The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news today, the Soviet foreign minister branded President Reagan's space defense plan an evil design. The Israelis bombed more targets in Lebanon, and more French soldiers were attacked. We will have the details in the news summary in a moment.Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: After the news summary, we have three main focuses on the News Hour tonight, beginning with the story that seems to be making headlines everywhere these days: drugs. We look at whether it's been hyped by the news media. Four leading journalists will join us. Next, the debate over U.S. aid to the rebels in Angola. Jesse Jackson and Senator Orrin Hatch will face off. And finally, a report on a new kind of jail where the prisoner pays. News Summary

LEHRER: It was the Soviet Union's turn at the United Nations today, and it was used to take a large swing at President Reagan's strategic defense proposal, known as SDI or Star Wars. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze told the U.N. General Assembly SDI was being developed for a first strike nuclear attack.

EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE, foreign minister, USSR [through translator]: We hear moving and soul stirring talk and pronouncements about a dream which, if it comes true, will free mankind from the fear of nuclear death. Evil designs are being purveyed as good intentions and swords as shields. I hope no one is deceived by this kind of talk. Wouldn't it be more sensible to devote our efforts to coming to agreement on the total elimination of nuclear missiles -- strategic, medium range and all others -- as we propose? The answer is simple. The so-called defensive space shield, no matter how you try to disguise it, is being designed to carry out a first strike with impunity. A first strike could become the last strike, not only for the target country. Cosmic weapons, like nuclear weapons, know no national boundaries.

LEHRER: Shevardnadze also said a second Gorbachev-Reagan summit was a realistic possibility, but he made no mention of the Nicholas Daniloff case. U.S. officials have said there will be no summit unless the spy charges against the American reporter are disposed of and he is allowed to leave the Soviet Union. Shevardnadze did meet for 40 minutes this morning with Secretary of State Shultz, presumably to discuss Daniloff and/or the summit. Here's what Shevardnadze told reporters about that meeting.

Foreign Minister SHEVARDNADZE[through translator]: There are good chances for solving this problem. I would stress good chances. Everything depends on the U.S. side.

Questioner: Did you give Mr. Shultz a new proposal on Daniloff?

Foreign Minister SHEVARDNADZE[through translator]: Yes, I have made all my proposals. My conscience is clear.

Questioner: Are you going to meet again?

Foreign Minister SHEVARDNADZE[through translator]: I don't rule out the possibility.

LEHRER: Shevardnadze's appearance before the United Nations came 24 hours after President Reagan's. There was no immediate White House response to Shevardnadze's response. Judy?

WOODRUFF: Israel sent its war planes in another bombing raid on Palestinian guerrilla bases outside East Beirut today. The runs took place late in the afternoon, Israeli time, and were directed at groups supported by Syria. At least four targets were hit in the attack. Observers said eight jets made at least four bombing runs during the raid, which lasted 40 minutes. A Palestinian group reported afterwards that its bases sustained considerable damage in the attack.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Israel would strike back if attacks continued against its Christian militia ally in South Lebanon. The statement on Israeli radio came after Syrian President Hafez al-Assad threatened a stunning retaliation if Israel invaded Lebanon. Rabin said the Israeli government was committed to defending a buffer zone in South Lebanon that runs along the border with Israel.

And French units of a U.N. peace-keeping force stationed in Southern Lebanon also came under attack today. At least three Soviet-made rockets hit the French position, but there were no casualties reported.

In Paris, the death of a policeman in a hospital today brought the death toll from the recent wave of bombings in the French capital to nine, in addition to more than 160 who have been injured. Responsibility for the five recent bombings has been claimed by an underground Middle East group called the Committee of Solidarity with Arab and Middle East Political Prisoners.

LEHRER: Another airport in Pakistan has had another serious security breach. Pakistan officials revealed today that four armed men Sunday got inside the international airport at the city of Islamabad. They got out to the main runway before being stopped by a security guard. The guard was shot, and the four gunmen escaped. It was at the Karachi, Pakistan, airport on September 5 that a Pan Am jumbo jet was hijacked by four armed Palestinian terrorists. Twenty people died in that tragedy.

WOODRUFF: First Lady Nancy Reagan joined Education Secretary William Bennett today to give top grades to an Education Department initiative to promote drug free schools. Bennett told supporters at the White House that there's been an extraordinary response to a pamphlet drawn up by his agency entitled "Schools without Drugs." More than 435,000 copies have been requested since it was released a week ago.

And in Santa Ana, California, a couple turned in by their teenage daughter for alleged drug abuse pleaded innocent in court today. However, 49 year old Bobby Dale Young and his 37 year old wife, Judith Ann, asked that they be placed in a county drug program. The prosecutor in the case requested that charges be dropped if the Youngs complete such a program, and the judge ordered them back to court in November for a decision.

LEHRER: There was offsetting good-bad economic news today. The inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, remained low. The Labor Department said the CPI was up only .2% in August, which works out to an annual 2.2% inflation rate. But from the Commerce Department came word that orders for big ticket manufactured goods were off 2.6% last month, the largest drop in five months.

WOODRUFF: Police in Eastern Missouri are searching for a 41 year old ex-convict named Michael Wayne Jackson, who is wanted for killing two people in Indianapolis and a kidnapping and crime spree that covered three states. A house to house search was conducted in the area around Wright City, Missouri, where Jackson abandoned a stolen car Monday night after wounding a police officer whho tried to arrest him. During the night, heavily armed police stopped and searched a train in the hunt for the fugitive who is charged with killing a probation officer and a storekeeper in Indianapolis earlier in the day. Jackson, who is armed with a shotgun, is said to have vowed not to be taken alive. He received a one year sentence in 1985 for firearms possession, and may have killed a third person during his three state rampage.

