The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, an aid to President Gorbachev said a decree will be issued soon freeing the Soviets' Baltic states, and Sec. of State Baker said he will go to the Soviet Union next week. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary, our lead story is the investigation into Salomon Brothers bond trading with a background report and excerpts from today's congressional hearing. On the eve of Manuel Noriega's trial for drug trafficking, we examine the U.S. case against him and Noriega's probable defense. Then the battle to force publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a treasure trove for Jewish and Christian historians held for 40 years by a handful of scholars. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Soviet President Gorbachev is about to grant independence to the Baltic republics. One of his top aides said that today. Gorbachev is expected to issue a decree officially freeing Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia at the close of the Congress of People's Deputies. Gorbachev's plan to reshape the Soviet Union ran into trouble in that Congress today. The deputies agreed only to use the plan as a basis for discussion. We have more from Tim Ewart of Independent Television News.

MR. EWART: There was confusion and anger as the cumbersome Congress of People's Deputies grappled with the task of breaking up the old Soviet Union and ending its own role as the top legislative body in the land. Mr. Gorbachev, anxious to force through proposals transferring power from the Kremlin to the republics, adjourned the sitting twice. He sent deputies away for private discussions in an attempt to curtail debate on the floor. They gathered in smoke filled corridors, bewildered politicians confronting decisions that for some were almost too big to contemplate. SPOKESMAN: They have to not be afraid to lose a job.

MR. EWART: Hardliners say the proposals are unconstitutional. "The people will never forgive you," warned Col. Viktor Alksnis. Radicals say they're essential. "It's the beginning of a new era," declared Anatoly Sobchak, mayor of Leningrad. Others thought they were being railroaded by Mr. Gorbachev and there were more angry scenes. In the end they gave preliminary approval to the reforms but there'll be overnight negotiations and further argument tomorrow before the details can be settled. Sec. of State Baker will go to the Soviet Union next week. He told a Washington news conference he would meet with officials of the Soviet republics as well as the central government. He was asked whether the United States would prefer dealing with one government. SEC. BAKER: I'm not picking and choosing between the -- between 15 separate republics, a loose confederation of sovereign states, a firm strong central union. It's not up to us to make these determinations. And I'm not picking either between individuals in terms of who we might or might not prefer to deal with. We're going to deal with reformers in the Soviet Union wherever we find them.

MR. LEHRER: Baker said it would be advisable for the Soviet nuclear arsenal to remain under one central command authority. Several thousand KGB officers and Communist Party members have reportedly defected to China. Reports in two Japanese newspapers said the Chinese Communist Party decided in principle to grant asylum to Soviet defectors. The former Soviet government news agency Tass ran the Japanese reports today without comment. Robin.

MR. LEHRER: Chinese police abruptly halted a Tiananmen Square ceremony by three members of the U.S. Congress today. Representatives Ben Jones of Georgia, Nancy Pelosi of California, and John Miller of Washington were intercepted by police as they tried to place white flowers in the square in memory of the pro- democracy demonstrators who died there. Police also scuffled with American news crews covering the event, detaining some of them for about 90 minutes. In Yugoslavia, Serbian rebels fought today to cut off the Eastern portion of the Croatian republic. The Serbs appeared poised to encircle the town of Osijek, a major Croat stronghold near the border with the Serbian republic. At least 20 people were reported killed in clashes around Osijek over the past 24 hours. The European Community monitored truce declared Monday has been largely ignored. The EC is expected to push ahead with its planned peace conference on Yugoslavia this Saturday despite the continued fighting.

MR. LEHRER: President F.W. DeKlerk outlined his idea for a new South Africa constitution today. It would give blacks the right to vote but would not permit black majority rule. The African National Congress quickly announced its opposition. A spokesman said the plan was a recipe for disaster designed to deny a future South African government the power to truly liberate the country from the misery apartheid has brought.

