The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, the government ended the Chilean fruit crisis, a jump in wholesale prices hit Wall Street with an inflation scare, and the Senate unanimously confirmed Dick Cheney as Secretary of Defense. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary we find out why the government ended the Chilean fruit ban in a News Maker Interview with FDA Head Frank Young, then a profile of one man's controversial crusade to get Americans to eat better. Roger Mudd has a report on the ethics problems of House Speaker Jim Wright, and our regular Gergen/Shields team looks at that and other major political issues of this week. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The Chilean fruit crisis was declared over today. The Food & Drug Administration said the import of grapes and other small fruit from Chile will be resumed under special inspection procedures. Chilean fruit already in the United States, however, will be destroyed. The move against Chilean fruit was made three days ago after cyanide was found in two grapes. FDA Commissioner Frank Young said the new procedures were not perfect but they provided the maximum feasible level of safety.

DR. FRANK YOUNG, FDA: No program in any products in the United States can be put into place to assure maximum, a hundred percent safety, unless you look at each and every item. I would urge, whether it be any particular product, that consumers look at products carefully. I've been amazed how little time we spend looking at what we consume. Regretfully, we have been living possibly under the thought that everything is safe and wholesome without taking precautions.

MR. LEHRER: A reminder that Dr. Young will be with us right after the News Summary. On the apple front today, the Los Angeles schools said apples will again be served in their school cafeterias. The FDA and two other federal agencies yesterday declared apples and apple products safe. Fears about a pesticide known as alar in apples had caused Los Angeles and several other school districts in the country to stop apple sales. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There was more bad news on the inflation front today. The government reported that wholesale prices soared 1 percent in February after an identical advance the month before. That translates into 12.6 percent annually, more than triple the increase for all of last year. Much of the rise came from food and energy costs. The White House dispelled the monthly report, saying inflation will remain low for the long-term, but Wall Street wasn't reassured. Bond prices plummeted and stocks were broadly lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down almost 49 points.

MR. LEHRER: Dick Cheney was confirmed as Secretary of Defense today. The Senate vote was a unanimous 92 to 0. The Wyoming Congressman immediately resigned his House seat and was sworn in as Defense Secretary at an informal ceremony in his office. A formal ceremony takes place Tuesday at the Pentagon. His confirmation came just a week after he was picked by President Bush to replace John Tower, his first nominee. Tower was rejected by the Senate. Lawrence Eagleburger was also confirmed today as the Deputy Secretary of State. It came on a unanimous voice vote.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Criticism mounted today against the British Government's handling of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 as media reports fueled speculation that the authorities know the identity of the bombers. Authorities in both Britain and West Germany denied the reports. U.S. Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner said he's sending a special team to Britain and Germany to look into new reports on the bombing. On Capitol Hill, Sen. Frank Lautenberg called for an independent commission to look into the handling of the terrorist threats by the FAA and the airlines. He said the information that could have thwarted the Pan Am bombing may not have been heeded.

SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG, [D] New Jersey: The question that nags, could this have been prevented and did someone overlook their responsibilities? It's pretty clear that we need an unbiased outside review of what took place. We're prepared, we're determined to get to the bottom of this. We pledge our efforts to the families and the friends of the victims and take our responsibility for the traveling public as a serious obligation and we ought to do whatever we can to make certain that something like this can't happen again.

MR. LEHRER: Leftist guerrillas made efforts today to disrupt Sunday's elections in El Salvador. They knocked out most of the nation's electrical power, declared a traffic ban, and forced election officials and two mayors to resign after death threats. But a guerrilla leader said they would not harm voters going to the polls. In neighboring Nicaragua, the story was amnesty today. The Sandinista Government released 1900 former members of the National Guard that ruled the country under the late dictator, Anastasio Samosa. Most of the guardsmen had been in jail since 1979. Their release was part of a peace agreement worked out by five Central American Presidents.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Beirut, there's been another car bomb explosion, the fifth this year. The bomb went off in the Christian sector of town, about 50 yards from the British embassy, right near a bakery where people were waiting in line for bread. At least 12 people were killed and more than 75 were wounded. The past week has been one of the bloodiest in the past three years of Lebanon's civil war, with Christian soldiers fighting Moslem militias backed by Syria. That's our News Summary. Still ahead, FDA Chief Frank Young on the unbanning of Chilean fruit, a food crusader, Speaker Wright's troubles, and Gergen & Shields. NEWS MAKER - FDA

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: First tonight we return to the Chilean fruit story. As we reported, the FDA ended its embargo on Chilean fruit today, a ban imposed after two grapes imported from Chile were found to contain cyanide. Late today, I spoke with the head of the FDA, Frank Young, about the government's action and a new plan it announced to deal with public health concerns. Dr. Young, can you tell me what made you decide to lift the ban at this time?

DR. FRANK YOUNG, Food & Drug Administration: During the time that we've had this crisis, we have been looking at ways in which we could develop a plan that would assure the maximum possible safety on these fruits. And in doing so, we developed an analysis which really consisted of four parts, and that program was what we brought forward in following Dr. Sullivan's instructions to really focus on a plan that would be scientifically sound and provide the best scientific approach to dealing with this problem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's Dr. Louis Sullivan at Health & Human Services.

