The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. An about face at the White House leads the news this Thursday. President Bush signed the landmark Civil Rights Law after his administration reversed a move to end affirmative action in government hiring. And the Soviet Union got a big break from the world's richest nation. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff's in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: On the NewsHour tonight the White House about face on job discrimination is our lead focus. We'll look at what was behind the change of heart by the President and his men. Then the plight of Haiti's refugees and the debate over whether the U.S. should let them come in. Finally, part two of our series of tales from inside the KGB. Charles Krause continues his talk with former Soviet Spy Master Oleg Kalugin.NEWS SUMMARY

MS. WOODRUFF: President Bush signed the 1991 Civil Rights Act into law this afternoon, but before he did, a controversy erupted over how the law would be implemented. Last night a draft of a document to be issued with the new law was circulated to government agencies and leaked to the press. It directed federal agencies to terminate programs that give preferences to minorities or women in hiring and promotion. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said it generated protest both inside and outside the administration. He said the President had not been aware of the document's content and immediately ordered it rewritten. At the signing ceremony Mr. Bush said he still supports affirmative action.

PRES. BUSH: Nothing in this bill overturns the government's affirmative action programs. And unlike last year's bill, a bill I was forced to veto, this bill will not encourage quotas or racial preferences, because this bill will not create lawsuits on the basis of numbers alone. I oppose quotas because they incite tensions between the races, between the sexes, between people who get trapped in a numbers game. Our goal and our promise is harmony, a return to civility and brotherhood, as we build a better America for ourselves and our children.

MS. WOODRUFF: Some Democrats question the President's sincerity. Ohio Sen. Howard Metzenbaum said he worried about future attacks on affirmative action. He spoke on the Senate floor.

SEN. HOWARD METZENBAUM: The American people should not be fooled. The President may have backed off today because it might hurt today's photo opportunity, but keep watching and watch carefully. You will see the White House attempt to undermine the civil rights consensus reached by Congress sometime soon, if not this week perhaps next week, or next month, or early next year.

MS. WOODRUFF: We'll have more on the story right after the News Summary. In economic news, the Labor Department today reported the number of Americans filing new unemployment claims reached almost 1/2 million in early November. The report for the week ending November 9th showed that new claims jumping by 39,000 to 493,000, their highest level since mid April. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: The world's seven richest industrialized nations agreed today to let the Soviet Union defer $3.6 billion of its debt. The so-called G-7 countries also offered at least a billion dollars in new loans to help the central government and the republics solve their economic problems. Russian republic President Boris Yeltsin got some economic help today from Germany. He and Chairman Chancellor Helmut Kohl signed a treaty pledging broad cooperation. Germanyalso pledged an unspecified amount of food and humanitarian aid to help Russia get through the winter.

MS. WOODRUFF: Recently freed American hostage Thomas Sutherland will have to wait several more days before returning home. The 60 year old educator is suffering from an ulcer and inflammation of the stomach. Doctors at the U.S. military hospital in Wiesbauden, Germany, said Sutherland's years of captivity in Lebanon could have caused the condition. Sutherland was to have flown back to the United States today.

MR. MacNeil: Israel's prime minister today repeated his government's hard line position on Middle East peace negotiations. Speaking to a group of American Jewish leaders in Baltimore, Yitzhak Shamir said Israel was surrounded by tyrannies and dictatorships. He said the new world order has not reached the Middle East.

YITZHAK SHAMIR, Prime Minister, Israel: We live in an unstable, undemocratic militaristic region where force is king, terrorism is endemic and hatred of Israel universal. To preserve our tiny nation, in this region we must have security.

MR. MacNeil: Later Shamir met with Sec. of State Baker in Washington. They discussed conditions for continuing the peace talks begun in Madrid three weeks ago. Baker's trying to arrange a new round of bilateral negotiations. They're expected to begin within two weeks, but an exact date has not yet been agreed.

MS. WOODRUFF: The U.S. has decided to call off plans for future troop cuts in South Korea. Sec. of Defense Cheney said the action was taken because the U.S. is convinced North Korea is developing nuclear weapons. About 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea. Cheney said cuts scheduled for the 1993 to '95 period will be put on "hold" until North Korea halts nuclear weapons development. Closer to home, U.S. Coast Guard officials said today they were investigating reports that a boat carrying 200 Haitian refugees had capsized off Cuba Tuesday night. Cuban Radio said 16 people had drowned and 119 were missing. The U.S. has picked up nearly 3,000 Haitian boat people who have fled their country since the September overthrow of the democratically elected government. We'll have more on the story later in the program.

MR. MacNeil: Battles continued in the Yugoslav republic of Croatia today. In the town of Vukovar, hundreds of bodies were buried in mass graves. The town fell to the Serb-led federal army earlier this week. The army reportedly has shifted many of its forces from Vukovar to Osijek, another key Croatian stronghold. Across the republic, refugees continued to flee the fighting. Paul Davies of Independent Television News went to a small town near Dubrovnik and filed this report.

