The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, the House passed a tough new drug bill, ethnic unrest intensified in Soviet Armenia, and House Speaker Wright denied any wrongdoing in talking of CIA activities in Nicaragua. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary, we focus first on the controversy over the disclosures by House Speaker Jim Wright about the CIA and Nicaragua, we have a debate between Democratic Congressman Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut and Republican Dan Lungren of California. Then the next in our major issues and debate, tonight where do Bush and Dukakis stand on dealing with the drug problem? We have a documentary report then a discussion with two Congressmen representing the campaigns, Clay Shaw of Florida, and Charles Rangel of New York, and two outside experts, Arnold Trebach of the Drug Policy Foundation, and Peter Bensinger, former Head of the Drug Enforcement Agency.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The House of Representatives passed a strong anti- drug bill today. The vote was an overwhelming 375 to 30. The legislation permits the death penalty in some drug-related crimes. It restricts the rights of persons convicted of drug offenses and provides civil fines and other penalties for drug users. Only a few liberal Democrats opposed the measure on grounds it was legislation that stepped on basic civil rights. There was a major drug conviction today in Los Angeles. A former Mexican homicide detective was found guilty of participating in the 1985 torture murder of a U.S. drug agent. Two other alleged members in a big Mexican drug ring are also on trial in that case. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: In Washington today Secretary of State George Shultz met Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze on arms control and other matters. The Soviet minister told reporters he had not come empty handed, but with an array of proposals to advance negotiations on reducing strategic nuclear weapons. Shevardnadze is due to see President Reagan tomorrow. Back in the Soviet Union, the government moved tanks and troops into the Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan as the dispute between those two ethnic minorities intensified. We have a report by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

LOUISE BATES: On Thursday, troops surrounded government buildings in Yerezan. There were soldiers on every street. Roads leading to administrative offices were sealed off. Workers had declared a general strike. Masses of them stayed away from offices and factories. Most of the strikers were out on the street. Many of them were content to stand around in groups, waving banners demanding that Nagorno-Karabakh be returned to Armenia. Thursday's protests were reasonably orderly. In Nagorno-Karabakh, itself, curfews had been imposed following street battles on Sunday that left one person dead and twenty-five injured. During the last week of ethnic violence in the disputed region, there had been at least fifty casualties. Some thirty buildings were also destroyed. Armenians are now suspicious, fearing reprisals from the Soviet authorities who earlier this year decided that Nagorno-Karabakh must remain under Azerbaijani control.

MR. MacNeil: In Washington, an Armenian dissident stopped Foreign Minister Shevardnadze's car and pleaded to be allowed to go home to visit his dying mother. Shevardnadze got out of the car and said, "Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

MR. LEHRER: House Speaker Jim Wright came to his own defense today. He told reporters his comments about CIA involvement and fomenting unrest in Nicaragua violated no rules. He said he had not revealed anything that was secret or classified. "I am not a member of the House Intelligence Committee. I have not been present at the secret, classified briefings. I have simply said what is generally known and what is true." Wright repeated his charge that the CIA sought to provoke an overreaction by the Sandinistas that would derail Central American peace talks. House Minority Leader Robert Michel and other Republicans have officially asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate Wright's actions.

MR. MacNeil: The Educational Testing Service today issued its fifth national study of science skills among American school children. It reported that more than half of the nation's seventeen year olds are so poorly educated in science that they cannot perform jobs requiring technical skills or benefit from special job training. The report said science achievement remained well below the result of the first study in 1969. In Chicago today, five people were killed in shootings that started when a lone gunman held up an auto goods store. He killed two people there, then took refuge in a school and killed a janitor and a policewoman before being shot dead himself.

MR. LEHRER: The nation's savings & loan industry lost $3.6 billion in the April to June second quarter. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board said today in announcing that figure that it did reflect some slight improvement. The loss was 3.9 billion the previous quarter. The Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin also warned today there is a $20 billion bailout still to come for the savings & loans. He said it in a speech on the Senate floor.

SEN. WILLIAM PROXMIRE, [D] Wisconsin: The bailout to come will be the largest ever in the history of the United States. It will be far bigger than the combined costs, the combined costs of the assistance given after intensive Congressional scrutiny to Chrysler, to Lockheed and New York City. We know that the problem is serious. We also know that it needs to be addressed urgently. Mr. President, without the cooperation of the Administration, Congress cannot do what needs to be done, address the S&L scandal now.

MR. LEHRER: Overseas there was a fire aboard a North Sea oil rig today off the East Coast of Scotland. All but one of the sixty- seven workers on board were accounted and safe. Search operations were underway for the missing man.

MR. MacNeil: In South Africa, 47 people were injured a wave of bomb attacks yesterday and early today. The biggest of five explosions occurred at a Johannesburg bus terminal used mainly by whites. Eighteen people were hurt, several seriously. Some 30 people have died and hundreds have been injured in more than a hundred urban guerrilla attacks this year. In Beirut, Lebanon, fighting broke out between Moslems and Christians over the succession to President Amin Gemayel who leaves office at the end of his six year term tonight. During artillery and machine gun fire three top commanders of the main Shiite Moslem militia Amal were assassinated in their car. Late today, President Gemayel named an interim military government to run Lebanon until his successor is chosen.

MR. LEHRER: And finally in the U.S. Presidential campaign today, both Michael Dukakis and George Bush were in Boston, Dukakis to talk of health care for the elderly, Bush to pick up the endorsement of a police group.

VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, GOP Presidential Candidate: You know, your endorsement means a great deal to me. It shows that you recognize, as I hope most Americans soon will, the fundamental differences that I have with my opponent on questions of values and how to treat with criminals and when it comes to these questions, my opponent is simply out of the American mainstream and I support a very tough approach to crime and I think that you, the crime fighters in the Governor's home city, share with me that approach.

