The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, President Bush addresses the nation on the Persian Gulf, Soviet President Gorbachev backed a radical plan to end central control of the Soviet economy. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, Charlayne Hunter-Gault in Baghdad interviews the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq [NEWS MAKER], then comes our special conversation on the Middle East crisis [CONVERSATION]. Tonight's is with the activist writer and professor Noam Chomsky. A Joanna Simon update on the battle [UPDATE - NO STRINGS ATTACHED] over federal funding for the arts follows that, and we close with a Roger Rosenblatt essay [ESSAY - GATEWAY TO FREEDOM] about the second coming of Ellis Island.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President Bush addresses a joint session of Congress tonight. The focus of the televised address will be the Persian Gulf crisis. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the President will report on the results of his weekend summit with Soviet President Gorbachev. The slow moving budget negotiations between the administration and Congress are also due for some attention. This afternoon Defense Sec. Dick Cheney spoke about the military situation in the Gulf. He appeared at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. He said the cost of Operation Desert Shield had increased from a previous estimate of $11 billion a year, but there was a hope much of it would be offset by contributions from other countries.

DICK CHENEY, Secretary of Defense: But for planning purposes internally we've been looking at a situation in which the estimated $15 billion additional cost that we came up for '91, which is an estimate, let me emphasize that, and additional budget authority for Desert Shield, that we think we could offset about half of that from these other sources. That's strictly planning, that's strictly preliminary, that's strictly an estimate. I may be back tomorrow with a modification, but that's the kind of thing we're looking at. In other words, the incremental cost to the Department for Desert Shield, that about half of it may be offset by these outside sources.

MR. LEHRER: Five countries today evacuated their embassies in Kuwait. They are Austria, Bangladesh, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and Switzerland. A Greek foreign ministry spokesman said they were leaving because food, water, and communications have been cut by the Iraqi army. Others cited increased crime and violence in Kuwait City. All five countries said they would continue to recognize the exiled government of Kuwait. The Associated Press reported today that Cuba and Romania have made deals with Iraq to buy oil. The report quoted a State Department survey saying several East European countries were also trying to sell arms to Iraq in defiance of United Nations sanctions. The report said two unidentified West European countries were attempting to send food. The Japanese government said today it was considering $2 billion in aid to countries hurt by the blockade of Iraq. A Ministry of International Trade Official said the money would go to Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: In Jordan today, there was a large airlift of refugees who had fled Iraq and Kuwait. They were flown home after spending much of the past few weeks in camps along the Jordanian border. We have a report narrated by Tom Browne of Worldwide Television News.

MR. BROWNE: It was a mercy flight on a massive scale. The largest plane in the world, a Soviet Antioff transport, flew into Amman to help in the international effort to get the refugees home. In groups large and small, the refugees streamed to the airport, leaving behind the dust and squalor of the desert camps. But this flight, the second by the UN's International Organization of Migration, will be no respite from the hellish conditions they've endured in the camps. The Antioff usually transports crates of supplies. This time its human freight jostled the space on mattresses laid the length of the fuselage. Thankfully, the trip to Bangladesh and then on to Srilanka would not be a long one, about five hours. Earlier, more Asian refugees crowded into trucks and buses for another journey that takes about as much time, the drive in the baking desert sun from the Sharlan One Transit Camp to Amman Airport. An Air France jumbo jet was waiting at the other end. Chartered by France and the European community, it's to fly five refugee shuttles to Bangladesh. Eighty thousand of the hundred and ten thousand people made homeless by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait are from Asian countries.

MR. MacNeil: In Moscow today, Soviet President Gorbachev rejected a plan for moderate economic reform because it didn't go far enough. The plan was outlined by Prime Minister Nikolai Rishkov in his speech to parliament. It called for a slow transition to a market economy. Gorbachev said he favored a plan that would have the country move more quickly to a market economy by transferring economic power away from the central government and giving it to the 15 republics. The Russian republic, the Soviet Union's largest, approved its own radical economic reform plan today. It calls for making the switch to a market economy within 500 days. In Moscow, another American fast food chain opened for business. Pizza Hut opened its first two Soviet restaurants. It's a joint venture with the City of Moscow, which owns 51 percent of the project. The pizzas are being sold for both dollars and rubles. McDonalds, which opened earlier this year, has been selling 5,000 burgers an hour.