MR. DAVIES: It was a desperate gamble driving through the no man's land that separates the two forces, but the French minister had decided this was the only way to save hundreds of trapped women and children. We passed through the federal army lines just half a mile outside Dubrovnik. We'd been told the army was closing in, but it still came as a shock to discover just how many federal soldiers are now just a few minutes drive from Dubrovnik. For those of us who have spent week on the wrong end of the army's bombardment of the city, it was a strange experience meeting the men responsible. As Minister Kushna tried to negotiate passage through to the occupied villages, the soldiers told us they were all from Montenegro. One even apologized for destroying Croatian homes. A group of senior officers of the Serbian-led army arrived to announce that the humanitarian mission would be allowed to proceed to the newly captured village. Traveling under army escort, we were led to the village of Mukoshitza just as troops were taking control of the streets. These soldiers were clearly edgy after a night long battle to capture the village. The French minister explained to Red Cross officials that the soldiers had promised there would be no more shooting and slowly the people began to emerge from the wreckage of their homes, first in ones and twos, then in larger groups. These people had spent days hiding in cellars. There were claims that hundreds more were still too frightened to come out.

SPOKESMAN: Hundreds of people, I think about two thousand.

MR. DAVIES: The minister attempted to negotiate the evacuation of the civilian population in an underground shelter that had for weeks been home for hundreds of families. They lived down here while their homes were destroyed. Now with the Croatians defeated, they fear they've lost everything. On the streets, the army sent in to crush the breakaway republic, many of the residents appeared in a state of shock, but as ever, there were contradictory images and statements. This man claimed the village had, in fact, been liberated.

MAN: We are freed because of Serbians we are free now.

WOMAN: You say that okay, okay, you say that, not me, not me.

MR. DAVIES: In front of television cameras a senior federal officer attempted to comfort the distraught boy. But there were those, albeit a minority, who appeared genuinely pleased to see the army's arrival. The French minister emerged from his talks with two young boys. Along with a pregnant woman, they could leave immediately, with a mass evacuation agreed for later in the week. For weeks, this village has been a battlefield. Now it has finally fallen to federal forces. Its women and children are being given the opportunity to leave, but first they must make the agonizing decision to leave their men folk and their homes behind. Minister Kushnar is also hoping the federal army will agree to pull out of the village altogether, leaving it as a neutral zone.

SPOKESMAN: In the beginning of a line of peace, here in the middle of hell, so let's say that this is the beginning of the beginning of maybe something, I don't know.

MR. DAVIES: But gunfire just a few yards up the road a reminder of the difficulty that faces any peace initiative here, those who are being ferried to safety once again forced to run for their lives as bullets whistled down the street.

MS. WOODRUFF: That's it for the News Summary. Just ahead on the NewsHour, an abrupt change of signals from the White House, what to do about the refugees from Haiti, and tales from inside the KGB. FOCUS - ABOUT FACE

MS. WOODRUFF: The President's apparent about face on civil rights is first tonight. As we reported, Mr. Bush signed into law a major new civil rights bill today, but the ceremony was overshadowed by behind-the-scenes politicking that would have eliminated preferential hiring and promotion in the federal government for women and minorities. To find out what's behind all this, we turn to two reporters who cover the White House, Dan Goodgame of Time Magazine and Maureen Santini of the New York Daily News. Dan, let me begin with you. Start with yesterday and tell us exactly what happened and who initiated, if there was one person.

MR. GOODGAME: Well, the short version, Judy, is that they knew that the President was going to sign the civil rights bill today.

MS. WOODRUFF: They meaning the White House staff?

MR. GOODGAME: Right. And, you know, other people whohad been invited to come to the ceremony. And along with the actual bill, there is a signing document. The President will make remarks and then there will be a signing document which accompanies the bill and acts as sort of legislative history. That was prepared by Boyden Gray, the White House Counsel, in his office. And that signing document as it was distributed to other agencies late yesterday between 4 and 5:30 yesterday would have essentially undermined what the civil rights bill was designed to do. It was saying that there would not be affirmative action programs to have setasides for federal contracts and that sort of thing, and so some of the agencies to which this signing document was sent objected and said, wait a minute, we can't do this, and the President agreed.

MS. WOODRUFF: Maureen, No. 1, why did he do it, but No. 2, why at the last minute, the afternoon before the bill signing?

MS. SANTINI: Well, the story that's being put out by the White House is that there were some lawyers in the White House Counsel's office who drafted this document basically without any input from President Bush or they also want us to believe without any input from anyone else on the White House staff. However, it remains to be seen whether that's true. But it ended up being an unmitigated, unambiguous political disaster for the President. What's interesting is it took them until almost the minute of the signing ceremony today to realize that that's what was happening and totally reverse themselves.

MS. WOODRUFF: Because you had the reports in the Washington Post and I guess in the New York Times and maybe other newspapers today that this was coming. What were they trying to achieve by putting this new language out that would have affected federal hiring and promotion?

MR. GOODGAME: Well, you saw a foreshadowing of it, Judy, in the opinion piece that Boyden Gray, the White House Counsel, wrote I think a couple of weeks ago talking about the White House won in the compromise for the civil rights bill. He was --

MS. WOODRUFF: That the White House didn't cave, in other words?

MR. GOODGAME: Right. That the White House didn't cave, the White House got what it wanted in the compromise.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why is that such a sore point with the White House. Why was Boyden Gray or anybody else at the White House so anxious to prove they didn't do the caving?

MS. SANTINI: The conservatives. You have the President about to enter a reelection campaign and the conservatives, the right wingers, nipping at his heels, with Pat Buchanan about to launch a separate candidacy, David Duke perhaps poised to get into the primaries, both of these men appealing to the part of the Republican Party that President Bush is the weakest with. And even though this instincts might be to go for fairness, I think on this issue --

MS. WOODRUFF: His meaning the President's?

