The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Leading the news this Christmas Eve, a pro Iranian group released a French hostage in Beirut. A memo by CIA Director Casey reportedly contradicts the White House account of the Iran arms deal. Dissident Andrei Sakharov praised Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to make Soviet society more open. We'll have details in our news summary coming up. Jim? JIM LEHRER: After the news summary, we have part one of an extensive newsmaker interview with the outgoing Speaker of the House Thomas O'Neill. We look at what it's like for Russians to live in America, at what it's like for a championship Czechoslovakian hockey player in America, and we close with some Christmas words from essayist Roger Rosenblatt.News Summary MacNEIL: A French hostage was freed in Beirut today in what his pro Iranian captors advertised as a Christmas gesture. Television sound man Aurel Cornea walked into a hotel in West Beirut precisely when the Shi'ite Revolutionary Justice Organization had promised. Cornea, who's 54, had been held for 291 days. Shortly after his release, all he could say to the large crowd of waiting reporters was, ''I'm fine, I'm fine. '' A message from his captors said Cornea was freed, following mediation by Iran, Syria and Algeria, and because France had taken what they called serious steps for a solution. The group added, ''We have been assured that the French government is determined to reconsider its previous mistakes. '' The group said its demands included an end of French support for Iraq in the war with Iran and for France to ''get out of the American political circle. '' In Washington, there was this reaction from State Department spokesperson Phyllis Oakley.

PHYLLIS OAKLEY, State Department: We welcome this good news, particularly at this Christmas Eve time, and we are pleased that his suffering and that of his family are at last ended. We regret that others remain as hostages. We take this opportunity to repeat our sympathy and concern for their anguish. We call upon the captors to release immediately these innocent people of all nationalities. Continued detention brings no sympathy or honor to whatever cause the captors profess to espouse. MacNEIL: Cornea's release leaves 18 foreigners missing in Lebanon: seven Americans, six French citizens, two Britons, an Italian, an Irishman and a South Korean. Jim? LEHRER: Two newspaper stories provided today's developments on the Iran contra arms affair. The New York Times led the paper this morning with a report of amemo allegedly written by CIA Director William Casey one year ago. It reportedly said the United States should make a deal with Iran to trade hostages in Lebanon for arms, but claim it was designed to open new relations with Iran if discovered and made public. That has been President Reagan's public position since the arms for hostages deal has been known. There was no official confirmation of the memo or the New York Times story about it. Casey is in the hospital recovering from surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his brain. The other story of the day came from the Miami Herald. It said White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan tried to get Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North transferred away from the White House last summer, but President Reagan intervened, and North stayed on the national security staff. The report said Regan resented North's direct access to the President. There was no comment on the story from the White House or any other official place or person. MacNEIL: Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov today praised Mikhail Gorbachev for promoting openness in Soviet society. Sakharov, who returned to Moscow yesterday, after seven years' enforced residency in the town of Gorky, told Reuters News Agency about the personal phone call he received from Gorbachev announcing the end of his exile. In the call, Sakharov said he told Gorbachev that the way he handled the human rights question was vital, and the success of Kremlin reforms depended on the release of jailed dissidents. The physicist said he was very impressed by the new openness Gorbachev had introduced, saying, ''This is a very important move forward, which promises a great deal. It is necessary for any healthy society, and it is an essential condition for other changes. It is to the great personal credit of Mikhail Sergeyevich [Gorbachev] that we have it now. '' LEHRER: Back in this country, it turns out Voyager was very low on fuel when in landed yesterday in California. Voyager, of course, is the experimental aircraft which made aviation history by circling the globe without refueling. Today, a spokesman said there were only 14 gallons left at the end of the trip, compared with 1,090 when it took off. And there was a food warning today. If you are about to eat a Baby Ruth candy bar, don't. They may be contaminated with salmonella poison. Nabisco, the maker of the popular candy bar, issued a national recall order today on all Baby Ruths. It followed the discovery of salmonella in a small percentage of the bars made at the Nabisco plant in Franklin Park, Illinois. The company said consumers with Baby Ruths on hand should return them for a refund to the store where they were purchased. MacNEIL: In the Holy Land, there are more swords than plowshares on this Christmas Eve. In Bethlehem and Jerusalem, there is a massive Israeli military presence aimed at heading off possible terrorist disruptions. In spite of the weapons, the traditional Christmas Eve processions took place, as Christians of many faiths made the pilgrimage to celebrate the day that Pope John Paul II said unites us all. LEHRER: And that's it for the news on this night before Christmas. Now it's on to Thomas ''Tip'' O'Neill, what it's like to be a Russian immigrant in America, what it's like for a Czechoslovakian hockey player in America, and some Christmas words from Roger Rosenblatt. The Speaker's View LEHRER: Thomas O'Neill, Democrat of Massachusetts, is first up tonight. That's Thomas ''Tip'' O'Neill, the Speaker of the House, the man in charge at the U. S. House of Representatives. He officially leaves the job and the House next week, and I had a farewell conversation with him from Boston yesterday. It was about the Iran contra arms affair, President Reagan, himself and many other things. We have sliced the end result into two parts, and here is part one, which is mostly on President Reagan and the current troubles.