MR. MacNeil: In this country, the Securities & Exchange Commission disclosed today it has issued more than 135 subpoenas in its investigation of the Salomon Brothers bond trading scandal. Last month, the New York investment bank admitted to violating legal limits in bidding at several Treasury auctions. The SEC is also investigating whether there was collusion by other government bond dealers. At a hearing today on Capitol Hill, the interim chairman of Salomon pledged to cooperate with investigators. He said the firm's past actions were inexcusable. We'll have more on the story, including excerpts from the hearing, after the News Summary. In Providence, Rhode Island today some 500 people marched outside the State House to demand their money from banks and credit unions which have been closed since January. Rhode Island's governor shut down 45 banks when their private insurance company failed. About a dozen remain closed because they can't get federal insurance.

MR. LEHRER: President Bush today criticized a television ad supporting his Supreme Court nominee, Clarence Thomas. The ad attacks three Democratic Senators, Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden of Delaware, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Alan Cranston of California. It first aired yesterday and was sponsored by two conservative political groups, The Conservative Victory Committee and Citizens United. Here's the ad: ANNOUNCER: [TV COMMERCIAL] Who will judge the judge? How many of these liberal Democrats could themselves pass ethical scrutiny -- Ted Kennedy, suspended from Harvard for cheating, left the scene of the accident at Chappaquidick where Mary Jo Kopekne died, and this year Palm Beach -- Joseph Biden, found guilty of plagiarism during his Presidential campaign -- Alan Cranston, implicated in the Keating Five S&L Scandal -- who's values should be on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas's or Ted Kennedy's?

MR. LEHRER: One of the ad's sponsors today called it a warning to liberals that conservatives were prepared for a political battle over the Thomas nomination, but Clarence Thomas, himself, condemned the ad. He said, "I deplore such viciousness." At the White House, President Bush said this to reporters after a cabinet meeting this morning. PRES. BUSH: We're not going to take questions but on that one I will simply say that the White House properly and vigorously spoke out against the ad. I think I'd be very careful about saying "the conservatives," you know, that's kind of a little broad context, but there was one ad that was offensive and it was promptly and quickly condemned -- Clarence Thomas, himself, spoke on that and spoke very clearly on that, so we see these things from time to time that are totally counterproductive on all sides of the political spectrum -- that was not a good ad. REPORTER: Would you urge them to not run it? PRES. BUSH: Yeah, I'd urge them to not run it.

MR. LEHRER: Democratic National Committee Chairman Ron Brown said Mr. Bush's criticism of the ad was not strong enough. He called it condemnation with a wink and said the President should use his influence to have the ad pulled.

MR. MacNeil: The last of Manuel Noriega's co-defendants pleaded guilty today. Pilot Daniel Miranda agreed to testify against the former Panamanian dictator in exchange for a reduced sentence. Noriega faces 10 counts of drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering. Jury selection in the trial begins tomorrow in Miami. We'll have a preview look at the trial after the News Summary. Also ahead on the NewsHour, the Salomon Brothers bond trading investigation and the Dead Sea Scrolls controversy. FOCUS - RISKY BUSINESS

MR. LEHRER: The Salomon Brothers financial scandal is first tonight. Officials of that prestigious Wall Street firm admitted last month that it had violated federal rules in bidding for government bonds. Yesterday the Securities & Exchange Commission announced it was widening its investigation to look into the actions of other investment houses. And today a congressional committee began its own inquiry. We'll hear excerpts from that testimony after this backgrounder by Business Correspondent Paul Solman of public station WGBH in Boston.

MR. SOLMAN: The coverage has been merciless. Powerful, prestigious Salomon Brothers cheated in the sacrosanct government bond market, breaking the 35 percent rule. But what exactly did the firm do and how does it affect the rest of us? Well, let's start with the bond market. To begin with, the U.S. Treasury issues IOUs, variously known as bonds, bills or notes. Then they're bought and sold by investors. We'll let Wall Street writer Michael Thomas explain. MICHAEL THOMAS, Financial Writer: Well, the government bond market is where Uncle Sam raises the money to pay for the deficits that he has incurred by not taxing enough to meet his expenses. It's a market which in all forms trades about 65 trillion a year I figured out on my little calculator.