MS. SANTINI: The President's. On this issue and a lot of other domestic issues, he seems to have almost a split personality where he has one part of him that says, oh, yes, maybe the conservatives have something to that. I lean this way. And then another part of him says, oh, no, the civil rights leaders are making valid points, I partly lean this way. And without, in the absence of clear direction, these lawyers in the Counsel's office apparently were left to try to undermine the bill on their own.

MR. GOODGAME: I think that's a very good point and it has partly to do with personality, as Maureen says, and also to do with George Bush's electoral coalition, which is quite different, more diverse ideologically than Ronald Reagan's was. George Bush only won about half of the Reagan Democrats when he won in '88. He's got a lot more suburban independents, people who are more liberal on civil rights at one wing of this coalition, than he has the conservatives, and so he's constantly slaloming back and forth --

MS. WOODRUFF: Trying to shore up either one.

MR. GOODGAME: -- or trying to slice things very thin to split the difference.

MS. WOODRUFF: Talk about what happened last night. When this went out, it reached apparently Senate offices on Capitol Hill, among other places, including San Danforth. And the report we got back today was evidently that Sen. Danforth was one of those who was really angry about it. Is that your understanding?

MS. SANTINI: He said as much today. He said he called the White House this morning, that he was quite angry and upset, and even left the implication that it had not been changed, he would not have shown up at the White House ceremony today and, in fact, only one Democrat did show up, and that was Sen. Kennedy. All the other Democrats boycotted.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why? Because of --

MS. SANTINI: Because, because this issue surfaced, because they felt the White House was trying to gut the bill at the exact same time the President was signing it.

MS. WOODRUFF: What's the significance of a Danforth or any other Republican raising cain about this?

MR. GOODGAME: Well, there's just a feeling of unfair play, that, you know, you went this long, it's been two years trying to get a compromise on this issue, and the feeling is, okay, we got this far and now the White House comes in at the last minute and says, oh, we're signing this bill, but here's what we say it means, which is very different from what was agreed.

MS. WOODRUFF: Maureen, you were saying a moment ago these are people on the staff of the White House Counsel, the President's legal advisers.

MS. SANTINI: That's right.

MS. WOODRUFF: So is the President really separated? Can you separate the President, himself, from what happened, or not?

MS. SANTINI: I don't think you can. I think what you have here in its broadest is a President who is extraordinarily sure-footed on the foreign policy front but not nearly so sure-footed on the domestic front, and this really caps a month of bad news for the President in terms of having his leadership challenged and in some cases ridiculed. And I think what you have is in this case two conservatives, Boyden Gray, the White House Counsel, and the Chief of Staff, John Sununu, no one knows his extent of involvement, but there didn't seem to be anybody on the other side saying, wait a minute, let's take a look at this. There didn't seem to be anybody with a cautionary button on.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, that was my question. If something this important is going out, could it have been done without the knowledge of the chief of staff or without the knowledge of the President?

MR. GOODGAME: I think to a larger extent on these domestic issues, the answer is yes, Judy. And the President knows the general outline of this policy, but we asked him at a press conference once, you know, whether he knew what was in this bill. And he essentially said, I think it's very complicated, the difference in the two bills, the one he vetoed and the one he signed, I have to trust my lawyers, the advice I get on this. The President often knows what he doesn't want much more clearly than he knows what he wants. He says he doesn't want it to have quotas in it but he also doesn't want to be perceived as obstructing expanded civil rights for minorities and women.

MS. WOODRUFF: The stories today on the wire services on both Associated Press and Reuters were saying this is a White House in disarray, this is a White House in chaos. Is the press overreading this, or is there real disarray in the White House? I mean, what's going on?

MS. SANTINI: It has been a bad month for the President. First of all, the economy, he has sent very mixed signals about what he wants to do there, and some people think he's responsible, at least partly, for the stock market drop because he brought up the issue of credit card interest rates. There has been his foreign travel. The Democrats ridiculed him on it and the next thing he canceled the trip. There have been a couple of other issues.

MS. WOODRUFF: The Asian trip which he's rescheduled for the end of December.

MS. SANTINI: Yes. His popularity has been sliding and it's just interesting that all these things are happening in a climate where he's dealing with domestic issues when he, himself, has said that's not his preference, he much prefers foreign issues. And I think this gives us a feel for how much more professional he comes across when he's dealing with foreign issues.

MR. GOODGAME: You have a lot of people in this White House and in some ways, this is an 11 year old administration. It's not just a two and a half year old administration.

MS. WOODRUFF: Because he was Vice President for eight years.

MR. GOODGAME: Right. And you have a lot of people in this White House defending their handiwork. I mean, you have Boyden Gray defending his handiwork in the civil rights compromise, trying to make it appear to be a victory for him and for the White House, that they didn't cave. On the economy you have Dick Darman and John Sununu defending their handiwork on the budget agreement that they made last year.

MS. WOODRUFF: But, again, back to this, what we started talking about in the first place, the job discrimination legislation, the bottom line is that the bill is out there and there is no change, is that right, on federal guidelines on hiring and promotion, is that right?

