The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. The news on this Labor Day was led by two Soviet events. President Bush announced the United States now recognized the independence of the three Baltic states and a Gorbachev endorsed plan to remake the structure of the Soviet Union was introduced at the People's Congress in Moscow. We'll look at those developments after the News Summary. Also Roger Mudd talks to the Libertarian Party candidate for President, and we have a report from Minnesota on gay rights. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President Bush granted formal diplomatic recognition to the Baltic states of the Soviet Union today. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were annexed in 1940. All three have declared their independence. In a television interview yesterday, Soviet President Gorbachev said, "Every republic can take advantage of its constitutional right to self-determination. President Bush said today he was pleased by that statement. At a news conference at his summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, reporters asked about recognizing other republics that have declared independence from the Soviet Union.

PRES. BUSH: I don't want to underestimate the problems that leaders face over there, but I really think it's too early for us to definitively comment on each republic, what the relations to the United States are going to be. It is very clear that the Baltics are different. It's been clear all along that we were for their independence, and I think that this step that I've taken today will have wide support around the world, clearly in the United States it will have very strong support, and it's the right thing to do. And I'm pleased that at least there seems to be some recognition coming out of the center now that this is a proper move.

MR. LEHRER: The announcement was welcome news in the Baltics. Lithuania's President said it would provide the greatest possible protection against new aggression from the Soviet Union. Latvia's president said it showed the republics' moves were irreversible. He called on Soviet President Gorbachev to now also recognize the Baltic states' independence. Gorbachev and leaders of 10 other of the Soviet Union's 12 republics agreed to a new union proposal today. It would transfer much domestic affairs power from the central government to the republics. The three Baltic states, plus Moldavia and Georgia, did not endorse the plan. The so-called 10 plus 1 Agreement must be ratified by the Congress of People's Deputies which convened today. We have a report from Moscow by Tim Ewart of Independent Television News.

MR. EWART: Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin sat side by side in the front row as the Congress set about creating a radical form of government that effectively makes its own role redundant. Mr. Gorbachev's chosen spokesman, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of the republic of Kazakhstan. He outlined plans for an interim government which would shift power from the center to 10 of the 15 republics which support the proposals. Hardliners had planned an attempt to oust Mr. Gorbachev, but now seemed powerless to stop the steam roller of reform.

MR. BOROVIK: The process of dissolving of the Soviet Union and going so weak, so strong, so, so unpredictable that very, very urgent measures should be taken.

MR. EWART: Mr. Gorbachev was anxious to maintain the momentum. "I won't listen to any demonstrations," he said. Boris Yeltsin shared the chairmanship, a sign of their joint desire to press for rapid change.

MR. LEHRER: In Yugoslavia today there was another cease-fire agreement. Leaders of the country's six republics signed a peace plan proposed by the European community. It calls for international observers to monitor the cease-fire and EC-sponsored talks to negotiate a permanent settlement. But a few hours after the agreement was signed, intense shooting was reported in the republic of Croatia. More than 300 people have died in the last two months of fighting between Croats and Serbs. In this country, the nation's largest Lutheran denomination today rejected two tough anti- abortion statements. One condemned all abortions except where the mother's life was at stake. The other declared life begins at conception. Delegates to the Evangelical Lutheran Convention in Orlando, Florida, are still debating a policy that considers abortion an option of last resort. In Boston, federal agents seized 4800 pounds of pure cocaine valued at $500 million. Nine people were arrested. One ring leader remains at large. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to President Bush's news conference, analysis of what he said, and the new union proposal in the Soviet Union, the Libertarian Party Candidate for President and a report from Minnesota on gay rights. FOCUS - TAKING QUESTIONS

MR. LEHRER: We begin tonight with an extended excerpt from President Bush's Kennebunkport news conference. He spoke mostly about his decision to recognize the independence of the Baltic states and other new Soviet world order issues. Our excerpt begins with Mr. Bush's response to the question of if he would recognize other republics that might declare independence.

PRES. BUSH: Well, what we'll do is look at each case on a case by case basis, but I think more important than what we might do down the road is what apparently is happening there in agreement between the center and the republics, and that is that each shall be -- shall determine its own future. The Baltics, of course, are quite different. We never, as you know, recognized their incorporation in the first place, so there's some technical difficulties as we go along, but I think this is very good news that they're willing to sort it out and we'll look at it and obviously on a case by case basis. We've got to know first what kind of relationship these republics want to have with the center before we can jump way ahead and say what we're going to do in each case.

REPORTER: Mr. President, you delayed recognizing the Baltic countries, we're given to understand, because of the role of the United States as a super power and because of your desire not to undercut Mikhail Gorbachev. What are the criteria now that you have decided this is the time to do this -- have you talked with someone in the Soviet Union? Are you satisfied with what the Russian parliament is doing?

PRES. BUSH: Well, I think it's all moving in the right direction. I thought that Gorbachev's statement yesterday, for example, which was heralded around the world as recognizing the right of the Baltics to be free, whether that's a proper interpretation or not, that was a good statement, and we have been quietly asserting to him for a long time that the best thing he could do in terms of relationships with the United States is to free the Baltic states. And we've been working hard on that and so it's taken me a -- it's taking a final decision three or four more days than somebody else, but in the sweep of history, I think it'll prove -- I think we will be proved correct in taking just a few days to see if we can't affect change within the Soviet Union. And I'm very pleased at the two developments I talked to you today about.