Rep. THOMAS P. O'NEILL (D) Massachusetts: Well, there's no question that darkens and diminishes his credibility with the American people. And suddenly there's a strong feeling as how has this man, who's been such a great leader for six years, fallen apart, and people are making assessments. Did he make a mistake when Mike Deaver and Meese and Baker and Clark left his surroundings? Were they the goal stoppers and the brilliant minds that brought him to where he is? What happened? And I think that, to be perfectly truthful, he had a tremendously strong staff. And if they had been around him, I don't think he'd of been ever in the position that he's in today. LEHRER: Well, that doesn't say much for the President, though, does it -- that he's only as good as his staff? Rep. O'NEILL: Well, to be perfectly truthful, I have served with eight presidents -- and this isn't anything new to the American public -- as far as competency is concerned, I'd have to put him at the low rung of the ladder. LEHRER: And define competency, then. Rep. O'NEILL: Well, I have found that the President, when you go over there, he operates by three by five cards. After he reads from two or three three by five cards, he immediately turns the remainder of the meeting over. If it's something on foreign affairs, he turns it over to Shultz or he turns it over to Weinberger. If it's military affairs or domestic affairs, he used to turn it over to Baker. He was always very reluctant to answer any question at a briefing meeting that you'd be in at the White House. Immediately, he'd say, ''Well, so and so will answer that. So and so will answer that. '' Rare was the occasion when you'd get into a straight dialogue with the President. That's the way it's been for the six years that I've been there. LEHRER: Was it -- do you think it's a lack of interest in what's going on or just a lack of ability or what? Rep. O'NEILL: Well, I don't know whether it's a lack of ability, because he certainly has been a tremendously sharp politician. He's done all the right things through the years. But he doesn't do his homework. There's no question about that. How many times have I criticized through the years, because of the fact that I'd say that the President is a three hour President or a four hour President, that he doesn't do his homework, he's not well prepared. This isn't anything new that I have been saying. The truth of the matter is that the media of America gave him a six year honeymoon. LEHRER: And now the honeymoon's over? Rep. O'NEILL: Now the honeymoon's over. LEHRER: Well, how -- you used the word darkened -- that his Presidency has been darkened. Do you see it permanently darkened by this? Rep. O'NEILL: Well, he's not going to be -- it's not going to stop the government by any means whatsoever. The important matters before the Congress will still be in being. But there will be a special committee of the House, a special committee of the Senate looking into this. I don't think it's going to be over. I think it will go to the fall before you come to the final conclusions of it. Did the President know it? I probably think that he did know it. He says he didn't know it, and I think that perhaps he did know it. But while all this is hanging above him, there's a cloud over him as to his ability, his talent and his leadership. LEHRER: You say did know. Did know about the transfer of the funds? Rep. O'NEILL: That's right. LEHRER: To the contras? Rep. O'NEILL: He did know about the Iranians, as a matter of fact. LEHRER: He's admitted that. Rep. O'NEILL: He's admitted that, and he gave permission for the original transfers. Now there's about 12 or 13 countries involved, and no country that does business with the United States would sell arms to Iran or to anybody else -- if they're American products, American spare parts -- without the advice and consent of the United States government. And I feel certain that they all did it, and I feel certain -- as he said, he did it with regards to the Iran situation of the Israeli shipment and, I believe, the Portugal shipment. As far as the contras are concerned, I could readily understand, and I believe, the walls have ears in Washington. I've talked to the leadership of the Republican Party who were down there, I guess, a half a dozen consecutive days. And he has said, ''I'd swear on a stack of Bibles that I didn't know that the transfer to the contras took place. '' I believe him. He should have known, and you can't excuse it. He should have known. There's no question about that. But I think the group around him, kind of reading his philosophy and how he felt about the Nicaraguan situation, think that there was a complied consent there and went in and acted on their own without him actually knowing about it. LEHRER: But thinking they were -- they had his approval, you mean. Rep. O'NEILL: Not necessarily that they had his approval. Not necessarily that they had his approval, but they felt as though he would like what they were doing. LEHRER: Yeah. All right, back to the Iran part of the equation. Is it your belief that that was a mistake? Rep. O'NEILL: No question it was a mistake. You can't have Shultz going around the world saying that we're opposed to terrorism, that we wouldn't deal with Iran or we wouldn't deal with any nation that was a terrorist nation in and of itself, and then at the same time we're dealing. I have to say, in the eyes of the world, the credibility of Shultz has certainly -- must be at a new low. And I feel sorry for him, because I think he's a very able and talented man. And there's no question in my mind that he probably knew it, but he opposed it, as he has said all the way along the line, as did the Secretary of Defense. LEHRER: A lot of people have said that the President, you know, just taking what he has said, that he approved this. And they say, ''Oh my goodness, I can't believe