The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ANNOUNCER: The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour comes to you tonight from Dallas, site of the 1984 Republican convention.

JIM LEHRER: Good evening for Robert MacNeil and the rest of us in Dallas for the Republican convention. That event did get officially underway this morning, but the news of the day was dominated by the release of some documents in Washington -- tax returns and financial statements of Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and her husband. Also today, new federal figures show the gross national product growing at a healthy 7.6% rate, but without heating up inflation. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: The Ferraro tax disclosure heads the stories we examine in more depth tonight. We look at the tax returns with a Washington attorney who specializes in tax and real estate law. Our resident political analysts David Gergen and Alan Baron discuss the political impact on the campaign and turn their attention to the politics of the Republican convention. We have an interview with one of the leading Republican women at the convention, Anne Armstrong. Elizabeth Brackett reports on one state delegation, Kansas; and Texas writer A. C. Greene looks at the origins of the men who matter in the thrusting city of Dallas.Ferraro Disclosures

LEHRER: Geraldine Ferraro and her husband John Zaccaro disclosed their financial worth and history today. In overview terms, Congresswoman Ferraro, the Democratic candidate for vice president, had an income of $332,000-plus in the six years from 1978 to '84, and paid $130,000-plus or 39% of it in taxes. Her husband, a New York City real estate owner and manager, had an income of $532,000-plus dollars over the same period, and paid $220,000-plus, or 41%, in taxes. They owe $53,459 in back federal taxes and interest due to a mistake they blamed on an accountant. Today's disclosures included the tax returns the two have filed separately and jointly for the last six years, plus statements defending various financial and real estate transactions, including one that resulted in financing for a past Ferraro congressional campaign. Robin?

MacNEIL: Ms. Ferraro herself did not appear today, but left the disclosure to her tax experts. She has scheduled a news conference to add her comments and answer questions tomorrow. Yesterday she said she hoped the American public would be satisified. In New York Ms. Ferraro remained indoors all day at her home in the Forest Hills Gardens section of Queens with a corps of reporters and television reports camped outside waiting for a statement that did not materialize. She was conferring with her campaign manager, three lawyers and two speech writers, presumably to prepare for the news conference that's scheduled to take place in New York tomorrow afternoon. Zaccaro also spent the day at home, but he did not attend the meeting. Walter Mondale is reported to be unhappy with the way his running mate handled the question of her husband's taxes, but today the chairman of the Mondale campaign, after the Ferraro disclosures, Jim Johnson, told reporters that she has done nothing to violate the public trust. Johnson said the campaign did as good a job as possible in the 48 hours it had to check on Ferraro's financial background. The Associated Press reported that Mondale thinks she made a mistake in saying that John Zaccaro had refused to release his taxes without informing Mondale she was doing so. But the strongest thing Mondale has said in public is that "It's regrettable we had to take a week to get it all together."

In Washington, Charlayne Hunter-Gault has more on today's announcement and its meaning. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, the effort to put to rest questions about the Ferraro-Zaccaro finances got off to a shaky start shortly before a 10 o'clock news conference was scheduled to begin, a spokesperson for the Mondale-Ferraro campaign announced to a room already packed with reporters that the briefing would be delayed until 1 o'clock, reason being -- or reason given -- that the Xerox machine had broken down and that there was a lot to copy. By 1 o'clock the temperature had risen outside and inside the room at the Georgetown Holiday Inn. Mondale-Ferraro campaign spokesman Francis O'Brien took most of the heat.

FRANCIS O'BRIEN, Mondale-Ferraro campaign: On the 278 we think it's important that you look through it because it's -- I guess it's a rather complicated --

REPORTER: What are the ground rules going to be, Francis, on the release of this stuff if you're not going to hand it out?

Mr. O'BRIEN: As soon as it's available it's releasable. Is that what you mean?

REPORTER: Do you have something now for immediate release?

Mr. O'BRIEN: Yes, yes.

REPORTER: Will the accountants answer questions about the tax returns?

Mr. O'BRIEN: I don't know if -- as soon as they've finished their work, sure.

REPORTER: -- on this underpayment?

Mr. O'BRIEN: I don't know.

HUNTER-GAULT: After close to 15 minutes of that kind of grilling, O'Brien announced that half of what had been promised, the income tax returns of both Ferraro and Zaccaro were ready, and so were the media. Experts estimated that it would probably take days to sift through all of the documents. But some of the more contentious areas seem to be right on the surface. For a closer look at those transactions and other items in the Ferraro-Zaccaro tax returns, we turn to a tax attorney with the Washington firm of Lane and Edson. He is Herbert Stevens, also an adjunct professor of tax law at Georgetown University Law School.

Mr. Stevens, first overall, as Jim said, in broad brushstrokes, what's your impression of these returns?

HERBERT STEVENS: Well, first you have to understand that these are only their individual returns. They don't include all the partnership and corporation returns that would normally be filed whenever someone holds real estate. You should also understand that there's nothing wrong with partnerships and corporations for holding real estate.

HUNTER-GAULT: What you're saying is that we're getting half a loaf, half of the picture?

Mr. STEVENS: Half of the picture.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what emerges from that half of the picture? You've been perusing these since they were released this afternoon. What kind of picture are you getting?

