The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Leading the news today, the United States banned travel to Lebanon and gave Americans there 30 days to leave. The Archbishop of Canterbury has received assurances that his envoy Terry Waite is safe and continuing his hostage negotiations. In the Philippines, the standoff with 200 rebel troops continued in Manila. Memorial services were held in many places to mark the Challenger tragedy a year ago. We'll have details in our news summary coming up. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy? JUDY WOODRUFF: After the news summary, our first and major focus on the News Hour is President Reagan's State of the Union address last night. We'll have the thoughts of White House Communications Director Pat Buchanan, writer Gary Wills, former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, and commentator Ben Wattenberg. Next, two experts help us examine the surprising changes underway in the Soviet party system. And finally, a documentary look at women who aren't waiting for husbands before they have children.News Summary MacNEIL: The Reagan administration declared U. S. passports not valid for travel to Lebanon and gave approximately 1,500 Americans there 30 days to leave. After that, their passports would become invalid. Violators will face up to five years in prison and a $2,000 fine. Exceptions would be made for immediate families of eight Americans now held hostage. Journalists and others could apply for special exemptions. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the government was compelled by the imminent peril to U. S. citizens in Lebanon.

CHARLES REDMAN, State Department: Some of our citizens believed and may still believe that theirprofession, national origin, religious affiliation, links to Lebanese citizens or their own precautions might save them from the dangers about which they have repeatedly been warned. The events of the past few days have demonstrated that private citizens have neither sufficient information to evaluate the threat against them nor the means to protect themselves. This determination is not lightly made. We are loathe to impede the travel of American citizens in any way. Nevertheless, the situation in Lebanon, and in West Beirut in particular, is so chaotic that we do not believe that any American citizen can be considered safe from terrorist acts. MacNEIL: Administration officials said the U. S. had moved five warships into the northern Persian Gulf and sent an aircraft carrier closer to Lebanon. The officials told Reuters News Agency these were precautionary moves because of increased tensions and that the U. S. forces were prepared to demonstrate power and resolve and to reassure our friends in the region. Judy? WOODRUFF: There were assurances today that Church of England envoy Terry Waite is safe. According to church officials, the Archbishop of Canterbury was told that Waite is still working to free hostages held in Lebanon. The information on Waite was reportedly delivered by leaders of Lebanon's Druse community. Earlier, British diplomats had gone into West Beirut in an unsuccessful effort to find out what happened to Waite. He has not been seen since January 20, when he left his West Beirut hotel to hold secret meetings with members of Islamic Holy War, which is holding two Americans and at least three French hostages. Also in Beirut today, a group known as Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine said it kidnapped three Americans and an Indian professor last Saturday. The group released a picture of one kidnap victim to back up its claim. MacNEIL: In the Philippines, the standoff continued tonight between government troops and a group of 200 rebel soldiers holding out in a TV station complex. The rebels are the remnants of a coup that failed early Tuesday. Brian Barron of the BBC has a report.

BRIAN BARRON [voice over]: After dark, armored carriers were moved up, and every few hours they fired tear gas shells into the television compound. The idea was to keep up the pressure on the rebels. Mrs. Aquino was holding a cabinet meeting which endorsed her hard line on the rebellion. The president said it's time for justice and retribution. As tension mounted, the rebels decided to turn the TV station lobby into a temporary chapel. Then the rebel leader, Colonel Canlas, with two revolvers beneath his jacket, attended mass. It was held by the Philippines army's chief chaplin, who'd been given permission by the defense ministry. President Aquino desperately needs a rebel capitulation, and so does General Ramos, to restore his faltering control over his own armed forces. WOODRUFF: In Washington today, the head of South Africa's outlawed African National Congress met with Secretary of State Shultz. The meeting was criticized by the top Republican in the Senate, Minority Leader Robert Dole, who said it comes perilously close to sending the wrong kind of message on terrorism. ANC President Oliver Tambo denied charges that his group was a terrorist organization and said it had a strict policy of not attacking civilian targets. After today's meeting, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said Tambo had expressed concern with the Reagan administration's policy of constructive engagement. And he said that Secretary Shultz had conveyed some concerns of his own.

Mr. REDMAN: In his meeting with Oliver Tambo this afternoon, the secretary laid out our concerns about the degree of Soviet influence in the ANC and its stance on violence. The secretary made it clear that a policy of violence from any party is not the answer to South Africa's problems and that there are other options. The pursuit of violence will only lead to a catastrophe for all. He also stated that terrorist actions against innocent civilians are totally unacceptable. He pointed out that the United States has consistently called for all parties, including the South African government and the ANC, to come to agreement on an end to violence, so that a process of negotiations can proceed. MacNEIL: Sam Hall, the American accused of spying in Nicaragua, was freed today. The Nicaraguan government said they released Hall, who's 49, because he was mentally ill and needed specialized care. Before he left Managua this morning, Hall said, ''I just have one thing to say to the Nicaraguan people. I am sorry I tried to ambush them. '' When Hall arrived in Miami this afternoon, he was taken directly to a hospital for what was said to be medical tests. Meanwhile, in Washington, President Reagan's new National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci is scheduled to leave tomorrow on a fact finding mission to Central America. The White House said the visit is primarily so that Carlucci can renew his acquaintance with the region. WOODRUFF: Health and Human Services Secretary Otis Bowen said today he still does not know what form President Reagan's legislative recommendation on catastrophic health care for the elderly will take. Testifying the day after Mr. Reagan's State of the Union address in which he promised to submit such a bill to Congress, Bowen said he didn't know if the final language would include his own proposal to tie such a plan to Medicare. But Bowen seemed to defend the White House delay in making a decision.

