren't you afraid you could have harmed someone else?

Mr. BESEDA: I took very strong precautions. A fire spreads at a rate where anyone in the building, even like, as I said, the building itself was dark, and if there had been anyone anywhere, they would have had plenty of time to evacuate and leave that facility. So no one in the facility would have been -- could have been hurt.

MITZMAN: There could have been someone asleep in the building.

Mr. BESEDA: Okay, the chances -- we're talking about -- you're talking about the very long shot, which you can't -- I mean, if we operated on those in daily life we wouldn't get out of bed. And so the possibility -- and the facts bear that out. No one was hurt.

MITZMAN: You think it's not enough to act non-violently against clinics?

Mr. BESEDA: Protesting against murder is ineffective. Any movement that allows 6,000 human beings -- non-participants -- to be destroyed each day can't be considered non-violent. That isn't the spirit and it isn't the description of non-violent activity. What actually is happening, is we're trying to solve a problem which is our guilt.

MITZMAN: You think that people who limit themselves to non-violent action against abortion are just trying to assuage their guilt?

Mr. BESEDA: That does not deal with the action. It deals with our guilt. And it's just -- you know, it seems wise, but 11 years later, almost 12 years later now, has it worked?

MITZMAN: So you think we're likely to see more actions at these clinics?

Mr. BESEDA: I think that in the next year we may very well see a rather marked increase in the type of incidences that you've described, direct action against facilities.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: Last Friday supporters of the clinic rallied at its burned-out site to mark the 12th anniversary of legalized abortion. In the aftermath of the fires, pro-choice forces remain committed to re-opening a clinic in Everett. But pro-life activists are divided. Some, like Reverend John Pickett, condemn the actions of Curtis Beseda.

Rev. PICKETT: The destruction of property puts us in the wrong light. It frames us in the wrong way. It takes the emphasis off the real issue, which is the destruction of innocent life.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: Others, like Dottie Roberts, believe Beseda has benefited the movement.

Ms. ROBERTS: I know this, that I have had far more serious dialogue with the media after Curtis Beseda's act than before.

Rev. PICKETT: I don't agree that he had a duty, that he had a personal duty to stop the destruction of the children. That duty rests with God himself, who is the author and finisher of life.

Ms. ROBERTS: I have not yet been called or felt it necessary to go to the extent that Curt did.

MITZMAN: But you could envision some circumstances --

Ms. ROBERTS: I understand it.

MITZMAN [voice-over]: For Everett's civic leaders the fires have brought hard-learned lessons.

Council Pres. STEPHANSON: We will not tolerate violence in this community, and whether we're for or against abortion, the Supreme Court has determined that it's legal and we have an obligation to support that.

Ms. NIVA: The real test of this community will come when this clinic opens again. They have every intention of opening, I believe in a month or so, and then we'll see what our community has learned.

LEHRER: Again to Ms. Brown of the American Life Lobby and Ms. Wattleton of Planned Parenthood. Ms. Wattleton, do you hold Ms. Brown and the pro-life movement responsible for this violence against abortion clinics?

Ms. WATTLETON: We certainly believe that the doctrine of intolerance that has been preached by the anti-abortion movement for more than a decade now has bred and brought forth the fruit of destruction and violence. We believe that those people who believe that the anti-abortion movement's philosophies must be achieved and that their goals must be achieved at whatever cost have now taken the very fanatical approach to achieving those means out of desperation and frustration with the impossibility of achieving their means through peaceful methods and tactics. So that we believe that the climate has been created to give permission for those to carry out violence in seeking their goals.

LEHRER: Ms. Brown?

Ms. BROWN: Well, I think that Mrs. Wattleton's description of us as espousing a doctrine of intolerance in some way shows her own uneasiness with the fact that we're making so much progress and it's now necessary for her to in some way insinuate that we are losing and that we're losing ground and that we must resort to the destruction of buildings in order to educate people about the humanity of pre-born children. To me, these destructions of mortar and bricks are intolerable simply because they go against the basic fabric of the pro-life philosophy, which is that we love all human beings, those who reside within the womb and cannot be seen, those women who are suffering and need our help during a trial pregnancy. And certainly it would not be befitting of this movement that speaks so loudly about love and concern to turn on buildings and destroy them.

LEHRER: What about the woman, the pro-lifer on the tape from Everett, Washington, who said she didn't condone it but she certainly understood it?

