The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary, we have a report from Moscow on Russia's election aftermath. Charles Krause looks at the ultra-nationalist winner, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and we hear the views of former Secretary of State James Baker. Then with a global trade deal beating the deadline by a day, what does the United States gain and lose in the new GATT? NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: The last major obstacle to a new global trade package was removed today when U.S. and European negotiators set aside a bitter dispute over entertainment products. The U.S. and Europe agreed to exclude movies from the broad trade liberalization pact but they succeeded in resolving all other differences. Their disputes have been blocking completion of world trade talks conducted under the auspices of GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade.Kevin Dunn of Independent Television News reports from Geneva.

MR. DUNN: After four days and nights of negotiation, Sir Leon Brittan and America's Mickey Kantor were at last all smiles, announcing the agreement for which the world had watched and waited.

MICKEY KANTOR, U.S. Trade Representative: I think it's obvious I'm delighted to announce that the United States and the European Community have reached a comprehensive agreement on the Uruguay Round between us.

MR. DUNN: It should mean a boost to the world economy, the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

SIR LEON BRITTAN, EC Trade Commissioner: I believe that today has been a milestone in the history of world trade. Anything that opens up markets is good.

MR. DUNN: There is still disagreement over America's sale of films in Europe, but the worldwide accord already rolling off the presses is a major breakthrough after seven years. It was achieved by two men who had bargained day and night, slugging out the last 29 hours like prize fighters. It left them drained but in the end they shook hands on a deal.

SIR LEON BRITTAN: I feel a combination of pride, relief, and humility, as well as a touch of fatigue.

MR. DUNN: It now remains for the rest of the world, 103 nations in all, to approve this deal tomorrow and so put in place a global pact for prosperity.

MR. MacNeil: Retail sales were up .4 percent in November and was the eighth consecutive monthly rise. The Commerce Department report said department store sales were down but offset by increased sales of furniture, building, and garden supplies, and hardware. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Latest reports showed pro-Yeltsin reformers running a distant second to anti-reform nationalists in Russia's parliamentary elections. The leader of the Nationalist Party has voiced support for reclaiming territory of a former Russian empire, including Alaska. Yesterday, Vice President Gore speaking in Moscow had predicted that President Yeltsin would still win a working parliamentary majority. Mr. Gore declined further comment today. He is in Moscow to prepare for the Clinton-Yeltsin summit in January. In Washington, President Clinton played down the strong showing of the anti-Yeltsin forces. He spoke during a ceremony at the Commerce Department.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think it was probably largely a protest vote, and I think that when people are having a tough time and they have a tough time over a long period of years, they often look for simple answers. It's not unique to Russia. You can see that in many other democracies throughout the world and throughout history. And this is not all that unusual. And I don't think any of us expect to be giving Alaska anytime soon. I think the, I think the -- I think that there are a lot -- there must be a lot of people in Russia who are extremely frustrated and have a high level of anger because they've been through a lot of tough times.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have more on the Russia story right after this News Summary. At least 11 people were killed by new shelling in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo today. About a dozen others were wounded. It was the heaviest shelling there in about a month. The U.N. closed the airport to aid flights because of it.

MR. MacNeil: Israeli troops killed two Palestinians and wounded twelve others during clashes in the occupied Gaza Strip. Police shot and killed one of the Arabs while he was attempting to set a car bomb. Most of today's clashes happened near the Jabalya refugee camp and involved the radical group Hamas. Yesterday, Israel put off its planned withdrawal from parts of the occupied territories for at least 10 days. In Egypt, a rock slide killed at least 34 people in a Cairo slum. About 15 homes were destroyed or damaged when a mountainside gave way at dawn. Rescue teams worked to save dozens of people who remained trapped in the rubble.

MR. LEHRER: A federal district judge today declared Colorado's Amendment 2 unconstitutional. He said it violated the right of homosexuals to participate in the political process. The amendment was passed by Colorado voters last year. It would ban state and local laws which prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Lawyers for the Senate Ethics Committee today accused Sen. Bob Packwood of altering his diary tapes. They asked a federal court to seize all materials subpoenaed in the committee's investigation of sexual harassment and other allegations against the Oregon Republican. He has fought the subpoenas on the grounds they violated his right to privacy and his right against self-incrimination. He had no immediate reaction to today's charges. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the continuing fallout from the Russian elections and to the GATT trade agreement. FOCUS - AFTERSHOCK

MR. LEHRER: Those new politics of Russia is again our lead story. Our coverage begins with this report from Moscow on how russians were responding to the strong showing of the ultra-nationalist party. The reporter is Ian Williams of Independent Television News.

MR. WILLIAMS: Muscovites went to work this morning with the political equivalent of a nasty hangover. Newspapers which did not publish yesterday trying to bring home the gravity of what the Russian voters had done at the weekend, the liberal press not hesitating to brand Mr. Zhirinovsky a fascist and condemn all he stands for. Dire warnings about the birth of fascism dominated the front pages while alongside a reminder of the death four years ago today of Andrei Sakharov, the man perhaps most identified with the struggle for democracy in Russia. We are losing his country, the caption read. On the early morning metro there was widespread discussion of the election results. A priest told those who would listen, including us, Mr. Zhirinovsky is possessed, he should be exorcised. The man, himself, was still basking in the publicity generated by an electoral performance that has clearly stunned the government here. He attempted to sound conciliatory as he spoke of what he would do when he was president.