That wraps up our summary of the day's top stories. Ahead on the News Hour, we look at the story behind the big drug story -- how much of it is hype? Then Jesse Jackson and Senator Orrin Hatch debate U.S. aid to Angola -- are we backing the wrong faction? And we end with a report about a new prison which disproves the old saying, crime doesn't pay. Drug Hype?

LEHRER: Our lead story tonight is a story about a lead story -- the one about the war on drugs. Seldom has a continuing, running story taken over television news programs and newspaper and magazine space like it has in recent months.There's been an onrush of television specials, magazine cover stories and newspaper series, as well as a flow of regular news items. We had two in our news summary tonight, in fact -- one about Mrs. Reagan and Education Secretary Bennett observing drug free days in the schools, the other about the not guilty plea entered by the couple turned in by their daughter on drug possession charges. Is all of this too much? Has the news media gone overboard, hyped and overdone a story and a problem way beyond what they deserve? Well, there are now critics within the media who say yes, yes, yes to all those questions. And we will join that argument with four leading journalists in a moment, after June Massell reminds us of what has been going on in these last few months.

JUNE MASSELL [voice-over]: If you didn't read about it in your local newspaper, you probably bought a magazine that had an article on drug abuse. Newsweek alone did three cover stories in the last six months, telling us that there was a drug epidemic striking middle America. Time weighed in with two cover stories and a cover line telling us about drug use on the job and the enemy within. If drug abuse was good copy, it also was good TV.

[clip from news show]

Reporter: In cities all across the country, the biggest problem for police right now is crack.

MASSELL [voice-over]: And local television news jumped on the bandwagon.

[clip from news show]

Reporter: Undercover cops have just made a buy.

MASSELL [voice-over]: Nightly, we were shown the victims of drug abuse -- victims like star athletes Len Bias and Don Rogers. The politicians and President Reagan responded.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Drugs, in one way or the other, are victimizing all of us. And that's why I'm here today -- to announce six major goals of what we hope will be the final stage in our national strategy to eradicate drug abuse.

MASSELL [voice-over]: The networks declared their own war on drugs. TheuMacNeil-Lehrer News Hour devoted two weeks to a series on drugs and related problems. The evening news broadcasts of CBS, NBC and ABC also found drug abuse to be a hot topic. Since the beginning of March, NBC News has done 429 reports on drug abuse -- a total of 16 hours and 51 minutes of air time. And during the first week of September, CBS brought us 48 Hours on Crack Street, which, according to the Nielson ratings, had 15 million viewers -- a record number for documentaries.

LEHRER: We begin the argument over whether it's been all too much with two employees of the same corporation. Richard Cohen is a columnist for theWashington Post. Richard Smith is the editor in chief of Newsweek magazine, which is owned by the Washington Post Company. Smith wrote recently in his magazine, "A drug epidemic is abroad in America, as pervasive and as dangerous in its way as the plagues of medieval times." Cohen wrote last week in his column, "The answer when it comes to drugs is simple: there is no worsening epidemic. There is only worsening journalism."

Richard Cohen, how is it worsening journalism?

RICHARD COHEN, Washington Post: Well, I think there is absolutely no statistical evidence to show there is a worsening epidemic of drugs. In fact, there is evidence to prove just the opposite. In almost any drug you can name, with the possible exception of cocaine -- but even with cocaine on most of the data -- shows that there is less and less abuse of those drugs. So I think it's insupportable to talk about, one, an epidemic, because an epidemic by its very nature means it's spreading; and, two, to talk about a worsening epidemic when the data prove just the opposite.

LEHRER: Well, then what happened? What's behind all of this? Why are magazines like Newsweek, Time, the networks and everybody else reporting it as such?

Mr. COHEN: Well, I think there are a number of answers to that. The first is, I would be the last to say there is no drug problem. Clearly, there's a drug problem. The American press has reported on the drug problem for the last 20 or 25 years -- as long as I can remember it. The second thing, I think, is that drugs are good copy. They're better film, by the way. I mean, the gripping footage that you can show of people overdosed on drugs or police busts is probably the best stuff you can see on television. I think, lastly, there is great anxiety in this country not only about drugs, but about our children -- the way we're raising our children. And drugs is only the last or the most recent example of that sort of thing. It wasn't too long ago we worried about rock lyrics -- obscene rock lyrics -- then it was pornography, then it was abducted children, then it was child molestation, then it was the sexual abuse of children. We've had a kind of a pattern of this -- wave after wave after wave -- and the concern has generally been children. And generally, the concern has been incredibly hyped.

LEHRER: Richard Smith, has Newsweek overdone it?

RICHARD SMITH, Newsweek: Oh, I think anybody can take issue with particular cover calls. I think, in fact, the media in general has been a little late coming to the drug story. I think what happened earlier this year was that, particularly in the southern tier of the United States, there was a sense that the borders were completely permeable to an inflow of drugs. And I think that, while the statistics don't show a dramatic increase or may be flat in some areas, I think the emergency of the drug crack crystallized a lot of thinking about the drug problem. Here you had a drug that was relatively cheap, relatively easy to manufacture, and highly addictive. And I think that that breakthrough alone, if that's what we want to call it, focused a lot of attention on the drug issue. And it seems to me that to argue that, because we're focusing a lot of attention on a drug like crack, we're overdoing it is, by logical extension, to argue that because there are only 10,000 AIDS victims in the United States right now, we shouldn't cover that, because after all, it's only 10,000.

LEHRER: You do not have any second thoughts about using words like a plague comparable to -- I mean, something comparable to the plague of medieval times, epidemic, all those things that bother Richard Cohen?

Mr. SMITH: Well, I think that there's always room for second thoughts, and I think that Richard, who's a pal and an acquintance, raises some good points. I think that what we can't escape is the fact that, as far as Americans polled are concerned, this is the number one public problem that they cite in the polling data. And I think it's only by giving this issue the kind of coverage it deserves that we'll get to -- get down to the question of how to deal with it. In the process, there's been excess. And perhaps we've been part of that excess. But you don't get from here to -- recognizing the problem to here without solving -- or, towards solving the problem without looking at it extensively.

