The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Aftermath from the Iranian airliner shootdown dominates the news of this holiday. Iranian authorities work to retrieve the bodies of the 290 victims from the waters of the Persian Gulf, the Ayatollah Khomeini called on the world to wage war against the United States, and President Reagan termed it an understandable accident. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, we devote most of the Newshour to the Persian Gulf tragedy and its aftermath, we'll get reaction from the Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations, M.J. Mahaloti, then four different American perspectives from former CIA Director Admiral Stansfield Turner, former National Security Council Middle East specialist Howard Teicher and Iran experts James Bill and Harlan Ullman, then a Roger Rosenblatt essay on the 4th of July.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The leaders of the United States and Iran led the way today in reacting to the U.S. Navy's downing of an Iranian airliner. The plane went down minutes after leaving Iran on a flight to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Two hundred and ninety persons died in the Persian Gulf tragedy. Iranian authorities said today at least 168 bodies have been recovered so far. U.S. officials said American personnel mistook the airliner for an attacking fighter plane. Iranian officials said it was a deliberate act of aggression. The leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, today called on the Iranian people to go to war against the United States. "We should all rush to the front for a fully- fledged war against America and its surrogates," he said in a statement. The leader of America, President Reagan, answered reporters' questions upon returning to the White House this afternoon from Camp David.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: I won't minimize the tragedy. We all know that it was a tragedy, but we're talking about an incident in which a plane on radar was observed coming in the direction of a ship in combat, and the plane began lowering its altitude. And so I think it was an understandable accident to shoot and think that they were under attack from that plane.

REPORTER: Are you worried about retaliation on their part?

PRESIDENT REAGAN: You have to think about that, knowing who they are.

MR. LEHRER: The President was then asked if there were similarities between this incident and the downing of Korean airliner by the Soviets in 1983.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: With regard to the Soviets comparing this to the KAL shootdown, there was a great difference. Our shot was fired as the result of a radar screen of a plane approaching it at quite a distance. Remember, the KAL, a group of Soviet fighter planes went up, identified the plane for what it was, and then proceeded to shoot it down. There's no comparison.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Around the world, government leaders and others echoed the U.S. view of the incident as a tragedy, but many were highly critical of U.S. actions. There were two divergent reactions in the Soviet Union, with Moscow Radio accusing the Navy of deliberate mass murder in cold blood. But Foreign Ministry Spokesman Genardi Gerasimov was more muted. He said the incident showed that American Navy officers were incompetent and trigger happy. He called for U.S. forces to leave the Persian Gulf immediately. Other critics expressed the fear that Western hostages held by pro-Iranian guerrillas in Beirut may suffer as a result of the U.S. action. That fear was heightened by remarks made in London by Iranian Charge D'Affair Mohammed Bosti. He said Tehran would carry out tit for tat reprisals for an act of terrorism which should be severely punished by whatever means. And in Lebanon about 3,000 angry pro-Iranian militants took to the streets raising clenched fists and chanting, "Death to America. Death to Reagan". Witnesses said the demonstrators were led by officials of the Hezbollah, or the Party of the God, the group believed to be holding the American and other hostages.

MR. LEHRER: There was reaction from the U.S. Presidential candidates. Vice President Bush gave his at a 4th of July campaign stop in Detroit. He said, "Our hearts go out to the loved ones and families on the plane", but he supported the captain of the U.S. warship.

VICE PRESIDENT BUSH [GOP Presidential Candidate]: It appears that the captain of that ship followed the rules and though a tragedy followed did what he had to do to protect American life.

MR. LEHRER: Michael Dukakis, Bush's probable Democratic opponent for President, made his comments during a holiday campaign visit to the U.S.S. Constitution, America's oldest commissioned warship. He called on the U.S. to lead an international effort to stop the Iran/Iraq War.

MICHAEL DUKAKIS [Democratic Presidential Candidate]: This senseless war between Iran and Iraq continues, supplied and prolonged by arms shipments from dozens of nations. As long as we and the entire international community fail to use our combined efforts to stop it, there will be more tragedies, more heartache, and the ever present risk of more accidents in the Gulf.

MR. LEHRER: Dukakis's only remaining Democratic opponent, Jesse Jackson, also called for an end to the war. He said, the U.S. should pay reparations to the families of those killed. He and his wife joined Dukakis and his wife for 4th of July festivities and dinner in Boston this evening. Members of Congress spoke mostly in support of a continued U.S. role in the Gulf. House Majority Leader Tom Foley was among many who said it would be a great mistake for the United States to pull out of the Gulf because of the airliner tragedy.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The events that touched off the uproar began yesterday, a somewhat quiet Sunday morning in the Persian Gulf. At the center of it all was the guided missile cruiser Vincennes, equipped with an advanced electronic system for tracking airborne threats. According to U.S. officials, at 10:10 AM, a helicopter belonging to the Vincennes was fired on by Iranian surface ships. The Vincennes began firing back. While that was going on, the ship detected an aircraft from Iran heading toward it at high speed. At a news conference yesterday, Admiral William Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave this version of events.

