The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. The big news story today is the official release of the much-leaked Kissinger Commission report on Central America, calling for a much bigger U.S. commitment to save the region from communist takeover. Tonight, with the important conclusions of the report, two commission members who started with widely different views and two congressional observers, an in-depth examination of the document that could shape U.S. policy for many years. In other news, two important Supreme Court decisions, on Karen Silkwood and off-shore oil leases. Jim Lehrer is off; Judy Woodruff is in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Also tonight we follow the continued debate in Washington over administration Middle East policy, what to do about the Marines in Lebanon. We hear from the visiting premier of China on a state visit to the United States. And, 20 years ago, the surgeon general linked smoking to cancer. We look at who listened and who didn't.

After days of news leaks about what it would contain, the report of the Kissinger commission on Central America was finally made public today. As expected, it was broadly supportive of current Reagan administration policy toward the region. The report calls for a major infusion of American money into the area, both for military and economic purposes. It also warned that the war in El Salvador is at a stalemate and suggested the leftist guerrillas will win unless there is massive additional U.S. aid. At the White House this morning President Reagan formally received a copy of the commission's report from its chairman, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, whom he praised for pulling together a consensus among the 12 commission members. Kissinger Commission

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: I believe from what I've seen already it is the most comprehensive and detailed review of the issues as they affect our national security that I have ever seen. I believe that the members of Congress, when they study this report, will share my belief that we must urgently seek solutions, the solutions to the problems that hurt, that are outlined in this study.

WOODRUFF: Later, at a briefing for reporters, Kissinger defended the commission's call for stepped up military aid for El Salvador in the face of critics who argue social reform is the answer instead.

HENRY KISSINGER, chairman, Central America Commission: Whatever caused the climate of insecurity, whatever produced the insurrection, reform alone cannot end the problem. That the security problem can be ended in only one of two ways: either militarily or diplomatically. We would obviously prefer a diplomatic solution. If present levels of expenditure and present efforts are continued, we will fail in both reform -- in both economic and social progress, and we will fail in the security field. And that there will be a sort of a lingering disintegration with very great consequences throughout at least the rest of Central America with whatever impact it's had on surrounding countries.

WOODRUFF: To help spend the money his panel says is needed, Kissinger suggested that the United States meet with the leaders of Central American nations to work out both medium- and long-range development plans. Robin?

MacNEIL: The commission's 132-page report sketches a picture of an entire region in crisis. It says that chronic problems of poverty, injustice and political repression have been worsened by the world economic recession; that the Soviets, with their Cuban and Nicaraguan allies, have skillfully intervened and exploited the crisis; that a direct threat to U.S. security interests comes from increasing Soviet power and influence in the region, not from the indigenous revolutions.

[voice-over] The commission points out that the U.S. has historically taken for granted its own security in the Western Hemisphere, but an expanded armed insurgency and the possible emergence of other anti-American regimes would permanently increase the U.S. defense burden or perhaps compel the United States to reduce defense commitments in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere. Such a development, warns the commission, would be a major strategic coup for the Soviets. The commission recommends urgent and sustained U.S. efforts throughout the region.

In El Salvador, it calls for increased American aid to break the military stalemate, but U.S. funds should be tied to demonstrated progress in human rights, an end to the right-wing death squads, the arrest and prosecution of their killers, and the establishment of the rule of law.

In Nicaragua, the commission approves continued U.S. support for the anti-Sandinista forces, or Contras, in the hope of persuading the Sandinistas to change their course and negotiate.

In Guatemala, the commission calls for the resumption of U.S. military aid, cut off by President Carter. But it would be contingent on a halt to the terror tactics of the government security forces.

Costa Rica has no army and must rely on its police force for border and internal security, but the U.S. cannot legally help train or support foreign police forces. That law should be repealed, the commission says, so that Central America's oldest democracy is not jeopardized.

While U.S. aid to Central America by itself will not cure the region's problems, the commission says, local efforts without U.S. help are doomed to failure. For the short term the commission asks for an extra $400 million for the present fiscal year. For the long term the commission proposes $8 billion in U.S. assistance between 1985 and 1990, and the establishment of the Central American Development Organization, or C.A.D.O. The U.S. and all of those regional countries committed to democracy would be members. The U.S. might channel one quarter of its aid through C.A.D.O. Nicaragua would not be excluded. If the Sandinistas adopted C.A.D.O.'s policies, Nicaragua would also receive economic aid.

[on camera] The report outlines a wide range of initiatives in health, education and housing, but it is the game plan for regional peace and security that is the dominant theme. The report's tone is urgent. Fundamental U.S. concerns are at stake, and the U.S. must act now or face a far worse and far more costly situation in the future, it says.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: The reception of the commission's report may be complicated by other news from Central America today. A report from the Pentagon says a United States Army helicopter pilot was killed today in Honduras near the border with Nicaragua. The Pentagon said the pilot made a forced landing and then was hit by gunfire coming from the direction of Nicaragua. Two army engineers who were also aboard the helicopter were treated for minor injuries and released.

For several months American troops have been on maneuvers with Honduran troops in a joint military exercise called Big Pine Two, but today marked the first time any Americans have been involved in hostilities on the frontier between Nicaragua and Honduras, where some Nicaraguan insurgents are carrying on a campaign against the government of Nicaragua. The Pentagon says that it will hold more exercises in Honduras later this year.

