The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Good evening, I'm Charlene Hunter-Gald in New York. And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Tuesday, we look at the new leading economic indicator numbers. Elizabeth Brackett talks with a group of voters in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. David Gurgen and Mark Shields assess today's primary and caucus results, and Judy Woodruff interviews the UN official in charge of watching Iraq. Part of helping the world live and communicate better is keeping it well informed. That's why funding for the McNeil-Lare NewsHour is provided by AT&T. And by PepsiCo and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and viewers like you. This was another big day in the 1992 Race for President, where the Democratic nomination Bill

Clinton and Paul Sungas competed for the front-runner label, Bob Carey Tom Harkin and Jerry Brown looked for enough votes to keep their campaigns viable. There are primaries in Maryland, Georgia, and Colorado, caucuses in Minnesota, Utah, Washington State, and Idaho. Republican attention was on Georgia, where TV commentator Patrick Buchanan has mounted an all-out effort against President Bush. Buchanan said the Georgia primary would determine whether his campaign for the Republican nomination would continue. We'll have more on this story later in the program, Charlene. There was signs today that the nation's economy may be emerging from recession. After two months of declines, the government's index of leading indicators turned around in January to post its sharpest gain in more than a year. The index signals the course of the economy over the next six to nine months. In a separate report, the government said new home sales also turned around in January, soaring 12.9 percent.

General Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan today gave this cautious assessment about a recovery. He spoke on Capitol Hill. The performance of the economy clearly has been disappointing. The recovery in business activities since last spring has been anemic. Job losses have continued to mount, and confidence has sunk to depressed levels. As we look ahead, there are a few hopeful signs, but at this stage they are quite tentative. The Senate Finance Committee today approved a Democratic tax bill that would raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. The plan also includes business and investment tax cuts and a $300 per child tax break for families with incomes below $70,000 a year. President Bush said this morning he opposed any plan to increase taxes. He was also asked whether raising taxes last year was the biggest mistake of his presidency. Well I don't know about the biggest, but yes, I see I'm very disappointed with Congress.

I thought this one compromise, and it was a compromise, would result in no more tax increases. I thought it would result in total control of domestic discretionary spending. And now we see Congress talking about raising taxes again, and some in Congress are talking about trying to break down the spending caps, and so I'm disappointed in giving all of that. Yes, a mistake. Later, in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Rosemont, Illinois, Mr. Bush said he would veto a bill aimed at reinstating abortion rights if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. A bill known as the Freedom of Choice Act has been introduced in Congress. Mr. Bush had this to say about it. It would impose on all 50 states an unprecedented regime of abortion on demand going well beyond even Roe v. Wade. This is not right, and it will not become law as long as I am President of the United

States of America. Mr. Bush also announced his first formal summit with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He said Yeltsin would come to Washington in June for two days of talks on nuclear and military issues and what he called joint efforts in support of reform in Russia. Former Soviet troops halted there withdrawal from a disputed region and Azerbaijan today. They did so after they were attacked by Armenian militants. It came amid reports of a massacre in the region, which is called Nagorno-Kaburok. We have a worldwide television news report narrated by Vera Frankel, a word of caution. Some of the pictures in it are graphic. Exactly what happened at Kojali is far from clear. Armenia says it showed the ethnic Azeri town within the enclave because it harbored to rocket launchers. The Azeri's have been mourning what they claim happened next.

The machine gun fire cutting down villages as they fled to escape the barrage. The Armenians dispute the allegations of a slaughter. They insist mostly bandits and few civilians were there. But reports of the fighting indicate that the bloodiest ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union has left no place safe or secure. Survivors were taken by helicopter to a hospital at Al-Dham. The feud between Mandy Christian Armenians and Muslim Azeri's over Nagorno-Kaburok has even splinted into attacks on former Soviet troops trying to withdraw from the enclave. Those former Soviet troops began there withdrawal last week for their own safety. They are the final buffer between the enclave's rival factions. The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement today saying President Bush's veto yesterday of a bill attaching conditions to China's trade status was sensible. The bill would have tied progress on human rights among other things to a renewal of

most favored nation status for China. Secretary of State Baker got a grilling from members of Congress today over U.S. financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping efforts. The Bush administration has requested a total of $700 million over two years to cover the U.S. share of peacekeeping in Cambodia, El Salvador, and Yugoslavia. Just when Joe Early, a Massachusetts Democrat said that was too much at a time of tight budgets and domestic spending cuts. The system isn't working, the American people are upset, and we're not paying any attention to them. They don't want to spend, they don't want to crease sevenfold, sevenfold, seven hundred million from a hundred million dollar peacekeeping for Mr. Early. Due to the change in world conditions, there's going to be some increase in peacekeeping expenditures, but there are decreases, and you know there are decreases in military expenditures. Either we address the national security interests of the United States, or we don't,

and maybe what you're suggesting is we simply withdraw. There's a lot of candidates who've campaigned on that kind of an argument in the past, and they've been singularly unsuccessful, because I don't think the American people want America to withdraw from its leadership role around the world. United Nations mediation efforts produced a cease-fire agreement today in the East African nation of Somalia. Leaders of the country's two rival factions signed the accord in the capital, Mogadishu. At least 5,000 people have been killed since fighting broke out there last November. Nine previous cease-fires have failed. Are you in envoy urged the faction leaders to make this one stick? Back to the presidential race for a moment with some preliminary results. Polls have just closed in Georgia, and the Television Networks Project, project at Bill Clinton is the winner of the Democratic race.

