The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, Hurricane Hugo hit Puerto Rico after smashing through the Virgin Islands, Defense Sec. Cheney ordered the military to draw plans for drug interdiction at U.S. borders, and Polish Pres. Jaruzelski conceded Poland will never again be a one party state. We'll have the details in our News Summary a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, we go first [News Maker - Poland] to Robert MacNeil's exclusive interview with Wojciech Jaruzelski, the first since he became President of Poland. Next [Focus - Protecting the Elderly] a documentary report on the controversy over protecting the elderly from financial ruin, and finally Arts Correspondent Joanna Simon talks with one of Hollywood's hottest producers, Steve Bochco.NEWS SUMMARY

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Hurricane Hugo hit Puerto Rico today with a vengeance after its 126 mile an hour winds and six foot tidal surges cut a path of destruction through the U.S. Virgin Islands and other Caribbean tourist havens. In its wake, at least 14 people are dead and thousands are homeless. Hugo is the strongest storm to hit the region in a decade. One of the worst hit islands in the Caribbean was the French island of Guadalupe. Five people were killed yesterday and more than ten thousand people were made homeless. Right now Hugo is moving away from Puerto Rico, but it is heading toward the Dominican Republic. Forecasters say it is too early to tell if Hugo will reach the U.S. mainland. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. military was brought into the war on drugs today. Defense Sec. Cheney held a news conference to announce he has asked the service chiefs to draw plans for interdicting drugs at the U.S. borders.

DICK CHENEY, Secretary of Defense: I think when you've reached a point where you have the kind of problems that we see today in our society as the result of illegal narcotics trafficking, when we have in Panama a country that today is basically governed by a man who has basically been indicted as one of the drug traffickers, when you have the government of a friendly country, Colombia, seriously threatened by the cartel, financed by, int his case, by billions of dollars provided by Americans who use drugs illegally, I think you've got what in my mind is clearly a serious national security problem and on that basis I think it deserves the kind of attention that we plan to give it.

MR. LEHRER: Cheney said it was too early to say how much money would be spent or how much equipment or personnel would be used. There was more violence in Colombia last night. A rocket was fired at the U.S. embassy in Bogota, but it failed to explode. There were no injuries. Three other bombs did explode in the capital. Four banks and at least thirteen stores were damaged. One person was injured. And there was a meeting in Paris today to mount an international effort to combat drug money laundering. Representatives of 15 countries, including the United States were there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Kentucky, a 15 year old boy armed with a shotgun and two pistols took 11 classmates hostage today. All but two have been released unharmed. The standoff continues at the Jackson County High School in McKee, Kentucky, about 60 miles South of Lexington in the Appalachian foothills. Police negotiators have been trying to get the student to surrender. They said the boy made no demands and that they had no motive. Nearly 500 students inside the school were evacuated at the start of the hostage taking.

MR. LEHRER: The President of Poland said the days of a one party state in his country are over for good. Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski said it in an interview with Robert MacNeil that was recorded Friday in Warsaw.

MR. MacNeil: Could you see Poland returning to one party rule?

WOJCIECH JARUZELSKI, President, Poland: [Speaking through Interpreter] I believe that such rule will never return. History does not repeat itself, but there may be a different configuration. There may be different political alignments, different coalitions in effect of the future elections. That's the normal interplay of democratic rules.

MR. LEHRER: We will broadcast the complete interview right after the News Summary.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Pres. Bush announced today that the United States will provide Hungary with a wide series of business and economic benefits, including permanent most favored nation trade status. The move would make Hungary the first East Bloc nation so designated. On another front, Hungary and Israel restored full diplomatic relations today more than 20 years after Budapest broke ties over Israel's occupation of Arab lands in the 1967 Middle East War. The agreement makes Hungary the first of the five Warsaw Pact nations to resume ties after the '67 breach. In Cairo, Israel's defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin, told Egyptian President Hosne Mubarak today that his government would accept an Egyptian sponsored dialogue with Palestinians, but the composition of the Arab delegation remained a sticking point.

MR. LEHRER: Back in this country, Pres. Bush proposed a national tree planting campaign today. He said it would help clean the air and a good place to begin would be along the interstate highways. Mr. Bush announced his idea in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he participated in a tree planting to commemorate that state's 100th anniversary.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The company that manufactures the only drug that is licensed to treat AIDS today said it was reducing its price by 20 percent. Burroughs-Wellcome Company said it was lowering the wholesale price of AZT in order to make it more accessible to those infected with the virus. The company has come under mounting criticism for the high cost of the drug, which can be up to $8,000 per patient. That's our summary of the day's news. Still ahead Poland's president, protecting the elderly, and Hollywood's hottest producer. NEWS MAKER - POLAND

MR. LEHRER: We begin tonight with the president of Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski. Robert MacNeil interviewed him in Warsaw last Friday. It was the first interview Jaruzelski has granted to the Western press since he became president this summer.