MS. SANTINI: Well, this is interesting. Today at the ceremony for the very first time, despite a briefing with Marlin Fitzwater that went on for almost an hour, which he refused to say this, finally at 1:15, President Bush did say, I support affirmative action and these federal guidelines will not be overturned, however, no one believes that's the end of it. What I think the bottom line of what people believe is that what happened today is that they retreated from making a public issue of it but that there are still people who are going to pursue behind the scenes trying to end these programs.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, Maureen Santini, Dan Goodgame, we thank you both. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, what to do about Haitian refugees, and the spy who came in from the cold war. FOCUS - PERSONA NON GRATA

MR. MacNeil: We focus next on the story of nearly 3,000 Haitian refugees literally adrift at sea and politically adrift between their blighted homeland and the immigration laws of the United States. Today the U.S. said it has begun transferring nearly half that group to Navy ships and shore facilities at the U.S. Navy Base at Guantanamo, Cuba. U.S. Coast Guard cutters had picked up the Haitians leaving their island in small boats. Cuban news agencies said one of the refugee boats has sunk, with scores drowned or missing. At issue for the U.S. government and in Congress is how many of the Haitian refugees should be admitted to the United States. We'll discuss that in a moment. First, the story until now. For years, Haitians trying to enter the United States were considered economic refugees who did not qualify for political asylum. Then this fall, Haiti's first democratically-elected government was toppled in a military coup. The Bush administration reversed traditional policy and said some Haitians might be admitted as political refugees. A new wave of Haitians began leaving in small boats. But the administration then reverted to the policy of a strict political test for refugees. The U.S. Coast Guard began picking up Haitians on the high seas and taking them to the U.S. base at Guantanamo, Cuba. The administration tried to persuade others in the region to accept them, and so far, four countries have agreed to take 500 Haitians. Three days ago, the administration said the Coast Guard would begin taking refugees back to Haiti. Critics charged a double standard, because the administration had recently criticized Britain for sending Vietnam boat people refugees in Hong Kong back to Vietnam. The British government called them economic, not political refugees. On Tuesday, a federal court in Florida ordered the repatriation to stop for five days. Critics in Congress called administration policy discriminatory and racist. Now we get four views. Robert Gelbard is the Deputy Assistant Sec. of State for Inter-American Affairs. Jocelyn McCalla is the Executive Director of the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees. From Capitol Hill, we're joined by Representatives Charles Rangel, Democrat from New York, and Bill McCollum, a Republican from Florida. Mr. Secretary, why is the U.S. sending Haitians back when it has just criticized Britain for doing almost the same thing to Vietnamese refugees?

SEC. GELBARD: We have a policy that's aimed at trying to save lives. What we've seen over the last 10 years is that there are a large number of Haitians who are trying to come to the United States on boats. And the Coast Guard estimates that there's an approximately 50 percent mortality rate for those people in trying to leave as they leave on rickety boats, with almost a certainty that they won't make it to the United States. Ten years ago, we established an agreement with Haiti, and our Coast Guard patrols the waters around Haiti in an effort to pick up those we find. But what our fear is that if we bring these people into the United States at this time, we end up really opening the doors and really leading a lot of Haitians to their deaths.

MR. MacNeil: Now explain to me the sort of, what appeared to many to be a change of policy in the weeks after the coup and then a reversion to the present policy, as you see that. I mean, the Coast Guard did say well, it wouldn't send some of them back when it picked up the first ones.

SEC. GELBARD: That's not true at all. During the first four weeks after the coup, no boats appeared off the Haitian coast. What we've actually done is continue the policy as before, with intensive interviews by the Immigration Service for those boat people who are picked up by the Coast Guard. To date, the Immigration Service has certified that more than 100 of those people have valid political claims to refugee status in the United States and either have been brought or are in the process of being brought back to the United States.

MR. MacNeil: Why are most of them not political refugees in the State Department and Immigration Service view?

SEC. GELBARD: Well, it's very clear that in the course of their interviews they are saying very openly that they want to come to the United States for economic reasons, to find jobs, and to seek a better life. They are not claiming that they're victims of political persecution. Now I have to say we have been probably the strongest country in trying to seek the return of President Aristide to Haiti and the return of democratic rule. But it's also clear that these people have been using this moment, sadly, to try to escape a very difficult and very tragic situation in Haiti economically.

MR. MacNeil: And those who are being sent back risk no danger to being imprisoned or killed when they're sent back to Haiti?

SEC. GELBARD: There has been no indication that there has been any persecution of those returning. Historically, over the last 10 years, people have not been persecuted when they have been returned and our embassy in conjunction with human rights groups in Haiti, with private voluntary organizations, is attempting to monitor the situation. But we really have no reason to believe that these people who are simply trying to leave Haiti for economic reasons are going to be the victims of any kind of oppression.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. McCalla, do you agree that these people are not at risk who are being sent back?

REP. McCOLLUM: Well, I have no basis for anything --

MR. MacNeil: I'm sorry, Congressman. I meant Mr. Jocelyn McCalla. He has a name similar to yours. I'm probably going to confuse them, but let me speak to him for a moment.

REP. McCOLLUM: Sure.

MR. McCALLA: I think that with respect to your question I am glad to see that the State Department is now trying to frame the interdiction policy that has been in existence since 1981 as a life saving measure adopted at that time. The truth is and the reality of it is that it was designed to prevent Haitians from seeking asylum on the shores of Florida. In other words, by keeping them offshore, under high seas, it was preventing them from obtaining legal assistance from organizations such as the Haitian Refugee Center, and it also prevented any independent organization from trying to identify those who would be political asylum applicants and in that case, in fact, went against international law. So I am glad that now the State Department is looking at this issue as a life saving issue. Secondly, I also disagree, the Haitians, to my knowledge, are facing risk in Haiti at this point in time. In fact, a State Department statement, U.S. Embassy statement, was released on October 28, 1991, almost a month into the coup, and it cited credible reports of, and I would quote from that statement, itself, of raids on private homes and of radio station arrests without warrants, detention of persons without charges and mistreatment of persons within the custody of Haiti's de facto authorities. Now, it is true that the Haitians are being turned over to the head of the Haitian Red Cross, but we have to understand that the Haitian Red Cross is not an independent organization as it is understood here in the United States.

