The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Tuesday, we have official Israeli and Lebanese views of the growing storm over Israel's deportation of 400 Palestinians. Four experts analyze the Clinton national security team announced today, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault opens another page from her Somalia Diary. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President-elect Clinton named his foreign policy and national security team today. It is headed by Warren Christopher as Secretary of State. He was deputy secretary in the Carter administration. Clifton Wharton will be his deputy. House Armed Services Chairman Les Aspin was named Defense Secretary and National Affairs Professor Madeleine Albright United Nations Ambassador, Anthony Lake National Security Advisor, Samuel Burger his deputy. Former Undersecretary of the Navy James Woolsey was chosen as CIA director and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. William Crowe will head the President's foreign intelligence advisory board. We'll have more on them all individually and as a group later in the program. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: The Commerce Department said the nation's economy grew at a 3.4 percent annual rate in the third quarter, slightly below the 3.9 percent estimated last month but still the best showing in four years. Also today, the recession was formally declared over. The business cycle dating committee said the latest slump actually ended in March 1991, eight months after it started. The Cambridge, Massachusetts research group is considered the official arbiter of when recessions begin and end.

MR. LEHRER: Israel's supreme court today upheld the deportation of more than 400 Palestinians. Israeli officials argued the men are Islamic militants. They are still stuck between Israeli and Lebanese lines in South Lebanon. Two more of them were injured by shelling from Israeli-backed militia overnight. Five others were injured yesterday when they tried to re-enter Israel. Lebanese officials said today they would cut off further humanitarian aid for the men. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Germany banned a neo Nazi group today. The group preached hatred of Jews, Israel and foreigners. It was the fourth neo Nazi group banned by Germany in four weeks. It was part of a government crackdown on right wing violence.

MR. MacNeil: A Marine combat regiment left the Somali capital today to set up a base in Baidoa. Marine trucks and armored vehicles moved out of Mogadishu at dawn. They'll use Baidoa as a staging area for extending the humanitarian operation farther into the countryside. Despite the troops' presence, people are still starving and dying in Somalia. James Furlong of Independent Television News reports from a town just beyond Mogadishu.

MR. FURLONG: Tzera was once the playground for Somalia's wealthy elite. Today behind the deserted holiday villas it is a last refuge for some of the most needy, for these are the children of Somalia's untouchables. Their parents killed by fighting or famine, they belong to the lowest caste and have no powerful clan warlords to fight their cause. Just a few miles from the relief effort in Mogadishu clan warfare has until now made the road too dangerous to travel. ITN went with one of the first medical aid convoys to reach Tzera's children. As well as malnutrition, they found endemic glandular tuberculosis, typhoid and hepatitis. Within the last week, some Red Cross food has reached Tzera, a handful of rice and beans per person per day. But the scale of the problem here is such that despite a huge military presence in Mogadishu and now Baidoa, for most rural Somalis nothing has changed. And it's a cruel irony that the planes bringing those U.S. Marines and food supplies to the capital have to fly directly over Tzera's refugee camps.

MR. MacNeil: United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros- Ghali said again today that the U.S.-led coalition should disarm all of Somalia. In a letter to the Security Council, he said if they fail to do so, the country could plunge back into anarchy and starvation. Bush administration officials have said the mission is limited to providing security for food aid. The White House announced today that the President will visit Somalia over the New Year's holiday, and we'll have another Charlayne Hunter-Gault report from Somalia later in the program. In Liberia, American Embassy officials said they had found the bodies of two American nuns killed in a rebel attack about two months ago. They were found in a burned out vehicle in a suburb of the capital, Monrovia. The bodies of three other American nuns were found near there last month.

MR. LEHRER: A Libyan passenger jet crashed today, killing all 157 people on board. Libya's official news agency reported the plane was a Boeing jetliner and it was carrying some foreigners. It said authorities were investigating the cause of the crash, but no further details were available. British Airways has decided not to buy a substantial interest in USAir. A spokesman in London said the idea was dropped after the U.S. Government made it clear it would not be approved. U.S. Transportation Secretary Andrew Card had opposed the deal. He said it would give a foreign carrier greater access to U.S. markets without U.S. airlines getting similar access in Britain.

MR. MacNeil: That's our summary of the news. Now it's on to the Israeli deportations, Clinton's foreign policy choices, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault in Somalia. FOCUS - STALEMATE

MR. LEHRER: The standoff between Israel and Lebanon, over 415 Palestinians caught in a Middle East no-man's-land is first tonight. Back-to-back interviews with the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States follow this set-up report by Kent Barker of Independent Television News.

MR. BARKER: Today the deported Palestinians were back in their Red Cross camp in no-man's-land between Israel and Lebanon, singing to keep their spirits up, and doing whatever was needed to keep warm. They'd arrived just after midnight after an extraordinary journey yesterday south towards Israel and then a march through the darkness back north again. By last night, the Palestinians had reached the so-called Zamari Gateway which Israeli forces had blocked with barbed wire and land mines. So they stopped for the night, hoping still that the court case today would allow them to return to their homes on the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Israel. But in the darkness they again came under fire. Earlier in the day, four men had been injured by shrapnel, and now they decided to return to tents of the Red Cross Camp.

