The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Here are today's main news stories. The House of Representatives has approved President Reagan's request for military aid to El Salvador. The World Court ruled unanimously that the United States should halt the mining of Nicaragua's harbors and other aggressive actions against the Sandinistas. A federal judge in Utah ruled that U.S. atomic tests did cause cancer in civilians living downwind. The government ordered AT&T to lower its long-distance phone rates.

Jim Lehrer's off tonight; Judy Woodruff's in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: As part of our major coverage tonight, we'll spend some time on the Central American policy debate. We have a look at the World Court ruling in the aftermath of the President's speech with Assistant Secretary of State Langhorne Motley. And we turn to Congress, with excerpts of today's heated House debate. We examine the landmark $2 1/2 million ruling on the rights of atomic test victims that has been 17 years in the courts. And we end tonight with an extended and special look at the grand lady of modern American dance.Central America -- House Aid Vote/World Court Ruling

MacNEIL: The World Court in the Hague today overrode U.S. objections that it had no jurisdiction and ordered the United States to stop mining Nicaragua's harbors and other aggressive actions. The ruling was unanimous by the 15 judges of the court. But the U.S. judge on the panel, Stephen M. Scwebel, dissented in a separate ruling that the right to sovereignty and political independence of Nicaragua should be respected. The U.S. judge said the emphasis on Nicaragua's rights was unwarranted.The World Court is the judicial arm of the United Nations, but it has no enforcement powers and depends on voluntary compliance with its rulings. The United States has said it would not accept the court's jurisdiction in this case. Today's rulings were interim measures requested by Nicaragua while the court deliberates on the main complaint, that the U.S. violated international law by supporting anti-Sandinista rebels and directing the mining of Nicaragua's harbors. That ruling may take years. The mining ruling was read by the presiding judge, Taslim Olawale Elias of Nigeria.

TASLIM OLAWALE ELIAS, World Court judge: Unanimously, the court feels that the United States of America should immediately cease and refrain from any action restricting, blocking or endangering access to or from Nicaraguan ports, and in particular the laying of mines.

MacNEIL: The Nicaraguan representative at the court, Carlos Aguello, said the decision was a moral victory for his country. He said it would have a positive effect on the peace process by the four Contadora nations. In Washington, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said there was no change in the Reagan administration's position that the U.S. should not be bound by court decisions involving Nicaragua. The administration took that position last month, saying it did not wish to see the court absued for furthering a propaganda campaingn.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: Less than 24 hours after President Reagan's Central American speech to the nation, the House of Representatives passed a $10 billion foreign aid bill for 1985. Included in the package is the $132 1/2 million Mr. Reagan asked for last night in military aid for El Salvador. The aid package passed by a narrow 211-206 margin in the Democratic-controlled House. The House also attached a Republican amendment to the bill easing the conditions El Salvador would have to meet to qualify for continued aid. Liberal Democrats at first tried to amend the bill, tying further military aid to El Salvador to progress in human rights and to an end to the death squads. Under their plan the President would have to certify that human rights progress was being made, and both houses of Congress would have to approve his certification before more funds could be appropriated. Liberal Democrats orchestrated a debate that gave them a chance to reply to Mr. Reagan's speech and to express their moral reservations about America's role in El Salvador.

Rep. GERRY STUDDS, (D) Massachusetts: Mr. Chairman, in my judgment President Reagan's approach to El Salvador, like his approach to Lebanon, to nuclear arms control and to Central America as a whole, is simplistic and fundamentally wrong. He has attempted to portray the fighting in El Salvador as a simple struggle between the forces of democracy and international communism. But it is, as every member of this body should know, a lot more complicated than that.

Rep. STEPHEN SOLARZ (D) New York: The issue that confronts us today is what kind of conditions we're going to attach to the aid which we provide them.

Rep. EDWARD FEIGHAN, (D) Ohio: Despite hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent on military training and weapons, the Salvadoran army is losing its war against the guerrillas because it's waging a war against the Salvadoran people. Over 40,000 civilians have been killed by government-sponsored death squads. Despite our professed commitment to reform, the deaths squads roam freely, the judicial system's hopelessly clogged, and land reform has simply stopped.

Rep. CHARLES SCHUMER, (D) New York: Let us finally send a message clear and simple to the military, to the oligarchy, to the far right in that country: unless you stop your vile practices, we will not send you a nickel more of aid.

WOODRUFF: House Republicans, especially conservatives, rallied behind the President's message on Central America. They echoed many of his arguments last night, saying the Democratic amendment would unnecessarily restrict the President by making unrealistic demands on El Salvador.

Rep. HENRY HYDE, (R) Illinois: Setting these impossible conditions as precedents to any right for El Salvador to get any military aid is like telling me "We'll let you continue breathing if you pole vault 18 feet." It's just not going to happen. We're demanding of El Salvador not only E for effort, but straight A's on their report card.

Rep. ROBERT MICHEL, (R) Illinois: Our allies in El Salvador aren't angels, but they're not devils either. They're fallible human beings like each and every one of us. And this demand that anyone we aid must be absolutely perfect is not a sign of compassion, it's sign of confusion. Should we demand our allies improve their record in handling human rights abuses? Why, course we should. But should we demand that they present us with the kind of absolutist guarantees demanded by this bill? No. Under such a policy, we all allow terrorists to hold our policy hostage. Anytime they want to cut off American aid, all they have to do is engage in some human rights abuses. The left can do it and blame it on the right, and vice versa. By the time the facts are known, the battle for El Salvador is lost.