MR. MacNeil: This is the Polish parliament in Warsaw where a fascinating chapter in world history is being written. After 40 years of Communist dictatorship, an elected parliament has just confirmed in office the first non-Communist Government in Eastern Europe since the cold war began. One of the most unlikely agents of this dramatic change is the Communist Head of State Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski. At 66, Gen. Jaruzelski still looks every inch the soldier, the man who built a brilliant military career in Soviet-backed units in World War II, who fought to liberate Poland from the Nazis and later to ensure its domination by the Communists. Jaruzelski came from a prosperous land owning family and was educated in Roman Catholic schools. The Russians deported his parents and his father died in a Soviet prison camp. As a teenager, Jaruzelski, himself, did forced labor in Siberia, where the brightness of the snow damaged his eyes. That condition aggravated by his war service explains the tinted glasses he usually wears. Despite all this, Jaruzelski became a devoted Communist, who rose rapidly as a soldier and politician. To much of the Western world, he's remembered as the man who imposed martial law in 1981 and crushed the opposition's solidarity movement. But just as dramatically Jaruzelski altered course this year. With the economy crumbling and heavy industry paralyzed by strikes, Jaruzelski opted for negotiation and cooperation with solidarity. The negotiations produced an agreement to hold elections, with the Communists guaranteed a majority in the lower house of parliament. The Communists suffered humiliating losses and Jaruzelski prepared to resign. His political future was uncertain when he greeted Pres. Bush in July, but the Bush visit seemed to bolster the General politically. Three weeks later, with the tacit compliance of solidarity and one vote to spare, the parliament elected Jaruzelski president. He resigned as leader of the Communist Party and had to accept Solidarity's choice, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, as prime minister. All this makes Jaruzelski a unique figure historically, the first Communist Head of State forced by events to let power slip out of Communist hands. Despite the long public record, he remains an enigmatic figure. Clearly a wily politician, perhaps Poland's last Communist boss, or perhaps the man to pick up the pieces if Solidarity's economic reforms do not succeed. I spoke to Pres. Jaruzelski at his office in Warsaw's Belvedere Palace with a Polish Government interpreter.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. President, thank you for joining us.

WOJCIECH JARUZELSKI, President, Poland: [Speaking through Interpreter] And I thank you very much for the initiative of this meeting.

MR. MacNeil: When you designated Mr. Mazowiecki, a non- Communist, as prime minister, many people, particularly in the West, regarded it as a symbolic and important, historic moment. Did you, yourself, think of this as an important turning point?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: There can be no doubt about it. This is a turning point in Polish history and it is not by accident that I used the term "point", because this is the starting point for the future, a very important starting point, and we'll see what course the developments will take.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think that Communism's time has past in Poland?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: I could offer a question as an answer to your question, namely, what do you believe Communism is? I look at it in the following way. This is foundation of the Polish social system which was born a few decades ago and I personally believe this foundation to be appropriate and healthy, if you understand it in certain social and moral categories, especially from the point of view of social justice, as we call it. But this foundation served to build more and more floors above it and unfortunately, this construction wasn't good. It wasn't modern enough. Now the important point is to carry out a major overhaul, to replace some walls, to replace some ceilings, to use the experience of others who could build structures in a better way, but at the same time while not losing what is healthy in this foundation. And that is why I personally believe that we are not changing the social political system, but the operational system.

MR. MacNeil: I read that you were educated in Roman Catholic schools and you were taught to believe that God favored Poland specially and the events of the Second World War shattered that faith because Poland was so cruelly treated. I wonder if you have suffered any erosion of your faith in Communism.