VLADIMIR ZHIRINOVSKY, Leader, Liberal Democrats: [speaking through interpreter] We are opposed to the territorial expansion of Russia, but I'm absolutely sure that in a few years time those republics which were part of the Soviet Union will beg the new president of Russia to incorporate them into the Russian state. And I can tell you now that our government will be against that.

MR. WILLIAMS: Earlier in an interview with German Radio, he threatened Germany with what he called a new Hiroshima if that country interfered in Russia's internal affairs as he claimed it was doing at present. Leaders of the main reformist party which achieved only half the vote it had predicted met behind closed doors in the morning, emerging to say reformers must cooperate, economic reform must be stepped up.

YEGOR GAIDAR, Deputy Prime Minister: [speaking through interpreter] We propose to respond to these elections by the more consistent and deeper implementation of economic reform. Our opinion is that we paid a high price for compromises, for inconsistency and hesitations.

MR. WILLIAMS: Otherreformers close to President Yeltsin don't see it that way.

SERGEI STANKEVICH, Presidential Adviser: It's more than clear now that it is impossible to implement any shock therapy style policy anymore in Russia because we've already approached a rather dangerous deadline. At the same time, I think that it is necessary for the president to propose clear strategy for oncoming two years with necessary corrections in economic, social, and foreign policy.

MR. WILLIAMS: He suggested Mr. Yeltsin's government will have to adopt a more vigorous nationalist line of its own.

SERGEI STANKEVICH: It can hardly be understood while the left patriotism and healthy, patriotic feelings to such people as Zhirinovsky.

MR. WILLIAMS: Speculation continued as to whether the Communists will do a deal with Mr. Zhirinovsky to form a united opposition in the new parliament, though there is doubt Zhirinovsky is capable of cooperating with anybody. Tonight, Moscow hoped the Russian Bukha Prize for the country's top writers. The intelligentsia and the country's literary elite gathered at the capital's House of Architects. These people represent the class that led the move for democracy and the battle against Communism a decade ago. They've been a target of Mr. Zhirinovsky too, and there was much talk of the rise of the far right and the lessons to be drawn from the elections.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN IN GROUP OF PEOPLE: Unfortunately, our people deserve such an election result. The people still live in the darkness, and they still want to be deceived.

SECOND UNIDENTIFIED MAN IN GROUP: It's understandable that the less educated people who didn't really understand Zhirinovsky's speeches fell under the spell of his simple tricks.

MR. WILLIAMS: President Yeltsin is now under immense pressure both to condemn the rise of neo-fascism in Russia but at the same time to demonstrate that he understands the frustration and anger that led to Sunday's result. It will be a difficult balancing act.

MR. LEHRER: Now a further look at the man who came out on top in Sunday's elections. Charles Krause interviewed the then-emerging leader of Russia's Liberal Democrat Party in 1991.

MR. KRAUSE: We first interviewed Vladimir Zhirinovsky two years ago at a health spa reserved for high Communist Party officials outside Moscow. The Soviet Union had just collapsed. Boris Yeltsin had just come to power. And Zhirinovsky, who ran for president against Yeltsin three years ago, had largely disappeared from public view. But it was clear even then that Russia's most popular ultra-nationalist politician was just biding his time. Swimming and exercising for our cameras, the image he wished to portray was that of a supremely self-confident athlete with the strength and endurance necessary to achieve political power. Zhirinovsky is a lawyer by training who appeals to the Russian soul and Russian nationalism, tough and autocratic. He's also a white supremacist and an anti-semite who's been called a fascist and is often compared to Hitler by his political opponents. Top Soviet intelligence officials have also said that much of Zhirinovsky's money and support came and may still come from the KGB. At 47, Zhirinovsky is known to harbor a general destruct of the West, but he has visited New York, and our first question concerned his view of the United States.

VLADIMIR ZHIRINOVSKY, Russian Opposition: [speaking through interpreter] $ January 13, 1992$ On the whole I view the United States as an ally, and I would like to see the kind of relations between our two countries following the line of friendship and cooperation. I am not a Communist. I stand for the most close and heartily relations with the U.S.A., particularly in the spheres of economy and culture. But the only thing is, I guess, that the Americans have to compensate somehow for the harm that they did to this country. There should be not a trace of hostility left in the relations between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. I imagine in the future we can help you in many ways because I know that you're feeling the pressure of the overall structure of the population being changed. More Hispanics and blacks are living in your country today than there used to be in the beginning of the century. What I mean is I've been to New York, I have seen no white America at all. The blacks are all over the place. You're running a serious risk of the key positions in the political and economic life of the country being eventually seized by the blacks and the Hispanics. And the white America may be at the verge of a disappearance. You can end up being turned up into second sort people. So in this way, the union between the U.S.A., Germany, and Russia could have contributed to the preservation of the white race on the European and the American continent.

MR. KRAUSE: To what extent do you think Jews have been responsible for the problems of your country?

