The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. In the headlines today an agreement between King Hussein and Yasir Arafat drew qualified support from the United States. There was official confirmation Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko really is sick. The current government is leading in a record turnout vote in South Korea, and the value of the U.S. dollar hit more records against the major currencies of Europe. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: On tonight's NewsHour, after the news summary, part two of our exclusive interview with Fidel Castro, who rebuts U.S. charges that Cuba's political system violates human rights. Then Charlayne Hunter-Gault examines the controversial television movie about murdered and missing children in Atlanta, which has touched old wounds and opened new ones.News Summary

LEHRER: The United States today officially welcomed the new Middle East initiative by Jordan and the PLO, but with caution. White House spokesman Larry Speakes said any declared intention to pursue peace is a constructive step. Yesterday King Hussein of Jordan and Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, announced an agreement on a framework for pursuing peace in the Middle East. No details were announced, though. Speakes said any negotiations must involve Israel directly and be in accordance with U.N. Resolution 242, which means Israel's security must be maintained. Speakes declined to say whether the Hussein-Arafat deal was discussed this morning at the White House by President Reagan and King Faud of Saudi Arabia. The two leaders talked over breakfast for 75 minutes. Secretary of State Shultz and National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane were also present. The King is here on a week's official visit.

While the talk about peace went on here and elsewhere, in the Middle East itself there was more death today. United Nations spokesmen in Beirut said Israeli army forces stormed a village in southern Lebanon. The troops blew up two houses and arrested 19 men. The U.N. said one person died and four others were wounded in the actions reportedly aimed at retaliating for a guerrilla attack Sunday in which three Israeli soldiers died.

Robin?

MacNEIL: In Moscow Soviet officials confirmed today that President Konstantin Chernenko is ill, but they did not say what the illness is. Chernenko is 73 years old and is said to be suffering from emphysema. He's not been seen in public for nearly seven weeks. But Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, the man on the left side of the screen, was scheduled to meet Chernenko in the Kremlin today. The meeting was cancelled at the last minute, and other Soviet officials received Papandreou and gave him an honorary medal.

President Reagan today urged the 40-nation Geneva Disarmament Conference to reach agreement on banning chemical weapons. The President's message was read to the conference by Kenneth Adelman, head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. The President urged passage of a draft treaty put forward by the U.S. last year, and said the session opened at a moment of opportunity in which the American people looked for real achievement in arms control.

LEHRER: The voters of South Korea turned out in record numbers, and early returns today show the present government of President Chun Doo Hwan retaining control by a sizeable margin. The new opposition party of returned dissident Kim Dae Jung was running second, a stronger showing than expected; 84.2% of the country's eligible votersl of 439 candidates are running for 184 seats to be filled by direct vote. A final 92 seats will be distributed in proportion to the number of seats each party wins in the direct voting. The final results are not likely to be known until tomorrow.

MacNEIL: The U.S. dollar broke new records again today on world currency markets. For the first time the dollar drove the pound sterling below the $1.09 mark, and in Paris for the first time the dollar was fixed above 10 francs. Against the West German mark, the dollar rose above 3.30 marks for the first time in 13 years. It also set new records against the Spanish peseta, the Italian lira and the Australian dollar.

LEHRER: And finally, in other news, Union Carbide said today it will resume production of the chemical which caused more than 2,000 deaths in Bhopal, India. The chemical will be produced at the company's Institute, West Virginia, plant. In a statement Union Carbide said it would restart production in April after it finishes its own study of the Bhopal accident. Conversation with Castro: Part II

MacNEIL: Tonight we have part two of our newsmaker interview with Cuban President Fidel Castro. It is the first major American television interview Castro has given in six years. It was recorded last weekend in Havana. Last week, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that one of the obstacles the Reagan administration sees to improved relations with Castro is what Speakes called violations of human rights in Cuba. I asked Castro about that.

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: Which are the violations of human rights in Cuba? Tell me, which? Invent one. Do we have disappeared people here? Look, if the United States --

MacNEIL: Well, let me give you -- you asked, an example of what he said. For instance, human rights organizations, like Amnesty International, estimate that you have up to 1,000 political prisoners still in your jails here. Do you have political prisoners still in jail in Cuba?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: Yes, we have them. We have a few hundreds political prisoners. Is that a violation of human rights?

MacNEIL: In democracies it is considered a violation of human rights to imprison somebody for his political beliefs.

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: I will give you an example. In Spain there are many Basque nationalists in prison. They're not political prisoners. What are they? Because you also have to analyze what is a political prisoner and what is not a political prisoner. Now then, those that committed crimes during Batista's time, did we have the right to put them to trial or not? Okay. Those that invaded Cuba through Playa Giron. Did we have the right to try them or not? Those that became CIA agents, those that placed bombs, those that brought about the deaths of peasants, workers, teachers. Do we have the right to put them into court or not? Those who, in agreement with a foreign power like the United States and backed by the United States and inspired by the United States, conspired in our country and struggles and fights against our people in this revolution, because this revolution is not of a minority; this is a revolution of the overwhelming majority of the people. What are these people? What are they? Political prisoners? Those that have infiltrated through our coasts, those that have been trained by the CIA to kill, to place bombs. Do we have the right to put them to trial or not? Are they political prisoners? They're something more than political prisoners. They're traitors to the homeland.

