The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Today's headlines include new consumer price figures which trigger pay hikes for Social Security recipients, President Reagan talking defense and celebrating Grenada, Walter Mondale riding a bus through the farmland of the Midwest, and the death of El Salvador's main combat commander in a helicopter crash. Robert MacNeil is away tonight; Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in Washington.Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Our NewsHour lineup of major stories tonight goes like this: in the wake of reports out of the Philippines linking top military officials to last year's murder of Benigno Aquino we get conflicting views on the appropriate U.S. response from former national security adviser Richard Allen and Congressman Stephen Solarz. With special correspondent Charles Krause we look at the impact of the death of three Salvadoran field commanders, and we have his documentary report on the fighting force they left behind. Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett reports on Walter Mondale's uphill battle to win voters in one of the nation's most crucial regions, the South. And on the eve of the revival of "Pacific Overtures," we have an exclusive interview with one of Broadway's most prolific music men, Stephen Sondheim.

LEHRER: We begin with a summary of the news of the day. Two related money items are on top. The consumer price index for September was released by the Labor Department; the figure was 0.4%, a moderate increase blamed on gasoline prices. Today's consumer price number triggers the government's annual cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security recipients. It will mean an increase in January of $15 a month for a typical single retiree, $26 for a couple. It is also the final figure the government uses for indexing, adjusting income-tax brackets for inflation. The Associated Press said it could mean an extra dollar a week in take-home pay for a typical family of four. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: On the campaign trail today Walter Mondale tried to make political hay with farmers by telling them that they have the votes to give him the biggest political upset since Truman defeated Dewey in 1948. He also replied to President Reagan's charge that Mondale did not oppose the grain embargo during the Carter administration.

WALTER MONDALE, Democratic presidential candidate: These massive Reagan debts constitute the most massive farm embargo in history. They've caused 20% of your farm export markets to disappear because of the reasons we talked about earlier. It has been the most effective embargo on earth. As a senator I opposed the Nixon embargos, I opposed the Ford embargos. And as vice president of the United States, the record will show, I did everything I could to persuade Mr. Carter not to impose the embargo against the Soviet Union. The President said I did so quietly. I went all over that White House. I went to the Department of Agriculture; I went to the President; I did everything I could to block that embargo because I knew it wouldn't work, it would be counterproductive.

LEHRER: President Reagan did his major campaigning today in Ohio, and he talked of defense and Grenada in a speech at Ohio State University in Columbus.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: You know, my opponent's view of the mess in 1980 is not quite the same as yours and mine. That was apparent last Sunday when rhetoric collided with the record. Mr. Mondale claimed he would keep America strong, but for six straight years the American Security Council gave him a falt zero in his support of s strong national defense. It was a tie for the worst record of the United States Senate. On 37 out of 38 issues he voted down the line with George McGovern. Well, it took him 11 months to decide that rescuing our sons and daughters in Grenada was a good thing. And, believe me, that's the record and not rhetoric.

HUNTER-GAULT: After that appearance, President Reagan flew back to Washington, where he launched a two-day series of events marking the anniversary of last year's U.S. invasion of Grenada. Jeff Goldman reports.

Pres. REAGAN: So we approved a military operation to rescue you, to help the people of Grenada, and to prevent the spread of chaos and totalitarianism throughout the Caribbean.

JEFF GOLDMAN [voice-over]: It was a full day for 84 of the nearly 600 medical students rescued on Grenada last year. This morning the group gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to pay tribute to Army Ranger Sean Luketina, the only military man killed as a result of the Grenada invasion to be interredat the cemetery.

STEVE HALL, Grenada medical student: To the parents and families of those who died for us, we cannot know that unique mixture of pride and sorrow which you feel. We can only offer you our sympathy, our gratitude, our love and our assurance that these men did not die in vain.

GOLDMAN [voice-over]: From there the invited students were escorted to Capitol Hill, where they praised U.S. intervention on Grenada last year and offered their own awards to military representatives. But in a news conference the questions quickly focused on who paid for the trip to Washington and were there any political considerations in the timing of this event less than two weeks away from the presidential elections. Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter, who helped arrange today's events, insisted that the trip, which cost $55,000, was non-partisan.

Rep. DUNCAN HUNTER, (R) California: In talking to the staff people at the White House, they did not want to have an event at the White House because they thought that it would look political. We told them, "We're going to bring these students to the United States anyway. They're going to be here. And we think it would be appropriate for the president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, to be here to meet them." Apparently Mr. Reagan agreed.

GOLDMAN [voice-over]: The Grenada medical student tour is not over yet. Tomorrow the students are scheduled to speak at 90 colleges and universities across the country. The USA Foundation, a non-partisan group that is promoting the tour, insists that no one in the group has been told to talk about politics, but one tour briefer did say that the students might compare the situation in Grenada to that of the diplomats taken hostage in Iran.

HUNTER-GAULT: In El Salvador's capital city of San Salvador, fighting between government troops and leftist guerrillas has erupted for the first time in two years. It follows what is being called the most serious setback for the government since the civil was started five years ago, the deaths yesterday in a helicopter crash of three of the army's top field commanders. The dead officers were credited with giving the government significant military victories in recent months. Among the 14 killed in the crash was Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, the commander of all military operations in El Salvador's eastern three provinces where the rebels are the strongest. Monterrosa trained with the U.S. Army at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and was highly regarded as a leader of a new generation of professional army officers. Killed with him was Major Armando Azmitia, commander of a U.S.-trained rapid deployment battalion known for its victories against the guerrillas. Jim?