Henry Kissinger, the chairman of the Central America Commission, told reporters yesterday that one important fact about the commission was that all 12 of its members agreed in large measure with its conclusions. That is somewhat surprising considering the diversity of people on the commission, which includes Robert Strauss, Lane Kirkland and San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, a Democrat, who suggested on this program last August that he was not supportive of Reagan administration policy in the region.

HENRY CISNEROS, Mayor of San Antonio [August 10, 1983]: My commission work opposed to the basic thesis of not only President Reagan's policies but what I think has been a thread of American policy in the region, and that is an insufficient emphasis on true respect for the self-determination of the nations of that part of the world. I am educable. My mind can be changed. But, realistically, I really think that there are some fundamental principles that I feel very strongly about.

WOODRUFF: Mayor Cisneros was the first Hispanic to become mayor of a major American city. He was elected mayor of San Antonio in 1981. He holds a doctorate degree in the fields of urban planning and public administration. Mayor Cisneros filed a dissent on a few conclusions that were reached by the commission as a whole.

Mr. Mayor, with the exception of tying increased military to human rights, isn't this report largely an endorsement of Reagan administration policy?

HENRY CISNEROS: I think it's a major departure from U.S. policy over the long haul. The dedication, for example, of $8 billion of economic and education aid over five years is on a scale that has never been matched throughout our history. It is, for the first time, a major new look at the region on the part of the government of the United States. Quadrupling the number of Peace Corps volunteers in the area, for example. Adding 10,000 scholarships for students to come to college in the United States to match, in contrast to some 372 that we've had over the last five years.

WOODRUFF: But in the sense that it calls for increased military aid, continued support for the Contras in Nicaragua and so forth, isn't it an endorsement of the administration's policy?

Mayor CISNEROS: I think you have to look at the package as a whole. It is impossible to, say, segment the military aid or the diplomatic initiatives from the economic initiatives. It's my judgment that without looking at them as a whole, trying to take them piecemeal, that they simply won't stand individually. The economic, the diplomatic, the social and the security issues have to be tied together. They've never been tied together into a mosaic or a coherent whole, and that's what this does.

WOODRUFF: Well, obviously you agree with the majority of the report conclusions. What were your objections?

Mayor CISNEROS: I am in agreement with the vast majority of the recommendations. I have two fundamental differences with the report, which I stated in an addendum. The first is I do not support continued aid at this moment to the so-called Contras. I would suspend aid to the Contras in the hope that a better environment for negotiations, the encouragement of the sort of hopeful signs that the Nicaraguans have held out in the last six months or so. The second difference relates to the opening of mechanisms by which some discussion might occur in Salvador with the guerrilla forces, not power sharing in the strict sense of dismantling the government and dismantling the security forces, but something along the lines of discussing oppenings toward coalition arrangements.

WOODRUFF: But on the broader question of continuing military aid and increasing military aid, doesn't this lead in your mind to just sort of open-ended American commitment to that part of the world?

Mayor CISNEROS: I think there's a very good chance that if these policies were followed in the whole -- the educational, the diplomatic and the security -- that there would never be the need to insert U.S. troops into the region, and that indeed peace could be developed over the next several years so that the region was fairly self-sufficient.

WOODRUFF: But the conclusion of the report is that without the military aid that none of that other will work. isn't that correct?

Mayor CISNEROS: I am supportive of the military aid in Salvador and in the other locations; however, in concert with diplomatic initiatives, in concert with the educational and other initiatives. That's why I say it is imperative that it be looked at as a whole. I think all of the commissioners came to the middle, if you will. Those who might have started with a very conservative stance recognize that military aid alone is not sufficient without the human rights conditions and without structural reform in the society. Those of us who might have started from the left have recognized there is a serious problem of 6,000 Cubans in Nicaragua with 2,000 of them military, and only when we agree on a common base of facts at the center are we going to be able to make the kind of progress that is needed, and urgently.

WOODRUFF: All right, thank you. We'll come back to you a little later. Robin?

MacNEIL: Another commission member approached the task with a very different attitude. He is Dr. John Silber, president of Boston University. When he appeared on our program last August, he endorsed U.S. military activities in Honduras.

JOHN SILBER, Boston University [August 10, 1983]: I do think that it would be nothing short of stupid for the people of the United States to find thousands of Soviet advisers in Central America and Cuban advisers in Central America and in the Caribbean and then to think that there's something wrong with thePresident of the United States, who believes that at least the United States should remind those people that it exists.

MacNEIL: Dr. Silber is one of three commission members, including Dr. Kissinger, who dissented from the majority report on the question of tying further aid to El Salvador on human rights progress. The three said it would be wrong to punish El Salvador for human rights failings, like the continued activity of the death squads, if that meant the Salvador government would be replaced by a communist one.

Dr. Silber, you heard what Mayor Cisneros just said. Did you come to the middle?

Dr. SILBER: I think that the first thing I'd want to do is to correct the statement you made. Neither Mr. Kissinger nor Mr. Brady nor I dissented from the report. We said in our note that we endorsed the statement about the importance of reducing human rights violations, and all we did was to add a warning that in the implementation of that clause in our report, which we all accept, it should be done in the context that we recognize the difficulties that would follow if we allowed a communist takeover in El Salvador, because that would mean an end to all human rights since there is no place in the Marxist idelogy for them. Now, we also are aware that no one understands the need for respect for human rights more than Magana or Duarte in El Salvador. Those people are putting their lives on the line. They're not sitting in a comfortable television studio. They're right there fighting for democracy in that region. And if we pass this total package, this package that Mayor Cisneros has very carefully and clearly described, and put it all together, we then offer them enormous incentive for making the moves that they need to make. And they will have weapons at their disposal to encourage other people in El Salvador to join them in these more democratic and more responsible patterns of behavior.

