The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. In the news this evening major banks lowered their prime interest rates. Wholesale inflation held steady after months of decline. There were food tampering claims in Chicago and New York. The National Football League agreed to put its new drug testing plan to arbitration. We'll have the details of these stories in our news summary coming up. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: After the news summary, a former head of the Food and Drug Administration and a police psychiatrist explore the outbreak of food and medicine tampering. A Department of Transportation official and a critic debate the procedures for transporting hazardous wastes. We have a report from Italy on U.S. tourists staying away. And finally, the story of an oversea solution to a doctor shortage in the Dakotas. News Summary

MacNEIL: Leading banks reduced their prime interest rate from 8.5 to 8% today -- a day after the Federal Reserve Board lowered the discount rate to 6%. The prime is the base rate banks use in loans to preferred business customers, but other interest rates are expected to come down as well. And other banks are expected to follow the lead of Citibank, Chemical, Morgan Guarantee and First National of Chicago, which made the move today.

Also in economic news, wholesale inflation held steady in June, after falling for several months. The wholesale price index showed no change from May. For the first six months of the year, it declined by six and one half percent. Analysts said the latest inflation report was further evidence of the slackness in the economy that prompted the FED to lower the discount rate. Jim?

LEHRER: There are three more tampering stories to report today.General Foods asked the Dominicks Finer Foods grocery chain in the Chicago area to pull Jell-O dry mix products off the shelves. The request followed an anonymous call to the company's national hotline claiming four boxes of chocolate pudding mix at a Dominicks store were poisoned with cyanide. Yesterday a similar call led General Foods to order two other grocery chains in the Midwest -- Kroger and Jewel -- to stop selling sugar-free Jell-O. In New York City, one lot of lemon-lime Slice soda was removed from store shelves following a call to the 911 police emergency number. The caller said cyanide had been put in that lot of Slice. And in Salt Lake City investigators were trying to find the source of some cyanide-laced cocaine that has apparently led to the death of one person and the illness of four others.

MacNEIL: The National Football League agreed today to back off its controversial drug testing plan and submit it to arbitration.In turn, the Players Association, which had asked for a temporary restraining order, agreed not to go to court. The Players Association claimed that Commissioner Pete Rozelle had violated their collective bargaining agreement by trying to make the players undergo two additional and random drug tests a year. In Washington, a member of the NFL executive committee, Don Weiss, and players attorney Joseph Yablonski explained the agreement.

DON WEISS, executive director, NFL: We feel that it's in everyone's best interests to have a prompt and orderly resolution of this matter, and we have agreed to go to arbitration on July 23.

JOSEPH YABLONSKI, NFL players lawyer: This is a complete vindication of the collective bargaining process. We came to this courthouse reluctantly, only after we had warned management that we would do so in the event they agreed to expedited arbitration, and to stay the Rozelle policy during the pendency of that arbitration. The sum and substance of what was agreed upon and what the court just approved is that we will have expedited arbitration. Dates were set. And that the status quo will be maintained during the pendency of that arbitration.

MacNEIL: The two sides said they expect to have the matter settled by September, when the new pro football season begins.

LEHRER: There will be a federal investigation of the way Washington D.C. runs its major prison facility. U.S. attorneys in Washington and suburban Virginia, where the prison is located, said the probe will look at the conduct of district government as well as prison officials. Prisoners seized control of the overcrowded Wharton facility Thursday. They set fire to 13 buildings, destroying four dormitories and forcing the removal of more than 1,000 prisoners to facilities in nearby Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.

There were three military plane crashes in the western part of the country today. An army helicopter crashed in the San Bernadino Mountains near Big Bear Lake, California. Three soldiers were killed, two were injured. And air force plane crashed in the Sequoia National Forest near Bakersfield, California, killing the pilot. And over the desert near Rachel, Nevada, two Norwegian jets collided during war games, but no one was injured. One of the planes landed safely. The pilot of the other parachuted to safety. Also, overseas a U.S. marine helicopter crashed into the sea while on maneuvers off the coast of Japan. Three marines aboard are missing.

MacNEIL: Philadelphia settled with one of its striking municipal unions today, but after eleven days, talks with the garbage men dragged on, and the mountains of garbage grew higher.

[voice-over] -- residents, and they had piled up more than 28,000 tons of trash and garbage during the 11 day strike. The city has opened 15 temporary collection sites where Philadelphians can drop their own bags, and those dumps have accumulated more than 2,000 tons. Now the people who live near the temporary sites have begun to complain about health hazards.

LEHRER: There was American follow up today to the collapse of immigration issue talks between the United States and Cuba. White House and State Department spokesmen used harsh words to describe Cuban demands for access to four clear radio channels in the United States. Bernard Kalb at the State Department said it would have meant taking 100 U.S. radio stations off the air. Larry Speaks at the White House said it was an outrageous demand -- something the U.S. could not do. Kalb said he was uncertain whether immigration subjects were ever raised before the talks broke up over the radio issue.

MacNEIL: In South Africa, the police said they killed four men in a fire fight in Cape Province. The police said they stopped a car, saw four men come out firing guns and throwing a grenade.

And in Washington, Robert Dole, the Senate Majority Leader, told the White House that Congress was becoming increasingly concerned about U.S. policy on South Africa and that it was turning into a civil rights issue in the United States. Dole said Congress wanted to know what results the policy of pressing for change by quiet diplomacy has produced. White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan replied, "I don't buy it that it's becoming a domestic issue."

In Chile, police and soldiers rounded up several thousand people in a section of Santiago that has seen several clashes during protests by opponents of President Pinochet's government. The people were then loaded into trucks and lined up on a soccer field for security checks of their identification papers.

