The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary we focus on the historic agreement between Israel and the PLO with reports from the Middle East and the news of Israeli and Palestinian officials. Kwame Holman reports on efforts to reform the way Congress works, and Deputy Education Sec. Madeleine Kunin discusses the startling new study of literacy standards in America. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization today reached a historic agreement on mutual recognition, effectively ending a de facto state of war which has existed between their peoples for nearly a century. The first word came from Jerusalem when the Israeli cabinet vowed unanimously to recognize the PLO. Shortly afterward, Norway's foreign minister, who's been acting as go-between confirmed that the PLO leadership had agreed to recognize Israel. An official announcement from Israel's prime minister Rabin and PLO chairman Arafat is expected tomorrow. The mutual recognition will be followed by the signing of an agreement in which Israel allows Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. That signing ceremony will take place at the White House on Monday morning. President Clinton had this comment as he arrived in Cleveland this morning.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I just got off the telephone with Prime Minister Rabin. I called him to congratulate him on the agreement that he has reached today. When we first met, he told me that he was prepared to take risks for peace, and I told him that it was the responsibility of the United States to do everything we could to minimize those risks. And I reaffirmed that today. They have reached a general agreement, but the process of implementing it will be quite complicated, and we expect to be closely involved in the process all along the way. I am extremely happy that it has finally happened. I am very, very hopeful for the future, and this is a very brave and courageous thing that has been done.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Clinton said the U.S. would recognize the PLO if it renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist as it's expected to do in tomorrow's announcement. Nearly 200 Palestinian deportees were allowed to return to Israel today. They'd been stranded between the borders of Israel and Lebanon since December. Their return has not been linked to today's agreement. They were among a group of 400 Islamic activists, the largest group ever deported by Israel. Israeli officials have said the remaining 200 will be allowed to return by the end of the year. And we'll have much more on today's MidEast developments right after this News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: One Pakistani was killed and at least five other U.N. troops were wounded in a gunfight with Somali militia today. Three of the wounded were Americans. A U.N. spokesman said the Somali militias also suffered heavy casualties. In Washington, Sen. Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, proposed withdrawing U.S. troops from Somalia by the end of October. Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the idea "a mistake." He said it would be devastating to the future of other multinational efforts.

MR. MacNeil: Defense Sec. Les Aspin said today that tests of the Star Wars program were not faked. The New York Times reported last month that the target missile in a 1984 test was rigged with a beacon which enabled a second missile to intercept it. Aspin said a Pentagon investigation had disproved the charge.

LES ASPIN, Secretary of Defense: There was a radar beacon aboard the target vehicle. We also found that there was no receiver on board the interceptor for this radar. The beacon had been placed to assist in range and safety tracking of the target from the ground. The beacon was of a type not capable of the final guidance of an interceptor to the target. Our conclusion then is that the experiment was not rigged and, in fact, could not be rigged by the presence of the radar beacon.

MR. MacNeil: Aspin said Pentagon officials did develop a secret program to deceive the Soviet Union about progress on Star Wars but the plan was never used.

MR. LEHRER: In Bosnia, fighting outside Sarajevo again cut water and power to the city. The overnight battles were between Serbs and Muslims for control of a mountainside near the capital. There was also continued fighting in central Bosnia between Muslims and Croats. Bosnia's Muslim president, in Washington for a two-day visit, said he was now ready to resume the peace talks which collapsed last week.

MR. MacNeil: In economic news today, the Labor Department reported productivity of American workers fell at a 1.3 percent annual rate in the April to June period. It was the second consecutive quarterly drop. The Labor Department also reported first-time claims fell to a four-year low last week. They were down 10,000 to 316,000 claims.

MR. LEHRER: A 19-year-old man was arrested today in connection with yesterday's murder of a German tourist in Miami. He appeared in court late this afternoon and was charged with first degree murder and robbery. The police said they had recovered a soft rifle used to kill 33-year-old Uwe-Wilhelm Rakebrand. They also said they were seeking a 19-year-old woman. Rakebrand was killed in a rental car he was driving shortly after arriving in Miami. He was the eighth foreign tourist slain in Florida in less than a year. Miami police said the man arrested today had confessed to driving the van from which the shots were fired.

MR. MacNeil: That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now, it's on to the Middle East deal, reforming Congress, and illiteracy in America. FOCUS - MAKING PEACE

MR. LEHRER: The Israeli and Palestinian decisions to officially recognize the other in peace is our lead story tonight. It happened in an exchange of letters between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In his letter to Arafat -- in his letter, Arafat said the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist in peace and security, accepted U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, committed itself to peaceful resolution of the Middle East conflict, rejected terrorism, and acts of violence, and promised to change its charter dropping those articles that deny Israel's right to exist. Rabin in his letter said Israel would recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and would talk directly to the PLO in the ongoing Middle East peace process. Our coverage begins with two reports, the first from Independent Television News Correspondent David Smith in Jerusalem.

DAVID SMITH: Forty-five years a country, forty-five years at war with its Arab neighbors. Tonight, Israel has some kind of peace, the first of its kind with the Palestinians. In the Knesset, parliamentary debate on the deal with Yasser Arafat and the PLO quickly became a shouting match, with foreign minister Shimon Peres, the architect of the agreement, being attacked as a traitor. When we spoke to Mr. Peres this morning, he told us he'd been up all night putting the final touches to the accord.

