The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, the U.S. State Department said all major Iraqi cities and towns were again controlled by the government. Iran appealed for international aid to help refugees fleeing that fighting, and Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania died in a plane crash. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary we get the latest reading on the growing Kurdish refugee problem and we examine why it has taken so long for the world to react. Next, we have a News Maker interview with Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, then we conclude our series on U.S.-Japanese relations, and end with reactions from Prime Minister Kaifu.NEWS SUMMARY

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Iraq today it had eliminated all pockets of rebel resistance in the country. The U.S. State Department said Iraqi forces held all major cities and towns. Iraqi Television showed Saddam Hussein meeting with commanders of his armed forced at an undisclosed location. The government said it granted amnesty to army deserters in Northern Iraq. Meanwhile, up to a million Kurdish refugees continued to mass at Iraq's border with Turkey. Many more were reported on the way but the border remained closed because Turkey said it couldn't cope with the influx. Those who made it into Turkey before the border closing were fed and clothed by relief officials. Refugees also continued to flee South to Kuwait. We have a report from Kuwait by Simon Cole of Independent Television News.

MR. COLE: The world is appalled by what has happened in Northern Iraq. It may soon be shocked at events in the South, those words from an Iraqi refugee who's fled from Saddam to this camp on the border with Kuwait. The refugees still flop here through this Middle Eastern Checkpoint Charlie 10 miles inside Iraq. Their plight evokes American sympathy.

SPOKESMAN: No one likes to see the refugees and some of the children, it really gets to your heart, especially if you have children, to see young children that are hungry.

MR. COLE: These American soldiers may soon be replaced by a United nations force and today UN officials promised help for the refugees without being specific. This new camp of blue tents is strictly for Iraqi refugees. It's in Iraq, itself, and they say it's too close to home.

SPOKESMAN: We are homeless, we are stateless, and we don't know what to do.

MR. LEHRER: Iran appealed for international aid today. The official Islamic republic news agency said 1 1/2 million Kurds were headed into Iran. Several nations made new commitments to aid the refugees today. French officials were preparing to airlift 80 tons of food and medicine directly to Iran and Turkey. In London, British Prime Minister John Major promised $35 million in emergency relief. Britain will begin flying tents and blankets to the area tomorrow. In Washington, State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher talked about how the United States was helping.

MR. BOUCHER: The international organizations involved have established appeals at certain levels for the amounts of money that they think are necessary based on their extensive experience which we also have in dealing with refugee populations and setting up camps and taking care of people. We have contributed to those appeals. Other governments have contributed generously to those appeals. The President said yesterday that we will continue to extend economic help and we'll call on others to do so.

MR. LEHRER: The United States has contributed $7.6 million to the relief effort so far. We'll have more on the story after the News Summary. Iraq has made no official comment on yesterday's United Nations resolution spelling out terms for a formal cease-fire. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Colin Powell said U.S. troops will remain in Iraq until it complies with the cease-fire terms. He said it would take about a month for the troops to pull out.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Pres. Bush met with Japan's prime minister, Toshiki Kaifu, in Newport Beach, California this afternoon. Topping the agenda were trade problems and the Persian Gulf. We will have a News Maker interview with Prime Minister Kaifu later in the program.

MR. LEHRER: U.S. Sen. John Heinz died today. The 52 year old Pennsylvania Republican was killed when a small plane collided with a helicopter outside Philadelphia. Sen. Heinz was a passenger in the plane. The wreckage fell onto an elementary school playground. A spokesman for Heinz said the helicopter was sent from the Philadelphia airport to check on the plane after the pilot reported a problem with the landing gear. All five people aboard the plane and helicopter died, as did two children on the ground. Heinz had served in the United States Senate since 1976. He was heir to the H.J. Heinz food fortune. The Los Angeles Police Commission today put Police Chief Daryl Gates on a 60 day paid leave of absence. It is designed to last until the completion of an investigation into the beating of a black man by a group of white police officers. That beating was videotaped. It led the call for Gates' resignation, most recently from Mayor Tom Bradley. Gates has refused to resign and he said today he would also fight the forced leave of absence.

CHIEF GATES: I feel I have been disgraced, defamed, and I think it is a tragedy. It will not heal the wounds of this city. The only thing I can tell you positively is the members of the Los Angeles Police Department will go forward professionally, they will conduct themselves professionally. There will be no slowdowns. There will be no strikes. There will be nothing of that sort. Even though they support me, they will do their job, because they serve the people of this city.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Labor Secretary Lynn Martin today announced she is proposing that 500 coal mining companies be fined a record $5 million. The companies allegedly tampered with dust samples used to gauge miners' risks of black lung disease. The 20 month investigation by the Labor Department uncovered tampering at nearly half of the nation's 2,000 coal mines. Martin announced the findings at a Washington news conference.