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: One thing is Communism is a grand, historical idea. Communism is a beautiful idea that everybody will work as much as he wants to and that all his needs will be satisfied. It is a very beautiful but utopian idea for the present time. It is an idea which says that there will be the reign of full social justice, that no man shall prevail upon another man, either in social, political or economic terms. This philosophy is synthesized in the famous document, the Communist manifesto of Marxian angles which was published in 1848, that is a century and a half ago. And it was in the name of this beautiful idea that people were sent to prison, that they were exiled to Siberia, that they staged revolutions. And it's unquestionable that these revolutions have improved the lives of many millions of people. They have meant greater justice for these people. But I guess that this idea is too beautiful to be carried through at a pace and in a manner that was originally assumed by its authors, especially that brutal distortions of this idea appeared which we all call Stalinism and so rejecting all that that is utopian or what is an illusion, and rejecting any deviation of the Stalinist type, any degeneration of that type, we can assume that this idea is still beautiful and that it has not died.

MR. MacNeil: Since Poland is the first important country, socialist country, Communist country, to move to multi-party government, I'd like to ask you, do you believe in multi-party government, or would you be much more comfortable with the certainties of one party government?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: If I didn't believe it, I would not throw to the scales my decision, my honor, as I defend it, the idea of the round table and everything that followed. I just have found out that the formula of monopolistic government is ineffective.

MR. MacNeil: Excuse me, did you say you just found out that the formula of monopolistic government is ineffective?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: Yes, that's what I have said. It's ineffective. Yes, we have had enough experience in the past to confirm it, such as the succession of social political crises, economic hardships which cannot be overcome without a broad social base for the government and a government can have a broad social base if it's made up of the representatives of the political forces which enjoy the support of the people, the masses. In short, without authentic democracy, it's hard to achieve economic progress, but there is also a certain kind of warning in that, namely, that the absence of progress in the economy may endanger democracy, and that is why the key to success of our democratic reforms is the setting of our economy in order, making iteffective.

MR. MacNeil: Could you see Poland returning to one party rule?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: I believe that such rule will never return. History does not repeat itself, but there may be a different configuration, there may be different political alignments, different coalitions in effect of the future elections. That's the normal interplay of democratic rules.

MR. MacNeil: How will you as president, a Communist, and Mr. Mazowiecki, a Solidarity prime minister, divide responsibility for running Poland, when there is a disagreement? For example, suppose the prime minister wants to cut the defense ministry, you control the defense ministry, you're a former commander in chief of the army, defense minister, you say we must not cut the defense budget, how do you resolve that?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: I could put it on a slightly jocular note. Such disputes take place in any other country which has such a specific composition of authority as we have in Poland regarding budgetary questions. I note that in the United States the Pentagon would like to get more allocations than the President, the Congress, would be inclined to give, but seriously speaking, I believe that my cooperation with Prime Minister Mazowiecki is precisely defined in the Polish constitution. There are definite constitutional powers which belong to me and those which belong to the prime minister. Besides, it follows from my to date talks and contacts with Prime Minister Mazowiecki that we understand each other well. To use military parlance, which is close to me, I could say that there are technical differences between us, but there do not exist any strategic ones because we take a similar look at the fundamental issues or the overriding issues of Polish interest, Polish security, and I believe that we can arrive at an understanding on specific issues. Anyway, I am ready to demonstrate the maximum of good will.

MR. MacNeil: You have promised that the, in accordance with the round table agreements, the next elections will be completely free. If the Communists were outvoted, could you foresee the Communist Party giving up defense and the interior ministries, control of the army and the police forces?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: First of all, the next elections will be in full year style. This is, politically speaking, a long enough period to make plenty of things clear. I as a president, I made it clear in my declaration that I want to be impartial, that I want to be above political divisions, that I first of all want to serve the nation and the state. And I believe this is in no conflict with my philosophy. I think it would be quite strange and quite inconceivable on my part to send the party to the graveyard already today. However paradoxical it may sound, the Communist Party has the potential possibility to become stronger. So far it has been a kind of super office. Now it is becoming an authentic political party which must no longer command and administer but win people over, convince people. And each of the political forces present in Poland now has identical chances and it will in full year's time, we will see what their respective positions are, and I as president should take care that this process of democracy is not violated. And the fact that I have an influence on the armed forces, is one of the factors that guarantee the stability, the security of Poland, and the democratic procedures that have been introduced into Polish life.

MR. MacNeil: How far do you see the reforms and changes in Eastern Europe going? Do you see East Germany and Czechoslovakia beingdrawn into the maelstrom?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: I would not like to interfere nor interpret the processes taking place in other countries, because I myself painfully felt such interference in the past when external factors interfered in the Polish affairs, but I can tell you one thing, that Poland is a kind of practice range for the reforms that are going on in this part of Europe. We have achieved substantial progress in social political reforms in democracy, but in comparison with the two countries which you mentioned the living standards here are inferior. If we fail to achieve progress in the living standards, then it will not be an encouraging example for them.