MR. ZHIRINOVSKY: [speaking through interpreter] They have played a major part in this process. They have to a major extent did it to us, the West and the Jews. And the way to prove it is to take a look at the composition of the administration of the new political parties in this country. It's headed by the Jews. The biggest part of the members of the editorial boards of the newly appeared newspapers are made up of Jews and the West by its influence have been pushing the intellectuals and the administrators towards a confrontation with the new authorities. I am not an anti-semite, myself, but their concept is anti-governmental. They do not want to see a great and free Russia. They are looking for this abstract notion of the appearance of a great too many new national flags. They don't understand that you have to pay with blood for this process. So the best outcome of this process would be a free emigration of Jews out of Russia to Israel.

MR. KRAUSE: You've been quoted as saying that Russia needs a strong hand, a dictator. What do you mean?

MR. ZHIRINOVSKY: [speaking through interpreter] What today we need is a strong President, the authoritative regime, a regime though without repressions, without massive oppression on public, without purges, without the violations of human rights, but, nevertheless, a strong regime, strong enough to take the country out of this five times the regular crisis. We need this regime at least for the next two years. I'm not speaking about the perspective, but for the next two years the country's in need of a strong President.

MR. KRAUSE: If you were to come to power, if you were to become President of Russia, would you attempt to undo what has already been done? What parts of the independent republics would you claim to be part of Russia and try to take back?

MR. ZHIRINOVSKY: I would immediately change the whole policy radically. In two days, I would do away with such countries as Kazakhstan or Khirgizia, because never ever, there is not a single scholar in U.S.A. or elsewhere in the world who would be able to locate such political entities as Kazakhstan and Khirgizia on the map of the world. As for the Baltics, I will also cut all the shipments from Russia, no metal, no timber, no oil, no machinery, and the small Lithuanian republic will live for no longer than six months. Then there will be social unrest because the planes have no gas to fly on, the machines had no oil to work on, so the country goes still. So it will be nothing but the economic measures that I will use against the Baltics. So as you can see, I'm ready to turn both home and foreign policy 100 percent upside down. I don't want to hear anything about the independent Ukraine. Never ever would they have their own currency called grivna. Never ever will there be such a thing as the Ukrainian navy. There is no such a thing. There is the Russian North Sea, Baltic, Black Sea and the Pacific Fleet. This commonwealth of independent states is nothing but a stillborn child which has no prospect at all. I will turn everything towards Russia.

MR. LEHRER: Now to James Baker, who was secretary of state in the Bush administration. He joins us tonight from Houston. Mr. Secretary, welcome.

SEC. BAKER: Thank you, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: What is your reaction to this man, Zhirinovsky?

SEC. BAKER: Well, I think, as you've just heard, he can be very, very scary. It seems to me that he's at least a demagogue and at worst a clear fascist. I think though, Jim, that there was some good in this election. It wasn't all bad. I think there's some good news and some bad news. And the good news, of course, is that a constitution was passed, a constitution which creates a political structure for Russia with a strong presidency. And I think that will be very helpful to President Yeltsin and to the reformers. The bad news, of course, is that the, the so-called Liberal Democratic Party of Zhirinovsky would appear to be the highest vote getter. I'm not sure that the, that the Liberal Democratic label is a proper label for that party.

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

SEC. BAKER: It would seem to me it would be more appropriately called the Reactionary Nationalist Party or something like that.

MR. LEHRER: Does the parallel with the rise of Hitler in Germany before World War II make sense to you?

SEC. BAKER: Well, if you listen to some of the things that the man said in that interview and if you, if you read some of the things that he has said in other -- on other occasions, it would make you worry that perhaps you would be seeing the beginnings of Weimar, Russia, and if the reformers ultimately do not succeed. I don't think that's where we're going to go. I, I don't think that this -- that the votes, these protest votes that he achieved mean that we're going to see many changes in Russia's foreign policy vis-a-vis the West in the short and medium-term.

MR. LEHRER: Why do you say that?

SEC. BAKER: Well, whether we see it in the long-term or not, of course, is something that is going to depend upon whether or not, whether or not reform succeeds, and whether or not President Yeltsin, frankly, is going to feel constrained by these results to sort of back of his reform agenda. And that's the great danger. And that's what we'd better hope doesn't happen. But I say that -- I say that with respect to the short and medium-term.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

SEC. BAKER: Because -- because there's going to be a period of time here, three to four years, before there is a presidential election. I think what you will see is a greater assertiveness on the part of Russia towards those former republics that made up the former Soviet Union. You will see that. But I don't think that you're going to see a major change in the foreign policy approach to the West as a whole. I think that the reformers and President Yeltsin and thepeople around him and, frankly, probably the majority of the people in Russia still would like to see Russia integrated with the West and still would like to see Russia as a democracy and Russia as a free-market economy.

MR. LEHRER: But if this was a protest vote, Mr. Secretary, obviously they're protesting the very things you say Yeltsin could continue to do? So if he continues to do them, isn't the protest going to grow rather than diminish?

