The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. There were several major news developments this Friday. The Chinese did a little editing job on a President Reagan speech. The siege at the Libyan Embassy in London ended peacefully. General Motors reported record profits; the U.S. reported record foreign deficits, and Claus Von Bulow, the rich Rhode Island man convicted of attempting to kill his even richer wife, has been granted a new trial. Robert MacNeil is away tonight, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: In tonight's NewsHour four main stories, with an American China-watcher we try to decipher the message the Chinese were sending when they censored the President's speech. We also examine the merits of Jesse Jackson's demand to eliminate what he calls discriminatory run-off primaries in the South. From our medical beat, we take a look at one woman's weapon against teenage violence, television. And, as National Consumers Week draws to a close, we get a sample of the war of words between a leading consumer advocate who thinks it was a fraud and a Reagan administration official who thinks it wasn't.Reagan in China

HUNTER-GAULT: It is now Saturday in China, and President Reagan wraps up the business portion of his five-day journey with a meeting with Deng Xiaoping, China's paramount leader. In the afternoon the President and Mrs. Reagan will become tourists, starting with a visit to the Great Wall. The President had a busy day Friday -- a series of meetings with the nation's top leaders, a televised speech to the Chinese people and a state dinner. In a meeting with Communist Party secretary, Hu Yaobang, and in two sessions with Premier Zhao Ziyang, the Chinese raised differences between the two nations over Taiwan, the Middle East and even the mining of Nicaraguan ports by the CIA -- differences the Americans had hoped to downplay. At the state dinner hosted by the Chinese in the Great Hall, the President toasted Premier Zhao, stressing common themes of economic growth and opposition to the Soviet military.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Today the peace of the world is threatened by a major power that is focusing its resources and energies not on economic progress, but instead on military power.A shift in military might of the last decade has made trust and friendship between us even more vital. I know it is your desire and that of the United States as well that peace be preserved.

LEHRER: Earlier in the day the President made another speech to some 500 Chinese and other dignitaries in the Great Hall, and the plan, or at least the understanding by the White House was that Mr. Reagan's speech would be shown in full on Chinese television so the country's 200-plus-million TV audience would all see and hear what the American President had to say. But it didn't quite happen. Nearly one fourth of the talk was left on some Chinese cutting-room floor, and those scissored-out parts included much of what Mr. Reagan had bad to say about the Soviet Union and good about the United States. A reference to the Korean Flight 7 was cut when he said the United States did not commit wanton acts such as shooting down 269 innocent people out of the sky to the so-called "cause" of sacred airspace. So were words about Soviet adventurism in Afghanistan and Cambodia. And this: "But we threaten no nation. America's troops are not massed on China's borders, and we occupy no lands. The only foreign land we occupy anywhere in the world is beneath grave sites where Americans shed their blood for peace and freedom." Cut too was a statement about the American people drawing tremendous power from two great forces -- faith and freedom. So was "Trust the people. These three words are not only the heart and soul of American history, but the most powerful force for human progress in the world today. Those who ignore this vital truth will condemn their countries to fall farther and farther behind in the world's competition for economic leadership in the 1980s and beyond." There were others, but I won't read them all. The question, of course, is why the Chinese did censor such a speech in such a way, and it's a question we now pose to Michael Oksenberg. Those with us last night saw his essay on China. He's a China specialist at the University of Michigan, former staff member at the National Security Council. He now consults with both government and private industry about Chinese political affairs, and he's with us tonight from the studios of public station WTVS in Detroit. Mr. Oksenberg, why in the world will the Chinese do something like that?

MICHAEL OKSENBERG: Let me first say that it's extremely difficult at this distance to really comment on how a trip by our President is going on and how it's faring. We're just beginning what is, after all, a several-day visit. What strikes me as I heard the entire speech and then, since, what has been taken out is that the speech really had several audiences in mind: an American audience; the President is, after all, in China during an election year; he's campaigning. And he also had a Chinese audience in mind. I think parts of the speech that were taken out were those parts heavily aimed at the American audience. At one point in his speech he began to talk about how the American economy has been revived over the past three years. I don't think the Chinese were interested in being drawn into our election process. Those parts of the speech have probably been taped and will be on for the election.

LEHRER: Yeah, but why would the Chinese cut out the references to the criticisms of the Soviet Union and the praise for the American capitalist system and all of that?

Mr. OKSENBERG: Well, the capitalist system, again, I think we can see is part of the President's standard rhetoric about the United States. I do want to focus with you for a minute, though, on the tough tone he took on the Soviet Union. The Chinese have sought to back away from the rhetoric of the past, which linked both the United States and China together and made it appear that we were forming, if you will, a quasi-alliance against the Soviet Union. The Chinese don't want to be drawn into that. I suspect that they don't want to be used as a platform to convey that to the Soviets. After all, the highest Soviet leader to visit China in 15 years will soon be appearing in Peking.

LEHRER: So isit going too far to say that by doing this, by cutting the President's speech, they were also delivering a message to President Reagan? Or is that reading too much into this?

Mr. OKSENBERG: Oh, I suspect that, obviously, this will be drawn to the President's attention. He meets with Deng Xiaoping tomorrow, and the real search here, I want to repeat, the President has three purposes in mind in this trip. One is to meet the new generation Chinese leaders, second is the bilateral. Those things are being taken care of.

LEHRER: Yeah, but I want to --

Mr. OKSENBERG: The third -- I'm coming to that. The third is to search for a mutually satisfactory formulation of why it is in our respective strategic interests to cooperate. The Chinese don't want this interest to be defined strictly in anti-Soviet terms, and I think they're reminding the President of that.

LEHRER: Yeah, but what I'm trying to get at is why, from the Chinese point of view -- in other words, is this a decision -- you know China. Forget about Reagan and what he's doing. I'm talking about China now.

Mr. OKSENBERG: Okay.

