The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary we analyze the U.S. military mission in Somalia, then Correspondent Spencer Michels reports from the AFL-CIO Convention in San Francisco on big labor and free trade. Charlayne Hunter- Gault continues her series of interviews with Middle East leaders with Jordan's King Hussein, and we close with a Roger Rosenblatt essay on '60s radical Katherine Ann Power. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: President Clinton is considering sending 2,000 more troops to Somalia but will set a date for withdrawal U.S. officials said tonight. The U.S. currently has about 5,000 troops in the East African nation. This afternoon, the President promised to discuss the future of the mission with Congress and then report to the American people. Mr. Clinton said he and his national security team were discussing ways to bring U.S. troops home without a recurrence of the internal warfare and famine which took them to Somalia in the first place. He spoke this afternoon at the White House.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: It is essential that we conclude our mission in Somalia but that we do it with firmness and steadiness of purpose. I wanted to emphasize that tomorrow I will be consulting with congressional leaders in both parties and with others, and then I will report to you and the American people. But this much I want to say today. Our men and women in Somalia, including any held captive, deserve our full support. They went there to do something almost unique in human history. We are anxious to conclude our role there honorably, but we do not want to see a reversion in the absolute chaos and the terrible misery which existed before.

MR. MacNeil: Congressional criticism of the U.S. role mounted today with the release of a letter from 65 Republican Congressmen to the President. House GOP Leader Robert Michel read it to reporters on Capitol Hill this morning.

REP. ROBERT MICHEL, Minority Leader: In our view, the Somalia policy your administration had pursued is a failure, therefore, we believe it imperative that you communicate to the Congress and the American people your administration's plan to secure the freedom of any American prisoners held in Somalia and your attention to expeditiously withdraw our forces in a safe and orderly manner. America's international standing must not be jeopardized by an indecisive and naive approach to foreign policy.

MR. MacNeil: U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said the U.N. will stay the course in Somalia, despite concerns about a U.S. pull-out. He told the Security Council today that he will travel to the region next week to seek a political settlement. Meanwhile, 61 of the 78 Americans wounded in Sunday's bloody battle in Mogadishu were flown last night to a U.S. military hospital in Germany. Most suffered bullet and shrapnel wounds to the arms and legs. In Mogadishu, a top aide to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid said just one American was being held hostage. A videotape of the soldier, Black Hawk pilot Michael Durant, was shown on CNN after his helicopter was shot down by the Somalis. The aide said Durant suffered a bullet wound to the leg but was being well treated. He said Durant and a Nigerian peacekeeper also held hostage would be freed in exchange for the release of 31 Somalis held by the United Nations. Later in the day, a report from Mogadishu said the Aidid forces had launched a mortar attack on the U.N. base at the city's airport. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Boris Yeltsin wants more resignations. Today he asked his opponents in Russia's regional legislatures to quit. He also said he would go ahead with December elections for a new national legislature. Robert Moore of Independent Television News reports from Moscow.

MR. MOORE: The Russian president strode into his Kremlin offices, seen for the first time since he crushed the rebel parliament. He now has enormous powers, ruling under emergency decrees, maintaining a nighttime curfew over the capital and enforcing a ban on opposition newspapers. But tonight on russian television Boris Yeltsin promised December elections would go ahead, that democracy would be restored. The smoldering civil war, he told viewers, had been extinguished, adding, "My heart is heavy because we had to pay an immense price." The Russian White House is still ringed by special security troops and the area sealed off. Yeltsin said today it had become a citadel of terrorism. Inside the building, the scenes are still chaotic. Chairs had been hurled down the staircase by the defenders to form a last, desperate barricade against advancing troops. The weaponry inside has now been collected, and the authorities have said they will prosecute all those involved in the resistance. Russians are delighted but Yeltsin is now trusting that in two months they will elect a reformist parliament that will support him and bring some degree of political stability.

MR. LEHRER: After his television speech today, Yeltsin removed the honor guard at Lenin's Red Square Tomb, the most prominent symbol of the Soviet era for some 70 years. Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and PLO Chairman Arafat today set October 13th as the start date for talks about Palestinian self-rule. They made the announcement after the first working meeting in Cairo hosted by Egyptian President Mubarak. Arafat also said they had agreed to discuss Jerusalem. Israel previously refused to discuss the status of Jerusalem until talks on a permanent peace settlement.

MR. MacNeil: Longtime fugitive Katherine Ann Power received an eight to twelve year prison term today for bank robbery and murder. In 1970, she and four other anti-Vietnam War radicals robbed a Boston bank and gunned down police officer William Schroeder. Power drove the getaway car. She hid under a false identity for 23 years but turned herself in last month and pleaded "guilty" to the charges. At today's sentencing -- sentencing hearing, two of Schroeder's children called on the judge to consider the pain inflicted on their family and not allow Power to profit from selling her story. The judge concurred by adding a 20-year probation to the jail term. It prohibits her from any activities which would cause her to profit from thecrime. Florida police today announced they had arrested four teen-age suspects in the slaying of a British tourist last month. The four range in age from thirteen to seventeen. They were all charged with first degree murder. The victim was one of ten foreign tourists killed in Florida in less than a year.

