The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, East and West Germany celebrated their reunification, President Bush made an appeal for the budget agreement, more than 120 people died in a crash of a hijacked airliner in China. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, we have a report on and three views of [FOCUS - REBIRTH OF A NATION] and three views of what the future holds for the new Germany, we recreate a school desegregation argument [FOCUS - SEPARATE LESSONS] the U.S. Supreme Court heard today and we close with Charlayne Hunter- Gault's conversation with three women [SERIES - TOUR OF DUTY] on duty with the U.S. Air Force in Saudi Arabia. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: In an event unthinkable just a year ago, the German people are reunited in one powerful nation tonight. Helmut Kohl, who becomes chancellor of the new Germany, promised the world it would not become a restless reich like the Germany that began two wars. We have a report by Tom Browne of Worldwide Television News.

MR. BROWNE: The three Western allies lower their flags, a final ceremony as they give up their occupation powers in West Berlin before German unification. The flags come down in front of the allied comandatura, command center for the allies which have technically governed Berlin since the end of World War II. Earlier, the three Western commanders signed a letter ending their role here. The letter said the Berlin we leave will be whole and free. It was carried to a West Berlin City building and delivered to Mayor Walter Monpar. Monpar acknowledged the hand over at a ceremony with the three commanders. Allied control of Berlin began in 1945 after the Nazis were defeated. It continued during the rebuilding of the city and during the rise of the cold war when West Berlin became an outpost in a deeply divided Europe, its residents symbolizing the fight against Communism. In his famous speech made in their honor before thousands, President Kennedy told them, "We are all Berliners". A final ceremony was also held in East Berlin. East Germany's parliament, the Folkskama, held its last session. The united parliament will have its founding session of the Reischtag. And another symbol of unification, West Germany's national airline, Luftanza, made its first flight into Berlin, carrying politicians arriving for the ceremonies and the celebration.

MR. MacNeil: We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Senate today moved toward the confirmation of Judge David Souter to the U.S. Supreme Court. Debate began this afternoon on the Senate floor. Only seven of the one hundred Senators have said they will vote against him. Here's a sampling of the debate.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, [D] Delaware: While he would not be my choice to exercise that power, I believe he is the best we can hope for from this administration, thus, it is with a hopeful heart and with open eyes that I will vote for the confirmation of Judge David Hackett Souter.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, [D] Massachusetts: To a large extent, in spite of the hearings we have held, the Senate is still in the dark about this nomination and all of us are voting in the dark. The lesson of the past decade of the Senate's experience in confirming Justices to the Supreme Court is that we must vote our fears, not our hopes.

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON, [R] Wyoming: David Souter will be a Justice in the purest and finest sense of that word and our country will be well served by his presence on the Court. He is a most impressive man, a sincere and authentic and kind human being, and he will be a tremendous Justice, and he is going to make us all very, very proud.

MR. LEHRER: The Supreme Court without Souter heard arguments in a major school desegregation case today. It involves the Oklahoma City school district, but the outcome could affect hundreds of other school districts in the country. Forced busing and other desegregation techniques were abandoned in Oklahoma City in 1985 after a federal judge ruled desegregation had been achieved. That decision has been challenged on grounds it has led to inferior all black schools. We'll have our own argument on the case later in the program.

MR. MacNeil: President Bush is making a televised pitch to the American people tonight in an effort to sell the budget compromise worked out on Sunday between White House and Congressional negotiators. Mr. Bush invited several groups of Republican Congressmen to the White House today to try and convince them to vote for the package. Many were undecided going in. On their way out, they said tonight's address was essential to winning congressional votes.

REP. ROBERT DORNAN, [R] California: The President must take his case on television, talk to the nation, and see if he can build a majority and turn those of us that are undecided, who hate the gridlock, hate the process, hate the elitism, hate the whole summitry since May and leaned against a lot of things in the package.

REP. CLAY SHAW, [R] Florida: President Reagan was very effective in speaking above the Congress directly to the people who then effected the vote of the members of Congress. And I think this President has that same talent and he's certainly in the popularity polls. I think he could really be very persuasive and very helpful.

REP. HAROLD ROGERS, [R] Kentucky: The group by and large urged the President to sell his case to the American public, to sell the American public on the idea that sacrifice and pain are going to have to occur in order to solve the greater problem, that is, the deficit.

MR. MacNeil: The housing industry had another bad month in August. Sales of new homes fell by 1.4 percent. They've been in a decline most of the year. Compared to last year, new home sales are down by more than 13 percent. Oil prices fell by more than $3 on the New York Mercantile Exchange today. Benchmark West Texas crude closed just below $34 a barrel.