OTIS BOWEN, Secretary of Health and Human Services: There are those who object to the plan that we have put forth, and I think that the main objection is the displacing or potential displacement of some of the private sector and expanding a portion of the Medicare program and the questioning of the cost. WOODRUFF: The State of the Union address brought a reaction from the Soviets today. The official news agency Tass accused President Reagan of making malicious attacks on Soviet policies and of misrepresenting the character of the U. S. --Soviet summit talks in Iceland last October. In Moscow, meanwhile, party chief Mikhail Gorbachev made some moves to consolidate his authority over the Soviet Communist Party. The party's Central Committee removed a former close aide of the late President Leonid Brezhnev from the ruling Politburo and in his place put one of Gorbachev's associates, Alexander Yakalev. The Central Committee also endorsed Gorbachev's call for economic reform and openness in Soviet society. But the committee's final communique did not mention Gorbachev's suggestion that some party officials be selected in multi candidate elections. MacNEIL: It was one year ago today that the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral. Seven astronauts died in the accident. The anniversary was marked with memorial services and speeches. At space centers across the country, flags were lowered to half staff, and workers observed 73 seconds of silence. In a speech to NASA employees, President Reagan said the tragedy will never be forgotten, but he added that after a year of self examination at NASA, the agency has begun to resume its forward progress.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: The future to which you are leading us is bright. The challenge that you're shouldering for all mankind is one that we can not turn away from. We owe it to our children and their children and generations beyond. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to those who with all their love and joy and courage taught us again just one year ago today that mankind's reach must exceed its grasp, or what's a heaven for? WOODRUFF: That wraps up our summary of the day's news. Just ahead on the News Hour, an extended look at last night's State of the Union address with writer Gary Wills, White House Communications Director Pat Buchanan, commentator Ben Wattenberg, and former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. Then an analysis of Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to shake up the Communist Party. And finally, a documentary look at women who have babies without husbands. State of the Union: Report Card MacNEIL: We focus first tonight on last night's State of the Union message. On New Year's Day, we assembled four prominent Americans to examine the state of the Reagan Presidency, faced as it was with the Iran scandal and two years with the Democrats running Congress. Tonight, we do the same in the light of Mr. Reagan's speech to the Congress and the nation last night. With us are three of our observers from before: Patrick Buchanan, White House Communications Director and a former aide to President Richard Nixon; Ben Wattenberg, columnist, commentator and co editor of the American Enterprise Institute's publication, Public Opinion; and Barbara Jordan, former congresswoman, now a professor of political science at the Lyndon Johnson School of Government at the University of Texas. She joins us from public station KLRU in Austin. Our fourth guest tonight is Gary Wills, professor of history at Northwestern University and the author of the recently published book, Reagan's America; Innocence at Home. Ms. Jordan, you told us on New Year's Day the President had suffered a severe loss of trust and credibility, that you doubted that his Presidency could be rehabilitated. Did he rehabilitate it last night? BARBARA JORDAN, former representative (D Texas): Robin, in my opinion, the President did not rehabilitate himself or restore his credibility or trust which the American people require. I'll tell you why. I say this: the latest public opinion poll which measures how Americans view their President, almost half the American people feel that the President was lying when it comes to what he had to say about the Iranian contra affair. If almost half the people in this country feel that the President is lying about a matter, it seems that the first order of business is for the President to restore that trust which has been lost. The President last night was, yes, vintage Reagan. But when you're looking at that degree of mistrust on the part of the people, vintage Reagan is not enough. MacNEIL: Pat Buchanan, you told us January 1 you thought the President should come out in the State of the Union with some initiative that rallied his natural constituency. You mentioned, like going for deployment of SDI, and then we would see him recovering very rapidly. Did last night meet your hopes? PATRICK BUCHANAN, White House Communications Director: Robin, in terms of our expectations and hopes of last night, they were met, I think, by the President's address. The President has suffered a reversal at the polls in November. He has had this surgical procedure. And of course, we've had ten weeks of the Iran imbroglio. What the American people wanted to see, I think, last night was the President was recuperated physically and politically. He was back. He's in charge of his agenda. He's going to go forward with it. He's going to maintain those things that are controversial, and he's going to have some new ideas. The surveys last night showed the President jumping ten points in public approval, according to USA Today. And so I think it accomplished what we hoped it could and what we thought it might. Clearly, it didn't put the Iran thing behind us, but nobody felt it would do that. MacNEIL: Gary Wills, what do you think Mr. Reagan accomplished last night? GARY WILLS, historian: Well, he told stories and was inspiring and uplifting, as he normally is. But he didn't do what he was mandated to do by the Constitution. The Constitution says that the President shall -- imperative -- give from time to time information to the Congress of the state of the union. He did not give us any information of the state of the union that mattered to the Congress most vitally: about the Iran arms trade, about the Nicaraguan money diversion. Instead, he said he would waive protocol and tell the story of the rising sun on the chair and address the young people who were tuned in. So it seems to me that while he was praising the Constitution in the last part of the speech, he was going against the very accountability to the Congress that he was there to be serving, in terms of the Constitution. MacNEIL: Ben Wattenberg, in your view, did last night's performance put Mr. Reagan back in the saddle? BEN WATTENBERG, American Enterprise Institute: I think in many ways it did, Robin. At the American Enterprise Institute last night, just