The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, an official commission charged Los Angeles police with racism and using too much force and said the chief should go. A former CIA official pleaded guilty to withholding information in the Iran- Contra investigation and South Africa's 21 year ban from Olympic competition was lifted. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary, we go first to the Los Angeles police report. We talk with commission chairman Warren Christopher and get two views of the report's conclusions. Next, we look at Soviet efforts to turn from defense to consumer products. Then we assess today's Iran-Contra guilty plea and its impact on President Bush's choice to head the CIA. And we close with essayist Anne Taylor Fleming. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates runs a department that uses too much force and is infected with racism and Gates should step down. That was the conclusion released today by an independent commission studying the city's police force. The investigation was prompted by the beating of a black motorist by police officers in March. The commission was headed by former diplomat Warren Christopher. Gates told reporters late this afternoon he would not resign. We'll have more on the story after the News Summary. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: The former chief of the CIA's Central American Task Force acknowledged today that he withheld information from Congress about the diversion of Iran arm sale profits to the Nicaraguan Contras. Allan Fiers pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to two misdemeanor charges and agreed to cooperate with the Iran-Contra special prosecutor. Fiers admitted that Oliver North told him about the Iran-Contra scheme and he passed the information to three other CIA officials. That contradicts North's testimony that only the late CIA director, William Casey, knew about the plan. Fiers spoke briefly to reporters outside the courthouse in Washington.

ALLAN FIERS, Former CIA Official: This is not a terribly pleasant experience for me. In 1986, I was faced with some very difficult decisions. At that time I did what I thought was in the best interest of the country. Today I was faced with equally difficult decisions and today I've done what I think is in the best interest of the country and not only that, but what the Constitution requires of you.

MR. MacNeil: Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh said Fiers' agreement to cooperate would give a significant advance to his four and a half year investigation.

MR. LEHRER: South Africa was readmitted to international Olympic competition today, ending a 21 year ban because of its racial policies. The International Olympic Committee announced the decision at a meeting in Lazon, Switzerland. It should clear the way for South Africa to compete in the 1992 Olympics, the summer games in Barcelona, Spain, and possibly the winter games in Albertville, France. President Bush may lift U.S. sanctions against South Africa later this week. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said today he expects a decision in the next day or two. Fitzwater said a ban on the sale of arms and nuclear technology to South Africa would remain.

MR. MacNeil: Amnesty International issued its annual report today. It found human rights abuses in 141 countries during 1990. Among the most common were torture or mistreatment of prisoners, arrests of political prisoners, and the use of death squads. They cited Israel for shooting 120 Palestinians, Kuwait for prosecuting political prisoners and abusing Palestinian residents, and Saudi Arabia for restricting free speech and political dissent. The United States also made the list for continuing to allow the death penalty. The head of Amnesty International's U.S. branch said democracies are not exempt from criticism.

JOHN HEALEY, Amnesty International: Governments on a worldwide basis, not only this government in the United States, but governments all around the world, claim to use a single standard for human rights and seldom do. We also would suggest after the fall of Communism that democracy is no protection for human rights just because the government claims it is a democracy. Take the fact of El Salvador and Guatemala. Ethnicity is more of a fighting instrument today than Communism and capitalism. The struggle of people as they become free within these nations begin to look at one another and old hatreds come back.

MR. MacNeil: Supreme Court Nominee Clarence Thomas today credited the civil rights movement with helping him rise from poverty to a federal judgeship. He made the remarks as he visited members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill. He specifically thanked the NAACP and the Urban League. Yesterday the NAACP said it would not endorse or oppose Thomas's nomination until his record on civil rights had been thoroughly examined. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said today the administration is reviewing regulations that forbid abortion counseling at federally funded clinics. Congress is now considering legislation to overturn the regulations. President Bush had threatened to veto that effort, but Fitzwater said today the purpose of the White House review was to work with Congress on the issue.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bush today urged Congress not to cut the B-2 Stealth bomber or the Strategic Defense Initiative from the defense budget. He said the Gulf War proved the worthiness of such high- tech weapons. Mr. Bush made his remarks to a defense industry group in Washington.

PRES. BUSH: And it would be a travesty to waste money on defenses that would not have helped us in the Gulf and won't help us meet our future challenges. As the Senate begins its deliberations, I urge it to pass a budget that defends people, not pork, that enables us to fight the next war, not the last one, that promotes national security, period. Let me tell you now if the Congress sends me a defense bill that is inadequate, that fails to fund a needed program and programs and wastes money at the expense of defense muscle, no matter how big a bill, how urgent, I will veto it.

MR. LEHRER: On the Iraqi nuclear story, State Department Spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said today the 29 page letter Iraq sent to the United Nations Monday contains significant omissions and discrepancies. Tutwiler refused to confirm a New York Times story. Iraq had enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb. She labeled as ridiculous Iraq's claim it hid the weapons program in fear of a U.S. attack. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Los Angeles police report, Soviet swords to plowshares, today's Iran-Contra guilty plea, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. FOCUS - L.A.P.D.

