The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. In the news today, President Reagan and Walter Mondale will hold two debates next month and their vice presidential running mates will debate once. In a speech, Mondale scored Reagan on the Middle East and said he would personally lead a new peace effort. Picket lines stopped work at 11 General Motors plants. Wage talks resume tomorrow. Brian Mulroney was sworn in as the prime minister of Canada at the head of a progressive conservative government. Jim Lehrer's off tonight; Judy Woodruff's in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: The stories we'll be covering on the NewsHour begin with one of our series of presidential campaign issue debates. Tonight, the Middle East. A leading Republican and the top Mondale advisor on foreign policy face each other on the differences between the two candidates. Then a veteran Middle East analyst asks if both sides aren't tilting too much toward Israel. Essayist Roger Rosenblatt takes a look at the new meaning of patriotism in this country. We have a review of a book which, among other things, poses the question, how do computers affect the people who use them? And we close with a profile of a dancer who's finally getting the recognition he deserves.

MacNEIL: The League of Women Voters announced today that there will be three televised campaign debates this election. Two of them will be between President Reagan and Walter Mondale, the third between the two running mates, Vice President George Bush and Geraldine Ferraro. All three debates will be 90 minutes long and will feature a moderator and a panel of reporters. The first Reagan-Mondale debate will be on October 7th in Louisville and will be devoted to domestic affairs. The Bush-Ferraro debate will be second, on October 11th in Philadelphia, and will be divided between domestic and foreign affairs. The final Reagan-Modale meeting will be on October 21st in Kansas City and will all be devoted to foreign affairs. Jody? Issue and Debate: Mideast Policy & Politics

WOODRUFF: Walter Mondale focused the presidential campaign on a foreign policy hotspot today, the Middle East. In a speech to a group of his Jewish supporters, Mr. Mondale attacked President Reagan for abandoning the search for peace in the region. Mondale went even further and said that four more years of the whole of Mr. Reagan's foreign policy would take us closer to the brink of war. But Mondale zeroed in on the Middle East, and in particular the President's two-year-old proposal for a confederation between Israel's West Bank and the neighboring country of Jordan.

Vice Pres. WALTER MONDALE, Democratic presidential candidate: This administration took over when there was hope. Instead they pursued a policy of illusions. Their illusion was that they could enter into a strategic cooperation with Arab countries to fight the Soviet Union. That was an illusion. Their illusion was that if they were just tough enough on Israel, somehow Hussein and the other Arab leaders would sit down and talk. Their illusion was if they were tougher on Israel, Syria would behave as a responsible nation in international society. mr. Reagan has squandered the promise of Camp David. We have entered into a cold peace, with negotiations in cold storage. I will scrap the failed Reagan plan and give the new Israeli government time to develop its own policies toward the Arabs. I will strengthen strategic cooperation with Israel. I will end the fiction that Jerusalem is not the capital of that good country. If President Reagan is reelected, what December surprises are in store for Israel?

WOODRUFF: The President most recent extensive comments on the Middle East came in a speech 11 days ago to the B'nai B'rith Jewish organization at its national meeting in Washington. In that address, Mr. Reagan defended his policies in the region, and in particular stressed his administration's support for Israel as the comerstone of its Middle East policy.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN [September 6]: Well, since taking office, our administration has used every effort to reaffirm before the world our unwavering support for the state of Israel. For the first time in history, under our administration the United States and Israel have agreed on a formal strategic relationship. Recently we renewed an American-Israeli memorandum of agreement that provides for cooperation in military research and development, procurement and logistics. We markedly increased our economic assistance to Israel. From 1981 to 1984 we provided Israel with aid amounting to nearly $9 1/2 billion, more than has been provided by any previous administration over a comparable time. Just as important, we have restructured the form of our assistance. Indeed, in 1985 our entire $2.6 billion in aid to Israel will take the form not of loans but of grants.

These measures have made our relations with Israel closer and our friendship stronger that at any time in the history of our two nations. That warm relationship is crucial as we strive together for peace in the Middle East.

WOODRUFF: The President also reaffirmed his commitment to his own two-year-old peace initiative for the Middle East, saying the principles behind it remain valid and the foundation of his overall policy in the region. Robin?

MacNEIL: For the policy pespectives the Reagan and Mondale camps bring to the whole question of the U.S. role in the Middle East, we turn to two key players. Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. From the Mondale campaign, we have the chief foreign policy advisor, David Aaron, Mr. Aaron was deputy assistant to the President for national security affairs in the Carter administration. He joins us now from public station WTVS in Detroit; Senator Lugar is in Washington.

Senator Lugar, Mr. Mondale also said in that speech today that the President has been "essentially absent," were his words, from the search for peace in the Middle East. What's your comment on that?

Sen. RICHARD LUGAR: Well, I think that the President has been as active as he ought to have been. The point made by the Mondale people is to try to draw an analogy to President Carter's intensely personal involvement at Camp David, but that really has been inappropriate in the current circumstances. And the President's speech, which you saw earlier in the program, simply reiterates the general policies that have governed this administration.

MacNEIL: Mr. Aaron, Senator Lugar says the President's been as active as he should have been.