SHIMON PERES, Israeli Foreign Minister: It's a resolution. It's not an agreement. It's a resolution considering the tens and tens of years, almost hundred years of hatred, misunderstanding, suspicion, belligerence, misbelief. We are opening a new chapter.

MR. SMITH: Is this the beginning of Israel pulling back right across the border on every border?

SHIMON PERES: We shall continue to negotiate the self-government. This is an agreement for five years. After the second year, we shall go over the deal with a permanent solution. Undoubtedly, this empowerment solution we shall go for what we call territorial compromises, which means that we shall give back important parts of the lands to the hands of the Palestinians.

MR. SMITH: For his part, Prime Minister Rabin told his Labor Party today that he's now steaming ahead on all fronts with the peace process, and by that he means Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. For the opposition led by the Likud Party and backed by the Jewish settlers in the occupied territories, the very idea of trading land for peace now or tomorrow is outrageous.

RON NACHMAN, Likud MP, Settlers' Leader: Quarter of million Jews living in those territories are abandoned by the state of Israel, and instead, they bring in terrorists, Yasser Arafat, the people who put bomb in the Twin Towers in New York, who shut down the plane, the Pan Am plane, the people who killed on Achillea Laurel. All those people are coming like lice, and me, the settler, you know, with the homes, with the yamaka, with the rifle in hand, I become the enemy of peace. How come? That's a shame.

MR. SMITH: As the cabinet went into special session tonight first to recognize the PLO, such a watershed in israel's history, and then for Mr. Rabin to sign up on the pact with Yasser Arafat.

GABY RADO, ITN: Today's resolution of the remaining differences over mutual recognition was all the more surprising, since the PLO Executive Committee, which met into the early hours in Tunis, had implied there was more to discuss at a second session tonight. As it turned out, the real negotiations were going on in Paris, yet again in secret. Among the PLO leadership, there were still those arguing that recognition was being given away too cheaply.

ABU ISMAIL, PLO Executive Committee: We will not agree if Israel does not withdraw from the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, including the city of Jerusalem.

MR. RADO: The status of Arab East Jerusalem is perhaps the most troublesome of the many problems likely to follow the signing of the deal. Israel's official line has long been that it's their capital and is, therefore, indivisible. In recent days, however, there have been hints of some compromise possibly giving the Eastern sector limited autonomy.

PROFESSOR FRED HALLIDAY, London School of Economics: One of the positive things about the text of the draft treaty is it's been left ambiguous, and so it should be. Clearly, Jerusalem's going to be important for Jews in Israel and around the world for all time. It's also important for the Muslims. It's also important for the Palestinians. And there are various ways in which the issue can be worked out once trust has been built up. So it's fully better to get some of the other issues solved first.

MR. RADO: Once the agreement on Gaza and Jericho is signed in Washington, it triggers a clearly defined timetable. Exactly a month later, the Israeli authorities in the West Bank and Gaza begin transferring their powers in civil matters to the Palestinians. The Palestinians also begin to set up their own police force. PLO fighters from outside the West Bank and Gaza are expected to fill its ranks. Within three months of the signing, Israel and the PLO are supposed to agree on the details of Palestinian control of the Gaza Strip and Jericho, and the Israelis begin their military withdrawal from those areas. And this is the point at which the five-year interim period of Palestinian self-rule officially begins. By the end of the sixth month, Israel has to complete its military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho, but in nine months, elections will have to be held for the Palestinian Council, the effective government during the interim period. Two years, three months after the signing is the deadline for beginning talks on a permanent settlement. And after five years, three months, a permanent settlement has to take effect. Whatever the Palestinians' true, long-term interest may be, the danger is that rejectionist groups such as Hamas may stage some dramatic act of defiance in an atmosphere which is still too volatile to contain.

MR. LEHRER: Now, the perspectives of two participants in this breakthrough: Itamar Rabinovich, Israel's ambassador to the United States and a delegate to the peace talks here in Washington, and Nabil Shaath, senior adviser to Yasser Arafat and a PLO delegate to the current round of negotiations. He's also the head of the political committee of the Palestine National Council. We had hoped to make a little history here tonight, have a joint discussion between the two of you. I understand that's not quite possible yet, because everything has not been signed. So we'll do it one at a time. Mr. Ambassador, from Israel's point of view, how big a day is this, this recognition, the mutual recognition?

AMB. RABINOVICH: We obviously want to measure the significance of the Palestinian recognition, not just of the state of Israel, but of the legitimacy of Israel as a state, a Jewish state, a Zionist state in the Middle East. We have been told for years that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the core of the larger Arab- Israeli conflict. But the reason that Arab countries that have no common border with us will not recognize us is that we still have a conflict with the Palestinians. Now that the Palestinians are about to recognize us and our legitimacy, we expect that a nibbling of that core of the conflict will begin that will effect a real transformation in Arab-Israeli relations throughout the region.

