The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, House Speaker Tom Foley said the U.S. should recognize the outcome of free and fair elections in Nicaragua. Britain lifted some of its sanctions against South Africa, and former Salvadoran President Duarte died after a long battle with cancer. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, there are previews of two important weekend elections. We look at the [FOCUS - VOTE ON CHANGE] Nicaragua contest with a Kwame Holman report and with Congressman Steve Solarz and Pollster Stanley Greenberg. Charles Krause reports on the election in Lithuania [FOCUS - VOTE FOR FREEDOM]. Then comes the weekly analysis of David Gergen and Mark Shields [FOCUS - GERGEN & SHIELDS, and we close with a Roger Rosenblatt essay on the Soviet Union] [ESSAY - FATHER DEMOCRACY]. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: House Speaker Tom Foley today put a different frame around Sunday's elections in Nicaragua. He said the United States should respond favorably if the elections are certified free and fair no matter who wins. Yesterday Sec. of State Baker said there would have to be more than that to normalize relations with the victorious Sandinista government. He said a sustained period of democratic reform would have to follow. Foley told reporters the elections, themselves, were important.

REP. THOMAS FOLEY, Speaker of the House: Well, I think we've had a tradition as a country of recognizing that an election by a voting populous who are freely and fairly choosing a government should be one that the United States respects. If you believe in democratic processes, a part of that goes with allowing the people involved to make their choice. There would be, of course, a problem if there was an unwillingness on the part of the existing government of Nicaragua to recognize a fair election in either a victory for them or a victory for the opposition. But other than that, I think we should find ways of recognizing the choice of the Nicaraguan people.

MR. LEHRER: The elections will be monitored by several international observer groups. The one led by former Pres. Jimmy Carter arrived in Managua today. It is composed of former and present U.S. and Latin American officials. A United Nations team arrived yesterday. We'll have more on this Nicaraguan election right after the News Summary. Jose Napoleon Duarte died today. He was El Salvador's first democratically-elected President in 50 years. He served for four years until 1989. Duarte died of cancer. He was 64 years old. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Britain today lifted its ban on new investment in South Africa, becoming the first nation to ease sanctions in response to Nelson Mandela's release. Britain's trade secretary said the move was taken because South Africa's president, F.W. DeKlerk, "has opened the way to a peaceful end to apartheid through negotiation." Britain is maintaining other sanctions against South Africa, including an embargo on arms and oil exports. In South Africa today, Nelson Mandela met with parliamentary opposition leaders at his home. According to one of them, Mandela and the opposition delegation agreed on the need for universal voting rights, but they differed over the African National Congress's support for guerrilla violence, economic sanctions, and nationalization of the country's minds. It was announced today that Mandela will meet Monday with the chairman of South Africa's largest mining conglomerate, the Anglo-American Corporation.

MR. LEHRER: A 10 percent cut in U.S. troops in Asia was announced today. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney made the announcement in Tokyo. He said the 12,000 man cut would be completed over three years. In Moscow, the Communist Party's Central Committee called for calm this weekend. Pro reform rallies are planned throughout the Soviet Union Sunday, a week before local elections in some republics.

MR. MacNeil: A European Arianne rocket exploded last night shortly after take-off in French Guyana, South America. The rocket was carrying two Japanese satellites worth more than $200 million each. It was the first Arianne failure after 17 consecutive successful launches. All future Arianne flights have been suspended until it can be determined exactly what caused the explosion. Arianne is the U.S. space shuttle's main competitor.

MR. LEHRER: Secretary of Health & Human Services Dr. Louis Sullivan continued his campaign against smoking today. He told a Washington news conference tobacco companies were trying to improve the image of cigarettes by sponsoring sporting events. He pointed to the Virginia Slims connection with women's tennis.

DR. LOUIS SULLIVAN, Sec., Health & Human Services: During the average period of a championship tennis match approximately 100 people will die from diseases caused by cigarette smoking. National and local competitions, competitive sporting associations and our athletes should reject sponsorship by the tobacco industry. This blood money should not be used to foster a misleading impression that smoking is compatible with good health.

MR. LEHRER: A spokesman for Philip Morris, which makes Virginia Slims, said sponsorship of women's tennis was not intended to encourage smoking. He said the company would continue its sponsorship for years to come. Pres. Bush today named a new chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He is Arthur Fletcher, a moderate Republican who served in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the President hopes Fletcher will reinvigorate the panel. The Commission was widely criticized by civil rights groups during the Reagan administration for inaction and for its positions against affirmative action.

MR. MacNeil: The Justice Department today defended plea bargain negotiations with Exxon in the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The tanker ran aground off Alaska last March, spilling 11 million gallons into Prince William Sound. A plea bargain agreement is expected to be announced as early as tomorrow. According to some reports, Exxon would pay several hundred million dollars in penalties in exchange for avoiding a criminal trial. Alaska's attorney general has said a plea bargain could hurt the state's chances for sufficient compensation, but Justice Department Spokesman David Runkel said today that Alaska's rights would be protected.

