The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. After a stunning defeat in the Senate, the Reagan administration tries to defend its Nicaragua mining policy, but runs into more flak from Congress. Walter Mondale emerges from his big Pennsylvania win more than halfway to the Democratic nomination, but Hart and Jackson still sound confident. The Challenger astronauts make satellite repair in space look easy. Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko consolidates his position by adding the title of president. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: We're going to spend a good amount of time on the Nicaragua story, including extended tape excerpts from a State Department official's hot time before a congressional committee, and two different samples of the debate over U.S.-Nicaragua policy. Three of the candidates' top advisers are here to discuss those Pennsylvania primary results. We also look at what nature in the form of the El Nino storms did to salmon fishing in the Pacific Northwest.Nicaragua Debate

MacNEIL: The Reagan administration, facing a storm of criticism over the clandestine mining of Nicaragua's harbors, tried to defend itself today, but the attempt brought another onslaught from aggrieved congressmen. Republican Senator Barry Goldwater made public an angry letter to CIA Director William Casey, calling the mining an act of war and saying, "For the life of me I don't know how we're going to explain it." Goldwater was one of only 12 senators who voted with the administration last night when 84 Republicans and Democrats passed a resultion condemning the mining. Goldwater's letter to Cassey added, "The President has asked us to back his foreign policy. Bill, how can we back his foreign policy when we don't know what the hell he's doing?" Goldwater said he'd only just learned that President Reagan had personally given written permission for the mining in February. The top administration official on the Hill today to defend the policy was Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam. Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Dam ran into some of the harshest criticism ever directed at the Reagan administration in public.

Rep. GERRY STUDDS, (D) Massachusetts: And I can assure you that there are a great many people in this nation who would like to be in every one of these seats here today with an opportunity to ask you, on behalf of this administration, some questions. And I suspect they would boil down to, what the hell are you doing? What are you doing with and to our country? Let me, before I make a very brief personal statement, ask you a couple of questions. Under general international law, is the mining of a harbor within a nation's territorial waters considered an act of war?

KENNETH DAM, deputy secretary of state: The issue of act of war has largely been superceded by, since the United Nations Charter came into effect, by the question as to whether the force that is being used is lawful force or unlawful force. And one of the major well-recognized exceptions to the general rule that force shouldn't be used is self-defense, including collective self-defense. So that's where the issue centers.

Rep. STUDDS: The New York Times of April 9th quoted one of your favorite anonymous administration officials as saying that any ship entering Nicaraguan waters gives up its legal right under international law to safe passage in the seas. Does that view reflect the attitude of this administration?

Sec. DAM: I don't even understand that sentence. That sentence isn't coherent to me.

Rep. STUDDS: Any ship entering Nicaraguan waters gives up its legal right to safe passage in those waters. Is that the view of the administration?

Sec. DAM: In those waters --

Rep. STUDDS: In other words, should all nations be warned that they can't expect safe passage?

Sec. DAM: Well, all nations are in fact warned and were warned through Lloyds of London by the contras that there was danger there, if that's what you mean. That, from a legal standpoint, means that they don't have civil cause of action to recover.

Rep. STUDDS: The theme of freedom of the high seas runs throughout all of American history. It's at the core of this nation from its first decade. The administration is in contempt of the values, of the laws of the Congress and the people of this country. You have squandered the moral capital of the United States. How would you like to be an ambassador of the United States in a Third World country and, in view of what's in the headlines in every paper in the world today, be asked, "Well, then, Mr. Ambassador, what is the difference between the United States and the Soviet Union?" That question ought to be incredibly easy and clear and self-answering. And I suggest that the response to it has been hopelessly, inexcusably muddled by the insistence of this administration on behaving precisely as the Soviet Union behaves.

Rep. OLYMPIA SNOWE, (R) Maine: No one knows what is going to be the next step, and so I'm asking you. If it's mining the ports today, what can we expect tomorrow? And I think that Congress does have a responsibility, each and every one of us here has to respond to our constituency. And first it was the interception of armed shipments, and now the administration has broadened that objective, I gather from what I read in the newspapers, yet that policy has never been enunciated by the administration as to exactly what we are doing in our support of the contras in Nicaragua. So I'm asking you. What is our policy?

Sec. DAM: I have stated here this morning what our policy objectives with regard to Nicaragua are. The policy object -- with respect to covert action in general, the objectives of cover action are -- tend to be quite specific, certainly more specific than general U.S. foreign policy. With regard to the objectives of covert action, that is a question discussed in detail with the intelligence committees, and certainly all their questions are fully answered.

Rep. SNOWE: There is, indeed, a big question mark as to what the policy is by the administration in Nicaragua by a number of members, including Republicans, and that's an obvious indication by the Senate action of last evening, and probably we can expect the same here in the House. Does the administration view, for example, Congress's authorization of funds for covert activity as an open license to take any action the administration deems necessary?

Sec. DAM: So far as the general proposition is concerned, no. The administration does not believe that simply because money is appropriated that anything goes. We have a system by which we relate to the Congress through the intelligence committees, which the Congress itself has established. And we're just trying to follow the rules.

MacNEIL: Other senior administration officials talking about Nicaragua today were doing so behind the cloak of anonymity. Two of them told the Associated Press that the CIA had halted the mining before the Senate vote. Another official said that many in the CIA believe the furor has probably killed any chances for congressional approval of the $21 million in new aid for the anti-Sandinista rebels. Another senior administration official told reporters that Secretary of State George Shultz had misgivings about the decision to mine the harbors. Jim?