MR. LEHRER: A group of conservative Democratic and moderate Republican Congressmen offered an alternative to the Clinton health care plan today. They said their proposal would cost $125 billion over five years compared to the administration's 350 billion. It also does not require employers to provide coverage for all workers. Instead, it would make health care more affordable through large purchasing cooperatives.

MR. MacNeil: The man who can fly on a basketball court walked away from the game today. Michael Jordan announced his retirement after nine brilliant seasons in the National Basketball Association. The 30-year-old guard was a perennial all star who led the Chicago Bulls to three straight championships. Jordan holds seven consecutive scoring titles and was voted the MBA's most valuable player six times during the regular and post season play. The former North Carolina Tar Heel also helped pilot the U.S. Olympic team to gold medal victories twice. Today Jordan dismissed speculation that depression over his father's recent murder and reports about his gambling drove him from the game. Instead, he offered this explanation.

MICHAEL JORDAN: I've heard a lot of different speculations about my reasons for not playing, but I've always stressed to people that have known me and the media that has followed me that when I lose the sense of motivation and the sense of to prove something as a basketball player, it's time for me to move away from the game of basketball. It's not because I don't love the game. I love the game of basketball. I always will. I just feel that at this particular time in my career I have reached the pinnacle of my career. I have achieved a lot in that short amount of time, if you want to call it short, but I just feel that I don't have anything else for myself to prove.

MR. MacNeil: Jordan wouldn't rule out a comeback one day in the future. He said, "I'm not making this a 'never' issue." That's it for the News Summary. Just ahead, a deadly mission, a presidential sales pitch, a view from the throne, and life on the run. FOCUS - FALL BACK?

MR. LEHRER: Somalia is again our lead story tonight. President Clinton said today he would have more to say tomorrow about the American troops there. They have been taking heavier casualties as they get more involved in urban street fighting in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. It is the military situation that we look at tonight with Bernard Trainor, a retired lieutenant general in the Marine Corps, currently director of the national security program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Andy Messing, former army major, now executive director of the National Defense Council Foundation in Washington, a group that studies military special operations and low intensity conflict. He was recently in Mogadishu. Melinda Liu, a correspondent for Newsweek Magazine, who has reported from Mogadishu, and Bruce Van Voorst, Time Magazine's senior national security correspondent and a frequent contributor to this program. Bruce, this report about 2,000 more U.S. troops being sent to Somalia, what kind of troops and what is their mission?

MR. VAN VOORST: That number has not yet been confirmed by the Department of Defense, the officials obviously not eager to get in the wayof the President tomorrow. It does seem to be the number we're hearing around today. These will be infantry soldiers as well as some armored vehicles come in with them, which is what they needed very much. The movement around downtown Mogadishu was so constrained by the lack of this heavier equipment that we're going to have to have that to enhance the mobility to protect the troops as they move around. The numbers are obviously still open but it was clear that what they had planned on doing this past weekend in talking about two or three hundred, that was insufficient. What they needed was two to three hundred were supposed to be able to provide a relief convoy to any particular American groups that gets in trouble. Now they'll have more.

MR. LEHRER: So if I remember the figures correctly, there are 4,000 there now. They supposedly were going to send 600 more. That's 4600. If they add 2,000, we're talking about 6,000 or roughly 7,000.

MR. VAN VOORST: Just one point, those aren't all combat troops.

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MR. VAN VOORST: Out of those 4,000 roughly only 1200 were in the quick reaction force, and those are the ones. The rest are logistics and communications and support people.

MR. LEHRER: In general terms, Bruce, what do the leaders of the U.S. military think of that situation over there now?

MR. VAN VOORST: One described it to me -- I hate to do this again, I hate to rehatch Vietnam, but the parallel from the American military standpoint is very close. We've been fighting for our strength, i.e., the sort of thing that we displayed in Desert Storm. We had heavy tanks, a lot of air force, and a lot of fire power. These things don't work in downtown Mogadishu, and the result is the military feels very exposed. You have, for example, the shooting down the Black Hawk helicopter. These -- everybody knows a helicopter is vulnerable under certain circumstances, particularly when it's hovering over a city. A Black Hawk is a much improved helicopter and should and can take a lot of fire. What we've seen happening is that the Aidid forces, if not, they aren't getting particularly new equipment, they're using the equipment they have more effectively, but they are fighting more aggressively. And as one defense official said today, they are brazen, they're really going after us.

MR. LEHRER: Well, look, Ms. Liu, let me -- let's use some maps here now. You have been to Mogadishu, and a lot of Americans are having trouble understanding why the U.S. military in conjunction with other forces from other U.N. countries cannot, first of all, find Aidid and can't eliminate this, this threat. Give us a feel for what the situation is in terms of how large an area in South - - okay -- here's a map here -- what is -- how much of that area - - how large is it, and how much of it is under control of Aidid?

MS. LIU: Okay. Well, almost all of what you see here is actually in Aidid territory, not necessarily because everyone is a fervent political supporter of Aidid but because his, he is a sub-clan leader, and his clan is all over in that area, not, maybe not so much towards that U.S. embassy port area, but everything to the - - to our left of it.

MR. LEHRER: How large an area is that?

