The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. In the headlines today, President Reagan led a chorus of anger over release of the ship hijackers. At least 42 El Salvadoran soldiers were killed in a major guerrilla raid. And actors Yul Brynner and Orson Welles died. We will have the details of all the day's major stories in a moment. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: Our first focus is the hijacking aftermath. We discuss who controls the hijackers and what should be done with them. Then the farm crisis: we have a documentary report on the political threat for Republicans in the farm belt, and a live interview with Agriculture Secretary John Block. News Summary

LEHRER: There were angry words from President Reagan today about the cruise ship hijacking. He called on the Palestine Liberation Organization to turn the four hijackers over to a sovereign state so they can be prosecuted for murder of passenger Leon Klinghoffer. Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old partially paralyzed man from New York, was reportedly shot and then thrown overboard by the hijackers. President Reagan said first today it would be fine with him if the PLO went ahead with the killers -- with handling the killers themselves, saying, "In our country that would mean capital punishment." Mr. Reagan, on a trip to the Chicago area, revised those remarks to reporters later in the day.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: But apparently there's a little confusion and maybe I'm responsible, I don't know, with regard to the PLO and their part in this hostage setup. I did not mean to imply that I favored them giving a trial or attempting to do justice to the hijackers. What I really believe, that the PLO, if the hijackers are in their custody, should turn them over to a sovereign state that would have jurisdiction and could prosecute them as the murderers that they are.

LEHRER: There was confusion all day over where the hijackers actually were. One unconfirmed report said they were still in Egypt awaiting transport to Tunisia, where PLO headquarters are located. Others said they were already in Tunisia, free men. A possibility of their being free incensed members of Congress as well as the President. Here's a sampling of what was said on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Rep. DANNY BURTON, (R) Indiana: Yesterday, Egypt let four of the terrorists go and we give them $2.3 billion in aid every year. They knew that these were terrorists and they let them go. We ought to suspend aid to Egypt until they give us a response.

Rep. TED WEISS, (D) New York: It is clearly within the power of Yasir Arafat, the PLO, the governments of Egypt and those of other Arab nations, to hunt the four terrorists down and to do it quickly and urgently.

Rep. NICHOLAS MAVROULES, (D) Massachusetts: It must be made clear to any nation, friend or foe, that allowing these international criminals to escape the administration of justice will result in the end of U.S. foreign assistance to that country.

Rep. TOMMY ROBINSON, (D) Arkansas: Those people only understand one thing, and that's force. It's time to take names and kick rear ends.

MacNEIL: A fuller description of the killing of Leon Klinghoffer was given today by the Italian ambassador to Egypt, Elio Giuffrida, after spending six hours talking to the liner's crew and passengers. As quoted by the Italian news agency ANSA, the ambassador gave this account. "On Tuesday the hijackers made all the British and American civilians lie down, among whom was Leon Klinghoffer. The hijackers pushed him onto his wheelchair and dragged him to the side of the ship, where in cold blood they shot him in the face. The corpse was then thrown into the sea, along with the wheelchair." No explanation was given for why Klinghoffer was singled out.

Today, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak answered criticism of his country's handling of the four hijackers. He told reporters that at the time, his government had not heard reports that an American passenger had been murdered.

HOSNI MUBARAK, Egyptian President: When we started to take them, we hadn't this information. This information appeared five hours after we took them. In this period they left the country.

REPORTER: The hijackers?

Pres. MUBARAK: Yes.

REPORTER: So where are the hijackers now?

Pres. MUBARAK: They left the country. I don't know where did they go.

REPORTER: Are they in Tunisia?

Pres. MUBARAK: In Tunisia? Maybe in Tunisia.

REPORTER: And what is Egypt's response, how, position? Because America apparently was interested in the fact that there was not a death. Now --

Pres. MUBARAK: You should know, we started to make some negotiations when we understood that there was nobody killed on board of the ship. So we accepted after the ambassador of Italy and Germany agreed to take the people to save the 400 personnel on the ship. And instead of exploding it, we accepted to take these people and send them out. And they agreed upon that.

MacNEIL: Both Mubarak and the PLO questioned whether the elderly American had been murdered. The PLO foreign affairs spokesman, Farouk Kaddoumi, asked the United Nations Security Council if there was proof.

FAROUK KADDOUMI, PLO representative [through interpreter]: I wish to ask, is there an evidence that those hijackers had killed that civilian? Where is that evidence? He is 69 years old, and his family stated that he suffered frequently before from heart attacks. He was also suffering from paralysis. I'm wondering why and how those can attack or kill such an old person? I'm not defending that, but I'm defending logic and reality.

MacNEIL: The Israeli envoy to the United Nations, Benjamin Netanyahu, responded later, saying Mr. Klinghoffer had in fact been selected and slain because he was Jewish, and that Israeli intelligence has proof of Yasir Arafat's prior knowledge of the hijacking.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N.: The facts show without a shadow of a doubt that the hijacking of the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro on October 7th was carried out by the Abu Abbas faction of the PLO's Palestine Liberation Front. It was carried -- it was carried out with the full prior knowledge and approval of the PLO chairman. Mr. Arafat's subsequent protestations that he had nothing to do with this, and his attempt at "benevolent intermediacy" were simply a coverup for his own role and for the failure of the mission.

