The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, Pres. Bush returned home from his 10 day trip to Europe, labor troubles in the Soviet coal mines intensified and the U.S. trade deficit was up 23 percent in May. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, we begin with a look at a new effort to curb negative advertising in political campaigns, debating the issue are Sen. Ernest Hollings, who's introducing a bill, and two media advisers, Democrat Ray Strother and Republican James Lake. Next we'll have a Kwame Holman report on one New York community's efforts to close its nuclear power plant, then the spreading labor unrest in the Soviet Union. We'll get two perspectives from Thane Gustafson and Ed Hewett. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Pres. Bush is back at the White House. He returned from Europe late this afternoon to a rousing welcome from the White House staff and others. The President told the group his 10 days away had led him to believe a new world is within our reach.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Everywhere, in Warsaw, Gdansk, and Budapest, amongst the leaders of the summit nations, in Paris, and then in the Netherlands, I found an enormous amount of excitement, excitement at the times in which we're living and the possibilities they offer. The chance we have in our lifetimes to move beyond containment, to end the division of Europe, to make that continent truly whole and free. Everywhere people seem to sense that we live when positive change is possible.

MR. LEHRER: There were reports today of major progress toward a ban on chemical weapons. The U.S. negotiator in Geneva said though the U.S. and the Soviet Union have still not completed a treaty. Amb. Max Fredersdorf was responding to a New York Times story which said there had been agreement on key elements of such a treaty. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Poland's Communist leader, Wozcek Jaruzelski did an about face today and announced that he would run for President in Wednesday's election. Jaruzelski said he changed his mind because of a sense of duty. His decision follows remarks last week by Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa who said he would cooperate with Jaruzelski as President. The President is chosen by a parliament which now has a substantial number of Solidarity members.

MR. LEHRER: There are two sets of troubles in the Soviet Union to report tonight. First the coal strikes, more than 110,000 striking miners in Siberia stayed away from their jobs despite orders from government leaders to return. Several thousand miners in the Ukraine have joined that strike. According to the Tass News Agency, 39 mines are now closed. The other troubles were violent ethnic clashes in the Soviet state of Georgia. There were reports of rioters breaking into prisons and police stations, the taking of hostages and exchange of gunfire. Tass said at least 16 people have been killed in the last three days. The unrest and the coal mining strikes are both being blamed on worsening economic conditions. We will have more on the situation after this News Summary.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Americans' appetite for foreign goods remains robust and that could spell trouble for the U.S. economy. That was the word today from the Commerce Department in its May trade report. It showed more than a 23 percent increase in the trade deficit, reflecting a sharp rise in foreign imports and a decline in U.S. product sales abroad. The news sent the dollar sharply lower on foreign currency markets. One bright note, a decline in the value of the dollar makes U.S. goods more competitively priced overseas.

MR. LEHRER: The Bush administration put out its mid year economic projections today. They said the economy would grow at a slower pace for the rest of the year, but they said there was no reason for alarm. The President's Chief Economic Adviser, Michael Boskin, put it this way at a Washington news briefing.

MICHAEL BOSKIN, Council of Economic Advisers: The administration remains confident about the future course of the U.S. economy. We're in the 80th month of the expansion and we believe it can, should and will continue. Output per capita in the United States is substantially above that for the other major industrialized countries. Our unemployment rate is as low as it has been in 15 years. Inflation, while it had blipped up in the early part of the year, appears to be moderating, and we expect it to moderate in the second half of this year and next.

MR. LEHRER: At the same briefing, Budget Director Richard Darman said the federal budget deficit may actually come down more this year than expected if Congress adheres to the restrictions of the Gramm-Rudman budget law.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Jailed South African leader Nelson Mandela celebrated his 71st birthday with a visit by 16 members of his family, the first such get-together in his 26 years of imprisonment. We have a report from Kevin Dunn of Independent Television News in Johannesburg.

KEVIN DUNN: This was the biggest Mandela reunion for a quarter of a century, for the first time, three generations of mandela gathering to honor the jailed nationalist leader. His wife, Winnie, led the family convoy to the prison outside Cape Town where Mr. Mandela is hailed, with her Mr. Mandela's sons, daughters, and grandchildren from two marriages. They carried cards and floral tributes from political supporters. But with Mr. Mandela still a prisoner, they said they were not celebrating.

WINNIE MANDELA: We don't regard it as a celebration. Throughout the years we have regarded this day as a day of prayer and we have fasted. We are delighted to be together but we wish we were with our father at home in a normal healthy atmosphere.

MR. DUNN: But after spending five and a half hours with Mr. Mandela, the family said he'd ruled out being freed this year.

WINNIE MANDELA: Definitely not this year, he doesn't anticipate any release this year. And he explained what he has said before, that the question of his release has always been the last on the agenda.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's our News Summary. Still ahead a debate over mud slinging campaign ads, a community's fight over a nuclear power plant and labor unrest in the Soviet Union. FOCUS - MUD SLINGING

MR. LEHRER: We travel first tonight to what the critics claim is the low road of American politics, negative advertising and the so called attack ad. They say their use has never been worse than it was in the 1988 campaign for President and other offices. There is now a serious move afoot in Congress to do something about it. It is a move vigorously opposed by those who operate political campaigns. We'll join that battle right after this set up report by Judy Woodruff.