LEHRER: And that's it for the news summary tonight. We look now at the spreading rash of food and medicine tampering, at the problems in transporting hazardous waste, at Italy without American tourists, and at foreign doctors in the Dakotas. The Urge to Tamper

MacNEIL: We return now to the subject of food tampering and the new round of threats that several more products may have been laced with cyanide. As we reported, packages of sugar-free Jell-O and Jell-O chocolate pudding were pulled from shelves in Chicago and Detroit today after telephone callers warned they poisoned seven packages with cyanide. And in New York, one lot of lemon Slice soda -- lemon-lime Slice soda was removed from grocery shelves, following a similar telephone threat. These are, of course, only the latest cases of threatened or real cyanide contamination. Are these threats genuine, and what can be done to stop them? We put these questions first to Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., who headed the Food and Drug Administration during the first case of cyanide contamination of Tylenol capsules in 1982. He's now president of E.M. Pharmaceuticals in New York.

Dr. Hayes, can anything be done that you can think of to stop this wave of tampering?

Dr. ARTHUR HULL HAYES, Jr., former commissioner, FDA: I'm not sure that there is any one answer to what is going on. I think what is important, first of all, is that people know what in fact has happened or has not. For example, with over the counter drugs where this seem to have start most recently several months ago, in the three instances where somebody died, it was evident that the package had been tampered with, and the capsules in one case were altered. They had changed in color. With foods, there have been problems not only with actual tampering but threats of tampering. Now, all of those are different kinds of problems, and there are a number of ways to address it, no one of which or even a combination of them that will resolve the problem forever and prevent its reoccurrence.

MacNEIL: Well, what can you suggest as ways of --

Dr. HAYES: Well, one is education of the public. The public ought to know that when the buy foods in this society, where foods are available, where over the counter drugs are available, that they should look at the product. Look and see whether the seals have been broken, whether the product is discolored or whether its consistency or its smell is not what it ought to be. Mothers do that with milk all the time before they give it to their children, because it might have been in the refrigerator or on the back stoop too long. So education of the public is very important. Also, I think --

MacNEIL: Who should do that?

Dr. HAYES: Well, I think it should be done, as it is, by the Food and Drug Administration. I think it should be done by the industry -- those that manufacture and represent the manufacturers of over the counter drugs, those who manufacture and distribute foods. And quite honestly, I think they have done a very reasonable job. But you never can have too much education in this regard. I think the other point that is important is that people not panic and think that individuals are dying by the scores. In fact, that's not true. Many of these, including some you reported this evening, in fact, are threats. Now, we are a very vulnerable society. You or I could pick up the telephone, call 911 or some other important official number and say, "I have done this.I have tampered with this, or I have put cyanide or strychnine or whatever into something else." Until it's shown that that's not true, the companies or the distributors -- the stores -- feel they have both a moral obligation and concern about legal liability to pull the product.

MacNEIL: Yeah, there's no choice there is it? I mean, you can't --

Dr. HAYES: There isn't, except that the thing snowballs and, unfortunately, there are people who are demented, who are greedy and who are malicious that will capitalize on this panic reaction, this fear reaction, even though it's justified.There's no alternative. And will go and do more of it to extort money, to get back at an employer and the like.

MacNEIL: Okay. We come back to the -- come back to the start. Apart from educating the public to look carefully at the packages before they open them and consume things, what does society do about this?

Dr. HAYES: Well, I think that we should, as we have in the past -- both with drugs and foods -- look for ever safer ways of packaging. And I think that the 1982 experience with cyanide-laced Tylenol showed industry, as well as the American consumer, the Food and Drug Administration, that in fact you can make packaging safer. Not tamper proof -- there's no such thing to the clever mind.But you can make it very much safer than it has been.

MacNEIL: Well, let me interrupt you there. The pharmaceutical industry was a judge -- those parts of it affected were judged very, very responsible when they recalled everything and repackaged with new safety packaging. And to any of us trying to get things open in the middle of the night now, it's very, very hard. But a lot of people were -- and they didn't talk much about it in public -- but were worried at the time that if you made those things safe, it would then encourage people to go on to foods, which were very vulnerable. Now, is that what's happened?

Dr. HAYES: Well, I think a couple of things have happened. First of all, we were concerned about foods in 1982. We didn't talk a lot about it, because we did not want to suggest or tempt. The food industry has also been responsible -- some areas, perhaps, more than others. And they have looked into and developed technologically and now have on the shelves tamper resistant and what is known as tamper evident packaging. That is, you know if somebody has been in it or possibly so. There's a lot more to be done. Foods are a lot more difficult than over the counter drugs. They come in so many different forms -- those in the refrigerated cases, those in bottles, jars, cans, packages, cellophane bags, boxes and the like. So there still is a great more to do. But I think there is no question that drugs are harder, and so the tamperer will go to something else. But, of course, when it comes to a threat, the threat can be against anything.

MacNEIL: But what about -- everyone uses cyanide, or says they're using cyanide. Is Cyanide so easily available that it's no trouble to get it?And should something be done about that?

Dr. HAYES: I think there is no question that one can tighten up the availability of very intensely poisonous materials -- that is, where only a small amount is needed.

MacNEIL: I mean, for instance, you can -- if you want to buy cyanide, as I understand it, you can go into a shop that sells photographic materials and say you want to process some film and buy cyanide.

Dr. HAYES: Well, there are two sides to it. One, there are many other things that can be equally poisonous. So you have to be careful that you don't get the proverbial tiger by the tail and find out that you have now regulated so many products. And also, that there are many very legitimate uses. If you make it terribly difficult to get them, then obviously you have brought a hardship to other people.So that there has to be a balance, and you have to be aware that if you made cyanide very difficult to obtain, the tamperer will find something else. It's just cyanide is the poison, or the tampering poison of the day.