MR. MacNeil: We lead with the report on police brutality in Los Angeles. The Independent Commission headed by former Deputy Sec. of State Warren Christopher was set up in the wake of the videotaped beating of Rodney King, an unarmed black motorist who was stopped for a speeding violation last March 3rd. The widely viewed tape became a national symbol of police brutality. The publicized beating led to demands by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and others that Police Chief Daryl Gates resign. Last April, Chief Gates rejected all suggestions that he retire. Today the Christopher Commission recommended that Gates step down once a successor is picked and that future chiefs be limited to two five year terms. The report found a number of officers who repetitively misused force, a problem aggravated by racism and bias. It recommended establishing an independent commission to investigate complaints of police abuse. This afternoon Chief Gates commented on the report.

CHIEF DARYL GATES, Los Angeles Police: One of the things that I'm particularly stressed with is that they point out that there are a few officers within the organization that perhaps have biases and are touched by racism, few officers who have violated the policies of the department by using excessive force. They talk about particularly 44 officers and if you look at it in the broadest range, you're talking about 300 officers. How about the hard work of 8,000 police officers who've given this organization a worldwide reputation? I suspect all of you are saying, okay, chief, now what are you going to do, and my feeling is, as it has always been, that one day I do want to retire, there's no question about that; 13 years of being battered, pushed, and otherwise tormented, is a long, long time. On the other hand, the support that I have within this organization and within the community has been just outstanding and if I don't expect to just run away, I think that the process of implementing these recommendations should take place, should go forward, and in that period of time, if the people of the city of Los Angeles believe, as the commission believes, that a chief should be restricted to two five-year terms, the people will speak, and that will say volumes to me in terms of my having been here for 13 years. So I think we need to go forward with the process, the recommendations that are contained in here. The commission has asked or hoped that I would stay. They say they hope that I would stay while my successor is being picked, but, of course, you don't want to pick a successor until the changes have been made that are needed to fix a five year term. I don't know when that's going to take place. It may be too long for me. I may want to get out of here before that time.

MR. MacNeil: Today Mayor Bradley urged the city council to adopt the commission's report, saying it would help restore the public's confidence in the Los Angeles Police Department. A short time ago Judy Woodruff talked to the commission head, Warren Christopher.

MS. WOODRUFF: Mr. Christopher, we thank you for being with us. Chief Gates just said a little while ago that he does not plan to resign or retire. In fact, he said he thinks he ought to stick around while some of the changes that your commission recommended are taking place. What's your reaction?

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, I have not heard Chief Gates' statement and don't want to get into any effort to mount a rebuttal at the moment. All I can say is that our commission consisting of ten members, three of whom are appointed by Chief Gates, concluded on a unanimous basis that the transition in the office of the chief of police should begin now.

MS. WOODRUFF: Transition should begin now and if he's saying he's not ready to go now, that means he's not responding as you would have liked.

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, I think the situation will have to play out over the next several days. We have a whole series of recommendations and I think probably too early to regard any reaction this afternoon as being the final one. Our recommendations are broad in scope, cover a number of areas. This was a transitional recommendation and I think that the more fundamental recommendations are probably the ones that will be most attended to, most considered here in the community.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, I want to ask you about one other thing that Chief Gates did say. He did say that he thought no police department in the country would survive the kind of scrutiny unscathed that your commission exercised and he also said that he thought the report over-emphasized what a very few officers have done and overlooked what most of the officers have done very well.

MR. CHRISTOPHER: We thought that there was a significant number of officers here in the police department who repetitively used excessive force. We certainly think that's not the majority. Indeed, we believe that the vast majority of Los Angeles police officers operate in a lawful and appropriate manner. But, nevertheless, the significant group of officers who misuse force think it's something that requires urgent management attention.

MS. WOODRUFF: How many officers are you talking about who are a problem?

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, we certainly can't say with any precision. I think my best judgment is it's a relatively small percentage, perhaps in the 3 to 5 percent range, but, of course, in terms of absolute numbers, that's a substantial number, perhaps between two hundred and fifty and four hundred.

MS. WOODRUFF: That's right. Out of a department of, what it is it, 8,300 people --

MR. CHRISTOPHER: That's correct.

MS. WOODRUFF: -- that could be as many as several hundred. You also referred to a climate or an atmosphere that emphasizes crime control over crime prevention, and the fact that officers are rewarded for the number of calls they handle, the number of arrests that they make. Can you elaborate on that?

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, we recommended as one of our principal recommendations that the Los Angeles Police Department adopt the community based policing policy which has been adopted in a number of other cities in the United States. That's a program that emphasizes crime prevention, emphasizes dealing with citizens in the community and does not place a great emphasis on what is sometimes called the numbers game, the response time, or the number of arrests.

MR. MacNeil: And you're saying that's what they've been doing up until now.

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, the Los Angeles Police Department has had some experiments with community based policing, but I think the main culture of the department is to place emphasis on statistics rather than on dealing with the citizens in the community.

MS. WOODRUFF: Do you think, Mr. Christopher, you've been able to put your finger in this report on the atmosphere that led to this Rodney King incident, beating incident?