LEHRER: Okay. Is this the kind of decision that was made at the highest levels of China, to say, okay, "Let's not let out people see this speech, these portions, or is it the kind of thing that somebody, way down the line, adding their own factor, decided, "Cut"? I'm trying to get at why the Chinese did this?

Mr. OKSENBERG: I would suspect that this is a high-level decision. Something like this is not made lightly, and the message is, again, that the Chinese would like to develop with us a formulation that our respective strategic interests are served by China's entry into the Asia Pacific community. The President came on very hard against the Soviet Union. The Chinese leaders don't want to share that rhetoric with us.

LEHRER: And the idea of the Chinese doing this and obviously being -- they knew that the whole world was going to find out about it. That's not something that would embarrass them at all? "This is just the way we do things." Would that be the attitude?

Mr. OKSENBERG: I think that it's a way, again, of stressing to the President that he has several more important public addresses to make in China. He's going to be meeting Chinese leaders, and they hope that his rhetoric becomes one that converges more with their interests in the days ahead.

LEHRER: So they have sent him a message. Whether he gets or not we'll have to see, right?

Mr. OKSENBERG: That's exactly it. He's in the middle of a long trip.

LEHRER: All right. Michael Oksenberg, thank you very much. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Ignoring a Justice Department recommendation for a lower fine, a federal judge today fined a Swedish firm $3.1 million for secretly selling an air traffic control system to the Soviet Union that also had military applications. That's a violation of U.S. law. In Washington, federal judge Gerhard Gesell, who could have imposed a fine of up to $15 million, called the conduct of Datasaab Contracting "treacherous." A Justice Department official said that they had been willing to settle for less, primarily because its main interest was in minimizing the damage by cutting off spare parts and service to the Soviet Union.

In London the siege of the Libyan Embassy ended today when 30 Libyans left the building to go back to Tripoli, and 12 Britons left Libya to return to London. The British government ordered the Libyans to leave the country after someone inside the embassy fired a submachine gun out of a window on April 17th, wounding 11 Libyan demonstrators and killing a British policewoman. Gerard Williams of Visnews has a report on what happened in London.

GERARD WILLIAMS, Visnews [voice-over]: After days of continual stalemate it became clear something was about to happen as vehicles began to move. It was at 9:50 that the first group appeared. They came out five at a time, each group led by the same Libyan go-between, Mustafa Touri, who wasn't in the bureau at the time of the shooting. On the rooftop just above them the Union Jack was still flying at half-mast in memory of the young police constable. Most of the Libyans were smartly dressed in suits and ties; none showed any emotion. A credited diplomat who was indistinguishable from revolutionary students. Streets nearby were sealed off, and fire engines and police stood by. Police said none of the Libyans were carrying any weapons or explosives. The Libyans were placed in green police vans with sealed windows and escorted out under heavy guard from the diplomatic protection group -- final irony in the eyes of many policemen. From there they were taken to the selected place of safety at Sunningdale near Heathrow Airport before being finally flown home. After the Libyans left, plainclothed officers gingerly approached the People's Bureau with an escort of marksmen. Their job was to look for spent ammunition or other clues. The marksmen to guard against the unexpected. After all, no one had expected the events of 10 days ago. Their search complete, it was judged safe for the marksmen to withdraw and a team of police cadets to move in to carry out a detailed search of the square.

HUNTER-GAULT: In other foreign news today, major international terrorist groups are reportedly plotting to attack Pope John Paul II during his upcoming trip to South Korea next week. The plan, according to Vatican and diplomatic sources who asked that they not be named, involved Turkey's neo-Nazi Grey Wolves and the Venezuelan terrorist Carlos.

And, in The Netherlands, the United States asked the World Court to throw out Nicaragua's case over alleged U.S. support of Nicaraguan rebels. The attorney for the United States said Nicaragua had not produced any evidence to support its claim that the World Court has jurisdiction in the matter. The U.S. continues to insist that it rejects the court's jurisdiction in the case and will not abide by its decision.

Jim? Labor Trouble in Vegas

LEHRER: There were two major money records set today. General Motors made more of it than ever before. The United States as a nation spent more of it overseas than ever before. GM announced in Detroit a first-quarter profit of $1.6 billion, which, in case there was any doubt, clearly shows the once-ailing automobile industry no longer ails. GM's quarterly profits, with Ford, Chryslers and American Motors, add up to $3.2 billion for the entire industry.

The other record was in the U.S. trade deficit. It was $10.3 billion in March. The government said today that's the third month in a row a record has been set.

And there's news out of Las Vegas today that also involves money. Most stories from there do, one way or another. There are signs of a breakthrough in the 26-day-old strike in the gambling and resort city. Workers at two Hilton hotels are reportedly very near a settlement. But that still means there are 30 more hotels to go, so it could be awhile before it's over. Elizabeth Brackett, on special assignment for us, has a report on the people behind that strike story.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT [voice-over]: Seventeen thousand hotel employees, bartenders, musicians and stagehands have walked off the job in a bitter labor dispute with Las Vegas hotel management. The strike has been angry. Picketers and police have clashed in the streets. Close to 450 arrests have been made. For visitors the strike means Las Vegas is not living up to its neon promises. Signs outside the major hotels still balleyhoo big-name entertainers and extravagant shows, but without the help of stagehands and musicians, many of the biggest shows are dark.

[on camera] The marquees still tout the show here at the MGM Grand, but it is barely half the show that patrons saw before the strike began, and the methods used to get that show on the stage are inferiorating the strikers.

[voice-over] The standard show here at MGM Grand is filled with elaborate production numbers, singers and dancers accompanied by a 15-piece live orchestra. Now in the cut-down version the show's musicial accompaniment is on tape, a tape made without the musicians' knowledge before the strike began.

MARK MASSAGLI, president, musicians union: The musician totally suffers the indignation that his own, very own product is the one that ends up ultimately replacing and displacing him in his or her position.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: So the musicians are more upset than those who saw the show.