LEHRER: In the Philippines the head of the armed forces and the chief of the military police were among those temporarily out of work today following a report from a civilian commission on the murder of dissident leader Benigno Aquino. Four of the five commission members charged the military chief General Fabian Ver, and 25 others were either directly involved in the murder or covering it up. All were put on temporary leave. The commission recommended they be immediately indicted and tried. Philippine President Marcos, in accepting the report, said he would turn it all over to a special court. The argument over how the U.S. government should play the situation in the Philippines will be the subject of a major focus segment later in the program. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: In South Africa police said townships were quiet after they ended what's been called the largest domestic security operation in South African history. A police spokesman said a total of 358 persons were arrested in four townships near Johannesburg, most all on minor charges. The crackdown was sparked by two months of sporadic rioting and boycotts by thousands of students protesting rent increase and conditions in black schools. A police spokesman in Pretoria said some 7,000 police and soldiers have been withdrawn. Here's a report by Graham Leach of the BBC.

GRAHAM LEACH, BBC [voice-over]: Not until the withdrawal of the South African troops got underway did it become apparent just how formidable the security presence had been inside the township. Military convoys of this size are normally seen up on South Africa's northern borders in the war aganst SWAPO, but rarely in an internal security operation.With the troops returning to their bases, it's thought unlikely at present that the clampdown will be extended to other black areas. A full evaluation of yesterday's action will be held first.

HUNTER-GAULT: Anti-apartheid spokesmen condemn the raids as unwarranted. And, in Poland, a Polish Interior Ministry official was arrested today in connection with the kidnapping of anti-government priest Jerzy Popieluszko. The man was one of several people detained because they drove vehicles similar to the one used in the kidnapping of the priest and were in the vicinity when he disappeared on October 19th. Solidarity chairman Lech Walesa and other underground leaders of the union placed blame for the kidnapping on Poland's Communist authorities. Jim?

LEHRER: Back here the U.S. government took an enormous swat at organized crime today. The entire leadership of the infamous Colombo crime family was indicted in New York City. Those indicted were Carmine Persico, the head of the family, and 10 of his top lieutenants, all involved in what government officials describe as the General Motors of organized crime. The charges are in a 51-count federal indictment alleging racketeering, extortion and theft, and grew out of a 3 1/2-year investigation of mob control of seven unions in New York's construction and restaturant industries. Attorney General William French Smith came to New York to make the news.

WILLIAM FRENCH SMITH, U.S. Attorney General: The case is unique because it reveals an organized crime family's deep infiltration into major portions of this city's economy. The indictment charges that the Colombo family controls no fewer than seven key union organizations specifically identified in the indictment, and that it thereby strongly influences both the construction and restaurant industries in this city.

LEHRER: And on another big-business matter, the Federal Trade Commission in Washington tody gave final approval to Chevron's $13-billion takeover of Gulf Oil, the biggest corporate merger in United States history. And that is the end of our summary of the news of the day. Charlayne? El Salvador: How Good a Fighting Force?

HUNTER-GAULT: We turn now to our first focus segments, El Salvador and its army. As we reported earlier, the army suffered a severe setback yesterday. A helicopter crash killed three top officers, including Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, leader of the crack Third Division. That division and other units in El Salvador have changed their battlefield image. Correspondent Charles Krause, just back from El Salvador, filed this report on that new image.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: Since January El Salvador's army has surprised its backers in the Reagan administration, its critics in Congress and surprised the guerrillas. The army, long considered corrupt and incompetent, is now demonstrating new tactics and a new professionalism. Since the beginning of the year it's forced the rebels into defensive positions and, so far, stopped them from launching their annual fall offensive. The impact of yeaterday's helicopter crash is as yet unclear. But until yesterday the military tide appeared to be turning in the army's favor. In fact, according to Salvadoran military sources, the army's new confidence was a major factor in the timing of President Duarte's recent peace initiative. Thomas Pickering is the U.S. ambassador in El Salvador.

THOMAS PICKERING, U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador: I can't tell you what the guerrilla military perception is of their own position, but if they are honest and realistic with themselves, they have got to come to a conclusion that they are not as powerful against the army as they were a year ago when they conducted a very successful fall offensive for four months. My sense is that on the government's side they know they're getting better. They're convinced they are getting better. They act and operate as if they're getting better. It is a truism that negotiations take place in the context of the things that go on around them.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: Colonel Adolfo Blandon is the Salvadoran army's chief of staff.

Col. ADOLFO BLANDON, Chief of Staff, El Salvador Army [through interpreter]: I believe that the turn the war, the conflict, has taken in the past few months is very much in favor of the armed forces. The offensive actions, the initiative the armed forces has maintained throughout the country, these things have thrown the guerrillas off-balance, have caused them many casualties. It has persuaded many of them to desert. The information we have at the moment is that their morale is very low. I think the war has reached a point that's very favorable to achieve peace.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: Chris Hedges, correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, is one of the best-informed military analysts among the press corps in El Salvador.

