The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

herbs herbs herbs ers santa santa santa santa santa santa santa santa stowe says still still serve fb that evening leading the news this wednesday the drop got worse as record

heat it much of the nation and on the pentagon scandal the prosecutor briefed house and senate leaders upset over lead stories alleging congressional wrong to lie low the details are new summary animal robin after the news summary our major focus tonight is the massive defense procurement bribery investigation with congressional newsome senator sam nunn and congressman duncan hunter and to defense analyst shooting cowan gordon adams then did try to god's airbags we had a discussion with a ford safety executive and a wall street analyst finally a documentary reports from san francisco on the controversy over a telephone pornography you know a new tower is provided by combining everything people like about telephone with everything they make everything about information at mt funding has also provided by the station and other public television stations and the corporation for public broadcasting it

was hot out there and most of the nation the day temperatures close to around one hundred degrees were recorded in states as diverse we located in south carolina idaho kansas and ohio and washington they say the thermometer passed the one hundred degree mark as a dead in philadelphia newark new jersey and baltimore maryland among other eastern places record breaking night were reported in more than two dozen cities the hot weather made drought conditions worse and forecasters said they saw little relief in sight the mississippi river continue to have it's problems of barges remain stranded and low water near memphis tennessee attempts to dredge a path for the barges continued today in new orleans officials said the river had fallen too one foot above sea level at a record low and the pentagon bribery investigation house speaker jim wright charged that the reagan administration was leaking names of congressman to start rumors it called executive branch leaks lincoln congressman to the probe a despicable thing justice department spokesman patrick gordon said write was absolutely

correct adding it is a matter of much concern here that someone is providing names in connection with the investigation speaker right and other congressional leaders were briefed this afternoon by the prosecutor directing the world us attorney henry hudson recent reports had said that five members of congress were under investigation as well as a trendy pentagon officials fifteen defense firms and a number of private consultants after the briefing rights said the reports about the congressmen were untrue no subpoena has been so for any member of times you're like that has been directed at any number of crimes and the search war has been directed at any member of facts we expressed our strongest might add leeks which have wrongfully identified a certain individual members of congress subjects of investigation this was reprehensible of the imf

debts and the directing this investigation he said it was deeply disturbing to him they did not come from his farm and that if he could identify the individual are individually guilty of perpetrating those militias and later he would go after them with a hammer and now the associated press reported that one figure implicated in the case through wiretaps has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and that one is on the verge of agreeing to jalapenos while it's returned to the israeli occupied territories today israeli official said there were several confrontations between army troops and young palestinians throwing rocks most businesses were closed because of a protest general strike called by palestinian leaders israeli officials also blind arab parts of history started a fire in northern israel that destroyed fifty a vision for high as seventy miles north of jerusalem

police reported at least seven suspicious fires there and the israeli army today displayed weapons seized from four palestinian guerrillas the palestinians were captured after firefight with israeli troops near the border with southern lebanon are the army said the teenage growth were planning to attack a settlement in northern israel in lebanon a car bomb exploded in the christian section of these they wrote today one person was killed in the blast and nineteen others injured it was the sixth time this year that a car bomb has gone off in lebanon more than eighty person's even though there were two hundred injured no one has claimed responsibility for any of the lines also in the beirut area today syrian soldiers sealed off a section of summer controlled by the iranian backed hezbollah the action came after british newspaper reported syrian intelligence had located the section a beirut suburb where fifteen foreign hostages are held by the hezbollah militia the state department had this reaction to the report we have never really would confirm the exact location of the hostages and we cannot

confirm this latest report although information on the hostages has often conflicting and really reliable we have always believed that we some of them are in beirut's southern suburbs we continue to pursue always about the hostages there was tragedy in egypt today a fire swept through a city of ten set a religious festival killing forty seven people the victims were coptic christians who have camped out on the grounds of a monastery near the nile river two hundred and forty miles south of cairo twenty six of the dead were children many of whom were trampled and that authority said the fire was started by sparks from a cook's go the canadian government said today that the soviet union had carried out a wide ranging espionage operation in canada to obtain classified commercial and military information explaining yesterday's order expel and seventeen soviet diplomats external affairs minister joe clark told parliament that the spy ring had posed a threat to national security and included an attempt to penetrate the security service of the royal canadian mounted police the soviet government

denied the us denies charges and today retaliated by expelling two canadian diplomats in telling three others they are not welcome back in this country the federal home loan bank board move to date a bailout to west texas savings and loans the board said it was providing a three point nine million dollars to an arizona savings bank to take over the two failing institutions that us and l's are the first financial savings association in el paso and the brownfield federal savings alone association and brownfield the other night than ten thousand miles and taxes the bank board is and rescue in some fashion this year for a summary of the news ahead on the news hour the pentagon bribery probe airbags for cars and dial of horn the defense procurement scandal is where we begin tonight the day was congress who got