MR. LEHRER: Dukakis returned the political fire at a rally outside the Massachusetts State House.

GOV. MICHAEL DUKAKIS, Dem. Presidential Candidate: He's mugged the truth every time he's opened his mouth. He says we're running a deficit when we've balanced 10 budgets in a row. He says we've raised taxes when, in fact, we've cut them five times in five years. Said the other day we lost 26,000 jobs in the past five years when we've added nearly 1/2 million new jobs to the economy of this state during that time. And now he's back in Boston, impersonating a law enforcement officer.

MR. MacNeil: That's our News Summary. Now it's on to Speaker Wright and the CIA, and who's better on drugs, Bush or Dukakis. FOCUS - WAS WRIGHT WRONG?

MR. MacNeil: First tonight we focus on House Speaker Jim Wright who charges that he acted unethicallyin disclosing information about CIA operations in Nicaragua. Speaker Wright says the CIA deliberately provoked opposition activity against the Sandinista regime. The Republican leadership accused him of violating secrecy rules and asked for an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. For two Congressional perspectives, were joined by Congressman Sam Gejdenson, Democrat of Connecticut, and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Congressman Dan Lungren of California, a Republican member of the Select Committee on Intelligence. They are with us from a studio on Capitol Hill. Congressman Lungren, the Speaker says he didn't break any rules or any law. The information he gave out was not classified. What is your response to that?

REP. DAN LUNGREN, [R] California: Well, the fact of the matter there is no such information as he articulated it yesterday or the day before, and the manner in which he articulated it suggested that, in fact, it did come from classified data. He said, "We have received clear testimony from CIA people that they've deliberately done things to provoke an overreaction on the part of the government in Nicaragua." The CIA testifies before the Select Committee of Intelligence in the House and in the Senate in terms of any and all covert operations. We are unable to confirm or deny whether certain actions took place, but in point of fact, if they were to testify, that would be the committees they would testify before, and the Speaker has no right under the rules of the House to let out any such information unless it goes through a procedure which requires action by the Committee, itself.

MR. MacNeil: So did he act improperly, Mr. Gejdenson?

REP. SAM GEJDENSON, [D] Connecticut, Well, I think what you're seeing is another Republican smokescreen trying to cover the real facts. The Speaker's statement could almost be drawn from an August 7th UPI story that appeared in the San Antonio Life. The story has in it the CIA has spent money from a 10 to 12 million dollar political account earmarked for Nicaraguan internal opposition, CIA and State Department officials have said. We've had CIA officials testify before the World Court on CIA activity, including mining the harbors, setting up the manual for hitting political people inside the assassination manual, and so I think what you've got here is the Republicans trying to set up a smokescreen attacking the Speaker to try to get people away from what's happened, and that is that the Administration from the day President Arias and his other presidents in Central America started the peace process, this Administration has tried to undo the peace process day in and day out, and when the Speaker of the House nailed him on it, they saw they couldn't deal with the facts, so they brought up the smokescreen of violating the House rules. What we've got here is, this is right from the newspapers, it's right from UPI, and I don't know if you think we ought to have members of Congress not allowed to talk about news stories.

MR. MacNeil: But Speaker Wright, as Mr. Lungren just said, Speaker Wright did say in his briefing on Tuesday which gave rise to all this fuss, "We have received clear testimony from CIA people," which strongly implies he, himself, has heard some testimony or heard of it.

REP. GEJDENSON: Well, we've seen testimony both in the public committees, before the Foreign Affairs Committee over the last eight years, before the World Court and from articles like this one, and common knowledge here in Washington is that the CIA under this Administration has tried to cause trouble within Nicaragua, but that's not so much the problem. What they've tried to do is to disrupt the peace process and that's what the Reagan Administration doesn't want the American people to hear. They'd rather have you focus on Speaker Wright and what is clearly publicly available information but instead we're talking here tonight about where he got it instead of the fact that the Reagan Administration has spent the last dozen months trying to undercut the peace process.

MR. MacNeil: How about that, what you're really putting forward is a smokescreen, Mr. Lungren?

REP. LUNGREN: Well, that's absolute nonsense. I mean, the fact of the matter is if anybody seriously looked into the investigation of Iran/Contra, one of the things that was really at bottom there was a lack of trust that existed on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. You are not going to be able to take care of problems that ensued, as we saw in the Iran/Contra affair, unless you restore that confidence, that trust. I don't care whether you have a Democrat or a Republican Administration, and for the Speaker of the House to be so cavalier in his attitude as to what may or may not be a secret operation of the United States Government under the CIA is absolutely totally irresponsible. It's not a smokescreen. We did not bring this up. It was brought up by the Speaker of the House and the fact of the matter is we are debating within the next two weeks whether we ought to have a 48 hour rule, which in my judgment will tie the hands of a future President, and when Jim Wright appeared before us, he said, "If we were to assume that Congress cannot be trusted with information, then we betray a lack of confidence in this fundamental system of ours. It is upon this assumption -- it rests upon the assumption that Congress can be trusted." That's what it goes to. Can the Congress, can the Speaker of the House of Representatives be trusted on something that admittedly is surrounded by politics? If the Speaker cannot rise above it, it means that no future Administration can deal with this Congress and this Speaker, have the confidence --

MR. MacNeil: Let me ask you this, Congressman Lungren. If any member of Congress, in this case the Speaker, finds out that something is happening from whatever way, and strongly disapproves of that policy, what is the correct procedure? In this case, what would have been the correct procedure for him to follow?

REP. LUNGREN: The correct procedure is to before the Select Committee on Intelligence, to bring that concern before us. We would then have a vote --

REP. GEJDENSON: Only --

REP. LUNGREN: Wait a second. We would have a vote on that --

MR. MacNeil: Let him answer, Mr. Gejdenson.