Rep. BOB LIVINGSTON, (R) Louisiana: Mr. Chairman, my home in New Orleans is closer to San Salvador and El Salvador than it is to New York or to Los Angeles. The United States of America is dependent upon the sea lanes going through Central America for 50% of all our imports and our exports. Thirty percent of all our exports go to Latin America. We're vitally dependent on everything that happens down there. And yet we ignore the fact that what is happening to our neighbors to the south may someday soon, very soon, happen to us.

WOODRUFF: A coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats easily defeated the liberal amendment. The House then narrowly adopted the Republican rider giving the President what he wanted, and by an equally narrow margin, just five votes, approved the entire $10 billion aid package.

Robin?

MacNEIL: In El Salvador there appears to be a growing dispute, meanwhile, over the outcome of last Sunday's presidential election. The official election commission released returns giving the moderate Christian Democrat candidate, Jose Napoleon Duarte, the preferred candidate of Washington, 59.8% of the vote, to 40.2% for the right-wing candidate, Roberto d'Aubuisson. But d'Aubuisson says the election commission is using the wrong figures, that if illegal ballots were thrown out, he would be the winner. D'Aubuisson also repeated a charge made in Washington by Senator Jesse Helms that the Reagan administration helped finance the campaigns of those opposed to him. A formal d'Aubuisson challenge could threaten the orderly transfer of the presidency in El Salvador to Duarte. It could also be a major setback to the Reagan administration, which warmly received the news of Duarte's apparent victory as proof its policy in Central America was working.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: For the Reagan administration's response to all these developments we turn now to one of the key architects of U.S. policy in Central America, Assistant Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs, Langhorne Motley.

First of all, Mr. Motley, let me ask you about that vote in the House. Were you surprised?

LANGHORNE MOTLEY: Oh, I think all of us thought it would be close, and 212 to 208 is close whether you win or lose. It is a first step in a process, as you know. It includes not only military assistance, but it was the overall package. In essence, what it was was the Kissinger Commission report. That was the amendment that carried.

WOODRUFF: But a four-vote margin isn't exactly a rousing vote of confidence in the administration's policy, is it?

Sec. MOTLEY: No, but statistically it's twice as good as a two-vote margin.

WOODRUFF: You're putting the best face on it obviously.

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, it's -- you've got to remember that this is kind of a watershed and this is all part of, I think, the raising of the knowledge in the country of this issue. It's a complicated issue. We've debated it and discussed it before, and through these debates and these votes you get more knowledge on it.And I think you'll find that as this delivers, as the President said last night -- he reaffirmed the policy he laid out a year ago, which covers the economic, the military, the political reforms and the rest of it. And what he's asking Congress now is give us the wherewithal to get it done.

WOODRUFF: You think his speech made any difference in the outcome today?

Sec. MOTLEY: I'd like to think so, yes. And I do think so. I think it was a very strong speech, and yet I thought he was gentle in showing the frustration we felt with Congress, and they finally acted on one of three steps that they must address.

WOODRUFF: We just heard the reports that Mr. d'Aubuisson is saying that the election count in El Salvador is fraudulent. He said that he's really the winner. Who's right?

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, I -- El Salvador is not unlike other places, some of them in this country, where there's spirited debate on the outcome of elections. But I think if you look at the history in the latest elections in El Salvador, there was an election in '82, election just a month ago -- they proceeded according to official count and I think this one will too. I think it's just -- that's all part of the rhetoric of a very close race.

WOODRUFF: But who's won?

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, there haven't been -- the official count is not finished. All the unofficial count appears to show that Duarte has won. But the official balloting, according to their procedures that they're following, is not completed yet.

WOODRUFF: Well, do you think there's a real possibility that that could be reversed, that Mr. d'Aubuisson could be the winner after all? Or do you think that he's just -- why do you think he's saying what he is saying?

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, you could ask that question of any close race. I mean he's not the first guy to say "I won, it wasn't the other one." I don't know what's going on in Mr. d'Aubuisson's head, but I feel farily confident that, having watched the process before, that the process has gone forward. The unofficial vote, usually tracked with the official vote -- there's a wide enough margin between the two that I would say that when the official vote's over, the chances are Duarte will be president.

WOODRUFF: But assuming that's right, don't all these statements from Mr. d'Aubuisson undermine what the Duarte government is going to be able to do?

Sec. MOTLEY: Not really. I think we're isolating. I've watched enough elections in other places, including the United States, but some overseas, where trere are cries of fraud in this, and I don't think it necessary undermines it. I think he has a challenge ahead of him; I think he understands it. I think the Salvadoran people are probably ready to have, for the first time in many, many years, a directly elected president, civilian commander-in-chief to carry out the military aspects they have to and the economic and the judicial reforms.

WOODRUFF: Well, what do you then expect Mr. d'Aubuisson and all of his supporters to do in reaction to the results, assuming Mr. Duarte wins? You think they're just going to take it lying down?

Sec. MOTLEY: I don't know that they're going to take it lying down, but I don't anticipate that there'll be any kind of violence to it, no.

WOODRUFF: Even though we're hearing reports today that there may be increased activities by the death squads. Is that a concern of the administration?

Sec. MOTLEY: We're always concerned about death squads, and we've watched them go down in numbers over the years. And we hope that that downward trend continues. And all the indications tell us that that will continue. Obviously, in the emotions and the heat that you feel in an election, maybe you might have a blip in the screen. But I see nothing in this period of time that would take away from launching into a new government in El Salvador.