SEC. MARTIN: I'm appalled at the flagrant disregard for law designed to protect coal miners against disabling lung disease. Altering test results could place lives in jeopardy. We must take strong enforcement action, both punitive and preventative. I am equally disturbed by the broader implication of widespread tampering in a program designed to protect workers from a serious risk to their health. This disregard for workers' health protection is not what American industry is supposed to be about.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The president of the National Coal Association called for an independent investigation into the allegations. He said the industry wanted to solve any problems that may exist as quickly as possible. The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims jumped to its highest level in eight years last month. The bleak report from the Labor Department today showed jobless claims topping 1/2 million for the third straight month. Meanwhile, a private study said a smaller percentage of jobless Americans received benefits in 1990 than during any other recession year since World War II. The union-backed study said only 37 percent of jobless Americans collected benefits last year, compared with 75 percent during the recession of 1975.

MR. LEHRER: The congress of the Russian Republic voted new powers today for Pres. Boris Yeltsin. They could make it easier for Yeltsin to push through reforms over the objections of the central government of the Soviet Union and its president, Mikhail Gorbachev. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Iraqi refugee situation, Part 4 of our series on Japan, and an interview with the prime minister of Japan. FOCUS - FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

MR. LEHRER: The tragedy of the Kurds in Iraq is our lead story again tonight. We begin with a report on the situation at the Turkish border narrated by Louise Bates of World Wide Television News.

MS. BATES: Around a quarter of a million Kurdish refugees are now camped in and around Turkey. The Turks have closed the frontier because they say they simply don't have the money to cope with so many people. In this camp in non mans land between Turkey and Iraq they sit waiting, starving and cold. OccasionallyTurkish soldiers fire shots in the air to scare those who might try to cross the border illegally. But even an outside chance of getting inside Turkey is better than anything they left behind. The Iraqi Government has tried to stem the tide of humanity by claiming most of them have nothing to fear if they return. But these people will need more convincing. It is estimated that throughout Iraq 2 to 3 million people are fleeing and conditions in the camps are desperate. Turkey has accepted about 27,000 refugees. Some of who are the refugee camp just across the border. These people are the lucky ones, well looked after. They have food, clothes and medical supplies but Turkey desperately needs outside help. In the Turkish border town of Inudaia Western aid has started to arrive. Truck loads of food and clothing and medical supplies. But for those still in Iraq such aid seems far away.

MR. LEHRER: We get an over view of the Iraqi refugee situation now from Lionel Rosenblatt a former U.S. Foreign Service Officer and State Department Refugee expert who now heads Refugees International, a refugee advocacy organization headquartered in Washington. Mr. Rosenblatt what words would you use to describe the general situation now?

MR. ROSENBLATT: I would say now this is the worst refugee crisis in modern times. At least since World War II for two reasons Jim. First of all the number of people effected is already well over a million and we have a potential with four million Kurds in Iraq for the rest of them to soon become refugees. Secondly they are in some of the most inhospitable terrain that you could imagine. 9000 foot passes hung up on the Turkish border with no refugee being granted and subject to force by the Iraqi military. That is a dreadful combination.

MR. LEHRER: And they have no place to go at this point?

MR. ROSENBLATT: At the moment they have no place to go. In the Turkish sector it is clear that the Government of Turkey has not allowed temporary refuge or temporary asylum as it is called in the trade to these people. There are few people inside Turkey perhaps 20,000. Our estimates are that there are up to 300,000 people today in these mountain passes with more behind them.

MR. LEHRER: On the mountain passes on the border wanting to go into Turkey?

MR. ROSENBLATT: Wanting to go in to Turkey and being unable to do so at the moment. And in fairness to the Turkish Government we ought to point out that the resources for these people have not been put in place by the International community and we need to do that very very quickly through a much augmented United Nations effort. But we feel that it is so urgent to have these people allowed to enter now that nothing should delay a decision to have that temporary refuge granted and we would urge President Bush to take a personal hand in making sure that happens.

MR. LEHRER: If that does not happen what happens?

MR. ROSENBLATT: If that does not happen we will see the deaths which are presently already by the score.

MR. LEHRER: Is there a good handle on the figure for that?

MR. ROSENBLATT: There is no good handle because access is so limited but we understand from eye witnesses that already we have some deaths among the very young and the old and certainly as the cold continues to be a factor. Some of these people are bare foot in the snow. The exposure factor in particular is going to cut down people on a wholesale basis. We are going to see massive loss of life unless Turkey opens up its doors and Iran does the same. We can not confirm whether the Iranian Government has actually opened its doors to the Kurds. It has said it has done so but we can not confirm that.

MR. LEHRER: Iran has opened its borders to the Shiite have they not?

MR. ROSENBLATT: Correct. And the question is in the Northern sector is the door open, what degree of assistance and access is being permitted by the international organizations and what is the conditions of those people. There is said to be a million in that sector of the border. A million Kurdish refugees is seeking entry in to Iran.

