The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. It's been another day with the world still gripped by reaction to the Korean Airline disaster. From an angry Soviet Foreign Minister to angry Western airline pilots trying to retaliate. We examine how far they can isolate Moscow. And as Defense Secretary Weinberger visits El Salvador, we have a special field report on the pacification program he inspected. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the other major story of the day was also a foreign story, and it was again Lebanon, where three French soldiers were killed and, for the first time, U.S. and French fighters took to the skies to deliver a message and possibly a few bombs, although that's in dispute. We've got the details on all of that as well as a few other stories, including Chrysler's claim it really can't afford the tentative pay agreement it just reached with its union.Korean Plane Protest

MacNEIL: The Soviets made it clear today that they have no intention at present of apologizing for shooting down a Korean airliner last week. At the Madrid conference on European security, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, the highest Soviet official to comment on the incident, lashed out angrily at what he called a wave of slander against his country. U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz reacted with equal indignation, saying he was disappointed to hear the continued falsehood of the Soviet Union on human rights matters. Here's a report from Don Lang of Viznews, a British news service.

DON LANG [voice-over]: Secretary of State Shultz and other Western ministers began the day American style, a working breakfast. They moved on later to the conference hall. Waiting to make his speech there was the Soviet foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko, accompanied by the head of the Russian delegation, Igor Andropov, the son of the Soviet leader. A BBC reporter embarrassed security by getting in close for a few informal words.

BBC REPORTER: What do you think of the way that the Western press has been covering all this?

SOVIET SPEAKER: The incident?

REPORTER: Yeah.

SPEAKER: Essentially not objective.

REPORTER: And what about Western governments?

SPEAKER: I am not going to make any statement on the substance at this moment.

REPORTER: Do you think the situation will be cleared up soon?

SPEAKER: I think it is clearing now.

Mr. LANG [voice-over]: Thirty-five countries were represented here, and all were eagerly awaiting the speech to come by Mr. Gromyko, Secretary of State Shultz more eager than most.

MacNEIL: In his speech Gromyko said, "Since the plane-trespasser did not obey the order to proceed to a Soviet airfield and attempted to evade, an air defense interceptor carried out the order of the command post to stop the flight. Such actions are in full conformity with the law on the USSR state border which was published.We have expressed regret over the loss of human lives. We state: Soviet territory, the borders of the Soviet Union are sacred. No matter who resorts to provocations of this kind, he should know that he will bear the full brunt of responsibility for it." Secretary of State Shultz commented that the implication was the Soviets would shoot down anyone who strays over the Soviet borders again. He added this showed Moscow placed no weight on human values. However, Mr. Shultz said he still plans to meet Gromyko tomorrow as scheduled to discuss human rights and the shooting down of the airliner.

Around the world the aftermath of the deaths of the 269 people aboard the Korean Airlines plane continued to produce demonstrations and protests. In the United Nations Security Council debate continued with more countries condemning the Soviet action. In Korea an estimated 100,000 people attended a memorial service for the victims. The ceremony in Seoul's municipal stadium was restrained until relatives of the dead came forward to burn incense and lay flowers at the altar. In Korea failure to bury a dead person properly is considered a great tragedy because the soul is condemned to wander forever. The weeping was open and bitter. Some women collapsed and were helped away.

In the United States there were other kinds of protest. A number of state governments banned sales of Russian vodka. Longshoremen in Los Angeles refused to unload a Soviet freighter. Canadian cities banned a tour by the Moscow circus. Jim?

LEHRER: Talk of punishing the Soviet Union for shooting down the airliner has come and continues to come from all quarters, from the President of the United States and other foreign leaders to lesser folks carrying picket signs in front of Soviet embassies all over the world. Here in Washington a large crowd marched outside the White House today to vent their anger, led by the son of Congressman Larry McDonald who was a passenger on the downed airliner. The group burned an effigy of Soviet leader Yuri Andropov and attempted to give the Reagan administration a petition calling for increased sanctions against the Soviets. They were rebuffed by White House staff.

But it appears tonight there's one group that may actually pull something off, the airline pilots of the world. Yesterday, the International Federation of Airline Pilots, headquartered in London, called for a 60-day ban of all flights to the Soviet Union. Today, pilots in Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France and Switzerland and West Germany responded favorably to that call. Others are expected to follow suit. The rub in some of the cases is that the airlines they work for are owned by their governments, most of which have declined to even go along with President Reagan's specific call temporarily denying landing rights to the Soviets' airline Aeroflot. Canada thus far is the only country to do so. Such a ban has been in effect in the United States since 1981, following the declaration of martial law in Poland.