WOODRUFF: But when Mr. Duarte was in office before, a few years ago, he wasn't able to control the military, he wasn't able to control the death squads. What makes you think it's going to be different now?

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, because I think there's been a lot of changes in El Salvador other than just this election. I think you'll find a growing, growing circle of people in El Salvador that believe that you not only have to win the war but you have to win the peace. And to win the peace, that means you have to bring about the judicial reforms and the democratic reforms. And they are making progress in that area. Mr. Duarte also understands that in order to not only govern that country, but to lead it, he is going to have to have the support of the military and the private sector. And he has had dialogues with them. The challenge is on both sides: it's to him and it's to the group involved.

WOODRUFF: Nicaragua -- the World Court ruled today that the United States should cease its covert activities against the Sandinista government. Will the United States honor that ruling?

Sec. MOTLEY: I'm not a lawyer and I can just understand it in laymen's terms if I do. But I think really what you've seen today is a preliminary opinion of the court, not addressing the basic issue of our jurisdiction, which we still maintain they do not have jurisdiction over this. We provided them with adequate knowledge. And they have not made the final --

WOODRUFF: So we won't honor it, is what you're saying.

Sec. MOTLEY: It's not a question of honoring. There's nothing to honor. They just make a kind of -- they have made a statement, a preliminary statement. The issue still before the court that they have not decided is the jurisdictional aspects. You have to remember that, as Robin said, it's not a compulsory, binding type of thing. It belongs to the United Nations, but there are only 11 countries in this hemisphere that even belong to it, out of 33. There are only 60 worldwide.

WOODRUFF: But it's still a rebuke of this administration.

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, some can view it as a rebuke. I just -- as we said, we don't think they have jurisdiction. This is not a legal question; this is a political question and has to be solved within the Contadora process. It's not -- Nicaragua was forum shopping. The World Court doesn't settle political problems. This is a political problem.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Mr. Motley.

Sec. MOTLEY: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Robin?

MacNEIL: For another point of view, we have with us Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and a leading critic of administration policy in Central America. Senator Dodd, first of all, on the World Court order today, or ruling today -- do you agree there's nothing for the U.S. to honor in that?

Sen. CHRISTOPHER DODD: Not at all. I think it's a real setback for us. By that I don't mean to suggest that the Sandinistas are simon-pure at all. But for a nation such as ours -- which has always advocated the rule of international law, have strongly supported, in fact supported the creation of the International Court of Justice -- to have the very first instance when we're brought before there as a defendant, if you will, to suggest even before the court has ruled that we're not going to allow ourselves to be subject to the jurisdiction of that court, I think makes us look terrible. Not only in the eyes of the world in Central America, but I think throughout the world. We are the greatest advocates of the rule of international law. The very first instance, we turn our back on it. How else can you appear but to have a black eye with that kind of a position?

MacNEIL: Coming back to events in this country and in El Salvador, the President's speech last night, the apparent Duarte victory in El Salvador, the vote in the House today. Does that mean that the administration has now made its case and the Congress is going to give it what it wants in Central America?

Sen. DODD: Well, the Congress may end up giving the President what he wants, but I don't think the administration had made their case at all. Quite the contrary. In fact, I found the President's speech last night to be highly charged emotionally, without any clear direction of sound policy.And despite the statements of the administration over the past three years that they understood that the genesis of the problem was basically social, economic, political unrest over many years, the administration, the President last night went right back to where he was in January of '81. What he suggested was that this was an East-West confrontation, that in fact if the Nicaraguans, the Cubans and the Soviets were not around, you would have in El Salvador a peaceful, tranquil little country without any difficulties; that it is the external forces which have created the problem. That was the thrust of his speech last night. He suggested that without military aid, of course, it would turn communist. We know, and I think anyone who's spent any time at all looking at this situation, that it is substantially more complex than that. There are Cubans involved, there are Nicaraguans involved. None of us who have opposed the administration's policy have ever suggested otherwise. But to suggest as the President did last night that that is the sole source of the problem, the sole source of the difficulty, I think is to completely misjudge the circumstances in that country.

MacNEIL: But isn't the bottom line in terms of effective politics that the day after he made that speech, the House of Representatives, controlled by your party, the Democrats, where there's been a lot of criticism of the program, voted by a narrow majority in favor of the aid package?

Sen. DODD: Well, let's not forget either, Robin, we're in an election year. And Congress would just as soon not take a position on these issues -- let the President become responsible, give him what he wants. You don't want to go home and face the folks back home having disagreed with the President. Those are the realities. That's always been a problem. We saw that in Lebanon only a few short weeks ago -- the Congress not wanting to really take a position. So I regret the vote; I wish that it had been otherwise, but I understand politics in 1984 as well as anyone.

MacNEIL: Senator Tsongas, your colleague, said on a program on CBS -- you were there with him last night -- I heard him say it's because you Democrats are afraid that the President's going to blame you for the loss of Central America.

Sen. DODD: Sure, that's what he did last night in his speech. He set us up, in effect, in saying Congress -- and to many people Congress is the Democratic Party -- that Congress is responsible for all of this. You know what the great pity of it all is, is in the President's speech last night, he never really went into the fact that we are militarizing that situation. If you go right down the four major countries. Here you have a Duarte election, a great opportunity to pursue something other than a military solution. In Honduras we've turned it into an armed camp, virtually -- a land-based carrier. In Nicaragua we support the contras, we finance them; without us they wouldn't last a week. We mine harbors. We engage in terrorist activities that hurt civilians in that country. And Costa Rica now we know -- learned that we're financing, supporting them, provided that they also take a hard-line position against the Sandinistas. Creating a climate, expanding the military involvement -- we're as guilty, I think, as the Cubans.