upset and brief house speaker i complaining about news leaks that have implicated house members in the investigation the federal prosecutor in charge of the case meeting with right and other members of the house and senate leadership senator sam nunn chairman of the senate armed services committee was one of those brave is with us now as is republican duncan hunter from the house armed services committee and to defense analyst it was a statement the senator nunn by sen john warner seven days ago that began the real focus on what was going on now he's fine this private that recorded conversation showed how the pentagon scandal hit washington like a thunder clap it began two years ago the fbi justice department and investigators cast a wide net of wiretaps and investigations into defense

consultants who allegedly bribed pentagon official for secret contract information it was years to get a competitive edge in betting her contract to build it ships aircraft and missiles and components of air force winds those big result in about one hundred and fifty billion dollars in pentagon contracts every year five active defense department officials of the name in connection with the investigation and yesterday defense secretary croce reassigned but much of the attention is focused on the office of the secretary of the navy during the controversial tenure of john layman who held a job in nineteen eighty one through last line no one plays a former lineman deputy who came to the pentagon from boeing and who is now a consultant as the name by unidentified sources as a key figure in the investigation and there have been news reports that the justice department is investigating whether line and kept all paisley about the investigation laymon has thus far said nothing publicly news of the investigation triggered a rash of other

charges and countercharges senator charles grassley said there were warning signals years ago but defense and justice department officials turned their backs on repeated requests by dod investigators to provide resources for uncovering this obviously when a problem in the defense community that accusation was immediately rebutted by attorney general meets i know no information was offered that was not to have pursued assiduously feel a regular and be more specific i'll be glad to follow up on it and finally talk about former defense secretary casper weinberger criticized for hands off management told the new york times i don't know anything about it there's always going to be dishonesty in any large organization president reagan is news conference yesterday took a similar view when asked about the scandal i think that it should be understandable when such things can happen and something as big as our government is but i think we also recognized

that within our government and the minute there was one to something of that measure was going on it one of the units which we entrust such things the reason they will unite and the fbi the sec to work and now it's ready away as we said the principal prosecutor in the case reached key members of congress today among them democratic senator sam nunn chairman of the senate armed services committee who joins us from capitol hill senator what did you learn today that you consider significant robin now we've gotten over all i call it generic briefing today we did not get into individual cases we did not ask for individual information but i think the way out worded it were confirmed the briefing confirmed law fears that this was a broad it was deep and it has the potential of being very interest to our defense posture in terms of the

procurement contracts that may or may not have been corrupted in the short run a long run well i think that this investigation will do just the opposite i think it will send a clear signal to people that when i won't tolerate corruption and bribery and government dickman defense will send a signal to the people out in the feel it we've i have allies and we take offense to the poisoning people in jail or when specifications or a no military contracts that you're the weapon systems are men women need to defend themselves and i think it will send a signal a long haul that this town a misconduct and corrupting of the competitive procedures that we depend on to save tax money money in to get quality weapons will simply not be tolerated so short run damage very serious long term i think it'll send that signal short run damage very serious or if contracts were corrected will lay be invalidated that's one of the real hazard c and then i have to be i mean if you're a better that is submitted a bid on the contract and you've also a

contract another beer you found out a year later two years later wrigley specifications through bribing government official on is the amount you did before they did so they could come in and kutcher bit ten dollars or so and then you would not we were going to save us with contracts that assad i think that is a potential it's got to be judged on a case by case basis though rather significant weapon systems that could be that are in production that could be affected by that i do not know the names of that we haven't done that period detail and naturally when investigators know that yet but i think that certainly has a strong possible that we heard after your briefing today from mr hudson that there will be no indictment still the end of the year is that what you understand they're not imminent cyber attorney general may stop in terms of ninety days or something we didn't get that degree of a detail i do think that the statement i heard tonight was that he did not confine himself the next thirty days next sixty days but if they expected

indictments or before the end of the i don't think excluded earlier indictment but there's a complex investigation and shoot it at any indication of to what level it goes in the pentagon or elsewhere in government now i think that there are indications it goes to alcohol levels don't know how high and i don't know individuals i think we got all be very careful here and throwing around names of individuals that made the niche and hear some of that may be totally innocent and what your name is put out there in the public domain on the basis of a wobble so cicero was and it takes a long time to get your reputation back and it's reported my sources said that because the investigation the ap reported today that one of those who was wiretapped has agreed to prosecute air cooperate and another is on the verge of doing so that the prosecutor confirm that i'm not in that degree of detail i think that though i think there's a strong likelihood that there will be any considerable number of