MR. LEHRER: Sec. of State Baker met in Moscow today with Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze. The principalsubject was the German reunification agreement. It is expected to be signed tomorrow at the final session of the two plus four talks among the two Germanies and the four World War II allies. The Soviet Union and West Germany have agreed on a price for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany. West Germany will pay the Soviet Union $7.6 billion. The Soviets say that money is needed to provide housing and job training for the soldiers when they return home. There are 370,000 Soviet troops in East Germany. They are all scheduled to be out within four years.

MR. MacNeil: Nelson Mandela today said the peace process in South Africa would break down if the government failed to end factional fighting in black townships. He made the announcement after meeting with President F.W. DeKlerk. Fighting between rival tribes and police killed at least 25 people last night. That brings the death toll to more than 650 over the past month. In the West African nation of Liberia, rebel troops battled for control of the country. Troops led by Prince Johnson fought the remainder of President Doe's army. Doe was killed Sunday. Rival rebel leader Charles Taylor pledged to continue fighting until a West African peacekeeping force withdraws from Monrovia.

MR. LEHRER: Back in the United States, a government commission said today Congress should not impose anti-obscenity restrictions on the National Endowment for the Arts. The panel was appointed by President Bush and the Congress last year. It urged the NEA to drop a requirement that artists sign a pledge not to use grant money for obscene works. We'll have more on this story later in the program. The Commerce Department today released trade figures for the first half of the year. They showed a deficit of $43.5 billion, the lowest six month deficit in over six years. The report measures trade in goods, services, and investments.

MR. MacNeil: In New York, three teen-agers convicted of raping and beating a woman jogger in Central Park received maximum sentences today of five to ten years in jail. They were sentenced as juveniles because the crime was committed before they turned 16. The 28 year old jogger suffered brain damage after being beaten with a brick and a metal pipe. In passing the maximum sentence, the judge said the three young men had shown no remorse, only defiance. A defense attorney said he would appeal the sentences. The three will be eligible for parole in five years. As many as 30 youths allegedly took part in the attack. At least three other defendants in the case have yet to be tried.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the deputy prime minister of Iraq, a conversation with Noam Chomsky, an arts funding update, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. NEWS MAKER

MR. LEHRER: We go first tonight to an interview within the inner circle of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government. In Baghdad today, Charlayne Hunter-Gault talked with Deputy Prime Minister Sadoon Hammadi. He's a founder of Saddam Hussein's ruling Bath Party. By profession, he's an economist who received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: Dr. Hammadi thank you for joining us. President Bush will be speaking on television to the American people tonight. Presumably updating them on the crisis in the Region. Will he be given the same unedited access to the Iraqi people when his message is ready for them?

DR. HAMMADI: Well as far as I know that the President is welcome to an exchange of interviews. President Bush can speak to the Iraqi people on our television and our President could also speak to the American people on their television. I know this offer has been made and I think that would be welcomed on that basis.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: Unedited?

DR. HAMMADI: Yes.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: He will speak without any interference?

DR. HAMMADI: Yes.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: The U.S. is claiming increasing vindication for its position, its actions based on world reaction. The most recent being a joint agreement that it came out with the Soviet Union in Helsinki this past weekend. What was your reaction, your Government's reaction to the Soviet action and how different was it from what you expected from the Soviets?

DR. HAMMADI: As far as the Soviet Union, well we had some criticism or some comments on the Soviet Union position. We explained our attitude to them. We hoped that they would be more close to justice the principles their Government has been cherishing a long time.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: Do you think that the statement increases or decreases the prospect of armed conflict?

DR. HAMMADI: Well I can't really judge that. But I would like to say a few words. What would happen if an armed conflict takes place? If an armed conflict takes place in the area it would be led by the United States. I am sure that outcome of this conflict would be that there will be some serious damages done to us but the outcome of the conflict would be I am sure of this would be a decisive military defeat for the United States. It will fail. The campaign would fail and the outcome would be a defeat and the United States policy in the area would be a failure and 1000s of 1000s of casualties would be incurred by the United States.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: But Dr. Hammadi wouldn't an armed conflict be a no win situation for every body?

DR. HAMMADI: The armed conflict will be damaging. It would be bad for everybody. But the final outcome would be a defeat for the United States.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: Can you see the Soviet Union participating in a multilateral force committing troops to the Region and what do you see the implications of that being?

DR. HAMMADI: Up to now I think that it is something remote. I don't expect that but if that does take place then that would be a great surprise to us.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: Why? They have backed the United States so far in everything that they have asked for?