MacNEIL: Does the d'Aubuisson charge about the elections and the sort of implied threats it contains give you any anxiety about the stability and legitimacy of Mr. Duarte's new government, if he gets to form one?

Sen. DODD: Sure it does. I don't like to hear those statements at all. I happen to have a great deal of respect for Jose Napoleon Duarte and I would like to see him win. But I will tell you that I don't think Jesse Helms is wrong. He and I don't agree on much, but I think he's probably correct. We've tried to orchestrate the outcome of that election, just as we've tried to orchestrate events with the counterrevolutionaries in Honduras operating in Nicaragua, just as we're trying to browbeat Costa Rica into supporting our policy. It's just further evidence that we refuse to let the people of this region determine their own future. We're determined to determine it for them.

MacNEIL: Sec. Motley, you're still there. Is that true? Did, as Senator Helms and Mr. d'Aubuisson charged, the United States pay for the campaigns of Mr. Duarte and the other moderate opponents of d'Aubuisson?

Sec. MOTLEY: So I'm informed that they did raise a charge, but I think that -- maybe Chris can help me -- but I think one of his colleagues -- that is, one of Senator Helms' colleagues on the floor of the Senate stated that he had been in these intelligence committees and Helms is not a member, and he had not heard those assertions that were made.

MacNEIL: Did the U.S. through the CIA not help to finance the Duarte campaign?

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, I think you know what our standard answer is with regards to the CIA and intelligence activities, Robin. You've heard it before, and it kind of grieves me to have to give it to you, and that is that we don't comment on any intelligence activities. But one of the things that may lead to the confusion is that there's no doubt that the United States, throught committees, voted money of some $4 million to aid in that election, and that means providing computers and paying for poll watchers and all kinds of things. And maybe there's a confusion on that issue.

MacNEIL: Senator Dodd just said that the World Court vote or ruling today is a real setback for the United States. You want to comment on that?

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, Senator Dodd also said this is an election year. I agree with him. I don't share that assertion that it's a real setback. The World Court has a jurisdiction, as you said, not binding and it does not spread to every country; it's not based as we know it, based on a system of elected people who then pass laws and do things. It serves a very useful purpose. But this is a political issue, the issue of Central America. It belongs in the Contadora process; it doesn't belong in the World Court. They are not going to solve the problems of Central America.

MacNEIL: What's your comment on that, Senator Dodd?

Sen. DODD: Mining harbors is a question of international law. This isn't just a political question -- that's why we established the International Court of Justice, to resolve disputes short of military conflict. We were the ones who initiated the formation of that court, coming in the post World War II period, as a result of international tribunals. We were the ones who insisted upon that court, and where there are certain violations which are illegal under the rules of international justice. One of them is mining another nation's harbor, infringing upon their soveregnty. Now, again, I'm not carrying any water for the Sandinistas. But even the U.S. judge on this panel said that we were guilty of that.

MacNEIL: Secretary Motley?

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, I don't know what the U.S. judge said or didn't say, but Robin, as you said earlier, this is like a temporary restraining order and they still have to rule on the question of jurisdiction and then, maybe, as you said, in a couple of years they may get to the issue. We hope to be able to be well on the path towards peace in Central America prior to that. It sounds to me like a lawyers' full employment act.

MacNEIL: Coming back to the President's speech last night, Mr. Secretary, he made, even more strongly than before, the direct connection, Moscow-Cuba-Nicaragua-El Salvador, particularly the charge that Nicaragua is sending arms into El Salvador to help the rebels there. It's reported today, and sources in the State Department have told us it's true, that the department is getting together and is going to publish for the first time your evidence of that supply and root. Can you confirm that?

Sec. MOTLEY: Well, as I walked out the door, somebody told me there was an AP story to that. What I do know is that what we're bringing together is all of the various public documents that have been released over the period of time -- interviews, etcetera -- and so it's a compendium of what has been put together before, or has appeared before in the public domain. I am unaware of any new evidence that is going into this aspect.

MacNEIL: Senator Dodd, would the publication of some evidence help swing the Congress even more thoroughly behind the President?

Sen. DODD: Well, that is a political question. I don't know. They seem to be, again for the reasons I stated earlier, seem to be willing to support the President for other reasons. Whether or not they provide some evidence or not, I don't think is going to change that particular outcome one way or another.

Sec. MOTLEY: Robin, for Senator Dodd's edification, the House Intelligence Committee two years ago, in a report that they putout, reported that in fact there was evidence leading to the supply of arms from Nicaragua to El Salvador. So it's not anything new. I can give you the document number, Chris -- I can get it for you.

Sen. DODD: With all due respect, I have the greatest admiration for this administration's use of the media as a way of making its case. And you can't convince me that if there had been some substantial cache of arms and proof of a flow of weaponry, that NBC, CBS, ABC, and public television wouldn't have been down there covering it so the administration would have made its case. You haven't done that over the past two or three years, and frankly that's the best evidence I have that there isn't any substantial flow. I think even by the administration's figures, some 50% of all the equipment the insurgents have in El Salvador, they're getting from the Salvadoran army, who is turning -- either laying down their weapons or leaving them in conflicts, or they're being stolen, or there is even black market going on in the country.