cooperating witnesses in this case an app for conspiracy cases for fraud cases for bribery cases for going to the top level if the top well indeed was involved as they're indispensable to the successful investigation and prosecutions i think there will be those kind of witnesses because they're then also this physical evidence the other of wiretaps have been carefully prepared with probable cause and proper search warrants their subpoenas and have documents and i think their reasons and says for certain people who were implicated to cooperate speaker ryan says no member of the house is under investigation is that what you gathered from the prosecutor and is a true of the senate well i don't know exactly what they are right said tata one comment on his table and i hope no member of the house is under investigation i would make that statement i think the prosecutors and the investigators have to follow the leads wherever they go and they go the senate or the house or the white house of the pentagon and now we're doing this fall the leaves and if their members of congress involved in is

they'll be treated just like everyone else and i do not want to indicate that they're people in congress and bob i don't know but i certainly would not want to exclude that possibility at this point but you cannot say no member of congress is definitely under i would not say that audits would not make that statement that it's premature to say that an historian says the executive branch and they say is leaking names are cameras people in falter cause rumors well i don't know his leaking of the leaking information was information regarding that regardless of our information regarding a civil servant sixteen our military the executive branch i think getting into account information and mainly those people are growing that should be a first small chain themselves in second prosecuted if they can be found the closest evolve with people's reputations and i'd be totally innocent people who were named for instance by someone of bragging about influence

of taped conversation saying what can get us on sale of a cozy pay me and i'll i'll rob them and that individual may not even know the person who's doing the writing that sort of braggadocio is well known in washington so innocent people about a bee protective gear and people who leak i think are doing injury to the investigation and certainly of being very responsible we just leading into you heard president reagan's reaction yesterday to wallace what do you think of his reaction to quote again it should be understandable how such things can happen and something as big as this well you always going to have corruption but this one goes far beyond the simple individual axis takes on the tone of the training they hope become a process of evolving defense it cast aspersions and doubts on a lot of contracts that may be perfectly legal and none no nothing wrong with it but it's going to put a cloud over an awful lot of contracts and a lot of people who had been a job in an honest way so i think it's very serious i would not say that this corruption this degree of corruption this extent and this high level corruption is inevitable and

uncertain don't we will tolerate and now with senator nunn and three others we look at that question raised by president reagan and others who say this kind of wrongdoing is inevitable and unavoidable and an operations larger the federal government those other three are congressman duncan hunter republican of california a member of the house armed services committee gordon adams director of the defense budget project and author of a book about defense contracting the iron triangle and retired navy rear admiral eugene carol deputy director of the center for defense information they washed and think tank that examines strategy and budget issues are smarter is it inevitable well i think a if you if you look at the president's statement today in the context of twenty three thousand civilian workers at the pentagon and the fact that what we're looking at here is individual acts of dishonesty absolutely you have a certain a certain number of crimes that are committed per ten thousand government workers or one hundred thousand government workers i think that the president was not attempting to say

that we should not punish these people that we have dishonest people in this instance we have company is that have benefitted from illegally obtained information and those companies should should be deprived of the economic benefit of what they what they did cheat but i think what the president was saying at least what many of us now turn to the president and yet so i think we've you've got that twenty three thousand government workers i represent a large number of them but we're looking at some words between fifty five right now in my estimation between fifty and one hundred other government employees who seem to be involved in passing decade on hundreds of confidential information to defense consultant who in turn have brokered that information to defense contracts and my body in congress we've had we've had to congressman indicted in the one hundred congress and i hope that that doesn't it doesn't spoil our reputation we have for water and thirty five members of congress

you do have some corruption in any major large government organization i think the key stories that have this report was no more crooked and the congressmen and i think that's a i think that's a fair statement that no they ultimately as i think you have to remember that that government employees often take a year a very bum rap i happen to represent a lot of women i think that there are some of the practices that are reflective and the tendencies that reflected in the pentagon are often shown the way on capitol hill is that you agree on i think you're wrong in discussing it on the basis of individual acts of individual corruption the real problem is the system which is set up in such a way that it invites consultants and contractors into the pentagon to help frame the requirements for our weapon systems that need attention on us people will make scientists are not only transcend but it ends up creating state id requirements for weapons we don't really need and inflates the prices of those weapons tremendously we should be buying the weapons we need for sound