MS. WOODRUFF: Last years Presidential campaign was distinguished by commercials like this one paid for the Bush Campaign and widely carried by TV stations across the country. The points it raised were driven home more sharply in this ad paid for an independent group called The National Security Political Action Committee.

CAMPAIGN AD: Bush and Dukakis on crime. Bush supports the death penalty for first degree murderers. Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. One was Willie Horton who murdered a boy in a robbery stabbing him 19 times. Despite a life sentence Horton received 10 week end passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girl friend.

MS. WOODRUFF: It wasn't just the Republicans, of course, who aired negative ads the Democrats aired their share as well.

CAMPAIGN AD: The most powerful man in the world is also mortal. We know this all to well in America. One in Five American Vice President has had to rise to the duties of Commander and Chief. One in Five has had to take on the responsibilities of the most powerful office in the World. For this job after five months of reflection George Bush made his personal choice J, Danforth Quayle. Hopefully we will never know how great a lapse of judgement that really was.

MS. WOODRUFF: Negative ads seem to dominate not only the national race for President but also many State, Congressional and Senate races.

CAMPAIGN AD: Trent Lot says he needs to keep his tax payer paid $50,000 a year Chauffeur in Washington. That Chauffeur must be more important to Trent Lot than the people of Mississippi.

MS. WOODRUFF: By election day 1988 voters across the nation were complaining about to little substance and too many personal attacks especially in the Presidential campaign.

ROSEMARY WRIGHT: Georgia Voter: I really am upset that they have been so back stabbing at each other and that has kind of turned me off.

MS. WOODRUFF: What do you mean by back stabbing.

MS. WRIGHT: You know nit picking with each other, I mean you know picking on all these little bitty things and just rubbing all this dirt that they are throwing and mud and all that. They Just have really turned me off both of them.

TERRY FEJUS, Ohio Voter: If there wasn't so much mud slinging it would be different.

MS. WOODRUFF: Yet even as voters complained it was clear that the negative ads were having an impact. Michael Dukakis in particular suffered from impressions left by Bush Campaign Ads.

SHARON BAKER, Ohio Voter: I am voting for Bush I don't like Dukakis letting the prisoners out of jail. You know that is not right.

MS. WOODRUFF: The fact that negative ads seemed to work last year hasn't been lost on political consultants, The few campaigns underway this year like the Republican contest for the Governor of Virginia suggests negative ads are here to stay. This ad was run by the man who won, Marshall Coleman.

CAMPAIGN AD: Paul Tribble a study in character. He condemns his President when he thinks it is a popular thing to do, he quits the United States Senate because he is afraid to fight for his seat. He backs a plan to raise Virginia taxes then blames the press for reporting it. He campaigns on TV is a uniform he never wore in a plane he never flew.

MS. WOODRUFF: To try to put an end to ads like that one and all the other personal attack commercials some members of Congress have proposed legislation that would impose restrictions on radio and TV stations. For example stations could only air ads in which comments about an opponent were made by the Candidate paying for the ad. And if the station went ahead and aired an ad in violation of that rule the station would have to provide free response time to the candidate who was attacked. In addition free response time would have to be made available to any candidate attacked by one of the independent political actions committees.

MR. LEHRER: The principle sponsor of that legislation in the Senate is Senator Ernest Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina. He is Chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and will testify tomorrow at the Communications Sub Committee hearing on his proposed Bill. The Senator is with us from Capitol Hill. From the other side of the argument Ray Strother, a Democratic Media Consultant who last year worked on several House and Senate races and James Lake the Senior Communications Advisor for the 1988 George Bush Presidential Campaign and the Director of Communications for all three of Ronald Reagan's Presidential campaigns. First to you Senator. Why is this legislation needed?

SEN. ERNEST HOLLINGS, [D] South Carolina: First let me give credit also to my colleague Senator Jack Danforth. He and I put it in together in 1985 and now we are co-sponsors and as you indicate we are the principle co-sponsors. It is needed after a very deliberate study and hard experience by our selves as candidates on the one hand or such committees as the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate other non partisan groups, bi partisan groups, common cause and everything else find that as a result of these approaches in the negative campaigning the process itself is being destroyed. Not just the credibility but the entire process like the young lady said being turned off an as a result not participating and our friendMadison said in the earliest days public government without public information or the means of acquiring it is either a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or both. And here we are trying to get information and all you are doing is getting the innuendo. You are getting the half truth. You are getting the hit and run kind of campaigning that doesn't tell you anything about the candidate except it excites your anxieties, instills fears and everything else of that kind. So what we are seeing is go ahead if that is the kind of campaign that you want to run but you have got to appear in that advertisement or that commercial and we know. Just look at the ones you showed. You never saw George Bush in that Willie Horton thing. In fact our friend Lee Atwater when asked or commented on it he wanted to get so far away from the Willie Horton ad he said that I didn't even know that Willie Horton was black which is pure nonsense but it shows those in the business either as a candidate or professional, Chairman of Parties and so forth know they don't want to be associated with it. If you make them associate themselves then you are going to do away with that negativism.

MR. LEHRER: You think that it will go away then?

SEN. HOLLINGS: Oh yes everyone agrees that 80 percent will go away.