But Geoffrey Howe, the British foreign secretary, indicated today in light of the pilots' actions, NATO countries are now considering some kind of unified air travel embargo against the Soviet Union, the Aeroflot ban and the pilot's boycott idea being two of the proposals on the table. There are 19 airlines that have regular passenger service to the Soviet Union now. They are mostly airlines from Western and Eastern Europe, but there is service from Japan, India, Saudi Arabia and Iraq as well. Seventeen of these carriers' pilots are members of the international pilots' association, but as I said, it's too early to say how many of them will support the ban. On the loss of Aeroflot's landing rights worldwide, Aeroflot is the largest airline in the world, carrying more than 100 million passengers a year on more than 7,000 routes in Russia and around the globe. Aeroflot now flies to over 75 -- excuse me, 95 cities in more than 70 countries, covering some 621,000 miles. Essentially, Aeroflot is allowed in every country except those with which the Soviet Union does not have diplomatic relations. We look further at this potential aviation embargo against the Soviets with a man who's qualified to talk about it on several counts. He's Thomas Foxworth, a captain for Pan American World Airways for 18 years, who last month was flying Pan Am's New York to Tokyo route along the same path as the downed Korean Airlines 747, who flew regularly to Moscow until Pan Am ceased flights there, and has been active in various activities of the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations. He's also the co-author of a new novel about flying commercial airliners, called Passengers. Captain, do you think the pilots can pull off a unified boycott of international flights to the Soviet Union?

Capt. THOMAS FOXWORTH: I would think that the pilots would have a larger participation than perhaps the governments. This has been perhaps true in the past. I don't think they will get 100% participation for the very reason that you mentioned, and that is the fact that some of the airline pilots really are civil servants working for their respective governments, and this does lead to some problems. But the pilots sort of are, you might say, on the firing line, and the pilots are the ones that are right up there at front and I'm sure are the angriest. And --

LEHRER: The organization, the international organization is asking for a guarantee that civilian aviation will be safe in Soviet airspace. Until the Korean airliner incident, was there a feeling among international pilots that they were not safe when they were either in Soviet airspace or near Soviet airspace?

Capt. FOXWORTH: I would say generally that's true. I think the feeling is that if you stray into their zone that air safety is not guaranteed. I also flew for Pan Am out of West Berlin over East Germany through the corridors that are still established there that are a relic of the occupation from World War II, and it was made quite clear to us that if we strayed out of the corridors that air safety was not guaranteed.

LEHRER: Did you ever have any incidents with Soviet aircraft?

Capt. FOXWORTH: Not over the routes paralleling the Soviet territory into Japan, but I did have one or two incidents in East Germany.

LEHRER: Anything serious?

Capt. FOXWORTH: No, nothing serious.

LEHRER: The question about the countries who own these airlines and the impact of the pilots.What kind of pressure, other than just PR pressure, could the pilots apply to these countries to get them to go along?

Capt. FOXWORTH: Well, the pilots have a potential for applying a very strong impact. The pilots collectively, internationally, are very reluctant to apply the enormous pressure that they do potentially have. The International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations has been in existence since -- really since the World War II days. You're talking about 40 years. I think only on perhaps half a dozen previous times have the pilots collectively been angry enough about some issue to try to bring to bear the impact they can have.

LEHRER: So you think the chances -- it won't be 100%, but your feeling is that they'll come pretty close?

Capt. FOXWORTH: I think it can come close, and I don't think it takes 100% on the one or two issues that come readily to mind in the past where the pilots have applied pressure, one was a few years ago on North Atlantic separation. They felt that the governments were going to squeeze the airplanes too close together, and they said this isn't safe and we won't fly. It was not a 100% participation, but it was enough that the governments backed off. And it happened again on a hijacking incident, and I think it could very well happen here.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: To assess what impact all this activity may have on the Soviets, we have Malcolm Toon, former U.S. ambassador to Moscow. He joins us from San Francisco at public station KQED. Mr. Ambassador, what do you think all this activity will do to the Russians?

MALCOLM TOON: Oh, I think it depends on how wide the participation in the boycott is, Robert. I agree with the pilot that if in fact the governments go along with the pilots' recommendations then it might have some impact on the Soviets. Not in the sense of bringing about a basic change in Soviet behavior, not in the sense of eliciting from the Soviets the sort of thing that we have asked for, the President's asked for -- an apology, for example. I think that's out of the question.But at least it should bring home to the Soviet Union the impact on world public opinion that their heinous, dastardly act has had. I fully support the pilots' recommendations. Frankly, if I were a civilian airline pilot I would be very uneasy about flying over Soviet soil or close to it.

MacNEIL: Do you corroborate what the pilot says, that you can't really feel secure flying in Soviet airspace?

Amb. TOON: I don't see how anybody can feel secure after what happened a few days ago. I think this demonstrates rather clearly that the Soviets are insistent on eliminating any threat as they see it to their airspace and their terrain, and I think this represents a continuing peril for civilian airliners.

MacNEIL: Do you think what the pilots are organizing is likely to be more effective in terms of producing some reaction from Moscow than what the sanctions that President Reagan outlined?

Amb. TOON: Yes, I think so because this is something that's going to have a material effect on the Soviet Union. If, for example, you could get widespread support for this sort of boycott, then you would have a very serious reduction in the flow of foreign exchange to the Soviet Union. There would be almost no tourism. That is the sort of thing that I think does have some impact on the Soviets. But again I say this is not going to elicit from the Soviet Union thesort of thing that the President has asked for.

MacNEIL: What would it elicit?

Amb. TOON: A recognition that perhaps in the future they've got to behave a little bit better. But as far as an apology for this action is concerned, frankly I think that's out of the question.

MacNEIL: Do you think they might give the pilots the kind of guarantee of security that they're asking for?

Amb. TOON: I'm not sure just what that sort of guarantee would be, Robert. I think you'd have to ask the pilot himself. I frankly would not place much credence in any Soviet promise, any Soviet pledge after what's happened.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Captain, what about that? What would constitute a guarantee from the Soviet Union?

