The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the headlines today. The space shuttle astronauts tried but failed to fix the broken Satellite. President Reagan claimed the Pope supports U.S. activities in Central America. The leaders of Egypt and Israel agreed to hold a summit meeting next month. And new economic reports showed Americans making more but spending less. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: This is tonight's newshour rundown. After the news summary, We have a debate on the the President of Algeria nad Israeli Minister, Moshe Ahrens about the prospectives for peace. We have a background report on the effort in the FCC to drop broadcasting's fairness doctrine. And a profile of best selling new novelist, Carolyn Chute of Maine News Summary

MacNEIL: The space shuttle astronauts had to give up today. Their ingenious attempt to start a dormant satellite failed. The shuttle Discovery maneuvered close to the $85-million satellite and twice touched its starting lever with no result. As the satellite turned, the robot arm from the ship moved in with a makeshift tool called a "fly swatter" -- in the lower right-hand corner of the screen -- and snagged the starting lever.

KAROL BOBKO, shuttle commander: Arm moving in again now for another attempt. Broke a rung on the fly swatter.

MISSION CONTROL: Discovery, Houston, did you copy?

Commander BOBKO: We copied. We estimate we got a hard physical contact on at least two occasions.

MISSION CONTROL: And we concur with that. That was a great job.

MacNEIL: But it didn't work. The electricity did not go on, and the satellite was abandoned as a derelict in space. Hughes Aircraft, which owns the satellite, said the heavy load of fuel on board made a recovery attempt by a later shuttle flight problematic. Two inoperative satellites were brought back to earth by an earlier shuttle, but their fuel had been expended. Jim?

LEHRER: FBI agents have interviewed some 100 Americans who travel to and from Nicaragua, but the purposes were not political. That is why FBI Director William Webster told a House subcommittee today whose members had received complaints about the interviews. Webster said all had a legitimate counterintelligence purpose. But Congressman Robert Kastenmeier of Wisconsin, among others, said the activity serves to chill dissent to administration policy toward Nicaragua. Webster denied that was the aim.

The Pope's view of U.S. Nicaragua policy also got a Washington airing today. Last night in a speech President Reagan said he had received a verbal message from the Pope "urging us to continue our efforts in Central America." Spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters this morning that did not mean the Pope supports the request for $14 million in aid to the antigovernment contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. At a photo opportunity reporters asked Mr. Reagan himself about it.

REPORTER: Mr. President, does the Pope support aid to the contras?

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Now, you know I'm not supposed to answer questions here, but he has been most supportive of all of our activities in Central America.

LEHRER: After that, a statement issued by the Vatican's Embassy in Washington said the Pope had not endorsed "any concrete plan dealing in particular with military aspects." Also on the contra issue, which Congress votes on next week, House Speaker Thomas O'Neill said today Democrats may offer a counterproposal that would funnel humanitarian aid to the contras through the Red Cross.

That earlier White House photo opportunity was for Mr. Reagan and the president of Algeria, Chadli Bendjedid. Bendjedid is the first head of that North African nation to officially visit the U.S. since Algeria won its independence from France in 1962. Until recently it has been seen more as a friend of the Soviet Union than of the United States. With full military honors and with words, Mr. Reagan welcomed the change.

Pres. REAGAN: The ties between our two peoples and governments have grown over the past few years. We Americans particularly welcome the return of cordial relations which existed in the early days of your independence. Your visit gives us an opportunity to further strengthen our bilateral ties. In this respect I note with satisfaction that we will sign tomorrow an agreement to establish a Joint economic commission and will shortly conclude an accord on cultural exchanges.

CHADLI BENDJEDID, President of Algeria [through interpreter]: We are here to bring a message of friendship and respect from the Algerian people to the American people. It is only natural that once it had regained its sovereignty, Algeria dedicated itself to restoring a dialogue with your country. I can say that through the years this dialogue allowed us to know each other better, to define our perceptions and to better understand our respective approaches towards the challenges of our times.

LEHRER: After meeting President Reagan, President Bendjedid sat down for a newsmaker interview with correspondent Charles Krause. We will have that interview later in the program. Mr. Reagan also today received a letter from 53 of the Senate's 100 members who'd called on him to cancel plans to lay a wreath at a West German cemetery for SS troops and other Nazi soldiers. Forty-two Democrats and 11 Republicans signed the letter. Yesterday President Reagan said he would also visit a concentration camp while in Germany next month. Jewish and veterans groups had forced the addition through their protests.

MacNEIL: In the Middle East, Prime Minister Peres of Israel and President Mubarak of Egypt have agreed to meet next month for the first Israeli-Egyptian summit in four years. However, they will discuss only relations between the two countries and not the wider issues of peace in the Middle East. After this news summary, we'll be talking to Israeli minister Moshe Arens about that summit.

In Lebanon, Prime Minister Karami and his entire cabinet resigned today after a night of fighting in West Beirut that took 29 lives. Karami apologized to the nation for what he called "a horrific nightmare." Nevertheless, he's been asked to stay on as a caretaker while President Gemayel tries to form a new cabinet. Here's a report on the fighting and what it means from John Simpson of the BBC.

JOHN SIMPSON, BBC [voice-over]: The fighting hasn't just been a mindless, knee-jerk reaction. There's a clear strategy behind it. The Shiite Muslims of the Amal movement, whose hero is Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, have taken on one of the smaller Muslim groups, the Mourabitoun, and won another stage in a wider battle for power. By now the gunmen of Amal have become the most effective and highly motivated of all the warring groups in Lebanon, and their willingness to sacrifice their lives has brought them to the point where they can start to establish their mastery over Beirut as a whole, after which they'll be the most powerful single group in Lebanon.