MR. LEHRER: Are these people being shot at while they are waiting? Are they under attack from the Iraqi Army or is it strictly a physical situation lack of food, bad weather and all those factors?

MR. ROSENBLATT: Well we don't know for sure. The present situation seems to be mostly a physical situation. There is very harsh terrain. The threat of force by the forces of Saddam Hussein is there and the very first thing that we ought to emphasize is that ought to cease. The slaughter of civilians by Iraqi military units must stop. We ought to be looking at all ways to prevent that. Particularly tieing it in to sanctions that are now being adjusted by the UN. Tying in the way that the International community treats Iraq and may be reexamining the ban which we thought we had in place on the use of helicopter and fixed wing aircraft. But that is the first thing that has to be said. It is the threat of force by Iraqi units that have already indiscriminately fired on civilians that is causing this flow.

MR. LEHRER: Now you are personally going to Turkey later tonight?

MR. ROSENBLATT: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Now what is the purpose of that trip?

MR. ROSENBLATT: To assess conditions directly on the Turkish frontier. To try to answer more precisely some of the questions that you are posing. And to really stress that the UN system has got to play a role now because hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake. We don't see the kind of coordinated leadership from the UN, from the Secretary General that we think is needed at this moment.

MR. LEHRER: You have been in the refugee business for a long time, Mr. Rosenblatt, what is missing from this effort. Why is that international coordination and leadership not there this time?

MR. ROSENBLATT: I wish I could answer that precisely. I think there are some clues. Firstly it doesn't have the same kind of command emphasis by the various coalition heads of state that the military and diplomatic agenda during Desert Storm had. This actually threatens to consume more lives than any single event during the pre war run up and the use of force in the Gulf and yet is not receiving that kind of command emphasis. There is no US coordinator to being the various agencies together. That should have been done yesterday. That needs to be done now. We have to have an over all coordinator to adjust our policy and to assist the UN to provide what it can. As we saw in Desert Storm U.S. leadership was the essential glue that is missing in the humanitarian effort and it must change and I think that means Presidential leadership.

MR. LEHRER: What about the United Nations they are in the refugee business in a major way in the rest of the World?

MR. ROSENBLATT: Well I think that this new World order we are talking about still requires a major donor. In this case the U.S. is the logical country to assume the kind of leadership to meet an extraordinary contingency such as this. I can not stress enough that is totally over whelming the capacity of any UN agency. The numbers we are talking about being generated so quickly even exceed the number of Cambodians who came to the Tai border in 1979. That was a more slow occurrence. This is unparallel and requires effective leadership at the head of the State level and from the Secretary General. Astonishingly this is another factor,w e don't have a UN coordinator for this effort. The previous coordinator resigned a couple weeks ago and no new individual has been put in place. So you have the various UN agencies overwhelmed working in uncoordinated fashion to meet this threat.

MR. LEHRER: As an expert in this field do you think that this is going to come together though? Is this just an unfortunate calm before a storm of activity and reaction?

MR. ROSENBLATT: With U.S. leadership at the Presidential level it can still come together. Without that we are going to flounder and hundreds of thousands are going to perish.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Rosenblatt thank you and have a good trip to Turkey.

MR. ROSENBLATT: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Now to five of our newspaper editor regulars for some reaction to this Kurd situation. They are Gerald Warren of the San Diego Union. Lee Cullum of the Dallas Times Herald, Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution, Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune who joins us tonight from Cleveland, and Erwin Knoll of the Progressive Magazine in Madison, Wisconsin. Clarence Page the Philadelphia Enquirer said today in an editorial " President Bush will go down in history as an accessory to the butchering of the Kurds" Do you agree with that?

MR. PAGE: Jim I personally agree. I think, I notice Lionel Rosenblatt made a reference to Cambodia in 1979. That is the last time that I have seen a situation like this and sadly enough I don't think that most American people care. I think this is an argument that has been pretty much confined to the editorial pages and op ed pages. We pundents and opinion makers have been arguing it but I think most Americans that I have seen in Chicago and here in Cleveland are so happy to have our troops coming home. I came in last night to Cleveland Airport behind some Desert Storm Troops arriving amid great celebration. There is not any more desire to get back in to the civil disorders of Iraq than there was to get in to Cambodia after we pulled out of Vietnam.

MR. LEHRER: Jerry Warren what does it look like in San Diego? The Americans of San Diego upset at what is happening to the Kurds?

MR. WARREN:Those care enough to write to us show some great concern for the refugees in Iraq but that isn't a large number Jim. People tend to turn inward and look at the problems closer to home when there isn't a dominating international conflict and this hasn't been seen as that type of a conflict. And I have seen no expression here that the President should do anything to re-enter this conflict.