SEC. BAKER: The risk is greater if he, if he steps back, if he, if he slows down, if he feels constrained by this to back off, and I think you heard one of the, one of the Russia Choice candidates or someone said, one of the mistakes we've made over the past two years is that we haven't moved forcefully enough and we haven't gone fast enough in adopting the measures that we have to adopt for reform. Everybody understands, and they certainly understood in Russia at the beginning of this process that it was going to be extraordinarily difficult. When you take a society like this and you turn it completely around in a 180-degree direction politically, economically, and socially, it is a tremendous undertaking, and there is going to be great hardship. And, of course, that is what this man and his, his colleagues have capitalized on.

MR. LEHRER: So you think it would be a mistake to read too much into this vote and that the Russian people are saying we want to return to the, to the hard heel form of government, we want to return to the old Soviet Union?

SEC. BAKER: I think the vote -- I think I said that there was considerable bad news in this vote.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

SEC. BAKER: And we shouldn't underestimate that. On the other hand, let's make sure we understand, first of all, the results that we see tonight, today, yesterday, are still preliminary. They're only partial. It will be ten days before we have the final results, and it will be ten days before we know what the make-up of the parliament will be, before we know how many seats Zhirinovsky's party will actually earn, before we know whether or not the reformers can get their act together and unified because, quite frankly, there were a lot of reformers who were going to be elected to this parliament. I would submit to you that there may be more reformers in the new parliament than there were in the old one that Yeltsin disbanded. So it's a little bit too early to say that everything about this, about this result is negative. It isn't -- it isn't positive to see a man like this who espouses the views that he espouses achieve a significant percentage of the vote, however.

MR. LEHRER: Does --

SEC. BAKER: I think it's understandable, but it is not, it is not good.

MR. LEHRER: Does the United States have a role to play right now in helping Yeltsin get through this difficult time?

SEC. BAKER: Absolutely. And it is the same role that the United States, I think, has had since the very beginnings of reform in Russia, since perestroika and glasnost under Gorbachev, and that is to do everything in the world that we can to assist the reformers and to see to it that the reform process succeeds. First and foremost, I think that we need to make it clear to the Russian people and to the Russian military, who might be attracted to, to the kinds of things this man says, for instance, that there is a place for them in the, in the community of democratic and free market nations, that having seen the, the wall that separated East from West go down, we're not now going to erect economic barriers. We're not now going to erect even, for that matter, security barriers. And that's why I think this debate about the new mission for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is so very important. It is important that we not send a signal that Russia will be excluded. We need to let them know that if they democratize, if they adopt responsible security policies, and if they adopt the free market economics, there will be a place for them in the community of, of nations.

MR. LEHRER: But what would you say to those people who say, hey, wait a minute, the average Russian couldn't care less what the United States is doing right now, that this is, what they're worried about -- they've listened to all of this and what they're worried about are jobs, and food, and all of that sort of business. They're not interested in ideology and all that talk right now.

SEC. BAKER: No. And I don't think we appeal to them from the standpoint of ideology and talk. We appeal to them with material assistance. It's much better, of course, if we can funnel it through private sector organizations and get it to the grassroots. But let me, let me remind you, Jim, what has happened over the course of the past two years. There is freedom of religion in Russia today. There was never any before. There is a certain degree of freedom of the press. There is freedom of movement. There is even private property ownership. So substantial progress has been made. It's been tough. It's been very hard on the people, and the reason that they haven't been able, I think, to go further with respect to the economic reform is because they have had this vast political uncertainty there. There has not been a political structure. The old parliament was, in effect, illegitimate, elected under, under the old Communist rule. Now at least they have resolved the question of what kind of political structure is Russia going to have, and it's going to have a constitution which was adopted by the people in this election, and it's going to have a constitution that provides for a very strong presidency. What we'd better hope and what we'd better support in every way possible is that President Yeltsin uses the strength of that presidency to continue to push aggressively for democratic and free-market reform.

MR. LEHRER: But, meanwhile, should the United States also kind of step back a little bit and get prepared for a worst case scenario, that the Zhirinovsky people actually end up running that country, and we're confronted with a kind of Cold War Car 2 on the horizon?

SEC. BAKER: I don't believe -- my own view is that the United States has not let its guard down. We certainly didn't during the period of time that I was there dealing with the transformations taking place in the former Soviet Union. And I don't think we've done so in the course of the past year. The United States and the North Atlantic Alliance are probably stronger than ever, so helping the reformers in Russia and in the former Soviet Union is not letting our guard down, it's not doing anything that we shouldn't do. It's doing exactly what we ought to be doing. We should, of course, make sure we don't get in here and emasculate our defense establishment. We shouldn't take our defense cuts below what is prudent, and, frankly, of course, what we thought was prudent was what we called for during the Bush administration. But that's the kind of thing -- I mean in terms of keeping our guard up, that's the way we ought to maintain that.

MR. LEHRER: You mentioned NATO and the Eastern European countries, the former Communist -- the former Warsaw pact nations. Many of those want to bea part of NATO. NATO and the United States has said, no, not quite yet, friends, you're friends but not quite yet. Now they're saying as a result of what happened in the elections in Russia, hey, look, we need, we need your help, Russia could come back again and be a problem for us again.