MR. LEHRER: The Senate today endorsed President Bush's Persian Gulf policy, a resolution of support passed by a 96 to 3 vote. The House passed a similar resolution yesterday. Saudi Arabia today called on Iraq to get out of Kuwait for the sake of the Palestinians. The appeal was made by the Saudi foreign minister on a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. He said the Gulf crisis is diverting attention from the Palestinian uprising and giving Israel an excuse to hold on to the occupied territories. On the military front, the U.S. aircraft carrier, Independence, sailed into the Persian Gulf today. It carries more than 70 war planes. The last time an American aircraft carrier went into the Gulf was 1974.

MR. MacNeil: An airliner that was hijacked in China today crashed when it tried to land an airport in the Chinese City of Canton. More than 120 people aboard were killed. The plane exploded shortly after it hit the ground. It smashed into two planes that were parked on the runway, one of which was filled with passengers. There were conflicting reports under whether the explosion was caused by the crash or by a bomb. Chinese television did not mention the story on its nightly newscast.

MR. LEHRER: In South Africa today, a spokesman for the African National Congress claimed Zulu Chief Mango Zuthu Buthelezi has declined to meet with Nelson Mandela. Buthelezi was invited to a Friday meeting of black leaders at Mandela's home. The purpose was to discuss the violence between rival black groups loyal to Mandela and to Buthelezi. The ANC said the meeting would go ahead without Buthelezi.

MR. MacNeil: That's our summary of the news. Now it's on to the realities of a united Germany, the Supreme Court revisits school desegregation, and three women with the U.S. Air Force in Saudi Arabia. FOCUS - REBIRTH OF A NATION

MR. MacNeil: The unification of East and West Germany is our first story tonight. As the citizens from both sides take to the streets in celebration their euphoria temporarily masks the very real problems that lie ahead. We have two reports from Independent Television News.

NIK GOWING, ITN: A modest percentage of the Red Army's former compatriots, the junior officers and conscripts of East Germany's peoples army, are being measured up to join the ranks of their former Western enemy. It's not just a matter of swapping this legacy of Honecker's work of state for the West German uniform, senior officers have been retired, but the unknown is how the young in particular will adjust from Marxist brain washing to the realities of a military force in a pluralist state. Hence, the provisional labeling of these soldiers as members of a new territorial unit. The Soviet built cars of East Germany's people's police are also being revamped as part of the complex process of transforming a security apparatus trained to suppress dissent into a force molded by West German officers to uphold rights enshrined in a democratic state. Tonight the German people will be united. But the jollity will hide the subdued reality of hardship and uncertainty of the price Germany must pay both in unemployment in hard cash, a price which the leader of the opposition Social Democrats told me continues to be underestimated.

HANS-JOCHEN VOGEL, Chairman, Social Democrats: The real problem is that we in the West are ready and willing to have more engagement in the financial way to help and have solidarity with our compatriots.

MR. GOWING: You warned at a very early stage that the price of unification would be much higher than anyone could conceive at that stage. What is your assessment now of how high that cost is now becoming?

HANS-JOCHEN VOGEL: I don't want to be misunderstood. It's not a question if we should help. It's a question how we help and how we finance this effort. The government is going and making debts and debts. We say we can't overburden the next generation with debts which are nearly exploding.

MR. GOWING: But what about the predictions that the price in terms of unemployment, a prediction today from the minister of labor of at least 6 million now?

HANS-JOCHEN VOGEL: Well, it could be possible in the period of transition that unemployment becomes very high, but it's transition. It's not the final answer of the situation.

MR. GOWING: On Thursday, MPs from East and West will meet together for the firsttime in a chamber of the Reischtag, today being made ready, chairs having to be squeezed together because of the large number of MPs, all a signal of political uncertainties ahead for this new, unified Germany.

MR. MacNeil: For a closer look at some of the economic difficulties that have already developed, Correspondent Ian Williams visited the Town of Neuruppin.

MR. WILLIAMS: Karl Marx still looks down on the people of Neuruppin, but the economic revolution in front of him has been unleashed by the Deutsche mark. The familiar trappings of Eric Honecker's German Democratic Republic are being overturned by full blooded West German capitalism. As in towns all over the East, the Western marketing consultants have arrived in force. These Munich consultants are presenting a drastic survival plan to the managing director of Neuruppin's biggest company. They've told him that to have any chance of surviving he's got to completely overhaul the way his company works and get rid of 70 percent of the staff. That's shaken the management. The Electro Physicale Sheverke Factory is one of the most advanced in East Europe, making circuit boards for computers and televisions. It was a showpiece of the GDR, Honecker bringing prestigious guests to boast how his country could match the West at the cutting edge of high technology. The marketing men say it's an industrial relic.

MICHAEL JAROSCH, West German Management Consultant: Most of the companies in East Germany, they had very many people working here, so you don't really need them for everything so they have to go down from 3,000 people working here to in the last step 850.

SPOKESMAN: As the markets here in East Germany go down, they lose very much of their sales possibilities. And that's a very hard thing to find new markets where they can sell their products.

MR. WILLIAMS: On the shop floor, the mood is one of despondency, helplessness rather than anger. They never expected things to be so tough so quickly.