MR. MacNeil: How serious, how grave is the question of the East German population flowing out to the West at the moment? Is that capable of producing a very serious crisis?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: You are still bringing me back to the track of interpreting the situation in other countries. I would not be very inclined to follow that road, but still I will answer the question. In Poland, we have a similar phenomenon. Quite many people have gone and are going to the West, and this is not a phenomenon of recent vintage. The whole Polish history for centuries have been dotted with waves of emigrations. Simply, people intend to move where living standards are higher, all the more so, when it concerns the same nation, living in two states. That's why, as I see it, I think that this problem should be treated without any particular emotions. As the living standards in different parts of Europe become more and more equal, this will stop being a problem, but until that happens, a lot will have to change.

MR. MacNeil: What is your evaluation of Mikhail Gorbachev and his historical importance?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: I believe Mikhail Gorbachev is a prominent political figure, a man of great courage, a great man who has resolved to shoulder the responsibility for accomplishing a turnaround in the history of that great nation and thus to bring about a change throughout the world, and I also have a high opinion about him in emotional, human terms, because he takes the credit for changing the character of Polish-Soviet relations. Owing to him these relations are based on authentic partnership now and apart from that, we have very close, personal relationship. I know that Mikhail Gorbachev is facing difficulties, and I wish him wholeheartedly to overcome them. I firmly believe that he will overcome them for the benefit of the Soviet Union, for the benefit of Polish-Soviet relations and for the benefit of the whole world.

MR. MacNeil: Can you imagine the Soviet Union under Pres. Gorbachev putting the kind of pressure on Poland that you referred to earlier in this talk?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: You know, Mr. Gorbachev's philosophy, which is approved by the Soviet authorities. I do not see any symptoms, symptoms of change in his philosophy towards Poland. But the decisive factor are realities, the situation, historical processes. Poland is a highly strategic political and economical and Poland is a very strategic country and one must take care that these processes of democracy in Poland do not disturb the relationships within the alliance.

MR. MacNeil: In saying you must take care, is there something that could happen in Poland which would destabilize the situation, which would alter the reality?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: For example, an earthquake. Earthquakes disturb the balance in different geographic reasons and there happen to be political and economic earthquakes, although Poland is not situated in a seismic spot, but it's seismic politically.

MR. MacNeil: Were you disappointed in the amount of aid that Pres. Bush has offered and the National Security Council has now affirmed of $119 million in aid? Is that disappointingly little?

PRESIDENT JARUZELSKI: Of course. Even when you ask this question, you must be aware of the fact that this sum is in no proportion to the requirements of the Polish economy, but I have no possibility nor right to say whether this sum is in proportion to the potentialities of the United States. There is one thing which is indubitable, which I appreciate very highly, namely that Pres. Bush demonstrates a lot of friendliness and understanding for Poland, and I am under great impression of my meetings with him, which were marked by this friendly attitude to our country.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. President, thank you very much for joining us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead, protecting the elderly and LA Law's Steve Bochco. FOCUS - PROTECTING THE ELDERLY

MR. LEHRER: What happens when elderly Americans have no family to care for them, their money and their other concerns of life? Well Spencer Michels of Public Station KQED, San Francisco reports on the pros and cons of a way called conservatorship.

MR. MICHELS: Iris Wright is leaving here home near San Francisco on her way to court trying to reclaim control of her own life. For three years others have paid bills, managed her money, and told her what she can or can't do. A 63 year old widow with serious medical problems Mrs. Wright employees two care takers to drive her, dress her and serve as companions. She pays them $8 a hour with money from her estate worth about a half million dollars. But Mrs. Wright is not free to spend that money because the court worried that she will squander her estate has put her into a conservatorship claiming that she is substantially unable to manage her own affairs. Mrs. Wright is fighting that unwelcome status.

MRS. WRIGHT: I can do for myself. I don't need a conservator and I don't need the county or God knows what but they don't want to do that. You see as long as I have some money they don't let me go.

MR. MICHELS: Mrs. Wright is one of an estimated 400,000 elderly Americans who are in conservatorship or as they are called in many states guardianships. Relatives, friends or country agencies manage their assets and in some cases details of their personal lives. They are placed in that restrictive status by local courts where the process is usually routine and uncontested.

JUDGE ISABELLA GRANT, Superior Court: She is unable to provide for her own food, clothing and shelter and needs help with her finances.