DAVID AARON: Well, this is a hands-off policy. And we today are celebrating the sixth anniversary of Camp David. It was brought about by the most intense personal political leadership by a President of the United States, and we got peace, the first peace ever by anybody in the Middle East. Now, that peace is running into the sands. It's treated like a dead letter by the Reagan administration. And without personal leadership, you're simply not going to get peace in the Middle East.

MacNEIL: Senator Lugar, you want to comment on that?

Sen. LUGAR: Yes, indeed. The facts of life are that the Camp David situation died when the Carter administration got into difficulty in Iran, and furthermore when our nation began to lose credibility in terms of our overall physical military strength. The basic relationship and the strength of relationship with Israel depends upon overall strength and clearly upon our ability to command respect in the Middle East.

MacNEIL: Well, Senator Lugar, do you agree that the Reagan administration is treating the Camp David accounts as a dead letter?

Sen. LUGAR: The Camp David accords were useful. The President's speech of September 1, 1982, tried to expand upon that and has not been successful because the players in the drama are not prepared to play. In short, the United States has accepted the general feeling in Israel that territory should not be ceded in response to an overall peace, and that is essentially what the President's plan called for at that point.

MacNEIL: Mr. Aaron, you want to comment on that?

Mr. AARON: I agree with the senator that the issue is credibility in the Middle East, and unfortunately I think American credibility could not be lower than it is at the moment. And the result -- it is the result of three things. First, there were 400 hours of secret negotiations with the PLO through intermediaries at the beginning of the Reagan administration. This went against Camp David; it was done behind the back of the Israelis, and it didn't work. Then there was the Reagan plan.That supposedly is the plan today, and yet it has been rejected by everybody. It also ran against Camp David and it didn't work. And most recently we had the tragedly of Lebanon, where confusion over policy, claiming that this was a vital interest but not protecting our Marines, putting them there despite the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then blaming the Syrians and saying we're going to have retribution but not doing anything about it -- that has led to a situation where our credibility is not what it should be in order to work for peace.

MacNEIL: Senator, how do you answer that attack on the Reagan record in Lebanon?

Sen. LUGAR: Well, in fact, our policy was one of humanity. We attempted to separate the PLO from the contending forces so that they could get out of Beirut. We tried to protect the civilian population. We were successful in both those pursuits. We tried to prevent war between the parties that were involved there, and we were successful in that pursuit likewise. And in short, we performed a magnificent service that might have resulted in a Lebanese government if the Lebanese had chosen to gell together. They did not; we withdrew as we should have. I just think it's important to say that credibility depends upon constancy, and our constancy to our friends in Israel in this administration has really surmounted everything, as well as our constancy in maintaining oil supplies from the Middle East. That has been a victory on all counts and seems to me to be a hallmark of a strong policy.

MacNEIL: Mr. Aaron, what is Mr. Mondale's Middle East policy and how does it differ from Mr. Reagan's?

Mr. AARON: Well, I think the first thing is that he will get personally involved. He understands the Middle East -- he's been to Israel four times, he's visited and had discussions with President Mubarak. He is extremely well versed in the issues there. The result will be to try to move the parties together based on the principles, not in the Reagan plan, which are not accepted by anybody, but the principles that were first enunciated in the Camp David accords. Secondly, he would try to create a psychological atmosphere that is more of a two-way street. There is only one way that peace that peace will come about in the Middle East, and that is when the Arabs decide that they want to make peace with Israel. But they won't decide that if they have an administration, like the present one, which negotiates behind the back of Israel with Yasir Arafat and the PLO, which proposes plans that have been cooked up in advance with King Hussein behind the backs of the Israelis and then not only rejected by the Israelis, understandably enough, but also rejected by King Hussein. The Arabs can't be left to feel that if they just wait, America will let Israel down. And the point made earlier by the Senator about constancy is absolutely correct, but we have not seen constancy in this administration. We have seen confusion in Lebanon, tragic confusion in Lebanon, and we have not seen constancy towards Israel. The great strategic cooperation agreement which we saw the President talk about -- it was actually yanked back from Israel, as though it wasn't strategic at all, as thought it was tactical, as though it was something that Israel was doing for us as opposed to something that is in our mutual interest.

MacNEIL: Senator Lugar, is there a new Reagan policy on the Middle East or essentially will it be an attempt to keep alive or revive the Reagan plan, as was suggested by the President's speech that we just saw?

Sen. LUGAR: Well, the policy is constant friendship and strategic relationship with Israel. The policy is the maintenance of fuel and energy supplies from the Middle East. I would suppose that we are always prepared to work with our friends in Israel to try to fashion a comprehensive solution if that is in the cards. But presently it is not, and I would simply say that the President's plan of 1982, if the players want to be involved, it still stands. But my general supposition is that for the moment they do not wish to be involved.

MacNEIL: Mr. Aaron, how would Mr. Mondale deal with the question of Israeli settlements on the West Bank?

Mr. AARON: He has made clear that the Israelis -- that the Jewish settlement in the West Bank is legal. This is not a position, I believe, that's held by the Reagan administration. It is the -- what Israel does on the West Bank, how it chooses to live with its neighbors, is something that has to be worked out between Israel and its neighbors. It is not something that can be imposed from Washington. That is the lesson that we have learned repeatedly, over and over again, whether it was the Rogers plan during the Nixon administration or the Reagan plan under the Reagan administration. We cannot impose a peace.