On the Republican side, they report President Bush the winner, but Pat Buchanan is putting in a strong—is still showing—strongly, the polls are still open in Maryland and Colorado at this hour. We will bring you those results as they begin to come in. And that's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to some good economic news, voter voices in Mississippi, Gerganin Shields, and the United Nations man on Iraq. First tonight is the end of the recession in sight. As we reported, there was some good economic news today, the index of leading economic indicators and new home sales posted significant gains. But that comes against a backdrop of bad news, including last Wednesday's report that consumer confidence hit a new 17-year low. Here to shed some light on all of this are Stephen Roach, a senior economist at Morgan Stanley,

a New York investment banking firm, and David Resler, chief economist at Nemuro Securities, an investment banking and securities firm, and U.S. subsidiary of a Japanese company. And starting with you, Mr. Roach, let's start with some basics, briefly what are the leading economic indicators? It's a gauge that the government has put together for a number of years that tries to be a forward-looking barometer of the ups and downs of the U.S. economy. It has a variety of components. Right now it has 11 key components. The government puts them together in a pot and comes out with a magic answer every month. It tells the future course as they expect it to occur in the U.S. economy. What are those components? Oh, they include a variety of things like the stock market, the money supply, consumer confidence, the length of the workweek, and the factory sector, sensitive materials prices. You name it, they've got it. These are all ingredients of gauges that do tend to look into the future rather than behind us.

And, you know, hopefully they do tell something about what lies ahead. All right, so how significant then is a 0.9 percent rise in those indicators? That's a big increase if you look back over the last year and a half. We've had a couple of months when the increase was 1.2 percent, those were the two largest gains we've seen, but a 0.9 is right behind that. We need more than 1.9 to say that we're out of the woods, however, on recession. Mr. Resser, how significant do you think that rise is? Well, unfortunately, the index doesn't tell us much that we don't already know. As Steve mentioned, most of those things have been reported already. This is an index for January and we're now looking at February numbers. But one month of an increase doesn't tell us much. There used to be an old rule of thumb that you used to have to have three consecutive changes in direction to tell you where the economy's headed. And last year, we had six consecutive increases and we never came out of the recession or if we did, we certainly aren't in a period of recovery yet. What do you think accounts for this rise and does that have any significance? Well, we had, the biggest gainer was the stock market and this has been a pretty good

run in the stock market, but we had a solid gain in the new orders for manufactured goods. And we had broadly based gains in a number of other major indicators like sensitive materials prices and capital spending commitments and I think that's a sign that there is some life in the system. Why would there be a rise, you think, in the stock market? I mean, particularly given that we have a report also the consumer confidence is way down. Well, it's not a relationship. Let's talk about consumer confidence in a second, but I think the stock market is looking ahead to an economic recovery that's driven by lower interest rates and an economy that has come through a period of wrenching change and the stock market tends to look through any lingering downside that still may be out there for the US economy. Do you think it's because people think the economy is healthy, that they're back into the stock market or is it because rates are cheaper? I think there's something to realize about the stock market.

We've had a 25% increase since the middle of 1989 when this, the economy really started to slow down. So, throughout the period of contraction or slowing of economic activity, stock prices were doing rather well and unfortunately, I don't think there is reliable in the indicator of the future as they might have been in the past. What about the report that home sales are up? I mean, that's a pretty good number, isn't it? It's up almost 30% since last January, since January. The home sales increase was rather impressive, but it's also important to bear in mind that we had the lowest interest rates in January since 1973 from mortgage rates and unfortunately interest rates are up again about half a percentage point from where they were then. We're back to September and October levels in the interest rate markets. So you're saying that might not sustain the home of the high home? What do you, how do you read that? I like the tone of the housing market, I think we've had steady increases in single-family residential construction activity now for some time. We're still at low levels, but we're off of the Iraq bottom levels of the middle of

1990. I think this sector is going to continue to lead the economy out of recession. And that's the traditional role that housing has played. If it does sustain, housing is one of the leaders incoming out of it down term, that's correct. Instead, we would talk about this consumer confidence report in a minute. Let's assume we're at that minute now. How do you see, I mean, way down. We had two measures of consumer confidence that came out last week. The conference board measure fell to a, as you've put it, 18-year low. The University of Michigan measure did not. Of the two measures, the Michigan measure is far more reliable. It is included. It's far less volatile. The conference board measure always collapses at the very end of a recession. In October of 1982, the conference board measure collapsed. People thought there was no end in sight to the recession. The truth is the recession was one month away from ending. How does that happen? It's a statistical property of the way this measure is constructed.