MacNEIL: Just so that I'm clear, are you saying that -- you're nevertheless saying, am I not right, that Congress should not reimpose or attempt to reimpose the condition that further aid to El Salvador be tied to performance on human rights?

Dr. SILBER: I think we mean exactly what we said. We support that clause in our report that calls for the review of progress, the review of progress that is demonstrable, and a movement as rapidly as possible toward the prosecution of those who have violated human rights in El Salvador. I don't think any of us are quavering on that at all. But at the same time, that calls for interpretation. What constitutes demonstrable progress? What bothers me is that we exaggerate the importance of this clause, which, in the context, is not all that important. I believe that, as the President said today, he and the Congress can work these difficulties out. If we have a literacy corps and a teacher corps and a medical corps in this region, we won't need the Marine Corps. And that is what I think that Mayor Cisneros and I find common ground on the center of this report.

MacNEIL: Is the corollary of that that if these recommendations are not implemented, you might need the U.S. Marine Corps?

Dr. SILBER: Yes. It is my opinion that if we do not implement both the economic package, which includes health aid and educational aid and scholarships and all the rest -- if we do not implement that in concert with the military package, we will see the loss of democracy in this region. We will see the further extension of Cuban and Soviet influence, and at that point America will have to do something it has never done before. We will have to begin arming the southern border of the United States. We will lose the advantages we've enjoyed for 200 years of our history, of broad oceans separating us from our enemies, and we will now face the terrifying prospect of arming our own southern border, our 2,000 miles of southern land borders, with the possibility that we will be meeting the enemy on those shores. In this context, I think we should remember that this government spent $140 billion on the Vietnam war. That was $46 million a day. And we're talking about investing about nine days' worth of a Vietnam war cost to solve some of that problem in El Salvador. And we're talking about only $8 billion for a five-year program. Eight billion dollars is one-sixth the cost of the Vietnam war, in which we lost 55,000 American lives. If we act now, if we respond now to this challenge, we can save American lives and we can save American treasure, and we can avoid the possibility of having to turn this nation into a garrison state, armed at our southern border.

MacNEIL: Dr. Silber, thank you. Judy?

WOODRUFF: There have been so many news leaks about the Kissinger commission report that reaction began to surface as soon as it was officially made public. Charlayne Hunter-Gault found out that some of the reaction is very strong. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Early reaction to the public release of the Kissinger commission report makes one point clear. The consensus that marked the commission's deliberations will not be shared by the Congress when it deals with the report's findings. California Democratic Snator Alan Cranston, a presidential candidate, said the report with its call for increased military aid was a "blueprint for warfare in Central America." Some of the sharpest criticism of the report came from one of the Senate's most persistent critics of Reagan administration policy in Central America, Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.

Sen. CHRISTOPHER DODD, (D) Connecticut: It really is a report that just wanders, I'm afraid, without any real sense of focus, and designed to please a variety of different constituencies in this country without making any really consistent, thoughtful, long-term policy suggestions on how we might improve conditions in this part of the world short, as I mentioned earlier, of the $8-billion investment over the next -- the next five years. Without any guarantees, of course, that those dollars would actually be applied to building the kind of structures that Latin or Central America needs desperately if it has any hopes at all of coming out of its present plight. My concern about the Kissinger commission report on Central America is that it's inconsistent, incoherent and ill-defined.

HUNTER-GAULT: A congressional delegation participated in the Kissinger commission deliberations as senior counselors, and we now turn to two of them -- Democrat Michael Barnes of Maryland, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere; and New York Republican Jack Kemp, who serves on the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. Gentlemen, starting with you, Congressman Kemp, do you think that the comments of Senator Dodd and Senator Cranston are fairly typical of the reaction in Congress to this report?

Rep. JACK KEMP: No, I really don't, Charlayne. I don't think they're typical at all. In fact, I say this more out of sorrow than anger. It's disappointing to hear somebody who probably has not even read the report make a statement about its incoherence. I think, as Mayor Cisneros and John Silber both pointed out, and I think Mike Barnes would give credit to the commission for carrying out a very comprehensive and short-and long-run strategy for focusing attention on the very real social and human and economic and security needs of Central America, and I would offer to take Senator Dodd to the commission and let him read the report and debate him anywhere in this country on this issue because I think he is a disservice not just to the report and the commission. It's a disservice to the American people to give that type of a reaction so early upon the release of this document.

HUNTER-GAULT: Congressman Barnes, do you see this as an endorsement of the Reagan administration's Central America policy?

Rep. MICHAEL BARNES: Well, some of it is, certainly. The calls for increased military assistance would be consistent with what the President's been urging, but some of it's a repudiation of the President's policy. For example, the commission specifically says that increased military assistance to Salvador and Guatemala should be contingent upon a legislatively mandated process that requires demonstrable progress on human rights by those governments before they receive any military aid. The President vetoed such a process for El Salvador on November 30th of last year. So some of it's certainly very supportive of the President's policies; some of it is just the opposite.

