The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, more than 150,000 Chinese students and workers demonstrated in downtown Beijing. President Bush called on U.S. companies to keep chemicals away from foreign drug traffickers, and at least 600 people died in a tornado in Bangladesh. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, we begin with the prospects for peace in the Mid East. We'll reprice our recent interviews with three leaders crucial to any accord, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, and Jordan's King Hussein. We'll also get the views of State Department official Dennis Ross, former National Security Council Staff Member William Quandt, and Israeli Journalist Ehud Yaari and Professor Rashid Khalidi. Then we begin a series of weekly conversations with people from the front line and the main line in the war on drugs. Tonight former Federal Prosecutor Richard Gregory. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: They had the largest public demonstration in the history of Communist China today. Some 150,000 students and workers marched in Beijing for democratic reforms. We have a report from Beijing by Jeremy Thompson of Independent Television News.

JEREMY THOMPSON: The students marched out of the gates of their universities and into conflict with authority. They'd been warned all demonstrations were illegal. Hundreds of police cordoned their campuses with orders to prevent unrest. One student reminded them China's constitution allowed them freedom of speech and protest. The demonstrators claiming they were doing nothing unlawful marched through police lines and onto the streets. At other universities, loud speaker messages exhorted students to stay on campus and prevent social turmoil. Authorities at this college went even further, locking students. Staff members formed a line to stop them leaving. Outside the gates, fellow students called for their release. One college principal, sobbing with emotion, pleaded with his students not to join the march. "They'll be blood shed," he warned. Ignoring his advice, they linked hands and set off to join the pro democracy rally. Lines of police blocked roads into Central Beijing. It was enough to deter some protest groups determined toMNEIL avoid confrontation. On other routes, great waves of demonstrators surged on towards the city center, sweeping aside the police. There seemed no animosity, no sign of violence from either side. all along the way, the public cheered and waved in support. "The workers won't let the students be victimized," they shouted. As they passed the hospital, doctors and nurses ran out to will them on their way. A group of hospital workers joined in, despite government threats of reprisals against those who get involved in demonstrations. As the marchers reached Central Beijing, crowds of ordinary citizens swelled the student ranks, filling the streets in a massive show of solidarity. Police moved in to seal off Tiananmen Square, facing then a demonstration stretching as far as the eye could see. The police put up some resistance. But the authorities had clearly underestimated the students' fervor, the people's support. Sheer force of numbers broke the lines. As the protesters swarmed onto the Square, the police backed off. This was the biggest demonstration of discontent in the history of Communist China. So far the government has failed to listen. Today the voice of protest was too strong for their troops to suppress. The students had made their point.

MR. LEHRER: There was some official U.S. reaction to the Chinese demonstrations today. State Department Spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the U.S. hoped they remain peaceful and that the authorities acted with restraint. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: President Bush today called the war on drugs a world war and he urged Latin American nations to work out a formal agreement with the United States on how to fight it. Speaking in Miami to an international conference on drug enforcement agents known as IDEC, Mr. Bush said Americans must curb what he called "our voracious appetite for drugs". And he claimed that foreign drug traffickers are using U.S. made chemicals to process their cocaine. He called on U.S. companies to be more vigilant in cutting off that supply.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Few Americans are aware that illegally diverted barrels of dangerous chemicals clearly marked with U.S. corporate logos are routinely seized in the jungles of Colombia. IDEC held a panel discussion on this Tuesday. And those gathered here, you understand its importance. Traffickers have hit us where it hurts and now we're going to exploit their vulnerabilities, crimping the flow of the materials without which they cannot produce. No chemicals, no cocaine.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: President Bush also said that Latin American leaders for their part must be more vigilant in curbing drug trafficking operations in their countries.

MR. LEHRER: The foreign ministers of 22 Arab countries today called for a cease-fire in Lebanon. They did so at the end of a seven hour meeting of the Arab League in Tunis, Tunisia. The ministers said the cease-fire should begin at noon tomorrow. Arab League observers will be sent to monitor it. More than 270 people have died in the fighting between Christian and Moslem forces. An Arab League delegation discussed the move today with Secretary of State Baker. They met in Washington. Afterward, an Arab League representative spoke to reporters.

AMB. CLOVIS MAKSOUD, Arab League: Lebanon is on the threshold of being resolved. We express our appreciation to the Secretary of his United States support for the Arab League's efforts and we hope that he will continue the support in our second stage when the Arab League monitoring system is in place.

MR. LEHRER: Major leaders of both the Christian and Moslem forces in Lebanon have not yet given an official response to the cease- fire proposal.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The countdown for the Space Shuttle Atlantis is on target for its scheduled lift-off tomorrow afternoon from Cape Canaveral. The shuttle's cargo will be an unmanned spacecraft which will be sent to Venus to take the most detailed pictures yet of that planet. It's NASA's first new mission to explore another planet in 11 years, the cost about $1/2 billion. As the American astronauts prepared for their four day flight, three Soviet Cosmonauts returned to earth after spending more than five months in the Soviet Union's orbiting space station. The station will operate on automatic pilot until August, when a new crew is sent up. The Soviets said the astronauts were brought home to save money.