MR. LEHRER: The PLO decision to renounce terrorism and acts of violence, how does Israel interpret that? What are you holding the PLO responsible for from this day forward in terms of terrorism?

AMB. RABINOVICH: In two ways. One is that we are now dealing with the PLO on the assumption that it has turned into a purely political movement which is going to facilitate our political dealings with, with the organization or with the movement. Secondly, terrorism, unfortunately, has been a feature of Middle Eastern life and our life for many, many years now. There were attempts in the past by the PLO to renounce terrorism that were not actually enforced. The difference in the language, what makes this difference from earlier attempts, is that the PLO also undertook to enforce this abandonment of terrorism and will actively combat terrorism and, in this effect, [a] terrorism would be diminished, and secondly, a confidence building measure will have been introduced into our relationship.

MR. LEHRER: But do you believe -- does Israel believe that the PLO has the power to stop all acts of terrorism against Israel by all Palestinians?

AMB. RABINOVICH: Unfortunately, there are organizations, other organizations, particularly from the Middle East organizations like Hamas and others, who engage in terrorism and who, who might continue with, with that. We don't expect the PLO to root out terrorism throughout the region. But there are -- there's a whole host of groups that are under the PLO's umbrella, and it would be a very important transition when the PLO enforces an end to terrorism throughout this, this umbrella, and as the PLO participates in the actual conduct of affairs, it will find that as it goes on, it will have to combat terrorism for its own good reasons. Finally, we are talking about an interim arrangement. An interim arrangement has testing mechanisms and confidence-building mechanisms inserted into it, and this will be part of this confidence-building and testing process that is very, very essential to all these processes.

MR. LEHRER: Well, for instance, let's say that everything proceeds on course, and the self-rule of the Gaza Strip goes to the Palestinians, and let's say there's an act of terrorism not by the PLO but by somebody else, and that terrorist escapes and hides in the Gaza Strip. Does Israel expect the PLO to find that terrorist and turn him over to Israel? In other words, are mechanisms in place and agreements in place to handle this kind of situation between you and the PLO?

AMB. RABINOVICH: What we are about to sign is a declaration of principles and not a very detailed agreement that oversees every single detail.

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

AMB. RABINOVICH: But, of course, this is a crucial issue to us, and we have taken care that built into the situation will be mechanisms to, to provide national security. One is we maintain an overall security umbrella. Secondly, there will be a Palestinian police force that will be there primarily in order to prevent such acts. Thirdly, there's a liaison committee between the Palestinian authority and our authorities that should deal with precisely these border line cases that you have alluded to. Most importantly, to repeat a point that I mentioned earlier, this is a testing period. There'll be an authority in Gaza. It will be in the best interests of that authority to make sure that there is no violence, first of all, in his own ranks, among, among his people, on his own turf, and secondly, that our confidence in the, in the arrangement, that our willingness to proceed with it, that the final status negotiations are not adversely affected by such acts. And finally, you know, we are there, the IDF is there, and we are there to, to look after our security interests, roads, and military installations, and personally speaking, every Israeli remain under the jurisdiction of our states and our security forces, and for us, it has always been from the start, this process has not been just a peace process, but a process that is to yield to our people a package of peace and security, so the security component remains very, very important to us.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador, in a more general sense, are the hostilities, the hatred, whatever words you want to use, that has existed for all these years between the Israelis and the Palestinians, are they so deeply imbedded in the psyches of the Israelis, speaking now for the Israelis, so deeply imbedded in the Israelis that it's going to take years and years and years for that to heal, or are they more surface-oriented, and agreements and mechanisms can, in fact, solve them? What's your reading of just personally as an Israeli?

AMB. RABINOVICH: This is a conflict that in some ways is more than a century old than the very intense way the -- in its present, full-fledged form, a 50 year old conflict, a lot of bloodshed, a lot of casualties, we carry with us a baggage of a tormented, Jewish history. I'm not at all certain that during your five-year period, even if everything proceeds smoothly, all these messengers can be dealt with, and all the fears and anxieties are going to be eliminated. I very much hope that we will leap, that we will make substantial progress forward in attitudes, in mind frames, as well as in actual fact, but much, much will depend on how the Palestinians and Arabs in general conduct themselves during this, this period in order to build up tissue of confidence and faith that is very very crucial at this time.

MR. LEHRER: The confidence and faith and trust does not exist as we sit here tonight. It has to be developed. Is that what you're saying?

AMB. RABINOVICH: Some of it has, has been introduced into the picture. The negotiations, the 22 months of the peace process has had an effect, and the effect is that we are on the eve of a very dramatic breakthrough, turnaround, and this already reflects some degree of progress, but there has to be more than that. It is just the beginning, a very significant one, one that I think creates hope and expectation of real transformation but we are only at the beginning, promising as it may be, and it's a process that not only has to continue but has to be fed, has to be developed, and has to be reinforced.

MR. LEHRER: From an American perspective, putting it an American perspective, say World War II, this should not be looked upon then as a situation as existed between the United States and Germany, on the one hand, the United States and Japan, and the other. Within a matter of a very few years, they were again very close allies, et cetera. This is not that kind of peace.