DR. ABDEL AZIZ REMTESI, Palestinian Spokesman: We came back again to the camp at midnight because we faced shooting from Israeli army.

MR. BARKER: Later on in Jerusalem, Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, confirmed to the foreign affairs and defense committee that he had ordered the firing on the deportees. This followed a day of outright denials yesterday. And the focus then switched to the high court and the second appeal against the deportations. But for the second time, it was turned down, today on the grounds that since the Palestinians were technically in Lebanon, they were outside the Israeli court's jurisdiction, not a judgment that appeals to Palestinians.

AFIF SALIEH, PLO Palestinian to Britain: I think it's devastating news, and it shows again that Israeli justice is not justice vis- a-vis the Palestinians. And I believe they missed an opportunity which is to offer a sort of face saving situation to the Rabin government, which has totally blundered and miscalculated, and they could have helped them had they taken the other decision to climb down the ladder and find a face saving situation.

MR. BARKER: There were demonstrations of support for the detainees in the occupied territories today, as well as a well supported strike by the Arab population, both in Israel, itself, and on the West Bank and Gaza. But there were also counter demonstrations by Israelis in Jerusalem, some directly anti-Muslim. There's a widespread feeling in the country that the policy of deportation is right, even if the process, itself, was mishandled. And Israelis will not accept that. To the outside world, it could all appear as a public relations disaster of the first order.

MR. LEHRER: Now to the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Zalman Shoval. Mr. Ambassador, welcome.

AMB. SHOVAL: Hello.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, this is a public relations disaster for your country of the first order?

AMB. SHOVAL: I've heard that phrase so many times in these two years I'm immune to it. Yes, there's a lot of misunderstanding in the beginning, some of it I think on purpose. People have to understand what we have to cope with. We have to cope with a fundamentalist terrorist organization which is out to destroy the state of Israel, to kill Jews because they are Jews, by the way, also to kill any other Western influence if they can get their hands on it. This is a problem, this is a dilemma which democratic societies face when they have to cope with people who want to destroy them. The Weimar republic didn't know how to cope with Nazis. And they suffered from that. The German Government now is trying to cope with the neo Nazis I hope in a more effectful [effective] way. The Islamic fundamentalists, the Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, these organizations, they don't fight Israel because of the territories or because of occupation so to say. They want to destroy Israel. They say so openly. Israel has to take certain measures which are not always very delicate, not always very palatable to us, to the Israeli society, which is an open society, which is a free society. But how do you fight these things? You don't fight these things with niceties.

MR. LEHRER: A lot of the questions that have been raised here, as you know, Mr. Ambassador, because you're here, you've read them and you've heard them, is that, that Israel is a democratic society if these 415 men have committed crimes, why are they not just on trial, rather than picked up in the middle of the night and sent out of the country?

AMB. SHOVAL: Because these people are the infrastructure. They are the people who direct the activities. They are not necessarily the people who stab Jews and Israelis or throw hand grenades. They are the organizational infrastructure of this organization. Now, it may be very difficult to put them in prison without putting them on trial or to put them on trial and to find something which says you have committed a crime yesterday. They are the people who plan the operations. Now, what did we do? They had due process of law. They were sent abroad to another, another country. They have the right to appeal again within 60 days, and even at the maximum, they will only be there for up to two years, which I think is a lot more humane than some countries, which I won't mention, even democratic countries, who execute terrorists of that sort. They put them in concentration camps, or banish them --

MR. LEHRER: But before a trial?

AMB. SHOVAL: Well, well, I think they are. I don't want to mention names. You know some in the countries surrounding us today which face the same sort of threat we do, well, things are going on. I don't want to mention names, but there are some very decisive actions going on in countries in the Middle East who realize how dangerous this Moslem fundamentalism, planned, financed armed by Iran and by Sudan really is to the whole existence. Instead of blaming us, the government of Lebanon, for instance, we should form an alliance of states to fight Moslem fundamentalism, which is a scourge for all of us, and a danger for all of us.

MR. LEHRER: What obligation does Lebanon have to take these people? In other words, what was the Israeli government thinking in sending them to Lebanon? These people are not from Lebanon.

AMB. SHOVAL: Well, they're not from Lebanon. Of course, Lebanon is an Arab country just like the rest, and we have sent people of that sort before to Lebanon. They were usually accepted there, but let's go beyond that. I understand that the Lebanese officials, and I'm sure the Lebanese ambassador is going to say Lebanon is not a dumping ground for terrorists or whatever. I'm sure that they must accept that with their tongue very firmly in their cheek. Lebanon, unfortunately, is a convention center almost for terrorist organizations. The whole of southern Lebanon is an area for the Hezbollah, which is another fundamentalist organization attacking Israel. They don't do anything about that. So talk now about sovereignty, I wish there were a sovereign country which could really control its territory. All we have done is send 415 people to their Arab brethren who are willing, I think, to receive them, although the government of Lebanon says not.

MR. LEHRER: All right, now, what happens as a practical matter now, Mr. Ambassador? The government of Lebanon has not only said they won't receive them, but today has said they will no longer permit these 415 men to receive food, water, and other humanitarian aid. And what happens? Does Israel feel it has no, no further responsibility?

