The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, thousands of East German refugees arrived in West Germany from Hungary, Soviet Political Leader Boris Yeltsin said Gorbachev's perestroika had only one more year to make it, and another prominent Colombian was murdered in the ongoing war over drugs. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: After the News Summary, the extraordinary decision by Hungary to let thousands of East Germans pass to freedom in the West is our lead focus. We have a report from the border between Hungary [Focus - Flight to Freedom] and Austria and then talk with Hungary's appointed ambassador to the U.S., Peter Varkonyi. Next, a News Maker Interview [News Maker] with Mikhail Gorbachev's best known critic from inside the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin.And finally a look at the human side of factory automation [Focus - Lessons from Japan].NEWS SUMMARY

MS. WOODRUFF: There were reports today that some 16,000 East Germans crossed the border from Czechoslovakia into Hungary. These moves come after Hungary tore down a piece of the iron curtain at midnight last night, permitting thousands of East Germans who had been staying in Hungary to cross to the West. Despite protests from East Germany, Hungarian officials defied a treaty with its fellow Warsaw Pact country and let a flood of East Germans who had been camping in Hungary for weeks and months to travel across the border to Austria. We have a report from Hungary by Geoffrey Archer of Independent Television News.

MR. ARCHER: Midnight last night on Hungary's border with Austria and jubilation. The Hungarian authorities were releasing the refugees despite protests from the East German government. Some had walked to the border. Many clutched brand new West German passports issued in Hungary. The cars snaked across to Austria, the occupants scarcely able to believe they'd made it.

REFUGEE: It was a hard time, of course, but now all is over and we are very very happy.

MR. ARCHER: This afternoon in Budapest applause as busses arrived to take those without cars to the West. New passport fever gripped even the youngest. As the bus seats filled up for the journey, more refugees arrived to board them. East Germany seems powerless to stop this exodus without sealing itself off from its socialist neighbors.

MS. WOODRUFF: There are an estimated 60,000 East German tourists currently in Hungary, and Budapest Radio said many more are expected by way of Romania and Bulgaria. The Hungarian Government has said that anyone who wants to go West will be allowed to do so. We'll have more on this remarkable story right after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Boris Yeltsin continued to make American waves today. The outspoken Soviet official spent day three of his ten day U.S. visit in New York City. He visited the New York Stock Exchange, got a tour of the trading floor there and spoke with the chairman of the exchange, and he was interviewed by us for the Newshour. He said Soviet Leader Gorbachev has no more than a year to succeed with his perestroika reforms. And he spoke of his differences with Gorbachev.

BORIS YELTSIN, Soviet Politician: [Speaking through Interpreter] We have different positions, tactical positions, as far as perestroika is concerned. That's why It's better to say worse or better, but I would decide many questions differently from the way Gorbachev does.

MR. LEHRER: You have said your country is in crisis, financial crisis, economic crisis, political crisis. How serious is that?

MR. YELTSIN: It's very serious. We are on the point of the abyss, on the edge of the abyss. And then later, it will be extremely difficult to climb out of the abyss, if not to say impossible, at least for a very long time.

MR. LEHRER: We will have the full interview after the News Summary.

MS. WOODRUFF: The White House said today the Bush administration has no plans to send combat troops to help fight the drug war in Latin America. A spokesman acknowledged, however, that the President had recently signed a secret directive dealing with the use of the military and said that the approximately 30 military advisers being sent to Colombia do have the right to defend themselves. In Colombia, another high level assassination. Gunmen shot and killed a former mayor of Medellin who had crusaded to drive drug cartels from the city. And in this country, the reputed finance chief of the Medellin cocaine cartel pleaded innocent today before a federal judge in Atlanta to money laundering charges. Eduardo Martinez Romero was jailed without bond five days after he was extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.

MR. LEHRER: The search continued today for 161 people missing after a Romanian cruiseship sank in the Danube River. The ship went down after it collided Sunday morning with a Bulgarian tugboat. The Reuters News Agency said only 18 of the 179 passengers and crew aboard the Romanian ship were rescued. In South Africa, the government said it would no longer use whips against anti-apartheid demonstrators. The announcement today said police use of whips had triggered a negative reaction from the public. Archbishop Desmond Tutu today called on diplomats in South Africa to condemn police violence against demonstrators last week. Tutu claims 29 blacks were killed. Government officials have accused him of lying.