Mr. STEVENS: On a very quick surface review, they look as if the people are paying a normal amount of taxes. The primary part that I focused on was on the sale of that real estate on 231 Centre Street in 1978.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, let's get to that in just a minute. But you said that it seems like they're paying the right amount. I mean, about 40% is what they're paying. And they're in, what, the 50% tax bracket. Is that --

Mr. STEVENS: Well, when I said they're paying a good amount of taxes I meant that they're paying an average amount for, probably, their income. Whether it's the right amount or not, I don't know.

HUNTER-GAULT: I see. All right, now what about the check for $54,000 for underpayment of taxes that was reported today? I mean, some of that was penalties; $23-some-thousand was -- can you just give me the details of that and what's your sense of that transaction?

Mr. STEVENS: Sure. From the tax returns that they filed both in 1978 and then in the amended tax return that they filed today, they stated that the -- that Mrs. Ferraro purchased a property in May of '78 for approximately $25,000 in cash, and then an assumption of a mortgage.In order to repay the loan from her husband to her campaign, in October she sold that property for $100,000 in cash plus the seller, Mr. Lerman, also assumed the mortgage she had taken. Now, her gain there was approximately $68,000 to $70,000, I guess, after expenses. At least that's what their amended return stated today. In their initial return filed in 1978, they had failed to include the amount of the mortgage in the amount they realized from the sale. And that's where the error came in.

HUNTER-GAULT: And so what did that difference amount to in cash terms?

Mr. STEVENS: It amounted to a difference in taxes owed of about $29,000, and a difference in interest -- that is, when they owed taxes in 1978 and they didn't pay it, the interest penalty starts running in 1978 or, excuse me, April 15th, 1979. From then until now they owed an additional $23,000 in interest. And apparently that -- the check they're paying today includes that.

HUNTER-GAULT: Now, they said that this was a mistake that the accountant made. I mean, does that sound reasonable to you, that an error like that could have been made and the people involved, particularly a lawyer and a real estate man, didn't catch it?

Mr. STEVENS: I don't know. Any mistake in retrospect looks dumb, and in retrospect this mistake looks dumb.

HUNTER-GAULT: On whose part? Everybody's? The accountant --

Mr. STEVENS: On the person who prepared the return. Most people who have accountants prepare their returns trust their accountants to catch things like putting this mortgage in the amount realized. It's the kind of point that the accountant should have caught. That is apparently how it came out. Now the accounting firm of Arthur Young, who she retained a few weeks ago to look at these, apparentlycaught this mistake. And it's not unusual for one accountant to make a mistake and for another accountant to catch it.

HUNTER-GAULT: Is it real serious, this underpayment?

Mr. STEVENS: I wouldn't say it's real serious. If you look at the large bulk of the tax returns -- and they were over an inch of papers that you had to plough through if you wanted to look at their tax returns. This does not jump out at you like a very bad thing.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Now, I know that you're not a specialist in election law, but there was another part to that same property that involved her selling that building, as you mentioned, to pay off a campaign debt to her husband. From your perusal of the returns and so on, did you see anything improper in that transaction?

Mr. STEVENS: Let me break that down into two questions. One, was there anything improper in filing their tax return and making a mistake? I think the mistake they admitted. I don't think if they had intended to not disclose the additional tax they owed, they would have made this mistake. I think they would have simply not reported the sale.

HUNTER-GAULT: So you don't think that the fact that they didn't pay the taxes was that they were trying to get around them?

Mr. STEVENS: No. I think if they'd had larceny in their hearts, I think they just wouldn't have -- would have failed to report the sale. It's unlikely that the IRS would have caught the sale or kept track of it. Now, the second point, on the federal election campaign, apparently they could have, under the law in 1978, had her sell the properth to her husband. Apparently he didn't know that and thought it should go through a middleman, namely Mr. Lerman. I'm not sure why he thought that that would necessarily help it, but apparently he did.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, from what you've been able to see, and I realize there are an awful lot of documents that you've perused in a very short period of time and that you can't get into John Zaccaro's head, but did you see anything in those returns that would have justified the reluctance that he had in releasing the returns that he's released?

Mr. STEVENS: No, I didn't. They seemed, on a very quick surface view, to be the kind of returns that you'd submit if you were in that business. It didn't look like he had anything really to hide.

HUNTER-GAULT: And you don't have any speculation as to why he might have not wanted to --

Mr. STEVENS: There is, I think, a natural reluctance of many of us not to disclose our taxes, particularly if you're in the real estate business, you probably don't want your business associates to feel like their transactions are coming under scrutiny.

HUNTER-GAULT: Right. Well, Mr. Stevens, thank you for being with us. The second portion of the Ferraro disclosures, as you know, were filed this afternoon with the Federal Election Commission, and they will be released later this evening.Jim?

LEHRER: The politics of today's disclosures have just begun, of course. Republican officials here in Dallas moved quickly to lay it at the feet of Walter Mondale. For instance, there was this from Senator Paul Laxalt, the Nevada senator who is chairman of the Reagan-Bush campaign.