that Ronald Reagan would have approved that kind of thing -- selling arms to the Iranians. '' Based on your six years of dealing with him, did it surprise you that way? Rep. O'NEILL: Well, let me say this: he made that decision, and he made the decision without experts in foreign affairs, without thinking politicians around him. He's lost those, and he's got a new type around him, meaning Pat Buchanan and meaning my neighbor from home here, Don Regan. They think they know a lot about politics. They think they know a lot about world affairs. They think they know a lot about the Congress. But they actually know nothing about it. It's inconceivable that a man in the White House would authorize the transfer of funds to contras when in the period of the 99th Congress we had at least six votes on it, always extremely close. The Boland Act was in being at the time, which forbade us giving any arms or equipment to the contras. And yet, while we are debating in the House -- the elected people set up by the Constitution of the United States -- their important operative is to declare war and to authorize and appropriate monies while the Congress was in the high feeling and high tense that they were for a period of a year. While all this was going on, ''The Constitution be damned. To hell with the elected people of America. This is our idea. We'll set the policy. We don't need the Congress. We don't need anybody else. '' And to go and act and do what they did is -- it's inconceivable, such arrogance, to be perfectly truthful. LEHRER: Now, who's the we you're talking about? Rep. O'NEILL: Well, I -- well, of course, it has to go back to North, and it has to go back to Poindexter. And I would have to think that McFarlane, of course. McFarlane keeps saying that Don Regan was part and parcel, that he attended all the meetings. Don Regan denies that. But it's the staff around the President. Could all this have happened without the President knowing? I believe that it could have all happened without the President knowing. He said that he didn't know about it. So I believe that he didn't know it. So that's how much authority that he transgressed to those around him. LEHRER: So you -- but you find that -- when you say that, you say that almost as a condemnation, right? Rep. O'NEILL: Oh, absolutely. The fact that the President of the United States was kept from that knowledge, I just can't believe it. Now, I'm not an adviser to the President. I don't tell him he ought to get rid of Pat Buchanan or he ought to get rid of Don Regan or anything like that. They're in a quandary. They're in a quagmire. And they should have to extricate themselves. LEHRER: All right, let's go back to the Iran thing. A lot of people have expressed outrage over the fact that the United States would arm the very people who held our hostages for so long -- you know, the 53 hostages a few years back. Rep. O'NEILL: Not only that, they humiliated our government while they were doing it. LEHRER: Yeah. Do you share that outrage? Rep. O'NEILL: Oh, I absolutely share that outrage. LEHRER: Do you think if he had been getting good political advice -- forget foreign affairs advice and all the other kinds -- if he had been getting good political advice, he would not have done that? Rep. O'NEILL: No question in my mind. If the old team had been around him, they were aware of it, they'd have sat down. They would have talked with him. They would advise him. He would have had the knowledge of it, and the decision would have been against it. LEHRER: All right. You've just said earlier, though, that Ronald Reagan is a great politician. Why didn't he figure that out himself -- that my goodness, this would -- Rep. O'NEILL: Well, when I say he's a great politician, any man that can come from being an actor in 1964 and get himself elected as the governor of the state of California and makes statements out there how he's cut the taxes in California and how we had less budget, and the misinformation that he gave on the road to the Presidency is absolutely unbelievable. But he did it in such a manner, with a smile and a twinkle and a beautiful voice, there's no question, I haven't seen anybody in my lifetime that can handle the media the way he did. And he exuded a confidence that the American people were looking at. After all, we hadn't had a leader since Johnson -- and as far as the war was concerned, American people thought Johnson was a bad leader. But you take all the rest of the Presidents. America in 1980 was craving for a new leader. This man appeared on the scene with leadership ability. LEHRER: You say the media let him off on a honeymoon for six years. Why do you think -- what's your analysis of why he got -- Rep. O'NEILL: Well, I'll tell you. It goes right -- it goes way back with me, Jim. As a matter of fact, when he licked Jimmy Carter, you have to take into consideration that until the day of the debate, he and Jimmy Carter were even in the polls. After the debate was over, two days later, we knew that Jimmy Carter was defeated. The President came on the debate, he was more calm, he had more ability and talent to handle himself than we, the American people, thought he had. Here was a man that was talking about voluntary Social Security, here was a man that was -- found some woman in Chicago with 108 welfare checks. Well, first of all, Social Security couldn't function if you had a voluntary system. Secondly, there was no such person out in Chicago. The President was informed by every source on that. But after the election was over and he won, the press of America said, ''Look, we've been mean since the days of Kennedy, through Johnson, through Nixon, through Jerry Ford,'' who was an affable, very lovable, all American type. They looked at him as a stumbler. They criticized Jimmy Carter. He couldn't handle the press. He couldn't handle the media. And they