AMB. SHOVAL: Well, these people are in Lebanon. They are not in no-man's-land. They are in Lebanon proper. That was what the Israeli supreme court today had to deliver. Are they in sovereign Lebanon or are they not? They are in Lebanon. The Lebanese --

MR. LEHRER: The reason it's called no-man's-land, it's technically Lebanon but it's under control of, of, or has been under control of militia that are very sympathetic to Israel.

AMB. SHOVAL: No, no, not this part. This is north of the security area.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

AMB. SHOVAL: They are in Lebanon proper. It's up to the Lebanese government, and the Lebanese or the Arab humanitarian organizations to decide what to do about it.

MR. LEHRER: So it's no longer Israel's problem?

AMB. SHOVAL: It is Israel's problem. Of course, it is a problem. we realize it's a problem, but it is not Israel's solution. We can't solve that problem.

MR. LEHRER: Sec. of State Eagleburger was on this program last night and he made the comment about Israel, the Israelis are people who are concerned with civil rights and treating people humanely and thus, "I can't" -- this is Eagleburger -- "I can't believe that they can look at these people out there in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere to go, and be shot at from all directions and believe in the long run that this is the way to solve the problem. I cannot believe that the Israelis in the long run will be able to sustain this." Is the Secretary wrong?

AMB. SHOVAL: He may be right, because we are a free and open society, but we always have to think twice. What do we give them to? Basically humanitarian feelings which -- and we are democratic society as Sec. Eagleburger said -- or our sense of self- preservation; we are a small people, a small country facing forces who have absolutely no consideration for due process of law and morality, for human rights. They want to destroy us. And we have to find a middle way. Other countries in our position would have imposed the death sentence long ago. There's no doubt about that. We try to find a middle way. Everybody may not accept that. It creates problems, public relations problems, problems with good friends like Sec. Eagleburger of the United States, and I want to praise the United States in trying to contain the all out assault on Israel at the United Nations. Nobody at the Security Council even mentioned the provocation which we have had, the Israeli policeman who was brutally murdered, stabbed to death. He had nothing to do with territories, occupation, anything like that.

MR. LEHRER: And there were five others --

AMB. SHOVAL: And five others.

MR. LEHRER: -- who were killed.

AMB. SHOVAL: And -- but look, we were condemned before at the UN. Eleven years ago, we were condemned 15 to nil for bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor. Now everybody thanks us. I think less than 11 years will pass before everybody thanks us on fighting Islamic fundamentalism, which is one of the great dangers to the free world in the future.

MR. LEHRER: I asked Sec. Eagleburger last night if he thought there would be a quick solution to this and he said --

AMB. SHOVAL: He said no.

MR. LEHRER: He said no. Would you agree with him about that?

AMB. SHOVAL: Well, I would agree with him, but the best solution for this problem and for similar problems is if the rational, pragmatic Palestinian leadership, the people with whom I sit, we sit in the negotiating room, would finally come home and say to the Palestinian constituency, look, the only solution is in negotiating with Israel, and finding some sort of peaceful modus vivendi, all the rest is only going to hurt the Israelis, but also you, the Palestinians. They should encourage the Palestinians to turn away from extremism and towards negotiations with Israel. That's the solution.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much.

AMB. SHOVAL: Thank you very much.

MR. LEHRER: Now we go to the Lebanese ambassador to the United States, Simon Karam. Mr. Ambassador, welcome to you, sir.

AMB. KARAM: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree that this problem is now a Lebanese problem as the supreme court of Israel said today?

AMB. KARAM: From the very beginning it was an Israeli problem. It remains an Israeli problem, and the Israelis should find and try, try to find a solution to this problem themselves.

MR. LEHRER: But the, the Israeli ambassador is correct, is he not, that these 415 men are now, in fact, on land of Lebanon.

AMB. KARAM: The Israelis have dumped these people on Lebanese territory. They have land -- they have dumped them on a territory that is under the fire of their gun, and they keep shooting on them. The only solution for this problem is to take them back, as was suggested yesterday by Sec. Eagleburger.

MR. LEHRER: Why is it that your country will not accept these 415 men?

AMB. KARAM: Because this will put an unjust burden on our security and our process of recovery. We just cannot be a dumping ground for the Israelis, and we cannot accept to take any, any, any people that the Israelis think they should dump in Lebanon.

MR. LEHRER: Do you see these people as, as terrorists?

AMB. KARAM: We don't see them as terrorists. The fact is they were not given the chance to stand before a tribunal. They were just taken in the dead of the night from their beds. They were put on buses, and they were just dumped in Lebanon.

MR. LEHRER: Do you, do you see them as Arab brothers?

AMB. KARAM: They are Arab brothers for us, but the fact is that we cannot find a solution for the Israelis on this issue.

MR. LEHRER: Why not?

AMB. KARAM: Because it is, it will be a threat to our security.

MR. LEHRER: Because they, because of what these 415 men might do in Lebanon once they got there?

AMB. KARAM: We don't know what they might do, but we can see that this situation will be very detrimental to our recovery process.

MR. LEHRER: You heard what Amb. Shoval said, that your country is a kind of a convention center now for various terrorist organizations, including other Islamic fundamentalist groups, and he mentioned Hezbollah. This group that he's talking about, these 415 men, are allegedly members of Hamas. Do you agree with him? Is he right about that?