MR. LEHRER: The second part of this is that you would force the right of reply. Let's say that an ad like the Willie Horton thing ran anyhow from a political action committee and the candidate didn't have anything to do with it. The television station that ran ad would have to give equal time. Who decides when an ad like that is a personal attack?

SEN. HOLLINGS: Well the station know that it is a personal attack. Any time on the one when it is the other candidate its a comment or a reference either directly or indirectly easily determined or otherwise when the committee comes in and runs that ad it can be an approval ad in support of and yet the other side has got to have equal time so it really fixes. In a way other than just clean campaigns we could have called the responsibility in campaigning. We want to fix their accountability and if we can fix that accountability in campaigns in America I think you are really going to see a true discussion of the issues.

MR. LEHRER: All right Mr. Lake what is your objection to what Mr. Hollings wants to do?

JAMES LAKE, Republican Communications Advisor: I guess first off, Jim I would like to ask the Senator, Senator if you intend to apply these same standards to newspaper advertisements, direct mail advertisement and other communication?

SEN. HOLLINGS: No use to go down a primrose path under the law the constitution article 1 section 4 says Congress shall not only determine the time the place but the manor of elections. We've got constitutional authority. Section 317 of the Communications Act of 1934 says that on any ad whether it is political or otherwise that is paid for in broadcast you've got not only to state that is was paid for but who paid for it. So what we are doing is controlling what we can, Under the red line case the Congress can and should control the airwaves. We don't control newspaper and in this instances his inference is that we are controlling the freedom of speech. We believe in the freedom of speech for the person who is speaking but not for the media consultant who is hiding behind and using the first amendment to protect his hiding the person responsible for that speech.

MR. LAKE: Jim I think that it is difficult for the Senator and any other group of Americans, Senators or otherwise to begin to parse up how we differentiate between television and newspaper or direct mail or telephone communications during an election campaign and say freedom of speech and ought to be covered by freedom of speech standards and the other ought to be covered by some election standards as defined by Senator Hollings and Senator Danforth here. How do you decide what is freedom of speech and what is not and I don't think you can.

MR. LEHRER: Your feeling is that this is an infringement of freedom of speech?

MR. LAKE: Absolutely.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Strother is that your objection to?

RAY STROTHER, Democratic Media Consultant: And in our system I have never seen anything improve by restricting information. Our system is one where more information is better not less information. And unfortunately I think that Senator Hollings has a noble cause here I do think that we need to adjust the election system some how but maybe we need to shorten the length of campaigns and restrict the amount of money spent but let's not toy how we communicate what messages we use. I am worried about that. The voter whether we like it or not gets their information from paid television. That is where they get their information and if you can't present the other side of the candidate, if you can't do that then you have one dimensional view of a candidate and everything is roses. Everybody talks about how very good they are but it doesn't really give you the whole picture. If people get their information that way and they do partly because an abdication of responsibility by local media. As long as they get their information from paid media don't tie us d own get us more freedom.

MR. LEHRER: So negative advertising as far as you are concerned is a legitimate part of the process and should not be tinkered with.

MR. STROTHER: It is part of information.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Lake.

MR. LAKE: Jim I agree with Ray on that point and you know we are not talking about something new. Negative advertising, negative campaigning is a part of the American tradition just as much as flag waving in campaigns of the past. I just finished reading a dramatic book, Battle Cry of Freedom, about the Civil War era. The negative campaigning that went on between the two sides in that campaign made the 1988 presidential campaign pale by comparison. It is a part of American tradition and sure much of its untasteful and yes indeed perhaps we would like to see better discussion of the issues at a more high tone level, more intellectual basis. yes we would but you know I think that it is better for the American people to make those judgements after free and full discussion of the issues. Let them pick out those candidate that they reject because of their negative style, their negative campaign issues and reject them at the polls. That is the fastest way to reduce this kind of campaigning.

MR. LEHRER: Senator why not do it that way?

SEN. HOLLINGS: Wait a minute they have gotten all the side issues that don't pertain like the newspapers or the gentleman said the content. We are not controlling the content. We are saying if mud is to be thrown let the public see the dirty hands that is all. They can continue to throw the mud. We don't control the content and the other gentleman said wait a minute they way to correct this is more information. That is exactly the Hollings Danforth Bill, more information. Who is responsible for that Willie Horton Ad? Who is responsible for the limo ad about Trent Lott? Go right down everyone of the negative ads and if the candidate who is running can't hide behind a committee or a professional. Any media consultant if you ask him how best he can use 30 seconds and practically we are limited to that. He will tell you the way to do it is best used is to promote fears, anxiety, the half truth the innuendo and you are forgiven the obligation to explain or to defend in the 30 second ad because nobody is expected to get that much in 30 seconds so I am back to saying the same thing they are and don't let them infer that we are trying to control content. We can't.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Strother what would be the harm in just requiring the candidate to sling the dirt as the Senator says why would that be an infringement on the freedom of speech?

MR. STROTHER: Well there are somethings that Senator Hollings as good a Senator he is can't say about himself. He needs a 3rd party to say them. it would sound boastful, it would sound out of place for him to say some of the wonderful things he has done for his state. Well there are some things that he can not say about his opponent because to be honest and to admit his point the American voter does not like negative advertising, they absolutely don't like it and as a professional I admit that I try to put some distance from the candidate and the negative message. I always try to do that. Of course that is the case. But I think what he is doing is if this Bill should pass I think what it would do is give the incumbents a great deal more opportunity to win then they are already have which is phenomenal because what you would have is you would have an unknown opponent presenting himself as a negative shrew so it would be very difficult. You can not elect an unknown. You have to literally take down the incumbent for his weaknesses.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Lake what is your answer to that to the Senator's basic point that he is really not restricting the mud slinging. He is just saying who ever slings it has to be identified?