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, our study was really very heavily driven by the documents and data that we've examined. We examined more than a million pages of documents. The conclusions we reached really were drawn from and grew out of our computerized analysis of the complaint files, the use of force documents, and the so- called "MDTs," the transmission from the police cars, and this data all went together to emphasize that there is a pattern, that there is a group of officers who use excessive force and we think it's a management failure not to have dealt with those in the past.

MS. WOODRUFF: A management failure on whose part -- Chief Gates?

MR. CHRISTOPHER: We certainly haven't personalized it. It's a management failure, in our judgment, on the part of the department as a whole. All of the data that we had is fully available to the Los Angeles Police Department. They cooperated with us in a very effective way, making these materials available to us. We had teams of accountants and lawyers analyzing them and we seemed to have learned some things from them that was available to the department which they apparently did not uncover, at least didn't do anything about.

MS. WOODRUFF: How does what you're saying square with what Chief Gates said back in March? He said, we do not and have never allowed our officers to use excessive force, and he said the King incident was an aberration in a well disciplined department.

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, it's the gap between practice and policy. Certainly the policies of the Los Angeles Police Department are above question, but their practices have violated them in many respects.

MS. WOODRUFF: You also cited what you call racism and bias on the force aggravating this problem of excessive force. How widespread is that? How big a problem is that?

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, in our analysis of the police car transmissions we found some really very distasteful references to racist comments, animal analogies, biased comments. Now this has been discounted by some as locker room talk. I have two problems with that. First, I think those racist comments wouldn't go very well in most of the locker rooms I know about, but this is not a locker room. These are official police car transmissions and that's I think what brought our commission to a unanimous conclusion that the police department needs to take a very stern measure to deal with these indications of racism.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, again, in what Chief Gates said this afternoon, he said this is just a tiny sample of his overall police force, these patrol car communications where racist comments were cited.

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, we examined 182 days of these police car transmissions. We found over 1400 of them were troubling to us and 700 of them which were particularly troubling and which will be released within a day or two and I think the public will have to judge for themselves whether this is the way they want the police officers to be talking not in the locker room but on official police car transmissions.

MS. WOODRUFF: Mr. Christopher, how could this have been permitted to have gone on for some time in the Los Angeles Police Department? How is it that this has happened over a period of time?

MR. CHRISTOPHER: Well, the police department had the data available to them and I really can't say why they did not review these transmissions. They could have been reviewed by the sergeants or captains in the various station houses. It was also in their own data bank. They were perhaps preoccupied with other matters. But the fact is that until recently, until we began the review of these transmissions, until after the King incident, I think there was no systematic review of these transmissions.

MS. WOODRUFF: Can these problems be fixed if Chief Gates remains on as chief?

MR. CHRISTOPHER: I think that I'd best go back to the formulation I started with, and that is the unanimous commission has found the transition in the office of chief of police should begin now.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, Warren Christopher, we thank you very much for being with us.

MR. MacNeil: We get two reactions to the Christopher Commission. Jay Grodin is the attorney for Police Chief Daryl Gates. Mr. Grodin is a partner in the law firm of White & Case in Los Angeles. Ramona Ripston is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Ms. Ripston, when you were on this program back in March after the incident, you said it wasn't an aberration, there was a pattern. Are you satisfied with this report today?

MS. RIPSTON: I believe the report is quite strong. In fact, we're surprised that it is as strong as it is. After all, there are friends of Police Chief Gates on this commission and in the beginning we were very, very pessimistic about it being a strong report. Nothing in this report is new. But the fact that civic leaders have found the various things that the ACLU and that members of the minority communities have been saying for years reinforces what we've been saying. That's what's new about the report, the fact that these people have now found that there is racism in the department, the department is guilty of using excessive force, that the disciplinary system doesn't work, that there are officers who have six or more complaints that have been sustained, and have not been disciplined, but, in fact, have been rewarded. I think that Police Chief Gates gets an F when it comes to leadership in this department and I think that the time has come for him to resign.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Grodin, do you think the chief gets an F?

MR. GRODIN: Not at all. I think that the report was a well documented report. I think there are some shortcomings that were caused by the fact that there was a very short period of time in which to prepare it, but I think we have to understand something that police departments always recognize, that there are instances of racism, they recruit from the same pool that everyone does. Racism, unfortunately, exists. It's something that needs to be addressed, and it has been addressed. And the question of excessive force I think that's proven. Part of the problem though that the police department has experienced is that the type of resources that are needed to implement the changes which have been suggested in the Christopher Commission's report have not been available to the police department. Since Proposition 13 there's been severe budgetary cutbacks on all areas of government and the police department has been seriously affected. At one point, just five years ago, six years ago, the police department was down to 6500 people. The Los Angeles Police Department has two officers per thousand. That's the coverage. If you look at any of the other metropolitan police departments, the coverage ranges from 3.8 to 4.2 officers per thousand and the geographic area that they cover is much, much smaller.

MR. MacNeil: Well, do you think that excuses the findings of the commission?