HUNTER-GAULT: But basically the general thrust of it is --

Rep. BARNES: I think if you took the thrust of the security section of the report, you'd have to say that it's consistent with the Reagan administration's approach except in this very crucial aspect of the conditionality clause, but as Mayor Cisneros said earlier tonight, the economic and human development aspects of the report are not only far beyond anything the Reagan administration's ever done; it's far beyond anything any administration has ever done. So in that respect it would not be consistent with the administration's policy.

Rep. KEMP: I was just going to say I think it's somewhat of a mistake to look at this in terms of a victory for President Reagan or a victory for Mike Barnes or Senator Dodd. We need a center in this debate; we can't afford another divisive debate over such a vital area of the world as our own back yard. And if you look at this as a slap in the face or repudiation or a victory of one sort or another, I think does more than a mild disservice to the American people who are looking for Congress, under the spirit that was set up by Scoop Jackson when he came up with this idea, to try to build up the center not only in Central America, but build up that vital center of this debate in the United States, and in that regard I think the report does that, as Henry Cisneros pointed out, and it's going to encourage Congress to try to do away with the fringe of this debate and come into the Democratic center and provide both the long-run support for Central America that I am going to encourage my conservative friends to be a part of, as well as ask some of our liberal friends to recognize some of the security aspects.

HUNTER-GAULT: Inasmuch as the President, as Congressman Barnes did point out, vetoed the linkage of the humn rights progress with the military aid, do you think there's going to be much of a fight over that part of it in the Congress?

Rep. KEMP: I would hope -- I would hope that the administration would recognize that key members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, Mike, Doc Long, Jim Wright, theSpeaker in the Democratic Party, want to fashion some type of a compromise on this question of the simultaneous progress on both the human rights questions and the democratic processes that are going forward in El Salvador with the recognition that there is a security problem. If we don't do that, we're going to lose, I think, a very key moment in our history because Central America cannot afford to be -- we can't afford to turn our back on it.

HUNTER-GAULT: You heard Senator Dodd's criticism of the $8 billion. Also we are facing what looks like a $200-billion, perhaps, deficit. Do you think with that kind of prospect of a budget deficit, that an $8-billion aid package is going to fly in the Congress?

Rep. BARNES: Well, it's difficult to pass a foreign aid bill at any time. I serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee; Jack serves on the Appropriations Committee, and we've both been in those struggles over the years. We have an interesting moment in history, to use Jack's phrase, right now, though, and that is that we have a very conservative Republican President in the White House, who has a history of having been opposed basically to foreign aid programs over the years. If President Reagan should seize the commission's recommendations, make them his own, put his imprimature upon the intermational assistance portion of this program and send it up to the Hill and say, "This is my program and I want to work with you and we're going to pass this thing," I think we could pick up a lot of votes that normally would just sort of instinctively go against a foreign aid program. That happened last year in the Caribbean Basin Initiative program where the President asked for $350 million in emergency economic aid to Central America, and that went through basically without opposition. The other parts of the CBI were hotly contested, but that flew right through.

HUNTER-GAULT: We just have a couple of seconds left. If austerity does become an issue, what do you think is going to be the first to go? I mean, is the military aid package going to be kept intact and everything else have to --

Rep. KEMP: It can't. As our two previous speakers said, it can't be taken as, you know, divided. It has to be taken simultaneously, and I'm very encouraged to hear Mike Barnes say that because President Reagan is the only president in the last six years to pass two major foreign aid packages, and the Caribbean Basin Initiative is a major program for opening up this hemisphere to trade and progress. I think he is very progressive on this issue, and we can work with the Congress.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, Judy?

WOODRUFF: Mayor Cisneros, I know you don't want to talk about military aid alone, but I must ask you this. Given the amount of military aid that the United States has already poured into that region, and given what is going on down there, and particularly in El Salvador, where the government forces are doing as poorly as they have been doing, what does the United States have to show for the money that it's spent?

Mayor CISNEROS: I think one of the things that's going to have to be spent on is training and military reform as well as hardware. Now, you link that and improved professional capability -- operational capability -- of the Salvadoran army with the human rights linkage so that we can cease some of the alienation of the army from its people -- build the loyalty in the countryside and the unity in the nation that's necessary to make progress, I think, well, one might find more stability in the overall environment.

WOODRUFF: What about that, Dr. Silber, and what about that human rights linkage that he referred to?

Dr. SILBER: I think this is -- I think this is right. If, for example, one of the things we mentioned is the importance of building local militias in every region of El Salvador where you have young men defending their mother and their father and the people that they care about most, and where you have some of them trained as paramedicals so that they can provide services for their people and build the respect and affection on which effective defense of a country depends. All of that's important, but what I think is really important is what's been said by all three of the other guests on this program -- that the package has to be considered as a whole. We're not interested in a victory over the administration or a victory over one party or another. This is a bipartisan conclusion that the comprehensive program that we have endorsed will work, and that the comprehensive program will save us from a much more serious crisis later on.

WOODRUFF: Congressman Kemp, based on what you've just heard from these two commission members, and you addressed this somewhat a moment ago, but are these uses for military aid the kind of uses that are going to make the Congress want to spend the money?