LEHRER: Richard Cohen, what is the harm? Let's assume, for discussion purposes, that the thing has been overdone. What's the harm of overdoing something about a problem like drugs?

Mr. COHEN: Well, I think you can see the harm in what the United States Congress has done and the way it's reacted. I mean, it's one thing to be concerned about a problem, but it's another thing when it reaches the point of panic. And you've got a panic here in Washington. You have some very ill advised legislation that just went through the House of Representatives in something like two or three hours. You've got lots of people reacting around the country with mandatory drug tests, with all kinds of alleged or real violations of the Constitution. You've got some serious problems when you start talking about something as an epidemic or as a panic when, in fact, you ought to deal with it as a concern and deal with it in a reasonable sort of way. I, as I said before, I would be the last person to say that there isn't a drug problem or that the media shouldn't deal with the drugs -- with drugs. What I'm saying is that if we -- all of us -- are responsible for the hype and the panic, then we ought to answer for it. Then I think we have something to answer for.

Mr. SMITH: I think those are legitimate points. I think Washington has gone crazy over this problem. But it's part of the media's job, it seems to me, to come back and raise those questions about the accuracy of drug testing, the legality of drug testing, raise the privacy issues on that issue alone. Andwe did that this week. And I think that's part of the ongoing coverage of the drug problem -- to take a look at the proposals that are being made for dealing with it.

LEHRER: In other words, create the panic, and then report the panic?

Mr. SMITH: You say create the panic.

LEHRER: No, that's just a question. No, but I mean, that's Richard Cohen's point. That's his charge -- that that the news media -- that we -- and I'm not saying they -- that we created the panic, and now we're going to report the panic.Is that --

Mr. SMITH: I'm not sure that I buy the argument that there's been a panic created. I think that people in Washington are responding to what the people are saying. And I think that we can set -- set the public agenda to a certain degree by getting issues out in the open. But as much as we write about the deficit, we're not exactly producing a groundswell of legislation to deal with it.

Mr. COHEN: Can I --

LEHRER: Let's -- yeah, just a second, Richard. Let me bring -- I want to bring two others into the discussion now. They are Hodding Carter, media critic, former newspaper editor and State Department spokesman, now host of the public television pgoram Capitol Journal and columnist for the Wall Street Journal; and Vernon Jarrette, a columnist for theChicago Sun-Times and a regular commentator on WLS-TV, Chicago. He joins us from Chicago.

Hodding Carter, which came first, the public concern or the media's coverage?

HODDING CARTER, Capitol Journal: Well first, there's been real public concern, because drugs have gone out of the closet, which is to say out of the place where they were contained with very little media coverage, which is in low income and isolated America, and is now out among middle class America. Therefore, it becomes a matter that troubles suburban America, which is what you really wish to deal with both atNewsweek and at MacNeil-Lehrer and everything else in this business. Second thing is, there is no question that what the media has done on the drug problem is to throw the blood in the water and then look back and say, "My my, the sharks are feeding on this blood in Congress." Well, the fact is, this is a media created hype now being reacted to by Congress, which certainly can't do anything practical about what is a real set of pressing problems. So it's going to enact unconstitutional and otherwise stupid legislation impinging on rights in the name of what is not really the drug problem of America. If we are going to deal with a drug problem in America, let's deal with what a publication just came across my desk this morning refers to -- 300,000, 400,000 Americans, they claim, these internists, killed each year by a highly addictive epidemic drug called tobacco or a highly addictive, low cost, epidemic drug called alcohol.But of course, those have been the drugs of choice of a great majority of Americans for a long time. They're not news, they're not worthy of three cover stories in five months, they're not worthy of insanely hyped up television series. No, this is a game that we, once more, have indulged in. And I have to tell you, every now and then the critics are right. We play it for the market.

LEHRER: Vernon Jarrette, is he -- do you agree with Hodding Carter and Richard Cohen?

VERNON JARRETTE, Chicago Sun-Times: Agree, but I think I'm in disagreement with just about everything the media's been doing, other than the fact that they have dramatized the quantitative aspect of drug use in this country. But no one is asking the essential questions about why. Why would you have someone on Wall Street in either Wall Street or here in Chicago -- called LaSalle Street -- successful, young stockbrokers who have to use coke to enjoy themselves. I think we need to call some kind of summit meeting of some of the great minds from our universities, our philosophers, and certainly those of religion, to understand, at least to weigh the fact, that maybe we are witnessing something of an historic nature. And that is the burst of the American dream. There are young people who have no logical reason to use drugs, other than they are dissatisfied with success. And what is -- why would a distinguished athlete who never had a dream of making the money that he's making reach the pinnacle, popularity, everybody loves him, and then he finds out this is not what he wanted. This is not what he sought. He needs drugs. Why would there be such an epidemic of not only drugs, but suicide in high school? Thirty-one percent, according to a recent poll by Who's Who in High School America, 31% of our young people who are achievers have contemplated suicide at some point. Those just don't come out of a vacuum. What is wrong that you'd have an epidemic of suicide in an affluent suburb of Texas?

LEHRER: So you --

Mr. JARRETTE: But we never want to tackle these problems, because I think they expose something that we don't want to admit to the world.

LEHRER: But back to the drug thing for a moment. Then I take what you're saying that the news media has not only not hyped this thing; they haven't even covered it as well as you think it should be covered and as much as it should be covered.

Mr. JARRETTE: They have been superficial. Superficial. It is no accident that you've got some of our finest entertainers and people in our own media who are making six figures a year, but they found out, "Is this all it is? I need some coke." There's something wrong, and we don't want to look at it. And particularly the President. We might have to admit that there's something wrong with the new psychic makeup of our country.