MR. LEHRER: Larry Mahoney was sentenced to 16 years in prison today. It was his pick up truck that crashed head on into a school bus in Carrollton, Kentucky, in May 1988, killing twenty-four teen- agers and three adults. Mahoney admitted he was drunk at the time. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the elections in Nicaragua and in the Soviet Republic of Lithuania, Gergen & Shields, and a Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - VOTE FOR FREEDOM

MR. LEHRER: Now to an important weekend election. Tomorrow voters in the Soviet Republic of Lithuania will pick representatives to their parliament, the Supreme Soviet. But the real test is of sentiment for independence in a country that was forced into the Soviet Union in 1940. Correspondent Charles Krause is there covering this election. Here is his election eve report.

MR. KRAUSE: Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, has changed hands at least a dozen times in this century. For generations, its people have been denied their freedom by foreign armies. Held hostage throughout most of the century, they've been pawns in a larger, geopolitical game. Pitar, Poland, Germany, Hitler and Soviet Russia have all occupied Vilnius since the beginning of World War I. It was Stalin who finally imposed Communist rule near the end of World War II. Today what was once the czar's palace is a cultural center, and what was once gestapo headquarters is now home to Moscow's secret police, the KGB. In the name of Lenin, Stalin and his successors tried to wipe out Lithuania's language, its culture, and its political identity. But with glasnost and perestroika, there's been a revival of nationalism, an outburst of anti-Russian feeling. Lithuania's old national anthem was banned until two years ago. Today it describes Lithuania's principal demand, freedom from the Soviet Union.

VYTAUTAS LANDSBERGIS, President, SAJUDIS: It's enough to be in slavery for 50 years.

MR. KRAUSE: Vytautas Landsbergis is president of Lithuania's independence movement called SAJUDIS. He says that separatist feeling is now so strong that Lithuanians will resist even an armed intervention by Moscow.

VYTAUTAS LANDSBERGIS, President, SAJUDIS: We aren't afraid of death. We have to prepare as scientists and as a people in Lithuania for some difficulties, for some pressures, and we are ready.

MR. KRAUSE: At SAJUDIS headquarters near Cathedral Square in Vilnius, there's an air of tension and excitement. There have been threats from Mikhail Gorbachev. Four U.S. Congressmen invited by SAJUDIS to witness this week's election were stopped in Berlin. At least temporarily, their visas had been denied by authorities in Moscow, but none of this was expected to affect the outcome of Saturday's vote.

ALGIMANTAS CEKULIS, Lithuanian Review: Results of the elections are absolutely predictable.

MR. KRAUSE: Algimantas Cekulis a journalist who 25 years ago served as Chez Gevarres' interpreter in Cuba. Still a Communist, Cekulis has also become a leading member of SAJUDIS. He predicts that 90 to 95 percent of the vote on Saturday will be for independence. But still, he says, the voters are worried and have a lot of questions.

ALGIMANTAS CEKULIS, Lithuanian Review: What will happen after the independence, how Russians will react, will the tanks roll here like they rolled in Hungary and East Germany and Czechoslovakia, those questions.

MR. KRAUSE: And what do you tell them? Do you think that Gorbachev would use force to try to stop independence?

MR. CEKULIS: At first I tell them don't believe into any democracy or any liberty which is taken. You have to take it. Nobody, nowhere got as a present the democracy.

MR. KRAUSE: SAJUDIS has endorsed candidates in all but of a handful of Lithuania's 141 election districts. They've had regular access to television. But mostly they rely on campaign posters and at night they attend candidates forums most often it seems in high school auditoriums. Some of the SAJUDIS candidates are Communists. Most, like Emanuel Zimoras, are not.

MR. KRAUSE: Outside Vilnius, the campaign is even more personal. Saja is a well-known playwright whose largely rural district is about an hour by car from the capital. Last Sunday Saja campaigned in LeDuarka where his first stop was the village church, built in 1623. Most Lithuanians are Roman Catholic. For almost 50 years, the church has struggled to promote anti-Communist resistance wherever possible. Despite enormous pressure, Saja and most other Lithuanians have refused to join the Communist Party. After church, the sky was clear and the air was cold. Many of the townspeople were eager to hear Saja debate one of his opponents. From the moment he entered, Saja really had the audience on his side. It was he who introduced his opponent, a local Communist Party bureaucrat who was forced to apologize more than once. The corruption and mismanagement he was accused of, he said, all took place before his time. By the time the meeting ended, there was little doubt that in this district Saja and SAJUDIS should do very well. Judge Lopez Valiaca told us "People here, we're tired of the Communists. I'm just a poor farmer, but I'm for SAJUDIS. SAJUDIS should also do well in the city, especially among students and intellectuals. At the University of Vilnius every one of 40 English language students we talked to told us he or she would vote only for a candidate endorsed by SAJUDIS.

ARVYDAS BALCHUNAS, Student: SAJUDIS, well, it represents the wish, the desire of all Lithuanian nations I think.

MR. KRAUSE: For what?

ARVYDAS BALCHUNAS: For independence.

MR. KRAUSE: And why do you want to be independent?

ARVYDAS BALCHUNAS: So this feeling, I think, is a very natural feeling, very natural. Everyone wants independence.

AUSRA KALVAITYTE, Student: We've been in the union, in the Soviet Union for 45 years, but we've been independent, an independent state for a much longer time, for centuries even. And there was a great kingdom of Lithuania, so why we can't be an independent state like Switzerland, like what else?