Sen. PAUL LAXALT, (R) Nevada, Reagan-Bush campaign: The crux of the problem is that she and her people have been badly served by the Mondale campaign people. And that -- oh, I'll tell you why. I say that because they're the experts in this situation nationally. The Ferraro people and the staff people had absolutely no experience prior to that convention in relation, I'm sure, to what national politics is all about. The obligation right now is on the Mondale people, and principally Fritz Mondale, particularly, to seize control of it and clean it up. I hope that this woman survives. I hope that this doesn't, you know, create a bad precedent for women in the future in politics. I hope that doesn't become a chilling factor in the future. I hope that we can dispose of this -- they dispose of it. It's not our obligation. We're not going to characterize it or criticize it or politicize it.We hope they clean it up and let's get on with this campaign. Political Pundits Ponder

MacNEIL: For a first analysis of the political impact o today's Ferraro tax disclosures, we're joined by our regular pair of analysts. They are Republican David Gergen, former communications director at the Reagan White House, and Democrat Alan Baron, editor of the political newsletter, The Baron Report. Mr. Baron, what's your first reaction to what's been disclosed so far?

ALAN BARON: Well, I think the American people are going to take it much less seriously in a sense than the political community. I think the Democrats are very frustrated that some of the things that Ed Meese and other people were alleged to do -- they said that Reagan had a Teflon quality, that people didn't believe Reagan was a crook. And I think that's right, and I think he's not, and I think as they look at this and they understand the unique situation of a husband and wife in which he, as in most families, earns the bulk of the income, I think they're going to conclude that Mrs. Ferraro is not -- is in a difficult situation and maybe didn't handle it perfectly, but I don't think they're going to make a bad judgment about her.

MacNEIL: What's your first impression, David Gergen?

DAVID GERGEN: Well, I think they made the right decision today to release the tax information and to make a full disclosure, more is coming tonight, as we just heard. It also seems to me that these returns did get her off one hook, but she's still dangling from some others. Namely, one of the concerns that were being expressed was that there would be a lot of tax shelters revealed in these returns and that there would be a lot of income coming into the family and very little taxes paid to the government. That does not appear to be the case. They have paid a hefty 39, 40 percent of their income -- their gross income in taxes.

MacNEIL: A lot of people with that kind of income might have paid even less tax, with tax shelters and so on?

Mr. GERGEN: That's absolutely right, and to be fair to her, and a lot of people who are in the real estate business probably have more shelters than they revealed in these returns. On the other hand, I think there are still some questions which have not been addressed by these returns. There's the question of why she chose an exemption, as she did, for a number of years in the Congress.

MacNEIL: Of course, that's the question that involves the House Ethics Committee?

Mr. GERGEN: That's correct. There are questions about those that were raised in The New York Times today about a conservatory from which she drew down some funds. There's questions about some movement of properties in 1979 and 1978. There are a number of those legal issues that are still there, and I think most importantly, from a political standpoint, this story is apt to keep rolling. I think the press has only just begun now to report it. There are going to be a number of days now of teams of reporters poring over these returns and going out into the field and checking out all of the business associations and more stories and I think that from a political standpoint it's apt to take a lot of time from the kind of message they're trying to deliver.

MacNEIL: Do you agree with that?

Mr. BARON: Yeah, I think so. I think that we can't discount, really, when we've got to look at it, the aspect of her being a woman in this and how it complicates things. For example, it appears that the original loans were made so that her husband could help finance her campaign.When you have a male candidate in a traditional American family, that's not a problem. Senator Boschwitz in Minnesota built up a business; his wife stayed home and took care of the children. Senator Boschwitz is running for senator, for re-election, and pouring in hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money, like Dayton did in Minnesota, a Democrat, two years ago. That's acceptable. Now, if Miss Ferraro stays home and raises three children or whatever and then goes out and gets a career and takes a job as a prosecuting attorney, and her husband's building up the estate, he can't contribute to her campaign.

MacNEIL: He can only contribute $1,000.

Mr. BARON: Yeah. If he were running, if Mr. Zaccaro were running, he could write a check for a million dollars -- I don't know what the -- how the law works, for his own campaign. So it gets very complicated. Then the question is, if he makes a legal judgment wrong on a conservator, is it her judgment? It's a much more -- we're entering a new ground, and I think that it's going to come up any time you get into this situation. Does a husband have to plan his economic activities for 10 years to make sure that, as politicians do -- George Bush put it in blind trust, and so forth -- if his wife wants a career in public office?

MacNEIL: Let's pick up a point Alan Baron made awhile ago, that maybe the public doesn't take this quite as seriously as the press and politicians do. You said the press is going to pursue it now avidly. What's your attitude to -- what's your answer to that question. Are the press and politicians making more of it than the voters would make?

Mr. GERGEN: Well, I think that's something we don't really know the answer to. We have fragments of information that have come in. The Mondale and Ferraro forces are contending that on one hand they're not playing well in the press, but they're still playing well -- and the public witness, the crowd of 12,000 or so that she had in Seattle late last week. The Reagan forces reported it today that their tracking polls are now beginning to pick up a lot of negatives on her and that the public attitudes are changing with regard to her. After all, she came into a situation in which almost no one knew who she was. And the public is in the process of making up its mind about her, sizing her up. And I think right now the negative stories that are starting to come through are making a difference, and that's the reason you see Mondale sliding now in the polls, why he's sliding further and further back of Reagan.