MR. MICHELS: Superior Court Judge Isabella Grant handles nearly all the conservatorship cases in San Francisco.

JUDGE GRANT: We had a case where the conservatee before he was under conservatorship was giving large amounts of money to friends, to charities, that he didn't know anything about, was buying around the World cruises and then not using them and his estate was going down very rapidly. Now you can ask was he entitled to do that or not and deciding that I think that you have to use common sense and determine just how of this persons freedom you are taking away.

MR. MICHELS: Judge Grant makes her decisions with the help of the court investigator who assess an elderly persons needs and desires. Investigator Mary Joy Quinn.

MS. QUINN: We base it on activity of daily living and functional abilities. Simple things like getting to the grocery store, ability to feed yourself.We have had people who gave large amounts of money away thousands of dollars and forgot that they gave or when asked about thought they gave $20 to somebody when in fact they gave $20,000.

MR. MICHELS: Most conservatorship laws are based on the idea that although people have a right to do anything they want with their money. If they give it away they will become expensive wards of the state. So their assets must be preserved.

MS. QUINN: Most conservatorship are established with absolutely no opposition from a conservatee. In fact many are very grateful that somebody is going to, take care of the situation.

MR. MICHELS: Iris Wright is not grateful to be in a conservatorship nut her niece Sheelon Myers honestly believes that without supervision Mrs. Wright would carelessly dispose of her resources.

SHEELON MYERS: I feel that she need a conservator, I really do. She could be influenced very easily by a real estate salesman or her companions.

MR. MICHELS: Mrs. Wrights troubles began three year ago when her husband Charlie died.

SHEELON MYERS: He was her whole. She completely fell apart. She couldn't think if she paid this bill or that Bill or what time of day it was or what day it was an her health took a turn for the worse almost immediately.

MR. MICHELS: According to Myers Charlie Wright had spoiled his wife making her unprepared for life alone. Even Mrs. Wright agrees that when she go cancer, She couldn't cope.

MRS. MYERS: I had to get somebody and instead of having somebody here they sent me to a nursing home.

MR. MICHELS: Well you say that you were ill at that time and you signed a statement that said I am ill and infirmed and can not adequately take care of my business affairs. I hearby nominate Kenneth Ramussen to be the conservator of my person in the state and you signed it.

MRS. MYERS: I had never heard the word. I couldn't read and didn't have glasses and then I am very nervous and they just put the paper in front of me and I told them that I need somebody to pay my bills for now. I am not able I know that I am too nervous and not able to pay my bills at the moment. That is all they told me. I did not know what a conservator was.

MR. MICHELS: So for the last three years Mrs. Wright has lived under a court ordered conservatorship and it has not been smooth. Her first conservator a friend quit complaining of over work. Her second a neighbor was removed by the Court after she quarreled with Mrs. Wright over investments and personal matters. Last fall the Court appointed a public conservator, the Alemeda County Corner, Public Administrator and Public Guardian whose job it is to protect the increasing number of older Americans in his country with little family support. George Compte until recently handed that office.

GEORGE COMPTE, Ex Public Conservator: It is rough out there. They are easy pickings for a lot of people and they are simply not able to know who is a bad guy and who is out to get them and who isn't.

MR. MICHELS: Like over protective parents social workers in the Public Conservator's Office handle virtually all of Iris Wright's affairs. They have gathered her bank accounts and redeposited them in a new account. Her income checks are deposited here and her bills and those of 400 other conservatees are paid by civil servants. But Mrs. Wright objects to the impersonal treatment she gets. She had to go to court to get her monthly allowance for food and personal expenses raised from $300 to $500. She is angry that her public conservator ordered her attendants to stop using her car even though she had given them permission and she is incensed that one conservator told her to stop buying fresh flowers for herself at $27.50 a week and instead purchased these artificial flowers.

MRS WRIGHT: That is too much money she said. They told me that I couldn't have all those flowers any more. They want to sell Tammy.

MR. MICHELS: Tammy was not sold but Mrs. Wright fears that her conservator does want to sell two houses that she owns near by. This one is vacant and in disrepair. She wanted to have one of her attendants fix it up and live in it but the conservator said no he would get the work done. And the up keep on the other house has also been taken out of her hands to the annoyance of the longer term tenant.

ORA SHELTON. Mrs. Wright's Tenant: She had been here, I have talked to her on the phone and if I have a problem and I discuss it with her she takes care of it immediately.

MR. MICHELS: They say of course the reason she is in a conservatorship is that they don't think that she is capable of handling her own affairs.