Capt. FOXWORTH: Well, I tend to Agree with the Ambassador that I really don't trust any Soviet guarantee in view of not only this incident but previous incidents that come to mind in the past.

LEHRER: But you want them to say it whether they mean it or not, right?

Capt. FOXWORTH: Well, certainly. I mean, the Soviets are signatories to the convention on civil aviation. They are participating members of the International Civil Aviation Organization which, as you know, is one of the 16 specialized United Nations agencies. This goes against all the spirit of all that that stands for.

LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador, what about if the banning of Aeroflot landing rights caught on and went around the world to these 95 -- what would be the effect of that, do you think, on the Soviet Union, coupled with this boycott, if it came off?

Amb. TOON: Well, I think that would reinforce the effect that the pilots' recommendation would have in the sense that it would bring home to the Soviet Union the full impact of the outrage that this has caused among world public opinion. And also I think it would reduce also their foreign exchange flow because this, again, would mean that tourism would almost come to a standstill, and this is a rather substantial income for the Soviet Union to which they attach great importance.

LEHRER: Captain, I assume you would agree that this would have a tremendous impact on the Soviet Union.

Capt. FOXWORTH: Well, I think this is what the pilots are quite aware of, and it really doesn't altogether take just governments to do it. If the pilots say we're not going to fly, we're going to boycott, that's going to be a tremendous economic penalty.

LEHRER: Gentlemen both, thank you very much. Robin? Gromyko Profile

MacNEIL: As we've seen, the reaction to the Korean airliner dominated the first encounter of Secretary of State Shultz and Foreign Minister Gromyko. Until the airliner incident, the meeting of these two superpower foreign ministers was to have explored the subtly improving relations between Moscow and Washington. They might also have started to lay the groundwork for a possible summit meeting between presidents Reagan and Andropov. Whichever way U.S.-Soviet relations now turn, Andrei Gromyko will play a key role. Judy Woodruff looks at the unique power and influence of the Soviet foreign minister. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: When George Shultz sits down in a private meeting tomorrow with Andrei Gromyko, he sits down with one of the toughest diplomats in modern times, a diplomat who has in fact made much of modern U.S.-Soviet history. For more than 40 years Gromyko has been the sour, jut-jawed purveyor of Soviet foreign policy. He is recognized as a powerful advocate for his country, his party and his Communist cause. He has dealt with 12 U.S. secretaries of state; George Shultz is the 13th. Four men who know him -- three Americans and a Russian -- tell us that Shultz faces a formidable negotiator, a man who has done it all.

Amb. TOON: One of Mr. Gromyko's most annoying traits -- and you can talk to Mr. Vance or Mr. Kissinger or any of the others that have dealt with him personally about this, and they will confirm this -- is the fact that he always says to you, "Mr. Secretary, I was there. I know what went on. And you weren't there." And in most cases he's right; he was there. He has attended every important international conference for the last 25 or 30 years. The man's expertise is really very impressive.

ARKADY SHEVCHENKO, former Gromyko aide: First of all, he was lucky at the very beginning. And Gromyko started his career as a head of the American department. You know what is the head of the department in the foreign ministry? It's what someone wishes only at the end of his career. It's one of the top posts. And he began with that.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Andrei Gromyko did start at the top, heading the American department of the Soviet foreign ministry at the age of 29, later becoming counselor to the then-Soviet ambassador to the U.S., Maxim Litvinof. Gromyko won Joseph Stalin's favor and became his wartime ambassador to the U.S. The boyish diplomat presented his credentials to President Roosevelt in 1943.He presided over the Soviet embassy in Washington until the war's end, here entertaining Vice President Henry Wallace on the 26th anniversary of the Soviet revolution. Stalin and the Soviet hierarchy were beginning to depend on Gromyko because of his ties to the West. Arkady Shevchenko was one of Gromyko's top aides in the early 1970s. He defected to the U.S. in 1978, becoming the highest-ranking Soviet official ever to do so.

Mr. SHEVCHENKO: For one reason or another, Stalin liked him, and it was crucial. No one in the whole world knows why Stalin liked some of the people or disliked some of the people. He produced a good impression at Stalin because he received him, because he went to Washington. And he liked him. And as an ambassador to United States -- wartime ambassador to United States, it's open -- he was here the green light.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: That green light took Gromyko to the fledgling United Nations where he was the Soviets' first permanent representative. Then he became deputy foreign minister and ambassador to Great Britain, donning very unproletarian morning clothes to present his credentials to the Queen. Promoted to first deputy foreign minister in 1953, Gromyko steadily became the Soviet Union's primary contact with the West. U.S. secretaries of state came and went; Gromyko stayed on: the cold war years with John Foster Dulles and his successor Christian Herter; eyeball to eyeball with Dean Rusk over the Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam War; the good will era with William Rogers; detente with Henry Kissinger; detente unraveling, the Carter administration's Cyrus Vance, followed by Edmund Muskie; a new cold war with Alexander Haig, and now a showdown with George Shultz over what's being called the Korean Airlines massacre. Gromyko survives not just the American leadership, but more incredibly, the Soviet leadership.