DR. HAMMADI: The call for war is now led by the United States. The Soviet Union is not the direct party to this crisis. The Soviet Union has no interests. On the contrary its interests would be damaged. So I think that would be remote and if it does take place I will be surprised.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: You have denied that there are secret negotiations going on but surely this conflict could not have existed for two weeks or more without some kind of talks going on that would bring us back from the brink of war. Are you saying there is nothing happening on the diplomatic level that gives us a glimmer of hope that we are moving back from the brink?

DR. HAMMADI: On the American side on the contrary. The dramatic activity is working and preparing for an escalation. I am not aware of any diplomatic talks that are on the contrary for peace. You see that the American diplomacy is only contrary is trying to consolidate its position. Put more pressure on many other countries that did not send forces. Collecting money in order to support the campaign. They are all serving the purpose of preparing for war not the opposite.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: But now there are a whole lot of issues that have been added on to this. There is thepresence of American troops in the Gulf which you object to. There is the continued presence of Iraq in Kuwait, there are the American and other Western hostages here. Is it possible to take one of those issues at a time. The claims that you make on Kuwait, the hostage issue. Can they be separated out son there could be some movement even on the question of hostages?

DR. HAMMADI: Well in one important issue yes. Now if the U.S. is really worried about oil that is something that we can discuss. I am sure that neither the U.S. nor the other Western Countries have anything to worry about the future of oil. We have always been for a moderate, reasonable policy in oil production as well as oil prices. We have been in OPEC our attitude that the price of oil should rise moderately but not out of context and oil production should also increase moderately in the demand for the Western World. If it is about oil there is nothing to worry about. Another issue. The security of Saudi Arabia. We think that this is a false issue. No one has threatened Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has nothing to worry about its security. We said that whatever securities or measures that they would like us to make in order to insure there won't be anything between us we are ready to make. So if it is that things can be worked out. But if this is a pretext because our Government is not liked or someone in Washington or somewhere else, the Zionist movement in Israel would like to overthrow our Government to occupy Iraq and destroy our Government then that is something else that we can not help. I assure you if any thing happens, if we are attacked we will fight to the limit. We will never give up. We will fight to protect our independence and I am sure that the outcome of the fight would be a defeat to the aggressors.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: You've just completed an agreement with Iran to resume diplomatic ties. The West says this proves that sanctions are biting. How are the sanctions biting?

DR. HAMMADI: The sanctions have some various effects on our economy. We feel the pinch but we will be able to stand that. We will survive.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: But won't it be much more than a pinch? Iraq, its economy was already in a deteriorated state. You have no way to get your oil out now. No way to get food in for the Iraqi people. How can you say that this is just a pinch?

DR. HAMMADI: It is true that the sanctions would hurt our economy. Our development program has already been stopped. There will be a halt in our development in all parts of our economy. But I am sure that we will survive that. We can live on the minimum. I am not saying this is good or that we will be happy or that we will not feel the pinch. All of this will happen but we will survive. We will not give up because our economy is bad.

DR. HAMMADI: A quick question on the hostages now. In what condition are they are why is it that you will not allow any one to see them?

DR. HAMMADI: Well first of all I would like to say that we are not happy that this happened. It is not our policy to be in that position. We were forced to do that because we are exposed to a military attack on us and we are treating these people in the best way. They are living under very good conditions.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: But there have been rumors in the diplomatic community that some of these people are not being treated very well. Could you allow some of us to see them to show the world that they are being treated well?

DR. HAMMADI: Absolutely this is not true. It can never happen that we will mistreat any of these people. I am sure that there will be some time an arrangement that these people could seen and you could talk to them. We are not against that at all.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: How soon?

DR. HAMMADI: How soon I can not tell you.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: What is the prospect of them being released?

DR. HAMMADI: Well I think that if the threat of war is out. We are sure that the U.S. troops and deployment in the area is out of the way. It all depends on the behavior of the United States and the other countries who are sending troops to the area threatening our country.

DR. HAMMADI: What about the third World people who are in this country now and who were here and in Kuwait as domestics and servants. Who were sending their meager earnings back to their own countries and they are hostages too because they can not get out because they do not have the money to get out. What is Iraq doing for them and why can not more be done to alleviate their conditions?

DR. HAMMADI: Well these people are not prevented to move?

MS. HUNTER GAULT: But they are effectively because they have no money.

DR. HAMMADI: As far as I know these people are leaving gradually. There is a problem of facilities of transport.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: But there is also a problem of health conditions. I hear that cholera is a possibility?

DR. HAMMADI: We will do our best to alleviate that but we have done nothing to make these people live in a bad way at all. On the contrary we are offering security and protection and we are doing our best. And the majority of these people are not in Iraq.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: Many of them are in Kuwait?