MR. LEHRER: How do you feel about it Jerry?

MR. WARREN: I agree. I think that it is heart wrenching and I learned something about the refugee situation from your interview and I would hope that President Bush and the Administration would take a leading role in helping these refugees. I think that is proper and I would hope that the other coalition leaders would do the same. But I do not thing that after the extensive UN debate and the rather limited UN mandate and the extensive Congressional debate which was limited to getting Saddam Hussein out of Iraq. I do not think that George Bush has any right to go back in to Iraq now and settle the matter.

MR. LEHRER: Cynthia Tucker in Atlanta as Clarence Page said there has been an argument on the editorial pages and the op ed pages of the newspapers and that argument centers around the fact or the alligation that the UNited States has a moral obligation, a moral responsibility to help the Kurds because we are urged, we through the President of the United States urged them to rebel against Saddam Hussein. They did it and then we didn't help them and now they are being slaughtered. How do you feel about that argument?

MS. TUCKER: Well I think that it is absolutely true that President Bush bears some responsibility for this because in fact he did urge Iraqi civilians to rise up against Saddam Hussein and he knew very well that that would be taken very seriously by the Kurdish minority who had been hostile to Saddam Hussein's Government for a long time and Saddam Hussein's Government has been very hostile to them. Unfortunately I don't think that we ought to be deeply involved in the internal affairs of Iraq. We can't take care of all of their problems but I feel very strongly that President Bush should have thought about that when he was urging Iraqi civilians to in effect topple Saddam Hussein. What was he thinking when he said that. What did think would happen. And now that the Kurds in such a tragic plight I think that President Bush has the responsibility to at least, as Mr. Rosenblatt said to urge the United Nations to get very deeply involved in taking care of them. Making sure that they are taken care of.

MR. LEHRER: Lee Cullum how do you read the U.S. responsibility in this affair?

MS. CULLUM: Jim, I think, the UNited States certainly has a responsibility to respond with aid. We have to help these refugees. We have to help them in Iran if Iran is willing to receive them and I think that we have to do everything that we can to insist that Turkey and Iran receive them and care for them. As far as military intervention at this point I think that it is too late. The only way that military intervention could have helped it seems to me would have been to press for unconditional surrender. I don't think that our allies were prepared to go with that. So this tragic aftermath was almost inevitable and it is a ghastly tragedy.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree Irwin Knoll that something like this was inevitable?

MR. KNOLL: Well I wonder why it wasn't anticipated. I think once again we have to take stock of how our Government behaves when it rushes in to these interventions without thinking about the consequences or if it does think about them without giving a damn about the consequences. We are witnessing as everyone has observed a terribly tragedy but surely not one that should have come as a great surprise. So the only conclusion is that all of the rethoric that was used to justify this war. All of the concern about democracy, about humane goals, about restoring human rights was just nonsense. That is not what the Government of the United States had in mind at all because if it had that in mind it would, have thought about the consequences of its actions and done something to prepare for it.

MR. LEHRER: Clarence Page do you agree with Irwin Knoll's very strong words?

MR. PAGE: You know on those show earlier several weeks ago, Jim, we were talking about the lack of an end game to operation Desert Storm not knowing how it was going to end. Well I am afraid that it has ended the way that we had feared in chaos. And I think the Bush Administration has to bear some responsibility for that.

MR. LEHRER: But Jerry Warren the President asked about this yesterday said wait a minute let's keep in mind as Lionel Rosenblatt also said here, that it is Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Government who are doing the killing and all of that. Is that a point that needs to be made and not being made very well?

MR. WARREN: Well I think that is a point that has to be made. I think that the World is finding out just how evil Saddam Hussein is. But it doesn't detract from the moral dilemma that is being reflected on in this conversation in that the United States finds itself in. Once you set the limits of the United States intervention in another country's affairs. In this case the limits seem to be to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, period. Then let a cease fire take effect and then let the countries in the region determine a regional security. That all sounded very good when it was debated in Congress but now the people who were opposed to us going in there in the first place are screaming for the President to go back in and settle Iraq's internal affairs and I just don't think that is proper.

MR. LEHRER: Lee how do you explain, if that is the word, the lack of American public outrage over this. I assume that you agree with Clarence Page that most of the argument is going on in the op ed pages and the editorial pages rather than in the streets.

MS. CULLUM: Jim you are absolutely right. It is an insiders quarrel it seems to me. I think that the American people are accustomed to primitive turmoil in the Middle East. I think that they see resumption of life as it always has been in that tragic land. I use the word tragedy again. And I think that Americans have come to accept it. may be that is a callous attitude but it is the attitude.

MR. LEHRER: Cynthia do you agree that is the attitude in Atlanta as well?

