The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, Pres. Bush put off sanctions against the Soviet Union for its crackdown in Lithuania. The space shuttle was launched with the Hubble Telescope aboard. Junk bonds trader Michael Milken pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay a $600 million fine. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Roger Mudd is in Washington tonight. Roger.

MR. MUDD: After the News Summary, the fight against drugs is first. We hear from the Mayor and the police chief of Houston, Texas [FOCUS - CRIME STORY]. Next [FOCUS - CAMPAIGNING FOR DOLLARS] we have an Elizabeth Brackett on campaign financing, the next big ticket on the agenda. Then [CONVERSATION] a conversation with Nazi Hunter Simon Wiesenthal and we end with a Roger Rosenblatt essay [ESSAY - WELCOME HOME] on a hostage's return. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Pres. Bush has decided not to impose sanctions on the Soviet Union at this time because of their actions in Lithuania. He said he was concerned that U.S. sanctions could make matters worse. Earlier, a Soviet foreign ministry spokesman warned that sanctions could cause additional friction between the U.S. and the USSR. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the President had spoken with the leaders of at least 20 countries before making the decision. This morning, Mr. Bush talked about it with a group of visiting journalists at the White House.

MR. BUSH: I've not decided what will be done and this is a highly complex situation that we're facing and there's a lot at stake in this situation. You can -- I don't want to make -- remember Yogi Berra what happened, why did you lose the ballgame, he said, we made the wrong mistake. You've got to think about that one. And I don't want to make the wrong mistake. And I'm not going to give up on trying to get the Soviet Union and the Lithuanians into a dialogue. I think that's a constructive approach. I think that's the approach that the American people and others around the world want.

MR. MacNeil: The President also discussed his position with congressional leaders. After their White House meeting, Mr. Bush received support from the Democratic chairmen of the key House and Senate Committees on Foreign Policy.

SEN. CLAIBORNE PELL, Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee: There's ageneral feeling of support for the President and the difficult position he's in, steady on his course, and recognizing that the situation has escalated, it could be of mutual damage.

REP. DANTE FASCELL, Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee: I think that there was a thorough view of the options that are available and the conclusion was that this is a Presidential decision which he's prepared to make and which as far as I can tell will have strong bipartisan support in the Congress.

MR. MacNeil: Lithuania's president, Vitautys Landbergis, reacted angrily to President Bush's decision not to impose sanctions. He said, "We were afraid that America might sell us out. Let the people decide whether this has already happened." He went on to ask, "Can the freedom of one group of people be sold for the freedom of another? What then is the idea of freedom itself?" Meanwhile, the Soviets announced that they'd sent more troops to guard Lithuania's borders and had stepped up Naval patrols in the Baltic Sea. Roger.

MR. MUDD: In Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev met with Chinese Premier Li Peng today. Li is the first Chinese head of state to visit Moscow since 1964. After the meeting, the two sides signed an agreement reducing military forces along their common border. On the economy, China agreed to provide credits to the Soviet Union to pay for imports of Chinese consumer goods and in turn, the Soviet Union agreed to provide credits for the building of a nuclear power plant in China. The leaders of East and West Germany today set a date for economic reunification. East German Premier Lotar DeMaziere and West Germany's Helmut Kohl met in Bonn and agreed on July 2nd as the target for merging their economies. Many details still have to be worked out. The next step would be uniting under a single political system.

MR. MacNeil: The Hubble Telescope was launched into space this morning. The $1 1/2 billion device was carried aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery as it lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There was a short delay moments before launch when a fuel valve would not close, but the problem was quickly solved. Tomorrow the astronauts will use the shuttle's mechanical arm to place the 24,000 pound telescope in orbit. The shuttle will then follow it for two days until the lens cap is opened. The Hubble is considered a great leap in the history of astronomy. Free of the earth's atmosphere, its pictures are expected to help determine the age and size of the universe. The Hubble Telescope will begin transmitting images back to earth next week.

MR. MUDD: Former hostage Robert Polhill and his two sons were reunited today at a U.S. military hospital in Wiesbauten, West Germany. Doctors said the 55 year old Polhill was recovering well and eating four meals a day. They also said there were no signs that he suffered physical abuse during his more than three years of captivity. A team of U.S. investigators has begun questioning him to see what he knows about others who might remain hostage in Beirut.

MR. MacNeil: The man who made more than a billion dollars selling junk bonds pleaded guilty today to six charges of security and tax law violations. Michael Milken entered his "guilty" plea at U.S. District Court in New York. He agree to pay $600 million to settle the case. He cried as he read an apology, saying, "I realize by my acts I have hurt those who are closest to me. I am truly sorry." As part of the plea bargain, the more serious charges of insider trading were dropped, but he still faces up to 28 years in prison. Sentencing was set for October 1st.