AMB. KARAM: Lebanon has went into some very difficult problems for a while. We are in the midst of a recovery now. We have a strong central government. We have a reliable army. We're trying to do our best, and we -- to control our internal situation, and we think that the Israelis in dumping people in our country are harming this security situation very much.

MR. LEHRER: So in other words, if you have some terrorists already there, what you're saying is you don't need any more from Israel?

AMB. KARAM: Excuse me.

MR. LEHRER: If you already -- if what the ambassador from Israel says is true, that you already have some terrorist type people in your country, you certainly don't need any more, is that what you're essentially saying, sir?

AMB. KARAM: No, I'm not trying to say that we have terrorists in our country. We have people that are fighting Israeli occupation of Lebanon in south Lebanon. We have people that are opposing the fact that Israel since more than 15 years now occupies all of south Lebanon.

MR. LEHRER: Now, the decision of your, of your government today to deny these 415 men humanitarian aid, what, what are the ramifications of that down the road?

AMB. KARAM: We have just -- we didn't deny humanitarian aid to them. We have just restricted access to them to the International, to the International Red Cross. The International Red Cross will be able to reach them from the, certain paths that are in Lebanon.

MR. LEHRER: So they will still be able to be fed, and I read a report today that fresh water was almost gone and all of that. Are you saying -- your government is not going to deny these people food and water, is that right?

AMB. KARAM: The access of welfare to them was restricted to the International Red Cross. We think that the International Red Cross can handle this situation properly.

MR. LEHRER: What -- where do you see this thing going from here? I mean, these men are going to stay there, you have said, you meaning your government has said that it's Israel's problem. Israel's said, no, it's Lebanon's problem. You heard what the ambassador said, the solution now must be found in Lebanon. You just said, no, the solution has to be found in Israel. What's going to happen, sir?

AMB. KARAM: Well, the simplest solution is for the Israelis to take them back, as was said yesterday by Sec. Eagleburger. We think that this is a moral burden on them. This is a moral Israeli responsibility as far as we are concerned. We stand on very firm moral ground. We stand on very sound political ground, and legally, our position is very solid.

MR. LEHRER: Do you have any sympathy for the Israeli position as expressed by Mr. Shoval just now and by the Israeli prime minister in the last few days that these 415 men are dedicated to the destruction of their country, to the destruction of Israel, and that's why they had to act? Does that arouse any sympathy in you and your fellow Lebanese?

AMB. KARAM: We don't want to help the Israelis ourselves. The fact is that our country is still largely under Israeli occupation. As far as these people, they have, they were not even given the chance to stand before a tribunal, either in Israel or elsewhere. They were just taken out of their bed. They were put in, in buses, blindfolded, and then dropped in Lebanon without being convicted and without a sentence being issued on them.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador, as we -- I spoke to Amb. Shoval about this and about the public relations problem that this has developed for Israel. Is there a potential for this turning around and becoming also a public relations problem for Lebanon if these men sit in your country and are not well fed and all of that? Is there, is there potential for this thing to turn around and bite you all, as well as it is Israel?

AMB. KARAM: Well, I think that this is not a public relations issue. It is a moral issue where the Israelis are in full responsibility for finding a solution for this situation.

MR. LEHRER: And Lebanon has no responsibility?

AMB. KARAM: We don't think we have.

MR. LEHRER: All right, Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much.

AMB. KARAM: Thank you, sir.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, Clinton's foreign policy choices and Charlayne Hunter-Gault's Somalia Diary. FOCUS - WHO'S WHO

MR. MacNeil: Next, we examine the team President-elect Clinton chose today to advise him on foreign policy and national security. To recap, he nominated for Secretary of State lawyer diplomat Warren Christopher, 67, Deputy Secretary of State for President Carter, the man who negotiated the release of the hostages in Iran; for Secretary of Defense Wisconsin Congressman Les Aspin, 54, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; for National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, 52, former State Department official, now a college professor; for director of the CIA James Woolsey, 51, former Undersecretary of the Navy and a nuclear weapons expert; for ambassador to the United Nations with cabinet membership Madeleine Albright [55], a professor of international affairs and expert on relations with Russia and Eastern Europe. Here's an excerpt from the announcements in Little Rock.

PRESIDENT-ELECT CLINTON: The world is no longer a simple place with clear choices. As we enter the 21st century, American foreign policy will require steady hands, bold new thinking, and the strength and courage to advance our American values. In building this new peace and prosperity, America will be well served by this creative and illustrious group of Americans.

WARREN CHRISTOPHER, Secretary of State-Designate: In this new era, the Clinton-Gore administration will be confronted again and again by whether and how to use U.S. power and U.S. resources. In contrast to the well understood goals of the Cold War era, it will be difficult to measure our success as we deal with these new challenges. No doubt the surest task will be the well being of the American people and the unfailing concern that they have always had for others. In confronting these new challenges, we must remain cognizant that a great power requires not only military might, but a powerful economy at home, an economy prepared for global competition. In today's world, that means that foreign policy and domestic policy must be addressed simultaneously, not sequentially, or else neither will be successful for very long.