MacNEIL: Do I understand you that Mr. Mondale would look more favorably on the West Bank settlements? In other words, he would say, "go ahead and do what you want there because it's your business?" Is that correct?

Mr. AARON: He does not believe that in that area there ought to be a No Jews Allowed sign hung out that says that it's impossible or illegal. Exactly where the Jews may settle in that region has got to be something that in the end has to be worked out with its neighbors, and the Israelis understand this.

MacNEIL: And what is your comment, Senator Lugar, on Mr. Reagan's position on the West Bank settlements?

Sen. LUGAR: Well, essentiall I see no difference of opinion on te thought that Israelis ought to be excluded from the West Bank. I don't think there's a dvision there, but one can't have it both ways. In short, the reason Camp David did not progress was that President Carter did not gain Jordan's assent. A lot of loopholes were left. When President Reagan tried on for size the thought that some sessions in the West Bank might occur in terms of comprehensive peace, Israel said no. I think we accept that point, the people will have to work it their salvation in the Middle East.

MacNEIL: But the Reagan administration has put a lot of pressure on the recent Israeli government to try and cut back on or stop settlements in the West Bank.

Sen. LUGAR: I think there were suggestions that it was unlikely that a comprehensive peace would come so long as those progessed, but that being the case, I think everybody in Israel has come to a conclusion right now they want the settlements, and I presume that we accept that.

MacNEIL: Okay, well, Senator Lugar, thank you very much for joining us, and Mr. Aaron in Detroit. And gentlemen, we'll be back to you both. Judy?

WOODRUFF: For a different look at U.S. Middle East policy and the positions of both Mr. Mondale and Mr. Reagan, we turn to Philip Stoddard, executive director of the Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan research organization based in Washington. Mr. Stoddard is a 19-year veteran of the State Department, when he retired in 1983, where he was serving as deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research with responsibility for the Middle East.

First of all, Mr. Stoddard, after listening to this, which candidate do you think has the better notion of what U.S. policy toward the Middle East should be?

PHILIP STODDARD: I think I'd have to say neither. I think what we're seeing is understandable, but it seems to me a lamentable exercise in ethnic politics, basically, where both sides are trying to outdo the other in support of Israel.

WOODRUFF: Well, what's wrong with that?

Mr. STODDARD: I think support of Israel has long been as aspect, a vital aspect of U.S. policy in the Middle East, but Israel doesn't hold the sole key to peace in the area.

WOODRUFF: Well, what do you mean by that?

Mr. STODDARD: Well, I think David Aaron made the point that Israelis -- and I presume he meant West Bankers -- as well as Arab governments are going to have to decide what kind of relationship they want. I can see that, but that immediately leaves out of it any essential role for the United States. And I think we do have a role in this dispute.

WOODRUFF: Well, what positions, what should the candidates be saying, then, if they're going to be taking, in your view, a responsible attitude toward American policy in that area?

Mr. STODDARD: I think they have to do more than dust off old plans, more than say that "I'm going to do more than the other side" in terms of aid to Israel or support for Israeli settlements. I think they have to llok at the larger issues of concern to the United States over the longer term, and I'm not seeing that kind of leadership from either side in the Middle East during this campaign.

WOODRUFF: But they both made reference -- for example, in the Camp David accords there was a provision made down the road for some sort of arrangement for the Palestinians. The President's plan -- President Reagan's plan of two years ago obviously called for a confederation on the West Bank.

Mr. STODDARD: I have no trouble with either the Camp David framework or the Reagan plan as something on the shelf. The challenge is how do you get there and what kind of a balance in our policy is needed, and a willingness to make the tough decisions, to get from where we are now to some kind of a settlement? I think the Reagan plan summarizes many useful elements. There's a lot of continuity between the Reagan plan and Camp David -- I have no problem with that. But I still wonder how we get to it, and when.

WOODRUFF: Well, do you see any advantage from either candidate -- I mean, in the positions of either candidate?

Mr. STODDARD: I'd have to say no, but of course nobody votes on the basis of Middle East policy solely.But --

WOODRUFF: But why -- go ahead.

Mr. STODDARD: No, go ahead.

WOODRUFF: Why do you think they're avoiding the subject that you raised?

Mr. STODDARD: It's too tough, because we're dealing with the heart of the issue -- the Israeli desire to retain the West Bank and the Arab desire to put some kind of an autonomous state for the Palestinians in that area. That's the nub of the whole issue.

WOODRUFF: But why would they avoid it? I mean, is it -- I guess I'm asking a leading question.

Mr. STODDARD: It involves painful compromise on both sides, and no one so far has demonstrated the slightest idea of how to get there.

WOODRUFF: But is it really that surprising that in an election year -- I mean, isn't it traditional in this country, at least in recent years, that candidates find it difficult to take controversial positions on the Middle East because, frankly, of the support that they count on from Jewish voters and the contributionsthat they --

Mr. STODDARD: Absolutely. That's why I say it's understandable. I still think it's still lamentable that we don't see a little more statesmanship even during an election campaign. One talks about U.S. involvement in the area, the stakes for the United States, the long-term objectives of the United States in this area. Both parties in the past have gone on record a great deal in this -- they have a lot of record. Both have been involved in Middle East policy. I'd like to see a little more leadership -- maybe that's naive hope -- coming out of this.

WOODRUFF: What about the disagreement between the two of them over whether the U.S. embassy should be moved to Jerusalem?