ADMIRAL WILLIAM J. CROWE, JR. [Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff]: The suspect aircraft was outside the prescribed commercial air corridor. More importantly, the aircraft headed directly for Vincennes on a constant bearing at high speed, approximately 450 knots. A warning was sent on both military and civilian distress frequencies beginning at 10:49 AM. This procedure was repeated several times, but the aircraft neither answered nor changed its course. There were electronic indications on Vincennes that led it to believe that the aircraft was an F-14. There have been a number of F-14 flights in the area over the last few days. Given the threatening flight profile and the decreasing range, the aircraft was declared hostile at 10:51 AM local. At 10:54 AM, when the aircraft was about nine miles away, Vincennes fired two standard surface to air missiles, at least one of which hit in an approximate range of six miles.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Vincennes is one of a class of cruisers very much like this one equipped with the so-called Aegis Electronic System. The Aegis is one of the most sophisticated systems ever developed for sorting out incoming objects and determining if they pose a threat. The approaching Airbus normally has a radar profile much larger than the F-14 it was mistaken for. That raised questions about how the plane could have been misidentified.

ADM. CROWE: It is one of the most sophisticated ships we have and certainly the improvements made in the Aegis Weapons System have greatly amplified our capability, and I'm talking about the number of targets that we can track, the ranges that we can detect the target, the altitudes, and our ability to detect and classify emanations from an aircraft, but it has not solved all our problems, and it does not defy the laws of physics. And one of the most difficult problems is from a radar blip, particularly from a head-on target, to identify the type of aircraft and so forth. I repeat for you that the people in the command center and the people operating the radar had about four minutes from the time they picked this target up until it was declared hostile. That alone is a severe constraint.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It took just seven minutes from the time the plane was spotted to the time the missiles were fired. Military spokesmen emphasized that the captain of the Vincennes was following broadened rules of engagement in the Gulf designed to prevent unexpected attacks like the one on the U.S.S. Stark last year that killed 37 U.S. servicemen. Officials would not discuss details of the rules, but Admiral Crowe and the Commander of U.S. forces in the region confirmed that U.S. forces do not have to be shot at before responding. If they think they're being approached with hostile intent, they can fire.

REPORTER: Was this an accident waiting to happen?

ADM. CROWE: You could in a sense of course characterize all combat operations as an accident waiting to happen. We have said from the very outset of our involvement there that when you're using force and when you're putting combat operations on to support your policy and it is a policy that has resisted and not agreed to by another party who is likewise willing to do things, you're running risks. We've never pretended otherwise. We have been very successful with using our strength to keep down these kinds of accidents and incidents. I think that if we have contacted airliners before, we have had them respond, they have varied course, that policy has been very successful, and again, I repeat, if a country is going to wage combat operations in a certain area and then send a commercial airliner in the area during that, of course, it's an accident waiting to happen. And if airliners do not pay attention to these instructions and the guidance that we have put out, and the warnings that we have put out, then that poses problems. We do deeply regret the loss of life though.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We turn now to the official Iranian reaction from Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Ja-Afar Mahallati. Mr. Ambassador, you have called the downing of the American plane premeditated murder. Why is that? What is your evidence for that?

MOHAMMAD JA-AFAR MAHALLATI [Iranian Ambassador To The U.N.]: Thank you very much. I would like to commence in the name of God the compassionate, the merciful. We have a number of accounts which convinces us that this has been a premeditated attack, first of all that this whole operation has been initiated by United States forces in Persian Gulf, when American copters attacked our boats routinely patrolling that region, which is our right as a self-defense in a region, troubled region, which a state of war is prevailing. Secondly is that we have all records of previous interception by American Air Force, American forces in Persian Gulf, intercepting our civil aviation in the past. We have so many files of complaints to the United Nations which prove that this interception had been systematic and continuous.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean of civilian planes?

AMB. MAHALLATI: Exactly of civilian planes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What kind of interception?

AMB. MAHALLATI: Well, warnings, many different kind of warnings that we have received trying to threaten, threatening the civilian aircraft. We have all kind of documentation that we can definitely present to any neutral investigation body, if the Secretary General of the United Nations decides to set up this investigation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But on this specific plane do you have evidence that there was a deliberate --

AMB. MAHALLATI: Yes, indeed; through the very awkward reasoning brought up by American authority in saying that first of all the most sophisticated American fleet in Persian Gulf has not been differentiate between civil airliner as because Airbus 300 and fighter jet which is much smaller in scale on first hand and secondly in saying that all of a sudden, our civil airliner deviated from its routine route, path, air corridor recognized by international organizations, and all of a sudden it started to descend towards the zone of battle having on board 290 passengers, including 66 children and close to 50 women, which is again the very common sense, the minimum of sense. Now this awkward explanation proves that this is totally a cover-up story.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are you saying that that just didn't happen, that the plane did not begin to descend toward the carrier?

AMB. MAHALLATI: Yes, indeed, according to information that I have is that that plane was going inside the recognized corridor which is used every day at least two ways. We have 14 flights every week over the same area, using the same corridor, and this has been going on every day and for many years now. Now they say, American forces say that they have issued warning. Now even if we accept they have issued warnings, which I don't buy, and even if we accept that our captain, the pilot, has received this warning, I don't know and I don't understand how the captain of our plane should have taken it on himself knowing that American forces have been always aware of our scheduled flight and knowing that civilian airliners should not on principle be subject to any kind of attack, and using the same corridor as he used to use, and that as a matter of fact, we have not received any warning, according to information I received, there was no warning received by the pilot.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You heard Admiral Crowe a few minutes ago say that there were seven warnings altogether, military and civilian, and in the wire reports I read today there has been confirmation of some of those warnings by an Italian vessel in the area. You're saying that those warnings just were not given. Are you saying that that didn't happen?