MR. GRODIN: I don't think we're talking about excusing them. I think you have to look within the context and you're saying sure you have the MDTs that if you had the resources you could have done the proper audits. That's very very labor intense. And the community essentially dictates the level of service and so people were detailed off of those functions that the community wants, the patrol function, response times would have been adversely affected, and I think you've seen that even the city council at different times when certain programs have been proposed by the police department have said, no, you can't have 'em because it's going to divert scarce resources from the main job. And so I think that you have to look at this. There are serious issues. The chief clearly admitted that today. But I don't think you call these problems to justify an F on his leadership. I think the chief has been an outstanding leader given the scarce resources that he's had and climate which a police officer has to work in within the city. It's a very, very tough city.

MR. MacNeil: Let's go over to Ms. Ripston. How do you respond to that, that it's largely a budget and personnel matter and that if the city would be generous enough with resources, these problems would be taken care of?

MS. RIPSTON: To begin with, last year, there was the $3 million shortfall of the police department which the city council was able to find. $3 million could have gone a long way toward correcting some of the problems in the department. Racism is never excusable, whether there's little money or a lot of money. When I was on this show in March, I said that there were tapes which contained racist slurs. The police chief denied it at that time. This afternoon in his press conference he again showed the kind of arrogance and insensitivity that he is capable of. He said -- he never condemned -- let me put it this way -- he never condemned the racist tapes. He never condemned some of the things that his officers have said. And I'd really like to read, you know, just one or two to you. He -- one of the things in the commission is "I almost got me a Mexican last night but he dropped the damned gun too quick. Lots of wit." Now another police officer said, "I'd like to carry a flame thrower down Slossen Avenue. That would be a good barbecue." Another police officer had said, "Well, I'm back over here in the projects pissing off the natives." Now if police chief knew, if the police chief knew, as he claims he did, he said there was nothing new in this report, he knew it all along, why didn't he do something about it? Racism has to be controlled by the leader of the department. He did nothing about it. Officers who were guilty were promoted. They were not disciplined.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Grodin, the chief did give the impression in his press conference today that there was nothing new to him in this report so how do you answer Ms. Ripston's question?

MR. GRODIN: Well, I think first of all, I think what the chief said clearly was, everyone knows that there are problems within any organization, a police department, a law firm, probably for that matter even within Ms. Ripston's own organization there are aberrations. And so, you know, if you know your department, you know there are going to be problems. Those are problems that you're trying to constantly address, and I think they've done a very good job. These MDTs, it represents 2/10 of 1 percent of a sample taken, which was a six month sample. It's not pervasive. It's horrible. We all agree that we shouldn't have anything. But it's a reality that you are going to have that and have in a police department, have the resources to be able to monitor and audit these tapes. These are not -- these come out of large, large computer runs. They're several feet thick and to give that responsibility to a lieutenant or sergeant in each of the divisions is massive and there is not the people. They tried to do it. It didn't work. There has been the development going on in the computer industry to try to simply that. That's been going on before the Rodney King incident, but it's a monetary question.

MR. MacNeil: Let me ask you -- I picked that point because you mentioned it earlier -- but let me ask you about the chief's own future. You heard Mr. Christopher say the commission feels the transition should begin now, not a long time from now, and not after a lot of changes have been approved by the city council, and yet, the chief indicated it would be a long time before he'd be leaving.

MR. GRODIN: Well, I'd like to quote something. Certainly the Christopher Commission said they believed a transition would begin now, but let me just quote something from the report. "We hope that Chief Gates will remain in office while his successor is being chosen and we urge him to channel his energies during this period towards supporting and commencing the implementation of this report's proposals." Now the proposals involve major revisions to the city's charter. Those have to be approved by the city council and they have to go to the voters. It takes several months to do that. I don't see where they're urging an immediate retirement on the part of the chief. I don't think -- they did not blame the chief for any of these shortcomings. They may have charged the institution. I think they're saying 10 years is enough and we believe that the process should begin and the process should begin I believe by starting to make changes, starting the course going. The city council's going to have to look at this report, they're going to have approve it or approve what portions they believe necessary, and then they're going to have to submit it to the voters.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Ripston, what do you think of what it's saying about Chief Gates?

MS. RIPSTON: I don't agree at all. This report is a compromise. It is a very good report, but it still represents a compromise and this is a compromise between those people who want him to leave immediately and those people who say, well, let's give him some more time.

MR. MacNeil: Is this a kind of way of saving his face personally, is that what --

MS. RIPSTON: Yes. I absolutely think that it is. I think that if he was sensitive to the department and sensitive to the community, he would resign tomorrow, perhaps giving us a date sometime in the future. This community --

MR. MacNeil: Let's just get Mr. Grodin's reaction to that.

MR. GRODIN: Well, I don't --

MR. MacNeil: Is this an exercise to save the chief's face so that he can retire in dignity and not be pushed out on this scandal? Is that --

MR. GRODIN: I don't think so. I think if you, you take that language that I quoted, I think that the chief can be a very constructive force in this period of transition and, in fact, I think it would be very detrimental to citizens of this city and to the police department if he was to leave at this point immediately. The chief has always said there's a point in his career that he would retire. I think that things have to settle down. I think a dialogue has to be commenced between the, between the commission, the chief and the various factors within the city, and that the process will proceed with implementing the various reforms that have been suggested. Some can be done almost immediately. Others are going to require a charter amendment and, in fact, even changes in the -- one of the things that Ms. Ripston pointed out was that people are promoted even though they have incidents in their file that they've been charged with some type of excessive force but that the charges were never sustained. The problem is that even - - even as well intentioned as this report was that that's against the law. You can't take those incidents into account. A lot of the constraints that have been put on the police department and on Chief Gates are the result of court decisions.

