The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Here are the day's top news headlines. In Beirut the Shiites released three more TWA hostages, a Greek and two Americans. The White House said that piecemeal releases were uncivilized. Israel agreed to listen to an appeal from the Red Cross for release of 700 Shiite prisoners. Some leading banks cut their prime lending rate from 10 to 9.5 percent. Jim Lehrer is away today; Judy Woodruff is in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: After the news summary we focus first on the hostage crisis with two journalists, an Israeli and an American, sharing some behind-the-scenes impressions about the dilemmas facing policymakers in both countries. And then we get some thoughts from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Next, we have the second and final part of an interview with the prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. And, finally, Charlayne Hunter-Gault profiles a young comic that some consider the thinking man's clown.News Summary

MacNEIL: Three more TWA hijack hostages were released in Beirut today. They were the Greek folksinger, Demis Roussos, and two Americans, one of them his secretary. Nabih Berri, leader of the Shiite militia, said he did this to show good will and called on the United States to pressure Israel to release more than 700 Shiite prisoners it is holding. He said the remaining 40 hostages, mostly Americans, still being held could be released in 24 hours if the American government would intervene with Israel. Here's a report from Keith Graves of the BBC.

KEITH GRAVES, BBC [voice-over]: The Greek singer, his American girlfriend and a Greek-American man were freed after Shiite Muslim leader Nabih Berri, who produced them at his home near the airport, had sent a message to the hijackers. It was quite obviously designed to keep attention focused on the plight of the hostages and to highlight Mr. Berri's influence in the affair. Given the circus-like atmosphere surrounding the release, it was difficult to remember that about 30 hostages are still held and in fear of their lives.

NABIH BERRI, Amal leader: Now I leave you with three persons. They were in the hostage before. You know the Greek singer, Mr. Roussos, and his fiancee, his friend, her friend, and our friend here is from the American nationality. You can ask them what you like because they are free from today.

GRAVES [voice-over]: Roussos said he has not been badly treated, referred to his captors as nice guys, said he played his guitar for them and they provided him with a birthday cake.

DEMIS ROUSSOS, released hostage: They took me out of the plane with -- I think there were some other people, because it was the night, and they took us to a place where they gave us tea and water.

REPORTER: Who is they?

Mr. ROUSSOS: These people, these nice people. They have been so nice with me.

GRAVES [voice-over]: Back on the aircraft, moved overnight to the front of the main airport building, the atmosphere was not quite so convivial. The hijackers were angrily haranguing the United States and Israel, and threatening to blow the aircraft up over the White House. At least two of the crew are still on board. They were clearly visible on the flight deck this morning. From their tiny prison they can see part of the American Navy task force steaming off the coast. Freedom is so near, yet so far.

WOODRUFF: Here in Washington the Reagan administration welcomed the release of the three hostages, but complained that freeing just a few people at a time amounts to uncivilized behavior in its worst form. White House spokesman Larry Speakes again urged Shiite Amal leader Nabih Berri to do whatever necessary to get all of the hostages released. Meanwhile, the State Department warned American travelers to avoid the Athens international airport, the place where the hijackers of the TWA flight first got on board. Spokesman Bernard Kalb backed up what others have been saying in recent days that security at the Athens airport is dangerously lax.

BERNARD KALB, State Department spokesman: We have repeatedly made our concerns known to the Greek government in the past, and a U.S. airport security team visited Athens in February. Although the Greek government has expressed its willingness to improve conditions at the Athens airport, specific steps have not been taken yet, and security there is still inadequate. U.S. citizens and aircraft can use the airport in Athens at their discretion; however, the U.S. is acting to advise them of the previous terrorist problem and the potential for additional incidents in the future.

WOODRUFF: That was the only official statement on the hostage situation today. President Reagan will answer questions about it tonight at a news conference beginning at 8 o'clock, Eastern daylight time.

MacNEIL: In Israel, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Israel was willing to help, but that the United States had not requested any Israeli action. In a speech in Tel Aviv, Peres added, "The Americans have turned to us and said it's possible that the Red Cross will come to us. If the Red Cross approaches us, we will receive them. We will hear what they have to say." An Israeli defense department official said Israel's position had not changed. They would consider releasing the 700 Shiites they hold only if the United States made a public request that they do.

Right after this news summary we focus on the hostage crisis with Israeli and American versions of what's going on behind the scenes and an overview by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

WOODRUFF: The brother of accused Navy spy John Walker, Jr., Arthur Walker, pleaded innocent today at his arraignment on espionage charges in Norfolk, Virginia. His plea came as his niece, the daughter of John Walker, was saying that her father almost talked her into joining the family spy ring. Twenty-five-year-old Laura Walker Snyder told her side of the story in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. In it she described how she thinks her younger brother Michael got involved and how she herself almost did when she served in the Army.

LAURA WALKER SNYDER, daughter of alleged spy: I think the brainwashing started with my brother the minute he went to Virginia to live with my father. I think he was 16. And I can just see he did it to please my father. I don't think he really understood what he was doing. Because I know my brother. If you met him you would really like him. He's just not a coarse, cruel individual.

DANUTA SODERMAN, Christian Broadcasting Network: So you think that your father actually manipulated his son, knowing that --

Ms. WALKER SNYDER: I know he did.

Ms. SODERMAN: Did your brother idolize his father?

Ms. WALKER SNYDER: Absolutely. I know that Michael was manipulated. My father tried it with me. I came that close to agreeing to do the same thing.