AMB. MAHALLATI: Exactly. What I want to say is that in previous cases of American attacks against our civilian installations, like all regions in Persian Gulf, never proven evidence had been handed to any international body for verification. On this case, I do believe that this is a face saving and self-serving evidence that they have provided.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Ambassador, the President said that this was an understandable accident inasmuch as, for example, there had been the fire fight that I just talked about with the gun boats and two of your gun boats were sunk by the USS Vincennes. Why would those planes have been, the civilian planes, even if everything that you say is the case why would they have been flying through a corridor where that kind of Naval engagement was going on?

AMB. MAHALLATI: Well, our civilian airlines, knowing that thanks to American support for Iraq is in Persian Gulf, sporadically and continuously there have been battles here and there, attacks on our boats here and there by the United States, you know, he presumed that he should follow on the same corridor that he used to. That corridor that he used to, even by Lloyds of London, has been declared that it is not a war region and therefore hewas free to use that corridor. What President Reagan said meant that, our interpretation is that it is an insult to the injury. I mean, short of any apology and merely expressing somewhat regret, somehow they try to justify this carnage which is unprecedented in the history of attacks against the civilian airliner.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about the Ayatollah Khomeini's warning that there would be retaliation on air travelers, the Charge in London said there would be tit for tat which has in part raised concern about the American hostages, is that concern unfounded?

AMB. MAHALLATI: You will remember and you can recall that through war of Iraqis, that for many years Iraqi used chemical warfare against Iranians and we never retaliated because we abide by our Islamic principles, and this is a principle that we always abide by. We act upon our own Islamic principles which to some extent covered international regulations and therefore we in having a self-defense act, we use all legitimate means and ways in order to punish this act of terrorism, not merely to punish, punish for punishment, but punishment to prevent further occurrence or recurrence of such unfortunate incidents.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what specifically do you have in mind?

AMB. MAHALLATI: I'm not in a position to specify any particular field, but as I said, we will use any legitimate means to exercise our right for self-defense.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is there anything -- I mean, the President has said that he's sorry that this was, in fact, a tragedy -- is there anything that the United States can do? Jesse Jackson called for reparations. Is there anything the United States can do to prevent an escalation of this conflict?

AMB. MAHALLATI: Yes, indeed. Reparations are secondary issues. The major thing should be immediate withdrawal of American forces from Persian Gulf. The mere presence of American force in Persian Gulf has been fueling the escalation and prolongation of the war.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But short of a withdrawal, I mean, an apology from the United States Government, would that be a sufficient first step in your view?

AMB. MAHALLATI: You see, apology is inconsistent with continuance of American presence in Persian Gulf, because with that presence, we shall have these incidents one after another. You see, as the result of American presence in Persian Gulf, the number of civilians murdered and military people murdered there and ships attacked has been more than doubled. It started with the murder of 37 American sailors and ended up now with the murder and the massacre of 290 people here.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So are you saying that the withdrawal of the United States troops from the Gulf is the only thing that can prevent this conflict from escalating?

AMB. MAHALLATI: I think that if United States wants to have a consistent policy, a policy which serves the real American interest, it should apologize and it should immediately withdraw from Persian Gulf, and it should take a neutral stance vis-a-vis the Iran/Iraq War.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. We'll come back, Mr. Ambassador. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Now to four Americans for reaction and analysis. James Bill is Professor of Government and Director of the Center for International Studies at the College of William & Mary. He's the author of the recently published "The Eagle and the Lion, the Tragedy of American/Iranian Relations". Howard Teicher is an international consultant who served as Director of Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council from 1982 to '87, Harlan Ullman is a retired Naval officer, currently with the Center For Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and Stansfield Turner is a retired Navy Admiral who served as Director of Central Intelligence during the Carter Administration. Admiral Turner, the Ambassador says the U.S. shot that plane down intentionally. Is he wrong?

STANSFIELD TURNER [Former C.I.A. Director]: Yes, he's absolutely wrong. I think there's no way the Americans would do that kind of a thing. I think the evidence of the information available to the captain indicates that he made a reasonable judgment. You or I or somebody else might have made it differently, but I don't think you could say the captain's judgment was positively wrong. Now, none of us have the full information at this point. Admiral Crowe yesterday had to say he was withholding some information on the grounds of secrecy. Until an investigation gets all the data on the table, you can't make a judgment that the captain was wrong in my opinion.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Ullman, 290 people are dead. Admiral Crowe, the President of the United States, everybody, including Admiral Turner, now says that the captain didn't do anything wrong, but 290 innocent people are dead. Somebody must have done something wrong, right?