MS. TUCKER: I think that is the attitude here. I think that the American public has a very short attention span. I also think however the responsibility for the American reaction goes back again to the White House and President Bush. I am not sure how outraged the vast majority of Americans would have been about Iraq's rape and pillage of Kuwait if President Bush and his Administration had not called attention to it. I think that was absolutely the right thing for the Administration to do but the American public became concerned because we were convinced to be concerned by the President. Once he declared the war over and Kuwait liberated Americans began to pay attention again to the concerns at home. Let me disagree for a moment though with something Gerald Warren said earlier. He said that the very folks that opposed the use of force in the first place in Congress are now arguing that the President ought to take a stronger reaction to the Iraqi Army's brutalization of Kurdish civilians. I think we ought to look back and remember that those very folk who were skeptical of the President's policy were telling us in the beginning that this is exactly what would happen. As Irwin Knoll said earlier we should not be surprised by that. Sam Nunn and others said that if we destroy much of Saddam Hussein's Army we will have chaos. The Kurds will rise up as President Bush encouraged them to do. The Shiite will go in to revolt and we'll have a grand mess on our hands. That is not to say we should not have gone in militarily but it surprises me that President Bush did not have a policy to cope with this.

MR. LEHRER: Jerry Warren.

MR. WARREN: Well I think that was eloquently put. The policy was set by the UNited Nations and by the Congress of the United States representing Atlanta as well as San Diego. That policy was to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and not to meddle in the internal affairs of Iraq. That's what was done.

MR. LEHRER: Irwin Knoll what about Cynthia Tuckers other point that the average American in Madison, Wisconsin and all the other cities that you represent really didn't know very much about the Kuwaitis or care very much about the Kuwaitis until they were led to care about the Kuwaitis and that has not happened as far as the Kurds are concerned. Do you share that?

MR. KNOLL: I share that and more than that because, Jim, for seven months now Americans have been told that Iraqi lives don't matter. Don't matter at all. That it was a complete victory because we only had a 150 or 200 American casualties and it is easily worth a couple of hundred thousand Iraqi lives to have only 200 American casualties. So we've been told that the value of Iraqi lives is one one thousand of American lives and now we suddenly we express surprise that Americans don't give a damn at this terrible tragedy. That is what our Government has been saying. That is what our mass media have been saying that these lives don't count at all. It has been a scandalous performance by the Administration and by the media.

MR. LEHRER: A scandalous performance Lee Cullum?

MS. CULLUM: No I don't agree with that at all Jim and I think that we do have to keep in mind that what is morally correct and what is legally correct are not always the same thing. That is a terrible agonizing dilemma in which to be but that is the dilemma in which we find ourselves. Legally now I do not believe that we can now intervien in the affairs of Iraq. I don't think that we have the authority under the United Nations mandate. I don't think that we have the authority under international law. They must be allowed to work this matter out themselves. I think that we do have a moral obligation to help the Kurds with aid and whatever way we can.

MR. LEHRER: Alright Lee. Cynthia, gentlemen thank you. NEWS MAKER

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We turn now to a News Maker interview with Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu. As we reported, he met with Pres. Bush today. One of the outstanding issues involves a $400 million shortfall that the U.S. wants Japan to pay to fulfill its $11 billion pledge to the war effort. Prime Minister Kaifu told the NewsHour that the shortfall resulted from currency fluctuations and that it wouldn't be possible to add to what was already paid. We spoke with him yesterday in California. Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for joining us. You requested, as I understand, this meeting with the President. There is the widespread feeling in this country that there's a problem there between you and, if not the Bush administration, the American people about the role that Japan played in the war, and many people in this country believe that Japan really got away without contributing its fair share to the coalition forces. Is that something that is on the table?

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: [Speaking through Interpreter] I had made clear politically from the very beginning that we are in solidarity with the anti-Iraq coalition and that we would fully support U.S. leadership. At the same time, Japan has its own philosophy built on the self-scrutiny, the lessons that we learned from our past, and that is that we had to take into consideration with regard to direct participation in the coalition force, so we decided to in the first place to provide as much as -- provide a maximum possible financial operation to the coalition efforts -- and I, therefore, have asked the Japanese people to accept a tax increase to support this international cause.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are you stunned thenby the criticism that Japan acted in a stingy wy?

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: [Speaking through Interpreter] As regards the specific amount, we believe that in view of Japan's position in the international community and the various circumstances prevailing that the amount we provided would be the appropriate amount for the government to ask the Japanese people to accept and cooperate with. I'm also aware that some of the discontent was rooted in the fact that Japan was able to provide only financial cooperation without any cooperation in terms of sending people. On this score, I would like to say that we are consulting with the certain parties in the Japanese parliament and studying the matter as to what kind of human contributions Japan will be able to make in a new international community. Speaking in terms of what Japan can do within the existing frame work, we can send and, in fact, we have already sent survey missions to the Gulf region to study the various aspects related to crude oil recovery, also atmospheric pollution that is being caused by the burning oil wells.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Let me just turn briefly to a couple of economic issues. When we talked last year, it was in July at the Houston summit, you were very hopeful about resolving some of the economic problems and trade problems between the United States and Japan, and yet, today there is considerable friction still over many, many trade issues despite all the positive things you recited. Who's at fault?