AMB. RABINOVICH: The whole point is that we are not a superpower, and we do not inhabit a continent, a very small piece, and we're inhabiting a very small piece of land. We like, we like to think that we have a very powerful idea, and that we are --

MR. LEHRER: Internal defense --

AMB. RABINOVICH: Yes. The army -- it's called the IDF, and security establishment, and we can look after our own security, but it's a fragile existence, and we are in an area that until now has been hostile or at least not, not hospitable to us. And, therefore, we do not share the perspective of the United States that in war and almost soon thereafter can, can transform a relationship with a former enemy. We need more time. We need more indication of change to feel more secure. That's the main difference.

MR. LEHRER: All right, Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much.

AMB. RABINOVICH: Thank you very much.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Shaath, from the Palestinian point of view, put this, the question I just asked the ambassador from the Israeli point of view, what does peace mean to a Palestinian? How deep are the hatreds that you all feel for the Israelis, and how long will it take to heal those?

MR. SHAATH: This has not been a historical hatred. The, the origins of anxieties and wounds and real suffering that Jews in the world have really had -- the most classic cases of persecution have taken place in the hands of Europeans -- not Palestinians. The holocaust, the pogroms are a European syndrome, and not a Palestinian-Israeli syndrome. Contact with, with the Jews first, and then Israeli Jews later, then with the Israeli government is just a matter of the last fifty, sixty years. And I know this is a long time, but not long enough in the history of nations. We are under occupation. Half of our people are under occupation. Half of our people are in exile. And as soon as an agreement like this one starts to produce results bringing, withdrawing the occupation from these cities and villages and towns of occupied Palestine, allowing the refugees to return, and some of them, those who have left Palestine after 1967 will start returning immediately when the interim period starts, the reasons for the conflict, the roots for the conflict will vanish, and it will be possible for violence to stop because there will be no need for that violence, no objective need for that violence. And, therefore, there will be a start of a building, a future, a feeling of independence, of the feeling of freedom, and that I think is a very important necessity for ending the, the hatreds, the wounds. The wounds will not continue.

MR. LEHRER: There'd be no reason then. In other words, there would be no reason left to dislike Israel or the Israelis, is that what you're saying?

MR. SHAATH: I'm saying that, and I have an experience of the last five years of dialogue with Israeli groups and contacts with Israelis. I don't think -- I think -- I don't think there's any deep hatred.

MR. LEHRER: Is there no deep-seeded anti-semitism within the Palestinian psyche? I think that's really --

MR. SHAATH: Not at all. Not at all. I mean, the roots of anti- semitism in Europe have a totally different religious, racist, cultural, historical reason that is totally different. In Palestine, there have been Jews living in this area for thousands, for thousands of years, and they have shared in Muslim civilization and Arab civilization and leading role in cultural and political affairs. There wasn't -- there isn't a history of Jewish, Arab or Jewish, Muslim, or Israeli-Palestinian hatred. There is a situation in which there's a conflict about this piece of land. That conflict led to the exile of half of the Palestinian people, and the rest of the Palestinian people were put under occupation. That occupation -- if that occupation starts the withdrawal and that forced exile starts to win, as people start to feel that they are in command of their destinies again. It's easy to become neighbors and to develop a, a neighborly relationship like, like it existed before.

MR. LEHRER: Let's talk about terrorism, the same series of questions I asked the ambassador from the Israeli point of view. What do you -- how do you interpret what the PLO has agreed to when it said, "We renounce terrorism and acts of violence?"

MR. SHAATH: I understand that as we go into the implementation of this agreement, the beginning of peace, that as withdrawal takes place gradually and as we take into our hands our destiny, as it may. There will be a total cessation of hostilities of all sorts, of all violence against Israelis, and that will not be just because we will have a strong and brutal police force that will keep everybody who wishes to commit violence under control. No, it's because there will be new conditions in which people will experience greater freedom and less persecution, and people will start building the future, economic development will take place, and the result of these new political and economic conditions, as well as the security requirements, there will be no violence, and there will be an exercise of peace leading to a building of a new state.

MR. LEHRER: But in the meantime, there are a lot of threats coming from other elements within the Palestinian movement. What are you going to -- what does the PLO see as its responsibility under this agreement with Israel, if there is an act of violence against an Israeli or Israel committed by another Palestinian?

MR. SHAATH: The PLO as it establishes the, the institutions of government inside the occupied territories, it will assume the responsibility for these territories, and, therefore, the responsibility for holding peace and keeping the commitments to Israel, and that is really not very strange, despite this infamous Abul Abas accident, we haven't heard of highjackings and takings of hostages, and all of the outside, the third party afflictions, the outside the territory and inside the territory major acts against civilians have really all but vanished. We are, we are talking about confrontations, basically of soldiers, and occupation, who will not be there as they withdraw, and you look at this situation with Egypt and with Syria over the last 20 years, every Arab country has kept its commitment in whatever cease-fire or peace agreement it has made with Israel.

MR. LEHRER: So you don't agree with those who are predicting or I think -- I don't know what the word is -- predicting, that are fearful that this agreement is going to unleash acts of violence by those who, particularly on the Palestinian side, who do not support what you and the PLO have done. You don't think that's going to happen?