LEHRER: There is also the question of prior notice, of the Reagan administration's not telling Congress what it was up to. Today Democrat Robert Byrd, the Senate minority leader, continued that theme, lashing out in particular at the explanations given by CIA Director William Casey.

Sen. ROBERT BYRD, (D) West Virginia: The information that the committee was supposed to have had at the beginning wasn't given, and then we got the statement that, "If you want information you ought to ask for it. You ask questions and you'll get information." Now, that scares me. I realize that a lot of these things can't be bandied around, but I also realize that we have an Intelligence Committee that has a good track record, and there are people on this hill who are just as patriotic as anyone downtown, and there are some people up here who know how to keep secrets as well as those do anywhere else.And the CIA has a responsibility to inform the appropriate members of Congress when there's an act like this being carried out. This is a violation of international

LEHRER: Strong opinions about the overall issue are everywhere in Washington, and not just among members of Congress. We sample them further now with two men who see it all very differently. They are Sol Linowitz, negotiator of the Panama Canal Treaty during the Carter administration and U.S. ambassador to the OAS in the Kennedy-Johnson years, and Lynn Bouchey, president of the Council for Inter-American Security, a conservative group that actively backs Reagan administration policy in Central America. Ambassador Linowitz, how do you read, first of all, the message that the U.S. Senate sent the President last night?

SOL LINOWITZ: A message which should be of great concern to the administration that the Senate is not persuaded that we are on the right course, that the use of force in the manner we undertook to do so in the case of the mining of the harbors and in general in supplying covert aid, military aid, to the contras is causing great concern on the Hill, and therefore it does not bode well for the future cooperation between the Senate and the administration.

LEHRER: Do you agree with that message?

Amb. LINOWITZ: I do. I am deeply concerned about the course we are on. I'm afraid it suggests that peace is the way to resolve the issues in Central America, Nicaragua, Salvador and elsewhere, and what disturbs me a great deal is that we have a regional process underway --

LEHRER: You don't mean "peace is the way"?

Amb. LINOWITZ: I beg your pardon?

LEHRER: You say you don't think peace is the way?

Amb. LINOWITZ: Oh, I beg your pardon. I clearly misspoke. What I intended to say was that the way to peace must be through peaceful negotiations.We have the Contadora process which does consist of four countries of the region -- Mexico, Venezuela, Colomiba and Panama -- which have undertaken to find a way through peaceful negotiations, and we are paying lip service to their efforts and not giving them wholehearted support. That I find very distressing.

LEHRER: Mr. Bouchey, what do you find distressing about this? What Congress is doing, or what the administration is doing?

LYNN BOUCHEY: Well, I think perhaps the most distressing thing is that it is apparent now that the Sandinistas probably have better congressional relations than this administration does, and particularly the people over at Langley, at CIA. I think that, furthermore, that it refocuses attention on the necessity for this administration to speak forthrightly and clearly to the question of the nature and the threat posed by the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and the character of that regime. I think that it is important to also raise the question whether or not an anti-Sandinista force, just like the anti-Somocista force of 1979, has a right to use mines. I think that we're obfuscating the realities of the issue in that region to the extent that we are talking in terms of narrow legalities, which seemed to be the character of the discussion that we saw with Mr. Dam up on the Hill today.

LEHRER: Well, how would you frame the issue?

Mr. BOUCHEY: I would frame the issue perhaps as was framed in the last week by Bob Woodward in a piece he had in The Washington Post, in which he talked about the likelihood of new arms being introduced into Nicaragua and the fact that there was evidence that a major offensive, a Tet-style offensive was planned by the Nicaraguans and the Salvadorans before the U.S. election. Last Sunday night CBS News had a major story on the fact that the Soviets are engaged in active measures, if you will, that they do not want to see Ronald Reagan re-elected, and I think that it would be naive of us to think that they are not going to be doing exactly that sort of thing. There evidently is evidence that they're doing it, and the interdiction of these arms, if it does prevent a final offensive of the Tet-style in El Salvador before our elections in November, I think would be a reasonable and a prudent thing for the United States to like to see done.

LEHRER: You disagree with thatm Mr. Ambassador?

Amb. LINOWITZ: It just seems to me that what we've got to recognize is that if there is such evidence, the Congress of the United States doesn't know about it. And if we are to have a truly bipartisan policy, as the President suggests, such evidence ought to be made available in persuasive enough forms so that the Senate and the House will want to support the President. That has not happened, and I think this is a very unfortunate development.

LEHRER: But is it possible, Mr. Ambassador, when covert activities are involved, is it possible for the administration to come forward now and say, "All right, here's what we're doing. We're giving money for the contras to do this; we've got five CIA agents there," or whatever. Is that asking too much?

Amb. LINOWITZ: Well, two things. One, I was responding to Mr. Bouchey's suggestion that there is known evidence that these things are going on. And I say if they do exist and if they cn be reported on CBS and elsewhere, they certainly should be made available to the Congress of the United States, and that obviously has not been the case. When 84 members of the Senate -- 42 Republicans and 42 Democrats -- vote against the administration policy, mining of the harbors, that suggests that there has been a failure of communication of the most serious kind.The second point that I want to make, however, is that once again to talk about this danger emanating from Nicaragua and Central America generally as being something which makes it a United States issue rather than a regional issue, that is, something that ought to be a concern only to the United States so we ought to formulate a policy apart from what is sought by the other countries in the region does us grievous harm and does not achieve the prospects for peace that we talk about.

