The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, the death toll rose in yesterday's Central American earthquake. The U.S. sent a Naval battle group to the Turkish coast as a warning for Iraq to stay away from the refugee camps. The Pentagon awarded the contract for the Advanced Tactical Fighter plane to a team led by Lockheed. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary we have an update on the struggle of the Kurds to stay alive. Then Roger Mudd reports on transportation policy in the Bush administration, Air Force Sec. Donald Rice explains the big fighter plane decision, and we close with a report on gay politics in San Francisco. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: The death toll from yesterday's Central American earthquake reached at least 75 today. The quake, which struck last night, was centered near Puerto Limon, about 75 miles East of the Costa Rican capital, San Jose. At least 800 people were injured and thousands left homeless in Costa Rica and Western Panama. The tremor measured 7.4 on the Richter Scale. It flattened buildings in Puerto Limon and ripped up roads and bridges throughout the countryside. Powerful aftershocks continued to jolt the area today. The U.S. and the United Nations said they were flying in helicopters to help in the disaster relief effort. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: A U.S. Navy battle group went to the Mediterranean Sea today as a warning to Iraq not to interfere with the Kurdish relief effort. The Navy said the battle group includes the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. It is off the Turkish coast near Northern Iraq. U.S. officials are concerned that armed Iraqi soldiers and police have remained near U.S. troops constructing refugee camps in Northern Iraq near the City of Zako. Defense Department Spokesman Pete Williams said so far the situation is not threatening. He spoke at the Pentagon this afternoon.

MR. WILLIAMS: Iraqi forces don't appear to be interfering with the humanitarian relief effort in Northern Iraq. They're keeping their distance from the members of the multinational units who are working on the refugee centers near the Town of Zako, and in some cases, individual Iraqi soldiers are actually cooperating with the effort. For example, yesterday Iraqi soldiers worked to clear some mines from one side of the road that goes from Salopi and Turkey to Zako in Northern Iraq, while the U.S. soldiers were clearing mines from the other side of the road.

MR. LEHRER: More food and medical aid arrived today for the Kurdish refugees camped near the Turkish border. We have more on the situation in this report narrated by Tom Brown of Worldwide Television News.

MR. BROWN: American and U.N. officials say the refugee situation on the Turkish border is improving. Food and other aid seems to be getting through to the camps in Turkey, itself. This Canadian military convoy was arriving at the U.S. base at Salopi, bringing troops and equipment to reinforce the American relief efforts. The bases in Turkey are providing support for the U.S. forces now established inside Northern Iraq. But for the 1/2 million or more Kurds camped out in the mountains, conditions remain harsh. Officials say things are improving for them, although up to 500 people are said to be dying every day. Baghdad has formally requested the U.N. to take over the camps being built by the Americans in Northern Iraq. It says the American effort in the region is an attack on Iraqi sovereignty.

MR. LEHRER: United Nations peacekeeping troops are set to deploy in Southern Iraq tomorrow. The U.N. forces have no mandate to care for the thousands of refugees on the border, however. The U.S. has said its troops will remain in Iraq until another group takes charge of the refugees. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said today American aircraft will fly relief supplies to Iran. He said Iran agreed to the U.S. help. The United States has had no diplomatic relations with Iran since the 1979 seizing of American hostages in Tehran. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf met with Pres. Bush at the White House today. They had lunch and posed for photographers in the Rose Garden. Neither answered questions from reporters.

MR. MacNeil: Sec. of State Baker held more than nine hours of talks today with Syrian Pres. Hafas Al Assad. Baker said he had a useful discussion, wouldn't say whether an agreement on Arab- Israeli talks was any closer. Mr. Baker also amended his Middle East itinerary to include a quick side trip to the Soviet Union. A Soviet foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow spoke to reporters about the Baker trip.

SPOKESMAN: We look forward to the meeting as another opportunity for the foreign minister and the secretary of state to exchange views, information, impressions, and look jointly for a way to advance practically things towards immediate settlement, as it seems to be a very good moment, comparatively at least, for trying to advance things in that very complex problem area of the world.

MR. LEHRER: There was another strike in the Soviet Union today. Thousands of workers walked off their job in Minsk. They were protesting the republic's failure to address their demands for wage increases and they wanted Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation. The Soviet legislature approved Pres. Gorbachev's economic anti-crisis program. It called for sharp government spending cuts and selling off of state-owned businesses. A vote on banning all strikes was put off until later this week.

MR. MacNeil: The Pentagon ended the suspense about who will build its new stealth fighter. A team of three companies included Lockheed, Boeing, and General Dynamics won the contract. They will manufacture 650 jets known as the Advanced Tactical Fighter over the next 20 years. Pratt & Whitney will build the engines. The project could be worth nearly $100 billion to the companies involved. Sec. of the Air Force Donald Rice said the Lockheed team provided the best value at least cost. We'll have an interview with Sec. Rice about the Advanced Tactical Fighter later in the program. The flight of the space shuttle Discovery was called off six hours before lunchtime this morning. NASA officials said a sensor in the main engine failed as the vehicle was being fueled. The launch will be rescheduled for Sunday at the earliest. The Discovery crew plans an eight day mission devoted to research for the Strategic Defense Initiative.