MS. WOODRUFF: Back in this country the Federal Aviation Administration announced today that it will order structural modifications to ensure the safety of more than 1000 older airplanes being flown by U.S. airlines, McDonnell Douglas, DC-10s, DC-9s, DC-8s, and MD-80s. The announcement came as an industry and government task force recommended work be done to upgrade the safety of all older McDonnell-Douglas aircraft in service throughout the world. A spokesman said the work can be performed routinely over the coming years. He said the airliners remain safe to fly. An environmental group opposed to using pesticides in growing food today kicked off a nationwide campaign to enlist grocers in the battle. But the group launched its effort with the support of only a half dozen local grocery chains, all of them located in the West. And they drew strong criticism from a trade association representing many other grocers. The two groups held back to back news conferences in Washington this morning.

CRAIG MERRILEES, National Toxics Campaign: The 1 billion pounds of pesticides used in the United States each year to grow our food are causing unacceptable damage to our farms, our drinking water, our public health and our environment. We are literally poisoning ourselves and the environment.

KAREN BROWN, Food Marketing Institute: We think they are misguided zealots. What we are concerned about is use of the media to create panic among consumers about the safety of fresh fruits and vegetables. We are concerned about a campaign, a strategy which is a campaign to intimidate, extort if you will, hold hostage public confidence in the safety of food.

MR. LEHRER: On Wall Street, the largest securities fraud case in U.S. history was settled today. The investment firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert pleaded guilty to six counts of securities and mail fraud. It agreed to pay more than $650 million in fines. Many of the charges involved illegal transactions between Drexel and Ivan Boesky. Boesky was convicted of insider trading and is now in prison. Today's agreement clears the way for Drexel to be put under government supervision for three years.

MS. WOODRUFF: That's it for our News Summary. Just ahead on the Newshour, East Germans [Focus - Flight to Freedom], [News Maker] a talk with Boris Yeltsin and [Focus - Lessons from Japan] making the automated factory work. FOCUS - FLIGHT TO FREEDOM

MS. WOODRUFF: First tonight the unprecedented move by the Hungarian Government to let East Germans camped out in Hungry to travel to the West. The decision which took effect at midnight lastnight was sharply criticized by Official in East Germany. East Germans have had easy access to visit and vacation in Hungry which is a Warsaw Pact Country, But increasingly many East Germans have seen Hungry as a way station to West German. The new flood of refugees began last night and by mid afternoon today thousands of East Germans had crossed into Austria on their way to West Germany. They are part of a mass immigration of an estimated 100,000 East Germans who will flee to West Germany this year. We have a background report on today's events in West German from Glen O'Glaza of Independent television News.

MR. O'GLAZA: In the small hours of this cold September morning the first East German family arrived at the West German frontier. Gerhardt Mayor immigrated with his wife and two children from East Berlin. He says that he wants to be free to live in the Country of his choice. He told reporters he was grateful for being allowed to come to the West and thanked the West German Government and people. The Myers in the vanguard of this exodus from the East were soon followed by others who gave their reactions to reaching West Germany.

REFUGEE: I am happy.

MR. O'GLAZA: While some of these refugees have already been issued with West German Passports most are traveling on East German papers. This family traveled illegally from Czechoslovakia.

REFUGEE: I met with my husband in Czechoslovakia and then we went by boat across the Zuna illegal to Hungry.

MR. O'GLAZA: Ahead of the refugees camps awaiting where border police will process them. Schools have become reception centers with food and other essential supplies for the estimated 6000 East Germans thought to be on their way here. many are expected to arrive by train later today or tomorrow in what is becoming one of the largest and most politically sensitive movements of people in Europe since the end of the second World War.

MAX STREIBEL, Bavarian Prime Minister: Well here in Germany and especially here in Bavaria we need people we have I think three or four hundred thousand open jobs.

MR. O'GLAZA: And what about housing. Will they have anywhere to live?

MR. STREIBEL: Yes we have home programs in the Federal Republic for these people and we have also a program here in Bavaria.

MS. WOODRUFF: Joining us now is Peter Varkonyi, Hungry's appointed Ambassador to the United States. Thank you for joining us.

