The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. A long-simmering debate about Soviet cheating on arms agreements began to surface today. Conservatives accused the Reagan administration of covering it up, and we look into that argument. The Lebanese say they've agreed to hold their peace talks in Geneva. We have a documentary report on the fierce religious and political resentments that they're trying to resolve. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, there's a variety of other news to report tonight; the economy continued its churn upward. The House put its veto stamp on covert aid to the Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. The Soviets had still another statement on arms control talks. And we're going to look at that trouble in the leftist paradise island of Grenada. There's even a news update on why David was able to slay Goliath with that pebble -- seriously.

MacNEIL: There were more readings today on the state of the nation's economic recovery. The government published the gross national product figures for the July to September quarter, and they showed that during those three months the economy grew at an annual rate of 7.9%. That is down from the 9.7% in the previous quarter, a rate economists thought too fast to sustain anyway. How you read the figures depends on where you sit. To President Reagan's Commerce Secretary, Malcolm Baldrige, they mean a strong recovery.

MALCOLM BALDRIGE, Secretary of Commerce: The economy has entered an expansion phase, although a few specific industries are lagging behind the overall pace of the economy. Major components of the economy point to continued growth on a sustained basis in a range of four to five percent throughout next year. The summer slowdown in consumer spending has ended. Yesterday, we reported strong gains in personal incomes and consumer spending for the month of September. I think it will keep improving because growing employment and the moderation of inflation continue to increase real spending power. Retailers can look forward to a very good holiday selling season.

MacNEIL: To the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volcker, the economy is still in a period of testing. Volcker warned that similar periods of recovery have deteriorated into accelerating inflation and stagnating real activity.

PAUL VOLCKER, Chairman, Federal Reserve Board: There are obvious potential obstacles in the path to sustained progress. Most importantly, the current prospect for federal budget deficits will remain exceptionally large into the indefinite future is a major factor propping up interest rates and continues to pose a serious risk to the stability of financial markets in the future, threatening the balance and ultimate sustainability of the recovery itself.

MacNEIL: The housing industry is also worried about deficits and unhappy with President Reagan. Last night, asked about the recent drop in housing starts, Mr. Reagan said, "Buyers would be smart to wait for present high interest rates to drop." Louis Dombrowski, vice president of the National Association of Realtors, said that was bad advice. "With a $200-billion deficit, it's difficult to see how interest rates are going to decline," he said. Harley Snyder, president of the realtors, said Mr. Reagan's remark was wishful thinking in light of the still unresolved federal budget deficit crisis. Jim?

LEHRER: As predicted by the Democrats in charge, the House voted this afternoon to cut off covert CIA aid to the Contras, the anti-Sandinista groups fighting a guerrilla war against the government of Nicaragua. The vote was a close 227 to 194 in favor of the Boland-Zablocki Amendment to an intelligence funding bill. The legislation authorizes $50 million in overt assistance to stop the arms flow from Nicaragua to leftist guerrilla forces in El Salvador, but none on the covert sly to Honduras and Costa Rica-based rebels seeking to bring direct military and economic trouble to the leftist Nicaraguan government. And today the Contras hit another Nicaraguan economic target. They raided an agricultural center 100 miles north of the capital, leaving grain silos and tractors destroyed, the local bank $80,000 poorer, and 32 Nicaraguan soldiers and civilians dead. On the U.S. aid question, it is considered unlikely the Republican-controlled Senate will go along with the House action, so today's vote may be more symbolic than real in its impact. That impact was the focus of the sometimes hot debate on the House floor which preceeded the vote.

Rep. WILLIAM GOODLING, (R) Pennsylvania: The real danger, Mr. Chairman, is if we send publicly a signal that as a matter of fact we are going to cut the operation off, why should Nicaragua participate in anything? Why not just wait and wait us out?

Rep. MICHAEL BARNES, (D) Maryland: We are heading, I would say to you,ladies and gentlemen, straight for war. Mr. Chairman, I want to deal just very quickly with some of the myths that sustain this drive toward war. For example, it's a myth that these covert operations are working. They're not working. The myth would have it that the covert operations are designed to force the Sandinistas to open up their political system, and I don't think any of us would argue that the covert operations have been successful in that respect. Nicaragua's political system is indisputably more closed now than it was when those operations were begun. You don't democratize a government by attacking it. Myth would have it that the covert operations are designed to interdict arms that are flowing from Nicaragua to Salvador. I don't think there's anybody in this room that would argue that the covert operations have been successful at doing that since, to my knowledge as chairman of the subcommittee that oversees these issues, not one rifle has been interdicted during the entire period that these operations have been underway.

Rep. JOHN McCAIN, (R) Arizona: I believe there are two likely consequences from the implementation of the Boland interdiction concept. The first is conflict among Central American nations and, second and most importantly, is increased involvement of U.S. military personnel.

Rep. JIM LEACH, (R) Iowa: Above anything else, the United States of America has always stood for the rule of law. Within that context, we have taken the lead in attempting to place legal and moral constraints upon terrorism. It's been said here today that our current policy is cheap, that no American lives are jeopardized. That may be true in the short run, but I wonder in the long run whether United States government complicity in acts of sabotage in efforts to overthrow a duly recognized government within this hemisphere won't be very costly to our principles and eventually our lives.

LEHRER: On another defense matter, the House Appropriations Committee today voted to kill funding for a new generation of nerve gas weapons: $114.6 million had been authorized for the nerve gas program in earlier congressional action. Today's Appropriations Committee vote opens the question; the full House and then Senate action still to come.