REP. LES ASPIN, Secretary of Defense-Designate: The President- elect has included two sets of big challenges with this nomination. The first set involves maintaining the superb quality of our forces and our high-technology edge as we go about the inevitable downsizing of our forces. The second set of challenges involves meeting the demands of the new post Cold War, post Soviet world. In this new world, the definition of national security has been changed and it has been broadened. It now includes not only the threat from regional powers, but it also includes the new nuclear danger of proliferation and the possibility of the reversal of reforms in the former Soviet Union with untold consequences. It even includes economics. The President-elect has set the overall task of reviving our economic security at home. The Defense Department can contribute there too.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN: Several of your picks today were in the Carter administration, and as you know, some of your advisers were concerned that this would give the impression that this is going to be a White House version of a Carter administration's international policy, national security policy. What do you say to those critics who will obviously make that point?

PRESIDENT-ELECT CLINTON: It's the only Democratic administration we've had in 25 years, so some of these people have had the privilege of serving them. I did not think I should appoint people who had not lived interesting, full, productive lives in which they had garnered the experience and the judgment necessary to fill these positions, but to say that this is a team of sort of retreads, I think, which is the inference there, would be totally unfair to a sterling and diverse array of Americans who are here today.

BRIT HUME, ABC News: The watchword of your campaign was change and you often describe yourself as an agent of change. The people assembled here today do have an impressive array of credentials, but in what sense would anyone regard them as agents of change? Wouldn't continuity be more the word of the day?

PRESIDENT-ELECT CLINTON: Well, if you go by -- I think I talked in greater detail about foreign policy and national security than any candidate running this year, and I always tried to make the point that I thought we needed some continuity and some change. And I, I laid out very clearly my differences in foreign policy with this administration, talked about the changes that I'm going to make, but I also talked about continuity. I don't think that you can make change in an area this important unless you also know what has to be maintained and unless you have people of real seasoning and judgment. So I'm satisfied that we have the credibility and the capacity to make the appropriate changes, that we would not have had had brought in a group of people that had no previous experience.

MR. MacNeil: To discuss the Clinton choices, we're joined by Leslie Gelb, an official in the Carter State Department now a columnist at the New York Times. Gary Sick was on the Carter National Security Council staff and teaches political science at Columbia University. Richard Perle was an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. He's a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, and Melissa Healy is Pentagon correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. Starting with you, Les Gelb, what do you think of the group as a team?

MR. GELB: It was picked and presented as a team, the top people and the deputies, all to convey a sense of ideological diversity, which the team really does have, to convey political and ethnic diversity, gender diversity, it was for a political purpose and because I think these probably were about as good a group as one could put together for a Democratic administration.

MR. MacNeil: Richard Perle, what do you think of them as a team?

MR. PERLE: Well, I think that President-elect was elected with broad support from Carter Democrats but also from Reagan Democrats, and the team, as we see it, seems heavily weighted toward the Carter Democrats. I hope that as their further appointments will see a few Reagan Democrats in there as well, but there's clearly a number of competent members of this team. Les Aspin is a terrific choice at defense, Jim Woolsey at the CIA. We'll have to wait and see whether we get the kind of political and ideological balance that one would hope for.

MR. MacNeil: How did you think about the team, Gary Sick?

MR. SICK: I think they're likely to work together very well. The chemistry I think was very good, and I don't know everybody in the group at all intimately. I know some better than others, but I don't believe there are any ideologues in there with very sharp elbows who are going to be making, pushing and shoving each other about. The odds are the ongoing battle and rivalry inside the administration does not, does not look like a real danger, judging from the group that was chosen.

MR. MacNeil: Melissa Healy, what are your impressions of it?

MS. HEALY: Well, this is a team I think that -- where continuity is going to be a factor. I think one thing we'll see that will be very interesting is here's a man in Les Aspin who has always been a sort of a high flier, flying solo, and sort of giving his own take before any audience that would listen in a sense of what's needed in the defense budget. Here he really is going to be playing as part of a team, and that'll be a new role for him. It's something we previewed a little in the last couple of years as he sort of matured in the role of House Armed Services Committee Chairman, but this will be the first time he's really played as, as a real team.

MR. MacNeil: Richard Perle, did your remarks suggest you think these are Carter retreads to use the President-elect's phrase?

MR. PERLE: I think retread is invidious, and I would agree with the President-elect that it's unfair. It is, nevertheless, the fact that most of the people appointed today did serve in the Carter administration and the Carter administration's performance in the field of foreign and defense policy is not particularly distinguished. This is in no way to detract from the abilities of the individuals. And I think many of them are very capable indeed.

MR. MacNeil: What's your reaction to that, Les Gelb?