PETER VARKONYI, Ambassador to the United States Hungry: Thank you.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why is your Government doing this?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well you will have to look at this problem which hasn't been created by Hungry or Hungarians and which has grown and became an unmanageable situation due to the fact that many GDR Citizens denied to return home.

MS. WOODRUFF: That is the German Democratic Republic, East Germany.

AMB. VARKONYI: Yes, and they wanted to go to the Federal Republic. So the Hungarian Government felt that this is not our problem and we are not able to solve it. It is a problem which should be solved by the two German States and we were all in favor of having negotiations between them, between the Governments but due to the fact that time elapsed and there was no result of the negotiations my Government had two options. Either to comply with a 1969 agreement. One paragraph of it says that we shall have to return or we shall not allow GDR Citizens who have no valid passports outside other countries or to oblige to our International obligations and that is from the humanitarian point of view make it possible for them to leave and that is that we provisionally suspended one paragraph of that Treaty we had concluded 20 years ago with the GDR.

MS. WOODRUFF: And in so doing you had clearly irritated the East Germans. They went so far as to point out a statement accusing you of smuggling human beings across a border?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well I don't think that it is a founded allegation. I believe that what my Government done was equal to the attitude of the Hungarian Government in general in humanitarian questions. We are very active in the CSC Process in Europe and we have obliged our selves to define the document which we had accepted in Vienna last year.

MS. WOODRUFF: Who are you saying can cross the border. What document does a person have to have to cross your border?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well at the moment they can cross with their GDR Passports as well.

MS. WOODRUFF: Their East German Passports.

AMB. VARKONYI: Their East German Passports, yes.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about citizens of other East Block Nations?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well I don't know but what we would like to see is not have a refugee camp in Hungry. That is we wouldn't like to become a country of refugees. So we would like to discuss this problem with the others and we would like to negotiate and we would like to have the others negotiate.

MS. WOODRUFF: When you say the others what do you mean the other countries?

AMB. VARKONYI: The other countries yes.

MS. WOODRUFF: But right now is it only East Germans who are being permitted across the Border?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well at the moment yes.

MS. WOODRUFF: But it could be more than that?

AMB. VARKONYI: It could be more than that. We have about 60,000 East German tourists staying in Hungry at the moment and a part of them has already left.

MS. WOODRUFF: Will all of them be permitted to leave. I mean is there anything to stop these people from going if they want to go?

AMB. VARKONYI: There is nothing no.

MS. WOODRUFF: They simply have to show their document. So because you see to take them back against their will, not to allow them to leave would be a breech of our International obligations.

MS. WOODRUFF: That is right because that is what East Germany was asking you to do asking your to force those people to return.

AMB. VARKONYI: Yes but it doesn't conform with our obligation with other nations and International Organizations.

MS. WOODRUFF: How long will your border remain open to the West?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well our border is open to the West actually completely . We have brought down the barbed wire this year and our Western Border is quite a open border.

MS. WOODRUFF: But I mean in terms of letting East Germans?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well this had been decided by the Government as a provisional act.

MS. WOODRUFF: And what does that mean?

AMB. VARKONYI: At the moment how long does it take I don't know actually. I haven't got any information on that.

MS. WOODRUFF: But for example the news reports today of thousand more coming from Czechoslovakia. The assumption is that all of those people will be permitted.

AMB. VARKONYI: The assumption is that.

MS. WOODRUFF: How many people could we potentially be talking about?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well I haven't got the slightest idea actually. I mean we had a good many thousands now who are leaving Hungry to Austria.

MS. WOODRUFF: The speculation was, we had a West German Official on the program a few weeks ago and he speculated as many 200,000.

AMB. VARKONYI: Well I don't think so myself.

MS. WOODRUFF: How do you think this will ultimately effect your relations with your Alii East Germany? What effect does this have?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well you know we have very good relations and as a matter of fact with both Germany's with the Federal Republic and the GDR. The Federal Republic is first in our economic partnership so they are the first economic partners of ours and East Germany is the fourth. So both of them are very important for us and we would like to see that our relations are good in the future as well.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well what do you think might happen. I noticed that an East German Official was quoted just a few days ago saying that this could mean a souring in your relations?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well I really don't believe that. I think that we have so many ties which makes it possible to arrange these sort of problems that we are having now. It won't effect our future relationship with them.