MR. MUDD: In Atlanta today, a man wearing a business suit and armed with a pistol opened fire on shoppers at a suburban mall. He hit four of them, killing one man. The gunman apparently chose his targets at random. Thirty-two year old James Calvin Brady was arrested and charged with one count of murder, three counts of aggravated assault. Police quoted Brady as saying as they led him away, "You don't know what all those people have done to me." That ends our News Summary. Just ahead on the Newshour, top city officials from Houston talk about the fight against drugs, the upcoming Senate battle over campaign financing, a conversation with Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - CRIME STORY

MR. MUDD: The drug war is up first tonight. The nations mayors are here in Washington ending a two day conference on drugs. Yesterday William Bennett, the National Drug Policy Control Director told them while progress was being made in some cities interdiction remains his number one priority and he rejected the idea of sending Federal anti drug money directly to the cities saying it would create a confusing and disorderly hodge podge. Today Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire the President of the U.S. Conference of Mayor's says she disagrees.

MAYOR WHITMIRE: We are advocating again for dollars to come directly to our communities. Yes we want the states to work with us. We want the private sector to work with us but as a practical matter it is the local political leaders who are on the front line every day.

MR. MUDD: The magnitude of the drug problem confronting the nations mayors was a focus of a report we aired recently from Yakima Washington.

JEFF SULLIVAN, County Prosecutor: We're being buried. Local law enforcement, the police, the prosecutors, the courts are just being buried in drug cases.

MR. HOCHBERG: For three hours every weekday morning, County Prosecutor Jeff Sullivan parades accused drug traffickers from their jail cells into the Yakima County Superior Court.

MR. SULLIVAN: I'm going to have to quit filing felony offenses, good felony charges, because we just don't have the people to process them. We don't have enough prosecutors, we don't have enough judges, we don't have enough defense attorneys.

MR. HOCHBERG: Nor do they have any room to put the people convicted or awaiting trial. The Yakima County Jail is bulging under the pressure. It was built to accommodate 300 prisoners. Already, more than 400 are filling up the cells and sleeping on the floors.

MIKE SCHNEIDER, County Jail: This place essentially right now is a powder keg. Anything could happen. There's a large incidence in the increase in fights amongst the inmates. There's an increase in assaults against officers. The inmates and the staff are both at risk.

MAYOR BERNDT: We didn't create this problem. We didn't ask for this problem. We didn't do anything to deserve this problem.

MR. HOCHBERG: Yakima Mayor Pat Berndt says it's unfair for her small community to be forced to fight a regional drug network.

MAYOR PAT BERNDT, Yakima: There is beginning to be a feeling of almost despair, of -- if the federal and state government don't pull through with some more help, where do we go next, what do we do?

WILLIAM BENNETT: [Administration's Policy Address on Drugs] Progress is being made in many of the places worst afflicted by drugs, in neighborhoods and communities all over this country.

MR. HOCHBERG: In January, city leaders gathered around a television set in the city hall basement to watch the administration's policy address on drugs. Drug Czar William Bennett had recently visited Yakima, and Yakima's leaders hoped that might translate into federal help. They were jolted when Bennett announced new federal money would be directed not to Yakima, but to larger cities.

MR. BENNETT: [On TV] The administration has designated the following areas of the country as high intensity drug trafficking areas. They are: New York, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, and the Southwest border. This means concentrated federal law enforcement assistance, hundreds of additional DEA and FBI agents.

MAYOR BERNDT: I don't know the logic behind why they did it. We felt when Mr. Bennett left Yakima that he really did understand and was somewhat overwhelmed by the magnitude of our problem. We are spending 42 percent of our general budget on law enforcement. Where is their 42 percent? How much of the total federal budget is really going into this so-called "war"?

SPOKESMAN: The fact is if we don't get some help, we are not, crime will be rampant. I mean, it is already. We're No. 1 in crimes in the state already. We have the highest homicide rate per capita in the state. We have one of the highest felony rates, all of it directly related to the drug problem. And if we don't get some help, it's only going to get worse.

MR. MUDD: As noted in that report Houston is one of the cities designated for special drug attention. To discuss that and the over all battle against drugs is Houston Mayor Kathryn Whitmire and she is here is Washington in her capacity as President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and with her is the Chief of Police of Houston since January Elizabeth Watson. Mayor I gathered from what you said today at the conclusion of your conference that you think that the drug war for Houston specifically is doomed as long as Federal anti drug money has to be filtered first through Austin. Is that true?

MAYOR WHITMIRE: Well I am not going to say that the war against drugs is doomed because I think the war is being fought on many fronts but there is an attempt here in Washington to help the cities in this fight against drugs and most of us as mayors think that it is counter productive for all of the dollars to be sent to the States because it then takes so much longer to reach the cities and in many cases by the time they get to the cities the amount is not as great and perhaps there are so many constraints placed on the use of those funds that they don't fit into our own local priorities.