Sec. MOTLEY: I don't think that figure's correct, Chris. I think that over the period of time you'll find from the Department of Defense that the overwhelming majority of the arms came from outside of El Salvador, many of it through Nicaragua, and that only a small percentage was captured from the El Salvador guerrillas. And as to the media event, smuggling arms on the backs of burros are not media-type events. They're difficult to portray that way.

Sen. DODD: Well, I presume if you found them, though, we've had TV shots showing all the arms being laid out and what we had found and discovered. We've allegedly financed the counterrevolutionaries in Honduras and Nicaragua now for three years, explicitly for the purpose to interdict weapons. When are we going to see some evidence that that interdiction effort, which has cost us millions of dollars, allegedly for the sole purpose of trying to capture and cut off that flow of arms -- when are we going to see some evidence that that is working?

MacNEIL: Mr. Motley, presumably the department, in answer to my previous question, is not about to publish evidence of that kind, is that correct?

Sec. MOTLEY: No, I believe, Robin -- I thought -- I'm sorry if I wasn't responsive. I believe that we are about to publish something. As I said, I heard as I went out the door, your report, in a continuing process of public information. But I'm not sure that there is any new evidence. It may just be a compendium of those documents that have been put out before, maybe in one package.

MacNEIL: Well, Secretary Motley and Senator Dodd, thank you both for joining us.

Sec. MOTLEY: Thank you.

MacNEIL: Judy?

WOODRUFF: Still ahead on tonight's NewsHour is today's political news. Also some good news for telephone users. A close look at the landmark ruling on the government's $2 1/2 million responsibility to the victims of atomic tests. And a special interview with the woman whose name is synonymous with modern dance, Martha Graham.

[Video Postcard -- Cloudland Canyon, Georgia]

MacNEIL: The Federal Communications Commission today ordered AT&T to cut its long-distance phone rates by 6.1% by the end of this month. But people who make frequent calls for long-distance directory assistance and business customers will see some of their savings lost to new fees that the FCC also approved. Phone users will be entitled to two free calls per month for long-distance information. Each call after that will cost 50 cents. Business customers, meanwhile, may be required to pay as much as $6 a month for each separate phone line they install. Today's decision is expected to save telephone users between $400 to $500 million a year net according to the FCC. It's the first reduction in long-distance telephone rates since 1970 and was called a landmark order by FCC Chairman Mark Fowler. The commission's action came after a six-month investigation into the effects of competition on the profits of AT&T and local phone companies as a result of the company's breakup at the beginning of this year.

On another matter of interest to consumers, President Reagan said today he would not abolish the income tax deduction for interest paid on mortgage loans. Speaking to the National Association of Realtors in Washington, Mr. Reagan said he wanted to clarify remarks he made in Dallas last month.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Some of you have heard questions raised about whether there might be some plan to do away with the home mortgage interest deduction, which has played such an important role in helping Americans fulfill their dream of home ownership. I'm afraid that story was just another example of someone trying to read into my remarks things that weren't there. I strongly agreed with the home mortgage interest deduction which is so vital to millions of hardworking Americans. And in case there's still any doubt, I want you to know, we will preserve that part of the American dream.

MacNEIL: In his remarks today, the President also said "There is no satisfactory reason for the recent rises in bank interest rates." But he didn't repeat the charge made by other administration spokesmen that the latest increase in the prime rate was the fault of the Federal Reserve Board restrictions on the money supply.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: East Germany today joined the Soviet Union and Bulgaria in pulling out of the Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games. In so doing, East German officials accused the American government and game organizers of destroying the basis for participation. The announcement came as a special blow to most of the athletic events planned, because East Germany is considered one of the world's foremost sports powers. Reagan administration officials say they now expect the rest of the Soviet-bloc countries to follow suit, even though U.S. Olympic Committee spokesmen continue to say they hope that the Soviets will change their minds. Those Olympic officials got some attempted assistance today from Jesse Jackson, who met with the Soviet ambassador in Washington to talk about the boycott. Jackson said afterwards he'd be willing to travel to Moscow if necessary to get the Games back on track. But he added that President Reagan bears the ultimate responsibility.

Rev. JESSE JACKSON, Democratic presidential candidate: Most American people want the Soviet athletes in the Games. The absence of the Soviet athletes takes away the glory of the Games, takes away the infinite possibilities for peace and for new dialogue. In my judgment, only the President of our nation could give the assurance that the Soviets need for their athletes to be treated with dignity and safety and accorded all of the hospitality that the Soviet athletes deserve.

WOODRUFF: Four years ago, under the stewardship of Jimmy Carter, the United States also found itself in the middle of a controversy over the Olympics, only then the shoe was on the other foot because it was the U.S. who was doing the boycotting of the Summer Games in Moscow. Today in a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors here in Washington, Walter Mondale defended the 1980 boycott and said there is no comparison between then and now. He suggested that diplomatic channels could provide the answer this time.

Vice Pres. MONDALE: Democratic presidential candidate: American atheletes, the state of California have been preparing for that Olympics now for several years. We want that worldwide competition. But now that the Soviets, the East Germans and the Bulgarians have announced that they will not attend, the administration has taken a hands-off attitude. Today I call on President Reagan to roll up his sleeves and to get personally involved. We must not give up on the '84 Olympics. We must use the full force of the presidency and the government to resolve this situation satisfactorily. In other words. Mr. Reagan, don't take "Nyet" for an answer. A-Tests & Cancer

MacNEIL: In a landmark decision, a federal judge in Salt Lake City ruled today that atomic tests in the 1950s and '60s did cause cancer in some residents living downwind of the test site in southeastern Nevada. Judge Bruce Jenkins ruled that radiation from the nuclear test caused cancer in 10 of 24 cases, and he ordered the government to pay $2.6 million in damages to the victims. Several thousand more claims are pending against the government from people who lived in the most heavily hit areas in Utah, Arizona and Nevada. Today's decision, which followed 17 months of deliberation, was hailed by the plaintiffs as a long-awaited victory.