MR. MacNeil: We just have a minute left, Mr. Grodin, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I want to ask Ms. Ripston this. You said the report is strong. Let's take it beyond Los Angeles. You said the report is strong, but the language is very diplomatic. Is it going to be strong enough to cause people all across the country to think differently about police brutality, do you think? Are other branches of the ACLU going to turn on the heat? What is the case do you think?

MS. RIPSTON: Every branch of the ACLU knows that police brutality exists. It exists in every city in this country. However, the aim has to be to minimize it. I think a report like this gives some indications of ways that you can minimize it. Community policing is something that must be done. Law enforcement and community people must work together and then we will have more effective crime control. I think that officers must be sensitive to changing America, changing urban cities. There are things in this report I think that would be instructive for the entire country and I certainly will be sure that all the ACLUs around the country get copies of this report.

MR. MacNeil: Briefly, Mr. Grodin, how do you see it applying outside Los Angeles?

MR. GRODIN: Well, I think there's always lessons to learn and departments should practice self-inspection and this may indicate that some departments didn't think they have problems. I have to address this question of community policing, which is something the Los Angeles Police Department pioneered but was forced to cut back when Proposition 13 was enacted, and while it's not the panacea, it's an --

MR. MacNeil: We have to leave it there. Mr. Grodin and Ms. Ripston both, thank you for joining us.

MR. GRODIN: Thank you very much.

MS. RIPSTON: Thank you.

MR. MacNeil: Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a Charles Krause report from Moscow, a CIA man's guilty plea, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. FOCUS - SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

MR. LEHRER: Now a story about a new kind of U.S-Soviet cooperation. It involves American help in converting the Soviet military industrial complex into civilian and profit making factories. Charles Krause reports from Moscow on the help of one American businessman.

MR. KRAUSE: It's almost midnight. Dean LeBaron, founder and chief executive of Battery March Financial Boston, is nearing the end of another long negotiating session in Moscow.

SPOKESMAN: [Speaking through Interpreter] [MEETING IN MOSCOW] I have been doing two things here in the Soviet Union. One is martialing the forces of private investment for newly privatized Soviet military enterprises and the second is learning about chess. And using the chess analogy, we are moving toward the end goal.

MR. KRAUSE: LeBaron is an unconventional capitalist, a contrarian pension fund manager who's now preparing to invest more than $1/4 billion of his clients' money in the Soviet Union. Many other Western businessmen think the situation here is still too unstable and too risky, but that has clearly not deterred LeBaron. He spent the past year looking at potential investments in the Soviet defense industry. One of them is the Tupolev Aircraft Design Bureau in Moscow, until now, the highly secret state owned company that designs advanced civilian and military aircraft. Accompanied by Andrei Kandalov, Tupolev's senior vice president, LeBaron recently looked at mock-ups of the next generation of Tupolev Aircraft. With the cold war over, the Soviets say they're now prepared to convert many of their defense plantsto civilian use. There's lingering skepticism in Washington, but the Soviets are actively courting foreign investors like LeBaron to invest in the conversion process. LeBaron says he thinks Tupolev could be a good bet.

DEAN LE BARON, Investment Banker: Aircraft of the future are going to follow, in my opinion, much of the same pattern as automobiles, that they will be global. Its engines may come from one place, instruments may come from another, air frames will come from another. In other words, they will not be products of a single country. And I would be surprised if the Soviet aircraft industry doesn't play a role in that.

MR. KRAUSE: Do you see a place for US investment in the Tupolev Company or in other Soviet aerospace companies?

MR. LE BARON: Of the hundred projects we have viewed, the Tupolev combination with the Kiev aircraft works is among what I would consider to be the top eight. There are details to be worked out. They're largely organizational. But from the technical standpoint, I'm satisfied that both manufacturing and design, that this meets our standards of world class.

MR. KRAUSE: Mr. Kandalov, why is your company and your government interested in having American investors look at your country?

ANDREI KANDALOV, Tupolev Aircraft Co.: Because we're very interested in the investments and because they have military activity for our design. The role is lower and lower because our customers have not enough money now to hold up under level they need maybe, but we cannot accept the work without money.

MR. KRAUSE: In the Soviet Union military industrial complex is the official term for huge chunks of Soviet industry; from missiles and tanks to computers and civilian aviation, enterprises like Tupolev are controlled directly by the traditional Communist troika, the army, the party, and the state. Soviet defense spending and production have both declined for the past two years, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. But just how much defense capacity Soviet generals are willing to lose permanently, that is, convert to civilian use, is the subject of debate both in Washington and here in Moscow. Georgi Arbatov, director of the USA- Canada Institute, was an early proponent of military conversion. He argued that his country could no longer produce so many guns if that meant shortages of butter. Conversion is now the government's official policy but Arbatov is not sure the Soviet military establishment fully agrees.