MS. WOODRUFF: Has your Government heard any thing from the Soviets from Moscow about this?

AMB. VARKONYI: Nothing to my knowledge.

MS. WOODRUFF: What do you think their reaction is to this?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well I think that they are supporting the idea of adhering to the International felling of and those obligations we have on humanitarian issues.

MS. WOODRUFF: How do you feel as some one who is a citizen of an East Bloc Country seeing so many thousands of people leaving, you know, the Warsaw Pact side of the Iron Curtain and going to the other side?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well it is not a very happy occasion, of course, but what can you do.

MS. WOODRUFF: I mean is this an emotional time?

AMB. VARKONYI: It is probably emotional yes. It might be economic reasons as well as other reasons, political perhaps but mainly emotional.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is this the beginning of the end of the Iron Curtain, I mean, is that an over statement to say?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well it has ended in our Country completely.

MS. WOODRUFF: Because you took down the Border.

AMB. VARKONYI: Yes.

MS. WOODRUFF: But I mean the fact that people come into your country and they can now move?

AMB. VARKONYI: Yes we have no Iron Curtain whatsoever. I hope that in the other side it won't exist as well because it is sometimes more difficult to get into the West to get a visa to the Western Countries that it is much easier to get a Hungarian Visa for instance.

MS. WOODRUFF: How much of a change do you think this will mean in relations between Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Does this change the equation?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well yes it will be much closer and we do hope that we get closer together. We are great believers of a United Europe and this is fact and we would like to integrate our country also in the European economy, political life as well and there are many signs of that. You know we have concluded agreements with the Common Market and we have good relations with other Western European Political Alliances for instance the Council of Europe and others and we would like to have closer and closer relations with them and I hope that it will be a time when there will be a time when there will be a common European House.

MS. WOODRUFF: I come back to the question again about how do you fell, I mean, you are someone who has been in the diplomatic business for some time and this is an extraordinary event is it not?

AMB. VARKONYI: It is a very interesting moment in International situation as such and in the European Theater particularly.

MS. WOODRUFF: And once again the question of how this will go on. No indication from your Government. Could this go on for months do you think?

AMB. VARKONYI: No I don't think so myself but I haven't got any indication from my Government how long it will last. It won't last for hours of course.

MS. WOODRUFF: But could it be a year?

AMB. VARKONYI: Well one never knows. I mean I don't know. I haven't had any reports on that.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well Mr. Ambassador, Ambassador Peter Varkonyi we appreciate your being with us.

AMB. VARKONYI: Thank you very much indeed, thank you. NEWS MAKER

MR. LEHRER: Boris Yeltsin is next tonight. Yeltsin is the outspoken man of Russia, the 58 year old maverick supporter of the Gorbachev reforms who is also Mikhail Gorbachev's most public nuisance. Boris Yeltsin was brought to Moscow by Gorbachev in 1985 to become the city's Communist Party boss. His mission was to make Gorbachev's economic reforms work in the capital city. Yeltsin immediately took on the bureaucracy, firing hundreds of corrupt trade officials. His unorthodox style won him a wide following. He played the role of populist, using public transportation more often than the customary limousine. He played the role of consumer activist, visiting food stores to hear customer complaints. But he also played the role of Gorbachev critic and that got him into trouble. In November, 1987, Soviet Television announced Yeltsin was fired from his Moscow job. He was removed from the politburo after complaining Gorbachev was moving fast enough with his economic reforms. But Yeltsin wasn't finished. He made his comeback this past March in elections for a new Soviet parliament. It was the first election ever in which the Soviet people had a choice between competing candidates. Yeltsin ran for the Moscow seat against a candidate favored by the party establishment and he won in a landslide. He picked up where he left off, criticizing the slow pace of Gorbachev reforms, but he took his criticism one step further. In a speech to the new parliament, Yeltsin warned that Gorbachev was accumulating extraordinary powers that could lead to a new dictatorship. Yeltsin's recommendation, submit Gorbachev to a plebiscite every year to decide whether to let him stay in power. All of this has led many to understandably wonder if Yeltsin is after Gorbachev's job. He is in the United States now on a 10 day visit and that was the first question I asked him in an interview we taped this afternoon in our New York studio. There was simultaneous translation.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Yeltsin, welcome. Are you after Mikhail Gorbachev's job?