Ms. SODERMAN: Why?

Ms. WALKER SNYDER: To please my father.

Ms. SODERMAN: What did he say to make you feel like you almost could?

Ms. WALKER SNYDER: He would start by -- it's a brainwashing technique. He would start by -- his method would be, first, he'd break you down and make you feel like the lowest form of life. He'd say, "You know you're never going to be successful. You know you can't do anything with your life. You're not a very bright person. Why don't you let me help you make a lot of money?" You know, that sort of thing. "You're just never going to make it in this world. Don't you understand that you're just not anybody special? But I've got a way of helping you to earn a great deal of money. You're never going to get anywhere unless you do things my way." So he would break you down. He'd break your spirit down. Because I love my father very much and it was --

Ms. SODERMAN: Are you afraid of your father?

Ms. WALKER SNYDER: Very.

Ms. SODERMAN: Even now?

Ms. WALKER SNYDER: Even now.

WOODRUFF: Laura Walker Snyder spent a year on active duty in the Army in 1978 and '79, and she says her father kept urging her to move to an assignment where she would have access to the type classified information that he wanted.

MacNEIL: The nation's prime lending rate dropped into single figures today for the first time in nearly seven years. Morgan Guaranty Trust, the nation's fifth-largest bank, dropped its rate for its best business customers from 10 to 9.5 percent. Other leading banks quickly followed.

The Treasury Department today fined four of the nation's biggest banks a total of more than a million dollars for failure to report large cash transactions. Chase Manhattan, Manufacturers Hanover, Chemical and Irving Trust were penalized for violating a law requiring them to report all cash transactions over $10,000. The rules are intended to combat drug trafficking, tax evasion and money-laundering. The Treasury Department said another 140 banks are under criminal investigation for possible violations.

The Commerce Department reported today that housing construction fell off sharply last month. New housing starts fell 13.7 . Analysts had expected the recent fall in interest rates to stimulate more home building.

WOODRUFF: The astronauts aboard the space shuttle Discovery today launched the second of three satellites into orbit. With a Saudi prince in their midst, the shuttle crew sent a communications satellite into orbit which will serve 22 Arab countries. Because not all those countries are friendly to each other, such as Syria and Iraq, the satellite can be instructed to prevent any one country from sending unwelcome messages to another.

MacNEIL: Experts studying bones dug up from a Brazilian grave said today that unless they get X-rays they may never be certain if the body is that of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. Wilmes Teixeira, the head of the forensic team, appealed to doctors in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil who might have X-rayed Mengele to come forward. With X-rays of the real Mengele, the identity of the bones could be resolved immediately, he said. Otherwise the findings might be inconclusive. Meanwhile, in Munich, West Germany, letters and documents made public by Mengele's son indicated that he lived for 30 years in South America and died with the conviction he had done no wrong. Mengele was named the "angel of death" for his responsibility in the deaths of 400,000 people at Auschwitz concentration camp.

WOODRUFF: The U.S. government stepped up its criticism of South Africa today. In a statement issued in Johannesburg, the U.S. accused South Africa of attempting to sabotage American-owned oil installations in Angola during a raid May 21st by South African soldiers. The statement further criticized South Africa's raid into Botswana last week and its imposition of a new government in neighboring Southwest Africa, known as Namibia. The American ambassador was recalled last week after the Botswana raid, and U.S. Embassy officials have been forbidden to talk with South African government leaders. South Africa has insisted that it has been acting to protect its national security, and it has called the U.S. criticism hypocrisy. TWA Flight 847

MacNEIL: Our major focus section again tonight is the hijack hostage situation, and tonight we have several perspectives. First, on what's happening behind the scenes between Israel and the United States. For an Israeli perspective, we have Wolf Blitzer, Washington bureau chief of the Jerusalem Post and author of the forthcoming book, Between Washington and Jerusalem: A Reporter's Notebook.

Mr. Blitzer, why is Israel insisting on an official U.S. request that the 700-plus Shiite prisoners be released? Are Washington and Jerusalem at loggerheads in this?

WOLF BLITZER: I don't think they are. I think basically there's a fundamental coordination of strategies between the two countries. They're working very close together, and certainly there is the coordination in terms of public posturing as well as private diplomacy, and I don't see any fundamental disagreement between the two countries. Israel is insisting on some sort of public U.S. request because of domestic political considerations within Israel itself. If Israel were simply to appear to be capitulating to terrorist demands there could be repercussions within Israel. But I don't think that the United States wants Israel to capitulate or to even be perceived as capitulating in this particular incident.

MacNEIL: So describe what you think the private track is underneath the public front.

Mr. BLITZER: There has been extremely close coordination on every aspect, beginning when this hijacking first occurred, with some sort of military response, military option, if that was available. Now that the passengers and the crew members seem to be scattered, that military option is practically non-existent. But at the beginning there was close coordination to see what type of military option was available.

MacNEIL: Was there ever a question of Israeli military activity?

Mr. BLITZER: I don't know if it was a direct Israeli activity, but certainly if the United States was going to undertake some sort of rescue operation Israel made it clear that it was prepared to cooperate in a supporting role -- logistical role or whatever. I don't think there was any doubt about that. But now that is all moot. If, God forbid, there is some terrible tragedy involving these passengers and some sort of military retaliation, were it to be used, I think once again there would be close cooperation between Israel and the United States on such a possibility. I hope that never comes into being.