The government, for that reason, alone tosses out the conference board measure, includes the Michigan measure, which actually rose last week in its index of leading economic indicators. The better gauge consumers are not thrilled right now, but they're not nearly as depressed as the conference board measure would lead you to believe. Do you agree with that, Mr. wrestling? Essentially, yes. Steve's right that the index, especially that which feeds into the February leading indicators, the Michigan index, was up last month. But we're still tracking levels that are at the low point of this recession. We haven't really come off the bottom yet. We're basically back to December and November levels. Well, when Alan Greenspan testified today, he warned about extraordinary forces that make the future uncertain, doesn't that put a damper on some of the good news? Until people feel better, it's going to be tough to sustain meaningful gains in spending. I personally believe that the major impediment to an improvement in consumer psychology is fears over job security, especially from white-collar workers who have never known the

pain of economic distress and hardship. How do you see it? I tend to agree. I think there's another element out there, too, that threatens the economy's recovery, and that is the back-up and rising interest rates we've seen in the last month and a half. In my judgment, it was that which derailed the recession or the recovery last year, and it threatens to do so again this year. Do you see any turnaround in the long term, I mean, I think going in employment figures come out on Friday, what do you see happening? It's probably the single most important piece of economic information we get each month, and most of us hazard guesses about what's going to happen, our guess is that we didn't have much improvement in employment in the month of February, and that's going to get reflected on Friday. Do you see any other weak spots that Greenspan may have had in the back of his mind when he issued that little warning? I mean, other little...

He's been cautious for a long time. He's worried right now about balance sheets, both in the financial system and in the household sector of the economy, I think household balance sheets have improved significantly over the last several months. I think household balance sheets, meaning what? Debt ratios relative to income. If you look at installment credit, that ratio relative to income is down to its lowest level right now in about six years. I think the banking system is more liquid today. There certainly has been a peeking out of non-performing loans, there's been an improvement of capital positions in the banking industry, and the money supply growth is starting to pick up. Again, we're not out of the woods, but things are a lot better today than they were a year ago. You agree with that? Essentially, I do agree with that, but I still think we have a problem as long as interest rates remain stubbornly high, and in my judgment, that is the case, especially as it affects long-term interest rates. Any other weak spots? Well, I think there's one of the uncertainties that perhaps Mr. Greenspan was alluding to is that we're going to be facing some rather significant defense cutbacks over the

next several years as the U.S. scales back in some military commitments around the world. I think that throws a lot of doubt on the economy's performance over the long haul. How confident do you feel sitting here, I don't want you to undercut your predictions and things? I've read so much today that says that there's just so much uncertainty that nobody can really be confident about whether we're coming out of the woods when we're going to be out of the woods. How confident do you feel? Well, if you've been doing this for as long as I have, you've had your confidence shaken many a time, and this is certainly a time when that has been the case. We just simply look at traditional relationships in the economy, as I see it, things seem to be falling into place in early 1992 that do lay out the possibility that we will build a sustainable recovery as the year progresses. About mid-year, you would say? Mid-year at the latest, possibly even sooner. Mid-year, you think? I'd say mid-year, assuming that we get a resumption of the decline in interest rates that we enjoyed last year.

All right, Mr. Russell and Mr. Roach, thank you both for being with us. Thank you. Thank you. Now some politics, as seen by voters in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is the first of several reports using polling data from the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press. In 1987, Times Mirror developed a voter classification system based on political and social values, as well as party identification. When they did their latest national survey, Times Mirror did a special run for the news hour in Hattiesburg. When Elizabeth Brackett went there to talk to some of the voices behind those numbers. Shrill train whistles still pierce the air in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, much as they did in the late 1800s when Hattiesburg rail yards and timber mills made it one of the biggest and most important cities in southern Mississippi.

The big homes of the railroad and lumber baron still stand. Much around the corner from the homes of the workers, drawn to the town by jobs in the two industries. Much of that industry is gone now. Today the biggest employer in town is the University of Southern Mississippi. The military and hospitals provide most of the remaining jobs. The unemployment rate is about 6%, that's below the national average. Hattiesburg sits in one of the most Republican areas of the state. For President Reagan and President Bush, both won by substantial margins in Hattiesburg. The town is about 56% white, 40% black, with black voters still giving overwhelming support to Democratic candidates, but their turnout rates have been low. We came to Hattiesburg to talk with these southern voters, just as their region becomes crucial in the presidential primaries. In the latest Times Mirror poll, the South emerged as the strongest area for the president, but even here for the first time an unnamed Democrat virtually ties President Bush.