MR. GELB: Well, I don't agree with Richard about not particularly distinguished at least compared to the records of the Reagan and Bush administration, because while Carter made his mistakes, and they were serious ones, and I know, I was in that administration, they were no worse, by comparison than the mistakes of Ronald Reagan sending the Marines into Lebanon, saying we have vital interests there, Marines getting killed, and then taking them out as if we had no vital interest. They were certainly no worse than Ronald Reagan's Iran-contra deal and the arms for hostages switch, or after the end of the Iraq-Iran War, George Bush's appeasement of Iraq before the invasion of Kuwait. Those mistakes were every bit as serious as those committed by Jimmy Carter and Jimmy Carter had some real accomplishments too, not least of which were putting human rights on the table and democracy as major American foreign policy goals, which the Reagan administration picked up, the Salt II Treaty which the Reagan administration condemned and then adhered to for the next seven years, the opening to China, the Camp David Agreement between Egypt and Israel. These were substantial accomplishments, and there's nothing for Carter administration people or Jimmy Carter, in those respects, to be ashamed of.

MR. MacNeil: Richard Perle.

MR. PERLE: Well, I don't think it was, in fact, an administration of great vision. It was dedicated to trying to maintain the status quo. President Carter, himself, expressed the view that he had learned a lot when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and, indeed the administration's policy prior to that had been very weak with respect to what was, in fact, the critical central issue in American foreign policy of the day.

MR. MacNeil: But do you think -- we don't want to debate the Reagan-Carter-Bush foreign policies in great detail, but do you think that that, therefore, makes these people second rate, and not likely to provide a stellar advice to President Clinton on foreign policy, Richard Perle?

MR. PERLE: No, not at all. And, in fact, the most important distinction to be drawn is between President-elect Clinton and President Carter, and I think at the end of the day Presidents are responsible for their administrations, and it was President Carter who largely drove the policies, including I think some of the ill advised ones of that administration. And I think we see in the President-elect a tougher policy, closer to the wing of the Democratic Party, the Scoop Jackson wing that, that has been under-represented in recent years, and I think that's all very much to the good. But as we look at this, this new team, I think it's fair to ask where the ideas are going to come from. Warren Christopher is a lawyer. I'm sure he'll do a fine job of carrying a brief, but somebody has to write that brief. I think Les Aspin has some very definite ideas about the management of the Department of Defense and the development of defense policies, and that's very encouraging. He's thought long and deeply about those issues. It's the foreign policy side that I worry about a little bit, although individually Madeleine Albright is a serious thinker on these subjects and creative and effective, but at the end of the day we have a President lacking experience in foreign affairs but with some good instincts, and one has to ask where will visions of this new world come from within the new team.

MR. MacNeil: Let's ask Gary Sick that. Given this team, where will Clinton get his ideas?

MR. SICK: Well, I don't think there's any shortage of ideas. In fact, one of the big problems that exists right now is that perhaps there are too many ideas. I'm very much in favor of a certain degree of continuity. I think that too much, sort of picking up on the new world order and taking off in directions, all directions at the same time, is wrong, and I look at, I look at Warren Christopher as probably the person there, along with Madeleine Albright, that I know best. And I'm very, very struck by his accomplishments in the past, not just carrying a brief, but really some creative negotiating with Iran, for instance. I mean, most people think of the Iran hostage crisis as a failure of the Carter administration, but if you look at the, at the agreement that he put together with the Iranians at the end of that, that freed the hostages and that is still applicable today, that the American banks and businesses and other people who were involved within Iran, have been paid off by Iran, when they never would have otherwise, that was really some very adroit and extraordinary negotiating to get American interests first.

MR. MacNeil: Do you see these people who were named today by Clinton as originators of policy, as sources of ideas, Les Gelb?

MR. GELB: In Tony Lake's case absolutely. He is a strategic thinker. He was director of policy planning.

MR. MacNeil: The National Security Adviser.

MR. GELB: That's right. The National Security Adviser. He was director of policy planning in the State Department, and his head thinks in terms of major objectives, means, global setting, and I think he will provide this kind of punch for the administration. Also, Les Aspin is a strategic thinker, and I would set these two up against what we've seen for strategic thinking over the last 12 years.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Healy, what do you think of Les Aspin as an originator of ideas?

MS. HEALY: I think Les Aspin is going to be a very prolific originator of ideas, and I think this is the sort of thing that Bill Clinton, President-elect Clinton, clearly invites. Really, Les Aspin has basically spent the last several years, the last 12 years during which the Republicans have been in office, evolving from in a sense a defense gadfly, the kind of fellow who conducts sort of hit and run raids on the margins of the defense budget to a sort of a strategic thinker who has in his own mind begun to build forces from the bottom up. And the one thing that he's done, and it exasperates his critics, but I think many of his admirers admire him precisely for this, is that he tempers all these conclusions with an idea of what's politically acceptable, what will the political market bear.

MR. MacNeil: Richard Perle, you were -- you also applauded Les Aspin. Which ones on this list give you real anxiety about not being sources of ideas?

MR. PERLE: Well, I'm frankly concerned about the choice of the Secretary of State, especially given that the President could have had virtually anyone he desired for that job. We haven't heard anything from Warren Christopher since he left the Department of State in the Carter administration, with the exception, as far as I know, of a single article which was, in fact, a commencement speech.

MR. MacNeil: You mean he has not been generating new thinking.

MR. PERLE: Hasn't said a word, as far as I can tell. If he's done any new thinking, he's kept it very much to himself. The one speech article that, that's in print is a very curious piece, because the theme of it is that we haven't tried diplomacy enough. He calls diplomacy a neglected imperative, and this from an administration that came to grief as a result of failures of diplomacy, and clearly didn't understand the relationship between force and diplomacy.