MacNEIL: Okay. We'll come back. Jim?

LEHRER: Some additional perspective from a psychiatrist who specializes in advising police who to look for in tampering cases like these. He is Dr. Bruce Danto, a former police officer himself. He joins us tonight from Los Angeles.

Doctor, who are the people? What kind of people do these things?

Dr. BRUCE DANTO, psychiatrist: Basically, we're talking about two kinds of people. We're talking about the perpretrator or the person who is doing this deed, and then we're talking about the people who are kind of fellow travelers who'd like to be doing the deed. Each of them has a different kind of dynamic.

LEHRER: Well, let's take them one at a time. The perpetrator. You mean somebody who actually not only threatens, but actually poisons a piece of food or some medicine, right?

Dr. DANTO: Yeah, let's call them the poisoner.

LEHRER: All right. Tell me who they are. Who are they?

Dr. DANTO: The poisoner basically is of two types. They may suffer from a severe form of mental illness, like a psychosis, and rationalize or somehow excuse or justify their actions on the basis that they're carrying out some kind of fantastic world mission. It may be that for religious purposes they're doing it. They're cleansing whatever they're cleansing through what they do. They're people who are different from other kinds of killers, because they don't know their victims. And there's a certain excitement. It's a surprise -- like opening up a box of crackerjack. Who's going to be my next victim? It also offers a certain amount of imaginative challenge, because it's creative, and they have to set up a very elaborate way of getting away with what they can get away with.

LEHRER: Now, these are crazy -- these are lunatics, right? These are people who are seriously ill.

Dr. DANTO: Yes, that's correct. That's one type. Then there are obsessive compulsive killers who may want to redress some firing, some injustice. They may have lost a lawsuit against a company. They may have been a disgruntled person. They may have some very strange, even unknown reaction to Jell-O or some other project that they're not aware of. But they feel the need to strike, and they're both people who basically are not boasters. By that, I mean they're very quiet people.They're the kind of people that you would not normally pay any attention to. And when apprehended, the average reaction is, "Oh my God, that guy's so quiet. How could he do something like that?"

LEHRER: You say apprehended. But as the fact of the matter -- as a fact, very few of these people are ever apprehended. Why is that, if it's so clear who they are?

Dr. DANTO: Because they're very secret and because they maintain a level of anonymity about themselves. They don't -- they're not like Albert Fish, for example, who carried on a running dialogue with the police in the newspapers. They're not like Son of Sam.

LEHRER: I'm sorry, who is Albert Fish?

Dr. DANTO: Albert Fish was a man who operated in 1923 who cannibalized and killed children.

LEHRER: I see.

Dr. DANTO: And he really wanted to be caught. And when he was caught by a very diligent Detective Caine, who followed him for seven years, when the death penalty was announced, he jumped up and clapped his hands, because it was the ultimate self-punitive experience that he had been after.

LEHRER: All right, let's go to the second category -- the people who don't actually poison, the copycat types.

Dr. DANTO: Yeah. Well, copycat is really of two types.One copycat is a perpetrator.

LEHRER: Okay.

Dr. DANTO: Somebody else starts the ball rolling and then he kicks it along himself by killing somebody else. The second type is the most common type. He's the threatener. He's the one who gets turned on by the idea of getting as much public notice and notoriety as the killer -- the real poisoner -- but he has the safety of being able to say to himself, "Well, I was only having fun. I wasn't really serious. I didn't really hurt anybody. There's never really been any damage." So he gets a certain amount of fantasy discharge.In other words, he can pretend that he's doing it without having to carry the same responsibility. The tragic part of it is that he scares the nation, he scares a community, and his neurotic quest for recognition carries so much damage in the process that he creates a public health problem, and he excites the community.

LEHRER: And the publicity about what he does, of course, plays right into his hands, correct?

Dr. DANTO: It's very ego gratifying. He eats up every minute of it, because he can walk into a store and say, "You don't even know it, but I'm the guy who is making all these threats."

LEHRER: What about --

Dr. DANTO: "I've got control of you."

LEHRER: What about even discussing it, as we are here, on television?

Dr. DANTO: He loves it, because what we're doing here, basically, is not talking about what needs to be aired publicly -- namely, the kinds of creepy problems, backgrounds, unhappinesses, doubts, perhaps his sexual impotence -- all the areas which have cause him to feel a sense of powerlessness. What he does in essence is like the skyjacker. He pulls off something that makes page one, and he makes himself feel that he's much braver and much stronger than in reality he is.

LEHRER: Finally, doctor, you used the term powerlessness. Is that -- isn't that kind of the feeling that the American public has now toward all of these people -- both categories, all insides and outs?

Dr. DANTO: Sure. That's right. And through his behavior, it in essence -- the message he leaves the community with is as follows: "It is not I who am powerless. You are powerless. And I'm making everyone in this state, these states or this nation powerless." And it helps him feel less frightened of his own lack of power or his own impotence.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Dr. Hayes, from somebody who's been an official on the inside, what do you think of the media publicity that these things obviously attract? We're talking about it tonight.

Dr. HAYES: Well, of course, there's always the problem about informing people so that they will know what's going on and not scaring them or panicking them, and at the same time offering suggestions, temptations, opportunities to the would-be tamperer or he who would threaten tampering. I don't know what the perfect balance is. We didn't in '82, and I don't know now.I think responsible and complete reporting, so the American public knows what's going on -- they know in fact that some tamperers and those who would threaten have been caught and some are even in jail, that there are stiff laws. I think for them to know that the packaging is there and that they should look at the product before they use it --

MacNEIL: Are the -- excuse me. As a former official, did you feel -- do you feel that the laws regarding this kind of -- what you might call domestic terrorism in a way -- are adequate?