CHRIS HEDGES, The Christian Science Monitor: They've been pushing the guerrillas, keeping the guerrillas on the move to wear them down. The guerrillas have complained about this, both Cienfuegos -- Commandante Cienfuegos, who I saw the other day, and Commandante Guardado both made that point, as well as FPL leaders that I met in Managua who complained that if the rest of the army was converting to counterinsurgency units they would be in very big trouble, which I found to be an absolutely incredible statement coming from guerrilla leaders. The guerrillas know that at this point the only thing to do is make the technical and the human costs so high that a negotiated settlement is possible.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: Whatever the result of La Palma, continued war or a negotiated peace, what we found is the U.S. military strategy in El Salvador finally appears to be working. A shakeup at the top last November put Colonel Blandon in as chief of staff.Other combat-experienced officers are now in other key positions providing much better leadership. The army has grown from less than 15,000 soldiers four years ago to about 33,000 today. There has been a massive increase in U.S. military aid, $320 million this year and next. That means there is no shortage of uniforms, boots, guns, ammunition, communications gear, mortars, bombs and other war materiel. By December, El Salvador will have about 40 helicopters, double the number it had a year ago. The choppers are used as troop carriers, as gunships, for resupply and for medical evacuation. They've given the Salvadoran army new mobility. The choppers are in fact key to U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, which calls for aggressive pursuit of the enemy day and night. The increasing presence of U.S. military advisors is also evident at military bases throughout El Salvador. There is no reliable public estimate of their number, and the advisors generally refuse to talk to reporters. The United States is also providing the Salvadoran army with aerial intelligence from U.S. reconnaissance aircraft based in neighboring Honduras. Using that intelligence, U.S.-trained hunter battalions are now pursuing the rebels even in the most remote areas of El Salvador. Resupplied and sometimes taken out by helicopter, increasingly experienced and effective hunter battalions are the new factor that's changing the course of the war. Known as casador units, they're using the guerrillas' own tactics -- attack rebel supply lines and the rebels' base of support.

Mr. HEDGES: These casador units, as well as heavy air force bombing, have driven large numbers of people out of guerrilla-controlled zones. So one of the functions of the casador units is not only to keep the guerrillas on the run but to destroy crops, to burn down houses,a scorched-earth kind of policy. Any guerrilla army without a civilian base of support known here, what they call -- termed as the massas, without a massa base of support, cannot function.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: In Washington, high-ranking Defense Department officials are now saying the Salvadoran army has turned the corner and will have the military situation under clear control within two years. But here in El Salvador that optimism is tempered, tempered because in the past the guerrillas have successfully adapted their strategy each time the Salvadoran military appeared to gain the advantage. There is no doubt the guerrillas have been bloodied this year as the army has improved. But Ed King, a retired U.S. Army colonel who advise liberal Democrats in Congress, says the guerrillas are far from defeated.

ED KING, military analyst: They still have a hard core of veterans they can put into battle in a major battle, anywhere from 900 to 1,500 people, anytime they want. They have adopted their tactics to stay this burst so that the bombing's not affecting them, the air mobility, the air transport ability is not going to affect them. So they're going to be able to continue to fight. Now, they, I don't think, have any illusions that they're going to win at this point, either. I've talked to a number of them. But neither do they have any illusion that they've been beaten or that they're going to be beaten or that they're going to quit. They intend to keep fighting. So what you've arrived at is a stalemate situation where the army is much better, they can do certain things; but a military victory, as the administration would like to see, in my estimation, is not going to occur here.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: Despite the massive increase in U.S. military aid, King credits improved leadership as the principal cause of the Salvadoran army's gains this year.

Mr. KING: It's not more money. You know, I said two years ago more money is not the answer down there. What's the problem is basically the leadership, and that's been much improved, very much improved.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: Yesterday's loss of Lieutenant ColonelDomingo Monterrosa and Major Jose Armando Azmitia was a severe blow. They were two of the army's best field commanders. We interviewed Major Azmitia last year aboard a helicopter like the one in which he was killed.

KRAUSE: What are you fighting for?

Major J. ARMANDO AZMITIA, Salvadoran armed forces: For my country, for peace and against communism. I want to -- my unit wants to rest in peace -- not rest in peace, but to help the country go back to peace.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: It's unclear whether the guerrillas shot down the helicopter carrying Azmitia and Monterrosa, as the guerrillas claim, but it's long been clear that the rebels would have to counter the army's increased air mobility if they hope to gain their momentum. There have been reports the rebels may have obtained air-to-ground missiles to use against army helicopters. We asked Ambassador Pickering about those reports before yesterday's crash.

Amb. PICKERING: Well, there had been a lot of reports that they may have ground-to-air missiles, a sufficient number of reports that I would not discount their having it. Whether they decide to use those and how and under what circumstances is something that I think you'll have to ask them about. I can't put myself in a position to answer that. But it is very clear that the government in its tactics and in its operations has taken fully into account the possibility that the guerrillas may have this capability, and all I can tell you is that there is a sufficient recognition of that, that all precautions that can be taken are being taken.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: There has been no suggestion the guerrillas have as yet used ground-to-air missiles against government helicopters, but yesterday's crash again demonstrates the changing fortunes of this war. El Salvador's army is much improved, but the rebels are still capable of carrying out devastating military operations. Last week's historic meeting in La Palma was hailed by both the government and the guerrillas as an important step toward peace. They agreed to meet again next month. But since last week the war here has intensified. It's a murky, up-and-down, talk-and-fight situation. With U.S. backing, time appears to be on the government's side, but it's true that hundreds, perhaps thousands more on both sides will be killed or wounded before El Salvador's civil war comes to an end.