DR. HAMMADI: Yes the problem is that these people are not finding enough transport to leave for their country. There is no financial problem with these people. They all have money, they all have their own homes in Kuwait but the problem is that they are trying to leave as fast as they can but there is not enough transport.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: Dr. Hammadi I have to say that I have talked to a lot of these people and many of them do have money but many of them have no means. Finally, when are you going to allow any international organizations, the Red Cross or what ever in Kuwait. There are reports that the situation there is deteriorating. There is the possibility of cholera, starvation. Are you going to let the International Community or organization in there in the near future.

DR. HAMMADI: As far as I know the situation is just fine. The overwhelming majority of facilities are running well. Hospitals are open, schools will open. The people have enough food and things are going very well there. The area is now a military zone, the area is exposed to a threat of a military attack from the U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and the of course the Army is there. So it is very difficult now. But when the threat is over a normal situation will return.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: So why not let the Red Cross go there? They are used to going into military zone. Or the UN? Just so the World will know that what you are saying is absolutely the case?

DR. HAMMADI: There is no combat there. There is no fighting there for the Red Cross to go in to that area.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: But what about the UN because there are all these rumors all over the place that these conditions are as they are?

DR. HAMMADI: Well Kuwait is a part of our country. Why should the UN go to that area.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: So there is no prospect?

DR. HAMMADI: No not at this time.

MS. HUNTER GAULT: Dr. Hammadi thank you for being with us.

SADOON M. HAMMADI, Deputy Prime Minister, Iraq: Thank you verymuch for this opportunity.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the Newshour tonight a conversation with Noam Chomsky, funding the arts debate and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. CONVERSATION

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight another in our series of special conversations on the Persian Gulf crisis. Noam Chomsky is institute professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He's written numerous books and articles over the past 20 years on U.S. foreign policy, particularly on the Middle East. Prof. Chomsky just completed a book on the post cold war system entitled "Deterring Democracy". He joins us from public station DDH in Boston. Prof. Chomsky, thank you for joining us. PROF. CHOMSKY: I'm glad to be here.

MR. MacNeil: Listening to the Iraqi deputy prime minister, how do you think Iraq's occupation of Kuwait is going to be resolved?

NOAM CHOMSKY, Author: Well, it should definitely be resolved with the removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait at the very least. And there are three ways in which that could happen. It could be done through the effects of the embargo and other economic measures. A second possibility would be to do it through war, and a third possibility would be to do it through negotiations. Now the second possibility, war, could be absolutely catastrophic in unpredictable ways. There is a general consensus in the world I think, there's little doubt of that, there's a hope that the first method, the embargo and related measures, will succeed. The problem arises and, in fact, divisions then begin to surface when we ask about the possibility, in fact, unfortunately likelihood that the embargo will not succeed in removing Iraq from Kuwait. Then the choices become clear, and in fact, they're already clear, diplomacy or war. On that issue there is a good deal of division. That issue surfaced at the Helsinki summit. In fact, on that issue as I read the international situation, the United States is relatively isolated in preferring the warlike option.

MR. MacNeil: First of all, go back to the embargo for a moment, you sound very pessimistic about the embargo achieving what President Bush and the United Nations hopes it will achieve.

PROF. CHOMSKY: I think that's hard to predict. It's by no means a certainty that it's going to work. It's quite possible that over a couple of months the embargo will start to leak and there will be various evasions and so on. I hope it will work, but I think one can have very little confidence in that.

MR. MacNeil: Are you impressed with this incident in the sort of post cold war order as an example of the world uniting against an aggressor, which is what the UN Charter hoped would happen, does that impress you?

PROF. CHOMSKY: There is unity against an aggressor, but I think it has virtually nothing to do with the so called "post war era". There have been many aggressions in that region and elsewhere over the years. There has been unfortunately no, rarely has there been unity in opposing them, and I should say that if you look at the record, you'll find that the United States has very often supported those aggressions and interfered with UN efforts to stop them and has helped maintain them.

MR. MacNeil: But this is being called the first crisis of the post cold war era.

PROF. CHOMSKY: Maybe. It's possible that it's being called that, but that's not accurate. The invasion of Panama certainly qualifies as the first military action of the so-called "post cold war era".

MR. MacNeil: And how does that equate with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in your view?