Dr. HAYES: I think the laws we have now are quite good. The FBI and the Food and Drug Administration and others pushed for criminal laws against tampering, threatening of tampering and the like. And they, in fact, have been passed. And, indeed, there are some in jail. The famous Jack Gary, who threatened one of the large pharmaceutical firms -- his real name is Marks -- was just indicted last month on 37 counts that if convicted will put him in jail for two and a half centuries.So that there are laws. It's a question of catching the perpetrators and then convicting them.

MacNEIL: Let me ask Dr. Danto, are the laws adequate? Do they work as a disincentive?

Dr. DANTO: I really think so. I think what is necessary is not changes in the law or changes in sentencing. I think what's necessary is to develop a sensitivity in the community to look for these people who basically fit profile types of people who become the poisoners, the letter writers and the unseen assailants who hide behind anonymity in order to damage and kill, as they do.

MacNEIL: What do you think yourself -- you discussed the way the perpetrator or threatener would view the publicity. What do you think of the effects of the publicity.

Dr. DANTO: I've been involved in several large investigations, and I've worked very closely with the media at times where community hysteria was an inevitable consequence of publicity. I'm thinking now of the Oakland County child killer investigation and the investigation in Atlanta, Georgia. I find that you really have to take a look at the priorities and the benefits. Of course, hysteria is an inevitable consequence of mass publicity. On the other hand, I don't know of any other way -- more effective way -- of promoting or generating tip information. So you have to take a look at what good comes out of it, and also the fact, as the other gentleman mentioned, ways of trying to educate the public to avoid the tragedy of consuming a tampered product.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you Dr. Danto and Dr. Hayes. Dangerous Cargo

MacNEIL: In Miamisburg, Ohio, a tank-load of toxic chemicals continued to burn today, four days after a railroad accident poured a cloud of poisonous phosphorous into the air. In all, as many as 40,000 people were forced to flee their homes.And though many were allowed to return yesterday, one official called it the largest evacuation ever involving a railroad accident. But it was by no means the first time this kind of accident has occurred.

[voice-over] A month ago, in San Antonio, Texas, a bridge collapsed under the weight of an 80 car freight train carrying toxic chemicals. Five cars caught fire, triggering an explosion that injured five people. Two thousand nearby residents were evacuated. That same day, two other trains derailed -- one in Utah, the other in Massachusetts.

Each year, trains, trucks and ships carry some 1 billion tons of hazardous cargo. In 1984, the Department of Transportation reported there were 5,512 accidents involving hazardous waste shipments. That's down from 9,000 accidents in 1981. But when such accidents occur, the consequences can be dire. In the last five years, it's estimated that more than 60 people have died as the result of hazardous cargo being transported.

One of the more disastrous accidents occurred in February 1978, in Waverly, Tennessee. A propane tank car exploded, leaving 16 people dead and a small town devastated for blocks around. April 1980, Somerville, Massachusetts, 7,000 residents were forced to flee when toxic fumes leaked from a ruptured tank car. Four hundred twenty-two people sought medical treatment. April 1983, Denver, Colorado, a tank car accident on a switching yard sent a deadly plume of nitric acid over the city. Some 2,000 people were evacuated while firefighters worked for six hours to contain the spill. Eight people suffered minor injuries. August 198j, a truck carrying torpedoes for the Defense Department overturned on a Denver freeway. It closed down the city's highways for more than nine hours. Although there were no injuries, it took local authorities several hours to get through to the Defense Department to find out how to handle the problem. August 1985, another truck, carrying bombs for the Defense Department, was in an accident near Chikota, Oklahoma. Forty-seven people were injured, and 6,000 residents evacuated. Seven of the bombs eventually detonated, leaving a crater 35 feet wide and 27 feet deep.

Although the accident rates for both trucks and trains have been going down, critics are concerned by the fact that over the last few years the number of federal inspectors for hazardous waste carriers has declined by half. At the same time, hazardous waste shipments continue to climb every year.

[on camera] This week's accident in Ohio has only fueled the debate over the safety of transporting hazardous cargo. Judy Woodruff has more on the story. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: The question raised by this week's accident and those in recent years is whether the system we have now is as safe as it could be. One who says it isn't is Fred Millar, an expert on transporting hazardous cargo for the Environmental Policy Institute, a Washington lobbying group. On the other side, we have Cynthia Douglass. She's head of research and special programs for the Department of Transportation, which regulars hazardous shipping.

Mr. Millar, I'm going too begin with you. First of all, could accidents like the ones we just saw have been prevented?l

FRED MILLAR, Environmental Policy Institute: Well, I think there are two aspects of that. One has to do with the emergency response. It's very clear from the recent accident in Ohio and also from the previous accident in Somerville, Massachusetts, that there's a good deal of trial and error involved right now in trying to respond to very severe accidents. Firefighters are not adequately trained to handle these kinds of things. So maybe the greatest un-met need, according to a recent OTAreport, is training for firefighters. But I'm convinced that there's a lot that can be done to prevent major accidents.

WOODRUFF: From happening in the first place.

Mr. MILLAR: From happening in the first place. It's too bad when we have to try to close the door after the horse has escaped. What we need is prevention of major transportation accidents with hazardous cargos.

WOODRUFF: All right. Specifically, what kinds of prevention are you talking about?

Mr. MILLAR: Well, after that accident in Denver, for example, of the nitric acid where the mayor's neighborhood was one of the one's evacuated and after the navy torpedo truck overturned there in 1984, Denver enacted a local ordinance that controls the times and the routes of some of the more hazardous cargos. And also that requires a permit fee for the shippers of the most dangerous cargos which will then help to beef up the city's ability to regulate and respond to extremely dangerous, hazardous mterials.

WOODRUFF: So you're saying more cities should do that?