SEC. BAKER: Well, that's always been a risk, and I think that everyone, frankly, without regard to the party of the administration whether it's Democratic or Republicans has understood that the threat to reform in Russia is a virulent Russian nationalism. It's not a return to Communism, and that we need -- we need to reform NATO in a way that makes it clear that the time will come when we will, we will extend membership to Poland, to Hungary, to Czechoslovakia, to other countries in Eastern Europe but not exclude Russia. We shouldn't give Russia a veto on who gets in, but we should make it darned clear to Russia that if she democratizes, if she embraces economic reform and adopts responsible security policies, the day could come when she would be a member as well.

MR. LEHRER: Should the United States make it clear to the people of Russia that, look, you continue down this road, the Zhirinovsky road, and there's going to be another wall go up, and we're going to put it up this time? I mean, should we use some kind of implied threat to them?

SEC. BAKER: No. I don't think that's the answer. What I think the answer is, is to do everything we can do to help the reformers, to see what we can do to strengthen those who remain committed to democratization and to the embrace of free market economics.

MR. LEHRER: But haven't we been already doing that, Mr. Secretary?

SEC. BAKER: We've been doing -- yes, we've been doing it to the extent that we could. And what I'm saying is we should continue to do it, all the while not letting our guard down, but I don't think it would be productive for us to, to somehow beat on our chest and say, look it here, what we're going to do to you if you ever come to power because who knows, that might, that might boomerang on us. That's not the way I think we should handle the problem. I don't think there's any doubt on the minds of the virulent nationalists in Russia, the Zhirinovskys, if you will, where the United States stands and where the West stands. And that's why, quite frequently, he takes off after the West, and the United States is his favorite whipping boy.

MR. LEHRER: What is your faith factor now in Boris Yeltsin? He's the ultimate survivor, the man always seems to be able to overcome everything. Is this one he can overcome too?

SEC. BAKER: Well, I think so, and that's why I say this election was not all negative. There are some positives here. We have a constitution. We have a strong president. We have the possibility that reformers could even become a majority in the parliament. So I don't think it's, it's time for doom and gloom. I think it is time for us to -- for everyone now to understand that, that there is a great possibility of a, of a virulent Russian nationalism becoming much more popular in Russia, and that's all the more reason why it's important to take the steps necessary for reform, take 'em, take the medicine, get it over with, as some other countries have done, and then reap the benefits of it.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for being with us again.

SEC. BAKER: Thank you, Jim. FOCUS - IT'S A DEAL

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight, GATT. Once referred to jokingly as the "General Agreement to Talk and Talk," these talks about trade are on the verge of yielding what President Clinton today called historic results, historic possibly because the 117 GATT nations have tried for seven years to make new rules for the world's trading system or face a breakdown of the structure credited with stimulating growth for nearly half a century. Up against a firm deadline tomorrow, the two most important players, the United States and Europe, said they have worked out the snags in their positions. The U.S. agreed to put aside one big demand concerning American entertainment. The U.S. had objected to quotas and taxes used in France against foreign especially American films and TV shows. For its part, Europe agreed to U.S. demands that it cut subsidies for airplane manufacturing. Another hurdle disappeared when Europe agreed to cut its farm subsidies. The entire group of 117 GATT nations also met a broader goal, to cut most import duties by one-third. The GATT group still has to work out other, last-minute details on issues, including banking, before a final agreement is produced to meet tomorrow night's deadline. Today, President Clinton spoke of the potential of this trade accord to help the global and the American economies.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The stakes are immense. This would be the single, largest trade agreement ever. It writes new rules of the road for world trade well into the next century. It would cut other countries' tariffs for our goods on average by more than one-third, and fully phased in, it could add as much as one hundred to two hundred billion dollars to the United States economy every year. It opens foreign markets to our manufacturing and agricultural products and for the first time covers services. It does all this while preserving our sovereignty and especially our ability to retaliate against unfair foreign trade practices. With NAFTA, our nation chose to take the new world economy head on, to compete and win and not retreat. Our willingness to lead set the pace for other nations of the world. Americans have reason to be proud. We're on the way to making this world change in the way that works for us. I know that all of you join me in wishing our negotiators well and hoping that we can conclude a successful agreement.

MR. MacNeil: Now to four views of GATT's pros and cons. Ronald Sorini is senior vice president for international development for Fruit of the Loom. He was chief textile negotiator at the U.S. Trade Representatives Office in the Bush administration. He joins us from Chicago. Abraham Katz is president of the U.S. Council for International Business which represents many American multinational corporations on global economic issues. Ralph Nader is the consumer advocate, and Laura Tyson chairs President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. Ms. Tyson, in simple terms we can all understand, why is this deal a good deal for Americans?

MS. TYSON: Well, this deal raises whole new sets of market opportunities for U.S. producers, U.S. workers, U.S. farmers. As we said, it basically is going to cut tariffs by at least a third. It is going to bring agricultural subsidies down and bring agriculture into the multilateral rule system. It's going to provide intellectual property protection. A lot of our producers have important patents and copyrights that want protected in order to explore international markets, and this will do that for us. And finally, we get all of these benefits and retain the right to use our own national trading laws against unfair foreign trading practices that are not handled by multilateral rules.

MR. MacNeil: The President says when fully phased in, it could add a hundred to two hundred billion dollars a year to the U.S. economy. How does it do that, and when does that start?