MacNEIL: Is there anybody in jail simply because his political beliefs are -- he dissents from you politically?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: No one. Not because of political beliefs, nor because of religious beliefs that are in prison.

MacNEIL: After Jesse Jackson came here last summer you released 26 political prisoners. Are you going to release more of the kinds you were describing a moment ago?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: Of course we cannot be willing to release them. It's a bit under 200, actually, in that situation. These are people who are potentially dangerous. We are not going to release them and send them to the United States for them to organize plans against Cuba, or for them to go to Nicaragua or Honduras or Central America as mercenaries, or [unintelligible] or any country to prepare attacks so that when I visit these countries, as they have done on other occasions, organizing a true human hunt. That's the psychology instilled in them by the CIA and the U.S. authorities.

MacNEIL: The other human rights question that is raised by the United States is that you don't have a free press. Your revolution is now 26 years old, it's very stable. In your recent speeches you've told of how successful it is. Why wouldn't you feel confident about allowing a press to have a full expression of ideas and discussion and opposition?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: Well, you are right. We do not have a press system like that of the United States. In the United States there is private property over the mass media. The mass media belong to private enterprises. They are the ones who say the last word. Here there is no private property over the mass media. There is social property. And it has been, is and will be at the service of the revolution. Here we do not have any multi-party system either, nor do we need it. The political level of our people, the information level of our people is much greater. In surveys that have been made in the United States an astonishing high number of people do not know where Nicaragua is, where the countries of Latin America are. They don't know what countries belong to Africa, what countries belong to Asia. There is an incredible ignorance, astonishing. That does not happen here. Your system might be wonderful, but at least the results of ours are better undoubtedly.

MacNEIL: May I raise a point? Your system, which you say works very well, it does presuppose that the leadership of the country -- you -- are always right, that you are infallible. Is that not so?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: No, it does not presuppose that because we are not as dogmatic as the Church, although we have been dogmatic, and we have never preached cult of personality. You will not see a statue of me anywhere, nor a school with my name, nor a street, nor a little town, nor any type ofpersonality cult because we have not taught our people to believe, but to think, to reason out. We have a people that think, that is not a people that believe, but rather that reason out, that think. And they might either agree or disagree with me. In general the overwhelming majority have agreed, have been in agreement. Why? Because we have always been honest, we have always told them the truth. This people know that from the government a lie has never been told to them. And I ask you to go to the world, tour the world and go to the United States and ask if they can say what I can say, that I have never told a lie to the people. And these are the reasons why there is confidence. Not because I have become a statue or an idol but rather simply because of the fact that they trust me. And I have very, very few prerogatives in this country. I do not appoint ministers nor vice-ministers nor directors of ministries nor ambassadors. I don't appoint anybody, and that's the way it is. We have a system, a system for the selection of the cadre based on their capacity, etc. I have less power, 100 times less power than the president of the United States, who can even declare war and nuclear war.

MacNEIL: But doesn't the system mean that the revolution is always right?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: You, when you made your independence war you did not even free the slaves and said you were a democratic country. You, for 150 years, did not even allow the black man to participate, to be part of a baseball team or a basketball team, to enter a club, to go to a white children's school. And you said it was a democracy. None of those things exist here -- neither racial discrimination nor discrimination due to sex. It is the most fair, egalitarian society there has ever been in this hemisphere. So we consider that it is superior to yours. But you believe that yours is the best without any discussions whatsoever. Although there might be multimillionaires and people barefooted begging in the streets, without any homes, people unemployed. And you believe it's perfect, because you believe things, things that I don't think that type of society is perfect, really. I think that ours is better. We have defended it better. A more just society, we believe in it. Now, we make a mistake, but whenever we make a mistake we have the courage to explain it. We have the courage to admit it, to recognize it, to acknowledge it, to criticize it. I believe that very few -- that there might be few people like the leaders of a revolution who are able to acknowledge their mistakes. And I first of all acknowledge it before myself because I am first of all more critical with myself than with anybody else. But I'm critical before my people, critical before the world, the U.S., everybody. Far from -- but don't worry. If this analysis had not been correct, the revolution would not be in power. The revolution would not be in power.

MacNEIL: How do you measure that? How do you, as the leader of this country, know that for so sure when you don't have the vehicles for public expression and open discussion of issues that the democracies have, for example? How do you know that the people feel that way?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: We have a party with almost half a million members. They're everywhere, in every factory. We know more than the United States about the things that happen there.