MR. LEHRER: A huge tornado killed at least 600 people in Central Bangladesh last night. As many as 12,000 others were injured. The tornado destroyed more than 20 villages. Troops searched the rubble today looking for more victims. The tornado brought with it rain and hail, after a two month drought had threatened the nation's rice crop. Heavy rains caused a landslide on Sunday at a gold mine in the Central African nation of Barundi. Information released today said at least 100 miners are trapped and believed dead. Officials said the landslide occurred so quickly there was no chance to escape.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Finally in the news, the Government of Vietnam returned 21 sets of remains to the United States today believed to be Americans killed in the Vietnam War. The remains were flown to Hawaii for identification. One hundred and eight-four sets of remains have been returned to the U.S. over the last two years as the two countries agreed to work on improving relations. That's our News Summary. Still ahead on the Newshour, prospects for Mid East peace and strategies for the war on drugs. FOCUS - PROGRESS TO PEACE?

MR. LEHRER: We go first tonight to the search for a peace in the Middle East, a peace for Israel, a peace for the Palestinians. Prospects appeared to spring alive the last few weeks as the leaders of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan came to Washington with ideas and reactions and other key players spoke up elsewhere. We look tonight at whether there is more to it than appearances. The State Department official behind U.S. efforts in the area is here as are three analysts. They follow a brief reprice from three interviews we did on this program during this time, Judy Woodruff's with Yitzhak Shamir, mine with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Robert MacNeil's with King Hussein of Jordan.

MS. WOODRUFF: Let's talk about the specifics of what you're proposing, elections. Who would be eligible to vote in the West Bank and the Gaza?

YITZHAK SHAMIR, Prime Minister, Israel: [April 7] Well, the general idea is that the Palestinians are living in these areas, the inhabitants of these areas.

MS. WOODRUFF: And who would be eligible to be elected?

MR. SHAMIR: The same, the same.

MS. WOODRUFF: Could they be members of the PLO?

MR. SHAMIR: I don't think they will be members of the PLO because according to my proposal, the elected people will have to know and accept the principles of the agreement about the elections. They will have to know that they are elected in order to conduct negotiations about an interim period of arrangements, of self rule for a specific time, for a few years, and then afterwards, there will be started a process of negotiations about the permanent status of the territories, the territories of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, with the clear purpose that the target of the negotiations, the purpose has to be to get a solution acceptable to both parties. I don't think it is in the line of the PLO.

MS. WOODRUFF: What do you mean it's not in the line of the PLO? What do you mean?

MR. SHAMIR: I think that the PLO is opposed to such elections and to this way of solving the problem. They are asking for a Palestinian state immediately.

MS. WOODRUFF: As you know, the Americans and others had urged you to arrange for some outside observers to be there during these elections. Will Israel accept the situation?

MR. SHAMIR: We have not raised formally this question. There are some talks about it and I don't think we need foreign observers. I don't think it's a need because Israel is well known for its honest way of conducting democratic election, democratic elections. In our country, the Israeli Arabs participate in the elections to the Knessit, and I don't remember any case of some claims against the Israeli Government for distortion of the results of the ways of elections.

MR. LEHRER: He has, he took a proposal to Washington, as you know, for a way to do what he called get the road to peace started and to stop the uprising in exchange for some elections. You have rejected that approach.

YASSER ARAFAT, Chairman, PLO: [April 20] Election for what? Give me one example that to choose the, the delegation for negotiations we have to go to the election. Where it has happened? With the Israelis in '48? They had their election after approximately two years, twenty/twenty-one months. Where? In Namibia? In Capugia? The election can be taken later for the shape, for the formula of the. . .for exercising our self-determination. But to form a delegation only for negotiations, okay, we can accept the challenge but not under their auspices. The occupiers, they are the occupiers, they are the oppressors.

MR. LEHRER: So if the United Nations or some international group. . .

MR. ARAFAT: Under the United Nations auspices, why not? But definite not under, not under the occupiers' supervision and under the Israeli auspices.

MR. LEHRER: But what would the Israelis have to do, I mean, pull out completely before you would agree to the election?

MR. ARAFAT: You see, if this can be accepted, we can have a schedule. Definite I know that they will not move instantly, but we can have a schedule for the whole operation from A to Z.

MR. LEHRER: A. . .

MR. ARAFAT: A package deal, okay.

MR. LEHRER: A package deal.

MR. ARAFAT: Yes. I accept.

MR. LEHRER: Have you transmitted this information to. . .

MR. ARAFAT: No.

MR. LEHRER: No?

MR. ARAFAT: You can tell President Bush.

MR. LEHRER: Maybe. . .

MR. ARAFAT: Package deal from A to Z.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. What's Z?

MR. ARAFAT: As His Excellency had mentioned.

MR. LEHRER: His What?

MR. ARAFAT: The end of the Israeli occupation.

MR. LEHRER: The end of the Israeli occupation.

MR. ARAFAT: The implementation of United Nations resolutions. We are not asking for the moon.

KING HUSSEIN, Jordan: [April 21] I don't believe that elections per se are a solution to the problem, elections under whose auspices, who's eligible to run in these elections or to vote in these elections and for what purpose. But if we look at the suggestion and obviously, the PLO will do that before us, and our friends in Washington, equally and elsewhere in the world, the question of Palestinian self-determination in some form or another, the PLO is definitely the recognized leader of the Palestinian people. In any event, this particular dimension could be an element in the process. We have to know where we are going.'