WORKER: [Speaking through Interpreter] Somehow we're second class -- the second wheel of the German engine. We didn't think things would get so bad -- we'd no idea.

GERMAN WORKER: [Speaking through Interpreter] I thought we were going to get more financial support to help us do our jobs better in the factories.

WORKER: As for retraining, we don't know what to do, even what field to train in.

MR. WILLIAMS: In fact, these workers are luckier than most. They could have all been out of work, but the company thinks it's lined up a Dutch partner. The only West German company interested simply wanted to demolish the factory. All over the country antiquated industry is crumbling, no longer able to sell their goods and kept afloat by massive subsidies from Bonn. The cost of cleaning it up alone is enormous and more than half industry is likely to disappear. In Berlin, demonstrations are growing by the week. The newly unemployed resent the way their industries are being rapidly run down and they're angry at being shun by Western investors. The reply from the banks is that investment will come when they're ready. One banker told us his clients are waiting for unification, when a proper legal frame work will be in place.

DIETRICH BEIER, Berliner Bank: We as a bank cannot court any credit if we have no security in the books in the form of real estate. So as long as we haven't got the ruling, the legal ruling that private property is established over there, I can't see banks loaning out a lot of money and that in turn means that banks are hesitant. But I expect later in the autumn thatinvestors will be very active there and that the banks, above all, will extend credit.

MR. WILLIAMS: Others among those who helped liberate East Germany think there's another motive.

JENS REICH MP, New Forum: If you want to take over, to buy out somebody, you have to destroy them -- it's a simple chess move, and they are cold bloodly calculating it's cheaper to run them down and afterward by the bankrupt factory or society or whatever than to consider reform or restructuring in some way.

IAN WILLIAMS, ITN: Many among the army of West German consultants now working here in the East have given up hope of breathing life into most East German industry. They say that even where companies could be made competitive, their products simply don't fit the West German market, so they've turned their attention to how to replace industry and the buzz word has become services, in particular tourism. The West Germans have looked at the pretty cobbled streets of Neuruppin and the decaying splendor of the buildings. And they're already talking of restaurants and hotels which are virtually non-existent and boat trips on the town's picturesque lake. They say that if the town has a future, this is it. But it's a far cry from the sort of independent economy that East German reformers hoped would grow stronger under capitalism.

JENS REICH MP, New Forum: We are guilty when we accept this as easily. We should have put up more resistance, been more careful, more careful about our own interests, more aware of what we are, we have to bring through in a deal. After all, it's a deal, not only a marriage.

MR. WILLIAMS: For this town, the dreams inspired by monetary and economic union two months ago are rapidly turning into a nightmare.

MR. MacNeil: With us now for some analysis in Jurgen Ruhfus who has been West Germany's Ambassador to the UNited States and will represent the new Germany. Jurgen Klose is economist from the University of Economic Science in East Berlin. He is now a Fulbright Scholar at Georgetown University and John Mearsheimer is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of an article published recently in the Atlantic Monthly magazine titled why we will soon miss the cold war. He joined us in Chicago when we talked late this afternoon. Ambassador Ruhfus after today's euphoria and celebrations is the economic cost of unification going to produce a bitter hangover?

AMB. RUHFUS: First of all as you rightly said there is going to be euphoria and I think that you will rightly see tonight pictures of happiness and of people being very glad that the unity which we have been working for, for forty five years ultimately comes about. Let me add on this occasion we are deeply greatful to all those who helped us bring it all about in particular our American friends. Now during these last days we have realized that there is going to be transitional difficulties and these transitional difficulties many even grow in the next weeks to come. But we have anticipated that this would not be easy all together. This is why when we concluded the Union, the economic and financial union in July we added the third component that is to say social union which hands over to our East German compatriots the social security system of West Germany so there is a time that new enterprises will start when the changes will take place towards a market economy. That during this time the East German compatriots will have the full availability of our social security system, unemployment and at the same time reorientation, re-schooling for the workers so they can then fit in to modern industries and let me add we are basically very optimistic that in a few years you will have in East Germany the necessary changes and then a development as we had in West Germany that we had in the 50s and 60s.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Klose as an economist your self from what is about to become the former East Germany are you optimistic that the West German economy can afford this cost without crippling itself?

MR. KLOSE: First of all I want to tell our American spectators that the overwhelming majority of the population of East Germany is very happy today at least having reached this unification. And from the stand point of an economist I can only totally agree what the Ambassador already said but this is for the future. For the moment I think we didn't at all reach the valley which we at least have to over come for the next few years. So I think both the Government and the population and our friends in the West have to at least do their best to help us to over come this. I would say the economic crisis in East Germany.

MR. MacNeil: You heard in that piece a member of the New Forum a member of parliament for the New forum, saying that West Germans are deliberately making the economic crisis sound worse in order to drive the value down and drive a harder bargain. Do you from East Germany believe that is true?