MS. SHELTON: She is definitely capable of handling her own affairs. She is very lucid, she has a good mind on her shoulders and she was ill for a time and she needed help and I think that is when they took over.

MR. MICHELS: But her conservators as well as her relatives say they are trying to protect Mrs. Wright from her own charitable instincts. They were shocked when she gave a check for nearly $2000 to a friendly driver who had been taking her to cancer treatments for a few weeks. He said that he wanted to buy a van for his family and would pay her back.

MRS. WRIGHT: So I gave him $750 I guess, I don't remember exactly. I gave him that and see I have all this charity and we have money and we like to help people who are in need.

MR. MICHELS: She never got repaid and the driver later got in to trouble with the law. That incident is sighted often in court documents as proof of Mrs. Wright's incompetence. Actions like that have convinced her estranged niece that Mrs. Wright could use up all her money long before she dies.

MS. WRIGHT: I have to face my Uncle Charlie when I die and when I get up to those pearly gates and he is up there going why didn't you do something she is going to be on welfare then I am going to feel really bad because I was really close to my uncle and I know he is going to ask me that question.

MR. MICHELS: Pauline Weaver is Iris Wright's Court appointed Attorney and she too believes Mrs. Wright needs protection. So against her clients wishes she is argued in Court for a continuation of the conservatorship.

PAULINE WEAVER, Public Defender: Then some one is always going to turn around to the court and say why didn't you protect this person or turn around to me and say you didn't do your job.

MR. MICHELS: Even though Mrs. Weaver opposes the petition to end the conservatorship. Her Office will Bill Mrs. Wright's estate for legal services. As will all other Attorney's involved in the contested case at fees averaging a $150 a hour and adding up to an estimated $25,000.

MS. WEAVER: There is an irony there but they are presumably acting in her best interests on behalf of the conservatorship. It comes out of the estate because it is for the benefit of the conservatorship or the conservatee.

MR. MICHELS: Cases like Mrs. Wright's have prompted concern around the country that conservatorship laws are out moded and lack adequate protection for many older people without families.

MS. QUINN: I think that it is pretty well accepted that many of the laws really need updating. I know that many of the states are very aware that they need to build in some more protection for people under conservatorship or as they are called in other states guardianships.

JACK MC KAY, Support for the Elderly: You can't take every body who falls for a pigeon drop which is making a bad decision and saying they have fallen for a pigeon drop therefore for the rest of their life they can't make any more decisions.

MR. MICHELS: Jack Mc Kay heads up a non profit agency that provides alternatives to conservatorship. Support Services for Elders handles the money and in some cases the personal lives of its 250 clients.

MR. MC KAY: People are referred to us for conservatorship but in most cases were able to handle the situation without having to go to conservatorship.

MR. MICHELS: A case worker from Mc Kay's Agency visits 81 year old Kate Kahler at least once a month to talk over problems. The Agency manages here bills and receipts but must have Ms. Kahler's approval. No Court is involved in this arrangement and no Court oversees it for Ms. Kahler's protection but she likes the set up because she feels that she has not lost control over her own affairs. Do you want to run your own life or do you think that you need lots of help.

KATE KAHLER, Support Service Clients: No I don't want and never wanted it. I thought that I could do it myself but you just can not do that.

KAREN FISKIN: I think that it is better than a conservatorship because it is not as restrictive. She doesn't lose rights. All it does is empower me to do business on her behalf.

MR. MICHELS: At one point Ms. Kahler despite her infirmities decided to go to Tulsa. Oklahoma to visit Evangelist Oral Roberts. It was the highlight of her life and no body said you can't spend your money that way.

MR. MC KAY: In another 15 or 20 years when I reach the age of 85 level I don't want any body making my decisions for me as long as I can make them for myself. And If I want to squander my money it is my money.

MR. MICHELS: Mc Kay endorses what he calls the right to folly. Across San Francisco Bay Iris Wright only 63 wants to have that right as well but for now it is a lost hope. Frustrated by the expenses of fighting a court battle and exhausted emotionally mrs. Wright decided at the last minute not to contest the conservatorship over her estate. Although many observers think California's Conservator System is the least abusive and the most protective in the nation Mrs. Wright disagrees.