MS. LIU: Oh, gosh. This goes several miles square. I mean, the area that he is most active in is really almost smack in the middle of the region described by the U.S. Embassy compound and the U.S. Embassy and the port. And it's -- the feeling on the streets in his neighborhood is almost post apocalyptic. It's been through three years of warfare, so you can never go very far without seeing bullet holes everywhere, trashed, gutted buildings, carcasses of tanks or, you know, other weapons just lying around. And as I understand it, this raid took place at the Olympic Hotel, which is one on the edge of a kind of a famous market or arms bazaar where tons and tons of weapons had been --

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. There's another map up there that shows that.

MS. LIU: Exactly. The Olympic Hotel is right on the edge of this market that has been the repository of tons of weapons, and all of this is Aidid's.

MR. LEHRER: How many people live in this area?

MS. LIU: Oh, the, the population of Mogadishu has fluctuated obviously during, during the war, and, you know, going back to the time of the civil war. But in that particular area, Aidid is thought to have eight hundred to a thousand strong supporters. Not all of them are professionally trained but most of them have weapons of some sort. Then there will be other civilians or dependents, you know, a larger population, but I think what, you know, in terms of the military threat --

MR. LEHRER: Military threat.

MS. LIU: -- we're talking about up to a thousand. The problem is he is, as I said --

MR. LEHRER: It doesn't seem like very many troops.

MS. LIU: Well, it's not, but what is he? Is he the leader, a commander of an army, in which case it's not very many, or is he the head of a terrorist group which slips around, you know, can do great damage with very few people, or is he a fugitive criminal, in which case, you know, just a few?

MR. LEHRER: And the area is, is residential area primarily?

MS. LIU: Yes, largely residential. He, he, himself, his headquarters was in a residential area that was surrounded by foreign embassies at one point, and in fact, for a time the U.S. embassy had rented a compound from one of his supporters.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Bruce Van Voorst, what do the folks at the Pentagon say? Why can't they find these -- if it's only 1,000 people with guns, why can't they find them?

MR. VAN VOORST: Because those 1,000 people with guns are frequently just citizens on the street corner or residents of the area we're describing.

MR. LEHRER: They're not wearing, you mean they're not wearing uniforms and --

MR. VAN VOORST: They are not.

MR. LEHRER: -- signs around their heads saying, "I'm an Aidid soldier?"

MR. VAN VOORST: Exactly that. And the real problem, of course, is that, for example, in the, in the exchange, the firing that took place these last few days, these one thousand soldiers can fire from among civilians, from among children, if you will, and it makes it very difficult. I mean, I really feel sorry for the American troops trying to be very careful in what they call fire control and to select targets very carefully. They're not going on automatic.

MR. LEHRER: They're catching fire from an unknown source, and then suddenly their kids or women standing there or just civilians, male civilians standing at the window, is that right?

MR. VAN VOORST: That's right. And these, these Aidid troops have got -- they haven't got big weapons, although we might get to that. They might have more than we think they have, for example, bring in some tanks. Well, we know very well that we, the United States, gave them some toll weapons in the past. We know that they've got some anti-tank weapons. We know they've got some Soviet anti-tank weapons. We think they brought the helicopters --

MR. LEHRER: This is a result of the earlier civil war?

MR. VAN VOORST: Yeah, when we were all friends, remember?

MR. LEHRER: Sure. Seems like only yesterday, right. Well, let's bring Andy Messing and Gen. Trainor into this, two military men. General, what do you think the military -- how do you explain the fact that there are 1,000 people with guns of varying sizes and this U.N. force can't seem to not only get, get rid of them but also the guy who's calling the shots, Mr. Aidid?

GEN. TRAINOR: Well, I don't think the numbers are particularly significant. It's the capability, and Aidid has shown that he has a significant capability which has been growing over the past few weeks. He started off by using command-detonated mines, then he moved on to shoot --

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me. A command-detonated mine means you have to do more than step on it, somebody's got to see you step on it, and they got to push something.

GEN. TRAINOR: They push a button --

MR. LEHRER: I got you.

GEN. TRAINOR: -- and explode it.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

GEN. TRAINOR: And then shot down a helicopter and now, of course, they shot down two more, and damaged a third. The basic problem, I think, is that we underestimated the enemy, if you wanted to call Aidid an enemy, and we did not have sufficient forces for the task that was set out for them, particularly in terms of forces that could come to the rescue if a lightly armed force, such as the Rangers, got in trouble. It took nine hours to get a relief force up there primarily because they didn't have enough fire power to bull their way through the obstacles that were put in their way. So the number of troops that Aidid has is, is not really relative. It's the combat capability that those troops represent when you're fighting in an urban area against an organization such as the U.N., which has an inadequate command and control system.

MR. LEHRER: Well, General, as a practical matter, just as a military issue, what would it take to, to eliminate this Aidid force?

GEN. TRAINOR: Well, not being privy to all of the data and the intelligence in the area, I really couldn't put a finger on it, but it would seem to me that what you're talking about is a force that is probably not acceptable to the American people or the International Community because the more force you go in there -- use to go in there, if you're looking for a military solution, is probably going to generate more opposition not only on the part of Aidid's clan but perhaps on the part of other Somalis who view this as some sort of a neo colonial operation. So it's a case of the more you put in, the more they're going to react. So I don't think there's a military solution to this at all.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Andy Messing, that there really is no military way to eliminate this, short of a cataclysmic kind of operation?