MacNEIL: But isn't the dynamic of a one-party state that the instruction and information goes downwards, and if people disagree with it, they don't dare say so? And so dissent which may exist doesn't come back up the system.

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: Actually, we know what there is, and we know the way our people think much better than what the president of the United States knows about the way the U.S. people think. You should have no doubt whatsoever about that. We have many ways of knowing this. Facts prove it. Let's suppose that people might not agree with the revolution. How could we have millions of people organized to defend the country? Could we have a non-people? Tell the South Africans, the South African friends that they give the weapons to the blacks in South Africa. Tell your friend Pinochet to give the weapons to the people of Chile. Tell your friends in Paraguay or Haiti to give the weapons to the masses, to the people. Tell many of the friends that you have in the world -- you speak of democracy. The first and most important form of democracy is for the citizens to feel part of power and part of the state. And how do we prove this? We have an armed people, men and women, millions of people. If they would not be in agreement with the government they could solve things rapidly. We would not be able to stay in power for 24 minutes. Do you want more proof of that?

MacNEIL: I have seen it reported that increasingly Cuban troops are refusing to go for service in Angola, that the families of troops who have been there are getting more and more unhappy over the Angolan experience. Is that true that you're feeling public pressure to end this?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: For revolutionaries to fulfill an international mission is something that is considered a great honor and that should not make anyone feel strange about it when people have motivation and when people have ideals. Of course that implies sacrifices. It implies sacrifices from families as they separate from their relatives for a certain period of time. In some cases it means risks undoubtedly. It means sacrifices. But our people can carry on these missions because they are prepared to do so.

MacNEIL: How many have been killed in Angola?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: That question has already been asked by a journalist, and I told them I was not going to answer the question because our rule has been that we would not publish the number, that the enemy should not have that information. And we are maintaining it secret. Some day all of that might be published. The family knows when there is a loss. They are informed about it immediately --

MacNEIL: But isn't it a matter of public interest and the concern of the Cuban public as a whole, the cost in lives of your activity in Angola?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: No, no. They know well that this is a policy that is followed and that it is a correct one. Because we base ourselves on the confidence and the support of the revolutionary policy by the people.

MacNEIL: Tell me an example of a mistake you feel you made and admitted.

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: In politics we have committed few mistakes, fortunately. We have been quite wise. In the decisions we have made in the economic field we made mistakes, and these were mistakes that resulted from our ignorance, because in general revolutionaries have ideas -- very noble ideas, to have education, to have health for all, to have work, to have jobs, to have development. That is, very noble ideas, but very general.

MacNEIL: You said in your speech to the National Assembly, "We do not become capitalists." Do you begin to lean a little capitalist?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: On the contrary, totally the contrary and never -- I'm increasingly happier mentally, spiritually, philosophically of capitalism. Every day I'm more convinced about the advantages of the socialist system over capitalism, more convinced about the fact that capitalist has no future. Well, I say no future on the long-term basis. I am not saying that capitalism will disappear in 10 years. But the present capitalist system is no longer the capitalist system of the past century.

MacNEIL: Aren't you allowing creeping private enterprise to permit free markets where vegetables and food and things can be sold by the people who -- to open new supermarkets where goods, consumer goods which are otherwise scarce are priced at full market prices and not at supported prices. Is this not creeping private enterprise?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: When you asked about mistakes, I said that in politics we had -- but you did not allow me to continue, because you asked me other things. But that item was not dealt with. In the development of the economy, where at the beginning we did not have any experience, and where we even had an attitude of certain disregard for the experiences of other socialist countries -- actually we were a bit self-sufficient. Actually, this is something that has happened to many revolutionaries. At times they believe that they know more than the rest. In the economic field we made mistakes, which we call idealistic mistakes. In essence these were of wanting to jump over historic stages in trying to get to a more egalitarian society, even more egalitarian. We had gotten to the point of distributing almost to -- depending on the needs of the people, not according to their work, the amount and quality of their work. When we came to the point of understanding that that had negative effects, that our society was not yet a society with the necessary communist culture and consciousness, we rectified this. But it's not that we are leaning to capitalism. The more I analyze today's world, Third World, even the problems of the industrialized countries, unemployment has not been been touched. In Europe unemployment is growing yearly. And you can plan and they can plan how many unemployed they can have in 1990 and the year 2000. The deeper I think and the deeper I meditate, the least capitalist I feel.

MacNEIL: Can we move to defense? In the last year or so you have greatly increased, as you've said, your military capacity. You said on January 2nd you've increased your weapons, the number of weapons by three times. You have roughly a quarter of a million men on active duty, 190,000 reserves, a million people as militia, 190,000 -- my question is why does Cuba need this very large armed force?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: Of course I will rectify something. Armed forces and reserves are more than half a million; militia, territorial troops, over one million. We have tripled the number of weapons, but we have multiplied many times our resistance capability by changing the conception. In the past the conception was the army and the reserve are the ones to defend the country. The conception today is all of the people today defend the country, in every corner, in every city, in the countryside, in mountains. And they're actually organized. The idea is that every citizen in this country is armed.