LEHRER: You disagree with that?

Mr. BOUCHEY: Well, I disagree with the suggestion that this administration has not been supportive of the Contradora process. Let's remember, in the first instance, that the Contadora process is valuable in one sense because it is a non-American initiative, a non-U.S. initiative. It is not meant to involve the United States. However, the United States has given significant, quiet, diplomatic assistance to the moving forward of the Contadora process. The Contadora process involves four elements. It involves halting cross-border subversion; it involves removal of all foreign military troops and advisers; restoration of the military balance, and movement towards genuine democracy. The Sandinistas are simply not interested in addressing those questions. That's why they want to focus our attention on the question of what the anti-Sandinistas are doing with mines. They don't want to talk the Contadora process. That's exactly why they wanted to move the focus of discussion over to The Hague.

Amb. LINOWITZ: I'm sorry, Mr. Lehrer; that's just a misunderstanding of the true situation. The fact is in January of this year the four Contadora countries and the five countries of Central America, including Nicaragua, subscribed to principles to cover every one of the points just alluded to. What we ought to be doing is testing how serious they are about this presumed commitment. We ought to be working and encouraging the Contadora countries, to work with them, to see if a peaceful resolution is possible. And the fact that they undertook to sign the agreement in January of this year is a most heartening indication that perhaps at long last they're ready to move into peaceful negotiations.

LEHRER: Mr. Bouchey, how do you respond to the ambassador's point, which is a matter of fact, that 84 United States senators said to the administration last night, "We don't believe you," or words to that effect, through their vote?

Mr. BOUCHEY: Well, I think this goes back to my point that there needs to be some reconsideration, perhaps, of some of the people who are doing congressional relations for this administration. I think that their clearly was a failure there. On the other hand --

LEHRER: You mean they've got a good case and they've just sold it poorly?

Mr. BOUCHEY: Well, I think that's probably true. And I think it's also a fact that it's very difficult to conduct covert operations in this congressional committee fishbowl.I think that's probably a defective procedure, something that further on down the road's going to have to be corrected. But to go to what -- I'd like to return to what Ambassador Linowitz said. The fact that those countries agreed to the principles, that is simply the beginning. The point is to implement those principles, and the Sandinistas have not been willing to take meaningful steps in terms of implementing those principles. There have been a number of commission meetings, but these has not been significant movement. And when there has been significant movement, Mr. Ambassador, has been precisely when the Sandinistas have felt that they were under pressure. And I think that there is little hope for any real progress, any achievements under the Contadora process if we pull the plug on the freedom fighters in El Salvador -- in Nicaragua.

LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Now we hear the views of two widely read columnists, Anthony Lewis of The New York Times, and Robert Novak of the nationally syndicated Evans and Novak team. Anthony Lewis joins us from WGBH-Boston; Robert Novak is in Washington.Mr. Lewis, in the history of foreign policy flaps, how big and important an issue is this mining-World Court issue?

ANTHONY LEWIS: I think it's a large issue. I don't see it only as a foreign policy one. I think it touches a very deep strain in the American psychology, and that is the commitment to government under law. I think it was the image of the United States running from the sheriff; that is, when we are sued, saying we want to change the rules of the game and get out of the judicial process, that was really shameful to a lot of Americans.

MacNEIL: Mr. Novak, what's your view on how big an issue it is?

ROBERT NOVAK: I think it's strictly a red herring. You have to remember that in the Senate there had been a bipartisan majority of substantial proportions in favor of aid to El Salvador and the continued aid to the contras just last week, and suddenly this whole mining issue arises to undercut it. The question, really, is not the mining, which is a dubious operation. The fact of the way it was handled by the CIA and the State Department was worse than dubious; it was inept, which is not unusual for the State Department and the CIA. The real question involved is, is the communist regime in Nicaragua a threat to democratic institutions in Central America and the hemisphere? The administration thinks so; I think so; a majority of the Senate thinks so. But there is a determined minority that doesn't think so and wants to permit the Sandinista regime a free course.

MacNEIL: Is that the real question as you see it, Mr. Lewis?

Mr. LEWIS: Well, it sounded to me like that old Stalinist saying, "The end justifies the means." I think when members of the United States were confronted with the fact that the means here were violative of international law, confronted with that in the open when they could no longer pretend to the contrary, they were unwilling to support those means. And I think that's quite in keeping with the American way of thinking. I have to say also that the point made by Ambassador Linowitz about the collective nature of the process in Central America is extremely important. I think the fact that the Reagan administration has gone it alone, has ignored the views of the Contadora group -- indeed, the Contadora group has condemned the very mining, the very covert activities that are involved here. Those facts are telling over time.

MacNEIL: Mr. Novak, just back to the World Court issue for a moment. Senator Baker is reported hopeful of persuading the President to reverse the decision to withdraw from the court's jurisdiction on Central American questions. Would that retrieve the situation substantively and politically for the President, or would that make matters worse if he did that?

Mr. NOVAK: It might retrieve the situation. Of course, as I say, the mishandling of this by the State Department is fantastic. The former ambassador, Tap Bennett, who knows about as much of Capitol Hill as most diplomats do, didn't even involve Senator Goldwater or Senator Percy, didn't give them the courtesy of advance notice. But I repeat, Robin, that that is really -- all this is typical Washington folderol. That is not really what the issue is about. It is just a wonderful pretext for the opponents of the action by the contras to undercut the administration. And of course they used people like Senator Goldwater, whose aptitude for instant outrage grows larger as he grows older.