MacNEIL: In Israel, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said it was terrible that Egypt had released the hijackers and indicated that Israel reserved the right to avenge the murder of Leon Klinghoffer. Israel's foreign ministry Director-general David Chenki, told reporters, "The original plan of the terrorists was to travel aboard the cruise ship to the Israeli port of Ashdod and carry out an attack there." Chenki said he believed they had changed their minds and seized the ship instead because their identities had been discovered.

LEHRER: There was a major military clash in El Salvador today. Forty-two government troops died in an attack by leftist guerrillas on a military training center. Another 68 were wounded. An armed services spokesman said the bodies of nine of the attacking guerrillas were also found afterward. The rebels' radio claimed the attack was in commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the founding of the FMLN, the major guerrilla umbrella group. Today's action was the largest military battle in over a year in the El Salvador civil war.

MacNEIL: The Puerto Rican government said today it is considering whether to create a mass grave as hopes receded of finding any more survivors from the hundreds buried in a giant mudslide. The slide followed heavy rains on Monday, washing away a shantytown in Mameyes outside the city of Ponce. Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett reports.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT [voice-over]: Six dog teams from the United States joined the search for the missing in this devastated valley in southern Puerto Rico today. The number of dead found beneath the mud and rubble has now risen to 71, but officials fear well over 1,000 may still be buried here, though Phil Audibert still holds out hope that he and his search dog, Matt, may find some signs of life.

PHIL AUDIBERT, U.S. dog rescue team: We find that there's less mud here than we thought higher up on the hill side, and more rubble and more rock and stuff. And in situations like that we feel that it's possible that -- in some of the cases where a house structure would protect someone from the falling rubble.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Audibert watches his dog, Matt, closely in the rubble-strewn valley. He understands his dog's movements well enough to know if the dog has pinpointed a possible survivor or a body. The Puerto Rican National Guard then follows up.

Lt. LEWIS CARRILLO, Puerto Rican National Guard: They have been quite helpful because they have been identifying exactly the places where we should be making the excavation.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Rescue workers say the dogs definitely found bodies in this spot. Eleven people had lived in this home. So far, neither survivors or bodies have been recovered.

[on camera] Today authorities struggle with the question of how long to continue this back-breaking search for bodies. A difficult choice between the concern of the relatives for the dead and fears for the health and safety of the living.

[voice-over] Ruth Cedeno is a teacher in the valley. She fears that at least three of her students and her godchild are buried beneath the mud and rubble.

RUTH CEDENO, survivor: I don't know. I haven't seen him -- he's still there, and I would like to see him, you know. At least know that he's going to be buried in somewhere.

BRACKETT: This isn't a burial site?

Ms. CEDENO: No, I don't think so.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Weary rescue workers understand the relatives' concern, but they are no longer sure if their efforts will produce results.

Pvt. BENJAMIN BRUNO, Puerto Rican National Guard: The situation here is that we don't have the equipment to get to the bodies. We know there's bodies down there -- there's at least three bodies, but we can't get to them. And even if we had the equipment it would be impossible because then we'd become victims. And right now as it is, we're planning to shift because the smell of the decomposed bodies is too much for us to work in there.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Now the rescue effort goes on, but few expect it to continue beyond the weekend.

LEHRER: That report by Elizabeth Brackett. The House of Representatives voted this afternoon to protect the American textile industry from foreign imports. The House passed a bill that would cut the amount of textile products allowed into the United States by as much as 35% in some cases. It was the first vote on a major trade bill since the new wave of protectionist feeling hit Congress.

MacNEIL: Two luminaries of the American screen and stage died today, Orson Welles and Yul Brynner. Brynner died this morning in New York at the age of 65 of complications stemming from lung cancer. He appeared in over three dozen movies, but his most famous role was as the delightfully chauvinistic ruler of Siam in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I. Brynner first played the role in 1951 and repeated it over 4,600 times on the stage since then. Today the entertainment world also lost a man it regarded as a true genius, Orson Welles. He died at his home at the age of 70, apparently of natural causes. Welles began his career as an actor, first on the stage and then in radio. At age 23 he made radio history when he produced H.G. Welles' War of the Worlds as if an invasion from Mars were actually taking place. The broadcast was so realistic it created a nationwide panic. Two years later the brilliant young director-actor began shooting his first film, Citizen Kane, an American parable based on the life of William Randolph Hearst. Welles played the title role and also directed and produced.

[clip from "Citizen Kane"]

MacNEIL: Following Citizen Kane, Welles' status in Hollywood began to wane. He continued to write and direct, but earned his living primarily by acting. He's remembered for a variety of Shakespearean roles as well as for his roles in the films The Third Man, Moby Dick, The Lady from Shanghai and A Touch of Evil. In recent years Welles was most often seen on talk shows and in commercials.

LEHRER: And that ends our summary of the news of this Thursday. Now a U.S. senator and a Palestinian representative discuss the latest in the ship hijacking. Then we have a report by Norman Ornstein and an interview with Agriculture Secretary John Block on the politics of agriculture. Achille Lauro: Outrage

MacNEIL: Our first focus tonight is the growing uproar in the aftermath of the Achille Lauro hijacking. There was both official and unofficial anger in Washington today over the fact that the hijackers would apparently safely leave Egypt. Here's how President Reagan reacted to the incident when asked about it in Chicago today.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Apparently there's a little confusion and maybe I'm responsible, I don't know, with regard to the PLO and their part in this hostage setup. I did not mean to imply that I favored them giving a trial or attempting to do justice to the hijackers. What I really believe, that the PLO, if the hijackers are in their custody, should turn them over to a sovereign state that would have jurisdiction and could prosecute them as the murderers that they are. And that is reality, what I think should be done and what we would make every effort to see would be done.