MR. LEHRER: The Brady Bill took its first legislative step toward becoming law today. The House Judiciary Committee approved it in a 23 to 11 vote. The bill calls for a seven day waiting period for handgun sales nationwide. It now goes to the full House where a vote is expected in early May. Attorney Gen. Dick Thornburgh said Pres. Bush might sign the bill, but he said there were still problems. He spoke to a Mayors Conference in Washington.

ATTORNEY GEN. THORNBURGH: Whether it be the so-called "Brady Bill" or competing point of purchase proposals, we still must recognize that there are serious drawbacks to any proposal regulating the over-the-counter sale of handguns. Today the records needed to make the match up of a potential purchaser with a possible criminal past simply don't exist. To put it bluntly, we can't presently come up with the needed facts on a consistent basis even within a mandated seven day waiting period.

MR. LEHRER: Later a group of mayors held a news conference at the capital to express support for the Brady Bill. One of them was Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn.

MAYOR FLYNN: The people are fed up and they're not going to take it any longer. They are demanding that their Congressional leaders take action to end the onslaught that's taking place and the mayhem that's taking place in cities all across our country. Our neighborhoods are softening because of this inaction. Today we received some encouraging news. The House Judiciary Committee voted favorably 23 to 11 for the Brady Bill. Mayors across this country have been pleading with federal officials for years. It's time to free our neighborhoods, our families, and our children from the senseless killings and the violence that are taking place.

MR. MacNeil: The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, said today that an end to the recession may be near. Greenspan told a Senate hearing the nation's economy is still shrinking but that should stop in a reasonably short period. One economic report out today reported evidence of continued recession. The Commerce Department reported factory orders for durable goods fell 6.2 percent in March to its lowest level in three years. It was the fourth decline in five months. Aircraft and defense related orders experienced the sharpest drops but most major industries were affected.

MR. LEHRER: There was an official response today to the travels of White House Chief of Staff John Sununu. An article in Sunday's Washington Post raised questions about Sununu's use of military airplanes for what appeared to be personal or political travel. Today's White House report said Sununu took 77 trips in the past 27 months. It said 24 of them were political and were reimbursed mostly by the Republican National Committee. Four were said to be personal and paid for by Sununu, himself. The rest were listed as official business. Several Democratic members of Congress have called for a thorough investigation of the matter.

MR. MacNeil: That's our Summary of the news. Now an update on the plight of the Kurds, the administration's new transportation policy, the Pentagon chooses a new fighter plane and gay politics in San Francisco. UPDATE - PLIGHT OF THE KURDS

MR. LEHRER: We begin once again tonight with a story that won't go away, the tragedy of the Kurds. This time we go to the situation of those Kurds who are trying to escape from Iraq into Iran. Iran has appealed for international help to deal with the Kurdish refugees. Today the United States said it would send aid there. Alan Abel of the CBC Journal program arrived in Iran this week. Here is his report on what he found.

MR. ABEL: The Iranian government has established six camps on this mountain, but these are not mountain people. For these urbanites from Kirkuk and Sulamania, and even Baghdad, hunger and deprivation, just lining up for a little water, it's all terribly new and humiliating, the reliance on charity almost as painful as the long, long march that brought them here. One green tent encloses a family from Kirkuk. Ahmed Karim was manager of a bank. His wife, Jean Magite, worked as a bookkeeper. In barely two weeks, they've lost their house, their jobs, their money, they've lost everything.

MR. KARIM: We tell people living here like cave people.

MRS. KARIM: Cave people.

MR. KARIM: No water, no food. Cannot wash, cannot do anything here.

MR. ABEL: Are you afraid that your children will die in this place?

MRS. KARIM: Of course I will be afraid. There is very much sickness. We haven't food. We are hungry. We are very sick. We will be dying. My children will die.

MR. ABEL: It's a refugee camp full of bankers, teachers, lawyers trapped in this beautiful valley. This man was a surveyor. Saddam Hussein says to the Kurdish people, come home, I will not hurt you, everything will be all right, I promise.

REFUGEE: That is a difficult person because many times he was promised, but when anything has happened, there is nothing.

MR. ABEL: So you don't believe his promise?

REFUGEE: Not me, all the people.

MR. ABEL: In these people, do you see sadness, anger, fear? What do you see in the faces of the Kurdish people?

REFUGEE: All are sad and all of them angry and all of them inside they are not happy. There is no happiness left, especially when you see childs die, old mans die, womans die from tiring, from not getting any healthy condition, how will they be happy?

MR. ABEL: In the Sirdwan Valley, the community of sorrow is punctuated by individual agonies. 7 AM outside the new medical tent. The old medical tent was washed off the mountain by a thunderstorm. The death rate here has been slowed. One or two babies perish each night from dysentery and infection. Compared to the horrors of the truck along the canyon, it's an improvement, but doctors like Amadi Monseur are working against time. He says that people cannot live more than a few weeks in these conditions.