before the speech, we had a media seminar. And one of the questions sort of buzzing through the room was, ''Is Ronald Reagan over the edge?'' People even used the word senile. And that has been the hidden question in Washington. Is the man outside of the envelope? And the answer to that, quite clearly, was no. He was vigorous, he was robust. He surely had personal command of the situation. And the proof positive of that is that he was saying the same old things that he's been saying. He was the same Reagan. He was for a strong defense, he was for SDI, he was for contra defense. And he was making the point -- I thought the central theme was -- it's one that I happen to like -- is that in this world at this time, democracy is on a roll, and it is the duty and the obligation of the United States to see to it that it happens. And he is going to keep saying and doing the same thing -- that it doesn't matter whether I agree with all of it, which I don't, or whether Gary agrees with it or you agree with it. Ronald Reagan agrees with it, and he's going to stick to his guns, and it's going to be a very interesting fight. MacNEIL: Barbara Jordan, on that ground -- of the President's vigor and health -- did he reassure you? Ms. JORDAN: Oh, the President looked healthy. His cheeks were ruddy. And I am glad to see the President in good health. But I do not feel that the President demonstrated that he is in good political health. Robin, the President put forth as an agenda the very things the Congress has rejected over the past six years of the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. He talks about a balanced budget, an amendment for it, line item veto. That's not going to happen. I think the President has built in seeds of confrontation with the Congress. Rather than showing that he is strong politically, I think he has shown a bankruptcy of intellect on the part of the administration. MacNEIL: Pat Buchanan, how do you comment on that? Mr. BUCHANAN: I don't think Barbara was with us before we went into that speech last night. It is true, Congress has rejected the balanced budget amendment. But let's take the issue of Nicaragua, the most controversial last night. In 1985, the President got 180 votes for aid for the contras. After a year's effort for military aid, he got that up to 222. We are slowly, gradually winning that argument. The President made it again last night. It's going to be tougher with this Congress. But that is an issue of great moment and urgency, and I think the President showed leadership on that. On the credibility issue, no doubt about it, on Iran, the American people think the President hasn't told them everything, there's a lot more there. But on overall credibility, the President's ratings are still up around 70% and 80% credibility. His approval ranks right now where Eisenhower's did in the seventh year of his Presidency. So I think, in a historical perspective, the President is in good shape. We're not as good shape as we were in October, undoubtedly, but maybe we can be again. MacNEIL: Okay. Well, let's move this on. Judy? WOODRUFF: We've already to referred to them, but the lines that have drawn the most attention in last night's address came early in Mr. Reagan's speech, when he made his first comment on the Iranian arms deal in a month. We'll hear now both what Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd had to say on the subject and the Democratic response, as well as the President's remarks.

Pres. REAGAN: I have one major regret. I took a risk with regard to our action in Iran. It did not work, and for that I assume full responsibility. The goals were worthy. I do not believe it was wrong to try to establish contacts with a country of strategic importance or to try to save lives. And certainly it was not wrong to try to secure freedom for our citizens held in barbaric captivity. But we did not achieve what we wished, and serious mistakes were trying -- made in trying to do so. We will get to the bottom of this, and I will take whatever action is called for. But in debating the past -- in debating the past, we must not deny ourselves the successes of the future. Let it never be said of this generation of Americans that we became so obsessed with failure that we refused to take risks that could further the cause of peace and freedom in the world. Sen. ROBERT BYRD, Majority Leader: All of us want to see our hostages brought home. But if risks must be taken, then all Americans must understand those risks, and all Americans must take them together. Bold actions can succeed. But they must be based on carefully considered and sound judgement. The President owes us all a more open debate on foreign policy in return for our trust. And we owe our allies and friends a firmer handshake in return for theirs. The administration has the obligation to tell we, the American people, exactly what led to the arms for hostage deal and what happened to accountability in the White House. And meanwhile, the world moves on, and so do the nation's concerns. WOODRUFF: Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd. Gary Wills, the President said he made serious mistakes. He said we're going to get to the bottom of this. What more could he have said about Iran? Mr. WILLS: Well, he expressed regret. He said mistakes were made. He didn't say he had made them, he didn't say what had happened, he didn't mention the arms trade, he didn't mention the diversion of money. He hasn't mentioned those since he told us that all the arms that were sent could fit on one plane with a lot of room to spare and that no third nation was involved. Now, having told things that are manifestly untrue and repeated one of them to the American people, it seems to me that he should give an account of himself at a time when he is supposed to do that by the Constitution. He evaded the subject. Ben says that democracy is on a roll. He came before this Congress when his agents are floundering around in the dark, nobody knows what they're doing, when our terrorism policy is a shambles, when hostages are being taken around the world -- Mr. WATTENBERG: I was talking about democracy around the world, not democracy in the United States, which is in good shape also, though. Mr. BUCHANAN: Let me come between you and try to settle this thing. Look, the State of the Union address is about the state of the union -- the state of America in the world, our relations with the Soviet Union, arms control, Central America, strategic defense, national defense. It's also about the Iran controversy. Mr. WILLS: Historically, that's not true. Mr. BUCHANAN: But Gary, historically, they do not go up -- Mr. WILLS: The State of the Union means the state of government. When the Constitution was formulated, the delegates in Philadelphia first took up the question, what is the state of the union? And they meant by it the state of the government. Mr. BUCHANAN: Gary, you've got to say something for tradition. You used to be a traditionalist. You know