immediately told the American public that the election was over a change of philosophy for the last 50 years, and the American people bought it. That's why we went forward with the Gramm Latta bill and things of that nature. But the interesting thing is, in Beirut we lost 241 men on a Sunday morning. Three days later, we were in Granada. And the press is praising the fact that we're down there in a victory. History will judge that we never should have been at Granada. We had no right to go in Granada. But the press did -- all of the sudden, the solace of America was out there. There was such feeling for the families of those 241 Marines. And now we're talking about Granada and a handful of people and how we're having a victory. You know, look at Iceland. I can remember quarter of seven in the morning, Shultz called me. He said it was a disaster. We had victory in our palm, and he said some people had ''talked about certain procedures of what the President ought to do. He went in, and then we lost everything. What a failure it was. '' Two hours later, they're talking about the great victory. The ABI, the Star Wars, the President wasn't going to give it up. On Election Day, we walloped the President of the United States. Fifty five to forty five is the Senate. We gained five or six seats in the House. We gained 164 seats in -- Democratic seats in the legislatures across America. We lost eight governors, but we still control it 26 to 24. They're talking about the great victory, because he had won eight governor seats. With regards to Libya, the misinformation. The press never went after him. The press treated him as though, ''Well, this is something extra special. The American people love him. We're not going to tackle him. '' And the interesting factor is that the Iranian story broke. They should have known that you can't do business with Iran when there were two factions looking to the future who are going to take Khomeini's place without one telling that the American arms are coming in. They should have known -- they should have known that that story was going to break. But the House was out, the Senate was out, and the press picked this up, and the press has followed it. The press didn't follow the other stories. I'm not trying to be critical of the press, but I'm telling you history as I read it. LEHRER: But your real criticism is of the Reagan administration. If you add up everything you just said, you're talking about a failure as a President for Ronald Reagan. Rep. O'NEILL: Well, as far as the Iranian situation is concerned, certainly. As I look at the President of the United States, I think his -- I think his domestic policies are wrong, I think his foreign policies are wrong, I think his trade policies are wrong. There's no question, on all of these things, in my mind. But after all, you know, I'm the opposition, to a certain degree, on the twilight of ready to walk off the stage. But how is the future going to assess this man? Let me tell you a very interesting story. It's January or February in 1985. It may have been '86. No, '84. '84 '85. I'm having supper out in California in Palm Springs -- my wife and I, Paul Laxalt and Carol, his wife; beautiful people, very lovely people. ''Tip,'' he says, ''You keep'' -- Danny Rostenkowski and his wife were with us -- Lorraine. He said, ''You keep saying the President isn't going to be a candidate for reelection. You know, I just became chairman of the Republican Party. I got a commitment from the President, Tip. I'm surprised that you say he's not going to be a candidate. He's the candidate. Why do you say that?'' And I said, ''Paul, let me tell you why I say that. You and I know he's got a strong group around him. '' I said, ''He's got Meese, he's got Mike Deaver. '' I said, ''He's got Clark, and he's got Baker. '' I've never met people sharper than they are. You know and I know his abilities, his talents, his qualifications. He can leave as President of the United States and have a spot in history. He's not going to be lucky for four more years. He's going to stumble. He's going to fail, and the American public all of the sudden are going to appreciate the abilities, the talent, the knowledge, the know how of this man -- the depth of the man. '' And he smiled. ''Tip,'' he says, ''you really underestimate him. '' But I didn't underestimate him. LEHRER: So you think that's just what's happened. He just -- he played his string too long? Rep. O'NEILL: Well, I think that ultimately, with the talent and ability -- the lack of the talent and ability and knowledge that he had in domestic affairs and foreign affairs and guided missiles, in every communication that we have as to running the government, I still say he was the low man on the totem pole of all the Presidents I've known. LEHRER: And that's the way history will eventually remember him? Rep. O'NEILL: That's the way I look at it. LEHRER: In the second part of the interview tomorrow night, Speaker O'Neill talks about other Presidents of the United States, among other things. Homesick on the Hudson MacNEIL: As we reported, the Soviet Union's leading dissident, physicist Andrei Sakharov, has been allowed to return to Moscow from seven years of internal exile. His release raised hopes in the West that Soviet authorities would also loosen restrictions on people wishing to emigrate. Human rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of Soviet citizens would leave for the West if they could. But that's not the whole story. Some who are already here are returning to the USSR. Many others are finding the adjustment to life in America more than they bargained for. It's on this group of new Americans that we focus next tonight. We will talk with two Soviet emigres about their experiences. But first, here is part of a PBS Frontline documentary first aired in 1983 and recently shown in the Soviet Union.