REPORTER: I wonder if at some point, sir, you saw events spinning out of control, that at some point it appeared Mr. Gorbachev may have been out of it, that the Soviet Union was going away.

PRES. BUSH: Well, I don't feel that. I think things are moving. It's very difficult for them, but when you see their congress meeting, as it is, I think that's an extraordinarily good sign. When you see declarations that the center and the head -- the president of the biggest republic want to work together, that's a good sign. When you see an orderly process being worked out for determining just exactly that, the relations between the republic and the center, that's a good sign. Yeah.

REPORTER: Will it not be simply for the United States, sir, to be conducting foreign policy still with a central government, are you not hoping that there's some sort of central government for the foreign policy and arms control?

PRES. BUSH: Well, I think there's got to be some government with which the -- with which the United States works on many, many questions. I mentioned the other day contractual questions. You've raised a question here of further arms control agreements. We've got to work with the Soviet Union in terms of their very important role in the peace process in the Middle East, and so we will continue to deal with the foreign ministry, for example, in Moscow. But as these other republics get onto -- come front and center, we then must determine what their role will be and how they can help at peace, or what they're going to do about distancing themselves from the last remaining Communist dictator in this hemisphere. I'm talking about Fidel Castro. And we heard Boris Yeltsin, I think properly, say, look, there's not going to be any aid from Russia and a Russian republic to Castro. That's good. We're for that position. We'd like to hear the center say the same thing.

REPORTER: Do you see, Mr. President, Gorbachev as the best person positioned to weld the republics together into some form of economic union?

PRES. BUSH: Well, I see him as the President of the Soviet Union. And, therefore, he will be dealt with with respect. People know how I feel about him and he is in an extraordinarily difficult position now and he has had our support, he will continue to have our support. We're -- this isn't -- policy isn't based on personality. It's based on who you're dealing with. The fact that I happen to think that he's done an awful lot for the world is -- is out there for all to see. I think everybody in the G-7 and all -- the EC and all these groupings share my respect for what has been done. Take a look at Eastern Europe as a good place to start and take a look at this hemisphere where we've had cooperation or Angola, or many other things. That's there. That's on the record. Now how we move forward, I'll deal with him and with respect and with a certain degree of recognition that we look at some of these problems, foreign policy problems, eye to eye. How it evolves inside the Soviet Union, I once again say that's their business.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bush also said he believes events inside the Soviet Union will not affect the Middle East peace conference, which is supposed to open next month under joint U.S. and Soviet sponsorship. FOCUS - NEW UNION?

MR. LEHRER: The emergency meeting of the People's Congress in Moscow has as its main course a plan for reshaping the Soviet Union. We have a background report on today's session by Gaby Rado of Independent Television News.

MR. RADO: Deputies arriving for the congress from distant parts of the Soviet Union may have been surprised at how far democracy has progressed from Red Square. Enthusiastic crowds assembled at the Kremlin gates made their feelings for Boris Yeltsin and against the Communist Party quite clear, while the authorities made no move whatsoever to try and remove the noisy gathering from the place once sacred to Lenin and his revolution. The Congress of People's Deputies was only created in its present form two years ago by President Gorbachev. Hailed as democratic in its time, a third of the deputies were still nominees of the Communist Party. Now after the coup and the revolution, which has all but destroyed the party, the talk in the lobby was either of the imminent end of the Soviet Union or of dark plots to topple Mikhail Gorbachev constitutionally. Inside the hall, Gorbachev, sitting next to Yeltsin, the man who rescued him from arrest in Crimea had one of his typical preemptive strikes in store, but significantly it is President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, not Gorbachev, himself, who announced it. These days initiatives have to been seen to be shared between the center and the republics.

NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV: [Speaking through Interpreter] As a result of the coup from the 19th to the 21st of August, the process of forming new relations between independent republics was interrupted and that put the country on the verge of catastrophe. The situation in the countryafter the coup could lead us to unpredictable consequences both inside the country and in our international relations.

MR. RADO: Overnight Gorbachev and 10 republican presidents, including a previously uncooperative Armenia, had drawn up plans for a loose confederation. They said it was to prevent the uncontrolled dissolution of the union. Armed forces would remain under control of the center but otherwise republics would be free to decide how much or how little they participate. And those like the Baltics, who wanted all out independence, would be allowed to go. Moscow would even back separate seats for them at the United Nations, but they'd be encouraged to sign an economic treaty of mutual benefit. Next, a stunned Congress was told to adjourn for some three and a half hours to discuss the plan. Hardliners of the Soyeuse group tried to intervene but to no effect. So the deputies streamed out just 15 minutes after they had gone in. Reactions to the suddenness of it all were mixed.

SERGEI STANKIEVICH, Russian Deputy: Frankly speaking, I'm slightly astonished by this declaration because I know for sure that another kind of position was prepared on behalf of Russia so what we heard this morning was result of late night brainstorm organized by our leaders. I cannot say that I'm prepared to sign every item of this declaration.

MR. RADO: But Eduard Shevardnadze, former foreign minister, now a leader of the reformist movement, said the plan should be approved to avoid a complete collapse of the Soviet Union. Standing next to Mr. Shevardnadze was his successor -- Boris Pankin, the new foreign minister, promoted just last week from the job of ambassador to Czechoslovakia. How did he view his new job as Moscow's man with the republics now forging their own foreign relations?

BORIS PANKIN: We could find a way to distribute our obligation, while the most important issue will belong to the Soviet Union, to the foreign ministry and bilateral relations between republics and other countries who belong to the republics, itself.