Mr. BARON: I think there's one thing, and that is between now and the election -- she's going to hold a news conference tomorrow. Probably she's going to be debating Vice President Bush, and the public is going to pay a lot of attention to Geraldine Ferraro, and they will watch how she answers questions and how she reacts, and they will make up their minds just as they watch how, when somebody tries to sell them a set of encyclopedias or someone tries to teach their children in school or anything else, they're going to know whether she's confident and telling the truth, and they're going to be able to see that, and how she handles that and comes across will be far more important than stories about depreciation allowances. She can't fool 'em.

MacNEIL: More important than the interpretation the press puts on this in the next day or so?

Mr. BARON: Oh, I think -- I don't believe in the press's ability to manipulate people nearly as much as I --

Mr. GERGEN: There are facts here, Alan, which have to be dealt with, and they have not been fully addressed yet.

Mr. BARON: So? She'll have to deal with them.

Mr. GERGEN: But I think the press is going to have to deal, and the public's still going to have to deal with them. There was one Republican, leading Republican, who cracked today that now it's time for them to propose six debates at the vice presidential level. They'll have one on real estate law and another one on financial transactions and so forth.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you both for joining us, and we'll talk to you a little bit later. Jim?

LEHRER: Still to come tonight, the Republican convention. Judy Woodruff interviews one of the GOP's best-known women notables, Anne Armstrong. Elizabeth Brackett introduces us to the delegation from Kansas. And A. C. Greene, Dallas number-one expert on Dallas, reports on Dallas.

[Video postcard -- Dallas, Texas] Republican Perspective

LEHRER: For Republicans in Dallas and elsewhere it was a good and busy day, the continuing attention to the Ferraro financial story being part of the reason, no doubt. Another was some good economic news. The gross national product grew from April to June at a 7.6% rate. But the inflation rate for the same quarter dropped to 3.2%. Both figures came from the Commerce Department in Washington. President Reagan was away from Washington today on a political speaking trip to the Midwest. His main message, Walter Mondale and the Democrats are jerking some knees around.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Calling for a tax increase was their typical knee-jerk reaction, and believe me, when their knee jerks, you get kicked. But let me tell you what the other side will do to the people. They will, and they've declared it, raise your taxes. They'll put the roadblocks up again. They'll provide the kind of leadership that will make sure we all put on our hair shirts and feel properly dispairing and itchy again, the kind of leadership that will stop growth and start talking about the age of limits. Do you remember four years ago when they were talking we had to get used to an age of limits. Things couldn't be as good as they were. [fan yells] Well, thank you. The only thing that's limited is their optimism and imagination.

LEHRER: Mr. Reagan won't be coming on to Dallas until Wednesday, and that has left much of the convention center stage thus far to his Vice President George Bush. His main competition for attention has been the heat. It hit 108 degrees here yesterday, as the whole world now knows, and it went up only to 100 today. For Bush it was a day of saying on NBC's Today Show that he wasn't even thinking yet about 1988, and telling the New York delegation that all was well for 1984.

Vice Pres. GEORGE BUSH: We come into Dallas with a very different mood -- very different mood -- than that Democratic convention. Indeed, we now have a chance to shift the focus to the things that are positive about our country. For a year you had eight candidates, then five, then four. When they weren't carving eachother up, tearing down the Reagan administration and tearing down, in the process, in my view, the United States. And now we have a chance to come out of what is a united convention emphasizing the positive accomplishments of an outstanding president and of a strong administration. The American people are ready for that answer.

MacNEIL: This first convention day the Republicans are emphasizing women by giving key speech-making assignments to United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler, and the keynote spot to U.S. Treasurer Katherine Ortega. It's widely assumed the showcasing of Republican women was to offset the effect of the Democrats running a woman for vice president, and the widely reported perception that Mr. Reagan faces an electoral gender gap. Many Republican women continue to be unhappy that the party platform again failed to support the Equal Rights Amendment. But one dissident Republican woman went further today in criticizing the Reagan record. Kathy Wilson, chairperson of the National Women's Political Caucus, held a news conference and predicted political repercussions in November.

KATHY WILSON, National Women's Political Caucus: These days the Grand Old Party is not, quite frankly, very grand. And Republican women are finding that we have three very unappealing options. We can either fight, switch or retreat. There's a lot of all three going on this year, and I predict that ultimately many Republican women will stay with the party but abandon the ticket. Many Republican women will go to the ballot booths on November 6th and secretly pull the lever for the Democratic side.These women are not going to be outspoken critics of President Reagan, but they will be registering their protest with a powerful gentility. They know that perhaps the only way to save the Republican Party is to kick it out of the White House.

MacNEIL: To discuss women's issues and other matters facing the party, Judy Woodruff is at the convention center with one of the most prominent women in the party. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Robin, we turn now to someone who has served in three Republican administrations. Anne Armstrong was the counselor to Presidents Nixon and Ford. She was a former co-chair of the Republican Party, an ambassador to Great Britain and from 1976 to 1977. She is currently chair of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. First of all, Ms. Armstrong, let me ask you. Has the Geraldine Ferraro finance issue become a grand windfall for the Republican Party?

Anne ARMSTRONG: Oh, I don't think it's a windfall for anybody. I hope it can be cleared up. I think it's been distracting from the issues we ought to be addressing. I'd like to get on, and probably Ms. Ferraro would, too. Certainly I think the electorate deserves to get on with talk of the economy, with national security and the other things that weigh heavily. I think it's very unfortunate that this has distracted us and worried the electorate and made us think there's something there we may not know about for weeks.