GUEST: I don't doubt they're upset. But to the audience it didn't make that much difference.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: It's not just live music hotel guests are not getting. Many hotel restaurants are also dark or serving limited menus.

[interviewing] Is the food totally different in the restaurant from what it has been in the past?

2nd GUEST: Yeah. Very well done.

3rd GUEST: Everything!

2nd GUEST: Everything.

4th GUEST: We checked in a little after noon. The room wasn't ready. We called the housekeeper about cleaning the room. Then we went out for about five hours, and we came back in at 6:20. It still hadn't been cleaned.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Though not everyone is upset.

5th GUEST: I think the service might be better now than it was.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: So the strike appears to be having the least affect on the heart of Las Vegas, its gambling casinos. Dealers and croupiers are non-union, so though crowds are smaller, round-the-clock gambling continues. Hotel owners desperately trying to keep occupancy rates from slipping any lower say it is the gambling, not the entertainment, that draws the crowds. But occupancy is down. The Las Vegas Convention Authority says it was off by 12% over the Easter weekend, meaning a loss of close to $2 million a day for hotels and motels. And losses for smaller businesses as well.

KATHY LOITZ, Las Vegas Tours: I would say it's down approximately 60%.

BRACKETT: That's a lot.

Ms. LOITZ: It is a lot. Believe me, we feel the pinch, too.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Strikers, too, are losing money. Some have returned to work, but most remain militant. Union leader Jeff McCall rallies his troops by reporting progress in negotiations with two major hotels, Caesars Palace and the Hilton, and renews the vow to hold fast to union demands.

JEFF McCALL, union leader: We're apart on money and we're also way apart on what they call "amnesty."

BRACKETT [voice-over]: The union accuses management of trying to break the union, but the top negotiator for the hotels says Las Vegas is being pressed by new competition.

GARY MOENS, attorney, Nevada Resort Association: We would be remiss if we didn't consider what's going on in Atlantic City. Atlantic City has been extremely successful, and that has an impact on us.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: What is clear in all this is that Las Vegas is not the same as before the strike began.

6th GUEST: The biggest disappointment was the margarita I got last night, which was terrible. and then I realized this man was not a bartender.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: And the margaritas may get worse before they get better. If the strike is not settled in the next several weeks, the Teamsters Union is threatening to join the four unions already on the picket line.

HUNTER-GAULT: That report was by Elizabeth Brackett.

In Rhode Island the state supreme court ordered a new trial today for Claus Von Bulow, the socialite who was accused of trying to murder his wealthy wife in their mansion on Millionaire's Row in Newport. The court say the government had used illegal procedures in handling some of the evidence, including a black bag that contained a syringe showing traces of insulin. Two years ago Von Bulow was convicted of trying to kill his wife Sunny with insulin injections. She survived, but has been in a coma since 1980. Von Bulow has been free on bail of $1 million. Jim?

LEHRER: Walter Mondale had another change of heart today. He said he has ordered returned all union money funneled to his campaign through delegate committees. Tuesday he had stopped delegate committee fundraising, but said there was no need to return the money, but in a news conference in Lubbock, Texas, today he said he now believed the money should be returned, and it would be. It was criticism from his opponents, particularly Gary Hart, that caused both mind changes. Changing the Rules

LEHRER: Throughout the campaign Jesse Jackson has raised an intra-party issue that has yet to be resolved, the two-tier primary question. He says the majority-rule system in primaries, where there must be a run-off between two top contenders if no one gets a majority the first time discriminates against blacks. He says it's particularly bad in 10 Southern states. Those who disagree say majority votes is what electoral democracy is all about. First, the Jackson view, from Ron Walters, professor of political science at Howard University here in Washington and deputy Jackson campaign manager for issues. Why is majority rule discriminatory?

RON WALTERS: Well, it's not a question of majority rule. This is a fundamental issue of civil rights.

LEHRER: In what way?

Mr. WALTERS: We believe that the run-off primary dilutes the affect of the black vote by making it impossible in many jurisdictions for blacks to actually win, to run and win.

LEHRER: Why is that?

Mr. WALTERS: Well because, as you know, in the first election, generally, in those nine Southern states, you have a system where the black, for example, can run in a field of three, as Mickey Micheaux did in 1982 in North Carolina, Second District. He won the first run-off by 44%, and of course the first run-off, of course, is based upon the candidate. At least, it appears to be that way. The second election, of course, Mickey Micheaux was defeated. This appears to be --

LEHRER: In other words, he didn't get 50-plus-one percent?

Mr. WALTERS: That's right. His opponent, Mr. Valentine -- I think he got 53% of the vote. That's the second election --

LEHRER: Why is that discriminatory?

Mr. WALTERS: Because the second election appears to be based on race, whereas the first election appears to be based upon the candidate.

LEHRER: How doyou know that?

Mr. WALTERS: You don't know it. All you know is by the effect, and you know it because in this particular race the result has been repeated many times at the city council level throughout those nine Southern states.

LEHRER: And so you and Jesse Jackson say that if this system was eliminated, what would be the result?

Mr. WALTERS: Well, the result would be, obviously, to open up the system. You could have blacks run in many congressional districts in the South. We have won, now, 20 congressional districts where the election is based on a plurality. You could have candidates running in those districts and winning who happen to be black or female or other minority or progressive whites at a higher rate. Right now that is all but impossible in many of those districts who are using the second primary.

LEHRER: Why is it basically fair for anybody to be elected to office with less than a majority vote?

Mr. WALTERS: Well, the question of a structured majority vote is one in which he is not automatically right. The question is, who is the popular candidate out of the field? And a plurality is just as fair as a structured majority.

LEHRER: Why is that?

Mr. WALTERS: Because this structured majority system appears to exclude the impact of a significant sector of the electorate.

LEHRER: Well, what's to prevent in the first primary, under the system that you would want -- why shouldn't two or three blacks be able to run as well as two or three whites? I mean, what is the guarantee that the result's going to be any different?