DR. YOUNG: That's Dr. Louis Sullivan, who's Secretary of the Department.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is that plan exactly?

DR. YOUNG: Fundamentally, there are four parts. The first part consists of inspection of the fruit during the time that it's in Chile. This is the entire line of the produce, from the field all the way to the boat. The second is the examination as it goes into the boat on a sampling basis to see whether or not that's intact, whether the fruit has any signs of tampering. Third, we have increased the focus in the United States of sampling, and we have increased from the 1 percent level that we found the tainted grapes up now to a 5 percent level and a minimum of 15,000 cases looked at in a boat that has relatively small amounts of grapes. A boat usually ranges from about 170,000 cases to about 900,000 cases. And finally, we're trying to focus on the consumer, to help the consumer and the produce people to look at products. Cyanide accelerates ripening, so you will see over ripe or soft, mushy grapes. You might also see grapes that have needle holes in them, surrounded by that telltale white ring. Those should be discarded. In general, with all products, we should really examine them rather than just consuming them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So you don't sound very confident that this scare is over yet.

DR. YOUNG: Well, I think we're going to still continue to receive threats. When you have something that goes on like this, and I've had experience with well over 100 threats on cyanide during the five years that I've been in the agency, we know there's a lot of copycats, people that will call in, and that's regretful, and tampering is a crime.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, there was, in fact, a call in today, reports of a third poisoning received by the U.S. embassy in Santiago. How are you treating that?

DR. YOUNG: Well, in fact, I announced that right at the conference. It just came in 15 minutes beforehand. The most important thing that needs to be known is that the plan was designed with looking at ships where there are two threats already, so a third threat really doesn't add anything more to the plan. The plan is designed to look at fruits where there may be a threat, so it doesn't make any more difference, it doesn't make any less difference, and also, the threat was received at that time in Santiago, and it takes ten to fourteen days for the boats that would have been loaded under this new plan to get to the United States, so we'll have a lot more experience by then.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you have any more information about how and where and by whom those grapes were contaminated?

DR. YOUNG: No, we really don't. That still remains a mystery. But I must confess that I've been focusing so much on the health and safety aspects that I really have not been able to look into that at this point. I will in the future, but right now that's being done by other people.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You've been criticized editorially both for not acting fast enough and also for acting too hastily. In hind sight, what, if anything, have you learned that would lead you to do something differently or to do something in a different way than the way you've done it?

DR. YOUNG: I really wouldn't do anything different at this time, because we have a general model and the model is like this, if you receive a threat, you investigate that threat and you start increasing your inspection of the product, and that increased inspection goes till you see whether that threat is likely to be real. Once you find that the threat is real as evidenced by finding the material that the person said that he was going to put into it, then you now have the smoking gun and you go full bore, and that's exactly what we did.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There's a lot of concern in Chile -- in fact, one grape owner said today or his son said that the U.S. reacting the way it did has aided world terrorism, that this has been like giving into hijacking. How do you respond to that?

DR. YOUNG: I don't think that's true at all. We've had these problems as was mentioned on a number of the television shows and I've had a number of them while I've been Commissioner, tea from Sri Lanka, oranges in different parts. We've seen this. As I said, in the last time that I've been here, five years, I've dealt with a hundred of these, and in the last two months, I've had five scares with cyanide, and one of them, as you know, was a tragic death of a boy in the New Jersey area. So we are dealing with this, it's a way of life, and unfortunately, it is terrorism and that's why we have got to have tough laws on it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Dr. Young, just very briefly, how much longer do you think the public has to maintain the kind of vigilance with respect to Chilean fruit that you outlined earlier?

DR. YOUNG: It really is hard to know. It's going to depend on the inspection, what we find, and whether the individual is apprehended. All of these factors enter into it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So we will be hearing more from you?

DR. YOUNG: I'm sure you will and I will honestly say each time exactly where we are.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right, Dr. Young, thank you for your candor and thank you for being with us.

DR. YOUNG: My great pleasure. PROFILE - FAT FIGHTER

MR. LEHRER: Now the story of one man's campaign against cholesterol. His name is Phil Sokolof and his targets are some of the oils used to prepare many food products. His efforts have set off a major argument in the food industry. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: These are a new kind of chocolate chip cookie being taste tested for the first time at Pepperidge Farms' research lab in Connecticut. If all goes well, they won't take any different from the old chocolate chip cookie. The only difference between the two is that one is baked with coconut oil and the other with a new kind of oil called canola, which is much lower in saturated fat.

PHIL SOKOLOF, Poisoning of America Campaign: I have said that I can't wait to eat Pepperidge Farm cookies. Right now they contain coconut oil, but pretty soon they won't, so it's great.

MR. HOLMAN: The elimination of so-called "tropical oils" from all processed foods is the crusade of this man, Omaha businessman Phil Sokolof. Advertising is his chief weapon. Sokolof uses it to alert the American public to what he says are the dangersof tropical oils. He has hounded the manufacturers of brand named products in national newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Already he says the ads have cost him $2 million.