MR. LAKE: I think that during the last Presidential Campaign the Willie Horton Ad eventhough it was paid advertisement by an independent expenditure committee was an issue that surfaced as a consequence to Bush Campaign efforts. The Bush Campaign was well identified to bring the issue out about Governor Dukakis's release of prisoners on furlough. That was well established and the Bush Campaign was well identified with that and nobody had any doubt about that that George Bush felt that was an improper exercise of the Governors peragatives when he was governor. It developed from their that the Campaign Ad emerged. I don't think that there was any doubt in anyone mind who watched those Ads that George Bush and the Bush Campaign was identified with the issue of criticism of Governor Dukakis's actions.

MR. LEHRER: But is the Senator right that ad would not have gone on the air if it had been required that George Bush himself utter those words.

SEN. HOLLINGS: He knows that. That is why Lee Atwater said I didn't even know that Willie Horton was black he tried to disassociate himself from that Ad. He was the campaign manager. They didn't want to identify with that Ad. You didn't say George Bush ever say any of those things that are said in those particular ads and we know as candidates. We can say gosh I don't believe in that kind of thing and everything else and let it run. And we know from the word go that if ask that candidate to come on and say look I don't believe in prison furloughs and you have to explain it and everything else and my opponent does and he has done it. Then you get it down to a level where it can be discussed as an issue. You put it out through negative ways out there and just keep hammering it in there, there is now way to answer it.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you Mr. Strother to follow up on a point that you made. Why is it, why should candidates be allowed to stand away from their negative comments about their opponents?

MR. STROTHER: Well we are working in a medium, an information medium that requires information to be parceled out in clever and interesting ways. What you are trying to do in a normal campaign you have about 30 opportunities to talk to a voter maybe 40 in the entire campaign and you have to be very careful how you use those 40 messages and what you try to do is you try to keep the candidate isolated and insolate.

MR. LEHRER: Yes but is that good for the process to keep the candidate isolated from what his campaign is saying?

MR. STROTHER: It is a fact of political life, you know, whether it is right or not or good for the system. I don't think that it has hurt the system up to now because people are acting as though negative advertising is something brand new but if I got o my office and look through my files I can find negative ads with 1974 stamped on them and 73 and 72 and probably no more negative ads in 87 or 86 then we had in 72 or 74. It is not anything new. I think it just washed over Washington is the problem. The system has worked very well up to now I think.

MR. LEHRER: Senator how do respond to that. Nothing new the system has working why complain?

SEN. HOLLINGS: No the system is not working. Look we had less than 50 percent of the voters turn out. We had 63 percent back in 1960 and what you have is 28 percent of the American people elected George Bush so you don't really have a mandate. You don't have a consensus of the American people and this is what the bipartisan professional people who are interested in the political system. All democracies they control this everywhere. In England they give it to the parties. They all appear in the ads and commercials what have you. All around the World except in the United States and these Strothers have gotten excellent they are superb at it and they put dogs and you have talking cows rather than talking candidates. You have demagoguery rather than you have the bait and they thoroughly enjoy and 80 percent of it is all on 30 seconds because if I try to get on prime time right now when we are speaking I can't buy five minutes to explain a vote on abortion or on the flag or on busing or on gun control and so what the candidates now are doing themselves are resulting to negatives. They just store up all these negative ads against their opponent. If their opponent comes after them in those last closing days like they did in Kentucky in the Hudleston, Mc Cullough race then all I do rather than try to explain is I lambast my opponent because you can't find the time to explain anything.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Lake would you agree with the Senator that if his Bill becomes law it really will eliminate negative campaigning on television? Because the candidates will not do it?

MR. LAKE: I think he is right the candidates will not do but more importantly then that I think that it becomes the first really serious attack on our first amendment rights and I believe that is much more serious then any damage that might be done to the system or any offense that Senator Hollings and others might take to the way voters in the set up piece might react to this kind of negative campaigning. The question is where to we go next when we attack first amendment rights. Do we say that MacNeil Lehrer can't make programs on this hour in the evening that are critical of the incumbent President of the United States for example.

SEN. HOLLINGS: I can tell you that MacNeil Lehrer when they run an ad after this particular interview they are going to have say who is responsible under the present law. That doesn't take away free amendments it fixes under Section 317 a responsibility and we have the First Amendment to protect the speech of people speaking for themselves not those hiding in the wings speaking for others when you can not identify anybody.

MR. LEHRER: Alright.

SEN. HOLLINGS: We can definitely control the airwaves and fix responsibility. We are no inhibiting speech in any fashion.