SAM DONALDSON: Well, sir, if they won't turn them over, how can we make them turn them over?

Pres. REAGAN: That is a problem we'll have to look at and find out. And if I had an answer to that specifically right now I wouldn't make it public.

2nd REPORTER: Are you satisfied that the PLO does have control of the hijackers in Tunisia now?

Pres. REAGAN: I would have to tell you that there have been so many things spoken and left unanswered in this -- and then I'm going to go into lunch after I say this -- that I'm hesitant about saying anything positive. It was our understanding that they were put in their custody, and where they are now or whether they have them, I don't really know. And I'm just trying to keep in touch with our sources of information, our ambassador there, to try and stay abreast of what the situation is.

2nd REPORTER: Are you satisfied that they're out of Egypt, though, sir?

Pres. REAGAN: No, I'm not even satisfied with that. All I know is they're off the boat and they're someplace over there, and our people are safe. [many reporters talk at once]

What?

3rd REPORTER: No trial by the PLO?

Pres. REAGAN: No, I don't think that -- they are not a sovereign nation, and I don't think that they would have a machinery that could do --

4th REPORTER: So you would not been satisfied -- as you said before, you would not be satisfied if they punished them? You said that you would be satisfied, but now you're saying you would not be?

Pres. REAGAN: Well, no, and I shouldn't have made a statement of that kind. I think that I was thinking, kind of as mad as I am, of vengeance instead of justice. And --

5th REPORTER: But any sovereign nation?

Pres. REAGAN: What?

5th REPORTER: Any sovereign nation?

Pres. REAGAN: Well, I think that there's a possibility of our own because it was our citizen. But Italy because it was an Italian ship. I think because the crime began in Egypt there could be -- I think that you could find a reason for more than one sovereign nation to have jurisdiction in this case.

6th REPORTER: Don't you believe Mubarak when he says that they're out of Egypt? President Mubarak says they're out of Egypt; don't you believe him?

Pres. REAGAN: In this case it's whether he has all the same information or the information he should have, too. Earlier, in his work to get the hostages freed, he did not know that a crime had been committed, either.

7th REPORTER: Mr. President, the Israelis say that Yasir Arafat knew in advance of the raid. Is that your understanding, sir?

Pres. REAGAN: What?

7th REPORTER: The Israelis say Yasir Arafat knew in advance of the hijacking.

Pres. REAGAN: I wouldn't have any way of knowing whether that's true or not.

Mr. DONALDSON: They say you were planning a military operation to free the hostages if they had not been freed.

Pres. REAGAN: Sam, you know that that's something I can't talk about either.

MacNEIL: If the President was mad, so were members of Congress. Some there want the United States to penalize Egypt. One senator who thinks that way is Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

What should the United States do to Egypt, Senator?

Sen. ARLEN SPECTER: I think that we ought to withhold $1 billion in aid. We give Egypt something in excess of $2.6 billion now, and on the facts as presented, Egypt had absolutely no business in turning those hijacker pirates free. I saw President Mubarak as he appeared on the earlier part of this show, and I thought he was evasive. It is plain, I think, on these facts that before they carried out the deal to free them, that they knew that a murder had been committed of a United States citizen. And I'm not at all satisfied even as we talk now that Egypt does not have the power to recall that airplane, the airplane headed for Tunis, and to gain custody over the hijackers. And I think they ought to be turned over to the United States for trial. And Egypt is at fault here, and if we're ever to get on with the business of dealing with terrorism we ought to show them that we really mean business. And a billion dollars would show we're serious.

MacNEIL: Do you have any further information about what representations this country is making to Mubarak and whether the hijackers are still in Egypt?

Sen. SPECTER: I do not know. I do know that when I spoke early this morning on the Senate floor, that an inquiry was made by the Egyptian Embassy here in Washington, and I do believe that there was a period of time -- and we'll have to find this out for sure -- where Egypt could have recalled the plane and could have regained custody of the hijackers, and would have been in a position to turn them over to the United States.

MacNEIL: If they are not turned over to the United States or to Italy or put on trial there, should the United States make some attempt to get them itself?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, if we could short of a military action, I think that we should. There is precedent by the Supreme Court of the United States which says that if we can attain custody of people, we can bring them to the United States. And last year the Congress enacted legislation which authorizes extraterritorial jurisdiction. That is tosay that those hijacker pirates are subject to trial in the United States district court here in Washington, just as the terrorists who hijacked the TWA plane are. And I would like to find a way to get them, short of warfare. And if we can, we ought to bring them here, try them, convict them and punish them.

MacNEIL: Would you approve a clandestine semimilitary operation to grab them, like the Israelis grabbed --

Sen. SPECTER: Eichmann.

MacNEIL: Eichmann, thank you.

Sen. SPECTER: Yes, I would, providing it was done carefully; providing that it was targeted to the specific individuals; that it did not run a material risk of hitting innocent people; and that it could be done discreetly. That is the substance of a bill which I introduced 18 months ago in the United States Senate.

MacNEIL: Where does all this leave the PLO, Arafat and any possible Palestinian role in a peace -- furthering the peace process in the Middle East, do you think?