MacNEIL: Do you understand that there is some agreement now between Washington and Jerusalem on what's going to happen and that they are merely looking for putting the public face on that?

Mr. BLITZER: Yes, I think there is an opportunity for some sort of diplomatic, face-saving formula in which the passengers and the crew members -- all of them -- would be released, and that would be followed by what Israel was planning on doing all along, namely returning the approximately 700 Lebanese Shiite prisoners to Lebanon. In fact, last Friday Israel earlier had informed the United States they were going to release another 380 or so of them, but once this hijacking incident took place and there was the earlier incident involving the South Lebanese army's capturing of some UNIFIL, United Nations peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, a lot of that was delayed. But Israel has not refused to release these people. They are going to be released; Israel made that clear all along. What is now standing in the way, actually, of unilateral Israeli transfer of these Lebanese Shiite prisoners is this refusal to release the American hostages, because neither Israel nor the United States wants to create the impression that you can intimidate them by holding hostages and forcing them into making unilateral concessions.

MacNEIL: So what's going to happen, do you think?

Mr. BLITZER: My sense is that the United States is going to continue to take a very firm line in refusing to negotiate, refusing to make a deal and refusing to publicly ask Israel to release the Shiite prisoners. At the same time I think that it will become increasingly clear and apparent to Nabih Berri, who has now claimed responsibility for the welfare of all these people, that he is gong to have to release these Americans and, later, somewhere down the road, I think it will become very apparent that Israel will release the Lebanese Shiite prisoners.

MacNEIL: What does Israel speculate are the hijackers' real motives?

Mr. BLITZER: Israel -- and I've discussed this issue now at very senior levels, not only with Israeli officials but with American officials and others -- I think there is an increasing evidence that this was not simply the work of two or three freelancers or madmen. This was a very sophisticated operation that certainly has the earmarkings of foreign support -- state-sponsored support -- and a lot of evidence is increasingly coming to the forefront that Syria one way or another was responsible. Now, the question is, why Syria? Well, certainly a lot of the recent progress in trying to revive Arab-Israeli peace negotiations had irritated the Syrians and the Syrians certainly stood to gain by derailing any sort of this Arab-Israeli peace momentum. So certainly there is suspicion that Syria played some sort of role, one way or the other.

MacNEIL: Wolf Blitzer, thank you. Judy?

WOODRUFF: Here in the U.S., emotions over the hostage-taking spilled out onto the floor of the House of Representatives, where one member after another took the microphone to express anger and frustration.

Rep. JUDD GREGG, (R) New Hampshire: Mr. Speaker, when an American sailor is singled out and murdered simply because he is an American, the time has come for America to meetforce with force when addressing such terrorist activity. We as a nation must respond to this act with the destruction of those forces which undertake this form of organized barbarism.

Rep. BILL ALEXANDER, (D) Arkansas: We are members of a civilized order, and it is difficult for us to know how to deal with brutality. At this difficult time, I urge the support of all Americans of the President in dealing with this crisis, and I ask for restraint among all of us until the crisis has ended.

Rep. ROY DYSON, (D) Maryland: We have a cancer in this world called terrorism, and this week it touched my congressional district and snuffed out the life of Robert Stethem of Waldorf, Maryland. When they took this fine young man and put a bullet in his head, they were trying to snuff out the life of our country. Well, Mr. Speaker, they failed. Because of the brave spirit of that wonderful Southern Maryland graduate lives on in the hearts and soul of all Americans, Mr. Speaker, I add my voice to the millions of prayers in America and those from around the globe for the release of those hostages still in jeopardy. I send my words of comfort to the family and friends of Robby and promise them we will never stop fighting for peace in this world. And I promise them that this Congress will never end the ceaseless quest for an answer to the mindlessness of terrorism.

WOODRUFF: That sort of pressure on American officials to do something about the hostage crisis comes on top of frustration they already feel over very real limits to the choices available to them. Here to shed some light on just what American policymakers think their options are is William Beecher, diplomatic correspondent for the Boston Globe for the past 10 years. Mr. Beecher, why, first of all -- we've already heard others commenting on this, but why do you think the Americans are not going to ask, are not asking Israel to release those Shiite prisoners?

WILLIAm Mr. BEECHER: They are very much concerned that if they establish the precedent now of giving in to terrorism that it will only encourage a good deal of terrorism against American citizens and installations all over the world. So they're trying to establish a firm policy of not negotiating with terrorists and not encouraging others, including, in this case, Israel -- at least not formally encouraging them -- to do so.

WOODRUFF: Even at the risk of losing the lives of 40-some Americans?

Mr. BEECHER: Honestly, they do not believe at this point there is that much risk. They keep getting assurances --

WOODRUFF: They don't?

Mr. BEECHER: -- from Nabih Berri that he has control of the bulk of the passengers, that the handful who are not within his direct control but under the control of another Shiite organization are cooperating and that he has assured American officials, both in Beirut and in Washington by phone, that they will not be harmed.

WOODRUFF: But what makes them think they can trust Berri?

WOODRUFF: They have no other option. Their great disappointment -- and you talk about the frustration that has come out in rhetoric from the White House and the State Department today -- their great disappointment, sore disappointment was that Berri did not effect a quick release with the understanding, the implicit understanding that if he did so that Israel would be more than happy to let go the 766 largely Lebanese Shiites in its prisons. The fact that Berri got on television and said that unless the Israelis themselves, under pressure from the United States, went first, then he might just wash his hands of the whole situation and turn all of the American captives over to the original terrorists. That's what frustrated them, and they're afraid that if this drags out very long, then Berri could lose control and the current situation could deteriorate.