MR. MacNeil: Do you believe these are political refugees who if they were, who should qualify as political refugees, all of them?

MR. McCALLA: I think that the process has to be fair, it has to be an honest process. Fortunately today a court gave the authorization to the Haitian Refugee Center to be on the Coast Guard cutters so that they can have the opportunity to interview some of the refugees and determine what is their basis for claim for political asylum. Certainly we're not saying that everyone on that boat is a political refugee. I think that we have to look at it in two lights. One is our, you might respond to the plight of those Haitians who are leaving Haiti and who are seeking freedom.

MR. MacNeil: But what about what the Secretary says, that if the word got out and back to Haiti that they were not being stopped and some of them would make it here, it would cause a huge attempt at mass migration by sea and many of them would drown because the boats are not adequate for them?

MR. McCALLA: I don't buy that. Haiti, as I explained yesterday, has only about 7 percent of forest cover. The Haitians do not have the resources on their own to build boats, to get food, and the necessary material needed to leave Haiti at this point in time. In fact, the Coast Guard, because it believes that the boats that they are sailing in are unsafe takes the immediate step of, in fact, destroying the ships that they have been on, so, in fact, they don't have the ability of those ships anymore to go back to and so on.

MR. MacNeil: I see. Congressman Rangel, you've been very critical of what the government is doing, but you've heard the Secretary. He says they're just obeying U.S. law and abiding by what's been the policy since 1981.

REP. RANGEL: Yes. I think it's been a racist policy since 1981. This is the only country that we have a policy that those fleeing the country, we will go out, interdict them and return them to the country. And I'm saying that even if we were to go by the law, and I'd like to hurriedly add that I don't think that we should, we should be going by compassion. This is not a United States problem. It is not a United States legal problem. It's an international problem. And no decent nation would want to return refugees, whether or not they are political refugees, or economic refugees, to the ruthless military that exists now in Haiti. Now, the State Department knows that this same thug-like army has killed a lot of innocent people that were supporters of Aristide. I think the number is close to a thousand. It's the same ruthless army that killed those people that participated in a democratic election. Assuming, just assuming for the sake of a legal argument, that they started shooting people as soon as they got off of the boat, just for leaving and being returned by the United States Coast Guard officials, would not we then take these people in under this broad description that they are political refugees and will not other people try to flee this ruthless army that exists in Haiti? So the whole idea that all of a sudden we have found compassion and we have decided that these people would flee if we show some humane and humanitarian concern about their welfare -- but when we had a problem in Kuwait, when the vicious invasion was there by Saddam Hussein, wasn't it our President, the leader of the free world and a leader of the new world order, on the telephone, calling nations, asking them to come to the rescue? Well, the President did a great job in getting the embargo and getting the OAS involved, but has he personally called other nations and asked them to get involved? Has he called France? Has he called England? Has he called Japan and Germany so that we can all get together and assume some of this responsibility? And I'm suggesting that if these people die on U.S. vessels, if these people die at the hand of a ruthless army, that the State Department never has supported and has a long and traditional history of killing innocent people, then we shouldn't be in the business on a United States cutter, Coast Guard vessels, asking these poor, some illiterate, hungry and sick people, whether they were being shot by a political bullet or whether the reason they were being shot because it was an economic bullet.

MR. MacNeil: Congressman McCollum, you think the administration is doing the right thing, I gather. How do you answer Congressman Rangel?

REP. McCOLLUM: Well, first of all, as much as I have a great respect for Congressman Rangel, I would have to say up front that the only thing racist about this matter is his comments. And I think that's very unfortunate because it sounds demagogic under the circumstances. The policy of this administration is nothing more and nothing less than carrying out what has been the policy of this government since 1981 when an executive order on interdiction was entered in response to the problems we were having with respect to Haitians fleeing at that time on rickety boats and in response to not wanting to see a repetition of the Marielle boat lift situation when thousands of Marilitos from Cuba flooded our shores in Florida. We've got to be compassionate. And I don't want to see any more of these folks sent back there than we have to and find other places to send them and other countries to take them. But I don't want them coming to the United States and I think the administration's policy is going to discourage rather than encourage people to get on boats. That's compassionate, compassionate because, as the State Department has said and the Secretary did a few moments ago, you're going to have thousands of people attempting to leave if we give them encouragement; they're going to get on unsea-worthy vessels. We've seen it before. We've seen it recently in this effort. They're going to die. And in addition to that, we're going to encourage them to come to our shores and we don't want that. We cannot afford that and we should not have that happen.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. McCalla here says there isn't enough wood in Haiti to make that kind of number of boats and it would be -- therefore, it would not be thousands of people.