Sen. SPECTER: Well, I don't think that Arafat has ever been a serious player in a peace role in the Mideast. There is room under the Camp David accord, obviously, for a Palestinian delegation, but it is my firm belief that that delegation ought not to consist of anybody from the PLO. Every time you turn around, Arafat is engaging in some new form of doubletalk. He doesn't recognize the right of Israel to exist. I don't think Israel can be asked to negotiate with the PLO or Arafat. So that as far as I'm concerned, Arafat is a nonplayer.

MacNEIL: Thank you. We'll come back, Senator. A Palestinian view now from Hisham Sharabi, a member of the Palestine National Council, which serves as a parliament in exile. He is a professor of history at Georgetown University.

Professor Sharabi, do you from your contacts have any information on whether the PLO holds these people or expects to hold them, or what is the situation tonight that you know?

HISHAM SHARABI: First of all, I would like to make a correction. I'm not a member of the National Council.

MacNEIL: I beg your pardon.

Prof. SHARABI: No, I have no information beyond the ones that we have heard on the news as to the whereabouts of the terrorists.

MacNEIL: What do you make of the Israeli charge that their intelligence tells them that Arafat knew in advance of this mission?

Prof. SHARABI: I don't take that seriously at all. At every turn the Israeli authorities, intelligence, government, go out of their way, without any clear evidence, to implicate the PLO directly in acts of terrorists, a terror such as this. There's every indication in this case that the group that undertook this operation belonged to a splinter segment of the national command, or the general command, that left the PLO in 1982, and that the PLO has apparently no knowledge of it.

MacNEIL: As a Palestinian, or person of Palestinian origin, what do you think should be done with these hijackers yourself?

Prof. SHARABI: You know, every time that such unspeakable events take place in that region, people here and elsewhere talk about force, vengeance and doing away with terror. Fine, we all agree with that. But there is another dimension to terror, and that is, why is it taking place? Why is this pattern of spiraling terrorism, this unspeakable type of behavior? Some of the hostages have suggested that we should look beyond the act itself, but never in the media, including this, the most serious program in the media of news, has dealt with the background, the environment that produces terror. That is, not only the symptom but the cause.

MacNEIL: I -- not everybody watches every program, but I think we should say that we have done some of that. Anyway, what do you think should be done with the four hijackers? Suppose they're still in Egypt? Suppose the PLO has them? What should be done with them, do you think?

Prof. SHARABI: Chairman Arafat was asked yesterday on the news whether he would consider handing them over to Italy. His answer was very positive, indicating that he might. I personally hope that he does.

MacNEIL: What do you feel, with your sympathies for the Palestinians, about the conduct of these men? If the account that we gave earlier by the Italian ambassador to Egypt is true, that they cold-bloodedly shot this old man and threw him overboard, what does that make you feel about the cause and the justification for terror?

Prof. SHARABI: It makes me feel outrage. It's an unspeakable act. These people do not represent the Palestinian people, and unconditionally condemn such cowardly action. But saying that, I will not continue to describe feelings of outrage, to express condemnation. We must get into a debate in this country about the real reasons for these unspeakable acts in the Middle East, in the Arab world, that has to do directly with American policy, with America's responsibility, with Israel's terroristic acts as well.

MacNEIL: How do you feel about that, Senator Specter?

Sen. SPECTER: I believe that that is absolutely no justification for what has occurred here. You can't justify the murder of a 69-year-old United States citizen for any other grounds. Israel has been ready to move forward to discuss the issues on the West Bank and the Palestinian problem. Last week King Hussein was in Washington, and many of us in the United States Senate urged him to take the lead. I have personally urged President Mubarak to join with King Hussein in taking the lead, to have those peace discussions go forward. But Hussein will not publicly recognize the right of Israel to exist, will not publicly move away from the state of belligerency which exists between Israel and many of the Arab states. Israel is ready to negotiate, and I think the United States policy in supporting Israel is exactly right.

MacNEIL: Mr. Sharabi?

Prof. SHARABI: The time has come to break through these myths. Israel refuses to negotiate. Israel's attack on Tunis against the PLO headquarters was designed in my opinion primarily to torpedo the peace initiative of King Hussein and Chairman Arafat. For the first time in 30 years we have a real initiative undertaken by the two leaders that are directly concerned with the Arab-Israeli conflict. PLO Chairman Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan both have gone all the way to say publicly to the world that they're willing to recognize Israel, to live in peace with Israel and to negotiate with Israel. And Israel has done everything it can to block this initiative.

MacNEIL: Senator?

Sen. SPECTER: Robin, if I may interject, I don't think that's true at all. Arafat has never said that he's prepared to recognize Israel or the right of Israel to exist. And it is not true that this is the first initiative in 30 years -- the real initiative was undertaken by Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and there was an arrangement for peace in the Camp David accord, and Israel made very substantial concessions in real estate and had recognition from Egypt.

MacNEIL: Let's have one final comment from Professor Sharabi on this question and then come back to the ship for a moment. Professor Sharabi?

Prof. SHARABI: This is the first time the Palestinians officially committed themselves to a peace settlement with Israel. Israel is refusing to do that. Israel wants to keep the territory it annexed by force of arms that belong to the Palestinians.

MacNEIL: Professor Sharabi, let me ask you this, finally -- we have a minute. The Senator says the United States would be justified in seizing these hijackers and bringing them back here for trial. What is your feeling about that?