MacNEIL: In Africa, South Africa withdrew 450 soldiers of its 510-man force from Angola today, 16 months after they went in to attack guerrillas fighting to free Namibia from South African rule. The 60 men left behind will guard a water project that serves both Namibia and Angola. But South Africans said they too may be removed in 30 days if there are no attacks by the guerrillas. They belong to an organization called the Southwest Africa People's Organization, or SWAPO for short. Here's a report by James Robbins of the BBC.

JAMES ROBBINS, BBC [voice-over]: The South Africans flew foreign television crews up to the border to see the final withdrawal of troops. They are taking a military risk in pulling out, a risk of renewed SWAPO raids from Angola, in the hope of a political gain. The gain would be that the Marxist MPLA regime controlling the major part of Angola may now come under increasing international pressure to respond to the pullout and send home Cuban troops in the country. So the South African government has now prepared the way for the second prong of their strategy in the region. As his troops were re-entering Namibia, State President P.W. Botha was today preparing a new political initiative for that country. The policy, expected to be announced later this week, may stop short of the U.N. demands for free elections, keeping Namibia within South Africa's political orbit.

LEHRER: There were two new economic numbers out today. Americans' personal income went up 0.5% last month, but a measurement called consumption spending went down 0.5%. Consumption spending is a government measurement of just about everything consumers buy, and is considered a crucial element in measuring the economic recovery. Today's number bears out the drop in consumer buying that also turned up in retail sales figures last week. They showed a 1.9% decrease in March, the sharpest monthly drop in seven years.

Also today, AT&T proposed cuts in its long-distance telephone rates totaling more than $1 billion, and said its first-quarter earnings were up 55.9% over the first three months of last year.

MacNEIL: CBS stockholders gathered in Chicago for the company's annual meeting today and heard the chairman of the board declare the management will fight any attempt to gain a controlling interest in its stock. Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett reports.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT [voice-over]: Amidst a swirl of takeover rumors and a barrage of criticism from the new right, CBS shareholders made their way into the annual shareholders' meeting in Chicago today. The new right began their attack even before the doors opened.

JIM CAIN, Fairness in Media: We will do everything in our power to try to get the policies of CBS News modified towards fairness and balance, and we're encouraged that Ted Turner might be very receptive to that kind of policy change.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Not all shareholders were disturbed.

[interviewing] Do you think CBS is fair in its coverage?

FRANCIS FEE, CBS shareholder: Oh yeah, I sure do.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Meeting under way, it was clear that CBS was prepared to respond to its critics.

THOMAS WYMAN, chairman, CBS Inc. [in meeting]: Over the past several months we have faced challenges from several parties who would either oversee or overturn the organization which has provided news and information for 58 years to the American public. We are clear that the integrity of CBS News and the independence of CBS News are inextricably linked. Those who seek to gain control of CBS in order to gain control of CBS News threaten that independence, that integrity and this country.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Fairness in Media, a conservative activist group and a corporate gadfly, did their best to disrupt the meeting.

HECKLER: [crosstalk] -- indecisive. That doesn't sound like CBS.

Mr. WYMAN: No. No. I'm resting.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: But the chairman and the company remained in full control.

[on camera] Today's meeting does not end the threat of a takeover for CBS. Published reports say Cable News president Ted Turner may make a move against the network within the next two days.

MacNEIL: On the New York Stock Exchange today, CBS stock dropped five and three eighths, closing at 109 . Broadcasting industry analyst Joseph Fuchs of Kidder Peabody said traders were "rightfully worried" that Ted Turner would not be able to finance a takeover of the network. One brokerage firm, Wertheim & Company, issued a sell recommendation at the start of trading this morning.

LEHRER: The government agency which polices health and safety at the workplace took a rap today. It came from the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, which said OSHA, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, holds few inspections and imposes low penalties on offenders. A spokesman for OSHA said there would be no immediate response.

And there was a train wreck in Colorado. Amtrak's San Francisco to Chicago California Zephyr derailed last night near the town of Granby, Colorado, west of Denver. Twenty-six people were injured, one seriously, in the accident. Seven of the 14 cars went off the track into a remote canyon. They fell over onto their sides on an embankment beside the Fraser River. There is no highway or road through the canyon, so the 129 passengers and 18 crew members had to be taken out by rail. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, which operates that part of the route for Amtrak, said the tracks were loosened and undercut by a spring below the surface. A detour is being built around the washout.

MacNEIL: There's another result that isn't a result in the marathon efforts in an Indiana congressional district to find out who will be its congressman. A three-week federal recount of nearly a quarter of a million ballots left Democrat Frank McCloskey two votes ahead of Republican Rick McIntyre. But a House task force still has to decide what to do about several disputed ballots, and the final say in the closest congressional race of the century is with the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democrats. Judicial Politics?