MR. KLOSE: Our problem is that we are not disclosing the exact figures of the economy of East Germany. So much has to be done at least to find out what the real value for instance of the enterprises of establishments at least say the buildings and so on. So that we could have a real balance what the value and what is going on with the economy of East Germany.

MR. MacNeil: So it is really, Ambassador Ruhfus, the West Germans are now making this inventory, Is that right? And still have yet to find out what the true cost is going to be. The true value and the true cost.

AMB. RUHFUS: That is the one side and the second side is as was indicated by some of the bankers that we have to create the legal frame work so they can really buy property and know that you have become the owner. And I think that if this works, I think, you have sufficient capital in West Germany, companies that are willing to have joint ventures and you already have about 3000 which have already started. You have big planes from Volkswagen, Dalhmer Benz, the big companies to invest billions. So I think when the frame work is existing then this will work. In addition the federal government is making available a number of credits, subsidized credits, giving tax subsidies. So we hope that the West German companies will go in their and we hope that our American friends go in there too because we think that it will be profitable in the few years to come.

MR. MacNeil: Ambassador is the cost of paying for all of this which is yet to be figured out. The estimates of transitional unemployment could be very high and so on plus the cost of paying the Soviets to take their troops out of East Germany. Is that going to mean that it will be so great that the German problems will slow down the economic development of the rest of Europe and the European Community?

AMB. RUHFUS: I am optimistic. We know that it is big figures but I am optimistic. You have at present a strong economic growth in the Federal Republic in West Germany. We had 4 percent growth last year, 4 percent this year. The tax revenues are considerably higher than intended. Thus if we can turn around the development in East Germany in the next month to say get going with dynamic growth I think there is a chance that we will make it.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Klose do you have a view on that. Is the problem for absorbing East Germany going to slow down growth enough to slow down the development of the European Community?

MR. KLOSE: No this is not my impression because as far as I know the European Community is working on that problem since many months and took already some decisions concerning the financial help to East Germany. The means we can stand the unification of Germany in the frame work of EEC. So that at least my impression is that the EEC has very well understood what is going on in East Germany. So they are in the same line as the Republic Government is. So I think that if we are managing the matters right in the right way the unification of Germany could be a certain impetus to further and faster development of the EEC itself. As an economist my deep convincing.

MR. MacNeil: Let's bring in Mr. Mearsheimer in Chicago. Chancellor Kohl said today and he is going to be the Chancellor, of course, of the new United Germany. That that new Germany would help stabilize Europe. What do you think about that?

MR. MEARSHEIMER: From a military point of view I think that is likely not to be the case. I see post cold war Europe as a relatively unstable environment and within that environment I think that Germany is going to a source of some instability.

MR. MacNeil: Why is that. Is the problem with the Germans themselves. Why do you say that?

MR. MEARSHEIMER: I am not some one who believes Germans are born to agrees, born to cause trouble or that this is sort of a second coming of the Third Reich. That is not my argument at all. My argument is that Europe is going to be an unstable environment and the Germans are going to have problems providing for their security. It is no longer going to be a case for Germany that United States provides nuclear deterrent, for example, and therefore it is very likely in my opinion that the Germans will go out and try to secure a nuclear deterrent for themselves. And I think given attitudes in Europe and the United States towards the Germans acquiring nuclear weapons that this is very likely to cause serious trouble in Europe. But nevertheless I find it hard to find a situation where in ten years the Germans who are the most powerful state in all of Europe and have legitimate security concerns don't go out and get nuclear weapons.

MR. MacNeil: Let me ask Ambassador Ruhfus about that. How do you respond to that?

AMB. RUHFUS: I must say in all honestly I totally disagree as to stability. I think that we Germans have made it clear that also the United Germany will remain a member of the European Community. We are not trying to destabilize and loosen the ties of the European Community. Chancellor Kohl has made a clear program. We want to hand over more Sovereignty to Brussels to the bodies of the European Community. Same goes for the NATO Alliance. That was one of the key elements that a United Germany remain in NATO. We have fought for it and it was ultimately agreed. We have handed over a lot of our Sovereignty to Brussels and the NATO Staff and I think this will continue and as for nuclear weapons I think both German parts, both former German States which are going to be united tonight have made it very clear that there are no nuclear ambitions at all and this is the United point of view of the United Germany and I do not see that this will change ten to 20 years from now.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Mearsheimer, won't the continued absorption of the New Germany in the European Community and NATO, as the ambassador just said, make unlikely what you've said, that Germany would become a destabilizing force in Europe?

JOHN MEARSHEIMER, Political Scientist: No. First of all, Germany is not going to give up its sovereignty. There may be, I doubt it, but there may be significant economic integration in the years ahead, but Germany is going to remain a sovereign state, and since the Soviet threat is not going to be anywhere near great as it has been over the past few decades, there's no longer going to be a need for NATO, certainly NATO as it's constituted today. And the fact of the matter is that the Germans are going to have to provide security for themselves and the Germans are going to live in a Europe that has nuclear powers.