REP. McCOLLUM: Well, maybe they've used up some of that wood in the interim but they certainly did a lot of it at the beginning of the last decade and we saw quite a flow out of Haiti at that time. And I can assure you that they'd find some way to get on those vessels and come this way, in my judgment. I also think that we need to just discourage it because there are others who might take encouragement from this in Cuba, for example, and in some of the other islands down there that could as well feed off of this. It's very important, in my judgment, to have an interdiction policy that works. If I thought that the State Department were wrong and that people were really in jeopardy in Haiti, I would say don't ever return anyone there, but I'd still say don't bring them here to this country. On the other hand, the evidence seems to be otherwise, and I tend to believe the interviewers in the State Department. I've heard the witnesses in our committee. I've been on this committee, the subcommittee in Integration, for 10 years. I haven't heard anything that makes me believe that the policy is wrong or that there's anything racist about it.

MR. MacNeil: Sec. Gelbard, there's one thing that I don't understand. If these refugees who are being returned are in no risk of being returned, why is this country making an effort to get other countries to give them safe haven and has succeeded in the case of about four or five hundred?

SEC. GELBARD: If we believed that these people were at risk, we would not be sending them back. We have been working assiduously to try to develop a regional response to what we all consider to be a regional problem. Congressman Rangel is right. We have approached a number of countries. Today, happily, another country, Jamaica, agreed to accept another hundred refugees. But we have seen that there has been, there have already been tragic consequences. Today we heard from a Cuban news agency that a boat sank off their coast. There are at least 16 dead. They fear that there are 120 who are missing. And they have saved 60. So what we are really concerned about is the fact that we have a budding tragedy on our hands.

MR. MacNeil: But I don't get the, I don't get the connection. If they're not at a political risk and they're not going to be harmed when they go back, why is it necessary to get Jamaica or anybody else to take them?

SEC. GELBARD: The first preference that we had was to try to develop a regional solution. And we worked for weeks to try to find countries in the region who were able and willing to under the aegis of the U.N. human rights, U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees, would take as many people as they could. Ultimately, we've only been able to find places for some 650 refugees. But, meanwhile, it has been our judgment that if we are to return people to Haiti at this point that we do not judge that they would be in danger.

MR. MacNeil: What is your comment on that?

REP. RANGEL: The question is --

MR. MacNeil: Just a moment, Congressman Rangel. Let me just ask Mr. McCalla here.

MR. McCALLA: The fact that the United States has gone out of its way to get other countries to welcome the Haitian refugees demonstrates to me an indication that they think that the conditions are not right for their return to safety in Haiti. In fact, that is absolutely true. The conditions are not there, the, my understanding with reports that I get from many human rights organizations, and I don't know who the embassy is working with in Haiti as far as human rights organization is, but we are in contact with church organizations, the members of non-governmental organizations, human rights groups there, and we get a daily report on human rights violations, and their indication is that far from having abated, the oppression continues to be systematically applied against anybody who demonstrates support for President Aristide. And that is the kind of concern that we have had since the very beginning.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Gelbard.

SEC. GELBARD: That is not the information we have, and we're in constant contact with our embassy. And our embassy has, of course, led by our ambassador, been in the forefront of those trying to restore democracy in Haiti.

MR. MacNeil: But what about Mr. Gelbard's point, picking up on the one that I was making, that if they're not at risk, why does the U.S., is the U.S. trying to find other homes for them, or other safe havens for them?

SEC. GELBARD: Because we have felt from the beginning that if it were possible to have those people in third countries on a temporary basis until democracy was restored, that would be the optimum solution.

MR. MacNeil: Congressman Rangel, we just have a minute. Could you tell me very briefly, then I'll go to Congressman McCollum, what do you think the government should do right now, in a few words?

REP. RANGEL: We should provide the same leadership that President Bush did in the Persian Gulf. We should throw away the law and start dealing with our hearts and have some compassion, not say that all these people should say to the United States, but not to be asking people who are hungry, who are starving, who are fleeing a military that has shot and killed many of their friends and relatives to decide whether or not they are political refugees, economic refugees. At this time of the year I think we should go to the countries in the region and beyond that to say we have a commitment to these people.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. I just have a few seconds. I want to hear what Congressman McCollum says from Florida.

REP. McCOLLUM: Well, my perspective on this is that these are primarily economic refugees and I don't think there's any question about it from the screening that's gone on. We cannot as a nation have a policy that encourages more to come. There are just too many economic refugees in the world. We have laws. Those laws talk about the fear of political persecution. If there is a real fear of that, these people are being screened out and are coming here and getting asylum. That's the way it ought to be.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Congressmen McCollum and Rangel, thank you. Mr. McCalla and Sec. Gelbard, thank you. Judy. NEWSMAKER - I SPIED

MS. WOODRUFF: Finally tonight we continue our series of conversations with the KGB's former chief of counter-intelligence, Gen. Oleg Kalugin. Kalugin began his career as a Soviet spy in New York, where he was an exchange student at Columbia University, and then a Radio Moscow correspondent at the United Nations. Tonight, he and Correspondent Charles Krause talk about Kalugin's next assignment in Washington.

MR. KRAUSE: In 1965, after almost seven years as a journalist and spy in New York, Oleg Kalugin was transferred to the Soviet Embassy in Washington. His official title, Deputy Press Attache, his real job, KGB Resident for Political Intelligence, a key post at a time of bitter cold war rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States. In Europe and Southeast Asia, the two super powers were probing and testing, building ever more powerful armies and nuclear weapons aimed at the other. Meanwhile, in the shadows, the KGB and the CIA fought a relentless war of their own, each side attempting to attain secrets that might mean the margin between victory and defeat. No agent was more important to the Soviet Union during the sixties and seventies than a Navy communications clerk from Virginia named John Walker. Before he was caught, Walker would provide the KGB with top U.S. military secrets for 18 years.

