The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, President Reagan said he wants the Senate to vote on the Bork nomination this week. Vice President Bush officially announced as a candidate for President, and Hurricane Floyd hit Southern Florida. We'll have the details in our news summary in a moment. Robin? ROBERT MacNEIL: After the news summary, we have an interview with George Bush, now an official presidential candidate. Then a documentary report on the case of a doctor who contracted AIDS from a patient. Finally, a conversation with playwright turned Hollywood screenwriter, David Mamet. News Summary LEHRER: There was talk today of a quick Senate vote on Robert Bork. Democratic leaders will meet in the morning to work out a plan that could bring the Supreme Court nomination to the floor for debate by Wednesday, with a vote to follow the next day. President Reagan was asked on his return from Camp David today if he wanted such a vote this week. He gave a yes answer. A 53 senate majority has already declared they will vote against the Bork nomination.Vice President Bush made his candidacy for President official today. He made the announcement before supporters from Houston. He said his seven years as Vice President have given him a look at what crosses the President's desk, and the conviction that he is the man to sit at that desk. Robin? MacNEIL: It's been another day of violence in the Persian Gulf. Iraqi planes hit a Panamanian flagged tanker with an Exocet missile, setting it ablaze and killing two crew members. The tanker Marianthi M. was hit 60 miles south of the Iranian port of Bushehr. Iraqi planes also raided Iranian oil and industrial centers, as Iran shelled Basra, Iraq's second largest city. A pro Iranian Kurdish group claimed it kidnapped three Italian engineers in Iraq, and demanded that Italy move its eight escort ships from the Gulf. Meanwhile, the U. S. Navy was escorting a convoy of Kuwaiti tankers up the Gulf without incident. LEHRER: Back in this country, Hurricane Floyd hit land today in Southern Florida. It caused thunderstorms, flooding and cut power lines. Hurricane warnings were posted from the Florida Cays through South Florida. Many residents tried to evacuate ahead of the storm, others stored up on supplies and attempted to weather it out. In the Los Angeles area, the immediate danger was over from last week's earthquake, but the effects were still being felt. Hundreds lined up at relief centers, seeking federal emergency funds and other benefits to rebuild their homes. And in Iowa, ten cars and two engines from Amtrak's California Zephyr derailednear Russell, Iowa, after hitting part of a railroad bridge. Three serious injuries were reported, but a local hospital treated more than 75 others for minor injuries. MacNEIL: A Japanese researcher working in the U. S. won the Nobel Prize for Medicine today for discovering how the human body makes antibodies that fight disease. The prize, worth $340,000, was won by Susumu Tonegawa, who is 48 and who has worked for six years with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work solved some of the mystery about how the body's 100,000 genes can produce millions of different antibodies to fight specific diseases. His findings could help improve vaccines and make organ transplants safer. Tonegawa said today his discoveries might also be useful in solving AIDS disease. LEHRER: There was more trouble in the Philippines today. Thousands of striking workers opened a week of protests in Manila. There was a confrontation at a rally between the protestors and police, who claimed the rally was illegal. Police fired in the air to disperse the crowds. One person was wounded, 27 were arrested. In her weekly radio address, President Corazon Aquino hinted for the first time she might impose martial law at some point in the future. She said she would do so only for the good of the country. MacNEIL: In Sri Lanka, Indian paratroopers were dropped into the northern city of Jaffna today to battle with Tamil rebels. Six thousand Indian troops have been brought into the city to help the Sri Lankan army defeat the rebels, who have been fighting to form an independent homeland. We have a report by Brian Baron of the BBC.