MR. MacNeil: Where would the threat come from for Germany to make this need for new military security come about? What would threaten the New Germany?

MR. MEARSHEIMER: Well, is it not possible that the Soviet Union would be a threat to Germany? Is it not possible that the Germans looking to their West and seeing the French who have nuclear weapons of their own that will be invariably aimed at Germany will feel that they need nuclear weapons as well? I mean, I find it very difficult to imagine a situation where a sovereign state as powerful as Germany tolerates a situation where it has no nuclear weapons and its neighbors, who are always potential threats, because this is the international system, does not have nuclear weapons of its own and makes no attempt to secure them.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Klose, how do you feel about this argument that Prof. Mearsheimer is making?

JURGEN KLOSE, Economist: Well, you know, I myself would also totally exclude the possibility that Germany has the ambition at least to dispose of nuclear weapons and as far as I know, also the part of the East German army which are taken over to the Bundesfir, I think these parts also not willing at least to dispose of any nuclear weapon and so generally speaking, my impression is that for the future, the United Germany only can be at the military level understood as a firm element of NATO, and so as far as I know, there are many decisions concerning the disposal of nuclear weapons, so I totally exclude let's say certain going alone of a United Germany in this question.

MR. MacNeil: Amb. Ruhfus, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today unanimously approved the treaty for German reunification, but several of the members expressed some mixed emotions about it. Sen. Boschwitz, who happened to have been born in Berlin, and came to the states as a child, said, "We will have to watch Germany." How do you feel in the day of your national triumph and celebration that so many -- and there were expressions of concern in Israel today and elsewhere -- that around the world there's so much uneasiness still after four decades of democratic institutions in Germany?

JURGEN RUHFUS, Ambassador, Germany: We're aware of the fact that even if we get united, we still have our past. And this is not only a day of joy, a day of gratitude; it is also a day of reflection and reflection means that we remain aware of the atrocities of the sufferings which have inflicted on people in Europe and elsewhere in the name of Germany and of course, in particular, the sufferings imposed on the Jewish people. And I think we, the Germans, are thoroughly committed to see to it that this will never happen again and never be repeated, and I think that's part of the day which we are celebrating too.

MR. MacNeil: Prof. Klose, is that need understood by the people of East Germany as well as West Germany?

MR. KLOSE: I think totally yes, because as far as I know, the majority of the East German people are very closely connected with peace and with the wish that also a United Germany may follow this way, and so nobody I think in my country would think of a second way let's say of a third world war, like it was in the past, with the first and second world war, many of our inhabitants are suffering from the consequences of that war and so my impression is that there is a deep feeling concerning the wish of freedom for the future.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Prof. Klose, Amb. Ruhfus, and Prof. Mearsheimer, thank you all for joining us.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the Newshour tonight a new school desegregation case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and a conversation with three women on duty with the U.S. Air Force in Saudi Arabia. FOCUS - SEPARATE LESSONS

MR. LEHRER: Now the argument today before the U.S. Supreme Court over school desegregation. It centers on the Oklahoma City School District's ending a school desegregation plan eight years after a federal judge ruled it had successfully desegregated. Black parents challenged that decision, claiming the schools were resegregating. This is the first school desegregation case the Supreme Court has heard since the 1970s. Its decision could affect some 500 school districts around the country under court order to achieve integration. We recreate the court argument now with a lawyer from each side. Janelle Byrd of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund representing the black parents who filed the suit and Charles Cooper, a former Reagan Justice Department official representing the Oklahoma City schools. Ms. Byrd, what are you asking the Supreme Court to do?

JANELL BYRD, NAACP Legal Defense Fund: Well, let me just explain the posture of the case as it is right now. After the Oklahoma City School Board resegregated the schools in 1985, the black parents went into court and challenged that. We lost in the district court, but the court of appeals reversed the district court's ruling and we won and now the school board has brought the case to the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to reverse the court of appeals decision that allows them to resegregate the schools. Basically what's at issue here is the question of how long a school district which has segregated students by law, how long does that school district have to take actions to counter the effects of the history of segregation? We argue that when there remain vestiges of that state-sponsored segregation in the school district, as we see in Oklahoma City today, that the school district has a continuing obligation to do something to address that. The school district clearly disagrees, and that's the issue which is being presented to the court.

MR. LEHRER: And you say the Oklahoma City schools are being resegregated as a result of action by the Oklahoma City School District, itself?

MS. BYRD: Almost clearly. What happened in Oklahoma City was that we had state --

MR. LEHRER: By the way, you're a native of Oklahoma City. I should have said that in my introduction. Sorry.