Mr. WALTERS: You really don't have a guarantee that the result is going to be different, and we are not really arguing this based upon the question of the result. We are arguing it because we feel it is a fundamental issue, as I said, of civil rights. That people have a right not only for their vote to count, but for their vote to have its impact felt in the political system. And while we have the Voting Rights Act and we're making some progress in getting the right to vote, where we're failing is under these discriminatory voting practices making the impact of that vote felt in the political system.

LEHRER: Is it basically a Southern problem?

Mr. WALTERS: Right now it appears to be because the states which operate these run-off elections, nine of them are in the South and Oklahoma.

LEHRER: And they're all discriminatory, just on the face of it, as far as you're concerned?

Mr. WALTERS: Well, obviously a lot more research has to be done as to the exact degree of the discrimination. But we hold that -- and we've gone into court in Mississippi -- and allege that the way in which that particular second-primary system runs is discriminatory.

LEHRER: Thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: The run-off primary has many defenders who don't agree that it is racially discriminatory. One of them is Bert Lance, a former Carter administration official who is now state Democratic Party chairman of Georgia, one of the 10 Southern states with a runoff system. First, Mr. Lance, before we get to some of the charges, why are run-off primaries necessary, in your view, the logic of them?

BERT LANCE: I think the logic relates to the fact that we as a party always want to put forward the best possible candidate that we can possible have to face the opponent in the general election. Generally speaking, back in the days when the run-off system was incorporated, I think you would find that we were pretty much a one-party state and that the primary run-off then became, in effect, the general election. So I think that it goes back a long way. It has nothing to do with race. It's not discriminatory, per se. But that's the way that it came about.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, how do you respond to Mr. Walters' charges that the run-off primaries discriminate against blacks, that it makes it impossible for them to win these elections?

Mr. LANCE: Well, I think that it's easy to say that simply because the Reverend Jackson comes along and says that you only have one black congressman from Virginia to Texas, and yet 53% of the black population is located in those states and we ought to have more black congressmen. I happen to agree with the Reverend Jackson that we ought to have more blacks involved in the process. We ought to elect more blacks to the Congress.But you're going to have to be able to do more than just say that it's discriminatory. It's going to have to be put into effect because it's a way that we've been doing things for a long time in the South. We happen to have a lot of candidates who seek public office in the South, and part of the reason for the run-off or two-tier or second primary -- whatever word you want to give to it -- has been to keep down the fringe candidates. We had a situation in my own district of Georgia when Larry McDonald's vacancy was voted on this past year. We had 19 candidates seeking that office, and theoretically a person could be elected to Congress with 6% of the vote. I don't think Dr. Walters wants to see that sort of thing prevalent in the South or any other place. I think you want to go through an election, you want to elect the best possible candidate.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what about his charge that what you see, though, when you look at the pattern across the states is a pattern of discrimination in which, when it comes to a run-off, even though the black candidate may have gotten a lot of votes in the primary, when it comes to the run-off, you get into a situation where if you've got a black versus a white, people vote according to racial -- along racial lines, and the blacks lose?

Mr. WALTERS: Well, that may be the case in instances, and I hope that that's not the case in the South. I think that we've made a great deal of progress in the South. We have more black elected officials in the South than in any other part of the country, and that's as it should be. We do not think -- or I don't think that simply because we say that that's the case that that's the way that it is. The thing that bothers me about this whole discussion is on a broader basis that it's really not a presidential issue in the 1984 election. It's going to cause great problems about the Democrats being able to win in the South, and I happen to believe that a Democrat cannot be elected president of the United States unless he can win in the South in 1984. And if we get caught up in this sort of discussion, then we're going to cause great harm to the chances of the Democrats to be elected, and we're merely going to help the Republicans. I think that's part of the problem.

HUNTER-GAULT: How is that? How would that happen?

Mr. LANCE: Oh, I think that in order for the Democratic Party to take a stand on this situation, then they're going to have to suggest that there has to be some sort of discipline involved. It's a state law in Georgia, as I am sure it is in the other Southern states. The general assembly or the legislatures of those states would have to change the law.And I don't think that they're going to react favorably to the Democratic national party telling them what their legislative agenda has to be.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think it's going to drive Democrats into the Republican Party?

Mr. LANCE: Oh, I think there's a real possibility that that could happen. I hope that it doesn't. I hope that we do as we usually do with Democrats, that Ron Walters and Jesse Jackson and the other people that are involved in the process are going to get together and talk about it and see what really ought to be done in the future so that we seriously lay to rest the question that anybody favors anything that's discriminatory. I don't think that there's a Southern political leader, a Southern governor, a Southern party chair who would favor any sort of discrimination in the electoral process. And I think that has to be laid out at the outset. That's not what we're talking about.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. Walters, what do you say about that, his basic point here at the end that this is not a presidential issue and all it's going to do is hurt the Democratic Party in November against the Republicans?

Mr. WALTERS: Well, obviously I don't agree with that. I think that we have talked about a number of things in this presidential contest which affect the American electorate. And if you take the point of view that this wasn't a presidential issue, you could take that same point of view about a number of other domestic issues.

LEHRER: He's right, isn't he, Mr. Lance?

Mr. LANCE: Well, sure. And maybe we should think that about a number of other issues.

Mr. WALTERS: Well, I think that it is, and I -- furthermore, I really don't -- I think Bert has -- we have great affection -- I know the Reverend has great affection for him. We think he's wrong on this. But I think he may be prejudging people in the South. I don't think it's automatic that the Democratic Party is going to lose the South because of this. I think that's a statement some people have made, but I think it really remains to be seen.

LEHRER: Well, let's get back to the merits of this two-tier argument. You heard what he said, that -- he used the example of a congressional election in Georgia where there were 19 candidates, and he raised the specter that if your system went into effect it's conceivable that somebody could get elected or nominated with six or seven percent of the vote.