MAJ. MESSING: Well, first of all, in tomorrow's newspapers, they're going to be talking about the Sudanese in Iranian connections, and if we don't do the right thing at the right time from now on this could be the catalyst for a major problem that we have with the Muslim fundamentalist extremists coalescing even more to a degree than they ever have before.

MR. LEHRER: You mean, helping Aidid and his folks?

MAJ. MESSING: That's right. And the other point is that from the outset, from the outset, we had this military force go in for security purposes, and whenever you do something in a peacekeeping nature -- and I found this out from other foreign militaries in the 26 conflicts that I've gone to -- you've got to take in the gun to establish the security but you'd better have a saw and you'd better have a stethoscope, and you'd better have a water purification capability. The point I'm trying to make is our troops were completely frustrated by the fact that they couldn't do civic action, civil affairs missions like they did after we went in and took over Kuwait. Our people were so frustrated because they went over there to save lives, and they did to a degree. As one Marine colonel told me when I was over there, he said, this is going to be a partial success, and then he grinned and he said, a partial failure, because of the fact that we were only doing the security operation, we were only using a gun, we were only being a cop. You've got to be the cop and the carpenter.

MR. LEHRER: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The whole operation was designed to bring food. If that's not a civic operation, what is?

MAJ. MESSING: Our NGO's -- we were there to establish --

MR. LEHRER: These are non-government organizations.

MAJ. MESSING: Yes. We were there to establish the securities so the NGO's could go ahead and do the distribution of food and other necessities like that. And that was a valid, outstanding mission. But once you do the security part, of course, if your military force is going to stay, they'd better do civic action, they'd better do civil affairs.

MR. LEHRER: Why? Why is that so important?

MAJ. MESSING: Because they have to bond with the people that are there. The people there have to get a feeling that, hey, these people are really there to help us because what happened is Aidid's people framed the issue to say, hey, this is an invasion force, they're here to desecrate our Muslim culture, and that's the pitch that they started using. When I left in February, end of February, we had to fight our way to the airport through a gauntlet of 150 Somalis throwing grapefruit-sized rocks, and we should have understood right then and there that we got a problem. But the fact is the conventional military planners on the JCS were given --

MR. LEHRER: Joint Chiefs of Staff.

MAJ. MESSING: Joint Chiefs of Staff -- were given the wrong advice to both our Presidents, Bush and now Clinton, and now we'd better get our hostages and extract from this situation --

MR. LEHRER: All right. Now, wait a minute. What were they told that was so wrong?

MAJ. MESSING: Basically that since the military was politically charged to stay, they should have gone into the civic action, civil affairs, and what's called white cyops, where you have a unit telling the truth --

MR. LEHRER: So it wasn't enough just to deliver food.

MAJ. MESSING: It wasn't enough just to be the cop.

MR. LEHRER: It wasn't enough just --

MAJ. MESSING: You had to be the carpenter, and you had to be, to bring in the stethoscope.

MR. LEHRER: Does that make sense to you, General?

GEN. TRAINOR: Well, I think to the extent the case is being somewhat overstated. If you recall, the mission was to go in to secure the area, to provide for food distribution, and then leave. And that was the original plan. That was the Bush plan, and then to turn the whole operation over to the United Nations. And the United Nations, being capable of providing their own logistic support, requested that the U.S. stay on. And we agreed that we would keep a logistic and supply unit there to support the United Nations forces. And for the protection of those logistic and support units, we left a small increment of infantry combat soldiers for their protection. Now, that was supposed to be the role of the U.S. forces during the U.N. operation. But pretty soon we expanded the role, and the next thing we know that we have quick reaction forces, and we're involved in, in military operations when initially we agreed only to provide support operations. So I think we have found ourselves sucked into this operation in a way that has turned out to be disastrous.

MR. LEHRER: You're shaking your head in agreement.

MS. LIU: I agree, and I think the confusion about the motive of the mission is underscored by the confusion about how to treat Aidid. When I was there, he was considered a, a Somali leader who was, you know, potentially among those from whom a government, you know, could eventually be formed, and he was, you know, shown shaking hands and kissing cheeks with American dignitaries, including Amb. Oakley, and people knew what his nature --

MR. LEHRER: And went to some of the big meetings.

MS. LIU: Oh, he was very much there, and this, you know, enhanced his stature, of course, and it, it probably emboldened him to, to think that he could take on the U.S. at some point.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MS. LIU: I mean, is he, you know, the commander of an enemy army, or is he a criminal, or is he a terrorist? No one seems to really know the answer to this. And, of course, you have to define that before you can decide how you go after him. I mean, is he someone who should have human rights if you capture him, or is he someone that you want to, you know, eliminate with extreme prejudice if you can find him?

MR. VAN VOORST: But, Jim, really on that count, in June, when the Pakistanis were killed, I don't know for sure it was Aidid's people, but in any case it was attributed, and that certainly changed the nature of the relationship to him. Unquestionably, when Amb. Bob Oakley was there at the beginning, they were checking out all sorts of political solutions. There was really the emphasis on that. There also, by the way, was a hiatus in security from the time we withdrew our forces, anticipating that the U.N. was going to take over, and a number of the U.N. forces didn't arrive, including the Indians, and we just didn't have -- the U.N. just didn't have the forces to match the parallel operation of security, on the one hand, and politics on the other.