offends we should be paying a fair price for them the system as it's working now is getting its weapons are not even the military wants some cases and we're paying outrageous prices for them but explosives experts estimate around why it may be part of that in some parts the system works and some party system doesn't work after re partly with congressman hunter we have an investigation here of what appears to be a lot of individuals activity they've been honored that due to want to do the one thing the investigation should tour preceded it as those other sen nunn it there at the briefing today that you got from the prosecutor was yasser did he say how many officials of the us government were you were under suspicion under investigation jim i don't know the numbers right now are very meaningful we have our set of numbers but an economist one is not far off and what i've heard but there we had just started this investigation in many senses because the cooperating witnesses are inevitably going to lead to other clues another trial so there may be many more than embarked on it unless i don't know i just don't think we know know lbj

like that was important for purposes of putting this in context we have a lot of honest federal employees a lot of work at the pentagon and twenty three thousand and the facts are there's not twenty three thousand dead dishonest people wear and i agree with the senator that this investigation can broaden out but generally speaking we're not talking about a major proportion of the people who work survey stipulated most people were working in the pentagon the government honest honorable people about be clear this is a pope with exception but it's too broad an exception to in any way be tolerated would say what's interesting about they're this case in part what makes it unusual is the allegation at least of bribery which is something that we don't generally find in procurement investigations and i think that if you stop somebody on the street and say is their bribery at the pentagon and procurement activity say for certain that we don't normally find that you don't usually find in the massacre a letter to levels their election what's interesting here i think beyond the question of whether the system works and they investigated way and i

congratulate the navy people in the fbi think they deserve credit for that the larger question is what is it about the system that provides opportunities and temptations i think part of the problem we're dealing with here in this administration at least in that had this problem the past with large spending is a very great deal of money thrown at the acquisition system in a very short period was i would argue a relatively laissez faire attitude about the management of the money that i think is a part of the problem that provides opportunity and temptation it doesn't condemn a lot of government employees who are trying to do an honest job that we disagree with that on this basis the federal defense spending has been declining in real terms over the last four years the city has and the defense budget doubled between it in it fifty percent growth in real dollars and remains at a level that is still forty percent higher in real hours it was to begin with but there is still a great deal of money flowing through the system higher than in peacetime watson seems i think so i think the point is so that we in the system

as in congress you have to have people who you can rely on and whom you can trust you can't build a system that there'd been a great store or participates in the importance of people to have to have honest people and we can put heavy punishments down for people who break the law we can put heavy heavy punishments for corporations that meet these illicit benefits but in the defense department where the security of the united states and the people of this country is at stake you have to have people you can trust and count on you can't create a system we don't count on people i especially to the cabin i think people are crucial in this particular system and part of our problem i would say was the top of the acquisition system at the beginning of the administration there was not a lot of experience of acquisition and that's been part of the management can you agree with that senator that there was a lack of management acquisition experience at the top it has not said that before the senate came up i think the criteria for hiring people was more related the ideology then it was two american experience when you look at who we've brought in to manage the process i think people are important that we brought

in the industry to manage the process we put the fox in the henhouse boeing aircraft looks like it's taken over one wing the pentagon and here we have all of these our days after it is very slow and not with metal carol in that respect that is to say as long as we structured the system so that you have an interface between the industry and the government they're going to have to be industry people involved the question is how you build in the right kinds of political operative and i would say adversarial relationships in that working relationship on either you make sure that the relationship is an arms like this agree with gordon in this respect certainly about half that interface but let's have the professional military aided by the professional chorus scientists and engineers who work for the department of defense determine requirements determine what it is we really need to defend the united states and then offer these proposals to industry and let the industry come in and meet the proposals in a competitive manner and it cuts out the aid temptation in the determination requirements and contract awards that i suspect

it wouldn't hurt the temptation that's the problem because either in the industry are in consulting end of the industry you're going to have people many of them good people and money into an honest job just like rational employees in the department of defense who are in fact important to the transmission of information in that process if you take out the the year consultants and i think there's no legal way to consultants out of the eu affect actors like the industry to do their own consulting which they're prepared to do it carson is it your position that that this is not a breakdown of the system that the basic procurement system at the pentagon as far as you're concerned works all you need to do is find a few crops and m oliver well i would say if you can sell if you got a lot of drugs in this case because i think the practice went on until they made that particular wiretap a us person with a conversation from an informant was basically i think accurately characterized but i would say that we have we should keep our eye on the ball the facts are that this defense buildup and rebuilding over the reagan years