MacNEIL: Our first focus segment tonight is about conservatives under fire for trying to influence the choice of federal court judges. President Reagan has 115 federal and district court judgeships to fill, one seventh of all the seats on the federal bench. By the end of his second term, Mr. Reagan has the potential to name most of the nation's 744 federal judges, and according to many, to leave his ideological stamp on the system. In recent months the administration started filling the vacancies, but so far efforts have been stalled in at least three cases by conservatives who vetoed the proposed names. In all the cases the candidates had legal and political endorsements. The three men are Andrew Frey, nominated for the District of Columbia court of appeals. The nomination was torpedoed by 13 Senate Republicans who said Frey was a "consistent supporter of legalized abortion and a staunch advocate of gun control." Next there is William Hellerstein, recommended for the federal district court in Manhattan. Administration officials were quoted as saying Hellerstein was qualified for the job but "his views were not consistent with the President's." And finally, the appointment of Joseph Rodriguez was held up until today pending the outcome of a questionnaire three conservative senators asked him to fill out. That questionnaire has now become a matter of controversy itself. Critics say it's no more than an ideological litmus test. It touches many of the ticklish constitutional issues before the courts today. Some of its 42 questions are: "Do you believe that a viable fetus is a human being? What is your view of the death penalty? Do you feel that Congress could curtail the right of the people to keep and bear weapons that are of value to common defense?" Other questions range from ERA to affirmative action to political contributions. Today the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the nomination of Joseph Rodriguez, where the propriety of the questionnaire was debated.

Sen. ORRIN HATCH, (R) Utah: These are not picayune litmus test questions; these are important questions, and I want to commend you for taking time to answer them. For although I didn't propound the questions to you, Mr. Rodriguez, I agreed with the questions and there could have been many more that I would have added to it that I think are legitimate questions to ask any nominee for the federal bench. I have never used a single litmus test or single case or single instance to disqualify anybody in my mind for being on the federal bench.

Sen. HOWARD METZENBAUM, (D) Ohio: I say to my colleagues, you may think that it's appropriate to ask this kind of question. This senator finds them to be very offensive, very indefensible as well. What's the purpose of asking whether a belief in a supreme being affects the constitutionality of legislation? What difference does it make whether someone personally supports or opposes the Equal Rights Amendment or capital punishment? What is supposed to be the right answer about abortions, school prayer and gun control? My answer, your answer, somebody else's answer? What is the right wing of this country demanding from our judicial nominees?

LEHRER: To discuss this further we have two people with strong and differing views, Howard Phillips, director of the Conservative Caucus, and Anthony Podesta, president of People for the American Way. Mr. Podesta is with us tonight from public station KQED-San Francisco.

Mr. Phillips, why should judge nominees have to answer those questions?

HOWARD PHILLIPS: Jim, there are three principal factors that should be taken into account in weighing any judicial appointment: character, competence and philosophy. Once a judge is confirmed there is virtually no accountability on the part of that judge to the political system. Increasingly, judges are writing the law rather than simply declaring the law. And to the degree that judges have become legislators imposing on our political system and our legal system their own views on issues like abortion and the death penalty, then if the system is to be accountable to the American people, it is only fitting that the elected representatives of the American people should ask questions of the kind which were included in this questionnaire.

LEHRER: Mr. Podesta, what's wrong with that?

ANTHONY PODESTA: There's nothing wrong with character or competence and inquiries of that nature. But what this is, is really moral McCarthyism. What is -- this questionnaire is all about is trying to create a climate in which we're going to investigate what organizations individuals belong to. In the '50s it was "Are you a communist?" Now it's "Are you now or have you ever been a member of Planned Parenthood?" That kind of inquiry is moral McCarthyism and it is highly improper. Secondly --

LEHRER: How is it moral McCarthyism?

Mr. PODESTA: What Senator McCarthy did was try to suggest that if you went to a meeting or were a member or were a contributor of some other -- some organization of which he disapproved, that you were unqualified to be a part of the federal government. That is exactly what Senator Hatch and the others are doing. If you are a contributor to Planned Parenthood, if you are a believer in sex education, somehow or other that is to be held against you if you are a nominee for federal judge. And a couple of candidates have actually been removed from their nominations as a result of these kinds of ideological inquisitions and litmus tests.

LEHRER: Mr. Phillips?

Mr. PODESTA: But more importantly --

LEHRER: One second, Mr. Podesta. Let's get a reply from Mr. Phillips on that.

Mr. PHILLIPS: Jim, there was a liberal member of the U.S. Supreme Court by the name of William O. Douglas. When he joined the court in the 1930s he observed, after having taken part for a while, that 90 of the court's opinions were based on emotion and opinion rather than on the law. Thomas Jefferson -- certainly no one who could have been characterized as a witch hunter -- said, "Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power and the privilege of their corps." In other words, judges --

LEHRER: It's not moral McCarthyism?

Mr. PHILLIPS: -- are mere mortals. They put on their pants one leg at a time, they wear black robes. And the American people are entitled to know something about the thinking of the men and women who are appointed to the bench.

LEHRER: Mr. Podesta?

Mr. PODESTA: This is not just simply an inquiry into their thinking. It's an inquiry into basic beliefs, into associations, into religious beliefs. When you get to a point where you start asking candidates for judge precisely what their beliefs in the supreme being have to do, what their views are about the sanctity of life -- different religions have different perspectives on that, and when you begin to inquire into a religion, you run afoul of Article VI of the Constitution, which has served us well for 200 years and says there shall be no religious test for public office. And what these senators are doing is attempting to raise religious questions as part of the process, ask about the supreme being, and it's highly improper and it runs against the 200 years of separation of church and state in this country.

LEHRER: Why is that improper?

Mr. PODESTA: Because it is improper to inquire about people's religious beliefs. People's religious beliefs are something that is not to be subject to political debate. It is proper to inquire into the character of judges. It is proper to inquire into judicial philosophy. But when you begin to ask people about their belief in a supreme being, you suggest that some beliefs are better than others and you begin to inject religion into this process, and to suggest that some religious philosophies are to be preferred to others.