MR. LEHRER: Speaking of MacNeil Lehrer we have to leave this one. Gentlemen all three thank you very much for being with us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still to come a fight to close a nuclear power plant and spreading labor unrest in the Soviet Union. FOCUS - POWER TO THE PEOPLE

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We go next tonight to the story of a $5.5 billion nuclear reactor that has never produced any electricity and is now on its way to being dismantled. It's the Shoreham Nuclear Plant on Long Island, about 80 miles from New York City. Even as its owners began last week to remove the uranium fuel rods from the reactor, federal and state officials continue to argue over the plant's future, the core of the argument growing energy needs versus environmental and safety concerns. Correspondent Kwame Holman reports.

MR. HOLMAN: The energy problem on Long Island, 2 1/2 million people, 1/2 million homes, 80,000 businesses, 5,000 factories. Last year, their hunger for electricity grew by 7 percent. This was thought to be a solution to Long Island's energy problem, the brand new Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant on the island's north shore, fully licensed and ready to put out 809 mega watts of electricity, 1/5 of Long Island's need. But this plant may never light these homes, factories, and stores. A year ago, New York Gov. Mario Cuomo worked out a deal to have the state take over the plant and dismantle it after years of public worries over its safety.

GOV. CUOMO: Shoreham had to die. Shoreham will die.

MR. HOLMAN: Shoreham now is slated to go out of business without ever supplying a single day's power to Long Island. But Shoreham or no Shoreham, Long Island still needs more power from somewhere. Long Island Lighting Company, which built Shoreham, now has to find a substitute for it.

JOSEPH MC DONNELL, Long Island Lighting Co.: I remain hopeful that we will be able to provide the energy to our customers. We are certainly doing everything that can be done but beyond that, these are public policy issues. That takes more than just a utility to decide.

MR. HOLMAN: The policy issue is this. Americans need more electric power. The question is how will they get it. Unless there's a definitive answer, there may be shortages. Long Island came very close to such shortages during the summer of 1988.

SPOKESMAN: This has probably been the most difficult summer that LILCO has had to deal with in the past 15 years.

MR. HOLMAN: The problem isn't limited to Long Island. Last summer, a heat wave sent demand soaring on the East Coast. Escalators stopped in Boston as power was cut by 5 percent. Harvard closed for a day to save electricity. Demand reached 20,000 mega watts.

SPOKESMAN: Considering that New England has the capability of about 21,000 mega watts today, that's tight.

MR. HOLMAN: In New York, Consolidated Edison Company shut down power to some buildings to ease the burden on strained power lines. Already this summer power hot weather caused a spurt in electricity demand in Washington, D.C., that may have triggered a power failure affecting some 41,000 people.

CONSUMER: No power, no telephones, so we're out of business.

MR. HOLMAN: Economist Marie Corio studies electric power issues.

MARIE CORIO, Economist: Long Island is not the only part of the country that is going to have problems this summer. I think New England is also another part of the country where it's very iffy. Possibly, some areas along the Eastern Coast and in the Middle Atlantic states may have problems. After that, I think for the next two or three years we're going to have problems and they're going to be in more than just those little pockets of the country.

MR. HOLMAN: Economists trace the roots of the shortages back to the 1960s. In those days, demand for power grew at about the same pace as the economy itself. Branko Terzic is an energy consultant.

BRANKO TERZIC, Energy Consultant: Up until the early '70s, late '60s, there was in this country a direct one to one correspondence between growth in the national product GNP, and growth in electric usage and that was such a simple and straightforward relationship and it was well understood that most utility forecasting departments consisted of an engineer with a piece of graph paper and a ruler.

MR. HOLMAN: But in the 1970s, oil prices skyrocketed. The economy slowed and so did the demand for electricity. The utilities had built big new power plants and asked public service commissions for higher rates to pay for them.

MS. CORIO: The utilities had to go in and defend why they had built these power plants and the commissions basically said tough, that's not a good enough reason, we don't need this power, your consumers are not going to pay for it, you absorb the costs, i.e., the stockholders.

MR. HOLMAN: So the lesson to the utilities was what?

MS. CORIO: If I was a utility, I would have done what they do which is basically don't build.

MR. HOLMAN: But by the 1980s, economic growth was back and so was the demand for electricity. Utilities were caught with their plants down. Corio says if demand continues to rise and the number of power plants doesn't there will be serious shortages in some parts of the country by the mid 1990s. Because large power plants take years to build, it may already be too late to avoid shortages.

MS. CORIO: What has happened is now we're entering a situation where we're going to be capacity short in the next few years. I think there's going to be a real problem.

MR. HOLMAN: But that is a highly controversial forecast. Not everyone agrees that the recent jump in demand for electricity is a trend. Some utilities say hot weather simply caused a temporary blip in the chart. Long Island Lighting Company is one of them.

JOSEPH MC DONNELL, Long Island Lighting Co.: As we look out into the future, we would see energy growth increasing at about 1 1/2 to 2 percent and we would try to hold that down through a very aggressive conservation program.

MS. CORIO: I think that right now regulators don't want to hear about an upturn in growth, so the utility goes in with its 2 percent growth rate and that gets passed on fine by the regulator.

MR. HOLMAN: The charge has been made that you under projected growth continually.

JOSEPH MC DONNELL, Long Island Lighting Co.: Well, as you look out, if you look into the past, the average growth had been at about 3 1/2 percent. Last year it was up at about 7 percent. You look at last year as an aberration. We need a little bit more data before we can conclude that last year was a year that we could make future projections on.