GINTARGS LECHCHINSKAS, Student: We had no chance for many years towards freedom. This is the first and I suppose the last chance for us, and to my mind, we couldn't miss this chance.

MR. KRAUSE: Do you expect SAJUDIS to win a majority in the new parliament in the new Supreme Soviet? [STUDENTS NODDING AND SAYING YES]

DIANA CHERNYAUSKAYTE, Student: Look. You know, SAJUDIS is not a party. It's a movement and that's why it's very --

STUDENT: Popular.

DIANA CHERNYAUSKAYTE: It's popular. Of course, it's popular, but it, there are many people who belong to SAJUDIS, and they belong to various parties, and that's why this or another party wins, there may be members from SAJUDIS, there must be members from SAJUDIS, because it's a movement.

MR. KRAUSE: But despite that optimism, in about 2/3 of the districts, SAJUDIS does face strong opposition from the Lithuanian Communist Party. Last December, the party broke with Moscow and coopted much of the SAJUDIS platform, including support for independence. Communist Party Chief Algerdas Brazowskas is now running against SAJUDIS for a seat in the new Supreme Soviet. Polls show Brazowskas is the most popular politician in Lithuania. He's expected to win, and other Communist Party candidates are expected to do well in Saturday's election. Cekulis, who in addition to his leadership role in SAJUDIS was recently elected to the Communist Party's Central Committee, finds it all very interesting.

ALGIMANTAS CEKULIS, Lithuanian Review: That's a curiosity, a phenomena. The Lithuanian Communist Party is the only Communist Party in the Eastern Party which is getting stronger. The others collapsed, but why? Because that party is really not Communist Party. It's a social democratic party.

MR. KRAUSE: But many non-Communists within SAJUDIS are not so sure. They note that when Gorbachev was here in January Brazowskas was by his side. They wonder whether the break with Moscow wasn't a tactical ploy, a move designed to undermine the independence movement and to allow Gorbachev to buy time. Justas Palecksis is Secretary to the Communist Party's Central Committee and close to Brazowskas. He denies the charge.

JUSTAS PALECKSIS, Lithuanian Communist Party: No, it was not so and Mr. Gorbachev after our party congress, he was in a very bad position of the party plenum and he was almost forced to resign.

MR. KRAUSE: Do you think Mr. Gorbachev is now prepared to accept independence for Lithuania?

MR. PALECKSIS: Now I believe not, but in the future, and I believe in the near future, it would be possible for him, for their progressive part of the Communist Party and of the set leadership to accept it.

MR. KRAUSE: The freedom already evident in Lithuania is a measure of the change that's already occurred in the Soviet Union. Two years ago, anyone advocating independence here was thrown in jail. Now the police permit marches and anti-Soviet demonstrations. This year's election campaign was free by almost any standard, and no one expects fraud, coercion or irregularities on election day. But can Gorbachev afford to grant Lithuania its independence? That remains to be seen.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the Newshour tonight, the election in Nicaragua, Gergen & Shields, and a Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - VOTE ON CHANGE

MR. MacNeil: Now we focus on the Nicaraguan elections, which will also send political ripples all the way to Moscow as well as, of course, to Washington. On Sunday, the leftist revolutionary Sandinista Government goes to the voters for what amounts to a referendum on its 10 years in power. The opposition to Daniel Ortega's Sandinistas has been openly supported by the United States. The elections are being monitored by thousands of international observers, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and the issue of fairness will be almost as important as the outcome. We'll have differing assessments of the election but first from Managua Correspondent Kwame Holman reports on the campaign, the candidates, and the voters.

MR. HOLMAN: This is Presidential politics Nicaraguan style. Last Sunday in Managua, 50 year old Violeta Chamorro nursing an injured knee ended the campaign of her National Opposition Union or UNO party before an enthusiastic crowd estimated at 40,000. Chamorro is challenging Nicaraguan's President, Daniel Ortega, the 44 year old former Marxist guerrilla and head of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLM, which has ruled Nicaragua for 10 years. On Wednesday, Ortega was cheered on his way to the Sandinistas' final rally before a crowd of more than 150,000. The candidates are joined by hundreds of international election observers here to ascertain that Nicaragua's high profile attempts at a fair and free election will be successful. And this week there was general confidence it would be.

JOAO CLEMENTE BAENA SOARES, Secretary-General, O.A.S.: What I saw here, what my colleagues report to me, is a process that is well within the limits of possibility of having fair and free elections.

MR. HOLMAN: The ruling Sandinistas have targeted Nicaragua's many young voters with so-called "propaganda" that dominates the capital city. Opposition leaders say the Sandinistas have obstructed the opposition campaign and also claim they're over matched by a Sandinista political machine that controls the army, the bureaucracy, and this week the streets. But beyond the campaign's banners and billboards is the crushing poverty of a Nicaraguan economy that has remained stagnant over 10 years of Sandinista rule. In the last 18 months, inflation jumped 36,000 percent, a world record. That reality is played out in Managuan neighborhoods like this one at the edge of the heavily polluted Lake Pulletland. Here the revolution that brought the Sandinistas is remembered fondly. But years of food shortages and hyper inflation also has fueled resentment against the Sandinista government. Ten years ago, Sandinistas in this neighborhood barricaded the streets against the tanks of the Samosa army. This man called that effort heroic, but today he prefers not to talk about Sunday's elections involving the Sandinistas who have governed since. This man is the local Sandinista leader, a sort of political block captain.