HUNTER-GAULT: Correspondent Charles Krause is here now to talk about El Salvador's army and the impact of the loss of those three top commanders. Charles, I know you said in the piece that it was as yet unclear what impact their deaths were going to have, and yet Mr. King said that it was improved leadership that accounts for their improved performance. What do you think is going to be the impact?

KRAUSE: Well, Charlayne, I think what Ed King was saying is true, that despite all of the extra aid and all of the money that the United States is pouring into El Salvador, if they do not develop good leaders it's just not going to work. What happened or what was happening is that more and more army commanders like Colonel Monterrosa and like Major Azmitia were coming into field positions. They were improving the army's performance. And so what -- the significance of their deaths is that really in an army that is very thin in terms of leadership, two of the very best field commanders the army has are now dead.

HUNTER-GAULT: Have there been any more in line, in training to assume the leadership?

KRAUSE: Well, I talked with people at the State Department today and at theembassy in San Salvador, and what they're saying is of course there are other officers who are capable who will replace these men. But the fact of the matter is these were two very aggressive, very charismatic field commanders who understood -- and this is very important -- understood U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine. They went out in small patrols. They were pursuing the guerrillas day and night, and because of that they were, you know, doing well. And so it's just no clear if the depth is there to replace them.

HUNTER-GAULT: What about the American advisors who've been working very closely teaching them these counterinsurgency tactics? I mean, can they in any way make up temporarily until a new line of commanders is ready?

KRAUSE: Absolutely not. The fact is that the U.S. advisors are not supposed to go anywhere near combat. In some cases they have, but they are going to be out there leading the Salvadoran army.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think that it's possible that the deaths of these men, given all you've said, could actually change the course of the war?

KRAUSE: Well, it's a little early to say that. The fundamentals for the army are there. They have increased their size, they are better armed, better trained than they were. The political factors in El Salvador appear to be going with them; that is, Duarte's peace initiative and other changes that he's made --

HUNTER-GAULT: And you don't think that'll be interrupted by these deaths?

KRAUSE: No. But in a day-to-day situation in the next few months we'll have to wait and see what real effect the loss of these two very important field commanders was.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, Charles, we'll come back to you in those few months. Thank you for being with us.

KRAUSE: Thank you.

HUNTER-GAULT: Jim?

LEHRER: Still to come tonight on the NewsHour, Congressman Stephen Solarz and former Reagan administration official Richard Allen debate what next in the Philippines. Elizabeth Brackett reports from Mississippi on Walter Mondale's struggle in the South, and we close with a working profile of Stephen Sondheim, creator of musical miracles.

[Video postcard -- St. Mary Lake, Montana] Plot to Kill in the Philippines: U.S. Response?

LEHRER: The Aquino assassination report and U.S. policy towards the Philippines is next. It's our second major focus segment tonight. Today's report charging high-level military complicity in Aquino's murder complicates an already complicated relationship between Washington and Manila, between Presidents Reagan and Marcos. Charlayne has the background. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: The murder of Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino plunged the government of President Ferdinand Marcos into its most serious crisis since it came to power.

[voice-over] According to the military, Aquino was gunned down on the airport tarmac by Rolando Galman, a lone gunman hired by the communists. Galman was slain at the scene by security guards. Aquino's murder shook the 19-year rule of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos. Widespread and sometimes violent demonstrations broke out. The economy faltered as wary investors pulled their money out of the country, and a reinvigorated political opposition made strong gains in last spring's national assembly elections. Marcos appointed a citizens' panel to probe the Aquino murder, and after a 10-month investigation its findings have now been released. All five members rejected the military's explanation that Aquino was killed by a lone hired gunman. Their conclusion: Aquino was thevictim of a criminal conspiracy by the Philippine military. But the citizens' panel split on the extent of the conspiracy. Four of the five members charged the plot involved high-level military men, including chief of staff General Fabian Ver, a long-time Marcos loyalist. The chairwoman of the panel, in her dissenting report, said only the six soldiers who escorted Aquino from his plane and the general in charge of airport security were implicated. Marcos has turned over the panel's findings to a special civil court and called for swift action. But opposition leaders are skeptical that he will allow top military men to go on trial.

[on camera] The United States, which has been re-evaluating policy toward the Philippines since the Aquino assassination, echoed Marcos' call for swift action. A State Department spokesman added that the U.S. expects all those involved in the killing to be brought to justice, no matter who they may be. The importance of the U.S. relationship with the Philippines was underscored on Sunday during the presidential foreign policy debate. President Reagan was asked if the U.S. could help keep the Philippines from becoming another Nicaragua.

Pres. REAGAN [October 21]: They have been our friend since their inception as a nation, and I think that we've had enough of a record of letting, under the guise of revolution, someone that we thought was a little more right than we would be, letting that person go and then winding up with totalitarianism pure and simple as the alternative. And I think that we're better off, for example with the Philippines, of trying to retain our friendship and help them right the wrongs we see, rather than throwing them to the wolves and then facing a communist power in the Pacific.