Mr. SHEVCHENKO: Gromyko has some kind, I would say, intuition of even a crystal ball, I would say, which he really can perceive who is -- who could prospectively in the future become a prominent one. He knew before Stalin died, he somehow -- I don't know who told him or how -- because no one can tell that. But he somehow understood that Khrushchev would be a prominent leader.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Gromyko's crystal ball also helped him avoid the high-risk political in-fighting among Soviet leaders.

Mr. SHEVCHENKO: Gromyko is a very shrewd man as to stay away and take in sights when there is internal struggle in the Soviet Union is going on. He is very careful to make any alliances for alliances, which is, you know, is plotting and all that kind behind the scene intrigues is a permanent factor in Kremlin among the Soviet top leaders.

Mr. TOON: Well, first, I think in his first years when, you know, when he had to survive under Stalin and then under Malenkov and under Khrushchev and so forth, it was his talent for flexibility in the negative sense, as I indicated previously, that permitted him to survive. He could bend with the breeze.He could be a bad guy if he had to be; he could be a good man if he had to be, depending on -- he did the Politburo's work for them very well indeed.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk agreeing with Ambassador Toon says Gromyko applied that old American political maxim, "To get along, go along."

DEAN RUSK, former Secretary of State: By the way, if you ever see again the television scene of Mr. Khrushchev banging the table with his shoe in the United Nations, it was obvious that this caught Mr. Gromyko somewhat by surprise, and he didn't quite know how to respond. He finally started pounding the table with his fist. But he knew you don't bang the table in the United Nations with your shoe.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: If he acquired a veneer of Western sophistication, Gromyko still marched in tune with ite Soviet leadership. After years of being regarded as an apolitical technocrat, Gromyko was elevated to the Politburo, a significant political jump.

HENRY KISSINGER, former Secretary of State: The way one could judge the increase of his authority was the freedom with which he spoke in the presence of Brezhnev and other Soviet top leaders. When he was foreign minister he was cleary a subordinate. As a member of the Politburo, he more and more would take over a discussion and would not hesitate to break into something that was being said, which would have been unthinkable before he was a member of the Politburo.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had a long working relationship with Gromyko, whom he says is no joy to negotiate with. But that hasn't colored Kissinger's personal view of the Soviet foreign minister.

Sec. KISSINGER: Maybe God will punish me for this. I rather liked him. He had, despite the dour -- he has despite the dour exterior, a rather good sense of humor.

ANDREL GROMYKO [counting press cameras]: Good morning. One, two, three, four, four, five-hundred --

Sec. KISSINGER: The First time I met him I thought although I'm not sure that he's all that funny, but he was here at a U.N. reception. He walked up to me and he said, "You look just like Henry Kissinger." And I walked up -- and I said to him, "And you look like Richard Nixon," which really shook him. But that's where his sense of humor left him at that particular -- at this particular point.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: There will be no sense of humor at Madrid when Gromyko meets Shultz over the Korean Airlines disaster. His previous adversaries remember Gromyko as a man who faced other controversies with a cold, dark stubborness bordering on intransigence. Dean Rusk recollects a meeting between Gromyko and President Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis.

Sec. RUSK: Mr. Gromyko did not tell him about the missiles, and he insisted there were defensive weapons in Cuba.Well, if you accept the ambiguity of the term "defensive weapons," Mr. Gromyko would argue that he was telling the truth. But since he knew what those words meant to President Kennedy in Mr. Kennedy's frame of reference, this amounted to a serious deception.

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: But for all of Gromyko's toughness, most of those who have dealt with him say there is a side to the man that will want to reach some understanding with Secretary Shultz.

Sec. RUSK: It is possible that he understands that despite these ideological differences at the end of the day we and they must find a way to inhabit this speck of dust in the universe at the same time. You see, we and the Soviet Union are the only two nations who, if locked in mortal conflict, could raise a serious question as to whether this earth could any longer sustain the human race. I think he and others in the Kremlin understand that.

WOODRUFF: But even if there is that pragmatism there that Rusk mentioned, it may take some time for Secretary Shultz to find it. Henry Kissinger says that Gromyko's most successful negotiating tactic is simply to wear his opposite down, to be relentless in plowing through his agenda on the theory that his Western counterpart will get bored or tired or exhausted while Gromyko Just sits there.Jim?

LEHRER: We go back to San Francisco now to Malcolm Toon, former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, for his specific view of today's confrontation between gromyko and Shultz, and the even tougher one due in private tomorrow. Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Cromyko, as we heard, was very strong in his defense of the Soviet Union shooting down this airplane. Is he likely to be the same in private tomorrow?

Amb. TOON: I don't think there'll be much difference, Jim. To me the significance of what he said today is that this speculation which we have seen going around in the press and elsewhere -- irresponsible speculation, in my view -- that is was a military act almost oblivious of the role of the Politburo, is totally unfounded.I think, frankly, Gromyko should put to rest that speculation because he admitted, in no uncertain terms, that the Politburo was responsible and fully supported the action against the plane. Now, I think he will carry that on into the meeting with Mr. Shultz tomorrow. And it is for that reason, this is no secret, of course, that I opposed Mr. Shultz's going to Madrid for this particular meeting. I think he should have waited awhile, kept our cool, and seen if in fact there had been some change in Soviet behavior. He didn't do that, and I think he's in for a rough time tomorrow.