GEORGI ARBATOV, USA-Canada Institute: You have some people for whom it's very difficult to understand some of the facts of life, generals -- maybe U.S. as well, but I know I have to face ours and our problem for us is a very bit of discussion in this matter -- which lasts for more than a year. And, you know, they try to make it on their own -- they think the country has to serve them because they will save the country from whom I don't know.

MR. KRAUSE: Nonetheless, LeBaron says he's convinced conversion remains government policy.

MR. LE BARON: We must lead ourselves if we think that the differences that are aired are the uniformity of opinion, all I can say is that from our standpoint the resources of the military sides have indicated no flagging whatsoever in their association with the West.

MR. KRAUSE: The Soviet government official assigned to LeBaron and Battery March is Vladimir Sidorovich. A physicist by training, Sidorovich says American investment is important to the Soviet government because conversion can't take place without foreign capital, but he acknowledges that because of political uncertainty and perhaps some unrealistic expectations on both sides, few foreign firms have invested in conversion projects so far.

VLADIMIR SIDOROVICH, Soviet Military Industrial Commission: In all cases we face with the problem of lack of hard, of hard currency because I think foreign capital partners are very cautious investing money and it prevents us from setting up large, big amount of joint ventures.

MR. KRAUSE: LeBaron says despite the risks, he expects to be among the first.

MR. LE BARON: The Soviet Union is a super power. It has the technology which has heretofore been unavailable to the world's economy and just now it is. That's a fantastic investment opportunity.

MR. KRAUSE: What are your biggest problems so far?

MR. LE BARON: On the Soviet side improve their understanding of the business practices and questions that are demanded by investors. This involves practice over and over again on business plans and so on. I would say at the early stages this was difficult because they hadn't done it before. It's now getting to be a lot easier.

MR. KRAUSE: LeBaron's Soviet company's fund expects to close its first deal by the end of the year. It will come none too soon for a country that's attempting to transform its economy and convert its military industry at a time of severe and worsening and economic crisis.

MR. MacNeil: There was a major shift towards free market economics in the Soviet Union today. Soviet President Gorbachev and leaders of nine Soviet republics agreed to let international markets set the value of the ruble. The floating ruble is expected to encourage foreign investment in the Soviet economy. FOCUS - SMOKING GUN?

MR. LEHRER: Now today's twist in the Iran-Contra story. Allan Fiers, the former head of the CIA's Central American operations, pleaded guilty today to not telling Congress the truth most particularly about the diversion of funds from Iranian arm sales to the Contras in Nicaragua. Part of his plea was his agreement to cooperate with the Iran-Contra special prosecutor in pursuing CIA involvement and knowledge in the affair. It comes as the Senate Intelligence Committee is about to begin confirmation hearings on President Bush's nomination of Robert Gates to head the CIA. Gates was No. 2 at the CIA at the time of the Iran-Contra transactions. We are joined by two reporters covering the story, Nina Totenberg, ours and National Public Radio's legal affairs correspondent, and Bruce Van Voorst, national security correspondent for Time Magazine and a frequent contributor to our program as well. Nina, why did the special prosecutor make this deal? What's he looking for?

MS. TOTENBERG: Well, you know for the last four and a half years, Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel, has tried in various ways to develop what I think is clearly his theory that there was a conspiracy to cover up the Iran-Contra affair, and he's been stonewalled at every turn of events and the witnesses have been hostile and uncooperative and I know that many of the prosecutors believe that they've been lied to blatantly in the grand jury room and here he was ready to indict, I believe anyway, Mr. Fiers and Mr. Fiers had what appears to be something of a convergence between his self-interest and an attack of conscience, and he agreed to cooperate with the prosecutor. And now for the first time there is a chance of penetrating what I think the prosecutors believe is a very well orchestrated and substantial and large and systematic cover up that went on within the Reagan administration.

MR. LEHRER: Nowcover up means what, that people knew about it, didn't do anything about it, or they took overt acts of some kind to cover it up?

MS. TOTENBERG: They took overt acts to cover it up. You know, in the courtroom today, there were documents presented relating to just the two misdemeanor counts that Fiers pled guilty to. So we know what he has already told the prosecutors about his particular charges that he pled to and in regard to those two charges, he implicated the higher echelon of much of the CIA, particularly by name, the No. 3 man, Clare George, whom he said instructed him to lie to Congress.

MR. LEHRER: Now, where does it go from here? What is the process that Walsh would follow if he goes after George and who else might he go after and what will he go after them for?

MS. TOTENBERG: Well, typically what prosecutors do is build a case from the ground up and he's, Walsh has been very frustrated in an inability to do that until now. Now he's finally got a cooperative witness who is singing like a canary, in the old vernacular, and so he takes the story, the tune where it leads him. It obviously leads him, we know, at least to Clare George. It may lead him to other people, Mr. Gates, who is -- was the No. 2 man, as you noted, and Clare George reported to Robert Gates and to William Casey, those were the only men he reported to. It may take him to Donald Greg, who served as national security adviser to then Vice President Bush. It may take him to Elliott Abrams, who along with Oliver North and Allan Fiers, was the third member of this thing called the restricted inter-agency group that dealt with Central America.