MR. MUDD: Is that State Government skimming is that what they are doing?

MAYOR WHITMIRE: Well, of course, the State Government will make its own decisions on where to spend the money. This last year I think Houston did finally receive about 10 percent of the drug enforcement dollars that came in to the State of Texas. But really when you take a look at it we received $700,000 to assist us with our drug enforcement program. We are already spending 190 million dollars on our Houston Police Department alone and so we are talking about a drop in the bucket in terms outside assistance. We are doing most of it with our local tax money.

MR. MUDD: What is the Federal Government afraid of in sending you and American cities the money directly? Why must it go through the States?

MAYOR WHITMIRE: Well you are asking the wrong person about that. That is a philosophy that has been followed and as the mayors have talked with Dr. Bennett and talked with Representatives on the Hill we have tried to emphasize that it is city officials, mayors, council members, police chiefs who are on the frontline and who are so very well aware of the tragedy of the drug situation in American cities. So we are the ones who have this at the top of our agenda on a daily basis and are probably the best ones to make the best use of the few available dollars.

MR. MUDD: Chief the Governors say that somebody has to oversee the spending of federal money otherwise it would be this mess and the states have to coordinate the State drug policy. How does the Houston drug campaign mesh with the Texas strategy? Does it mesh at all?

MS. WATSON: I don't think it meshes very well at all. I think it should certainly. Texas is a very large State and certainly very diverse in its components. Houston is the largest city. And what we are trying to do is to implement neighborhood oriented policing which is a concerted effort to work with our community and with the institutions in our city whether it is the schools the medical profession, other city departments, other law enforcement agency and so forth to really make a difference in Houston and the State's emphasis seems to be on the Suburban areas the outlying smaller cities.

MR. MUDD: Houston had the dubious honor back during the winter as being named one of the four major drug trafficking centers in the, I must say you were a poor forth next to Miami, New York and Los Angeles, but what did that designation do for the war against drugs in Houston? Did it help or did it hurt?

MS. WATSON: Well so far I haven't seen any effect what so ever. I have received some assurances that there will be increased enforcement at the federal level and there will be increased opportunities with our officers to work with federal agents but we have been told there would be no direct funding or a filter through even for the Houston Police Department.

MR. MUDD: Houston was sighted because it is a rail center, air center, road center, shipping center and the cosmopolitan population provides a cover for the South American operation. Would you describe for me what the drug scene is like in Houston?

MS. WATSON: Well it is really a multi faceted problem. We have drug trafficking occurring at all levels and one of our major concerns has to do with the laundering. Houston is a financial center and we see increasingly the monies are being filtered through our banks and savings institutions. So we are attacking it at that level and also at the street level and intermediate levels as well. It is really every where.

MR. MUDD: Do the banks know that they are laundering drug money?

MS. WATSON: Well, of course, they say they don't know. I think one of the effects we can have as a result of the increased federal emphasis is more information and better coordination of our activities on money laundering.

MR. MUDD: When you say they say they don't know I gather that you don't quite believe them?

MS. WATSON: I am not really sure that it is something that we had the capacity in the past to trace very effectively and so I can't categorically state that I do or don't believe them. I think that it is certainly suspicious when millions of dollars are routed so freely through the system that no one seems to question it. That is something that we are getting more information on.

MR. MUDD: Mayor if the money from the Federal Government came directly into the treasury of the City of Houston what would you do with the money that you can't do with it now? MAYOR WHITMIRE: Well what we do if we had some additional funding in to our enforcement programs is to make them available to the enforcement effort that the Chief has described that is neighborhood oriented street level effort to help deal with what is really hurting our citizenry and that is the destruction of the neighborhoods and the infusion of this drug trafficking in to our elementary and middle schools. So we would increase our enforcement effort there. Another thing we would if we had more direct funding is we would try to expand local treatment programs. It has long been my belief that enforcement alone is not going top solve the drug problem and I would want to see a stronger emphasis placed on reducing the use of drugs, reducing the demand for drugs by trying to provide better treatment and rehabilitation of people who had been addicted and try to increase our education programs. We have some great programs now. The Police Department conducts the DARE Program which is the drug education program where the police officers go to schools. We have been using some money to pay for that, that we actually got in terms of confiscated money in drug busts in which our officers participated. While that has been very helpful we still have not expanded that program to every elementary school in our community. That is one of the things that we want to do.

MR. MUDD: That is a nice sweet use of the money isn't it?

MAYOR WHITMIRE: It sounds like a nice sweet use but we are talking about a serious issue that if we can reach the youngest citizens of our community and if we can give them some self esteem, some ability to stay away from drugs, an ability to refuse drugs when they are offered and some opportunity for an education and training for a job and a career and a future we will not have as much drug use and we don't have as much drug use we won't have as many dealers, we won't have as much crime and violence.