MR. YELTSIN: [Speaking through Interpreter] Immediately the point question. I think I can give you an answer, something I already stated, the Congress of the deputies when the chairman of the deputies was elected, when I rejected my candidacy.

MR. LEHRER: Would you like to be president of the Soviet Union some day?

MR. YELTSIN: It's a possibility, if I am not too old and I have strength.

MR. LEHRER: Do you think you could do a better job than Gorbachev is doing right now?

MR. YELTSIN: We have on the coincidence of strategic questions, we have different positions, tactical positions, as far as perestroika is concerned. That's why it's better to say worse or better, but I would decide many questions differently from the way Gorbachev does.

MR. LEHRER: You have said your country is in crisis, financial crisis, economic crisis, political crisis. How serious is that?

MR. YELTSIN: It's very serious. We are on the point of the abyss, on the edge of the abyss. And then later it will be extremely difficult to climb out of the abyss if not to say impossible, at least for a very long time.

MR. LEHRER: What went wrong with perestroika?

MR. YELTSIN: The tactics. A few very serious mistakes, grave mistakes in economics, the laws of cooperatives and some other questions connected with the living standards of the people. This is the main thing. The questions of glasnost and democracy and political questions are going very smoothly according to the task of perestroika, but the absence from the beginning of a complex conception of perestroika unfortunately is telling that right in the middle of the road we are confused where to go and what to do.

MR. LEHRER: And Gorbachev is not providing the leadership to decide which way to go?

MR. YELTSIN: Yes, he has some hesitations. He is a man of half measures. It's impossible to decide perestroika with half measures. We can't compromise. We can't achieve something positive by compromising. Compromises can be temporary but not steady all the time.

MR. LEHRER: Have you told him this?

MR. YELTSIN: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: To his face, personally, across the table?

MR. YELTSIN: Yes, personally, the last time about 10 days before the Congress. We had a very long talk, about an hour and a half, and we discussed the questions and problems which we view differently. But unfortunately, we haven't come to a united decision.

MR. LEHRER: Do you see him as a friend? Does he see you as a friend?

MR. YELTSIN: We have different notions of the word "friend". A friend is a very close person. A friend of the family is a friend. It's a very very close friend, very close person. No, I don't consider him a friend, but we have very good relations, except for the past time. We used to be friends. Last year, we have, well, some kind of cool-off period.

MR. LEHRER: Well, when he talks, as he does, about enemies within the Soviet Union who are getting in the way of the success of perestroika, do you think he's talking about you?

MR. YELTSIN: In some lines, you can guess my name.

MR. LEHRER: What message do you receive from him then? When you hear him say these things, what is your reaction to them?

BORIS YELTSIN, Soviet Politician: My reaction is negative. I don't like it. The more so I think he's wrong in this instance. He considers me to be too radical. We have to do everything very carefully and cautiously but people are very impatient. They've been waiting for four years and they cannot wait another year.

MR. LEHRER: They cannot wait another year? Something has to be done within a year.

MR. YELTSIN: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: If not, then what happens?

MR. YELTSIN: A revolution from below will begin.

MR. LEHRER: An armed revolution?

MR. YELTSIN: No. Of course, I prefer it to be bloodless, without a civil war, a peaceful revolution, but from below. The movement has already started in the form of strikes and when the strikers take over in the area where they are, the order will have been established. That's a process that has already started.

MR. LEHRER: What can be done to prevent that?

MR. YELTSIN: There are some offers, some suggestions I would like if I have a possibility to meet Pres. Bush, I would like to tell those offers to him.

MR. LEHRER: What kinds of things do you have in mind?

MR. YELTSIN: Different things, mainly economical.

MR. LEHRER: You mean you want help from the United States to solve the Soviet Union's economic problems?

MR. YELTSIN: Yes, but so that the American business does not suffer from it, but also gain from it.

MR. LEHRER: What would the United States have to gain by helping Gorbachev and perestroika succeed?

MR. YELTSIN: I think we have to start from the opposite. America and Americans will lose a lot if perestroika will flood. Then the whole world will be in a very bad shape.

MR. LEHRER: Why?

MR. YELTSIN: America included.

MR. LEHRER: Why?