MacNEIL: Well, The New York Times said in an editorial today, Bob Novak, that the mines in Nicaragua have "blown apart the White House effort to build sober congressional support for the contras." Do you think that is true, that that effort is wrecked now, and that the Congress is not going to go along with it?

Mr. NOVAK: Well, I think that's a little premature. I think The New York Times and my friend Anthony Lewis, I'm sure, both hope it is true. I think the situation of support for the contras was very, very dicey in the House anyway. I wasn't -- I think enen before this happened it was doubtful whether Tip O'Neill would let the House pass this amount of aid, the $21 million. The problem is that some 30 years ago the CIA was able to run an operation in Guatemala which ousted a pro-communist regime, and it has been a great benefit to American security in the hemisphere ever since, but we have now, in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, been hamstrung with so many requirements and so much folderol about the Senate intelligence committees that it's very difficult to run a covert operation.

MacNEIL: Tony Lewis, what's your comment?

Mr. LEWIS: Well, Bob Novak and I are agreed about the ineptitude of the State Department in this matter in relation to the World Court. We're not agreed on the significance of law. After all, the United States just four years ago went to the World Court, arraigned Iran there over the hostage issue, even though we did not think the Ayatollah Khomeini would comply with a court order. We saw a purpose in law, and I think Americans have that respect for the law. I certainly don't agree with Bob, either, on what he called the "victory" in Guatemala 30 years ago. Some victory! There have been 30 years of official murder and terror in Guatemala ever since, hundreds and thousands of people killed by the government side, unrest and an unstabilized country. And, furthermore, I think that the CIA operation of 30 years ago in Guatemala encouraged the very excesses that have got us into trouble in other places, including right now in Nicaragua. That doesn't work for the United States. Maybe terrorism works when practiced by some Soviet enterprise. I don't think Americans want terrorism.

Mr. NOVAK: I think Tony just made a point that is very apt.I was having a conversation today with one of Senator Kennedy's aides, and he told me quite frankly that he would much prefer the situation in Nicaragua to Guatemala. I thought that was an amazing statement, and the fact is I think that Guatemala, which has hopes for a democratic, capitalist development, which has had difficulties but with some hopes is infinitely preferable to a Marxist dictatorship such as I have seen first hand in Nicaragua. I guess that is really the dividing point between Tony Lewis and me and between the two sides of this entire debate. It's nothing to do, in my opinion, with legalisms about the World Court.

MacNEIL: We have just a minute left, and I know each of you, you, Mr. Novak, think that the policy in Central America is basically correct and Mr. Lewis thinks it's wrong. Regardless of your opinions, do you think that this is going to wreck administration policy in Central America? This is the beginning of the end? Or are they going to be able to retrieve it and go ahead?Mr. Lewis?

Mr. LEWIS: I wouldn't try to predict that from here, Mr. MacNeil. I would say that it will be substantially harder to convince the public -- the American public as well as Congress that a policy that has already shown little signs of working, that has militarized Central America without any victory of any kind is going to start working now.

MacNEIL: Mr. Novak?

Mr. NOVAK: I think the test, Robin, is going to be whether or not the communist insurrection in El Salvador succeeds or fails. Certainly if the aid is cut off to the contras the insurrection in El Salvador has a greater chance of success. I don't know how it's going to come out, but if it does succeed, we're all going to be in a great deal of trouble, and that goes beyond partisan consideration.

MacNEIL: Mr. Lewis, Mr. Novak, thank you both.Jim?

LEHRER: Today in El Salvador, where both the United States and Nicaragua have a large stake, the official date for the presidential runoff election was set for May 6th. The contest is between rightist Robert D'Aubuisson and moderate Jose Napoleon Duarte.

Meanwhile, 300 miles up from Central America and the rest of the world, two American astronauts performed a most unusual repair job today, the most unusual ever maybe. George Nelson and James van Hoften spent more than six hours replacing two electronic parts in a disabled satellite. The satellite, called Solor Max, was retrieved from its tumblling orbit yesterday. If today's repair work holds, Solar Max will be put back in space to continue its mission of tracking the sun until the end of the decade.If not, the astronauts will bring it back to earth with them on Friday.

The Soviets also produced a space story today. Two cosmonauts plus India's first man in space returned from a nine-day mission that included yoga exercises to test the effects of weightlessness. On the Soviet evening news broadcast viewers saw the space vehicle drifting to earth beneath a hugh red and white parachute. It landed on a snow-streaked field in Soviet Central Asia two minutes ahead of schedule. The three men aboard brought back film tape recordings and scientific data from the Soviet space station which they visited for several days. After the landing the cosmonauts looked well and happy; all three were awarded medals. Robin?