PHIL SOKOLOF, Poisoning of America Campaign: There is no time frame obviously.

MR. HOLMAN: Sokolof's other major weapon in the battle is his telephone.

PHIL SOKOLOF, Poisoning of America Campaign: [On Telephone] I guess you should start talking now and tell me what Nabisco's policy is as to what you are going to do.

MR. HOLMAN: Nabisco has not yet jumped on Sokolof's bandwagon. What particularly irks Sokolof are products that claim to be cholesterol free even though they contain tropical oils, products like Procter & Gamble's Crisco. Crisco contains palm oil, which is high in saturated fats. The oil, itself, doesn't contain cholesterol, but scientists believe it increases the build-up of cholesterol in the bloodstream. High cholesterol levels are known to contribute to heart disease. Procter & Gamble has announced it will change the Crisco formula.

PHIL SOKOLOF, Poisoning of America Campaign: People take umbrage at bringing products home, eating them, thinking they're good, and when they see that coconut oil and palm oil are bad, they look at the contents in there and they say, this has got coconut oil, this has got palm oil, and they're thinking they're eating something that his healthful, that the ingredients are fine. They don't know this. Now they've found it out. That's why the companies are reacting because the people are demanding that they react.

MR. HOLMAN: Sokolof has been accused of seeking the limelight. He certainly is no stranger to center stage. He started singing professionally as a teenager, touring nationally with a big band. This show with his daughter was shaped a few years ago at a charity benefit in Omaha. Sokolof's current campaign also involves some showmanship, but it's an effort to rally support for a more personal cause, a cause that began 23 years ago when he had a heart attack and discovered his cholesterol level was over 300, dangerously high.

PHIL SOKOLOF: That's when I found out that palm oil and coconut oil were highly saturated fats. Of course, there are many other things that are highly saturated and you just can't cut out palm oil and coconut oil and live happily ever after.

MR. HOLMAN: Sokolof cut his cholesterol in half by sticking to an austere diet. He eats little for breakfast, perhaps a cup of soup for lunch and only once in a while eats a full dinner with his daughter's family. Once a month he indulges himself with a steak. Heart problems have taken a toll on Sokolof's family. His father and brother-in-law both died of heart attacks. His wife died after a 30 year struggle against cancer.

PHIL SOKOLOF: She is the inspiration for what I'm doing. My wife made me a better person. I wish that she were here to help share it or to help with my work, but I'm doing something.

PHIL SOKOLOF: I made this product on a machine by myself. This is the first product. I started running one of these machines in a one man business and they want to see, this is what I started with.

MR. HOLMAN: Sokolof owns Phillips Manufacturing, a firm that makes steel products for the construction industry. He started the business more than 30 years ago. Today he employs over a hundred people and distributes his products nationally. He runs his company with the same aggressive, hands on style that he's used to attack the food giants. He has earned millions of dollars and today he is worth, he said, well into eight figures. His advertising campaign isn't short of cash. The food industry is wary of Sokolof because of the size of his war chest and the self assured style with which he has attacked them. But already such large processors as Keebler, Sunshine Biscuits and General Foods are working on new formulas that don't depend on tropical oils. The new recipes could take months, even years, to develop. But several companies like Pepperidge Farm said their effort to move away from tropical oils was well underway before Sokolof surfaced. They were upset about being placed on his hit list. Pepperidge Farm President Richard Shea said Sokolof's use of the term "poison" borders on being illegal.

RICHARD SHEA, Pepperidge Farm: My first reaction it was kind of a nutritional extortionist and that, you know, we were certainly not happy, as you would expect us to be, but on the other side, we've had this program that's been working for a number of years and we already had products in the market place so that we, in fact, sent our publicity releases to Mr. Sokolof to show our position. We're certainly not interested in negotiating with him.

MR. HOLMAN: But how big a problem are tropical oils as a source of cholesterol in the American diet? The Food & Drug Administration has reported that palm coconut and palm kernel oils, the three so called tropicals, account for just 3.5 percent of all fat consumed. Most fat is consumed through meat and dairy products, which contain cholesterol, and animal fat shows up in more places than just the main course. Fat from beef and pork processors is trimmed off and sold to cookie and cake manufacturers. It shows up on food labels simply marked lard or animal fat. They are widely used. Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is Executive Director of the American Council on Science and Health, a New York based consumer education group. By attacking tropical oils, Whelan says, Sokolof will make the American public overly fearful of all saturated fats.

ELIZABETH WHELAN, American Council, Science & Health: I fear that Americans are suffering from a disease called nosophobia, and if you don't know what nosophobia is, I'll tell you that the medical dictionary tells us it's a morbid dread of illness, and in our nosophobic state, we see poisons on every plate and toxins and carcinogens under every pillow and we forget the obvious. We're living longer than ever before, despite these ads, the heart disease rate in this country is plummeting, and it has been for over a decade, so I don't really know what the poisoning of America is really trying to do. I think the poison is in the pen of the authors of that ad.