Rep. KEMP: Well, I think the answer to that generally is yes. There's no doubt about it, and I think both the critics of El Salvador security assistance as well, Judy, as the supporters of security assistance would recognize that the progress that has been made in reforming the military have been in those battalions and those El Salvador army troops that have been trained by the United States, so where this money could be spent to train and upgrade both the physical ability as well as the sensitivity to the human rights issue, I think the money is well spent, and the question is, will Congress make sure that there is just more or is it going to provide so little that we just drag this thing on and it becomes a stalemate ad infinitum, and that, as Henry Kissinger pointed out, ultimately redounds to the benefit of the left and the insurgence and the guerrillas.

WOODRUFF: Congressman Barnes, do you agree with that?

Rep. BARNES: Well, there's something being missed, I think, here in this discussion of military assistance, and that is that the commission doesn't say that there should be a vast increase in military assistance to Salvador today. It says that when Salvador can meet these conditions -- and the conditions are pretty tough. It says that people should be prosecuted for the murders of civilians in that country. It says the death squads -- there has to be progress in getting rid of these death squads, that there has to be progress in setting up a functioning judicial system in the country. I don't think there is any expert on El Salvador, in or out of the Reagan administration, who would say that that country could meet those standards today. So what the commission has said, basically, is when that progress has been made, when that progress is demonstrable, then we ought to provide Salvador with the military assistance that's necessary. The commission didn't recommend, by the way, any specific number, and I don't think you'll get much of an argument with that in the Congress because, on the basis of this commission's report, the President could not tomorrow ask for more military assistance for El Salvador.

WOODRUFF: Mayor Cisneros, let me pick up on what he said about human rights. Can you explain for us what the difference is in your position on the progress this commission is asking on human rights and, for example, Dr. Silber's position?

Mayor CISNEROS: I can't speak to the difference; I can only speak to my own position, and my own position is this. The United States has an interest for reasons of altruism and idealism and our concept of what represents governance in the world to stand for human rights. Beyond that, it is also a practical matter. The army units that are brutalizing their own civilians are not going to gain the loyalty of their people. We are not going to be able to have unity in that country or make progress as long as there are the kinds of brutality going on. So it is a practical issue as well as it is a matter of our national ideals.

WOODRUFF: Well, would you agree with the statement today by the White House spokesman Larry Speakes, that it's the view of the administration that the right -- or that the left-wing death squads in El Salvador are just as responsible for killing --

Mayor CISNEROS: I have answered that today. The information I have is that the majority of the killing that's going on of civilians is happening from right-wing death squads. The administration released some numbers that shows a percentage of those coming from the left. There is leftist violence, no question, but 36,000 people since 1979? The vast preponderance of those -- and any expert will acknowledge it -- are the result of government out of control, security forces and private death squads that have to come under control if El Salvador's going to have any kind of peace.

WOODRUFF: Dr. Silber, do you agree?

Dr. SILBER: Well, in part and in part I think that more has to be said. I applaud what Mike Barnes said. I think that it is time to talk about what has to be done in the human rights area. Now, the Congress has a challenge. Is Mike and are his colleagues in the House and his colleagues in the Senate going to pass this measure in all its complexity and completeness? There's no point in holding out the promise that if you fellows will really be good, then maybe in the next six months or six years the Congress will get around to passing something. What I would suggest, it is time right now for the Congress to show that they're serious about this. All the humanitarians can now stand up and can vote in favor of $8 billion over the next five years and military support over the next five years in order to put this issue to the test. I suspect that the people in El Salvador will be able to use the availability of these funds to gain the kind of support they need in order to make that demonstrated progress that all of us want them to make. This is the moment of truth, I think, for the people with deep humanitarian concerns. If they care about it, let's vote this program in.

WOODRUFF: Congressman Barnes, you've been down in the region on several occasions. What do you think will happen if most of the recommendations of this report are not implemented?

Rep. BARNES: Well, I hope the recommendations can be implemented. Again, all of the recommendations are tied to standards that will require some changes in many of the countries of the region. Probably the only country in the region that would qualify today to receive the assistance that's recommended by the commission is Costa Rica. I hope that the other countries will qualify, but this -- the existence of this program, if the Congress will pass it, will be the incentive that's necessary to bring about the improvement in those countries so that the program can be implemented. With it I think we could see a dramatic transformation of Central America. It could be very, very exciting. The future could be very exciting for Central America if it's possible to implement this kind of program.

WOODRUFF: All right, thank you, all of you. We wish we had more time. Congressman Kemp, Congressman Barnes, Mayor Cisneros, Dr. Silber.

And we will be back in a moment.

[video postcard -- Brownsville, Pennsylvania]

WOODRUFF: The Supreme Court dealt a blow to environmental groups in several coastal states today. The Court ruled that the federal government should have pretty much a free hand in making offshore tracts available to oil companies for exploration. In so doing, the Court overturned an appeals court decision that curbed the right of former Interior Secretary James Watt to undertake the leasing of such tracts off the coast of California. It is therefore a big victory for the Reagan administration because it upholds Watt's policy of accelerated leasing. A spokesman for the Coastal States Organization, an environmental group, called the ruling "devastating."

And, in another ruling today, the Court ruled that the children of Karen Silkwood are entitled to $10 million in punitive damages. Silkwood was the young lab researcher at a nuclear plant in Oklahoma who died in 1974 while on her way to meet with a reporter from The New York Times. She had been radioactively contaminated nine days earlier. Silkwood had been deeply involved in efforts to publicize safety hazards at the plant. The plant owner, the Kerr-McGee Corporation, was ordered to pay Ms. Silkwood's three children $10 million by an Oklahoma court. That was later overturned by a court of appeals, but then reinstated today by the Supreme Court. The issue was whether such a damage award interfered with federal regulation of the nuclear industry.