NARRATOR [voice over]: Only a few years ago, they were in Russia, living a life of rigid ideology and daily hardships, a life of food lines and shortages, of few amenities and making due, where luxury goods could only be dreamt about. Leaving Russia for America, all things seemed within reach, and they found themselves in a world where the clouds were fur lined, and it rained salami, a world of American abundance. SOVIET EMIGRE: I think that in this country I don't be afraid of my children, of their future, of their life. INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me how you see freedom for you and what it means to you? SOVIET EMIGRE: Freedom? It means -- for me, it means to speak -- to speak that that I want and to do what I want to do. SOVIET EMIGRE: Only freedom is freedom for work for myself. SOVIET EMIGRE: I think freedom is you can find all kind of books, starting from early history all over the world, all kind of languages. NARRATOR [voice over]: But making one's way in America, it's hard to hold onto the ideals. SOVIET EMIGRE: It's too much, you know? It's too much freedom here. INTERVIEWER: Who is there too much freedom for? SOVIET EMIGRE: I'll tell you. It's too much freedom for criminals, too much freedom for young people. I'm telling you. INTERVIEWER: Why did you come here? SOVIET EMIGRE: Why I come here? I want to be free. NARRATOR [voice over]: Half of the cab drivers in New York City seem to be Russian. They have their own meeting places, their restaurants, where they will drive from miles away so that they can eat Russian food, see Russian faces and express Russian thought. INTERVIEWER: Why did you come here? SASHA LONGIN, taxi driver: I want to be free. It depends, how do you understand freedom. I'm free. I'm free, working 20 hours. I'm free. I'm free to go to France, but I have no money, you know. What do you mean, free? Free -- it all depends, what do you think about, how do you understand it. It's a big -- it's not easy. All this stuff -- if somebody tell you, ''I came. I didn't like regime. I like it here. I don't like it there. '' Each country has its own problems and good points and bad points. NARRATOR [voice over]: Soviet immigrants reveal some of their thoughts and feelings in letters to their newspapers. ''Dear editor, we all know that in Russia there are many problems. But at least there you always know the address to go to with your complaints. The government could punish you, but it could also protect you. Here in America, we may have fewer problems, but there is no place to go with our complaints. You are nobody's responsibility. You are free and on your own. '' It was freedom from authority that they most wanted. Ironically, it's what they now miss. There are several newspapers which have been established in the West in the last ten years by Soviet immigrants. Alex Genis and Peter Vail are journalists on the New American Gazette, published in New York City. PETER VAIL, journalist: We are making the attempt to involve the democratic mind into the mind -- democracy to the mind of our emigre society. But I think it is very difficult, mostly because -- maybe mostly because ourselves. NARRATOR [voice over]: Sergei Dovlatov is the former editor in chief of the newspaper. SERGEI DOVLATOV, editor: In Russia, every morning, I was coming to -- I was coming to my job. And I knew exactly what to do, what to write, what to think and what no think. Because every -- for example, in newspaper, every month, we received released directions about political persons and other situation in the world. And I knew that Mr. Frankel is bad, Mr. Aliende is good, and it was very comfortable. Then we arrived here, and I became editor in chief of a Russian newspaper. And nobody tell me -- nobody told me what to do, what to think, what to write. I must to decide it every day myself. And it's interesting and it's normal, but it's not very comfortable. ALEX GENIS, journalist: It's very difficult for Russian peoples to understand that everybody has different point of view. NARRATOR [reading from letter, through translator]: To expose negative events is considered freedom. To show protesting homosexuals and lesbians on television is considered democracy. Mr. VAIL: It looks funny, but if somebody doesn't agree with an article in our newspaper, he doesn't try to write the opposite article. But his first wish is to close the newspaper and put all of us in jail. It's true. It's funny and it's very sad, but it's true. NARRATOR [reading from letter, through translator]: I can think of nothing but my business. I have to make decisions all the time -- decisions that may influence my future and the future of other people who depend on me. American businessmen talk about how they like to take risks. I like risks about as much as I like the KGB. I Russia, I didn't have to worry about financial risks. NARRATOR [voice over]: In the money poor Soviet economy, status was linked to title and position. So in America, when youngsters find work and parents don't, the self image of the family is badly shaken. SOVIET EMIGRE: My father was a good engineer and think this experience where he had almost 20 years of a company, so he thought with his speciality -- SOVIET EMIGRE: Specialty. SOVIET EMIGRE: -- specialty, he will find a job here without any problem, because he's a real specialist. But he is unemployed. For two years, he doesn't work. He feel like insulted, because I am working, and he is not, and I support all the family. So for now, well, he doesn't say to me much about it, but he feel not good. SOVIET EMIGRE: Mama was chief nurse in hospital. Mama had really good job. Really good job. Everybody like her, and she was proud of what she was doing. She was working with people. She -- it's really hard to explain, but she did something good. Here, she can't pass the test to be a nurse, even regular nurse. And it's really tearing her down. SOVIET EMIGRE: It's so hard for them to adjust, because they were something there; they're nothing here. They had power, they had authority, they were respected. And they come here, like, they were managers and bosses, and they had all those people who listened to them and who respected them. The come here, and they're nothing. They work as clerks, and they work in factories, even though they were engineers. They can't find jobs, because even though they were chief nurses -- SOVIET EMIGRE: If they knew this will be like this -- like we have now, like -- they would never come here. MacNEIL: We hear now from two Soviet emigres. Yuri Tuvim came here in 1976. He was a research scientist in Moscow and is now a development group manager at Waters Millipore Corporation, a Boston based manufacturer of scientific instruments. Marina Kovalyov emigrated in 1979 from Leningrad, where she was a museum curator. She now runs her own travel agency in New York. The last thing that was said in that excerpt we ran, if Soviet -- potential Soviet emigres knew what it was going to be like here, they wouldn't have come here. Do you have any sympathy