HARLAN ULLMAN [Center For Strategic Studies]: I'm afraid that's not the case. I'm afraid we actually have a tragedy here. From the perspective of the Vincennes you can imagine what was going on, first from a larger political sense, no captain wants to put himself in the position of the U.S.S. Stark. Everybody is watching what is going on in the Persian Gulf and, therefore, he is going to be ready to take whatever action is necessary. The second point is --

MR. LEHRER: The U.S.S. Stark, to refresh everybody's memory, that's when an Iraqi --

MR. ULLMAN: That's correct. Exocet missiles hit U.S.S. Stark and 37 American sailors were killed which then prompted American presence in the Gulf. The second point is that his ship was in the middle of a fire fight with several small Irani speedboats. Now put yourself on the bridge of an American warship when your radar operator says, captain, we have an inbound hostile at 40 miles closing the ship at some four or five hundred miles an hour. And the third point is, and we sometimes forget this, despite the sophistication of the Aegis Radar, the radarscope gives a video representation which is generated video, it is not the actual radar impulse that the radar sees, and there's no way of telling from that piece of video whether you have an F-14, an Airbus or anything else; that has got to come from other sources.

MR. LEHRER: Admiral Turner, a layman would say, you mean with all these billions of dollars that we have spent, we don't have equipment that you can tell the difference between a huge airliner and a small fighter plane?

MR. TURNER: I agree with Harlan, not by radar alone. The radar is just not that precise, and it varies with weather. It varies with the tuning of the radar, and these were both, this was an instance in which it was at very close range and, therefore, the targets looked pretty big. But you do have on that sophisticated ship lots of other means. Admiral Crowe alluded to some of those and you and I don't know what those signals were, like the radars or the altimeters or the data transmissions from a fighter aircraft, and we have the negative information that the airliner did not respond to radio appeals, nor did its IFF, it's identification system, send the proper signal back to tell us what it was.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Teicher, the rules of engagement clearly gave the right to the commander, the captain of the ship, to do what he did. Do you think those rules are correct, and is there a problem in the rules?

HOWARD TEICHER [Former NSC Official]: No, I think the rules of engagement as they have been laid down by the Pentagon to the fleet are the correct rules. The commander on scene has to be able to use his own judgment. The fundamental issue here is the human factor. Technology compliments human decision making. Whether it was the Iranian pilot of the aircraft, the Iranians in the tower, or the captain of the ship, human beings made the decisions that led to this; in the heat of battle, in the fog of war, there was uncertainty, there was probably conflicting data, and the commander of the ship had to act before this uncertain object to hostile, effective hostile action against him, so I think the rules of engagement for U.S. forces are fine just the way they are.

MR. LEHRER: So, Mr. Ullman, then from your perspective then as a result of the Stark incident, in that kind of situation, the captain said when in doubt, shoot?

MR. ULLMAN: That's probably true. The other part of the problem - -

MR. LEHRER: Where before Stark, he might have waited another minute or two.

MR. ULLMAN: And there was probably complacency. I mean nobody really thought that anybody was going to attack them, let alone by an Iraqi airplane, so I think now the sense of warning and the question of what's going to happen next looms much larger in the minds of the on-scene commanders and, therefore, they're going to take early action as early as they possibly can to defend themselves.

MR. TURNER: Don't overlook what Harlan said earlier. This man was engaged in combat on the other flank simultaneously. He was being attacked by Iranians. The presumption then of this being a hostile airplane was pretty easy to make.

MR. LEHRER: Professor Bill, as a student of Iran, does it surprise you at all that the Iranians don't believe any of this?

JAMES BILL [College of William & Mary]: It doesn't surprise me one moment. These technical explanations, and I'm sure all are quite correct, make very little sense to Iran within the overall context of the American presence in the Gulf. After all, Iran did not begin the war. We sailed into the war, into the Gulf with the largest armada of military ships we've had since World War II. This is 8,000 miles away from the United States. We've tilted most important to the Iraqi side in this war and the Iranians, therefore, after having seen one incident after another, we mentioned the Stark incident, for example, as if this is some kind of a justification. Actually this was an Iraqi attack, as you yourself pointed out, not an Iranian attack. To my knowledge, Iranian aircraft have not fired on any American targets up, so from their point of view and their perspective, of course, it's fairly important if we hope to understand these people and deal with them, it makes very little sense. They're not really all that interested in hearing technical explanations after 290 men, women and children have died.

MR. ULLMAN: There's a fundamental problem here and the fundamental problem in my judgment is that we're trying to achieve a political objective, which is the end to the Iran/Iraq War using as our principal instrument military force, and sometimes that military force is just not going to apply in a way to make it effective. And that's a situation I think that we have before us today.

PROF. BILL: And I agree 100 percent with what Mr. Ullman says here. We have no timetable for withdrawal. We are in the middle of a bitter, bloody long war. This kind of incident is going to occur, it's going to occur, and it's going to occur. What is our goal out there? How long are we going to be out there? What's it costing us? What's going to happen next?

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Teicher, you were in the National Security Council when this policy was drawn up. How do you answer Mr. Bill?

MR. TEICHER: I think there are some issues that we can debate about who started the war and who went into whose territory first, and who was trying to assassinate whom in Baghdad, and there's a lot of issues that can be debated about the justifications for this, that, or the other thing. I think what is important to understand is that the war needs to end for human reasons and if for no other reason than to prevent this sort of tragedy, and everyone acknowledges this is a tragedy. I think it's critical that we look for ways to at least speak with the Iranians. This is as great an opportunity as we have had in a long time, and I know there will be people in Washington who will be urging an even tougher line towards Iran, but now is as good a time as any --

MR. LEHRER: As a result of this incident?