LEHRER: Well, as you know, Mr. Shultz has said that's all he's going to talk to Gromyko about. Is that likely to be the case?

Amb. TOON: Well, certainly Mr. Cromyko is not going to take that lying down. He will have his own agenda, as he always has in the past, and he will raise certain things that he feels should be brought up between the two principles. I don't know how Mr. Shultz is going to handle that. I suppose he could simply walk out or again reassert his intention to discuss only the plane incident, the outrage, and I think also the human rights situation inside the Soviet Union. But I don't think, frankly, this is going to lead to a very useful dialogue at this particular juncture.

LEHRER: Could it in fact turn out to be a negative? I mean, could there be an explosion tomorrow of some kind where one of them walks out and the whole thing just goes to pieces?

Amb. TOON: No, I wouldn't think there'd be an explosion. That sort of thing has very seldom happened in our confrontations.

LEHRER: Is it Gromyko's style -- is it Gromyko's style?

Amb. TOON: No, I don't think that I have ever experienced his walking out of a meeting. Some of his subordinates have; for example, in disarmarnent conferences in Geneva at which I attended -- One of his subordinates, Zorin, did walk out of a disarmament conference. But I doubt very much whether that's what's going to happen tomorrow: I think both sides will simply agree to disagree, and hopefully at some point renew the dialogue under better conditions.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: For another look at the tenor of the Shultz-Gromyko meeting and U.S.-Soviet relations, we talk with Olin Robison, president of Middlebury College. Dr. Robison is a consultant to the state department on East-West issues, and served as an adviser to the U.S. delegation to the European security conferences leading to Madrid. Do you think this meeting tomorrow is likely to get beyond the airliner?

OLIN ROBISON: I would hesitate to argue with Ambassador Toon. I suppose like most Americans I have always thought that when heads of state or foreign ministers get together behind closed doors that they probably talk about things that don't become public, and I would like to think that if there is anything which the public does not know which we would like Mr. Gromyko to know and to be absolutely sure that people in the Politburo are fully aware of, then there's -- now's the time. Here is the opportunity to do it. And I would assume that all the opportunities will be there for the Secretary to say whatever he wishes to say, and I think that's why the meeting is valuable. I think that's why it's important. I think that were it not for the conclusion of the Helsinki process --

MacNEIL: You think Shultz is right to go?

Dr. ROBISON: I do. I do. I think that otherwise we're left communicating primarily through the news media, and one of the things that seems terribly apparent in the course of this awful awful episode is that the Soviet leadership really doesn't understand as much about the West, about public attitudes in the West, about the way people are going to react to Soviet behavior in the West. They don't understand as much about that as we think they do.

MacNEIL: So is this salutary in that sense?

Dr. ROBISON: I don't see how it could possibly do any harm, and there is at least the prospect or the possibility that it might do some good.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you this. Before the airliner incident it was widely remarked that there was a -- there was a nuance -- an improvement in the relations between the two countries, and this meeting between Shultz and Gromyko was even thought to be the precursor of a possible summit meeting. Is that improvement now stopped, and is a summit meeting totally out of the question?

Dr. ROBISON: I think it's stopped for now, but you know, six months to nine months to a year in the relationship between our two countries is a long time, and I think that it's not necessarily out of the question. I should think that if anyone were to ask that question of someone in the White House the answer would almost certainly be no, but it would probably be no for now. Who's to say what may happen in the next three to six months or nine months? It might prove still useful and advantageous for such a meeting to take place, and whatever happens in Madrid tomorrow may or maynot have any effect on it, but it certainly ought not to set back the cause of communication at a time whem communication is very much needed.

MacNEIL: Do you think all the ill will that has been generated by this incident will negate any progress that has been made in this long, drawn-out process of implementing the Helsinki Accords on Human Rights, which is to be ratified and signed in Madrid?

Dr. ROBISON: I think that if the 35 signatory nations had not reached agreement prior to this week, that we almost certainly would not reach it in this climate. But since the actual conference itself came to a conclusion some several weeks ago now, it seems to me that there is at least the possibility that the Helsinki process will continue, and that it can continue to be productive. And I think, frankly, Robin, that the commitment to Helsinki is in fact a commitment to a process. It's the only forum in which we sit down with out European allies, with the Soviets and with their East European allies and have an opportunity on human rights and other issues to hold their behavior up to some public scrutiny and up to promises which they have made and in most instances have not kept.

MacNEIL: Do you agree with that, Ambassador Toon?

Amb. TOON: Not completely. I think it tends to overlook the fact that there has not been compliance to any degree by the Soviet Union with the -- particularly with the Basket 3, the human rights provisions, of the Helsinki final act. As a matter of fact, Jewish emigration, for example, which was at its peak before the final accord, is now down to a mere trickle. It's between 1,000 and 2,000. There are no dissidents running free in Soviet society today. The Helsinki watch committees that had been set up have been disbanded and their leaders are in jail. Jamming of radios has been resumed. The Soviet commitment to a free trade union movement has been made mockery of by their behavior in Poland. So that I think while there is a commitment to a process, as Olin Robison says, I think there has been no compliance whatsoever inside the Soviet Union with the fundamental provisions on human rights in the final act of Helsinki.