MR. YELTSIN: Because it will involve all relations, economic, political, all spheres, everything.

MR. LEHRER: If perestroika fails and this revolution happens in the Soviet Union, will it be a revolution of the conservatives, or will it be a revolution of the radicals like you? Who will end up running the Soviet Union when it's over with?

MR. YELTSIN: People will rule the country.

MR. LEHRER: In a non-political, non-ideological way, what do they want, what would they want out of their government?

MR. YELTSIN: From the government, they would like a lot of things, but the government should not monopolize everything, decentralize politics, economics, social spheres and so. Decentralization and very seriously to give a lot of independence to industries, organizations, cities, and republics, to leave for the center, very small ray of strategic, the center should only define this with a small apparatus, then we could be able to remove a huge bureaucratic apparatus.

MR. LEHRER: Can this be done within the Communist Party, or must the Communist Party go as well?

MR. YELTSIN: The party should be renewed and very seriously; this is my opinion, considering that the party is in the crisis, itself, should be calling for extraordinary 28th party congress, change the conservative central committee and renew in great measure the politburo.

MR. LEHRER: But is it possible to accomplish what perestroika and you say the people want and still for the Soviet Union to remain a Communist state?

MR. YELTSIN: Communism should be understood as an idea, as a dream. But we can carry it, but not use it. We should build a new model of socialism which should be built bearing in mind the experience not only socialist countries but the experience of the United States of America which has more than 200 years experience of democracy; to the point of your democracy, we can learn a few things from you and this should be taken into consideration.

MR. LEHRER: So you can have communism and democracy together?

MR. YELTSIN: Communism, I reiterate, is in the head and in the dream, and socialism and democracy but renewed socialism, not barrack-like, new one, new model of socialism, this can be put together with democracy.

MR. LEHRER: Do you still consider yourself a Communist?

MR. YELTSIN: Yes. I wasn't expelled from the party.

MR. LEHRER: No, but I mean, the idea, the idea of Communism is still in your head?

MR. YELTSIN: It's such a, well, in the clouds. It's in the clouds. It's a dream.

MR. LEHRER: What do you think should be done about the desire of the Baltic states for independence?

MR. YELTSIN: They should be given independence and given economic sovereignty, economic independence, then they will decide themselves whether there should be a cessation or they should stay intact.

MR. LEHRER: Gorbachev and the politburo has said independence for the Baltic states would mean the death of perestroika. How do you explain the differences?

MR. YELTSIN: I think that independence of a national republic should be by all means on the contrary. If they don't have independence now national feelings, the dignity of an individual is so high, used to be trampled; today, if we don't give them independence, then really perestroika will be ended. Now it doesn't mean that these republics will stop being part when we satisfy their desires, that the number of people who would want to leave will be significantly smaller.

MR. LEHRER: Speaking of leaving, what is your reaction to the decision of Hungary to allow the East Germans, thousands of East Germans, to go to West Germany?

MR. YELTSIN: This is the right of every individual. We have a lot of, very very many international, it's a normal process, if more people come to the United States, although you now and they go to Israel and West Germany. Well, we look at this very quietly, not the way we used to look at it a few years ago.

MR. LEHRER: You said a moment ago that Gorbachev considers you a radical. Others consider you a populist. There have been a lot of descriptions of you and your own beliefs. How would you describe your own beliefs and what you are?

MR. YELTSIN: A lot of name droppings, a lot of -- I consider myself to be a member of the perestroika, but we have to more decisively solve problems of perestroika. How should I be called? It's difficult to say. I am for radical changes.

MR. LEHRER: Are the people ready for these radical changes that you want?

MR. YELTSIN: I think now they're tired of the absence of changes. There are no changes in the standard of their living.

MR. LEHRER: If they were to have free, open elections for president of the Soviet Union, would you run against Gorbachev?

MR. YELTSIN: The way people will decide, that's the way I will act.

MR. LEHRER: Do you feel when you speak that you are speaking for a great number of people in the Soviet Union, for a small number, only for yourself? Do you feel you have a constituency?

MR. YELTSIN: If you take the vote, once 6 million Muscovites, 90 percent voted for me, that means a lot of people.

MR. LEHRER: So if you were to run against Gorbachev, you'd take him, right, you'd beat him?