MR. LEHRER: So you would agree then, Andy Messing, that we've had the wrong -- if -- let's say that using all of the possible labels that Melinda just put on Aidid, let's say he was considered an enemy, a war -- all of those kinds of things -- we didn't have the right people there to do, to solve that problem, is that --

MAJ. MESSING: We didn't have the right formula. In peacekeeping it's different from conventional operation where you're going in to retake Kuwait. You have to have a soft side and a hard side. The hard side winds up establishing the security, and the soft side winds up engendering support with people, re-establishing the postal system, the garbage collection, the water purification.

MR. LEHRER: A civilian police force.

MAJ. MESSING: The civilian police force and the justice -- justice system. If you don't do that, then you shouldn't be in the peacekeeping game. Either get in and do it right, or stay the heck out.

MR. LEHRER: What do you think of this -- I guess, as Bruce said, it hasn't been officially confirmed, will not be confirmed until the President actually signs off on it, announces tomorrow, but apparently he's going to send in 2,000 more troops with some kind of specific mission and some kind of set deadline. That -- does that make sense to you?

MAJ. MESSING: If you get in there, put a little pressure on so we can get our hostage out, and then get the heck out, that's the right thing the President's doing, but, you know, it's too little, too late in a lot of respects. We've lost a lot of face, and I hope the next --

MR. LEHRER: Well, who -- with whom have we lost faith?

MAJ. MESSING: I just came back from Haiti. I just back from Haiti two days ago, and I'm telling you, sending in American troops with not the right formula into Haiti could have the same effect.

MR. LEHRER: Where have we lost face?

MAJ. MESSING: Well, we've lost face in the International Community, certainly with the Somalis. I covered the area in a 50- mile radius for over a week and a half, and I'll tell you what. We had stored up a lot of good will up to that point, but you could see it eroding day by day almost because of the fact that our troops had water. Our troops had water, and our Somalis couldn't get the water.

MR. LEHRER: General, what's your view of the face question? Just looking at it from a cosmic view of the United States of America, went in there, everybody said this was a terrific thing to do, to bring the food and the supplies to the starving people of Somalia, now we leave under these circumstances. What's it look like to you?

GEN. TRAINOR: No. I don't think we've lost any face. I think we'd lose a lot of face if we threw in the towel at this point but I don't think that's necessary, and I don't think it's necessary to put thousands and thousands of troops out there to, to try to come up to some sort of military solution. But I do believe it's time to have a timeout and back off and communicate with Aidid. And you can call him a warlord, and he probably is. You can call him a gangster and a terrorist, but the fact is that this is a very skilled, educated, and articulate man who is a leader of a clan, and a clan that's going to have to be in a player in any sort of solution. So the business of putting a $25,000 price on his head I don't think is going to contribute to a solution. What I think one should do at this particular point is to back off the confrontation on both sides and try to open negotiations indirectly with Aidid for some sort of political or diplomatic solution, and as leverage, he has our hostages, but we also have some of his people. In addition to that, and most importantly, we could exercise a certain amount of leverage by indicating to Aidid and his henchmen that if he's not willing to come to some sort of a negotiated solution on this, will lead to stability in the region, then what we can do is to support the other militias against him and leave the other militias to take care of Aidid.

MR. LEHRER: All right. We'll see what the President does tomorrow. Melinda Liu, gentlemen, thank you.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, organized labor and North American free trade, Jordan's King Hussein, and Roger Rosenblatt on Katherine Ann Power. FOCUS - HARD SELL

MR. MacNeil: Next, a battle on the home front for President Clinton. It's over the trade accord with Mexico. The pact is controversial, and congressional opinion is split. This morning, the President made his case to representatives from Congress who should vote on the accord this year. Earlier in the week, the President also raised the issue with another important group, one that is unified in its opposition, American labor. Correspondent Spencer Michels reports from San Francisco on the national meeting of the AFL-CIO.

MR. MICHELS: The AFL-CIO ranks among the President's staunchest supporters and his harshest critics. Most of these thousand delegates are thankful for Clinton's election, and some of them, like President Lane Kirkland, said so.

LANE KIRKLAND, President, AFL-CIO: By and large, his agenda is our agenda. And we are and will be his most reliable forces.

MR. MICHELS: Last year, as the Democratic nominee, Gov. Bill Clinton quoted organized labor despite the fact that Arkansas was regarded as hostile to unions. The AFL-CIO supported him even though labor leaders were worried that he would back the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA, as it is called, would lift trade barriers between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Unions fear competition from Mexico's low wage workforce.

SPOKESMAN: Gov. Clinton, you are now the AFL-CIO's endorsed candidate for President of the United States.

MR. MICHELS: Now, a year later, labor's fears about NAFTA have come true, forcing unions into a love-hate relationship with the Democratic President.

LANE KIRKLAND: Among the poison pills left behind by George Bush is a lethal one called NAFTA. Regrettably, the President has concluded that he has no other choice but to pursue it, and we are of a deeply held, contrary opinion.

MR. MICHELS: Labor has gone all out with a national ad campaign to kill NAFTA.