WOODRUFF: But don't you think that it has become a political benefit for the Republicans? I mean, to the extent that the Democrats have been hurt by it?

Amb. ARMSTRONG: That's not a way I think any Republican would ever want to benefit. I think she's made a good start today. One thing that's interested me, though, in this. As you probably know, I was on Gerald Ford's short list for --

WOODRUFF: I was going to ask you about that, but go ahead and bring it up, good.

Amb. ARMSTRONG: Well, evidently I like bringing it up. And I was on Ronald Reagan's long list for a vice Presidential candidate. And, in both instances, many weeks ahead they asked me for full financial statements, for complete tax returns for myself and my husband. We willingly gave them and we would have been happy to have them made public. And what's difficult to understand is, since Mondale was very measured and took a long time to choose his running mate and, in an unprecedented fashion chose her in advance of his convention, it's just astounding to me that he couldn't have researched this and saved the electorate all these weeks of worry.

WOODRUFF: Do you think he made a serious mistake in not doing that? For example, we heard on the news that he's saying he just had 48 hours to look into her background.

Amb. ARMSTRONG: Well, we all remember him in Minnesota and the interviews by himself and his staff, and so, sure, I take him at his word.But -- and not to mention the grief it might have saved Mrs. Ferraro and her family.

WOODRUFF: Do you think she's a liability based on what we know so far for him?

Amb. ARMSTRONG: I think it's too early to say. I mean, it's just coming out now.

WOODRUFF: Should she think about stepping down from the ticket? Some people have discussed that.

Amb. ARMSTRONG: Oh, oh, I think that's totally premature. The first information is just out. It's going to be terribly complex, I imagine. I, coming in here to talk with you, have only heard about one year, and I just think -- yes, there are certain things that I think worry me. The exemption, for instance, that she claimed, that scarcely a single congressperson claims, saying that she had no knowledge of her husband's business and that she didn't benefit from it. Well, maybe she was right in checking that off. But it's apparently a problem. We'll see.

WOODRUFF: What do you think happens from here on? I mean, do you think that she's got to clear it up today and tomorrow or else, or what do you think the prospects are?

Amb. ARMSTRONG: I honestly wouldn't hazard a guess. I think it's going to take time, and there again I'm so sorry because I'd like to get out -- I think we've got a great story to tell, we Republicans, about the economy and low inflation, low unemployment now, higher take-home pay, less government intrusion into our lives. To me a more stable world. And yet, alas, this is not what is getting talked about. This is not the national debate today. It's worrying about what is going to be revealed by Mrs. Ferraro and Mr. Zaccaro tomorrow.

WOODRUFF: Do you think that because she's the first woman in that position that she's under extra scrutiny? Do you think that has any part in all of this?

Amb. ARMSTRONG: Well, I hope to goodness not. I don't think so. I mean, we had a male congressman in trouble -- not that I equate them at all, but I hope that's not true. I don't think so. Any time you are going to run for vice president of the United States, or president, United States, the voters who are going to make a very serious choice in November are going to want to know everything that they think bears on your character, your voting record, your integrity, and maybe this'll be totally washed away. But they do have a right to know. But I just wish we'd get it over with and get on with the big issues.

WOODRUFF: All right, let me ask you about the women here at the Republican convention. We just heard -- I don't know if you heard it or not, but Kathy Wilson, who is the president of the National Women's Political Caucus, has held a news conference today and said that she thinks many Republican women this fall are not going to leave the party over disagreements with the platform, but are going to vote Democratic. What do you think?

Amb. ARMSTRONG: I think a few might. I think those that put the "feminist" issues first -- ERA -- I've been for ERA for years. I'm still for ERA. President Reagan knew that when he asked me to be co-chairman of his campaign in 1980. He didn't expect all women to walk in lockstep with him, or men on other issues, too. So, yes, I think we'll use a few voters -- lose a few women voters.

WOODRUFF: Does that make you feel uncomfortable, that the party that you've been associated with for so long has abandoned its historic association, commitment, to the ERA?

Amb. ARMSTRONG: I'm not happy about it. I wish it were in our platform. But the reason I am so strongly for President Reagan and Vice President Bush is because I think the overarching issues of the rejuvenation of our economy, which really helps women more than anybody, because proportionately in the past they've suffered more than anybody else, and of course I think he had a consistent foreign policy that pointed towards leading from strength. Not belligerent. He's been accused of that, but I don't see any belligerence. I think our allies know where we are, when they didn't, with the Carter-Mondale. And so I think this -- these are the big issues.

WOODRUFF: How representative are the delegates at this convention of Republicans across the country? I mean, as you know, the profile looks pretty conservative.

Amb. ARMSTRONG: I think it's not only representative of Republicans, I think it's representative of mainstream Democrats because I think the Mondale-Ferraro ticket is far to the left of the mainstream Democrat in this country, and I --

WOODRUFF: Even though we have Republican moderates going around saying they feel like a vanishing breed?