MR. MUDD: Chief reference has been made by both you and the mayor about the neighborhood based policing strategy in Houston. I don't quite understand that. Do you mean using citizens patrols and guardian angels or it is a new role for police to play?

MS. WATSON: Actually it isn't new at all. It is getting back to the basics. It is instituting the kind of policing that is done in small cities every day. It is getting the officers in the neighborhoods so they are not strangers but they get to know the people in a neighborhood and thereby increase the channels of information that are available to them to be more effective in fighting the drug problems. So they will know where it is occurring, how it is occurring and who is involved.

MR. MUDD: And why did those police get out of the neighborhoods in the first place?

MS. WATSON: I think in large cities there has been drifting apart between the citizens and police officers because largely the cities are so large, relatively few officers are available and technology is such that demand has been to put the officers in the vehicles and have them respond very rapidly when the phone rings. We now recognize that is a short lived approach.

MR. MUDD: Do you agree with the Mayor that the emphasis should be placed on stopping the use rather than stopping the flow?

MS. WATSON: I really do believe that there needs to be much more emphasis on street level dealing. on the visible signs of crime. Creating an environment in the city whereby drug trafficking is not viable alternative to our youth. I really believe that is important.

MR. MUDD: The other night on this program Senator Keary of Massachusetts said he went out riding with the Police in Boston where they picked up various youths for buying and selling at $3000 a night and they say the young kids on the streets of Boston ate just laughing at the American judicial justice system. Do you laugh at it Mayor?

MAYOR WHITMIRE: Well sometimes we do. One of the things that we did recently in fact last summer at city council was an ordinance making it against the law to attempt to purchase drugs. The idea there was to increase the accountability of the users on the theory that we wouldn't have as many street drug pushers if there were not some of our citizens out there wanting to purchase what they had for sale. And so we were able to pass an ordinance whereby a citizen would be arrested if he or she approached an undercover police officer and made an attempt or an offer to purchase some drugs. So we have made quite a few arrests and we believe that is an effective way to bring about accountability on the part of the users. But the issue of young children being used by the drug dealers as the person to deliver the drugs is a serious national problem because our criminal justice system in this country simply does not have a very effect means of dealing with those children and therefore the drug dealer is able to accomplish his transaction with out exposing any one to an adult criminal penalty.

MR. MUDD: Final question Mayor. Do you think that it is realistic ever to stop the flow of drugs in to Houston?

MAYOR WHITMIRE: Yes I do.

MR. MUDD: You do?

MAYOR WHITMIRE: I am a great optimist now, of course, we sought the designation as a high intensity drug area because we are one of the four points of entry for drugs coming in to this country and we know if there can be intradiction efforts, if we make more drug busts at the entry point then there will be less drugs flowing in to the rest of the country and that will be very advantageous. But I think over all the question is going to have to be a change in attitudes and we are going to have to take back our streets one at a time, neighborhood by neighborhood. We are going to have to make it really unacceptable to use illegal drugs in our community and yes I do believe that we can do that.

MR. MUDD: Thank you. Thank you Mayor Whitmire and Chief Watson.

MR. MacNeil: Ahead on the Newshour the Senate prepares to tackle campaign financing, a conversation with Nazi tracker Simon Wiesenthal and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - CAMPAIGNING FOR DOLLARS

MR. MacNeil: We turn now to the next big issue facing members of Congress, the rules by which they get elected. This week the Senate is expected to begin debate on legislation to reform campaign finance. Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett looks at the Senate race in Illinois to examine the problems and some of the proposed solutions.

MS. BRACKETT: This is the part of campaigning candidates for public office say they like the best, getting out and meeting the voters. [CANDIDATE TALKING TO PEOPLE IN CARS]

MS. BRACKETT: However, candidates don't like having to ask them for money, but as campaigns become increasingly more expensive, the pressure to raise more and more money intensifies. These days the pressure is on Illinois Senator Paul Simon. He says he needs $8 million to run for reelection this year. At this Chicago seafood restaurant, a few hundred young upwardly mobile professionals paid $35 for shrimp, chardonier and a chance to meet their candidate.

SEN. SIMON: [Talking to Group in Restaurant] Let me express my appreciation to all of you for helping out in financing in a campaign. Unfortunately, that's essential in this process that we have. We ought to improve the process of financing campaigns, but in the meantime, I have to use the process that exists.

SEN. PAUL SIMON, [D] Illinois: I like to do things I enjoy doing and I have to say candidly I don't enjoy raising money. It occupies a tremendous amount of time that you could be out campaigning, meeting people, or if you're an incumbent, working on the issues, helping the people in your state.

REP. LYNN MARTIN, [R] Illinois: That was one of the things that I thought about when I ran and it's so daunting it could actually stop good people from running. It certainly caused me a lot of extra worry.