Ms. BROWN: Oh, I think that everyone who is involved with the pro-life movement has to step back and say, after 18 million murders in this country, 18 million violent dismemberments of tiny human beings, how much more violence can this country accept, and what will happen to the minds of Americans because of this kind of violence perpetrated in the name of choice? That's my response.

Ms. WATTLETON: And our belief is that women now have the choice not to give their lives and their well-being because they face an unwanted pregnancy. Women now are not faced with the consignment to a pregnancy. We believe that the humanity that has been demonstrated by the Supreme Court decision is the most profound mark of humanity that can be extended to another human being and that women now can make these decisions and that they can have safe abortions under safe and legal circumstances. These are very difficult issues and often women do face the dilemma of an unwanted pregnancy and they come to the abortion decision as a last resort. And they should not have to be confronted at the clinic door by people who harass them, who call them in the middle of the night, who try to bodily intercede in their peaceful entrance into the clinic and who resort to violence as a way of intimidating these women.

LEHRER: But while you don't condone the violence, the other tactics, picketing abortion centers, etc., now, that is within your purview?

Ms. BROWN: Well, we encourage all of that kind of activity. Anything that is within the law that will carry the pro-life message to women, many of whom are never informed -- they're not even told that during the first six weeks of pregnancy that the heartbeat of the child can be heard. They're not told those kinds of things. And so if we are wrong to stand outside of the clinics and give that kind of biologically factual information to young women who are so distraught over a pregnancy, then I'm sorry, but we will continue to be wrong in doing that.

LEHRER: What is your reading on whether or not this violence is helping or hurting your movement? You heard the reading from Everett, Washington.

Ms BROWN: I don't think it's for us to judge. I think that we have to be very careful, again, to reiterate the attitude of this entire movement, that we are peaceful, and that we don't encourage -- we are not fanatics. We do not encourage people to propagate violence against buildings. But we're appalled by the violence that's going on within the womb.

LEHRER: Ms. Wattleton, what is your reading of the effect of this violence?

Ms. WATTLETON: The effect is that this action is repugnant to the American people and that people reject the violence and the harassment. A number of polls have shown that Americans do not approve of the tactics that have been described by Mrs. Brown, that if women want information about the development of their fetus, they can request it. They don't have to be intercepted by people at a clinic door, without their invitation and without their concurrence, to be leapt upon with this information.

LEHRER: You said they had to be, right, Ms. Brown?

Ms. BROWN: Well, they're not leapt upon and no one tries to harass. I've witnessed many sidewalk counselors; they're very peaceful people. They step aside when they're informed that their information is not needed. When 2,500 girls in one city in this country can be turned away from abortion simply because the proper information is given to them outside the abortion chamber, then we must be doing something right because we've saved 2,500 babies in one city alone.

LEHRER: Well, Ms. Wattleton in New York, thank you very much; Ms. Brown here in Washington, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Charlayne Hunter-Gault explores the attitudes behind the reaction to New York's so-called subway vigilante. Then a top economic forecaster tells us how long the present good economic news will last. And we close with an essay by Roger Rosenblatt about dealing with time. Touching a Chord

MacNEIL: Our next focus section takes us back to the saga of Bernhard Goetz, the 37-year-old electronics engineer awaiting trial for shooting four teenagers when they asked him for money in a New York subway. When the story broke, a lot of commentators said his action touched a responsive chord in the imaginations not only of New Yorkers but the nation. But just what chord did it touch? Charlayne Hunter-Gault has been finding out. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, the Bernhard Goetz story is not just a story about one man's decision to strike back at urban violence, nor even the almost unprecedented public support of his actions in shooting the four young black men on the subway. It is a story that continues to open wider and wider a Pandora's box of thorny issues, most of them dealing with the public's perceptions of failures, failures of the criminal justice system, of law enforcement, but also of educational and other institutions in the black community. Then there is fear and rage and racism and a simmering debate over just who is really the victim, Bernhard Goetz or the four men he shot, or both?

[voice-over] In the immediate aftermath of the Goetz incident attention seemed equally divided between the man in the incident and the massive outpuring of public support for his actions.

1st CITIZEN: I figure there'd be four less muggers to mug me.

2nd CITIZEN: A vigilante showing up every now and then will have a good healthy reminder to some of the lawbreakers out there.

3rd CITIZEN: Anybody who these little hoodlums try to accost, if they have any means to protect themselves, they should.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Professional observers and students of society offered many reasons for such reactions.