WOODRUFF: Well, you were just sitting here. You heard Wolf Blitzer say that there is some thinking that maybe Syria is behind this. Doesn't that point --

Mr. BEECHER: That is very different than the information that I'm gathering. Mostly the information I have is that they are a small group belonging -- they call themselves the Mususadr Group. They are associated with Amal, but they're a fringe group. Mususadr was a religious leader who disappeared in Lybia under strange circumstances -- probably killed -- several years ago. That a handful of them probably engineered this on their own, that when they first arrived in Beirut they weren't joined by an organized group. They flew off to Algiers. On their second stop in Beirut they asked for someone from Amal, please, someone come on the plane. They had to be introduced to the 10 gunmen who came on. They didn't know them. So American intelligence by and large believes this was a small group acting -- and there's another factor. They asked for the release of several specific people. These were not well-known people. They're believed to have been relatives of the original hijackers. So, by and large, American intelligence believes this was a small group freelancing, and that the hijacking was then taken over by Amal and is now essentially under control of Amal.

WOODRUFF: So what makes them think they can prevent this from turning into another situation like we had in Iran?

Mr. BEECHER: They are hoping to prevail on Nabih Berri, who is a moderate, who is not anti-American, who is a part of the Lebanese government, their justice minister, to see it as being in his interest to get those Shiites, Lebanese Shiites, freed from Israel. It will enhance his stature as a Shiite leader. It will enhance his stature in the Arab world and in the Western world. And it also, the Americans have been hinting that some economic aid might be channeled into South Lebanon if he sees his way to doing that. That's their great hope.

WOODRUFF: So there's a carrot involved in this --

Mr. BEECHER: There is a carrot.

WOODRUFF: A potential carrot.

Mr. BEECHER: Yes, indeed.

WOODRUFF: What do you think? Do you think that they're thinking realistically, or do you think they've just cooked up a scenario that --

Mr. BEECHER: I think the big question mark is whether Berri in fact can exercise the control that he's telling our officials he has. That is certainly not certain, and that's the big question. If he can, then it's certainly in his interest to carry forward on the kind of solution that everyone is talking about, that would serve the interest even of the original hijackers, and that their brothers and cousins would be free. It would serve his interests. It would serve American interests and Israeli interests. They would like their hands washed of these Shiites.

WOODRUFF: Okay. Wolf Blitzer, let me bring you back into this for a minute. You were saying what you're hearing is that it was perhaps a state-organized effort, maybe the Syrians. Bill Beecher is saying he's hearing something different. How do you explain it?

Mr. BLITZER: Well, what I was trying to describe was what clearly was a very sophisticated hijacking. These guys had support. They also had training, the two guys who actually got on the plane originally in Athens and the other one who was captured by the Greek government. The suspicion is that they had training, in fact several months of training, probably in Algeria. And that may have been one of the reasons why that plane was shuttling between Athens and Algiers, because they were familiar with the scene in Algeria. It wouldn't be the first time that this Algerian connection has surfaced in terrorist incidents. The Israelis captured a gunboat of Palestinian terrorists about two months ago off the coast of Israel. About 18 or so of the terrorists were killed, but Israel did capture alive about six or eight of them who later confessed that they had undergone serious six-month training exercises in Algeria. But the suspicion of Syria stems not only from some actual information that my sources have, but also because of the political benefits and the fact that in the last two weeks there were these attacks against Jordanian planes, including one of the Jordanian airliners that was destroyed.

WOODRUFF: How does that square with what you're hearing?

Mr. BEECHER: It's different, but look. We should say that no one could establish with any clarity, probably never will be, whether there were foreign -- certainly there was foreign help in training these people and supplying them. The big difference now, and it probably can't be determined for sure, is whether a foreign hand guided the hijackers originally. Most American intelligence officials believe that was not the case in this instance.

WOODRUFF: All right, you keep coming back to Nabih Berri in your earlier answers --

Mr. BEECHER: Yes. He is the key, clearly.

WOODRUFF: What will determine whether he's able to come through?

Mr. BEECHER: My own guess, and now we're going to speculation, is that some sort of assurances, private assurances, will be provided on a timetable that can be acceptable to all sides, a timetable for when the announcement is made that the hostages are going to be released and the Israelis announce that either 350 or all 766 of the Shiites will be released -- something of that sort. That has to be worked out, and it's probably not beyond the ingenuity of man, in a situation where it would seem to serve the major purposes of all the parties for such a formula to be arrived at.

WOODRUFF: Is that something -- go ahead.

Mr. BLITZER: The question is, though, whether or not the hijackers, the terrorists involved, really want such an exchange to occur, such a peaceful resolution of this problem, or whether they would like to see the United States humiliated and to see this ordeal dragged out. It's by no means clear that they are actually that interested, because the fact of the matter is they knew quite well that Israel was in the process of giving up these prisoners before the hijacking. If anything, this hijacking has delayed their freedom.