with that remark? MARINA KOVALYOV, Soviet emigre: Oh, yes. I think that probably some of the people, if they would have known what they're supposed to expect, probably they wouldn't make that choice. But I still think that most of the people, because of the condition of the life in the Soviet Union, because of the depression and oppression that they had to experience during their life and that came to them from the life of their parents and grandparents as an experience, they still would take that chance. They still would try to change something in their life. Because it was said by one of the people that we just were able to see that in Russia, everything is the same, from morning 'til night. The same problems. You get used to them. You're born with them. And you start -- well, you like them at the end, because you can't survive without them, because that's your life. It's your life from morning 'til night. MacNEIL: How do you react to that statement? If a lot of Russians had known what it was really like here, they wouldn't have come. YURI TUVIM, Soviet emigre: Maybe. Maybe. But you see, because Soviet society is controlled society -- tightly controlled society -- and Soviet media is always lying, and they were telling us how beautiful is life in the Soviet Union at the same time they were telling us how bad is life in the United States, so people didn't believe Soviet media when the media was talking about internal affairs, and they equally didn't believe when media was talking about difficulties in the United States. MacNEIL: So they interpreted the Soviet media 180 degrees the other way and thought it must be a paradise here, you mean. Mr. TUVIM: Yes. And so there are two groups of people, generally, who left the Soviet Union. Some people left because they made individual decision consciously. They know what they are -- what they were to face, what they would face in the United States and what is the life in the Soviet Union. And there are also lots of people who left Soviet Union because of the fashion, because the door in closed society was suddenly opened a little bit. And it was a chance. MacNEIL: Particularly for Jewish emigration. Mr. TUVIM: Particularly for Jewish. And because of all this historical experience -- you know, historical heritage of the Soviet people is very hard, very difficult. So it was a chance to get out and not be afraid for future. MacNEIL: I think what, Ms. Kovalyov, what intrigues Americans to hear about this is the idea that freedom itself can be a problem. Have you experienced that? Ms. KOVALYOV: Oh, I think that freedom is a big problem for a lot of people, even 'til now. Because they have to adjust their former experience to a new life. And in Russia, 'til the very beginning of their life, one of the things that completely destroyed is their initiative. People are born with no initiative. If they're born with initiative, so they really don't have much way to go. MacNEIL: How has freedom been a problem for you? How have you felt that in your own life here? Ms. KOVALYOV: Well, when you come here, you realize right immediately that freedom is, first of all, the freedom to go out and look for something and create your own day, your own profession, your own way of life. And when you come from this society where your way of life was created by someone else, that sometimes becomes a problem. So for me, I did experience several problems, like at the beginning, when I got my first position, and I was pretty secure with that position. And then I got an idea that I can do something else. To make that step, I almost collapsed. How come I can start something new if I'm already secure with my job and I have insurance, I have my weekly salary. And how I can change something in my life. It was a major decision. And well, the thing -- even little things are the same. Even today, coming here, I was wondering, what are you going to talk about? Just to be able to prepare myself to give you a right answer and not to make mistake, etc. , etc. That came from my past. Even though I am quite a natural person, that came from my past. MacNEIL: Do you understand freedom as a problem? Mr. TUVIM: Not really. Not really. But I wasn't so lucky. I didn't make so many drastic decisions. I just find job after two months being here and still work for the same company. And it was not easy -- no English, a little understanding what is going on around. But I like my job, and I still work for the same company. And freedom? I can express myself in many, many ways here. MacNEIL: What about the thing that some Soviet immigrants mentioned -- that Russia is cradle to the grave security. As one of the characters said in that, the government can punish you, but it can also protect you. And here, there is not that kind of security. Is that a source of -- was it a source of anxiety to you at first? Ms. KOVALYOV: Well, it is a sort of deepest belief in Russia. That's what people believe in. And when they come here, they get out on the street, and everybody is able to criticize President, and they are not used to that. And they get shocked by that, because in Russia, they believed -- I mean, even in Stalin's time, the people who would be sent to prison, they would go to prison by Stalin's order, but they would believe that Stalin is great. MacNEIL: You were just sitting here listening to the retiring Speaker of the House criticizing President Reagan. Does that still make you uncomfortable to hear that kind of thing? Does it still make you nervous? Ms. KOVALYOV: Not really, but it sounds somehow funny. I mean, if -- for example, if I would be listening to something like that in Russia, probably I would close my door tightly. And it's something that you have to get used to. Not anymore, because I'm here for seven and a half years. MacNEIL: Do you have an residual -- Mr. TUVIM: Well, I knew what can I expect from Tip O'Neill. So the criticism was not new to me. MacNEIL: I see. Mr. TUVIM: I disagree with him. MacNEIL: Yeah. You're both making it sound as though your adjustment has been painless. Ms. KOVALYOV: It's not true. I did go through a lot of pain, and so do most of the people. And by the way, the documentary material that we just were watching was taken four and a half years ago, and I was very happy to admit that most of the people we were able to see that -- did find themselves in this country. And that's what happened to most of the people. But some of the people didn't. And they still live through tremendous pain. And that's why some of them can't get used to American society, and they are willing to go back, and they do go back. But they don't realize that they did change. And that's why half of them who went back already did come to America. MacNEIL: Have come back again, you mean. Ms. KOVALYOV: Right. Because people don't realize that they change tremendously. And the human nature like that, they don't remember painful experience. And they exaggerate the experience that they live through here, because it's right now. They live through that. So I