LEHRER: Richard Cohen, what --

Mr. JARRETTE: And we can't afford to do that.

LEHRER: Richard Cohen, what do you think about that?

Mr. COHEN: Well, I think he's got a very good point. And if I can be even more critical of the press than I was originally, I must say that it comes as a surprise to many Americans to find out that an administration that has been yelling and screaming about drugs for many years now has cut the funds for drug rehabilitation by something like 40%. I mean, we are not dealing with the causes of drug abuse. We are not dealing even with the junkies that are out on the street. What we're doing is passing all kinds of palliative measures, as if that's going to make a difference. I think it's true that we have to examine why it is that people are using drugs. But I also think that we have to acknowledge our limitations. There are things we're not going to find out. There are limits to education, as there are limits to law enforcement. And we may have to live with a certain amount of a drug problem, as we have now for several years -- 20 years or more -- and continue to do it into the future.

LEHRER: Rick Smith, how do you feel about what Vernon Jarrette said -- that the coverage has been superficial. It's been -- he didn't use the word -- but it's been hyped, it's been surface, and it has not -- it hasn't really gotten at the cause of all this.

Mr. SMITH: I think there's a lot of truth to that. Because ultimately, that's the toughest question of all. And I think that there's -- that there are no easy answers to that. I think one of the reasons that the press came late to the drug story is that it's not just a political story or a justice story or a medicine story. And we're not very good at putting those things together. And I think if there's one benefit in all the attention focused on the drug problem now, it's that we realize how broad it is. And maybe we'll get used to some of those questions that Mr. Jarrette raises.

LEHRER: Hodding Carter, what about the issue of -- that's been raised by others -- that the media should not be involved in wars on anything. It should just report things, and that in this case the media, when it comes out even in any -- just by its emphasis, comes out against drugs or in support of these anti-drug efforts, that it's wrong. Do you -- how do you feel about that?

Mr. CARTER: No, I don't think the media, whatever that means, that we in our business should not be enlisting in wars. I wish, however, that we weren't so inclined to always enlist on the same side -- we didn't rush forward to all say, "Aha, that's the newest crusade, and we're all going with it," because nothing's ever qite that simple. That's the point that worries me; not the enlisting, but the fact that everybody rushes to get on board. And the other thing that worries me, of course, is we forget about the effects of past crusades. We forget, in fact, about history all the time. We come up to drugs as though it were something new in America when, back in our section of the country at any rate, Jim, they used to do a great deal of it, and they called it patent medicine. And it was as bad a trouble as there ever was about the turn of the century. We forget how much came in in those days. We act as though it's brand new. That's bad history, it's bad journalism.

LEHRER: What -- you say bad journalism. Richard Cohen used the word worsening journalism. Hodding, what is it about the journalism -- let's say that you've seen in Newsweek or you've seen on this program or somebody else's program -- specifically that offends you or bothers you the most?

Mr. CARTER: I guess what bothers me the most is the failure always to put what is being done into some context beyond the moment. It is the show the picture of -- the picture you can get easily, which is of somebody sticking it in the arm, somebody going out, rolling the eye, and then the good, pounding music or the good, pounding headline. And not say to ourself, "But wait a minute. Didn't we do that abour air raid shelters in 1961 when John Kennedy got us all to go on a great war, and didn't we have some second thoughts about that great crusade? Didn't we ever stop to think that there's more to the story than that surface bit?" That's the worst part of it.

LEHRER: Vernon Jarrette, do you think that this proliferation of news coverage, with all your problems that you have about it -- that it's surface in scope -- is it at least raising the consciousness about it in the country, and that's good?

Mr. JARRETTE: I want it to stay a top priority, regardless of the reasons why and whatever charges of superficiality may come about. Because somebody has got to keep reminding us that every day we have hundreds of young people from the "finest of homes" who still have to rely on drugs. If this drug epidemic, as you call it an epidemic -- portray it in the newspapers -- do not arouse us to take some action and to go through a period of self-reexamination, it's going to get worse. It's going to get worse. I know some young people who have absolutely no reason to use drugs. But they tell me, "I got to have it."

LEHRER: Do you applaud the action by the President and the Congress in responding by putting more money into drug programs and passing new laws, etc?

Mr. JARRETTE: No, I think President Reagan has one weakness. He does not want to get to the source. I agree with him. You don't do anything by throwing money at it. But you don't do it by throwing money away from research either. And I'm wondering, are most Americans prepared to examine the harsh truth as to why we have so many successful people -- you see, drugs weren't looked upon too badly when it was only minorities and a few blacks and a few Mexicans and some musicians using it. But when it started reaching into our better homes, that's when we decided that drugs weren't too great a thing to have around.

Mr. SMITH: He's absolutely right about that.

Mr. JARRETTE: I can remember when marijuana was considered a black drug. Coke is not considered a black drug anymore, because most blacks can't afford it, except the cheap. And they're saying it's a Mexican drug. But now that it's reached into the cream of the crop, you're excited about it. And I'm glad that we're excited.

Mr. COHEN: Jim?

LEHRER: Yes?

Mr. COHEN: I just want to add that there is every indication now that cocaine is becoming not a middle class problem, but it's going to settle down to be an under-class problem. And when that happens -- and it happened with heroin -- then I dare say that America will lose interest in it.

LEHRER: Is that -- is Newsweek going to lose interest in this story?

Mr. SMITH: I think this story is too big and too important to lose interest in. I don't think we're going to lose interest in terrorism.I don't think we're going to lose interest in the fate of the economy. And I don't think we're going to lose interest in the drug story. I think what we're likely to do -- and what I hope all the media will do -- is to take it beyond the kind of finger pointing that a problem exists, and really look in a searching way at what can be done about it.