MS. BYRD: Yes. I was born and raised in Oklahoma City.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

MS. BYRD: What we have in Oklahoma City and in the State of Oklahoma is state-sponsored segregation in every aspect of society from the time that the state, from the time Oklahoma was brought into the union in 1907, actually the segregation pre-dated that time, and schools were segregated by state law from 1907 until 1954,when Brown versus Border was decided. At that time, the school board then adopted a neighborhood assignment policy along with a minority to majority transfer policy, which would allow whites who lived in areas which were majority black to transfer out, and the district court found that this residential assignment plan, which was superimposed over existing residential construction exacerbated the problem of residential segregation in Oklahoma City and destroyed integrated neighborhoods in fact, and we got a remedy for that in 1972, when we first got the first busing plan.

MR. LEHRER: What about -- I mean, your position is that the school district is actively resegregating its schools.

MS. BYRD: Well, if you know the consequences of your act and you take that act without regard to what the consequences are, then there's very strong evidence that you would intend that, however, that's not the issue that's squarely before the Court, but you can say that what the Oklahoma City board did was take the very same neighborhood, the very same school zones that were found constitutionally unacceptable in 1972, and adopted those school zones. They took no action to try to counteract the existing residential segregation, none whatsoever, didn't even adopt a policy against or in favor of school desegregation.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's take these issues one at a time, Mr. Cooper. First of all, that the Oklahoma City schools are, in fact, resegregated now, do you agree with that?

CHARLES COOPER, School Board Lawyer, Oklahoma City: Not at all, Mr. Lehrer. First of all let's frame the issue properly, and I do agree with the proposition before the Court is when a school district may be returned to the local control of the elected school boards from the supervision of the federal district court judge. This case was filed in 1961, almost three decades ago. If the plaintiff's proposition is accepted by the Court, the school district cannot be restored to local elected officials until all neighborhood segregation or the fact that the neighborhoods of Oklahoma City, like every other significant city in this country, are not racially balanced, until that has been eliminated, until all the neighborhoods have been racially balanced. There was a poignant moment in the argument today in which Justice O'Connor asked counsel for the plaintiffs if neighborhood racial imbalance persists in Oklahoma City for the next 100 years, is it the position of the plaintiffs that yes, even at that point, after notwithstanding full and faithful compliance with the cross town busing decree, which has been the case in Oklahoma City, notwithstanding that compliance, for the next hundred years, still the school district would not be able to be restored to the local control and cross town, compulsory busing would have to continue. Well, let's look at what the school board has done, that is, before the court.

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me. How did you answer that?

MS. BYRD: The answer to that question was, and I didn't make the argument today, but the answer that was given to the court was that we can't give you a set date as to how long, but let me make one point just to correct one thing. With respect to the residential segregation, the residential segregation we're talking about in Oklahoma City was caused in significant part by the school board. We made it very clear in the argument today that we're not chasing demographic change, and that's also clear in the Oklahoma City facts, that if neighborhoods change, then we're not going around saying every neighborhood that's segregated that we can get a remedy, and that was made very clear.

MR. LEHRER: Your position is, the school district's position, Mr. Cooper, is that the district should be off the hook now, that it complied with court orders and it desegregated the schools, and it's now out of their control. If in fact, there are all black schools here, all white schools there, whatever, it's out of the control of the school district and the school district should be allowed to run its own business now, is that correct?

MR. COOPER: Essentially, the residential non-integration that exists in Oklahoma City, like every other significant American city, is not the responsibility of the school board, and there have been findings that, first of all, that that residential non- integration is something that was produced by the same types of phenomenon that produce it in every other American city, not the school board. To the extent the school board had some role in it, that additional increment of segregation has been attenuated to this point, and the school board simply cannot be, and the school and the district court for that matter can't be required to continue the supervision over the school board and the assignment policies and all of the policies with respect to the school board until some state of racial balance comes to Oklahoma City that has eluded every other American city. That is a standard for ending these cases after three decades in this particular case. That is simply unreasonable is the proposition of the school board. Rather, its compliance, energetic, good faith compliance with a comprehensive school desegregation decree for thirteen years, eight of which, the latter eight of which, as you mentioned in your intro, it did after the district court had essentially released them from jurisdiction and did so voluntarily is adequate to eradicate the vestiges, at least in this case, of the past dual system, and yes, nobody is proud of the system that existed in Oklahoma City prior to 1961, but the question is whether or not at this point, after district court supervision for these many years and a good faith board, the school board in place, it can be restored to local official control.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you this, Ms. Byrd. Is it your position that as a result of this that the black students in Oklahoma City are getting an inferior education or is it simply that there is resegregation?

MS. BYRD: Well, there are two points, one with respect to the quality of education. The black students are getting an inferior education in these schools. What we've seen when the Equity Committee report came out --

MR. LEHRER: What's that?

MS. BYRD: It's a report of a committee appointed by the Oklahoma City school board. It's a committee made up of white and black citizens and the Equity Committee report shows that if you look at the level of degree of teacher experience, the advanced degree, the number of teachers with advanced degrees assigned to the resegregated schools, that the resegregated schools are faring worse than the white schools. Facilities the resegregated schools in terms of upkeep and maintenance are faring worse. A number of the resegregated schools are now considered at risk by the Oklahoma State Department of Education and are at least being threatened with closure.