MacNEIL: President Reagan today began a two-day trip to Missouri and Texas that the White House insisted was presidential business and not political, so it will be paid for by the taxpayers. Missouri is holding Democratic caucuses next week, and the Texas primary is coming up in early May.In Klakamo, Missouri, the President visited the newly prosperous Ford Motor plant, eating lunch in the workers' cafeteria and touring the assembly line before making a speech calling attention to the economic recovery and taking credit for the domestic auto industry's better times.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Our administration discussed the auto industry's problems with the Japanese. They offered to voluntarily restrain auto exports to the United States, and this gave the domestic auto industry the breathing room it needed to build new plants and products, improve quality, increase productivity and participate in the economic recovery. Now, some advocate far harsher methods. They believe we should run up the flag in defense of our markets, embrace protectionism and insulate ourselves from world competition. But we'll never meet the challenge of the '80s with that kind of defeatist mentality. In hasn't been easy. Times have been rough. And, yes, the recession was much deeper and longer than anyone had predicted. There is no compassion in snake-oil cures. We weathered the storm together, and now the sun is shining on a strong economy and an American automobile industry that's moving forward again. Pondering Pennsylvania

MacNEIL: Later the President flew to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Tomorrow he visits a housing construction site and takes part in a round table discussion on housing. Meanwhile, the Democrats were digesting Walter Mondale's latest decisive victory. His solid win in yesterday's Pennsylvania primary, 12 percentage points ahead of Gary Hart. That win gave the former vice president the lion's share of the delegates. According to United Press Internationalm Mondale now has more than half the votes needed for the Democratic nomination. Pennsylvania left him with 1,047, Hart with 571, Jackson with 152, with another 331 uncommitted; 1,967 are needed for the nomination.Gary Hart, who had predicted he would lose Pennsylvania, was home in Colorado, nursing a cold, planning to huddle with his strategists, but refusing to appear in any way dismayed. This is how he cheered up his followers last night in Denver.

Sen. GARY HART, Democratic presidential candidate: So now we're going into the locker room for a few days and we're going to talk over the second half of this contest. This contest's moving west, it's moving southwest, and it's moving south. We're headed into our territory, folks. And when we come back out in a few days in the second half of this contest, you're going to see some long bombs, you're going to see some end runs, you're going to see some flat passes, some reverses and some real exciting football.

MacNEIL: Walter Mondale refused to call himself or let himself be called the frontrunner, remembering the target that title made him just a few weeks ago. Mondale headed for Arizona, where the Democrats hold caucuses this weekend in territory Gary Hart considers more favorable to him. Mondale was cautiously beginning to sound more confident.

WALTER MONDALE, Democratic presidential candidate: I believe that Americans before the elect somebody president really want to be very sure they know the person. And I think in a strange way this fight that we've been going through has shown that I've got the guts and the steel necessary to fight, fight back under tough circumstances, and I believe that's one of the things they want to see in their president. That's the toughest job on earth, and they want to know that they don't have a patsy there. What I said last night I think there is now a chance. I haven't said that before. I think this win here in Pennsylvania was very significant. It could well go to the convention. I'm not foregoing that, but I believe this now gives me a chance possibly to get enough wins to be the -- have the delegates I need before the convention. I'm not counting on that, but I think there's now a chance of it.

MacNEIL: Jesse Jackson, who finished third in the state of Pennsylvania, came first in the city of Philadelphia, where 43% of the registered Democrats are black. That was in spite of a Mondale endorsement by Philadelphia's black mayor, Wilson Goode. Jackson said, "We won a great victory, and we maintain our momentum." Before he also headed for Arizona, Jackson defended himself against a charge that he isn't drawing white folks and, in an interview with producer Mike Mosettig, he reacted to Mondale's current position.

Rev. JESSE JACKSON, Democratic presidential candidate: He is obviously the frontrunner. The convention, however, is not wrapped up. It will probably be an open convention. I doubt if anybody will win on the first round. And that's good for the people. For so long as leaders have to compete for the people, and not people compete for the leaders, it's a very healthy sign. You can't win the city of Philadelphia just with the black vote. And we got a significant black vote and were proud about that. But then the outstanding peace activists of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania endorsed us, and that vote was the margin of victory here in Philadelphia. The rainbow's going to grow. It's going to be slow coming because we have been, as a nation, divided and separated by caste and class and sex so long. But we're growing in that direction. I'm getting more white vote, for example, than Hart is getting black vote.Yet, no one is trying to make the issue of his not getting black vote central to his campaign.

MacNEIL: With the Democratic contest now entering a second and different western phase, Judy Woodruff examines the strategy of the three campaigns. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Robin, we now turn to the men behind the men -- three of the top advisers to the candidates. First, Eliot Cutler, who is a senior consultant for the Mondale campaign; Oliver Henckel, manager of the Hart campaign; and Arnold Pinkney, Jesse Jackson's coordinator.

Mr. Henckel, let me begin with you. You had a good field organization in Pennsylvania; you spent probably twice as much money on television advertising as Mr. Mondale did. Why did Mr. Hart lose?

OLIVER HENCKEL: Well, I think Mr. Hart lost yesterday for a couple of reasons. One, the fact of the matter is that we didn't have time to sell Gary's candidacy as well as we might have. And Pennsylvania is a state that is economically depressed. The people there are more inclined, we feel, and I think the exit polls tended to carry that out, to support a more traditional Democrat than Gary Hart, someone who was responding to the comfort level of Democrats in Pennsylvania more than Gary Hart did. He was one who was suggesting change, was challenging the people of Pennsylvania to risk. And I don't think the Democrats of Pennsylvania were ready to respond to that.

WOODRUFF: Well, yet some of the people who have been watching this campaign say that one of Mr. Hart's problems seems to be that Mr. Mondale has put him on the defensive since, really, the Illinois primary, and he's stayed on the defensive. How do you turn that around?