BRIAN BARON, BBC: This is the northern front today. Indian reinforcements moving up in an operation which has sealed off the Tamil Tiger's heartland. The Indians now seem bent on destroying a guerilla force they once nurtured. Here, the curfew is lifted during daylight hours, but the security forces are braced for trouble. They think 150 Tamil Tigers who fled Jaffna are heading this way. In Jaffna itself, the Indian forces are using paratroopers, tanks, helicopters and war planes. If the Indian army's claims of killing over 100 Tamil Tigers are confirmed, it marks the guerillas' single worst reverse to date. The most wanted man in Sri Lanka tonight is Velucalai Prabakaran, the self confessed assassin who heads the Tamil Tigers. It was the Tamil Tigers' (unintelligible) attacks on the Singhalese majority in recent days which triggered the Indian offensive. Today, frightened people from the north and east were still arriving here. This was the cortege for Sri Lankan security chief killed by the Tigers. But tonight, it's the Tigers themselves who are on the run. The Indian peacekeepers have suffered at least 18 dead, and they're angry. MacNEIL: Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian woman and wounded five other people today in demonstrations on the occupied West Bank of the Gaza Strip. The woman, who had been looking for her five children, was shot when troops fired to disperse students hurling stones in Ramallah, north of Jerusalem. That's the news summary. Coming up on the NewsHour, Presidential candidate George Bush, a doctor with AIDS, and playwright David Mamet. George Bush Interview LEHRER: There are now five official Republican candidates for President. The frontrunner, Vice President Bush became number five today. It is our custom to interview each of the 1988 presidential candidates as he announces, and we follow it again tonight. Some background on George Bush from Judy Woodruff is first.

JUDY WOODRUFF: As he now campaigns for the presidency himself, 63 year old George Bush continually stresses his strong allegiance to President Reagan. GEORGE BUSH, presidential candidate: For the past seven years, I've stood side by side with this great President of ours, and I'm proud of it.

WOODRUFF: George Herbert Walker Bush was born into an affluent Massachusetts family in 1924. After prep school Bush enlisted in the Navy reserve as a seaman. At age 18, he became the Navy's youngest pilot in World War II. He flew torpedo bombers in the Pacific. Returning from his 58 combat missions, he was forced to ditch his crippled aircraft at sea. He was rescued a short time later by an American submarine. After the war, Bush married the former Barbara Pierce. They have five children, all grown, and ten grandchildren. At Yale, Bush was captain of the varsity baseball team, and graduated with a degree in economics in 1948. He then moved to Texas, and eventually started an offshore oil drilling firm. During that period, Bush's father, Prescott, served as a U. S. Senator from Connecticut. In 1964, the younger Bush himself ran for a Senate seat, but lost. Two years later, he was elected to Congress as a Republican from Houston, Texas. After serving two terms in the House, Bush was appointed to a number of highranking positions by Presidents Nixon and Ford: U. S. Ambassador the United Nations, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Chief of the U. S. Liaison Office in the Peoples Republic of China, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He has held more top government jobs than any candidate from either party, a message he regularly emphasizes. Despite some recent campaign setbacks in Iowa and Michigan, opinion polls show Bush is the frontrunner in the Republican camp. George Bush first sought the Republican nomination for President in 1980. He was beaten out by Ronald Reagan, who later asked him to be his running mate. Bush was sworn in as the 43rd Vice President in January 1981. And again for a second term in January 1985. Being Vice President has given Bush almost daily visibility. He serves as President of the U. S. Senate. And he's usually present at important meetings with the President and the Cabinet. Bush has been linked indirectly to the Iran contra scandal, which he has tried to distance himself from. He still supports the Administration's goals in Iran and Nicaragua. Mr. BUSH: I thought Ollie North made all this crystal clear when that dramatic testimony of his before the Congress of the United States, he brought the message home of the need for us to be steadfast for democracy and freedom.

WOODRUFF: As Vice President, Bush has acquired a working acquaintance with many world leaders. He has traveled to 73 foreign countries, most recently a high profile swing through Europe. On that trip, he stirred controversy with this faux pas. Mr. BUSH: When the mechanics that keep those tanks running run out of work in the Soviet Union, send them to Detroit, because we could use that kind of ability.

WOODRUFF: This quickly brought an apology to U. S. organized labor. Today, Bush returned to his former hometown of Houston, Texas, to make his candidacy official. Mr. BUSH: I'm here today to announced my candidacy for President of the United States.