PHIL SOKOLOF, Poisoning of America Campaign: They are literally poisoning the American public. These foods are impairing the health of the public. Random House Dictionary defines poisoning as anything that will impair your health and clogging your arteries is certainly impairing your health.

CONSUMER: I try to eat just exactly what I should. I've read everything I can read.

MR. HOLMAN: The American Heart Association also is skeptical of Sokolof's campaign, wary of his strong language, and fearful that the elimination of tropical oils will be seen as a cure all to the cholesterol program. Dr. John LaRosa is the American Heart Association's Nutrition Committee Chairman and a cholesterol expert at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

JOHN LaROSA, American Heart Association: The American public seems to go from one emphasis, one magic bullet to another. One day it's fish oils, one day it's oat brand, one day it's eliminating tropical oils. The truth is no one thing, the elimination of no one kind of food is so overwhelmingly important that it ought to be emphasized and considered in place of a real change in the way we eat.

MR. HOLMAN: Despite such views of his work, Sokolof says he plans to continue his efforts with no apologies for his style or message. His campaign won't end, he says, until tropical oils are banished from all foods.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the Newshour tonight, Roger Mudd on Jim Wright and Gergen & Shields. But first, this is pledge week on public television. We are taking a short break now so your public television station can ask for your support. That support helps keep public programs like this on the air. CONFIRMATION HEARING EXCERPTS

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: For those stations not taking a pledge break, the Newshour continues now with an excerpt from the January confirmation testimony of Richard Darman to be Director of OMB.

RICHARD DARMAN, Director, OMB: [January 19, 1989] I think the President meant no new taxes as it would ordinarily be understood by ordinary Americans. I think a version of that is the duck test. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. That is the test that it seems to me is to be applied with respect to taxes. If ordinary people think that what we are talking about is a tax increase, it's a tax increase, because the Vice President's statement in the course of the campaign was not just an economic statement but a political statement understood by most people in a very conventional way.

SEN. CARL LEVIN, [D] Michigan: I thought you indicated in my office to me that you would not go along with the duck test if you felt that public policy required the revenue and if you felt that a good legitimate basis could be given to the argument that it was not a tax. Has there been either a shift or some different thinking since then?

RICHARD DARMAN: I would agree that what you attribute to me, that if there were an important policy objective to be served and if I thought it legitimate to define something not as a tax, that I might then favor it, even though there would be argument about whether it were or weren't a tax, that's the view you're suggesting I had and it is my view. With respect to the duck test, however, that goes not to the question of what I would recommend as a member of the administration within the administration, the duck test is an entirely different matter, it goes to the question of how a President must deal with his own campaign commitments in relation to the public. And --

SEN. CARL LEVIN: I don't see, I must tell you I don't really see this difference, unless you're saying that you would recommend to the President something that would violate his pledge.

RICHARD DARMAN: There are times when it may be responsible to make a recommendation that goes against a campaign pledge.

SEN. CARL LEVIN: Could that be a deficit which threatens our economic health?

RICHARD DARMAN: Only if one were absolutely certain that that problem could not be addressed by other means, and I am not certain it cannot be addressed by any other means. Indeed, lest there be any doubt on this point, if you would allow me, I should make clear I am not now recommending in any way to the incoming President that he violate the duck test and I do not now foresee the circumstances in which I should or would do so.

SEN. JIM SASSER, [D] Tennessee: If you look back over the eight years of the Reagan administration, we find that they've under estimated the budget deficit on an average of an excess of $30 billion a year. Are we going to get what would be more of consensus or reliable predictions out of OMB with regard to interest rates and assumptions when we get a Bush budget, or are we going to stick with the hold Reagan budget assumptions or economic assumptions?

RICHARD DARMAN: We haven't made a final determination with respect to what economic assumptions to use, but my very strong suspicion is that we would at this stage stick with the Reagan assumptions.

SEN. JIM SASSER: Rather than coming out with a thousand points of light here, what we're coming with is a thousand points of confusion, it appears to me, and that's why the American people and the markets don't seem to have much confidence in the way we run our budget process.

RICHARD DARMAN: Well, I think there are lots of reasons for them not to have confidence, and I would hope that we could act in a way that would improve the confidence they might have. But I think we ought not to act as if we should have too much confidence in any of these numbers. At some point, you've got to back up and use a degree of common sense. FOCUS - SPEAKER UNDER FIRE

MR. LEHRER: Next, the problem of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jim Wright. The House Ethics Committee is considering what action, if any, should be taken against the Texas Democratic leader. The committee of six Democrats and six Republicans took delivery of a 450 page staff investigation report two weeks ago. They have been meeting behind closed doors to discuss the next step ever since. Our Congressional Correspondent Roger Mudd reports on that problem and others.

SPOKESMAN: The Chair recognizes the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

ROGER MUDD: There he is, only the fiftieth man in 200 years to be Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, a powerful politician, a Congressional partisan who is determined to make the House a coequal branch of government at a minimum.

REP. JIM WRIGHT, Speaker of the House: [March 2, 1989] Towards the end of his career, Sam Rayburn once was asked how many Presidents he'd served under, and the crusty old Texan snorted and replied, "I haven't served under any. I've served with eight."