MS. BRACKETT: To effectively challenge Simon for his Senate seat, Congresswoman Lynn Martin is also out to raise $8 million.

REP. MARTIN: My aunt is still today active in Chicago Democratic policies, although God rest her soul she's been gone 10 years.

MS. BRACKETT: Martin, the Congresswoman from Rockford, Illinois, needs to build name recognition statewide. That means traveling down state to Bloomington, and introducing herself to a group of MacLaine County Republicans at their annual Lincoln Day dinner.

REP. MARTIN: And we're not talking about people in diamonds and furs. We're talking about farmers and teachers and businessmen and women and just kind of our neighbors, my neighbors.

MS. BRACKETT: But neither campaign could come close to reaching its dollar goal without big fund-raisers and major contributors. For instance, 400 Chicago lawyers contributed $125 each just to have lunch with not only Paul Simon but Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

SEN. GEORGE MITCHELL, Majority Leader: And I hope all the people of this state will vote to return him in November for another term. Paul Simon, a really great Senator.

MS. BRACKETT: Mitchell's presence helped Simon raise $70,000 in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. And on one snowy night, the big money arrived in big cars as a number of thousand and two thousand dollar contributors gathered inside the exclusive Chicago Club to meet not only Lynn Martin but Commerce Sec. Robert Mosbacher. They donated $75,000 to Martin's Senate campaign. What does a contributor get in return for his financial support?

REP. MARTIN: You get me. You don't get anything else. You've got a record that you already know. You've got a person that I think people are getting to know better. You've got a commitment to service and that's what you get.

SEN. SIMON: That does not mean that the system doesn't have its flaws and the flaw is basically this, that those who can contribute, the financially articulate, have inordinate access to policy makers.

MS. BRACKETT: You could call Philip Klutznick financially articulate. The millionaire developer and Democrat has long been a major contributor to Illinois Democratic politics. In fact, this year Klutznick was named honorary chairman of the state party's biggest fund-raising event, its annual Unity Dinner, mainly the result of his pledge to contribute $100,000 to the party.

PHILIP KLUTZNICK, Democratic Contributor: It's very human for a person who's running for office to be influenced by someone who's helped him get there. There's nothing wrong with that ipso facto. What is wrong is that there are some who give a lot who expect to buy the person.

MS. BRACKETT: In an effort to end the almost endless money chase and to change voters' perception that candidates can be bought, Congress is determined to rewrite campaign financing laws this year. But a partisan battle is shaping up over how best to do it. Democrats favor limiting the amount of money candidates can spend in their campaigns.

SEN. SIMON: In the State of Illinois, for example, the spending limit will be $5 million. I think we could get by with $2 million in the State of Illinois, but $5 million is frankly better than the $8 million that we're planning to spend.

MS. BRACKETT: But Republicans argue that proposal favors incumbents and would make unseating the Democratic majority in Congress almost impossible.

REP. MARTIN: In a free election, where people freely have to have access, you have to also be careful of limits. If limits mean that you are protecting people already in office and the ex-government teacher is showing here, the very tenets of democracy are going to start going awry.

MS. BRACKETT: Republicans favor either further reducing or eliminating contributions from Political Action Committees. PACS, often criticized for peddling their special interests, usually support incumbents, and again that means Democrats. But this Washington fund-raiser was held for PACS contributing to Lynn Martin. Representatives from dozens of PACS attended and Martin was able to raise $100,000 at this event alone. As opposed to many of her fellow Republicans, Martin would keep current limits on contributions where they are. However, she downplays the role of PACS in her campaign.

REP. MARTIN: At the beginning of the campaign, as I say, Political Action Committees are important, but the longer the campaign goes on, they cost more, so they go longer, so they cost more, but individual contributions, smaller individual contributions become more and more important a part.

MS. BRACKETT: Almost all of Lynn Martin's PAC money comes from big business, oil companies and banks, and from traditionally Republican interests like the National Rifle Association. Some of Paul Simon's PAC money comes from business, but also from labor and government workers and from traditionally Democratic interests like handgun control. The Illinois-based United Airlines PAC covered its bets and contributed to both campaigns. Simon also plays down his reliance on PAC contributions.

SEN. SIMON: In my case, I'm heavily dependent on small contributors, because I have offended, you go down the list of the defense industry, I have offended big oil, I have offended, you know, you just go down the list, and it's a lot of the major contributors I have managed to offend.

MS. BRACKETT: Simon would favor further limitations on PAC contributions but only as part of the campaign finance reform solution.

SEN. SIMON: Just simply outlawing PACS doesn't really solve any major problem because that while a PAC is limited to $5,000, let's say that five officers of a corporation each give $1,000, I don't know that there's any significant difference.