did go through a lot of pain. MacNEIL: What was your reaction, finally, to Andrei Sakharov, who is the most respected and most famous of the dissidents in the Soviet Union, praising Gorbachev today for the amount of openness that has been introduced into the Soviet Union? Mr. TUVIM: What Gorbachev is doing now is very really something unusual for us. I think he is trying to do something for the country. The problem is, what he is going to do and how he will manage to do this. If he is trying only to improve Soviet system, it's one thing. If he is trying to change Soviet system drastically, to get rid of the totalitarian nature of the system, it's different. I think Sakharov's return is very significant, but there are lots of people who are still in jail. MacNEIL: As he said. Could I ask each of you, in a word, have you ever considered going back yourself? Ms. KOVALYOV: Never. MacNEIL: Have you? Mr. TUVIM: I'd like to go and see people -- my friends -- but I would never return back, because I think Soviet Union will go through lots of difficult times, and you won't really want -- you know Russian saying that two moves equal one fire. So I moved the one; I don't want to move another time. MacNEIL: All right. Well, Marina Kovalyov and Yuri Tuvim, thank you both for joining us. Mr. TUVIM: Thank you. Ms. KOVALYOV: Thank you. MacNEIL: Jim? Defector's GoalLEHRER: There are also those in the communist East who come to the non communist West to play big time sports. Among the latest of these pilgrim athletes is Frantisek Musil, a championship hockey player from Czechoslovakia. He joined the Minnesota Northstars after leaving his homeland and the world champion Czech hockey team. We have a report from Judith Sims of public station KTCA, Minneapolis St. Paul. [clip of hockey game] ANNOUNCER: Going after it, Musil, number six, for Czechoslovakia. ANNOUNCER: That's that big fellah I was talking about a little while ago. He's just mean enough and tough enough and skilled enough to play exciting hockey. JUDITH SIMS [voice over]: Twenty one year old Frantisek Musil had it made in Czechoslovakia -- the prestige of being a hockey hero, relatively good pay, travel opportunities like this one to Canada for the Canada Cup. But last July, he slipped away from a tour group in Yugoslavia to follow what he says is his dream: playing hockey for the NHL, the National Hockey League. His family only found out when he called them from North America. FRANTISEK MUSIL: It was really tough to understand for instance, like my mother, like all mothers, worried about me, you know. Oh, who makes me laundry, and, you know, who cooks to me -- cooks for me? And I tried to explain her that I defect, you know, that I want to -- that I want to play hockey here. And then I talk with my father, and he told me that he wants to pick me up from North America. And I tried to explain it's, you know, I became a world champion, and then I started dreaming about NHL. SIMS [voice over]: Musil had conveyed his dream to Lou Nanne, general manager of the Minnesota Northstars, whom he'd met several times during recent international competitions. LOU NANNE, general manager, Minnesota Northstars: He kept reiterating that to me -- that he would apply for a vacation visa. And once he was able to get that and get to Yugoslavia, then he would make contact with us and to be ready to get him out. SIMS [voice over]: The rendezvous took place in Yugoslavia last July. Mr. MUSIL: I flew from Zagreb to London, and there I spent two or three hours in transit, and then I took a Concord, and I flew from Concord to New York. SIMS [voice over]: Getting a 6'2'', 205 pound defense man to the U. S. was a dream for Nanne as well. Nanne, well known in the league as an astute recruiter, says he'd eyed Musil since 1983. Mr. NANNE: We felt if we could ever get him out, which is always a long shot, that he could be an outstanding player in the National Hockey League. SIMS [voice over]: The long shot is expected to pay off in time in stronger defense for the Northstars. Musil's immediate concerns are to get acquainted with his new teammates, his new country and his new five year, six figure contract. It's a heavy adjustment for a kid who used to make 20 bucks a game if his team won. The Northstar locker room in amused by the change. DENNIS MARUK, Minnesota Northstars: Frank Musil, Mr. ships and Cadillac. HOCKEY PLAYER: Football and cartoons? Mr. MUSIL: And Cadillac. HOCKEY PLAYER: And Cadillac. SIMS [voice over]: Czechoslovakia, says Musil, was never like this. Before the Northstars training began, Musil explored his new world partly, he says, to keep his mind off the abrupt separation from his biggest fans, his parents. Today, he says, he wonders how his father, a factory worker, and his mother, who works in a day care center, would react to America -- for instance, to a party held to unveil the 1987 Cadillacs. Mr. MUSIL: It's unbelievable for them -- for my parents -- because they never be in North America, and they never see the capitalist system. It's like a story. SIMS [voice over]: Musil has had other tales of capitalism to tell his family. For instance, this machine at first seemed right out of a storybook. [cash machine] Mr. MUSIL: I'd never seen it before. I was surprised if I saw, you know, there was money coming from the wall. We haven't any of those things in Czechoslovakia. It was neat. SIMS [voice over]: But, unlike some teammates and compatriots who own glittering estates and fleets of sports cars, Musil affords himself only a few luxuries, a leased Cadillac perhaps the most extravagant. He boards quietly with a family of Czech descent in suburban Minneapolis -- something arranged by Lou Nanne to help ease the cultural transition and something that's got him hooked on that most favorite of American pastimes, football. While he's had some good moments, Musil is just coming into his own. Critics say it will be a while before he adjusts to the North American style of hockey. Mr. MUSIL: Czech fans or Czech spectators, if they're coming to watch hockey, they want to see a lot of goals and a lot of passes. They don't like, you know, fighters or, you know, a lot of body contact. But this is the style I prefer. Mr. NANNE: The fellah dropped his gloves, went after Frantisek. And he grabbed a hold of him, but he wasn't accustomed to fighting. He forgot to drop his gloves until he took a punch or two. But no matter what happens, he accepts it, and he takes it as something that's fun. Mr. MUSIL: Sometimesif I play against those guys, they are thinking that I'm something different, you know. When I came from Czechoslovakia I am not as strong as them, you know. And then I want to show them that I am as strong as them, and I'm as good a player as those guys I'm playing against. I must, you know, have some respect. Sometimes it's really tough. Like me, you know, maybe I can't go back. But if I play good, I'll have a good life here. [clip of hockey game ] ANNOUNCER: He's another one of these young defense men that are going to be tested.