ROGER MUDD: There he is, all of those things, and yet James Claude Wright, Jr., of Ft. Worth, Texas, is now passing through the most controversial, most tumultuous, most demeaning period of his public life. He has been called everything from an albatross to a stooge, from a sleaze, to a heavy handed SOB. This is a short account of how Jim Wright after he'd got the job he'd wanted for 35 years almost immediately found himself to be among the most divisive speakers in history. How could this have happened? How could this talented, ambitions, vein hard working man get himself into such a pickle? Well, he got a lot of help, not only from his Republican enemies but also from his Democratic friends. Of course, the Speaker, himself, was no innocent bystander. From the day he was sworn in as Speaker, January 7, 1987, he moved to fill a leadership vacuum. He challenged President Reagan on the issue of delaying some scheduled tax cuts and he beat him. He got the appropriations bills done on time. He got action on clean air and water. He brought discipline back to a House that had grown used to Tip O'Neill's easier ways.

REP. JIM WRIGHT: Please establish better order that we may know exactly what we're doing.

REP. GRAY: Jim's style is quite different from Tip O'Neill, and there are a lot of people who just have to get used to that.

ROGER MUDD: William Gray of Philadelphia is a member of the House Democratic leadership.

REP. WILLIAM GRAY, [D] Pennsylvania: And there are some who were more accustomed to Tip O'Neill's style who are not used to a Speaker dictating and saying, this is the way we ought to go, and having pretty strong opinions about a variety of things and as a result, those people are not as supportive of his style.

ROGER MUDD: And the Republicans, suspicious of Wright from the beginning, knew they had a problem.

REP. MICKEY EDWARDS: When you had Tip O'Neill as Speaker or Carl -- or John McCormack or Sam Rayburn or anybody else -- you know, your word was your bond.

ROGER MUDD: Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma City is a member of the House Republican leadership.

REP. MICKEY EDWARDS, [R] Oklahoma: Jim Wright is just as likely to give you the word that he will do something a certain way and then change his mind and go back on it, it happens all the time, and the result is he has no credibility, among, at least on our side of the aisle and some of the people on the Democratic side, no credibility that he will keep his word.

ROGER MUDD: All Republicans point to October 29, 1987, as a day of infamy. On that day, Speaker Wright snatched victory from the jaws of defeat by delaying the announcement of a vote on the deficit until a freshman Democrat from Texas could get to the floor and switch his vote. Republicans bellowed in rage.

REP. MICKEY EDWARDS: Jim Wright runs this place not only as a tough leader, as previous speakers did, but by manipulating the rules and the procedures to get what he wants.

REP. GRAY: Gobbledegook. That is absolute gobbledegook. I expect that from them and I think the American people understand that when you're in the minority if you don't have an issue, you've got to cry something like procedural, dictatorial tyranny, the speaker gives his word and doesn't keep his word. That is not true.

ROGER MUDD: No sooner had the shouting died down about Wright's style that on November 13, 1987, the Speaker met privately in Washington with President Manuel Ortega and Cardinal Ebando Ebravo from Nicaragua to discuss a cease-fire. The White House was livid and accused Wright of disrupting the peace process.

REP. WRIGHT: I haven't tried to be Secretary of State. I've got a job.

REP. GRAY: Does the Speaker of the House have the right to meet with foreign dignitaries? Of course, this is a democracy. This is not Russia, where you go and meet only with Gorbachev, that's the only person you need to talk to. His position was right and the proof of the pudding was just last month when the leaders of Latin America came together to sign a peace accord, exactly what Jim Wright was saying was possible once we stopped this policy of undeclared war, backing the Contras.

ROGER MUDD: But Secretary of State Shultz was so offended by what he regarded as Wright's diplomatic big footing that it took the great Texas smoother over, Bob Strauss, to patch things up. The big November truce with the GOP lasted less than a month. On December 15th, Republican Newt Gingrich of Georgia called into question Speaker Wright's code of ethics.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, [R] Georgia: [December 15, 1987] This is not a vendetta. This is not something that occurred over the last nine months, that, in fact, for 14 years as a former army brat, I've actually been trying to say that I think honesty and integrity in the most fundamental ways are very very important in a free society and that corruption is an enormous threat in a free society.

ROGER MUDD: Gingrich used reporting by the Washington Post and Regardies Magazine to challenge Wright's book royalties, financial dealings and oil and gas company profits. Wright said his view of of Gingrich was similar to that of a fire hydrant toward a dog, but on May 18th, when Common Cause surprised Washington by calling for an ethics committee investigation, Speaker Wright shifted his ground and promised to cooperate fully.

REP. JIM WRIGHT: [May 18, 1988] I've tried to treat this with dignity and will continue to treat it with dignity because the standards of the United States House of Representatives are very precious to me.

ROGER MUDD: Finally on June 10th, the House Ethics Committee led by Democrat Julian Dixon of California voted to open a preliminary inquiry.

REP. JULIAN DIXON, [D] California: [June 10, 1988] The assertions in the preliminary inquiry are six in nature. The resolution that was adopted was unanimous. All 12 members voted in favor of it.