REP. LUNGREN: -- and bring it before the House. There is a specific procedure for doing that. The Speaker of the House nor any member of Congress has not the right to do that on his or her own. That's a violation of our rules. That's a violation of the ethics of the House. If you don't have that procedure, you can't have any Administration that has any confidence in its dealings with the House in terms of covert operations, each of which is reported to the House Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Committee.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Gejdenson, comment on that, that that was the correct procedure.

REP. GEJDENSON: The problem with that, the problem with that is, that's predicated on the assumption that the Speaker somehow has gotten an Intelligence briefing. The Speaker has not gotten an Intelligence briefing. He specifically does not take Intelligence briefings on this issue. If this matter was gotten at an Intelligence briefing. If the Speaker had been at the Select Committee On Intelligence getting a briefing and then disclosed the information, you'd be right. But you're wrong because this is publicly available information and the Speaker got it from a public source. You cannot demonstrate that the Speaker had some kind of private briefing because no such private briefing occurred, and what you're trying to do is to protect Ronald Reagan and George Bush who have continuously gone outside the law and outside the law and outside what American policy is in Central America, and this is just one more example, and this time you know the American people are for the Arias Peace Plan, so what you want to do is throw sand at the Speaker of the House. The rules of the House are clear. The rules of the House are clear. If it's publicly available information, if it's information you got from the newspapers, as this is, then you're in a position to use it publicly.

REP. LUNGREN: You're absolutely right. If Jim Wright had said talking to the press, I've read in the newspaper allegations that the CIA have done this, that is different.

REP. GEJDENSON: That is not absolutely not necessary.

REP. LUNGREN: When the Speaker of the House who in his previous position as Majority Leader was an ex-officio member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and sat in on briefings, who know whether this subject was brought up, but had the capability of sitting in on briefings, every briefing involving a covert operation, makes a statement like that, he has the responsibility to the American people and to the Congress of the United States to act in a responsible way. At the very least, he was irresponsible. Perhaps he was in error. Perhaps he just wanted to make a misstatement.

MR. MacNeil: Congressman Lungren, why has no member of the Administration or any of the other Republicans in the House who've commented on this, why have they not denied the substance of what the Speaker is saying, that the CIA was trying to provoke the opposition to provoke the Sandinistas into an overreaction?

REP. LUNGREN: It puts us in a terribly untenable position because under the rules of the House we can neither confirm nor deny any such covert operation that may or may or may not have existed.

MR. MacNeil: How is the public served, how is the public supposed to have an opportunity to decide on whether that's appropriate policy or not?

REP. LUNGREN: The procedure was established a number of years ago which requires the Administration, this and any other Administration, to come before the Committee and present the findings of any and all covert operations. We've already been through the Iran/Contra thing to see that that was not done in that circumstance. That's the one situation in which it wasn't done. There were two examples in the Carter Administration where it wasn't done for a long period of time because lives were involved. Absent those three occasions, every other covert operation has been reported both to the Senate and to the House Intelligence Committees. We have the responsibility if we believe something is amiss to either turn it down or bring it to the attention of the Houses we represent. That's what we established as the procedure so that we would look into those things, so that we would be the oversight committee, and so there would be a responsible way of doing it. That's the way to do it.

MR. MacNeil: Congressman Gejdenson, what about the charge the State Department and others have made that by making this information public the lives of those opposition leaders who were imprisoned by the Sandinistas after a big demonstration during the summer are jeopardized, or the --

REP. GEJDENSON: I think that the problem with your statement is that this information was public. If you look at the UPI story of August 7th, six weeks ago, this was public information. It was printed in the front page of a Texas paper. Now I think that what you've really got here is my good friend and colleague likes the smokescreen about leaking secret documents, because then he doesn't have to answer the fundamental issue.

MR. MacNeil: Well, have any Democrats gone back to the House Intelligence Committee and said we've heard, we've read press reports that this activity is going on, is it true, because if it's true, we don't approve of it?

REP. GEJDENSON: The people in the Select Committee aren't in a position to publicly discuss that, but we are in a position to publicly discuss a public article on UPI which says that the Administration is basically trying to undercut the peace plan which it publicly argues it's in favor, and the Republicans are trying to use this smokescreen on the Speaker so that they don't have to debate the fundamental issue of shouldn't the United States be trying to help President Arias, instead of trying to undercut President Arias.

REP. LUNGREN: An article that appears in UPI does not make it a fact. Any covert operation that is currently existent in the world today has been already presented to the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee for their review. So maybe it was begun, many any particular program was begun by this Administration during this period of time, but it has been reviewed by and given acceptance by the committee --

REP. GEJDENSON: Well, not quite.

REP. LUNGREN: That's absolutely the way the facts are.

REP. GEJDENSON: It's not accepted. They haven't objected.

REP. LUNGREN: -- by those committees established in the Congress. If there is a major objection, I can assure you any such covert operation would not exist and not go forward.

REP. GEJDENSON: Could I ask one question.

REP. LUNGREN: And the other thing is this is an alleged activity and I think we ought to make that clear.

MR. MacNeil: Congressman Gejdenson, you have a question?

REP. GEJDENSON: Let me ask my colleague this question. Forgetting whether or not any covert activities exist, would you support a policy that had the United States trying to undercut the Arias Peace Plan? Are you and the Republican Party in favor of Arias, or are you in favor of undercutting Arias and destroying the peace process? That's the question here for the American people. Forget the covert activity whether it exists or not.

REP. LUNGREN: Well, I can understand why you'd want to forget the covert operation process --

REP. GEJDENSON: Well, can you answer that question?

REP. LUNGREN: -- and the process that's been established, but the fact of the matter, this Administration and our party is committed to the successful resolution of this Arias Peace Plan if that can succeed.