WOODRUFF: We spoke to him last Friday about his run for the presidency. (to Bush) Mr. Vice President, thank you for being with us. Mr. BUSH: Delighted to be here, Judy. WOODRUFF: Why do you want to be President? What is it that you can do as President that you couldn't do, or couldn't influence as Vice President for the last seven years? Mr. BUSH: Well, the Vice Presidents are not a decision maker. You are on some things -- deregulation, or going off to influence public opinion in Europe on INF weapons or whatever it is. But it's entirely different. The President calls the shots. The buck stops there. And I have a great conviction about where this country ought to be in the '90s, whether it has to do with peace -- I think I'd be the best out there and try to follow on in an arms agreement. I happen to feel strongly about the need for a literate nation. So I've certain issues that concern me. And I happen to think that I've had more experience than anybody else running. But the difference between the Presidency and the Vice Presidency is night and day in terms of making things happen. WOODRUFF: How do you see your presidency following on this president -- do you see it as sort of a continuation of the Reagan revolution? Or do you see it -- Mr. BUSH: Following on is a good expression, because I'd say following on and building it. We're now going into a new decade. There's going to be a lot of change. Technological change, change in the need of competitiveness abroad -- that means more education. We're going to have a demographics change -- there's a whole bunch of things that are changing in this world. But in a sense if you look at foreign affairs, I think we're going to get an intermediate nuclear force agreement with the Russians after years of standing firm, we're going to get a verifiable agreement. Now, it's going to be building on that record, whether it's start, if we don't get one before President Reagan's finished, chemical weapons, conventional. I've been there, I understand the issues, and I think -- I know I'd be driven by trying to get verifiable agreements in those categories. WOODRUFF: I hear what you're saying, but when I talk to people who follow politics very closely, they say the problem that George Bush is going to have is that in the seven years that he's been vice president, he's lost his identity, he's submerged it, he's become Ronald Reagan's shadow. We don't really know who he is and what he believes. Mr. BUSH: That's what the campaign is all about. And so having announced, here's my vision, here's my passions, here's what I think. What was Harry Truman? Ask the critics. Where was Harry Truman when he was Vice President. He went on to be President. People said, ''Hey, he was a strong president. He was a good president. '' But you can't remember his days as Vice President, people saying he's the guy to lead. Now, I've had more experience than Harry Truman had when he went into the White House, and so I know who I am. But my challenge now is to say to the American people, ''Here's what we've done, here's what we've succeeded in doing, with great credit to the President. And here's now what I, George Bush, will do. '' So to those who say it's impossible, I say, ''You watch me. '' WOODRUFF: I guess it's about a month ago there was a profile of you in the Wall Street Journal, and the headline was, here we are 20 years into George Bush's public career, and we're still asking the question, ''Who is he? What does he --'' Mr. BUSH: Who's asking the question? Have you gone to the drilling rigs and talked to the people that helped me build a business? Did you ever interview anybody in the aircraft carrier where I fought and bled for my country? Did you ever talk to the people at the CIA that I lifted up at a time of its morale being down? Who is it that's saying ''they'' don't know this? These people that I've served with do. The people that are helping me build the strongest political organization that this country's ever seen understand who I am. So now my challenge is to take the remainder, the ''theys'' you talk about, and say, ''Here's who I am, here's what I believe, here's what I've done in life. '' I haven't been too good about talking about it, Judy, and maybe that's partially my fault, I think. WOODRUFF: Why not? Mr. BUSH: Oh, I don't know -- cultural. I just was brought up that you don't brag about yourself, but I'm getting better about it. WOODRUFF: I was also struck by a piece that the Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote over the summer, where he -- and I know you're familiar with it, where he describes you as an innocent because of your answer to a series of questions he asked on the Iran contra affair. Let me ask you. As he pointed out, there's been no evidence anywhere that you argued against the Iran contra policy Mr. BUSH: Except if you listen to what John Poindexter said in testimony to the committee. I'm told he said that I did have some problems with that. But part of that is because I don't go public with what I think. I've -- you see, my concept of the vice presidency is to give the advice I have on issues to the President. Why? So he won't have to be choosing in public between the Vice President in Position A, three Cabinet members on Position B. And I think that's the right way to be a vice president. Now I've shifted gears. Now I'm talking about the future. And I'm not going to go back and say what I told the President or what I didn't. I know there's a lot of fascination about that. But that has nothing to do with the future of leading this country. WOODRUFF: But, Mr. Vice President, respectfully, in the sense of the Iran contra affair was a marked point in this nation's foreign policy. Did you argue against those policies? Mr. BUSH: I am on the record as having had certain reservations about it. But I in retrospect can't go back and fine tune and say, ''Oh, if only I in my infinite wisdom had been heard, things would be different. '' But I also don't think that's the thing that's preoccupying every American today. This was a matter that was thoroughly aired and some of the loudest critics came out worse than some of those they were criticizing. WOODRUFF: Something that I think Americans are talking about today is the Bork nomination. Was this something that you favored? Mr. BUSH: Strongly. Strongly favored. Outstanding jurist, highest recommendations for the Bar Associations, and an outstanding individual and a process that we're going to live to regret in this country. WOODRUFF: What went wrong, Mr. Vice President? Mr. BUSH: Well, an awful lot of special interest groups did something that has never happened in the nomination of a Supreme Court justice before. And they mobilized thinking. They knew what Judge Bork's opinion was going to be on a given, specific