MR. MacNeil: Does that mean you would support the Israeli plan, the Shamir plan, for a two stage progress towards self- determination and a permanent solution to. . .

KING HUSSEIN: I've had enormous difficulty, sir, with supporting the concept of the so-called "transitional arrangements".

MR. MacNeil: Which is what he proposed the elections for, isn't it?

KING HUSSEIN: As far as I am concerned, you transit from one point to another. One would certainly like to know what the final point is. As far as I'm concerned, and I'm committed to it, it is a just, comprehensive peace. We must take into account the Palestinian dimension, the interests of all parties to the conflict, including Israel, and a solution of the problem totally. So then we begin to see what needs to be done to get us there. And obviously the PLO is ready to do that.

MR. MacNeil: Is there a time pressure for Mr. Arafat to show to the other factions of the PLO and the more radical people in the Arab world the results he's achieved for the concessions. . .

KING HUSSEIN: I feel very strongly that he has to show results and he has to show them soon.

MR. MacNeil: How soon?

KING HUSSEIN: I can't give a certain time limit, sir, but I don't think that time is with us. There is this opportunity and we can't miss it.

MR. MacNeil: Does Mr. Bush see it that way?

KING HUSSEIN: I believe that the President is aware of the need to move.

MR. LEHRER: And that brings us to Dennis Ross, Director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and a key architect of the Bush administration's Middle East policy. Mr. Ross, does President Bush see the need to move?

DENNIS ROSS, State Department: Yes. I think we see that there is a sense of urgency that all parties should share. We want to see the violence stop. Wewant to see the climate change. We want to build a process that can lead somewhere, and that objective is a comprehensive peace settlement.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Whose move is it next?

MR. ROSS: Well, I think what we have now is a concept that is on the table that needs to be developed. It is an idea, an elections, that can be a kind of organizing principle for how one proceeds, how one works to transform the system in advance of elections, to determine what comes after elections. I think at this point we have a lot of questions about how you transform the situation, the modalities of elections and how they will be worked out. We need to be working with the Israelis, and we need to be working with the other parties in the area.

MR. LEHRER: Is anything that you either saw in these excerpts or in the longer interviews, or what you have been told privately or publicly by these people or these other folks or other people and their representatives that makes you believe that these elections can be the genesis, can be the core of a settlement?

MR. ROSS: I think what we have been asking is to take a look at this as a step by step process in which elections can be an important point. They can, as I said, organize in a sense one's actions. And I think the key here is to recognize that we've been asking everybody to give us a chance to develop this. We don't see other pathways that offer an opportunity to really make progress. This does offer a basis to do so and what we've been hearing from everybody that we talked to is that they're willing to give us a chance to develop this idea.

MR. LEHRER: Now what are you doing to develop it?

MR. ROSS: Well, first of all, we are beginning to follow up within our own house to determine the kinds of answers we think ought to be developed for how we want to approach these elections. We are also beginning to follow up with the Israelis and we will be following up with everybody else in the area as well. We've begun a process of consultations and that's something that we will be continuing to do in the next few weeks.

MR. LEHRER: When Arafat says, as he says in that interview, I don't think elections for negotiators is a good idea is a good idea, we don't need them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but then he says, okay, if they want them, we'll have them, how do you interpret that? Do you think he would accept elections for negotiators?

MR. ROSS: I can't tell you exactly what he would accept, but I can say is that when one looks at the Palestinians as a whole, what one sees is a lot of discussion and a lot of debate on this issue of elections. It clearly has captured people's interests. They understand there's something there. Elections as a part of a larger process is something that has an appeal to it. People want to know how is it going to be developed. I think the kind of debate and discussion we've seen is positive. What we're asking everybody to do is don't impose conditions on elections that make it impossible to move forward.

MR. LEHRER: Are you also saying to all parties don't insist on a big huge package deal, take it one step...for instance, Arafat is saying, well, if it's a package deal, and Z is the Israelis leave, are you saying, wait a minute, let's just take it one step at a time, everybody, you're trying to tell everybody that?

MR. ROSS: We are. What we're saying is we have a step by step approach and the reason we have a step by step approach is on the one hand, there is a positive dimension here, and that is a new pressure, a new ferment, in Israel and among Palestinians, that creates the possibility of movement. On the other hand, all the traditional barriers to movement exist. There is no consensus on the format for negotiations. There is no consensus on the fundamental substance of the negotiations. What we have to do is take advantage of the area where there's a possibility for movement while not running up against those barriers that would create an immediate deadlock.

MR. LEHRER: What is your answer to the question of time, how much time this window, if it is, in fact, a window of opportunity, how long is it going to be open?

MR. ROSS: Well, I think I hesitate personally to try to pick deadlines, because I think deadlines can create an artificial sense and create also a reason to delay until you get close to the deadline. And what we're trying to do is foster movement that builds step on step because that would begin to change the psychological reality. I don't want to fix a deadline or a time. I would say that we approach this with a sense of urgency. Prime Minister Shamir, by the way, when he spoke with us emphasized that he approached it with a sense of urgency. And we take him at his word.

MR. LEHRER: Urgency because Israel can no longer tolerate the uprising in the occupied territories?

MR. ROSS: I think urgency because the violence, the death, the tragedy of a situation that continues to unfold can have a broader application in the region. We're looking at a region where you see proliferation of missiles and chemicals. We need to deal with this problem. We need to diffuse this problem. We need to move on this problem so as to avoid another Arab/Israeli war, because the next Arab/Israeli war is going to look a lot different than the last one.