LEHRER: Somebody -- was that you, Hodding, that wanted to -- yeah, go ahead.

Mr. CARTER: I just wanted to say, there's a very real problem in America. It's called addiction. It goes across types of drugs. It requires a great deal of education, of information, of research. But it doesn't require more laws trying to make a criminal matter out of a deep societal problem. And the rush in Congress has been to do things which otherwise would make no sense at all, because, in fact, nobody wants to look at the real problem. As Joe Califano said this morning in an op. ed. piece in theNew York Times -- the former secretary of health, education and welfare -- we have an American problem called addiction across the board.

LEHRER: All right. Gentlemen, let's leave it there. Mr. Jarrette in Chicago, thank you. Richard Cohen, Hodding Carter, Rick Smith here in New York.

WOODRUFF: Ahead on the News Hour, Jesse Jackson and Senator Orrin Hatch debate U.S. policy towards Angola. Is covert aid necessary? And we end with a report about the unusually high cost of crime. Angola: Aiding Rebellion

WOODRUFF: Our next focus segment is an African nation with a different set of problems than those facing South Africa. It is Angola and the question of Reagan administration support for the policy of covert aid to the rebels fighting the Angolan government. The Reverend Jesse Jackson and Senator Orrin Hatch will join us for a debate, but first a background report on the situation by correspondent June Cross.

JUNE CROSS [voice-over]: These are the forces of Unita. President Reagan calls them freedom fighters. For ten years, they fought against the Angolan government. The civil war here, one more example of the struggle between the superpowers.

Pres. REAGAN: You are not alone, freedom fighters. America will support you with moral and material assistance you're right not just to fight and die for freedom but to fight and win freedom.

CROSS [voice-over]: Angola's freedom fighters originally fought for self-government, for liberation from Portugal. There were two rival groups: the Marxist MPLA and the pro-Western Unita. They won independence and turned their guns on each other. The MPLA controls the government and two thirds of the country. Its leader: Jose Eduardo de Santos. He retains power with help from some 35,000 Cuban troops. And he gets millions of dollars in Soviet aid. The rebel Unita, headed by Jonas Savimbi, supported openly by South Africa and covertly by the United States. He controls the southeastern third of Angola and says this civil war is one neither side can win.

JONAS SAVIMBI, Unita leader: A major victory to crush Unita is not possible. And we have to go in to --

Questioner: And that's why these next few months are important?

Mr. SAVIMBI: Yes, that's why they are important.

CROSS [voice-over]: Negotiations are mired in a political tangle, for the Angolan war has spilled south into Namibia, into that country's fight for its freedom. South Africa rules Namibia, in defiance of U.N. resolutions calling for Namibian independence. Locked in war with SWAPO, a black resistance movement, white South Africa uses Savimbi's Unita to harass Namibian opposition from both sides. For years, Chester Crocker, America's diplomatic point man, has been trying to broker a deal: independence for Namibia in exchange for the withdrawal of Cubans from Angola. But both sides want the other to move first. Negotiations are likely to remain mired, for, as Ronald Reagan has repeatedly told the U.N, it is the Cuban-Soviet presence here that is most ominous.

Pres. REAGAN: In Angola, 1,200 Soviet military advisers involved in planning and supervising combat operations along with 35,000 Cuban troops. These wars are exacting a staggering human toll and threaten to spill across national boundaries and trigger dangerous confrontations.

CROSS [voice-over]: Since January, the President has sent Savimbi's Unita some $15 million in covert military aid -- aid that reportedly includes Stinger antiaircraft missiles like these. Last week, the House of Representatives had its own fight over Angola. At issue: making the President go public with the exact nature of his support for Savimbi. The debate over the amendment no less complicated than the politics of the region.

Rep. LEE HAMILTON (D) Indiana: Support for Savimbi is support for South Africa. South Africa will intervene in support of Savimbi whenever it sees intervention in its interests. We have just passed a sanctions bill and so has the Senate. Today the United States should be sending a signal of strength and of power to South Africa and to the world that we find apartheid reprehensible. If we support Mr. Savimbi, we will only dilute and confuse that message.

Rep. CLAUDE PEPPER (D) Florida: Give Savimbi the help that he needs from America, and I can assure you he won't get any help from South Africa.

CROSS [voice-over]: Florida's Claude Pepper compared Savimbi's struggle to that of the rebels in Afghanistan. In doing so, he was responding to political pressure from his Cuban-American constituents. Cuban-Americans and other conservatives have made a cause celebre out of Savimbi. He's been feted in Washington, talked with administration officials. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch travelled to Angola to examine captured Soviet tanks with him this summer. But Savimbi has not always been the staunch anti-communist, as Representative Howard Wolpe made clear in arguing against covert aid last week.

Rep. HOWARD WOLPE (D) Michigan: Mr. Savimbi first went to the Soviet Union for assistance. When he was denied assistance there, he turned to China. He was trained in China. He was an avowed Maoist. Now he is getting his support from South Africa. Now he claims to be a committed anti-communist. The only thing that is consistent about Mr. Savimbi over the years is that there is always a perfect correlation between his ideology of the moment and his source of financial support.

CROSS [voice-over]: Congress voted to give the President a free hand in determining how to aid Savimbi's rebels. But that does not end the controversy, for the U.S. is Angola's number one trading partner, most of the Marxist government's $3 billion budget provided by oil revenues from a U.S. corporation -- Chevron Gulf. Its largest refinery was attacked by South African commandoes last year. Chevron-Gulf is only one of more than 100 American companies doing business in Angola, a fact black American leaders have sought to emphasize in a series of visits intended to encourage a negotiated settlement in this ten year old civil war.

WOODRUFF: As we heard, when President Reagan spoke at the United Nations yesterday, he described the Angolan government as an unpopular, repressive regime. Today there was a response at the U.N. by the Angolan foreign minister.