REP. GEJDENSON: So that if that is public policy, would you think it's against public policy to have covert activities that try to create turmoil that would prevent the Arias Peace Plan from being successful? Would you be in favor of such a plan were to be proposed to create turmoil in order to undercut the Arians Peace Plan? Would you be against it?

REP. LUNGREN: In the first place, there is no evidence whatsoever any actions are being taken at the present time --

REP. GEJDENSON: I'm talking theoretically.

REP. LUNGREN: -- to undercut the Arias Peace Plan, no allegations whatsoever. Secondly, you know I cannot discuss any - -

REP. GEJDENSON: I'm not talking about a real program. I'm talking about what should American policy be.

REP. LUNGREN: The fact of the matter is this Administration supports the Arias Peace Plan.

REP. GEJDENSON: Not by its actions.

REP. LUNGREN: It wants a peace plan that allows participation by people in those countries, and that's what we're talking about, full political participation, which you seem to forget about when you talk about the Arias Peace Plan.

MR. MacNeil: Gentlemen, we have to interrupt you there. Thank you both, Congressman Gejdenson, Congressman Lungren, for joining us. SERIES - '88 - ISSUE & DEBATE

MR. LEHRER: We go now to our special Presidential Campaign coverage and to the third in our series of issue & debates. The subject is drug, the issue identified by several polls as the No. 1 concern of voters in this election year and the issue that caused the House of Representatives this very day to enact a strong anti-drug bill. Two Congressmen are here to argue the drug positions of George Bush and Michael Dukakis. Two independent drug policy experts are also here. We begin with a background report from Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET, Los Angeles.

JEFFREY KAYE: Efforts to eradicate drug crops around the world and to quench a seemingly insatiable drug demand in the United States have had little success, so the candidates, both of them, are talking tough.

GOV. MICHAEL DUKAKIS, Dem. Presidential Candidate: I'm going to do all I possibly can in the White House to give you the support you need to fight and win the war against drugs.

VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, GOP Presidential Candidate: We're not going to sound retreat ever in this war on drugs.

MR. KAYE: Polls indicate this war is a popular one and since the candidates are on the same side, the question is who's best qualified to lead the charge, Michael Dukakis or George Bush?

SEN. HOWARD METZENBAUM, [D] Ohio: George Bush says he'll be tough on drugs, but as Vice President, he was given major responsibility in the war on drugs, but he failed to meet the challenge.

GEORGE SHULTZ, Secretary of State: The Vice President has been really out in front on this issue. He has been a key factor in marshalling our forces to turn back the tide of narcotics trafficking.

MR. KAYE: But despite dramatic seizures the drug tide has not been turned back even though the Reagan/Bush Administration has poured more than $12 billion into the effort.

VICE PRESIDENT BUSH: We have been tough. Since 1981, we have seized 150 tons of cocaine.

MR. KAYE: Bush has enjoyed high visibility as the Administration's point man in the drug war. He first headed a task force to stem the flow of drugs into Miami, then as put in charge of the national narcotics border interdiction system. But record amounts of drugs still flow into the country. The pressure on Florida forced smugglers to shift their supply routes to the West of the United States. In Los Angeles, the police department's property division is running out of storage space for confiscated drugs and for weapons associated with drug crimes. The staggering dimensions of the drug trade have given Dukakis ample ammunition.

GOV. DUKAKIS: Why after 7 years of task forces and policy boards and major announcements and grandiose claims have cocaine imports into this country tripled, drugrelated deaths doubled, and heroin imports risen by 50 percent?

MR. KAYE: Dukakis also criticizes the Administration's close ties to Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. He charges the government long tolerated Noriega's rumored drug dealing before it eventually indicted him on drug trafficking charges.

GOV. DUKAKIS: I want to know what was going on, who was dealing with whom, were we, in fact, in bed with Noriega, and if so, why.

VICE PRESIDENT BUSH: When Mr. Noriega was found to be involved, provably involved, in narcotics, he was indicted by the Reagan/Bush Administration, and he ought to be brought to justice and pay the price for polluting the lives of a lot of young people in this country.

MR. KAYE: According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 6 million Americans use cocaine, half a million are addicted to heroin, and 23 million smoke marijuana. Michael Newcomb, a researcher at the University of Southern California, says drug use among teens has decreased slightly, but overall, drug abuse is at record high levels.

MICHAEL NEWCOMB, University of Southern California: Demand as far as I can tell is increasing for drugs like cocaine, which I think has got to be a major concern to us, particularly drugs that are highly highly addictive like crack cocaine and free base cocaine. The numbers on these are just staggering in terms of the amount of kids using it, and particularly the older people.

MR. KAYE: The huge demand has contributed to the increase in violent gang activity in urban areas. In Los Angeles, police are trying to crack down on violence among gangs feuding in part over drug territories, but Police Chief Daryl Gates is overwhelmed by the flow of narcotics.

DARYL GATES, Chief, Los Angeles Police Dept.: Law enforcement has put together I think a mighty effort in trying to put their finger in the dike, but that's just about all that it is is a finger in the dike.

MR. KAYE: Gates, whose own adult son has had drug problems, is frustrated, so frustrated at law enforcements inability cope with the drug crisis that he advocates a military solution.

MR. GATES: I said jokingly that I would go to the source. I would have friendly invasion of Colombia. I think Colombia is a country that no longer is sovereign. It is controlled by the drug dealers.

MR. KAYE: What do you mean by friendly invasion?

MR. GATES: Well, I think the United States has a need to go in and to invade those countries on a friendly basis or if need be on a forceful basis to stop the flow of narcotics in the United States.