MR. TEICHER: As a result of this incident, because of expectations of more violence or hostage taking or rhetorical violence against us, and I think that what Harlan is saying is correct. There has to be a political component to our strategy. The military component to the strategy is fine. The political component is lacking. There needs to be a dialogue with all the parties, with Iran, with Iraq, with the Soviet Union, with other interested nations in that area, to try to find a way to end this war, because a lot of people have grudges, there is a lot of hostility toward a lot of different people. It is being carried out beyond the goal. The violence is carried out in the Mediterranean, the the East, in Pakistan, all related to the fundamental issues of East versus West and East in this context being the Islamic East versus the West, so I absolutely agree with Harlan the political element of the strategy needs to be strengthened, and our policy cannot be based vis-a-vis Iran only on whether Iran supports or doesn't support terrorism or agrees to a cease-fire or doesn't agree to a cease-fire. I really feel now is the time for us to reach out and try again to talk to Iran.

MR. LEHRER: Professor Bill.

PROF. BILL: Yes. A good example of what both gentlemen are saying that after the Stark incident, our Naval Captain Bendel and his associates were pressured out of the Navy, they underwent tremendous pressure. Now there's no doubt in my mind there will be investigations of Mr. Rogers.

MR. LEHRER: Captain of this ship.

PROF. BILL: Captain of this ship. It seems to me rather than investigating these people who've been put in a very very difficult position and the Navy has some questions about that position, to put them in that position, we should begin investigating the people that are fashioning our policy out there instead of looking at these gentlemen who are out there doing the best they can.

MR. LEHRER: Well, we have two former Naval officers here. Is Mr. Bill right, this is ridiculous, to paraphrase, to send U.S. commanders into these kinds of difficult situations, that the people we really ought to be harassing are the politicians, the decision makers? I really paraphrased your question.

PROF. BILL: I didn't say ridiculous but --

MR. LEHRER: Right. Okay.

MR. TURNER: You are taking a machine of war and exercising it in a quasi peacetime situation. There's a lot of ambiguity and it's going to be there. But other than a whole new World War III, all the wars we've been fighting have been quasi wars. We've been limited in one way or another in everything we've done since World War II with our military. This is tough and it's tough on those commanders, Commander Brindel, Captain Rogers, but I think that's what we're paid for in the military is to assume those risks.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Ullman, should we take the threats from the Iranians seriously?

MR. ULLMAN: You bet, but I'd like to return for a second to what Adm. Turner said. I think we're going to get an opportunity I hope in November to pass judgment on what our future policy options are in terms of the election. And it seems to me that this is one area where I would hope both candidates, Republican and Democrat, can lay out what their objectives are and what their plans are for achieving those objectives.

MR. LEHRER: And have the people vote on it up or down?

MR. ULLMAN: I think they're going to vote on what candidate they favor and I would hope that to some degree the foreign policy component, which is never the largest part of the election process, at least is played out.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's follow up on what Mr. Teicher said a minute ago, that there are going to be people who are going to say as a result of this let's get tougher with Iran.

MR. ULLMAN: Absolutely.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with that?

MR. ULLMAN: I agree that there are going to be people who say that. I don't think we should be getting tougher with Iran. I think he's absolutely right, that we need to set out as many ways of establishing in-roads with Iran to see if we can achieve the objective which I believe to be the most important which is a peaceful resolution to the current conflict. That war has been going on for eight years. The threat of it spilling over is still very great. That should be our primary policy objective, and if you can seize some opportunity out of adversity, you ought to try that.

MR. LEHRER: What about an apology and paying reparations, Mr. Bill?

PROF. BILL: I think we have to begin an entirely new approach to Iran, and I think that saying we're sorry, we can imagine what our reaction would have been if those were Americans in the civilian airliner that had been shot down by Iranians. But I think that we --

MR. LEHRER: I was going to ask all of you that question so get your answers ready, gentlemen.

PROF. BILL: Right, but I think we need to approach Iran and its revolution completely differently. We have no business siding in this long bitter war out there. We need real neutrality in the war. We may even need to reconsider our entire presence out there, and I think Adm. Crowe said that yesterday. He said we're constantly reviewing circumstances and our options out there. And I go with Mr. Ullman on this. When we start voting for a President, we'd better find someone who is sensitive to the realities out in the Persian Gulf.

MR. LEHRER: But to the specifics of right now, should the current President of the United States send somebody to the Ayatollah Khomeini and apologize on behalf of the Government of the United States and offer to pay reparations to the families of these 290 people, or something similar to that? Jesse Jackson suggested the reparations today; others have also done so.

PROF. BILL: Look. This incident took the sparkle out of our 4th of July, and no American feels good or proud about what's happened. Surely this has been an accident and surely any gesture that we can makeof that sort the more dramatic, the better, I think is for the good of this country.

MR. LEHRER: Admiral Turner.

MR. TURNER: I think we should do three things. We should apologize; we should pay reparations; and we should ensure that the investigation of this incident is as objective as possible, not just a Navy Rear Admiral, somebody outside the Navy, somebody who has an aura of objectivity that will help persuade the world that the report we give is true, and if the report does criticize the captain of the ship, we've got to be willing to do that. But we don't go groveling to the Ayatollah at this time. We've had a good policy there. It's paying off. Iranians are in deep trouble, militarily, economically, and politically. I want to keep them on the ropes. I don't want to take the offensive, just keep the pressure on the way we've been doing with in part our Naval presence in the Persian Gulf.