JACKIE SANDERS, successful plaintiff: I was just really excited because I feel like it's just the fact that he did rule against the government in something was -- made a real point for us.

WAYNE OWNES, victims' attorney: It is the first time in this country that a federal district court has found that victims of low-level radiation were to be rewarded or compensated by the federal government.

MacNEIL: The government had no immediate comment on the decision. Judy?

WOODRUFF: In his 490-page decision, the judge called the government negligent for failing to adequately warn residents in nearby areas of the known or foreseeable dangers of open-air testing from 1951 to 1962. In fact, the government went so far as to say the fallout was safe in this 1957 public service film.

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this program to bring you important news. Word has just been received from the Atomic Energy Commission that due to a change in wind direction, the residue from this morning's atomic detonation is drifting in the direction of St. George. There is no danger.

WOODRUFF: To put today's decision in perspective we have Howard Rosenberg, an investigative reporter who has been following the radiation fallout controversy for the last six years. He is the author of the book Atomic Soldiers: American Victims of Nuclear Experiments.

First of all, Mr. Rosenberg, what is the significance of this decision?Just how important is it?

HOWARD ROSENBERG: Well, I think it has very far-reaching consequences, certainly the possibility of those consequences. And that is that for the first time two things have been established. Number one, that the government was negligent in its operation of the atomic testing in Nevada. And number two, that as a direct result of that negligence, individuals downwind of the test site contracted cancer.

WOODRUFF: Is that significant because this is the first time a court has ruled that? Is that it?

Mr. ROSENBERG: That's absolutely correct. It's the first time a federal court has ruled and in such a broad -- given attorneys such a broad mandate to press similar claims on behalf of similar plaintiffs.

WOODRUFF: And the first time a court has said that there is a connection between cancer and the fallout from the tests.

Mr. ROSENBERG: In this type of case, yes. There has been connections or causality established between cancer and radiation in terms of wokers and worker compensation cases, and in a limited number of cases on behalf of veterans who were exposed to atomic testing. But in terms of civilians who were outside of the actual site, never has there been anything of this magnitude.

WOODRUFF: Well, now, there were 24 victims who were appealing for damages. Why were only 10 of them granted what they wanted?

Mr. ROSENBERG: Well, I haven't had an opportunity to read the decision, but as I understand it, the judge ruled basically on grounds that are pretty well established. That is, there are a number of cancers which we know that are directly related or have been shown to be caused by radiation exposure, and those are cancers of the thyroid gland, breast cancer and leukemia. And in those cases, where plaintiffs among the 24 had shown those sorts of cancers, the judge ruled in their favor.

WOODRUFF: Well, now, how many people were affected by all tests that were done over that more-than-10-year period? How many people were affected? Do we know?

Mr. ROSENBERG: That's a pretty difficult question to answer, because frankly we don't know. And we, as the plaintiffs were, we the public are at the mercy of the government, which controls all the information. In this case we estimate that somewhere around a quarter of a million soldiers were in the immediate vicinity of the tests, on the test site. Outside of the tests it could be anywhere from the entire populations of Nevada, Arizona, all the way east. In fact, in 1953, after one particular test there was a great deal of radiation activity that showed up in Troy, New York. So potentially we have people who might in fact be filing suit all across the country.

WOODRUFF: So what does this mean? I mean, does it mean that anybody who was exposed or might have been exposed to a test who has contracted, who now has cancer, will be able to go to court and maybe get a favorable ruling? Do you think that's what might happen?

Mr. ROSENBERG: I think that the ruling by its nature, by limiting it to certain cancers, is going to limit the number of people who might prevail in a court case. I think what it will do is a couple of things. It will allow people who have been exposed to large doses of radiation in similar circumstances, and more of the plaintiffs -- I believe the attorneys in this case have some 1,200 plaintiffs ready to press their cases -- will continue to press through the courts. At the same time, I think what it'll do is establish and put the fear of God, if you will, in the people who handle radioisotopes and the production of nuclear weapons, and make them a lot more cautious about the handling of those radiation sources and how much exposure people are going to get from them.

WOODRUFF: But I mean just with regard to people who were exposed to those tests back in the '50s, we could have hundreds of more rulings now like this. It's possible, isn't that what you're saying?

Mr. ROSENBERG: It certainly is possible. It's quite possible, and actually quite likely. I think what the government has feared all along and what the government has closed ranks to protect against over the past 30 years -- that is, people who were exposed to radiation claiming they were hurt by it -- is going to happen. It's going to happen in a big way.

WOODRUFF: Now, we saw the public service film. The government said that there's no danger. Were they just lying to people?

Mr. ROSENBERG: I don't think there's much question about that. I think it's been quite well established that a number of government scientists knew quite well what the dangers were, or at least knew enough about the dangers to be worried about it and to talk about it. And in the course of my research I uncovered several hundred pages of AEC meeting reports which were classified, and we managed to get them unclassified and they showed a number of things. As early as 1954 William Ogle of Los Alamos laboratory cautioned the commissioners that we can't put, we shouldn't put another heavy dose of radiation on those people. And he pointed to St. George, Utah, on the map. By 1955 Willard Libby, in another AEC meeting, said, "Well, we can't worry about that because these people are going to have to learn to live with the facts of life, and one of the facts of life is fallout."