Mr. MILLER: Cities and states have a lot of room to do very aggressive information gathering, very aggressive kinds of designation of routes for the most hazardous cargos, and they can fund their programs not through additional taxes, but through permit fees on the shippers of those dangerous cargos.

WOODRUFF: And you think that's sufficient then.Would that be enough, then, if every city, every major city did something like that?

Mr. MILLAR: I think cities and states have a big role to play. My main problem with the federal effort is that it's inevitably too small and too remote from the actual problems on the scene. I don't think we will ever have a large enough federal program to make unnecessary very strenuous efforts at the state and local level.

WOODRUFF: But do you think the federal government has any responsibility then?

Mr. MILLAR: I think the federal government can play a couple of small roles in a sense. They can do some research kinds of things. For one thing, it would be good if the federal government were to actually document the routes of say ten -- even ten -- of the most hazardous cargos in the United States. The only cargo that --

WOODRUFF: You mean that's not being done now?

Mr. MILLER: No. The only cargo they know anything about right now is high level nucler waste, in terms of the actual routes of hazardous cargos. So we need better information on accidents. I mean, the accident data that you saw quoted here is woefully under-reported. I mean, no credible researcher places any faith in those accident statistics.

WOODRUFF: Well, what difference does that make? I mean, whether there's good information kept on it or not?

Mr. MILLAR: Well, because it could help us to know where to put our priorities. I mean, state and local people need to know sort of what is an order of priority for very fast attention in terms of routing the most dangerous materials and so forth. Let me give you one example. phosgene gas, which is the mustard gas that was used in World War I to gas troops, is made in about 20 different locations in the United States with an annual production capacity of 2.1 billion pounds.Now, there are no federal officials that know where that stuff is produced or what route it is shipped on. But the DOT emergency response guidebook says in case of a serious spill, the fire chief is supposed to evacuate his city -- the city -- 5.2 miles downwind. Now, there are not ten city council people in the United States who know that their citizens are exposed to that kind of danger.

WOODRUFF: Ms. Douglass, let me bring you into this now. Is that the case -- that local officials in most cases don't even know when this sort of thing is passing through their area.

CYNTHIA DOUGLASS, Transportation Department: Well, let me say first that Secretary Dole and I are both absolutely committed to a safe transportation system for these hazardous mterials. As you pointed out, we do have a very good safety record. And in fact, our regulations and our enforcement and emergency response roles have, I think, acted to reduce the fatalities.For example, in 1978 I think we had somewhere around 45 fatalities. We've reduced that down to eight, actually, in 1985. Nonetheless, we do have hazardous materials transportation accidents, and we want to do everything that we can do to make sure that this is a safer system.

WOODRUFF: Well, specifically, what about Mr. Millar's point -- that the local authorities don't know -- frequently don't know this sort of thing is passing through their area.

Ms. DOUGLASS: Well, I have been a strong advocate for emergency response planning at the local level and at the state level. I think that this whole emergency response issue is one of the key issues in this next few years, and I think that the locals need to do a lot of planning. I am more than willing to do some help -- give the locals some help in that area, and the Department of Transportation has a number of very important and significant programs underway in that regard right now.

WOODRUFF: Do you think they're doing enough, Mr. Millar?

Mr. MILLAR: See, I don't think the federal government can ever do enough. I mean, I don't think that the funding will be there. I don't think the commitment will be there.The big danger in having --

WOODRUFF: Let me ask you this way: do you think they're doing as much as they could be doing at this point?

Mr. MILLAR: No. And I think that the big danger is that people will get a false sense of security from having -- thinking that there is a strong federal role in hazardous materials transportation. It is a largely unregulated, self-policed activity on the part of an industry that is shipping some extraordinarily dangerous things through our communities.

Ms. DOUGLAS: Let me jump in and --

WOODRUFF: He mentioned several points. Do you want to address those?

Ms. DOUGLASS: Fred has mentioned a number of good points, and I do want to address those. The secretary two years ago undertook a complete study of this hazardous materials transport -- hazardous materials transportation area. And as a result of that review, we have set a number of goals for the next year. Let me quickly run over six of those. One is we really need to improve our federal government coordination. We have proposed a memorandum of understanding among ourselves, among the federal government, EPA, FEMA, the Department of Transportation, to --

WOODRUFF: That's the Federal Emergency -- Federal --

Ms. DOUGLASS: Yes. To clarify who is responsible for what. Second, the second goal that we have is to improve our federal state partnership. This is very key to both hazardous materials enforcement and to emergency response.

WOODRUFF: But I think -- I mean, not to prevent you from listing all six of them, but I mean, to get specifically to the point, because we do have a limited amount of time here.

Ms. DOUGLASS: Sure.

WOODRUFF: He's saying -- I gather what you're saying, Mr. Millar, is that more could be done right now without waiting another year or more to coordinate the information that's already available or should be available.

Ms. DOUGLASS: We are -- let me tell you some of the things specifically that we are doing. The secretary has recommended that $50 million more be put into the state enforcement programs so that more inspectors -- state inspectors -- can be hired. We have recommended that an information clearing house be established within the Department of Transportation -- a toll free telephone number so that local communities can call the Department of Transportation and then can find out where to get information on training, where to get information on planning. We have published a number of guides.

WOODRUFF: All right, let me stop you right there. Is that the sort of thing you're talking about, Mr. Millar?

Mr. MILLAR: I think the problem goes far beyond merely information conveyal. I mean, there needs to be a very strong presence at the state and local level which is unhindered by federal threats of preemption which we have seen many of in the last ten years.

WOODRUFF: What do you mean by that?