MacNEIL: Both the United States and the Soviet Union had further things to say about the talks in Geneva on limiting medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe. At his news conference last night, President Reagan said that although the Russians have been threatening to walk out, he believes they would return and talk seriously once Moscow sees U.S. missiles are being deployed on schedule in December. At the talks today the Soviet delegate, Yulig Vitsinsky, said the Soviets are prepared to stay at the table as long as it is necessary and if there are prospects for an agreement. And then he added, "but there are none."

In Washington, Mr. Reagan told Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, "We remain hopeful that an understanding will be reached and we'll continue negotiations even after initial deployments." Jam? Soviet Arms Cheating

LEHRER: A group of Senate conservatives say the Soviet Union is cheating regularly on existing arms agreements, and the U.S. -- meaning the Reagan administration -- isn't doing anything about it. Their growing frustration peaked today at a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Secretary of State George Shultz was to testify about alleged Soviet violations of one particular agreement, the Kennedy-Krushchev deal that followed the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. It bans the placement of so-called offensive weapons in Cuba, but some of the senators say such weapons are in Cuba now, but nobody will say so.

[voice-over] Today's hearing started in public, but Secretary Shultz refused to appear until the closed executive session began. That provoked the ire of North Carolina's Jesse Helms, who had been insisting on the hearing.

Sen. JESSE HELMS, (R) North Carolina: I really don't think, Mr. Chairman, that our State Department should shrink from an opportunity to discuss this matter fully and comprehensively in public session.

LEHRER [voice-over]: Helms said he doubted whether a binding agreement between President Kennedy and Chairman Krushchev even exists, and if it does, it should be subject to public scrutiny.

Sen. HELMS: This has been a mirage, a sort of a myth, a fantasy for about 21 years. Now, any arms control agreement invites questions of verification and the ability to enforce such an agreement. Now, the presumed Kennedy-Krushchev accords are no exception, and this issue, which is prominent in the public eye today, or should be, is basic, I think, to the American people's understanding of the overall issue of arms control.

LEHRER: For more on this long-festering issue, we turn to Judy Woodruff. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Jim, the conservative senators have wanted Secretary Shultz to testify on all the arms treaties we have in force with the Soviets, but they settled for starters on the 1962 arrangement between Kennedy and Krushchev as one example of how the Soviet Union does not live up, in their words, to its commitments.

JOHN F. KENNEDY, former President: I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: The treaty Kennedy and Krushchev negotiated was the result of the Cuban missile crisis when the United States and Russia went to the brink of nuclear war. That experience led the way to a series of treaties, staring with the aboveground nuclear test ban treaty signed in 1963. Then President Johnson introduced the concept of SALT -- strategic arms limitation talks -- and Presidents Nixon and Brezhnev signed the SALT I treaty. Ford and Brezhnev added some amendments to SALT I at Vladivostok, and President Carter brought home SALT II. Over the years of arms talks with the Soviets, verification has been a major sticking point. The Soviets have resisted all U.S. demands for on-site inspections. Their weapons testing can be monitored only by radar and satellites -- the so-called "national technical means." But these methods of eavesdropping can be frustrated when the Soviets scramble the signals their rockets send out during flight. This is known as encoding or encrypting. When the SALT II treaty was sent to the Senate for ratification, there were some skeptics about verification. General Edward Rowny had been a delegate to the talks. He resigned from the military in order to oppose the treaty, saying Soviet compliance could not be verified.

Gen. EDWARD ROWNY, former SALT II negotiator [July 12, 1979]: Soviet intelligence collectors have relatively free access to our defense plans and activities, while we must rely on highly sophisticated, but vulnerable, national technical means for our verification. The Soviets' penchant for secrecy has prevented the inclusion in the treaty of cooperative measures which would greatly improve the ability to verify the provisions of the agreement.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Ohio Senator John Glenn also opposed the treaty at the time, specifically because of language that he said allowed the Soviets to avoid verification.

Sen. JOHN GLENN, (D) Ohio: I don't think we should be leaving it up to then what impedes verification. That means we have to take this to the standing consultative group, the SCC, and we have to lay out then what our problems are with not having enough information to be able to verify, I don't think we would do except in the most extreme cases.

Gen. ROWNY: And then, Senator, I don't know how you'd prove it because you'd say, "Well, we think you're deliberately impeding the verification of a provision of this treaty," and they'd say, "No, we're not." And we'd say, "Well, you're encrypting." "Yes, but we're not encrypting anything of the provisions." "Oh, yes you are." "No, we ain't." Where do you go?

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Today Glenn is running for president and supports SALT II, saying he now believes the U.S. can verify it. As for the treaty, it was pulled off the Senate floor after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and never voted on. But both sides tacitly agree to abide by the treaty's provisions anyway. General Rowny is now the chief negotiator for the Reagan administration at the strategic arms reduction talks, or START, the new name given them by Mr. Reagan. Rowny faces some of the same questions now about verification that he raised several years ago. He talked about those in an interview here in August.

Gen. ROWNY [August 26, 1983]: From my point of view, I am glad that these are being raised because, if we shove them under the rug and I try to bring home a treaty which covered up some alleged violations or showed that we weren't looking at these, I wouldn't have any success with the treaty.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: President Reagan questioned whether the Soviets are living up to previous agreements in his speech this fall to the United Nations.