Mr. STODDARD: I think that's basically -- I would have to regard that as a cynical, irresponsible act. There's a long history of U.S. policy vis-a-vis Jerusalem, and yet here we are arguing over who's going to move it there the fastest, when there's no reason, it seems to me, for either side to move. It's not your typical capital-city embassy issue, in my view.

WOODRUFF: All right. Well, let's bring Senator Lugar and Mr. Aaron back into this. And Mr. Aaron, let's just begin with this last point. Mr. Stoddard says that it was cynical and irresponsible of the vice president to say we should move the embassy.

Mr. AARON: I'm glad you've given me a chance to talk about that. Because you know something, Israel is the only country in the world in which we don't recognize its capital.We don't have our embassy in its capital. Now, how are we supposed to get the Arabs to sit down with Israel to negotiate as equal partners when we have our embassy in their capitals, we recognize their capitals, but somehow Israel does not have the legitimate right to have us recognize their capital and have our embassy there. Now, this is not a small, cynical, tactical point. It is quite the reverse. It's at the heart of a difference that we have with the Reagan administration and, I have to say, with my old friend Mr. Stoddard. The difference is that there has to be reciprocity. The difference is that you cannot make the Israelis -- I mean the Arabs, come to the table. They have to want to do that.And to want to do that, they have to feel that only at the negotiating table are they going to get what they want, not through unilateral American concessions made in advance, not through secret talks behind the Israelis' backs. That isn't going to get there. The only way towards peace -- to answer Mr. Stoddard's question, the only way towards peace is for us to stand with Israel, to make it clear that Israel is there to stay, that we respect their country, that they do have a capital, that we're not afraid to put our embassy there, and to say let's have a fair, honest, level, equal negotiation. That's the only basis. If they think they're going to get it through the back door or some other way, there's never going to be a negotiation.

WOODRUFF: Senator Lugar, if that's the case, why is the administration opposing this notion of moving the embassy?

Sen. LUGAR: Well, the administration has no opposition ultimately, but I think the administration finds it astonishing that basically an issue in the New York Democratic primary has been elevated to this level. The facts of life are that that type of debate now would be disruptive of any proposed negotiations, and I am astonished that Mr. Aaron, who otherwise would suggest personal involvement and really getting into it, would want to put a bar, really, to those possibilities right off.

WOODRUFF: Well, he says it's at the very heart of the dispute.

Sen. LUGAR: I understood that and that's what I find astonishing. I would have thought that there were many things in Middle Eastern policy that were of substantially greater import, including fuel supplies, the Iran-Iraq war, which this administration has cointained successfully, and the constancy of our aid to Israel at a time that it is embattled economically. And as the President pointed out, we have done more in terms of grants as opposed to loans.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Aaron, what about Mr. Stoddard's main point, though, that there's just not enough balance in the positions of either candidate, that both candidates are tilting too far toward Israel to really have any sort of meaningful policy position?

Mr. AARON: Yeah. I must say, I don't think that we make peace in the Middle East by becoming some kind of neutral go-between. We make peace in the Middle East, and the Arabs talk with us, because they know we have solidiarity with Israel. If they want a neutral go-between, they can take the secretary-general of the United Nations. They can find some third party, some neutral country. That's not the essence of it. The essence of it is that they know we stand with Israel, they know Israel will be a permanent state in that region, that they have to recognize its right to exist -- and that's the philosophical core here. To say that this is something from the New York primary, for example, about Jerusalem, mocks the truth. The truth is that Mr. Mondale has supported this for 10 years or more.

WOODRUFF: All right. Mr. Stoddard, what about -- all right, his point that the United States has to take a position strongly in favor of Israel?.

Mr. STODDARD: I think everybody accepts that. I think Arab states realize that. I'm not urging abandoning Israel, not in any way. But I am talking about dealing with some of the real issues, and to me, Jerusalem and the future of the West Bank are at the nub of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It's not the only issue we have in the Middle East, but it seems to me it's at the nub of it. And that's why I object to moving the embassy to Jerusalem. I think we do have to deal with all these issues, and I think the U.S. has to be involved, not the United Nations or anyone else. We are the one with the access to both sides. It's not whether we're going to be in the peace process, but how do we conduct ourselves and what kind of relationship do we maintain with both sides that will enable us, through an active role, to play a useful role down the road as we deal with these tough issues.

WOODRUFF: Senator Lugar, would you concede that Mr. Stoddard has a point, that both candidates ought to be taking a position on some of these questions that go beyond just support for the state of Israel?

Sen. LUGAR: Well, I think that that's a very good point.I think as a practical matter, it's not lack of statesmanship, it's lack of physical opportunity. There are times when issues are ripe for settlement and times when they are not. I would suspect that presently we are stymied in some of the hopes that we have, but clearly our solidarity with Israel is a key factor. And the possibilities of our working with allies in Europe and elsewhere in Middle Eastern policy, I think have been enhanced by this administration.

WOODRUFF: But isn't the President in a unique position to set the agenda on an issue like this?

Sen. LUGAR: Not to set the agenda for other countries who also have national aspirations.We must have respect for that, and we do. And this President I think is one who in terms of his timing and involvement has been right on course.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Stoddard?