MR. LEHRER: But it is, the uprising is the catalyst that has brought this situation to wherever it is right now, would you not agree?

MR. ROSS: I would say that's true. The uprising has created a new reality within Israel. I think it's created a new reality among Palestinians. I think Arabs in the region as a whole have recognized it as a new reality. What we have to do is take that new reality and try to channel it in directions that are productive.

MR. LEHRER: What kind of priority is this to the Bush administration?

MR. ROSS: Well, I think the President has spoken very clearly to that, that this is an important issue that we need to address. We've always been committed to Middle East peace. That is not a new objective for an American administration. I think we are going to deal with this problem in a way that we think is effective and productive. I can't tell you does it fit No. 1, No. 2, or No. 3. What I can tell you is it is an important objective.

MR. LEHRER: Should we be on the lookout for a Bush peace plan in the Middle East, or should we look for small things around the edges? What should we be looking for these next few weeks and months?

MR. ROSS: Well, what I would like to suggest is that, in fact, you have an approach that we are following that is coherent, that has a game plan, that is built on what I might characterize as two phases, the pre-negotiation phase where. . .

MR. LEHRER: That's where we're in now.

MR. ROSS: That's where we're in now. And elections can be a kind of bridge between this pre-negotiation phase and the formal negotiation phase. But in this first phase we have to change the climate. We've got to transform the situation. We've got to begin to build a degree of trust between Israelis and Palestinians so that their perceptions of each other begin to change. More important than I think anything else, we've got to use this period to change the psychological realities because what isn't thinkable today does become possible over time.

MR. LEHRER: Let's take the negotiations thing, and also in that Arafat interview, we didn't run it in this segment, just in the cut just now, but Arafat said from his perspective, he's already in negotiations with the Israelis through the United States, that the meetings that are happening with Tunis, as far as he's concerned, he's negotiating with Israel. Shimon Peres. . .well, he's now actually the finance minister of Israel. . .has said exactly the same thing. Does the U.S. see it that way too?

MR. ROSS: No. We are not a mediator between Israel and the PLO. We are not passing messages back and forth. We have a dialogue with the PLO. We are using that dialogue to determine whether or not the PLO commitment in a rhetorical sense to the principles of peace can, in fact, and will be translated by the PLO into behaviors that will support a practical peace process. We're using it to determine that. That is separate from being a mediator.

MR. LEHRER: But you don't see the U.S. as representing Israel in these discussions with the PLO?

MR. ROSS; No, I don't see the U.S. as representing Israel. We have made it clear all along that we would have a dialogue with the PLO if they met certain conditions. They met those conditions. Now we have to determine whether or not the PLO is prepared to support a process that can lead somewhere, so we are making that judgment as part of an overall effort on our part to be active and promote a peace process.

MR. LEHRER: Have you made the judgment yet?

MR. ROSS: I think it's too soon to say that. We will continue a dialogue and we're going to determine the level of seriousness and the level of commitment to a process that emphasizes and understands that peace is not going to be made by slogans; peace is going to be made by diplomacy. And oftentimes diplomacy grinds. There has to be give and take, there has to be a recognition for the need for accommodation. There has to be a recognition that oftentimes you have to take practical steps, sometimes slowly, sometimes in a gradual incremental way. What we're trying to determine with them is the kind of commitment they have to such a process.

MR. LEHRER: And how long is that going to take, Mr. Ross?

MR. ROSS: Well, again, I don't want to fix a timetable on that. We've had discussions. I think to this point they suggest that there is a degree of seriousness. Whether or not that can be translated into helping to promote the kinds of steps that will change the climate on the ground, that can help to promote a dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians in the territories, that can help to define how one gets to elections, how elections might be conducted and so forth, we'll see that over time.

MR. LEHRER: All right, Mr. Ross. Thank you very much.

MR. ROSS: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Now three analytical perspectives on all of this. They come from Ehud Yaari, a commentator and correspondent on Middle East affairs for Israeli television, he currently is on leave as a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington think tank; William Quandt, senior fellow in Middle East Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, formerly on the National Security Council staff during the Carter administration, he joins us from Portland, Oregon; and Rashid Khalidi, a professor of modern arab history and associate director of the Middle East Center at the University of Chicago, he is in San Francisco tonight. First of all to you, Mr. Quandt, where does it all add up to you, the interviews, the other things that have happened and what Mr. Ross has just said?

WILLIAM QUANDT, Brookings Institution: [Portland, Oregon] Well, I think what it adds up to is that there is an opportunity. . .it isn't necessarily a big opportunity, there are enormous problems that divide Israelis and Palestinians. . .but there's enough here for creative diplomats to work with. And I sense that that's what Mr. Ross is saying, that there is a willingness to engage on the part of the United States. there's a sense of importance and urgency. What I don't quite sense is a willingness to take the next step to accept in a sense that the United States is going to have to play the role of intermediary, of broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians, meaning the PLO. I think in a sense we are doing that. It's perhaps not polite to say we are doing it quite yet, but we are trying to find some mid point between an Israeli idea, elections, and a Palestinian response which has not been negative of saying elections in a certain context. Now that's about as much as you get work with in diplomacy, and it's a pretty good opening, and I think it's now time for the United States to begin to try to fashion this concept and to move it toward what the real objective is, which is after all not elections, but to get the parties talking in an authoritative sustained way about the substantive issues of peace making.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Yaari, do you see something new here from an Israeli point of view?