MR. MacNeil: I think Gary Sick disagrees with you.

MR. SICK: I disagree. I think what Warren Christopher has done in the last few years that is really dramatic and is quite different perhaps than any other Secretary of State we've ever had is that he headed that commission after the Rodney King beatings in Los Angeles and dealt with the LA police department. And that takes some diplomacy. And I really believe that that was as tough a job as any Secretary of State would ever have, and it gives him the sense of not only being involved in foreign affairs but a sense of what our domestic realities are too, which those two have to be blended somehow.

MR. MacNeil: What does it say about the way Clinton wants to run foreign policy that he has chosen a man who is not known as a huge gun? He hasn't written books about foreign policy. He hasn't published frequently in the foreign policy journals and so on. What does it say about the way Clinton wants to run it if he's chosen that man?

MR. GELB: Warren Christopher is not an idea man. I've gone back and punched out Nexus and looked at the Christopher outre over the last 12 years, and it consists of a couple of articles and some op ed pieces. He's not going to generate strategy in overall policy. What Warren Christopher brings to the table is what President-elect Clinton said today. He brings judgment. He's the kind of man who you want sitting in the room because he has the capacity of a world class lawyer to tell you when you're going to get in trouble.

MR. MacNeil: Well, let's look at some of these people are less known. You praised James Woolsey as the CIA choice, Richard Perle. What do you know about him? Why will he be so good at the CIA, do you think?

MR. PERLE: Well, first of all, he's a man of unusual integrity, and I think that's terribly important in that job where so much depends on trust.

MR. MacNeil: How has he shown his unusual integrity?

MR. PERLE: Well, he served on the staff of the Armed Services Committee as general counsel and earned the respect of both Republicans and Democrats alike in that, in that capacity. He served very effectively, I believe, under Secretary of the Navy in the Carter administration and then went on to do a negotiating assignment for President Bush, bringing about, helping to bring about completing negotiations on force reductions in, in Europe. Jim has the confidence of almost everyone he knows, and he's straightforward and outspoken. I, I also believe that he understands some of the intelligence challenges that we now face with the Cold War behind us. He knows the institution well, and I think he should come to that job, I hope he comes to that job with a mandate for the kind of reform that's long overdue at the Central Intelligence Agency.

MR. MacNeil: Les Gelb, do you want to contribute on Tony -- on James Woolsey?

MR. GELB: Jim Woolsey is smart; he's intellectual; he's aggressive, and he will mark the conservative line in this team. He is the most conservative of the group put together today.

MR. MacNeil: Let's talk about Madeleine Albright. You know Madeleine Albright. What does she bring to the, to the role of United Nations ambassador? And apart from the cosmetics of putting a woman at cabinet level, which is something feminine critics have complained about, why is that significant?

MR. SICK: I think Madeleine has an excellent mind and a tremendous store of experience, not only in terms of she was the liaison at the Hill at the National Security Council for a number of years at a time when that was not an easy job, carrying water and back and forth. She has seen it both from the Hill side and the other. She is -- she has now run a think tank for a number of years and has been a source of ideas, and the thinking on a number of issues, so the fact that she is a woman certainly is good as far as the team is concerned, but I think she qualifies in her own right, quite apart from any quota system. I don't see it that way at all. She is not part of the quota.

MR. MacNeil: Any thoughts on Madeleine Albright in Washington, Melissa Healy?

MS. HEALY: Well, I think what we see in Madeleine Albright and in, in most of the principals we've seen nominated today is that they are part of an establishment and basically the defense establishment, the diplomatic establishment. They're intended, I think, to be, to be soothing, and to sort of speak to reassure constituencies that their, that their concerns are going to be heard.

MR. MacNeil: So this is part of the political as well as, as well as national security concerns that Les Gelb was referring to at the beginning?

MS. HEALY: I think there's plenty of political consideration being here. I certainly think, for instance, if you look at Congressman Aspin's nomination, I think Mr. Clinton sees his own vulnerabilities in a sense in dealing with the U.S. military, and he's looking for somebody who will be a respected, effective buffer, and I think Congressman Aspin can play that role for him.

MR. MacNeil: What do you think about Tony Lake, Richard Perle, as the National Security Adviser?

MR. PERLE: Well, he's intelligent and reflective and I'm encouraged to believe that Tony was one of the people who believed it was important for the candidate, now President-elect, to reach out and, and embrace within the campaign and the ideas of, of wide range of Democrats. So I think that's all very encouraging, but at the end of the day what troubles me a little bit is that half this group comes out of Cy Vance's State Department. And I would be greatly reassured if one of the early decisions by the new team was to disassociate itself from Cy Vance's handling of the current situation in Bosnia, for example, which we are going to have to deal with very soon. There's just been a lot of woolliness in that, was a lot of woolliness in that State Department. I know Les --

MR. MacNeil: Cy Vance, the former Secretary of State, is now the United Nations envoy there who's insisted on trying to negotiate and has been opposed to Western military intervention.

MR. PERLE: That's right. I mean, this is a team that individually doesn't have to be wooly, and I hope in the end they'll prove not to be.