MS. TYSON: Well, that estimate is basically over this agreement will phase in the tariff reductions, will phase in the new rules over a decade. By the end of the decade, most models estimate some gain to the U.S. economy in the range of a hundred to two hundred billion dollars of output. I want to add that that is probably an underestimate because those kinds of estimates do not take into account, for example, the benefit of having improved intellectual property protection. Basically the way output gets added is through expanded export markets, expanded production and employment possibilities to the United States, and the expanded benefits of specialization so that we do what we do best and have market opportunities all around the world to sell our product into.

MR. MacNeil: It sounds big, but compared with the size of the American economy of $4 trillion a year, a hundred to two hundred billion is really quite small, isn't it ten years down the line? It's only about a quarter or a half a percent of the present economy.

MS. TYSON: Well, what I wanted to emphasize again is that is a number which is a, I think, conservative estimate because, for example, it doesn't take into account the intellectual property protection. Besides, I think that we are becoming increasingly a trade-dependent nation. We need to look for where the high wage jobs are. We know that export jobs pay, on average, something like 17 percent more than other jobs in the United States economy. We want to create high-wage jobs for the U.S., and this is the way to do it.

MR. MacNeil: Does that figure of potential growth, is that a net figure taking into account any losses to the U.S. economy?

MS. TYSON: Yes. That is, that is a net figure. Those are the net gains to the U.S. economy from all of this market liberalization, from improved market access around the world.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Sorini, in Chicago, you believe there will be losses, don't you? I mean, your firm took out full page ads today claiming that 2 million U.S. jobs would be threatened. Can you explain how you think they will be threatened.

MR. SORINI: Certainly. Well, first we unilaterally disarmed. We're forcing our market open by allowing other countries to keep their market closed, and that's just patently unfair. I'd ask Ms. Tyson how many textile and apparel jobs did she calculate will be lost as a result of the Uruguay Round. We think there will be at least a million, and we think that the term should have bene more like the NAFTA. We supported NAFTA. We support two-way free trade, when trade is on reciprocal terms. But, as I said, we will open up our market and India and Pakistan, which is our main competition, and they're the ones that really threaten the 2 million jobs, I don't think 2 million jobs will be lost by the way. I think that nearly a million jobs will be lost. But they can shield themselves behind tariffs of 100 percent and ban imports, while we're forced to compete. And we think that's unfair.

MR. MacNeil: Well, aren't they covered under this one-third tariff reduction and -- that GATT calls for?

MR. SORINI: No. That's not what we're being told. We don't know why India and Pakistan were allowed to dictate the terms of this agreement. They are reducing their barriers I think in other areas but they are definitely not doing that in textiles and apparel. And by the way, they also subsidize their production. And it's very hard for us to compete inthe United States with the treasuries of foreign governments. We also think that the transition to freer trade here in the United States -- and it's really one-way free trade -- should have been 15 years rather than 10 years, because there's going to be severe dislocations of jobs, particularly in the South, in states like Georgia and Alabama and North Carolina and South Carolina, and from what we're hearing, people, employers, and employees in those states are furious because they really feel that our negotiators didn't stay at the table and insist on fairness.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Tyson, how do you answer Fruit of the Loom and the textile and apparel manufacturers?

MS. TYSON: I think it's important to emphasize that this agreement does over the course of a decade bring down and eliminate quotas on textile imports into the United States. It does it over a decade. It is, indeed, though a reciprocal agreement. There are tariff reductions that will occur around the world.

MR. SORINI: What we're going to do, is tariffs --

MS. TYSON: It is important --

MR. SORINI: -- be at the end of the agreement --

MR. MacNeil: Just let her finish, Mr. Sorini. I'll come back to you.

MS. TYSON: It is important to emphasize here that in a decade of transition we believe, and we've seen this happening already in the U.S. textile industry, that we have become a more competitive producer. We believe with a decade of transition we can meet the international competition in the absence of quotas. We will still have tariffs in place. We will have a more competitive textile industry, and we believe we'll simply move to higher wage, higher value-added components of the textile industry. This is not the end of the American textile industry. This is another way for the American textile industry to have more access to foreign markets all around the world. Remember, we went into this to get improved opportunities in all countries around the world. And that's what the elimination of the quota system will mean for us.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Sorini.

MR. SORINI: Well, as I said, we're prepared to compete. We take the NAFTA and those terms and compete with any country in the world. We're the most competitive apparel company in the United States. Our company has created 17,000 jobs since 1985, since Bill Farley took over this company. And we know that this is one-way free trade, and it's going to be difficult for us to continue to add employment in the United States which we would like to do. But I would ask Ms. Tyson, if it is truly reciprocal free trade, what are the tariffs in India and Pakistan going to be at the end of the 10 years? Because we're told that they can maintain their complete bans on imports. We will phase out our protection, and at the end of the 10 years, we'd unilaterally disarm, no protection here, and they subsidize their cotton growth.

MR. MacNeil: What's the answer, Ms. Tyson?

MS. TYSON: Well, I think the answer is really two-fold. No. 1, the final, the final details on the market access part of the agreement, including individual countries' proposals, is not something which has been completely finalized. The agreement that was announced today was an agreement between Europe and the United States. The final touches on this in terms of what other countries will offer will be made through the next 24 hours.