AFONSO VAN DUMEN, foreign minister, Angola [through translator]: In Angola, only the Angolans decide themselves their own destiny, and no one else. The frequent expression by the government of the United States that Angola is an anti-popular and repressive regime is no more than an interference in the internal affairs of the Angolan government. The truth of the matter is that facts demonstrate the fallacies of these considerations. They are baseless in terms of the knowledge behind them, and they are doomed to failure. For more than ten years, Angola has suffered acts of aggression committed by the racist regime of South Africa, thanks to the help it receives from its allies -- namely, the one who follows the policy of constructive engagement and the creator of linkage; the government of the United States of America. The presence of the Cuban internationalist forces in our country is in conformity with the principles of the United Nations charter and at the invitation of our government. The Cuban internationalist forces help our people to defend themselves from the external pressure from the racist regime of South Africa, and on the bases they will remain on our soil until our government decides to the contrary.

WOODRUFF: The Angolan issue has generated two very different points of view in this country. We get them now from the Reverend Jesse Jackson, president of the National Rainbow Coalition, and Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah. Both men have recently returned from Angola.

Gentlemen, I want to ask you both about those trips that you both made. Senator, let me ask you first. Presumably, you didn't see anything there to change your mind. What did you see to reaffirm your position?

Sen. ORRIN HATCH (R) Utah: Well, of course, I watched Savimbi's charismatic leadership, and I sw lots of evidence of Russian support -- the 1,200 Russian advisers the President mentioned, the 2,500 East German advisers, the 45,000 Cubans who are in that country oppressing 8 million black Africans, about 60% of whom are on Savimbi's side. Savimbi is calling for negotiated settlement, for principles of democracy. And frankly, I believe that this is one of the few opportunities in the history of -- this is the only opportunity in the history of communism where one charismatic black leader has rolled back the oppressive communist forces that have come in and interjected themselves into his country.

WOODRUFF: Reverend Jackson, you don't see it the same way.

Rev. JESSE JACKSON: No, I do not. Savimbi, a former Soviet agent, former Maoist Chinese agent, now a South African agent, does not have the credibility that Mr. Hatch projects that he has. We can not separate the Angolan crisis today from our being on the side of the Portuguese oppressing Angola in the first place. Once they beat the Portuguese and us, then we copartnered with South Africa. Fact is, South Africa has troops in Angola, which is illegal. South Africa is in Namibia, which is illegal. And we are funding Savimbi to destabilize that government, which is a net gain for South Africa. For so long as South Africa can destabilize Angola and eliminate it as a form of economic and trade competition and occupy Namibia, then apartheid remains very strong.

WOODRUFF: Doesn't the South African part of this equation, Senator Hatch, complicate what you are saying?

Sen. HATCH: Well, it complicates because people like Jesse here would like to tie Savimbi to South Africa. I heard his litany about being a Soviet agent and all this. The fact of the matter is, I know Savimbi. I flew in there to see him. I've talked to him at length. I've met his leadership. He is not a Maoist. He is not a communist agent.

WOODRUFF: But he did go to --

Sen. HATCH: He did go to -- now, he did go to China, and that's where he was trained in revolutionary warfare. And there's no question that was where he had to go, because the United States passed the Clark Amendment that forbade us from getting into it. Since the United States repealed the Clark Amendment, there was supposed to be a huge spring offensive over there which has never materialized, because the United States, according to Mr. Crocker, is giving Savimbi effective weapons. And I can tell you that literally what needs to be done here is we need to support Savimbi. I think the other side knows they can't defeat him. They know he has the support of the contra side. They know he's calling for free and open democratic elections. And I think they can't tolerate the fact that he can get them.

Rev. JACKSON: You notice that we're separating Angola from the Southern African crisis. All of the bordering states support the present Angolan government: Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana. Don't they have a sense of what's good for their region far greater than our President, who has never been there and who refuses to go there? They do not see Cuba as the number one threat to Southern Africa; they see South Africa as the number one threat to Southern Africa.

WOODRUFF: Are you defending the president -- presidents, rather -- of, what is it, 36,000 Cuban troops in Angola?

Rev. JACKSON: Well, the fact is, there are Cuban troops there, without question, by invitation of that government. There are South African troops there illegal and in Namibia illegal. Now, when I talked with de Santos about this matter --

WOODRUFF: The president of Angola.

Rev. JACKSON: And the foreign minister. Where they are now is a desire to meet with our President. They have made such an appeal. And they want to establish diplomatic ties. And three, negotiate a process wherein all foreign troops leave. That's the lead that we should pursue.

WOODRUFF: What is wrong -- let me just ask you point blank -- what is wrong with out aiding Savimbi? We're giving him, what, $15 million a year?

Rev. JACKSON: Because it's a copartnership with South Africa that's further stabilizing that government. You really can not separate -- our Southern African policy is essentially a racist policy. We are not putting any substantial opposition to South Africa as it bombs Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Zambia, as it occupies Namibia and part of Angola and as it supports Savimbi as a destabilizing agent.

WOODRUFF: So you're saying, even while we're talking about economic sanctions, for example, against South Africa, we are doing these other things that show our continued support for South Africa.

Rev. JACKSON: Oh, if you had 5 million blacks oppress that many whites in Southern Africa, our policy would be cut aid, cut trade and invade. As it is now, we continue to -- when the President of the United States ignored South Africa as an issue yesterday, that was a very contemptuous and hostile act.

WOODRUFF: What about the point the reverend makes about our role vis-a-vis South Africa? Again --

Sen. HATCH: The fact is, Jesse Jackson has done so much for blacks in America, I'm surprised that he's cooperating in the oppression of 8 million blacks in Angola. The fact of the matter is that there are not South Africans in Angola. Savimbi pays for the military equipment he gets. He does it -- he raises his own food. He has the support of at least half of the black African states in that area, both moral and material support. The fact is, you've got 45,000 Cubans there, and you have a Russian general named Constantine directing every movement that is there. You've got a communist regime that is dominating that country. And Cuba benefits to the tune of a half billion dollars a year out of American Chevron oil that is siphoned off into Cuba.