WOODRUFF: So this could be an enormous blow to the government's credibility, not to say to the treasury?

Mr. ROSENBERG: I think it's going to be a tremendous blow to the government's contention that they were careful, that they paid great attention to the health and safety of the people downwind and the people involved in the testing, and potentially a great blow to the Treasury. I think we'll see that $2.5 million award mushroom, if you will, into potentially a billion-dollar award.

WOODRUFF: All right. You mentioned briefly other people now who are going to be worried as a result of this, people who work in nuclear power plants or plants where nuclear weapons are made. Is it possible that these people now, if they have cancer, will be able to go to court and find it easier to get a favorable ruling?

Mr. ROSENBERG: I think it's going to be easier in certain circumstances. People in the industry, in the nuclear industry, workers, have always had the venue of worker compensation to work through. And in terms of soldiers, they are prohibited by a Supreme Court decision known as the Feres doctrine, from suing the government on grounds of negligence.

WOODRUFF: That's right, we didn't mention that, but the soldiers who were affected are not even eligible to make their case before the government.

Mr. ROSENBERG: I'm afraid, as always, they're going to get the short end of the stick in this. However, it still establishes and helps them in the regard that it helps set the precedent that there is that causality between that amount of radiation exposure and the cancer.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Mr. Rosenbert, for being with us.

Mr. ROSENBERG: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Robin?

MacNEIL: In Washington, the Republican leaders of the Senate narrowly beat back an attempt by some moderate Republicans to reduce defense spending by $37 billion over three years and increase domestic spending by $20 billion. The proposal threatened to upset an agreement between President Reagan and Senate leaders on a program to reduce the federal deficit by $144 billion over the three-year period. At one time the vote was tied at 47 to 47, but Senator Howard Baker, the Republican majority leader, persuaded Republican Charles Percy of Illinois to change his vote, and the final count was 48 to 46.

In Denmark, the Parliament voted today to stop making payments to support the deployment of new American nuclear missiles in Western Europe. Although Denmark is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it is notone of the five NATO countries scheduled to receive the new medium-range missiles. Nevertheless, the Danes agreed five years ago to pay $7 1/2 million towards the cost of the missiles. The vote today stopped the payment of the outstanding balance of $4.8 million.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: In Quebec City, a man who was accused of wounding two people in a sniping incident on the street yeaterday, surrendered to police this morning after a siege of more than 24 hours at his home. Some of the man's friends said he had recently lost his job in a shoe factory and perhaps was depressed for that reason. Tom Kennedy of the CBC has a report on the siege and how the police used a robot to negotiate with the man, who was 39-year-old Jean-Claude Nadeaux.

TOM KENNEDY, CBC [voice-over]: The standoff stretched into the night. The gunman refused to plug in his telephone, so time and time again, police sent in this robot, equipped with microphones and a miniature TV camera. They tried to get the gunman talking. It was an eerie scene. "Show us your stuffed birds," says the robot. "They tell us you're a good fisherman. Is that true?" it asks. The questions went unanswered. Finally, this morning at seven, the waiting paid off.The gunman came out and gave himself up.

WOODRUFF: That robot you saw is nicknamed Hercule Poirot, after the Belgian detective in Agatha Christie's mystery stories. Robin? Martha Graham: In Step at 90

MacNEIL: Tomorrow is the birthday of an American so important in her field that she's been called a national treasure. She is Martha Graham, and she will be 90 years old tomorrow. Ms. Graham is still very active. This past winter she made anothr characteristically big splash in the dance world with several new and startlingly original productions. Tonight a visit with Martha Graham at 90.

[voice-over] When Martha Graham took a bow at the premiere of her new dances in February, The New York Times said The audience sprang up instantly to cheer as no other audience does for any other choreographer in the world." The critic added, "She is quite simply an artist of the greatest depth and she stirs us so strongly that we cannot merely walk out of the theater as if we'd witnessed just another dance performance." But The Wall Street Journal said the same evening was "an unedifying glimpse of a sadly exhausted talent." That critic talked of Martha Graham's fundamental choreographic weaknesses and the clumsiness and repetitiousness of her movement style. Martha Graham has been provoking such extremes of adulation and scorn for most of this century.

She started at the Denishawn Dance School in Los Angeles, the cradle of modern dance. She went on to create an entirely new style from a belief that movement reveals inner emotions. She created scores of dances, often much closer to acting than dancing. And many of them are classics of the modern dance movement around the world. In 1930 she gave a legendary performance in The Rite of Spring, to Stravinsky's music, choreographed by Leonide Massine. Now, 54 years later, Martha Graham has choreographed her own Rite of Spring, unlike any other.

[clip from "Rite of Spring"]

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Recently, at her studio in New York, I asked Martha Graham why at her age she wanted to return to a theme and to music that have defeated many other choreographers.

MARTHA GRAHAM: I was always fascinated with the music. It drew me into it, partly that; and partly the fact that I was badgered into it by people around me who thought it was the thing for me to do. And I fought it for years, because I was very afraid of it.

MacNEIL: I was wondering, is it intimidating --

Ms. GRAHAM: Oh, terrifying.

MacNEIL: -- to take a score that is one of the great 20th century pieces of music and so often attempted?