MR. HOLMAN: Are people afraid to speak out against the Sandinista Party?

JOSE NICOLAS VARGAS, Sandinista Party: [Speaking through Interpreter] The first thing we do when we go to people's houses is we tell them that they should speak frankly without any fear. There has been liberty since the revolution. People have no fear into the revolution. We've had more than 20 parties competing for power.

MR. HOLMAN: But people here say there is fear, fear of losing a government job, being jailed, or worse, if they criticize the Sandinistas. Several other people declined to speak out. Finally, this woman did.

IVANIA ZAPATA: [Speaking through Interpreter] Fear has to end. Of course, I have a little bit of fear, but people are watching me who are Sandinistas, but I'm just not afraid anymore. Fear just has to end among people.

MR. HOLMAN: She also says that what prosperity there is is reserved for Sandinista Party members.

IVANIA ZAPATA: [Speaking through Interpreter] No, they make projects, but they're good for them. They're not helping us. They're making a lot of political propaganda, but that money that they're spending could be divided among the poor.

MR. HOLMAN: But across the street a different story, one of the many who keeps faith in the Sandinista revolution and blames the economic hardships on the government's costly civil war against the U.S.-funded contra rebels.

NESTOR TIJERINO: [Speaking through Interpreter] And what, the United States, what they have brought to Nicaragua were many fathers, and friends who have been mutilated, mothers, children killed, raped, and that is because of what, because of the government that is called the United States.

MR. HOLMAN: Ironically, both sides say the major thing in the elections is better relations with the United States and the economic aid that relationship can bring.

MR. HOLMAN: So is it a contradiction for you that in your campaign you speak against U.S. support of the contras, the U.S./Panama invasion, and yet in the future you would look to rely on relations with the United States?

CARLOS CARRION, Sandinista Party: I don't think so. I don't think it is contradictory. We are against those policies that are mistaken, or rather illegal, but we are not anti-American, we are not enemies of the American people, we are not enemies of the American values in general. We think that with these elections, the Bush government will have the great opportunity to lay off the policy that Reagan inherited to him.

FRANCISCO MAYORGA, Opposition Party: But of course we admire the United States. Many people here in Nicaragua feel that there is no reason why the United States and Nicaragua should be at odds.

MR. HOLMAN: Both sides go into the election with negatives, the Sandinista government because of the harsh Nicaraguan economy, the UNO coalition because it includes some former members of the contras, still hated by many Nicaraguans. The difference on Sunday could come down to a tug of war between socialist political allegiance and hard economic reality.

MR. MacNeil: Now we get two perspectives on the elections. Representative Steven Solarz is a Democrat from New York and a member of the House Foreign Affair Committee. He was in Nicaragua last week and met with opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro and officials of the Ortega campaign. And Stanley Greenberg, President of Greenberg Lake a Washington based polling group. He has conducted several pre-election polls in Nicaragua, the latest in January. Congressman you said on Wednesday Chamorro is likely to win barring election fraud by the Sandinistas. Do you still believe that.

REP. STEPHEN SOLARZ, [D] New York: I do, Robin, the polls to the contrary notwithstanding, because I think that if Nicaraguans are like most people are opposed to inflation, conscription, and repression, they're much more likely to vote for the opposition then they are for the Sandinistas. Furthermore, I think there is significant anecdotal evidence that a majority of the Nicaraguan voters favor Mrs. Chamorro rather than Mr. Ortega. For example most of those who attend the Sandinista rallies are apparently trucked in under circumstance in which they have no choice but to attend. Whereas virtually all of those who go to the UNO rallies, the rallies of Mrs. Chamorro, come there voluntarily because they appear to be genuinely committed to her candidacy.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Greenberg you think the Sandinistas are ahead but your last poll was in January. Are still confident in the trends that it showed?

MR. GREENBERG: That poll showed the Sandinistas with a substantial lead but there have been two subsequent North American independent polls and both of them have given the Sandinistas a 15 to 20 point lead.

MR. MacNeil: And you are confident that is the position now?

MR. GREENBERG: No, I mean, the polls obviously reflect the time that they were conducted, I mean there could be movement toward the opposition in this but the block of Sandinista supporters seemed large enough in these polls that I suspect that they will win with a considerable majority.

MR. MacNeil: Why do doubt these polls Congressman, I mean , you live and die by polls yourself. I am sure. Why do you doubt a professional poll taker.

REP. SOLARZ: Let me say first of all Robin that I have an almost unblemished record of never supporting a winning candidate except for my self in my own country and I am frequently wrong in predicting American elections. So I cheerfully concede that I may be off base here. But based on several days in Nicaragua last week I think that the polls may well be wrong over there for one fundamental reason. And that is that in a country like Nicaragua where you can go to jail for up to 16 years because you published accurate economic data. Or where you can lose your job simply because you express criticism of the regime. People are reluctant to express their true feelings to pollsters whom they have never met before and I think therefore the results of the polls which have been conducted in Nicaragua are inherently suspect.