MS. BRACKETT: Who contributes and how much is not a secret. It's all right here in the candidate's campaign finance report filed at the Federal Election Commission Office. Candidates for federal office are required to list the source of all contributions of $200 or more. Individuals can contribute up to $2,000 to a candidate's campaign. PACS can contribute a total of $10,000. But the fund- raising efforts of Paul Simon and Lynn Martin in Illinois show how restrictions on campaign contributions are easily circumvented. For instance, the Duchossoises are the wealthy suburban Chicago family who own Arlington International Race Course, one of the most popular tracks in the country, and other corporations with interests in communications, manufacturing, science and defense systems. SEC records show the Duchossois PAC has contributed its maximum $10,000 and five family members have given their maximum of $2,000 each to Lynn Martin's campaign.

MS. BRACKETT: Now is that a way to go around the limit?

REP. MARTIN: Well, only if they have a big family and they have rights as individuals, but the law is very careful on that. I mean, every member of your family can give, but it has to be both reasonable and it has to fit the law.

MS. BRACKETT: Paul Simon has family contributors as well, the Levines of Chicago, three generations of diamond and gemstone wholesalers. SEC records show eight members of the family giving a total of $14,000 to the Simon campaign.

MS. BRACKETT: Is that a way to get around a spending limit, when each family member winds up giving that much money?

SEN. SIMON: Well, it is, but it was contemplated. It is not a skirting of the law.

MS. BRACKETT: David Axelrod makes his living running high finance campaigns. He has engineered victories on the local, state and national levels, including Paul Simon's upset victory over Sen. Charles Percy six years ago. He says there is little to prevent contributors who have given the legal limit from giving more.

DAVID AXELROD, Political Consultant: You see in campaigns people who reach their giving limit, so they'll send a check for their wife, they'll send a check for their kid. You see in the case of corporations people connected with those corporations giving contributions as individuals when, in fact, they're acting as agents of their corporation.

MS. BRACKETT: For example, J&B Realty of Chicago. SEC records show that last spring 24 corporate executives coordinated their contributions and gave a total of $18,000 to the Paul Simon campaign. And at the Northern Trust Company last winter, 18 bank executives contributed $5700 to the Lynn Martin campaign. That came on top of the company's PAC contribution of $2,000. While Congress considers placing further restrictions on campaign contributions, David Axelrod would do just the opposite.

MR. AXELROD: Well, you know, I might, I might actually reduce limitations because I think that they encourage, they encourage dishonesty. They encourage circuitous kinds of contributions through family members and employees and I'd rather not force people into a position to be deceptive. I mean, it's not illegal, but it is deceptive.

MS. BRACKETT: The reason running for political office has gotten so expensive is of course television, but buying air time from any of Chicago's major television stations gives a candidate the opportunity to reach 60 percent of the voters in Illinois. Some have suggested forcing television stations to offer greatly reduced rates or even free TV time for political candidates.

MR. AXELROD: If you did that, you would immediately cut the cost of campaigns at least in half and you would reduce the demand for money. I think that would be real campaign finance reform.

MS. BRACKETT: Paul Simon supports free TV time, along with total public financing of campaigns.

SEN. SIMON: There ought to be a voluntary checkoff that is there on your income tax form and both candidates in Illinois would get the same amount of money to spend and you could accept no other contributions.

MS. BRACKETT: Lynn Martin isn't convinced major campaign finance reform is needed.

REP. MARTIN: I guess we know that there's a slight illness here. Now whether it's a disease or not is another question. But a lot of the surgery might make the patient worse.

MS. BRACKETT: In the meantime, these two candidates will continue to play by the old rules of campaign financing. Any reforms couldn't take effect until the 1992 campaign. And whomever winsthe Illinois Senate seat in November will have the benefit of six more years to learn how to play by the new rules. CONVERSATION

MR. MacNeil: Next a conversation with Simon Wiesenthal, the man who dedicated most of his life to tracking Nazi war criminals all over the world and bringing them to trial. This week the United States, Israel, and other countries are observing a week of remembrance of the millions of Hitler's victims. In the capital Rotunda today members of Congress and survivors of the Holocaust lit candles in memory of the Jews and other Europeans murdered in such places as Auschwitz and Rabinsbruck, or who died resisting the Nazis in such places as the Warsaw ghetto. Earlier today I talked with Simon Wiesenthal, whose most recent book, "Justice, Not Vengeance", has just been published. Mr. Wiesenthal, thank you for joining us. Are there many perpetrators of the Holocaust, criminals, still alive and at large today?

SIMON WIESENTHAL, Nazi Hunter: I think thousands.

MR. MacNeil: Thousands.