MR. SHAATH: Well, it's very difficult to make that blanket prediction. There will be people who will to try to break that agreement. There will be people who will take the matters into their own hands. But I don't see really any major conflagration. I don't see any major violation, particularly if we immediately follow the implementation of this agreement with a major thrust for economic development. And I always said any peace agreement like this can create a country, but we have really two choices: Singapore or Somalia. If you want to build a country, everybody will be in the construction site, everybody will be in the school, and then we will have really much less need for security forces to put down people who will try to make violence. But if not, then the Somali experience is threatening, indeed.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Shaath, speaking personally as a Palestinian, how important is this agreement?

MR. SHAATH: It is not the end of the road. We have not yet had our independent state, and we will continue to have our independent state, when the permanent settlement allows us our chance of self- determination. We understand what we have now is much less than that. But it's a good start. It's a historic start. It's an agreement made not just between an occupier and occupied. There's a lot of parity in this agreement. There is a lot of attempt at creating a real historic reconciliation. It is not a cease-fire agreement, and it is not an agreement about administrative arrangements, and it should not be treated like this. It should not be really looked into like this.

MR. LEHRER: The details are not there and shouldn't look for it.

MR. SHAATH: Absolutely. The details should be worked out. What is important is that this agreement smells of parity, of equality, of mutuality, of the need to build for peace, and it has a lot of the beginnings of active cooperation, not just, not just end of hostilities. And that's what really makes it unique as a starting point.

MR. LEHRER: The agreement requires the Palestinians and the Israelis to work together, and side by side, from this point on to resolve these little details. Is that what you mean?

MR. SHAATH: Absolutely. Not only requires, but I think they both have made their commitments in that agreement to do so. I mean, it isn't that they have to. It is what they want to. And I feel that they want to create a peace that will lead to something really very important for this whole region.

MR. LEHRER: And you think it's going to happen.

MR. SHAATH: I think so. We have to work very hard, but I think it's going to happen.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Shaath, thank you very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, reforming Congress, and America's poor literacy. FOCUS - A BETTER WAY?

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight, Congress's attempt to shed the image of business as usual. The public's displeasure with the way Congress goes about doing its job has some members vowing to do better. Kwame Holman reports.

MR. HOLMAN: Most members of Congress probably would agree their job is more than full-time. Schedules are so full members often greet constituents in the hall on the way from one committee meeting to the next. They often get briefed by aides on the run, and when the House or Senate are in session, members repeatedly have to drop whatever they're doing to go to the floor to vote.

SPOKESMAN: Oh, two five-minute votes? Just two votes.

MR. HOLMAN: On average, members of the House sit on seven committees and subcommittees. Committee meetings usually are jammed into the middle three days of the week, so members inevitably are supposed to be at two or even three meetings at once. The schedule can be especially trying for the large number of freshman members still learning the territory on Capitol Hill. California Democrat Lynn Woolsey is one of one hundred thirteen new representatives.

REP. LYNN WOOLSEY, [D] California: Today I had two subcommittee hearings at the same time, one at 9:30 and one at 10, then I didn't stay for the one the entire time, the earlier one, and I got into this one, and one of the speakers had given their entire testimony. Last week, I had the privilege of attending a hearing from start to finish, and I felt so wonderful when I left. I felt complete.

MR. HOLMAN: The schedule for Senators is heavier. Each Senator is on about 11 committees and subcommittees, and other policy and political duties like fund-raising, and almost no Senator's schedule is adhered to.

SEN. WILLIAM COHEN, [R] Maine: I noticed that I had starting 8 o'clock this morning until 5:30 this afternoon 18 separate meetings, including three hearings and ten constituent meetings, not to mention the votes that we will have this afternoon that we're anticipating, and that's a fairly typical day, so it becomes very -- almost impossible to be a conscientious legislator.

MR. HOLMAN: Democrat David Boren is a three-term Senator from Oklahoma.

SEN. DAVID BOREN, [D] Oklahoma: We're just bogging down in our bureaucracy, too much fragmentation, too many committees, too much staff, and we're so taken up with all of this make work for ourselves that we're not doing a good job of tackling the big problems, reform of education, welfare, health care, getting our budget balanced, and the rest of it. That's why the country's in trouble.

MR. HOLMAN: Generally speaking, Congress doesn't rank highly in opinion polls. And last year, members of Congress faced an especially angry electorate. The political climate gave the fresh momentum to an effort in Congress to come up with a plan to reform the institution. Sen. Boren is co-chairman of the Joint Committee on the organization of Congress.

SEN. DAVID BOREN: People are really fed up. They see a Congress that's not organized in the right way, that's too big a bureaucracy, and too many perks, and they're mad about it, and they're right to be mad about it. And I tell you where members are making the mistake. They think this is a mood that's going to go away. It isn't going to go away. We saw the vote for Ross Perot in the last election. That was the tip of the iceberg in terms of popular discontent about the way things are being done in Congress.

MR. HOLMAN: University of Maryland political scientist Roger Davidson has made a career of studying how Congress does and doesn't work. He says congressional scandals, like the Keating Five, the House Bank, the Clarence Thomas hearings, as well as assorted ethics problems of members, have fueled an erosion of public confidence in Congress.