LEHRER: More on that question of U.S. interests and approaches in and toward the Philippines now with two men who see it very differently. They are Congressman Stephen Solarz, Democrat of New York, chairman of the House Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, and Richard Allen, President Reagan's national security advisor until January, 1982, now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an international consultant. Mr. Allen, should the United States stay with President Marcos now?

RICHARD ALLEN: I think there's no question we should and we must stay with President Marcos. That is to say we could not create a situation which would lead to pulling the rug out from under President Marcos. We've had too many sad experiences with this in the past. There was a discussion of this in the debate Sunday night, and I think the President handled himself very well. We just saw that clip.

LEHRER: And nothing's changed as a result of the reports of the last two days?

Mr. ALLEN: Nothing should change in our fundamental policy. We have abiding interests in the Philippines and stability of the Philippine government is one of those interests. That is not to say that that is the only consideration at the expense of human rights or whatever it may be. But I think that the evidence is beginning to mount that democracy lives in the Philippines. Imagine if this could take place in an Eastern European country, for example. The process is moving. It looks as though there is a chance for justice in the case of the murder of Benigno Aquino, and it looks as if President Marcos is going to let the process work its way. Now, we should do nothing, in my judgment, and I think President Reagan will do nothing, to disturb that process.

LEHRER: Congressman, what's your view of this, what our attitude should be towards President Marcos now?

Rep. STEPHEN SOLARZ: Well, I fully agree, Jim, that we have important interests at stake in the Philippines. Our bases there, for example, are extremely important in terms of our ability to maintain a balance of power and to preserve the peace in Asia. If we were ever forced out of them it would send shock waves throughout the region. But I think we would be making a fundamental mistake if at this point we were to embrace the leader of what is clearly a discredited regime, which has lost the confidence of its own people. On television a few nights ago during the great debate, President Reagan said that the alternative that confronted us in the Philippines was between the Marcos government on the one hand and the communists on the other. I think that represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. The alternative to communism in the Philippines is a restoration of democracy in the Philippines, which will give the democratic opposition in that country, which is a vital and viable opposition, an opportunity to compete for power peacefully rather than having to join forces with the communists seeking to win power through violent means.

LEHRER: Mr. Allen says, as we've just heard, that what has happened the last two days with the reports, et cetera, is a sign that democracy is taking hold in the Philippines.

Rep. SOLARZ: The report of the Agrava Commission is clearly a significant step forward toward bringing to justice those who were responsible for the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. But I think the big question now is whether the prosecutorial authorities will rest content with trials in which those who were responsible for executing the orders to assassinate Aquino are brought to justice or whether they attempt to bring to justice those who were responsible in the initial instance for making the decision to have Aquino killed in the first place.

LEHRER: He's right about that, isn't he, Mr. Allen?

Mr. ALLEN: Well, the point is, let the process work and let's not intervene. If we're constantly talking about not interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, let us keep the kinds of respectable pressure on that we do; that is, a constant watch on the situation, letting the Marcos administration know that it is under the microscope, that the white spotlight is on it, so to speak, and we should let this process work its way. Let's not prejudge it. Now, I'm not suggesting, incidentally, that we have to embrace everything that President Marcos has done.That is not the choice, embracing Marcos. I'm talking about not pulling the rug out from under Marcos or creating conditions that would lead to pulling the rug out.

LEHRER: What would constitute that kind of action, in your opinion?

Mr. ALLEN: Oh, simply disassociating ourselves from Marcos, attacking the Marcos regime along the lines that some of its critics would like us to attack it. Look, Steve Solarz and I, it turns out, were in Manila at about the same time this summer. I visited with President Marcos and he did, too. We studied the situation from different perspectives. We didn't know that until tonight. I think we still come to different conclusions about the future course of policy. I'm saying, along with the President, let the process work; don't try to upset the apple cart.

LEHRER: Well, look. Let's go to the fundamental question that the Congressman raised and that the President raised actually in the debate the other night, which is, the only altermative to Marcos is communism.

Mr. ALLEN: I don't agree with that. Let me say I think that's a strategy of unfair alternatives, and I wish the President had formulated it to include the notion that there are other forces of democracy that need to be brought into the stream. They are not now presently available. And what the President was talking about, in a clipped fashion under the pressure of a national debate, was the possibility that the process of pulling the rug out quickly would lead to the imposition of a regime that could pave the way for a Marxist-Leninist regime. I think that's what he -- he didn't say it quite that precisely, but that's what he meant.

LEHRER: Are you saying, Congressman, that there is no chance a communist regime could take over if Marcos fell?

Rep. SOLARZ: Quite to the contrary, Robin -- Jim, I'm sorry. I think that if present trends continue, within less than a decade the chances are that the communist-dominated New People's Army will probably come to power in the Philippines. The best way to forestall that development -- which would be a tragedy for the Filipino people and for the United States and for our friends in Asia -- is to bring about a restoration of genuine democracy in the Philippines and to also work for fundamental economic reforms; the elimination, for example, of crony capitalism and the massive corruption in the country, which is diverting literally billions of dollars that would otherwise be available for development into the pockets of the elite, which is within the inner circle of the president and the first family. If we adopt the policy of benign neglect, then I fear present trends will continue and within less than a decade we will see another major Southeast Asian country falling under the control of the communists.