SIMS [voice over]: Although he hopes his parents will some day be able to share in the good life, Musil says his immediate goal is to pass the test during his first 80 game NHL season and hold up what he says is his end of a good deal. A Christmas Carol LEHRER: Finally tonight, a Christmas carol from essayist Roger Rosenblatt.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: That secret narrator is really the story's main character. In Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, it is not Scrooge or any of the ghosts or Tiny Tim. Bob Cratchet narrates A Christmas Carol. [clip from A Christmas Carol film] BOB CRATCHET: Merry Christmas to you, sir, I'm sure. MAN: Thank you.

ROSENBLATT: He is, by far, the meekest person in the story, perhaps the nicest in all of literature. If he asks for a warmer fire in the office, Scrooge slaps him down. If he expects to take off all of Christmas Day, Scrooge gives him a hard time. [clip from A Christmas Carol film] EBENEZER SCROOGE: You'll want the whole day off tomorrow, I suppose. Mr. CRATCHET: If quite convenient, sir. Mr. SCROOGE: It's not convenient.

ROSENBLATT: His salary is docked. He is heartsick with a crippled son. He is nearly broke. There Cratchet sits, a mouse on a clerk's stool, writing figures in a ledger while Scrooge gets all the figures and all the scenes. Still, it is Cratchet whom Dickens is looking at throughout, because Bob Cratchet is poor, and because A Christmas Carol is about poverty and our relations to it. Yes, the story is also about redemption, about Jacob Marley's warning to his former business partner that, unless Scrooge changes, he is doomed to Purgatory. The story is about education too. [clip from A Christmas Carol film] TINY TIM: God bless us, every one.

ROSENBLATT: Scrooge learns from the ghosts how to live a life of feeling instead of accounts -- in psychological terms, how to break down the deadly forts of his childhood into which he locked himself. [clip from A Christmas Carol film] GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST: A solitary boy yourself, Ebenezer, forgotten by his friends, is left there still.

ROSENBLATT: But while these flights of the mind are in progress, there is a bedrock reality to Dickens' Carol. The poor are helpless in this world. And if no one calls their names, they disappear. Good, cheerful Bob Cratchet is the spokesman for this cold reality. But because he is so good and cheerful, one forgets that his troubles are insurmountable without supernatural intervention. If Cratchet loses his job, his family will starve. They do not have a great deal as it is. Without more money, his boy will die. You know the story. You hear it told around you every day. If not in London, then in Detroit or Denver or New York. One century to another, one civilization to another, the poor are always with us. Look carefully, and you can catch them in this season as the shop lights glance off their vacant faces. They're the ones who look like carpets rolled in doorways, the ones who construct houses out of shopping carts and stare at their own loneliness with disbelief. Most do not know the gaiety of the Cratchet home. They are the silhouettes on museum walls, the streets. We have confronted a good deal of evil in this country in recent years. Most of us grew up when it was normal for blacks and homosexuals to be denied their humanity, for women to be denied their proper power. Those things are heading into history. But the poor retain their condemnations. Why is that? Do we need the poor to remind us of our comparative good fortune? Do we despise them for their weakness? Scrooge needed Cratchet as the receptacle for his reformation. Do we need the poor for that? But reformations are sporadic. The government ignores, private enterprise ignores. Or have we decided in the dark, hidden rooms of the heart that we don't really care if the poor fall down? And if we have not decided that, what restrains this country from hearing the cry directly in its ears? The voice of the poor is America's secret narrator. Real life Bob Cratchets do not receive turkeys from surprise donors, do not have their salaries doubled on the spot, do not see their children recover. Real life Scrooges evidently do not reform. And the secret voice persists, telling a story of America we do not wish to hear, especially on these sweet, candy music days when plenty mounts on plenty. But whether we like it or not, the poor tell our story in 1986, and it need not be that way. When Scrooge awakened Christmas morning, he saw the world renewed, because he willed it so. With him, let us open the windows, descend the stairs, and reenter the streets that call our names. MacNEIL: Again, a look at the top stories on this Christmas Eve. A pro Iranian group released a French hostage in Beirut. A memo by CIA Director Casey reportedly contradicts the White House account of the Iran arms deal. And dissident Andrei Sakharov praised Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to make Soviet society more open. Merry Christmas, Jim. LEHRER: Thank you, Robin. Same to you. Have a nice night before Christmas, and we'll see you here tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.