MacNEIL: In view of that bill of particulars, does the agreement that is to be signed in Madrid, assuming the United States signs it, have any validity now?

Dr. ROBISON: It's hard to say that it has validity in the sense that Ambassador Toon is talking about. One could certainly argue, as many have done, that it commits us to a certain degree of hypocrisy as we relate to the Soviet Union.I suppose that our membership in the United Nations would lay us open to a similar charge. And, at the same time, unless we are going to go head on head, the United States versus the Soviet Union, in public forums on all of these issues alone, we need places where we can address these issues with the Eastern bloc in concert with our allies, and in this case in particular our European allies. And I think that the Helsinki process furnishes that forum and makes it possible for us to present a united front on most of these things.

MacNEIL: Ambassador Toon, what do you think about the prospects for the slight improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations either stopping dead in its tracks after the airliner or picking up again some months down the line? You heard what Dr. Robison said.

Amb. TOON: Well, certainly the shooting down of the airliner has introduced a severe setback in the process which you correctly described a few moments ago. I think frankly the President deserves a great praise for his statesmanlike attitude in his speech the other night when he sort of left the door open for continued improvement in our relations, provided the Soviets did certain things, including an apology and an offer to compensate the victims of this terrible outrage. Now, let me just make myself clear, if I may, Robert. I do not believe in cutting off communications with the Soviet Union. I have long been a very strong supporter of keeping our lines of communication open with the Soviets in order to carry on a dialogue with them to make sure that we don't wind up in a position of military confrontation with each other, which neither side I think wants at the present time, and from which it would be very difficult to retreat. Now, the way to do that, it seems to me, is to carry on a dialogue with them to make sure there's no misperception, no misunderstandings, and above all, no miscalculation. I don't think, frankly, you have to have the sort of -- if I may say so, with all disrespect -- the sort of clambake that we see now in Madrid, and that we have seen almost constantly under the Helsinki Accord. You have diplomatic channels available for conversations between ourselves and the Soviets. We can concert with our allies in Moscow or elsewhere in order to arrive at a concerted, united line in dealing with the Soviet threat.But I think that, frankly, that we've got to do it without leaving the impression, as we do by signing this agreement today in Madrid, or tomorrow, whenever it takes place, that we endorse or we overlook Soviet misconduct and misbehavior.I don't think we can afford to run that risk.

MacNEIL: Dr. Robison?

Dr. ROBISON: I don't think that we run that risk very much. I think it can obviously be interpreted that way, Robin, but we do join with our European allies in saying that we have here a process in which we have the Eastern Europeans and the Soviets sitting down at the same table with all of the rest of us, and having their behavior repeatedly held up for scrutiny before themselves and the rest of the world.

MacNEIL: And that's not a clambake?

Dr. ROBISON: I don't look upon it as a clambake. I've been to several of those conferences, and I think that they are useful.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you, Dr. Robison; thank you, Ambassador Toon. Jim?

LEHRER: In Lebanon, three more members of the international peacekeeping force were killed today. They were French this time, rather than U.S. marines, but they triggered a new response. Both France and the United States launched fighter planes from their aircraft carriers offshore. First, two French fighter bombers screamed across the hills behind Beirut and the Lebanese government claimed the French bombed and destroyed a Druse militia gun position. Paris denied that, saying the planes were only on a reconnaissance mission. Later in the day, two U.S. F-14 fighters from the nuclear carrier the Dwight Eisenhower made a similar low-level scream across the hills, but there were no reports or claims they did anything other than just fly over. The French dead were a lieutenant colonel, his driver, and another French soldier. They died and a fourth was wounded in a shelling of the French embassy in Beirut, the source unknown. Four other French soldiers and one American marine were also wounded in separate incidents in other parts of the city. In Paris this evening, the French minister of defense said French forces were prepared to demolish artillery batteries if the firing on their people did not cease immediately.

The Reuters news agency moved a story today from Beirut saying Lebanese President Amin Gemayel has asked the U.S. and France, as well as the other two peacekeeping partners, Italy and Britain, to beef up their current 5,400-man combined force. They want the additional troops to act as a buffer in zones vacated by Israeli troops last week, and prevent Syria from occupying them. It was a theme sounded here in Washington today also by the Lebanese ambassador to the United States, Abdallah Bouhabib. At a news conference he extended sympathies to the families of the U.S. marines killed in his country, and said more help will be needed.

ABDALLAH BOUHABIB, Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S.: The groups that are shelling the American marines are armed, financed, trained, and to a large extent controlled by the Syrians. We cannot take care of the Syrians. We will need some kind of help if Syria should continue to march towards Beirut. We cannot, the Lebanese army is not equipped to handle the Syrian forces.

LEHRER: It's time for one of our moving picture postcards, and then we'll be back.

[Bandalier Monument, New Mexico -- video postcard] Weinberger in Salvador

MacNEIL: While Lebanon and the Korean airliner have stolen the headlines, there are developments in another American trouble spot, Central America. In Panama City today, the foreign ministers of the four Contadora nations and five Central American countries met for another attempt to find a formula to bring peace to the region. They're discussing a plan drawn up by the Contadora group -- Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama -- calling for an end to foreign military presence and arms trafficking. Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who is touring the region, arrived in El Salvador for his first close up look at U.S. military efforts there.