WOODRUFF: Just one other thing, retaliation. Bill Beecher, are you hearing anything at this point about what may be in the works if everything gets worked out as far as --

Mr. BEECHER: That's why the issue that Wolf and I were arguing about is rather critical. If the fingerprints of a foreign power were found attached to the original hijacking, then in fact retaliation would be considered against something in that country. American officials by and large now don't believe that they can find a foreign hand here. If they are then to retaliate, it would probably have to be against the three individuals, if they could find them, or their base camps, supplies, whatever.

WOODRUFF: Bill Beecher, Wolf Blitzer, we thank you both for being with us. Robin?

MacNEIL: For a different perspective on the U.S. dilemma and how it fits into the wider Middle East picture we have Henry Kissinger. Dr. Kissinger was President Nixon's national security adviser, then secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Ford. He's now chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm.

First of all, on the moment-by-moment handling of this, how do you think the Reagan administration is handling it, and does it have no option but to trust Nabih Berri?

HENRY KISSINGER: Well, I don't want to comment on the day-to-day handling. I agree with the statements that the President has made, and I have no quarrel with anything formal that has been said. The body language, the things that are not said, the things that lend themselves to the sort of interpretation we heard from your two journalistic friends, makes me very uneasy. It makes me very uneasy because more is involved than simply the release of these hostages. There is involved the safety of all Americans abroad. If anytime some radical group wants to grab 50 Americans, kill one of them, beat up some others, humiliate all of them and put them through unspeakable anguish, then our journalists say there is a problem requiring a negotiation in which we are going to find a solution and maybe we'll channel some aid to the people who are colluding in the hijacking, then I think we are living in a never-never land in which no American will be safe. Secondly, I wonder what the impact of this is on the moderate Arabs in the area who live in mortal fear of Shiite radicalism and who see the United States, once again, not capable of dealing with this problem. And so I believe that the words of the President I agree with. The body language of some subordinates make me very uneasy. I regret that Bill Beecher, whom I know as an outstanding correspondent, can pick up the sort of information that he has conveyed. It's undoubtedly accurate. I regret, however, that such considerations are being undertaken. There should be no negotiation, there should be no talk of concessions.

MacNEIL: So that any masking of the real dialogue that is going on between Israel and Jerusalem [sic] by the apparent hard public line would not fool anybody in the Middle East, either moderates or radicals.

Dr. KISSINGER: It would fool nobody that we should worry about.

MacNEIL: That the price for hijacking could still be concessions?

Dr. KISSINGER: Well, they might fool somebody in Europe and in the United States. It will fool none of the key audiences that should worry us and who might undertake future hijackings.

MacNEIL: So, given the administration's position right now, with those 40 or so lives at stake, what is the alternative to some kind of deal?

Dr. KISSINGER: No deal, and to wait them out and to make it absolutely clear that any damage to any American will lead to very violent reprisal. I cannot accept the proposition that Mr. Berri is a moderate. He is colluding in the hijacking of Americans, and I know his past reputation is that of a moderate. Anybody who cooperates in the hijacking of Americans cannot be treated as a moderate and cannot be given awards for not having killed them yet and be promised economic aid. Now, as for the 700 Shiites in Israel, whether or not they should have been released is a totally different question. If they are released in any time frame relevant to the hijacking, it will be interpreted all over the Middle East as a collapse of both American will and Israeli will, no matter whom we do it through, whether it's the International Red Cross or some other organization that we produce as an alibi.

MacNEIL: You mean, you would suggest that the Israelis should even delay release of those people --

Dr. KISSINGER: Absolutely.

MacNEIL: -- so that it won't be seen as a cause and effect.

Dr. KISSINGER: Absolutely. There must be a penalty for hijacking, and in the long run it will save lives.

MacNEIL: Now, who would the United States retaliate against if harm came to those American prisoners as a result of no immediate release of the Israeli prisoners? Excuse me, Nabih Berri said yesterday that he would wash his hands of the matter and turn the Americans back over to the hijackers.

Dr. KISSINGER: That would be therefore one target to retaliate against.

MacNEIL: Berri himself, you mean?

Dr. KISSINGER: Well, not Berri himself; the group he represents. But I want to make a general point here. I am a private individual. I do not have access to intelligence information, I do not have access to contingency planning. But I have enough experience of the government to know that it must be possible to discover, if not the individuals who planned this operation, the groups within the sea -- as the Chinese Communists used to say -- the sea within which they get a little swim. And the sea in which these terrorists swim and who therefore have indirect responsibility for those actions -- and I just cannot believe that a country like the United States cannot find the means to protect its citizens abroad and declares that anybody can be siezed and that we will then start a negotiation and pay some sort of a price that is demanded. That is a degree of abdication which makes this a rather seminal event. This is the first time that American individuals and American property have been directly assaulted since the Iranian hostage crisis, and it is the first time that we are being blackmailed with the threat of killing Americans, in this case, even to produce an action by a friendly government. I therefore think that we have to take a firm position to protect the tens of thousands of Americans around the world and to maintain some confidence on the part of our friends that we are not -- that we are not in panic.

MacNEIL: What about the political price Mr. Reagan might have to pay for long-delayed release and possible risk to the lives of the 40 Americans in Beirut?

Dr. KISSINGER: Well, you know, I am in a minority, so if any of your viewers are worried, they can be sure my advice is unlikely to be taken. My view is that we should not tolerate a long delay. We now know who has these prisoners, and there would have to be action taken.

MacNEIL: How do you not tolerate a long delay? I mean, you mean take physical action --

Dr. KISSINGER: Absolutely.