Pres. REAGAN [September 26, 1983]: We're ready to be flexible in our approach, indeed, willing to compromise. We cannot, however, especially in light of recent events, compromise on the necessity of effective verification. We have negotiated arms agreements but the high level of Soviet encoding hides the information needed for their verification. A newly discovered radar facility and a new ICBM raise serious concerns about Soviet compliance with agreements already negotiated.

WOODRUFF: But his conservative critics charge that Mr. Reagan is still soft-pedaling the violations to keep the talks on track. Meanwhile, verification remains an issue because the Soviets still try to conduct their tests in secret, and the Americans won't make public their methods of spying. One of the prime movers behind the effort to bring the issue of alleged Soviet cheating to the center of attention is Idaho's Republican senator, James McClure. Briefly, Senator, how much cheating is going on, and just what type of cheating is it?

Sen. JAMES McCLURE: Well, there's far too much cheating going on, and you could look at a number of things have happened in the last several years. They go back a number of years. The ink scarcely is dry on a treaty before the Soviets start trying to find the limits of their activity. We could look at the test ban treaty with a great number of experts contending still that they are above the test ban limits. I think we've gone beyond any debate anymore whether or not yellow rain is a violation of the ban on chemical and biological weapons, and the Soviet Union is deeply involved in that. And all the experts agree on that. I think we've gotten beyond the point of arguing whether the PL-5 or the SSX-25 or the SS-25 -- however you want to designate that rocket -- that is a violation of the terms of the treaty, and incidentally, it was a test of that that led -- or at least was scheduled for the night that the Korean airliner was shot down. They have violated certainly whatever the terms of Krushchev-Kennedy [treaty] may have been; we're not certain what those terms were, but there are offensive weapons in Cuba. So the evidence is, I think, conclusive in many instances, and certainly persuasive in others.

WOODRUFF: Well, how serious, though, is all this? I mean, are we talking about technical violations or really substantive violations in all these cases?

Sen. McCLURE: They are extremely substantive violations. How could anyone suggest, for instance, that the use of biological weapons in Southeast Asia in a testing mode to determine whether or not they will be usable against us, and that has resulted in the loss of lives of tens of thousands of people, is merely technical? The violations that they have done on the weight limitations under SALT I and the violation of the provisions of SALT II with the development of new ICBMs gives them a quantum leap forward in the relative power.

WOODRUFF: Now, do you have evidence? I mean, do you have proof that all this happened?

Sen. McCLURE: Absolutely. Those are beyond any question. There is no doubt about those anymore in the minds of anyone who is looking at the issue with an open mind. Now, I think, too, you have to say that when they have the very latest fighter aircraft stationed in Cuba, the MIG-27 -- that's not based on classified information; that's based upon informaton that's open to the public. That is an offensive weapon, more nuclear-capable than the weapons that were there that were supposedly banned under Kennedy-Krushchev.

WOODRUFF: Well, now what are you saying we should do? Are you saying that the U.S. should give up on any arms treaties with the Soviets?

Sen. McCLURE: No, and I think that's one of the most important points that needs to be made. It isn't just a question of verification. That's a tough enough question. But the question is, after violation, what? What do you do when you discover that they're cheating? Well, you do two or three things, but one thing you do not do: you don't stop negotiating. You don't stop trying to reduce the tensions. You don't cut off the opportunities to make this a more secure world. But in the meantime you must have, on the shelf, in being, the means by which we can balance out the security equation when we catch them cheating.

WOODRUFF: Well, how do you do that though?

Sen. McCLURE: Well, there are a whole variety of different things. For instance, I don't see any reason why, if we know they're violating SALT II, why we continue to feel that we're bound by SALT II.

WOODRUFF: Well, what sections should we be violating, then?

Sen. McCLURE: Well, the SALT II, as any weapons treaty, is a balance between several different things. You don't just missile-per-missile, bomber-for-bomber, submarine-for-submarine. It's a package that gives you relative parity, and that's what we're after in these negotiations in Europe today.

WOODRUFF: But you're saying because they're violating parts of SALT II that we should wiolate parts.

Sen. McCLURE: I'm saying that we must do what's necessary to protect the security of this country when you see that their violations give them military advantage.You must be in a position to respond.

WOODRUFF: All right, thank you, Senator McClure. Robin?

MacNEIL: Now a different view of the Soviet record. Tom Downey is a Democratic congressman from New York and a member of the Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus in the House. He was a congressional adviser to the U.S. negotiators at the SALT II treaty talks. Congressman, I'd like to ask you two questions. First of all, do you agree with the Senator that the Soviets are guilty of these violations? And then we'll discuss how serious they are?

Rep. THOMAS DOWNEY: Well, the Senator raised a number of violations, some of which I agree with and others with which I don't.

MacNEIL: Which ones do you agree have happened?

Rep. DOWNEY: Well, I think he mentioned the chemical and biological violations of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, and I think our government has decided that they are violations, and I suspect that they probably are. This is an area that is highly sensitive; we don't want the Soviets to know how we find out about these things. But I think that violation is clear, and there is one other that is also quite clear that the Senator didn't mention. That had to do with the Helsinki agreements. They are required to call in and let us know about maneuvers, and they didn't do that in Poland. But as for some of the others, there are some real doubts about whether there are violations there or not, and there are real serious ambiguities and differences of opinion about that.

MacNEIL: I see. Of the violations that you acknowledge, or agree with Senator McClure on, are they, as he says, substantial and not just technical violations?