PROF.CHOMSKY: I don't think it equates with it exactly, but it was, the invasion of Panama was rather striking in that it was the first example of U.S. aggression or subversion in which there was no appeal made, there was no pretext that we were acting to defend ourselves against the Russians or their agents, and the reason was that at that point this pretext had never been credible, but at this point it was beyond the imagination of anyone to invent it. In that respect, it was, we might call it, a post cold war invasion. Beyond that, there are similarities I should say. If -- this was an act of direct aggression, and it was condemned by the United Nations, the United States had to vote against both Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, the United States established a puppet regime which is dominated by U.S. so called "advisers" down to details. It reinstituted the leadership group of its choice. There are plainly similarities to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. If it had not been for the firm international response to the Iraqi invasion, it's quite possible that they would have left in a puppet regime to serve their purposes, which would have made the invasion in no sense more justifiable. As in the case of any two historical events, there are also many differences, but at the level of principle and of law, the only relevant difference is that in one case we did it, so it's regarded as benign, and in the other case, they did it so it's regarded as nefarious.

MR. MacNeil: What do you think of Mr. Bush's response to the Iraqi invasion going back nearly six weeks now?

PROF. CHOMSKY: I think that the organization of economic pressures and measures such as the embargo is definitely legitimate, in my view. I think we should, although we have never adhered to, we have rarely adhered to this in the past, we and the world should adhere to the principle that acquisition of territory by force or the use of force in international affairs is illegitimate and, in fact, unlawful. So that reaction was legitimate. As for the sending of troops, I think you could make a case for it. I think there was reason to believe that Iraq might have been planning to move on to further aggression. Beyond that point, I think serious questions arise, and it's precisely beyond that point that the U.S. position tends to be quite isolated in the world. The question beyond that point is do we prepare for an eventuality in which we will be driven to or will choose to use military force, or do we explore diplomatic options, a diplomat track, do we move towards multilateralization of the effort and so on and so forth, those are the crucial questions, and those are the ones on which, over that there was a division at the Helsinki Summit. And I think it's generally the case that most of the world supports Gorbachev's position on that.

MR. MacNeil: Just before we go on with that, some conservatives, one faction of conservatives, and we've had at least one of them on this program, argue that -- and they've been labeled neo- isolationists for arguing it -- that there was no vital U.S. interest at stake and that the United States should not be playing world policeman and shouldn't have sent troops in this case. What do you feel about that?

PROF. CHOMSKY: I think it is correct that the United States should not be playing world policeman and of course, the United States, like any other power, acts not on principle but in its interest. In this particular case the interests happened to accord with a valid principle. It would have made much more sense for there to be and much more proper for there to be an international response organized and run by the United Nations. Whether that could have been done, one can raise questions about. I think it could certainly be done now. As for the vital interest of the United States, one could debate it, but the fact of the matter is that it's been a leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients, and crucially that no independent, indigenous force will be permitted to have a substantial influence on the administration of oil production and price. That's been a leading principle of U.S. policy since the 1940s, and I think it remains so as we speak.

MR. MacNeil: And a valid, valid principle in your view?

PROF. CHOMSKY: That principle is not a valid principle in my view. I don't see that there's any justification -- there's no justification for Iraq controlling the administration of oil production and the price and there's no justification in our controlling.

MR. MacNeil: Some have argued again on this program that if Saddam Hussein doesn't get out of Iraq that there would be justification for the U.S. using force to get him out or further justification for the U.S. using force to destroy his military potential. How do you feel about those arguments?

PROF. CHOMSKY: I don't think that there's any justification for the U.S. to do it. I think there would be justification for an international effort to do it in this and numerous other cases in that region and elsewhere where territory has been acquired by force, where territories have been annexed, where there has been unlawful use of force in world affairs. Sure, it's legitimate to enforce the principles of the UN Charter. I think they're good principles. We don't uphold them. In fact, we've repeatedly violated them. In this particular instance, as in every instance, they should be upheld, and in fact, by the methods that are outlined in the charter, by operations conducted by the Security Council, however, I do think that it's kind of a diversion to raise that issue because the real question, again in my view, is whether must we move directly to the eventuality of war, are there possibilities for diplomacy?

MR. MacNeil: How do you answer that latter question? What avenue do you see and through what issues that might lead to a diplomatic or negotiated settlement?