MacNEIL: -- even at risk of the prisoners dying in a military intervention?

Dr. KISSINGER: That's correct. The risk of the present course is that many more Americans will be taken hostage and that blackmail will increase. I don't want to say the present course, the course, as outlined by the two reporters. I have no personal knowledge that that is in fact the course. I have no objection to the public statements that have been made.

MacNEIL: Do you think the United States in some way brought this on itself?

Dr. KISSINGER: I think that to some extent our actions in Lebanon, our failure to retaliate earlier when 241 Americans were killed, may have been a contributing factor. I believe also that the Israeli release of 1,000 terrorists against three Israeli prisoners -- in this case terrorists, not like these Shiites, who are not in the same category.

MacNEIL: These were Palestinians, largely.

Dr. KISSINGER: Yes, Palestinian terrorists, also contributed to it, and this is exactly what I'm trying to prevent by urging that we not yield.

MacNEIL: Do you think it's plausible, the speculation that Wolf Blitzer reported, that behind this was a desire to derail the recent initiatives of Hussein and so on to get into talks -- you think so?

Dr. KISSINGER: I think it is an attempt by the radicals in the Arab world to humiliate the United States, to humiliate Israel and to show moderates like Hussein that they cannot stand up against the trends of radicalism, and that are opposed to any progress on peace.

MacNEIL: So then how does this incident fit into the overall Middle East situation and the United States posture in that?

Dr. KISSINGER: I think that the United States has always had an opportunity to contribute to the peace process. In order to do this it must think through what is required and not simply open a negotiation with consequences it is not prepared to face. But our influence depends on our ability to protect our friends and to deliver what we promise. And to the extent that the United States is humiliated, to the extent that American citizens can be treated as they have been on this plane, as we have heard from the many -- from the hostages that have been released, and that we can be played with where somebody takes them off the plane, then threatens to turn them back to the murderers, to that extent we are in a rather -- in an extremely difficult position. I sympathize with the leaders who have to make these hard choices in Washington. I was in a position similar to it. We usually opted -- we always opted for taking action.

MacNEIL: Are you talking about the Mayaguez now?

Dr. KISSINGER: Well, we did it at the Mayaguez, and we did it when 120 hostages were taken by Jordan -- not by Jordan, by Palestinians in Jordan, and in each case we refused to negotiate.

MacNEIL: Of course, President Ford's action when you were secretary of state in sending Marines to rescue the Mayaguez prisoners was widely criticized as resulting in more loss of life than would have been the case, those people would argue, if you'd just waited.

Dr. KISSINGER: That is of course true, but we couldn't know that -- and, a) nobody can prove that -- at the time, in considering what the Cambodian regime did to its own people, it's a very unprovable assumption. And some of the loss of life occurred -- in fact, three-quarters of it -- When the helicopter crashed when the force, the rescue force was assembled. That's an incident that could happen anytime. It did not result from the action itself.

MacNEIL: In a word, because we only have a second or two, are you pessimistic or optimistic about the outcome of this incident?

Dr. KISSINGER: I think if we keep on, I'm optimistic about the outcome of this incident because I don't think that there are the resources or the stamina on the Lebanese side to see this one through.

MacNEIL: Well, Dr. Kissinger, thank you. Judy?

WOODRUFF: Still to come on the NewsHour, the conclusion of an interview with India's prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi. And Charlayne Hunter-Gault profiles a remarkable young comedian. Son of India

WOODRUFF: India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi arrived back home today after a visit to Washington last week, which he has said resulted in his country becoming closer to the U.S., even though he stressed India still maintains historically strong ties to the Soviet Union. Gandhi attracted much interest while here, as U.S. officials tried to size up this new player on the world scene. Tonight we have the final part of an interview I did with him last Friday. I began by asking about President Reagan's strategic defense initiative, also known as Star Wars.

Why are you so skeptical of the President's proposal when he has said he believes this is the one way we achieve nuclear disarmament, the elimination of nuclear weapons?

RAJIV GANDHI, Prime Minister of India: We feel that any escalation in the weapons system will only make it much harder to achieve disarmament. It adds one more dimension to it. And, you know, we are not the only ones. There are very many people in the world who are skeptical about it.

WOODRUFF: Did you explain your view to President Reagan?

Prime Min. GANDHI: We did, and he explained his.

WOODRUFF: Did you come any closer together at all?

Prime Min. GANDHI: On this I don't think we did.

WOODRUFF: Do you have any better understanding, though, of why he feels as he does?

Prime Min. GANDHI: Yes, certainly. Certainly. I do understand his point of view. I understand what he feels about it, and why he feels like that about it.

WOODRUFF: But?

Prime Min. GANDHI: Yes, but we feel differently.

WOODRUFF: What about India's nuclear capability? You said in an interview recently, perhaps last week, that although you have no nuclear weapons now, that you could have one or some in a matter of a few months or even a matter of a few weeks. How soon could India have a nuclear weapon?

Prime Min. GANDHI: Well, that depends if we decide to have one. We have no intention to have one. We don't want to make a nuclear weapon. We don't want to be a nuclear power. We think it's wrong, it's bad and it would not really help the total world system.

WOODRUFF: But, as you said, it depends on your -- on the necessity for one. If there were a necessity, how quickly could one be put together?

Prime Min. GANDHI: Well, we have to look into that. We are not planning to put one together so we haven't evaluated that in, you know, on a time schedule.