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: [Speaking through Interpreter] The Japanese trade imbalance with the United States has been declining and this trend will continue. On the Japanese side we are keeping up our efforts to achieve domestic demand led economic growth.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Politically, are you strong enough, do you feel, to take some of the bold steps that the United States wants you to take, for example, like removing all trade barriers in agriculture, and more specifically opening up the rice market?

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: [Speaking through Interpreter] As for the rice issue, of course, our basic position is that the Uruguayan negotiations must conclude successfully, so we will work to have the rice issue taken up in the course of the Uruguayan negotiations, together with the other difficult issues for the United States and the European community. Japan is the largest agricultural importer for the United States as well. And Japan is the largest net importer in the world, but is the largest importer for U.S. agriculture products as well, buying $8.2 billion, amounting to 20 percent of U.S. agriculture exports. And this year we've also liberalized beet and citrus imports. And I think it is incumbent upon everyone to make efforts and mutually try to make concessions.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We also spoke with Prime Minister Kaifu about cultural differences between Japan and the United States. We'll have his reaction after Part 4 of our Japan series. Tonight Business Correspondent Paul Solman looks at what may lie ahead for this uneasy alliance. SERIES - CULTURE CLASH

MR. SOLMAN: We're at Catch A Rising Star, a New York City comedy club, to watch a Japanese comedian milk the U.S.-Japan relationship for laughs. [TOMAYO OTSUKI PERFORMING]

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: Well, you know the old saw the most serious stuff is often said in jest. Tonight we stray beyond the bounds of business to watch people from both cultures trying to make the U.S.-Japan relationship work. Since Tomayo Otsuki is a professional observer of the culture clash, it's not only fun to listen toher, it's instructive. [TOMAYO OTSUKI PERFORMING]

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: The point is Americans are no longer simply charmed by the exotic Japanese, and the road to a more equal relationship makes some of us nervous. Otsuki senses the discomfort and has modified her routine accordingly.

TOMAYO OTSUKI: Ny humor had to change because at the beginning the little tiny country you Americans thought, we kick the butt, just seen a few years ago, and the tiny guys with glasses, funny looking, start making car and doing good, it's funny, no -- oh, Japanese got both buildings. American people laugh but wait a minute, they're not funny anymore -- they're buying our country!

MR. SOLMAN: So this is now Rockefeller Center?

MS. OTSUKI: Oh, my God, yes! Mr. Mitsubishi bought this, but do you know what he had to go through to buy this place?

MR. SOLMAN: No.

MS. OTSUKI: Tell two bedroom apartment in Ginda.

MR. SOLMAN: With inflated real estate prices in Tokyo, New York now looks cheap by comparison and so Japanese are buying. For all the hype, however, Japanese still own a tiny portion of our country. But for people we thought of as small and distant only a few years ago, the ever larger Japanese presence suggests they've caught up and are now a threat.

DR. STEVEN FOCHIOS, Psychiatrist: They have not caught up. The only thing they've caught up with us is in money essentially. Because they make better television sets and better cars, better electronic equipment doesn't mean they've caught up to us. After all, they buy a Van Gogh because we consider the Van Gogh to be very valuable. Japanese don't know from Van Gogh except in terms of how the rest of the world sees Van Gogh.

MR. SOLMAN: Dr. Steven Fochios calls himself a cultural translator. A psychiatrist by profession, Fochios works extensively with inter-racial couples, usually an American man married to a Japanese woman. Fochios thinks there is something to learn about the culture clash by watching it up close in person.

DR. FOCHIOS: [Talking to Couple] Why are you here seeing me?

STEVE: We're having difficulties because of a lot of things, language. I don't think like a Japanese man. I don't have the same drive, the same desire, and I think that causes problems for her dealing with me.

MR. SOLMAN: In this session, Steve and Yoko, married for only six months, are struggling with problems that most marriages face, but in their relationship you can see hints of the larger cultural struggle. The balance of power and energy seems to be shifting. Americans are no longer in the driver seat and Japanese are conflicted about setting the pace.

DR. FOCHIOS: So on the one hand, you like the power and you like the control and you like the decision making. On the other hand, you complain that he's not strong enough. What about that?

YOKO: I don't think I'm powerful or just like to be in the position at all, but I happen to be in that position for now, but I'm expecting him to take the position in the future, but if nobody's driving the car, where is this car going to go? Until certain point, somebody has to take care of that and right now I am --

DR. FOCHIOS: So, in other words, you are going to drive that car until he takes the wheel away from you?