MR. RADO: When the Congress reassembled, leaders of the republican delegations took the podium one by one to back the new ten plus one proposals. But they stressed that the immediate priority was to find solutions to their chronic economic problems. One dissenting voice was from the radical Russian deputy Alexander Obelenski, who demanded Mr. Gorbachev's resignation because the President's plans, he said, were unconstitutional. And during another adjournment, it was the leading radical from Leningrad, Anatoly Sobchak, who warned that there were still powerful conservative forces inside the Congress.

ANATOLY SOBCHAK: [Speaking through Interpreter] I do not exclude that there is a serious danger that this Congress will turn into a continuation of the coup. There are too many people in our country that would like to turn the process back.

MR. RADO: This historic Congress has so far left many key questions unanswered, including that of a timetable for Baltic independence, but Mikhail Gorbachev has today come out of it smiling.

MR. LEHRER: Now three analytical views of today's events in Moscow as well as the Baltic recognition decision by the United States. Stephen Cohen is a professor of Soviet politics at Princeton University, co-author of the book "Voices of Glasnost." Gary Lee is a Washington Post reporter. He was the correspondent in Moscow for that newspaper from 1985 to '89. He is writing a book based on his travels called "Talking Across Russia." And from Moscow, Andrei Kortunov, he's an analyst with the USA/Canada Institute. I talked with the three of them earlier this evening. Steve Cohen, should Gorbachev have been smiling over what happened today?

MR. COHEN: Well, media reports coming to us from the Soviet Union suggest that everything's falling apart, including the Soviet Union, itself. I think there's more smoke than fire, particularly on the question of whether there's going to be a Soviet Union. The Baltic states will leave. They'll be politically independent. Whether they'll be economically independent is a different question, but I think most of the republics will enter a new union. In the beginning, they will have greater rights vis-a-vis the center they had in the past, but as time goes on, the power of the center, economic and otherwise, will begin to re-exert itself in some sort of new federalism. Some sort of new Soviet Union will come into being.

MR. LEHRER: So Gorbachev looks like may have pulled it out.

MR. COHEN: Well, Gorbachev has defined himself now, and quite reasonably, as the great unionist. It's probably too much to say, as some of his aides are, that he's the Soviet Union's Abraham Lincoln today. But he has said very clearly that the great mission that remains to him is not only to hold the Soviet Union together, but to re-invent it as a better and more democratic place. I think a new Soviet Union will exist. Whether or not it will be democratic is a very large, unanswered question.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kortunov in Moscow, is Mikhail Gorbachev seen as an Abraham Lincoln of the Soviet Union tonight?

MR. KORTUNOV: I don't think so. It seems here in Moscow that Gorbachev is fighting for his personal political survival. But what he can really do is just to limit the damage. It's evident that his power will go down. And in the new union, if such a union is to be established, he will become just a broker President, a mediator between different republics. He can do something to preserve some residual powers of the central government. He can still play a major role in foreign and defense policy, but he is not a Soviet Abraham Lincoln.

MR. LEHRER: But what about the -- you said if there -- if a union survives this, is there some doubt in your mind that this is going to work, this plan?

MR. KORTUNOV: Well, first of all -- sorry --

MR. LEHRER: No, that's all right.

MR. KORTUNOV: I think that first of all it is misleading to call the new entity the Soviet Union. I would prefer to name it Soviet commonwealth or probably a Soviet community of nations. The word "union" somehow evokes in our memory the existence of centralized structure of the country which is doomed and which is disintegrating very fast. Still, I think it will be very difficult to solve a lot of economic and political and military problems without central power and now many of the republics, most of the republics, realize that it would be in their interest to keep some central power, especially in the areas which they are not able to control themselves.

MR. LEHRER: Gary Lee, how would you describe this union or this confederation that Gorbachev and the other republics are trying to form?

MR. LEE: I think the best description is a confederation. I think that Gorbachev has indicated that he also realizes that what existed before can no longer exist again, however, he insists, and I think others insist, rightly so that some kind of union between the three -- between the republics has to hold in some form. Now whether it will hold or not is really unclear. I think it's too early to say, as my colleague, Steve Cohen, said earlier, that some union will re-exert itself. So far all of the forces that we have seen have been forces of de-stabilization and disunity and, in fact, none of the symbols of the old union are remaining at all. So I'm very cautious and not at all certain about what future union will return there.

MR. LEHRER: Well, just so we can understand this in American terms, would this be -- would it be correct to say this would be like say if the existing states of Oklahoma and Jersey declared their independence with the United States of America and then got together again with the other states as a group of independent nations in a commonwealth, a confederation, is that legitimate?

MR. LEE: I think that is probably a fairly good description to make. Again, I hesitate to go too far in the description of what kind of union it will be, because it's still in the process of dissolving, that is, the old Soviet Union is in the process of dissolving, and we're not sure what new form it's going to take. What we can say is that the separate republics realize that there are certain things on which they have to unite and agree upon, probably some economic and perhaps also some defense matters.

MR. LEHRER: You mean, have one army, not each republic have their own army?

MR. LEE: Well, I think that's probably one of the things that's under discussion. Certainly economic links are far more important to maintain now than I think defense links, and that is not to say to have one economy, but to have three possibilities between all of them.

MR. LEHRER: Steve Cohen, are there any examples that come to mind anywhere in the current not only -- not in the United States but anywhere in the world that would describe in any way what these people are trying to work toward, where you have independent sovereign republics and yet, they're not quite independent, they're not quite sovereign, there are some things they share, there are some things they still keep altogether in some kind of central place?