Mr. WALTERS: I don't think that's correct. One of the --

LEHRER: It is possible, though, isn't it?

Mr. WALTERS: Well, anything's possible.

Mr. LANCE: And it sometimes could be a practical application in that regard.

Mr. WALTERS: I doubt it. Now, one of the habits of at least the black electorate in the South and other places in the country is to vote in a bloc. In many of these congressional districts you've got a black population of upwards of 35 and 40 percent.Now, I doubt if that electorate is going to break down and vote in 6% blocs. So what we're talking about here is the opportunity for that bloc, whatever it happens to be percentage-wise, to be manifest in the political system.

LEHRER: And what's wrong with that, Mr. Lance.

Mr. LANCE: Well, I don't think there's anything wrong with that part of it.I simply think that under the process that we now have, where we have a majority-vote election -- and basically that's what we're about in this country -- that there's nothing wrong with a candidate having to receive 50% plus one vote in order to be elected. I do not think that the people of Georgia, for example, want to elect their governor on the basis of a plurality. Now, those states that want to, that's fine with us. But I don't think that the people of Georgia are going to do that any time in the near future. Let me give you a couple of examples. If you had a plurality election, William Winter, who was a good governor of Mississippi and who got high marks, I think, Ron, with regard to racial questions in Mississippi, would not have been elected governor. Richard Riley, who likewise in South Carolina gets high marks about the kind of governor that he has been, would not have been elected in South Carolina. Jimmy Carter would not have been elected in Georgia, and you can go on and on and on through the list. The majority vote, Jim, in my opinion, is sort of like the primary process for the presidential nomination. It's a weeding-out process. You have a lot of candidates who start out running. You don't have a chance to learn how they stand on the issues, what their motivations are, what their dreams, what their ambitions are. And you go through this process and you narrow it down to two candidates and then you present the best possible candidate in the general election.

LEHRER: Mr. Walters?

Mr. WALTERS: Well, let me make one observation about this because I have heard the argument that there are a number of progressive whites who obviously would have not been elected whether we're talking about Congress or the gubernatorial races. But let's be very clear about this. This is an opportunity for blacks to be elected in their own right to some of these offices. So we're not just talking about the possible demise of progressive whites. We're talking about, for example, blacks running for some of these congressional seats and possibly winning.

Mr. LANCE: Well, there's another factor, also, that most of the problem occurs in the general election and not in the primary election, and we're talking about primary elections now.They all mention Mickey Micheaux in North Carolina, but Mr. Clark in Mississippi happened in the general election, not in the primary. And then so that's where --

LEHRER: He was a black candidate who lost in the general election --

Mr. WALTERS: That's right.

Mr. LANCE: That's right.

LEHRER: -- to a Republican. And that -- of course, this wouldn't affect that at all.

Mr. WALTERS: No, it wouldn't. But I don't think, here again, that we're attempting to structure the outcome, as I said. These really are tactical questions, and if we had to base the fundamental issue of civil rights on tactical questions, then we wouldn't have public accommodations or voting rights or many of the other things that we simply stuck to in the 1960s until they became law.

LEHRER: Let me ask you this, finally, Mr. Walters, how big a thing is this to Jesse Jackson? Is he going to demand redress on this from the Democratic Party, or else?

Mr. WALTERS: Reverend Jackson has already said that he will find it impossible, almost impossible to support any Democratic nominee for president of the United States who does not support enforcement of the Voting Rights Act --

LEHRER: But does that mean two-tier --

Mr. WALTERS: -- and that's what this is.

LEHRER: I see. That comes --

Mr. WALTERS: Yes. That's the way we interpret this. This is a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Mr. LANCE: Well, nobody in the South has any trouble calling for enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, I don't think. I think that's a different thing than what has been said previously. What we're talking about now is a tow-tier primary system, which does carry out the implications of the Voting Rights Act.

LEHRER: It's going to be an interesting time in San Francisco, gentlemen, obviously.

Mr. WALTERS: I'm sorry to let Bert Lance get away with that, because we interpret Section II and covering second primaries.

LEHRER: I repeat. It's going to be an interesting time in San Francisco.

Mr. LANCE: Going to be an interesting time.

LEHRER: Thank you both very much. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: In Oklahoma a pack of seven tornados killed at least 14 people last night, injured more than 140, and devastated scattered farming communities over a distance of 70 miles.In the town of Morris, six people were killed and the damage was so great that all 1,300 survivors were evacuated today. Here is a report from Mitch Jelniker of station KWTV in Oklahoma City.

MITCH JELNIKER, KWTV [voice-over]: It was shortly before midnight Thursday that the twister ripped through this Morris convenience store. From there it skipped through downtown Morris overturning and leveling everything in its path.

MORRIS CITIZEN: About two-thirds of the downtown area is completely gone. Plus it went ahead and went across a residential area which is back offto the northeast, and it went clear on through the other side of town.

JELNIKER [voice-over]: This used to be where the Morris Oil Field Supply office stood. Jim Davis had owned the business since 1973.

JIM DAVIS, merchant: It's going to be a mess in the morning. This town is just destroyed, the whole town.

2nd CITIZEN: The business section and then about half the residential section is just gone.

JELNIKER [voice-over]: The devastating storm seemed to catch everybody by surprise. The tornado hit fast and furious, leaving behind only traces of the old Main Steet.

[interviewing] Did you hear it coming or have any warning?

HELEN BELL, victim: No. No warning. All it did was just hailed real hard and quit, started raining and the wind just started blowing, and then that was it.

JELNIKER [voice-over]: Helen Bell had lived in this trailer home for 16 years. Thursday night the roof blew off as she was holding onto her refrigerator for safety.

Ms. BELL: We started yelling, "Help, help," right over there by the icebox. Saved us 'cause I'm tall, and if I'd a been anywhere else, well, well, it would 'a killed me down.