Mr. PHILLIPS: Jim, the founders of the United States said we were endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. The presupposition of the American system of government is a belief in God and that our rights come from God. What we have in fact witnessed for too many years is a political buddy system where judges would be appointed simply on the basis of having been approved by a United States senator without any real scrutiny of what kind of judge the American people as a whole were receiving. It's a fact, little-discussed, that for 45 years the Judiciary Committee has never rejected a judicial nominee. Some of them have been rejected on the floor, but the Judiciary Committee has never made that type of rejection. I would argue that in some cases the Judiciary Committee should have asserted itself more vigorously but couldn't do so because the criterion was the friendship of a senator rather than the character, competence and philosophy of the judicial candidate.

LEHRER: Is he wrong about that, Mr. Podesta?

Mr. PODESTA: Well, I think every judge of this country is required to take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. What this ideological inquisition is about is an attempt to get the judges to take an oath that says, "I will ignore the Constitution and the laws of the United States to the extent that they are inconsistent with new-right ideology, with the Dallas Republican platform," and that's highly improper. It amounts to prejudgment. What we're doing is asking these judicial candidates to tell us how they will rule on a variety of cases without regard to the law or the facts, and it goes against the very grain of American democracy in which every person has his or her day in court. It's a day in court before an impartial judge, not a day in the star chamber.

LEHRER: What about the position that many suggest, Mr. Podesta, that the President of the United States has a right to appoint people who agree with him politically, philosophically or any other way if he so chooses?

Mr. PODESTA: I think there's a difference between agreeing with President Reagan and having strict constructionists, people who agree with his judicial philosophy, and beginning to inquire about what organizations you belonged to 15 years ago and about your belief in a supreme being and your willingness to ignore the mandates of the Supreme Court in favor of the Dallas Republican platform or Mr. Phillips' political viewpoints.

Mr. PHILLIPS: Jim, I would say that Mr. Podesta's newfound piety is somewhat unseemly given the fact that throughout the years administrations, Democrat and Republican alike, have applied a philosophical test to the selection of their judges. Surely Mr. Podesta cannot argue that of the 152 judgeships that were created during the Carter administration, most of which were filled by President Carter, there was no consideration given to whether they agreed with Carter's political philosophy. I had the occasion to participate in a forum with Joe Califano, who served in the Johnson and the Carter administrations, and he very candidly admitted that of course they administered a litmus test, of course they wanted to know where the judicial candidates stood on issues of concern to them, like civil rights. And indeed, referring to Mr. Podesta's own point, the questionnaire prepared by Senators Kennedy and Biden does ask for information about what they were doing 15 years ago. So it's not just Senators Hatch and East and Grassley who are concerned about candidates for the bench; Senator Kennedy and Biden are too, it's just that they're downplaying the philosophical questions because they know that at a time when there's a Republican Senate and a Republican President that they would be on the short end of a philosophical decision.

LEHRER: Mr. Podesta?

Mr. PODESTA: Asking about philosophical questions is perfectly improper. When President Reagan nominated Justice O'Connor for the Supreme Court she refused to answer these sorts of questions, and she was absolutely right. There's a difference between an ideological litmus test, a religious test for public office, and an effort to inquire into the judicial philosophy of a nominee for a federal judgeship. I think that what is going on with some senators in the Senate Judiciary Committee goes far afield from an inquiry into competence, character and judgment on the part of these candidates.

LEHRER: Mr. Phillips, is it your position that if somebody were to do what Sandra Day O'Connor did and said, "No thank you, I'm not going to answer your questions," that she should be -- or that candidate should be voted down?

Mr. PHILLIPS: Mrs. O'Connor followed a very shrewd strategy in getting herself confirmed. From her standpoint it was a wise move, in the sense that she wanted to focus the confirmation debate on the fact that she was the first woman rather than on her views regarding particular issues. She had a perfect right to do that, as does any other nominee. And senators, as representatives of the people, have a perfect right to make decisions on a basis that they think reflects their obligation to the Constitution and the people they serve. What we need, Jim, is not less accountability to the Constitution, not less accountability to the American people, but more. We should move away from life tenure and have fixed terms for judges. It should be possible to remove judges in ways less cumbersome than the process of impeachment. And wherever possible there should be a procedure for the election of judges.

LEHRER: That's a whole different issue, though. How do you feel, Mr. Podesta, just about the accountability question? The thing that Mr. Phillips mentioned at the very beginning, that the judges have been appointed for life and then they're allowed to do what they want to, and this is really, under the present system, the only time you really have a way to judge what a judge may do.

Mr. PODESTA: The framers of the Constitution intentionally set about a system that would give judges appointment for life so that they could be impartial, so that they could judge each case as it came up. The framers did not design the Senate confirmation process to get the judges to promise how they would rule on a variety of cases after they got on the bench. Judges are accountable -- they are accountable to the Constitution. They're not accountable to the Republican Party platform in Dallas.

LEHRER: All right. Mr. Podesta, in San Francisco, thank you very much; Mr. Phillips here in Washington, thank you.

Mr. PHILLIPS: Thank you.

LEHRER: Robin?