Rep. DOWNEY: Oh, I think that the violation of the yellow rain is substantial. I don't think there's any doubt about that, and that gives rise to how you want to respond. I'm not sure that I want to respond by building a vast chemical arsenal. I think it might be better for us to respond by having defensive capabilities, and it's also important that we understand that the Soviets have had, interestingly enough, a pretty good track record on agreements when they are tightly drawn and unambiguous, and that is -- this should be a guide for us in the future.

MacNEIL: Are you saying that these violations, proved or suspected, arise from agreements that are not tightly drawn?

Rep. DOWNEY: Well, I think that there are -- you know, baseball is a simple sport, but we saw how long we argued about whether or not George Brett's home run was any good, and that was pretty clear to most people. And we find that in SALT II there are provisions that the United States has insisted upon with respect to, for instance, the testing limits, which is currently in controversy about the SS-25, that there are ambiguities and there are problems there that we have decided we will try and deal with as they arise at the Standing Consultative Commission, which has worked, by the way, very well.

MacNEIL: And that's what you think we should do? Not make a big public hue and cry about it or withdraw from talks or anything, but just private diplomacy?

Rep. DOWNEY: Well, let me -- I think that private diplomacy works pretty well with the Soiviets. We see that when we hit them over the head that they react very badly to this. I think that you might, if we laid out a scenario for how to deal with some of the violations that Senator McClure has laid out, I would first like to see General Ellis, our commissioner at the Standing Consultative Commission, make his points to the Soviets and try to resolve it. I would point out that in the mid-'70s there was a Soviet violation or we thought there was a Soviet violation of their dismantling of the SS-8, and we brought that to their attention and they complied, and there have been other areas where they have complied. And I'd like to give them this opportunity to bring their actions, their ambiguous actions, more in line with the accords or the agreement, and then, if that doesn't happen, then I think it's the responsibility of the President to make the public aware of that.

MacNEIL: How about that, Senator, to try it quietly or privately through the Consultative Commission first?

Sen. McCLURE: I have no objection to using the diplomatic channels that are set up under the treaties or otherwise to try to resolve these ambiguities and to enforce compliance.

MacNEIL: Hasn't the administration started to do that by asking for a special meeting of this commission?

Sen. McCLURE: Yes, and that is a process that sometimes does produce good results. It's oftentimes a process that does not bring good results. And what I think we really ought to be doing to tell the American public is what is actually happening in this country, what is actually happening in the violation of these treaties. I think the American public is entitled to know what our government knows, to know what our government is telling the Soviet Union, and to know what the Soviet Union response is.

MacNEIL: So you would support the position Senator Helms raised at the meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee today, would you?

Sen. McCLURE: Absolutely.

MacNEIL: What do you think about that, Congressman?

Rep. DOWNEY: Well, first of all, I find myself in an intriguing position of a) defending the Reagan administration, and b) appearing to not want the American people to know about diplomacy. But, notwithstanding those rather delicious ironies, I would point out that sometimes diplomacy works best quietly, and since the Soviet-U.S. confrontation in Cuba over the last 20 or more years, we found that the informal agreement that the State Department [worked out] and the exchange of letters about offensive weapons with the Soviets has worked very well. And I don't know if the Senator was privy today to Secretary Shultz' testimony, but apparently that is a vehicle, this quiet diplomacy, that has worked between our parties.

MacNEIL: Senator, is your position that the Reagan administration is hushing this up so as to keep the negotiations going to a degree that is threatening the security of this country?

Sen. McCLURE: I believe that it's dangerous for our country not to understand, for the people of this country, not to understand what's going on. I think that they form public opinions -- the public forms opinions that affect the policies of this country, and they do it without having enough valid information. This is a democratic country. The American people are entitled to know what's happening.

MacNEIL: Do you have information which as a senator, because of your position, you're not allowed -- because of its security implications -- to tell the public? Is that part of the problem?

Sen. McCLURE: That's a part of the problem, and the other part of the problem -- and I think my colleague here at the table tonight made reference to it and gave some credibility to it -- and that is the fact that if the administration says so, if the administration officially takes a position, that has more credibility with him as well as with the American public. And I think that's a duty for the administration to comply with.

MacNEIL: Do you agree with the Senator that there's classified information which people on the sensitive committees know which the public can't share at the moment?

Rep. DOWNEY: Oh, yes. There's no question about that. This is probably -- this is the family jewels. We don't want the Russians to know, frankly, about how we go about understanding their telemetry and the whole host of other things. We do this spectacularly well, in my opinion, and if the American public could be told, and I don't even think Senator McClure is arguing that they should know the national technical means by which the United States determines how the Soviets do their tests and where their submarines are, but this is something that we have decided as a country we will keep secret because it benefits the United States' security. And if we were able to let the American people know a little bit more about our incredible capabilities in this area, I think they'd have a lot more confidence in our arms negotiators and in the agreements they achieve because we can tell so much about Soviet activity.

MacNEIL: Briefly, you don't agree with that, Senator?

Sen. McCLURE: I don't agree with the conclusions he reaches, but I do think that indeed there is a great deal of information that the American public cannot be told because it would impinge upon the national means of verification. But I do believe that the American public ought to know what our conclusions are.

MacNEIL: All right, thank you gentlemen, both. Jim? Lebanese Talks in Geneva

LEHRER: There were several reports today, from the Pentagon and elsewhere, that a search is on for ways to give the U.S. Marines in Lebanon more freedom to go after snipers. Seven of the 1,600-man Marine force have been killed thus far; the latest was Sunday, when a sniper's bullet struck a Marine captain. A UPI report today said the Joint Chiefs of Staff are considering letting the Marines operate outside their perimeter at the Beirut international airport, either through motorized patrols or placing Marine snipers in better positions to pick off their attackers first. Air and naval gun strikes have been ruled out because of the ceasefire now in effect. Last night, President Reagan said at his news conference that everything is being looked at to make it safer for the Marines, but he gave no details. Robin?