MR. COHEN: There's a lot of talk about the possibility of an economic commonwealth on the order of Europe, and one can think of analogies, but I think they're bookish. The reality is is that something absolutely unprecedented is underway in the Soviet Union, has been underway for five years. The largest territorial country in the world has tried to move simultaneously under the leadership first of Gorbachev toward democracy, a real federal system, and markets. It's never been tried in the history of the world. There are no precedents neither for leaders or for we so-called "experts." Moreover, there's something about our rational discourse here today that doesn't quite fit the seething passions in the Soviet Union. You can make analogies with American states, except for the fact that all the 15 republics in the Soviet Union represent different ethnic nationalities, some of them with century long pogrom-like hatreds of their neighbors. There's a passion here, a violence, a potential for violence. I don't mean to dismiss the possibility of cooperation, but I just want to put aside the notion that this is like American states. Moreover, whatever is decided by this Congress -- and I must say this Congress is not acting very democratically -- I mean, late night brainstorming sessions that your film reported is not democratic procedure in any parliament in the world -- but whatever is actually negotiated and decided on paper about the future of the union will not be the reality of the union five or ten years from now simply because politics written on paper doesn't turn out to be real politics. Real politics will be decided by unforeseen factors in the passions of millions of people in that country. And that just is something we cannot fully foresee.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kortunov, do you agree with that, it would be a mistake to put too much emphasis on what this Congress decides or doesn't decide, that there's still a lot of things that have to play out on the ground?

MR. KORTUNOV: You know, I think that they cannot have any ultimate solution taken right now. What they can achieve are just some quick fixes and the Congress still has some legitimacy. It still -- it is still the only body in the country that unites all the 15 republics and it can be a bridge between the central power, on one hand, and the power in the republics, on the other hand. But I think that we need to live through a period of isolationism and through a period of very loose confederation. I think that right now we are somewhere at the stage of the articles of confederation and maybe later, in 12 years or so, 25 years, the republics will feel that they'll need something more centralized, something with greater powers in the hands of the center. I hope that the time will come, but right now, the nationalistic feelings are dominant in the political landscape of all the republics. Even in the Russian federation we can see a tremendous rise of nationalism and nationalism is not always rational. It can overshadow rational -- rational considerations of economic or political nature. So I think that the most they can achieve right now are just some basic rules of the game, just some quick fixes that will allow them to avoid economic or political catastrophe.

MR. LEHRER: Why would you say it's more rational to have a central government than it is to have a, a series of independent governments?

MR. KORTUNOV: Well, you know, the republics of the Soviet Union are inter-dependent. They need to have something in common, common monetary policy for example, some basic rules for privatization. If they do not have common monetary policy, if they do not have common investment legislation, it will be extremely hard for them to attract any foreign investments or to have any financial discipline. We already see how nationalism is ruining the country. The horizontal links between the republics are breaking apart. They cannot live up to the agreements that they are signing with each other and of course, it can backfire. It can create a lot of cares in economic life and it can breed authoritarian regimes that already are emerging in some of the republics.

MR. LEHRER: Gary Lee, how do we put that together? It's ruining the country. Nationalism is ruining the country, says Mr. Kortunov, and yet, what these folks want in each one of these republics is independence. They want to have their own country and of course, those people in the republics that say, hey, we're not ruining the country, we're trying to save our country.

MR. LEE: Well, lest we forget, most of those republics have been fighting a hard fight for their independence over the last few years that sometimes it's been a brutal fight, blood has been shed, and the mentality existing in those republics is against what they perceive to be the domination of a union and for some kind of independence. This is why I underlined that the forces are moving away from union, rather than towards it now. I think that probably those forces by my colleague, Mr. Kortunov, are understandable. At the same time, I think he's right that some kind of union, some kind of unity has got to be preserved in the center lest too much undemocratic rule does emerge out in the outlying areas, and that is very possible.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Steve Cohen, that in the final analysis that there is no alternative of some kind of central force?

MR. COHEN: I can imagine an alternative in my mind, but I don't think history or politics tells us that there will be one. One of the most extraordinary fictions developed in Moscow and widely discussed as a reality in the American press in the last year was the notion that Russia, herself, led by Mr. Yeltsin was going to become independent of the union. This is preposterous. Russia is the center. Russia has been the center of an empire or a union that's existed in that territory for centuries. The Kremlin is Russia. The struggle between Mr. Yeltsin and Mr. Gorbachev which gave an impetus to nationalism elsewhere in the union was a fiction. And we can already see from Mr. Yeltsin's behavior after the coup when he began to issue decrees affecting other republics that the Russian impulse, if not to dominate but to hold together this vast complexity of republics is going to persist. And at the same time, while not wishing to diminish the centrifugal and nationalistic forces loose in the land, the pro union forces are very, very strong. It's a matter of economic survival, it's a matter of tradition, and there's also the fact that many of the republics fear and loathe neighboring republics more than they fear and loathe Russia. And they look to Russia for support and protection.

MR. LEHRER: Of course, we need to make a point here that the Baltics are a separate issue and of course the action today by the United States, was that a very important thing to recognize them?