Ms. GRAHAM: Well, it's very arrogant to begin with. And I was afraid of it, very afraid of it, and when I was working I could not listen to the music too much, because it unpowered me in a way. I would choreograph around the idea, and I knew the music so well that the phrasing was in me. And we did it without music a great deal, in a movement sense. Then we adapted it to the music after that. But I did not interpret the music.

MacNEIL: What do you think you brought fresh or added to the legend of the sacrifice during the Rite of Spring?

Ms. GRAHAM: I don't know that. I simply know that I've known about sacrifice so long that every moment of our lives is a sacrifice of a kind, and any moment of choice is a sacrifice. Tragedy is so close to us in such tiny things.It's just a matter of the instant of choice.

[clip from "Rite of Spring"]

Ms. GRAHAM: I think each one of us has all of life in us, and it is our choice to decide what we will reveal. Some of us are not so fortunate as to be unable to reveal that which is not pretty. And I knew one woman who came back in Brooklyn to me one time, and she'd evidently been crying and she said "You'll never know what you've done for me tonight. Thank you," and walked out. She had seen her only child, a nine-year-old boy killed by a truck in front of her. And she had not been able to cry. They took her every place. They gave her everything. They did everything.And the doctors were afraid for her. They took her to a performance of mine; she saw Lamentation, and she cried. She said for the first time she realized that grief was universal and honorable, and she could indulge herself in it. That was for me a great gift and a great lesson.

[Martha Graham performing "Lamentation"]

MacNEIL: Most of your great works were choreographed on your own body, by you, for yourself. How does it make you feel now to have to work on other dancers' bodies and to watch them perform in your works?

Ms. GRAHAM: If you really want the truth, it makes me a little jealous. I sit in the wings for, sometimes every night. It's sometimes very difficult, because the change is there. They're not feeling what I feel; I feel a little possessive and a little jealous, envious.

MacNEIL: Is that because the dances are so personal to you, such an expression of your own life?

Ms. GRAHAM: I try to know the woman I'm dancing about, that I am dancing. I like Clytemnestra; I have to know what she had for breakfast, practically, so that I know what made her do the things she did. In all of us -- and of course, maybe this is my father doctor speaking -- how many drops of blood have gone into the making of you? How much memory is in that drop of blood? What is there and remembered and not even remembered -- sensed in some way? And it's that perhaps that I am jealous about. I'd like to feel that again, I'd like to participate in that possession again, because it is a possession. You know exactly what you're doing when you go on the stage, or you should, or you shouldn't go on a stage.

MacNEIL: Coming to interview you today, someone said "You're going to meet a woman who's 90 years old but who feels like a girl of 18." Is that how you feel?

Ms. GRAHAM: Yes. I forget that age. I never made -- I don't like the idea; it's a nuisance. It's a nuisance in the sense that you can't do what you used to do. But as far as being a threat, no, I don't think so. Not if you have the necessity to go on. If you want to sit in a rocking chair, you might -- I've known people at 16 who were absolutely suited to the rocking chair right then, and I've known people at 60 who will never sit in a rocking chair. So I make no point about saying it's amusing to be old. I think it's an extreme bore in many ways. And I will fend it off as long as I can. But I don't -- that's not the core of my life. The core of my life is activity, and the wonderful, wonderful things that are to be seen and discovered all over again every day.

MacNEIL: If you stopped coming in here every day, and goading and inspiring and driving your students and your company, would the work continue?

Ms. GRAHAM: I like to think so. In as far as it is valuable for its time.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Today Martha Graham still runs her company and still spends full days teaching, rehearsing and trying to pass on a flame she hopes will be inextinguishable.

Ms. GRAHAM: I have always said I don't know what will endure. I hope it will endure. I have tried to make the technique behind each dance, each interpretation of a character as authentic as I know.

Ms. GRAHAM [at rehearsal]: That should be like a heartbreak, the whole lift, Thomas. It isn't just going through it. Do it once more. Just once. Ready, and . . .

Ms. GRAHAM: When you teach a person, you are embarking on a very holy time. You're taking a life into your hands. You can make that person feel what you will if you have hypnotic power enough to make him do the proper exercises with the proper timing and feeling. That's a great responsibility.

Ms. GRAHAM [at rehearsal]: That's it, so that the whole throat is open. The throat's such an enduring part when you use it to the side and it comes from the base of the spine. And it isn't looking. It's being -- all right.Ready.

Ms. GRAHAM: I think the teacher delays or denies the importance of the soul or the mind, but those are the people who are afraid of walking a razor's edge.

Ms. GRAHAM [at rehearsal]: And hold it, hold it, hold it, and rest.Don't wiggle. All right. Shall we go on?

WOODRUFF: And now a last look at today's main stories. The World Court said the U.S. should stop its aggressive activities against the Nicaraguan government.

In Washington, the House of Representatives approved the administration's request for aid to El Salvador.

East Germany, a major sports power, has joined the Soviet boycott of the Los Angeles Olympic Games.

And in Utah, a federal court ruled that atomic tests did cause cancer among those who lived near the 1950s' blast sites.

And finally tonight, some medical news in the Soviet Union.A health researcher from the Soviet republic of Georgia has been studying those who live to be 100 years or more.The researcher has studied a popular Russian notion that long life comes from eating shish kebab. Well, not so, says the professor. Most people who live past 90 eat mostly vegetables, and have a low cholesterol diet. And the professor had this uncomfortable bit of news. There's fresh proof of the old truth that by indulging his appetites, man digs with his own teeth a grave for himself.

Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Judy. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.