REP. GINGRICH: He's clearly, based on the public record, the least ethical Speaker in the twentieth century.

REP. WRIGHT: I am delighted to get this all out on the table. I've been wanting to do it for months.

ROGER MUDD: The ethics committee had, indeed, done Jim Wright a favor by getting the controversy behind closed doors. He was finally off the front page, off the evening news, that is, until the new Congress took up the 51 percent pay raise bill and a blow torch of public reaction zeroed in on Speaker Wright, whereupon Wright endorsed a 30 percent pay raise, apparently without fully informing Minority Leader Michel or very many Democrats either according to Republican Mickey Edwards.

REP. MICKEY EDWARDS, [R] Oklahoma: His colleagues in the Democratic leadership were furious because by reading the newspaper, were they finding out what the Speaker was doing, and he is a man who tends to be impetuous, to do things on his own, without consulting anybody, and those kind of people do tend to get in trouble.

ROGER MUDD: The next day House Democrats ran into a political ambush. A crowd of anti pay raise protesters gathered at Washington's Union Station to watch the Speaker of the House under investigation for unethical conduct lead several hundred nervous Democrats onto a chartered train for a $500 per member family weekend at the luxurious Greenbriar Resort in West Virginia to discuss, among other things, whether to vote themselves a 51 percent or a 30 percent pay raise. The timing could not have been worse. By the time the Democrats returned to Washington on Monday, the pay raise was dead and Speaker Wright's leadership or lack of it was back in the news. Even his motion to adjourn the House lost by 150 votes.

REP. JIM WRIGHT: [February 6, 1989] I take this time to acknowledge the will of the House, which always is supreme in the United States House of Representatives.

ROGER MUDD: A rare Democratic defender was William Gray of Philadelphia.

REP. WILLIAM GRAY, [D] Pennsylvania: Can you blame Jim Wright because members didn't have the guts to vote for their own pay raise? He did what they asked him to do, which was to protect them, fight for the pay raise, set up a procedure where there wasn't going to be a direct vote. That's what Democrats and Republicans asked him to do ask Speaker of the House. He was loyal to the institution, but when it got down to seeing if they would drink from the water, you can lead 'em to the water, but you can't make 'em drink.

ROGER MUDD: But in the aftermath, came back biting, bitterness, embarrassment, and buttons promotingMajority Leader Tom Foley for Speaker.

ROGER MUDD: You saw those Tom Foley for Speaker buttons, what about those?

REP. WILLIAM GRAY: Paid for by Republicans.

ROGER MUDD: Is that right?

REP. WILLIAM GRAY: Yes.

ROGER MUDD: Is that right?

REP. WILLIAM GRAY: Absolutely.

ROGER MUDD: Do you know that to be true?

REP. WILLIAM GRAY: Absolutely. I know it to be true. They were paid for by Republicans. They were put out by Republicans, and then they also put out some for Tony Coelho.

REP. MICKEY EDWARDS, [R] California: There's not only Foley for Speaker buttons, and it's not just like people are rallying behind Tom Foley. It's Foley and if Foley doesn't want it, Tony Coelho, Danny Rostenkowski and John Dingell, and Dick Gephardt, there are a lot of pretenders to the throne, and that's sort of a dangerous situation for the king when he's not very popular.

ROGER MUDD: So where does all of this leave the Speaker? Where does it leave a Speaker whose mark in history might have exceeded that even of his fabled predecessors? Clay of Kentucky, Reed of Maine, Cannon of Illinois, Rayburn of Texas -- .well, it leaves him where no Speaker has been in a long time. It leaves him first as the Republicans' No. 1 target.

REP. MICKEY EDWARDS, [R] California: He is the sore thumb sticking out of the Democratic caucus and he's a good target to say, you know, we tell you that this place is corrupt and you need to change the leadership of Congress, you need to have a Republican Congress, what better example can we give you, you know, than to show you Jim Wright?

ROGER MUDD: And it leaves Speaker Wright with even the Democrats having to defend him with a series of buts, ands, and ifs.

ROGER MUDD: You think Speaker Wright will be Speaker next year?

REP. WILLIAM GRAY: I think he will be if there is nothing revealed other than what we've heard about so far in the media and if there is nothing that violates a federal law, a U.S. criminal law or a rule of the House, and ethics of the House, then I think Jim Wright will be the Speaker.

ROGER MUDD: You say if.

REP. WILLIAM GRAY: If those allegations are proven to be false or unfounded or do not violate any rule of the House or any law of the United States of America, Jim Wright will be the Speaker, absolutely. GERGEN & SHIELDS

MR. LEHRER: And that brings us once again to a few Friday night moments with Gergen and Shields, our regular Washington analysis team of David Gergen, Editor at Large of U.S. News & World Report, Mark Shields, Syndicated Columnist for the Washington Post. Mark, there's no definitive word yet on what the ethics committee may do, is that right?

MARK SHIELDS, Washington Post: Not that I know of, or am aware of definitely, Jim. There's a growing, I'd say, restlessness on the part of Democrats in the House that nothing absolutely good will come out of this.