MR. MacNeil: Just on Tony Lake for a moment, he actually resigned on a matter of principle, which is fairly rare in recent administrations, at the time of the Cambodian incursion, is that not right?

MR. PERLE: That's right. Most people don't seem to care that much about principle.

MR. MacNeil: Well, what do you think about, what do you think about Tony Lake?

MR. SICK: I think it's, I think this is a major signal, because Tony Lake is young and he is not a Cold warrior, and for that job of the National Security Adviser, this is a real shift. This is a real signal by President Clinton, President-elect Clinton that he is looking for some different kind of thinking about what really is U.S. security.

MR. GELB: He's not so young.

MR. MacNeil: Not so young.

MR. GELB: No. He's 53.

MR. MacNeil: Well, that seems young to some of us these days.

MR. SICK: Speak for yourself, Les.

MR. MacNeil: Leave it there. Richard Perle, Melissa Healy, Les Gelb, and Gary Sick, thank you all. FOCUS - SOMALIA DIARY

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, another story from the Somalia Diary of Charlayne Hunter-Gault. It's about guns and what happened after the Marines took them from the Somalis hired to drive Charlayne and her NewsHour crew.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: For journalists working in Somalia armed guards are a necessary evil. Even with them, many journalists have been robbed of cash, cameras, and other items that thieves could sell or hold for ransom. The narrow road we have to travel for the four hour trip from Baidoa to Mogadishu has been especially dangerous. Bandits retreating from the heavy Marine presence have taken up residence in the thick bush that often grows right up to the side of the road. Their favorite ploy is the road block, often crudely constructed with rocks, pipe and any other items that they can convert to this purpose. Normally, villages along the route use them to collect tolls from the commercial traffic using the road, but even in towns like Baidoa and Mogadishu, the bandits are still active, though not as boldly as before the Marines landed. There are no more gun-mounted vehicles known as "technicals" terrorizing the streets, but there are still a lot of guns and evidence of guns on the streets, and since nearly everyone is armed, it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad ones. Back at the Baidoa airport security checkpoint we are directed to the command center near the airport tarmac. There we encountered Lt. Col. Tom O'Leary, one of the officers in charge.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What did you find when you went out there yesterday?

LT. COL. TOM O'LEARY, U.S. Marine Corp.: One of our patrols went out. They were just checking and then they found some people with weapons on the street. There was no reason to have them, so they confiscated them. Now they sat there and they said that they worked for you, so I thought I'd give them a receipt and if they're legitimate, they can collect them up here again today.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Was there a problem last night?

LT. COL. TOM O'LEARY: What we had out there was just outside the city south there was an armed camp and what they were doing was setting up road blocks and stopping people and shaking them down and robbing them and also they were coming into the city and looting at night, and they weren't supposed to be doing that. There were about 50 people living in this camp with six heavy technicals over there. You can see that. They're not small guns. They're heavy machine guns up to about 37 millimeter anti-aircraft guns, and that's what they were using to rob people, plus a number of small machine guns and small arms. So what we did is we went out with the necessary force to convince them that they ought to just lay down their weapons and turn them over to us. And what we did was we left them the food and their clothing, one vehicle that was not mounting any weapons and we told them you'd better not loot or steal from the people of Somalia anymore.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You found -- you actually found food and medicine?

LT. COL. TOM O'LEARY: Yeah, that they had been looting. For example, one of the flour sacks there was right across the top, it said a gift from the children of France for the people of Somalia. So it's not extensive looting, but they've got to understand it's not just Baidoa that's going to be secured; Somalia is going to be secured, and we're not here to make sure the city of Baidoa's secured. We're here to make sure the area around Baidoa's going to be secured, and eventually all of Somalia's going to be secured.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Just how much of Somalia is to be secured by the military forces is the subject of a growing debate between the military and the United Nations. The U.N. is insisting that the U.S.-led forces be deployed throughout Somalia. But U.S. military and civilian officials so far are holding to their plan of securing only those eight key areas where the need for humanitarian relief has been deemed greatest. So far the military say they have secured Mogadishu, Bale Dogle, Baidoa, and Kismayu. By the week's end, they plan to have secured Oddur, Belet Huen, Jalalaxi, and Bardera, which is currently under control of forces associated with former President Siad Bari. Meanwhile, in the past two days, the military objective of completely opening up the city of Mogadishu moved a giant step closer to reality when the two main warlords moved their technicals out of the city to designated areas where they would be locked up, taken out of commission and kept, presumably until some legitimate authority takes control. The U.S.- led forces have called the technicals the biggest threat to security. The same procedure is expected to be replicated in the other areas under military control. Meanwhile, back at the airport, we are informed that our weapons have been found. By the time we reach the main gate, the word has reached the guards and in no time they have given us our weapons back.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Okay, we got everything back.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's nothing short of amazing how easily guns have become a part of our everyday routine. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, Bill Clinton named diplomat Warren Christopher Secretary of State, Rep. Les Aspin Defense Secretary, former Navy Undersecretary James Woolsey CIA director, and Madeleine Albright Ambassador to the United Nations. The economy grew by an annual rate of 3.4 percent in the third quarter. Israel's supreme court upheld the deportation of more than 400 suspected Palestinian extremists. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.