has brought the soviet union the table a senator nunn a number of other leaders in the senate are committee in the house has shaped defense requirements we passed on these weapons systems are not they're defense contractors not consultants it's our responsibility to build effective weapon systems from the soviet perception we've been able to do that i would hate to see a situation in which the dishonesty of fifty or a hundred or more individuals out of the hundreds of thousands in our federal workforce was transformed into a bed to a lack of support for a strong national defense in the next administration do you know i share mr adams surprise shock characterize of year when he said that fifty to a hundred or maybe more employees of the defense department to brides all at one time over a short period of time over well as i said you have a some twenty three thousand i think over a period of time if it builds up in the end and the network is built there that that's a that's what happened i think i think all of us are shocked that i think we won a c swift insure punishment we won't see stronger terms we wanna see that the companies

to involve themselves in the illicit reception of this evidence for this so this information than bart punished in a very meaningful way lose their contracts or broaden that a little bit in terms of the response is i think we need to have the situation part of it i think these budgetary next administration's gonna have the job of using the budget is a management tool it's gonna be more restrictive that was partly in response to the scandals as i say no no knowledge or change the system well i think we got hit oliver's first but i certainly believe that we've got to emphasize first and foremost i think that managers got have people who have experience i disagree with mr carroll educate patients even if an industry that people know what going only that people know how to manage the they got the r minus people and you've got to pay him enough to keep them on the job for more than a one and a half years right now we've got so many people the common just to have a title and they go right back in in history when a people who will stay for a whole administration for years we made and to be honest inaudible we need to have a

sense of that as an ethics in the wall and the fence is not a fact wrong in that environment in general and we need to instill that sense of ethics and people that are already adequate to know how the management sen nunn let me ask you are you and you've been dealing with the defense department on a on a regular basis now for many years and you've been in the congress that were used on the listeners that this many people we would be taking bribes of passing secret information yes and i was very surprised and i think the comparison is not fifty two hundred people compared to twenty three thousand i certainly agree that most people were involved with is overwhelming honest no doubt about that but the question we dont yet know the answer to is how many contracts were affected in this ad don't take but one person a key place to affect twenty thirty contracts and maybe a hundred contracts and you may even have a situation where we asked the question what can an honorable honest company that goes by the rules of plays the game according to the rules

and really compete as that contract have a chance that asserts quote never send a different message of the company's than the last time this really surface was a nineteen eighty five case when gdp ended up pleading guilty two matters very similar to what's now going on the result was a fine of five hundred ninety thousand dollars big deal one tenth of one percent of their government contracts for the ear what happened the next year they almost doubled or government contracts the two officials for gigi who were implicated had the charges dismissed when they were out making profits in and getting caught profit sharing awards so we'd better crack down on when we do find much point and my point is simply that this is a case of not having honest men and women perhaps in the situation and the answer is to have honest men and women and there's no substitute for that you can change the system in such a way that you don't have to trust people and that's a point i think that we should do that we should carry forward to put incentives to be honest and we should give the

terms of an incentive to be honest our province and is a big part of the problem here you got to have a professional acquisition structure not just people brought in from the industry were good and honest unethical but within labor to restructure itself encourage professionally rewarding in the professional status of people to stay in the system to work at those jobs for long periods of time or turning them out too early for breaking the senate lowell attorney average military peers at the age of forty one somebody from the procurement system right now is leaving the procurement system that average age with a lot of experience kind of a recipe was working two three thousand cases here for the industry were also rotating people off contract management jobs to fast so they don't get the opportunity to reinforce their own experience and we're not giving them the incentive to stay within the system and move up within the system because the rewarded for doing their job well that brahms on the management side really have to seriously address we have serving officers who know what an airplane's we need no atlanta missiles radars we need we should be

counting on them for the professional advice about the military requirements we have a large core of scientists and engineers on the federal payroll who are immune from the profit motive let's trust their advice and counsel state requirements in contract terms and then put it out and let the contractor has come up with the answers to those things because people on the federal payroll on immune from the profit motive i think some of this information in this instant cases going to show us what people were on the federal payroll head consultant who were friends only outside you can't separate people from temptation and once again now the key is not the only issue here is not competent because we've had competent people i am nine and procurement of the dishonesty with an incompetent people feel that been this august the key here is that we had at the issue is what we're going to do two severely punish those people or been implicated about not necessarily fix the system are changes that

you've got to have a sporting an accountability work up in the system that has not been adequately so for this administration we have to live with and online or chose a cartoon right when he did talk about congress's involvement in all of this in one of the congress in congress a number of congressmen have been wrongfully named i know one congressman who was named in the saying is that as this target of the investigation because a daughter of one of the principles in the investigation had worked for him as an intern and i agree with the senator that there has been a very damaging leaks to the press in the situation and it's hurt a number reputation thrived for congressman mr adams and senator thank you all for being with us still to come on the newshour airbags to help sell cars and telephone pornography ah the second of the big three