MR. COHEN: I think it's very important. The Baltics were always a special case. It may be that of Moldavia in the sense that they were artificially injected into the Soviet Union by the Nazi, the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. The Baltics now have for all practical purposes independent political status. But no one speaks of how they're going to survive economically, of what meaning is political independence. If the lights go out in the Baltic countries this winter, virtually all of their basic resources, fuel, comes from the Soviet Union, this question has not been addressed. It needs to be if political independence is to be meaningful.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kortunov, do you agree that survival is still, is the unanswered question for the Baltic republics now that they essentially are going to get independence, that's no longer an issue?

MR. KORTUNOV: Well, I don't think that the independence of the Baltics is still an issue that might be discussed in the People's - - in the Congress of People's Deputies. I think that basically psychologically many of the people, most of the people in the Soviet Union agree that the Baltic states will go and the only question which is remaining is how the Soviet Union will deal with the independent Baltic states, or how the Russian federation, if it is to be independent and don't enforced in the Soviet Union will deal with the Baltic states. For Gorbachev, personally, I think it is very important to make sure that the Baltic case is a very special case, that it is not any precedent or model that can be followed by other republics. And I think this is exactly the issue which will be questioned and challenged by nationalist leaders in other republics who claim that there is absolutely moral or political or legal grounds to treat the Baltic case as a special case. And I can foresee that the nationalist-minded leaders in many republics fromUkraine to Georgia will claim that the United States and West Europe are using double standards in dealing with the Baltic states, that other republics are not treated fairly on the part of the West.

MR. LEHRER: All right. So it's a long way from being as simple as I pictured it a moment ago. Well, thank you, Mr. Kortunov in Moscow, Mr. Cohen, Professor Cohen in New York, Gary Lee here in Washington. NEWS MAKER

MR. LEHRER: Roger Mudd is next with some domestic U.S. politics on this Labor Day weekend. Roger.

MR. MUDD: Jim, a year from now when the 1992 Presidential campaign begins for real, there will be at least three candidates on the ballot in most states, a Republican who will be George Bush, a Democrat who will be anybody's guess, and a Libertarian whose name we now know, Andre Marrou. Andre Marrou won his party's nomination on the first ballot this weekend during the Libertarian Party's convention in Chicago. Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett reports on the convention whose delegates believe the less government the better.

MS. BRACKETT: Unfamiliar to most Americans, the Libertarian Party is the third largest political party. In the 1988 Presidential campaign, the Libertarian candidate received almost 1/2 million votes, though that was less than 1 percent of the votes cast. Tonie Nathan was the first Vice Presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party shortly after it was founded in 1972. She says there are major differences between the parties.

TONIE NATHAN, Libertarian Party: Well, the Republicans like to control personal behavior but they want to give special subsidies and benefits to the business community, the private sector. Democrats tend to want to give a lot of freedom to the private -- to personal behavior, but they want to control business activities, and the Libertarian Party wants more freedom for both. We think government should get out of our pocket books and out of the bedroom.

MS. BRACKETT: In keeping with their policy of cutting back on government, the 482 Libertarian delegates passed a platform that asked for drugs to be legal, guns to be legal, and for a repeal of all personal and corporate income taxes. The basic job of any convention is to nominate a candidate and unlike Democratic and Republican conventions of the recent past, there was some suspense here as to just who would emerge as the party's nominee. The two favorites were longtime Libertarian Andre Marrou and businessman and motivational speaker Dick Boddie. This was the second attempt on the national ticket for Marrou. He was the party's Vice Presidential candidate four years ago. The 52 year old recently engaged Las Vegas real estate broker is also one of only three Libertarians ever elected to a state legislature, Alaska, from 1985 to 1987. Marrou says 1992 presents a unique opportunity for Libertarians.

ANDRE MARROU, Libertarian Party: The Democrats obviously are having difficulty coming up with any candidates at all. The only announced candidate, of course, is Paul Tsongas. The Republicans think they're going to have a shoe-in so their only question is who's going to run for second place, are they going to keep Dan Quayle or not. We see it as an ideal opportunity to build the Libertarian Party. We are a consistent party with a consistent philosophy.

MS. BRACKETT: Marrou says he will get that Libertarian philosophy known through the use of free and paid media. In one of the few disagreements between the two candidates, Boddie said he would not use paid media. Instead, Boddie, a 53 year old Californian who makes his living training others to communicate, says it is much more practical for cash poor Libertarians to garner as much free media as they can. Boddie tried to convince delegates that his message would be heard more clearly than Marrou's, partly because of his speaking ability and partly because he is black.

DICK BODDIE, Libertarian Party: No black man in America is saying what I'm saying. It makes a heck of a difference. Once again, if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got. And since 1972, we've always had white male intellectual good guys, philosophically sound, but once again, they can't rouse the crowds, they can't get people to get excited about it, and I think I can do that.

MS. BRACKETT: But when the convention ended, it was Andre Marrou who emerged as the Libertarian Party's nominee.

MR. MUDD: With us in our New York studio is Andre Marrou, a native of Nixon, Texas, a graduate of MIT, and at one time a chemical engineer. Welcome, Mr. Marrou, and congratulations on your steam roller victory Saturday night.

MR. MARROU: Thank you, and it's good to be here.

MR. MUDD: By the way, just to clean up unfinished business, who is the party's Vice Presidential nominee whom you picked today I guess?

MR. MARROU: It was actually yesterday. That's Dr. Nancy Lord, currently living in Washington, D.C. Nancy has a doctorate in medicine as well as a doctorate in law, so she is very highly qualified.

MR. MUDD: Now tell me briefly what the Libertarian Party stands for.