EHUD YAARI, Journalist: Oh, yes. I think that there is a very important shift in the election proposal brought here by Mr. Shamir during his last visit. This is the first time in the history of Israel that Israel is proposing to negotiate and conclude a settlement with a purely Palestinian delegation. So far Israel, both parties in Israel, were insisting that whatever negotiations we are going to hold with Palestinians these Palestinians will be attached this way or another to an Arab delegation, Jordanian, Egyptian, or another. So here is a very important chief of principle that Israel is now willing to negotiate and conclude an interim agreement at this stage with Palestinians. The second point I would make is basically if we tried to read into the election proposal, Mr. Shamir is proposing a kind of a disengagement agreement with the Palestinians. What does it mean to have elections? It means in a way legalizing, if not officially then de facto, the inside PLO, the political arm of the PLO inside the territories, granting legitimacy to political activity by PLO activists. I was very careful to listen to Prime Minister Shamir earlier on on the program. He didn't say no to this question, so this is quite a lot. And then I think that there is an offer by Israel now which should be taken seriously by Mr. Arafat and any other Palestinian, which is a disengagement in which Israel will not give the Palestinians what it gave to Egypt during a similar interim agreement back in '75. It will not give territory at this stage. It will give institutions. Part of the Israeli Government will be withdrawn from the territories. Army, the Israeli IDF, the Israeli army will be redeployed. This is quite a generous offer, I would say, as an interim agreement.

MR. LEHRER: And then leave the Z for later on.

MR. YAARI: I think one thing should be clear to everybody. We shouldn't ask now the right questions. What we have here is the eye of a needle, but I believe if we are careful enough an elephant could pass through.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Prof. Khalidi?

RASHID KHALIDI, University of Chicago: [San Francisco] Well, I think that a lot depends on whether all of the things that Mr. Yaari talked about are, in fact, inherent in Prime Minister Shamir's proposal. I think that it is absolutely essential that if we talk about elections, we talk about a radical modification of the regime that exists in the occupied territories. The people who would run as candidates are in large part in administrative detention. Would these people be allowed to campaign freely? Would political activity be allowed? I think that the skepticism of Palestinians under occupation about the proposal has more to do with the fact that there seems to be no sign in Israeli behavior or from the rhetoric that they hear from the military administration which would indicate that, in fact, free political activity, the free operation of Palestinian institutions, is inherent in this plan. The second element that I think concerns Palestinians greatly is that there's been a traditional attempt to divide Palestinians in the occupied territories from Palestinians elsewhere, to pretend that there is not a single Palestinian people with a single national representative. And if you have to deal with the Palestinians, deal only with those under occupation. There is a great deal of concern that this election proposal is part of that sort of trickery, that sort of attempt to divide the Palestinian people. And I think that those are the kinds of hard questions that the administration should be asking the Israelis, because if, indeed, they intend to maintain the extreme repression that obtains currently, the election proposal is a non-starter, it's absurd. If they intend to exclude the PLO, exclude the Palestinians who are in exile, from the negotiations that take place at a later stage, then too I think this is a non-starter.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Yaari.

EHUD YAARI, Journalist: Well, I think we should remind ourselves of the fact that the election idea originally came from the unified command of the PLO within the territories as far back as January '88.

MR. KHALIDI: That's correct.

MR. YAARI: And was repeated several times later in the fliers.

MR. KHALIDI: That's correct.

MR. YAARI: The name of the PLO. So basically what we see here...I wonder if you'll agree with me, Doctor Khalidi, is Mr. Shamir accepting a proposal which was basically put forward by the unified command with the complete blessing of the PLO.

MR. KHALIDI: That's correct.

MR. YAARI: Only when Mr. Shamir puts the proposal forward and it gains some support from President Bush, then Mr. Arafat has some sort of second thought. Again, with your permission, I would like to refer to the other point about Israel trying to drive a wedge between the local PLO and the outside PLO. True. There are Israelis who are thinking in these terms, but no Israeli can force a split between the inside PLO and the outside PLO unless the inside PLO is interested in the territories, in splitting themselves from the PLO. I do not think personally that this is the case. However, I see. . .

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me. You believe that the PLO inside and the PLO outside are unified on this.

MR. YAARI: I think that there will be no split. I think that is my information. They do not see eye to eye concerning the elections.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Mr. Khalidi, what is your reading of that?

MR. KHALIDI: I don't see differences between them on this issue. I think that the reservations that have been expressed are based on concerns emanating from the present circumstances. In other words, you have over a thousand people under administrative detention, no charge, no trial. Essentially, these are the kind of people who'd be candidates in elections, so Mr. Yaari is right. The original idea for elections did come from personalities associated with the PLO in the occupied territories and from the communiques issued by the unified command there. The fear now is that that idea will be taken by Shamir and turned into something else. If, indeed, you have truly free elections, I don't think anybody will object. In fact, they've expressed themselves fairly clearly, both in Tunis and in the occupied territories, in support of the principal elections.