MR. WIESENTHAL: Germans, Austrians, and the voluntary collaborators of Nazis in different countries of the world, but is going everything to our biological end. Criminals die, witnesses die, I will die, but how long people from the two generations that are alive, the matter must remain open matter, and for the future that these people who commit crimes will never rest. Next week, May 3 will be extradite to Germany a man for whom we was looking a few decades, 48 years after the crime.

MR. MacNeil: Extradited from where?

MR. WIESENTHAL: From Argentina to Germany, 48 years after the crime, 9000 miles from the place of the crime. The man has absolutely no political influence, nothing, 78 years old, and maybe the doctors will declare him unfit to send to trial or unfit to be in prison. This is the warning because --

MR. MacNeil: This is the warning?

MR. WIESENTHAL: Yes. Because it's possible that the murderers of tomorrow are born today. They should know that they will never rest like these murderers are not resting. And their sleepless nights, they don't know if we know them or not know them, but they believe that we know them. This is a part of the sentence.

MR. MacNeil: A part of the sentence is to give them sleepless nights because you'll never catch all of them before they die?

MR. WIESENTHAL: Absolutely.

MR. MacNeil: What difference is it going to make in the search, the removing of the Communist yoke from Eastern Europe?

MR. WIESENTHAL: This is a big problem. For an example, East Germany, it was the most perfect police state. Maybe I can give you two figures to understand it. The population of greater Germany, including Austria and a part of Czechoslovakia, was 80 million, and the Gestapo had 40,000 members watching 80 millions. The 16 or 17 millions of East Germans had the secret service and officially like the Gestapo officially 500,000, plus what we know today 1/2 million informers. Their political party, the SED, the socialist party was 2.3 millions from 12 million of those. This is a schizophrenic situation. The population are after 57 years of dictatorship because after the 12 years of the Nazi dictatorship they jump and 45 years dictatorship of the Communists. In East Germany, a man who took part in the free election for Hitler must be today 79 years old. So and now you must unite two, these two parts, the partition, this was punishment of the world for the crimes of the Nazis, but not a punishment forever. But the process of unification should be slow.

MR. MacNeil: Let me ask you this, a number ofquestions about that. One is, what was your reaction to the apology to the Jews, which was almost the first act of the freely elected new government of East Germany?

MR. WIESENTHAL: I can give only my personal reaction. I have not a right to speak in the name of other Jews. That's Germany, is today a real free democratic freedom country with democratic parties and we know what we can expect from them is Western European style. East Germany is for us something that we don't know what is it. From the Jewish point of view, they have done nothing during 45 years to recognize a part of their guilt and their policy was anti-semitic, anti-Israeli. They have trained the terrorists, equipped them, and overnight naturally the population say we are democrats, but the political, the European political situation make it so that there's not time for assimilation of the Eastern part to the Western part. There are two reasons.

MR. MacNeil: And yet you have, all through the years when you have been the relentless Nazi war criminal hunter, as you are known throughout the world, you have never adopted the idea of collective guilt.

MR. WIESENTHAL: No. I have never also a help from East Germany. They never answer a letter. They was not interested that criminals in the Western world become trials for their internal and external propaganda. They need the picture that from the West, all the big murderers are free. They never answer request for political help from West Germany.

MR. MacNeil: Are you saying that from a Jewish point of view then, East Germans are morally incompetent to be united with the West Germans, that the West Germans have absolved their role by admitting it and by 40 years of democratic institutions?

MR. WIESENTHAL: This cannot say in this way, because we know a population under a dictatorship, what they are doing is not their free will, and 70 percent of the population is born after the war. We cannot make them responsible for the crimes of their grandfathers or maybe fathers.

MR. MacNeil: Let me put something to you. You say in your book, Hitler destroyed, morally destroyed, millions of Germans and millions of Austrians, what's more, for generations to come. It isn't only the Holocaust victims who were victims but morally --

MR. WIESENTHAL: Morally naturally.

MR. MacNeil: -- the others. Now how does that square with no collective guilt?

MR. WIESENTHAL: I will tell you. I will tell you. We believe that hundred fifty thousand commit crimes but ten and a half millions was members of the Nazi party with only a few numeral exceptions, can be on the fingers of two hands, people say open we are against. This mean that morally they know what's going on only it was for them not opportune to open their mouths.

MR. MacNeil: But how does that infect their children? You say, "And what's more for generations to come".

MR. WIESENTHAL: Yes, because the generation of the Nazis never talk about the crimes even after the war to the young generation, to keep silent, and their silence, the young people, much talking to them, not to make the same errors like they had made when they was young is from the moral point of view, it is not nice.

MR. MacNeil: Let's talk about young people in this country. You, I'm interested in your warning about Americans. You say that young Americans think that culture and civilization will prevent the beast in us from breaking out again. You don't think so.