Mr. STODDARD: Well, I think one of the problems is that the Reagan plan, which I thought was a very sensible document, was very quickly abandoned by the Reagan administration, essentially. It bogged down in Lebanon and that was the end of it. The Reagan plan dealt with the tough issues, and it seems to me there's never a good time, not in the Middle East dispute, to get into the tough issues. That's my problem with both sides.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Aaron, a quick comment?

Mr. AARON: It takes presidential leadership to set that agenda, just as you said, and right now there's only two subjects in the Middle East: war or peace. If you're not working on peace, you're headed towards war. And we see it in the unraveling of the Camp David accords, the problems between -- the cold peace between Egypt and Israel. We see it in Egypt welcoming back the Soviet ambassador, Kuwait accepting Soviet arms; this unbelievable agreement between our oldest ally in the Arab world, Morocco, and our bitterest enemy, Mr. Qaddafi. These things unravel if you don't work hard. You have to set the agenda yourself, and only the President can do it.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, David Aaron, Senator Lugar, Mr. Stoddard, all three of you, for joining us this evening.

Mr. AARON: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Robin?

MacNEIL: President Reagan said today he had no problem with the fact that Walter Mondale would meet Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko. Mondale announced yesterday that he would have a meeting with Gromyko the day before President Reagan sees him on September 28th. In a major campaign speech in Washington today, Mondale explained what his approach to Gromyko would be.

Vice Pres. MONDALE: Today I'm putting Mr. Reagan on notice I will make the question of war and peace a major issue in this campaign. U.S.-Soviet relations have not been this tense since the Cuban missile crisis. Of course the Soviets bear responsibility, but so does Mr. Reagan. I want his meeting with Mr. Gromyko to be successful, and that's what I will tell the Soviet foreign minister when I meet him. I agreed to meet with Mr. Gromyko to make clear that our elections must provide no reasons for the Soviets to delay progress on arms control. I want him to hear from me personally that America has only one president at a time and in his meeting with Mr. Gromyko he speaks for all of us. But I cannot help thinking of the needless baggage that Mr. Reagan will bring to that meeting, a history that runs from self-defeating name calling to hair-raising joke telling.

MacNEIL: Mr. Reagan was not campaigning today. In his Washington speech, Mr. Mondale also attacked the President on Central America. He said the administration's policies are transforming a complex regional tragedy into a pointless American tragedy. He added, "The logical outcome of his policies is American troops at war in Central America." Later, in a speech in Cleveland, Mondale said he would impose restrictions on steel imports for five years to give the industry a chance to raise capital. Mondale said foreign steel imports had risen from 14.8% of the American market when Reagan took over to 34% now. President Reagan is due to decide shortly whether to accept the recommendation of the International Trade Commission that restrictions be imposed to protect the steel industry from foreign dumping.

President Reagan's campaign director, Ed Rollins, predicted today that if the election were held now, President Reaganwould get the votes of 29% of registered Democrats. He said Reagan needed only 25% of Democrats to win in November. Rollins was announcing the formation of a national committee to concentrate on recruiting Democrats. Roger Rosenblatt: Patriots Again

MacNEIL: One phenomenon which has surfaced in this campaign but had started before is the so-called new patriotism. It's intrigued our essayist, Roger Rosenblatt, who has these thoughts.

ROGER ROSENBLATT [voice-over]: Patriotism is almost impossible to cook right. We overdid it in the 1950s with Senator Joe McCarthy playing national chef.

Sen. JOSEPH McCARTHY: He is not a sound security risk today.

ROSENBLATT [voice-over]: We undercooked our patriotism in the 1960s and early 1970s and then served it up on a skewer.

PROTESTER: To major Roger Kramer, United States Marine Corps, Who also died needlessly, the Silver Star.

ROSENBLATT: Could one possibly love the country that gave us Vietnam? In the late 1970s nobody said much about patriotism, although tempers leapt at the sight of Khomeini's Iranians setting fire to the flag while Americans were held hostage. Still, there was all that Nixon-fed guilt in the air, so we were not yet sure how to deal with mute stirrings of national pride. Difficult years, producing an unnatural quiet. Americans without patriotism were like clocks without hands, mugmurs minus the motion.

Now patriotism is in again, up again, hauled out of the attic and waved in the streets. Not merely patriotism -- this is the new patriotism.

Pres. REAGAN: I'm not sure anyone really knows how the new patriotism came on so quickly or when and how it actually began.

ROSENBLATT [voice-over]: Well, not quite new. It was probably born about the time we began to get over Vietnam, when we were finally ready to build a memorial for our war dead in Washington and give the war historical reality. Jimmy Carter unwittingly helped set the stage, too, by conducting a melancholy presidency, a period of purgation.

Pres. JIMMY CARTER: This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

ROSENBLATT [voice-over]: Even Nixon chipped in by resurfacing in public with a big smile and lots of opinions on world events, thus promoting the illusion that bygones were bygones.

Pres. RICHARD NIXON: -- that I thought it was an excellent agreement as a job of negotiating with both sides.

ROSENBLATT [voice-over]: Without knowing it, we were busting to feel good again. And suddenly we did feel good.The Olympic torch came bouncing across the country and our ignition was complete. At the Olympic Games, American gold medal winners mouthed the national anthem and the nation sang with them. Politicians took the hint. Democrats waved flags at their conventions; Republicans waved flags at theirs. By the time the campaign is finished, at least one American industry is sure to be back on its feet.