DR. MONSEUR: All of them have gastroenteritis, severe diarrhea and bloody diarrhea. A lot of them died from dehydration.

MR. ABEL: Many have died already in this camp.

DR. MONSEUR: Yes, in this camp, and the Hurdawe Camp.

MR. ABEL: You come from Iraq. You are a Kurd. How do you feel when you see this, when you see what has happened to your people?

DR. MONSEUR: What I feel of these people, it's my condition also. One can feel what he feels. Of course you will be sad, you will be very angry at this, because I can do nothing for them.

MR. ABEL: Last August, Dr. Monseur was sent to Kuwait with the Iraqi army. He deserted a month later. Now he shares his people's pain. When he last saw his father and two brothers, they were in jail in Kirkuk, imprisoned for the crime of being Kurdish.

DR. MONSEUR: What I am afraid about, that my brother's taken, a lot of people died, revolution failed, happened, finished.

MR. ABEL: For these victims of Saddam Hussein's guns and bombs, the aid that has reached this remote district has come from inside Iran. The Islamic Republic has opened its borders to more than a million Kurds. There are no American troops here, so far no massive food drops from foreign planes. The only Americans we met in the valley were Bill Frelick on the left of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, and Erik Goldstein of the human rights group, Middle East Watch.

BILL FRELICK, U.S. Committee for Refugees: The refugees expressed tremendous gratitude toward the Iranian government and of course, they continue to ask when they see a Westerner coming into the camp where's the assistance from the Europeans, where's the assistance from the North Americans, and that of course, is absent here.

ERIK GOLDSTEIN, Middle East Watch: One of the most moving things they told me was, this is a teacher of mathematics from Sibomonia, he says, all we ask is that we be able to live like your animals.

MR. ABEL: Among the peoples of the Middle East, are the Kurds especially benighted? Have they had an especially unlucky history?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: A historian once described them, their cause, as the world's least likely to succeed revolution.

MR. ABEL: From the camps of the Shirwan Valley to the Iraqi border are treacherous dirt roads, snakes along the precipice. The highway is still clogged on the Iraqi side with the last stragglers of the Kurdish exodus, survivors of shattered families passing the border checkpoint. The tent cities hold no moreroom for these refugees. They cling to the roadside, denied even the ration subsistence of the organized camps.

REFUGEE: (Speaking through Interpreter) She doesn't eat for three days.

MR. ABEL: Not long ago this valley was a battleground. The town of Nosur on the Iranian side of the frontier was pulverized by years of Iraqi artillery fire. But now even in the ruins, the Kurds have sought shelter. How long will they have to stay here? The experience of other refugees around the world suggests that an exodus once begun is rarely reversed.

MR. FRELICK: Refugees unfortunately do endure for years and years, decades. The Afghan refugees just on the other side of this country have been in Iran for 10 years, have been in Iran for 10 years. The Palestinian refugees for 40 years, so this is a critical time for the governments of the world to address some of the root causes of the refugee flight and to see whether we can come up with creative solutions that will prevent the recurrence of Gaza Strips.

MR. ABEL: While diplomats deliberate on safety zones and airlifts, the tents of the Iranian highlands become more and more like home to the legions of the homeless, a chasm where the ordeal of the Kurds may be just beginning.

MR. MacNeil: Ahead on the NewsHour, national highway policy, the Pentagon's multi-billion dollar fighter plane contract, and gay politics San Francisco style. FOCUS - ROAD WORK AHEAD

MR. LEHRER: Transportation policy is next. President Bush in his end of the war speech to Congress named transportation as one of the two most important domestic issues he wanted handled. His plan now before Congress is for a five year one hundred and five billion dollar program for highways and mass transit. The controversy is how much for each and who pays for what. Roger Mudd reports.

MR. MUDD: If ever a country, a government. a people had a love affair with the open road it is America. From the 18th century Lancaster Pike, 62 miles of wood , stone and gravel between Philadelphia and Lancaster, the National Road from Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, the Lincoln Road from New York to San Francisco, the celebrated Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica America has loved being free to move and the country's governments federal, state and local have always regarded road building as one of their primary services to their service for the constituent. It was in 1955 when President Eisenhower told Congress that what the Nation needed was a modern road network.

PRESIDENT EISENHOWER: A modern highway system is essential to meet the needs of our growing population, our expanding economy, and our national security.

MR. MUDD: What Ike wanted was a fully integrated and connected highway system and that is what he got. 42,500 miles of limited access high speed, four lane highways linking Holton, Maine to San Diego. Bellingham, Washington to Miami. Tying together the great cities of America, New York, Washington, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angles and connecting 90 percent of all the cities with a population of more than 50,000. But what President Eisenhower also got was a system that drew down on the cities. Pulled the very heart if them out to the suburbs, paved over great swages of the country. Helped convert farm land to shopping malls and very nearly determined where millions of Americans lived, worked, learned, ate, and played. Today the interstate system is virtually finished totalling less than 2 percent of the nations road milage but carrying 25 percent of its highway traffic. So now what? What is the next step for transportation? Attract people back to the cities with modernized subways? Save energy by laying down light rail out to the Suburbs? Embark on a policy of moving people not vehicles? Probably not. At least not by the sound of President Bush's words in February.