Amb. ARMSTRONG: Oh, I hope and believe they won't be a vanishing breed. We better thrive on dissent. We've got dissent. But I've never seen the party more united. Let them speak up. I want them to speak up. Sometimes I'm with them. But we are going to have Democrats -- Democrats will be the ones that really elect Reagan and Bush again in '80 -- I mean, in '84, just as they did in '80. You can't win with just Republicans in this country.

WOODRUFF: But what I'm asking is, you know, time and again during the platform committee meeting the moderates were voted down by the conservative --

Amb. ARMSTRONG: That's right, because that is the -- that is the mainstream feeling of Republicans, but my point is it's also the mainstream feeling of most Democrats in this country.

WOODRUFF: You think the language in the platform represents what most Americans think?

Amb. ARMSTRONG: Oh, heck, not all of it. It doesn't represent everything I think at all. But I think by and large it does.

WOODRUFF: Are we going to see any excitement at this convention?

Amb. ARMSTRONG: Well, what might be excitement to me might not be excitement to you or to -- unity is marvelous, and less so in a party than in a country, and as I've told you, my feeling is that what is not just a platform but what Bush is going to say, and Ortega tonight and Reagan -- Bush and Reagan later, of course -- to me that's exciting because it means a country united, not just a party. That's comparatively minor. But a country united, going ahead with optimism, with promise, instead of all that self-guilt, the talk of malaise and blaming ourselves for every ill in the world. Sure, a lot of problems, a lot of people still suffering. It's not all event and it's not all fair. But it sure is a lot better than it was a few years ago. That to me is very exciting.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Anne Armstrong, for being with us. Jim?

LEHRER: Back now to our two political resident analysts, Democrat Alan -- I don't think I said that right, but anyhow they're Democrat Alan Baron and Republican David Gergen, and they will be with us throughout the Dallas convention, as they were in San Francisco. Alan Baron, is the mainstream American voter represented at this convention?

Mr. BARON: Well, no. I think what this convention represents, if you had to live with it, is probably a little bit to the right of the average college-educated, well-to-do Republican. And the Democratic convention --

LEHRER: Wait a minute. A little bit to the --

Mr. BARON: To the right of the average college-educated, well-to-do Republican, who tends to be very conservative. Now, the average college-educated, well-to-do Democrat tends to be very liberal. And their convention was a little to the left of that person. If you take away that group, the elites in both parties, and you take the overall averages of the parties, then the Republicans are much more moderate than this convention. They probably look much more like Howard Baker, and the Democrats look more like John Glenn. The majority of the Republicans in the polls I've seen recently favor the ERA. When asked whether they're moderate, liberal or conservative, about half call themselves conservative, a third moderate and the rest liberal. Half are for the nuclear freeze. A majority oppose a constitutional amendment banning abortions. The difference between Republicans and Democrats in the country is not as great as this group. I don't think the average Republican in the country wants President Reagan, as the platform says, before you appoint a judge you find out how he's going to rule on right-to-life cases, and if he doesn't rule as this platform says, he can't be a judge.That's never been done by a president that I know of on a series of issues dictated by a party platform. I don't think Americans are clamoring for the gold standard. I think it's to the right of the average Republican, you see. But a moderate Republican is moderate. He doesn't go out to meetings and take over the party, just as moderate Democrats don't make it to Democratic conventions.

LEHRER: David Gergen, how do you read the mainstream factor?

Mr. GERGEN: Well, of course there's a group her now called the Mainstream, which is made up of some of the moderates who feel either shut out or locked out in one fashion or another. I think that there are two different kinds of groups that we've seen here in the last few days. The ones who came here to draw up the platform, I do think, drew up a document that does tilt heavily rightward and is to the right of where most Americans live.

LEHRER: Maureen Reagan said it's even to the right of where Ronald Reagan lives. Is that right?

Mr. GERGEN: I wouldn't disagree with that. I don't think that if he had sat down and written this document himself it would have come out quite the same way.

Mr. BARON: It's a good thing to have said, too. Just for public relations reasons, a good thing for Reagan to position his daughter as he's done, but he positioned himself in the fights last week as here, all of a sudden that this fellow is to the left of the party, which says something --

Mr. GERGEN: That's not what she said at all. I think the point -- the point really is that the people coming here to this convention this week are more representative of the party. There's more of a mix here this week.And you find in this group that in fact, while there are a lot of conservatives here, this is a much more conservative party than it was, say, 20 years ago or, maybe not in '64, but in the Eisenhower days, that there are a number of moderates here. Two-thirds of the people here do favor a mutual freeze, and the first choice for '88 among most of these delegates -- by far and away the first choice, is George Bush. So I think this group that's coming here this week is not the same as the group we saw last week. It is made up of a somewhat different group of activists, and you are not going to see quite as heavy a rightward tilt, and I think that from the White House's point of view the one -- the most important document coming out of this convention is not the platform but the acceptance address by President Reagan on Thursday night.

LEHRER: David Gergen, Alan Baron, thank you. See you all tomorrow. Robin?

MacNEIL: In the non-political news of the day, a dawn-to-dusk curfew in New Waynesboro, Georgia, has been eased. The curfew was imposed Saturday after a local television station reported that a black had died while in police custody. That news sparked five fires and rock-throwing incidents. It was later established the victim died from heat prostration while running from the police. So far 30 people have been arrested in Waynesboro. The mayor says he thinks the worst is over, and pushed the curfew back to 11 p.m.