MacNEIL: Is this a lesson from Grenada?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: Well, no, no. After Grenada we intensified it. Not only us. The Nicaraguans also. The Grenada thing did not weaken us; itactually made us feel stronger and multiplied our determination and our will and our readiness to become stronger and fight. You ask why so many weapons? The United States, our adversary, being such a powerful country, the country that harasses us, the country that blockades us, the country that threatens us by invading us -- to invasion, they don't understand why we make these efforts. The country that is investing in peace -- $313 billion, one third of the budget, taking that away from ill people, from aged. We don't do that. At least we don't do that. And they don't understand that us, being neighbors of the United States and feeling threatened by facts and the words of the United States, that we make an effort to defend ourselves. Actually do we have to explain that?

MacNEIL: You had an invasion scare last fall, last autumn. You had exercises, you had people including children digging air raid trenches. Are you relaxed now? Have you now not fearing an American invasion?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: Look, we were relaxed, we are relaxed and we will always be relaxed. We have been for 26 years relaxed. That's one thing. Another. The measures we have taken to defend ourselves -- we are not going to wait for a government of the United States to decide to attack the country for us to then start preparing ourselves. We have prepared ourselves. We are preparing ourselves, and we will continue preparing ourselves. Always. So hypothetically if the United States were to become, let's say, well, not a socialist country, let's say a Marxist-Leninist country and more communist than the USSR and China, we here next to the United States would not disregard our defenses. It is a philosophical principle. If one day --

MacNEIL: So one of your motives -- excuse me interrupting. So one of your motives for seeking or suggesting improved relations with the United States is not so that you can relax your military investment?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: No, I don't think so. I think that we would continue doing what we're doing, preparing the defense of the country, preparing the people. I believe that the only advantage for us, as for any other country, is simply peace. The day when the nations prove that respect for the independence of other countries exist and that there is real peace, when the others give up their weapons and the United States gives up its weapons, we will give up our weapons. In any case, we could box, we could play baseball, basketball, track and field, Roman-Greek wrestling, what have you.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you to turn your mind back. You've said many times and in some of your speeches recently that your revolution, by your definitions, has many successes -- in medical care, in literacy, in infant mortality. By those definitions your revolution is a success. In what way does it disappoint you?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: Do you ask if I feel any frustration? No. I have no frustration. I feel no frustration whatsoever. I can tell you this directly. We have done more than what we dreamed of doing. Many of the things we're doing now -- we had some general ideas but not as precise and complete as we have now. I can tell you that reality has surpassed our dream in what we have done. And we're not speaking about the future. It is not the same. At the beginning that we spoke of our good intentions but rather we now speak with a revolution that has been made after 26 years. And it has certain advantages, not to speak of things that we are intending to do but rather to speak of things thathave been done.

MacNEIL: Finally let me ask you a couple of personal questions, if I may. Do you want to go on being the president of Cuba until you die?

Pres. CASTRO [through interpreter]: It depends on how many years I live. If I'm told that I can be now, I would say yes, I think I can be. If I could not do my job because of the experience I have now, I would also tell you that. I think that I am useful; I don't think I am indispensable. Nothing opposes my philosophy more than that. I believe we have done a lasting work that goes beyond us, beyond all of us. And if it were not so, why have we worked so much? If it were not so, we would have failed. But our work is not a work of stones. It is not of materials but of consciousness, of moral values, and that is lasting. Either being president or not being president I am fully hopeful that the others will be better, and the sooner a new generation that is better than us comes, a more capable one, to replace us, the better. If we live three, four, five years, maybe 10, I don't know. But the day when I do not feel really, because of my physical capabilities or mental capabilities, that I could fulfill my duty and do my work, I will be the first to say it. If I live many years, you can be sure that I will not die as the president of this country. The first that would not want that, for sure, it's me. If I want my mind to maintain itself clear and illuminated, just precisely to come to that very minute, to that very minute in which I'm able to notice that I have already done my work and that others can do it. So if I tell you now that I will resign -- I a soldier of the revolution, and I think I can still struggle, but I have no personal affection for honors and power or force, or the force in power. You have a president that is older, maybe at that age I do not have the physical or mental capabilities to do my work.

MacNEIL: Tomorrow night Fidel Castro predicts violent political explosions in Latin America, and we have an official U.S. response from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kenneth Dam. Touching Old Wounds

LEHRER: We move our focus now to a television movie called "The Atlanta Child Murders." The second and final part airs tonight on CBS. The movie is based on the real-life murders of 29 children in Atlanta and some of the real-life people involved do not like what the movie does to that story. Charlayne Hunter-Gault covered the original story in 1980 and '81, and she returned to Atlanta for the movie flap followup. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Jim, at issue is the movie's basic premise that Atlanta cared more about its image than the poor black children who were being systematically murdered, and that in the end the man arrested for the killings, Wayne Williams, was railroaded. A meeting last week in New York between Atlanta officials and CBS executives resulted in some minor script changes and a statement to run before each segment to say the film is "Not a documentary but a drama based on certain facts. Some events and characters are fictitious for dramatic purposes." The statement advised that "Certain scenes may be disturbing to young viewers" and urged parental discretion. But the film has touched raw nerves in Atlanta, opened old but as yet unhealed wounds.