Robin?

MacNEIL: Turning to the Middle East, the Reagan administration today pleaded with Congress not to pull the U.S. Marines out of Beirut precipitously. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee opened hearings on a proposal to bring the U.S. forces out next month, 12 months sooner than the 18 months Congress agreed to last August. Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam went to defend the administration position, and ran into some heavy fire from committee Democrats.

KENNETH DAM, Deputy Secretary of State: Now is not the time to flinch. There are growing signs that a number of important Arab countries are coming together to resist radical forces and encourage movement toward peace. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Morocco, some Gulf states and others are working in this regard individually, together, and with us. An American failure of nerve in Lebanon would be a disaster for all the forces of moderation in the region, and our commitment of the Marines is not, of course, open ended. It remains our goal to secure the earliest possible withdrawal of the Marines, consistent with our paramount foreign policy objectives.

Sen. JOSEPH BIDEN, (D) Delaware: You talk about commitment and the need for commitment. I'd like to ask you, assuming in 18 months we have not accomplished the objectives -- the four objectives that you stated. Isn't it true that there could be no withdrawal then, precipitous or otherwise, because if we have a lot at stake now, if we withdraw, won't it be even compounded and aggravated further if at the end of 18 months we're not successful? Won't we have to stay?

Sec. DAM: Well, I hope that our major objectives can be accomplished in that period --

Sen. BIDEN: Well, let's assume they're not.

Sec. DAM: -- but, but I made a firm distinction here between accomplishment of our objectives for Lebanon and the kinds of things that turn on the Marines staying, which is essentially expansion of the Lebanese armed forces, greater security and the basis for reconciliation.

Sen. BIDEN: You know, this is so ominous to me, so much like what happened in my generation, which was that clearly the deeper you're in, if the original argument is you can't cut and run because American prestige is on the line and influence is on the line, the longer you are in, the more hardened that argument and the more viable that argument becomes, because the more you've committed, the more you're out there. So I think we shoudl tell the American people straight up that if we are not successful with your objectives, you, the administration's, objectives in 18 months, we're in for a long, long haul. We'd better be prepared to stay because otherwise -- or acknowledge now we are going to be saying American credibility is seriously damaged in the region, because if it be damaged now to pull out before the objectives are met, it will be catastrophic to pull out after 18 months.

MacNEIL: In Lebanon today there was more heavy fighting between the Lebanese army and Shiite guerrillas near the U.S. Marine base at Beirut airport. The Marines watched the fighting but were not involved.

Political efforts continued, meanwhile, to iron out obstacles to the security plan the Gemayel government hoped to announce last Friday. Druse leader Walid Jumblatt, who has the backing of Syria, was reported to have raised new objections to the plan for the disengagement of all the warring factions.

In Israel, where the coalition Cabinet has been struggling with budget cuts to ease the country's economic crisis, a compromise was reported to have been reached. Following an all-night meeting, Radio Israel said the compromise included a slowdown in the establishment of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. That proposal still needs full Cabinet approval.

Judy? Zhao Ziyang Interviewed

WOODRUFF: The government of South Korea today all but rejected North Korea's surprise proposal for three-way talks involving the United States. It would lead to reunification of the two Koreas. The South Koreans demanded that North Korea apologize for a terrorist bombing last October in which 17 top South Korean officials were killed before any such conciliatory efforts could begin. Last night, President Reagan disclosed that he was trying to expand the Korean effort to include China, saying that such a four-way initiative would be just wonderful.

In an interview today with some American reporters, Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang, who is visiting in Washington, said he hadn't considered such a four-way conference because he hadn't been asked, but said he did support the concept of a three-way conference of the sort South Korea has rejected. Earlier today, Zhao traveled to Capitol Hill and lobbied members of Congress to change the law that forbids communist Third World countries such as his from receiving trade and other economic aid from the United States. In the interview with American reporters this afternoon, Zhao discussed that and praised the Reagan administration for sidestepping congressional support for Taiwan.

ZHAO ZIYANG, Chinese Premier [through interpreter]: We have also taken note of the fact that since President Reagan took office the American government has decided to liberalize the restriction on the transfer of technologyto China, and certain measures taken by President Reagan after the adoption of the resolution of the U.S. Congress with regard to the amendment to the appropriations bills regarding the Asian Development Bank as well as the resolution on the future of Taiwan adopted by the Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate not long ago. I think these measures on the part of the President have very good effect on Sino-U.S. relations.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Mr. Prime Minister, you met with a group of congressmen today on Capitol Hill and urged that they lift the ban on aid to communist countries. Did you get any signal that that ban was going to be lifted, and how would you interpret a decision not to lift it?

Premier ZHAO [through interpreter]: Well, I didn't discuss in detail this question with the members of the Congress. I only said to them that now the state of relations between our two countries is quite different from that in the 1950s, and that present legislations are not commensurate with the present state of the relations between our two countries. The leaders of the U.S. government as well as of the U.S. Congress have all said that they would regard China as a non-allied, friendly country, but in the legislation of the U.S. Congress on foreign aid, they still regard China as an adversary country. This is selfcontradictory. I didn't discuss with them what measures the Congress should take or what response China is going to make. I just raised this point with them and asked them to consider it.