MR. HOLMAN: So LILCO and many other utilities say they won't build big new power plants because they don't believe they're needed. Instead, LILCO is relying on a series of small scale strategies. One strategy is to get customers to use less electricity. Dominic Bratta has a LILCO device on his air conditioner that allows the utility to turn it off when they need to.

DOMINIC BRATTA: This box has a radio control receiver in it and a relay. When LILCO wants to shut my air conditioner off, they send out a radio signal, this device picks up the radio signal, and it opens up a relay -- actually it closes a relay -- and that disables my air conditioning unit from coming on.

MR. HOLMAN: LILCO will pay $250 for the right to shut off his air conditioner. LILCO says conservation measures like this have already reduced consumption by 3 1/2 percent. But the conservation strategy may have limited effect.

MS. CORIO: I don't think it can do as much as people expect. I think that they're probably over estimating. I think it can make some impact, but it's not going to reduce the need for new capacity that substantially.

MR. HOLMAN: Another way LILCO is trying to save electricity is by not standing in the way of businesses that want to add their own capacity. This plant is for the island's biggest employer, Grumman Aircraft. They use so much electricity they can save money by commissioning construction of this gas turbine generating plant right on their own property. Grumman officials are just as concerned about the reliability of their energy supply. They use a lot of computers and computer-driven machines. A power outage could turn these parts into scrap metal.

DEAN CASSELL, Grumman Aircraft: You can see what a power interruption would do to one of these major numerically controlled machines, a machine, a particular part. You have all of the computer-aided design issues with the engineers, you have simulators running, so you have a major problem on your hands if all of a sudden you lose power.

MR. HOLMAN: Grumman's fears of a power outage are well founded. With the Shoreham Nuclear Plant still sitting idle, Long Island Lighting Company is warning of shortages for a second summer in a row. To stave off a power shortage, LILCO is building its own mini- generating plant similar to Grumman's. It's scheduled to come on line this summer. Long Island Lighting also is working to make sure its large oil fired plants can keep delivering electricity. Some of the plants are over 40 years old, just about their life expectancy. To meet demand last year, the plants ran 98 percent of the time, far in excess of industry norms. So LILCO says their strategy to build some, squeeze some, save some, will be enough. They say they don't need to build big new power plants to replace the Shoreham Nuclear Plant, a plant that was touted as essential just five years ago. Across the country, other utilities also are refusing to build new plants. Branko Terzic says that impasse must end.

MR. TERZIC: Let me agree that the tooth fairy is not going to build new power plants. Somebody is going to have to build them, this economy is going to grow. I have children. The population is growing, they'll need electricity at their jobs, but the predominant source of new energy will I think be from fossil fuels and maybe after we reach some political census, another relook at nuclear power.

MR. HOLMAN: The problem is that big new power plants aren't popular these days with Long Island homeowners like Dominic Bratta or Matt Avitable. Whatever LILCO does, homeowners like Bratta and Avitable will have to live with the results. Like many Long Islanders they are energy conscious and worried about the future, but they have a hard time deciding what type of plant they'd be comfortable with.

MR. BRATTA: We're going to have to eventually put more plants on line in the country.

MR. HOLMAN: And people may have to rethink their position on nuclear energy.

DOMINIC BRATTA, Long Island Resident: That's an issue that people are going to constantly be thinking about. I definitely don't want to be living next door to one.

MATT AVITABLE, Long Island Resident: Given the choice, you say to me, you've got two choices, kid, you're either going to have one Shoreham and you're going to have a nuclear plant here, or you're going to have in your backyard, because we need the power, because we're going to die if we don't have the power, we have to put a conventional plant in your backyard, I'd have to go with the conventional plant. That's -- my neighbor's going to hang me.

MR. HOLMAN: Some people wonder why LILCO decided not to build big new plants, because they're not needed or because LILCO knows people don't want them. That question worries the Long Island Association, a major business group. President James Larocca says Long Island will be forced to make some tough choices.

JAMES LAROCCA, Long Island Association: You know, it doesn't seem to long ago now, but the embargo that we experienced in the mid '70s caused people to profoundly think about the energy system in ways that they never had before. Twenty minutes on a gasoline line is a long time. I believe if we found ourselves in that kind of distress again, people might well take another look at the Shoreham situation.

MR. HOLMAN: With a scenario like that in mind, those on the losing side of the Shoreham Nuclear Plant debate have begun to speak out again.

KEVIN MURPHY: So no one denies the shortage; they admit it.

MR. HOLMAN: Kevin Murphy says opening Shoreham is the only way to supply Long Island's power needs. He heads a coalition lobbying for just that speaking to groups like this gathering of Wharton Business School alumni on Long Island. Recently, he's had some high powered company.

W. HENSON MOORE, Deputy Energy Secretary: What's likely to happen if Long Islanders don't get Shoreham's new capacity? Brownouts are worse? Probably. How many summers can you count on perfect operations way above average, at 98 percent, with an aging system and growing demand?

MR. HOLMAN: The Deputy Secretary of Energy recently carried the campaign to open Shoreham to the heart of the enemy camp, Long Island, itself. Officially the Energy Department has no power to change the decision to dismantle it Shoreham, but it can help to reopen what was thought to be a closed political debate.

NORA BREDES, Shoreham Opponents Coalition: One of the things that's been characteristic of this battle from the beginning is that it's been waged by the people of Long Island. We're the grassroots.