Prof. SHARABI: I'm against that. I think that would be engaging in the kind of terrorism that President Reagan mentioned in -- a few weeks ago. I don't think that's the way that a superpower should act.

Sen. SPECTER: Robin, if you have a minute, there's a case where Illinois went to Peru --

MacNEIL: Less than a minute, Senator.

Sen. SPECTER: Do it in less. Got a man named Kerr, brought him back, kidnapped him from Peru, brought him back to Illinois and tried him, and the United States Supreme Court said it was appropriate.

MacNEIL: I see. Well, we thank you both for joining us. Senator Specter, Professor Sharabi, thank you both for joining us this evening. Jim? Farm Politics

LEHRER: To the politics of the farm crisis is where we go next. First with Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and a favorite Congress watcher of ours; then with the secretary of agriculture, John Block. Ornstein says 1986 congressional politics have made for interesting votes, coalitions and rhetoric.

Rep. PAT ROBERTS, (R) Kansas: To the administration I say there is no free market, and your policy recommendations mean more of the same -- misery and adversity in farm country.

Rep. ARLAN STANGELAND, (R) Minnesota: Our farmers are in an economic situation not of their making. First of all, they didn't ask for the embargo of '80, they didn't ask for the high inflation rates of the late '70s and early '80s, they didn't ask for the high interest rates, they didn't ask for the strong dollar. They are victims of an economy over which they have no control.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: Arlan Stangeland and Pat Roberts are solid conservative Republicans, normally reliable supporters of the Reagan administration. But their support does not extend to its farm policy. A serious farm crisis, perhaps the worst since the Great Depression, finds farm-belt conservative Republicans in an unlikely alliance with liberal Democrats in staunch opposition to the Reagan farm program.

Rep. TOM DASCHLE, (D) South Dakota: The farm issue is the issue. There isn't anything that even comes close. You can talk about nuclear war, you can talk about the deficit, you can talk about this or that -- the bottom line, the question you get asked the most is, "Yeah, but what are you going to do about the farm bill?"

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: Tom Daschle is the Democratic congressman from South Dakota. He will run for the Senate next year, and the farm issue will dominate his campaign.

Rep. DASCHLE: I'm here to tell anyone who will listen that our national security depends just as much on how many farmers we've got as how many missiles we've got.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: Daschle wants to unseat first-term Republican Senator Jim Abdnor, who took his seat in the 1980 Reagan landslide. Abdnor and Daschle have little in common politically, but they agree on the centrality of the farm issue.

Sen. JAMES ABDNOR, (R) South Dakota: By far and wide, agriculture dominates all issues. There's no state in the entire United States that is so sustained by agriculture as South Dakota. I have never seen it so difficult for farmers since I was a small boy in the 1930s at the heart of the Depression.

Rep. DASCHLE: If you can picture the Great Plain states all the way from Oklahoma to North Dakota, perhaps Montana through Minnesota, down into Iowa, Missouri, those are the hardest-hit states. There's no question.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: And in many of these heartland states, Republicans have a lot at stake next November. All in all there are 22 Republican Senate seats up for contest in 1986. At least half have sizable farm populations and serious farm problems. Add to them the large number of farm-state Republicans in the House, and the political importance of the farm issue multiplies. Reagan farm policies are the key, and the question for House Democratic Whip Tom Foley is to what extent the political fortunes of those Republican incumbents will hinge on the widespread and growing farmer discontent.

Rep. TOM FOLEY, (D) Washington, House Democratic Whip: In part, the administration has brought this about by their lack of attention to the anguish that many farmers are facing, not only in the Midwest but elsewhere. And you know, the ill-considered line of the President at his dinner, that we ought to keep the grain and export the farmers, wasn't seen as very funny. So I think they've brought some of this on themselves, and I think they should have expected it.

ORNSTEIN: What makes Republicans particularly nervous is the precedent of 1958, a year of political disaster for their party. Nineteen fifty-eight, like 1986, was the sixth year of a popular two-term incumbent Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower. The loss that year of 13 Senate seats and 47 House seats for the Republicans had many causes, but farm discontent topped the list.

EUGENE McCARTHY, former U.S. senator: I think it was the issue that was the principal determinant of who won and who lost in Minnesota and in the Midwest in 1958.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: Eugene McCarthy won his Senate seat in 1958 beating Republican incumbent Ed Thye by capitalizing on the farm issue, running against the administration and especially the highly visible secretary of agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson.

EZRA TAFT BENSON, Secretary of Agriculture [1957]: American agriculture, however, is not for sale to irresponsible bidders. American agriculture is neither Republican nor Democrat, and its welfare shall not be sacrificed on the altar of partisan politics.

Sen. McCARTHY: He was kind of an easy target, you know. He was extremely righteous, and he practically said his farm program had been revealed to him. So we worked around that to some extent. But there was a serious farm problem. I mean, the prices were depressed, and it was a substantive issue; it's just that Benson particularly made it easy to exploit it.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: Neal Smith of Iowa was one of 19 Midwestern Democrats elected to Congress in 1958 by ousting incumbent Republicans. He too found Secretary Benson a tempting target.

Rep. NEAL SMITH, (D) Iowa: I don't want to say he was hated; they just thought he was not up to the job. They thought that his policies were wrong. He had advocated reducing supports substantially and letting people produce from fence row to fence row, and that is similar to what we have now, in that the administration wants to reduce supports at the very time when we don't have the exports to offset it.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: By some standards at least, 1986 ought to pose worse political problems for the Republicans than 1958. The farm crisis is much worse.