MR. KAYE: Neither Dukakis nor Bush have taken up Gates' invasion idea, but both candidates do feel U.S. troops could be used to assist foreign countries eradicate drug crops. There are other similarities in the candidates' proposals. Dukakis would establish a cabinet level post to lead the attack on drugs. Bush would put his Vice President, Dan Quayle, in charge of the drug war. So the difference between the candidates is primarily one of emphasis. Both want to reduce the demand for drugs through education programs, but George Bush feels that the war on drugs should start with law enforcement and stiffer penalties.

VICE PRESIDENT BUSH: And if I have my way, the dealers who commit drug-related murders will get what they deserve. I really do believe that the death penalty is the answer.

MR. KAYE: Dukakis opposes the death penalty. He wants to more effectively use seized drug profits to help fund law enforcement and he advocates a national alliance against drug abuse similar to a successful program he introduced in Massachusetts in 1984. The Governor's Alliance helps nearly 300 towns run drug education programs in elementary and high schools.

GOV. DUKAKIS: This country must make a commitment to drug free schools in the 1990s, and that means drug education beginning in the early elementary grades in every elementary school in the United States of America.

MR. KAYE: The Reagan Administration has spent seven times more money on drug law enforcement than on treatment and education. Still, Nancy Reagan's advice to young people has become a household phrase.

NANCY REAGAN, First Lady: Say yes to your life and when it comes to drugs and alcohol, just say no.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: It's time, as Nancy said, for America to just say no to drugs.

MICHAEL NEWCOMB, University of Southern California: Drugs are a more complex problem than just teaching them how to say no. I think that's an important aspect, but we need to involve the families, we need to involve the communities, and, in fact, we have to confront our own attitudes as a nation about our ideas about drug use.

MR. KAYE: The drug issue remains a tricky one for George Bush. Despite his tough rhetoric, illicit drugs have become more plentiful and cheaper under his stewardship of the Administration's drug war. For his part, Michael Dukakis must persuade voters he's got a better idea. Drug use among Massachusetts high school students has dropped faster than the national rate since the Governor began his education program, but there's no guarantee that a successful state program will work on a national scale.

MR. LEHRER: The Bush and Dukakis campaigns have chosen two key Congressional supporters to represent their positions here tonight, Democrat Charles Rangel of New York for Dukakis, Republican Clay Shaw of Florida for Bush. They are with us from Capitol Hill. Congressman Rangel, to you first. How would you characterize the differences in the approaches to the drug problem between Governor Dukakis Vice President Bush?

REP. CHARLES RANGEL, [D] New York: We don't know what Vice President Bush's position has been. He's been in office for close to eight years, and I am like Sen. Quayle, I did not even know he was involved in the drug process. Gov. Dukakis, on the other hand, believes that we should have a comprehensive plan, a strategy and a policy. Clay Shaw has been one of the hardest working members in the Congress and certainly on the Select Committee and he can't tell you and no member of Congress when any comprehensive package has ever been presented to the United States Congress. Gov. Dukakis would like to have somebody that's honest that's a part of his cabinet to coordinate the efforts with all the cabinet officers and work with him. The Bush/Reagan Administration has given us Ed Meese, and you know what he's given to the country. I think when you start looking at those people that should be involved in a war, you take a look at what Gov. Dukakis is advocating and you would see it is exactly the opposite of what has happened in the last eight years. We need a Secretary of State, according to Gov. Dukakis, that's going to tell countries that produce drugs that they receive not one cent in economic aid, military assistance or technical assistance, unless they're cooperating with us. Everyone in the Congress knows that all you have to do with Secretary Shultz is say you're against Communism and you can wheel and deal in drugs all you want. Not one statement from the Secretary of State on drugs in eight years have we ever heard in the media or on the Hill. If we're talking about education, Gov. Dukakis wants a Secretary of Education not like Bennett who just says, just say no, but one that really is involved in education and prevention. He wants a Secretary of Health that's going to have at least one federal rehabilitation program as a model for the nation, but we should have more of a federal effort. And I see, when it comes to state and local enforcement, I just heard Vice President Bush talk about the death penalty, every state can have the death penalty if they want it, and in addition to that, 38 already have it. You can't kill a person twice, once by the state and then have the federal officials come and electrocute him again. The tragedy is that as they talk about getting tough in a drug enforcement Administration, under Reagan and Bush and Bush and Reagan and Meese, you'll have 2800 total DEA agents fighting the so-called war against drugs. Gov. Dukakis would double that number, but more importantly, he would give the aid and the assistance to local law enforcement which has been vigorously fought by OMB, by President Reagan and by so called Attorney General Meese. So I'm saying that Dukakis has an overall strategy, and we still haven't heard it yet, and that's why today we're fighting on the floor to put together a bill we just passed, instead of supporting an Administration that has given us nothing but slogans and rhetoric.

MR. LEHRER: All right, Congressman Shaw, lay out Vice President Bush's position on drugs and contrast that with the list of what Gov. Dukakis would do.

REP. CLAY SHAW, [R] Florida: Well, I think when you talk about trying to contrast the two campaigns, you have to look at what Gov. Dukakis is not willing to do. Now I in preparation for this program have examined Gov. Dukakis's platform on drugs and exactly what he would do. And there's some good things in here. There's a lot of things in here. In fact, just about everything that he's got in here is also in a similar paper which I've been studying that's been put out by Vice President Bush, but what is not in here is what we must look at. There's no hint of a death penalty. As a matter of fact, we know that Gov. Dukakis has vetoed a death penalty in Massachusetts. There's nothing in here about any criminal accountability. There's no minimum mandatory sentences. There's no increased sentences. All he talks about are things affecting the treatment, which is good, things affecting education, which is good, but the other areas he's not really hitting on. What the Vice President is proposing in his platform with regard to drugs is increased treatment. He's concerned about pregnant women. And incidentally, I know that in Massachusetts, for instance, that the instances of babies that are born addicted to drugs are up 130 percent. He also wants to get talking about education. You said something about that in Massachusetts in the area of education that they were having a great success, but I don't think you can have a great success when you have one of the greatest, one of the highest dropout levels in the whole country. In Massachusetts 43 to 46 percent of the students are dropping out of high school, and we know those are the ones that are probably into drugs or a great percentage of them are. These are some of the things that you have to talk about. You also have to talk about how Vice President Bush has already become deeply involved in negotiations with other countries and we are having some successes. There's a great deal more that we have to do and there's a lot of new ideas that are going to come out of the Bush Administration.