[voice-over] The people of Atlanta have not forgotten the cases of some 29 either murdered or missing children. Grim reminders of the dead are painted all over town. But it's the television version of what happened that is now causing the city to relive the agony, the people who run the city and the people who live in the neighborhoods most victimized by the killer. For those closest to the murders, the mothers of the murdered and missing children, the movie has given them new hope as well as a new opportunity to ventilate feelings that they argue have long been ignored.

FANNY SMITH: It's still painful because it's different when you go in your kitchen to cook and you've been cooking for an extra person and then you know they're not there. See, and you get a pain in the heart right there. And then when you're cooking something that the child really liked to eat and they is not there to eat it, that's when you get another pain. So we've been living in pain all these three or four years.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Fanny Smith is the foster mother of Darren Glass, 10 years old at the time of his disappearance in September, 1980, and still missing. Lois Evans' son Alfred was 13 at the time he was found dead in July, 1979; cause of death listed as probable strangulation. The movie raised her expectations.

LOIS EVANS: I thought maybe that we would get some answers from it. We're still left in the dark as to who killed our children.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: What it also did is to raise anew their old charge that the city fathers initially ignored the murders because the children were poor.

ACTRESS, "The Atlanta Child Murders": We got ourselves a black mayor and we got ourselves a black commissioner of public safety, black councilmen. We got everything black from top to bottom. We got everything but protection for our black children.

Ms. SMITH: The city of Atlanta compared them as ghetto chilluns and street hustlers and whatever. Whatever they were doing didn't want death.

Ms. EVANS: From what they are saying about our children it seems like people just want to forget it because they are saying that they're poor, black and lower income. But we like to know what do you have to own before we earn the right to ask for justice?

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Such charges open wounds of city officials, officials like Lee Brown, now police commissioner in Houston, who held the same position in Atlanta at the time of the murders. He denies that there was any double standard of justice.

LEE BROWN, former Atlanta police commissioner: To say that the city was not a caring city is a gross misstatement of what happened during that time. There was a great concern. Mayor Jackson was emotionally involved, and because it impacted him as a person, not just as a mayor. And my own self personally, it was two years of my life where I slept on the average about four hours a night because we worked the case. The other investigators, they felt that they had an obligation because it was upon their shoulders to revenge the death of those children. They had children. I had children.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Commissioner Brown argues that the film not only distorts what actually happened, but that it does so in a racist way.

ACTOR, 3[as police official], "The Atlanta Child Murders": So I imagine you find it a little difficult to take orders from a black man.

ACTOR [voice-over]: There are kids being murdered all over the streets of Atlanta, but they don't matter because the department doesn't make any points if it solves their murders, does it?

ACTOR [police official]: You think you know how to run a department. Some of the best cops this department's ever had have been passed over for promotion by guys that have just become radio operators.

Comm. BROWN: It's portraying something that didn't happen in that context and in that way, and I think there are serious negative racial implications in how they've done that. I've never seen a play or a film or a movie that starts off saying that there is a white mayor, there is a white commissioner, there is a white police chief and there are white children being killed and no one's concerned about it. That's the tone that runs through the movie, that there was a black administration that was not caring when the black children were being killed.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Vern Smith, a reporter for Newsweek who covered the entire case from beginning to end, had this to say.

VERN SMITH, Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Chief: Based upon the people that I was covering during that period, these people in the film do not in any way reflect them. My frustration with the police and the city was that I couldn't find out everything that I wanted to find out. But I think it really is dishonest to imply that these people, the former mayor, the former police commissioner, were insensitive and unfeeling about what was going on.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Another wound the movie touches is here, in the home of Wayne Williams, the self-styled music promoter convicted in 1982 of the murder of two of the victims. Others were added later, and he is currently serving two consecutive life sentences. His parents persist in their conviction that their son is innocent. Toward that end they welcome the movie.

HOMER WILLIAMS, Wayne Williams' father: As far as the movie is concerned, it might be good for the soul. It might be something that will open the people's eyes. There's no question about that.

ACTOR [as policeman to "Wayne Williams"]: Let's see your identification.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: What Homer Williams wants people's eyes opened to is his contention that his son, now 26, was railroaded, a contention strongly endorsed by the movie.

NARRATOR, "The Atlanta Child Murders": Was this the man who choked the life out of, shot, bludgeoned and drowned 28 human beings? Or was it someone caught in the net of hysteria and the need to bring an end to Atlanta's nightmare?