WILLARD GAYLIN, psychiatrist: The business of crime in the streets is terribly important. It is a symbol somehow or other that things aren't working.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Willard Gaylin is a New York psychoanalyst and author of a book on modern anger. He argues that the fears and frustrations in urban life and the seeming inability to do anything about them generates an undercurrent of rage in all of us, rage most people are forced to swallow.

Mr GAYLIN: Even if you walk in the street and someone -- particularly if you're a woman or if you're elderly -- and someone says an aggressive remark to you or some kids jostle you, you can't attack them. You endanger your life. So you swallow it. but you are building a kind of rage, and when someone else does something, even foolishly, if it seems like a retaliation, it gives you a sense of joy getting some of your own back.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: James Malone, a vice president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a social worker by training, specifically cited fear of the subways as part of the reason for the public reaction.

JAMES MALONE, John Jay College of Criminal Justice: More fear, of course, is generated when people are trapped underground than if they were on the street. The escape routes, the escape path to run, are not available to them and they feel like they're victims when they're in the subways. Right from the beginning once you go into the subway you -- one becomes a little concerned and a little cautious about their safety.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: New York City Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward argues that fear of crime is out of proportion to the actual crime in the subways.

BENJAMIN WARD, New York City Police Commissioner: Kinds of crimes that happen in the subway are the minor crimes. If they have a dozen homicides a year it's extremely high, and there probably is -- there's scarcely a precinct in this city that doesn't exceed the totality of all of the crimes that occur in the subway. But of course if it happens in the subway system it's a media event that gets a lot of publicity --

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Still, the fears are real.

Mr. MALONE: I'm a little concerned when I ride the subway. In fact, I just now try to avoided riding the subway at late hours at night, and I'm a person that grew up as a very, very tough youngster. I boxed in college, I played football in college. I was a Marine, a sergeant, went to Parris Island, all of the rigorous training, and I really thought of myself as a pretty tough person with the ability to take care of myself in any situation. But recently I've moved away from that. The amount of handguns, the amount of weapons that people are carrying --

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: But fear over crime in the subways and the outrage it created were not the only reasons cited for the enormous public reaction following the Goetz incident.One of the other major factors cited was the increasing number of people touched by crime in general. Dan Juda, a psychology professor at John Jay, says that even though the crime rate nationally may be declining, the number of victims is cumulative, with new crime victims being added every day.

DAN JUDA, psychologist, John Jay College of Criminal Justice: It's not something where at the end of the year you're going to start over. It continues each year so that over the last 10 years there is now a situation in this country where I would say probably close to maybe 30 to 50 percent of the American population has been victimized or knows of people who have been victimized.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Bernhard Goetz was a mugging victim and that may help explain why he acted the way he did when he apparently thought he was about to be mugged again.

Mr. JUDA: The first time that a victim is attacked the predominant experience of that victim is to feel that their life is in danger and that they're not going to live. I don't know Goetz so this is purely speculative on my part. But I do know, after working with victims who have been victimized twice, especially the same crime, which this was in Goetz's case, a mugging, a robbery, that frequently the individual, in order to maintain that self that I was talking about earlier, tells himself if it ever happened again, that I would react differently. Individuals may even consciously or unconsciously wish for the opportunity to demonstrate this to themselves, that they are not the same person they were when this happened to them the first time.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Rose Farro knows a lot about victims. The owner of a restaurant around the corner from Bernhard Goetz's apartment, she had worked with Goetz to try and rid their neighborhood of dope dealers and other criminals.

ROSE FARRO, restaurant owner: Now every store has been held up. We have a lot of muggings going on. People are afraid to cross 14th Street north and south. You take your life into your hands walking around here. McDonalds has been held up, armed robbery. The vegetable store across the street from where I am has been held up three times in the past few months. The delicatessen also has been held up. The bar down the block, The Muse Tavern, they've been held up in the afternoon. I have my hands full here at least once a week minimum where I have a drug pusher walking in or somebody who's on drugs walking in. And they have harassed customers here, I've been physically harassed myself. The police are aware of this. And all they say is that their hands are tied.

Mr. MALONE: The basic argument that has been sharpened is whether or not the social contract can be honored. That is, can government protect citizens? And quite a few people feel that this is no longer the case and that that is why you have an increase in the carrying of handguns by citizens who in the past would not even consider such.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Haywood Burns, director of the Center for Legal Education and Public Policy at City College, says there's flip side to that.