Rep. SMITH: Since that time, the average capital required for a farming operation has quadrupled, probably, and there's only one placeto get capital like that and that is borrow it. For the first time, I think, in memory, I know somebody that had cattle on feed -- his interest costs were more than the feed costs for the cattle, and he just lost money.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: Ironically, this farm problem comes at a time of bumper crops and record harvests. But these don't mean more farm income. Excess production means falling prices, and the strong dollar means that the slack can't be picked up by increasing exports.

Rep. FOLEY: Agriculture has been in a recession that's extremely serious, and while you can find a prosperous oasis here or there in the agricultural country, there is an awful lot of desert growing and developing as farmers are faced with tougher and tougher problems of meeting the costs of their production, of carrying the debt that has been built up to a very sizable figure. We have over $215 billion of farm debt in the United States.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: But with all the economic problems and discontent with the administration's policy, few are predicting a political bloodbath like 1958. Republicans and Democrats agree that the present secretary of agriculture, John Block, himself a farmer suffering from the farm problem, is not a nemesis to farmers like Ezra Taft Benson.

JOHN BLOCK, Secretary of Agriculture: We all know that a portion of agriculture has become hooked on government, and that's not good for the farmers, to be dependent on government.

Sen. ABDNOR: I realize that he is going along with the administration's views, but remember: he's a hired man.

Rep. SMITH: The intensity against John Block is not what it was against Benson. People really disliked Benson; they thought that he was just clear way off of the reservation. They that think that John Block is representing the administration, and the administration is determined to lower rates and prices down, down, down, that that's the answer. Block goes along with that kind of an approach. They're not quite sure whether he is leading the charge or just one of the helpers.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: But the big reason for skepticism about farm-based political disaster for the Republicans is the skill their incumbents have shown at distancing themselves from the problem and the administration. In Iowa, there are four incumbent Republican House members up in 1986, along with Republican Senator Charles Grassley. Devastated by the farm crisis, Iowa ought to represent a prime Democratic target.

Rep. JIM ROSS LIGHTFOOT, (R) Iowa: We're in a war, and there's always a body count. And the body count's already too high amongst the farmers that have already been lost, and we're going to have to have some skins go in the Farm Credit System as well.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: Republican Jim Ross Lightfoot, a freshman from the rural Fifth District who won his seat by only 3,300 votes in 1984, is the most clearly vulnerable lawmaker in the Iowa delegation. But he has made it clear that he will not be tarred by voter discontent with the administration.

Rep. LIGHTFOOT: The President's approval rating is relatively low -- it's below 50% in our state. Is it a problem for me? No. Because I'm not a rubber stamp for the administration -- never have and never will be.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: Lightfoot remains vulnerable, but his Senate colleague Charles Grassley, elected narrowly in 1980, is the most popular politician by far in Iowa, despite the farm crisis. Politicians of both parties admire Grassley's skill at distancing himself from the Reagan administration, attacking farm policies one day and blasting defense, waste or budget policy the next.

Sen. CHARLES GRASSLEY, (R) Iowa: Those of us that went in in '81 to balance the budget by 1984 -- we have not had the support of the White House the way we should have. Our agenda has not changed, but the White House's agenda has changed.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: But Grassley's success and popularity have not been matched by all GOP farm-state senators. That's why South Dakotan Jim Abdnor's battle with Congressman Tom Daschle will be so closely watched, with the farm crisis the big issue.

Rep. DASCHLE: It's going to be the issue that farmers and many people in South Dakota are going to equate to record and to potential for success, to effectiveness. And clearly, if you can't handle it in agriculture, you probably can't handle it in whatever political office you're holding either.

Sen. ABDNOR: I've got a record I can stand on, one I think the people of South Dakota will buy. We think we've got a lot of accomplishments, that we've never really told our story out there. We're going to do a better job of that between now and next year.

ORNSTEIN [voice-over]: Abdnor and virtually all the rest of the farm-belt Republicans have disavowed the Reagan farm program, hoping that is the route to avoiding political disaster. Despite that, they face danger ahead if the discontent with the administration spreads.

Rep. FOLEY: The greatest disaster that could have occurred to American agriculture is embracing the Reagan administration farm policy. But everybody avoided -- Democrats and Republicans ran from it, and now we've tried to construct something else, and there are threats of vetoes. So the administration I think has a lot of work to regain the confidence of rural America that it cares about the problems of rural America, and if that confidence isn't developed much more strenuously in coming months, I think the administration's going to suffer politically from it next fall. John Block: Feeling the Heat

LEHRER: Now to the secretary of agriculture, John Block.

Mr. Secretary, do you agree with what Congressman Foley just said, that the administration has lost the confidence of farm America?

Sec. JOHN BLOCK: I don't believe that's true, and I don't believe -- I don't accept the fact that our policy is not a viable policy. We've seen our policy change a little bit since last year as we've seen the farm crisis deepen. We haven't sacrificed our principles, and as we stand today, our policy is almost lockstep with the American Farm Bureau, which is the biggest farm organization in the nation.

LEHRER: Well, then why are all these Republican members of Congress running from you like you're the plague?