MR. MARROU: The Libertarian Party stands for individual liberty. We feel that you should have the right to control your body, your time, and your money and no one, including me or the government, has a right to force you to do otherwise than what you want to do with it. We also support the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.

MR. MUDD: I gather you do not expect to win, so why, why do you go through the pain and the anguish?

MR. MARROU: You know, every time a Libertarian runs for office, they hear the same thing, and that is that you know you can't win, so why are you running? I heard the same thing in '84 and yet I was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives. It would be a long shot for me to get elected next year. On the other hand, lightning has struck before. It struck for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, another man with a beard, by the way. On the other hand, we are building a major party. In my opinion, the Libertarian Party will become the major political party of the 21st century. In my opinion, it is inevitable that we will elected a Libertarian President and Congress; it's just a question of who and when.

MR. MUDD: What -- what would you regard as an electoral success in November?

MR. MARROU: Our minimum goal is to get a million votes. The most votes that's ever been received so far by a Libertarian candidate for President was Ed Clark in 1980, he got 921,000, so we're shooting for a million or more votes, although some research shows that we'll be doing a lot better than that, possibly two to three million, we really don't know. Our dream, of course, would be to win some electoral votes. We did get one electoral vote for our very first ticket in 1972 and Tonie Nathan, whom you just saw on the screen, was the first woman to get a vote in the electoral college 12 years before Geraldine Ferarro.

MR. MUDD: What effect, Mr. Marrou, would President Bush's apparent popularity and the lethargy of the Democratic Party in November have on the turn out for the Libertarian Party?

MR. MARROU: We think thatwhen the people perceive -- and we have some information to show this -- perceive the two major candidates as being very close in the race, they will vote for one or the other so that the other guy doesn't get it. On the other hand, when they perceive that the two major party candidates are far apart in the polls, then people tend to vote their conscience, they tend to vote for what they really believe in, and when they do that, we get a lot of votes.

MR. MUDD: I've heard you -- I've read that you have estimated that about 30 percent of the members of the Libertarian Party are in the computer field, computer business. Why would that be?

MR. MARROU: Every major sociological movement, successful sociological movement in history has started with the intellectuals. Today's current intellectuals primarily are computer people. So it's natural that we would have a lot of computer people in the party because this is the beginning of a major successful sociological movement.

MR. MUDD: Is that where the center of intellectualism is in America today, in the computer business?

MR. MARROU: Well, now that's a question for other people to answer who are far more qualified than I am. On the other hand, there are a lot of very intelligent people in the computer business, a lot of very intelligent people in the Libertarian Party. But one of the things that I want to do with my campaign is to mainstream the party, to mainstream the party, to get it out there so that everybody knows about it, and we can expand the party significantly.

MR. MUDD: Why is it when people, so many people, hear the word Libertarian Party, they think immediately of drugs, abortion, and homosexuals?

MR. MARROU: Well, now I don't know who thinks like that, perhaps Roger Mudd does, but that's one of the few people I've heard that from. I certainly don't think of it that way. We feel that you have the right to do with your body what you want and if you participate in some behavior behind closed doors that I personally do not approve of, you should have the right to do that provided you don't hurt anybody and you don't defraud anybody, therefore, we take a "hands off" attitude with regard to what you do with your body or your life or your money.

MR. MUDD: And what is the party's position, Mr. Marrou, on the question of abortion, your position on it, rather?

MR. MARROU: Our position on abortion is pro choice. I support that platform, always have, so we are pro choice.

MR. MUDD: Well, but specifically what does that mean? At what point would abortion become legal or cease to be illegal?

MR. MARROU: We feel that a woman has a right to decide frankly what goes into her body as well as what comes out of her body. The point at which life starts or does not start is something that has not, of course, been decided by the courts, except for the Roe decision, the Roe vs. Wade decision, and it is something that probably should be discussed further in the legislatures.

MR. MUDD: And what about your position on drugs? Now I understand that the party platform calls for the legalization of drugs.

MR. MARROU: The party's platform calls for the re-legalization of drugs, since all drugs were legal until 1914 and marijuana was legal until 1934. Now what we have now is a period of prohibition very similar to the prohibition on alcohol from 1920 to 1933. What we're calling for is an end to prohibition and the re-legalization of drugs so that people can use drugs if they so choose. Prior to 1914, all drugs were legal. There was some drug use. There was no drug problem because drugs were readily available and cheap.

MR. MUDD: On the question of AIDS, Mr. Marrou, whose responsibility is it for controlling the AIDS epidemic? Is it the individual or is it the government?

MR. MARROU: It's the individual's responsibility. The government so far has been a hindrance. The government has kept AZT off the market far too long. All drugs should be allowed to people who want to use them. When we call for the re-legalization of drugs, we want controls off all drugs, medicinal as well as recreational. This includes such things as Laetrile. Laetrile may or may not work, but if people want to use it, then they should be allowed to use it.

MR. MUDD: On the question of taxes, you do not advocate any new taxes, is that correct?

MR. MARROU: Absolutely not. It was -- the man who's in office now who said, "No new taxes," and he broke his word, a lot of people remember that. I am certainly going to remind them. We want to get rid of the personal income tax. We want to do it as soon as we possibly can. We also want to get rid of the IRS. This is one issue that cuts across all racial, ethnic, gender lines, something that everybody can relate to, and I can guarantee you that the Democrats and Republicans are not going to touch that issue with a mile long pole.

MR. MUDD: Well, how do you get rid of the present taxes?