MacNEIL: Still to come on the NewsHour, two newsmaker interviews, with the president of Algeria and Israeli Minister Moshe Arens; a background report on the battle over dropping broadcasting's fairness doctrine, and a profile of Maine novelist Carolyn Chute Newsmaker Interview: Chadli Bendjedid

LEHRER: We move now to two newsmaker interviews with prominent foreign leaders. First, the president of Algeria, Chadli Bendjedid. He is in Washington for three days of talks with U.S. officials, and stop number one was at the White House this morning to talk to President Reagan. Bendjedid is the first Algerian president to officially visit the United States since his North African nation won independence from France in 1962. Also personally, it was Bendjedid's first visit to the United States. He talked to President Reagan about a new U.S. decision to sell arms to Algeria and about the Middle East, among other things. Afterward he talked with correspondent Charles Krause.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Mr. President, your country has been buying arms from the Soviet Union since its independence from France 23 years ago. Why are you now interested in buying arms from the United States?

Pres. CHADLI BENDJEDID [through interpreter]: Algeria, as you know, is an independent country, and has achieved independence with a great price. And because of that, we are extremely jealous for our independence. And because we are a nonaligned country, we want to diversify our relations so that we can have relations with all countries.

KRAUSE: What kind of arms do you want from the United States?

Pres. BENDJEDID [through interpreter]: We have no specific kind, but we wanted to know whether there was a political will here to sell arms to Algeria. And now -- we now realize that there is this political will, after the statement by President Reagan, so we will send experts who will investigate the prospect and we will then see what we can import. But for the moment we don't have any specific request.

KRAUSE: Does your country feel threatened by the treaty between Morocco and Libya, your two neighbors?

Pres. BENDJEDID [through interpreter]: Whatever equipment we look for, it's not in connection with a development in the situation. It is just a normal defensive kind of aspiration.

KRAUSE: Morocco has traditionally been a close ally of the United States; your country has been buying arms from the Soviet Union. Is there a change, is there a shift going on, and why?

Pres. BENDJEDID [through interpreter]: We are a nonaligned country and we believe in it. And the policy of Algeria is decided in Algeria. Of course we'd like to cooperate with all countries and with all institutions in the world. This is not because we have a specific situation today or specific circumstances. No. I believe both the United States and Algeria have realized that there was maybe not enough dialogue between themselves in the past, and after the talk we had this morning between President Reagan and myself, we realized that there was not such a dialogue before. And this absence of dialogue might have created some misunderstandings as far as -- as to our aims and aspirations. And I believe that this visit has really clarified this, and I believe that after this visit certainly relations between the two countries are going to improve very much in the interest of both countries.

KRAUSE: It's being reported that your conversations this morning with President Reagan centered on the Middle East. Did you bring any proposals to the President, or did you ask anything of the President regarding the Middle East?

Pres. BENDJEDID [through interpreter]: Algeria does not have a specific proposal as far as the Middle East is concerned. The point of view of Algeria as far as the Middle East is concerned is very clear. We have underlined that several times, and we said it this morning. We feel that each initiative, any initiative can be helpful. Any initiative can be helpful and can help, but it has to tackle the central question, which is, of course, the Palestinian people and their rights. Any initiative which misses this point is going to fail.

KRAUSE: As a result of your talks with President Reagan, did you sense any shift in his position?

Pres. BENDJEDID [through interpreter]: One cannot say that there is a change of position, but we feel there has been understanding, there has been a lot of understanding between us as to the central question in the Middle East.

KRAUSE: The prime minister of Lebanon resigned today, and the situation there seems to be worsening. Do you see any prospects for restoring order in that country?

Pres. BENDJEDID [through interpreter]: The Lebanon situation -- Lebanon is certainly very sad, and we believe the party responsible for the situation in Lebanon today is well known because of interference in the internal affairs of Lebanon, and the divisions which have been created and which have been put on a religious basis and which have been encouraged by Israel. Newsmaker Interview: Moshe Arens

MacNEIL: We continue now with a different perspective on Middle East politics in a newsmaker interview with Israeli Cabinet Minister Moshe Arens. A former defense minister and ambassador to the United States, Mr. Arens is one of the key members of the Likud bloc in the Israeli coalition government headed by Shimon Peres of the Labor Party. It was reported in Israel today that Peres will hold a summit with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak next month. The Likud coalition opposed the Peres decision to send a representative to Cairo to prepare for the summit, the first between Israeli and Egyptian leaders since 1981.

Mr. Arens, the summit announced today, it was said that it would discuss only relations between Israel and Egypt. Why so limited?

MOSHE ARENS: Because that relationship needs discussing. You know, since the completion of the Israeli evacuation of the Sinai in April of 1982 -- it's three years now -- the Egyptians have deliberately cooled the Israeli-Egyptian relationship and have turned the peace treaty into what they call a cold peace.

MacNEIL: In part because of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Min. ARENS: Well, they gave a number of reasons for that. Actually it started even before the Israeli military operation in Lebanon. It started really with the completion of the evacuation of the Sinai, which was in April. And they've cooled the peace. They've not implemented some of the paragraphs in the peace treaty; they've withdrawn their ambassador; there's not been any direct contact between top Egyptian officials and top Israeli officials. The Likud did not oppose the preparations for the summit meeting. The point at issue was whether it should be Weizman who should make these preparations.

MacNEIL: Instead of Yitzhak Shamir, the foreign minister.

Min. ARENS: Instead of the foreign minister.

MacNEIL: Who is a Likud member.

Min. ARENS: That's correct. But it wasn't only a question of party affiliation. We felt that it really was not appropriate for the Egyptians to decide who it was going to be that they would invite to Egypt, that they would not invite the foreign minister but rather somebody more to their liking. That's not normal diplomatic procedure, but that's behind us.