MR. YELTSIN: I cannot forecast this.

MR. LEHRER: Do you foresee a time when you and Mikhail Gorbachev will have a collision, a political collision of some type where one of you will have to step aside or one of you will have to give?

MR. YELTSIN: I wouldn't like such an encounter. I support Gorbachev in principle. He is an initiator of perestroika and for the first two years it developed normally. Though some mistakes have been made and he is to blame for some of them, I still support him. I would like a political confrontation with him.

MR. LEHRER: In this country, Gorbachev is seen by many in heroic terms as a man of history, a man who is turning around a huge ship of state in a very dramatic way. Is that the way we should see him? How should Americans view Mikhail Gorbachev?

MR. YELTSIN: You have some euphoria of the first two years of perestroika. You don't know the real state of affairs in the country. If you knew it, you would not be so euphoric now.

MR. LEHRER: What should we be, if not euphoric, what?

MR. YELTSIN: More realistic, more realistic.

MR. LEHRER: Was that the purpose of your coming to the United States, to deliver this message?

MR. YELTSIN: No. I came here because I've never been to America. This is my first time, not visited such a huge, such a wonderful country, great country, that was my dream for a long time. When I received a number of invitations, about 15, from political people, business people, many universities, Rockefeller Fund, Ford Foundation and many other organizations, I decided to combine them all and come to America.

MR. LEHRER: Are you surprised to find that so many people in the United States are interested in Boris Yeltsin?

MR. YELTSIN: Yes. It was somewhat sudden and unexpected for me when people greet me in the street. Only in Moscow did I feel like this.

MR. LEHRER: Well, thank youvery much, Mr. Yeltsin, for being with us, and good luck to you, sir.

MR. YELTSIN: Thank you. All the best to you. FOCUS - LESSONS FROM JAPAN

MS. WOODRUFF: Finally tonight we turn to one of the problems American Businessmen face when they compete in the Global Market place, factory automation. American workers are paid more than laborers in other countries. So some factories have tried to eliminate or reduce labor costs by automating production. But as Business Correspondent Paul Solman explains automation still requires a human touch.

MR. SOLMAN: An animated economics lesson from the 1950s Meet King Joe illustrates the American dream for manufacturing. And here is what the future held a sort of a horn of plenty or cornucopia machine. Labor, management and capital would invest in machinery and then kick back and relax while the machinery produced all by itself. This was a dream in the 1950s. By 1989 it is becoming a fact of industrial life. You are about to see the closest thing we have to a cornucopia machine in action and out of action and we'll tell you the moral of the story right now. No matter how much you invest in machinery and how few people you see you could never replace the human factor. This is the machine we found at a Detroit Auto plant. We promised not to reveal the companies name. Unlike the machine in the cartoon it makes only on thing engine heads for cars but it is designed to run itself. Only three humans over see the line more than a football field long. A computer is in charge designed by our tour guide Roger Lovrenich who brought us here to see a fully automated machine up and running. But while Lovrenich was showing us around the machine provided a case study of what is wrong with American Manufacturing because it suddenly stalled. Now supposedly this was no problem. The whole purpose of Levrenich's computer is to stop the line as soon as something goes wrong. Then the computer instantly analyzes the problem and tells the humans what to do.

ROGER LEVRENICH, Septor Electronics Corporation. The computer has analyzed the reason for stoppage and is telling the operator on the sign above what he should do to get the machine back on automatic. In this case he should push the start button.

MR. SOLMAN: It sounded so simple. This was no dramatic emergency but a routine glitch posted for all to see. Just push the button and the machine would be back at full speed. Except no one seemed to notice that the machine was down and that is when we began to wonder if may be the automated machine itself isn't the answer to manufacturing efficiency but how well you use the machine. Machine Automation. Experts contend that this is how the U.S. Europe and Japan can best compete with cheep labor elsewhere in the World but the point is that the U.S., Europe and Japan can all buy the identical automated machinery. So in Global competition the winners should be those who use the same machinery more efficiently and more efficiently means running your machines almost all of the time. Five years ago this Detroit line was down more than half the time. And identical line in Japan using exactly the same machines was up and running 90 percent of the time. Roger Levrenich traveled to Japan to understand the difference.