MR. LEHRER: David, just as a matter of procedure in Washington, these 12 members of the House ethics committee have been meeting now for two weeks behind closed doors and there has not been one substantial leak. What does that mean?

DAVID GERGEN, U.S. News & World Report: I think it's very difficult to read that. It may be that there's a lot of dynamite there, but I just think we have to wait and see. What we have to understand is that this committee, the ethics committee, is, in effect, a grand jury. They have to decide whether to serve an indictment or not, to come up with a series of charges, and if that happens, then that will move on to the floor of the House. They may decide to say there's nothing here. Then there are a range of things that they could find. They could have in a sense a slap of the wrist, some small violation, mistake of judgment, or they could move up to recommend a reprimand or they could move to recommend a censure. I think the betting in Washington is that up until recently the most they would do is recommend a wrist slap, I think the common talk on the Hill now is it's within the range of possibilities that they would recommend a reprimand. That's possible. If it moves to a reprimand, if that were voted on the floor, that would clearly jeopardize Speaker Wright's long-term tenure as Speaker. It would be very difficult for him to hang in as Speaker.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, you mentioned on this program two or three weeks ago, the possibility that the Republicans might use the Wright case as an implement or a tool for revenge for what the Democrats in the Senate did to John Tower. Is that still a possibility?

MR. SHIELDS: I think it's a possibility. I think that the Republicans realize that there could be a back lash to it.

MR. LEHRER: That they ought to be careful, in other words?

MR. SHIELDS: That's right. Ed Rollins, President Reagan's campaign manager in 1984, now the director of the Republican House Campaign Committee, and committed personally and professionally to winning a Republican majority in the House, said a couple of weeks ago that Jim Wright was his No. 1 target for 1990, they're out to get Jim Wright. Well, that quickly spilled over into the whole fight to succeed Dick Cheney as the Republican Whip in the House, where Newt Gingrich, the man in Roger Mudd's piece we just saw who brought the original charges is really writing to some degree his Wright opposition into this race for Whip. So today on television Newt Gingrich said, this is not a partisan issue, it should not be a partisan issue --

MR. LEHRER: The Wright thing shouldn't be a partisan issue.

MR. SHIELDS: And Bob Dole, the father of bipartisanship, himself, the Republican leader in the Senate, in an op ed page, piece in the New York Times, said that the Tower event should have no impact or influence upon the House's treatment of Jim Wright, and I think what this reflects more than anything else is sort of a skittishness on the part of the Republicans that it could boomerang.

MR. GERGEN: I think Mark is absolutely right. The Republicans privately are licking their chops at this and they're making the argument, look, John Tower was rejected because he had to meet high standards, he was in the nuclear chain of command. Jim Wright, after all, is in the Presidential chain of command, he's in the line of succession and he should meet equally high standards. But they are a bit skittish. They I think are playing on the hope that the Democrats will find that the material is sufficiently embarrassing that the Democrats, themselves, have to take action and the Republicans stand back, however, I think it's again, as in the Tower case, I think it's far too early to pronounce judgment on people. I think it's unfair to Speaker Wright to say, to assume that there is something terrible here until we see the evidence. There is a report apparently of over 450 pages. I assume that the Republicans will call for its publication, along with the report out from the committee, and I don't think we really can make harsh judgments about it. I don't think it's fair to him until we know more about what the facts are.

MR. SHIELDS: In view of who is No. 3, No. 2 in the chain of command, the Republicans don't like to make the chain of command argument, with Jim Wright being No. 3.

MR. LEHRER: One piece of remaining business on the John Tower episode, there were some stories this week about President Bush having written a note to Paul Weyrich, the conservative activist who first publicly raised this drinking issue on Tower, it was a kind of let by-gones be by-gones, Paul, we can still be friends, love George.

MR. GERGEN: And sincerely, and I do mean sincerely, was the closing of that note.

MR. LEHRER: Are Republicans really upset that the President did that?

MR. GERGEN: I think that letter was highly revealing. Mark I'm sure has some thoughts on this as well. It seemed to me that it revealed very much who George Bush is. He's an extraordinarily decent man, he does not hold grudges. At the same time in this town, there were a lot of cynics who thought that was a terrible mistake, who said, you know, in this town, if somebody does you in, you pull the Lyndon Johnson on them and you get even and you got 'em, and this sends a signal of weakness to do that, but it's very much in character with George Bush, he is a different kind of politician, and I think we'll have to see how it all works out - -

MR. LEHRER: Sign of weakness, Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: I don't think it's a sign of weakness. It reveals a character trait and a personality trait which I think David has accurately identified. Former Sen. Tower, the story goes, was not nearly as forgiving. He, in turn, sent Paul Weyrich a basket of fruit.

MR. GERGEN: What kind of grapes were they, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: From Santiago.

MR. LEHRER: Right, right. Yes, Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: I couldn't resist it.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Dick Cheney, today just a week after he was nominated by President Bush, he was confirmed by unanimous vote, no surprise there, is there?

MR. SHIELDS: No, just the speed and the dispatch and the dispatch with which it was handled.