Mg. WILLIAMS: It not only was a railroad job, but it was a sophisticated railroad job. Definitely so.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Both Williams and the movie support their claim in part by questioning the major pieces of physical evidence presented at the trial -- fibers taken from Williams' home, his car and his dog.

ACTOR: My pieces of lint, as you call them, are a hell of a lot more reliable than an eyewitness.

ACTOR: Trouble is that only him and a few other guys over at the lab know how to read it. I wouldn't want to put some guy in jail for the rest of his life or send him to the chair because of a few threads of cloth that I can't match myself.

Comm. BROWN: The newspapers, television, radios, indicated that we had fiber evidence. Immediately after that the pattern of the killings changed. We started finding the bodies in the rivers, the Chattahoochee and South Rivers, with no clothes on. We didn't rely just on our own judgment. The Georgia crime lab reached a certain conclusion. We sent the same evidence to the FBI's crime lab in Washington, D.C. They reached the same conclusion. We then called in some of the best fiber evidence people in the country and from other countries -- Canada, for example -- to come in. They spent a day examining the evidence. They reached the same conclusion and, in fact, indicated after their review of the evidence that it was the most overwhelming case that they'd ever seen of fiber evidence.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: As to Mr. Williams' charge, supported by the film, that Wayne Williams was railroaded --

Comm. BROWN: I pointed out on more than one occasion that if anybody that worked for me ever suggested that we make an arrest in order to just close the cases, I would have fired that person. And I think it's erroneous, again, to depict, as the movie did, that there was a hurry to clear -- I think justice in this instance has run its course. All the safeguards that we have in our justice system have all reached the same conclusion, that Wayne Williams is responsible for the deaths of those people that we have clear cases on.

Mr. SMITH: If a journalist did this, if a journalist took things out of context and put words into people's mouths -- which this is acknowledged that this is what a docudrama does -- I mean, you'd get sued for that. You just can't do it. They're doing it in this picture, and they are saying this is basically the facts. This is what happened. So it's terribly misleading in that respect.

HUNTER-GAULT: To answer that criticism and tell us more about why he made the movie, we turn now to its writer and producer, Abby Mann. He joins us tonight from Los Angeles.

Mr. Mann, why did you choose this form and not a documentary to make your case that Wayne Williams was a scapegoat?

ABBY MANN, writer: Well, because you have to understand that I am a screenwriter and I have to use whatever kind of -- whatever kind of ammunition I can. Now, there are three reasons that I've done this movie, very important reasons that go beyond the guilt or innocence of Wayne Williams. Number one, the use of pattern; that is, uncharged crimes for which the defendant has to defend himself and the prosecution doesn't have to convict. Now, I'm not the only one who thinks that things were done extraordinarily in this case. Justice Smith, on the Georgia Supreme Court, says that the use of pattern in this case stretches beyond all responsibility and he said that the only pattern that all these victims had was that they were dead. Now, there is a wonderful man called Abraham Ordover at Emory University who said that if what was done in the Wayne Williams case was allowed to continue, it would be nothing more nor less than the destruction of our judicial system.

HUNTER-GAULT: But, Mr. Mann --

Mr. MANN: Yes?

HUNTER-GAULT: Go ahead. Make your point.

Mr. MANN: Go ahead.

HUNTER-GAULT: Okay, I was going to say that --

Mr. MANN: The third thing, was that people don't realize that Wayne Williams was convicted of one man of 21 and one man of 28, and 48 hours later all the cases were closed out. Now, there has been a lot of crocodile tears, and I'm glad you had the parents on, because ask those parents whether they think they wanted a trial for their children. What I am fighting for, using the only tools I can, is no more and no less than the destruction of our judicial system. It goes far beyond the guilt or innocence of Wayne Williams.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, but you --

Mr. MANN: That's why I've done it.

HUNTER-GAULT: Excuse me. You heard Commissioner Lee Brown say in the tape piece that all of the safeguards in the justice system supported the evidence, supported the conviction of Wayne Williams. I mean, are all of these safeguards wrong and you are the --

Mr. MANN: Well, let me tell you. Let me just tell you one thing. Let's go to the harshest critic of this, I think, is the chief architect of the prosecution. Now, at that time he was working for the prosecution, but let's see what he just said lately. His name is Gordon Miller, and what he has said -- he said reliance on the fiber evidence was an unusual approach dictated by community outrage and the growing death toll. He said --

HUNTER-GAULT: Excuse me, but the FBI --

Mr. MANN: Well, I'm just --

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let me just say that I understand where you're going with that, but again, in the film, in the tape that we did, the man who was in charge of that investigation says that the FBI, experts from all over the country said it was the best case of fiber evidence they had ever seen.