MR. SOLMAN: This august sounding market is really just folks like these at Salomon who monitor the latest prices on computer and buy and sell over the phone. Total daily volume here dwarfs the stock market and this volume is presumably good for Americans since it means that lots of investors worldwide will be willing to take the government's IOUs once they've been issued. The process starts when Uncle Sam holds an auction in order to raise some money. Now from the government's point of view, the key question is: How much is it going to have to pay to borrow money? Remember, your Uncle Sam, like your Uncle Harry, wants to borrow as cheaply as possible. So the government puts out its IOUs, its bonds, bills and notes for bid, seeing who will offer the lowest interest rate. Okay, here is a government bond auction we shot a while ago at Yamichi International, one of 40 or so primary dealers who compete with Salomon for Uncle Sam's IOUs. They're on the phone to the Fed deciding the final interest rate they'll offer. Two hours later they get the news. Their bid went through, they bought the bonds at the price they'd anticipated. But in more recent auctions, especially this May, Yamichi and other dealers found they couldn't buy enough bonds. Meanwhile, they'd already promised the bonds to their typical customer at a guaranteed price. SCOTT PARDEE, scrolls. But these manuscripts, unlike the originals which were preserved in earthenware jars, consisted of thousands of large and small scraps. John Strugnell, a professor at the Harvard Divinity School, has been studying the scrolls for almost 40 years.

JOHN STRUGNELL, Harvard Divinity School: In K-4 we have fragments of some 700, maybe 800 manuscripts, all tiny fragments. We have 800 manuscripts, probably 100 fragments of each. That makes what, 80,000. That's what we have.

MR. MacNeil: The Jordanian government bought the manuscript fragments and placed them in the Palestine Museum in Jerusalem. Museum officials invited a small team of scholars to care and research the treasures. The team restricted access by other scholars and so began the controversy which continues to this day. Because the museum was under Jordanian control, new Jewish scholars were included on the team, another source of controversy. Putting the scraps in order has been an arduous and time consuming task. Frank Cross is a member of the original team.

FRANK CROSS: The fragments as they came from before were a mixed jumble. They were like this, so that the -- we arranged over long, long tables hundreds and hundreds of glass plates onto which we put fragments and then we slowly began to assemble fragments that belong together by script, by the look of the leather, and eventually by the content.

SPOKESMAN: Say we're confronted with 2,000 fragments of varying sizes. We look at the big ones first. And we see a Bible -- if they're Bible, we put them onto one side because this is the Book of Genesis or Isaiah, but that only takes care of about 15 percent of the fragments. Then the main book starts, which is handwriting. We study the handwriting carefully and then we go through all the other fragments and see what is written by the same scribe.

MR. MacNeil: Over the years, the original team members brought in graduate students to help them with the mammoth task of assembling and interpreting the documents. Eventually the students replaced some of their professors, but the inner sanctum of scroll editors remained small. Biblical scholars waited anxiously to see texts of the scrolls but the team published them at a snail's pace. To date, only 20 percent of the texts from the second 1952 discovery have been published. In 1967, the Israeli Army took East Jerusalem and the museum where the scrolls were located, but the Israeli government still allowed the original team of scholars to control the scrolls. In time, the team bowed to pressure from the academic community and permitted a small group of Israeli and other scholars to study them. But again access remained limited and scholars complain that the texts are still not being published rapidly enough.

MR. MacNeil: Angered that access to the scrolls has been denied to an entire generation, a rival group of scholars have circumvented the official editors. Today in New York, they held a news conference to announce publication of unauthorized texts of the scrolls. Prominent in that effort is Ben-Zion Wacholder, a professor at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. Also with us from South Bend, Indiana, is Eugene Ulrich, an official Dead Sea Scroll editor since 1977. Dr. Ulrich is a professor at Notre Dame University. He worked on the first volume of the scrolls published by Oxford University Press last year and is currently working on the texts of Biblical manuscripts from the scrolls due to be published next year. Dr. Wacholder, describe how you reconstructed a portion of the scrolls to produce what you published today.