Lyndon Johnson used to go up with his laundry list of proposals. Others have done straight foreign policy. Others have done different things. I think the President addressed the whole state of the nation, of the Presidency and of the -- Mr. WATTENBERG: Let me just make one tactical point. Everybody in Washington was going around saying, ''The President has to apologize. The President has to apologize. '' That's basically what you're saying, Gary. Mr. WILLS: No, that's not what I'm saying. I said he has to give an account. Mr. WATTENBERG: Okay, fine. Let me restate that. Many people have said the President has to apologize. First of all, I gather he doesn't think he has to apologize. But just from a tactical point of view, if he apologized, the next story by everyone in Washington would be, Reagan on the run. WOODRUFF: Barbara Jordan, is that right? Is that what we'd do? Mr. WATTENBERG: And he doesn't want to do that. He wants to establish the bat lineup here. And if he has to withdraw, he'll withdraw. WOODRUFF: Barbara Jordan? Ms. JORDAN: Judy, I think that Ronald Reagan needs to take the American people into his confidence. That's what he needs to do. He says, ''All right, mistakes were made. '' What mistakes? Did you make any mistakes, Mr. President? If you did, what were they? I don't care whether you apologize, but did you make any mistakes, and have you put in place whatever will see to it that those mistakes are not repeated? You say you will take total responsibility. Responsibility for what, Mr. President? You said you didn't know about the diversion of arms to the contras. There is no ethical theory which says that an innocent man must take responsibility or guilt. The President should stop treating the American people -- should stop treating us as if we are kids with no brains. WOODRUFF: Is that what he's doing, Pat Buchanan? Mr. BUCHANAN: No, it's silly. We've been chewing on this bone for about ten weeks. The President has said he takes full responsibility for the Iran initiative, which is the real controversy. He did not know about the diversion of funds, and he said that was wrong, and the people that did the diversion of funds, they're out of the government. But let me talk to this question about why the President did not apologize. Because a number inside earlier in the day said, ''Should we offer? What about this?'' And you went to the President. The President, if he does not believe he has done anything wrong, he ought not to apologize. And he does not believe he did anything wrong. Why then would reporters ask the President to say something he does not in his heart believe? Mr. WATTENBERG: But Pat, what the President, it seems to me, ought to apologize or explain -- and I agree with Barbara Jordan on this and probably with Gary -- is you do have the perception of a White House staff in total disarray running around like a chicken without its head, without the President in control of it. I worked on the LBJ staff and, with all due respect to my colleague Pat Buchanan, if somebody had mounted or had mounted for him a Presidential boomlet in the White House, Lyndon Johnson would have picked up that man by his ears and thrown him out of the door, because you can't run a Presidential staff with everybody freelancing. And Ronald Reagan is still not in control of that bureaucracy. And that is really hurting him. WOODRUFF: My question -- Mr. WATTENBERG: And it serves him right. WOODRUFF: My question to Gary was, even if this President had gotten down on his hands and knees and begged for forgiveness, would it have made a difference? Mr. WILLS: I don't think so, because he would have had to say, ''What are you forgiving me for,'' and that's the problem. He has to give an account. It's ridiculous for him to say that he takes responsibility. Of course he's responsible for what the executive branch does. He took responsibility for the Beirut bombing. What did that do? It removed the particular assessment of the military fault and diffused responsibility. So when he takes responsibility, he's being irresponsible. Mr. BUCHANAN: Well, let me talk to that very briefly. Look, the American people know -- I think even Durenberger said -- 95% of this. They're going to know the rest. The American people, as Barbara Jordan said, some of them don't agree with the President. Some of them don't believe him. Let them make up their minds what they think of the initiative, what they think of the diversion of funds, which apparently was wrong. I don't know whether it's legal or not. Make up their minds, and let's get forward and do the business the President was talking about last night. There are a lot of enormous things that concern this country's national security and its future besides this one constant preoccupation. WOODRUFF: Is that true, Barbara Jordan? Ms. JORDAN: There are things which concern this nation and which concern the people of the country. But what has the people boiled down -- the reason we keep coming back to this is that issue of trust. We have a public government which the success of it rests on the people's trust in their governors. And if that trust is not restored, we can't govern. Ronald Reagan can't govern. And he has to get that trust rebuilt. That is crucial. WOODRUFF: She's got a point, doesn't she, Ben? Mr. WATTENBERG: Well, yeah. He's got to get the trust, and he's not going to get it with comic lines like, ''The deficit is outrageous. '' I mean, having run up a trillion dollar deficit, to turn to the Congress and say, ''Isn't this a terrible thing that's happened,'' when he did it. But he is, as I said earlier, he is in the fight on the things that he cares about most, which I thought that was essentially a foreign policy speech with a few domestic overtones. That's what he wants to go down in the history books as -- I think as the man who set in motion what is now called the Reagan revolution; the extension of democracy around the world. And it's going to be a heck of an argument. Mr. BUCHANAN: Let me just ask Ben a question. Look, he made the point that under Ronald Reagan, he said, democracy is on a march around the world. I think there's validity to what the President had to say. You know where we were in 1979 and 1980. Is that not more important than even all the facts and details about this Iran controversy? Is that not larger in terms of our future? Mr. WATTENBERG: I think it is. I think it was a very profound theme. I mean, it's something, Pat, in all fairness, a number of Democrats have been arguing for long before Ronald Reagan got there. But there is a process that starts, part of it, with Jimmy Carter with human rights. Part of it is Ronald Reagan's extending it from just human rights to the form of government that guarantees human rights, and so on and so forth. But it's a profound theme and the preeminent theme of our time, I think. WOODRUFF: Just picking up on that, Gary, you want to say something? Mr. WILLS: Yes. I was going to say that Ronald Reagan is still saying