MacNEIL: There was more fighting in Lebanon today, leaving five Lebanese dead and a French soldier wounded. But the U.S. Marines said all was quiet around their base at Beirut airport. Much of the fighting occurred around the Shuf Mountain town of Suk al Gharb, scene of the heaviest fighting before the ceasefire on September 26th. The peace conference supposed to follow that ceasefire was postponed today because of continued disagreement over the site. But tonight the government announced that all factions have agreed on Geneva to satisfy the fears of Druse leader Walid Jumblatt and others that they wouldn't be safe near Beirut. The so-called national reconciliation conference is intended to heal the political and religious divisions that have left Lebanon in turmoil since the civil war of the mid-'70s. For an insight into how difficult resolving those differences may be, we have this documentary report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The reporter is Linden MacIntyre.

LINDEN MacINTYRE, CBC [voice-over]: There are 75 monasteries like this Lebanon. They belong to the Maronite order of Lebanese monks. The monks chronicle the events that shape the county, vaguely conscious that they are inseparably part of those events. They have defined Lebanon's destiny: to be an island of Christian democracy in a sea of Islam. Now they must record the agonies that arise from the interpretation of such a destiny.

[on camera] This is the town of Deir el Qamar in the heart of the Shuf region, once one of Lebanon's most important centers of power. Today, while the power rests elsewhere and while politicians debate the theory of Lebanon's future in those places, the reality of Lebanon now exists right here.

[voice-over] This is the last Christian presence in the Shuf -- over 20,000 refugees driven here from their villages. The Red Cross has delivered blankets. But deliveries of any kind are rare. These people are imprisoned here, hostages to a political system that doesn't work. Food deliveries are limited to rice and flour; the Druse militiamen who control access to Dir al Kamir permit only a bare minimum in supplies. No one may leave. They huddle in every available space, tripling the town's normal population. Perhaps the most pathetic are 350 mentally-handicapped children and adults living in the local hospital, without adequate food or medication. We found 300 people packed into one church. Emotions were at the breaking point.

REFUGEE SPOKESMAN, Deir el Qamar: She has nine children and they are giving their own rice, and they need milk, they need a lot of material and some medicine. They are not sleeping well; they have no food. And there is a lot of bacteria going on and some diphtheria cases, and they are scared about their kids that have no milk. And they don't have blankets, they don't have beds to sleep in. And what they are asking, they are not asking more for food only; they are asking some government to come or somebody to move them from here to go back their homes.

MacINTYRE [voice-over]: But their abandoned homes have been systematically destroyed. While the drama of Deir el Qamar worsens, the tragedy of the Shuf has been compounded. The eviction of the Christians from the Shuf will not easily be undone. The ruins of the Shuf hold a grim warning for the Maronites and the destiny they have served for 1,400 years. The Maronites are one of 17 minorities in Lebanon, but the system gives them the status of a majority. Under the constitution, the president must be Maronite. Also the head of the army, head of the central bank, head of the secret service. The special status of the Maronites provokes deep hostility among other largely Muslim groups in Lebanon. The Maronites believe there is now an organized attack on Christian dominance in Lebanon.

Father BOULOS NAAMAN, Superior-General, Maronite Monks: We feel that we are suffering too much, and we are suffering only because we are Christian and because we believe in the Christian values -- democracy, the liberty. Nobody, nobody, only the Christian regime can respect these true values, human rights, and freedom.

MacINTYRE [voice-over]: Freedom for the Maronites has meant free access to privileges, which have contributed to a lifestyle far beyond the means of many Lebanese. In Junia, a largely Christian city a few kilometers north of Beirut, nightlife still flourishes. In the mountains northeast of Junia, again largely Christian, there is little evidence of strife. This is no accident. Tyey're called the Lebanese Forces, the Phalangist militia, pledged to preserve the Lebanon of Christian Maronite design. They maintain constant readiness; they can't count on the national Lebanese army to protect their interests. They say they'd like to hand their functions over to the army, but the army has yet to prove itself. At the northern perimeter of their military influence, Christian militiamen huddle around a shattered church. The enemy here is a collection of Syrians, Palestinians and pro-Syrian Christians. The Syrians sponsored much of the most recent unrest in Lebanon. Their involvement only confirmed the Maronite view that they are at the center of all Lebanon's problems.

Father NAAMAN: For me to make the reconciliation on all the Middle East, it's necessary to destroy Syria, and I repeat the famous word for a Roman writer. He said, in Latin, "Cartagum dilenda est." -- it's necessary to destroy Carthage if we want that Rome live.And it's necessary to destroy Syria if we want that the Middle East live.

MacINTYRE [voice-over]: While much of Lebanon pins new hope on efforts at reconciliation, Father Naaman detects a sinister drift in the exercise.

Father NAAMAN: I don't believe that the ceasefire is the beginning of the reconciliation. I'm sure that [it] is the beginning of Islamization of Lebanon.

MacINTYRE [voice-over]: Islamic plot or not, Islam is on the march. There hasn't been a census for 50 years, but it's likely Lebanon is now well over 50% Muslim. The largest minority is no longer Maronite, but Shiite Muslim, and they know it. And they know that collectively they're the poorest people in Lebanon, and the combined awareness of their numerical strength and their disparity has produced a new militancy.