Will we cook our patriotism right this time? That may depend on what it's made of. Does the new patriotism mean that we are cruising for a fight, hunting for bigger and Grenadas? Does it mean that we're feeling rich? Does the new patriotism represent a longing for the old days, for the 1920s and the isolationist past? Does it thus represent a wariness of the future? Not knowing what the country will look like, all sunbelted and computerized, flag waving may be a way of standing still.

Does the new patriotism arise from a reawakened appreciation of freedom? We don't need to look too far to be grateful for this democracy, however it lumbers. Does it simply arise from the desire to be happy? Nothing makes Americans happier than being happy.

That's our natural state. Does patriotism, new or old, ever arise from anything in particular, or is it just there, born of woman, born of country, a mysterious sensation? Anyone can claim it for any reason, and no one need explain his position. [on camera] Yet it would help to know what exactly's going on here, not only because an imprecise patriotism is the loosest of canons, but because this massive surge of emotion, inarticulate as it is, may turn out to be something useful. There's no harm to patriotism as long as it keeps its head, does not confuse itself with nationalism and run amok. What is the pure thing, after all, but collective affection? A love of country which, like the love of another person, may be based on ideals as well as facts. Did your eyes burn when gymnast Bart Connors wept on the podium after receiving his gold medal? Mine too. Let us hope that we wept for a nation that seeks to be generous, fair minded, and responsible to the world.

WOODRUFF: Still to come on the NewsHour, a review of a book that raises questions about the impact computers can have on the image we have of ourselves. And Charlayne Hunter-Gault tells the tale of a man with an extraordinary pair of feet.

[Video postcard -- White Mountains, New Hamphire]

MacNEIL: Nearly 60,000 General Motors workers were on strike today and talks between the company and the United Automobile Workers union were in recess until tomorrow morning. The outstanding issue was said to be the union's demand for guarantees of job security for its 350,000 members who work for G.M. The union is also seeking pay and benefit increases to an average of $28 an hour from the current $23. Union members are on strike at 11 of G.M.'s 29 assembly plants in seven states and at its research center in Warren, Michigan. The work stoppage have shut off about a third of the company's production and it's estimated they will cost the company about $150 million a week.

Now an update. Last June we reported on a court battle with implications for millions of retired people. The case involved the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, which cut back medical benefits for its 18,000 retired managers and supervisors. Retirees in Buffalo filed a class-action suit challenging Bethlehem's right to revise their medical plan. Today a federal judge ruled in favor of the retirees, ordering Bethlehem to reinstate its original benefits program and to reimburse the retirees for the additional premiums they'd paid under the revised plan. Bethlehem said it plans to appeal.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: American dollars continued to flow overseas faster than foreign currencies poured into this country during the second quarter of this year. The government said today that was the result of another record trade deficit. For all of 1984 it is expected U.S. international trade will be more than $100 billion in the red. Analysts blame the shortfall on weaker overseas investment income and a surge in Americans traveling abroad, both due to the continuing strength of the American dollar. Once again today, the dollar took off on another record-shattering climb, hitting new highs against the British pound, the French franc and the Italian lira.

Canada's new prime minister was sworn in today, and he made a little history in more than one way. Brian Mulroney became only the third Conservative to hold that position in 49 years, and he announced a cabinet of 40 members, the largest in Canadian history. His choices seem to indicate, however, that Mulroney won't move sharply to the right, even though he takes power after almost 21 straight years of rule by the Liberals.

Mulroney took his oath of office in a ceremoney in Ottawa at the home of the governor-general, who is Queen Elizabeth's representative in Canada. The new cabinet includes six women, which is twice as many as have served in any previous government. Mulroney was born 45 years ago in a paper-mill town in northern Quebec, where his father worked as an electrician. Mulroney became a labor lawyer and then a businessman. He has never before served in public office.

Robin?

MacNEIL: On the coast of France, an American balloonist came down to earth today and became the first man ever to cross the Atlantic in a balloon by himself. Joe Kittinger, a 56-year-old former Air Force pilot, landed in Biarritz after a voyage of 64 hours and 29 minutes in a balloon called the Rosie O'Grady.

The U.S. government said today it hoped five American sailors in custody in a Soviet port would be released soon. The five and their supply ship, the Frieda K., were detained on Wednesday. According to the White House, the vessel had inadvertently strayed into Soviet waters on a trip across the Bering Strait. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow talked to one of the men by phone today. It said they're safe and well in a hotel in the town of Urelik on the Bay of Providence.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: "A successful mission." That's how the U.S. ambassador to Egypt described U.S. efforts clear mines from the Red Sea. The Middle East News Agency reported from Cairo today that the U.S. has told Egypt it wants to end its minesweeping duties. Since August 17th, three American ships and seven helicopters have been part of an international force, clearing mines in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez. Egypt's defense minister today repeated his country's charge that Libya and possibly Iran were behind the Red Sea mystery mining, which damaged 18 ships.

And in Paris today, official word that France and Libya have agreed to a mutual withdrawal of their troops from the African nation of Chad. More than 3,000 French troops were sent to Chad in 1983 to counter a Libyan-backed attack by Chadian rebels.