PROF. CHOMSKY: Well, there have been several offers floated through August, several by Iraq, some by others. The United States has rejected them forthwith without any consideration, but some of them I think do offer the possibility, could be explored. So for example, on August 12th, Iraq proposed withdrawal from Kuwait, its withdrawal from Kuwait in conjunction with the withdrawal of military forces from all occupied Arab territory. That meant Syria in Lebanon, Israel in Southern Lebanon, and the occupied territories. That was rejected instantaneously without any consideration. Although I should say in England, for example, the Financial Times, a conservative business newspaper, while saying that the offer was unacceptable, nevertheless, did say that it provides a path that should be followed away from disaster through negotiations. Again on August 23rd, Iraq made a proposal, an Iraqi proposal was transmitted to the White House which looked very forthcoming, at least what we know about it, very little. It proposed a complete withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait, a freeing of the hostages, a termination of sanctions, no pre- condition that the United States should withdraw troops from the region or any other pre-condition. The only concession to Iraq listed there was that the Rumala Oil Field which dips slightly into Kuwaiti territory, it's mainly Iraqi, in a rather contested border region, that that should be handed over to Iraq. Well, once again, that's, I wouldn't say fine, let's accept it, it's over, but that does seem to, in fact, the White House specialist on MidEast affairs was quoted as saying that this offer is negotiable and serious, and I think that that's correct, that's what looked like a serious offer. And there have been some others. There's very little reporting about this so it's hard to be certain, but according to the Israeli press there is an offer that originated apparently with the PLO. The text of it was quoted by Fascell Hussein.

MR. MacNeil: We just have half a minute left. Can I ask you, do you think if this is to be resolved without recourse to military means that one or other of those avenues will in the end have to be followed, something like that, a compromise to use President Bush's words would have to be accepted, do you think?

PROF. CHOMSKY: I don't think it would be much of a compromise. There are debatable issues there such as, for example, the exploitation of the Rumala Field, but I think that there are negotiating paths that could be pursued. The same is true of the more far reaching question of the destruction of Iraq's chemical and unconventional weapons capacity. Again, there has been an offer on the table which we rejected, an Iraqi offer last April, to eliminate their chemical and other unconventional arsenals if Israel were to simultaneously do the same.

MR. MacNeil: Have to end it there.

PROF. CHOMSKY: We rejected it, but I think that should be pursued as well.

MR. MacNeil: Sorry to interrupt you. I have to end it there. That's the end of our time. Prof. Chomsky, thank you very much for joining us. UPDATE - NO STRINGS ATTACHED

MR. LEHRER: Now the battle over federal funding for the arts. A panel set up by the President and Congress released recommendations today on how Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts should deal with controversial art. They urged Congress not to impose anti-obscenity rules on work subsidized by the NEA and called for the NEA to drop the anti-obscenity pledge required of artists. The recommendations are the latest in a year long battle over the Endowment's role in the funding of the arts. We have an update report from arts correspondent Joanna Simon.

MS. SIMON: For the past year, the NEA has been the focus of a heated debate over federal funding of the arts. Critics claim that tax dollars have funded obscene art, while supporters warned that any restrictions would amount to censorship.

REP. PAT WILLIAMS, [D] Montana: The American people are speaking with overwhelming favor for the National Endowment of the Arts and against big brother censorship. Is there anybody in America that's surprised by that, except a few right wing evangelicals, political coo coos.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, [R] California: Anybody who believes that the American people don't want to set standards that would prevent tax dollars from flowing into obscene or indecent art or art that attacks religion, anybody who believes that that's the position of the American people, I've got some red hot S&L bonds to sell them.

MS. SIMON: There wasn't such heated controversy when the Endowment was born 25 years ago in a spirit of bipartisanship. The bill creating the NEA was signed by President Johnson on September 29, 1965, in the Rose Garden. The first National Council on the Arts included Gregory Peck, Isaac Stern, Leonard Bernstein, and Agnes DeMille. The first grant went to the then financially strapped American Ballet Theater, and it was presented to the company by Vice President Hubert Humphrey. NEA points to the large increase in the number of arts organization since 1965 as evidence of the Endowment's success, dance companies from 35 to 250, orchestras from 58 to 145, opera companies from 31 to 109, and theatre companies from 40 to 500. Grants are decided by advisory panels called peer panels like this one, which are made up of artists or recognized experts in their fields. The National Council on the Arts reviews the panel decisions and make final recommendations to the chairman who has final approval. While critics of the NEA claim these peer panels are elitists and do not represent mainstream American tastes, until just recently their recommendations have rarely been rejected. This changes the latest fallout in the NEA controversy which erupted last summer when the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., cancelled its plans to exhibit the works of Robert Mapelthorpe. Mapelthorpe, seen here in a self-portrait, was a homosexual photographer whose work included lush photos of flowers, nudes of men, women and children, and pictures of male homosexual and sadomasochistic acts. The exhibition sparked outrage in the Congress.