MR. LEHRER: Bill Quandt, let's take a next step here if we can. You said that you were a little disappointed in what Dennis Ross said on behalf of the United States, you didn't read into what he was saying that the U.S. was prepared to show some leadership here. What could they do next? What should they do next?

WILLIAM QUANDT, Brookings Institution: [Portland, Oregon] Well, I think that we're going to have to take this concept of elections which in the abstract is very appealing and begin to try to flush it out and talk about the conditions that would make elections genuinely free.

MR. LEHRER: But how do they do that? He said they were going to do that. But how specifically could they that?

MR. QUANDT: Well, there are some very concrete questions that have to be answered. For example, will the Palestinians in East Jerusalem be able to participate? If not, it's practically inevitable that the Palestinians will reject the idea, so we need to pin that down.

MR. LEHRER: That's because so many of their leaders are in East Jerusalem.

MR. QUANDT: Their leaders, and it's a very important part of their community. This question of Palestinians under detention, the question of whether identified PLO supporters can participate, can they advertise their political loyalties, can they raise the Palestinian flag? They can't do that today without arrest. All of those need to be pinned down. It needn't take very long but we need to have a clear concept of what a free election means. And I do believe that some form of monitoring or international supervision is a perfectly acceptable procedure these days. We have seen it happen in many many places, and I don't think the Israelis should be one bit offended at the idea that in these very unusual circumstances the international community has a certain right to say that some form of supervision or monitoring should take place. And then I think thirdly the United States, given its history of involvement as a negotiator/mediator in the past, has a certain obligation to define what the negotiations will be all about when they take place. Now Mr. Shamir has defined rather narrowly that the negotiations can only deal with the so- called "autonomy and self-government", and, again, that's a formula bound to produce Palestinian rejection. I think the United States has to try to get the parties to say that negotiations start with no pre-conditions and no set agenda in advance, that parties can bring to the negotiation table what they will, that the only common basis that we're looking for is that they all say, as we hope they still will, that they're committed to the principles of UN Resolution 242. And that gives the Palestinians the right to go into the negotiations and say, we want to talk about everything from A to Z, as you heard Mr. Arafat say and Mr. Shamir say, we can talk about anything but we will only now agree to the first steps. That's again enough creative ambiguity in diplomacy to perhaps get things started.

MR. LEHRER: And that's what you're talking about, Mr. Yaari, the, maybe the elephant through the eye of the needle?

MR. YAARI: Creative ambiguity.

MR. LEHRER: Creative ambiguity.

MR. YAARI: We don't talk about the Z. We don't ask now the right questions. We ask only those questions which are relevant in order to take a very hesitant first step.

MR. LEHRER: Well, what about, correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seemed to me just listening very carefully to what Shamir told Judy Woodruff, he wasn't refusing international supervision or bringing in the U.N., that's possible, is it not?

MR. YAARI: Oh, no, he was not refusing it. I think that if anybody was accusing Israel of rigging elections among the Palestinians, they will have to teach the Israelis how to do it; they simply don't know.

MR. LEHRER: What I mean is a negotiating point. I mean, he didn't seem to be locking himself in concrete on that.

MR. YAARI: Well, I will be blunt on this. I don't think that the modality supervision, et cetera, are going to be the main stumbling block towards an agreement. The question is very simple. Is Mr. Arafat, and the rest of the rest of the Arab leaders, prepared to back some sort of an interim step which will be taken through local PLO affiliated leadership in the territories. Because when we speak about elections, I've been covering for 20 years the West Bank and my guess would be, and I'm willing to bet here, that there will be only one slate, and there will be only one slate of candidates because the PLO will dictate only one slate, so what would be the great need to have the supervision? And what Israel is basically suggesting now, and this is a common thread of the two major parties in the present coalition, both Labor and Likud, what Israel is proposing is instead of trying to quell intefada, trying to talk to the intefada, instead of trying to erase the intefada, trying to embrace the intefada and talk to its leaders. Dr. Khalidi was complaining that many of them are in detention camps, which is true. But what is Israel is suggesting now is to take them out, let them be elected, and then talk to them seriously.

MR. LEHRER: Briefly, Prof. Khalidi, can that elephant be put through that needle?

MR. KHALIDI: Well, I think that we have to see what's riding on the back of the elephant. The questions that have been raised like Jerusalem and others I think raise further questions that are going to have to be negotiated, and I'm afraid that the modalities may indeed be very difficult to work out. I think if we don't have an interim settlement that goes on and on and on, which is what Palestinians fear, that the status quo be frozen in the name of some interim steps then possibly this can be a step in the right direction.

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you all three very much. SERIES - TALKING DRUGS

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Tonight we begin a series of weekly conversations focusing on solutions to the drug problem. The new Drug Controller, William Bennett, is currently studying the problem and hopes to announce a national drug strategy by September. During that time, our series will focus on talking about solutions with a broad cross-section of people, drug abusers and dealers, policemen, community activists and many others. Today in Miami, President Bush offered one solution.