PRESIDENT BUSH: We've designed new legislation The Surface Transportation Assistance Act to reform existing highway programs and increase funding for what works to prepare for the next American century. And to do it we must invest in our future. So we are investing a 105 billion dollars in our transportation infrastructure over the next five years.

MR. MUDD: What those words add up to is a forty percent increase in funding for roads and a creation of a large two tiered national highway system with the inter states and 107,000 miles of primary roads in the first tier and roughly 700,000 of federal aid roads in the second tier. Washington would continue paying for most of the cost of maintaining and rebuilding roads in the first tier but would cut back on its share for the second tier. Frank Francoise Executive Director of the American Association of State Highway and Transit Officials generally likes the Bush plan but says it has a down side.

MR. FRANCOISE: We think that the Administrations Bill puts too much money on the national highway system and not enough money on the rest of the system.

MR. MUDD: Why is that a down side?

MR. FRANCOISE: Well we think that it is a downside because there are an awful lot of unmet needs on the secondary systems on the urban systems and the rural systems in this nation. To a great extent over the last 10 or 15 years we've more or less starved those systems in order to get the money to compete the interstate network and the work on bridges and other needs. The time has clearly come to address those needs out there.

MR. MUDD: Meeting those needs today is a balancing act. Last month Secretary of Transportation Samuel Skinner spoke of the free spending days back before the big federal deficits.

SEC. SKINNER: If it was a compelling need the Congress with the Administrations acquiescence would allocate additional monies to solve that problem. And there was no cap on discretionary spending. And Congress did not have to rely just on taking from one and giving to another. They could reach in to a whole new pot, the illusionary deficit pot, and add more money. Well the times have changed. The available money that Congress is going to make available for all discretionary programs including mass transit, highways, aviation is limited and will grow at very small amounts.

MR. MUDD: As a consequence the new Bush plan would cut back funding for mass transit. Only a two percent increase over 5 years and no more money helping run those transit systems where the population is more than one million. In addition federal help for mass transit capital improvements would be cut from 80 percent to 60 percent of the cost.

MR. FRANCOISE: Remember this the same Administration and the same Congress that last year helped pass and put in to law a clean air act called for increased transit and reduced automobile usage in our major cities. So our national policy is more transit and now we going to say that national policy is to be met by state and local government we won't put a penny in to it. We think that is wrong.

MR. MUDD: What does the Bush program mean for the States? What will be the impact on Pennsylvania for instance? Pennsylvania ranks fourth in the nation in population and fourth in highway milage. At its Eastern end is Philadelphia the country's 5th largest city and at the Western end is Pittsburgh which expanded and modernized its light rail and subway line. In between are dozens of cities with populations of at least 35,000 bound together by ten different interstates and the States famous Pennsylvania Turnpike. One of those cities is Johnstown where the famous floods and the mill and mine closing have made life less than easy. As its economic health declined so did the condition of its roads and bridges. The Cambria Country transit Authority serves the 160,000 residents of Johnstown and the country plus a chunk of neighboring Blair Country to the East. It is an all bus system except for the incline a 71 percent grade two car rail line connecting Johnstown in the valley and West Mark on Yoder Hill where many of the wealthy built their homes after the great flood of 1889. The Transit Authority called CCTA runs 27 buses a day in and around Johnstown. In addition says Harold Jenkins, who runs CCTA there are 18 to 20 buses in the rural division.

MR. JENKINS: These rural parts of the country they have to make a reservation a day in advance in order to have a ride and they have to be going where our buses are going on that particular day. Then we have buses, call and demand buses they are called. People make a reservation and we pick them up at their doors. They aren't local buses. They might go to Hastings. Spangler, little communities inside the rural areas.

MR. MUDD: If I have a dental appointment in Johnstown and I don't have a car and I live way out in the country I call an 800 number and say I need to be picked up Wednesday at 9 and you come and get me.

MR. JENKINS: Exactly and we'll pull right up to your door and take you right to your dentist or to what appointment you might have that day. So we know how long the ride is going to be, when we will get there and when we will get back and people are able to adjust their schedules accordingly.

MR. MUDD: The average fare in the rural division is around $2. In town the base fare is a $1. Jenkins says the fare box covers less than 35 percent of the cost of running the system. The rest of the operating budget comes from Government, federal, state and local. That money helps run the system it does not maintain or improve it. What does Harold Jenkins think the Bush proposal?

MR. JENKINS: We can not exist on the same amount of monies that you have got for the last four or five years. The rate of inflation keeps climbing and we are not getting a rate of inflation increase in our federal and state dollars. Our state government has picked up a lot of the slack from the Federal Government but they haven't picked up what it takes to run a public transit system.