MR. KALUGIN: He provided us with tons of material, coded material, deciphered material, all sorts of things, including the Pentagon and the CIA reports sometimes, you know, because of the interchange between the organizations.

MR. KRAUSE: Kalugin was on duty at the Soviet Embassy in Washington the day Walker first approached the Russians in 1968. It was Kalugin who recognized Walker's potential and cemented a relationship that would be extraordinarily valuable and damaging to the West for almost 20 years.

MR. KRAUSE: What was he like?

MR. KALUGIN: Well, well, he was like a typical American businessman who wanted to make money. And in fact, I never met him in town. I was the organizer of this whole affair, as well as the chief of state, naturally, but I was given a free hand and I was the man who just read first his reports and made translations and sent dozens, hundreds of cables to Moscow because some of the material was very sensitive and very exciting, I mean, to our political leaders and military planners.

MR. KRAUSE: You said he was like a businessman, but he was a businessman who was selling out his country.

MR. KALUGIN: Right.

MR. KRAUSE: Was it money? Was that the only thing?

MR. KALUGIN: Yes, yes. We did not coerce him into anything. He accepted, well, he chose his own way of life. He wanted to make fast buck, you know, and he did. Well, not that fast, but 18 years is a long time, but he earned more than a million over that period, which is something, a fairly good amount of money for his services provided.

MR. KRAUSE: How did he contact you the first time?

MR. KALUGIN: Oh, he chose to walk in, that's all. I mean, Walker walked in and we had a chat. We saw his documents, which was proof of his desire to work with us honestly. And then we took him out in a car hidden, of course, and that's all, then he disappeared in some Washington suburbs. And then we met regularly but prearranged meetings, and all the material we got, as I say, sometimes hundreds of thousands of cables and decoded material which we received from him in bags in wooded areas, in Virginia and Maryland.

MR. KRAUSE: How did you communicate with him so that he knew where to take all this stuff?

MR. KALUGIN: Well, there were special arrangements made for him. It's a typical intelligence enterprise.

MR. KRAUSE: Well, it is, but it also would be interesting to hear someone who's actually done it and been --

MR. KALUGIN: Well, essentially, it would camouflage our instructions to him in a Pepsi Cola can, which was dropped at some conspicuous point near the road, near a pole, telephone pole, or some other probably a road sign, at a specific place indicated in the instructions. He would pick it up and read the instructions and then made his drops in wooded areas or somewhere his stop would not be near, visible to an outsider, and we would pick up his bags and then he started photographing material and we picked up his films and developed films, you know, specially protected by the way so if someone tries to open up, this would be all just finished. So that's the way we communicated for 18 years.

MR. KRAUSE: How would you be sure that you weren't being followed or how would he know that he wasn't being followed?

MR. KALUGIN: Well, this is something which we were trained to do, I mean, to detect surveillance, to escape, if necessary. The general rule is not to escape the surveillance, physical surveillance, if you detect it. This would be a bad mistake, because then the FBI people would simply sit on him, so to speak, day and nightly and this would spoil all his future carry-in operations.

MR. KRAUSE: The fact that John Walker was able to continue to provide the Soviet Embassy in Washington with very significant intelligence for 18 years, and was only finally caught because his ex-wife turned him in --

MR. KALUGIN: Well, ostensibly. I'm not sure about that, that this was the exact reason, but, well, that's my hunch.

MR. KRAUSE: What is your hunch?

MR. KALUGIN: Well, I think he was arrested, tipped off by some of the Soviet moles, American moles in the KGB. I would even name the name but I will abstain, just not get involved in libel or something.

MR. KRAUSE: In other words, you think that the story that his wife --

MR. KALUGIN: I have a hunch this is not a correct explanation for the reasons for his arrest.

MR. KRAUSE: How would you rate him in terms of all the spies at least that have become public since the end of World War II, thinking about the Philbys and the McLeans and those who penetrated British intelligence, thinking about Pencovsky, who penetrated your, or was an agent for the United States and Britain, inside the KGB? How do you rate them, how does Walker in terms --

MR. KALUGIN: I think he was one of the best, not the best but one of the best.

MR. KRAUSE: Who was the best?

MR. KALUGIN: That's really hard to tell. I have --

MR. KRAUSE: Who do you think was the most valuable?

MR. KALUGIN: Well, that depends. You can't put them all in one, you know, just board. Each of them provided us with different type of information. Walker provided us with strategic information about, for instance, the U.S. Navy, atomic fleet, the atomic submarines, but very important things for the military planners in the Soviet Union and for understanding American military establishment and its policies as far as the U.S.S.R., while others provided us with strictly political intelligence. We had a source at the State Department who, at a later time when I was in Moscow as a chief of foreign counter-intelligence, we had a source at the State Department, a very good job he did. He performed for us and we got also many cables from around the world which came to the State Department. We got copies of it and it was excellent information for political purposes, so that depended on what part of the job we are doing. So each of them was valuable in his own, you know, way.

MR. KRAUSE: Was this agent at the State Department uncovered?

MR. KALUGIN: Not that I know, but he was also removed later from the State Department and I don't know what happened to him afterwards.

MR. KRAUSE: But during the seventies, there was a high ranking officer at the State Department who was providing --

MR. KALUGIN: Fairly high ranking, I would say fairly high ranking officer, yes.