HAYWOOD BURNS, City College Center for Legal Education and Public Policy: I think that what people are not getting at is the way in which this case really speaks to the larger questions of what's going on out there in the streets, and by that I mean not just the victims of crimes, of muggers, but also the question that, as the social psychologist Kenneth Clark said, of mugged communities.And by that I mean the way in which these boys certainly are victims as well of a society that has not really cared for them or cared about them. And in a very real way, I think, this case raises the issues of society's neglect and society's abuse. You have only to walk to the South Bronx and walk through the South Bronx to see what we're doing in this community and this society to our young people. If you look around you see how people are penned in the hovels of the barrios and the ghettoes, the kind of housing people have to live in, what's happening with the joblessness of black youth and hispanic youth, by the kind of psychological deprivation where all around the message is coming through to people, young people out there, that we don't care about you as a society and we don't think you're worth very much.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: The four young men who were shot by Bernhard Goetz all lived in this South Bronx neighborhood; all jobless high school dropouts ages 18 and 19, each had records for minor crimes, including possession of stolen property, breaking into video games and, in one case, Darrel Cabey, had been arrested on charges of armed robbery, though not tried by the time of the subway shooting. No charges have been filed against any of them in the subway incident. Of the four, Cabey, shot in the back, was the most seriously wounded. The only one remaining in the hospital, Cabey is in a coma, believed to have suffered brain damage, and is paralyzed from the waist down. The families would not speak on camera, citing threats that they had received since the incident. Ron Kuby, a lawyer working with the Cabey family, agrees with the analysis that Cabey and the others were victims, not only of their environment but of racism.

RON KUBY, victim's lawyer: One of the most dramatic aspects of this is the types of correspondence that Darrel and his mother have received in the weeks following his shooting, a couple examples of letters -- one we've received, it says, "Dear Mrs. Cabey, I'm glad Darrel is paralyzed. He need to sit his black ass in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. I'm so sorry that the other three can't join him." And other letters contained overt racial epithets, racial slurs. And just recently in the mail we received this. [card with swastika] anonymously, of course. Another letter to Darrel says, "I guess you won't be break dancing anymore. Don't worry, if you're a good boy, I'll buy you a pair of roller skates."

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Given the vehemence and range of reaction to the subway shooting, what are the consequences for the future? Dan Juda believes that society has to regard both Bernhard Goetz and the young men he shot as victims -- co-victims, in fact. Otherwise --

Mr. JUDA: There's going to come a period of real trouble in this country where you have people who are committing the crimes, committing the crimes against one more and more educated victims. And as you become one more and more educated victims, you protect yourself in a better and better manner, and the criminal will have to become a better and better criminal.

Mr. GAYLIN: I don't think we're all going to go pop off people. I do think there are other ways. We can elect people who appeal to our anger and our fear and we can elect people with a vigilante kind of mentality. And that process may have already started.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Haywood Burns says condoning vigilanteism spells trouble for everybody, criminal and victim, black and white, poor and non-poor.

Mr. BURNS: And the majority who have that point of view will press it and act upon it at their peril, at all of our peril, because the implications of what follows from that point of view is a society that none of us want.

HUNTER-GAULT: As for the legal side of the case, the grand jury is awaiting a decision from Goetz about whether he will testify before it.All other witnesses in the case have been heard. Goetz's lawyer, Joseph Kelner, postponed his announced plans to make the decision today and said instead it will come tomorrow. Meanwhile, Goetz remains free on $50,000 bail. 1984: Year of Plenty

MacNEIL: Next tonight we focus on today's good economic news and what it means for the rest of this year. As we reported earlier, the economy grew at 6.8% in 1984 while inflation remained at 3.7%. That's the best growth in three decades and the lowest inflation since 1967. The good news appears to support increasingly upbeat forecasts for the economy in 1985, and to dash the fears of recession which surfaced last fall. One economist whose forecast remained optimistic was Saul Hymans of the University of Michigan. Last November Mr. Hymans was named Forecaster of the Year and on this program predicted strong gains for 1985. He joins us tonight from public station WTVS in Detroit.

Mr. Hymans, first of all, you were right that this was coming. What got us here? What made the dark clouds go away?

SAUL HYMANS: Well, it was basically a reversal of the factors that brought the dark clouds in. During the first half of 1984, the economy had been growing extremely strongly, on the average at an 8.6% growth rate. The Federal Reserve acted to slow the economy down by pushing interest rates up. That did indeed slow the economy down. Once the economy slowed down, they changed their policy toward the end of 1984. We've seen interest rates come down very sharply and, as I thought earlier, that would certainly turn the economy around from a lull into a renewed expansion.