Mr. HENCKEL: Well, we have been out of our rhythm for some time, and I think Illinois was the start of it. But now we have some time. We are into the second half of -- choosing the metaphor that Senator Hart just gave us, we are in the second half of this campaign. We have some time to present our message to the voters. We are moving onto our turf. The campaign is moving to the South and to the West, where we think the voters of those states will respond to Senator Hart's message to a greater degree than they did in the industrial North.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Cutler, Senator Hart has predicted that he will still win the nomination. Is that possible now with where the delegates stand, with his having, what, half the delegates that Mr. Mondale has?

ELIOT CUTLER: Our view, Ms. Woodruff, is that anything is possible. We have found that our recipe for success has been to run a strong campaign, to identify the issues and the differences among the candidates, to run as hard as we can in every state. We're going to continue to do that. We hope that that will be a recipe for success in San Francisco in July. We think it will. We are going to continue to fight.

WOODRUFF: More than I think one third of the voters in Pennsylvania, even though Mr. Mondale did as well as he did, said that they still felt that he was too tied to special interests. Now, that's rap that's been pinned on him since before Iowa. How do you shake that?

Mr. CUTLER: Well, it's a rap, as you know, that he relishes dealing with. In his view the special interests in America, the interests which the President has been serving for the last three years, if the special interests in America, the interests which Mr. Mondale has campaigned hard for -- average American families, people who are senior citizens, people who are in need of education, people who are in need of health care -- if those are special interests, then they're special interests which Mr. Mondale is for. Clearly the success he has had in recent weeks suggests that the American people do not consider those to be special interests that they are not for.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Pinkney, your campaign, Mr. Jackson, came in third with, what? 20, about, excuse me, 17% of the vote.

ARNOLD PINKNEY: It was actually 18%.

WOODRUFF: All right, 18. Why didn't he do any better than he did?

Mr. PINKNEY: Well, of course, we felt we did quite well in Pennsylvania. The minority population of Pennsylvania is substantially less than that. Because of the large turnout in the black community in the city of Philadelphia and in Pittsburgh, despite the endorsement of Wilson Goode, the mayor of Philadelphia, we garnered 79% of the vote.We felt that we did a respectable job in Pennsylvania, and we are satisfied with that position.

WOODRUFF: You mentioned the small minority vote. You have done consistently very well with the black vote in state after state, and yet you still keep getting a very small percentage of the white vote. How can you still win the nomination with this pattern that you've established?

Mr. PINKNEY: Well, I don't know if it's a question of winning the nomination. It's a question of trying to put together the coalition of voters to increase the percentage of the non-black vote that you would get as we go along into the campaign season.

WOODRUFF: You're saying you're not -- it's not the nomination that you're really aiming at?

Mr. PINKNEY: No, I'd didn't say -- it's not just the nomination. It's a question of developing the kind of campaign to increase the amount of non-black votes that you get as you go along. For example, as we look to the primaries that lie ahead in states like Texas and states like California, and states like Indiana and Maryland and North Carolina, if we have been able to put together a formidable coalition of hispanics, of white farmers and of young people, then the rainbow coalition might come into play at that particular time.And there is a strategy to develop a coalition to increase as it goes along. At the same time I think that we have demonstrated our ability to attract white voters. For an example, in the state of New Hampshire, we got 6% of the vote --

WOODRUFF: You got 3% in Pennsylvania, is that right?

Mr. PINKNEY: Well, we got 6% in New Hampshire; we got 8% in Vermont. Those two states have less than 0.4% black population. So there was a significant amount of growth that we got from the whites in New Hampshire and Vermont that came from the non-black community.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Henckel, your candidate, Mr. Hart, had predicted at one point that he was going to have the nomination wrapped up by California. Is that still possible?

Mr. HENCKEL: Well, that may have been a moment of exuberance for Gary. I don't think he meant that. I think he meant that at the time the convention began he would have the nomination wrapped up. I don't think any of us feels that any one of these three candidates will have sufficient pledged delegates at the conclusion of June 5th to be able to go to the nomination with that number, insuring a first-ballot nomination. The real action in this contest is going to occur from June the 6th until July 16th, when there will be plays for the uncommitted delegates, for the unpledged delegates, and that's the moment in time when the strategies we think are going to pay off when we're going to be able to capitalize on the momentum gained at the latter part of the calendar to take us into the convention with enough delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot.

WOODRUFF: Do either one of the other two of you disagree with that?

Mr. CUTLER: I disagree to the extent that I think that the real fight is going to be between now and June 6th, and I think that the issues are going to get more sharply defined --

WOODRUFF: That's a pretty big disagreement.

Mr. CUTLER: It's a very significant disagreement because I think the one thing we've seen over the last few weeks is that the issues are getting more and more sharply defined. We attribute our success, at least in part, to that. And I think that over the course of the next several weeks, you know, one end of the football field doesn't look a great deal different from the other end. And if you look at the primaries between now and May 8th, I think, over half of the delegates that are going to be selected are going to selected east of the Mississippi. So I think these issues are going to continue to be developed, continue to be debated, and I think there's going to be an awful lot of action between now and June 6th.

WOODRUFF: And yet Mr. Hart has said he's got the advantage going into these primaries because you've got, what? over 600 delegates to be picked between now and June 5th.

Mr. CUTLER: There are that many delegates, but we don't obviously cede to Mr. Hart that advantage. We think that the issues are working in our favor and are going to continue to work in our favor.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Pinkney, is Jesse Jackson making a condition of his support for the Democratic nominee, in the event he is not the nominee, their agreement to go forward with abolishing the runoff primaries in the South? Is that a flat condition for him?