MR. MacNeil: Inherently suspect?

MR. GREENBERG: I think not.

MR. MacNeil: They do show 16 percent roughly undecided?

MR. GREENBERG: Right, which is normal for polls conducted here. I am not suggesting that is the same. In our experience we polled the Salvador in the first all party election held last year. In that election 45 percent would not respond to any of the poll takers. In fact a quarter of the respondents said they wanted to vote secretly. In the polls that we conducted in Nicaragua only 3 percent requested secret ballots. When we polled in Paraguay in the first election there only 50 percent felt the election would be honest and free but in Nicaragua about three quarters in our polls as well as other polls say they think this election will be free.

MR. MacNeil: So the Congressman's claim that enough people are simply not telling the truth that could turn the results around you just don't believe.

MR. GREENBERG: There are other circumstances where people feel physically threatened and have been willing to talk to pollsters and two its our experience both in the quantitative terms and in the subjective experience that people have not been particularly reluctant to discuss their political views.

REP. SOLARZ: Let me give you two pieces of anecdotal evidence which suggests a somewhat different perspective. There was for example reported in yesterday's New York Times in which Lindsey Grisson interviewed a Nicaraguan who attended this massive rally for Daniel Ortega in Managua who said I say I am going to cast my vote for the Sandinistas but I am really going to cast my vote for the opposition. I had an experience when I was there Robin in which I had dinner at the home of the American Ambassador with some middle class Nicaraguans who at the end of the evening, even thought they knew, that I was sympathetic to Mr. Chamorro were extremely reluctant to tell me that they were prepared to vote for the opposition and it took me 15 minutes to kind of worm the truth out of them. Now it seems to me that some one like that in the home of the American Ambassador talking to an American Congressman is reluctant to indicate who they are going to vote for what can one expect from some poor campasino in the country side who is approached by one of Stanley's pollsters whom they never met before knowing that if they say they are going to vote against the Sandinistas there is a possibility that they could lose their job or perhaps even be thrown in to jail.

MR. GREENBERG: The problem our pollsters encountered since they carried a secret ballot box attached to their belts was that people fear they were collecting for the local feast and when they found out that they didn't have to give money they were actually quite happy to talk to us.

MR. MacNeil: Well there is another point that you have raised about the poll Mr. Greenberg. The Wall Street Journal said that the people are the other American pollsters for the ABC Washington Post Poll used on the ground the Nicaraguan Institute of Public Opinion affiliated with the Jesuit University are groups sympathetic to the Sandinistas and that that undermines the credibility of your poll.

MR. GREENBERG: Not true. In fact the principal recommendation of the people we used was that the Government specifically urged us not to use these particular individuals as well as did the opposition. The mutual suspicion in fact was recommendation for them. But in any case we substitute our own national team and regional supervisors from Mexico, Costa Rico and Argentina. We had a multinational team not a Nicaraguan polling operation.

MR. MacNeil: Let's get away from the polls for a moment because obviously we can not settle that. What do you say Congressman to the many reports that I have seen that in this election that whatever his past reputation and what ever he may have done that Daniel Ortega himself has run a brilliant campaign. That he has changed his image and that he has moved away from Marxism Leninism, that he is extremely flexible and that he has become a really American style candidate and just run a good campaign.

REP. SOLARZ: By American standards I think that he has done as well as Robert Redford did in the film the candidate. he certainly seems to have transformed himself on the campaign trail, But I think on one of the mistakes that American journalists and political analysts are making is to apply American political constructs to Nicaraguan realities. In our country where the differences between candidates are often quite marginal money and organization can indeed make the difference but in a country like Nicaragua where the sandinistas have been running the show for ten years. Where they have had 37,000 percent inflation, where young men are dragooned from their homes or shanghaied off street corners in order to serve in the army, where people are thrown in to jail for criticizing the government, where the Church in the most Catholic country in Central America has been continually harassed I think that people have pretty much made up their minds. I'll give you one thing which strikes me as being totally ludicrous. All over Nicaragua you see these huge billboards which say, with a big picture of Ortega smiling holding a baby next to him. And the slogan says everything will be better.

MR. MacNeil: We saw it in Kwame's piece.

REP. SOLARZ: Daniel for President. Can you imagine in 1932 at the height of the great depression of there had been billboards all over America which showed a picture of Herbert Hoover holding a young baby saying everything will be better vote Herbert for President. Do you think that FDR would have lost that election. I rather doubt it.

MR. MacNeil: Has Mrs. Chamorro run an effective andthe coalition of many opposition groups that appear under the label UNO have they run an effective enough campaign to capitalize on all the negatives about the Sandinistas that you say?

REP. SOLARZ: So far as I can determine they have run a miserable campaign. It has been disorganized, it has been chaotic. It has been largely ineffective and yet in spite of that it may not make a difference. I an American context it would have been enough to do them in but in a country where the alternatives are so stark, where the realities are so harsh my assumption, and I may be wrong, but my assumption is that a majority of the Nicaraguan voters are going to conclude that the Sandinistas have betrayed the promises of the revolution, they have messed things up and the time has come for a change.