MS. WRIGHT: I want to run my own life. I want to make my own decisions. And I want to handle my own money. I don't need anybody to tell me what I can do or what I can't do. CONVERSATION - STEVEN BOCHCO

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight we go to Hollywood, where the trials and tribulations of a firm of blue chip lawyers last night earned producer Steven Bochco still another Emmy, but while LA Law garnered the award for best dramatic series for the second consecutive year, the 26 Emmy's racked up by Bochco's longer running Hill Street Blues had already made him one of television's most successful producers. Recently, Arts Correspondent Joanna Simon looked in on Bochco's world.

MS. SIMON: On January 15, 1981, the men and women of the Hill Street police station came slouching into America's living rooms and prime time was never quite the same. Network slickness was gone. Instead, the scene was dark, grainy, downbeat, cynical. The photography was unpolished, dialogue offbeat. The characters had as many layers as the plots. In their public lives they could be tough or brave or authoritative or swaggering, or eccentric. In private, those same people could be vulnerable or resigned or concerned, or confused, or sympathetic. Yet, somehow the most intriguing character of all never got on the air till the closing credits. That character was the show's creator, the executive producer.

STEVEN BOCHCO: I love television. I love the action, the excitement, the turnover. There is not a whole lot of time for -- I mean, let's go, let's get it on -- it ultimately I think is a more honest business for that reason, and I like it, plus which it pays well.

MS. SIMON: Television was still a black and white novelty when this television innovator began to take form back in the '50s. On the surface, young Bochco could have been any one of a thousand kids playing ball on the New York streets, yet there were differences. His father was a professional violinist and young Steven had artistic ambitions early.

MR. BOCHCO: I always wanted to be a writer, path of least resistance I think. It was the only thing that I really knew I could do from a very very early age. I assumed that there would not be a professional stick ball league or professional stoop ball league when I grew up, so it sounded like a really cool thing, excuse me, I'm a writer, I have to go do that now, you know.

MS. SIMON: Where do you get your off the wall sense of humor?

MR. BOCHCO: That's an interesting question, because I've never really asked myself where it comes from. All I know is I always had a sense of humor, good, bad or indifferent, and as a kid I was obsessed with horror comic books. I loved them. I used to go down to the candy store and when all the new ones would come out, Tales from the Crypt.

MS. SIMON: But that's horror.

MR. BOCHCO: Well, excuse me. Some of that stuff always strikes me as funny. I mean, I know, I know that my sense of humor is not a mainstream sense of humor in a lot of ways.

MS. SIMON: Yet the first year's of Bochco's professional life were as mainstream as you can get in the TV business. He started at the Universal movie lot in the 1960s, writing scripts for conventional hit shows like Name of the Game.

MR. BOCHCO: Universal was and remains to this day an amazing factory for product and nothing goes, it's sort of like a sausage factory in the best sense of the word, no part of the pig goes to waste you see, and so what they used to do is they would take unsold pilots for TV series and my task would be to write an additional hour's worth of material on the cheap that they would film and then splice into the existing film, expanding it from an hour to two hours and then they would release them overseas in these B movie packages or something. It was extraordinary training, because I learned in the absence of any emotional commitment to the material pure craft.

MS. SIMON: I was just going to ask you, when you look back on those, are you proud of your writing?

MR. BOCHCO: Ode to peyew. I was terrible. I was terrible. I can't believe they paid me to write that stuff. But I did and fortunately I worked for a lot of terrific writer/producers who would endlessly fix my stuff and make me look better and then I'd get the credit for it. It took about 15 years to get to the point where I felt pretty confident in my abilities.

MS. SIMON: All that changed in 1980, when NBC, in trouble with the ratings, came looking for a new cop show. Bochco and his co- producer, Michael Kozell, were bored with conventional bang bang cop stories. They finally agreed to do a cop show, but only if they could do it their way.

MR. BOCHCO: We were all doing copshows all those years, and you know, and the standard cop show formula was you had a cop, you had a bad guy, you solved the crime, you caught the bad guy, you put him in jail, end of episode, and a personal life was something that existed the other six and a half days of the week, you know, when people weren't tuning into watch a show. And we kind of turned that inside out and it was thrilling. It was thrilling to be able to expand your point of view to encompass more of those dimensions.

MS. SIMON: Dimensions there certainly were. At this late date, it may be hard to remember the impact and surprise scenes like this had when they first appeared. It wasn't just the physical texture. It was the story telling. Several things happened at once. Plots moved forward by indirection. There was a taste for black humor and sometimes bathroom humor. As for the dialogue -- [SCENE FROM SHOW]

MS. SIMON: Some say it looked not like a TV series at all, but like a little movie. But that was the point. To many viewers, the show's ragged edges matched something in their own lives and they responded, not so the censors.