the same thing, as Ben says, which is like saying the same thing when a whole house has fallen down around you. This is not one point, not one little episode in Iran. It's a whole question of responsibility for the running of the entire White House operation at the very highest levels. And there is no account being given to the American people. Now, that's extremely violative of the Constitution. WOODRUFF: Gary, let me carry you one step further -- Mr. BUCHANAN: -- the American people, and neither can I. I think the American people are going to make up their own mind about this and about the President. And as I said, the President is at a level of support right now, even in the midst of this, that Eisenhower achieved in his second term. WOODRUFF: To what extent -- Mr. WILLS: Constitutionally, the Congress can speak for the American people, and Congress can impeach a President or a justice, any judges, if they don't give an account of themselves. And that's why they are called upon to come to the Congress and say whether they're executing the laws or not. WOODRUFF: To what extent can this President carry out his agenda, foreign and domestic, for the next two years, given the fact that this Iran situation -- Mr. WILLS: Well, he can't, obviously, because the test that we're being offered for his functioning is that he doesn't come on the screen and stick straws in his hair, that he doesn't babble, that he looks good. We want more from the President, and we have to have that eventually. Mr. BUCHANAN: I bet you didn't even vote for the President, Gary. Mr. WILLS: I certainly did not. Mr. BUCHANAN: Look, the President -- if the President negotiated an arms control deal -- and I'm not saying he should -- I think he is one man that could sell it to this Congress. I think if he called to rally this country about what's going on in Central America, he's still got that capacity. It is there. WOODRUFF: Barbara Jordan? Ms. JORDAN: Yes? WOODRUFF: What about that? I mean, does the President still have the capacity to come home with an arms treaty? Ms. JORDAN: The President can have that capacity if the President starts to believe in the Constitution. Now, I recognize that in the State of the Union his voice trembled when he talked about ''we, the people. '' But the President is in the difficulty he is now in, because he ignored that Constitution he talked about with such tremulous voice. He ignored separation of powers, he ignored the consultative roles which need to be played with the Congress. I believe that the President has got to honor and respect the Constitution and all of the parties working in it, and then maybe he will have an opportunity to override and talk about the future. WOODRUFF: Ben Wattenberg? Mr. WATTENBERG: Let me just talk about this lame duck argument -- that the President can't function. It's being said that because the President is not going to run for reelection again, the Congress isn't afraid of him, and therefore they can go their merry way. And that's partly true. There is another facet to that which is, from the President's point of view, he is not going to be running for reelection again. He doesn't have to worry nearly as much about the voters. The President of the United States talking about the Constitution -- WOODRUFF: So he can do whatever he wants? Mr. WATTENBERG: Well, he has enormous power. He has veto power. Under the War Powers Act -- I mean, if Ronald Reagan wants to, in theory, he can send the United States military forces into Nicaragua for 89 1/2 days before the Congress can do a damn thing about it. So this is not a weak office, as anyone -- Mr. WILLS: And he well might. Mr. WATTENBERG: And, well, in point of fact, that is a point they are making when they go up for this contra money -- that if they don't get the contra money, it may just go to that. That's a strong debating point. Mr. WILLS: Well, that's where it's been going all the time. We've been given a whole series of cover stories about the contras -- that we're going to interdict arms flow to El Salvador, that we're going to force them to the negotiating table. All the time, these cover stories were just putting a front in place so that we could make sure that we overthrow a government. Mr. BUCHANAN: Wait a minute, now. Mr. WILLS: Without making that a policy from the outset, we're being lured in, as we were with Vietnam, step by step by step, under false guises. WOODRUFF: So what are you predicting will happen? Mr. WILLS: Well, I think that the administration, if it gets its way, is going to have another Vietnam. And I'm glad that we have uncovered as much as we have at this stage of it, so we may stop it. WOODRUFF: Pat, you agree with that, right? Mr. BUCHANAN: Sure. Look, the contras are funded by vote of the Congress of the United States. Mr. WILLS: And by all kinds of illegal, indirect operations. Mr. BUCHANAN: Well, if there's anything -- if there's anything illegal and indirect about it, that will be uncovered. But if they do, Gary, go down there and overthrow those communists and get rid of that Soviet beachhead in Central America, will you be all that sad? Mr. WILLS: Yes. I will be sad that we are telling other people how to govern themselves, which we've done in Nicaragua from 1912. When Ronald Reagan was one year old, the Marines went into Nicaragua. They stayed there until he was 32 years old. Mr. BUCHANAN: Yeah, but that was before -- Mr. WILLS: And then they turned it over to the Somozas. They turned it over -- Mr. BUCHANAN: I mean, that is such antiquity -- Mr. WILLS: They remember it. They remember it. It's one lifetime. Mr. WATTENBERG: The Reagan doctrine, very interestingly, the four places it is allegedly in place, which are Nicaragua, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Angola, all four of them have been approved of by both houses of Congress. This is not some bananas program. WOODRUFF: So you're -- so what are you saying will happen -- Mr. WATTENBERG: I'm saying that there's going to be a number of people saying, ''Well, we shouldn't go that far,'' and there's going to be a very honest, big, bare knuckle debate, and Reagan is in it to fight, and the Democrats are in it, some of them -- Mr. BUCHANAN: The great colonial power of the second half of the 20th century is the Soviet Union. It's a malevolent colonial power. And what the contras are trying to do is recapture their country from it. WOODRUFF: What is there -- the bottom line, I guess, Barbara Jordan and Gary Wills, what -- is there anything, in your view, this President can do to get things back on track for the next two years? Is it over for this President? Mr. WILLS: Well, no, I don't think it's over, because there's a deep emotional investment in Ronald Reagan on the American people's part. There's a magic there. There's no question about that. And the disengagement from him will be gradual and not entire, and it will lead to great agony, I think, in the American people and in the Congress also. WOODRUFF: Barbara Jordan? Ms. JORDAN: I believe that if the President cooperates with the independent counsel and the investigative committees of the Congress looking into this matter -- cooperate fully -- that it is possible for the President to regain some standing -- not get back to the point that he was before any of this ever occurred -- but that if he shows a willingness to cooperate fully with those persons who are engaged in trying to uncover and reveal to the people the things they would like to know about what their government is doing, Ronald Reagan will have the opportunity, I think, to regain a little bit of what he has lost. WOODRUFF: But you served on the House Judiciary Committee that voted articles of impeachment against President Nixon. Can a President carry on normally the functions of the office while he's being investigated the way this President will be? Ms. JORDAN: The answer to that question, of course, Judy, is no. He can not call -- he can not carry on the functions of his office in the manner that he would carry on, were he not under investigation. What will happen, there will be some reluctance on his part to do some things because he is under investigation. WOODRUFF: Let's give Pat Buchanan -- Mr. BUCHANAN: We're not talking about a criminal investigation of the President of the United States. That is absurd. Mrs. Jordan's statement that the President has violated the Constitution is absurd. He took a step which everybody agrees was deeply -- Mr. WILLS: That remains to be seen, Pat. That remains to be seen. Mr. BUCHANAN: Well, look. He took a step in Iran which is deeply controversial. I don't know anyone yet who said let's draw up articles of impeachment, because it was unconstitutional. I think there is a lot of hype in here -- political hype and media hype. Mr. WATTENBERG: But there are people who say that maybe he knew about the violation of the Congress' will. And if, in fact, that proves to be true, then it's a very, very real constitutional issue. Mr. BUCHANAN: Ben, we don't even know if Colonel North broke the law yet. Mr. WATTENBERG: I understand that. Mr. BUCHANAN: Unless you've discovered something Mr. Walsh hasn't. Mr. WATTENBERG: No, I agree with that. We don't know. But there is at the root of this something very powerful which, if it turns out that Ronald Reagan knew that he was specifically violating the will of the Congress, you have a big constitutional crisis on your hand. And in one sense, bigger than Watergate, because it really goes to the root of the Constitution. WOODRUFF: And on that note, we have to leave it. Ben Wattenberg, Pat Buchanan, Gary Wills, Barbara Jordan, thank you all for being with us. Robin? MacNEIL: Still to come on the News Hour, can Gorbachev hold democratic elections, and life for single mothers by choice. Soviet Shift MacNEIL: We turn now to another country examining the state of its union. That's the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, where yesterday, Communist Party leader Mikhail Gorbachev made what was for Soviet society a stunning proposal: elections with more than one candidate running. It was the latest in Gorbachev's efforts to revitalize the country and the party which runs it. As general secretary of the party, Gorbachev is at the pinnacle of Soviet power, but shares it with the 12 member Politburo and the 307 member Central Committee. That committee heard his proposal yesterday. The national party is replicated in each of the 15 republics in the Soviet Union, and party organizations are set up in the provinces and towns. It was for these levels that Gorbachev proposed multi candidate elections for party posts. With us now to discuss the potential effect of what Gorbachev is suggesting are two Soviet affairs specialists. Stephen Cohen is a professor of Soviet politics at Princeton University and recently returned from a trip to the Soviet Union. Uri Ra'anan is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University. He joins us from public station WGBH in Boston. Professor Cohen, are Gorbachev's election proposals for the Communist Party something to take seriously? STEPHEN COHEN, Princeton University: They should be taken seriously, because they are part of a larger set of reform policies that he's trying to get underway in the Soviet Union. You began by saying, can the Soviet Union have democratic elections. That's not the issue. The question is, can the Soviet Union have elections? There are no elections at the moment. MacNEIL: He used the word democratic. Mr. COHEN: He used the word, but we don't have to. The point is, he wants to have more than one candidate for positions in the party and in the government. The nominations to those candidacies will be made by higher authorities. But for the first time since the 1920s, there will be more than one candidate. MacNEIL: Well why, if they're all members of the same party, would that make any difference? Mr. COHEN: Well, I think you have to see this in the context of the great drama that's unfolding in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev has unleashed a remarkable criticism of the Soviet system that was created under Stalin in the 1930s. He is not having a lot of luck winning supporters, getting momentum for this reform. One way to do so is to bring forward as many proposals and as many critical voices as he can, within the parameters of the one party dictatorship. And one way you could do that is have two or three candidates to an office, and then they will have a little mini campaign at that level and present different proposals. Two things result. You get an attack on dogma, and you get an attack on old line officials. What comes out of it remains to be seen. MacNEIL: Do you get some fresh ideas? Mr. COHEN: There are plenty of fresh ideas. One thing that hasn't been mentioned in the American press in recent months is an astonishing escalation of criticism of the existing Soviet system on the part of Gorbachev supporters. I mean criticism of the economy, criticism of the relations between state and society, criticism of the way cultural, intellectual and ideological life is done, and criticism of dogmas which have been absolutely axiomatic and sacrosanct in the Soviet Union for 50 years. MacNEIL: Professor Ra'anan, how seriously do you take these proposals by Gorbachev? URI RA'ANAN, Tufts University: Well, let me point out first of all what has not happened. The plenum to which these proposals were mentioned -- they were not Mr. Gorbachev's proposals. He said that they had received proposals from certain citizens. He was very careful not to say that they are his proposals. The plenum ended up with a resolution which didn't mention the affair. It passed over them. So as it were, history has already bypassed that stage, even to the limited extent that this issue was brought up. But let us assume for the moment that he had made the proposal and that it would, in fact, have been accepted. The Soviet Union would have just caught up with what a minor East European