Overseas, the heaviest fighting in six weeks shook Beirut, Lebanon. Artillery duels between army and Druse Muslim militias lasted some seven hours. Among the buildings hit was the presidential palace.

In the Red Sea two Soviet minesweepers have joined the international search for the mystery mines. Eighteen ships have been damaged by them since early July.

In Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant protestors attacked police in separate incidents today. It was the fifth day of violence in protest over police use of informers.

The United Nations issued a gbrim forecast -- seven million people face starvation in Ethiopia.A drought in that African nation has lasted more than a decade. Jim?

LEHRER: Again, today's top stories. Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro released her and her husband's income tax forms since 1978. The couple, filing separately, paid about 40% of their income to the government. Because of an accounting error, they owed the government $23,000. They've sent in a check for $53,459 to cover interest.

And in Dallas, it's a grand old time for the Grand Old Party in the grand old Texas heat. The 1984 Republican convention started today with delegates, party officials and the press looking to the well-planned renomination of the Reagan-Bush ticket.

Robin? Kansas: One Delegation's View

MacNEIL: When the Democrats met in San Francisco, each day we gave you a running view of the convention from the perspective of one state's delegation, Arkansas. We're doing the same thing in Dallas. This time the state we've chosen is Kansas, and with that assignment is correspondent Elizabeth Brackett, who is at the Dallas convention center. Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Robin, we picked Kansas because it's Reagan state, and it's a state with a solid tradition of support for the GOP. Kansas gave 58% of its vote to Reagan in 1980. Gerald Ford took 52% in his unsuccessful race. The Kansas Republican Party is led by two moderate senators, Robert Dole and Nancy Kassebaum. But even with these two influential leaders, we found little resistence in the delegation to the tough positions taken by the party conservatives. Kansas sent 64 delegates to Dallas. They're unified in their support of Ronald Reagan, but they do hold a wide range of views as to the party's future. One of those delegates is cattle farmer Dana Cox.

[voice-over] It is the land that matters to Dana Cox. He is the fourth generation in his family to farm this same plot of land in Sedgwick, Kansas, just north of Wichita. Cox knows the problems that the American farmer has faced. Tackling those problems led Cox into politics and into the Republican Party. But, like many farmers in Kansas and elsewhere, Cox questions the government's farm policy.

DANA COX, delegate, Sedgwick, Kansas: Personally I feel that 50 years of government programs, of what we've seen in the past haven't worked, and I think we need to have a total rehassle of what we're going to do in the future, and I'd like to see the farm -- for one thing. I'd like to see farm programs that reflect a long-term policy rather than a, maybe, a three- to four-month policy, the way they've taken in the past.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Cox took his concerns to the Republican platform committee last week, and felt he was heard by those crafting the party's platform. So, despite questions over some of the administration's farm policies, Cox says he and other Kansas farmers will have no trouble supporting Reagan.

Mr. COX: Oh, I can get along with Ronald Reagan as a farmer. And I think the things that are probably giving us the worst problem right now are the high interest rates on the farm, and probably access to markets. We don't have the markets we should have, either domestically or foreign markets. And this isn't President Reagan's problem. It's the problem of the whole economy and the world economy.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: This ability to separate the problems of the Reagan administration from Reagan was often evident in our conversations with Kansas Republicans. Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum, at home with her father, former Republican presidential candidate Alf Landon, says the support for Reagan overrides even moderate Republicans' dissatisfaction with the conservative party platform, a platform Kassebaum says should have included support for the Equal Rights Amendment and opposition to a balanced budget amendment.

Sen. NANCY KASSEBAUM, (R) Kansas: I think that we don't all agree on everything, but let me say there is strong support for President Reagan, and while I don't agree with all of the planks in the platform, nor do I agree with all of President Reagan's positions, I think a good case can be made for why it's very important he be re-elected.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Kassebaum describes the unhappiness that does exist with the conservative shift that the party has taken as stemming from Kansas' independent political past.Though Kansas, still a heavily rural state, has had a solid Republican majority almost from the time it was admitted to the union in 1861, it did see farm revolts in the 1890s, followed by the birth of populism. Echos of those times, says Kassebaum, are still heard today.

Sen. KASSEBAUM: In many ways it seems to me what has shaped the Republican Party in Kansas stems from the fact that we're in the Midwest -- the pioneer spirit. And it's been a broadbased, individualistic sort of concept. We've had -- populism really started here. One of the slogan's of a woman who was active in the populist movement was "Raise less corn and more hell."

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Though Kassebaum told MacNeil-Lehrer reporter Keenan Block this would not be the convention for her to follow in the footsteps of those populist women.

Sen. KASSEBAUM: This isn't the time to make the argument for me going to Dallas and the convention. It's simply to say to President Reagan, we're with you for four more years, and re-elect him and give him a boost and support the campaign. The fights regarding the philosophy of the party, I think, will come, later.

REPORTER: When? Where?

Sen. KASSEBAUM: Oh, I think before '88.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: State party chairman Dave Owen doesn't plan to rock the boat, either.But Owen, a banker from Stanley, Kansas, says the one area where controversy is likely to occur, is over the platform's rock-hard stance against any tax increase.