PRESIDENT BUSH: For too long a sharp divide has been drawn between producing and consuming nations. Well, denial is a natural part of human nature and probably part of a country's nature as well. But let's face it. Americans cannot blame the Andean nations for our voracious appetite for drugs. Ultimately, the solution to the United States' drug problem lies within our own borders, stepped up enforcement, but education and treatment as well. And our Latin American cousins cannot blame the United States for the voracious greed of the drug traffickers who control small empires at home. Ultimately the solution to that problem lies within your borders. And yet, good neighbors must stand together. A world war must be met in kind.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We begin our series tonight with a former federal prosecutor who doesn't think the federal government is on the right track. Before he went into private law practice, Richard Gregorie made cases against high ranking officials in foreign governments, as well as notorious drug lords, among them the Medellin Cartel, a highly organized international criminal narcotics enterprise based in Colombia, and the major importer of cocaine into the United States. Among the leaders Gregorie indicted were Jorge Ochoa Vasquez, also known as "El Gordo"; Pablo Escobar Gaviria, alias "Godfather"; Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, also known as "The Mexican"; and Carlos Lehder Rivas, also known as "Joe Lehder". All but Lehder are still at large. Gregorie's most politically sensitive case involved the indictment of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. It was a case he pursued without his Washington superiors' knowledge, among the charges, assisting and protecting members of the Medellin Cartel. The case proved an embarrassment to the Reagan administration when they failed either to extradite Noriega for trial, or to force him from office. Earlier this year, Gregorie resigned in frustration. The other day he told me he felt the concern over embarrassing foreign governments was interfering with his ability to attack the drug problem.

RICHARD GREGORIE: We really are not trying to stop the narcotics traffic at its route. We want to give people the impression that we're doing it and we're hoping the problem will go away, but we aren't willing to take the hard steps that are necessary to solve this problem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you respond to those who are saying that we've lost the drug war now on the supply side battlefield?

RICHARD GREGORIE: Well, it isn't law enforcement's problem. This is a foreign policy problem. Our law enforcement can't affect the fact that Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia keep growing more cocaine and processing more cocaine. We can't affect the fact that although we've indicted most of the leaders in the cocaine industry, they still sit in a safe haven in Colombia, and we can't touch them. Law enforcement here can arrest the distributors in the United States. They can seize massive amounts of cocaine that are coming across the border. But if we're lucky, the best we can do is maybe seize a third to a half of it. And at the amounts they're producing it at this moment, there is more and more cocaine pouring across our border every day and no matter how good a job law enforcement does, unless we affect the foreign policy issue, that is, the fact that they're growing more and more cocaine and it is becoming the cash crop of hundreds of thousands of compasinos in Central and South America, you're just going to see more of the cocaine hit our streets.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you do that? I mean, what would you have the foreign policy arm of government do?

RICHARD GREGORIE, Former Federal Prosecutor: Well, first of all, I think that the problem reaches the level of the problem in the Mid East, of the disarmament problem, and I think we need to call an international conference of the drug producing countries. I think the President of the United States and the Secretary of State have got to emphasize to these countries that this is a major problem in the United States and we are going to deal with it. I think then that they have to begin to take steps to indicate that the United States is going to have to take a very hard stance on this issue. We give out multiple entry visas in most of these countries. The Colombians don't like dealing with people from the United States, so rather than allow United States representatives to run their business, they send up their businessmen about once every six months and change places with the Colombians that are here to run the cocaine industry. We keep handing them out multiple entry visas. You can buy phony paper work for Colombia, Bolivia, or Peru, on the streets of Miami for about $200 undercover agents have seen with as many as three or four different countries' passports. I think we're going to have to stop giving them out on such an at random basis. Yes, we may slow down trade between the United States and the drug producing countries, but we're facing a horrendous problem. And we're not doing anything to stop it at its source. If we had a diseased agricultural crop somewhere in this country, we wouldn't wait until the crop was matured, harvested, packaged, and distributed before we tried to stop it. We'd stop it at its source.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How would you do that?

RICHARD GREGORIE: You can do it by physical means. You could burn it out. You could take machinery in to uproot it and destroy it. You could offer some sort of martial plan in which we would offer alternative agricultural crops, but with all of those plans, you have got to make it absolutely and undeniably clear to these foreign governments that we cannot allow them to continue to grow more and more cocaine. You are making them reliant on this cash crop that is ultimately killing people on our streets.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why do think the government doesn't do that?

RICHARD GREGORIE: I think because they are more concerned about three issues; one, the third world debt, I think that the banks and our own economy would be disturbed greatly by the fact that the cocaine industry was closed off; I think that there are, No. 2, a number of other industries who are relying on their ability to operate and sell from Central America and don't want to be living in fear of terrorists attacks in those countries; and No. 3, we're still running on a 1950s cold war mentality. We're worried about the communists taking over in South and Central America. I'm fairly certain that Mikhail Gorbachev made it clear that they can't afford to pay for this kind of disruption any further. But our foreign policy seems still to be geared that way. We are now in more danger from the cocaine menace than we are from the communist menace and we're going to have to shift our foreign policy to recognize that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What makes you think with all the budgetary problems that we have in this country we can put into effect some kind of martial plan for the peasants in Latin American countries?

RICHARD GREGORIE: Well, I think we've tried it, and, again, I say we've tried it just to please the media. We've got to stop making nightly body counts, you know, showing a seizure of three hundred or four hundred kilos on nightly TV does not mean that we're winning the war. What you have to do is go approach the problem at its source, and I think that when you look at how much money is being placed into fighting narcotics, and if you look into the defense budget, I mean, here we have probably the largest national security issue that I can imagine.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How could the U.S. Government just destroy crops and do the other things that you've advocated?