At Friday prayers the guns are left outside the mosque, carefully labeled and stored in boxes. But the bitter spirit that makes the gun a special menace here continues inside. In Islam there is no separation between politics and religion, and the fervor of the Shiite religious commitment gives a special fire to their politics. The prayer ends but the event continues as a rally, praising the martyred Imam Hussein and the contemporary hero, Ayatollah Khomeini, and damning Israel and the United States. It is the start of the Shiite new year, a time spent in contemplation of their suffering and of their hope. Sheik Mohammed Mahdi Chemseddin is spiritual head of Lebanon's Shiite Muslims.

MAHDI CHEMSEDDIN, Shiite spiritual leader [through interpreter]: The Moslems generally and the Shiite in particular have no effective, or any, participation whatsoever in the political decision-making of Lebanon, be it in foreign policy or in development. And this condition has been reflected in reality in all the Shiite regions and in all the Shiite citizens, and they are the citizens which suffer the most in Lebanon.

MacINTYRE [voice-over]: A gun is hope. Hope is the name they have given their militia, Amal. The novelty of power gives them a frightening unpredictability. Their roadblocks are parodies of what they have seen in the movies. They toy with a power they don't fully understand, but which they are quickly learning how to use. For the Amal, there is no reconciliation without equality. Politically they have managed to present a serious and credible profile through their leader, Nabih Berri.

NABIH BERRI, Amal leader: In Lebanon you have some of the people they have the right to everything. The other people they are like they are black people in South Africa. They are second class, third class, any class that you want.

MacINTYRE [voice-over]: In the struggle for reform, Amal will join with any group that shares their perception of injustice. The Druse of the Shuf are their current allies. These Druse refugees are seeking information about missing relatives. Of an estimated hundred thousand people displaced by the battle in the Shuf last month, half were Druse. The militiamen hold their positions. The fighting proved nothing for the Druse, changed nothing for the Shiites, only created more grief. The Druse have higher stakes. There are only half a million of them in the Middle East; half of that number in Lebanon. Their fight for equality here is a fight for survival. Akhram Chaieb, Druse military officer in Alleh, is part of a new militant leadership front.

AKHRAM CHAIEB, Druse military leader: We didn't say that we want to change the regime and to build a Drusian state. This is not acceptable at all. We are Lebanese, and we will still as we lived in the past, but we want our share in the government.

MacINTYRE [voice-over]: In ironic counterpoint, they expressed their grief with gunfire which caused their grief. Today, the special grief of a funeral without a body; another soldier must be presumed to be dead. At another church within earshot of the gunfire, Pierre Gemayel attends Sunday mass. He is leader of Lebanon's Phalangist Party, the political arm of the Maronites, and founder of the Christian militia. Like his son, Bashir Gemayel, who was assassinated last year, he sees no hope for Lebanon except in armed struggle.

PIERRE GEMAYEL, Phalangist Party leader [through interpreter]: Unfortunately we have to. If we do not fight, do you believe that we will continue to exist? It's over if we do not defend ourselves.

MacINTYRE [voice-over]: As Lebanon gropes for reconciliation, the Maronite monks see no chance for it. After all, the Lebanese have yet to agree what, if anything, they must reconcile.

Mr. GEMAYEL: This fight is not between the Lebanese; it's between the Lebanses and the foreign elements who used a few Lebanese like instruments. It's a war between Russia and America.

Mr. BERRI: They try to say that this fighting it's between Lebanese and not Lebanese, but the truth -- it is the real struggle it's between the Lebanese.

Mr. CHAIEB: The problem between us and Phalagist, and it's a civil war, it is not against Lebanon. We are Lebanese and we want to live with the others here but in equality.

MacINTYRE: This is an old battleground, dating back to the early days of the war almost nine years ago. Very little has changed here since then. The central government has failed to reduce the paranoir of the Maronite Community or to suppress their military power. And they've failed to reassure other heavily armed groups who see Maronite influence as a cause of their problems and as a threat to their safety. Such a failure undermines current efforts at reconciliation here, and it assures that the last chapter of this bloody history has yet to be written.

I'm Linden MacIntyre for The Journal, in Beirut.

LEHRER: An additional perspective now on the enormous problem of reconciliation among those various religious and political factions of Lebanon. It's a very special perspective of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. Prince Bandar was one of the key mediators who worked out the Lebanon ceasefire and the framework for reconciliation that was part of it. His father is the Saudi defense minister; his wife is the daughter of the late King Fasil; the Ambassador is a trained F-15 fighter pilot and holds a masters degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Ambassador, based onyour earlier mediating experience, are you as gloomy about reconciliation? Is it a realistic possibility?

Prince BANDAR bin SULTAN: Yes, I believe it is a realistic possibility based on first-hand contact with all the different parties to the Lebanese question.

LEHRER: Is the development today, an agreement finally that the reconciliation committee will meet in Geneva, is that something that gives you hope too?

Amb. Prince SULTAN: Very much so. It's another step in the right direction.

LEHRER: Well, let's go through what we just saw. On the one hand you have the Maronite Christians, who apparently have a strong hand now but feel that it's going to be taken away from them and they don't want it. On the other hand you have the Moslem groups who want power that they do not have now. Can that be worked out peacefully?