MR. LEHRER: Reparations and apologies, is that what you had in mind, Mr. Teicher, as a beginning step?

MR. TEICHER: I think that the United States should apologize for what happened and should begin to discuss what type of reparations would be suitable. I think if only to prevent this sort of tragedy again, we need to be talking directly with Iran, and once you begin talking with people, you begin to find out that they are human beings, and although they may hate us and despise us, which they do, and which is the ethos of their revolution and which we must understand, that by beginning to talk to them and by remaining firm and by staying in the Gulf and if necessary, strengthening our presence in the Gulf and reaffirming that the rules of engagement are exactly as they are and if an unidentified aircraft bears on a ship and demonstrates hostile intent, the same result is going to occur, hopefully there won't be the same result, because we will take measures to prevent that sort of accident. But we should be very forthcoming and if we made mistakes, we should own up to them, apologize and clear the air.

MR. LEHRER: The Ambassador told Charlayne, Prof. Bill, that in order for the United States to really get the show back on any kind of road, it's going to have to pull the ships out of the Persian Gulf. Would you support that?

PROF. BILL: I think what we need to do is reassess our entire policy. We've called this, our presence in the Gulf, a success story. As far as I'm concerned, the final chapter of this story hasn't been written. Already the pages are red with blood, Iranian blood in this particular case, and so I would argue a fundamental reassessment and debate at the highest levels about what we're doing, what our goals are, how long we're going to be out there, and what's going to happen next. It might be our blood next time, not Iranian blood in the Gulf.

MR. LEHRER: I take it, Mr. Ullman, you would support that based on what you said earlier about the Presidential candidates?

MR. ULLMAN: I'd also like to make a broader observation, because I think there's a lesson here that we need to learn, and that is that the nature and context of the threat to our well being is broadening considerably. It's no longer defined narrowly along the traditional U.S./Soviet axis. What we have in the Persian Gulf is like what could be replicated in so-called low intensity conflict, in terrorism, in drugs, and things like that, and as a nation we are woefully unprepared and not organized to be able to take on a successful way these far more complex threats. So what's happening in the Gulf, the situation which is quasi political, quasi military, which there is no real consensus, objectives are blurred, could be replicated for example in narcotics trade, trying to prevent that, in low intensity conflict that could be breaking out in Central America, but the nature of the threat is broadening.

MR. LEHRER: Meaning that we're in a situation, what Adm. Turner called kind of a peaceful war, and yet 290 people suddenly are dead because we have no other means to cope except shooting missiles, is that what you were saying, Admiral?

MR. TURNER: I'm saying we're in an ambiguous situation where it's hard on the military commander, because he's neither at full war, nor full peace. The decision Captain Rogers made, if that had been made in a real war, hundreds of miles at sea where that ship is intended and designed to be, would have been a very simple decision. Any plane that comes at you for 400 miles is a problem and you're going to do something about it. 40 miles, there's a lot of ambiguity as to whether he intended to come at you, whether he intended to descend in altitude at that moment. Let's not also forget that while I'm in favor of being as friendly to Iran in the long run as we can and not creating any more scar tissue than necessary, Iran is the one that lay mines in the Gulf. Iran's the one whose gun boats just the day before yesterday were shooting up ships in the Gulf. Iran's the one whose silkworm missiles have hit U.S. flagged tankers in the Gulf. They're not all clean in this act and they really started this action, despite what the Ambassador said, that our helicopters shot at the gun boats, if he has evidence of that, I'd like to see it, because our evidence is the opposite.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Teicher, if this exact same thing had happened, the Iranians shot down an American airliner, some 290 people on board, gave the same explanation that the U.S. has given up till now, would you believe it?

MR. TEICHER: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Would you, Admiral?

MR. TURNER: I'd have problems.

MR. LEHRER: Just because it came from the Iranians, or because the story doesn't add up?

MR. TURNER: No. Because the Iranians have given us so many strange stories in the past, the American public I think would be very skeptical.

MR. LEHRER: Prof. Bill.

PROF. BILL: It would be very difficult for Americans to accept anything like that. Look what we did in the hostage incident, for example, and there were no Americans killed there.

MR. LEHRER: You mean the inclination would be to support a military retaliation?

PROF. BILL: I don't know military, but we'd certainly respond. There's no doubt in my mind we'd respond.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Ullman.

MR. ULLMAN: I'm not sure we'd respond. Look at what happened to the 241 Marines who were killed in Beirut. I think there would be a great waling, but what our response was going to be, too difficult to predict.

MR. LEHRER: But is this one of the problems here, Prof. Bill, this total lack of communication, and we're talking past each other, and we're using different values and different everything else?

PROF. BILL: Absolutely. We don't understand these people. We don't understand their revolution. We view them as uncivilized when, in fact, their civilization goes back 5,000 years. Any American and Adm. Turner and Howard and others have met Iranians. We need to understand them and their culture and their revolution and their leadership and their religion, and the sooner we get about that, the better.

MR. LEHRER: And yet, as you said, Mr. Teicher, to understand the revolution, we have to understand and appreciate the fact that they hate us with a passion.