country, Hungary, has been doing for a whole decade. Hungary, in the city of Budapest, has had elections for parliament in which, in one constituency, three candidates participated. Now, to be sure, they were all chosen by the so called National Front. Not all of them, by the way, were party members. And the proposals that were mentioned by Mr. Gorbachev only mentioned elections within the party apparatus and, by the way, above the most primitive level having no more than the committee members of the party -- not even all the party members -- participating. For instance, at the level of provinces or union republics, all that would happen is that the party's committees would elect their secretaries. Now, the party committees already, of course, are high officials themselves. He said nothing about all party members. That was entirely confined to the lowest level -- that is, at the level of precinct or factory cells, where, in fact, elections are held for people who are really of no major importance at all. So we really have to keep this -- MacNEIL: Did he not also say -- I read it in a report of the speech yesterday -- that more democratic procedures should also be considered for the very highest levels of the party, from which Western diplomats in Moscow inferred the Central Committee and maybe the Politburo. Mr. RA'ANAN: Well, the interesting thing is, he didn't say what that meant. He was very careful not to say that these anonymous proposals with which, as I say, he did not personally identify himself even for the lower bodies, had said anything specific about the higher bodies. And then he went on to say, in any case, the lower bodies that would have perhaps more than a single candidate competing for the same office would at all times, of course, remain subject to the will of the higher bodies. So the concept that we aretalking about -- democratic elections or democratization of the system as a whole -- there really is much less to it than meets the eye. Now, as I say, even that modest, anonymous amount was not passed today in the final resolution of the plenum to which Mr. Gorbachev had spoken. MacNEIL: Mr. Cohen? Mr. COHEN: Yeah. Mr. Ra'anan is half right, but he's half wrong. Gorbachev clearly lent his personal authority to these proposals. It's true he said they'd been proposed by other citizens. But in his speech, he says, ''This is logical. This is what we have to do. '' Look, there are three things that are happening in this speech. One is a struggle for power -- removal of people, promotion of people. Secondly, there are suggestions about new procedures of picking party officials. And thirdly, there is the whole question of what's this all for, what's it headed for. And what it's headed for, in Gorbachev's mind, is a struggle for a very substantial reform of the Soviet system. I would regard the events of today not as a great victory for Gorbachev, and I would agree with Mr. Ra'anan about that. For example, Kunayev has now been removed from the Politburo. No one was replaced. No one was given the full seat on the Politburo. Bear in mind -- MacNEIL: He was the ethnic leader from Kazakhstan who was earlier removed from that job and replaced by an ethnic Russian, which caused those riots in Kazakhstan. Mr. COHEN: He had been for several months already a former person. His removal was already taken for granted. The real issue is not removing people from the Politburo at this moment, but who's going to replace them. And bear this in mind: Gorbachev does not have a single personal protege on the full Politburo, which is now down to 11 members. It can be 11, but normally it's 12 or 13. He doesn't have a single protege. So this was a moment for him to show other people in the system -- and he's complained bitterly that people were standing on the sidelines, not willing to come forward and join his cause, because they're not sure how he's going to do -- to show all those sideliners that he has the power to reward his own people at the very top. Yakalev, who was given a deputy position, is clearly a Gorbachev man, but Gorbachev couldn't give him or several other possibilities that full seat on the Politburo. MacNEIL: Do you agree with Professor Cohen, Mr. Ra'anan, that this is Gorbachev in a struggle for power? Mr. RA'ANAN: Yes, I agree completely on the whole of this point with Professor Cohen. It is quite clear that Gorbachev's power is extremely limited. We have blindly assumed -- or some have; I have not -- that all of the changes that occurred in the last year or year and a half have necessarily been changes carried out by him or for him or on his behalf. And very much the opposite may be the case. If I may for just one second talk about Kazakhstan, he was very careful -- Gorbachev was very careful -- both at the 27th party congress in February and again now, to be very even handed and say, ''Listen, we have to take some account -- we have to pay respect to ethnic feelings,'' meaning the local, indigenous nationalities. ''We shouldn't carry it too far, but we must avoid both nationalism,'' meaning by the non Russians, ''and chauvinism,'' meaning the Great Russians. Number two man, Ligachev, at the party congress in February, went out of his way to injure the national interests of the indigenous peoples. He said, ''Enough of this insularism and parochialism. We will bring the right party comrades from the center'' -- and that means Great Russians -- ''if they are the right people to bring in. '' And look, that is exactly what happened in Kazakhstan. Now, what is interesting is when the riots broke out, Tass immediately reported them -- what's more, reported exactly what they were about. My interpretation of that is that Gorbachev was delighted to jump at this opportunity and to say, ''You see what happens when an unmitigated Great Russian chauvinistic policy is carried out at the expense of the local feelings. You get riots. '' And the fact that he went back now at this particular meeting to say, ''We have to pay respect to these local feelings,'' means that he is fishing for support among the non Great Russian populations. Ligachev, on the other hand, and two of his comrades, of whom Mr. Vorotnikov, prime minister of the Russian Republic, is one, are playing up to Great Russian sentiments. And the fact that Gorbachev apparently is not in a position to push his point of view through and Kunayev's removal was very much done by Ligachev -- MacNEIL: I have to ask you to end it there, Professor Ra'anan. Obviously, a very interesting further stage in Gorbachev's struggles, and we will come back to them on another occasion. Professor Cohen, Professor Ra'anan, thank you. Single Mothers WOODRUFF: Next, we focus on a modern form of unwed motherhood: women who are single mothers by choice, and their children who will be raised without fathers. It's a phenomenon that both changing moral attitudes and new technology make possible. Our documentary report is from David Iverson of public station WHA in Madison, Wisconsin.