issue. And my feeling is nobody knows, including myself. But we all should have known one thing -- and do know one thing -- he is an outstanding jurist who interprets the Constitution, and doesn't legislate on the federal bench. WOODRUFF: You said special interest groups, and yet you know respected Republicans like Arlen Specter, John Chaffee, conservative Democrats like Lloyd Bentsen, Howell Heflin, all opposed this. Mr. BUSH: I respectfully disagree with them. I just think they're as wrong as they can be on this Bork nomination. WOODRUFF: How do you explain those? Mr. BUSH: I don't care what they think. I think I'm right. I believe I'm right. And I believe in Judge Bork. And the man that got the highest ratings in the American Bar Association, just a handful of years ago is now not fit to serve. C'mon, something went different. The politics is what was different, Judy, and you know it, and I know it. WOODRUFF: We now see in connection with the politics, a split of some proportions between the so called right in the Republican Party, the moderates in the Republican Party over whose fault this was, over whether the strategy was the right strategy. Mr. BUSH: I don't want to get into this fault, I mean, I don't blame people for voting their conscience, I don't blame people for calling as they see it. I told you what I think. And this will be another issue tomorrow. I've learned that in a long time in public life. WOODRUFF: Isn't this split perhaps representative of a larger split in the Republican Party between the right wing and the -- a split between the right middle and the whatever -- and -- Mr. BUSH: I've heard that for eight years, that the party was divided, the party was going to be driven apart by this issue or that. And look at the results of 1980, and look at them in '84. I hope it's as cohesive after the '88 primaries as it is today. WOODRUFF: But as you know, the theory is that there have been these splits. The only reason the party has held together is because of the popularity of one man, and that's been Ronald Reagan. How do you -- how will you carry on? Mr. BUSH: Hopefully as successfully as he did in getting all elements of the Party to work together to beat the Democrats so that we don't go back to where things were when we came into office with the outrageous financial conditions, with a low morale in the military, with a United States that was derided around the world. We don't want to go back to that. And I hope that I can lead our Party and many independents and many Democrats to say, ''We want to move forward with a sense of optimism, a sense of conviction as who we are, and never apologizing for the United States of America. '' And I think I can do it. WOODRUFF: Would you as president like to try to create with any appointments that you had a court with a conservative agenda? Mr. BUSH: I would not be interested in a specific agenda item. But I would be interested in strict construction as opposed to legislation. I'd be looking for jurists that are so steeped in the Constitution that they would resist the tendency to solve problems through decisions from the bench, recognizing that that should be done by the legislature. And I don't know -- I think that's conservative judicial philosophy. But that's what I'd be looking for. I campaigned on that before. I feel strongly about it today. WOODRUFF: But it's evidently -- I mean, if we're to believe the public opinion polls which have been done every which way to Sunday, the American people don't agree with that. Mr. BUSH: What do they want? Somebody to legislate from the bench? If so, we've got to change that. I don't believe that's what they want. I've never seen a poll suggesting that they want to make laws from the federal bench. I said I don't. So I think they must agree with that. WOODRUFF: We saw last week some press attention to Pat Robertson's alleged misrepresentations he's made about his own past, in particular when he was married. Do you think this is an appropriate area of inquiry for the press to pursue? Mr. BUSH: I think you have to be very careful in spelling out your resume that you don't misrepresent it. And I've no intention of getting involved in the problem that Pat Robertson has. But the one good thing about having been in public life as long as I have, having been at this level of public life, is that you've been scrutinized plenty. And yeah, I think you have to be sure that you don't misrepresent yourself to the American people. I think that's fundamental. WOODRUFF: Is there any area of George Bush's life that you would hope the press would stay away from? Mr. BUSH: No, I've been thoroughly, exhaustively interviewed and examined, and whether it's the annual audit of the IRS -- I guess the President and I are the only two people -- I bet you don't get it done every year, Judy. You better hope you don't. Because it takes a lot of time. And I've had all that kind of scrutiny out there, so I think it's been pretty good. WOODRUFF: So your life is an open book. Mr. BUSH: Well, I guess in this line of work it has to be. WOODRUFF: Mr. Vice President, we thank you for being with us. MacNEIL: Still ahead on the NewsHour, the plight of a young doctor with AIDS, and a conversation with playwright David Mamet. Hazardous Duty MacNEIL: We have covered many aspects of the AIDS story on the NewsHour, but none more poignant than the story that is our next focus, the case of a doctor with AIDS. According to the Federal Centers for Disease Control, 12 health care workers and two laboratory researchers have been infected with the AIDS virus in the line of duty. An additional two dozen cases are being investigated. Because of concerns about confidentiality, these people have not been publicly identified. But one physician, claiming to have contracted AIDS on the job, broke his silence recently, filing a lawsuit against his former employer. We have a report by correspondent Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: The story begins here in 1983, in the bone marrow transplant unit of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. A young leukemia patient receiving massive transfusions begins to vomit blood. His doctors needs to know how much blood the boy is losing. Hacib Aoun remembers grabbing a thin crystal tube to run a test. Dr. Acib Aoun, Cardiologist: As I was performing the test, the capillary tube broke and went through my finger, and lacerated my finger, cut my finger. And I at the time got really scared, because of the possibility of hepatitis from the patient, or the possibility of ending up with leukemia like the patient, or one of the other infections which he was having. But of course, AIDS at the time was not even a remote possibility, because not even the virus had been discovered in 1983, in February of 1983.