LEHRER: David Kennedy was buried today in a family burial plot in Brookline, Massachusetts, where his grandfather, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., is also buried. Some 45 family members and friends were present for the service which followed a mass at Hickory Hill, the Kennedy home in MacLean, Virginia. The 28-year-old Kennedy was the fourth of 11 children born to Ethel and the late Senator Robert Kennedy. He was found dead in a Palm Beach, Florida, hotel room Wednesday morning.The Palm Beach police chief said today small amounts of cocaine and the painkiller demerol were found in Kennedy's body, but whether that caused death is not yet known. One-point-three grams of cocaine were also found in a small plastic bag in his room, said the chief, as was a half-filled bottle of pills. But the pills have yet to be identified. Young Kennedy had been treated several times in his life for drug addiction. Charlayne? Teen Violence

HUNTER-GAULT: It's never been easy being an adolescent, but in the last decade some experts say it's gone from difficult to dangerous. Young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are the only age group where mortality is actually on the rise, and the disease that they are dying from is violence, murder being high on the list. In at least one city, however, there is a ray of hope,in one innovative program aimed at trying to reverse the tide of teenage violence. Correspondent June Massell, on special assignment for us, has this report.

JUNE MASSELL [voice-over]: What you're about to see is a murder recorded on a surveillance camera during a hold-up in a Los Angeles grocery store. Behind the trigger was a teenager. [murder tape] Young men under 25 are responsible for almost half the murders in the country. Although the victim in this case was an older man, usually the victims of teenagers are also teenagers.

DON, teenager: You have friends, people I know of, you know, family, killed, stabbed, beat up, junk, you know, raped. Definitely not uncommon. Every day it's like taking a cigarette out your pack, you know. Anytime you light up something else is happening. Anywhere you go, really, in the city, you know, where a lot of minorities live, they always scared for your life. You just can't show it, you know. Just go on living your life and [unintelligible]

MASSELL [voice-over]: Boston, Massachusetts, April, 1984. While we were talking to Don, who himself had recently been knifed in the chest, another teenager was stabbed a block away in Roxbury, a predominantly black lower-class area of the city.

TEEN: It's beginning to be like a TV show, you know, like once a week you be expecting something like this.

MASSELL [voice-over]: This 19-year-old was a friend of the wounded youth and asked not to be identified.

TEEN: Wherever you go there's something happening -- skating rink, movies, night club. Wherever. But there's something happening.

MASSELL [voice-over]: Homicide is the number-two cause of death for all teenagers, but for black teenage males it is the leading cause of death. In large cities like Boston, one out of 20 black males will be killed before reaching the age of 24.

[on camera] In the past, teenage homicide was viewed primarily as a law and order problem to be handled by the police and courts. But with so many people in one age group dying, some health experts here in Boston are now viewing teenage homicide, and treating it, as a public health problem.

Dr. DEBORAH STITH, Boston City Hospital [with students]: What do we know about homicides?Do people usually know each other? Yeah. Most of the time they do. Most of the time. Sixty percent of the time the people know each other. Twenty percent of the time they are family members. What usually causes it? An argument. And what about the weapon, usually?

MASSELL [voice-over]: This health education class at a Boston high school is teaching something no other health education class has ever taught -- homicide prevention. And the teacher is not your typical high school teacher. Dr. Deborah Stith is a medical doctor with a specialty in internal medicine, and a commitment to help underprivileged teenagers deal with the frustration and rage that sometimes lead to violence and murder. The class is mandatory, and part of an experimental program sponsored by the Boston City Hospital.

Dr. STITH: If you're a teenager, growing up in urban Boston, particularly if you're black, there's a lot to be angry about -- the limited education, the limited job opportunities that are available, the kind of racism that you come across just in moving about, shopping downtown. There's a lot to be angry about. And the course is designed to have kids claim that anger. But then look at creative alternatives when you talk about what to do when you're responding to that.

[with students] And to do that today we're going to act out a fight, okay? We're going to create a situation to act out a fight. We're going to video it.

MASSELL [voice-over]: Because television is something all teenagers can relate to, Dr. Stith feels the use of video can be an effective educational tool. [fight played out]

Dr. STITH: Kids are attracted to video. We like to see ourselves, and seeing yourself on television and getting to play it back is very exciting. But more than that, it allows us to play the behavior back and stop it at particular points and look at body language and look at facial expressions and look at those components that come together to make a fight. And with that we can have them look at the behavior and talk about preventing it.

[with students] See, what's very interesting is when you watch this fight Scott gets very provocative. But if you don't watch carefully, you miss the fact that when Howard walked up there, you know, and said, "That's my girl," that that's provocative behavior. And sometimes we say, "Well, I didn't want to fight. I was just there. I was trying to defend myself." But at the same time we create a situation where almost nothing else can happen but people start fighting.

MASSELL [voice-over]: The students are encouraged to explore why the need to fight is often greater than the need to walk away.

STUDENT: Say you're walking down the street with your boys and these other -- one boy comes up and chumps you, and then the other one is looking at you like, "Ha, you got chumped.Ha ha ha. By a little kid! Ha ha ha." Then you feel embarrassed. So if you beat the person up you don't feel embarrassed. Then you go walking on, maybe like, "Yeah, yeah!" you know?

MASSELL [voice-over]: A chump is street talk for a coward, someone who is too afraid to fight. The personal embarrassment caused by not standing up to a fight is frequently intensified by peer pressure.

Dr. STITH: So first of all the crowd was egging the whole thing on by saying, "Ooo, here comes Howard, here comes Howard," all right. And then Howard came up to him, all right, and we always have that option of not confronting the situation or leaving a situation, and again, when you're in a setting where there are friends and other people around, if you're going to confront the situation, you're probably going to wind up in a fight.