MR. MUDD: What worries Harold Jenkins most about the Bush Plan is that Johnstown and Cambria Country would become more and more dependent on the State Government at a time when its budget is also being squeezed. So Jenkins came to Washington along with Officials from neighboring counties. On Capitol Hill they visited the Office of Democrat John Murta of Johnstown and they got in to see Republican Bud Schuster whose District includes neighboring Altoona. Schuster is aa major ali of the road builders and highway users and is called behind his back Congressman Concrete. In his District there is not only a Bud Schuster Highway but also a Bud Schuster byway.

REP. SCHUSTER: Our policy in the rural portions and the small urban is geared for survival. You know we've taken a 26 percent cut over the last eight years of the 80s and we have to move forward.

MR. JENKINS: Over the years there has been this constant battle over the highways and transit and like Oklahoma the cowboys and the Indians must be friends.

MR. MUDD: Harold Jenkins is nervous about the future of the Cambria County Transit Authority.

MR. JENKINS: We've just increased our fares from 75 cents to a dollar and that is a pretty high fare for a Johnstown, Pennsylvania. THis is a small rural area that really has not recovered from the last recession that we had in this country and we are in another one now. We reduced the number of miles that we put out in the street, we reduced the amount of service that we put out in the street which means that you get less rides which means less revenues. So you'll have that line of diminishing returns where there will be no need to have public transportation because we will have costed it right out of business.

MR. MUDD: And if you think that Harold Jenkins and his people in Johnstown are having trouble making ends meet come to Philadelphia. The population here is 1.6 million and it is the fourth largest transit system in the country behind New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The Philadelphia System officially the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority but called SEPTA serves 35 percent of the States entire population. 1.2 million trips per day. Johnstown's operating budget is 2 million a year. Philadelphia's is 670 million a year. 53 percent of that budget comes from the fare box. The rest comes from Government and President Bush wants to end the Federal subsidy. Philadelphia says that it is handicapped because it must compete for its subsidies. It has no dedicated source of revenue like the State gas tax which is used altogether for highways. One of the consequences for SEPTA is a crumbling infrastructure. Just two weeks before he was killed Pennsylvania's Senior Senator John Heinz was in Philadelphia seeing for himself how crumbling was crumbling.

SEN. HEINZ: When a steel beam starts coming away in your hands you realize just how serious those problems are.

MR. MUDD: SEPTA's General Manager Louis Gambaccini conducted the inspection for Heinz and Pennsylvania's junior Senator Arland Spector.

MR. GAMBACCINI: If we don't start with in five years a major rehab we won't have the option to rehab. We will have to demolish the whole structure and start over again.

MR. MUDD: SEPTA says it needs 4 and 1/2 billion dollars to rebuild the system with no expansion but has no money to do even that. Gambaccini, of course, hopes the Congress will reverse what he perceives to be a Republican trend to get the Federal Government out of the mass transit business. How does he account for that trend.

MR. GAMBACCINI: Well I think it is largely two things. The politics of the issue. There is not a viable. powerful, demonstrable constituency that is 50 state based as there is for the highway interest. And there are potent economic forces that have been very effective in working the halls of Congress and the Administration to give continuing support of highways and not the equivalent on transit.

MR. MUDD: Almost as if to prove Gambaccini's point 14 House members testified recently on the Bush proposal before the Public World Committee and only one had anything good to say about mass transit. Democrat Tom Downey of Long Island.

REP. DOWNEY: So during the course of your deliberations as you think about the special needs of special organizations please consider the fact that if the elderly are to use the services which we provide under other sections of law they have to be able to get there and right now they are not getting there.

MR. MUDD: So as the surface transportation bill makes its way through Congress the pressure will be on to turn it in to a highway construction bill for help in next years election campaigns. It was after all none other than Democrat Robert Row, Chairman of the Public Works Committee who once said infrastructure is pork barrel spelled backwards. NEWS MAKER

MR. MacNeil: Next, picking the winner in one of the highest stakes contests ever held by the Pentagon. Late today the Air Force named a team of Lockheed, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney the winner of the $12.1 billion contract for full scale development of the ATF or Advanced Tactical Fighter. The Lockheed Consortium was pitted against Northrop and McDonnell Douglas Companies. The contract would net the winning Lockheed Consortium as much as $100 billion over the life of the program. The winning prototype, Lockheed's YF-22, is designed to be the first plane to combine radar deflecting stealth technology with the speed and maneuverability required in air to air combat. For more on what lay behind the choice, we go to the man who made it, Air Force Sec. Donald Rice. Mr. Secretary, thanks for joining us.

SEC. RICE: Nice to be here, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: In simple terms, why the Lockheed prototype over the Northrop?

SEC. RICE: We had an evaluation to make of two competing contractor proposals, two teams. Both of them met the requirements. Either of them could have been chosen in the sense that they complied with what the Air Force had asked for. So we had to do the evaluation based on looking in-depth into the way they propose to go about it into their management plans, into the technical risk reduction plans that they presented. We went through all of that and quite a lot of detail and there were many factors where there were differences between the two teams, no one of them determinant in its own right, but on balance, we concluded that the government would get the best value by proceeding with the Lockheed team in combination with the Pratt & Whitney engine manufacturer.