Mr. PINKNEY: I think it is. I think that's a fundamental concern, condition that Reverend Jackson has stood for, that his opinion that the second primaries in the South, in nine southern states, dual registration, is fundamentally in opposition of the 1965 Civil Rights Act.

WOODRUFF: Even though it's not established that all of them are discriminatory? Or you disagree --

Mr. PINKNEY: Well, I think that the U.S. Justice Department has enough information to determine that there is discrimination taking place and that the 1965 Civil Rights Act is being violated.And that is one hard issue the Reverend Jackson will stand on, that any candidate that he supports is going to have to support the abolishment of second primaries.

WOODRUFF: You welcome the support of the Reagan administration? They're talking about joining your suit to do away with those primaries.

Mr. PINKNEY: They're just doing what's right, and whenever anybody does what's right, Republican or Democrat, we welcome their support.

WOODRUFF: Anybody --

Mr. HENCKEL: You've just made news, and I'm delighted to find out what the condition of Reverend Jackson's support is going to be, and I appreciate, Arnold, your candor.

Mr. PINKNEY: Of course, now let's not put it on one issue. I think your question related to the issue of second primaries.

WOODRUFF: I did. And, Mr. Cutler, since you're representing Mr. Mondale, is he going to be willing to go along with that?

Mr. CUTLER: I think, if I may say three things on that point, Judy. First of all, Mr. Mondale's record on voting rights has been longer, more consistent -- or as long and as consistent as anybody's in this race. Secondly, there are a lot of abuses, as Mr. Pinkney has described, including dual registration and second primaries and, third, we are looking carefully to see whether second primaries are a blanket problem throughout the nation --

WOODRUFF: But you're not ready to say right now --

Mr. CUTLER: We are not ready to say right now.

WOODRUFF: I wish we had more time, gentlemen. Thank you all for being with us, Mr. Cutler, Mr. Henckel, Mr. Pinkney. Jim?

LEHRER: Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan put himself back in the news today. He held a Washington news conference to deny he was anti-Semitic, that he was a crackpot and that he threatened the life of a Washington Post reporter. The reporter, Milton Coleman, was the first to report Jesse Jackson's use of the term Hymie in reference to Jews, Hymietown as a synonym for New York City. Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam and a key supporter of Jackson, said it was a case of the news media conspiring to end Jackson's candidacy.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN, Nation of Islam: I have called this press conference to set the record straight with respect to the Milton Coleman affair. This conference would not be necessary were it not for the wicked and malicious tampering with my words, taking them out of context to make it appear as though I threatened the life of Milton Coleman, to embarrass Reverend Jesse Jackson and force him to denounce and repudiate me on the basis of a lie. My clear statement that no physical harm should come to Milton Coleman was ignored by most of you to further your own purposes. I want the world to know that the lives of Milton Coleman, his wife and his family are sacred to me, for a living Milton Coleman, reformed, is an asset to us as well as to America.

LEHRER: Here is a portion of the recording of what Farrakhan actually said about Milton Coleman in a radio speech 30 days ago.

Mr. FARRAKHAN [radio address]: I said but we're going to make an example of Milton Coleman. We're going to stay on his case until we make him bear us this example for the rest of them. What do you intend to do to Mr. Coleman? At this point no physical harm. One day soon we will punish you with death.

[Video postcard -- Bay View, Washington]

MacNEIL: Konstantin Chernenko was elected president of the Soviet Union today, succeeding the late Yuri Andropov. He is the 10th man to become president, and the third to hold all three top positions -- president, secretary general of the Soviet Union's Communist Party, and chairman of the National Defense Council. Here is a report from Diane Griffiths of Visnews.

DIANE GRIFFITHS, Visnews [voice-over]: The 72-year-old leader looked fit and tanned as he entered the chamber. He clasped his hands in a victory salute when the Soviet parliament followed its vote with a standing ovation. His appointment as head of state, a mainly ceremonial post, had been expected. The presidency has gone with the party leader's job since Leonid Brezhnev became head of state in 1977. Chernenko's name was put forward by his main rival, Mikhail Gorbachev, who is number two in the Kremlin. Gorbachev praised his leader, saying he was a staunch fighter for communism and peace. He said the decision to appoint him had been made by the party's central committee on Tuesday. Soviet officials say the main benefit of combining the position of party chief with that of state president is to put Chernenko on an equal footing with other foreign leaders such as President Reagan.

MacNEIL: In Lebanon snipers fired at French observers attempting to patrol a truce line between the Muslim and Christian sectors of Beirut. None of them were hurt, but six people were killed and as many as 45 injured in artillery barrages. Jim?

LEHRER: And in other news from Washington, General Motors and Toyota got a formal okay today to proceed with their unique -- some say too unique -- joint venture. The Federal Trade Commission, by a three-to-two vote, approved a plan for the U.S. and Japanese automakers to form a new company that will manufacture cars in a California assembly plant. Chrysler has filed suit to stop the venture, and a company spokesman said that effort will proceed. Ford was also opposed to the idea, but a Ford spokesman said today the FTC decision ends their opposition. Also, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency politely told Gary Hart to put up or shut up. Hart has said some EPA officials are continually being wined and dined by industry. "Give me their names and I'll can them," said William Ruckelshaus today in an interview. He also said he was not sure if he would remain in his job if asked if President Reagan is re-elected. Robin? El Nino's Victims

MacNEIL: A lot of the bad weather last winter was blamed on something happening thousands of miles away off the Pacific Coast of South America. It sounds like the title of a novel by Robert Ludlum -- the El Nino phenomenon. After months of producing record storms and cold spells in the continental United States, El Nino has a new victim, the salmon fisherman working off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington. Kwame Holman has the story.