Mr. ALLEN: Let me stipulate that while Congressman Solarz and I will disagree in fundamental respects, that he has given a great deal of thought to this and I have followed his own thinking and speeches on the subject. What I would like to have him say, though, for us tonight and hereafter is that he doesn't seek to guide that process, nor does he think that that process should be imposed from Washington, D.C., because as the American people well know, every time we've tried that in the past we have come to grief.

Rep. SOLARZ: Dick, I basically would agree that it would be inappropriate and improper for us to impose a solution on the Philippines, but I think it would be equally counter-productive for us to be indifferent to what happens in the Philippines.

Mr. ALLEN: But of course the President's not saying that, neither am I here tonight.

Rep. SOLARZ: Well, I think that what we need is to have a much more affirmative policy in which we attempt to use the influence that we have in the Philippines, which is considerable, to persuade the current government there to agree to a restoration of democracy, genuinely free elections and fundamental reforms in the economy.

LEHRER: Is that being done? Is the U.S. government actually doing that?

Mr. ALLEN: I think it is. And I think, for example, the lamentable but factual cancellation of President Reagan's trip to the Philippines last year on the grounds that security considerations made that --

LEHRER: After Aquino's death.

Mr. ALLEN: After Aquino's death, was a problem. I, for example, would like to see the President visit the Philippines within the next two years. Active engagement has been a basic principle of our policy with which I have from time to time disagreed -- that is, engagement of so-called authoritarian or totalitarian forces. If it's valid for us to stay engaged in China to change it, or in Eastern Europe or in the Soviet Union to allow for the exit of Soviet Jews, it's just as valid for us to stay totally engaged in the Philippines.

LEHRER: Our engagement is over, gentlemen. Congressman Solarz, Mr. Allen, thank you both very much.

Rep. SOLARZ: Thanks. Playing for Votes: No Southern Comfort

HUNTER-GAULT: Our focus returns now to politics. We zero in on a region that most political observers predicted from the very beginning was going to be an uphill battle for Walter Mondale. It is the South, where Mondale is trailing Reagan by some 20 to 25 percentage points. In Mississippi polls show 85% of whites voting for Reagan and 85% of blacks voting for Mondale. Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett recently went to Mississippi to find out what's behind these racially divided voting patterns.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT [voice-over]: It began here for Walter Mondale, in the Deep South, Jackson, Mississippi.Just four days after the San Francisco convention, Mondale kicked off the last round in his quest for the presidency in a state and a region he hoped to pull together for the Democrats.

Mr. MONDALE: I am going to carry Mississippi. I'm going to carry the South and I'm going to be elected president of the United States.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Mondale is betting on a coalition of old-line white Democrats and new black Democrats to bring him the support he needs. Reagan took the state in 1980, but by a bare 2%. But just two weeks before the election, it hasn't happened here for Mondale. White voters for the most part are not returning to their Democratic roots. Even farmers in the nearby Delta country, farmers like Ray Beckham, who voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and who admits he is worse off now than he was four years ago, says he is a Reagan man.

RAY BECKHAM, farmer: We are having some tough times. We have had and are still having, but if we were to have continued on the path that we were going with the Democratic administration of four years ago it would have been disaster by now.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: The Beckham farm breaks even in Washington County, one of the poorest counties in the United States. Dominated by cotton for years, soybeans and rice have now been planted alongside the cotton in the Delta's lush farmland. But the distance between rich and poor, between blacks and whites, remains great. The mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, in the heart of the Delta, says race is affecting the distance between the two political parties as well.

WILLIAM BURNLEY, Mayor or Greenville, Mississippi: There are two sets of people here. There's black people and white people. And most of the black people are going to favor the Democratic ticket, and it'll be very close in this particular area. But I see probably the Reagan-Bush ticket winning the presidency again.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Though the chairman of the Republican Party in Washington County, Frank Powers, a former Democrat himself, insists the black-white split between Democrats and Republicans is not a racial one.

FRANK POWERS, GOP County Chairman: The bottom line of everything is not racial. People have got to learn that. Now, there are racial problems, both black and white, but the bottom line of everything that happens in Greenville, Mississippi, and the state of Mississippi is not racial on everything.

BRACKETT: But it's hard to accept that when you look at the vote and it winds up --

Mr. POWERS: I understand that.

BRACKETT: -- being absolutely split along race.

Mr. POWERS: I understand that it.But you got to live in it to understand. The basic thing is the philosophy that the people on both sides have come up under.

BRACKETT: Since white voters here have continued to abandon the Democratic Party, the black vote has become even more critical for Walter Mondale. But even with the black vote, Mondale has problems. The enthusiasm that blacks felt here for Jesse Jackson has not transferred to Mondale.

[voice-over] Martha and Arthur Brown supported Jackson in the primaries. Martha Brown will cast her first vote for president this year. She had hoped it would be for Jesse Jackson. Instead, she and her husband will vote for Mondale, but not with much enthusiasm.

ARTHUR BROWN: You know, as far as blacks are concerned, Mondale is just another white man that came up and said, well, at election time, "How y'all doin'?" or "I represent y'all party." But he really don't represent our party.