ROGER DAVIDSON, Political Scientist: They saw Congress I think mostly mistakenly as being isolated, insulated, full of perquisites and privileges that were not shared by the average person. And I think that that aroused the ire of average citizens and was fueled by, by editorial writers and talk show hosts, and others.

MR. HOLMAN: Over six months this year, the committee took testimony from experts outside Congress and those inside, thirty- four Senators and more than ahundred representatives, on how best to change the way that the House and Senate operates. There's been no shortage of suggestions.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Minority Leader: And I think we spend too much time in Washington, and I'm not certain the committee can do this, but if we could spend six months here and six months at home, I think that the country might be better off, we might be more efficient, we might get our work done.

SEN. ROBERT BYRD, [D] West Virginia: In my view, reducing the number of committee assignments to two or to one that a Senator can hold would be useful.

REP. GERRY STUDDS, [D] Massachusetts: I think we should put limits on committee size, and I think we should abolish temporary appointments, although I am enormously fond of our own temporary appointments.

MR. HOLMAN: Perhaps appropriately, the committee, itself, experienced some of the institutional interruptions and frustrations it's trying to reduce.

SEN. DAVID BOREN: We have time for one very brief question from Mr. Emerson, and then we will have to excuse our House members for the vote on the floor.

REP. BILL EMERSON, [R] Missouri: The bells are ringing, we have to go vote, and un-focus on what we're focused, focus over there on what we're not focused on, and then come back here and try to pick up.

MR. HOLMAN: After seven months in office, Congresswoman Woolsey also has some suggests on how Congress could run better.

REP. LYNN WOOLSEY: All committees are the same challenge and on the same stress, and all members of Congress, and the freshmen have talked about that as part of our reform package, of the possibility not of holding hearings when the House is in session and dividing up the day so that part of the day is for hearings, and the other part of the day is, is for legislation.

MR. HOLMAN: Veteran members know the frustrations too well. Nine- term representative Dan Glickman, a Kansas Democrat, is chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. He also serves on standing committees on the Judiciary, agriculture, and space, science, and technology, and he sits on seven subcommittees related to those panels. We followed him on a recent day he called typical. At 8:30 AM, all the House Democrats met with President Clinton. Afterwards, Glickman went back to his office for a quick check of his schedule and to confer with aides.

REP. DAN GLICKMAN, [D] Kansas: This American Meat Institute, I will not be back for that.

MR. HOLMAN: Minutes later, he was on his way to a Judiciary Committee meeting to appear abortion rights legislation for floor debate. By 11 o'clock, Glickman already had completely missed one of his committee hearings. The Congressman managed to meet with two groups of visiting Kansans and to miss scheduled meetings with others.

REP. DAN GLICKMAN: I'm going to go see Mrs. Clinton about health care, so at 2 o'clock I've got to be down at the White House.

MR. HOLMAN: The Congressman grabbed lunch with a group of labor union officials before rushing to make that meeting with Mrs. Clinton. Glickman says one of the Congress's biggest problems is that jurisdictions of many committee overlap, resulting in duplication of work and turf battles. He cites the Congress's failure last year to pass a fish inspection. Glickman says that happened because three committees, energy, agriculture, and merchant marines, couldn't agree on who had jurisdiction.

REP. DAN GLICKMAN: What I think we ought to do is to look at the substantive issues that Congress deals with functionally, and then figure out what committees to put them in. For example, we have a foreign affairs committee and a defense committee, both in the House and the Senate. But in truth, foreign affairs and defense are really the same thing. What I think we need to do is to organize them functionally and put the topics together. That would make it a lot easier for us.

MR. HOLMAN: Getting members to agree to cut the numbers of committees they sit on and to disband others altogether has become the focus of the reform effort. But to members, more committee assignments mean more staff, more prestige, and more campaign contributions. Asking members to give those up is a lot like asking them to vote for term limits.

SEN. DAVID BOREN: That's going to be the tough thing about it, you know, getting members to vote to do away with their own little empires, and all these 290 committees and subcommittees and additional staff, they represent little empires, little centers of power for individual members.

MR. HOLMAN: Nonetheless, the reform panel is considering consolidating jurisdictions of some committees as a way of reducing the total number of committees. The idea already has met with resistance. For example, among the committee chairs who have testified about reform, Gonzales of House Banking, Byrd of Senate Appropriations, Rostenkowski of House, Ways & Mean, and Dingell of House Energy & Commerce, Nunn recommended cutting his own committee's jurisdiction.

REP. BILL EMERSON, [R] Missouri: Is there any part of the jurisdiction of the Energy & Commerce Committee that you think appropriately doesn't belong there and that should be placed somewhere else? For example, I have in mind should railroads go to transportation?

REP. JOHN DINGELL, Chairman, Energy and Commerce: Well, that's one of the things that you'll always here the reformers talk about them. They want to draw nice, neat lines on the, on the jurisdictional map of this place, and it comforts them greatly to do it, and I would like to have them happy, if I could. The hard fact of the matter is there's no great need for doing that. Railroads were always in our committee.

MR. HOLMAN: Walter Kravitz, a Capitol Hill staffer for 30 years and now retired, says members of Congress talk out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to their committee assignment.