MR. LEHRER: What's the board's position on that?

MR. COOPER: Well, first of all, let's keep in mind something that hasn't come out yet, is that the school board has not gone back to neighborhood school policy for all the schools, just the youngest school students in the system, Grades 1 through 4, they're essentially concluding that first graders, for educational and demographic reasons, first through fourth grade, should be allowed to go to school at their neighborhood school. And they have a wealth of data to support the educational value of that policy. With respect to the notion that the schools are not, there are some disparities in the schools, I think it's my understanding that per student expenditures are higher in the black neighborhoods than they are in the white neighborhoods. But beyond that, this scheme, neighborhood school scheme, permits any student whose race is in the majority, so if a black student is in a predominantly black school, that student may elect to go to another school that is predominantly white. And the school board will pay the transportation. So you have really in terms of education and the choices available to the parents and the students in the system the best of all worlds.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let me ask both of you now in just the minute that we have left to put on your overview hats. How important a case is this?

MS. BYRD: It's a very important case. It's a case about the direction that this country is going to take now. After a history of slavery, segregation, labeling of black people as inferior, and state enforced institutionalized segregation, and although Mr. Cooper talked about three decades of this case, the school district was drug, kicking and screaming, into this remedy in 1972. It wasn't 1954. We had a remedy for three years before the school district came back and asked to be released, so the case is very important because it's a question of whether we're going to go in the direction of segregation in this country or integration.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Cooper.

MR. COOPER: It is very important. Its implications span hundreds, as you mentioned, of school districts that are now under school desegregation decree, and the essential question will be at what point does a school district after its best efforts to eradicate the unfortunate and shameful history of many of them, as has been described accurately, at what point is it entitled to be restored to the status quo and for the local school board officials to be allowed to govern themselves?

MR. LEHRER: We have to leave it there. We'll hear from the court in about two months, right? Isn't that when a decision should come?

MS. BYRD: Well, we can't tell.

MR. COOPER: It won't be later than July.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Thank you both.

MR. COOPER: Thank you.

MS. BYRD: You're welcome. SERIES - TOUR OF DUTY

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, another of Charlayne Hunter- Gault's special conversations from the Middle East. Tonight she talks with three young Air Force women stationed at a military base in Dehran, Saudi Arabia.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We met Sgt. Susan Brown and Airman Prayon Meade and Theresa Collier as they were completing their all night shift on the flight line of the First Technical Fighter Wing, a pursuit group of some 48 F-15 aircraft that traces its origins back to World War I. Sgt. Brown is from Milhall, Pennsylvania, Airman Meade the daughter of a retired Air Force family living in Billings, Montana, and Airman Collier living in San Diego, California. They'd all been stationed at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia before being deployed during the early days of Operation Desert Shield. Prayon, tell me what you do here.

PRAYON MEADE, Senior Airman: Our primary mission is to take care of those people out there on those jets, support 'em with equipment, get 'em fuel trucks as fast possible.

THERESA COLLIER, Airman 1st Class: We basically support, you know, we support the flight line. We support the jets. If they need anything, we're tasked to do it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Some of the other soldiers I've talked to told me that what really bothers them is the fear of the unknown. Do you think about that?

PRAYON MEADE: I try not to think about it. We're here to do a job. You're here to get these jets up in the air. We try not to think beyond what's 180 miles away.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you never think about it?

PRAYON MEADE: Yeah, it comes up, but we're just so busy -- you know, we work around the clock -- and we're just so busy that until somebody, we start actually talkin' about it and everything, our main concern is gettin' out of here. Everybody's like, have you heard when we're goin' home, have you heard when we're goin' home, so we're like, no, nothin'.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You talk about it?

THERESA COLLIER: Yeah, you have to think about it. I think you have to have some sort of game plan set up. Well, you know, if this is going to happen, how am I going to react in the situation, what am I goin' to do, you know, do I have enough cans of pork and beans in my bag, you know, to sustain me if somethin' does go down? I think about it, but --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What worries you the most about it?

THERESA COLLIER: Never goin' home again, that's what worries me the most about it, yeah. It's scary, you know. This is real. I mean, we've trained for this and you know, this is our job and everything, but the threat is real, you know. You never know when something can happen.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you talk about it in the barracks?

SGT. SUSAN BROWN: Yeah. While at work, you're busy working, so, you know, your mind is on your job, but I think it really hits hard when you're, you know, back at the barrack and you're sitting there, writing letters home, and you know, you think about what you would be doing at home versus what you're doing here.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: When you came into the military, I mean, some of you were barely born when the Vietnam War was going on, did you ever think that you would be based with the possibility of war?