Robin? Book Review: The Second Self

MacNEIL: Next tonight we have a book review. This is a nonfiction book called The Second Self written by Sherry Turkle. Our reviewer is Richard Locke.

MacNEIL: The subtitle of this book is Computers and the Human Spirit. What is it about? In what way is it about computers?

RICHARD LOCKE: Well, Sherry Turkle, the author, is a sociologist and a psychologist at MIT, and she spent the last six years interviewing some 400 people, both children and adults, to try and find out, the way an anthropologist might in visiting a strange community, how computer people, or people involved with computers in some way, be they nursery-school children all the way up to research scientists, how they're affected about the way they think about life itself and about people. So in that sense it's general book about computers rather than a science book about computers. It doesn't tell you how computers work; it tells you how they affect the way people think about themselves. In that sense it's a very accessible book and a very interesting one in the questions that it raises and some of the discoveries that she's made. Sherry Turkle feels that this is a major social revolution, a cultural revolution. She compares it to theimpact that Freud's ideas about the self and sexuality had upon our grandfathers, the way in which the computer revolution, as she calls it right now, is affecting various major questions of how we define what is human.

MacNEIL: Well, like what?

Mr. LOCKE: Well, is it absolutely a question of free will versus determinism? How are the young children that are working with computer toys, how do they start to talk about other people, how do they imagine the computer? She distinguishes between children that are able to think about them in philosophical terms, which are younger children. Children around the age of eight or so move beyond that and start programing computers themselves and start asking other kinds of questions and gain a mastery of computers. And then finally she speaks about computers in working with adolescents, where very often they'll use a computer as a means of developing their own personal identity. One of the most interesting things that she has discovered is that among the children that are interested in programming about from the age of eight on, is a great variety of styles of programing, something which I, knowing nothing about the technology, even imagined.Basically she argues that there are hard programers and soft programers. There are, in effect, children that are little engineers interested in planning and logic and control, and that there are equally valid ways of programing that are taken by children that are, as it were, little artists who are capable of intuition and interaction with their machine. She brings a very hopeful message, which is that computers by no means reduce experience necessarily to a terribly logical and cold universe, but that they're so interactive and so versatile that they can very much help a reconciliation between two things that we often think which are very, very different -- that is to say, the humanities and the sciences. She goes even further to argue that in many ways much of our stereotypes of male and female can be somewhat changed culturally by people working with computers and understanding that you can't simply organize that experience logically and sequentially, but there is a valid way of organizing it around impressions, intuitions, interactions with the machine.

She goes much beyond the question of children and computers. She goes on to speak about personal computer owners. She has a facinating anthropological description of the computer hackers, the virtuoso programers that spend hours and hours working with their machines, and she's very careful to point out how there are certain dangers for people of getting completely trapped inside of the simulated universe of the machine. But she's also very completely trapped inside of the simulated universe of the machine. But she's also very hopeful and very surprisingly original in her attempt to show how itself the computer can raise questions that are essentially philosophical or social questions in a way that can provoke a new definition of what is human and give us a new kind of freedom.

MacNEILL: Well, how would it define what is human?

Mr. LOCKE: She feels that computers, in working with computers, stimulates questions about free will and determinism, what is human, what is psychological. If a machine can think, does that make it human? Are people, as one computer scientist, is the human mind nothing more than a meat machine? She tries to go beyond these rather familiar arguments between those that are argue that machines are better than people, that the human spirit is not simply reducible to that. And she seems to be arguing at the end of her book that basically what is essentially human is what is nonprogrammable. Instead of being man the rational animal, what she's arguing is that we might feel, because of computers, that a human being is an emotional machine. But we shouldn't be daunted by that. In fact, what is human is what can't be reduced to a computer's code or a program. The illustration that she uses is a very familiar one, which is the kind of information that's exchanged between a husband and wife over this bed of their sleeping child. That particular glance is a very human glance. And she, like many computer scientists, argues this really can't be programed.

MacNEIL: Once again, the book we've been reviewing is Sherry Turkle's The Second Self published by Simon & Schuster. Judy?

WOODRUFF: A reminder of today's top story. It is official now: President Reagan will meet Walter Mondale in two formal campaign debates. Vice President Bush and Democrat Geraldine Ferraro will hold one debate. All three events will be sponsored by the League of Women Voters. Honey of a Dancer

WOODRUFF: And finally tonight, a story about some fancy footwork -- footwork that is fast creating a legend. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has the details. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mention dancing these days and what is likely to pop into most minds is Michael Jackson's moonwalking or the rage that's probably driving orthopedists crazy, or at least making them richer, break dancing. But there are those who would argue that none of that is real dancing, the kind that until recently couldn't even be found in old movies. When these aficionados talk about dancing, they mean America's indigenous dance, jazz tap. And thanks to one man who is the acknowledged master of the form, it seems to be coming back to take its rightful place on the dance stage of America.

[voice-over] Every evening, and twice on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Tommy Tune, the star of My One and Only, turns his back on his audience at the end of this duet. He does it in honor of the one who has just stopped the show, a 73-year-old man considered by Tune and countless others to be among the greatest tap dancers of all time. His name is Honi Coles.Honi Coles may indeed be the greatest tap dancer of all time, but until recently only a small circle of people knew that -- mostly other dancers like Gregory Hines.