AD SPOKESMAN: But across America, people going to factories, to farms, to offices, no, NAFTA means jobs going South. Economists who've studied job loss say we'll lose up to 500,000 American jobs to NAFTA.

MR. MICHELS: Bill Clinton says that's wrong. He came to San Francisco to plead his case and to prove he's still a friend of labor.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I would never knowingly do anything to cost America jobs. I'm trying to create jobs in this country.

MR. MICHELS: Labor leaders held their anger about the trade deal in check and treated the President politely. Bill Bywater heads the 150,000 member union of electronic workers, and he wanted to stage a protest against NAFTA during the President's speech.

WILLIAM BYWATER, Union of Electronic Workers: I was prepared to have our signs at the convention. Actually we had them, but we didn't use them because Lane asked us not to, respect him and so forth.

MR. MICHELS: Within the union movement, Bywater is among the most outspoken opponents of Clinton's position on NAFTA.

WILLIAM BYWATER: Well, he so wrong, so wrong on this. What is, what is sad about it is he's so right on so many issues that we're happy with, and on this one he is just 100 percent wrong.

MR. MICHELS: Bywater says his union has already lost thousands of jobs to Mexico. Under NAFTA he expects to lose many more. That's why he's threatening an all out, political war.

MR. MICHELS: You're actually going to work against people in Congress to --

WILLIAM BYWATER: You're damn right, I am, absolutely I am. Absolutely. I've already called certain Congressmen already to their face. If they vote for the NAFTA, we're going to go out to defeat you. And those are some that we've supported in the past.

MR. MICHELS: You appear to be in a minority of the people at this convention.

WILLIAM BYWATER: That's not so. That is not so at all. I'm sure the Teamsters will join with me. I'm sure the Textile Workers will join me. I'm sure there's a lot of unions that will take the same position as I'm taking.

MR. MICHELS: Many union leaders don't go that far. They don't want to jeopardize the games they've made under the new President and his party. Since his election, President Clinton has pushed through the Family and Medical Leave Act. He lifted Ronald Reagan's ban on rehiring of air traffic controllers fired in the 1981 strike. He appointed labor leaders to government posts. He has backed a bill that outlaws hiring permanent replacements for striking workers. He has pledged to take it easier for workers to join unions, and most importantly, he has fought for a national health care program, long one of labor's goals. Lenore Miller heads the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, the first union to back Clinton.

LENORE MILLER, Union President: Clinton has given us so much of what was taken away from us during the last 12 years that it's, it's wonderful for working people. Sure, there are things we don't agree with. We may have to continue to try and educate them to the things that our workers need in that particular area.

MR. MacNeil: Both the President and labor say they would like to educate each other so sure are they of their opposing positions. Bill Clinton says labor's attack on NAFTA has more to do with his frustration over the loss of union jobs than with the actual Free Trade Agreement.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: What I really believe is that this has become the symbol of the legitimate grievances of the American working people about the way they've been worked over for the last 12 years. That's what I think. And I think those grievances are legitimate.

RICHARD TRUMKA, United Mine Workers: To some extent he's right. I mean, it is sort of a lightning rod.

MR. MICHELS: Richard Trumka is president of the United Mine Workers of America.

RICHARD TRUMKA: We've lost so many jobs, the workers have been abused so much over the last 12 years, they've said enough. It's not so symbolic that it isn't true that we will lose jobs because we will.

MR. MICHELS: The U.S. has already lost jobs to Mexico and other low age countries. At the same time, American labor unions have been shrinking. Only 11.5 percent of private sector workers belong to unions, down from a high of more than 30 percent in the '50s. And the Democratic Party, traditionally the party of labor, has reached out to labor's enemy, business. Today relations between the new Democratic administration and labor are being redefined. The Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, is central to that relationship.

ROBERT REICH, Secretary of Labor: As I travel around America, I find again and again it is unions, American unions, who are leading the way.

MR. MICHELS: But some at the AFL-CIO Convention suspect that the administration and especially Reich are not entirely sympathetic to the need for old-fashioned union organizing. Beth Shulman is vice president of the Food and Commercial Workers Union.

BETH SHULMAN, Food and Commercial Workers: When you hear Sec. Reich speak, he talks more in terms of the high-tech industries which are changing, and that's terrific. We applaud those efforts. But there are millions of Americans not in a global market in domestic markets that are falling below poverty level, and those are the concerns that we face.

MR. MICHELS: Richard Bensinger runs an organizing arm of the AFL- CIO. But he doesn't feel he's getting enough support from the Labor Secretary.

RICHARD BENSINGER, AFL-CIO Organizer: The Secretary has said the jury is out as to whether or not the workplace of the future won't have other types of voice besides unions. I think it's a bit naive and unrealistic to think that there's some other form of workplace organization that may suddenly appear, other than unions, that can really empower workers in this country.

MR. MICHELS: In San Francisco, this week, Labor Sec. Reich went out of his way to convince labor that he believes in unions.

SEC. REICH: There will be disagreements. There will be squabbles in the family, but we have to understand, we must understand that our agenda is exactly the same: More and better jobs for Americans.