MARTHA BROWN: I think black people are really confused at this point as to what they want to do. They don't want Reagan. Well, I feel like they don't want Reagan, but they don't really trust Mondale. So I think it will hurt him. If he can't get up there between now and election time and say something that let's them know that he's in their corner, then he can just about wipe it out.

Mr. BROWN: I'm thinking back to the fact that Mondale literally abandoned a lot of the issues that Jesse Jackson had presented at the Democratic convention, and people don't easily forget, especially black people. Okay. When he abandoned Jesse he abandoned all of us.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: It is voters like the Browns the Mondale camp worries about. Mondale needs a strong showing from former Jackson supporters to counter traditionally low black voter turnout in presidential elections.

[interviewing] Have you ever voted?

GLORIA GLASPER: No, ma'am.

BRACKETT: How come you're not going to vote this time?

Ms. GLASPER: I don't know. I never have voted. That's all. I hadn't ever voted before and I ain't going to vote now.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Mondale supporters are hoping the enthusiasm for congressional candidate Robert Clark will boost black voter turnout. Redistricting as a result of a voting rights case has given Clark a chance to become Mississippi's first black congressman since Reconstruction.

JOHNNIE WALLS, Democratic County Chairman: I think the Clark race is going to have an effect on black voter turnout. I think they're goig to turn out because Clark is in it. And if they vote for Clark they're going to vote Democratic across the board, probably.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: As Democratic Party chairman for Washington County, Johnnie Walls spends hours in planning meetings for Clark's campaign.

Mr. WALLS: But I think it's important to get some white people to speak for Robert Clark.

CAMPAIGN PLANNER: It would be helpful.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: But the rise to power in local Democratic politics of Jackson supporters like Johnnie Walls is part of what has pushed old-line white Democrats out, and it has provided a bonanza for Republicans. [interviewing] What about the local party down here? Who runs the local Democratic Party now?

Mr. POWERS: Well, since the caucuses and the county convention for this year it's being run by a group of ultraliberal blacks and a few whites that took it over, and they were at the time primarily Jesse Jackson supporters. They got together at the precinct level and took over the control of the Democratic Party.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Does this make it easier for you?

Mr. POWERS: Yes, absolutely.

Mr. WALLS: There's a play by the Republicans on the weakness of white Mississippians. We -- if they call us radical blacks, I don't know how they can do that other than to say that we are black people who're saying that you need to make us a part of the system. And if you're going to have our votes you're going to have our input.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Long time Democratic Party worker Betty Jo Hines has stuck with the party and strongly supports Walter Mondale. She says the problem in the campaign is getting the message out.

BETTY JO HINES, Democrat: I feel frustrated. I feel like there's a message that's not getting through to people, and you seek a way to present it. You would like to find some way to tell people what you think the real issues are and what kind of a guy Mondale really is, because some of the people who are not for Mondale, when you talk to them you realize that they don't understand what Mondale is all about.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: But for the whites who frequent Jim's Cafe in downtown Greenville, the message they hear from Walter Mondale is very clear. It is Mondale, they say, who favors social programs that primarily benefit blacks at the expense of the white taxpayer.

CHARLES BEVIL: You see people out here that's driving Cadillacs but they're going to Social Security office and drawing unemployment pay and going to get the food stamps. And yet they can drive a Cadillac up to get their food stamps. And I have no qualms of somebody driving an automobile. I drive a little Honda and I -- if I can, others can, too.

Ms. BROWN: Black people are not the only people on welfare. I mean, black people are not the only people that need help. But I can see now, -- I don't think white people want Walter Mondale in office because they're the same people that feel like, you know, our programs are there for the blacks.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: So the challenge for Walter Mondale in this small Mississippi River town and thousands like it in the Deep South, is whether he can heal the splits in the Democratic Party, stem the tide of white defection, and turn blacks out to vote. With just two weeks to go, it is a very tough challenge.

HUNTER-GAULT: That report was by correspondent Elizabeth Brackett. Jim? Music Man: Stephen Sondheim

LEHRER: Finally tonight, some culture, the story of Stephen Sondheim, musicals composer par excellence. One of his musical creations is a big hit on Broadway now. A second is being performed by an opera company at Lincoln Center. A third, a revival of a 1976 musical, "Pacific Overtures," opens tomorrow night at an off-Broadway theater. And that's only part of the story which we pick up with rehearsals for "Pacific Overtures."

[voice-over] Stephen Sondheim has worked late into the night writing new lyrics for "Pacific Overtures." Now, just days before opening night, he's in this rehearsal studio in lower Manhattan to make sure those lyrics fit.

He's had 13 Broadway shows in the last 27 years and says he's especially fond of this one. That may be because it's so typical of Sondheim, so atypical for Broadway. "Pacific Overtures" is meant to be a Japanese musical for Western ears, an experiment in music theater.

Mr. SONDHEIM: It's still so startling and so fresh that -- and still unlike anything that's been done either before or since that it seems new -- it doesn't feel like Brideshead Revisited to me, and it doesn't feel like old territory at all.It's really as if we had just written it. It'll be interesting to seek, in the case of "Pacific Overtures," whether people take it differently than they did eight years ago, because it had its partisans. I mean, there were people who absolutely adored it, and there were people who absolutely hated it. And that was certainly true of the critical reception, and probably less true of the audience reception, because the audiences generally liked it. Although I've certainly spoken to people who hated it a lot. And we'll see. I think an audience will enjoy it more and see it as the kind of Kabuki vaudeville that it is.