MR. MacNeil: What do you think about the effectiveness of the two campaigns?

MR. GREENBERG: Well there is no doubt and I think that we are both agreed on this that the FSLM has waged a much more effective campaign.

MR. MacNeil: The Sandinistas.

MR. GREENBERG: Yes with more resources but I think the Congressman highlights really the central contradiction. This is an economic basket case. There is great economic discontent. People believe the economy has been mismanaged and the question is then why if there is such discontent why are not voters turning out the Sandinistas.

MR. MacNeil: But they have reduced inflation from 37,000 to 1700 percent.

MR. GREENBERG: Not enough. I think the essence of that contradiction is the failure of the opposition to capitalize on its position and the reason I think that it has failed to capitalize on its position is a central question which is the Contras. All the polls including the polls of La Prensa say the Contras are enormously unpopular.

MR. MacNeil: La Prensa is the free independent paper which has been allowed to publish again in the last few months?

MR. GREENBERG: Right. That the single biggest doubt that the voters have against the opposition, principal reason why they are holding back is that they are too close to the Contra rebels. To close to the United States.

MR. MacNeil: And what about the charge that Panama was an influence that we heard from a Sandinista supporter.

STANLEY GREENBERG, Pollster: It was an important influence. The Panama action was opposed by an over whelming majority of Nicaraguans. In our polls Daniel Ortega's popularity went up ten points after the invasion and the voters began to give more credence to externalized explanations, that is the U.S. was responsible for conditions in the country.

MR. MacNeil: Do you have a comment on the Panama influence?

REP. STEPHEN SOLARZ, [D] New York: It appears to have been more popular in Panama then it was in Nicaragua. Whether or not it has an impact on the Nicaraguan election remains to be seen.

MR. MacNeil: Gentlemen we have to leave it there and we will know on Monday what happens. Thank you very much Congressman and Mr. Greenberg. FOCUS - GERGEN & SHIELDS

MR. LEHRER: Now the Friday word from Gergen & Shields, David Gergen, Editor at Large of U.S. News & World Report, Mark Shields, Syndicated Columnist for the Washington Post. David, the major event of this Washington week was not a domestic event. It was a foreign visitor, Vaclav Havel, the president of Czechoslovakia. Were you as captivated by him as most others appear to be?

MR. GERGEN: Well, members of Congress, those who were in the audience there, were very much captivated by him. As you know, they had tears in their eyes, they gave him five standing ovations. Mr. Havel is very much a compelling figure. I think it's not what he said so much but I think people find him a man of enormous vision. In an age when that seems to be so lacking, we now have a series of people, Mr. Havel, we have Mr. Sakarhov in the Soviet Union, Lech Walesa, and of course, Mr. Mandela, and you know, all of these men were willing to go to jail for their beliefs. They were willing to put their lives on the line for their commitments and their belief in freedom. And I think people in this country have been inspired by all of them. Mr. Havel's the latest, but he was very compelling this week.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: This is somebody who wasn't viewing the action from 10,000 yards offshore through heavy powered binoculars. This is not someone who speaks at a Memorial Day dedication or anything of the sort. This is someone who as David said did pay with his life's blood for his political beliefs. And I think that carries with it an enormous, an enormous moral impact and significance. And I think that's what works for him.

MR. LEHRER: David said, you said, David, that it wasn't so much his words but his impact, but I was struck also by his words, his eloquence. Now of course, sure, he's a playwright and playwrights are all eloquent and all of that, but he also, but he wasn't, it's not his plays. What he's talking about is government and freedom and democracy and all the things that we live by.

MR. SHIELDS: Absolutely true, and he, his message which I was overseas all week, and to see it covered over there was fascinating, because the response that he got was truly covered widely, enthusiastic and intense of the emotional response he generated, but the message was recorded and that is, if you want to help us in the United States, help the Soviet Union on its complicated road to democracy, help it make that difficult trip.

MR. LEHRER: Is it fair to say, David, that in some ways he's reminding us of what it is we believe in and reminding us of what it is we're supposed to be doing?

MR. GERGEN: That's a very good point. You know, I think a lot of Americans feel that the rest of the world is now embracing our values at the very time we seem to have forgotten them or take them for granted too much. And these are almost like first, these are almost like founding fathers and their countries. Mr. Havel is the new Jefferson of his day or the new George Washington trying to found a new country, just as Mr. Walesa is in his own country. And I think Americans are very struck by that. Yes, it was the power of his words and the emotion and the fact that he quoted Jefferson, he quoted Lincoln about the family of man, but when he comes to the substantive message that he had about helping the Soviet Union, of course, most of the people in Washington do not believe that. They don't share that view. And I think they might applaud it, but they don't agree him, nor are they going to follow up on his advice.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with that?

MR. SHIELDS: I don't. I don't agree. I think that it was an interesting and perhaps an unorthodox message, but delivered by a very significant source. I mean, just to add to what David said, Jim, it's a different kind of politics that he's lived. I mean, here you lose, you lose an election, you lose your secret service protection, you might lose some invitations to important events. There, I mean, he lost his life, he lost his freedom.

MR. LEHRER: For five years.