WOODRUFF: But you are close enough to, as you said --

Prime Min. GANDHI: Well, we have the technology. We made one in '74. So there is, you know, we have the know-how, we've got the experience, but we're not going to do it.

WOODRUFF: The Sikh situation. How serious a threat to Indian unity is this?

Prime Min. GANDHI: It's not. It's not at all. The Sikhs' leaders in India are talking of solutions within the constitutional provisions of India, within a united India. It is not a threat to the unity of India.

WOODRUFF: And yet, over the last year or so, the violence, the terrorism, has increased rather than decreased. What can you do specifically?

Prime Min. GANDHI: Well, sporadically it has increased. It goes to higher levels on certain incidents, but if you look at the long-term picture, it is improving. And the Sikh leadership is coming out positively to work within the constitution. This is a positive development.

WOODRUFF: But you still have elements within not just the Sikhs but other groups who are not willing to be accommodating. How --

Prime Min. GANDHI: Yes, there are some groups of Sikhs, but they are very small in number.

WOODRUFF: How will you deal with this?

Prime Min. GANDHI: Well, the terrorists will be dealt with like terrorists anywhere in the world, and the other groups we are willing to talk to, well, talk to about their problems and try to solve their problems.

WOODRUFF: Even if the terrorists hole up again in a religious building?

Prime Min. GANDHI: We won't allow them to hole up anywhere.

WOODRUFF: Even if it leads to another situation as you had at Amritsar?

Prime Min. GANDHI: Yes, we will not allow them to hole up in any place, religious or otherwise.

WOODRUFF: A question about your vision for India, compared to your mother's vision. You are clearly the younger generation. Is there a difference in what you want for your country from what your mother wanted?

Prime Min. GANDHI: No. No, I don't think so.

WOODRUFF: What do you want?

Prime Min. GANDHI: Well, we want an India free from strife, an India where there is no communal or religious ferment, an India which is prosperous, an India which is really with the advanced nations of the world in technology and prosperity.

WOODRUFF: Does the fact that you are of a younger generation represent any change at all in the way you govern India?

Prime Min. GANDHI: That's very difficult for me to say. Being younger, I think we're more impatient. We want things done faster. But I don't thnk there's any change in the systems. Things, I think, move a little faster. We push a little harder and step on more toes, maybe. Bill Irwin: Thinking Man's Clown

MacNEIL: Yesterday the MacArthur Foundation named 25 people to receive its so-called genius awards. The winners will receive between $155,000 and half a million dollars tax free over the next five years. They will join a wide assortment of scientists, writers, social activists and other creative people who have received the award in the past four years. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has been seeing how one of them has been spending his time. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, this time last year the MacArthur Foundation broke with its own rather unorthodox tradition by giving for the first time one of its prestigious awards to a performing artist. His name is Bill Irwin. Who is Bill Irwin, and how has he fared since the anonymous 15-member panel certified him a genius?

[voice-over] This is Bill Irwin. This is also Bill Irwin. And so is this Bill Irwin. Who is Bill Irwin, really?

BILL IRWIN, MacArthur Foundation Award recipient: I think of myself and describe myself as an actor who works as a clown.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Indeed, Bill Irwin has been described as sort of a thinking man's clown, a leading member of a new generation of theatrical talent who is working at ways of breathing new life into the theater through some fairly unconventional devices, like clowning.

Mr. IRWIN: Now, extend the arms out to this side.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: The kind we see in his ambitious work, "In Regard of Flight," a fusion of mime and comedy that made fun of new theater even as it was creating it.

Mr. IRWIN: Classic lighting. This is Shakespeare, remember. [sings ditty] This performance is taking palace on a traditional proscenium stage with the main curtain just upstage of the arch. Among practitioners of the contemporary or new theater, however, there is a profound and deep-seated mistrust of the proscenium.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: It was this kind of clowning around that led the MacArthur Foundation to bestow on Irwin one of its prestigious genius awards, an average of $36,000 annually for the next five years. And what Irwin wants to do is continue experimenting in an arena that many critics believe has become too serious and stodgy for its own good.

Mr. IRWIN: I don't think you understand, my friend, what a very big jump it is from down where you are up here to where I am.

We often, because of the times, need to take the old skills and sort of make a kind of a wry -- use them in a sort of a wry, sidelong, almost tongue-in-cheek commentary sometimes, so that sometimes it feels like there's an overlay of sophistication happening when new vaudevillians or nouveau vaudevillians try these things that wasn't there, maybe, in the original silent films or the vaudevillian work of the turn of the century and the '20s.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: To help prepare himself to be a different kind of clown, Bill Irwin first studied at the Ringling Brothers Circus school in Florida, where he says he learned ways to think as a clown, learning to hurl the meaning of a gag to the farthest tiers of seats. A clown college classmate recalls how well Irwin did that.

ROSE CHADDOCK, clown college classmate: In his clowning -- he was very talented. He was very much at the top of the class, and a lot of times when someone is that talented, to work around them makes you very nervous. But he never had that kind of presence.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: It was there that Irwin refined combining his acting and clowning skills.

Ms. CHADDOCK: A clown is, I would say, the exaggerated actor. It's an exaggeration of your own character.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Bill Irwin's character has a distinctly serious side.