MR. SORINI: How can you say this is a reciprocal agreement then?

MS. TYSON: The second point is when you judge reciprocity, you look at the -- this is a multilateral agreement. We are looking at market opportunities around the world compared to market opportunities here. We are a net gainer around the world.

MR. MacNeil: Let's move on now. Mr. Katz, I know you support this agreement, as you understand it so far. But do you think a lot of American jobs will be lost as well as gained through GATT?

MR. KATZ: I don't believe a lot of American jobs will be lost, and I'm not entirely sure that they'll be lost even in the apparel industry. I just might add to what Laura Tyson said, we really do not know what other countries are offering until we see the final schedule. I just heard this afternoon before coming here that Pakistan did make an offer. I believe in the textile area. We're waiting for India to make an offer. But all of those details will only be clear tomorrow. The real reciprocity in this whole area has been across sectors. We cannot think of this as a sector by sector negotiation. We gained a great deal in other sectors in the subcontinent as well, including as Laura Tyson mentioned, in the area of intellectual property.

MR. MacNeil: So in other words, some American industries will stand to gain handsomely and others will stand to lose, is that - -

MR. KATZ: I believe this is a win-win situation for most of American business. There may be some areas where there will be a loss of protection, not necessarily a loss of jobs, and it's going to be hard to measure. I believe it's going to be minimum. But when you stop and think of the gain in confidence that this agreement is going to give to the whole world economy, the boost that it's going to give to Europe and other parts of the world which are our major export markets, that this will be a very -- this will pay off very early in the game. We don't have to wait for 10 years for the payoff. There'll be a payoff probably in the next few months.

MR. MacNeil: Ralph Nader, how do you see, on balance, the gains and losses for Americans in this?

MR. NADER: Well, this is an international trade agreement that violates two principles; one is it diminishes democracy in our country and expands autocratic power over our country. A trade agreement should reduce barriers and enhance competition and allow people to participate as consumers, as workers in open tribunals and open and reviewable forums of decision making. What this revised GATT does, it sets up international tribunals that are completely secret. Foreign countries can challenge our health safety and workplace conditions because our standards tend to be higher than most countries, accuse our country's standards, that's local, state, and federal standards like motor vehicle standards, safety emission controls, fuel efficiency, food safety, et cetera, say that these standards are too strong, and they are disguised, or non-tariffs trade barriers violating the GATT Agreement. This challenge goes to an international tribunal where three faceless bureaucrats in Geneva decide who's right, the United States' standards or the foreign countries' challenges. And if we lose, we either have to pay perpetual trade fines, or we have to conform, i.e., weaken or repeal our, our safety, health, and workplace standards. Now, this is intolerable. Not only is it intolerable, but we have a, a multilateral trading organization set up, a global trading agency under the new GATT that has extraordinary powers that American citizens cannot participate, citizen groups cannot participate, state governments cannot participate, and only the federal government can participate, and everything it submits is totally secret, and none of the decisions of these tribunals are reviewable in our court.

MR. MacNeil: Let's get -- you've said quite a lot there -- let's go back to Ms. Tyson. First of all, on the question he raises of whether the United States would have to lower some of its consumer protection standards or be considered in violation of GATT.

MS. TYSON: I think that is simply incorrect. It is very clear - - the Consumer Union itself has made this point -- that this agreement will allow us to enforce and maintain our own standards even when they're higher than the rest of the world, and frankly, they usually are higher, and they're usually based on scientific merit. And the point is, the reason we want this agreement is because the rest of the world oftentimes uses standards based on no scientific merit at all to keep our products out. A good example of this, apples in Japan. Japan has no reason not to import our apples. They basically say something about maybe there's a pest problem and don't import it. We have standards which at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level, all of them supported by scientific evidence, these are standards we can continue to enforce even though in many cases they are higher than other countries' standards.

MR. MacNeil: Let's go back to Mr. Nader on that one.

MR. NADER: Well, I just totally disagree.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Nader --

MR. NADER: Let me give you an example.

MR. MacNeil: Yes. Give an example.

MR. NADER: Under the old GATT, which doesn't have anywhere near the interference powers into our sovereignty that the new GATT has, the European Economic Community prodded by Mercedes is taking our federal fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles and our gas guzzler tax to an international tribunal this very week in Geneva accusing our standards as having a discriminatory impact on Mercedes cars, therefore, violating GATT. The international food standards are -- under GATT are weaker than ours. They allow dangerous pesticide residues in these food standards that we do not allow, like DDT and algran. The problem with these economists, to be very forthright about this, is that most of them have never read the governance part of these agreements, whether NAFTA or GATT -- GATT is a form of international governance. It takes power from citizens and from local state and federal agencies and puts them in the hands of these international tribunals and the MTO, the Multilateral Trading Organization. Now you might say well, Pakistan, Mexico, they don't have much clout against the U.S. They're going to pull our standards downward under the harmonization procedures. Here's how it works. There'll be corporate law firms in this country representing pesticide manufacturers who would like to see our standards weakened. They get in touch with a country that's shipping food into our country that doesn't meet our standards. They encourage them to challenge our standards before these secret tribunals, and citizens and citizen groups cannot participate. The decision is essentially final and not reviewable in our courts. That is autocracy over democracy. And Mr. Clinton is buying a major controversy in Congress next year on this.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Tyson first.