KAREN KESSLER: I love children. I remember talking to my mother when I was about 15 and saying if I wasn't married by the time I was 30 that I didn't think that was any reason not to have children. DAVID IVERSON [voice over]: Thirty one year old Karen Kessler is on one of her regular visits to see her neighbor's children. Kessler is a registered nurse working on her master's degree at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Kessler is single, but has decided to become pregnant. A friend has agreed to father the child and will acknowledge legal paternity, but Kessler is planning to raise the child alone. Kessler is one of a growing number of single, professional women who want to have children and are able to support a child alone. Now into their 30s and not married by chance or design, many single women are heeding the ticking of their biological time clocks. Ms. KESSLER: And when I was 28, I began seriously saying, ''You're not in love. '' There are men that I have been involved with, but certainly nobody that I wanted to have children with. IVERSON [voice over]: No one knows exactly how many women are choosing single motherhood. Research is just beginning on this new group of middle and upper middle class single mothers and their offspring. Nancy Shepherd, a clinical social worker in Sun Prairie, has counseled single mothers and teaches a class for single parents. NANCY SHEPHERD, social worker: This phenomenon is looked at as a real current one. But in fact, women have always been having children outside of marriage. It's simply up until this time been a much -- been a phenomenon of a much lower socioeconomic class and thus didn't garner much attention. Now, when middle class women are doing it, it's being talked about, it's being looked at, it's being identified. People kind of seem to give a hoot. IVERSON [voice over]: Kessler has made changes in her life to someday accommodate a child. She moved from New York City to Madison and is finishing her graduate degree in order to teach and avoid irregular nursing shift hours. She also decided she wanted to know the father of her child. Ms. KESSLER: I wanted to be able to say, ''I know who your father is. He's a nice man. I like him. He's my friend. He's someone you will like. He's someone we see at Christmas time. We see him once a year. We go visit. '' IVERSON [voice over]: Kessler approached men she'd known in the past, men who she felt were medically and genetically compatible, men who would want some contact with the child but not pursue joint custody. But most men, in scenes reminiscent of the movie The Big Chill, turned her down. Though still not pregnant, Kessler did eventually find a friend who agreed to father a child with no custody strings attached. But the issue of paternal rights comes up frequently at meetings of the Single Mothers By Choice Organization in Madison. Changing custody rulings and new interest among fathers in joint custody raise new legal and emotional concerns. GROUP MEMBER: They said that they couldn't guarantee that if his dad came forward and said he wanted him, he could fight for him. IVERSON [voice over]: Some women are so concerned about future interference from fathers that they choose to conceive by a method called AID, or Artificial Insemination by Donor. The sperm donor's identity is usually unknown, except for genetic and medical background information. Donor sperm can now even be mail ordered, so women can perform the procedure themselves. Ms. HAYES: You might have a long time ago when you were littler. IVERSON [voice over]: Sharon Hayes and her three year old daughter Melia live in a small Dane County community. Like Kessler, Hayes is a nurse who went into teaching as part of her plan to accommodate a child in her life. Unlike Kessler, she chose artificial insemination to conceive her daughter. SHARON HAYES: There just wasn't anyone around that I wanted to marry, you know, so that's what it came down to at that -- I wasn't going to get married in order to have a baby, and I wasn't going to let society make that decision for me. IVERSON [voice over]: Since Melia most likely will never know much about her biological father, Hayes is already teaching her alternative family concepts and trying to anticipate her questions. Ms. HAYES: I'm going to tell her everything I know. And I don't know her biological father's name. I know, you know, his health background. I know his genetic background. I know his ethnic background. But that's, you know, that's what she'll get is what I know about the donor. There are a couple things that I'm working on already. We identify again and again when we meet new people who's in that family and who makes up that family. The other word that I'm working on that I have to think about how to get this into her vocabulary is donor. And I think one way to do that is have her watch me donate blood, and she'll hear that that blood is being given to someone that I don't know, that will never know me. I don't care who it goes to. They need it for their health or happiness, and that's what we needed our donor for. The end result will be she'll have all the information I have and will have to deal with her feelings about that. IVERSON [voice over]: Indeed, reproductive technologies, like test tube fertilization and artificial insemination in recent years, have produced a generation of miracle children who are being closely monitored for their reactions to the special circumstances of their births and lives. Most are still too young to have gone through all the developmental stages of childhood and adolescence. GROUP MEMBER: He definitely craves a male role model. Anybody I date, he latches onto, so I have to be very careful and not bring them home until I want Ben to meet them. IVERSON [voice over]: Many mental health professionals stress the importance of consistent male role models for the children of single mothers. And most of the mothers in this group made efforts to provide them. GROUP MEMBER: He's real close to my brothers, so that's good. My younger brother lives with me, so he hangs out with Uncle John in Uncle John's room doing boy stuff all the time. But it is real important. And I've signed him up for Big Brothers. IVERSON [voice over]: Hayes sends Melia to several neighborhood homes for child care, where she gets regular attention from the families' fathers. Melia began questioning Hayes about her father when she was only two. Ms. HAYES: By early into her second year, she said to me, ''Where did my daddy go? Where my daddy go, Mommy?'' is what she said. And I said, ''Well, we don't have one at our house. '' And she said, ''Uh uh, no. '' And I said, ''Well, we don't. '' And that's how we left it. You know, she didn't ask anymore. And since then, you know, it's evolved. She's into a next step, like, ''Well, we'll buy one at the store, won't we?'' was her next tactic. And I said, ''Well, no, we aren't buying daddies at the store. That's not where we get them. '' You know, and so she said, ''Oh. '' And that's about six months ago. And that's about where it is right now. It will evolve. I'm fully prepared for her not to be happy with what I have done -- i. e. , brought her into this world without a father in this household. But we'll cross that road when we come to it. MELIA HAYES: When I grow up, I'll be a fireman. Ms. HAYES: You think so? A firefighter? That might be a good idea. IVERSON [voice over]: Preliminary research indicates that if these children have male role models, they may even have emotional advantages over children from troubled two parent households. In the end, says Nancy Shepherd, there are inevitably tradeoffs. Ms. SHEPHERD: There is a sense for them frequently that they didn't have as much childhood -- worry free, unstructured playtime -- as children of two parent households. But correspondingly, they seem to be very responsible. They know how to operate things around the home. MOTHER: Mix the apricots and the yoghurt, okay? You do the mixing, and then we can put the grapes in. Ms. SHEPHERD: So although you can say it's a selfish act, perhaps, on the part of the mom, that doesn't necessarily correlate that it's a destructive act for the child. Again, a marvelously healthy, well educated, well to do, two parent family may be ideal. But for over half of the children in this country, it's not realistic. IVERSON [voice over]: Nearly half of all marriages in America end in divorce. Among those that continue, almost inevitably, both parents will work outside the home. Clearly, the days of Ozzie and Harriet are gone. Now we will learn what this latest variation in the American family will bring. MacNEIL: Again, the top stories on this Wednesday. The United States banned travel to Lebanon and gave Americans there 30 days to leave. The Archbishop of Canterbury has received assurances that his envoy Terry Waite is safe and continuing his hostage negotiations. In the Philippines, the standoff with 200 rebel troops continued in Manila. And memorial services were held in many places today to mark the Challenger tragedy a year ago. Good night, Judy. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our News Hour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night. n