MacNEIL: Now that that is behind you, Likud will support the summit meeting in the Cabinet?

Min. ARENS: Oh, absolutely. We are all for closer relationships with Egypt. We're all for implementing the normalization portions of the peace agreement, for building a proper bridge of true and permanent and stable peace between the two countries.

MacNEIL: In the wake of the Mubarak initiative -- he came to Washington and tried to get the U.S. involved in a preliminary meeting with a Jordanian and Palestinian delegation before potential talks with Israel, and Jordan and the Palestinians have agreed on a joint effort -- in the wake of those recent moves, how do you now see the prospects for wider talks in the Middle East?

Min. ARENS: It's hard to tell. You know, the Middle East is an area that's generally unpredictable, and the peace process has been a very long drawn-out process. And I guess it reflects political realities in the area and the domestic political realities in some of the countries in question, like Jordan. It took three wars and almost 30 years before Israel and Egypt came to the peace table and negotiated a peace agreement. Hussein, the king of Jordan, has had an open invitation ever since 1967 -- that's 18 years now. He's not taken it up. He had an invitation to participate in the Camp David agreements, did not take that up. And I think that that reflects domestic political realities and constraints that he's under in Egypt. He's, after all, one of the last absolute monarchs left in the world; he's got a large Palestinian population to contend with -- the PLO almost threw him off his throne in what they call Black September; and so I think it's not realistic to be very optimistic.

MacNEIL: Well, whose is the next move now? Is it up to King Hussein of Jordan to come up with a delegation, including Palestinians, that Israel would accept? Is that where -- is the ball in his court again, is that where you see it?

Min. ARENS: The ball is in his court. He's got an open invitation to come to Jerusalem, or Prime Minister Peres or Foreign Minister Shamir would gladly go to Amman.

MacNEIL: As long as he didn't include Palestinians who are members of the PLO. That is -- am I right in that?

Min. ARENS: I'd say firstly there has to be the readiness on his part to begin the negotiations. Our position has been that we would not like to see, as members of his delegation, people who take orders from the PLO. But the entire population of Jordan is Palestinian. All of the inhabitants of Judea and Samaria that you hear called the West Bank are Jordanian citizens. He should have no trouble composing a delegation that will be properly representative of the people living in his kingdom.

MacNEIL: And as members of the coalition government, would your party support an approach like that, with a qualified Palestinian delegation?

Min. ARENS: Yes, we are ready for that. This was agreed to in the Camp David agreements that were concluded while the Likud was in power. And the Likud, now sharing power with the Labor government, would certainly go ahead with anything that's consistent with these agreements.

MacNEIL: Richard Murphy, the State Department expert on the Middle East, is in the area now conferring with all parties, and is said to be there because the U.S. is trying to decide what kind of U.S. initiative there could be, or what role the U.S. could play in the recent initiatives. What role does Israel think there is for the United States right now?

Min. ARENS: We have a strong and continous preference for direct negotiations. Now, because of the reticence of some of the Arab leaders --

MacNEIL: Meaning leaving the U.S. out of it?

Min. ARENS: Well, I think in the final analysis that's the only thing that's going to get things moving. And that's what happened with Sadat as well: it was only when there was face-to-face meeting, direct negotiations between Sadat and Begin that the thing started rolling. Now, because of the reticence that some of the Arab leaders have about meeting Israelis, a reticence that must, in the final analysis, be overcome if there's going to be progress, then on occasion the terms are that the United States can play a role in overcoming that reticence. But basically it's a reticence that Hussein is going to have overcome himself.

MacNEIL: What is your mission here at the moment?

Min. ARENS: I came here to meet with some prominent business leaders to try to mobilize their support for helping Israel overcome its present economic difficulties.

MacNEIL: Oh, it's an economic mission, not --

Min. ARENS: It's an economic mission.

MacNEIL: Not a political mission.

Min. ARENS: Right.

MacNEIL: Finally, on the situation in Lebanon, your neighbor from which your troops have almost finished completing their withdrawal from -- is the fall of the Karami government going to make a change in Israel's withdrawal plans?

Min. ARENS: No, I don't think believe so. But what we've seen is that Lebanon, in effect, is in a state of anarchy, has been for years now, seems to continue to be. The Lebanese government, although it has representatives at the U.N., it has an army, a police force, ambassadors, it's a government in name only, even before Karami resigned. It doesn't exercise jurisdiction over any part of Lebanon. That is Israel's problem, that we do not have anybody to turn to and hold responsible for any terrorist activity that originates in Lebanon and is directed against Israel.

MacNEIL: Your government is about ready to announce plans, I gather today, on how it intends to defend itself on the northern border when the withdrawal is completed. Can you tell us anything about what kind of form that is going to take?

Min. ARENS: Well, first of all, let me say that we are hopeful -- and we hope that this is not an unrealistic expectation -- that there will not be a recurrence of terrorist activity from Lebanese soil against Israel and against the civilian population. But we're not sure that that will be the case, because we see the anarchy that prevails in Lebanon, in all parts of Lebanon, including southern Lebanon.

MacNEIL: You heard the Algerian president say that was your fault.

Min. ARENS: Yes, but I hope that you take that with a grain of salt, because this sort of thing has been going on in Lebanon -- and it's a human tragedy of tremendous proportions -- for the past 15, 20 years, and it has nothing to do with Israel. It has to do with Sunni and Shia and Druse and Christians, and the Syrians are behind a lot of this.