SEN. JESSE HELMS, [R] North Carolina: Now I'm not going into detail about the crudeness of the art in question. I don't even acknowledge that it's art. I don't even acknowledge that the fellow who did it was an artist. I think he was a jerk.

MS. SIMON: Sen. Jesse Helms and other conservatives attacked the exhibition as vulgar and obscene. Subsequently, Congress passed a law that forbids funding certain kinds of arts and requires grant recipients to sign a pledge saying they will not produce this art. For many in the artistic community, the oath and funding restrictions amount to censorship.

STEVE COLLINS, The Creative Coalition: That is the sign of the beginning of a totalitarian state. That worries me. And I don't begrudge people their upset over obscenity. It's just that upset has been manipulated by a concerted campaign of misinformation to make people think that getting rid of the National Endowment of the Arts would solve everything. It would do just the opposite. It would make art elitist again. It would return art, performing art particularly, to the major urban centers and take it away from the small cities and towns all over the country where it's flourished since the NEA.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER: There will either be standards set so that the NEA can't subsidize this type of pornographic art or attacks on religion, or you're going to see the NEA de-funded and it just won't exist.

MS. SIMON: Rep. Rohrabacher along with other conservatives feels that the arts can and should be supported by private enterprise.

REP. ROHRABACHER: So often we hear people giving the National Endowment of the Arts so much credit for the blossoming of artistic expression in America in the last 25 years, and nothing could be further from the truth. The reason why we've seen this great explosion of creativity in America is because we've had a strong economy, especially during the Reagan years when the amount of money that was available, discretionary income that was available to the people, was increased.

MS. SIMON: One place where the art scene has exploded in the past decadeis Houston, Texas. While the private sector in Houston has traditionally given generously to the arts, the NEA has also played a major role in their development. Houston is the only American city beside New York and San Francisco which has internationally recognized companies and repertory theaters. Beside the Museum of Fine Art, there is the acclaimed Mineow Collection and Rothco Chapel. In addition to the large, well endowed institutions, there are hundreds of smaller groups, including 63 non-profit organizations, that have arts activities for children. The Concerned Musicians of Houston, playing here at Texas Children's Hospital, has a budget of $100,000 to which the NEA contributes $17,000. The group, which is 22 years old, puts on a black history month program in jazz and poetry that has reached 20,000 elementary schoolchildren in Houston. The Houston Grand Opera has made its reputation on performing new works like this contemporary opera, Nixon in China. The opera company's budget for the next year is $14 million. Only about $500,000 will come from the NEA. In 1985, the Endowment awarded the Houston Grand Opera a challenge grant. To receive the million dollar grant, the company had to raise $3 million from new sources. This grant, like most that the NEA gives, requires a match in non-federal dollars. Nixon In China was produced with substantial assistance from the NEA. The opera's general director, David Gockley, said the NEA funding was essential.

DAVID GOCKLEY, Houston Grand Opera: I went to corporation after corporation saying let us have funding for Nixon In China, this new work about a former President and a very important political and statesmanlike diplomatic event, which by the way, has been important to you, Mr. Corporation, because it's opened up markets to China, blah, blah, blah, blah, and one after the other, no, no, no, no.

MS. SIMON: Because it was too controversial?

MR. GOCKLEY: Too controversial. I look back on every substantial new program here that could be considered to be cutting edge, new, controversial, untraditional, the kind of program that would extend what we do to non-traditional audiences, and each one of those things has been seeded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. [DEMONSTRATION AGAINST NEA]

MS. SIMON: In recent weeks, there have been rallies and confrontations in Houston about the NEA controversy. Recently a group called Taxpayers Against Funding Obscenity demonstrated in front of Houston's federal building. A few days later, there was a major rally organized by artists groups to protest the obscenity clause that both artists and arts organizations must now sign before they can receive NEA money. Recipients of NEA grants now have to sign an anti-obscenity clause. Would you sign one?

MR. GOCKLEY: I have very reluctantly signed it because the funding that we get from the Endowment is irreplaceable for reasons that I mentioned before and we have just done it and if our work ultimately is judged obscene, it's judged obscene.

MS. SIMON: Supposing next year when the Meredith Monk opera arrives and you're sitting in on the rehearsal, you see a scene that could be considered homoerotic. What would you do?

MR. GOCKLEY: I would go ahead and protect the right of the artist to have his work done in the way he wanted and I think and I would endeavor to convince my board that that was the way to go, and we would probably take our knocks or be at risk taking our knocks.