MR. HOLMAN: Is Long Island a metaphor for the future of the rest of America?

JOSEPH MC DONNELL, Long Island Lighting Co.: Well, I think in terms of nuclear power, Shoreham is symbolic for the entire nuclear industry and I think that the whole nuclear option in this country will be dependent on the future of Shoreham.

MR. HOLMAN: Traditionally, America has always found a way to supply the power it needed. Decisions to build power plants were almost routine, but the controversy over nuclear safety helped turn all such decisions into major political issues and forced a long stalemate. It may take a series of power shortages to move that debate off dead center. FOCUS - NYET!

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We turn now to the news of worker troubles in the workers state, a spreading coal miners' strike in the Soviet Union. Miners upset with working conditions have been on strike for a week in Western Siberia, and yesterday they were joined by miners in the Ukraine, the Soviet Union's largest coal producing region. We'll discuss the effects of this unusual outbreak of labor unrest on Mikhail Gorbachev's reform program and on world energy prices in a moment, but first some brief background narrated by Tom Brown of Worldwide Television News.

TOM BROWN: It's clear the miners believe the government's promise of improved supplies of food and consumer goods are of little value. The Soviet nightly television news program, Remye, showed miners marching in the Donetsk Basin, known as the Don Bas. Grimy miners in hard hats were interviewed by a Soviet television reporter in the main squarer of Prokopiesk. They responded with a resounding nyet when asked whether they were satisfied with the steps offered by the authorities. One striker complained that the money for the improvements would be taken from the workers' pockets. Thousands of miners mill about during the days, while at night the numbers tail off to about 500. Conditions in the town are described as awful. Sugar is rationed and there are chronic shortages of staples such as detergent and soap. The miners are demanding a 40 percent wage increase for night work, improved living conditions, a fixed day off and retirement after 20 years of underground work. They also want the coal mining ministry to trim its managerial staff. They've appealed to Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to visit the region and discuss their grievances in person. The country's worst labor unrest since the 1920s has also spread to two more mines in the Ukraine. A total of 39 mines are now closed that. Together with the Kuz Bas region of Southwestern Siberia, they produce more than 40 percent of the country's coal. If the strikes continue, they could result in severe cutbacks in such coal dependent industries as steel manufacturing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Here now with two perspectives on the labor unrest in the Soviet Union are Ed Hewett, a specialist in Soviet economic affairs at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, he joins us in San Francisco, and Thane Gustafson, a scholar of Soviet energy politics at Georgetown University in Washington. Starting with you, Mr. Gustafson, how serious is the strike and how different from previous strikes? The last most serious one I believe was 1962.

THANE GUSTAFSON, Georgetown University: There have been sporadic outbursts of labor unrest going back to 1962. They've been put down very quickly with great loss of life. This is really something altogether new, both in size and in the way it's organized. The problem as I see it is you could say this was graduation day for the Gorbachev program. This is exactly the kind of thing that the reforms that Gorbachev has put in place are designed to enable him to handle. Strikes are being legalized under new legislation that is going forward now. New economic reforms are underway to improve the conditions of workers. The problem is I think graduation day has come too early and the reform program is not yet in place and so there are three issues as I see them right now. The first is is the government going to find anybody to negotiate with that the workers will respect and respond to. No. 2, are the two sides going to be able to agree on issues that the government can afford to yield on, if it gets political, it could get messy in a hurry, and No. 3, is the government going to be able to prevent contagion of the strikes to other coal basins in the country? As we've seen, there's already contagion there, but also to other industries throughout the country.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Hewett, how do you see it? Do you think these strikes are going to fuel perestroika or slow it down, perestroika being the economic reforms? D HEWETT, Brookings Institution: I think they could fuel perestroika. Gorbachev seems to have a knack for taking things that could be disastrous for other politicians and turning them into a positive for him. There have been the first half of the year in the Soviet Union at least a hundred strikes that Soviets, themselves, talk about. This is qualitatively different because it's big, and because it could get out of hand. But Gorbachev can use it with the conservatives to say, look, this is why we need reforms, this is why we need to move more quickly, and in that way he may be able to break down some of the resistance particularly at the lower levels.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So you don't think graduation day has come too son?

MR. HEWETT: Well, I don't think Gorbachev would have wished this on himself, but I do think he can use it. If I had my druthers, I wouldn't have a strike this year in Siberia or in the Ukraine. But in part, it's just a commentary on what hasn't happened. We're in the fifth year of economic reforms. There've been no results in the economy and so this sort of pressure was in a way inevitable.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you think he can use it to his benefit.

MR. HEWETT: I think he can use it and I think he will use it. That's why we've seen in general the press has responded to this rather sympathetically, even the central press out of Moscow.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you see that, Mr. Gustafson? Do you see Gorbachev being able to use this to his advantage?

MR. GUSTAFSON: Well, it's absolutely true that there are positive elements here that show the Gorbachev reforms already at work. Five years ago a strike like this would have been inconceivable and it would have been inconceivable to see the government responding to it in the way that they have.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Previously the government would have used force to put it down

MR. GUSTAFSON: Absolutely, and without hesitation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There's been no suggestion whatsoever in this instance.