DR. WACHOLDER: Last November at the conference that I gave a lecture at the -- the question arose what the texts actually say, what the texts that are not in the official text published -- so as I came home, I and my associate, a graduate student, Martin Aberg, thought that perhaps putting a concordance of texts published in 1988 but really assembled in the late '50s might answer questions which we couldn't answer at the conference, at my lecture. So we put the material on the computer with software and hardware and so on and out came a text that was unbelievably original and authentic that looks very much as texts are when they come from -- transcribed from the manuscript.

MR. MacNeil: Let me just -- for the help of our viewers -- a concordance is in a way like a dictionary of terms and the phrases in which those words occur. Is that an accurate description?

DR. WACHOLDER: It's a list of words --

MR. MacNeil: List of words.

DR. WACHOLDER: -- with the adjacent words.

MR. MacNeil: With the adjacent words. And you put all those -- and that concordance had been published by the official team.

DR. WACHOLDER: Only restrictedly.

MR. MacNeil: Restrictedly, but you got a copy of it.

DR. WACHOLDER: We got permission from Prof. Strugnell.

MR. MacNeil: The man we just saw.

DR. WACHOLDER: Right.

MR. MacNeil: Yeah.

DR. WACHOLDER: To have a facsimile of these.

MR. MacNeil: And so you put all those phrases and words and their adjacent phrases in the computer and -- and in a way that produced a text from those.

DR. WACHOLDER: And the text was quite readable.

MR. MacNeil: Quite readable.

DR. WACHOLDER: And it was done for our own investigation. But realizing that it has taken 40 years of wilderness before a fraction of these texts have been published, we decided after -- after very heavy consideration to make available these texts and we hope to make them all available, 220 manuscripts, works, large and small.

MR. MacNeil: And what is your purpose in doing that, Dr. Wacholder?

DR. WACHOLDER: My -- our purpose is to make the material, the texts available to anyone who can read them and let them interpret it, them. We do not want to put out immediately our own interpretation, because this makes this -- would make this material completely dependent on our interpretation. Let anyone who knows interpret these texts, anyone who can afford $25 can have -- has $25 is able to purchase the first fascicle of a hundred pages of text published today.

MR. MacNeil: Dr. Ulrich in South Bend, what do you think of this exercise?

DR. ULRICH: Well, initially, one welcomes any advance in knowledge, but as you begin to think about it, that factor of being welcome begins to diminish on two counts. One is that the propriety of such an operation and secondly, and maybe more so, the reliability, that is, the level of propriety, this is clearly something that is against the norms of scholarship. What has happened is that other people's notes sent in trust to the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, knowing that Prof. Wacholder and wishing that Prof. Wacholder could use them for his own work, those notes of individuals for the team of editors have been made public. That would be like taking in a joint situation of scientists or physicians, researchers, having unpublished notes that you are working on for a project taken and published by someone else. I think most would find that against the norms of the profession. Secondly, on the reliability, and I think Prof. Wacholder knows and says this, that the reliability of such a document is highly questionable.

MR. MacNeil: Simply because it was reconstructed -- a lot of it necessarily by inference or calculation -- it isn't the real document?

DR. ULRICH: Exactly, that's right.

MR. MacNeil: Isn't the answer to that to publish the real documents?

DR. ULRICH: Oh, yes, and we have engineered that, that is, Prof. Joseph Baumgarten has been recently set to work on these texts and has given papers at various congresses on the text, has explained them, and has published certain parts of them, and would be willing, I am quite sure, to share the work, the results of his research with others who simply comply with the normal procedures of the academic profession.

MR. MacNeil: Dr. Wacholder, why not wait until the official text comes out?

DR. WACHOLDER: We -- our children will be dead before these texts will be published at the current rate of publication. In fact, these texts have been available for more than 40 years and it will take another 40 years because the issue really isn't the publication of the text, but also the -- primarily the issue of property, of bequeathing these texts to successive scholars who may have an interest, who may be competent, the issue is competence. And let me respond directly to Prof. Ulrich's two questions. Is it proper -- was it proper for me, for us, for my associate and me to publish this fascicle? I think it was proper because these texts what we are publishing were transcribed in 1955 to '60, and for 30 years these texts have been kept away. Secondly, people have been bequeathed texts who are not competent, not competent, not nearly competent like men like John Allegro who produced the Mijorka Text and the publication of these texts by the supposed experts is only supposed and the people all over the world are capable to publish them. Let them photograph them. Let them make it available to anyone and let the best product prevail.