MR. MacNeil: So you're not getting the best plane necessarily?

SEC. RICE: We found the two airplanes, themselves, very comparable in terms of their aerodynamic performance, in terms of their ability to meet the technical requirements that the Air Force had laid down. There was not a great deal to choose from there and that's why we turned to looking at their avionics development, their management plans, their plans for reliability and maintainability, their, the extent to which we felt the team members were well integrated and presented a proposal that hung together internally. Many of those kind of factors really had entered into the choice to a greater extent than the specific flying characteristics of the airplanes because both of the airplanes could have done the job.

MR. MacNeil: So -- was the economic health of the companies in the two consortiums a factor?

SEC. RICE: We evaluated as best we could the -- I should say we made an assessment of the ability of the proposers to carry out what they had proposed to do, to play their role in whichever team they were a part of. So to that extent, it did figure in the assessment. We do not try to make an independent assessment of whether the larger company of which that proposer team was part would be in any particular financial condition at some point in the distant future. We had no way to be able to make that kind of determination.

MR. MacNeil: Yesterday the Air Force told the Senate in a surprise announcement to the Senatorsthat it planned to buy 100 fewer of these planes, 650 instead of 750. Why was that?

SEC. RICE: A number of planes goes with the force structure. The number 750 was chosen at a time when our plans were for a larger force structure. As a result of the budget summit of last year and Sec. Cheney's decisions on the base force structure for the future, we will now be bringing the Air Force down to 26 1/2 wings from about 38 1/2 fighter wings we've had just a year or so ago. Within that total, we now see about 5 1/2 wings of the front line air superiority fighter in the role that the F-15 has been playing in recent years. But with 5 1/2 wings goes a number of about 648 for the total procurement quantity.

MR. MacNeil: It seemed to be a coincidence that you made that announcement yesterday at, just at the moment when you must have made -- close to the moment you must have made the decision to go for Lockheed did mean that the Lockheed plane is going to cost you more than you expected, therefore, you are opting for fewer of them.

SEC. RICE: No, that really didn't enter into the calculation at all. The only coincidence was that that was the day that our congressional hearing was scheduled which had inquired into that particular matter.

MR. MacNeil: I see.

SEC. RICE: The number of 648 flows really rather directly out of the force structure changes that had been announced earlier by the Secretary of Defense.

MR. MacNeil: What's your comment today on what the Congressional Budget Office analyst told that same committee yesterday, that these planes may well end up costing not $108 million each, but in his figures $135 million each?

SEC. RICE: Well, we have made our independent estimates within the Air Force. We still have some reviews to go forward with as part of the defense acquisition board review. We will be arriving at our final estimates for the program before we commit to full scale development in the summer. The CBO analysis though we think was structured in a way that almost drove their conclusion that somehow this force structure we're planning on in the out years will not be affordable. They assumed that the defense budget would stay constant, no real growth, for a period of 30 years beyond 1995. They assumed that only the low end of the historical range of the percentage of the Air Force budget that could be available for fighter aircraft would, in fact, be available, only the bottom end of the range, and they assumed what we think is a particularly high estimate for the next aircraft, the so-called follow on, multi-roll fighter, which we would perhaps be getting into development in the mid '90s. And if you make all of those worst case assumptions, then you can make it look like it's hard out there beyond the year 2000 to fit all of the procurement in that goes with the force structure. If you modify those assumptions to more realistic ones, then the force structure fits, and we think that's a more believable case.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Secretary, what is this plane for, if it's not going to be deployed until the year 2005, who is its enormously sophisticated technology intended to compete with? Who's the enemy?

SEC. RICE: Robin, the key point is maintaining air superiority into the next century. We have today already being made available around the world in the case of the MiG 29, the Sioux 27, the Mirage F-1, examples of aircraft which are now equivalent in aerodynamic capability to the front line U.S. aircraft. And it has taken a while for other parts of the world to catch up, but they've done so. So we get along today on a modest edge in avionics and on the much greater skill and training base that our pilots bring to the air war. It takes a long time to field a new generation of aircraft. We're looking at 2002 as the earliest we can get the first squadron of the Advanced Tactical Fighter into the force. In that period of time others will close that gap on us and the airplane quality is already in their hands to allow them to do that.

MR. MacNeil: Well, who besides the Soviet Union would have the technology capable of producing anything that can compete with this, apart from allies, the Japanese or the French, the British, and so on?

SEC. RICE: We do project that the Soviets will be doing follow on models to the MiG 29 and the Sioux 27, which will be better, but we don't expect that anyone will be able to produce an airplane as good as this one will be, and that's exactly the point. Others have caught up. We can expect some level of improvement beyond the level they have caught up to today. We need to leap in and produce the next generation of aircraft that will give the U.S. air superiority for the long-term much as the F-15 did for us when it first came into the force in the middle '70s, so the F-15 will have been our front line fighter for 25 years by the time we get the ATF into the force.