MR. LEHRER: Just to pick up on one of the things that Congressman Rangel said, that the Reagan/Bush Administration did not use foreign policy, did not use the State Department to go after the drug problem. How would Vice President Bush change that, if you think it needs changing, in his Administration?

REP. SHAW: Well, Charlie and I agree on an awful lot. We're very good friends. We disagree as to who should be the next President, but we have worked hard together and I would also have to say to Charlie, as he said about me, that he is one of the leading advocates of taking care of the drug problem. He's worked awfully hard in his career in Congress and he's done an awful lot for it. And I've visited with heads of states of other governments with Charlie and we both agree that we need to do more in that particular area and I think that Vice President Bush certainly will during the Bush Administration. We cannot disregard the Reagan/Bush record because it's there. And it's something that we're proud of and something that we're happy to run on, but I think that we certainly know that with the background the Vice President has had as an Ambassador to the United Nations and as Ambassador to Red China and then working with governments such as the Colombian Government, which we have had some successes with, even though still there is a tremendous problem down there, that he is going to get to the source and we are going to raise it to the highest possible priority.

REP. RANGEL: Name one thing, one thing that Vice President Bush has done that we can be proud of. First of all, Sen. Quayle didn't even know he was there and I didn't either.

REP. SHAW: You knew, Charlie --

REP. RANGEL: Drugs have tripled --

MR. LEHRER: Let him answer.

REP. SHAW: He has come into South Florida, and I can tell you with a South Florida task force which now the people in Texas and all up and down the East Coast have asked us to duplicate. You and I have gone down to the Texas border and had hearings with your select committee on narcotics and we know that these witnesses were telling us just do in Texas what the Vice President is doing in Florida. That's the interdiction effort.

REP. RANGEL: Let me ask this. Now you're from Florida and you know that drugs have tripled in the entrance in Florida in the last six years. We've got to that coast the coast is nothing but a sieve, according to Commissioner Von Rob of customs. And if you find the Vice President of the United States with access to every cabinet officer and that is the success when he's in charge just of your little border, what the heck is he going to do as President for the borders of the whole United States?

REP. SHAW: I'll tell you what he's going to do. He's going to raise the level of working with other governments. We're going to be going into --

REP. RANGEL: What government has he talked to?

REP. SHAW: Well, they're working with some 23 governments right now.

REP. RANGEL: Well, what government, he hasn't had a summit with his counterparts in any country, the Secretary of State is out of the loop on narcotics. There is not one cabinet officer, besides the rhetoric of Meese, that we've heard from and Vice President Bush resided.

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen, we're going to hear from two other folks and then we're going to come right back to you. Don't go away. Thank you. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Yes. We now have the views of our two drug policy experts. Arnold Trebach is head of the Drug Policy Foundation in Washington, D.C, and a Professor of Criminal Law at American University. Peter Bensingerserved as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration from 1976 to '81, and now heads a Chicago consulting firm specializing in alcohol and drug policy. Mr. Trebach, do you see any important difference between the Bush and Dukakis platforms and how they would deal with the drug problem?

ARNOLD TREBACH, Drug Policy Foundation: Very little, I'm afraid. It's almost like Rambo 20 and Rambo 21. They're trying to out tough one another and I think it's sad. We have the beginnings of a, or the continuation of a national tragedy here. We have a failed drug policy despite the best efforts of the Reagan Administration and many good people in law enforcement, it doesn't work. I must agree with my friend Congressman Rangel about South Florida. We don't agree on a lot but we certainly agree on that. I was down there for my last book and wandered that place. Kids find it somewhat difficult to get marijuana, but quite easy to get crack and cocaine. All of this occurred on Mr. Bush's watch. So my fear is that both candidates promise a continuation of a failed policy and we will have more crime, more violence, our prisons even fuller and more drug abuse. And what must happen is some radical changes in our approach. They perhaps could start with radical changes in the way we deal with addicts that would treat them better.

MR. MacNeil: I'll come back to you in a moment to ask you what you think should be done, but just let me go to Mr. Bensinger. Do you see any appreciable difference between the approach of the two candidates?

PETER BENSINGER, Former Drug Enforcement Agency Adm.: Well, I think the nature of your question is part of the problem because we look in the drug issue as a game of war that has a beginning and an end, a football game, 50 minute quarters. We look for a partisan, a Democratic and a Republican platform. Candidly, as long as we do that, we're not going to be very effective. What we need is a bipartisan policy. What we need is a nonpartisan policy. What we need is long-term commitments, multi-year funding and not just one sentence sound bites. I do think there are some differences though, Robin, and I think the differences are really difficult to project for the public because we don't have dollar signs behind the programs. We don't have means of accomplishing prevention, education, treatment, and local and state cooperation. These are very important principles.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. I'll also come back to you on what you think should be done, but I just wonder on the stuff the public is hearing at the moment, let's go back to the business of being tough, Mr. Trebach, how relevant is the argument for a voter between the two camps about who would be tougher supporting stronger punishments, the death penalty, whatever, how relevant is that to the problem in your view?