WALTER KRAVITZ, Retired Congressional Staffer: On the one hand, they will freak and moan and complain and scream and holler about all of the committee assignments they have and the subcommittee assignments and how they can't possibly deal with all of these workloads and attend all of these meetings, which is true, but then try to take something away from them specifically and now you got a lot of trouble.

MR. HOLMAN: Kravitz says interest groups too are likely to fight to keep their pipelines to power.

WALTER KRAVITZ: Labor gets its claims in on where it wants its subject dealt with, and business is the same way, and all the other interests, the major interests in the country, they want to have a committee which is devoted to and sympathetic to its own needs, and they don't want to get it diluted by somebody else's.

MR. HOLMAN: Reform Committee Co-chair Boren says he hopes public pressure will convince members to agree to make changes.

SEN. DAVID BOREN: If they think the people understand the problem, if they think that the people are really fed up with it, and that the people are going to watch how they vote, then we propose this reform of Congress bill.

MR. HOLMAN: But Congressman Glickman says he doubts voters will demand congressional reform.

REP. DAN GLICKMAN: I went through a real tough election last time, and I could tell people till I was blue in the face how many committees I was on, how many subcommittees I was on, how it was all related to them, and their question to me, what have you done for me lately, and how are you making my life better, that interests them a lot more than what committees I'm on.

MR. HOLMAN: As part of its effort, the joint committee sent questionnaires to all 535 members of Congress asking their opinions on a variety of reform options. Only 25 percent of members replied. Probably the best face reformers might put on that meager response is that it's another indication of the need to cut back on the demands on members' time. NEWSMAKER - REPORT CARD

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, we look in more detail at the blunt facts we reported in last night's News Summary. Half the nation's adults, some 90 million Americans, have levels of literacy too low to perform well in the modern economy. That was the finding of a four-year government study of adult literacy. It was the most comprehensive study of its kind ever undertaken and testing more than 26 million Americans. Joining us to discuss the findings is Madeleine Kunin, the Deputy Secretary of Education. Ms. Secretary, welcome.

SEC. KUNIN: Thank you.

MR. MacNeil: Does this mean that Americans are less literate than they used to be?

SEC. KUNIN: No. It doesn't really. It means that our standards of what it means to be literate really have risen dramatically. Overall, probably Americans are better educated than they used to be, and have gone to school for four years. But that's not good enough for today's economy. The expectations, the demands of a high technological society are just very, very great.

MR. MacNeil: So does it mean that the proportion of fully literate people is lower than it was in the whole population before?

SEC. KUNIN: Yes. If you define fully as adequate for today's marketplace, and that's where all the difference is. And it's very sobering news. It means that we really have to work on many, many fronts. We have to make sure that every student who graduates from high school, that not only has he or she a degree but that the degree means something, that the skills are there, the high standards are achieved. It also means we can't afford to lose anybody, that if you don't graduate from high school, your chances of making it in society are very, very minimal.

MR. MacNeil: So just to, just to clear this up, so the people who are nostalgic for the education standards of forty or fifty years ago and the products of American high schools then, are they, is that an illusion that, that what was -- in other words -- that what was considered adequate literacy then would not measure up today, is that?

SEC. KUNIN: That's absolutely right.

MR. MacNeil: Really?

SEC. KUNIN: There really is not room for that nostalgia. You know, people say, well, it was good enough for me, it's good enough for my kid, simply won't wash, because even a few years ago, you could get by with manual labor, with fundamental literacy skills. We used to think of literacy as you know, the difference between putting down an X for your name or signing your name. And that was the line of demarcation. Then we sort of ratcheted it up to a few more years of schooling. But this test for the first time, this survey says, can you really function, can you add, can you analyze information, can you do the tasks of sophisticated life, and can you hold a job? And the results show that those at the lowest level also are the poorest. 44 percent of those at the lowest level of literacy are below the poverty rate, and their employment pattern is very, very erratic, so it's a startling fact that if you don't have the education, if you don't have a high level of literacy, your opportunities in life of having a decent standard of living, supporting your family, having any sense of security, are diminished. On the converse side, it shows that education is the most powerful currency that we have.

MR. MacNeil: So you're not only poor because you're semi- literate, you're semi-literate because you're poor?

SEC. KUNIN: That's right. That's right. It goes round and round. And the only way to break that is to invest in education and to recognize the need for further learning, and our responsibility as a society is to provide those opportunities. And we are taking some steps in that direction to one, create higher standards for all children. And the legislation that will be debated in the Congress shortly, called Goals 2000, Educate America Act, that's its basic premise, that all children can achieve very high standards. And there's another piece of legislation, the School to Work Opportunities Act that is geared at young people who aren't bound for four-year colleges but who need higher basic skills, greater technical education, in order to be equipped to compete for today's jobs.

MR. MacNeil: I'll come back to that in a moment. I just wanted to try and understand this, these findings. A lot of quite successful people, some of them in managerial positions, some of them earning very good salaries, performed at the lowest literacy levels in these tests.

SEC. KUNIN: Yes.

MR. MacNeil: So did large numbers of high school, even college graduates.