Mr. MILLAR: Many times when states and localities start to act in their own interest to regulate the transportation of hazardous cargos by rail and by truck, the industries involved will go to the federal government and seek a federal override of those local regulations. There is still a lot of room that states and localities have to regulate in this area, and there's a giant myth of federal preemption which is far beyond the reality of it. But we -- but the federal government has played a very unhappy role in recent years in, in effect, hindering and intimidating state and local officials.And I think we need to get more --

WOODRUFF: Is that so?

Mr. MILLAR: -- activity at that level.

Ms. DOUGLASS: Well --

WOODRUFF: Is that so, Ms. Douglass?

Ms. DOUGLASS: As a matter of fact, in the last two years, one thing that I have been an advocate for and the secretary has is this federal-state partnership. We have held this year --

WOODRUFF: But specifically on his point that he just raised about the federal government preempting when an industry wants a special dispensation and the federal government grants that.

Mr. MILLAR: For example, New York City --

Ms. DOUGLASS: I think that Fred is talking about two different types of regulatory activities. One is the design of the vehicle. And that, I think everyone agrees, is a federal responsibility.The second aspect of that might be the routing of hazardous materials. And yes, we have encouraged states and local communities to get involved in routing. Sometimes we have to act as the intermediary. What we have encouraged the states and local communities to do is to do safety analyses in their areas to determine the safest route. We have also asked --

WOODRUFF: You're leaving that up to the state and local governments, is that correct? You don't think that's a federal responsibility. Do you agree with that -- that the routes should be left to the state and local?

Mr. MILLAR: And also in recent years the whole enforcement area, or the vast majority of the enforcement, has now been passed on to the state and local governments. In fact, the state and local governments have been able to --

WOODRUFF: And you think that's appropriate.

Mr. MILLAR: That's fine. And the emergency response clearly lies in their hands. So the question is, should they not also have a good deal of encouragement to do preventive kinds of work? They should be asking the shippers of major cargos to provide hazard analyses -- in other words, plume maps and so forth.

WOODRUFF: And what's to stop them from getting that from the manufacturers?

Mr. MILLAR: Nothing at this point, except that in general a lot of local officials have been led to believe that there's not much they can do to "interfere with interstate commerce." You see, so there's this myth of prevention.

WOODRUFF: And whose fault is that?

Mr. MILLAR: Well, it's -- I think the federal officials and the industries often work together to basically discourage what goes on. New York City --

Ms. DOUGLASS: I'm afraid that that's not true.

WOODRUFF: That's a pretty strong charge. We're going to let Ms. Douglass respond to that.

Ms. DOUGLASS: Number one, as you know, and I'm sure you agree, you know that we are totally committed to transportation safety. And second of all, you know we've been involved in many forums together, Fred, where we have -- where I have been advocating local planning. I have offered assistance in many respects. I have encouraged --

WOODRUFF: And on his specific point about there being cooperation between industry and federal government in discouraging --

Ms. DOUGLASS: My -- I'll tell you. The people I work for are the people of the United States, not the industries.

WOODRUFF: Well, I'm afraid we'll have to leave it at that. Ms. Douglass, thank you for being with us. Mr. Millar, thank you. Empty Gondolas

LEHRER: Next, the story of Italy's summer of discontent. The Italians are discontented and disappointed with Americans who have not come this year on summer vacation. It's all because of terrorism, Libya and other unpleasantries. Special correspondent Shellie Karabell reports on the resulting unrest in Venice.

Man: Problem, yes. We have much problem, because for the American people we buy very nice book. Then with this year we don't do ever no business.

Man: No American tourists, because there are no -- the Khadafy -- raid. Raid the Khadafy.Terrorists.

GIORGIO ZADRA, senior VP, Alitalia: In April the traffic to and from Italy -- I'm talking the states now -- dropped about 42%.

HARRY CIPRIANI, Harry's Bar: I think it's about -- altogether, it's about 30%. Of course, it's due only to the lack of American -- the presence of Americans.

SHELLIE KARABELL [voice-over]: These are some of the latest victims of terrorism. They are also the victims of what has amounted to an economic boycott by American tourists vacationing this year in Vermont rather than in Venice. Italy has the world's second largest tourist industry, right behind the U.S. There are 41,000 hotels, 90,000 restaurants, over 125,000 brs and cfes, and some 30,000 historic churches here. It is an industry which last year made a profit of some $8 billion. Some 15% of that money came out of American pockets.

[on camera] Here in Venice, for example, Americans occupied 25% of all classified hotel and motel rooms last year. So far this year, those numbers are down by a third.

Mr. CIPRIANI: The many activities that cater only to the tourist, and I think those are the activities that will not last very long if this goes on like this, you see. So -- and I'm talking about some of the glass factories, you know, that sell only to tourists, and laces and -- you couldn't really call them proper commercial activities. These are activities that they come out, you know, only in the summer, just because of tourists.

GIORGIO CAMUFFO, Murano Glassworks: So we're still selling. We're still surviving. But of course part of our big pieces that we were able, I mean, to sell before, you know, we have to let them sit for one year or two or as long as it takes for them to come back. I'd say one year -- one year is okay. If it's going to be longer, I mean, then it's going to be very high.

KARABELL [voice-over]: The American absence is expected to cost Italy some $2 billion this year, according to estimates from various tourist bureaus. In Venice, some hotels are reporting a 70% cancellation rate from American clientele. The director of tourism here blames President Reagan rather than Moammar Khadafy.

CARRADO BASCHIERI, tourism center, Venice: Your President, he just encourages the cancellation the tourism to Europe. I would like to say to Mr. Reagan, don't confuse Venice with other parts of the world. Venice is in a particular situation, is a particular town. It's a property of the world. Venice is not property of Italy.

KARABELL [voice-over]: Elsewhere, Italians are trying to resolve what Americans see as a terrorist threat.This is the terminal at Rome's international airport where the terrorist attack took place on December 27, 1985. The Italian government called out more of the army and the state police in response. Officials here won't tell us exactly how big the security increase has been, but the armed guards are everywhere.