GREGORY HINES: I think everybody should see Honi Coles once in their lifetime, see him tap. Because they'll see really what tap is and what it means, and they'll hear it and they'll feel.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: The road to the top for Honi Coles was a lot different from the Fred Astairs and Gene Kellys of the dance world. It started out in the streets of an urban ghetto.

CHARLES "HONI" COLES: I'm from Philadelphia originally, and we used to dance on the street corners in the summertime because this was our real form of entertainment. We had no playgrounds, no other facilities in which to entertain ourselves. And it became highly competitive. Other neighborhoods would send guys and we would all compete with each other.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Honi Coles joined the Miller Brothers, who would dance wherever they had an opportunity. With little success and a lot of friction, the group parted company. Honi set out to prove that he could do it alone.

Mr. COLES: I lived in a three-story house in Philadelphia and I had a room on the top floor and I took the furniture out of the room next to mine and then I just danced all day, every day, for one solid year -- 12, 14 hours. So I came out of there with -- as I said before -- the fastest feet in the business.

HUNGER-GAULT [voice-over]: Honi Coles did indeed have the fastest feet in the business. Ironically, he used them to develop the slowest soft-shoe in the business. Honi teamed up with the man who was to remain his partner for 16 years, Charlie Atkins, and together they made that routine famous. In the '40s the Coles-Atkins routine became a part of a legacy passed on to dancers like Gregory Hines, who remembers them from childhood.

Mr. HINES: I remember as I sat in the audience and watched them, they did a thing that they did, it was very slow soft-shoe and it was sensational, it was amazing. And most soft-shoes are, you know [hums] -- like that. And this soft-shoe was [hums]. It was so soft, and every tap was just articulated perfectly.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: As part of a long tradition of jazz tap, Honi Coles is not content to just dance. He spends a lot of time teaching the young dancers who flock to him, explaining how jazz tap, America's indigenous dance, is unique, different from all others because of its emphasis on rhythm and sound. He also often talks about the legends in the field, dancers like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and John Bubbles.

Mr. COLES: Bill Robinson was here [demonstrates]. Just little simple things like that. The only time he used his heel was when he was like this [demonstrates]. He did a little cute things, you know. This was Bill Robinson's forte. But along came a guy like Bubbles -- [demonstrates] -- you know, that kind. He put all the syncopation in it. That's really the beginning of be-bop.

HUNTER-FAULT [voice-over]: Many show business personalities have been influenced by Honi Coles and his unique style.

CAROL CHANNING: He turns the color wheel as he dances. He thinks each step. Each step is a story. He doesn't just do the step. That's a star.

LENA HORNE: Honi made butterflies clumsy. He was clean, never wasted a motion, pared down, minimum, minimal. Line, perfect. Extension, perfect. Spin, clean. Not diffused. The noise, the tap was clear, like crystal. I've never seen another dancer like him.

Ms. CHANNING: It's all thought now. Honi does nothing but think the line of his -- but he thinks the meaning of his step. He thinks when he slaps his front foot, his front toe, and he slaps it back -- he thinks "snotty." And it's funny and it's arrogant. And then all of a sudden he's sweet, and then all of a sudden he's handsome.

Ms. HORNE: He was my Fred Astaire, I didn't have to have Fred Astaire. I had him. But nobody much knew that but me and a few of us who loved him.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Like Lena Horne, those who knew Honi Coles tended to be black, since it was mostly on the black circuit that dancers like Honi were regarded as big stars. But in 1949, Honi Coles got a shot at performing before a mostly white audience.

Ms. CHANNING: I got to meet Honi Coles in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. That was the end of 1949 and New Year's Eve 1950. We opened that last week of 1949. And we were in rehearsal, and I knew when I saw him, I knew he was a great star.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: But by 1951, when Gentlemen Prefer Blondes closed, tap dancing was on the wane. This decline was sparked by the end of vaudeville, variety and nightclub entertainment, the rise of television and rock music. Honi went to work as the production manager ofHarlem's Apollo Theatre, where he languished for 16 years. Others worked as messengers and other odd jobs. Between 1960 and 1976, few of them danced. The image of blacks portrayed by Hollywood was either comic or servile. Honi Coles was neither, and some, like Lena Horne, believe that's why Honi never made it big. Not then.

Ms. HORNE: Honi was a black man unlike any of these other men, and let's say he couldn't wear the sort of camouflage that these other men wore. I'm sure that these men were as sophisticated and as grand as Honi was, but it was unrealistic to think that he could make money being that way in Hollywood in those years. I think what didn't happen to him was probably they weren't ready for an elegant, beautiful black dancer, as ready as they should have been.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: But all of that began to change for Honi with the opening in 1976 of Bubbling Brown Sugar, the first major black dance musical to hit Broadway in a long time.Times had changed, and Broadway was finally ready again for Honi Coles. So at a time when most dancers would be thinking of retiring, Honi Coles was getting ready to become a star, bigger than he'd ever been. Even so, he remained chairman of the Copasetics, his old club formed by golden-age tap dancers to honor Bojangles. Now that tap is back, Honi and the Copasetics work all the time, all Honi himself is busier than he's ever been, especially starring in My One and Only, for which he's won three major awards, including a Tony. Tributes have become commonplace, and recently the Smithsonian honored him with a performance with the Jazz Tap Ensemble.

MacNEIL: That's the NewsHour tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.