MR. TREBACH: I feel it is very relevant because the American people have been scared to death for years and certainly during the Reagan Administration about this problem. It's a serious problem, but illegal drugs considered alone are not as serious a problem, for example, as alcohol and tobacco in terms of health threat and I fear that they are made to see a problem that is exaggerated and they're made to accept tough measures as the only answer. I'll give you an example of one. A Navy lieutenant, a female Navy lieutenant told me recently that in order to carry out this tough policy in the Navy, it is required that female officers disrobe, sit on a toilet and be faced eye to eye by the watcher while they give a urine sample. I'm old fashioned. I'm repulsed by that and by a thousand permutations of that that we all accept in the name of fighting drugs. It's time to slow down, think of new approaches of dealing with this and start getting sensible about the problem.

MR. MacNeil: Is the death penalty --

MR. BENSINGER: I have to say, if I may though, I disagree with the two premises which Arnold Trebach just said. No. 1, that a disincentive, and I think that's what we do need at the most punitive level and for users, and I disagree with the suggestion that the Navy is not having much success with drug testing when, in fact, the drug testing element is one of the things that has cleaned up drug use in the Navy, by far and away its most effective measure. The use was 48 percent in 1981 of seamen 20 to 24 years of age testing positive for drugs. They put in a comprehensive testing program. Now in the U.S. Navy that same age group has less than 4 percent positives, so I think sanctions are needed for Navy personnel, I think sanctions are needed also, Robin, for the users, and I think here George Bush sounds like in one of the speeches that he's saying, let's not just concentrate on the middle of this continuum, the dealers. Let's go go the users for a disincentive and let's go for the major dealers with the maximum penalty as well.

MR. TREBACH: Here's the thing. If we go down the line you're talking about, if we go after users, we will turn this country into a police state and in the end --

MR. BENSINGER: I don't think so.

MR. TREBACH: -- in the end while there will be individual instances such as in the service where there has been some drop in the use of illegal drugs, we will find perversions like I found in Miami, where kids can't find marijuana but they can find cocaine. In the service now if you're smart, you won't use marijuana, because it will hang around in your body, but you might get away with cocaine and certainly there's been an increase in alcohol abuse.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Trebach, what is not being said that you think should be to make an effective war?

MR. TREBACH: That we must accept the presence of a good deal of drug use in this society and try to cut down on its worst aspects. I don't know how to make the drug use go away. Every major national commission that has looked at this has recommended compromises. President Nixon's own commission on marijuana and drug abuse in 1972 recommended that we allow possession and small sales without profit as legal, because they saw that as a compromise. They weren't approving of drug use but they saw that if we went after users and small sellers were selling, really giving to friends for the exchange of remuneration, they would fill our jails and we'd still have a serious drug problem. We have gone down the line that Peter Bensinger has suggested. We have worse drug problems than ever before. And in Miami, the area in South Florida, the price of cocaine during Mr. Bush's watch has dropped by about, well it's gone down from about 55,000 a kilogram to 10 or 15,000. I don't call that success.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Bensinger, what is not being said that you think should be said?

MR. BENSINGER: I think what is not being said is that the user is important perhaps not to go to the federal penitentiary, but to get a disincentive. We have fewer drunk drivers on the highway because there's a threat of losing our license and going to jail. One of the I think good parts of the House bill is that it provides a forfeiture, a disincentive for people to violate the law. Our drug laws in the United States today are not being enforced and the key elementis at the local level and drugs and crime are very much umbilically tied not because there are necessarily strong penalties but because the drugs work. They cause changes in behavior. They cause erratic activity by the users. It's something that you can't just say we'll let you use your own pot, we won't penalize you, because what that drug user may be doing affects all of us, a the Conrail engineer did in the Chase, Maryland, crash and as other drug users do on the highways and streets of our country.

MR. MacNeil: Well, thank you. Jim.

MR. TREBACH: Couldn't we agree on one thing though, just one thing?

MR. MacNeil: Go ahead.

MR. BENSINGER: I think Peter and I will agree on this, that if there's anything that should come out of this controversy is a massive infusion of funds for treatment and rehabilitation. I think we do agree on that, don't we?

MR. TREBACH: I think we definitely agree there has to be a lot of emphasis put on prevention, education, and treatment.

MR. LEHRER: Let's bring the Congressman back into this. Congressman Shaw to you first. Do you think that we must accept a certain level of drug use in this country? Do you agree with Mr. Trebach?

REP. SHAW: Absolutely not. That is the most unacceptable remark that I have ever heard. Peter Bensinger is absolutely correct. Drugs are illegal because of what they do to people and how it ruins and destroys their life. And for us to legalize it is just going to put a larger supply out there. That is absolutely unacceptable and is something that I know that my friend, Charlie, agrees with me totally on this.

MR. TREBACH: I was quoting Nixon's commission. I wasn't saying legalize it. I'm saying compromise. Is there no point at which intelligent people can compromise? Must we drive each other to the wall, to prison, ruin each other over this?

REP. SHAW: Dr. Trebach, compromise in this instance is total surrender and surrendering to drugs is surrendering our country; there is absolutely no future.

MR. TREBACH: President Nixon's commission recommended it. Are you saying that President Nixon's commission headed by the former Governor of Pennsylvania was somehow out to lunch on this one?

REP. SHAW: If they said this, it was totally out to lunch.

REP. RANGEL: I agree with Clay Shaw. It's absolutely ridiculous to talk about making more available to people just because they're weak --

MR. LEHRER: What about the additional point though that he made, Congressman Rangel, that if you go after the user, that you create a police state, that there's no way to do it without creating a police state?