MR. LEHRER: Which was an official governmental group.

MS. TOTENBERG: It was an official governmental group.

MR. LEHRER: It wasn't one of North-Casey's off the shelf things.

MS. TOTENBERG: And, in fact, every time that Allan Fiers went up to Capitol Hill and lied to Congress, Elliott Abrams was sitting next to him saying much the same thing. What we don't know is what Elliott Abrams knew and when he knew it.

MR. LEHRER: But we may be in the process of finding out.

MS. TOTENBERG: We know what Mr. Abrams says. He says he didn't know.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Now, Bruce, on the question of Mr. Gates and the nomination, what does this look like to you, what does it look like to the people who were following that particular track at the story?

MR. VAN VOORST: It was not the best of days for Robert Gates. Prior to the events today, the assumption had been that the confirmation hearings, which are probably scheduled for next Monday, if they aren't torpedoed or set back because of what happened today, the assumption was that absence a smoking fun of some kind, clearly, there'll be hard hearings, there will be tough hearings, but basically that Gates's confirmation was really quite likely to be approved. You had the strong support of Sen. Boren, who's the chairman of the committee. In the committee there were voices who wanted to ask a lot of questions but basically there was nothing there which they could pin a rejection of Gates to. They could claim, as is now coming out again, that Gates knew more at various stages, perhaps earlier, but that would hardly have been enough to torpedo his nomination. Now the point to be made is that his name has not come up in the Allan Fiers depositions, in the statements.

MR. LEHRER: The ones that were --

MR. VAN VOORST: Today.

MR. LEHRER: -- that were today --

MR. VAN VOORST: Right.

MR. LEHRER: Part of the documents today.

MR. VAN VOORST: Right. But he's there almost by --he's almost a stealth candidate as was pointed out. This was the first time we've seen a lot -- this is earlier than we've known before about the diversion which is really the criminal act, really the definitive one, and so Fiers has said already that his boss knew about that, Clare George, but we know already from North that Casey knew about it. So what we've got is Casey at the top knowing everything, then there's this guy Bob Gates in the middle saying he knew very little, and now we've got Clare George at the next level who clearly was involved and will face a lot of difficulties as a result of today.

MR. LEHRER: Have I got this wrong here, that -- is the central question on Gates, for instance, that he knew about it and didn't do anything about it? In other words, he didn't have anything to do with setting it up, he didn't implement it, it wasn't his idea, he was nothing involved but Casey or somebody told him about it and he didn't stop it?

MR. VAN VOORST: That's exactly right. While he was certainly in no position to stop it, but he -- throughout the hearings that were held and the investigations that were held after the fiasco became public, Gates seemed to be, as somebody said, in a fog practically, as if he weren't involved. He tried to disassociate himself from his boss and it's well known he was very close to Casey. Now anybody who knew Bob Gates, recognized him first of all -- he's a very bright, very able guy. Secondly, he's a consummate --

MR. LEHRER: Just for the record, he's a career CIA man.

MR. VAN VOORST: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: And of course now he is -- and he was nominated before and had -- in fact to replace Casey and he withdrew because of questions that came up about this whole thing.

MR. VAN VOORST: At that point exactly the same questions.

MR. LEHRER: And then he went --

MR. VAN VOORST: -- all been compounded now.

MR. LEHRER: And that was in the Reagan administration.

MR. VAN VOORST: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: And then in the Bush administration he came with Scowcroft and he's the No. 2 man at the White House now and national security staff but --

MR. VAN VOORST: That's correct. And as I said, he's such a fine bureaucratic operator, it's very difficult for those who appreciate him and recognize his talents to accept the notion that he was really in the dark as much as he was. And he's been -- it's almost a question of the moral considerations. He should have come forth, admitted his involvement and probably would have had fewer troubles than he's going to have now.

MR. LEHRER: And from a legal standpoint, Nina, also the other question is, this is what Fiers admitted today, is it's not so much what he may or may not have known but when the fat finally got in the fire, bad analogies, when the fat finally got in the fire for Fiers, he lied and that is the question for all the others as well.

MS. TOTENBERG: That's right. And Clare George, in fact, for example, if Fiers is telling the truth, it directly contradicts Clare George's testimony. Clare George went before the committees, the congressional investigating committees, and said, I did not know about the diversion, I did not know any of this until it came out. So these folks, if Fiers leads other people, what we might see really is a fairly massive conspiracy to mislead Congress and I suppose you would say through that the American public about what was going on in the highest offices of the land.

MR. LEHRER: But, Bruce, is there another ethic at work here too, that has come up since Watergate publicly many, many times, that one of thejobs that people at an intelligence agency is to give deniability to people above you and if that means lying, then you lie?

MR. VAN VOORST: Yes, but not lying to Congress and not persistently lying to the investigative committees. On some operational details which are being conducted within the rubric of the findings, that is, congressional approval and all the necessary congressional authorizations which were necessary to run operations like that, sure, then there are certain circumstances where they could get away with lying, but this is an illegal operation after all and so he was -- persisted in lying to Congress and so this question of lying, perjury, withholding information from Congress is going to be the central point as we turn to these other names that Nina mentioned earlier.