MR. MICHELS: The Clinton administration made clear at this convention that it values labor's support and doesn't take it for granted. Labor, despite its clash with the administration over NAFTA, clearly needs help from Bill Clinton. While labor and the Democratic Party have both evolved, their relationship remains intact. NEWSMAKER

MR. LEHRER: Next tonight, a Newsmaker interview with King Hussein of Jordan, the latest in Charlayne Hunter-Gault's interviews with Middle East leaders following the Israeli-PLO Accord. Charlayne talked with King Hussein yesterday at his palace in Oman. She asked the king if he agreed with the assertion by Syrian President Assad in a NewsHour interview last Friday that Israel was not really serious about peace.

KING HUSSEIN: I believe that this is a moment of action, and I have a feeling that all are serious in reference to the turning point towards the future we seek and conditions of peace and security for all.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you consider right now as the biggest - - if it's non-seriousness of Israel as President Assad sees it, what do you see as the major obstacle now that has to be overcome for this process to flow smoothly and with some concrete, positive results?

KING HUSSEIN: Well, let's put it this way. As far as we are concerned with regard to the Palestinian dimension, on the one hand, and Israel on the other, we have to reorganize ourselves in terms of the mechanism that is required to deal with the very, very many problems that have to be resolved, and so it was really just preparing the plan of action for the time ahead, which has to be based for some clarity and vision and other priority.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It also has to be based, Your Majesty, on trust, and many of the conversations I've had with people here in the Middle East, even people who support the accord in a tentative, cautious kind of way, nevertheless, feel that they can't trust Israel. Even you had some reservations or unhappiness about the deal when it was first announced. What have your contacts with Israel in recent days done to shore up a feeling of trust?

KING HUSSEIN: There isn't really any worry. I know that the road is going to be very hard, a very long one, but there are fortunately a very constructive spirit and a determination to see too.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But is there anything that Israel has done or said either to you directly or to the crown prince that shores up this feeling that things are going to go and they're going to go well?

KING HUSSEIN: Nothing that has suddenly been said or not said. I believe that people on either side of the divide have a feeling that this is the chance that requires our best efforts, and obviously, the last chance, and so we're approaching it with good faith and a determination to make our contribution for the establishment of the just, doable, comprehensive peace. I hope Syria will join very, very shortly, and I'm sure that it will, as in Lebanon.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you have some evidence that it will, or some conversation from President Assad that he will give up on his reservations?

KING HUSSEIN: I suppose he's skeptical because Syria's not involved yet with this new face but at the same time I hope that within a short time I will probably meet with him, but I think that he is totally committed to the cause of a just, doable peace. Certainly, we'll be ready when the time is right for him to join, for Syria to join, in other words, as well as Lebanon.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: One of the other things that President Assad complained about when I talked to him was this deal. He says it's fatally flawed, that it's not going to work. He said because the Arabs, that the Israelis are getting everything, and the Arabs are getting nothing. In light of your own discussions and agreements in recent days with Israel, what do you think of that analysis?

KING HUSSEIN: I believe that there were many chances lost, and in the past the situations have been resolved on the outset in a better way. This is something I agree with President Assad about but who is apportioned responsibility for these lost opportunities in terms of the past? However, since 1974, we have been consistent in suggesting that only the Palestinians can talk for themselves regarding their rights and their territory with Israel, and they have taken this step. And that is really the center of the whole issue.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: If that deal doesn't work, does it take down every other potential Arab-Israeli resolution of their --

KING HUSSEIN: No. It has to work. There is no other.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you respond to those who say though that Israel has trumped the Arabs in the sense that it's, that it's frozen things at a moment now where the International Community might look at this deal and believe that the issue is solved when, in fact, such very difficult issues as the right of return of refugees from 1948, the return of refugees from '67, the status of Jerusalem. All of those most difficult of all issues has been left for somewhere down the line and by the time you get to those you will have lost the International Community's support that has helped you to get to this point.

KING HUSSEIN: I don't see how anyone can wave a magic wand and have all these problems resolved. When it tries to suggest that it is possible is I believe stretching the imagination a bit.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: On the status of Jerusalem, how do you see this being worked out, especially since both sides claim Jerusalem and each side says, well, the Israeli side says it will never give up Jerusalem and the Arab side says, we must have it back?

KING HUSSEIN: It has been a challenge to all of us throughout our history, and that is direct advice, the right of the three great monoplastic religions on the ground, in the Holy City, as God wished it, were all regards sovereignties as paramount.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But how can you work that out, given Israel's position on it? I mean, there doesn't seem to be any flexibility on it? How do you see that coming to pass, the vision that you just described?

KING HUSSEIN: I believe that the Almighty in His wisdom did not wish for Jerusalem to be that important to the followers of the three great monoplastic religions and the fight over it, but they learn to live side by side, enjoying the same rights of worship in the Holy City of Jerusalem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mentioned the burden that this whole conflict has placed on your country, some 800,000 refugees displaced when Jordan lost the West Bank, for example, in the '67 War, and you have called for compensation to Jordan for the drain that that has placed on your treasury. What, what has come of that?

KING HUSSEIN: That is the beginning of discussion, what needs to be done to address the human dimension of the problem in the region as a whole. And I hope that we see some progress but we're still at the very early stages.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: If the PLO Accord works out -- and you seem to have every confidence that it will -- after five years, during whichthere will be this transition presumably to autonomy. What do you envision created there on the West Bank and Gaza, and what relationship will that have to Jordan?