MR. BOCHCO: We said we would not give them story approval, we would not discuss what we were doing with them in any way and they kept saying, but, but, but, there's no script and let's wait till we have a script, and I kept saying, no, because I don't want to write this script, we don't want to write this script without your assurance in a vacuum that we're going to have some latitude here to do something that's not been done before.

MS. SIMON: Give me an example.

MR. BOCHCO: Oh, gosh, the first time we ever put Davenport and Ferillo in a bathtub together, you can't imagine, people went nuts. I remember had a big fight in the pilot just about Joe Spano saying to Dan Chavanti. [SCENE FROM SHOW] ACTOR: Frank, take a Valium.

MR. BOCHCO: And then we'd go on the air and the republic wouldn't fall, the switchboards wouldn't light up, or they would light up. So what? I'd write a letter and you know, whatever it was, and we'd march along and do the next one, and little by little they began to realize there was an audience out there who loved what we were doing. And as NBC began to realize what was happening, they began to give us a lot more room.

MS. SIMON: Can you tell me about how you and Hill Street parted ways.

MR. BOCHCO: I was fired.

MS. SIMON: Why?

MR. BOCHCO: I was fired for a lot of reasons. The party line was that I was a profligate producer. My own feeling is that really I wasn't so much fired as kind of disinherited, disowned, banished from the family. NTM was at that time a small company and it was an intimate company and I think somewhere in the course of time I ran afoul of management on a personal basis and I think they just decided at a certain point that they had enough of me.

MS. SIMON: Bochco wasn't out of work long. He just traded one police station for another, moving to 20th Century Fox where he created Hooperman, a more conventional star vehicle with John Ritter as a San Francisco detective. Then in 1986, he created LA Law, about the personal and professional adventures of a bit city law firm. It looked like a trade up from inner-city grit to high rise glits. The fights and the chase scenes were gone and the characters dressed better, but the ensemble casting was still there. So were the multiple plots and the humor that bridged surrealism and soap opera.

MS. SIMON: There was a show on LA Law that probably upset me more than anything I've seen, which is the one about the lawyer who committed suicide.

MR. BOCHCO: Sid Hershberg. [SCENE FROM LA LAW WITH LAWYER COMMITTING SUICIDE]

MS. SIMON: That was one of the most upsetting scenes I had ever seen on television.

MR. BOCHCO: Thanks.

MS. SIMON: I noticed that you cast really unknown actors in terms of the public awareness. Why do you do that?

MR. BOCHCO: Because they don't bring a new baggage to a new venture. Television is at its best when it creates its own stars or it creates its own personalities and I love doing a show where you become that character and then when people recognize you, they don't recognize you from two shows ago or four shows ago. They recognize you from this show.

MS. SIMON: You also I notice cast a lot of relatives, wives.

MR. BOCHCO: Only one wife because I only have one, but yeah, I love working with my friends, with my family. If you work with your friends and your family, there's a community of spirit and effort that makes the work really extraordinary and invests it with a kind of intimacy that I don't think is always possible any other way.

MS. SIMON: Bochco will need all the help he can get, from his friends, his family, everyone. His current deal with 20th Century Fox and ABC calls for him to create as many as 10 new shows over the next few years. It's a tall order.

MS. SIMON: Aren't you afraid of artistic burnout with this heavy load?

MR. BOCHCO: No. I'll tell you why. One of the nice freedoms I think of having so many commitments from a network over the course of time is that you know you're not going to succeed with 10 of them. You can't, you're going to fail. So given that you know you're going to fail X amount of the time, as they do, it sort of liberates you to try things, to be fresh, to be different, and I guess over the years the thing that from point of view of an industry contribution, I think I'm more pleased with the extent to which I've been able to have an impact in that area of television than I am about anything else, because it's loosened up the bindings for everybody who works in this medium.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Bochco's latest adventure, Doogey Hauser M.D., is a comedy about a precocious 16 year old doctor in a hospital. It premieres tomorrow night on ABC. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again the major stories of this Monday, Hurricane Hugo smashed into Puerto Rico after leaving at least 14 dead in the Caribbean Islands, Defense Sec. Cheney ordered the military to draw up plans to interdict drugs at U.S. borders, Polish Pres. Jaruzelski told the Newshour, Poland will never again be a one party state, and late today a teenager at a Kentucky high school released the last of his hostages and surrendered to police. The 15 year old was armed with a shotgun and two automatic handguns when he took 11 students hostage earlier today. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Thank you and good night.