KWAME HOLMAN: El Nino is a rare weather phenomenon that causes a slow warming of a section of the ocean. For many Americans El Nino has meant irregular climates leading to floods or droughts, but in the ocean waters off the West Coast, El Nino has caused a break in the food chain that supports ocean salmon. Now, for the second year in a row, the people who depend onthose salmon, the commercial fishermen of the Pacific Northwest, are facing economic disaster.

LARRY HALE, salmon fisherman: It's a way of life. It's a way of life and it's one on one, man against fish.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Larry Hale is a deep-sea salmon fisherman from Washington state.

Mr. HALE: It's money in the bank when you put that salmon on the boat and he's fighting you every step, every inch of the way. He's fighting for his life and you're fighting to take his life. It's great feeling.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Larry Hale is 70 years old. He has fished the Pacific for 20 years using the traditional baited hook and line. Now, like thousands of other ocean fishermen on the West Coast, his way of life is threatened because of El Nino. During El Nino the fishermen's income dropped to just $8 million. It had been four times that much the year before.

Mr. HALE: Either the fish didn't bite or the fish weren't there. They moved to deeper water or had gone to colder water because we had the El Nino effect.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: The experts say El Nino probably ended last year, but its aftereffects are still being seen in the salmon population, and the prediction is that the catch will be even worse this year. Bill Wilkerson heads the state Department of Fisheries and is part of a council that regulates West Coast fishing.

BILL WILKERSON, director, Washington Department of Fisheries: This is the worst situation certainly I've faced in my four years here, and it's so bad that an awful lot of the fishermen recognize that if we mismanage the fish now they may not be around in five or six years. And not only the fishermen won't be around, but the fish themselves.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Since Wilkerson expects there will be fewer salmon this year, he wants to limit or cancel the fishing season so that the salmon have time to spawn new generations. Being more cautious in order to preserve the fish means fishermen will suffer. A shorter season means less income, fewer bills paid.

Mr. HALE: I just put my boat up for sale a while ago. You see how I feel? It's something that you don't want to do but you have to do because it's a luxury you can't afford anymore. That's the way it is. It's a luxury now. It's not a way of life. It's a luxury. And if you don't have the money, what are you going to do? You've got to put it up for sale. It's my second love.

Mr. WILKERSON: I wish we could respond to all the short-term problems, but we can't. We could allow a fishery and what we would be doing is we'd just be digging ourselves into a major hole for 1986 or 1987 and into future years.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: So, in desperation, many fishermen are going far out into the Pacific where fishing is unrestricted, and some are spending $20,000 for the privilege of fishing off Alaska, 20 times the Washington state fee.

Mr. WILKERSON: They're going to have to scratch harder and harder. They're going to have to undertake new fisheries. They're going to have to fish in areas that they haven't fished before, and that involves risk-taking, and it's just -- it is. It's becoming a very dangerous business.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Some of them aren't surviving. They go out in bad weather. They take their small boats out too far and they never return. Last month alone three fishermen died.

Mr. HALE: It's not that I want to go our there and take my life in my hand.I don't want to do that. But I have to do it.And we have to go in bad weather. If we've got one day to fish we've got to be there,weather or no weather. It keeps my wife in tears most of the time because I'm out there.

MARIE HALE, wife: You don't hear from him for two or three days at a time, why, you get to worrying and wonder what -- and you hear about all these other boats going down.Well, it just really isn't -- and it isn't any fun to sit here and, you know, have to worry about them when they have to go clear to California or someplace like that.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Conserving the fish is being done at the fishermen's expense, and ironically the attempt at conservation may not work, because even though U.S. fishermen are being curtailed, the Canadians are not. They're being allowed to catch salmon without the same restrictions.

Mr. WILKERSON: We don't have control over the Canadian fisheries, and so we have a real problem in that our neighbors are not managing their fisheries in consideration of our conservation problems.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: For the lover of seafood the future is bright. Consumers can continue to buy salmon caught from nets on inland rivers or ocean salmon caught by Canadians or Norwegians. But for the lover of the sea, for the independent man of the ocean, the future is bleak.

Mr. HALE: We're a dying breed.We're dying. We're dying by inches. By days, by days, we're dying.

MacNEIL: The council that regulates Pacific Coast fishing will decide tomorrow whether to curtail or eliminate ocean salmon fishing this season. In the meantime the fishermen are pressing the federal government for disaster relief.

The House of Representatives approved a $49-billion tax bill by a vote of 318 to 97. Most of the revenue would come from upper-income investors and corporations by eliminating certain tax shelters. Consumers wouldn't be hit as hard, but would eventually pay more for liquor and telephone service. The Senate is currently debating a similar bill with final pasage expected soon.

Jim?

LEHRER: Again the day's major stories and, again, the most major of all was the storm over mines in Nicaragua's harbors. Today administration officials met stiff resistance from members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, about the alleged CIA involvement in the mining. Also, Gary Hart began a search for a second catch-up of Walter Mondale after Mondale's impressive win in Pennsylvania. And two astronauts pulled off an impressive repair job in space of a crippled satellite.

Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.