SEC. KUNIN: Right. About 5 percent of the lowest level actually did hold managerial jobs, but I think some people can compensate, and there are obviously different kinds, of ways of being smart and functioning in society. But that's only 5 percent. So the trend clearly is that the more education you have, the more money you earn, the more economic stability that you have. So there are exceptions to the rules. There are exceptions to college graduates not doing very well either. And that's not good news.

MR. MacNeil: And large numbers of high school graduates performing at the lowest levels in these tests.

SEC. KUNIN: That's right.

MR. MacNeil: These are people who persevered right through high school.

SEC. KUNIN: Well, I think what that tells us is that simply having that GED or that high school diploma isn't good enough, and that we've got to have higher standards for high school graduation.

MR. MacNeil: I noticed that the group age 21 to 25 performed less well in this test than the same age group did eight years ago.

SEC. KUNIN: Yes, they did fall behind that group, which was a disappointment. On the other side of the ledger, the younger people in this survey did a whole lot better than older people. And so that gives us some indication that over a period of time we will raise the literacy level of the full American population. But there's nothing to make anybody complacent about this survey. I think it really is a wake-up call. It really says we have to as an entire society recognize the need for life long learning and create the opportunities to make that phrase a reality in people's lives, and I think people, themselves, have to recognize that even if you have a job today, and even if you think your skills are adequate, they may not be adequate for the job you might be challenged to hold tomorrow.

MR. MacNeil: President Clinton, when he was still a governor, signed on to the President Bush goals and with the other governors, and one of them was to see all American adults literate by the year 2000. Does this finding make that goal absolutely hopeless?

SEC. KUNIN: I wouldn't say hopeless, but it certainly makes it a tough challenge. In a way, it also redoubles our effort to get there. It's -- all of the goals are very demanding and are set to be achieved in, you know -- now the year 2000 is not that far away, but I think if we don't set them, we'll never get there. So I think it's imperative that we stick to that goal and do everything within our capacity to achieve it.

MR. MacNeil: Because when you look at the difficulties that the adult literacy programs have with the most devoted volunteers and others having to do many, many hours of one on one, or one on two subjects, the amount of concentrated, personal time it takes, and how slow the progress is, even with very well motivated students, it seems, it seems a staggering, impossible task, with so many millions, tens of millions of people below what you've said is an adequate literacy level to accomplish anything really significant in seven years.

SEC. KUNIN: Well, I think we've got to do it, as usual, one step at a time, and there are some real good signs of success in certain areas. For example, work place literacy programs have turned out to be very successful. There are not enough of them. They're not on a grand enough scale. But people who are in the work place and who recognize their own need for further education are highly motivated, and this partnership between the employer and employee is very, very effective. So there -- it's a sporadic system. It's not a unified system to reach this population.

MR. MacNeil: How many firms are doing that, and how many people does it cover? Do you have an idea of the figures on that?

SEC. KUNIN: There are about 500 firms that have participated. I don't have the number of actual people, but it gives us an indication that if it's successful in this modest way. It is something that we really should look at to expand.

MR. MacNeil: You must have been in the Department of Education talking about this report all day and finding it dismaying. What other ideas do you have, how this society could improve this situation?

SEC. KUNIN: Well, we are, because it is a revelation that, that really forces you to explore new, new ways. I think in a way the most important thing is that people recognize their own need for additional skills. The irony is that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to pursue further education. And what we've got to do is make sure that people who are not as well educated also have that need. And one example that we have is the growth of the community college system, and there has been a growth also of adult basic education. And I think the community college system can be expanded, is community-based, and can begin to provide more and more access to adults to continue to learn and improve their skills. So it's not hopeless. There is a network in place. It isn't formalized. It isn't complete, but it has a potential, if the demand is there, to grow and really be responsive to this need. And I think economics will play a part. If you can't get a job, if you know that your future job depends on your ability to learn more new skills, I think people will put two and two together and figure out how to get the skills they need to be employed.

MR. MacNeil: Do you wonder whether in this television and video oriented society traditional literacy is becoming less necessary in a way? I mean, after all, this program you're on right now, it's thought of as one of the more demanding programs of the audience, you don't have to be able to read and watch and understand this program.

SEC. KUNIN: That's true. And one of the, one of the indicators of this survey was that most of the people at the lower literacy levels got all of their -- like 98 percent of their information from television and not from newspapers and from reading. And television, as we know, is this great boon of, of expanding our access to information, but it makes it awfully easy for us to get it, and we don't really have to exert ourselves in terms of reading, in terms of comprehension, and often not in terms of analysis. So I think there has to be also a fundamental back to basics to be able to read and write, to analyze, and to enjoy reading, and to get information in that way. And schools are emphasizing that at the present time. One of the happy notes about American education is that actually the United States competes very well in terms of reading levels of when compared to students in other parts of the world.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Ms. Secretary, thank you very much for joining us.

SEC. KUNIN: Thank you. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story of this Thursday was the announcement of mutual recognition by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The action sets the stage for both sides to sign an agreement in Washington Monday for Palestinian self-rule of the Gaza Strip and Jericho on the West Bank. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with the political week in review as seen by Mark Shields and others. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.