MASSELL [voice-over]: Outside the classroom, on the streets of Roxbury, the teenage homicide rate is four times the national average. It is still too soon to know whether Dr. Stith's homicide prevention course will have an impact on behavior and reduce the violence, but a leading authority on black homicide praises the class as an important first step towards that goal.

Dr. ALVIN POUSSAINT, Harvard Medical School: It's better to be a coward for a minute than to be dead for the rest of your life. Put it that way. And I think that if she presents this to youth who frequently see no other alternatives, I think that her program has a great chance to succeed and to influence the community.

Dr. STITH: In a lot of ways it's a new idea from the standpoint of health education and from a standpoint of society taking it on as a banner. It's almost teaching morals, and I think at one level we have to decide as a society that we are going to praise that person who walked away as the intelligent person as opposed to praising the person who stays and demonstrates some very bizarre macho behavior as the hero.

HUNTER-GAULT: Dr. Stith in Boston isn't the only one starting to treat teenage violence as a medical issue. Just last fall the Centers for Disease Control opened up a new branch to study violence, and today in Atlanta some 4,000 members of the American College of Physicians and Surgeons gathered at their annual meeting to put on the table for the first time violence as a public health problem. Jim?

LEHRER: The makers of Maxwell House coffee were finally exhonerated today of a charge they tried to monopolize the coffee market. Back in 1976 the staff of the Federal Trade Commission charged General Foods, which owns Maxwell House, of using its dominant position to stifle the growth of smaller coffee firms by keeping others from entering the market and blocking competition. Two years ago an administrative law judge dismissed those charges, and today the full commission decided the judge was right, that the people at Maxwell House had been good to the last drop. Charlayne? Consumer Week Row

HUNTER-GAULT: Elsewhere on the consumer front, as I'm sure you all know, this is the last day of National Consumers Week. What you may not have kept up with is just what round it is in the battle between the administration, which launched the week, and Joan Claybrook, the consumer activist who immediately dubbed it a fraud. Virginia Knauer, President Reagan's top consumer adviser, fired back, labeling Claybrook's efforts a shameless attempt to grab headlines, and claimed consumers were far better off today than when Claybrook was President Carter's top woman official and they were running things. After a week of that, we get an update tonight from Joan Claybrook, who is now president of Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group, and Mrs. Knauer's deputy, Robert Steeves, deputy director of the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs. He joins us tonight from New Orleans. Starting with you, Ms. Claybrook, why did you call Consumer Week a fraud?

JOAN CLAYBROOK: Well, the reason is is that the Reagan administration has perhaps been the most anti-consumer administration since Herbert Hoover, and they've eliminated safety standards, they have revoked labeling requirements, they have cut back information and booklets to help people understand different products in the marketplace. They have reduced enforcement of the various health and safety regulatory laws, and I didn't think that it was proper for them to balleyhoo a national consumer week when in fact they're so anti-consumer.

HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Steeves, how do you respond to that, and what was the purpose of National Consumer Week? Mr. Steeves, can you hear me?

Mr. Steeves, can you hear me?Ms. Claybrook, let me just go on and ask you one of the things I read today was that the whole point of this National Consumer Week was really to educate consumers about things in the consumer marketplace. You didn't -- did you miss the point of it?

Ms. CLAYBROOK: Oh, no. Not at all. I think that President Reagan has, for example, done just the opposite. He has taken patient package inserts, which are designed to help drug users, prescription drug users, understand the side effects of prescription drugs, and eliminated them. He's eliminated the requirement for labeling mechanically deboned meat, which is meat which is deboned, and some crushed bone gets mixed in and they just call it calcium now, so the consumer really doesn't know what it is. We just won a lawsuit this past week against the administration for removing the requirements for tread-wear labeling on tires -- explaining to consumers how much tread wear a tire hasso they can buy in the marketplace and bargain for tires at a fair price. So one thing after another they have eliminated.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, let me just see if we have Mr. Steeves? Do we have you, Mr. Steeves, in New Orleans?

Mr. STEEVES: Yes.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right. You heard two charges leveled at you now by Ms. Claybrook. Can you respond to both of those now, why you would launch a consumer affairs week and the specific charges that she raised?

Mr. STEEVES: Well, we are very proud of National Consumers Week and the opportunity to celebrate and to promote the activities that have been carried on on behalf of consumers by government and by the private sector. We think it's a wonderful thing to bring it forward and to encourage others to do similar programs.

HUNTER-GAULT: But Ms. Claybrook says that you're doing this on the basis of a record that demonstrates just the opposite, that the Reagan administration doesn't have a real concern for consumers.

Mr. STEEVES: Well, I think the record will show that we do.I think the record of the Reagan administration over the last four years will compare very favorably with the preceding four years. The accusation on mechanically deboned meat is not accurate, because mechanically deboned meat is currently labled as mechanically processed beef or chicken or whatever else is involved. And the calcium is labeled on it.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, the full --

Mr. STEEVES: Certainly it's not a health hazard, and it's been thoroughly reviewed and studied over 15 years. And during those years, I think it was when Carol Tucker Foreman was in as assistant secretary of agriculture that the initial work on mechanically deboned meat was put forward. They just called it something else.

HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Claybrook, how do you respond to that?

Ms. CLAYBROOK: Well, in fact, the Reagan administration did change what Carol Foreman did. She put forth a labeling requirement so that when consumers bought this product in the marketplace they would know that it was mechanically deboned meat and that it had crushed bone in it. The Reagan administration has removed all that labeling, and the only thing that the consumer knows is that it has calcium in it. I think that that's unfair. You can get particles of crushed bone, and there are other byproducts in the mechanically deboning process that mixes in unfavorable meat products for some consumers.

HUNTER-GAULT: And you think that this is one example of the sort of overall attitude of the Reagan administration toward consumers?

Ms. CLAYBROOK: Right. I think it's really unfair. The reason the meat industry doesn't want to have it labeled mechanically deboned meat is because they think consumers won't buy it if it says that.

HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Steeves, can you respond to that?