automakers today announced plans to make airbags standard equipment on many of its cars claiming their huge could save up to ten thousand american lives here judy woodruff has more the call to include air bags as standard equipment was first heard almost two decades ago from safety activist ralph nader for years the auto industry resisted until late last month when chrysler announced plans to put driver's side airbags in six of this year's models and on all of its cars by nineteen ninety four and quickly followed suit and went one better by installing on one of its models a four front seat driver and passenger air bag here's a report from correspondence in the cell as twenty five thousand people die in the front seat during car crashes each year it's estimated that airbags could save up to ten thousand lives a year today ford demonstrated the airbag for reporters ford will begin phasing

in air bags of the nineteen eighty nine lincoln continental for the nineteen nineteen model year eleven ford motor company airlines will have standard driver ear get supplemental restraint systems and we project their sales will total about a million units and it made for the federal law was passed requiring all new cars to have pass the restraints by nineteen ninety either automatic seatbelts or airbags nineteen eighty five ford began offering the airbag as an option and two models tests showed that serious injuries were less likely to occur in cars with air bags then in cars equipped with only shoulder elapsed seatbelts on the highway there was a similar evidence in nineteen eighty five his ford tempo quipped with an airbag had a twenty thousand pound truck driver melanie stevenson walked away with only bruised knees the airbag inflating that you know if you're driving you never really think they believe it is it today's announcement is a victory for safety advocates like ralph nader who have been fighting for

airbags for twenty years your weather's to talk this change in the auto industry is maryann keller an auto analyst at the new york the brokerage firm of firman cells and talent the trust this is vice president for safety at ford motor company and we just saw in the report is the trust this windy where decide to do this the biggest driver for us was a reading of what we saw our customers wanted and were something that our research has been shelling is that when you ask customers are what's important in their purchase decision we're finding that safety comes in second in the only thing that's ahead and that its quality and reliability so that says to us the safety features perceived as valuable customers but as we just heard ralph nader and others have been pushing for this for one almost twenty years what it takes a lot of the industry today to answer that question jeremy i have to reflect a little bit on history

you know years ago everyone agreed that if we could get occupants restraint we make a major advance in highway safety but it was viewed as an either or proposition either we would change operator be a very good people the buckle up or we would find a technology that would automatically do it the new thing that happened in the nineteen eighties as is that we found a way to marry both and we're getting both retain people buckled up because they're using their belts and we develop the technology that supplements them and that's new in the nineteen eighties ms kellaway from your perspective or what why do you think the industry has finally come around but i think alan is right because the surveys are showing that people are much more concerned about safety i don't think that they were quite is i'm interested in safety items like airbags a decade ago nor were they willing to pay the prices that to hear bags cause i think that was one of the reasons why the industry was so reluctant to have it cooked cars with air bags back in the nineteen

seventies and the average price of a car was around sixty seven thousand dollars and they were putting the cost of an air bag in a thousand dollars which made it rather an astonishing amount of money so it's just the customers have come around to that which is no well i think there are the industry also has to new regulations so let's not forget the importance of that they're they have to be crippled their cars with passive restraints by nineteen ninety and beyond so were they had an interesting meeting that federal requirement there is that and that's the cases and trust of course we have our joys of having either so called passive belts or arab eggs either one would satisfy the requirement obviously the challenge to us is to find systems their customers like indiana and ever present value to the why why is ford only putting this in one model of the lincoln continental which is after all a top of the line luxury car while i just a couple reasons one and we would like to do and the passenger side what we've done on the driver's side we've now hit with their two years on

driver side experience under abandoned we will be under a bill that will be expanding the use of driver side air based intercontinental represents the same thing the first out which we can then build this is you're referring to the fact that that the airbag now will cover both the passenger and the driver and then again as i and it airs so we talked earlier that we will offer the driver side air bag in eleventh her alliance in nineteen ninety in terms of why not both well why the lincoln car now we wanted to choose a car that would give us the greatest likelihood of having a successful passenger side program there are two things about that car wanted size bomb makes the engineering job of designing an arabic easier than a smaller car might be an second the demographics of the i should say that the potential buyers of the continental are people who not only welcomed new technology but they expect new

technology on their car so that the lincoln tunnel really fits the bill in terms of trying to have a kind of design the successful program which can then be translated to other just on this point the western the lesser priced lower priced models that you offer the airbag as an option on the driver's side why only on the driver's side for those models cause simply because we want to we we wanted to get the experience and one car line and then move it to other car lines in the one we selected happened to be the lincoln for the reasons that i mentioned the scheller designate good marketing sense for them for the industry to make this this change well i think lee iacocca was absolutely brilliant i think he smelled the change in consumer sentiment with the stares at chrysler that's right and he's going to have one whole year in which he's going to be the only company offering airbag equipped cars and six models which represented very large proportion of his total sales anything on her then i'm like rice and mike ford and general motors they are going to be no cost standard features to the consumer and so i think that he has