MR. TEICHER: I don't think that their hating us prevents us from understanding them. I think that notwithstanding what Prof. Bill said, there are quite a few Americans in government who understand Persians and Persian culture and Persian history and Persian language very well and understand the nature of the revolution. And the nature of this revolution is premised on anti-Americanism. I recall when in the State Department Prof. Bill was lecturing diplomats about this very phenomenon in 1977, and he laid it all out. He explained exactly what was happening and people understood, people understood very well, but understanding what one thinks is going on and how people behave and what their ethos is does not translate into coherent implementation of a sensible foreign policy. As was being said before, we're an era of different types of threats to our interest, we're in an era of ambiguity and uncertainty, of new technologies that are changing the nature of our environment all the time, and just understanding people in and of itself isn't enough.

MR. LEHRER: And then suddenly we put U.S. Naval commanders in the middle of this and say, okay, guys, do the best you can.

MR. TEICHER: That's what happens.

MR. ULLMAN: And the result is the tragedy of 290 innocent civilians caught up in this and killed, and that sort of thing is going to happen again.

PROF. BILL: I always put it, I use this phrase, we have a lot of fire power; we need to balance it with brain power.

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Ambassador, you've been listening to this discussion. Do you believe that out of this tragedy which everyone seems, the one thing seems agreed on, that this is an opportunity to open a channel of communication to the Iranians? Is that possible out of this?

MOHAMMAD JA-AFAR MAHALLATI [Iranian Ambassador To The U.N.]: Well, first of all, I think that the American authorities should show their intention that they want somehow to correct and rectify their wrong policy in Persian Gulf and that can be only proven by starting to move out of the Persian Gulf, the withdrawal of American forces from Persian Gulf. Otherwise, by mere exchange of words, nothing will be solved.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Let's say for the sake of argument, because we have mechanisms here that -- I mean, I don't think that tomorrow the U.S. can just pull out, so let's say for the sake of argument that can't happen. You heard two views of possible ways to go. Admiral Turner says you don't go groveling to the Ayatollah saying, you know, please forgive us, let's talk. Mr. Bill said that there should be some kind of dramatic gesture, that an envoy perhaps should go and talk to the Ayatollah, that possibly reparations could be offered. For the moment, we know your position on the pullout, but just at the second layer in order to avoid more difficulties here, which of those two views do you think might have some currency there or might be doable.

AMB. MAHALLATI: Well, definitely I am more on the side of Prof. James Bill, but what I want to say is that sign of intention as we interpreted cannot be only words; it should be actions. Mere words do not have any effect, as it has not had.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So what kind of scenario could you envision that would lead to an opening at this point?

AMB. MAHALLATI: Well, I think starting withdrawal of American forces from Persian Gulf and changing American policy towards Iran/Iraq War, and in particular the United Nations, and in the frame work of the Security Council. These are acts which will interpret in our views the intention of the American policy makers to rectify the wrongdoings in the past and I think that will make an opening. Otherwise, by mere words, by exchange of words, nothing would be solved.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Adm. Turner, how does that sound to you?

MR. TURNER: Not very appealing. I think that we also have to ask what are the Iranians going to do to help rectify the situation. We've got nine hostages in Beirut which most of us believe they're responsible for.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Ambassador.

AMB. MAHALLATI: Well, Iran has nothing to do with the hostages that you have in Beirut, the hostages that you have in Beirut is the result of the wrong policy that you have been pursuing in Lebanon, which is an independent country. Iran has been agressed by Iraq thanks to American support. Iraq has initiated war of aggression in Persian Gulf. It has been supported by Iraq and Security Council. It has been United States always looking for sanctions against Iran. These are all wrong policies and hostile policies pursued and initiated by United States against Iran, not initiated from Iran against United States. One incident -- this is very important -- showing the mentality and high exalting principles of Islamic Republic of Iran that through all the course of revolution where we were receiving hostile attitude from American Administration against the revolution and in support of the Shah, the blood of not one single American was shed on the streets of Tehran. That clears that Iran has had very flexible and merciful I should say attitude toward the hostile attitude of the Americans in the past. That should explain for itself.

MR. TURNER: You wouldn't say that if you were one of the fifty- three hostages who spent 444 days in the incarceration in Tehran.

AMB. MAHALLATI: I am afraid that you start the story from the middle of it; the story does not start from there. It starts from the support that your Administration has been giving to Shah's regime against revolution continuously.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We can't go back that far, at least not tonight. Let me ask you this though. The Admiral did say what is Iran prepared to do. I mean, would Iran be prepared to accept an envoy at this time to come and have talks in Iran?

AMB. MAHALLATI: I think that I said was very clear. Mere words does not work at all at this particular junction, particularly after this act of terrorism which took the life of 290 of our dear people.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Prof. Bill, you've heard two views on this now. What do you think is possible, given what you've heard?

PROF. BILL: I think that Iran's feeling is critical in this. They're the ones who have lost 290 people and I think we want to listen to them when they say they want more than words. This is certainly not going to hurt this great country.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Ambassador, what about an objective investigation? We heard Adm. Turner call for that. Would that be a step in the right direction and who in your view to carry out such an investigation would be credible?

AMB. MAHALLATI: Fantastic. Islamic Republic of Iran during the whole course of war and not only vis-a-vis the hostile actions of Americans, but against Iraq, has also always advocated a neutral investigation by international organization, and you know that many expert missions many times went to Iran and made expert report. In this particular case, I think international civil aviation organization is a competent and relevant organization to dispatch expert mission there to the region to investigate and reveal the report.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you would accept the conclusions?