Mr. MANN: Well, all I can tell you is that at Harvard Alan Dershowitz, a very important man at the Harvard Law School -- and, incidentally, I want to challenge tonight every member of the prosecution to come to Harvard or Yale or Princeton to discuss these issues. All these things are platitudes that Lee Brown is talking about.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right --

Mr. MANN: As a matter of fact, when Lee Brown took the stand on the trial, he didn't even know where the Chattahoochee River was.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, we'll come back, Mr. Mann.

LEHRER: Officials in Atlanta have strongly criticized the movie, none more so than the mayor of Atlanta, Andrew Young, who joins us tonight from Atlanta. Mr. Mayor, what's the harm of this movie?

ANDREW YOUNG, Mayor of Atlanta: Well, I think the harm is that it takes our judicial system and then it raises another court of appeals in CBS. But it allows that court of appeals to write its own case and to make its own evidence up. It's ridiculous to say that Lee Brown doesn't know where the Chattahoochee River is. The Chattahoochee River runs all around Atlanta. You can't go anywhere without crossing the Chattahoochee River. It's ridiculous also to say that there is not overwhelming evidence related to these cases. Now, if there were new evidence, I would be the first to say let's open these cases; let's retry them. But there has been no new evidence, and really what we've done is expose the nation and the nation's children to the kind of horror that we lived through in Atlanta. And without sufficient background and without understanding, and I think it's been quite an abuse of the whole docudrama method of entertainment.

LEHRER: You completely reject Mr. Mann's position that justice was not done in this case?

Mayor YOUNG: Well, all I know is that there were nine blacks and three whites. There were eight women and four men -- or vice versa -- who sat through 9 weeks of trial and who heard all of the evidence. I did not sit through it; Abby Mann did not sit through it. He read the transcript. But there's a difference between reading a transcript and sitting through a trial. The people who sat through the trial, I think, were as sympathetic to Wayne Williams as anybody could possibly be. The judge knew Wayne and knew his parents. This isn't a case of being railroaded. This is really a case of the American judicial system provided a jury of one's peers, and they found him guilty. If on appeal there is something wrong with the transcript or that it should be opened, I would welcome that. We don't want any railroad job.

LEHRER: Is it your position, Mr. Mayor, that Mr. Mann as a screenwriter should not have the right to make this kind of movie and show it on national television?

Mayor YOUNG: Well, I think that, yeah, I guess so. And the reason is that what he's done, in a very complex case where there was no clearcut enemy -- in "Judgment at Nuremberg" there was an enemy. In the [Martin Luther] King film, you could have -- people understood who was right and who was wrong. But what Abby has done is make the city the enemy and take a man who has been convicted of at least two murders and make him the hero. And I think that's a distortion of reality. It's a distortion of any concept of justice in this society, and I think it's an abuse of the power of the media, to take $8 million to spend, you know, five hours abusing the nation with this horror in the guise of entertainment. I think CBS should just be outright ashamed of themselves, and probably Abby, too. So I think Abby probably really believes what he's doing. I just think on this one he's very, very wrong.

LEHRER: Mr. Mann, back to you in Los Angeles. I assume you do believe what you are doing.

Mr. MANN: Andrew -- nobody has greater respect for Andrew Young than I do, but Andy, let me ask you a question. I'd like the real Andy Young to stand up. Aren't you the same Andy Young that said that this country is filled with political prisoners and you had no faith in the judicial system? Why is it that you have faith in -- such blind faith in the judicial system now? I guess that's why Sacco and Vanzetti are living to such a ripe old age now, or the Leo Frank case --

LEHRER: Let him answer the question, Mr. Mann.

Mayor YOUNG: Well, yes. I never said that I had no faith in this judicial system.

Mr. MANN: Well, why did you say that there were political prisoners?

Mayor YOUNG: Well, because I think there are, but Wayne Williams is not one of them.

Mr. MANN: Well, because then you don't have complete faith in the judicial system, do you?

Mayor YOUNG: No, and I think the thing about our judicial system, there is a continual right to appeal. And the one thing you do in the film is you do say that Wayne Williams had good solid defense and he does have the right to appeal.

Mr. MANN: Andrew, honestly, what the defense people feel, they really feel that I have presented the strongest case for the prosecution. I'm thinking of asking CBS to now do "The Defense of Wayne Williams" because I presented the strongest case for the prosecution.

Mayor YOUNG: Well, I don't see how you could say that, Abby, because there's -- just in my cursory knowledge of the case, there was no mention of the fact that Wayne was not arrested that night, and by the time they got a warrant and went to his home, there was evidence that had been burned in the barbecue pit. There were films that had been destroyed, that he immediately went home and began to destroy every shred of possible evidence in his home.

Mr. MANN: Andrew, let me --

Mayor YOUNG: And the fibers were basically what was left. Those were very rare fibers, too, that had been patented, and there was only one company up in Dalton, Georgia, that made a rug fiber that way. And those fibers occurred on some 23 of the bodies.