MR. GUSTAFSON: On the contrary. There have been promises by the government that they will not use force. The example of Tiananmen Square I'm sure is on everybody's mind. And some very fascinating things are going on. For example, local party officials have been siding with the miners. Now the reason for that I think is that the miners are suddenly voters and the local party officials know they're going to have to face those voters at local elections to the local parliaments in another year's time.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But at the same time, the government's been blaming the unrest on the inertia of local authorities. I mean, how do you read that as a strategy?

MR. GUSTAFSON: Well, the whole strategy of the Gorbachev reforms is to invigorate local authorities and to transfer decision making authority to the local level. The workers I think have been rather taken with this and one very interesting demand that the workers have made is that they be allowed to make decisions on their own about output and also to sell part of their output on foreign markets for hard currency to use to improve their own welfare at home. Well, that's very much in the spirit of the Gorbachev program.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Hewett, the workers repudiated a personal message from Gorbachev appealing to them to end the protest. What do think all of this means for him? They've even asked him to come in person, and of course, he hasn't gone there.

MR. HEWETT: Well, he may have to go in person at some point. One of the striking things about Gorbachev is that he hasn't been the most lucky General Secretary in the Soviet Union. In this case what has happened is a coal industry which has been the poor relative of energy for decades is finally rising up against him but it could just as well have risen up against Brezhnev with worse results and so he's got yet another mess he inherited that he's got to try to clean up now.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How is he handling it so far?

MR. HEWETT: So far he's doing as well as he can. Basically what you can't do for these miners is say, all right, we'll give you all the wage increases you want, we'll cut your work day and we'll bring food to you as quickly as you can. At some point to someone in the Soviet Union, you're going to have to say first the reforms work and then the food and the other consumer goods come. I think the solution actually is suggested by some of what they're asking for, that is, give them more autonomy, break up that coal ministry, and give them a chance to sell some of their coal directly for hard currency to get into this area a few goods from the rest of the world, so they can begin to see something happening, they feel like what they do has an effect on their own living standards.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But, Mr. Gustafson, assuming you agree with that, and you say you don't, how much time do you think Mr. Gorbachev has to act? I mean, does he have to act very quickly, or you mentioned earlier the possibility of this spreading to other industries?

MR. GUSTAFSON: The clock is ticking in at least three ways; first, in a very direct sense, for every month that let's say the Kuznetsky Basin is shut down altogether, for every month of lost production from the Kuz Bas, you're losing about 10 to 12 million tons of coal and if you have to burn gas at home instead or oil at home instead and you can't export it, that's costing you in round numbers 500 million to 600 million dollars a month. So the first problem is if this goes on, you've got a direct cost right there to the economy. No. 2, the longer things go on, the greater the risk is that the issues could spill over into politics. Already there were reports last Friday on Soviet TV that the workers were calling for a new constitution and they were in particular calling for the removal of Article 6 which guarantees the vanguard role of the Communist Party. That's an explosive issue. If that becomes the sticking issue, then we're in for real trouble, because Moscow can't yield on that one. And then finally back to the issue of contagion, the differences between these strikes and the nationalist uprisings we've had is that here you're talking about the heartland of the country and the core social group of the country. An Estonian and a Georgian may not have much in common, but a Russian steel worker and a Russian coal worker have a great deal in common and see one another as brothers.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Hewett, what about the economic consequences outside of the Soviet Union? Do you see this, if this continues for a while, it having economic repercussions outside of the country?

MR. HEWETT: Oh, it undoubtedly will. Prof. Gustafson is quite right that you have to deal with this soon. About 3/4 of Soviet hard currency earnings come from oil and gas. To the extent, the coal output falls off in the Soviet Union, you have to burn more oil and more gas, and in a time where oil prices are low anyway, and this is your major source of hard currency, you have to do something and do it quickly. If I could just say one other thing, I mean, this is a very serious situation. It's qualitatively different than any of the hundred strikes they've talked about. I think the solution here you have to look at in the context of the whole summer. It's a summer where Gorbachev hasn't been able to get some of his government confirmed, where government ministers are attacked, he's going to have to come up with a stabilization program, a government that's obviously serious about implementing it, some imports of consumer goods, and some sign this reform really has regained its direction. That's the answer not just to the coal miners, but to most Soviet citizens who are quite angry about the last few years.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: With things churning the way they are both with the ethnic crisis in Georgia that you've been referring to and these other things that we've been talking about, I mean, what are the prospects of Gorbachev facing a real crisis of legitimacy in the near-term?

MR. HEWETT: I think Gorbachev in a way right now is much like Reagan was later in his term. The man I think is still extremely popular. Some of his policies are not, and what he can do this year and next year is basically blame the government. That's what he's been doing this summer. He's been saying mistakes were made, but it's the fault of that government which is why most of the government changed this summer and that may work for a couple of years but you can only change governments a few times and then people start catching on.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Gustafson, do you have a view on that?

MR. GUSTAFSON: Well, I agree with Dr. Hewett, the man is amazing in his ability to take lemons and make lemonade, so watching what Gorbachev does is going to be the best show in town for the next several weeks.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. With that comment, Mr. Gustafson, thank you for being you, and Mr. Hewett in San Francisco, thank you. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the other major stories of this Tuesday, Pres. Bush arrived back in the United States from his 10 day European tour and said a new world is now within our reach and the U.S. Trade Deficit widened in May. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Thank you and good night.