KING HUSSEIN: We are beginning from where we are right now against the background of the very close ties and relations that have always been there between Jordanians and Palestinians, and we are going to see how we move in the times ahead, but I believe that they're very attached to their identity as a people. And we'd like to see their rights on their legitimate soil, and following that, we will come closer together than has been envisioned for a long period of time.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, the vision of Prime Minister Rabin is that there will be some kind of integrated entity, Israel, the Palestinians, and Jordan? I mean, what is your vision, what kind of entity do you see?

KING HUSSEIN: Total peace, a total change in everything that, that affects people in this region, the opening of those that were closed up to this time, opening of horizons that were not visible, and the area of coming together and shaping a better future for all peoples concerned in this.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Finally, Your Majesty, it's been suggested that the entire political culture of the Middle East has been changing for some time but that it's been more rapidly accelerated by this peace accord between the PLO and the Israelis and now the outline that's come between you and the Israelis. How do you see these changes affecting the kingdom and the future of the political culture of the region?

KING HUSSEIN: I think that Jordan is pivotal to the future of this area, and what Jordan is trying to do within itself is to be an example to others through democracy, pluralism, respect for human rights. Jordan has always been committed to the cause of a just, comprehensive peace in this area, a Palestinian-Israeli peace to begin with. And I think that it's a very exciting moment in terms of the future. Of course, there are many dangers. The road is going to be a long one, a difficult one at times, but our hopes are great that we'll see it through, and we will give future generations a legacy of peace.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Your Majesty, thank you.

KING HUSSEIN: Thank you so much. ESSAY - LIFE ON THE RUN

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, a Roger Rosenblatt essay about Katherine Ann Power, a '60s radical sentenced today to an eight to twelve year jail term and twenty years of probation.

SPOKESPERSON: Katherine A. Power, otherwise known as Kathy Power, did assault and beat one Walter A. Schroeder with intent to murder him.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: When Katherine Ann Power surrendered after 23 years of hiding underground, the anti-war revolutionary brought back a world one scarcely can believe existed.

SPOKESPERSON: How do you plead to this indictment?

KATHERINE POWER: Guilty.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Power pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter and armed robbery in connection with a bank robbery in which a guard was shot to death. She drove the getaway car. Hers was a crime similar to many of that era, bombings, robberies, some killings, all committed in the name of opposing racism or the Vietnam War or some other higher purpose, by middle class whites and disaffected blacks, the purpose being to strike out at the United States, which they regarded as the enemy. Some people, like the bank guard, got in the way and lost their lives. The students ran and hid, leaving the country in the steady state of shock that characterized the era. There were more than enough shocks to go around in that decade which extended from the mid 1960's to the end of the Vietnam War. The decade started off with three mad killers, the Boston Strangler; Richard Speck, who murdered eight student nurses in Chicago; Charles Whitman, who killed sixteen people from his sniper's perch in the University of Texas Tower; a murderous trinity that set the tone for shock to follow. Race riots in Detroit, Washington, LA, the Black Panthers, the Tete Offensive, the murder of Martin Luther King, the murder of Robert Kennedy, the riots at Columbia, Harvard, Penn State, Milan, Charles Manson, the Chicago Democratic Convention, quite a time. Living through that era was like taking a ride in the tunnel of horrors, monsters flying at you from hidden places as you rode. It was nerve racking. One's eyes never great accustomed to the dark. If there was something especially shocking about the crimes of the kids, those furious, frustrated kids with their values turned on their heads, tossing bombs, blowing themselves up with bombs, lobbing and shooting, they were committed, the virtuous word of the times. In an age managed by hypocrites, they would show the world what real commitment meant. It meant ruining their lives and the lives of others. It meant entering the dark night of the soul. It meant going to hell and taking one's friends and parents along, and the rest of the country too standing by as parents and friends and picking up the morning papers and reading of the girl next door, that Power girl, who had made the FBI top ten and was about to be hunted like a dog for the rest of her life. Tens of thousands of people in their mid 40s today look at Power and see themselves back then. They didn't go as far as Power. They didn't go over the edge, but they knew where the passion-driven mind might take them, were there no governor, no moderating device to save their skins. They knew something of how Power felt. The old pictures of the college riots reappear. The old noise of the demonstration returns at high volume before they say good-bye to their families, pick up their briefcases, and head for work in a quieter time. Will one ever know what that was all about? The war, they say, but as Marian Moore put it in a poem, "There never was a war that was not inward." For 10 years or so a whole country writhed like a tormented mental patient beset by visions of crooks and liars in government, madmen on the loose, and criminals among one's children. It spun and screamed and tore its clothing until the wildness finally wore down. And then it was over. One buried one's thoughts, pains, regrets. In some instances, one buried ones hopes. And until something like the re-emergence of Katherine Ann Power occurs, no one wants to dig them up. All the truth of that time has remained underground and will not surface. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again the major story of this Wednesday, Clinton administration officials said the President is considering ordering 2,000 more troops to Somalia that would set a date for U.S. withdrawal. The news came in with mounting congressional criticism of the U.S. role in that East African nation. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.