A convoy of helicopters took the Defense Secretary from San Salvador to San Vicente Province. The Salvadoran army is trying to start a pacification program there. Weinberger showed up for a briefing from local military commanders to look at how things are going. It was the first of several stops of military installations in Central America. The Defense Secretary expressed optimism that government troops were having increasing success against leftist guerrillas.Weinberger went from San Vicente to visit the battleship New Jersey, one of 40 U.S. ships now off the Central American coasts. In San Vicente Province, Weinberger was briefed on the pacification plan by the Salvadoran commander, Colonel Rinaldo Gocher. Jim?

LEHRER: And Colonel Rinaldo Golcher is an interesting man with a crucial assignment. That's why Secretary Weinberger went to see him today, and that's why correspondent Charles Krause, who is on special assignment for us in Central America preceded the Secretary to San Vicente, to profile the Colonel and his assignment.

CHARLES KRAUSE [voice-over]: San Vicente Province is as treacherous as it is beautiful. Hidden in its volcanic mountains are almost impenetrable guerrilla bases. Hidden in the long field grass of its valleys, land mines wait to would and kill government soldiers.San Vicente has long been one of El Salvador's bloodiest battlefields. Hundreds of soldiers have lost their lives here, and countless army commanders have failed to break the guerrillas' stranglehold on the province. Impatient critics have charged that El Salvador's army is corrupt and incompetent, but Colonel Rinaldo Golcher, the current commander in San Vicente, says the army was never prepared to fight a guerrilla war. He told us it will take time to bring the province under government control.

Col. RINALDO GOLCHER, Salvadoran Army [through interpreter]: In the years when I entered the academy in 1958 perhaps there was no more evidence of this type of subversive war than Cuba, but it was never thought that this type of thing could happen in El Salvador. The thinking was that our tiny territory would never provide enough room for a mountain war. We didn't prepare for one in a decisive way until a few years ago when we already had the problem.

Mr. KRAUSE [voice-over]: Unlike many other Salvadoran officers, Golcher has adapted to the war he was never trained to fight. He's considered one of El Salvador's best and most aggressive commanders. Under his leadership, troops in San Vicente have gone on the offensive using counterinsurgency tactics long advocated by the United States.

Col. GOLCHER [through interpreter]: The concept of being closed in a military garrison, working from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, of not working Saturdays or Sundays, I believe this, thank God, is a thing of the past.Today the units circulate in the fields, moving from place to place, acting at night without caring if it's Saturday or Sunday, on permanent patrol in search of subversive elements.

Mr. KRAUSE [voice-over]: At 43, Golcher is today at the height of his military career. He was chosen for the key San Vicente command after serving as El Salvador's military attache in Washington, where he became well-known at the Pentagon. He studied at the Inter-American Defense College, and taught military strategy at the War College in San Salvador. But he comes from a lower middle-class background, not unlike the guerrillas he's fighting. His father worked for a railroad. One of the reason Golcher entered El Salvador's military academy was that his family could not afford to give him an education.

Col. GOLCHER [through interpreter]: Economic opportunities in this country do not allow everyone to be able to have high university education. The military academy provided an incentive, after only four years of study one receives a degree. Also, I believe all Salvadorans have patriotic feelings, and this influences a majority of Salvadoran youth. This also motivates one to enter the military academy, trying to serve in the best way possible the interests of the country.

Mr. KRAUSE [voice-over]: Golcher is not an ordinary military officer in Salvadoran terms. Early on he was identified as something of an intellectual with a social conscience.

Col. GOLCHER [through interpreter]: Here in this country there wasn't the kind of exploitation which the left claims, but, yes, there was a certain type of injustice which was necessary to correct.This began, perhaps, after 1931, '32, when the first military officer became president, and it continued to develop under military presidents during the -- about 50 years.

Mr. KRAUSE [voice-over]: Golcher does not deny that one important reason the army has had trouble winning the loyalty of the poor is that it has traditionally been seen as the enemy. A string of military presidents ordered the armed forces to defend the interests of El Salvador's rich and very conservative oligarchy.

Col. GOLCHER [through interpreter]: But perhaps this wasn't the feeling or the thinking of the great majority of officers in El Salvador. Almost all of us come from humble families. Unfortunately, the presence of a military president and the discipline of the institution perhaps made us to protect the interests of the rich, although we were not aware of it.

Mr. KRAUSE [voice-over]: Military analysts here and in Washington say Golcher was an excellent choice to command the San Vicente garrison and to direct the highly visible pacification program, the first of its kind in El Salvador. Five to six thousand of the government's best troops, many of them trained in the United States, were moved into San Vicente three months ago.The government then began a coordinated effort to rebuild the war-shattered province once the guerrillas fled. Planned at least in part by the Pentagon and AID, the pacification program is called Operation Well-Being. It's a crucial test of U.S. strategy for winning the hearts and minds of El Salvador's civilian population. Today, under the watchful eye of the military, roads are being repaved, bridges rebuilt, electricity restored and schools reopened.