Amb. Prince SULTAN: See, if you take all the foreign elements or involvement out of the Lebanese situation, you will still have problems because the problems are old and inequality and in -- the disparity between the different parties in Lebanon has been economical, political, social. So at face value you're not putting your finger on what was going through my mind when we first started this: how are we going to solve this problem? And the Lebanese have had enough of the killing, the massacre, the destruction. I am very pleased to say that this feeling was not for one group and not from the other. This feeling was universal between them. I've talked with the opposition. I've talked to President Gemayel and his government. I can assure you --

LEHRER: The film didn't make clear, by the way, Pierre Gemayel, the older man who was on, it's his second son who is now the president of Lebanon.

Amb. Prince SULTAN: That's correct.

LEHRER: Go ahead.

Amb. Prince SULTAN: He, the president -- I found that the demands, the bottom-line demands of the opposition parties are not extreme. I found the president's reception to those demands as very flexible, and he really wants to be president for all of Lebanon. He would like to be given the chance and the right environment to prove that the Lebanese can work out their problems. So from that perspective, from a first-hand touch and feeling it, I am optimistic if they are left alone, given the right environment, they will succeed.

LEHRER: On the question of being left alone, the Maronite monks said it on that tape, President Reagan said it last night at his news conference, and that's Syria's role in this. You heard what President Reagan said last night, that Syria is the major outside roadblack to getting this thing on track. Do you agree?

Amb. Prince SULTAN: I would not presume to comment on what the President has said yesterday, but I believe strongly that the real obstacle has been the Israelis, not the Syrians. And that I believe that it's very easy to see that without the Syrians' cooperation we would not have gotten the ceasefire. Without the Syrians' cooperation, we would not have gotten a final agreement on the meeting place. So, regardless of what we think of Syria's previous positions, they have done a couple of positive steps, in my judgment. And nobody's talking about the Israelis' position.

LEHRER: Well, the Israelis aren't involved in the ceasefire or in the reconciliation meeting. I'm just talking about that right now.

Amb. Prince SULTAN: That's correct.

LEHRER: Okay.

Amb. Prince SULTAN: Again, the ceasefire is the classical example of how Syria played a positive role, the result of which we got the ceasefire. I don't believe we could have we could have gotten a ceasefire if Syria didn't want it. So let's give them recognition for that.

LEHRER: What about the role of the peacekeeping force and the U.S. Marines? Are they helping the situation or are they hurting it?

Amb. Prince SULTAN: The Marines came in at the request of the Lebanese government, and I think they are the best ones to make a judgment on that. However, their concept of being there, as the President has said and the American official position has been always, that they are there to keep the peace as part of multinational force. Within that role, I think it's been positive. As they are drawn into a larger conflict, I think that that might fire back.

LEHRER: But in a word, you are very hopeful about this whole situation?

Amb. Prince SULTAN: I am optimistic, not because I know something you don't know, but in my position you cannot afford to be pessimistic.

LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador, thank you.

Amb. Prince SULTAN: Thank you.

LEHRER: Robin?

MacNEIL: Here at home, according to documents made public in a federal court today, General Motors was told repeatedly by its own test drivers that the brakes on its 1980 Model X cars had a tendency to lock. One document showed that the logs of test drivers in 1978 -- two years before the cars went on the market -- showed at least 35 reports of brakes locking. GM is defending itself in Washington against a suit brought by the Justice Department, which wants the company to recall more than a million X-cars. The company says it didn't know about the problem before the car went into production.

Hurricane Tico, which hit the coast of Mexico yesterday, today dumped up to 10 inches of heavy rain across Texas and Oklahoma. Oklahoma's Governor George Nye declared a disaster area to help cope with the effects of flooding and high winds. Mexico today declared a disaster area in the coastal town of Mazatlan, a popular resort and retirement home for Americans.

Jim?

LEHRER: In a medical development today, a New York cancer researcher said new studies show radioactive implant is as effective as mastectomy in treating breast cancer. Mastectomy is the medical term for removing a cancerous breast by surgery. The new implant alternative is to remove only the malignancy and then insert tiny plastic tubes of Irradium isotope into the breast. Dr. Samuel Hellman of the Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center in New York says the experience with 357 patients shows the new method matches cancer control and survival rates for mastectomy.

Robin? Trouble in Grenada

MacNEIL: All week we've been mentioning what sounded like a comic book power struggle between two rival Marxist leaders on the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada. Today the facts looked much grimmer.

[voice-over] Grenada is a lush volcanic island, discovered by Columbus in the southern Caribbean, known for its exotic tropical scenery and exports of nutmeg. It became independent from Britain under an eccentric prime minister called Eric Gairy, who claimed to follow orders from God and kept opposition down with a private police force called Mongoose Men. Gairy's men killed an opposition leader called Rupert Bishop. The dead man's son, Maurice Bishop, avenged his father by overthrowing Gairy and setting up a semi-Marxist state friendly to Cuba. Too friendly for President Reagan, who feared Grenada was becoming another outpost of Soviet influence.

Pres. REAGAN: On the small island of Grenada at the southern end of the Caribbean chain, the Cubans, with Soviet financing and backing, are in the process of building an airfield with a 10,000 foot runway. Grenada doesn't even have an airforce. Who is it intended for?

MacNEIL [voice-over]: But for Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard and the army, Bishop may not have been Marxist enough. Last week they put Bishop under house arrest. Yesterday a crowd of thousands stormed the palace and released Bishop. Troops fired on the crowd, killing Bishop and three cabinet ministers. The widow of one said Prime Minister Bishop and the others were actually executed. The new regime imposed a curfew and threatened to shoot violators on sight. But the regime said it would respect the lives and property of foreigners. More than 1,000 Americans live in Grenada, including 500 students at St. George's medical school.