Mr. MANN: Andrew, just let me say --

Mayor YOUNG: And nobody says that Wayne Williams is guilty of killing 28 or 29 people. They do say that he is guilty and proven guilty of two, and that similar evidence occurred in another 22 cases, and those have been closed simply because of the evidence which was very similar. Now, we could open it up and try him on all 24 of them, but I don't know whether this is going to satisfy the mothers, either. I'm still not satisfied over the investigation in Martin Luther King's death. I know I don't know all the answers. And I know now I'll never know all the answers, because you don't know what goes on in the mind of a crazed killer.

Mr. MANN: Andrew, the Justice George Smith said that the fiber evidence was a sham, it was worthless, yet peopleare saying there's the 150 million-to-one chance that he did it. I mean, it's been discredited. What I want to ask, Andrew, do you think this is fair? Let's debate the issue in Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

LEHRER: Mr. Mann --

Mr. MANN: Why -- I went to Harvard -- why didn't the prosecution come? I am inviting them tonight.

LEHRER: Mr. Mann --

Mr. MANN: Let's do the issues with the prosecution and with the professors at Harvard. I think that's fair.

LEHRER: Mr. Mann, well, let's just finish it here on the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour. A couple points I'd like to ask you, Mr. Mann. Is it your position that the American legal system doesn't work at all and that the whole thing ought to go to Harvard and Yale each time, or is it just this particular case?

Mr. MANN: No, I don't think so, but just as I did in the Marcus Nelson murders, the creation of "Kojak," just as I did in "Judgment at Nuremburg" where President Kennedy told me that the results of that film -- that was a trial too. He said that it helped to elongate the statute of limitations. What was I to do? Watch the erosion of the justice system? "20fi20" reached the same conclusion. The Washington Post said many of the things. I am not in the minority of the legal opinion in this country. The tremendous things were being done.

LEHRER: Mr. --

Mr. MANN: Now, let me just say one more thing.

LEHRER: Let me ask --

Mr. MANN: Andrew --

LEHRER: No, now hold on a minute, Mr. Mann.

Mr. MANN: Go ahead.

LEHRER: Hold on just a minute.

Mr. MANN: Go ahead. Sorry.

LEHRER: I want to put one of the points you just made to the mayor if you don't mind, please, sir. Mr. Mann makes a point. ABC's "20fi20" made some of the same points that he made in his docudrama. There have been other stories about it. Why has the city of Atlanta gotten so upset about this rather than those other earlier ones?

Mayor YOUNG: But they've both done the same thing, and I suggested to Abby that he shouldn't do it, but if he was going to do it, I would hope that he would talk with the prosecution. "20fi20" did the same thing. They came here, they did not talk to the district attorney. They made no effort to contact my office. I assured Abby that I would get the chief of police to cooperate, giving him all of the evidence so that at least he would have all of the facts straight on both sides. I think there may be a story here, but I think the story has been missed, and it's not a story of Wayne Williams' innocence, nor is it a story of the failures in our judicial system. It's what happens in the mind of an extremely promising young man that does not fulfill itself and turns on himself by turning on others who are very similar to him.

LEHRER: Mr. Mann, why did you not seek the information from the prosecution, from the government side?

Mr. MANN: Andrew, the real truth of the matter is --

LEHRER: Hey, I asked you a question, Mr. Mann.

Mr. MANN: Yeah, go ahead.

LEHRER: Okay. Let me ask it again.

Mr. MANN: Go ahead.

LEHRER: Why did you not seek information from the prosecution in this case or from the state?

Mr. MANN: I did. I spent more time with members of the prosecution than I did with the defense. I spent hours and hours with Gordon Miller; I spent hours and hours with Peterson. I went to the district attorney. I tried to meet Andrew Young when I was writing it many times, but he wouldn't respond.

Mayor YOUNG: The district attorney says that he only talked to you once during the trial, at which time he said he could not discuss the case. But he insists, and Mallard insists and Joe Drolet insists that they have had no contact with you since the trial. Lee Brown has had no contact, Chief Redding has had no contact, nor has Commissioner Napper. And I just think that -- I said if you're going to do it, please do it right and really explore this case and come to the bottom of it, and we never really heard from you until, actually, after talking with you, trying to get a copy of the script. I really never got it until it came to our local CBS affiliate.

Mr. MANN: Andrew, I did try to reach you many times.

Mayor YOUNG: Oh, we talked all the time.

Mr. MANN: I did try to reach -- I did try to reach Commissioner Brown, and he said he couldn't talk about it. And, as a matter of fact, I did talk to Slaton after the trial. I have a record that I did after the trial.

LEHRER: All right, Mr. Mann, Mayor Young, thank you both very much. Robin?

MacNEIL: Once again, the main stories of the day. The United States indicated it would give some support to a new Mideast peace plan agreed upon by King Hussein and Yasir Arafat. The Soviet Union confirmed that President Chernenko is ill.

Good night, Jim.

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