AMB. MAHALLATI: Yes, indeed, but I want to say that in all previous acts that United States did deliberately, attacks against oil rigs, for example, civilian oil rigs, we also need evidences and documents for those incidents that United States fell short of providing any evidence to either Secretary General of United Nations or Security Council on the evidence.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Teicher, what do you think the prospects of that kind of investigation, the U.S. accepting that kind of investigative body looking into this?

MR. TEICHER: I think that the chances are good that the United States would consider accepting an objective investigation by international civil aviation authorities. I think that would be a positive step I think if the investigation was narrowly defined and focused on this incident. I think if we're talking about an investigation into the war and all of the violence that has gone on and attacks on oil platforms and mine laying and who's done what to whom, I don't think that would serve any useful purpose, and I doubt the U.S. Government would agree to that proposal.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Ambassador, how do you get to that point where you take up this war -- and you heard the discussion about how -- I think everyone is agreed that there needs to be a political component to resolving this conflict, where do you see that, and how do you see that coming about?

AMB. MAHALLATI: That's perfect, our authorities, in particular recently, they have emphatically restated many times that Iran never closes doors for any political solution to the war. Unfortunately I should say it has been United States within the frame work of Security Council that prevented any political role for the Security Council to play, for the Secretary General to play, and you well remember that in February it was United States which prevented further efforts by Secretary General and tried to make a sanction against Islamic Republic of Iran which was a sabotage to the work of the Secretary General.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is this event going to heighten the possibility of bringing that war to an end or escalate the conflict further, do you think?

AMB. MAHALLATI: I think that the presence of U.S. in Persian Gulf, the continuance of the presence of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf, will escalate the war.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Ambassador, thank you for being with us tonight, and thank you, Mr. Teicher, Mr. Ullman, and Admiral Turner, and Professor Bill. ROGER ROSENBLATT ESSAY - ONE NATION INDIVISIBLE

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight before we go, some words about Independence Day and one nation indivisible. They are the work of Essayist Roger Rosenblatt.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: One day right down in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Something deeply disturbing has happened to black/white relations since the civil rights days of the 1950's and the 1960's. It is as if blacks and whites were perfectly content to work together to protest the inequities and to enact the laws, but once that was done, once the laws were in place, the two races fell apart like business partners, no longer hungry or hopeful. Since that time, there have been fewer race riots in the cities, fewer racial incidents, though one is too many, and many blacks have progressed higher and faster in American society than ever before. But where is the sympathy that once existed between black and white? Where is the understanding, the affection that powered a civil rights movement aimed not simply at making blacks happier and safer, but at making America more like itself? We look at Jesse Jackson's run for the Presidency, for instance, as the statement of an interest group, and in certain ways it is. The question, what does Jesse want is read as what do blacks want and the entire candidacy is viewed by most whites and the media as the invasion of foreign troops staking a claim -- as if the country did not belong to blacks and whites equally, as if whites, whatever they think of Jackson's qualifications as a candidate, did not have exactly the same interest as blacks in Jackson's candidacy, the same interest in what he might or might not do for the country we share. Or take the morass of the Tiwana Brawley case. At first it is the story of a black teenager who was abducted and sexually assaulted by white men. Then it appears to become an occasion for certain New York black leaders to make a noise and a name for themselves. Now the case may prove to have been an ugly hoax, but however the Brawley case turns out, whites sit back as if it had been a kind of show coming from somewhere on Mars, outrageous, amusing, ridiculous, as if Tiwana Brawley did not belong to blacks and whites equally, as if whites, whatever the truth of this story, did not owe the teenage girl the same concern they owe any citizen for any reason. Here we are at another Fourth of July celebration, the celebration of who we are. Yet in certain areas, blacks and whites in America are as separate as ever. An attitude of quiet carelessness prevails, polite, distant, cold. Blacks can do something about this attitude of casual apartheid. Whites in power can perhaps do more. Both can reach out, the can gesture, they can write. Most of all, they can simply speak. They can say with conviction what they have not said in 30 years about black and white together. Remember?

ROBERT KENNEDY: What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another.

MR. ROSENBLATT: Let it be reiterated this Fourth of July that we are one nation indivisible and that we are better off that way. I think that we have neglected to say so too long, so who may be blamed for thinking that blacks and whites do not believe in one nation any more? But we worked together for one country too long and now there are these faces, all different colors, and these arms and these bellies, they belong to us. The blood runs like a river through our country, pumped by a heart that knows only to be free, free from suspicion, free from estrangement, free at last. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again the major news of this Fourth of July was the aftermath of the Iranian airliner shootdown; 290 persons died yesterday when a U.S. Navy ship in the Persian Gulf shot the Iranian plane out of the sky. President Reagan and other U.S. officials said the Americans mistook the airliner for a fighter plane and called it an understandable accident. Iranian leaders said it was deliberate. The Ayatollah Khomeini called on Iranians to launch a fully-fledged war against the United States and its allies. In non-Iran news this holiday, the Space Shuttle Discovery was taken to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to await its early September launch, the first U.S. manned space flight since the Challenger tragedy two and a half years ago. And in Britain, Swedish tennis star Stephen Edberg in the far court won the men's singles championship at Wimbleton. He defeated West German Boris Becker 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, and 6-2. Good night, Charlayne.

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