Rev. JACKSON: No.

Sen. HATCH: Let me finish, Jesse. I waited for you. I waited for you. Let me just finish. I think human rights for blacks in Angola are very important. They're just as important as human rights for blacks anywhere. And they bring out the South African thing because they try to negate what Savimbi is doing, because he has to turn to wherever he can to get help. It's a red herring. He's fighting for the freedom of blacks -- 8 million of them -- in Angola, and he has the vast support of the countries --

Rev. JACKSON: You know, your concern for blacks in Angola is substantially greater than your concern for blacks in America.

Sen. HATCH: That's not rue, Jesse. In fact, that's an insult.

Rev. JACKSON: Well --

Sen. HATCH: Well, it's not true.

Rev. JACKSON: The President of this country has a real race conscious policy. It's extended into Africa. Just last week, Congressman Rangel, who has led the drug fight in the Congress, was locked out of the White House -- told there was no chair for him, which is absurd.That same President has not met with the Congressional Black Caucus one time in six years. Last week --

WOODRUFF: So how are you saying --

Rev. JACKSON: Last week he said to the front line states, "I don't have the time to come to Africa. I don't have time to host you here." That's a very consistent, race conscious policy. In Angola, there are two ways out of --

WOODRUFF: Let me just stop you and ask, why wouldn't President Reagan want to meet? Would it be worth his while to sit down with the leaders of these other countries?

Sen. HATCH: Well, he has sat down with leaders -- black leaders in America. I have to admit, there are some of them he hasn't. All they do is criticize him. And you know you don't invite people in who just do nothing but criticize you and then walk out of the meeting with you and go and criticize you. The fact of the --

Rev. JACKSON: You have a --

Sen. HATCH: I look at --

Rev. JACKSON: -- people on that basis.

Sen. HATCH: I look at people like Maurice Dawkins. I think he should meet with him.I've said that before on network TV with you, Jesse. I think that you look at people like Maurice Dawkins who are for this. You look at what Donny Fassel said. Donny Fassel said --

WOODRUFF: That's the congressman --

Sen. HATCH: Yeah. During the debate, he said, "We drove Savimbi into the arms of the South Africans because of the Clark Amendment. Now let's free him from that by helping him. He's fighting for freedom and democracy, and by gosh, there are 45,000 Cubans there who are repressing those people." And I'm a little shocked that you're supporting them, Jesse. I really am.

Rev. JACKSON: It's interesting that there's a Southern African problem. And the Southern African analysis, the presidents of the those front line states -- we should respect their analysis and their solution. I mean, how can a President who has never been there have a greater concern for black Southern Africans than the heads of state of Southern African countries?

WOODRUFF: All right, let me turn you -- the attention of both of you to the future. Gentlemen, what happens if this policy continues on its present course?

Sen. HATCH: Which policy?

WOODRUFF: The U.S. policy of covert aid to the Savimbi --

Rev. JACKSON: Well, our present course is that we are supporting South Africa. In fact, the trade relations and, in fact, helping the foreign surrogates in partnership with them. So really we have two options. One, in the Angolan situation, if we negotiate with Angola, which we can do, a timetable -- a process -- removing all foreign troops, that's in everybody's interests.If that happens, it's more likely that de Santos and Savimbi can work out a settlement. The same thing happened in Zimbabwe. If Nkome hadn't been funded by South Africa and America, you'd still have a civil war. Now they've got all the foreign troops out. Nkome and Mugabe are now working out a relationship.

WOODRUFF: All right. What about -- briefly, Senator, what about that sort of negotiating and --

Sen. HATCH: The fact of the matter is, Savimbi is the most charismatic leader in all of Africa. All of black Africa is looking at him. And they're looking to see if the United States can be a reliable partner. He proposed -- and one of the things I found was -- on August 31 he proposed negotiations with the Luanda government -- with the communists, in other words. He said he would sit down and they would negotiate a way whereby they would have a certain number of points, one of which would be free and open elections, which he knows he'll win. And Jesse Jackson knows he'll win. And it bothers me that we would be supporting 45,000 Cubans and Russians over there.

WOODRUFF: Gentlemen, I don't think we've gotten any closer together --

Rev. JACKSON: This is not a --

WOODRUFF: We're going to have to leave it at that.

Sen. HATCH: The issue is black Africa and whether it's going to go communist or not.

Rev. JACKSON: You have --

WOODRUFF: We're going to have to leave it at that.

Rev. JACKSON: -- a racist policy toward Southern Africa.

Sen. HATCH: We do not. I think yours is racist.

WOODRUFF: Reverend Jackson, Senator Hatch, thank you both for being with us. Paying for Time

LEHRER: Finally tonight, a prison crowding report that is really about a most unusual profit incentive alternative to prison. The place is California, the reporter is correspondent Tom Bearden.

TOM BEARDEN [voice-over]: The Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail was designed to hold 5,100 prisoners. Today it holds an average of 8,000. The courts send all kinds of offenders here, from drunk drivers to killers. The prospect of being locked up with violent criminals can be terrifying for people like Jay Brown, who was convicted of drunk driving.

JAY BROWN, Sun West client: I'm afraid I could get killed in there. I mean, there's a lot of dangerous people there. You know, a lot of people with a lot of problems down there. And I don't want to be the guy to be walking by one day where a guy goes off.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: There are a lot of people like Brown who are afraid of jail.

[clip from TV commercial]

Announcer: Thirty, sixty, ninety days, even a year -- you're going to do time someplace, no matter what.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: That's why this low budget commercial running on late night television in Los Angeles is attracting so much attention. It's advertising a program that offers nonviolent offenders a chance to stay out of jail.