HUNTER-GAULT: But in answer to another question, Zhao ruled out forming a comprehensive anti-Soviet strategic partnership with the United States, saying China and the U.S. have too many foreign policy differences. Robin? Smoke Warning

MacNEIL: Today is an anniversary that some 55 million Americans would probably rather ignore -- the 55 million who continue to smoke. Twenty years ago today the surgeon general issued his landmark report on the effects of cigarette smoking on health. Since then at least 35 million people have kicked the habit, but about 55 million still smoke. And this year, doctors say, 340,000 of them will die prematurely from diseases caused by smoking. Today at a press conference in New York marking the anniversary, Dr. Luther Terry, the former surgeon general who issued the 1964 warning, talked about its impact.

Dr. LUTHER TERRY, former Surgeon General: Well, following this report we were, I suppose, unduly optimistic because in the first few days and first few weeks and even up to the first few months there was just a tremendous drop-off in smoking. And one, as a matter of fact, might have been led to believe, as we were to a certain extent, that we had cured smoking in the United States. But of course we know now that that was not true, but we do know that we have made progress during this period of time since then. It's a pleasure now to get on a train or a bus or other public transportation and have separate areas for smoking and non-smoking.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: But today was a day like any other for most smokers, and this afternoon we asked several New Yorkers why, if they know the dangers, they still smoke.

1st SMOKER: The thing that I enjoy about smoking is the ceremony of smoking. I enjoy with lunch and with dinner to have a cigarette afterwards, and then I enjoy the accoutrements of smoking.

2nd SMOKER: Last night I decided I wanted to stop smoking completely. I took the pack, I cracked it down to pieces, threw it away, and the next morning I get up, the cigarettes in my mind again. There's something you cannot get cured of. You need a lot of help, and I wish -- if you have anybody can help me, I wish I can stop.

3rd SMOKER: I smoke because it relaxes me. I feel it relaxes me, and I just like to get that nicotine and tar in my lungs.

4th SMOKER: I can stay 24 hours without food, but I cannot stay two hours without cigarettes.

5th SMOKER: I've been smoking since I was 14, okay? The first time I smoked a cigarette was with a group of friends and at first I felt like, why should I smoke? But then it was -- you know, I liked it after the first time I tried it, you know. I enjoyed it. And it makes me feel good.

6th SMOKER: I'm very well aware of the hazards, and I'm very good at visualizing what it's like -- going to be like in 20 years when I'm in a hospital ward, and I'm going to know I did it to myself. I mean, I truly want to stop smoking. I just can't.

MacNEIL: Of the millions of Americans who smoke, few have been more closely watched than the smokers of Framingham, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. For the last 34 years, medical researchers have been tracking a large segment of the town's population, a total of 10,000 people, to see how lifestyle, including smoking, affects their health. The director of this project is Dr. William Castelli. He's been involved in the study, known as the Framingham Heart Study, for 18 years. Dr. Castelli joins us tonight from public station WGBH in Boston.

Dr. Castelli, from the Framingham study, what has been the affect of smoking on the health of those 10,000 people?

WILLIAM CASTELLI: Basically it has raised the heart attack rate by almost twofold so that it's doubled their heart attack rates. You know, if you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, you're increasing your risk of lung cancer by 20 times the person who doesn't smoke at all. So it's -- it has a tremendous impact on both heart attack -- the number-one killer in this country -- and cancer, which is really becoming the number two.

MacNEIL: How do you know that those effects were caused by smoking and not by other things or a combination of other things?

Dr. CASTELLI: Well, that's the unique advantage of the Framingham study. We measured all the other factors that are associated with a heart attack. Heart attack is affected by cholesterol and blood pressure and exercise, blood sugar and stress and so on. What we were able to look at all the factors together and, by mathematical ways, actually, to calculate the independent contribution of each one of those factors. That's why when we say that smoking almost doubles your rate of heart attack it's taking into account its impact, along with those other risk factors.

MacNEIL: Are these findings valid for the rest of the nation?

Dr. CASTELLI: Well, we've had studies like Framingham and Albany and Chicago and Minneapolis and Tecumseh, Michigan, in Los Angeles, in Evans County, Georgia. We've had health insurance plan studies in California and New York City.And we've had health surveys by the Center for National Health Statistics. Every one of these surveys or studies all show the same thing, so it's uncanny that they should, but they roughly show the same results, no matter where it's been studied in this country.

MacNEIL: In the 20 years since the surgeon general's report, how have smoking patterns changed in the group you're studying?

Dr. CASTELLI: Well, in the men it's fallen in half. In other words, we have a second generation under study now that's the same age that the men of Framingham were at whenthey entered the study. We've gone from 70% of the men in Framingham smoking to 35% of their sons at the same age of entry of their fathers. It hasn't been as good in women, unfortunately. The women increased their cigarette habit during this time. I think they changed the way they smoke. They actually inhaled more and in fact, in the last 10 years in Framingham, cigarettes has become a powerful risk factor in women for heart attack. Of course, in the last 10 years or so, the women now are joining this trend toward stopping cigarette smoking, so they've gone from about 35 up to about 50 percent of the women smoking, and now back down to about 38% of the women smoking.

MacNEIL: Do men and women find it equally easy to give up or equally difficult to give up?