MacNEIL: President Reagan said today that this showed that his economic program, as he put it, "has worked beautifully in spite of the nay-sayers." Is he right?

Mr. HYMANS: Well, in a sense he's right, that certainly the change in fiscal policy which the Reagan administration enacted through the Congress, did help the economy come, move out of the recession. The problem, however --

MacNEIL: That is, the huge tax cut?

Mr. HYMANS: The huge tax cut and the defense buildup, combined to help pull the economy out of the recession. The problem is that that provides too great and too long-lasting a stimulus to the economy, which was why the Federal Reserve thought it had to cool the economy off during the middle of 1984.

MacNEIL: Earlier in the program we heard Commerce Secretary Baldrige say he expects to see this kind of rate of growth and low inflation continuing through the rest of this year. Do you agree with him?

Mr. HYMANS: Well, I certainly think that's approximately correct for at least the first half of 1985. I think we're headed into a running start into 1985. We'll see the economy continuing to grow through the middle of the year at least. What happens beyond the middle of the year, especially as we get toward the end of 1985 and begin to move into 1986, depends very heavily on what happens to the federal budget. The deliberations now going on in Washington, the urgency with which the Congress is facing the budget deficit, is absolutely critical because we've got to get the deficit down in a gradual way over the next several years if we're going to continue to have a reasonable rate of economic growth, if we're going to continue to have the unemployment rate moving down and to try to do it without interest rates beginning to spike up again.

MacNEIL: Well, I'm going to ask you for some more fearless forecasts in a moment, but before I do, what assumption are you using for them about how much the Congress and the White House together will get the deficit down for 1986?

Mr. HYMANS: Well, I think that the target that one hears, namely a $50 billion hold-down in federal budget expenditures in fiscal 1986, would be fine. I do not think we're going to get that much, but if we get something like $30- to $35 billion, that will make a major difference because instead of having a deficit in fiscal 1986, something over $200 billion, we'll have something closer to $170- or $175 billion with, of primary importance, the deficit moving down in the right direction. That's critically important to keep the money markets calm and to keep interest rates on an even course.

MacNEIL: Now some other forecasts. Given that you expect the growth to continue at this rate at least through the middle of the year, what do you expect to happen to unemployment that's now hovering right around 7%?

Mr. HYMANS: Well, unemployment at the moment is a little above that. It's closer to 7 1/4%. I think it's going to be moving down. In the next month or two we'll begin to see the unemployment rate starting to edge down. I would say that by the middle of the year we'll be at or slightly below 7% and perhaps by the end of the year at about 6 3/4% on the unemployment rate.

MacNEIL: What about interest rates, which have been coming down a lot recently?

Mr. HYMANS: Yes, the reduction in interest rates, as I said, has been the critical factor in turning the growth rate back up. I think we can see interest rates continuing mildly downward over the next couple of months, firming up around the middle of the year and then, if we have good news on the budget front, we should for the second half of the year see interest rates just moving up gradually, not enough to ruin the economic expansion, not enough to turn it back into another slowdown. On the other hand, if we go the wrong way on the budget, if we fail to make progress, if there's a deadlock on the budget, then we may be in a position whereby the end of the year we'll see interest rates moving up sharply. Should that happen, and I'm not forecasting it will because, frankly, I'm optimistic that fiscal 1986 will see a hold-down in federal expenditures. If that is the case, then we will see a mild upward movement in interest rates in the second half of the year rather than a spiking. The spiking of interest rates in the unhappy scenario is what would produce very serious economic problems by the end of 1985.

MacNEIL: What would you expect the lowest that the prime rate would reach in the summertime and the lowest that mortgage rates, say, would reach in the summertime?

Mr. HYMANS: Well, we've already seen the prime rate come down to 10 1/2. It could come down, over the next month or so, to 10 1/4. But I don't expect much more downward movement in the prime rate, and I don't expect much more downward movement in short-term interest rates -- maybe 25 to 50 basis points, a quarter of a percent to a half a percent, over the next couple of months before interest rates then firm up again. So I'm not expecting to see short-term interest rates moving down much over the next couple of months. Long-term interest rates move more slowly, generally, than short-term interest rates and will take longer to catch up with the movement in short-term interest rates. We could see long-term rates edging down slowly for most of the rest of the year if in fact we get the good news on the budget front.