stolen the show frank martin standpoint you see about why no i don't and the reason i don't know as i say we've we've built up the experience in both engineering manufacturing marketing europeans oh we've been doing it for two years we have our first passenger side program and we're headed for a million units i so i i feel that that's a technology that we have a league of millionaires what percentage of the cars you put out in debates over half somewhat over half what's the consensus sound ms keller on this because of how effective are the airbags viewed and innovate you've is that as the answer in and most of these collisions i don't think consumers know what the answer is frankly but i think that once are they there is a lot of media coverage within the next year if people who as your user film that showed people who survive collisions with airbags

people will begin to demand cars with their bags and they will begin to view that as a as a good form of art keeping protection right now i think that air bags are not really really known because they haven't really been marketed by the auto industry very much health effective are they we can't give a scientific answer to that because in order to do that you would have to have a lot of cars in operation in and get the field experience with them on every indication we have is that the combination of the shoulder belt a safety belt and the ear baby is the best protection that we can offer and i i agree with ms keller there is big education job to be done and that's the challenge that we face well for example i understand that they are they're considered resemble more effective in a head on collision situation and that would be an insider well in fact that's a very important port in point that you made your eggs are designed to only deploy any

final coalition and therefore they don't even open up another when it's set aside or and that's why it's in that's why god i feel it's just essential that part of that educational effort hastert aide to help our customers understand that it's the supplementary system and they absolutely need to use their safety belt and that's where the safety they'll use laws are so important we haven't in thirty eight states and we're going to keep pushing until we happen in fifty states because they are they are what make your next possible scheller not long ago there were reports that the auto dealers individual auto dealers i guess of several of that via several different car many of car lines were reluctant to push even the optional air bags because they were they argue for example that they were clumsy or they might explode in a you know for no reason and so forth is less

benefactor and in the public's reluctance to accept them to the public knows about airbags and i think part of the reason is because they were offered as options you have to understand what the industry has been doing for the last as they offered airbags in the last few years they offer them as high priced options most people don't buy their cars from the factory they buy their cars off the dealer lot the dealer is not going to buy a car from the factory with that on it our sins the consumer has not been conditioned to come and buy cars with their bags of the strategy that the industry's used to date with airbags guarantee that they would sell very few cars with them i think the only way to educate consumers to do with chrysler is as announced that it would do and what ford will do a nineteen eighteen in nineteen eighty nine and that is make your bank standard with the cost as how long before all cars being sold in this country will have the air bag as standard feature works a particular if youre question involves passenger side airbags i think will be in a much better position to answer that year from today when we've had the experience of getting a curling out

very big hands passenger side airbags a standard equipment i personally am very optimistic that we're going to see a lot of beer babes an airbase will be accepted as a normal part of her own classes maryann keller thank you both for being with a better look at the so called dial a porn business some time federal and state agencies have been trying to restrict the use of telephone lines for the transmission of sexually explicit messages such messages generate millions of dollars in yearly revenues for telephone companies and the producers of licenses recordings on july first the federal telephone decency act goes into effect it will ban interstate dial a porn services but it will not prohibit the for profit transmission of indecent telephone calls within states general zackery public station

kqed san francisco report somehow dollar porn affected to california family's another chance to block telephone service thompson's a california family trying to regain the normalcy that was shattered last june thirteen year old son bryan molested a four year old girl in his mother's day care center the thompson say the real culprits are the nine seven six dial porn sex lies and the phone companies which allow them to operate at two weeks after listening to dial a porn messages at the family's church bryan thompson for a four year old girl into a sexual act ryan says he doesn't remember if he listened to tapes involving children what he claims he got the idea to molest the girl it was like almost seeing almost like watching on a television screen a tape of it except that you didn't have any pictures it was his voice and the voice that twenty minute pictured in your life what the main impact is that i lost

jobs over it ah another and the other main impacts been that i we have relatives on my side it wasn't nothing to do with us because of the fact that they feel that we have brought shame on the family but also is dramatizing a simmering controversy over access to sexually explicit material by miners it also renewed the debate over what constitutes obscene and indecent speech and to what extent that speech is protected by the constitution today there are over one thousand violent or a business's operating coast to coast majority operate here in california their numbers can be found in their ads which fill these sex magazines that are found in news racks on almost any street corner it's here that they can be purchased by adults and minors nine seven six and rejects lines were introduced in nineteen eighty three of recorded messages like horoscopes and sports reporters soon sex talk recordings quotable lines and now