[on camera] This house is that alternative. It's called Sun West. Judges can, at their discretion, send people here instead of jail to serve out their sentences, if they can afford it. Sun West is privately operated and is in the business of making money.

[voice-over] It's run by a corporation called Behavioral Systems Southwest. It began in 1971 as an independently operated halfway house for federal prisoners -- one of the first to be operated on a for-profit basis. But the vagaries of the budget process made the Bureau of Prisons an unreliable customer. To fill empty beds and continue to be profitable, the company turned to alternative sentencing, a program designed to be a combination of punishment and rehabilitation -- a program the government doesn't pay for; the offenders do.

CHRIS LINDHOLD, Sun West director: Currently, we charge alternative sentencing clients $35 a day, which works out to about $1,000 a month. So that does present a problem in that not everybody can afford this treatment.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Jay Brown believes he's lucky to be filling one of those beds.He's required to attend group therapy sessions like this one, as well as Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He goes to work during the day to earn money to pay Sun West's bill. Clients are also subject to frequent random drug and alcohol testing. It isn't jail, but Brown says it's no picnic.

Mr. BROWN: It's a cage, you know. And I like the place. Don't get me wrong. I think it is a real good place. It's just that it's starting to work on me, you know. It's working on me, because it's keeping me here. And when I know I'm being kept somewhere where I don't want to be, that's when I'm being defiant. And something's inside of me saying -- the guy inside that makes me tick says, "Hey, you don't need to be here."

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Harlene Marshall doesn't think Brown should be there either, but for very different reasons. A drunk driver killed her 15 year old son last year. She is now the president of the Los Angeles County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. She says programs like Sun West aren't sufficient punishment.

HARLENE MARSHALL, MADD president: MADD believes that there is no alternative for the jail sentence -- that rehabilitation, license suspension, all of those other alternative things are good, but always in addition to the jail sentence. It's a crime.

BEARDEN: What does the jail sentence accomplish?

Ms. MARSHALL: In the minds of Mothers Against Drunk Driving it gets them off the streets, first of all. And hopefully, it will make an impact on that person.

BEARDEN: Is there an element of retribution as well?

Ms. MARSHALL: I suppose so. I'm dishonest to say there isn't.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Superior Court Judge Leslie Light allowed Brown the opportunity to go to Sun West.

Judge LESLIE LIGHT, superior court: People are going to be subjected to sexual and physical harassment in the county jail, over which the sheriff has no control. And for persons who have never been in a county jail before and you can hopefully expect will never go there again, if you can punish them adequately without putting them into that environment, I would like to do that.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Brown says the feeling of punished at Sun West is all too real.

Mr. BROWN: If you were to go to jail, you're there all the time. Well, here I'm in jail at night. Technically, I can't leave past a certain hour. I can't be with my family or friends. I guess that's punishment. I mean, do you have to be behind a cage to say that you're being punished? Do you have to have armed guards walking in front of you instead of unarmed guards?

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Ted Nissen, a former employee of the Bureau of Prisons, is the founder of Behavioral Systems Southwest. He says not only offenders but taxpayers benefit from alternative sentencing.

TED NISSEN, Sun West founder: Right now, I've only got 17 people in that program. That's $17,000 my corporation gets, okay? That's $17,000 the taxpayers are not. And if you multiplied this by 10,000 little facilities all over the country, you're saving literally millions and millions of dollars.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: But not everyone believes that. James Painter is the chief of the custody division for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Chief JAMES PAINTER, Sheriff's Department: People that go to those facilities are people that the judges might not incarcerate anyway. So, in fact, it probably does not reduce jail overcrowding. In some cases, there may be more people in some kind of custody experience than if the program did not exist at all.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: And Chief Painter is very suspicious of the profit motive.

Chief PAINTER: It bothers me, I believe, to turn over people's life -- their liberty -- to somebody who does not necessarily have anything except the bottom line at heart. Because no matter what anybody tells you, people that go into business go into business to make money.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: And even though he uses alternative sentencing, Judge Light is concerned about the creation of one set of penalties for the rich and another for the poor.

Judge LIGHT: There's a great possibility that this alternative sentencing system will widen the gap between justice received by people who don't have money and justice received by people who do have money. Perhaps more in the appearance than in the actuality, but appearance is important with regard to the acceptance of the community as to the activities of the criminal justice system.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: But Behavioral Systems is convinced the concept will inevitably win much wider acceptance. The company is testing a device called the watch -- a computerized method of supervising another kind of alternative sentencing; a home arrest program. A computer calls the offender at work, at home or wherever the judge has ordered them to be.

Computer message: Hello, this is the watch calling.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: A synthesized voice asks for a code generated by the watch to verify their presence.

Computer message: Please enter the watch code now.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: The company says the watch will allow probation officers to effectively monitor hundreds of people automatically, allowing the courts to confine people without continuing to overburden the jails. Nissen believes society has few other choices.

Mr. NISSEN: A corner will be turned when people start paying the horrible taxes -- $2 billion in the state of California to run the prison system next year. Boy, that's a lot of money.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: And Nissen says, frankly, he wants a share.

Mr. NISSEN: It's a billionn dollar industry. Look at it as an industry. I just want a little -- a little bit of it. I want to get some ego satisfaction, which is involved, some financial rewards, and perhaps set a new trend that years from now they might even make a little statue for me out in front of San Quentin.

WOODRUFF: Turning now to a final look at the day's main stories. The Soviet foreign minister called the U.S. plan for a Star Wars defense system an evil design, but he said there was still a realistic possibility there could be a U.S.-Soviet summit. In the Middle East, Israeli jets bombed targets near Beirut, and French soldiers serving in the U.N.'s Southern Lebanon observer force were targets of a rocket attack. Good night, Jim.

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