YOKO: Yeah. And I hope he's going to drive the bigger wheel.

DR. FOCHIOS: So you're looking for someone that you can depend on to take care of you?

YOKO: Sure, 100 percent. That's my ideal position.

DR. FOCHIOS: What do you do about it?

YOKO: But should be stronger than me, a lot stronger, that's the basic condition.

MR. SOLMAN: Now we don't mean to draw sweeping conclusions from one isolated counseling session. It's just that this session is a useful illustration of some very basic trends. It's also a useful metaphor because in a sense, the U.S. and Japan are married, both economically and politically. For better or worse, each side is going to have to adapt to the other in order to make the relationship work.

DR. FOCHIOS: In Japanese, there's a word for anger that they call the anger insect, and the Japanese believe that that anger insect is inside everybody, but it's something that needs to be controlled and contained and encapsulated and placed someplace inside the chest, and that's part of your endurance philosophy in being Japanese, because to express that would be destructive to the family, destructive to the group, whereas, of course, in America, to be a mentally healthy person, when you're angry, the psychiatrist says you have to express it, tell her how you feel, tell her what's bothering you, be open about it.

MR. SOLMAN: So traditional American values may have to change and so may traditional Japanese values. [

MS. OTSUKI PERFORMING]

MR. SOLMAN: In other words, real changes take time. Meanwhile, in the short run, our real differences become more and more striking.

DR. FOCHIOS: We as Americans like to touch, we like the arms around, we like the handshake, we like the slap on the back. They don't like that at all. They see that as a tremendous infringement of their space integrity around them, so that we as Americans can learn that we don't need to constantly feed our own need to be liked, that it's okay if someone keeps a distance, it's okay if someone doesn't shake hands, it's okay if someone doesn't want to touch, it's okay.

MR. SOLMAN: These men are learning what's okay and what's not in the political arena. Clyde Prestowitz was for years one of America's top trade negotiators. Taizo Watanabe is a prominent Japanese diplomat.

CLYDE PRESTOWITZ, Former U.S. Trade Negotiator: One of the weaknesses I think of many American negotiators is that they do want to be liked and there's a tendency for some American negotiators to separate themselves from their own team, and to approach the Japanese on the basis of "I really understand you", and my team is maybe asking too much, but I am the one you can deal with, and the Japanese just love that because then they know they can drive a wedge down the middle of the American side and they've won the negotiation.

TAIZO WATANABE, Japanese Foreign Ministry Spokesman: We sometimes try to find that kind of person not really intending to put the wedge between the members of the American delegation, but like to do Japanese way, that is, formal -- negotiating table is one thing, but it is also important to have kind of confirmation of the basic understanding of what this meeting is intended to be. That kind of process of confirmation does not necessarily take the formal but social sort of occasions, and we would like to sort of have dinner together and drinking together, especially in Japan, and just try to establish fundamental base of communication.

MR. SOLMAN: The differences they're describing are not just stylistic. Watanabe and Prestowitz are dealing with issues of real power. Understanding the other's culture is an important first step, but as they really get to know each other, they may well find that their relationship gets worse before it gets better.

MR. WATANABE: Because of the scope of the items we have to deal with, getting more complicated, it's almost like now we are trying to put our hands into other's pockets and trying to identify. This is what they should not have or they should take it out, or something of that sort. So naturally it will touch upon the nerve of the many subtle, domestic political interest of people, so it is getting more difficult, but I think we've got to settle that.

MR. PRESTOWITZ: Actually we agree with that. The U.S. is, in effect, asking Japan to change the nature of its society, and Japan is responding in the same way. Neither side has sufficient understanding of the other side to really make that request. It is becoming enormously more difficult and because of that I personally fear that the frictions are not going to go away but may become more intense.

MR. SOLMAN: Clyde Prestowitz is describing what often happens in real relationships. First, you romanticize each other through courtship, marriage, the honeymoon. Then you begin to see some warts. Next, there's the familiarity breeds contempt phase followed soon after by anger at the other person for refusing to accommodate your perfectly reasonable needs. Pardon the cliche, but in the U.S.-Japan relationship, the honeymoon's over and to Business School Prof. Mike Yoshino, the relationship, not surprisingly, is getting worse.

MICHAEL YOSHINO, Harvard Business School: Indeed, I think there's a danger of the more we get to know each other the more faults, the weaknesses, the vulnerabilities we find in each other. And as you have to work with a person every day, day in and day out, you begin to from time to time, obviously, tensions, disagreements and conflicts of interest develop.

MR. SOLMAN: And that's what it's usually like when people are stuck with each other, newly married, so to speak, in much the same way Steve and Yoko are.

DR. FOCHIOS: Have you yet had difficult discussions between yourselves about forming an "us" or forming a "we"?

YOKO: Yeah, two times.