Sec. BLOCK: They're running from everyone associated with Washington. They run against Washington, D.C. -- I understand why they do. American agriculture is dominating -- is the dominant issue out in the heartland today, as it should be. Because we have a lot of problems, they are pushing ahead with what they think's a solution.

LEHRER: Yeah, but if your policy is so -- in other words, if your policy is so good and it's so well understood by the farmers of America, then why are the politicians disassociating themselves with it?

Sec. BLOCK: Well, they aren't all. Honestly, they really aren't. Some are, some are not. Some embrace us on one issue, divorce from us on another issue. A clear example is this Harkin thrust that got all the play with the Farm Aid concert and everything.

LEHRER: That's Senator Harkin from Iowa. He is a Democrat.

Sec. BLOCK: He is a Democrat. But everyone thought that that was going to be a big movement in agriculture, maybe the salvation. The administration has consistently said that that was not the solution; it's government-dominated agriculture that he has been preaching. That approach was beaten decisively 7-1 in the House of Representatives. And in that case, you know, we were all -- not all, but most of us were together. On a number of other issues we've been together. We just aren't together on every issue.

LEHRER: All right. Let's take the farm bill that passed the House on Tuesday. Is that a budget-busting bill, to use the President's term?

Sec. BLOCK: It is more expensive than it should be. There's no question about that. It has some good policy in it; it has some weak policy. On dairy it has some very weak policy, with government dairy diversions and government involved there. We did straighten out some of the price-support policy in the commodities. The cost of the program: it is more money than we wanted to spend. But I have said that the administration is prepared to spend a large amount of money, as much in the next three years as we spent in the last three years, but we're not going to spend that money on bad policy. We want to spend that money to buy good policy.

LEHRER: Are you recommending to President Reagan that he sign the farm bill when it gets to his desk?

Sec. BLOCK: Well, we have to see what we get out of the Senate. We'll be working to make some improvements there. When we put the Senate and the House together in conference, it's possible that we can conference this in a way that I will recommend that he sign it. But once again, we want to have sound policy that'll make the American farmer competitive in the world marketplace and be in a position to recognize market signals. One point that was made in this whole process here about the situation in agriculture and how we got here. You know, we have this Gramm-Rudman effort to address the budget deficit. I don't care what farm group you're with; if you just say that the best farm policy is a balanced budget, they agree. Senator Grassley pointed out how important that is. The President has joined the Gramm-Rudman effort to balance the budget. It's going to go over to the House. I hope that they will follow and join in this and we can see things turn up in agriculture in another year, and things may look entirely different next fall than they do today.

LEHRER: Well, then, what would you say to members of Congress, including some Republicans, who say, "Okay, fine, Mr. Secretary, but in the meantime let's keep the farmers intact and let's not pass legislation that reduces support to them and that takes loan guarantees away from them and all that"? In other words, help them through the crisis, and then let's worry about the policy problems later on.

Sec. BLOCK: Well, once again, the policy we are proposing is effectively, in my judgment, the mainstream policy of responsible American agriculture. We're not saying pull the rug out; we're saying we'll spend quite a bit of money during the transition, a lot of money, but we're saying we need to be competitive in international trade; we're saying we won't accept mandatory controls, and we beat that decisively in the House and we'll beat it in the Senate if it comes back up, because farmers don't want it. I'm saying that our policies are not really out of step with the American farmers out there in the country. But I am conceding that there's a lot of pain out there, and farmers want an answer and they want a solution. And they do tend to lash outat any one in sight in saying to us and Congress, "Why aren't you doing something about it?" I understand it. I'm a farmer; I know how that is.

LEHRER: Governor Branstad of Iowa was on our program a few days -- several days ago, and he, as you know, is a Republican, very supportive of the administration, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and he told Robin in the interview Robin did with him that -- he said the President has reneged on the promises that he made to the farmers. He said that he would help them get through this crisis with loan guarantees and things like that, and he hasn't done it.

Sec. BLOCK: Well, there isn't any truth to that. We've spent --

LEHRER: Now, why would the governor -- where would the governor get that information or that perception?

Sec. BLOCK: It's his deep frustration, like many people out there in the country. Even the farmers. They are frustrated. It's tough. But we have spent more than $50 billion in the last four years. It hasn't bought prosperity but we've tried. The money that we've shelled out in direct loans and Farmers Home Administration is double what it was. Our export subsidy programs, double what they were. We have opened the Treasury doors to agriculture, trying. But the whole truth is, all of this money, the best farm program will not buy prosperity unless we're able to straighten out the fundamental problems of interest rates that still cling too high; our dollar hurts our export position, and other problems like that. Out of the reach.

LEHRER: Governor Branstad said -- you know, he declared an economic emergency in his state, and here again, we asked him why and he said to get the attention of the Reagan administration, of President Reagan and Secretary Block, that we've got a problem out here. Did he get your attention?

Sec. BLOCK: Well, he didn't have to do that to get my attention. I mean, I don't quarrel with him for doing it because I think it demonstrated his deep concern. I don't know that it'll solve anything. But he didn't have to do that to get our attention. I met with him on many occasions. The President is fully aware of how serious this problem is. In fact, just the last couple of weeks he's met with farm leaders from all over the United States, heard from them, talked to them. And you know, if I could solve this with my magic wand, I would do it in an instant, and so would Governor Branstad. But the federal government can't solve it that quickly or that easily, although it must be solved, any more than that state government can, because they can't solve it either, that quick.