MR. SHIELDS: For five years. And this is a man who was born to a prosperous family and was deprived the chance togo on to college, drove a cab nights, went to night school, I mean, and all the time never lost that sense, and that's who we admire. I mean, he really did have the log cabin experience that we idealize in this country.

MR. GERGEN: I hope we also listen to something he's saying that we have not yet fully understood. He said this is in his inaugural address, which of course was an extremely eloquent address earlier this year, and that is what totalitarianism did to people, how it created an immoral society so that people looked upon each other, they robbed from each other, they exploited each other because that's what they did to them. And he's trying to say --

MR. LEHRER: You mean, the people did, sort of did it to themselves?

MR. GERGEN: Yes, and they became guilty themselves, and he's arguing, don't give us your aid at this point, don't come over and help us that way, we need to figure ourselves how to regain our balance as human beings. And he's bringing a moral message. And I think people find that in a world when we seem to talk so much about programs and money, you know, those little incremental things we do in Washington, he's lifted us up to a different plane, and I think it was very compelling.

MR. LEHRER: David, at the risk of making trouble, appearing to make trouble, here we are, we are all talking this way about this man. The editorial pages of the newspapers, everybody that I have read or talked to this week, has talked exactly the way the three of us have talked. And yet, the reception that he received from Pres. Bush and the administration seemed almost the opposite. Can you explain that. For instance, he didn't have a state dinner. He was invited for lunch. The Secretary of State didn't have a dinner for him and it was nothing. It was just kind of well, you know, what else is new?

MR. GERGEN: Well, I think emotionally it may have been somewhat tepid, but I certainly don't believe that the President in any way meant or did slight him. He did spend about two and a half hours with him on Tuesday. And then there was an unscheduled 75 minute meeting with him on Wednesday. There were not a lot of trumpets and fanfare. And I talked to people at the White House today about that, asking that question, why did you do it this way, and they categorize visits by other heads of state in two ways. There's the official state visit and then the working visit. And an official state visit is usually when someone comes for three days and they have the trumpets out there the day of their arrival and they have a big arrival ceremony out on the back lawn of the White House. And then there are two dinners. There's the dinner that the President gives and then there's a return dinner, and the guest usually has to stay for three days. In Mr. Havel's case, he did not have that kind of time in this country. He had much less time. And so they agreed, as they did with many other visitors, to have what's called a working visit, and that is the President meets with a person and then has lunch with him. And there's much less fanfare involved and the person stays a shorter time in Washington.

MR. LEHRER: It's interesting, I happened to see as part of our coverage, I happened to see Shirley Temple Black, who is the U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. I asked her this very question and she said there was some kind of rule that you can only have one state dinner a month and that's all that's allowed. And I said, who in the world allows that? I mean, isn't that the President's decision?

MR. GERGEN: I, well, of course, she's been out of the country for a while being ambassador. I'm not sure she's aware of the current - - that is not the current arrangement. I never heard of such a rule. In March, President Bush has two State dinners scheduled, one with the head of Poland's coming and also with Mr. Andriati of Italy, and on a frequent basis, he has more than one dinner. There is no such rule.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: It sounds to me like operations as policy. I mean, there certainly was no instinct for the dramatic or the historic on the part of the Bush White House. I mean, if they stuck with a lunch, if they didn't realize the significance and the emotional impact of this visit, I think they missed it. I mean, I think it shows an instinct for the capillary when it comes to the emotional --

MR. GERGEN: I think that we're sort of judging people by their own standard. I think they had a very very good visit, the President having him back the second day. I think the President has shown all along that he is anxious not to appear to be exploiting or dancing on the grave of Communism, and I would argue that so far he has done a pretty good job of trying to keep this stable. I wish we were doing far more in the way of aid and assistance than we're doing. But I would argue as a general proposition, he has been low key all the way through and led all the Communist, former Communist nations.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, David Broder had a story on the front page of the Washington Post last Sunday in which he said, this was before Havel came, but he made the point that Washington is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Or there's a feeling of the people in Washington that they are irrelevant, that these events are happening in South Africa, and they're happening in Eastern Europe, and they're happening in the Soviet Union and nothing is happening here, except foreign visitors coming and we have this feeling of euphoria when they're here. Do you feel that way?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, I think that's heresy for David Broder to write that in the first place. I mean, if Washington isn't important, it makes us a lot important. I don't think it began with the events in Eastern Europe by any means.

MR. LEHRER: No.

MR. SHIELDS: I think the decade of the '80s, where the emphasis was on the private sector rather than the public, I mean, rather than what the body politic was doing and what we were doing collectively as government, we twice elected a man overwhelmingly to the White House who said the government was the problem. Washington, of course, is our seat of government, and there was a resonance to that in the land, so I think Washington was diminished that way, but I was struck by the statement of the prime minister of Ireland who yesterday urged the United States to take a more active role in Europe just as David had been talking about. He said, despite the perceived shrinking in the United States' power and influence, there is still, the common denominator is admiration for the United States. Here is someone who is a friend, who is an ally, who is an admirer --

MR. LEHRER: Charles Hawhey.

MR. SHIELDS: Charles Hawhey, and to say this, I mean, we know you've slipped, we know you've lost your fast ball but we still have a lot of respect and affection for you.