The point is to demonstrate that the government and the military are on the side of the people. The hope is that they in turn will give their allegiance to the government once the troops leave. Radio Venceremos, the official voice of the guerrillas' high command, has called Operation Well-Being "an imperialist plan" to change the image of the dictatorship's army. The guerrillas have vowed to strike new blows against the military here. But since June San Vicente has probably been more peaceful than at any time since the war began. This teacher with whom we spoke in Chinchontepec, said more and more refugee families which fled earlier violence have returned since the army took control.This woman told us that her town is more peaceful now, but that she and others fear that when the army leaves the guerrillas will be back and the fighting will begin again. Golcher told us that he too expects another guerrilla offensive this month in San Vicente.

Col. GOLCHER [through interpreter]: The guerrillas have to try to make this plan a failure. They have already said as much in their documents and on their clandestine radio, so they've got to do something spectacular.

Mr. KRAUSE [voice-over]: Golcher said he is confident he can contain the guerrillas militarily if they attack in San Vicente. Maybe. But Operation Well-Being's real test will come four to six months from now when Golcher's troops move on to try to pacify another province.Will the rebuilding continue? Will San Vicente remain calm enough for children to march in the streets unafraid? Will Rinaldo Golcher, his troops and his government have won the permanent loyalty of San Vicente's people? Or will Operation Well-Being, like so much else that's happened in this war, prove only a temporary setback for the guerrillas and only a temporary triumph for the army?

This is Charles Krause reporting.

LEHERE: As we said, Secretary Weinberger met with Colonel Golcher in San Vicente province today. While he was in the region, Weinberger told a group of displaced people that the U.S. would continue helping them.Tomorrow the Secretary learns more about Central America when he visits U.S. troops on maneuvers in Honduras. Robin?

MacNEIL: In domestic news today, Chrysler said it couldn't afford to pay the raise is has agreed to give the United Auto Workers. The rank and file will vote next week on a $2,42-an-hour increase. Chrysler said it can't afford the billion dollars that will cost, but had agreed to avert a strike.

Yesterday, a federal judge in Chicago ruled that South African political activist and poet Dennis Brutus can stay in this country. Today the Immigration Service, which has been seeking to deport him, said the government will appeal to a higher court.

Former senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy suffered a mild heart attack yesterday, but is resting comfortably today at his home in Culpepper, Virginai. President Reagan was observed for the first time today wearing a hearing aid in his right ear. His doctors said an examination three weeks ago showed a further loss of hearing. Mr. Reagan suffered a 10% hearing loss during his movie days when a blank cartridge was fired near his ear.

Three Pennsylvanians today became the winners of the largest lottery prize in history. The Pennsylvania lottery, called Lotto, announced a payout of more than $18 million. That is just over $6 million each for a retired bricklayer and two housewives, one of them aged 22 and just expecting a baby. Jim?

LEHRER: Looking back now on the main stories of the day. On the airliner, Secretary of State Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko confronted each other at arms' length, a prelude to the real thing tomorrow, as the world's airline pilots got something real underway as punishment for the Soviet Union.

On Lebanon, it was the French peacekeepers who took the fatal casualties today -- three were dead -- as the nervousness over what may happen next continues.

And finally we leave you tonight with the words from a man named Charles Edmunds. He's never been on television before; his name's never been in a newspaper. But he's been working for the last 25 years at a place that is well known, in legend at least. It's the stockyards in Kansas City, Missouri. Once the yards were full of livestock and people and life as most of the cattle, hogs and sheep from the west made a stopover in Kansas City on their way north or east. But no more. All that's left of those times are mostly memories, like those of Charles Edmunds.

CHARLES EDMUNDS: Well, a lot of days we'll get maybe 200 sheep.Today we got 165. Now, tomorrow we may get 100, may get 50. It just variates. I can remember when we used to get 100 carloads of cattle in here. Maybe two days, maybe one day we'd unload maybe two or three hundred loads of cattle, unload on a train. Maybe we'd get 25 loads. You see, go along with them. But we got a lot of cattle here. It was a big place. Round 487 acres, somewhere in approximately 400 to 500 acres land that you had, the stockyard was -- and we had a lot of help. Today we run at two or three hundred men at one time. Back years ago I guess they had like five or six hundred, Maybe because they had like 65,000 cattle in this yard at one time. I've seen it when it was up to halfway, probably, to this peak and I've seen it now it's down to where it's not near as big as it was; it don't handle near the livestock. But I don't think any yards handles as many livestock as they used to handle. So I don't know. But it's -- the whole thing is going so fast. We're in such a fast cycle. Seems like that people are going to have to -- something's going to have to slow down. Something's going to have to give. People can't exist. How they going to keep going? The economy is -- they talk about the economy is bad. I don't see where it's any different now than it was back when I was growing up. We're making more money now than we ever made. We're paying more money for everything else because everything else is higher, but everything's going along with the times. I mean, when I made $36 dollars a week, now I make $200 a week, so I can't see no difference in it. I'm staying up -- trying to stay up with the times as it goes. But the stockyards is -- I don't know. It's something else. I wouldn't trade -- I would rather work here, as I've had other jobs and I'd rather work here than anyplace on earth. You're outside. You're with the animals. And I mean it's enjoyable. It's -- I don't know, you get just a thing of being closer, I guess, to something old. I mean, you're like being a part of something that's antique. Maybe I'm antique. I don't know. But I like being close, you know. The point is that this is an old place, and it's like you're part of it. You've been here 25 years, it's like you're a piece of it.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

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