MR. LEVRENICH: The first thing we did when we went on the floor is to stop watch the machine and maker sure that they weren't running the machines any faster then the Americans were running and to our surprise they were actually running on slightly slower.

MR. SOLMAN: Like the Tortes beating the Hare the slowand steady Japanese were winning this race. American firms staff their factories with unskilled workers. The Japanese hired skilled engineers to run the line as well as design it.

MR. LEVRENICH: They openly made the statement that since this transfer line may cost over 50 million dollars your don't try to put a man on it that earns the lowest amount of money that you can hire a man for. That is not the man that you put in charge of a 50 million dollar investment.

MR. SOLMAN: More and more the Japanese have been putting their money into skilled labor even in manufacturing. Here at a Seiko Watch plant for example the engineers and designers are the production workers. Increasingly a factory worker is a skilled worker. In plants like Seiko you see the factory workers of the future according to manufacturing expert Steven Cohen.

MR. COHEN: Every day they come up with three new styles. Three new models a day maybe it is four by now. All that is programing reconfiguring production. The guys who work there ask them what they do. They are not sure if they are workers or engineers.

MR. SOLMAN: And the same is true at any modern Japanese factory. Roger Levrenich returned from Japan convinced that unskilled American Factory workers were simply no match for highly trained Japanese engineers. So he decided to take the engine transfer machinery one step further and run it by computer but time is a wasting and the machine that does it all hasn't done a thing in nearly 15 minutes. Roger Levrenich the man behind the brains of this operation is getting frustrated.

MR. LEVERNICH: I had no idea where the operator is. This is one of the differences between U.S. Plants and Japanese Plants. This would be a crisis in a Japanese Plant.

MR. SOLMAN: This place figured to be blowing a fortune every minute the machine sat idle. How much was it costing?

MR. LEVRENICH: They typical cost of a full transfer line is about $30,000 an hour so we have watched $10,000 or $12,000 being wasted here.

MR. SOLMAN: In a small way what we have stumbled on according to critics what is wrong with much of the new wave in American Manufacturing. The Attempt to idiot proof through automation.

MR. COHEN: It doesn't pay to idiot proof. If you idiot proof the World you get World full of idiot. If you organize production on the assumption that your work force consists of fools then they are going to behave like fools. It is much cheeper, much more effective to use computers in combinations with human skills not as a substitute for skills.

MR. SOLMAN: But here in our Detroit Plant and in factories across the country the American way has been to substitute machine skills for human skills and that could leave America with a work force so de skilled that there is no one able or motivated to run today's machines efficiently or to design tomorrow's. Yet the fact is that American workers can be motivated and taught and the irony is that the Japanese are proving it. Just look at the success of the Nume Plant in Freemont, California. This Toyota, GM joint venture is one of the most productive plants in the country. Toyota has brought Japanese management here. Now you are probably sick to death of hearing about the miracle of Japanese management. The company President lining up for lunch with the rank and file, managers sweeping up after the shift but the way management treats workers does make a difference especially if it teaches them how to improve. That says Steven Cohen is the lesson of Nume.

MR. COHEN: Not much in the way of fancy new machinery, the results are marvelous lesson. The Plant is more productive than anything in the GM System, World class operation. That was the big change. In the way the people who work there were treated. In the organizing principles of management that was it.

MR. SOLMAN: The Chief organizing principle at Nume is to train and retrain the workers. You could always buy a new machine but you are pretty much stuck with your work force. Meanwhile let's go back one last time to the machine of the future. Roger Levrenich and our crew had finally had enough. We were here to see the machine working and so we asked an operator from another line to come over and please push the darn button and he did and the machine started like a charm. Roger Levrenich's computer works just fine and has increased the lines efficiency but after all the expense this engine head transfer line even with Levrenich's computer brain is up and running only 2/3 as often as the identical line in Japan where all the brains are human. The machine of the future it seems will only be as efficient as the people who run it. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again the major stories of this Monday thousands of East German Refugees arrived in West Germany after being released by Hungarian Authorities. Hungary drew sharp criticism from East Germany. Soviet Political Leader Boris Yeltsin said on the News Hour Gorbechov had only a year more to make Parastroika work before the Soviet people revolted and bloody war over drugs continued in Colombia with the murder of another prominent Colombian. Good night Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night Jim. That is our News Hour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I am Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.