MR. MacNeil: Let me go back to Dr. Ulrich. Looking at this -- picking up on Dr. Wacholder's argument but filtering it through my own sort of role as a journalist here, it's, it's hard to understand what harm there would be, Dr. Ulrich, after 45 years in just letting all these documents out in facsimile or some form since they concern the two great religions of Western civilization, Western culture. Aren't they everybody's business in a way and what harm would there be in just letting everybody see what there is and letting everybody make his interpretation?

DR. ULRICH: Well, I agree with that. I am fully in favor of access to the text and let me say --

MR. MacNeil: But Dr. Wacholder says our children will be dead before they are coming out at the rate your official committee is publishing them.

DR. ULRICH: That's a dramatic statement. It is not accurate. What Prof. Wacholder I think rightly criticizes that I too would criticize is a past era, that is, we must distinguish between the original scholars who were first assigned to publish the text and those who are now in charge of actually doing it. There has been an immense amount of activity all through the 1980s. There's been an immense amount of publication. There is a lot of hard work and the scrolls are, in fact, being produced. I and my associates have exactly the same complaint that Prof. Wacholder says.

MR. MacNeil: It was too slow in the past, you think?

DR. ULRICH: That it went too slow in the past and all the editors would say that, everyone, and especially editors wish the job were over.

MR. MacNeil: Well, look, we have -- excuse me interrupting you - - we have just a couple of moments left here. I'd just like to know from each of you, what is, in your view, starting with you, Dr. Ulrich, what do you think is most important in these scrolls that in a sort of summary way increases our understanding with early Christianity and early Judaism from what you know of the scrolls?

DR. ULRICH: Well, again, most anyone could answer that. Most of that kind of knowledge is long since published. I heard earlier that 20 percent of the scrolls are published. The curator of the museum over there quotes it at 80 percent. And I would say that 75 to 80 percent of all the real useable knowledge by the public at large and by most scholars has long since been available. What the scrolls have told us both about Judaism and Christianity is in a sense lighting up a stage that was previously dark. We had two sets of spotlights on the ancient stage of when Judaism and Christianity emerged through the New Testament and through the Mishna and Talmud, the writings, but both of those were somewhat edited by their later adherents. What we find with the Dead Sea Scrolls is in a sense the whole stage gets lit up. We see a Jewish community alive before, during, and after the time of Christ in Halayo and what we see there is not a lot of dramatic individual things but a lot of light that influences, that illumines many aspects of early Christianity and early rabbinic Judaism. So it's mainly illuminating things not in great new ways but gentle light all over the whole scene which puts both of those religions in an understandable context.

MR. MacNeil: Dr. Wacholder, how would you put what they show about our two great religions?

DR. WACHOLDER: They tell us about the foment, the quest to speak to God, of God, that created the Western civilization. They teach us what is human and what is divine. They also teach us -- and here I disagree with Prof. Ulrich -- the text that we published today is quite revolutionary. It teaches us, it gives us the names, the calendar, the world view of a people who created six religions, Nastacism, Mondeism, Monacheism, rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and the Moslem -- so what we're learning is -- the puzzle, what was it in that cycle of people, of all the religious movements in the world, this -- these people, those scholars, the scribes made that it became the standard of the modern world, of the medieval world, and there's -- it's the key to human history.

MR. MacNeil: The key to human history. On that note I must leave it. Thank you very much, both Prof. Ulrich and Dr. Wacholder. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, an aide to Soviet President Gorbachev said a decree will be issued soon granting independence to the Baltic states and Sec. of State Baker said he will go to Moscow next week to meet with leaders from the central government and the republics. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight and we'll see you tomorrow. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.