MR. KRAUSE: Providing what kinds of cables, what kinds of information?

MR. KALUGIN: On political affairs.

MR. KRAUSE: For example.

MR. KALUGIN: All these instructions of the State Department to its embassies in the world and vice versa, many cables which by the way came to the State Department from the CIA, from the Pentagon. You know, there was intelligence in the research division of the State Department which collects all information from various sources. So if you get hold of this information, this would give us a very broad spectrum of events in the world.

MR. KRAUSE: Did you in Washington ever blackmail or coerce anyone?

MR. KALUGIN: No, no. This was against my nature. In fact, this is something that the domestic counter-intelligence does. I never used this method.

MR. KRAUSE: How about sexual performance? In Washington, there have been a number of scandals. Were you also --

MR. KALUGIN: No, never. The Soviet counter-intelligence in Moscow does, well, this job and quite often used to coerce foreigners into cooperation with the KGB, and well, the compromising material involving sex, you know, women, not necessarily prostitutes. By the way, the KGB does not employ prostitutes. This was not the type of women they cared for, you know. They would use good looking women, professionals, teachers, pianists, actresses, but not professional prostitutes. That's a low grade job. That's for the militia. [laughing]

MR. KRAUSE: Did the CIA ever try to use or the FBI try to use that tactic against you or your people?

MR. KALUGIN: Oh, yes, definitely, and this would be a natural thing to do. They act on their own territory. They have a lot of opportunities to collect compromising material, to plant their women, if necessary, and to work with them, so they did use -- not against me, I was fortunately not involved -- but I know of other Soviet citizens, including KGB officers, who got into compromising situations and could not get out of it. And I, so I said, listen, don't be afraid. If they give yo pictures, say, give me more pictures and preferably in color. You know, don't be afraid to be involved in a sexual affair. So what? Are you not involved yourself? I mean, but some people are cowardly. Whenever they feel that their career may be spoiled by some small, you know, flirt or some kind of affair on the side, they would simply, you know, they would be willing to work for the CIA but not admit a simple human, you know, mis, whatever, misdemeanor, let's put it that way.

MR. KRAUSE: Did you, or your people break into offices?

MR. KALUGIN: We tried to, yes. Well, with limited success, but we tried, yes.

MR. KRAUSE: Did you ever personally try to break into anyone's office?

MR. KALUGIN: No, by myself, no. I was the organizer. I didn't have to do it, no.

MR. KRAUSE: Were you ever in danger, physical danger?

MR. KALUGIN: In the United States?

MR. KRAUSE: Mmm hmm.

MR. KALUGIN: No. No. In my case, I fortunately escaped that fate, but there were some cases when I thought my car was interfered with. For instance, the brakes would fail. This could have been for a different reason, I mean, a natural reason, but I had suspicion there was some involvement of my colleagues on my counterparts. The engine would fail often while the car was almost a new one.

MR. KRAUSE: And did you think that they did that because they were sending you a message that they knew who you were, or do you think they were really trying to kill you?

MR. KALUGIN: Well, I don't think they wanted to kill me. This is something which I do not accept as a means of a relationship. There were, I know, and you do know, I'm sure the American public knows, the KGB used some tricks against American diplomats in Moscow, including very nasty things, you know, some sort of poisoning, not to kill but to put them in an awkward position. And the Americans would just take reprisals and would take, would respond in, you know, in a similar manner.

MR. KRAUSE: But you're saying that the FBI would or CIA would poison maybe not to kill.

MR. KALUGIN: Not to kill but just to put a person out of operation so to speak. You know, I don't like to treat people badly, whoever they are, for instance, when I had a surveillance team after me, I never tried to, you know, to make them, to give them difficult time. On the contrary, I tried to facilitate their work so that they are pleased with their performance. And, by the way, they responded in a similar way. I called them to Florida with my wife and kid in '68 for a brief occasion after the Czechoslovakian uprising. And the FBI people followed me all the time and I always give them the chance not to, you know, to lose me, so, and they would come up to me and say, listen, can we help you. I said, no. We were quite friendly.

MR. KRAUSE: But the relationship was not all fun and games. In 1970, Columnist Jack Anderson called Kalugin a Russian Romeo after he supposedly seduced an American woman who he then tried to infiltrate into the State Department as a Soviet spy. Kalugin says it didn't happen that way but his cover was blown and by the end of 1970, he was recalled from Washington to Moscow.

MR. KALUGIN: I was supposed to be appointed the chief of station. I was an excellent chief of station, but because of that small incident or this rather revelation in the media, my superiors in Moscow said that if they appoint me and I will be kicked out officially that would be, you know, to appoint chief of station, it's a very cumbersome procedure. So I wanted to avoid an embarrassment so they said listen, stay well, you come back home andwe'll get another appointment.

MS. WOODRUFF: Tomorrow night Kalugin talks about that appointment, chief of counter-intelligence, his promotion to general and Lee Harvey Oswald. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Thursday, President Bush signed the 1991 Civil Rights Act but the ceremony was overshadowed by a controversy over a proposed Presidential directive to end government hiring preferences for minorities and women. The President spokesman said Mr. Bush had not known about the document and ordered it to be revised. And tonight the House overwhelmingly passed a bill to replenish the government fund which ensures bank deposits. A similar bill is nearing passage in the Senate. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with the President's political ups and downs as seen by political analysts Gergen & Shields. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.