This feeling was reflected in the Republican voters we spoke to in Hattiesburg. Stephen Herring has been a substitute teacher in Hattiesburg since he lost his full-time job in education two years ago. Times Mirror classified Herring as a disaffected voter. Disaffected voters are independent voters who lean toward Republicans. They are skeptical of big government and big business, and are often having tough financial times themselves. They are also the group most likely to swing away from President Bush. Herring supported Bush and Reagan before him, but he does not think Bush is as popular as he once was. I think he might not do as well, I think he won, Mr. Sippy, last time I just get the impression from hearing people talking at all and seeing the opinion posed about the dissatisfaction with his job performance that he might not care, Mr. Sippy, in the future.

And does that include you? At this point, I'm starting to counsel the other way, so it could, but it's still a long way to November too, and a lot of things could change. Dr. William Yury retired and moved into Hattiesburg after 31 years as a general practitioner in a rural area. Times Mirror calls him an enterprise Republican. Enterprises are affluent, educated, and pro-business. They still make up an important part of the president's base, but the latest Times Mirror poll shows his support slipping among those affluent voters. Dr. Yury says he will support Pat Buchanan on Super Tuesday. I want to give a gentle protest to president to make him understand that we are not satisfied with his leadership domestically, and I don't agree with all the things that Pat Buchanan supports, but I'm going to vote for him because I do think that we've got to turn our

attention to domestic policy and do some things very differently. We made a bad mistake with the giving in on taxation, which the president promised he would not do, quotas are not a good thing for the nation in my opinion. I think the least government is the best government when it comes to business. Government cannot operate businesses as well as the private sector can. If it came to the point where Buchanan was a viable candidate and could beat Bush, would you still support Buchanan? No. I don't think he's electable. Without this time, he might be in 96, but not this time. Steve Thornton has had a very good year in his carpet cleaning business. Though he lacks a high school education, he made more money last year than ever before. Thornton is classified as an upbeat voter by Times Mirror. Upbeat are independents who often vote Republican. They are young, optimistic, and believe strongly in America.

They are the group who remain most influenced by the president's conduct of the Gulf crisis. Thornton, like the way President Bush, ran the war. I thought it was perfect. He couldn't do a better job. Just on that crisis alone, I would vote for him again. I couldn't wish Dan Quell wasn't in there, but given Dan Quell, if he serves another four years under Bush, he could be a good candidate for presidency. What is it you like about Bush? Was it his conduct during the Gulf War? Oh, well, it's that, you know, and it's his experience in office. He served eight years under Reagan, and then he got the presidency, you know, and he went through the Gulf War. Yeah, I think he's did an excellent job. You know, running the country is a hard job. I mean, I got a little business, and it runs me crazy, you know? While the Times Mirror poll showed the now famous unnamed Democrat beating George Bush, it

also showed 66 percent of the voters think the president will win in the fall. That may relate to the voters' lack of enthusiasm for any of the current Democratic candidates. Just one in three rate the contenders as good or excellent, the vast majority rate them only fair or poor. The candidate with the clearest lead in the South is Bill Clinton. In the Times Mirror poll, he leads the other candidates by more than two to one. And we found strong support among Hattiesburg Democrats for Clinton. That word is tyranny. Phillips Graves and her husband, Michael, were born and raised in Hattiesburg. He is a technician with Scott Paper Company, and she does computer data entry for the city. Much of their free time is spent making sure their son Christopher gets his homework done. Her category is New Dealer Democrat, according to Times Mirror. They favor governments spending on social programs and a strong national defense. Clinton has strong support among New Dealers and among blacks.

I've been leaning toward Clinton. I think that because basically he's a southerner. Why would it be important to you to have a presidential candidate from the South? To my recollection, we haven't had one from the South since Jimmy Carter, and I don't think Jimmy Carter did a bad job. He understood the people, and I think Bill Clinton does too. Professor Neal McMillan has been associated with the University of Southern Mississippi, almost from the time he arrived as a student from Michigan 35 years ago. He now teaches history and has published frequently in his field. Times Mirror calls McMillan a secular independent voter. Most seculars lean toward the Democrats. Their well-educated, vigorously support personal freedoms, and lack strong religious convictions. Paul Songus receives his greatest support from the seculars. McMillan likes Songus, but is now favoring Clinton. I think that Bill Clinton might well be the best candidate if he's not already too badly

damaged by what I think is the irresponsible allegations about his personal life and about his patriotism. How do you feel about those allegations, his personal life, for instance? Well, I'm not ready to say that one's personal life is not relevant to one's leadership, but what I know about those allegations, they have no place in the public arena. The patriotism issue, the Warren Vietnam issue, is even more vexing to me, because it seems to me he took the stand that any principal and caring young man of conscience would have taken. And yet now it haunts him. I'm afraid a whole generation of people, people my age and somewhat younger are going to be plagued by that issue until they've passed through our political system. On the questionnaire earlier, you preferred Songus. Have you changed your mind that quickly? I still prefer Paul Songus, but I don't think he's as electable. I think we care in this country about charisma, whatever that means, and his slight speech

impediment, I think, may be a problem for him. Twenty-two-year-old Leslie Murrell is one of eight children raised on a farm in northern Mississippi. She's a senior at USM, with a major in banking, and is now taking a semester off to earn money as a part-time bank teller to cover her expenses for her final year. Sixty's Democrat is the category given to her by Times Mirror. This group is strongly committed to issues of peace and social justice. Murrell has settled on Bill Clinton as her candidate. I always do decide pretty early. That way, if I'm disappointed and I have plenty of time to decide on someone else, and I always expect scandal, that's become a part of the presidential race. What do you like about Clinton? Why does he speak to you? I think he was given an unfair deal from the beginning because he had this scandal to come out all at once. I don't think he's had a chance to really prove himself.