MR. GERGEN: The de-centralization that Reagan achieved, I would argue to a degree, it was a good idea to move some power out of Washington back to the states and localities, but what I think is very distressing is to go to a place like Europe now or Japan and find how much they want to go independent. In France today the No. 1 best seller is a book which argues that America is a fading power, the same argument that Mr. Kennedy made.

MR. LEHRER: Speaking of fading, gentlemen, thank you both very much. ESSAY - FATHER DEMOCRACY

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight Essayist Roger Rosenblatt's thoughts on the Soviet Union past and present.

MR. ROSENBLATT: When Russia was known as the country in hiding, everybody understood it perfectly well. Now that it is glasnosting to the world at a rate so rapid that the world cannot catch up, Russia grows more mysterious by the minute. Do you understand the place? I don't. All I understand what I see and what I read that under the ledger domain of Mikhail Gorbachev Communism is at once the greatest system in the world and a system so in need of overhaul that other systems should be encouraged to take its place. But what does that mean, what, aside from wanting more soap in the tubs and meat in the plates, are the Soviet citizens saying that they want from their government? Free speech, free enterprise, free competition, the freedom to succeed but also to fail, to make a bundle or to go broke? One really doesn't hear a great deal about what the Russians think they're going to achieve by an electoral multi-party system, which gives rise to the strong suspicion that the Russians do not know what they think. Historically who could blame them? From the ancient kingdoms up through the czars, up through Lenin, Stalin, and the gang, Russians have known only government as father, father this or father that. Father would pet them and would tax them. Father would give them a farm. Father would bless them in the church. Father would replace father and take the church away and the farm away. Father knows best. In the 1980s, along comes Father Gorbachev, who may said to be the most powerful father of them all. Thou shalt have no other fathers before me, said Gorbachev, directly urging his hundreds of millions of children to see fatherhood both in him and in themselves. But how is that to work? I don't mean mechanically or structurally. I mean, how is the reform state to work in the Russian mind? That mind used to be one of the world's favorite puzzles. Remember? The Faberge egg that opened from luxurious mystery into luxurious mystery. The Russian doll that exposed more dolls. Today thanks to TV cameras, we stare at the mysterious Russians hour after hour and their perplexity is an open book, their perplexity is the mystery. Are they thinking now comes our real revolution at last when we overturn the old authority, or are they thinking democracy, let's see, how can we retain the old authority in that? Father Democracy, now there's a true puzzle. The independence of the people tells the people what to do. If that logical contortion proves too difficult, there is always a President to do their thinking for them. It's the way it often happens in the West after all. In the cloudy vegetable soup of Western democracy, authority asserts itself in a "think for yourself" system. The people are accustomed to know when to be persuaded and when and how to resist. While in the vast hazy land of 11 time zones, this procedure of discrimination is all brand new, new intellectual muscles, new disputes, new words. We are watching the birth of a baby in the Soviet Union these days, of a wholly new entity that has realized what it no longer wants but has much less of an idea what it does want and no idea at all how to manage it. All that knowledge will have to come from the inside and lots of impediments, like bloody anarchy, with which the Russians are familiar, can mess up the works. Here are a people practiced in concealing their most private opinions from others, from themselves. For a new government to work, private opinion becomes part of the public trust. These people are in the process of growing their minds, which is why neither we nor they can see what it is they are doing. I love a mystery. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, Friday's main stories, House Speaker Tom Foley said the U.S. should recognize the outcome of Sunday's elections in Nicaragua if they are fair and free. Britain partially lifted its economic sanctions against South Africa. The U.S. said it plans to cut its troops in Asia over the next three years, and finally tonight, we remember Jose Napoleon Duarte, El Salvador's former President, who died today after a long bout with cancer. Duarte was a strong ally of the United States and his nation's first democratically-elected President in 50 years. During his term in office, he tried unsuccessfully to end El Salvador's civil war and steer it toward political moderation. Shortly after he learned that his illness was terminal, he talked with Correspondent Charles Krause about his career and how he wanted to be remembered.

PRESIDENT DUARTE: [February 2, 1989] A man of faith, giving my country the courage to fight against destiny, against nature, and against the enemies of their own people, which I would like to be remembered as a democrat.

MR. KRAUSE: And are you at peace with yourself? Do you think you gave and did all you could?

PRES. DUARTE: I did all I could with the instruments I had. I could have given more. I had the capacity, the courage, the guts to do thousand things more but I didn't have the instruments, so I did whatever I could with the instruments I had.

MR. KRAUSE: Do you think in some ways it's unfair that you don't have more time perhaps to do some more things for your country?

PRES. DUARTE: Mr. Fidel Castro in a dinner in Mexico was talking about this and he says, does any one of you believe that you can solve the problem in five years, I don't, he said, and that's the reason why we don't have this nonsense of the elections. Just look at the Pope. He is there for life and this is the way I believe that things should be. I was kind of sick, I didn't answer. But I thought to myself, obviously, that is true for a totalitarian, but I am a democrat. And a democrat knows when he is elected by the people, he knows exactly what he has to do, and in that period of time he has to do his best. I believe that I have done my best for my period of time.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. Have a nice weekend. We'll see you on Monday night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.