Mr. IRWIN: It's amazing how serious comedians can get about comedy, and it's extraordinarily funny from the outside. Often you'd hear with one ear what we were all saying. We were saying, "Well, you know, I think that you should wait for three beats rather than two." Now, when you get overserious, then you have to catch yourself and say, "You know, what we need to remember what this is all about."

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: If the circus taught Irwin something about the seriousness of being funny, his other experiences may have taught him something about the humor of being seriou7m. He seriously played what he called a really dumb sergeant in Dario Fo's "Accidental Death of an Anarchist," and he's done some serious lectures on how to be a clown. And he seriously worked at setting tradition on its ear, as demonstrated by his latest work in progress, "The Courtroom." It's a kind of theatrical cartoon that uses dance, juggling and physical comedy reminiscent of the legendary silent comedians. But instead of using them just to get laughs, he uses them to make satirical points.

Mr. IRWIN: Objection!

JUDGE: Overruled.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: His target was insensitive and unyielding bureaucracy, but as it turned out, that idea got lost in the shuffle.

Mr. IRWIN: Eventually it's become a sort of more benign thought about people working together, teaching each other, learning from each other.

HUNTER-GAULT: Sounds like you kind of sometimes go with the flow.

Mr. IRWIN: Sometimes you better. It's been a wonderful, a short and wonderful, compacted experience of making 10 onstage performers, who all do their own material, and to try to weave something that would be larger than the shows we all do individually. We're partially successful and partially we know better what to try for the next time.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Bill Irwin's courage to admit only partial success stems partly from the kind of support he's gotten from people like Lyn Austin.

LYN AUSTIN, producer, "The Courtroom": You can't really make a kind of impact unless you have enormous personal courage and unless you're willing to share that with an audience. It's terribly hard. I mean, if you're cautious, you just do the same thing over and over again, everybody loves it, and eventually, as Bill said, they don't love it. But somebody who's courageous, who is going to go in there as an anything, a scientist or anybody else, and find a whole set of new answers.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: In pursuit of new answers, Bill Irwin teamed up with Doug Skinner, the one on the right. He appears in Irwin's productions and collaborates offstage in ways not always easy to explain.

DOUG SKINNER, to dummy: I think you're too young to understand.

EDDY, a dummy: Get your hands off me. You're a regular octopus.

Mr. SKINNER: It's hard getting Bill to actually come and sit down and talk about something. You know, it's all -- a lot of it seems to be on the run, little exchanges during rehearsals, little things that are said in the dressing room -- what if we did this, what if we did that?

HUNTER-GAULT: What about Eddy? What's his role?

EDDY: Get your hands off me.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: But comedy is hands-on work, especially Bill Irwin's brand, where great attention is paid to even tiny details.

Mr. IRWIN: You guys are coming toward me, and somehow we've got to work out a gesture like I'm saying I'm sorry, I didn't -- that was good.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: That feeling of easy naturalness doesn't come easy at all. Nor does the idea of juggling as a metaphor for juggling facts in the courtroom.

Mr. IRWIN: The hours spent trying to figure how to get this ball to go right over there and then land right here and then fall into your hand effortlessly, the hours are not to be made light of. And yet to be dancing hard and to feel that a step like the basic time step goes from being a series of movements with the feet -- dadookadakadookadooda -- to becoming single flow -- badeepadoopadadoopada. When that starts to happen, you get a little bit of that freedom paying off from all the hard work. The hard work becomes freedom.

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Not that all of the work was all work and no play. Irwin spent a lot of intense but happy hours studying the routines of comedy's legendary heroes, learning how they used just their faces and other body language to get a point across.

Mr. IRWIN: The silent comedians, of course, had this frame. They could be in a room or anything like any movie freedom. To translate that onto what you can do onstage, what I often do is just run in a circle to translate that chase freedom that they had in the films. I often just run in a circle. Let me just move out a little bit here and show you how Chaplin would usually trip once and then he'd trip the same place again, but on the third time he'd miss and [falls down]

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: Then there's Irwin as Jackie Gleason.

Mr. IRWIN: He's always so full of himself, and then somebody, Art Carney tells him what completely blows the bubble, and you can see the draining of that energy and the looking for an excuse. "Norton, what am I going to tell Alice?" So that, again, it's kind of like a transparency. Instead of a front you're seeing a window into what's going on inside of his mind. So that's why I love to watch "The Honeymooners."

HUNTER-GAULT [voice-over]: So how is all of that spontaneous humor from the heart going to be affected by a steady income, courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation?

Mr. IRWIN: The award for me happened very near to my 35th birthday, and the two merged together in my mind a little bit as, "You're not a kid anymore." The future is here, to a certain extent.

HUNTER-GAULT: But isn't that dangerous to somebody whose whole persona is spontaneity?

Mr. IRWIN: Yes, it is. It's very dangerous. On the other hand, it's also dangerous to try to freeze yourself at age 26 and think that, "Whatever I was doing then felt real good and I got a couple of good reviews, so I better do that for the rest of my life."

WOODRUFF: That's some talent. And now for a final look at the day's top stories. Three more hostages were released by Lebanese terrorists who hijacked that TWA flight last Friday. The leader of the Amal Shiite faction called on the U.S. to pressure Israel to let hundreds of Shiite prisoners go free. The U.S. warned American travelers to stay away from the Athens airport for security reasons. Greece strongly protested the warning, saying it was part of an international smear campaign. And the nation's biggest banks dropped their prime interest rate to the lowest it's been in seven years. Good night, Robin.

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