He's trying to dig himself out to try to get the public to look at him again because his name has been scandal. And I think he might have something very good to say if he gave him a chance. If Jesse Jackson is not in Doris Bill Clinton, how much of a difference would that make to you? If he could give a very, very good reason, that's why he's not in Doris and by him being a very positive black image, yes, it can affect my opinion. Four of the six voters we talked to thought the economy was the most important issue the country faced, and none of them thought the president had done a very good job of handling the nation's economic woes. The thing I hear the most is people are unemployed. People have used up their unemployment benefits and they have no income and they're standing in line to get jobs and they're not jobs there to get. How much can government influence the economy? I think government has to put money back into jobs, right now I think they're getting more than an adequate share of tax money which could be left in the economy to create more jobs.

And also I mentioned this in polls that there's a lot of waste in government spending. There's a lot of money being sent abroad to underdeveloped countries, the Soviet Union, and we have people starving in this country and I think we need to take care of our own people. Who do you think is more likely to respond to that, President Bush or a Democratic candidate? I really don't know, I think there are people on both sides who could answer that need. I have always tended to vote for the man and what I thought he would do rather than for the political party. And let me say this as long as they're squabbling between the President and the Senate and Congress, it doesn't matter who the President is, things aren't going to get accomplished. I think it goes back to the war and the Gulf.

I think the President with all the credit did such a superb job of leading the free world in that terrible event. But I was really disappointed that as a parallel thing, he didn't appoint a Blue Ribbon Committee, a think tank to work on the domestic problems that the nation was developing. I think he missed a wonderful opportunity to present the nation and the Congress with solutions to some of our economic woes while he was riding the crest of the popularity of solving that Gulf mess as well as he did. I think there has been such a morass of confusion, the Congress, the Democratic Party makes utterances, the Republican minority makes utterances, the President's people, there seems to be no leadership from anybody, it just seems to be on automatic pilot, things are just floating. And I think that people are really discouraged, I know people here are, they feel like nobody's in control.

How do you think President Bush's handled the economy? He didn't get a very good job on that, just on the simple fact of a Gulf War. That took a lot of his time and with Russ over there, the crisis they've been going through and you can only do so much, being a President, you can't expect him to do all those things at one time. Who do you think could better handle that problem, Republicans or Democrats? I see some things the Republicans can do right, and I see some things the Democrats do right, and they do wrong on both sides, I mean nobody's perfect, you know. What do you think about President Bush's handling of the economy? Well, let me say the first four years I thought he had a grip on it, but then he kind of started losing it, and right now, he's not doing a very good job right now. But I can't say that I'm not prospering that we're not doing well because we are, but

as a whole, as I see the country, no, he's not doing the job now. So the first time, perhaps since 1946, can now focus our energies on domestic issues. President Bush has not addressed these issues. He has no domestic policy that I can understand, paid no attention to domestic concerns and told this race developed, and so to think that once he elected, he will turn to domestic issues is extremely naive. Man simply does not have a social agenda or domestic agenda. I think the rising taxes is one of our more critical problems in the problems faced with the middle class, the fact that they are suffering from the taxes that we currently go through. What do you see the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans concerning the issue of taxes? I think that they all try to avoid the questioning about taxes and that those who are afraid more or less of saying the wrong thing tend to say they are going to lower taxes, which

I don't think will happen. The voices from Hattiesburg reflect the discontent with the President that the Times Mirror found in its poll. Both indicate that Super Tuesday and beyond could mean tough times for the Bush Re-election campaign. And this was presidential primary or caucus day in seven states. The polls have closed in Georgia where the television networks are projecting President Bush, a winner over challenger, Pat Buchanan. On the Democratic side, the networks project Bill Clinton, the winner in Georgia, my white margin, over Paul Sungas. The polls are still open in Maryland and Colorado where Sungas is expected to do well. Gurgen and Shields are here for some analysis of what has happened thus far and what is at stake overall. David Gurgen is editor at large of U.S. News and World Report. He's in Houston tonight. Mark Shields is a syndicated columnist and he's here in Washington.