Dr. CASTELLI: Well, it's been said that women apparently are having a much more difficult time of giving up smoking. I think it's -- I think that people, I think if they once are stuck on this habit, as some of the people you interviewed illustrate, it's very hard. It's a very difficult addiction to get rid of, and we need to find better ways to help these people give this up. We also, I think, need to understand that most of these people started smoking before the age of 20, and that we need to go down into high schools and junior high schools and maybe even grammar schools to find out why people made that decision to smoke at that time, how could we help them make a better decision.And the things that -- you know, that would influence them are not the things that would scare us away from smoking, like cancer and heart attack. These are different -- it's a different mix. It's a social mix; it's a peer pressure mix.We need to begin to understand that.

MacNEIL: Are the prospects, the health prospects, better for people who smoke lownicotine and low-tar cigarettes?

Dr. CASTELLI: Well, they're not as far as a heart attack goes. In the last 10 years in Framingham, at least, the filtered cigarette smokers have not changed their rate of heart attack. As a matter of fact, they have a slightly higher heart attack rate than the old regular smokers.

MacNEIL: Really? How do you -- do you have an explanation for that?

Dr. CASTELLI: Well, it may be due to the fact that they get more carbon monoxide into their body. We've been looking at the levels of carbon monoxide coming out of their body. It's as high, if not higher, than the people who smoke regular cigarettes. Now, there is an advantage in these filter cigarettes to the lung cancer story. And in fact it's probably reduced the lung cancer rates by about 20%, if you look at the best statistics which came from the American Cancer Society. But, you know, that's saying that instead of running 20 times the rate of lung cancer for a pack of cigarettes, you're down to 16 times the rate of lung cancer.

MacNEIL: I see. And what about people who smoked for many years? What difference does it make in their health prospects if they give up?

Dr. CASTELLI: Well, in Framingham, if you quit smoking, within one year your risk of a heart attack goes all the way back to the risk you would [have] had, had you never smoked.

MacNEIL: Now, what's the explanation for that?

Dr. CASTELLI: Well, I think it's a pharmacological thing. It's putting some sort of a poison into your body, and it's almost like a medicine. If you stop taking it, the effect wears off. The cancer story is not quite as nice. You have to really -- it looks like you have to quit for 10 to 15 years, and if you don't get your lung cancer in the next 10 to 15 years, then from then on your subsequent rate of lung cancer will be the same as people your age and sex who never smoked. So we think that those two major things -- heart attack and lung cancer -- if you can stay off the cigarettes long enough it's reversible.

MacNEIL: I see. What do you reckon, or do you have an estimate of what the economic costs of the health effects of smoking is?

Dr. CASTELLI: Well, you know, it would cut the cancer rate in half in this country, and it would also cut virtually -- and particularly in the younger people -- the heart attack rate. You know, every fifth man in this country gets a heart attack by the time he gets to age 60; every 17th woman. And it's a tremendous impact. In fact, you know, that was estimated about 10 years ago in a very excellent article in The New England Journal of Medicine. They estimated then that if you added the health care cost of a pack of cigarettes you -- and, you know, people say, "Well, it's a free country, we should be able to do what we want." Well, that may be true, but then you should pay for what you're doing. Don't ask me to pay increased health insurance care costs or welfare costs to take care of these people when they're ill. And the estimate then was something like $3.50. If you had them pay $3.50 for a pack of cigarettes, they'd start assuming the impact, the health care impact of what they're doing to themselves.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

Tomorrow night we'll be returning to the subject of heart disease, this time with the results of a major new government report on cholesterol. The report is due to be released tomorrow.

Judy

WOODRUFF: Once again a look at the top stories of the day.

The Kissinger Commission called for a broad program of political, economic and social reform in Central America, and an $8-billion, five-year program to carry it out.

In Honduras, a U.S. Army helicopter pilot was killed after he made a forced landing near the Nicaraguan border. He was hit by gunfire coming from the direction of Nicaragua.

The Supreme Court said that a jury in Oklahoma was within its rights when it awarded $10 million in damages to the children of Karen Silkwood, the nuclear plant worker who suffered from radioactive contamination. The Court also said that the Department of Interior has the right to lease oil lands off the California coast without submitting to an environmental review by the state.

And a senior official of the State Department told Congress that now is not the time to flinch and withdraw the Marines from Lebanon.

Robin?

MacNEIL: Finally, the adventures of two folk heroes in Chicago. One of them is Walter Payton, a running back who toils for the Chicago Bears at $600,000 a year. Now he's been offered $2 million a year to switch to the Chicago Blitz, a team in the new U.S. Football League. Piling temptation on temptation, the open-handed owner of the Blitz added this: the $2 million a year is only base pay.

The other folk hero is Mike Royko, the star columnist who toiled 20 years for the Sun-Times until Rupert Murdoch, the Australian publisher, took it over. Royko said he didn't want to work for Murdoch, so he quit to join the Chicago Tribune. Now Murdoch is going to court to get Royko back. Today both newspapers printed Royko columns. In the Tribune column Rokyo wrote about his early hard-working days -- lousy jobs loading trucks, working in factories, slinging hash, digging holes and running a punch press. "Nobody ever said they'd sue to make me stop. Ah, Rupert," Royko wrote to Murdoch, "where the hell were you when I needed you?"

Good night, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. Where, indeed?That's our NewsHour for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.