MR. MARROU: First of all, personal income tax only brings in 37 percent of federal revenues. That leaves 63 percent to operate the government with. Now how far back in history do you think you'd have to go to find a federal budget 63 percent as big as the one this year? And the answer is four years. That's how fast the government is growing. Under George Bush, it's growing faster than ever in history, it's growing 10 percent per year. The federal government this year is eating up 1/4 of the Gross National Product of this country, the highest in history, the same as what we used during World War II. This trend must be reversed. Otherwise, government will double in size in seven years. There are a lot of ways to cut the government. One of the easiest ways that I could do as President is to just stop replacing federal bureaucrats. 7 to 10 percent every year leave like clockwork; they retire, they resign, or they die. Don't replace 'em. You're not firing anybody; you're not laying anybody off, just don't replace 'em, and in four years you've got rid of 28 to 40 percent of the federal bureaucracy.

MR. MUDD: In addition to abolishing the IRS, what other departments would you abolish, or which ones would you keep? Would you keep the State Department?

MR. MARROU: We would probably keep the State Department, yes.

MR. MUDD: Probably?

MR. MARROU: We would get rid of the Drug Enforcement Administration; we'd get rid of the Immigration & Naturalization Service; we'd get rid of agencies that keep people from owning land in the United States such as the Bureau of Land Management. We would get rid of agencies that impinge upon the freedom of Americans such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and on and on. There are a lot of agencies, most of 'em we can get rid of.

MR. MUDD: What about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, would you dismantle those programs?

MR. MARROU: We would over a period of time, but let's take one. Social Security, you may be aware that the only people who have a choice with regard to Social Security, the only people who can volunteer not to pay into it are, in fact, government employees. Now do they know something that we don't know? Because you and I have to pay into it, whether we like it or not. We should make it voluntary first of all. Most people on Social Security according to Insight Magazine about three years ago really don't need it and actually make more money than the people paying into it who are much younger. There are a few people on Social Security who actually do need it. We can find those people. We can identify them and keep them on the program until the program can be phased out.

MR. MUDD: One of your platforms, one of your principles is individual liberty. How do you propose to protect the individual liberties of press and speech and religion without the use of government?

MR. MARROU: The -- the first 10 Amendments of the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights -- we perceive and I think it's clear that the conservatives believe in some of them, the liberals believe in others of them, we believe in all of them. We support all 10 Amendments to the Bill of Rights. We will be supporting those completely. We will be cutting government, but we still feel that government has legitimate functions and protecting this country through a national defense and providing courts for civil and criminal cases and of course in providing police, and of course, police is not a federal function, but those are legitimate functions of government.

MR. MUDD: My last question is that there was a reference at your convention over the weekend to Congressman Rostenkowski as Washington's leading pick pocket. I wonder if you subscribe to that description.

MR. MARROU: I did not hear that particular description of Rostenkowski. I probably would agree though. He's good at taking money out of the pockets of Americans and spending it some place that he wants to spend it.

MR. MUDD: That's an interesting way to end, Mr. Marrou, and again congratulations on your nomination. Thank you.

MR. MARROU: Thank you. I appreciate it. FOCUS - DOMESTIC PARTNERS

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight the story from Minnesota about the rights of gays. The reporter is Fred De Sam Lazaro of public station KTCA, Minneapolis-St. Paul.

MR. LAZARO: Marie Hanson and Ann Munson are a couple well known for their activism in Minnesota's gay and lesbian community. But for 14 years, Hanson and Munson have tried to win acceptance as just another couple, no different and no less deserving than any other family in their Minneapolis neighborhood.

MARIE HANSON: I think that acceptance is important. Our lives are intertwined financially, emotionally, spiritually, and love really has no boundaries.

MR. LAZARO: It's a message Hanson recently brought to her employer, the Minneapolis Public Library, in the form of a grievance. She is seeking for her partner the same fringe benefits her married colleagues get for their spouses, especially health insurance.

MARIE HANSON: For a co-worker who is legally married, my employer is contributing $140, $149 more a month for that policy. Yet, if I went out tomorrow and legally married someone, they would provide that to me, and so I find it hard to believe that they cannot provide this kind of benefit for Ann, but they would for Andy.

MR. LAZARO: Hoping to change the benefits policy for all city workers, Hanson, Munson and others took their case to Minneapolis City Counselor Brian Coyle. Gay, himself, Coyle was sympathetic also, he says, realistic.

BRIAN COYLE, Minneapolis City Council: I believe that you make change by being persistent, taking things one step at a time.

SPOKESMAN: [Meeting] Is this an expenditure of limited resources that we really can justify at a time when --

MR. LAZARO: Coyle says there weren't enough votes to extend health and other benefits for so-called "domestic partners" of unmarried city employees, but he did succeed with a more limited and far less expensive ordinance. The measure allows couples to register their domestic partnerships, as dozens did in this recent ceremony at City Hall. For city workers, it permits time off if a partner is ill or dies. Although well short of full spousal benefits, it does provide important next of kin benefits to all registered domestic partners in the city, couples like Lyle Rossman and Wally Swan.

LYLE ROSSMAN: If I had a heart attack or he had a heart attack, the family then cannot keep the other one of us out.

WALLY SWAN: I think the Karen Thompson, Sharon Kowalski case is probably the classic example of, you know, not allowing the significant other to be involved with the partner.