MR. WIESENTHAL: I will tell you, you have in your country fifty, sixty organizations with a number of people absolutely right wing. They are anti-semitic. They are pro Nazi. I have talked with some Senators and Congressmen about the problem because in my opinion, maybe I am wrong, I am admirer of the first amendment, but I cannot understand how it's a law to misuse the first amendment for bigotry, for slander, and this is going on. And when we look at some magazines, they are printed in this country and I'm telling you I'm a friend of United States and I will never forget that I was liberated by the American army. Every year, I am going to some American military cemeteries in Luxembourg and Holland to bring flowers to the GIs, because I know they paid with their life for our freedom and I know that without the United States we will be all slaves of the Nazis or slaves of the Communists. This has nothing to do with that I cannot close my eyes when I see that in this country that I laugh it is possible to print such newspapers like in the Nazi period.

MR. MacNeil: May I ask you this. You close your book, in fact, the very last sentence is a warning that democracies must like the United States must learn to give young people a meaning to their lives. What is the fear behind that warning?

MR. WIESENTHAL: I will tell you. I will tell you this. Freedom is not a gift from the heaven; you must fight for it every day. And some people ask me what you say and I am coming to so many colleges and universities and I say, remember it. There are in the world big number of injustices. You are young people; you cannot fight against big injustices, but also against smaller. And this is very important, that injustice see -- this is because I think of the mistakes that my generation made when I was a young man in the '20s, we were so believing in the progress of our century and humanity and friendship and justice and then we hear about a man with the name Hitler and hear his ideas. It's, ah, this is impossible, this man cannot have a chance in a country of philosophers, of thinkers, of inventors, absolutely, maybe in Asia, maybe in Africa, and we had not fight against the begin and later when the crisis was coming, it was too late, and a part of my work is to talk to young people and also to publish books with my ideas because we should, people prepare, recognize danger and not to believe friendship; we have seen this had no value.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. Wiesenthal, thank you very much for joining us.

MR. WIESENTHAL: Thank you. ESSAY - WELCOME HOME

MR. MUDD: Finally tonight our Tuesday essay. Roger Rosenblatt looks at the release of hostage Robert Polhill.

MR. ROSENBLATT: Whenever a hostage is released, it answers the basic human desire to know that someone who was gone is present and accounted for, that a missing person is back in place. The satisfactions of a complete head count run deep in our systems, deeper than the questions about how the captive was taken away or by whom, even deeper than the anger felt at the hostage takers. You may wonder why the families of the hostages often seem angrier at the U.S. government for failing to rescue a hostage than at the fanatical groups who kidnapped the hostage in the first place. The reason I think is that one emotion takes precedent over another, that prevailing emotion being simply the yearning to recover at any cost a family member who was displaced. Now this is a general public feeling too. It accounts for the fact that when a hostage is set free, our immediate reaction is like the satisfying of a sense of propriety. It is right that a person be returned to his family. It is right that a fellow countryman be returned to us. Ten years ago when the American hostages held in Iran were released some referred to our outpouring of happiness as patriotism. If so, it was patriotism of an almost mystical kind. A nation is a collection of people who recognize one another by their attachment to that nation. When one of our number is missing, the nation is not quite whole. John Dunn understood that. Any man's death diminishes me. The same may be said of any person's absence. A missing public figure always causes greater sensation than a dead one, even when the missing person is assumed to be dead. Where did Agatha Christie go during those fateful, unaccounted for days? Where did Amy Semple McPherson disappear? What happened to Judge Crater, to Jimmy Haffa? The speculations go on forever. Sometimes we do not care very much about the person involved, but we always care about the absence. Today, 53 years after she vanished in a plane over the Pacific, we will still stare at the sky, expecting Amelia Erhart to fly back into our reckoning. It may be that the homeless so seize our attention because they are often society's unidentified, missing in biographical data if not in substance. The homeless man killed by the man he attacked in a New York subway awhile back remains to this day unidentified and unclaimed. Kidnap victims, amnesia victims, they touch us more than we know. We want to bring them back among us as if we were bringing them back from the dead, the dead who constitute the irretrievably absent and who can never be released into our celebrations. At last, Robert Polhill reenters our system. Our pleasure at the sight of his reentry is inexpressible. Much will now be said quite rightly about the barbarism of his captors and of those other hostages who have been killed in this terrible, cowardly kind of warfare, and of those who remain to be set free. Eventually, Mr. Polhill will tell his tale and his loved ones will offer thanks. All that will be said aloud. What the rest of us will say to ourselves and our deep satisfaction is that another of our number has returned home where he belongs. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. RECAP

MR. MUDD: Once again, Tuesday's main stories, President Bush put off a decision on sanctions against the Soviet Union for its crackdown in Lithuania. The space shuttle Discovery with the Hubble Telescope aboard was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral. The two Germanies set July 2nd for their economic reunification and junk bond financier Michael Milken pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to a $600 million fine. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Roger. That's the Newshour tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.