MacNEIL: Mr. Arens, thank you for joining us this evening. Fairness Doctrine

LEHRER: Fairness in broadcast journalism has suddenly become a running story for broadcast and other kinds of journalism to cover. There was the General Westmoreland versus CBS libel trial, the complaint by the CIA against ABC News, the drive by conservative friends of Jesse Helms to reverse what they say is a liberal bias at CBS News, and now the possibility of a takeover attempt of CBS by Atlanta TV entrepreneur Ted Turner. The question of fairness came up specifically in two news places today: at that annual meeting of CBS in Chicago, and at the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas. There, FCC Chairman Mark Fowler did the talking about it, saying he did not want to be this country's master of the airwaves. Specifically, Fowler wants to eliminate all federal rules governing fairness. It is the subject of this focus report by Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

RICHARD HUGHES, WPIX-TV: The management of WPIX favors per-illness reimbursement over a uniform fee system proposed by the American Medical Association.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: When broadcasters editorialize in favor of one position, they are obligated under law to allow the opposing side to be heard.

MAN: WPIX's contention that a per-illness reimbursement would be the answer to skyrocketing medical costs without affecting the quality of health care is totally misinformed.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: This law is called the fairness doctrine, and it's been a mainstay of American broadcasting since families began gathering around their old crystal radio sets some 60 years ago. Broadcasting technology has made quantum leaps since then, but the fairness doctrine has remained basically unchanged in its position that broadcasters must be both fair and air controversial issues. If they don't, they can lose their license to broadcast. The doctrine is based on the concept that the airwaves belong to the people. Benno Schmidt, dean of Columbia Law School.

BENNO SCHMIDT Jr., Dean, Columbia University Law School: As a public resource, if you loan it to somebody, you impose obligations, just the way you would if you gave somebody a franchise to operate something in Yellowstone Park. You'd say, "Look, you're on public property, you're making use of a public resource, you've got to provide some sort of service."

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Media analyst Les Brown is a strong advocate of the fairness doctrine.

LES BROWN, media analyst: The fairness doctrine is the public, it represents the public's First Amendment rights in the medium. Without it they have none. Without the fairness doctrine, for example, we would not have had as effective an anti-Vietnam War movement or an effective civil rights movement or an effective women's rights movement.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: But now, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Mark Fowler, who oversees the doctrine's enforcement, wants to repeal the doctrine.

MARK FOWLER, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission: It seems to me the intelligence, the collective wisdom of the people shreds absolutely any notion that there's a need for Washington to sit here and make sure that everything is fair. Because the problem with "fair" is, it means it's not free.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Trying to deregulate the airwaves is nothing new to Fowler, a Reagan appointee. Over the last four years Fowler has guided the FCC to remove regulations concerning the need for broadcasters to include news programs, weakened requirements for children's programming and dropped limits on the number of commercials a station can run per hour. Fowler told reporter Les Siefert that his main gripe about the fairness doctrine is that he believes it's unconstitutional.

Chairman FOWLER: It seems to me the language in the First Amendment is very clear and unmistakable in what it says: that Congress is to make no law -- no law -- abridging freedom of speech or the press. And I would argue that the experience of the print brethren would indicate that the people were served very well with an absolutely free press which was without any fetters whatsoever.

CHAIRMAN FOWLER: I think we have indeed a constitutional duty to continually reexamine these questions.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: As a part of his effort to get the doctrine repealed, Chairman Fowler recently sponsored two days of FCC hearings. What came through was that for the most part television and radio broadcasters seemed to support the FCC's effort to have the doctrine repealed.

BOB MONROE, NBC News: There's a very pervasive, chilling effect all through broadcast journalism which is not present in newspaper or journalism. There is, a defensive attitude -- "Don't worry the FCC. They're looking over our shoulder. Let's do something -- keep opinion off the air, it's safer that way."

REED IRVINE, Accuracy in the Media: Then somebody comes along and criticizes them and sends a letter of complaint to them -- "Oh, that's chilling, that might discourage us from saying something that we would like to say." Baloney! They're big boys, they can take a little criticism. Why in the heck shouldn't they take criticism? They certainly dish plenty of it out.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Opposed to Fowler and supporting the doctrine were a surprisingly diverse group of liberals and conservatives who believe the doctrine affords them crucial access to television and radio.

PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY, president, Eagle Forum: Certainly I would not say that the fairness doctrine had achieved fairness. But it is something along the way of allowing differing viewpoints on controversial views, issues of public importance to be heard.

Mr. BROWN: They would have you believe that the fairness doctrine -- they being the FCC -- that the fairness doctrine is an abridgement of the broadcaster's First Amendment rights. But they didn't write the Bill of Rights for broadcasters or the owners of newspapers; they wrote it for the people.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Over the years, Congress, which enacted the regulation into law in 1959, has opposed any efforts to repeal it. But with the hearings now over, Chairman Fowler is pondering a new tack: simply repealing the doctrine without congressional approval.

Chairman FOWLER: I just don't know the answer yet. We may not be able to eliminate it on our own, although there is a very respectable school of thought that says we can.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: And if this option doesn't pan out, Fowler has one more strategy of attack: the chance that the Supreme Court will rule the fairness doctrine unconstitutional.

Chairman FOWLER: If the Supreme Court gets the right case, it wouldn't take very much to blow it all up and go to a free press. So although the progress has been very slow, it could be that when this is indeed eliminated, it could happen very quickly.