RICHARD GREGORIE: How could we go and bomb Libya, if they're producing chemical warfare? How could we, you know, mine harbors or send soldiers into any foreign country?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You don't think that stopping drugs has become a priority for the United States.

RICHARD GREGORIE: I know it hasn't. If you look back over the last eight years, if you find more than one speech by the Secretary of State on the narcotics problem, I'd be shocked. I'd also be amazed that if you found in our intelligence agencies any kind of priority for dope traffic. In fact, I've talked to a number of State Department people who won't say it publicly but have said it to me that if you want to reach the end of a career in the State Department, the best way to do it is to get into the narcotics section, and I honestly believe they're correct. Their interest is to see that they maintain good relationships with the foreign countries where they're assigned. And right now the foreign countries growing drugs are making tremendous amounts of money. I heard an interesting story the other day about some of the banks in Colombia. They're very aristocratic and it used to be that they'd serve tea in the afternoon and you'd have to be in one fine three-piece suit in order to walk into that bank. And one of the agents was telling me he was down there the other day and in walked several guys in burlap clothes and rubber soled shoes and the bank was just falling over backwards to bring them into the bank because they're bringing in cash, U.S. dollars.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about money laundering, where does that fit into the whole equation?

RICHARD GREGORIE: Well, that is really the reason for the problem. Folks are growing and selling drugs because there is so much money involved. And if you could stop the money end of the problem, you would really stop the industry. The problem is that we're not focusing on that end of it enough. IRS in Miami had 15 more agents when I came here in 1982 than they have today. The squads involved in Operation Greenback have been cut back in this past year.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Operation Greenback being. . .

RICHARD GREGORIE: Operation Greenback is the group of Customs and IRS agents who focus on money laundering. IRS should not be cut back; IRS should be increased. You need the agents who have the ability to follow the money flow, and to cut back on that particular agency is a real loss.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I've heard the criticism that U.S. policy is so schizophrenic because it's so many different agencies involved.

RICHARD GREGORIE: There is no national policy on narcotics. When I left the Justice Department in January, I knew of over 30 agencies involved in jurisdiction to handle the narcotics problem. There is no national policy so they all do their own thing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What kind of problem does that present?

RICHARD GREGORIE: It presents a multiplication of effort. First of all, all law enforcement relies on their informants. You can't make a case without having good informant information. So what you have is numerous agencies either using the same informants and not knowing it, or having informants who could be helpful in one another's cases but just not sharing the information. You also have information going to these agencies where they're covering the same defendants. We often run into situations where the FBI will be surveilling DEA and vice versa on a particular case. In numerous situations. . .

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And not knowing it?

RICHARD GREGORIE: And not knowing it. In numerous situations, Customs may follow a boatload of cocaine coming in from Colombia, and they may seize it at sea when the FBI or DEA had set up a whole operation on land, waiting for the cocaine to be delivered and ready to arrest the distributors who are waiting for it on the land side. And there just isn't enough coordination in those activities going together. There have been a number of efforts to try to correct that but none of them have really succeeded, because you're dealing with different agencies. My recommendation would be that there should be what amounts to a joint chiefs of staff and they should be required to sit down once every month or two and there should be a position for the narcotics czar so that he actually has some authority to be the chief of staff, and when they have these meetings establish a national policy so that they aren't crossing each other in investigations, that there's a means to settle disputes, that there is one national policy which everyone is following, and which the intelligence information which they gather on narcotics dealers is spread throughout the agencies and so that we are not constantly repeating the same work that other agencies are doing. And you've got to allocate your resources in the right places. Right now, New York, South Florida, the Texas border, and California are the leading import places in the United States and we should be putting our manpower and resources there. And I think we should stop playing to the press. Yes, Washington, D.C., is a terrible problem, and yes, we should be trying to deal with that street problem. But that is merely the end result of the tremendous amount of narcotics that's pouring across our borders. And you won't solve that problem by putting FBI or DEA's thin resources into Washington, D.C. You need a bigger D.C. police department and more jail cells, yes, but you don't need FBI agents and DEA agents to be out trying to solve $5 crack buys.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is this something that William Bennett in his job as "drug czar" could do something about? I mean, could this be invested in him or should it be?

RICHARD GREGORIE: It should be. Right now, he has no authority to do anything. He can't tell the attorney general what to do, he can't tell the secretary of the treasury what to do. And, in fact, I'm not even sure that, you know, he sat down with all of the heads of the agencies I've just talked about at any one time. He really needs the ability to sit down together with them and discuss this problem. I'm not sure that the Secretary of State has even talked with them about some of the foreign policy issues, and as I keep saying, the cocaine problem is not a local law enforcement problem. Our police officers are doing a great job. Our agents are out there, they're seizing more dope every year, but it is a foreign policy problem and we have to recognize that fact.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In the weeks ahead, we'll continue our series of interviews with people with a variety of perspectives on how to solve the drug problem. ? RECAP

MR. LEHRER: [Network difficulty]. . .150,000 students and workers staged the largest demonstration in the history of Communist China. They marched through the streets of Beijing demanding democratic reforms. President Bush called on American companies to help keep their chemicals away from foreign drug traffickers. The chemicals are used to process cocaine. And at least 600 people were killed, another 12,000 injured by a tornado that hit Central Bangladesh. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Thank you and good night.