PRAYON MEADE: No. You think if you join the Air Force, you're pretty much peace time, you know, for the schooling and everything like that, stability. I never thought I'd be deployed, never. I mean, people say, well, wasn't it at the back of your mind? No, it never even was at the back of my mind. It was a 9 to 5 job, go to work, come home, you know. It wasn't like the sailors that go out to sea or anything like that. The Air Force is more, more civilian than any other branch of the military, and so it never really entered my mind.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So when the word "war" pops into your brain, what comes out of your mind?

SGT. SUSAN BROWN: Are we going to make it out of here alive? I mean, I have no doubts our capability, but here again it's the fear of the unknown. What are they going to do?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: As women in the military have you encountered any surprises either in the military or in this society, which is, as you know, quite different from the one you're used to?

PRAYON MEADE: It makes you happy that you're an American woman. It really does, because you know, you take it for granted back in the states. Over here, you're like, you don't see how a society has done it for so long. You know, it's gone back for ages and ages and ages and ages.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are you looking forward to finding out about, are you curious about the Saudi women?

PRAYONMEADE: Oh, yeah.

SGT. SUSAN BROWN: Very much so.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is that one of your biggest curiosities?

PRAYON MEADE: I haven't seen one since I've been here. I haven't seen an Arab woman since I've been here.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What would you want to ask them?

PRAYON MEADE: I don't know. I heard they have it good though.

THERESA COLLIER: I heard they have it real good over here, real good.

SGT. SUSAN BROWN: They can't go to the gym.

THERESA COLLIER: Chauffeurs. I mean --

PRAYON MEADE: They have maids and everything.

THERESA COLLIER: They're put on a pedestal. You know, they're put on a pedestal.

PRAYON MEADE: If they have words with their husband, their husband runs out and buys them like $3,000 worth of jewelry.

THERESA COLLIER: As long as they're able to have their own thoughts if they want to have an education, I don't really have any problem with that, but I don't know. I haven't met any. I haven't talked to any, so I really can't form an opinion. I haven't had any cases where I've been discriminated against because I'm a female. You know, we've been told some things like we can't drive or we can't, you know, or we can't do this or we can't do that. We're here just like the men, you know, to defend them, we're here just like everybody else, so why can't we drive, if that's our job, why can't we drive? When it comes down to it, we're going to be right next to them, so I think we should be able to share in some of the benefits around.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What are the physical conditions around here? You were telling me about --

PRAYON MEADE: Sand vipers, scorpions. I've got one in the hangar, if you want to see it. They caught it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you've seen them around here. What are the biggest perils around this area?

PRAYON MEADE: Besides the heat and sand and the dust, the food, the scorpions.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Anybody around here been bitten by any of them?

PRAYON MEADE: No, thank God.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You're close in a sense to the front lines. You're seeing fighter pilots coming in, going out, mingling with other military people. What does your own gut tell you about whether or not there's going to be war?

SGT. SUSAN BROWN: It varies from day to day from the news I hear. One time I think okay, we're going to go home soon, you know, in a few months we're going to go home, and I hear some bits and pieces of information and news, and I think to myself, boy, we're going to get into a war. Right now I think it could go either way and I would say probably more towards a conflict.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Theresa, you're really thinking about this one.

THERESA COLLIER: I don't know, you know. All I know is that I'm here, that I'm waking up every day to come to work and I go to bed every night. You know, that's my reality, so I don't know.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All of you must have made some personal sacrifices. Theresa, your husband is where?

THERESA COLLIER: My husband is in the Navy. Hi, Terry. Umm, I don't know where he is right now. He's probably floatin' around somewhere. It's hard, you know, because by him being in the Navy alone, we're separated a lot, and before all this kicked off, he was, like, oh, you're not going anywhere, you're not going to go anywhere, you're going to be home, and it's like we're going, Terry, and now I'm here. I feel if we make it through this, we'll make it through anything.

SGT. SUSAN BROWN: I'm single. I do have a cat. My neighbors are taking care of my cat and my parents, they had just moved to Texas, and can call them, write them, keep in contactpretty good.

PRAYON MEADE: I left a 17 month old son with my husband who is also active duty Air Force, he could be here any minute. My husband got a call through and he kept my son up so that I could talk to him and it was really emotional. It was really --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is he talking?

PRAYON MEADE: He babbles. He's not talking yet, but it'll come.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Where is he now?

PRAYON MEADE: He's at, he's back in Virginia with my husband, so --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How hard is that?

PRAYON MEADE: That's real hard. [Jet landing]

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Airman Meade, Sgt. Brown, and Airman Collier, thank you for being with us. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, East and West Germany celebrated their reunification. Tens of thousands of Germans gathered near the Reischtag building in Berlin for the fireworks at midnight when Germany officially becomes one nation again. Hundreds of riot police are in the area to prevent threatened demonstrations by radical groups. Early this evening, the Senate confirmed Federal Judge David Souter as Supreme Court Justice by a vote of 90 to 9. President Bush appealed for passage of the budget agreement, and more than 120 persons died in the crash of a hijacked airliner in China. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night with among other things Charlayne's conversations with two other Americans on duty in Saudi Arabia. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.