FERRUCIO PAVOLINI, senior VP, Alitalia: We have to make understand that coming to Italy and coming to Europe, it's safe. And the airport in Iran is an American airport, and all the security measure that I recommended and that I more than recommended we do, and we do much more than that. And we feel very much that the flying around Europe and flying the Mediterranean area is as safe as flying within the United States.

KARABELL [voice-over]: This may be true for Rome, where Alitalia actually owns part of the airport and helps maintain security. But in Venice, our crew checked in more than ten pieces of luggage and equipment without ever being asked to open a bag, because the airport baggage handlers were on strike. But airports aren't the only place on Italy's security list. CIGA, for example, one of the country's largest and most prestigious hotel chains, does more than carry your bags to your room.

BRUNO CALI, CIGA Hotels: Now we have increased the number of this -- we call it private policemen -- in such a way that here there is not the possibility of letting enter anything which could be a parcel or a bag which is not ADM controlled. We always find a way to check inside every single bag, even though we don't want to show we are doing it.

KARABELL [voice-over]: The hardy tourist who ventures to Venice or the Via Veneto is often surprised at what he finds.

Woman: I think it's a mistake to let your life be controlled by terrorism or --

Man: I would say there is more risk in being in New York City than there is in being in Italy or in France at the present time. Definitely.

KARABELL: Are you frightened at all?

Woman: Yes, we are. We are trying to dress differently and trying not to look so American -- like with the cameras hanging around us and things like that. We not trying to talk loud. We're -- just little things.

Man: Well, I'm travelling on a Canadian passport with Canadian flags on my luggage. So that way I don't attract too much attention to being an American target.

Woman: I'm trying to just maintain a low profile pretty much. I don't wave an American flag around, you know. But I'm certainly proud to be an American.

KARABELL [voice-over]: Midway through this year's tourist season, there are finally some signs of a turnaround. But industry leaders say 1986 will still be a write off. But one businessman says what's at stake is more than holidays and revenues.

Mr. CALI: If a country closes itself in its own dimension, starts to divide from everybody else, then the moment you divide, you start to have at least mental conflict. If tourism stops, probably we are not going to have in the future peace. Importing Doctors

MacNEIL: Finally tonight, a story about foreign doctors. Right now, about one in every five medical doctors practicing in the United States is a foreign national or immigrant who graduated from an overseas medical school. During the '60s and '70s when the nation was critically short of doctors, there was a huge influx -- more than 100,000 doctors from abroad. Enrollment in American medical schools has risen since then, and experts now predict a surplus of doctors by the '90s. Yet American graduates have tended to avoid family practice, especially in rural, economically hard-pressed areas -- areas like Britton, North Dakota, and Oakes, South Dakota -- where we travel now with Fred Sam Lazaro of public station KCTA, Minneapolis-St. Paul.

FRED SAM LAZARO [voice-over]: The 1,500 residents of Britton, South Dakota, are used to travelling long distances for services and amenities many Americans have just around the corner. It's 60 miles to the nearest commercial airport, bus depot or ballet class. So understandably, this farm community is especially proud of the things it does have -- two banks, a golf course and movie theatre during summer, and most of all, a 40 bed hospital and two clinics. John Richey is one of Britton's two doctors.

JOHN RICHEY: It is hard to get out of Britton to travel, being a doctor here. Very time consuming. It ties you down. You really can't ever completely relax. You know, the phone is going to ring any time, and you never know when.

LAZARO [voice-over]: It's a livelihood and lifestyle that 31-year-old Richey didn't exactly volunteer for. He was assigned to Britton under a federal government program that provides medical students with financial aid if they agree to serve in position shortage areas after graduation. Richey has already informed Britton that he plans to return to his native Vermont in August when he's put in his two required years of service.

Mr. RICHEY: It's hard to leave, because we know we're wanted and needed here. But it isn't our home. It's a long way from our home.

DELORES HENEHAN, mayor: I'm sure it was a lot of cultural shock of sorts to come to the plains of South Dakota from the hills of Vermont.

LAZARO [voice-over]: Through its hospital advisory board, the town of Britton has begun to look for Richey's replacement. Their problems attracting and retaining doctors is one shared by many rural Dakota communities.

GERALD HUSS, hospital administrator: We would hopefully start out looking for an American born, Americn trained, and hopefully a resident of South Dakota. The reason is, there's no cultural adjustment, there's no climate adjustment. They know, you know, what it is, and you don't have to sell them on it, and all those things.

LAZARO [voice-over]: Britton's other doctor hardly fits the description that hospital administrator Huss calls an ideal recruit. He was born in Sudan and went to med school in Egypt. Alfred Shousha was recruited 20 years ago by a South Dakota politician, and says he plans to remain in practice here as long as he's able.

Dr. ALFRED SHOUSHA: Well, basically what attracted me, as I mentioned earlier, was the fishing and hunting. And I enjoyed it very much. Of course, the wide open spaces, the lack of pollution, lack of crime. I did not expect to stay there -- to stay here 20 years. But here I am 20 years later and doing the same thing.

For a medical graduate or an immigrant, he has to cope with a certain amount of adjustment due to language, culture and education -- that sort of thing. Sonner or later, you know, the patient needs your services, and you need the patient. And before you know it, you start establishing a rapport.

LAZARO [voice-over]: Shousha credits his American born wife Annette with helping him ease the cultural and social transition earlier on in South Dakota.

Dr. SHOUSHA: I have the satisfaction knowing what I've done with my life here. We've made a good life and raised five good children. They're all in college, one in medical school.