MR. MacNeil: So it's to be -- the aim is to be the best in the world by the year 2005 onwards even if there isn't anybody to compete with, is that the --

SEC. RICE: No, I wouldn't put it that way, because there is someone to compete with and that is those who have caught up with us and would make it an even match in the skies, and we're not interested in an even match of the skies. We're interested in maintaining American air superiority. U.S. ground forces have not had to fight without air superiority since 1942 and we certainly intend to keep it that way.

MR. MacNeil: The question has been raised whether going for this expensive plane now you won't be skimping on production of the current front line fighters, the F-15s and F-16s, over the next decade or so.

SEC. RICE: Given the force structure that we've -- that Sec. Cheney has decided upon, which we believe it is quite adequate for the national security needs of the future for the Air Force's contribution to that. At 26 1/2 wings we have in our current plans an adequate quantity of new procurement of the few additional F- 15-E's and F-16s to fill out that force structure and sustain it for a long time to come. We do have in the program plans for a new multiyear, multi-roll fighter which would come along in the mid to late '90s, and could play the role of a replacement for the F-16 type of aircraft.

MR. MacNeil: Finally, a lot has been made and you did today in your announcement of this being the model of a new procurement system, but one kept reading today and hearing that the choice of Lockheed was probable because it falls, the factory falls within the state of Sen. Sam Nunn as the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. What do you say about that?

SEC. RICE: Well --

MR. MacNeil: That it was really politics after all.

SEC. RICE: Robin, I start right off the top resenting the implication. Politics did not play a role of any sort in this choice and I think to suggest that it did impugns the integrity of the hundreds of the highly competent professionals who were involved in this evaluation process and really to my mind, is a way of thinking about this problem that it really undermines the standards of good government that we all want to support.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us.

SEC. RICE: Thank you, Robin. FOCUS - GAINING GROUND

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight a political success story from San Francisco. Spencer Michels of public station KQED reports.

MR. MICHELS: It was a cheering, exhilarated crowd that packed the chambers of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last January for the swearing in of newly elected members of the city's governing body. The biggest cheers came when two new members, both Lesbians, were introduced. Health professional Carole Midgen and civil rights attorney Roberta Achtenberg had both been active in city politics and in gay and lesbian causes for years. Their election, surprising to many, brings to three the number of acknowledged homosexuals on the eleven person board. They join longtime supervisor Harry Britt, last year's Board president.

HARRY BRITT, City Supervisor: And as a gay man, it means a great deal to me to see the opportunity for people who have been despised and who have felt weak to believe that the wisdom we have gained from trying to deal with homophobia and sexism can be recognized as a source of wisdom for the lives of all the city.

MR. MICHELS: Migden has been a top Democratic Party official and an effective fund-raiser, but even for this tough political pro this moment was emotional.

CAROLE MIGDEN, City Supervisor: I didn't know the first thing I had to do was cry. I'm very proud that the lesbian and gay community could produce candidates that were seen as leaders capable of tackling the tough problems we'll face as a city. I am proud that I was elected in virtually every neighborhood of the city.

MR. MICHELS: Gays and lesbians also did well in other citywide races. Gay teacher and stand-up comic Tom Ammiano was elected to the school board. Lesbian attorney Donna Hitchens won a superior court judgeship, and a ballot measure won passage that allows couples, gay or straight, to officially register their relationships, even though they are not legally married. When the law took effect, couples celebrated in city hall. The surprising gay success at the polls followed years when homosexuals had fought for an end to discrimination and homophobia, for equal opportunity in employment, health care, and insurance, and for political representation. Now at the city level many say they are better off than ever before. Gays make up between 15 and 20 percent of San Francisco's adult population. That fact plus the traditional liberal bent of politics here makes San Francisco the nation's leader in successful gay political activity, a model watched by gay activists around the nation. In the 1970s and early '80s gay political activity had been enthusiastic and occasionally even humorous. After a long struggle, the gay community helped elect the city's first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk. Milk's assassination spurred on even more gay activism. But with the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic, the movement soon become somber, subdued and narrowly focused.

CAROLE MIGDEN, City Supervisor: I think we got swept back by an undertow, and that was AIDS and disease. What's exciting to me, frankly, is the emergence of new young activists. I feel like we skipped a generation and that now we see the streets populated with young people that have an agenda and are expressive and want action.

MR. MICHELS: As the AIDS crisis wore on, the activist group ACT- UP emerged to fight in unconventional and combative ways for more research and treatment money, cheaper drugs and fair treatment for AIDS patients. Recently young gays and lesbians have formed a new group called Queer Nation, using the pejorative term for gays to call attention to their status. They videotape their actions like this gathering at a shopping mall. Their goals are centered less on AIDS and more on combatting gay bashing and homophobia.

MARK PRITCHARD, Queer Nation: A lot of our actions are positive and fun like the trips to the malls to get more Queer identity out in the suburbs or our kiss-ins at tourist spots here in San Francisco, but our street patrols is one of our more serious actions. We're really dedicated to making the Castro District and hopefully all of San Francisco more safe for our fair brothers and sisters.

MR. MICHELS: According to San Francisco political consultant and pollster David Binder, the new visibility of gay activism has helped gays running for office.