First, let's put up on the screen. It's now 735 Eastern Time with 13 percent of the votes counted in Georgia among the Democrats. Clinton, 62 percent Sungas, 18 and you can see Brown, Kerry and Harkin. Mark, is that what Bill Clinton needs to do? Oh, I think that's a very impressive show for Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton had to come home. He's been the putative front runner for a long time since dubbed the front runner by the press, are anointed as the front runner quite a while back, and he hadn't won a primary. And he appears to be doing it in rather convincing fashion. And in Georgia today where he had the political establishment with him, and they performed he performed well. I mean, he had the governor, Zell Miller, Senator Sam Nunn, Mayor of Manate Jackson, the Atlanta Handy Young, John Lewis, the Black Congressman from Atlanta. So I mean, he had solid support, and it's a very convincing victory. Convincing victory, David?

Absolutely. Clinton camp will be elated with those results, Jim, if they hold through the night. It appears the governor is well exceeded the mark of 50 percent that he needed, I think, for an impressive victory. If he goes over 60, I think everyone will acknowledge that he's retained a very strong southern base, the organizational group that Mark has just referred to, he clearly has kept the black vote very strongly in his corner early, exit polls indicate as many as 75 percent of the blacks have voted for him in the state of Georgia. And he's also done reasonably well among southern males. He faces a gender gap, southern white women are not voting for him, and anything like the numbers is southern white men are. But a good victory. It's early in the evening. There are a lot of other states to hear from. Mr. Song has still got to prove himself last more results in other states. But David, is there anything I mean, is Georgia, should Georgia be seen as an indication of what's going to happen in the rest of the South, not only, not tonight necessarily, but weak from tonight on super Tuesday, or is Georgia a special case because of all the

things that Mark just went through? All of the stories. I don't think Georgia is a particularly special case, Jim, and there's another primary in the South, is Saturday in South Carolina. The early indications are that Bill Clinton will do at least as well as he does in Georgia. May do a lot better. And then he'll go on. He'll do very well. I mean, Texas now, as you know, there's almost no presence here by the other candidates. People are still learning how to pronounce Paul Song as his name, so that the truth is that this is Clinton country among Democrats. I will tell you at this moment, that Democrats shouldn't just assume that means it's Clinton country, in a general election, in most of these states, a state like Texas right now, George Bush would beat Bill Clinton in Texas. Yeah, in fact, Paul's show that when, correct me if I'm wrong, Mark, that all the polls, I have seen at least, even though they show Bush not doing well against a Democrat when they pair him with a real Democrat, Bill Clinton or Paul Song as Bush still does well. With the Democrat, were they born with a original sin or something or something or something?

Not the ideal or idealized. As far as the South is concerned, the Florida probably will shape up as the battleground now. What is that? That's on Super Tuesday. That's on Super Tuesday, a week from today, and I think that'll be a early indications look like that's going to be a real horse race right now. But then for Clinton, the South is pretty much behind it. I mean, he leaves home then again, doesn't he? That's right. I mean, when Super Tuesday was put together, it was an attempt by southern states and people in the Democratic Party nationally from the South to say, let's have an influence on the nomination. And they felt by having it this early, shortly after New Hampshire, that they could show support for a candidate who was moderate, who could win in the South, which was fine, except that once they leave on Super Tuesday, they never come back south. They're gone. And so the influence the South has, they have on Super Tuesday. David pointed out South Carolina this Saturday, and of course, Georgia today. But after that, they never returned to Dixie.

So it's a question for Clinton, that is, if he can, his victories be big enough to push him out of there with some kind of man. Especially in Illinois and Michigan, you said that he would. And for Congress, can he hold it down to a point in when his, well, we don't know about how Congress has done in Maryland, or Colorado, or whatever, we'll get to those later tonight. But what we do, we just do have some early returns from Georgia on the Republican rise between President Bush and Pat Buchanan, 17% of the vote in, the President getting 60% Pat Buchanan, 40%. What does that tell you, Mark? Well, it tells me right now that if it holds that way, if Buchanan does get 40 or close to it, that he has met the standard of New Hampshire, where he did get 37% of the vote. It certainly means that he's a real factor in the race. I mean, that he's getting a sizable percentage, I still maintain that the 31% of uncommitted in South Dakota was the single most intriguing vote of all of 1992 on either side. I mean, in South Dakota, in February, when people put on their mittens and their mac and

us, and their earmuffs, and drive down, because it's not easy to vote in South Dakota, drive down to cast a ballot for uncommitted. And Pat Buchanan is getting 37, 38, 40% tonight, I think he can make the argument that he's had an impact. Well, but could you also make the argument, David, the question that South Dakota raised that President Bush might not have gotten many more than 60% of the vote, much more than 60% of the vote, if he hadn't even been opposed by Pat Buchanan? That's an interesting point. And there are some indications now out of Maryland and Colorado that Pat Buchanan indeed got a sizable percentage of the vote there. We don't know how much the polls haven't closed yet, we'll have to wait to see. But I think what we're seeing, where he made no effort. I mean, no effort. He basically didn't campaign, and I think it's almost the same day, it's just as Mark was saying, it's almost a vote for the uncommitted. What we're seeing, Jim, I think across the country is that there is a well over a third or so of the Republican voters who are voting are sending a message to the White House.