LEHRER [voice-over]: Sondheim's experiments don't work for everybody, but many drama critics see him as a key figure, the key figure in the American musical theater.

CLIVE BARNES, drama critic: Certainly Sondheim has pushed. He's taken this American art form and pushed it to new limits and given it, in a way, new directions.

LEHRER [voice-over]: Sondheim started out as a lyric writer. He was tutored by family friend Oscar Hemmerstein and got his big break on Broadway after Leonard Bernstein met him and asked him to write lyrics for a musical that was experimenting with serious themes. The result was the 1957 hit "West Side Story." Next came lyrics for "Gypsy," but Sondheim decided that "Gypsy" was to be his last show as a lyric writer. From then on he would write both lyrics and music. Out came a string of musicals, some hits, some flops, each one different and each one uniquely Sondheim.Along the way Sondheim developed a new kind of show, the plotless musical. Each focused on a single problem of contemporary life. "A Little Night Music," on the theme of romantic love, had Sondheim's only popular hit song, "Send in the Clowns." Sondheim's collaborator on these and earlier musicals was producer-director Harold Prince. This season the two are back together for a production of their 1979 show, "Sweeney Todd," being presented at Lincoln Center by the New York City Opera.

Sondheim has raced from the "Pacific Overtures" rehearsal to fine-tune an orchestra that is twice the size of the one he used when "Sweeney Todd" was on Broadway. Hal Prince was skeptical when Sondheim brought him the idea of putting a 19th century British play onstage as a musical.

Mr. SONDHEIM: He got interested in it when he heard the songs. When I save him just Christopher Bond played to read, he said, his exact quote was, "I can do this." But when I played him the first seven songs he started to get stimulated and started to think about how it'd go.

HAROLD PRINCE, producer-director: I love it now.

Mr. SONDHEIM: So do I.

LEHRER [voice-over]: "Sweeney Todd" got Sondheim some of his most favorable reviews. Critics gave mixed reviews to Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George," but it's now one of the hottest tickets on Broadway. The musical is based on a painting, "Sunday on the Island of Grande Jatte" by the 19th-century artist Georges Seurat. When Seurat signs the song "Color and Light," he seems as obsessed about painting as Sondheim is about music.

Mr. SONDHEIM: "Color and Light" has to show George's intense, trance-like, obsessive concentration, so -- which accounts for the basic theme, which is [demonstrates] and then do it again and then stop. Primarily the song's about intense concentration and obsession. And what you do when you trance out, when you're writing, when you trance out, when you work so intensely that the world has disappeared. And when you see I do that over and over again, and when you're all done he's got a little, you know, square inch of canvas done, and then he's got to do another square inch. Now he's got another square inch, now another one. Now he's finished the hat. Now he's got to do another hat. Now he's got two hats, now he's got two heads, you realize, and that's of course the way everybody who makes art does it. You start with tiny details and you build and you build and you build until your big ball of silver paper is finally there. That's the important part.

LEHRER [voice-over]: Among all the experimental songs he's written, Sondheim likes best "Someone in a Tree" from "Pacific Overtures".

Mr. SONDHEIM: Those are -- legato phrases [demonstrates] Bounce them a little bit, you know.

LEHRER [voide-over]: In this song the same character is shown at three different times in his life.

Mr. SONDHEIM: The nice thing about that song was it's funny now when we talk -- we talked about Seurat and that was a song I tranced out on. It took me about three weeks to write, but by the time I'd sketched out the basic idea of the lytic I'd realized I was going to territory I had no intention of going into, all this stuff about the pebble in the stream and all those images and the notion that we are each an individual part of the picture that cannot be changed. I can relate almost everything I like to something else I've written, but that one seemed to have grown out in the field someplace. I don't know where it came from. It impresses me because of that. I just feel like I had a unique baby.

BARNES: Sondheim's future is very much linked with the future of the musical theater. If Sondheim succeeds, then the musical theater will achieve a quite different level of communication from what has gone before. If he doesn't succeed, yes, I could even see the musical theater just failing away into nothingness. There's no reason why it should continue, particularly if cannot attract composers of the stature of Sondheim.

Mr. SONDHEIM: That's what's odd for an audience to take in on these shows, is, in the first five or 10 minutes, what's going on here. If they just relax and let it flow after about 10 minutes they're into whatever the rhythm we have chosen is, and it happens in "Pacific Overtures" because the rhythm of the story, not to mention the stage conventions for the first few minutes are so unusual, as they are in "Sunday in the Park with George," as they are in "Sweeney Todd." There's been an awful lot of quite experimental musical theater in the last eight years, and it won't seem quite so odd. And if they will just sit and relax and allow it to wash over them -- it's not difficult to understand, and it's a lot of fun.

LEHRER: The story of a master named Stephen Sondheim. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Once again the main stories of the day.

The consumer price index went up moderately in September. The increase was enough to touch off a cost-of-living increase for people receiving Social Security payments. President Reagan attacked Walter Mondale's record on the Grenada expedition last year, and Mondale attacked the President's foreign policy. The head of the armed forces in the Philippines went on leave following charges that he was involved in the murder of an opposition leader.

Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Charlayne. And we'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.