LEHRER: Chairman Fowler and the FCC are expected to issue their recommendations on the fairness doctrine in June. Profile: Carolyn Chute

MacNEIL: We close tonight with a profile of a new literary voice, novelist Carolyn Chute. Her first novel was published several months ago. As of this week it is ninth on the Publishers Weekly best-seller list, and there are 170,000 copies in print. That's quite an achievement in a business where first novels rarely sell more than 6,000 copies. Ms. Chute's book, The Beans of Egypt Maine, details the lives of the working poor. They are seen through the eyes of a young girl who observes and becomes part of the family next door, an incestuous, poor and brutalized family called the Beans.

[voice-over] Carolyn Chute and her second husband, Michael, live in a small town outside Portland, Maine, their native state. Although now a success at the age of 37, Chute's struggle for survival as an adult began over 20 years ago when she quit high school before graduating.

CAROLYN CHUTE, author: I left when I was around 16, I left school. And I hated school, hated it, hated it, hated it. There was absolutely nothing in school for me. I'd get up in the morning about five and write, so that I'd get some done before I went to school, and then I'd sit in school all day and just daydream. I just thought I was wasting my time, and so the first chance I got, I got married and got out of school. And it was the best decision I ever made, because I started to really have time to write.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Chute finally returned to high school and got her diploma, but her husband is still illiterate. He earned money this winter selling firewood and plowing snow. Chute feels that the school system does not adequately deal with the many problems poor people have in entering the mainstream of American life.

Ms. CHUTE: I think school plays a big, big part in poverty, the way the schools are today, the way they're set up. Not to pick on a particular teacher, because a teacher, no matter how wonderful they are and exciting, it's difficult to work in that kind of system, 30 kids in a room. And one of the things that they do is that if they find out what you're weak in, they drill you on it, instead of finding out what you're strong in and building on that strength to make you feel like a million dollars. I think that's one of -- and then finally you get out of school and you're one of the outsiders, whether you be meek or whether you be aggressive. And minimum wage is waiting for you, and then you can't get by. You know, your landlord takes the whole check, all four checks and there's nothing left. You either, if you're aggressive you wind up in the jail -- aggressive or sneaky -- and if not you just there very quietly, and you never do anything wrong but you just sit there very quietly and take it and lead these kind of lives that everybody likes to say that they don't exist.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: In writing her novel, Chute tried to show how living on a very small income affects the lives of people.

Ms. CHUTE: In other words, they're not real people, just as the place is not a real particular place, but types. For instance, a very patient person and an impatient person, and working for minimum wage, one of the most patient people in the novel holds out for a very long time before doing something very bad, very disastrous, and out of frustration. It's very violent. I guess the message was that people living under those pressures, you know, of trying to survive on such a small income do not hold out as well as people who with perhaps the same patience or impatience would if they had all their needs met. Needs. I don't mean luxuries, but needs. You know, the important things.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Chute knows how not having those basic needs met affects people. She and Michael have spent much of their lives as part of the four million adult Americans who work for minimum wage or less.

Ms. CHUTE: We've lived through a minimum wage or less for so long that when I wrote, not Rubie Bean, because he's different, he's the impatient one, but with the patience, that even though myself and Michael have not done the things, like shot out the windows of a rich person's house, like, you know, Bean does, we have sat here and just taken it and taken it and taken it and taken it and taken it. You know, like no heat. We've gone with no heat when it was nine degrees outside. And we had a pile of wood but we couldn't use our stove because insurance companies said we couldn't use the stove, and you had to have a $500 chimney. We didn't have the $500 for the chimney. And leave you in the middle of winter with no heat, you know, that kind of thing. And then we had -- we've had times with no food, or just like potatoes and water, or potatoes and onions and water. That's okay one day, but when you've had potatoes and onions and water for a week and then a biscuit and water, you know, it gets a little -- emotionally it's -- it's not only poor nutrition, but emotionally it does something to you. It makes you withdraw. You become very odd. I found that when I would go to the supermarket I would be really mad. I'd go in the supermarket with so much anger and see all these other people loading up their carts who I knew did not work any harder than Michael and I were. See, I wasn't getting paid because I was working on the novel or my short stories, and Michael was working jobs that paid minimum wage or less. And certain things like gasoline to get to work and so forth, we'd use all that up. Well, what happened was that I did not -- or Michael did not flip out and shoot somebody's windows out, but we felt like it. We just didn't.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: For the Chutes the hard times are over, at least for now. In June, Chute's publishers will be sending her a check for more than $100,000. She plans on buying a house further out in the country, with enough land so that Michael can have a real firewood business. And there are also family and friends who need help.

Ms. CHUTE: This has been one of the best winters we've had because the publishers helped us. We haven't got royalties yet, but they've helped us get by. Like we've had plenty of food, and my brother helped us build a chimney, so we've been warm. And we've had plenty of company. It's been good. A good winter.

MacNEIL: As it happened, this week some royalty money arrived sooner than they expected, and the Chutes bought 17 acres of land. Jim?

LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this day. Two astronauts from the space shuttle Discovery tried hard to fix a disabled communications satellite, but it did not work. And the $80 million satellite is now considered a loss. President Reagan said he had received a message from the Pope in support of U.S. policies in Central America, but a Vatican spokesman said that did not mean support for the $14 million in aid for the contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. And President Mubarak of Egypt and Prime Minister Peres of Israel have agreed to a summit meeting next month.

Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight. And we will back tomorrow. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.