DR. FOCHIOS: Because right now you talk as if that's not operating when you talk about what you're going to do about the - -

STEVE: She's very willing to refer to her business association as a partnership, but it seems sometimes she's very unwilling to refer to us as partners. And that bothers me. So in that respect - -

YOKO: When you're talking about money and those things, I don't want to get involved in this idea of "us". I'm myself. You are yourself.

STEVE: But we're not.

YOKO: Yourself plus myself could be "us", but there's nothing like "us".

DR. FOCHIOS: Are you saying that there's nothing like "us" ever, or yet, or --

YOKO: Yet.

DR. FOCHIOS: Yet.

YOKO: I believe there is something like that but not yet definitely. I think it takes time. It's not going to happen one day or just six months. I think that's kind of an ideal situation, husband and wife, but --

DR. FOCHIOS: What? The "us"?

YOKO: Yes as a unit, but not yet.

MR. SOLMAN: Not yet, but one day perhaps. It won't be easy, of course. The frictions between us after the Gulf War are greater than ever, but to be perfectly honest, we can't really afford not to make the relationship work.

DR. FOCHIOS: I think the Japanese would make a terrific marital partner to our country and together they would be a very strong unit, because they bring such different strengths to the relationship. And we are having a relationship, and we are getting very deeply married, it seems, so I think rather than talk in terms of who won, I think we need to focus on how we can get married, and in that soft area of conflict resolution between marriages, that's the point that we should all be working towards in order to make the marriage work.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: During our interview with Prime Minister Kaifu, we asked him to respond to some of the cultural issues raised in the Japan series. NEWS MAKER

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I'd like to get your reaction to some of the issues that have been raised starting with the perception with some evidence to support this that the cultural gap between the United States and Japan is widening, not narrowing.

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: [Speaking through Interpreter] I have heard that there were some reports to that effect based on public opinion polls in the United States. I think after all we share the fundamental values of freedom and democracy, and I think it is necessary for us in Japan to try and reduce that gap.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: One observer during this program compared the relationship between the United States and Japan to problems that are in a new marriage, and that in this instance there's not enough understanding on the part of each party to really know how to make a change for the better. How do you see this relationship?

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: [Speaking through Interpreter] I would say that I thought the days of new marriage were long gone for Japan-U.S. relations. I think it is incumbent on the two of us to engage in joint work to organize the house properly. The days when Japan could simply remain in the corner of the house or the room, caring only about itself, are gone, and Japan must make its contribution to the household, and must think what it can do in the interest of the house. This process, we believe, must be based on relationship of unshakable mutual trust.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think that there is enough understanding at that point, at this point, to proceed in that kind of arrangement? Because we're dealing with two very different societies, one very homogenous, very -- doing things by consensus, by the group, one very individualistic, fiercely individualistic.

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: [Speaking through Interpreter] There still do exist a lot of misunderstandings and perhaps lack of knowledge about each other and that is why, as I mentioned after the Houston summit meeting, that we must engage in CII, Communications Improvement Initiative, to improve our level of mutual communication, through that process try and renew our mutual perception and awareness, and where there are areas of intractable difference, I think we ought to be able to accept them on the basis of a better mutual understanding.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: One of the people interviewed in the tape observed the change in that Japanese character is slow and uncertain. Given the change -- pace of change in the world today - - can Japan afford to cling to its traditional ways?

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: [Speaking through Interpreter] We ought to recognize that there may be two different traditions, good and bad, and if certain tradition seems to be out of time, let's say, then we have to change that tradition.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Finally, Pres. Bush has talked about a global partnership with Japan. Can you foresee a time or a circumstance when the U.S. and Japan sit down and agree on spheres of control within the global order, one in which perhaps Japan would assume primacy in economic matters, the U.S. would assume primacy in security and political matters?

PRIME MINISTER KAIFU: [Speaking through Interpreter] Within the frame work of the new world order I believe there is only one country that can serve as an international policeman using force to remove aggression by anyone who violates justice,and that is the United States, and there cannot be any substitute. I believe that in this world after the termination of East-West confrontation, the role to be played by the United Nations led by the United States would increase in terms of constructing a new world order. Early last year, I visited the East European countries, and I made up my mind to provide active support to the process of democratization in the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe, and I believe there is also potential areas for Japanese role through cooperation with the United States in Asia and the Pacific in Latin America and the Caribbean. I think there are also new areas where Japan can play role actively such as problems with the global environment and peace in various parts of the world.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for joining us. RECAP

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, the U.S. State Department said government forces of Pres. Saddam Hussein have captured control of all major cities and towns in Iraq. The government of Iran pleaded for aid to help Iraqis fleeing to their country, and U.S. Sen. John Heinz, a Republican from Pennsylvania, was killed in a plane crash outside Philadelphia. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Charlayne. We'll see you tomorrow night with a major focus on U.S. unemployment. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.