LEHRER: In the long term; today, your department, the Department of Agriculture, released some crop estimates, and it predicted that the 1985 corn crop was going to be the largest crop in history. Now, this comes at a time -- where in the world are they going to sell all that corn, Mr. Secretary? What kind of frustrating situation does this create and what can be done about it?

Sec. BLOCK: Well, it is frustrating. Here we have a great American agriculture production plant and we've produced more than we can sell, frankly. The government's going to end up taking over a lot of this. It's helping farmers, but we don't know what to do with it. And --

LEHRER: Are these people like -- here again, I hate to keep quoting our program, but Congressman Barney Frank was on here some time ago and he said the problem is, we've got too many farmers growing too much, for which there's no market, and the natural attrition has got to take place. We've got to have fewer farmers, and that's what -- that's a natural thing and that's a good thing.

Sec. BLOCK: Well, I don't necessarily say we have to have fewer farmers. I think we can have maybe about the same number. Naturally there'll be some attrition. But the important point is that they need to farm less acres, they need to raise fewer bushels of whatever we have. And the market will give the right signal for that, but the farmers do need and will receive some transitional support as the market system takes over.

LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, you're a farmer yourself. Would you recommend to young people in this country today to consider farming as a serious career?

Sec. BLOCK: Well, I would. My son is on the farm, and he's only been there about four years now, going on five in fact. And probably this is a better time to get in than most any time than the last 20 years.

LEHRER: Why in the world is that?

Sec. BLOCK: A young man could go into the business with a very low overhead initial investment. Land is cheaper; it can be rented much cheaper than it could have been five or six or seven years ago. Farm machinery is down in price. That doesn't make those of us that have been around for a long time happy to see our assets decline in value, but it does open up an opportunity for a young man.

LEHRER: You've been hurt personally by all of this too, have you not?

Sec. BLOCK: There isn't anyone -- certainly I have. Anyone in agriculture that owns farmland has seen it decline, especially if they have it in the heartland of the country, and it's gone down by 50 . And you just pay the price.

LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. Misplaced Anxieties?

MacNEIL: Finally tonight an essay, from the Midwest but about a different kind of anxiety. Not farming troubles, but nuclear anxiety. After all the talk about nuclear anxiety at the time of the Hiroshima anniversary, we heard from one man with a different outlook. Richard Clark is a part-time editor and full-time cabinet maker in the small town of Galena, Illinois. Clark calls himself a displaced Victorian, a reflection of Galena itself, a town which remains nestled securely in the 19th century. Richard Clark gives us his thoughts in this essay.

RICHARD CLARK: I wonder if we realize that Western European and American people have never in history been so free and so secure from the actual experience of unpredictable, uncontrollable, sudden, horrid death. Certainly we can't be sure what the Russians are up to or what some crazy may do, but we sure know a hell of a lot more about both Russians and crazies than the Victorians did about, say, septicemia or appendicitis. And those two ills probably killed a lot more people a hundred years ago than atom bombs have in our time. After all, we all die as individuals, regardless of how many other people die at the same moment. And in terms of individual fears, the hazard from the bomb is nothing like the real, immediate, everyday experience of typhoid, tuberculosis, smallpox and diphtheria a hundred years ago.

In the 19th century you didn't have to wait for a diplomatic failure on the other side of the world to worry about sudden death. Sudden, unpredictable, unaccountable and very unpleasant death might be no further away than the unrefrigerated milk can in the out kitchen. We have the luxury of worrying about what kind of world our children will grow up to. Last century's parents had to worry more about whether their children would grow up at all. And by 20th century standards, a shocking number of them didn't.

The year 1850 was a cholera year in Galena. The city burial grounds record the burials of 57 cholera victims in just four days in August of that year. This tombstone marks the graves of the Townsend family. John died in 1847 when he was 11 years old. His little sister Elizabeth was seven and his little brother John Kennersley was two when they and their father Charles all died within three days of each other in 1850.

There's another stone near here that records the history of the Leekley family. Of 10 children born alive in that family, seven died in infancy, the youngest at one month old, the oldest at 15 months old.

A hundred years ago nearly one out of five children died in infancy. Most people, even if they lived through the hazards of childhood, could only expect to survive into their early 40s. Yet the 19th century is known as the age of optimism. To the people of that time, a better, more exciting tomorrow seemed to be always just around the corner, in spite of the premature deaths they actually saw all around them.

Today the infant mortality rate in this country is down to about 1 . The life expectancy of an adult is up to 75 years. And yet today at least some of us are suffering anxiety over what might happen. I'm not trying to minimize the horrors of nuclear destruction, whether by warfare or by reactor accident. But I do think we should realize that we suffer less actual risk of inexplicable sudden death than at any time in history. After all, the nuclear hazard is far better understood and far more within himan control than the fevers and plagues were in their time.

LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this day. President Reagan, Secretary of State Shultz and other American officials voiced outrage over the way Egypt resolved the ship hijacking. They demanded that the four hijackers be turned over for prosecution in the murder of an American passenger. Forty-two El Salvadoran army troops died in a leftist guerrilla raid on a military training center. It was the largest military action in the El Salvador civil war in more than a year. And two prominent American movie actors died. They were Yul Brynner and Orson Welles. Brynner died of cancer in New York City; Welles was found dead of apparent natural causes in his Los Angeles home.

Good night, Robin.

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