MR. LAZARO: The Thompson-Kowalski case has become a cause celebre for gay rights and feminist groups nationwide. Karen Thompson lived with Sharon Kowalski for four years in a quiet lesbian relationship in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

KAREN THOMPSON: I now see the closet as a very vulnerable place to live. I call it a glass closet, so easily shattered. As long as we're invisible, we're vulnerable.

MR. LAZARO: The vulnerability Thompson speaks of first surfaced in a hospital emergency room where Kowalski was rushed after a car accident.

KAREN THOMPSON: I spent close to two hours trying to find out if the person I loved most in this world was dead or alive. No one would talk with me because I wasn't family. I mean, you spend four years hiding you're in a relationship and then you spend the next how many years trying to prove you had one.

MR. LAZARO: That relationship became the focal point of a bitter, lengthy battle over custody of Sharon Kowalski. She emerged seriously disabled from the accident. Kowalski's parents, for the most part, prevailed in the court system, although Thompson has more recently secured rights to visit Sharon Kowalski at this suburban Minnesota nursing home.

KAREN THOMPSON: Certainly if we could have legally sanctioned our relationship, we wouldn't be in this mess today.

MR. LAZARO: Thompson also contends that her partner, who was unemployed and uninsured, could have received better care under private insurance instead of the more restrictive public medical assistance.

KAREN THOMPSON: I am a professor at St. Cloud State University and I should have been able to have her, you know, covered under my benefits there. I definitely am not being paid the same amount for the same job, because I don't have the same benefits that a person who is married in the legally sanctioned relationship can have. And that's unfair. And I think that those kinds of things need to be changed.

SPOKESMAN: [At Meeting] Our next speaker is Karen Thompson.

MR. LAZARO: Thompson has become a national crusader for legitimizing gay relationships. She was among those testifying for the Minneapolis ordinance.

KAREN THOMPSON: [At Meeting] It's important that we recognize that different types of families exist. Registration as domestic partners would give standing to us as a family so nightmares like the one that happened to Sharon Kowalski and me could not recur over and over and over again.

MR. LAZARO: The opponents of domestic partners benefits cite two main concerns. The first for Minneapolis City Counselor Alice Rainville is religious and philosophical.

ALICE RAINVILLE: To say that you can create another sort of a relationship out there that's going to substitute for the family is wrong. The reality is the family will exist long after these domestic partners have failed. And I understand the failure rate in marriages, but that's the best thing civilization has for the raising of the next generation.

MR. LAZARO: Fellow conservative Council Member Dennis Schulstad cites concerns about costs and fraud in domestic partner benefits, especially if they include health insurance.

DENNIS SCHULSTAD, Minneapolis City Council: And it's just one of the things that's being discussed, but it can also be other serious types of surgery where, where a person could select a domestic partner just to make sure they have that health insurance coverage. This one person could well cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

BRIAN COYLE, Minneapolis City Council: If you look at the other cities that have had this kind of benefit either for the last year or two or in Berkeley's case for many years, there's been no history of fraud and going to the heart of the bogeyman scare of the HIV situation, there is absolutely no evidence that that's happened in any situation.

MR. LAZARO: Setting aside a potential for fraud, insurance companies that agree to provide coverage will likely charge higher premiums. Insurers are concerned about domestic partners as a group for insurance.

TIM COLE, Health Insurance Executive: Due to the conservative nature of that field, there is a tendency to not want to do something that no one else has done before.

MR. LAZARO: Tim Cole is a health insurance executive. He was invited by this group of Minnesota gay and lesbian leaders to explain how the industry assesses risks in situations like domestic partner households.

TIM COLE: It's a pretty straightforward business. They basically take what is the population that we're going to be asked to cover and what is the historical experience of covering that population. Unfortunately, they don't have any historical experience to base this on.

MR. LAZARO: Cole said it will take more so-called actuarial data and changes in some state and federal laws before most insurance companies will cover domestic partners. Until then he said such benefits will come mostly from large employers pressed by workers to self-insure. Big companies can often do so at a rates competitive with insurance company premiums. Earlier this year, that combination of factors prompted New York's Montefior Medical Center to offer full spousal benefits to partners of gay employees. With 9,000 workers, Montefior is the largest private employer to do so.

NADIA ADLER, Montefior Medical Center: We I think were motivated by a mix of factors, the desire to do what we felt was socially appropriate to avoid a potentially discriminatory policy. We thought the direction that the law is going is one in which there's a potential for liability for not doing this sort of thing.

MR. LAZARO: Montefior Vice President Nadia Adler says the new policy was prompted by a request from two lesbian employees who were supported by the American Civil Liberties Union. Although forced, Adler says the decision is socially and economically correct.

NADIA ADLER: There are many, many very wonderful physicians and others whom we would like to recruit for whom I think there is no question that this would be an incentive either because it's applicable to them, or because they think it's right, they think this is the kind of organization that they would like to be associated with.

MR. LAZARO: While Montefior was sympathetic to its gay employees' demands, other employees like the Minneapolis Library Board in Marie Hanson's case haveresisted. The outcome of legal cases like hers could determine how widely Montefior is emulated. Until then, the Hanson-Munson household will be defined as a family only in a few politically friendly American cities and work places.

MR. LEHRER: Since that report was completed, Brian Coyle, the city council member who sponsored Minneapolis's domestic partnership legislation, has died of AIDS. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Labor Day Holiday, with a decision of President Bush to recognize the independence of the Soviet Union's three Baltic republics and the presentation before the People's Congress in Moscow of a plan to remake the Soviet Union into a union of independent republics, we'll see you tomorrow night. Have a nice holiday evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.