MS. TYSON: Well, I guess I would say that would all be very disturbing if it were true. It's simply not true. Again, I want to point out this issue of standards. There is no -- there are no GATT standards here. The issue is there is going to be the right for the U.S. to enforce its higher standards. As I said, even the Consumers Union has pointed this out. I really think that perhaps Mr. Nader is looking at an old version of the agreement. This administration went further. We took what we inherited from the Dunkel tax and from the Bush administration. We are committed to the environment.

MR. SORINI: And made it worse.

MS. TYSON: We are committed to the environment, and we made it better. We did not make it worse. We've made it better. We made sure that we could enforce our own standard, and we made sure that we would get thorough this multilateral agreement the ability to, to address unfair trading practices abroad that come in the form of scientific -- of standards of protection with no scientific basis. That's the world we live in.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Sorini.

MR. SORINI: Well, first of all, this agreement was supposed to open all markets for all segments of the economy and didn't do that. So we're not given a chance to compete. But back to what Mr. Nader said, he's absolutely right. I've been there. I was a negotiator in the Bush administration. I've seen the tribunal procedures at the GATT, and they're arcane. They can be horrendous, and they're going to be worse under this agreement. I don't think there's any debating that.

MR. MacNeil: What do you think about that, Mr. Katz?

MR. KATZ: Well, I think Mr. Nader would like to live in a world in which the United States is completely isolated because all treaties in one way or another effect our sovereignty. I mean, that is a -- a voluntary exchange of sovereignty. You give up your right to do something for the general good or for your own good or for reciprocal benefits. In this case, the GATT has administrative tribunals, as you say, GATT panels. But their results are clear and nobody, no GATT panel can force the Congress of the United States to change its laws or to force the United States Government to change its regulation. That's simply not true.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Nader.

MR. NADER: Any trade agreement involves giving up sovereignty. Obviously, it doesn't involve giving up democracy. It doesn't involve substituting our traditional jurisprudential standards of openness, public participation, review, and accountable courts to these closed panels and bureaucracies. Laura Tyson mentioned Consumers Union. She must be thinking Consumers Union on NAFTA. There are hundreds --

MS. TYSON: No --

MR. NADER: There are hundreds of citizen groups, part of the citizen trade campaign which are people are joining in droves, because they are concerned about losing control further from their local, state, and federal governments to the foreign, international tribunals which are not accountable to any open world trade court, are not accountable to our courts --

MR. MacNeil: Well, let's --

MR. NADER: -- and which -- and which can place incredible pressures on Congress and state legislatures to change these rules or be exposed to trade finds perpetually.

MR. MacNeil: I don't think we can resolve that point. Can we just move on. Mr. Sorini, as you said, you were a former negotiator -- looking at it in the broad picture, what kind of deal do you think the Clinton administration negotiators got for the United States, not just in your industry but broadly?

MR. SORINI: Sure. Well, in all fairness, obviously, I'd like to see the details of the agreement but I'd point out, No. 1, we made further concessions in agriculture, the Blair House agreement that Carla Hills worked so hard in achieving has been weakened. In the case of rice in Japan, people are doing cartwheels because Japan will go from a 4 percent import market share in rice to 8 percent over seven years. In our industry, apparel, we had a 40 percent market share now and we'll be at 80 percent at the end of the transition which, as I said, will result in the loss of 2 million jobs. So from what I know at this stage I think clearly the agreement was had because we made concessions not because we forced our trading partners to make concessions. This is the type of agreement that might have been concluded during the Cold War when the United States felt they had to prop up economies overseas, and you could make unilateral concessions. But we can no longer afford that, and we shouldn't have done this in this case. We should have sat at the table and forced our trading partners to make more concessions.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Tyson, we made too many concessions?

MS. TYSON: Well, I really think came out with a tremendous victory here. First, let me just -- a point of fact. On the Blair House agreement, we end up at the end of six years exactly where the Bush administration Blair House agreement ended up. So we have made no concessions here. We end up getting agriculture for the first time on the table in the multilateral system, a reduction in export subsidies, which would mean a tremendous amount of export opportunities for our farming community which supports the agreement. So this was a win for us. It was a win for us because we fought hard to keep the right to use our national trading laws. We have not compromised our dumping laws. We have not compromised our 301 ability to address unfair foreign trading practices as long as they are not covered by the multilateral system. We, on the issue of the environment incident, incidentally, and on the standards issue that Mr. Nader was talking about, we fought hard for greater transparency, so the briefs in these cases will be made available so that they will be available for citizens to look at the cases and what they include. We made tremendous victory here.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Thank you, Ms. Tyson. We have to end it there, and gentlemen, thank you. Jim. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, U.S. and European negotiators, as we just heard, cleared the way for the GATT Trade Agreement by setting aside their disputes over entertainment products and the latest election results from Russia showed pro-Yeltsin reformers running a distant second to anti- reform nationalists. President Clinton called it a protest vote because of tough economic times there. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.