[on camera] Leaders of neighboring Caribbean nations reacted with horror today. Former Barbados Prime Minister Errol Barrow called for immediate United Nations action to free Grenadians from what he called "the scourge of Stalinist dictatorship."

With us is Robert Pastor, who has watched Grenada closely as a senior staffer on President Carter's National Security Council, and is a professor at the University of Maryland's school of public affairs. Professor Pastor has met both with Bishop and Coard at lengh. Professor Pastor, how do you explain the rather unusual violence and the killing of Bishop and the others in Grenada yesterday?

ROBERT PASTOR: Well, I think it is quite surprising by Eastern Caribbean standards. This is not Central America. This is an area which has parliamentary democracies in which, although President Reagan warned that Grenada could be a virus in the Eastern Caribbean, in actual fact it innoculated the other countries. There have been more than a dozen free elections since then. So it is quite unusual by the standards of the region.

MacNEIL: How do you explain, in terms of the personalities of Coard and Bishop and their ideologies what may have been going on there?

Prof. PASTOR: Well, it's not at all clear to me that it was a question of ideology. In my conversations with them, my conversations with others that know them quite well, there was no evident ideological space between them. I think it was a rather classic power struggle, in which a number of the people in the Grenadian government were relatively jealous or rather jealous of Bishop's consolidation of power in which -- and at a certain point in time moved to try to stop that.

MacNEIL: The State Department said today that it had suspicions that Cuba was involved but no evidence. Do you think it makes sense that Cuba might have been involved in this?

Prof. PASTOR: I think that they will be probably quite embarrassed by what's happened. They've been trying to walk back to a position of greater influence in the Eastern Caribbean ever since the Grenadan revolution, and have tried to settle their relations and smooth their relations. So I think this latest -- this latest violence in the Eastern Caribbean will make their -- will reduce their influence considerably. If they had a hand, I'm sure they're not quite happy with the results.

MacNEIL: Has the U.S. attitude to Grenada since Maurice Bishop took over and set up this Marxist or quasi-Marxist state, has it had an influence on events there?

Prof. PASTOR: I don't think there's any question that the United States had some influence over events, but I don't think that we ought to exaggerate the influence. I think that the group that came to power in March of 1979 had some very clear ideas about how to organize power, used the United States in many ways as a threat to consolidate power, to mobilize the population, to justify militarization of an island that formerly only had a defense force of about 150. So I don't think the U.S. influence was positive, but I don't think that it had -- it was that traumatic, either.

MacNEIL: What do you think the U.S. posture should be now?

Prof. PASTOR: Well, there is one thing that the United States should not have done, which is to make this into a direct confrontation between President Reagan and the Grenadian leadership. Such a confrontation only makes the United States look foolish and the Grenadian leadership look heroic in comparison. I think the first and foremost thing is to understand that what happened in Grenada is an event in the Eastern Caribbean and we ought to consult with the governments there and pretty much follow their lead on what to do.

MacNEIL: A number of the Caribbean prime ministers said today that maybe Grenada should be excluded from their East Caribbean common market. Do you think they will look after it themselves if the United States leaves it to them?

Prof. PASTOR: I think that the United States -- there is no question in my mind that the Eastern Caribbean leadership is among the most talented and able in the entire world and that they'll have very clear ideas of their own on ways to deal with Grenada, and I think that the United States would be well served in supporting them whatever it is that they choose to do.

MacNEIL: Do you think that Grenada is now irremediably or irretrievably lost to a Stalinist or Cuban style Marxist dictatorship?

Prof. PASTOR: No, I don't think that an undemocratic dictatorship fit very well on the Grenadian people at all. The Grenadians were quite open to explain their concern about the political prisoners, quite open in explaining to me, right in front of military bases, how they would like to have free elections again like they have in the rest of the Eastern Caribbean. The business community is still quite vibrant. I think that there is a chance, although I think it's probably quite small, of a return to the fold of the Eastern Caribbean democracies.

MacNEIL: Well, Professor Pastor, thank you very much.

Prof. PASTOR: Thank you.

MacNEIL: Jim?

LEHRER: Again, the main stories of this day:

The gross national product continues its brisk growth. That's good news for economic recovery, but has some worried about what it may mean down the road for inflation.

The House voted to cut off covert aid to anti-Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua.

The Lebanon reconciliation meeting is reportedly now on, with Geneva, Switzerland as the site for the gathering.

The chief Soviet negotiator in Geneva says an agreement with the U.S. on intermediate missiles in Europe seems unlikely, but he'll continue to talk about it.

And, as we just heard, a revolutionary junta now rules the Caribbean island of Grenada following the killing yesterday of the prime minister.

There was also a story tonight from Nashville, Tennessee which cannot be ignored. A psychiatrist-scientist husband and wife team from Vanderbilt University says the boy David had a distinct advantage over the giant Goliath when he slew him with that rock. Doctors Pauline and David Rabin said in a letter to a medical journal that Goliath was a sick man, with tumors in his pituitary gland and pancreas that made him weak, a hormonal problem that made him large, and an optic nerve disease that impaired his vision. And the stone or pebble that felled him probably hit a diseased cyst on his forehead that caused instant death. The Rabins said they based their theories on a close reading of the Bible.

Good night, Robin,

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back again tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.