Mr. STEEVES: Well, I think the central issue here is, are our consumers better off today than they were four years ago, and that's clearly the case.

HUNTER-GAULT: How? How is it clear?

Mr. STEEVES: The Reagan administration -- the Reagan administration, the number-one consumer issue in 1981 was inflation. We've gotten inflation way down. It was the question of a lagging economy. It was a question of jobs.And all of those things have turned around. Interest rates are half what they were before.

HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Claybrook, are you impressed with that argument?

Ms. CLAYBROOK: Well, I think that inflation down is very important, but at the same time we've had a wave of mergers than we've never seen before in the history of the United States, which raises prices. The Reagan administration has not tried to cut out a lot of the subsidies which cause higher prices in many products such as sugar. In addition, the number of unemployed has grown drastically during the Reagan administration, and in fact there's been a massive shift of income from the poor to the rich in the Reagan administration. For example, for people with income under $10,000 a year under the tax and budget changes under Reagan, they've lost about $20 billion-worth of benefits, while people with income over $80,000 have gained $64 billion.

HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Steeves, that adds up to an indictment.

Mr. STEEVES: Well, I think the President himself has said that the rich are already paying the maximum taxes, that the things the administration has taken in reducing taxes 25% over our administration and by indexing the tax code itself, so that as inflation would take your income up your tax rate would not also go up, have benefited largely the poor and the lower-income people in the United States. And I think that's a matter of record.

HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Steeves, let me just ask you this. Do you share Mrs. Knauer's assessment of Ms. Claybrook, that she's just trying to grab headlines, that she prefers to be confrontational rather than constructive?

Mr. STEEVES: That has been the historical approach of Public Citizen. I think that this example of continual criticism every year was predictable. I think it is an attempt to grab headlines over something that they ought to really be joining us in and celebrating the progress that we've made over the last four years in consumerism.

HUNTER-GAULT: How do you respond to that, Ms. Claybrook?

Ms. CLAYBROOK: Well, first of all, the consumers have not been invited to join. That's the first point. Second point is that the Consumer Resource Handbook, which Esther Peterson initiated, listed the major consumer organizations of the United States so consumers all over the country would know who they are. Under Virginia Knauer their names have all been removed and, instead, trade association names have been substituted. Additionally, the Reagan administration has, in one instance after another, hurt consumers and they've been challenged in the courts, and the courts have ruled, in instance after instance after instance, that they were worng, that they were arbitrary and capricious. And a good example is in the tire quality grading standard and car crash safety and others.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, I didn't want to go off into the tire thing because I just wanted to ask you -- you've given a lot of examples of things they haven't done or have done that you disagree with. Do you give them any credit for anything in the consumer area, briefly?

Ms. CLAYBROOK: I don't really think that the Reagan administration has any interest in consumer issues. They have a kitchen cabinet that it made up of businessmen, and this has been the opportunity for the business interests to regain control in the regulatory area. So, no, we don't really give them any credit at all.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, very briefly, just a quick response, Mr. Steeves.

Mr. STEEVES: Well, regarding the Consumer Resource Handbook, --

HUNTER-GAULT: I'm sorry. We can't go into the details, but she says no credit. You think there should be a lot of credit?

Mr. STEEVES: Absolutely.But I do want to say that on the Consumer Resource Handbook and the consumer organization, Ms. Claybrook wrote us a letter saying they ought to be included. We responded and said, "What criteria would you use and who would you include?" And that letter remains unanswered --

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, well, maybe we'll get an answer another night, because obviously this is going to continue. Thank you, Mr. Steeves, and thank you, Ms. Claybrook in Washington. Jim?

LEHRER: Again the major stories as we go into the weekend. The standoff at the Libyan Embassy in London is over. General Motors recorded its largest profits ever in the last three months. The Chinese gave the editing ax to parts of a President Reagan speech, but otherwise the big China visit continues without hitches or problems. Walter Mondale said he would return the money raised by those delegate committees, and the conviction of Claus Von Bulow for attempting to murder his socialite wife has been overturned.

And, finally, tonight, a little something from the Congress of the United States. While others may have bothered themselves today about China, Libya, terrorism and all the rest, members of the Senate Commerce Committee heard testimony about Senate Bill 2505, the Professional Sports Team Community Protection Act. The witnesses were mostly of their own kind and the same kind -- members of Congress from Maryland who think the Baltimore Colts football team should not now be the Indianapolis Colts football team.

Sen. CHARLES MATHIAS, (R) Maryland: The tawdry drama that was enacted under cover of darkness in Baltimore a few weeks ago is all the evidence that this committee should need to spur it to action. When the owner of the Colts slunk out of Baltimore -- [applause] when the owner of the Colts slunk out of Baltimore in the middle of the night, he abandoned people who for 31 years had supported and subsidized him, and he broke faith with a great city.

WILLIAM SCHAEFER, Mayor of Baltimore: What a despicable thing to do to a city. What a terrible thing, at midnight, to have someone come in, go to a hotel room, direct the vans to go out there, move out all of the great memorabilia, uniforms, equipment all out of the state of Maryland at midnight. I thought it was a pretty dirty trick.

Rep. BARBARA MIKULSKI, (D) Maryland: This is not a parochial, petulant out-burst. One of the great pleasures of my life was, in the late '50s, to graduate from college and to have my own money to buy my own Colts tickets and go out to Memorial Stadium with my Uncle Fred.

LEHRER: The proposed law would give a city the first refusal right to buy a sports team to keep it from moving away. There are few who believe it will ever become the law of the land, but if it does, be on guard, Indianapolis, because it has a retroactive clause, back to January 1st. And the Colts moved to Indianapolis in the still of a March night. The senators did hear the other side from the Colts ownership today via telegram. It said the bill is a total repudiation and violation of the basic principles upon which America was built. As far as we know, the Chinese had no comment on that.

Good night, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back on Monday night. Have a good weekend. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Good night.