MacNEIL: So that would mean mortgage rates in the thirteens and twelves, maybe?

Mr. HYMANS: Yes, I believe that's correct.

MacNEIL: Something like that. And what about inflation during all this? It was held very low in 1984. Why was it they were able to hold it so low with the economy rebounding so strongly, and will that continue?

Mr. HYMANS: Well, one of the main reasons -- there were two principal reasons that inflation remained low in 1984, and in fact came down even more. One is the fact that we've had very good behavior on the side of wages; wage growth has not been excessively high; productivity has improved as we've come out of the recession so that cost pressures have not been very strong on the business sector. At the same time we have seen a strong dollar, which, if we have time to go into it, is not such a good idea for the economy. It's a drag on the domestic economy. But it does have the positive benefit of bringing us less expensive foreign products so that our overall national price level, which factors in the prices we pay for goods we import, moves up very slowly. So because the dollar has been strong, we have been importing goods which in dollar terms are cheap, and that keeps the overall price level from rising very rapidly.

MacNEIL: Do you expect the dollar's value to fall?

Mr. HYMANS: Yes, I do expect that the dollar's value is going to fall. I think that over the past few months we've seen very little trend either up or down inthe dollar, which is quite a difference from what we saw in the year ending last fall where the dollar climbed very dramatically in international value. I think the movement that we've seen, basically a sideways movement, in the last few months is an indication, to me at least, that there's a very good chance that the dollar will start to move down in value over the next year. I think it would be a positive factor for the economy, especially for domestic employment and production if we got the dollar moving down in the next year.

MacNEIL: Mr. Hymans, thank you for joining us.

Mr. HYMANS: It's a pleasure to be here.

MacNEIL: Jim?

LEHRER: Again the major news stories of this day. The Commerce Department said the U.S. economy grew more in 1984 than it has in the last three decades, and at the same time inflation grew less than any year since 1967. President Reagan told anti-abortion marchers in Washington that, "The momentum is with us," and the cold wave that hit the eastern half of the country is easing, but authorities say the cold weather caused at least 123 deaths.

Robin?

MacNEIL: We leave you tonight with some thoughts from our regular essayist, Roger Rosenblatt of Time magazine. His thoughts are about time, not the magazine but the time that measures our days. Time For Thought

ROGER ROSENBLATT [essay]: When the apple stuttered down on New Year's Eve, what was the cheering about? The start of something? The end of something? The passage of time itself? Odd that the last and first act of every year is a mass homage to the clock, people staring excitedly, devotedly at Our Lady of the Numbers until, aahhh, it moves.Even while we were tooting our horns and embracing Miss Fritz, the clock nudged ahead, and soon all hell was breaking loose.

As it is, we are already late for the rapidly passing year, and there are so many appointments to keep. External time is out of our control; we made it so when we invented the clock.But what about internal time? Have we used that up as well, or are there some places in time that the clock does not cover? Hidden rooms under the clock's hands? Salvador Dali had the right idea. Maybe one can soften the clock a bit, treat it like a flapjack. Thoreau said, "Time is a stream I go a-fishing in." Of course, that was in another time. Still, it might be possible to make a different sort of calendar for 1985, one that took us out of the clock for awhile and gave us a private use of time.

On such a calendar there might be artistic time, for example, the untrackable hours one spends staring into paintings or into books or into the space that music fills. Or there could be recurrent time when you return to something pleasurable that you've done before, like revisiting a place that made you happy because the good time was preserved in your memory where, unlike a clock, it did not move. Or we might make use of long time in which we set out on a long-term project that we cannot possibly complete, like building a stone wall. There is much to be said for building stone walls. Anyone can do it -- higher, wider, longer -- and no one but you can say when to stop.

And then there is no time. Nothing happens in no time -- no actions, no achievements, no thoughts. These are moments when we are simply receptive to everything, when we take life in, a rare time. Finally, there is all time, a special order of stillness for which it should be quite possible to make several appointments in a year. All time is the rarest of the lot, encompassing both past and future, memory and prophecy, all that has ever been in the process of its becoming. Many think of it as the best of times. Here is why.

A great poet I know is dying of cancer these days, the cancer tearing at his liver the way Prometheus suffered. The poet's wife wrote on their Christmas card the following message: "We are holding on in our happy envelope, surrounded by children, friends, music, books and each other." Some will contend that this couple has run out of time. They would say they have all the time in the world.

MacNEIL: Roger Rosenblatt. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. Thank you and good night.