It's a message of economic protest. Secondly, the social issues, according to some of these exit polls, do not seem to have cut as deeply in favor of Buchanan. Of course, he was campaigning on those in the South as the economic protest did. Once again, the voters of Georgia, just as the voters knew Hampshire were saying, we don't like the way the economy is being handled, we didn't like the way the taxes were increased. And of course, one of the striking things about this is, in Georgia, the unemployment rate is lower than the national average, whereas New Hampshire was higher. So when you get into a state like Georgia where the economy is doing a little better than elsewhere, and there's still this protest vote, that says that the president is vulnerable until this economy picks up, and if the Democrats can feel the strong team, it's going to be a very tight race in November. But as long as Buchanan stays in the race, does he not, does he strengthen President Bush for November, or does he weaken him for November? I think he weakens President Bush for November for this reason, Jim. Pat Buchanan can make the case. And rather persuasively, that since he's been in the race, George Bush has paid a lot

of attention, not only to the conservative part of the Republican party, but also to their issues. I mean, he fired John Fromir as the head of the National Endowment for the Arts after Pat Buchanan made a hue and cry over it. He, the president announced this past weekend, he was for school prayer again. He started visiting more conservative Protestant churches. He was with the evangelicals today. He had even went so far as to admit that the tax increase, where he had broken with the Republican party, the Republican party being the, excuse the Democrats being the tax in spin party, while Republicans were the borrow in spin party, never increasing taxes. He said, he creates the tax and he said, Jim, I made a mistake. And Pat Buchanan can't even say, look, I mean, since I've been in the race, this guy's getting the true faith. He's returning to the faith of his fathers. That makes sense to you, David. Yeah, I think a striking thing, Jim, is this. When we had the New Hampshire primary, we all thought that Pat Buchanan was weakening George Bush because he was making criticisms about him. And he was sort of bleeding him and wounding him just by the nature of the criticisms.

That was time has gone on. I think Marcus is pointing toward a second kind of argument we're going to begin to hear. And that is, those who are not conservative are going to say, well, good grief, if you kind of stays in, the president keeps on doing things to please the right. They're going to argue each once again has no core conviction these once again. He's bowing to whatever the pressure point is and he'll be doubly weakened. When they push him, could that push him out of the mainstream? In other words, because this really helped the Democrats in November? I think that he's going to border on looking like he's pandering if he's not careful here, Jim. And one of the reasons I think the White House ought to look at these significant exit polls that we're getting today is very closely is if this is really an economic protest vote and not the social issues, and the president keeps on trying to re-raise the social issues. He hasn't been any attention to. He looks like he's only pandering to get votes. I think people like Mark are going to come slugging him and say, look, what is this? Where is the core conviction in this fellow?

I would never. I would never slug a course, Jim. But I think what it does is that David's absolutely right. It diminishes. George Bush's strongest, so George Bush's strongest suit was he was a strong decisive resolute leader in the Persian Gulf. Now he doesn't look like a strong decisive resolute leader. As Pat Buchanan raises an issue, George Bush reacts. All right. We have to go. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Next tonight, the continuing showdown between Iraq and the United Nations on dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Iraq agreed to get rid of its scud missiles and other such weapons as the part of the Gulf War ceasefire agreement. But Iraq is now saying it will do so only if the UN starts relaxing economic sanctions imposed on the country. Threatening serious consequences, the UN Security Council extended its deadline until next week when an Iraq delegation, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Tark Aziz, comes to

the United Nations for talks. A UN mission headed by Swedish diplomat, Rolf Echios, has returned from Baghdad after trying to gain compliance with the Security Council resolutions. Judy Woodruff talked with Mr. Echios earlier today and asked him why it was hard for UN inspectors to get the information they need from the Iraqis. Well, it is a consistent refuge from Iraq aside. Well, if I may paraphrase what they are saying to us, they say, we give you what is necessary to know. I feel that there were necessary, it's their own interpretation. We don't feel that we get what is necessary and we have to follow up the ceasefire resolution and its follow-up resolutions which require that Iraq give full complete and final disclosure of all its programs.

And we indeed lack that type of information, the full presentation of the comprehensive program. So you don't see any ambiguity in the language of the resolution itself. I mean, there's no room for, say, misinterpretation or a different interpretation on the part of the Iraqis. There is the language is very clear in the resolution. I don't see any possibility to misread that text. So of what they were required to do, how much have they done? Well, they are, I think they have problems with the missile-related production capabilities. That means facilities and items which are necessary to modify or produce long-range ballistic missiles. They have such equipment, the material and the UN. We require that this material should, all of it should be destroyed. And the Iraqis side say, well, we could convert those items into fort civilian purposes

and make those items useful in the civil industry. Well, what about that? I mean, because their Minister of State for Foreign Affairs said and what a letter to the United Nations last week that in so many words, he said it's not fair to destroy this equipment which could be converted, isn't that a legitimate argument that they're using? And now it's not at all. The security council is, has made clear that missile-related material, including, of course, the missiles themselves and the launchers, all of these things should, all of these things should be destroyed. There is an alternative left for that. But what the Iraqi side is pointing to, however, is that in the field of chemical and biological weapons and what's in the nuclear area, there are certain provisions in the ceasefire resolution which makes it possible to say, rendering harmless these materials. But that is not in relation to the missile missiles.