MS. SIMON: More than 700 artists or arts groups have accepted grants from the Endowment so far this year.While accepting, some have said they will challenge the restrictions. Only a handful refuse the funds entirely. The report issued today by the Independent Commission on the Arts made these recommendations. It urged Congress not to impose anti-obscenity curbs on works funded by the NEA, it called on the NEA to drop its requirement that grant recipients sign a pledge not to produce obscene art, and it called for an overhaul of the peer review panels, giving the NEA chairman explicit authority to make final grant decisions.

LEONARD GARMENT, Commission Co-Chairman: We all concluded that trying to place the artists and the National Endowment of the Arts into a kind of straight jacket of specific restraints was unworkable as well as of dubious constitutional validity and probably in the end would produce an immense amount of litigation and still more aggravation of what are essentially marginal issues to the main work of the Endowment.

MS. SIMON: Congressman Dana Rohrabacher had this reaction to the panel's recommendations.

REP. ROHRABACHER: I don't believe the Commission's report will have an impact on anybody's vote in Congress. This committee was established by liberal members of the Congress to get themselves politically covered, and the rest of the people, which is the vast majority of members of Congress, are going to listen to their own constituents rather than some hifalutin effete group of commissioners and the constituents of Congressmen from around the country are saying, we don't want our money spent on sacrilegious or pornographic art.

MS. SIMON: Congress may or may not accept the Commission's recommendation, however, some decision will have to be made by September 30th, when the NEA's statutory authority expires. ESSAY - GATEWAY TO FREEDOM

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight Essayist Roger Rosenblatt of Life Magazine has some thoughts about the people who made us what we are today.

MR. ROSENBLATT: The 12 million immigrants who passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924 foresaw America as paradise, yet it was they who carried paradise with them. One of those immigrants recalls, "You were either going to America, or you were going back." Back was back to Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Austria, and back and back. The old world was the land of dead souls. To be forced to return would be like heading for damnation. To live in America, on the other hand, that would be heaven. Between the two polar shores stood Ellis Island, recently reopened after six years of restoration as a Museum of Immigration. Ellis Island served as purgatory, the insular pearly gates where 12 million anxious pilgrims with hopeful, serious faces were judged worthy of entrance or not. Some of them were not. About 20 percent of the immigrants failed immediate clearance and were detained in dormitories. Those with diseases were marked with letters identifying their disabilities, "E" for eyes, "L" for lameness, "X" for mental illness. Among the detained or deported were women without escorts, men suspected as having been hired as contract labor, and those thought likely to become public charges. With fear and melancholy, the unlucky ones watched the others pass through the great hall of the island and survive their day of judgment, as one put it, toward a life that was expected to be rich, bright, and sublime. You wonder if they realized at that port of entry that if America was, in fact, to become a paradise, it would be up to those strangers to make it so. When they left Ellis Island and looked around, there was no paradise apparent. My maternal grandparents were robbed of their few possessions the first night they spent in St. Mark's Place in New York. That was their welcome to America. Eventually their two daughters became a schoolteacher and a parent. My father's parents, who also passed through Ellis Island, produced two sons, a doctor and a lawyer. Like all the immigrants, they soon realized that if paradise was to be gained, it first had to be made. The multilingual din of the great hall spilled out into the nation's streets and towns. The old countries became ethnically defined neighborhoods. Tribal wars continued in new surroundings, yet amazingly, individuals struggled up and out. People born speaking no English became English professors. Slum children became architects. Tribes managed to live with one another. The terrified, huddled masses organized themselves into the country they had originally sought. For that to happen, of course, certain basics had to be in place before the immigrants arrived, a Constitution that guaranteed basic individual rights and freedoms, an atmosphere of expectation that said anyone could make it. But after that, it was up to the newcomers to create their own new world, their own Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas, California, their own St. Mark's Place. Over 100 million Americans today trace their ancestry to those first 12 million, all that we are, powerful, messy, contentious, heroic, brazen, loud, and for the most part decent derived from their innocent imaginations. When the immigrants landed on Ellis Island, however, none of them knew what they would be capable as a group. They stood packed tight as cigarettes in the great hall, haltingly answered questions put to them by new authorities, quivered at the prospect of rejection, and left or wept with joy when they were admitted into the promise land. Everything they hoped to discover lay waiting in their minds. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, recapping today's major stories, President Bush addresses a joint session of Congress on the situation in the Persian Gulf, President Gorbachev approved a radical plan to end central control of the Soviet economy. Good night, Jim.

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