REP. RANGEL: Well, you know, Peter Bensinger is one of our national experts and I respect the work that he's done and continues to do in this area but it's ludicrous to talk about the federal law going after the abuser. In the entire Drug Enforcement Administration we only have 2,800 people. Now you can imagine how they can go after the abuser. The second thing is that it takes local and state police to actually make certain that there's a deterrent in terms of having user accountability and this Administration, which includes Bush I assume, refused to give one nickel to local and state law enforcement. Law enforcement is not the answer, according to Gov. Dukakis unless you do all of those things, and as Pete says, in a bipartisan manner. Clay Shaw knows we have never had a partisan issue before the committee which I chair with the ranking member called Ben Gilman who works so well with the committee, but the truth is that we've never heard anything with education coming fromBennett, and Gov. Dukakis wants an education secretary that would do something, and when you talk about rehabilitation, the secretary of health has not got one program for rehabilitation under Bush.

MR. LEHRER: Let me go to all of you on one question that arises out of the tape piece where the man said we must change the attitudes in this country toward drug use, that you have to do that before you could do all these other things that need to be done. How do you do that, Mr. Bensinger?

MR. BENSINGER: I think, Jim, you don't do it with just one program. You do it with a number of initiatives.

MR. LEHRER: What about a President of the United States, what does he do about it?

MR. BENSINGER: He does this. He gets his cabinet together and says to each of the secretaries that report to them drugs are an important issue within your individual constituent, if you're secretary of education, I want you to have mandatory curriculums, if you're in the labor department, if you're in the transportation department, if you're in the secretary of state's department, this has got to be a high priority, and it's got to be a priority that is adequately funded, that has a long-term commitment.

MR. LEHRER: But how do you get people to not want to take drugs anymore, to not use them?

MR. BENSINGER: I think you need really to look at what's happened to high school seniors. They're using less marijuana not because I've made greater speeches or there have been more arrests. They've seen their friends become space cadets, the health hazards of this drug is becoming apparent. They're educating themselves, and they're seeing the results of that use on the highways and in their friendships. I think how do you turn around the feeling of drugs? You do it at work. You do it at school, young early education and you do it in the courts.

MR. LEHRER: But Congressman Shaw --

MR. BENSINGER: But Charlie Rangel is right about one thing. The user isn't going to be arrested by DEA agents, but we as a country, when you said what should be done, we've got to get away to get some disincentive to support those laws.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask Congressman Shaw the same question. How does a President of the United States reduce the demand for drugs in this country?

REP. SHAW: I think it has to be approached from two levels, two sides. One is education, which I think has been very well spoken towards, and one that I think we're make some significant progress towards, and when you get the fact that marijuana is down, daily use of marijuana was one out of nine students some years ago, now it's down to one out of thirty. We mustn't rest until that's down close to zero. But also we have to approach the demand side as Peter Bensinger said with criminal responsibility. And this is where I totally with Gov. Dukakis's platform. He does not even mention criminal responsibility in this own fact sheet with regard to his war on drugs. He says that the Administration has a phony war on drugs. Well, I say to Gov. Dukakis, you don't have any war on drugs.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Rangel, how about that?

REP. RANGEL: I think Bensinger said it all, when you tell your cabinet what Gov. Dukakis told his cabinet, and that is that we want education and prevention programs and we want accountability. Now we know that you just can't win this war by just saying that you have got to put people in jail. You have to have job programs. You just can't have the homeless out there without any hope for the future. And I think if you take a look at what has happened in Massachusetts where everyone felt responsible to the Governor, then every cabinet officer has to know that this is important to the President. The only thing we have gotten out of Reagan and Bush is slogans, zero tolerance, user accountability, that we have to have the murder, the thing is a weapon, this is going to be a deterrent. But we've had nothing from any cabinet official and you haven't heard any speeches from Bush until he announced that he was running for President.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Trebach, let me ask you. Is it possible, I take from what you said earlier that we must accept, you believe it's realistic at least to accept some drug use --

MR. TREBACH: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: You think it's unrealistic to even try to create a drug free society?

MR. TREBACH: No, I think first of all we have to accept drug use because none of us know how to make it go away. All of --

MR. LEHRER: That's what I'm asking. There is no way to make it go away.

MR. TREBACH: There's no way to make it go away. We've always been a drug using society. What we hope to do at the Drug Policy Foundation wants people to understand is that we don't like people using drugs. We want children to grow up drug free. We want people in trouble with drugs to be helped, but if we look at the history of America, we see no evidence of anybody, any President, any group of cabinet officials, any head of DEA, any group of Congressmen, able to convince the American people not to use drugs in significant quantities. Our hope is to cut it down, to cut it down to use the worst and to see that the worst elements of it are eliminated.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman.

REP. RANGEL: Dr. Trebach, you are giving up on the American people. You are giving up on our kids and the ability to resist before we even started a war against drugs.

MR. TREBACH: Now that's just not true.

REP. RANGEL: Before people start thinking like you, I'll ask you has Secretary Bennett made any effort to educate our youth? Do we have a federal rehabilitation program that you know of?

MR. TREBACH: We agree on that. We agree on two things. Can I answer you? I'd like to answer you.

REP. RANGEL: If you get to the point that you're giving up, it means that we've lost the war.

MR. TREBACH: It's not giving up. We're dealing with reality. The reality is millions of Americans like their drugs. If anyone here knows how to make them stop, I'd love to hear it, without filling our jails.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bensinger, can it be done without filling the jails?

MR. BENSINGER: I think it can be done with filling the jails and with putting people on probation and parole under much closer supervision and protecting our public from the drug users.

MR. TREBACH: But isn't that a police state?

MR. BENSINGER: No, it isn't. Listen, if we can't, Professor Trebach, say to ourselves we want a society in which we're safe, I think we do surrender. I think drugs --

MR. LEHRER: Keep talking. I'm going to say good night to you all on the Hill. Thank you both very much. Mr. Trebach and Mr. Bensinger, thank you both, all four. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again the main story of the day, the House of Representatives passed a tough new drug bill, the Soviet Government sent troops and tanks into the Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan to quell the mounting ethnic unrest. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.