MR. GERGEN: Essentially what you do see -- Bush ran really as a son or heir of Ronald Reagan, but the degree to which he has resurrected the old Ford team is remarkable. I mean, here you have three really close friends now at the top of this government, Cheney, Scowcroft, and National Security Adviser Jim Baker of the State Department, the Secretary of State, as well as Alan Greenspan, I might add, over at the Fed. I can't remember a time when we've had at the top of a government, particularly in the national security area, men who are this close to each other and trusted each other as much. I think that augers well for Bush. It is a remarkable development, and I think that's why in many circles within the Bush administration there's an audible sigh of relief that Cheney's there. They think they're better off today than they were two weeks ago.

MR. LEHRER: What about the theory that somebody suggested to me last night that the reason for these Ford people is that they only had 18 months at it and they weren't in there long enough to really become, I mean, to get scarred and get bruised and all of that, but they got, they were in there long enough to get a little bit under their belts, do you buy that?

MR. SHIELDS: I think Dick Cheney went into that job as chief of staff at the White House with Ford with great trepidation. A lot of people who like Dick Cheney didn't know if he was up to, and I think he really impressed an awful lot of people in that tenure. Two quick things on the Cheney thing, first of all, there were several Republican House members who were under consideration for cabinet jobs before George Bush named his cabinet. At that time, a blanket statement was made that they weren't going to take any Republicans out of the Hill and have them appointed to the cabinet, because it would cut into their numbers on the Hill, Guy Mulinary of New York, Lynn Martin of Illinois being two. Dick Cheney violates that rule. The second, there's a little tweaking of the Senate in taking a House member. You know, the Senate who rejected their former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and their former colleague of 24 years, John Tower, are all over Dick Cheney and quite receptive to his nomination. But the third thing I think is most revealing and I think it touches on the Newt Gingrich/Jim Wright fight, and that is that Dick Cheney becomes the second consecutive potential Republican Speaker right behind Bob Michel, Trent Lott being the first one, Dick Cheney being the second, to give up that position, because Dick Cheney gave it up, why, because he really didn't think in his heart of hearts -- I mean, being Secretary of Defense is an immensely important job, but he didn't think in his heart of hearts that the Republicans were ever going to win the House.

MR. GERGEN: That's absolutely right.

MR. SHIELDS: And Trent Lott ran from Mississippi ran for the Senate, rolled the dice and ran to the Senate, won in 1988, but he's ninety-third or fourth in seniority in the Senate.

MR. GERGEN: Yeah. There's been a lot of discouragement on the Republican House side. I might add one other thing though, Jim, I think one of the reasons you're seeing during the Reagan years it was a more conservative administration, some of the moderates had not served in those years. They were friendly, but they were on the outside. Bent Scowcroft is an obvious example. What you're really seeing here is a comeback of the moderate side of the Republican Party under Bush.

MR. LEHRER: I also have heard it suggested that Dick Cheney now becoming Secretary of Defense and maybe Newt Gingrich coming in that spot in the House leadership changes the dynamics for Jim Wright as well, because Cheney was no fan of Wright's, at least operated a little bit differently.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right.

MR. GERGEN: Right. Gingrich is much more bulldog. He'd be much tougher --

MR. LEHRER: Of course, he hasn't been elected yet.

MR. SHIELDS: No, he hasn't, and he is running against a very respected naval legislator, Ed Madigan of Illinois.

MR. GERGEN: Although I think Gingrich is slightly favored there.

MR. SHIELDS: I think you'd have to give him the "h".

MR. LEHRER: David, how do you explain the change in the administration on this semiautomatic weapon business?

MR. GERGEN: I assume Barbara Bush has had an influence.

MR. LEHRER: Really? Are you serious?

MR. GERGEN: Yes, I do think that George Bush paid a lot of attention to her, because she over the years has provided very sound advice and I think you have to give a lot of credit to Bill Bennett in terms of him actually achieving --

MR. LEHRER: The new drug czar.

MR. GERGEN: The new drug czar. And he within the first few days came down hard and said we have to focus on the District of Columbia. This is obviously a growing concern here within the district, but I think across the nation here one senses that a lot of anxiety about all the murders that have happened here that are drug related, but Bennett I think has come in and said, by God, I think we've got to crack down on this problem, and I also think what we're seeing is a wave, a political wave that's building across the country towards more restrictions.

MR. LEHRER: Quick word.

MR. SHIELDS: President Bush's original position on the AK-47 was an enormous political mistake and avoided a catastrophe by changing it. I think Mrs. Bush played a major part, and what was really revealing was the inability of the Democrats to react and to grab that because by a five to one, seventy-five to fifteen margin, Americans want these guns out of there.

MR. LEHRER: They want us out of here now.

MR. SHIELDS: No, not America.

MR. LEHRER: No, "they". Thank you. Thank you. RECAP

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Once again, Friday's top stories, the United States lifted its ban on fruit from Chile, but ordered the destruction of all fruit already distributed to stores. Stock and bond prices fell sharply after news of an unexpectedly large increase in wholesale prices, and the Senate unanimously confirmed Dick Cheney as Secretary of Defense. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Charlayne. Have a nice weekend. We'll see you on Monday night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.