MR. LEHRER: Nina, finally, on Mr. Walsh, why does he persist in this? The big -- the critics would say, hey, wait a minute, what's it, $25 million or something like that up till now, it's been going on for how many years?

MS. TOTENBERG: Four and a half years.

MR. LEHRER: Four and a half years. The big fish, more or less, have all gotten away. And he's boring in on what would be considered at least, would have to be considered at this point in the investigation a small fish. What drives him now?

MS. TOTENBERG: Well, if there was some sort of a massive conspiracy to hide the Iran-Contra affair, I don't think that we can continue to maintain that this was just Oliver North and John Poindexter and I suppose --

MR. LEHRER: And Casey.

MS. TOTENBERG: And Casey. I suppose that's what's driving him, because in the send, if there really was a systematic, orchestrated cover up, who was orchestrating it? It had to be pretty high at the top, if not the top.

MR. LEHRER: And your impression -- yeah --

MR. VAN VOORST: And, Jim, there is one big fish yet, and that is if we proceed through this case going to Don Greg, who was Vice President Bush's assistant at that time, we may be at the door step of the then Vice President. So there are still some fish around.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah, but does Walsh believe that? Do the people that you talked to -- I mean, is --

MS. TOTENBERG: I think that Walsh feels two things: one, is that he has a mission which is assigned to him by law, which is to find out as nearly as he can what happened; and secondly, is to penetrate the veil of obstinate secrecy that I really do believe he thinks still surrounds this.

MR. LEHRER: Whatever the story is, he wants it.

MS. TOTENBERG: Yeah.

MR. LEHRER: Big fish, little fish, middle size, and we have to go. Thank you both very much. ESSAY - GETTING EVEN

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight essayist Anne Taylor Fleming with a look at Hollywood's new twist on an old theme.

MS. FLEMING: For the first few minutes you might be fooled, you might think you were indeed in for some frivolous summer fun, a buddy buddy American road mom taken this time by a wind blown duo in Thelma and Louise. That was the twist, women this time. But, no, within minutes the movie would take a dark turn when a would be rapist would attack wide eyed Thelma at a honkey tonk road stop and boom, in a cold blooded shot, destined to reverberate through the souls of American women, Louise blows the would be rapist away. Just like that the galanteism meets feminism and the women are off and running through the sunsets and moon scapes of the Southwest, a giddy, photogenic flight from the world of men and male justice. And they are bad, the men in this movie, irredeemably insensitive and brutish. In addition to Thelma's would be rapist, there's her bullying brute of a husband more interested in football than his wife's welfare. There's also down the road a young con man who beds here and steals her blind. And behind them all is, we are given to suspect, the rapist from Louise's own past, who made her impulsively pull the trigger in that parking lot and send the women careening down the highway. And what did critics think? Many loved it, phrasing it as a liberated Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a combination of 9 to 5 and Easy Rider, a table turning tour de force. Neither bimbos nor femme fatales, Thelma and Louise were real women with a real friendship, they said, women who just couldn't take it anymore. We knew what was coming next and sure enough it came -- the backlash -- the aren't women better than this backlash from commentators who saw Thelma and Louise as but pathetic stereotypes of testosterone crazed behavior, Ramboettes in a movie pumped with feminist mythology and shock ablock with macho strawmen. Yes, okay, they weren't wrong. Hadn't we women railed against the Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson school of movie making morality and vigilante justice? We had, indeed. And yet, in that theater watching Louise shoot that rapist, I felt the kind of sickeningly joyous lurch of revenge Eastwood in kind had no doubt occasioned in many a man -- and no ashamed hind sight on my part can change that fact. So now it's our turn for video violence, is that the bottom line here? Women are, indeed, angry again. You can feel it gurgling up all over the place. Thelma and Louise is one of the surefire signs. They're angry about unequal pay and unshared housework, and at the bottom of it all is rape, the fear of it, the increase in it at four times the rate of other crimes, the indelible scars left by it, and the way it continues to be handled. Witness the whole William Kennedy Smith episode in which the history of his female accuser was splayed out in the New York Times, replete with details of her single motherhood and traffic tickets. When Willie Smith came under journalistic scrutiny days later, the Times allowed all manner of folk, from an ex-girlfriend to author Robert Coles, to give testimony to his character. Not for Thelma and Louise -- not, sir -- not for them the root of Jody Foster's rape victim in "The Accused." Every detail of her messy past flung around that courtroom. Not for them either the harrowing revenge scenario of the movie "Extremities" in which the Farah Fawcett character cripples and cages here would be rapist and somewhat sadistically bates a confession out of him, fearful that otherwise justice will not be served. No, Thelma and Louise don't have the time or patience for those roots. Boom, the first point blank shot fired over the post feminist barricade, then from down the liberating road to self-destruction and the rest of us, men and women both, I trust, into a soul searching spin. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again in edition to the CIA story, the major story of this Tuesday was a citizens commission charging the Los Angeles Police Department with racism and excessive use of force and saying Police Chief Daryl Gates should step down. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. And that's the NewsHour tonight. Join us tomorrow night for some tough words for Mikhail Gorbachev from a leading member of the Soviet opposition. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.