And also, it is even more difficult to understand the Iraqi side as the Iraqi authorities refuse to accept the plans prepared by the UN for monitoring and verification of Iraq's future capabilities, which adds, of course, to the seriousness of the situation. Well, Mr. Ambassador, what do you think is going to happen? And the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Mr. Aziz, is coming to the United Nations next week to talk with you and others, is that right? He is coming, first of all, to present his view, his government's views on these issues to the security council. And indeed, also, I will see him again. I was, as you know, in Baghdad only a week ago. And do you see room for compromise here? No, I don't see any room for compromise, because security council has taken its decision

on the basis of a ceasefire resolution. That was this is a basis. And one cannot suddenly start to change the ceasefire provisions. They are, so to say, cutting stone, and they should be implemented. That is no doubt about it. Well, if that's the case, what's going to happen? The United Nations has said now that Iraq faces serious consequences. What does that mean, exactly? Well, there are many aspects of this, of course, in the short term, there are obvious things, like the continued sanctions, economic sanctions, both with regard to possibility to deliver God's to Iraq, and second, of course, to buy Iraq, especially oil, and make carry out financial transactions with Iraq.

That's the first thing. The second thing is more difficult maybe to define, but it has to do with Iraq's political isolation, which is a consequence of its own refusal to fully comply with the resolutions. As you know, security council, all 15 members, 15 to zero, all members have condemned the Iraqi behavior. And this political isolation is a matter which is severely hamper Iraqi capability. But Mr. Ambassador, Iraq has been isolated politically for more than a year since it invaded Kuwait. And what makes you think that anything short of some sort of military action using military force is going to get what the United Nations says that it must have? I feel that these both economic and political components in this setup by the UN are effective and that they are working in the long run.

However, that doesn't mean that the council may contemplate or members of the council may contemplate other actions, as you rightly pointed out, the council has said that this can or will have, will have definitely serious consequences. And that was a message we have brought home, I hope, very clearly to the rocket. Well, how quickly could something happen? What are we really talking about here? Well, I guess now that the council has decided in its Friday agreement between all the 15 members to take up this matter very soon again. And that is the second week of March at the latest. That's next week. That is next week. And I guess that the council will consider the situation in the light on what is presented by Iraq. I hope all that the Iraqi authorities and the Iraq government now will come with a message

clearly indicating that Iraq now unconditionally agrees with the resolutions. But you've been over there, Mr. Kayas. You've been dealing with the Iraqi officials face to face. Do you think that they're about to change their position on this? I must say, I can't say I'm not totally hopeful, I'm of course an optimist by nature. So maybe they will rethink the situation. They are in a very serious situation in the Iraqi side of the government and authorities. And I hope that they will understand that and I really, really hope that because it will be a new situation if they do not now fully comply with what is requested, namely unconditional agreement on the resolutions. Do you think they understand what this new situation is that they are facing serious consequences

and possibly military force here? Well, if I can take the risks to speculate, I feel that's a component in the Iraqi leadership fully understands the seriousness of the situation. However, there may be other and maybe the leading component. Saddam Hussein does not understand what is it's take and there may be a new serious mistake. Are you referring to Saddam Hussein? Yes, I'm sure that it is on that level there whether it's a misleading situation and I hope now that after our mission I carried out last week and in the light of the discussion and debate preceding this visit by Iraq that this matter will be more sort of clear and more clear in the in front of the eyes of the leadership. Yes.

Thank you for being with us. Again the major story of this Tuesday was the ongoing 1992 race for President, seven states held primaries or caucuses today in Georgia where the polls have now closed television networks projected a victory for President Bush over challenger Pat Buchanan. Here are the latest results with 21% of the vote in President Bush 60% Pat Buchanan 40%. In the Georgia Democratic race the networks projected a win for Bill Clinton. Here are those results also with 21% Clinton 62% Paul Sangha's 18 and you can see their Brown 8 carry five, Harkin 3%. Should be pointed out that the results from Maryland, Colorado and other states where Senator Sangha's is expected to do well or not in yet. That's our news hour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with full analysis of today's political results.

I'm Jim Lara. Thank you and good night. Funding for the McNeil-Laren news hour has been provided by PepsiCo. Part of helping the world live and communicate better is keeping it well informed. That's why funding for the news hour is also provided by AT&T and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and viewers like you. Video cassettes of the McNeil-Laren news hour are available from PBS video. Call 1-800-328-PBS-1.

This is PBS.