LAZARO [voice-over]: Shousha is a pioneer in one of America's more unique immigration wages. In the late 1960s and '70s, hundreds of physicians -- many from third world countries -- came to seek their fortune in rural North and South Dakota -- areas shunned by American born physicians for its lack of professional and cultural opportunity.

Thirty-five year old Rup Nagala calls India, where he was born and educated, the motherland. He calls Oakes, North Dakota, home.

Dr. RUP NAGALA: I think the thing that brought me here is the fact that the other doctor was here, and he arrived here from India. When I first came here in '78, I wasn't sure to what I was going to do or how long I was going to stay, whether I would likeit or not. But it seems like the more you stay the more you get rooted in a place, the more you get used to people, things around, life in general.

LAZARO [voice-over]: The name Nagala has been on this sign for about as long as anyone can remember. Early last year a new doctor joined Nagala in Oakes, but the name didn't have to change. Vani Nagala joined her husband in practice about a year ago, after completing her residency 120 miles away in Fargo, North Dakota.

Dr. VANI NAGALA: I was here for most weekends and actually had a lot more time to adjust to the idea of living in Oakes than you would otherwise think. And they've known me as a medical student, known me as a resident, known me as first the doctor's wife and then as the doctor. So I think, really, there has been a period of adjustment. It gives everyone time to get used to the idea.

LAZARO [voice-over]: Lovice Albers describes herself as a typical patient the Nagalas see in Oakes. A longtime local resident, Albers and, until recently, her late husband Lloyd have consulted for years now with the Nagalas and with their immigrant predecessors.

LOVICE ALBERS: The first time I went to a doctor that was a colored doctor. It was somebody -- I don't know even of what nationality he was, what country he came from. But I know I thought about that -- that it was different. But you know, now we don't even notice it. You don't see that at all when you talk to him. You just notice he ain't different than us with the sun down. You know, you just -- he's just Dr. Nagala, one of us, and that's it.

LAZARO [voice-over]: But Lutheran pastor Bud Johnson says he's encountered firsthand people who prefer to go miles to avoid the Nagalas. Johnsin is also a part time paramedic.

Rev. C. "BUD" JOHNSON, Lutheran pastor: I have been -- I've been told on occasion both as pastor and as a member of the ambulance crew, you know, "Don't take me to the Oakes hospital. Take me to Fargo, take me to Aberdeen, take me anywhere else."

LAZARO [voice-over]: Johnson says in many cases patients, though reluctant, have had no choice but to go to Oakes for emergency treatment. In most cases, he says, the visit has changed their minds about the Nagalas. Johnson says his own initial reaction to the Indian doctors was more typical.

Rev. JOHNSON: I questioned their education, as well as the kind of care that they were willing to provide to the people. But I think that as the years have passed, the Nagalas have established credibility, at least for themselves. I'm not going to say that that would be true of any other Indian doctor that would come to Oakes. But at least -- they've established at least for themselves that they can provide professional care.

LAZARO [voice-over]: For their part, Rup and Vani Nagala say they have as much business as they can handle, have had no problems at least with overt racism, and feel very much a part of the community. Any spare time in their hectic schedules is spent at home with their children, so there's little time for socializing. But their acceptance in the community, the Nagalas say, shows in other ways -- being a pallbearer at a local funeral last winter, for instance.

Dr. RUP NAGALA: There is going to be some amount of prejudice, I think, as long as one is from a foreign area. Unless that part of your person is able to get himself involved in a community, just like a local person. I'm here to stay, and I came here as an immigrant, and I've taken my citizenship, and by doing so I've accepted the American situation, and I would urge and encourage my kids -- my children -- to follow the same.

Dr. VANI NAGALA: No matter what the skin color, there is a certain respect given for the amount of knowledge you have and the amount of training you've had. Whereas if you come in just as a, you know, just as a farm laborer or anything, then you're trying to compete with something that is available all around. And I think that -- in that situation you come across with a lot more prejudice than you would otherwise.

LAZARO [voice-over]: But the mostly successful symbiosis between Oakes and the Nagalas is not necessarily duplicated everywhere foreign doctors have ventured in rural America. While foreign graduates must pass rigorous exams to practice medicine in the U.S., there's no test for social and language skills -- often just as important. Dr. Richard Tomkins of the Mayo Clinic serves on the Minnesota Medical Association's discipline committee.

Dr. RICHARD TOMKINS, Mayo Clinic: I think it's a mixed bag. I think some of them have worked out quite well, and I think some of them have been total disasters for both sides. I mean, physicians have felt miserable and uncomfortable in a community. And the communities have not adapted very well to the physician. And therefore the physician leaves. We see some hopscotching by foreign physicians. They stay for two or three years in one location, then move to another.

LAZARO [voice-over]: The Nagalas say they plan to stay in Oakes for at least the next 15 years. Their newly constructed clinic is a symbol of their intentions and in large part proof of their success as doctors in thiscommunity of 2,000.

Ms. ALBERS: There was a little old lady in the hospital when Lloyd was in there.And I went in to see her, because I knew her. And she -- I said something about the doctors, and she said, "Oh yeah," she said, "you can't complain. They're good doctors." But she says, "I sure do wish we could have a nice, young, white, American boy in here." And I said, "Well," I says, "if they would come that's fine, but aren't we glad that we get somebody who will even come to us now." I says, "Otherwise we wouldn't have anybody." And that's right. That's right.

MacNEIL: I'd like to apologize to the people of Britton, South Dakota, and Oakes, North Dakota, for getting their states confused when I introduced that piece. Jim?

LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday. Big banks cut their prime lending rates to big business customers in reaction to the Federal Reserves cut in the discount rate. And more food tampering incidents were reported and reacted to in Chicago and New York City. Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's our News Hour. We'll be back on Monday night. Have a nice weekend. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.