DAVID BINDER, Political Consultant: We've seen more people kind of breaking out of the inwardness that we saw earlier in the era of AIDS, and they're starting to fight a little bit more, so we're seeing more street activism, especially with the younger crowd, with gays in their '20s, and that street activism, that kind of political acumen that you build that way, is also spilling over into electoral politics.

MR. MICHELS: Tom Ammiano is another beneficiary of the new gay political activity. A teacher turned consultant, he surprised political pros by coming in first in a large field running for the school board. In 1975, Ammiano had been in the classroom seven years when he and some other teachers called a press conference to announce they were gay, among the first teachers anywhere to come out of the closet.

MR. AMMIANO: We called up the union and the woman said oh, day teachers. I said, no, no, no gay teachers.

MR. MICHELS: As a disciple of Harvey Milk, Ammiano became active in gay politics and also began to do stand-up comedy.

TOM AMMIANO, School Board Member: (Doing Routine) If Kurt Waldheim answers the door, tell him, hate your politics, love your shoes! One question that might get asked, it's often asked when you're out in the sunset, is Harry Britt a transvestite? No, but our governor's really a drag.

TOM AMMIANO: You know, in comedy everything is timing. And now I think it is not just comedy. It's politics and social moves and changes.

MR. MICHELS: Ammiano decided last year the time was right to run for the school board. Concerned about high dropout rates among minorities and better quality education, he's also pushing specifically gay issues.

MR. AMMIANO: The curriculum particularly doesn't reflect gay- lesbian sensitivity or perspective, or even a knowledge that people like this exist. And if you think it's not appropriate to somehow address differences in elementary school, then go out on the playground and hear "fagot" and read the graffiti. Of course it's appropriate. In terms of high school and junior high, there's no adequate or institutional support for kids who might think they're gay and you know, everyone loses dignity. I mean, the kids who aren't gay need to learn more about this, because their myths are pretty horrible, child molestation, or that they could be turned into being gay by knowing someone gay.

MR. MICHELS: According to pollster David Binder, Ammiano was elected with strong gay support, but he also had to attract straight voters.

MR. BINDER: The people in San Francisco, which is by and large a very liberal vote, very democratic vote, and accounts for about 20 to 25 percent of the city, so for gay candidates to win in this city, they have to go beyond the gay community to progressive, liberal straights, some minority communities and in some moderate communities and reach out and kind of build coalitions.

MR. MICHELS: Now learning the ropes from a mentor judge, Donna Hitchens also had to form strong alliances to win her one on one battle with an incumbent white male judge.

DONNA HITCHENS, Superior Court Judge: I was able to build coalitions with the communities, with labor, with the African- American community, the Chinese community, the Filipino community, the women's community, that really are based on decades of work.

MR. MICHELS: Judge Hitchens credits here legal activism with helping her election. Active in civil rights in the '60s, women's rights in the '70s, and gay and lesbian rights after that, she had strong support from groups that felt shut out of the legal system.

JUDGE HITCHENS: One of the reasons I won is because the former governor of California had a history of appointing the same type of person to the bench, usually a white male Republican district attorney. And one of the things I talked about during the campaign was a need for diversity, not that it wasn't okay to have white male district attorneys, but that we also needed women, we needed people of color, we need lesbians and gay men, because judges learn from each other. They talk to each other.

MR. MICHELS: In her first official role as judge, Donna Hitchens swore in her friend and political colleague, Tom Ammiano, as a member of the school board. He wrote the oath.

MR. AMMIANO: I pledge to work diligently on curriculum and textbooks --

JUDGE HITCHENS: -- that render no one invisible or token.

MR. AMMIANO: -- that render no one invisible or token.

MR. MICHELS: It was a scene that in 1991 could probably take place only in San Francisco.

MR. AMMIANO: Actually I was crying before because I saw the budget. But I'm over it now. I'm ready for the fight.

MR. MICHELS: San Francisco is taking the success of openly gay candidates in its stride, though there are some sections in the city which never vote for a gay. However, outside a few large cities, gay politicians are likely to have tougher sledding according to pollster David Binder.

MR. BINDER: It's still a long road for gay candidates to win in conservative areas. A candidate has to come across as somebody that the electorate wants to put in office. And if the politics are consistent with the politics of the community, there's always that chance, but there's still a lot of homophobia in the United States.

MR. MICHELS: For gays and lesbians in a liberal stronghold like San Francisco, the next step up the political ladder is to expand their success outside the city limits to the statehouse and beyond. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, the death toll rose to at least 74 in the earthquake which struck Costa Rica and Panama yesterday. Hundreds more were reported injured and thousands homeless. The United States has sent military planes to help with relief operations. A U.S. Naval battle group took up positions off the Turkish coast. It was sent as a warning for Iraq to stay away from the Kurdish refugee camps. And the Pentagon awarded the contract for the Advanced Tactical Fighter plane to a team led by the Lockheed Corporation. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight. Join us tomorrow night for an update on the administration's drug fight, the new head of drug enforcement, and a leading Democratic Senator compare notes. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.