make up almost half of all nine seven six numbers the dial up for bid this is advertise names like nine seven six moan and nine seven six gets for up to ninety five cents per minute anyone can pick up the phone anywhere dialing nine seven six prefix number and here is sexually explicit talk area college kellen parents of the four year old molested by bryan thompson are convinced that dialogue or and should be outlawed up until the only goal is to up the european tour but now we can't even buy the living room will i in those centers for that and it's generally an experiment the cowans emma thompson's are jointly sued pacific bell and dozens of phone sex producers to prevent access to dial a porn by miners and asked millions of dollars in damages but a state court dismissed the case against the civic bell saying it had no merit and that the court might jurisdiction over a publicly

regulated utility meanwhile dial or portions with the phone companies doing the billing and sharing the profits while industry analysts estimate dial or will generate revenues of one hundred fifty two million dollars this year that the phone companies will get about seventy six million dollars recently the federal communications commission tried to crack down on long distance pilot for finding two california business is a total of one point two million dollars for the interstate transmission of obscene or indecent material but civil libertarians rejected chance to define obscenity and defend the phone companies' right to carry dial up or nephew calls is a staff attorney with the california branch of the american civil liberties union the problem is is his government's and the people can say over a telephone line and governments and the people can hear over a telephone line when government steps in the start saying things about what people can say or what people can hear the first amendment which says commercial that no law

respecting the freedom of speech steps and put some limits and that's really where the issue comes from imus much for free speech as anyone else this is an abuse of free speech joe and nasa koski thinks the issue of protecting children from pornography her group various citizens against pornography help the thompsons find a lawyer after bryan thompson was arrested was a cause he collected examples of false ads for the thompsons court case when we have babies having orgasms over the telephone or have the women being tightened between change and then i think it's time to look seriously at what the phone company is doing do you want a girl to follow the lead of mutton bill in arizona at public hearings like these arizona for customers complained about pilots or responding to public pressure not an l stop doing business with our corn vendors southwestern bell which covers the south central united states plans to do the same but california specific bell says it can't pull the plug on for sex without legal authorization the reason

we don't pull the plug today is because we don't feel that the issues that law have been clearly resolve we need to have the federal courts look at the california situation clarify that we have that opportunity and we're also supporting legislation that will provide better consumer controls and secrets and the phone companies go to the legislature say pass a law telling us we can do this in the state's doing it we're back to the same first amendment pro as rebels temporary solution to the problem of phone sex is to block access of nine seven six numbers from homes that don't want them six hundred seventy four thousand customers have asked for blocking but due to technical limitations as rebel claims that thirteen percent of its customers cannot get blocking including places like the church or bryan thompson made his job board calls in addition to the recorded sex lines there are live sex lies which are not nine seven six numbers and can't be blocked to reach them you dial a number they buy credit card and request a

fantasy then you get a call back from someone like candy candy claims to know when miners call by their voice and says she won't talk to them otherwise she feels anyone has the right to talk dirty on the telephone i get calls from minneapolis tennessee newark it's good extra money and people are getting a joy and it's definitely safe sex proposed new california legislation would make sex lines available only through subscriptions another proposal is segmentation placing all sex messages on a separate phone prefix in the meantime phone sex remains of very lucrative business nick grey garter in three hundred each three thousand dollars last year making dial a porn tapes as well as tapes of children's stories and horoscopes for nine seven six companies around the country he and his wife john loftus all carry productions in san francisco they defend their right of free

speech say parents must control their children not society let's face it nobody wanted them and i agree with that but there's responsibility there a parrot and there's responsibility there love the phone companies you know sleep until their own children are and that's where the issue than mike taking personal responsibility for every child around the age of eighteen in the state of california hofer parents affected by dial a porn the first amendment takes a backseat to their children's welfare people do have a right to pornography but there comes ooh there comes this point when we got to think of a future society and that's what our kids are until definitive legal steps are taken and the courts decide exactly what is obscene sex on the phone lines will continue to exist and parents will have to rely on the discretion of the vendors and the phone companies

and their own ability to police with their children see and hear the telephone company in maryland has come up with a way it hopes will restrict access to dial up foreign service says it plans to create a new exchange nine one five percent business and only people who signed a consent form can use it again the major stories of this wednesday much of the nation suffered from scorching heat because the drought to worsen and the congressional leadership got a briefing from the prosecutor in the pentagon procurement scandal tonight on the newshour senator sam nunn who attended that briefing said some military contracts may have to be invalidated because of the scandal in iran and that's the newshour tonight and we will be back tomorrow night and robert mcneill good night combining everything

everything everything funding is also provided by the station and other public television stations and the corporation for public broadcasting i need there are man