DAVE OWEN, delegate, Stanley, Kansas: I think that most of us would like to see no tax increase, but I also feel so strongly that we absolutely have to get the deficits under control that I'm willing to look at any alternative to see that we do that, because of the long-run effect of federal deficits at the rate we have them now is far more detrimental than a minor tax increase.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: It is not the stand against the tax increase that bothers alternate delegate Ann Garvin. Garvin, one of four blacks in the entire 64-member delegation, is much more upset about the absence of the Equal Rights Amendment from the party's platform.

ANN GARVIN, alternate, Topeka, Kansas: I am very disappointed that the Republican Party does not have that in their platform, did not have it in the platform last time, had it in for several years and then saw fit to take it out.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Still, Garvin answers the question of why a black woman supports the Republican Party with a question of her own.

Ms. GARVIN: Why not? A lot of black Americans don't believe that the welfare system in the past has been the best system for black Americans. And that's usually what you hear tauted to black Americans in terms of the Democratic Party.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Finally, after the months of buildup, it was time to head for Dallas. Dave Owen boarded his flight in Kansas City on Thursday. More delegates followed from Wichita on Friday.

[on camera] it didn't take long for the Kansas delegation to get a taste of Texas hospitality. Friends of one of the Kansas delegates opened their Garland, Texas, home for a Sunday afternoon party for the entire delegation.

[voice-over] One party followed another on Sunday as the Kansas delegation loosened up Texas style in a 1950s rock and roll bar just down from their hotel. Though some real business did take place on Sunday as Kansas delegates settled down for an evening caucus meeting. And at this carefully managed convention, delegates were instructed on how to answer media questions by delegation chairman Huck Boyd.

McDILL HUCK BOYD, delegate, Phillipsburg, Kansas: But a man cannot win an argument with a woman. So he suggested, and I think it's a good one, that the men not discuss the lady that's being having so much difficulty who's running for vice president on the other ticket.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Today delegates finally made it onto the convention floor. Not much business took place in the morning sessions, but excitement was evident as the convention officially began, though it was an excitement, not everyone back home in Kansas wished to share.

ALF LANDON, 1936 Republican presidential candidate: I have no desire to go. I've been to so many Republican conventions that I have no desire to go to another. I'd rather see a good football game.

LEHRER: Our closing words tonight from Dallas are about Dallas, and they're from A. C. Greene. A.C. is known to NewsHour regulars as a reviewer of books, but he is also the world's number-one expert on Dallas. That's what A.C. says, at least, and he holds up a copy of his new book, Dallas, USA as his proof. At any rate, the next words you hear will be his. A.C. Asks: How Texan is Dallas?

A. C. GREENE: Dallas is the quintessential modern Texas city. Proud of its Texas heritage, operated by the tough Texas breed. This is what makes Dallas tick, the Texans back of its success. Let's talk to some of the important figures in Dallas life.

Ray Nasher is grandfather of today's enclosed, air-conditioned shopping mall. Northpark Center, opened in Dallas nearly 20 years ago, was his first, a daring experiment, typical of a bold Texas entrepreneur. Ray Nasher, tell us where in Texas you were born. What's your Texas background?

RAY NASHER, shopping mall entrepeneur: Well, I was born and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, and I moved to Dallas in 1950, and therefore I assume I'm one of the oldest living Texans.

GREENE [voice-over]: The radio conscience of Dallas speaks from here. Every day for 15 years he's been dispensing down-home Texas wisdom. Alex Burton, you seem to know instinctively what people of Dallas and Texas are thinking.

ALEX BURTON, KRLD disk jockey: A.C., understand this: I'm not a Texan. I was born in Hannah, Alberta, Canada. I'm a Canadian, and I'm proud of it, eh?

GREENE: So we run into a couple of non-Texans. Here we are in the newsroom of the Dallas Morning News, the most powerful journal in the state of Texas. Burl Osborn is the most powerful man on this powerful journal. He's the editor who gets the news out to the Lone Star State. Say, Burl, where in Texas did you get this Texas savvy?

BURL OSBORN, editor, Dallas Morning News: Well. A.C., I was born in Jenkins, Kentucky, but I'm trying to be naturalized.

GREENE: Maybe we've been asking the wrong people in our quest for Big-D Texans. Let's go to the top, the man who runs -- that's right, runs Dallas, holding one of the most demanding jobs in the Western Hemisphere, Dallas City Manager Charles Anderson. Charles Anderson, you're the CEO of this huge conglomerate called Dallas. You have the toughest job in Texas, and you've got to be the sharpest guy on the Texas political scene. Tell us, in what Texas town were you born?

CHARLES ANDERSON, Dallas city manager: I find the job of being city manager of Dallas, Texas, the most challenging that I can imagine in the entire United States, and I love the fact that the work's in Texas. However, I was born in Topeka, Kansas.

GREENE: Well, all this imported leadership business leaves us with one last resort, Joe Miller's, the media bar of Big D, where the Dallas image is created every night, Texas myoh-making at its peak. And here's the man who presides over the whole shooting match, Joe Miller himself. Joe, you have as much to do with the Dallas image as any man in Dallas. Surely you're a natural-born Texan.

JOE MILLER, bartender: Texan! I'm from Toronto.

GREENE: Jim Lehrer, help me out. You know this state. You started your TV career right here in Big D.

LEHRER: I did, indeed, but I was born and raised in Kansas. Good night, Robin.

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