HOLMAN: In March, the boy with leukemia died. And Dr. Aoun developed a puzzling illness. His medical records document it: fever, fatigue, a rash, glands that were swollen for months. The diagnosis: an unnamed virus. But by June of 1983, Aoun had recovered. The native of Venezuela resumed his 70 hour work week, and continued to rise through the ranks at Johns Hopkins, becoming a chief resident and instructor at the hospital. In 1985, he married a Hopkins intern. The following year, Patricia Aoun gave birth to a daughter. Last fall, at age 31, Hacib Aoun was seriously ill, suffering from extreme fatigue and sudden weight loss. Last Christmas eve there was a definite diagnosis, infection with the human immune deficiency virus, the virus that causes AIDS. Dr. AOUN: (unintelligible) was a disaster. We several times went asking for advice about treatment, about testing Patricia. Patricia's test was negative. And that has been the only good news that we have had in seven months, I can tell you that. We -- there was a lot of confusion around the time, because I was in no risk group at all, I had never been transfused, never been a homosexual, never been an IV drug abuser, never been a promiscuous person.

HOLMAN: Aoun says the only risk factor for AIDS that he can recall was the 1983 accident. On a hunch, his physician, who works at the University of Maryland cancer center, obtained a sample of the leukemia patient's blood, blood that Hopkins had saved routinely for research. Test results from the Maryland State Health Department were unequivocal -- strongly positive for AIDS. Aoun was convinced he'd been infected by the leukemia patient's blood, blood that had been contaminated by a transfusion. It was the beginning of a chain of events that led to Aoun's filing in June a $35 million lawsuit against Johns Hopkins Hospital and University. (to Aoun) Do you blame Johns Hopkins for contracting this illness? Dr. AOUN: No. And it's important to tell you that, because the lawsuit is not about having contracted AIDS at Johns Hopkins. No, we cannot blame them for that. The issue is telling Johns Hopkins that what they did after they knew was wrong. The slandering, the trying to just push us away, breaching confidentiality, that we blame them for.

HOLMAN: Dr. Aoun says when he told officials here at Johns Hopkins Hospital that he had contracted AIDS related complex, they promised their full support, confidentiality about his disease, a job as instructor in the cardiology department, and financial support for his wife and child if he should die from AIDS. Aoun says confidentiality was the first promise to be broken. He says his boss, Dr. Kenneth Baughman, assistant dean at Hopkins, assured him his identity would be kept secret. Dr. AOUN: Because who's going to employ you once you know that you are infected, or once other people know that you're infected.

HOLMAN: But Aoun says Baughman, Aoun's collaborator on several research projects, revealed his name to Hopkins administrators and lawyers. Dr. Baughman is a codefendant, along with Hopkins in Aoun's lawsuit. So is Dr. John Stobo, the hospital's director of medicine, and another mentor from whom Aoun sought help. Dr. AOUN: I think it was March 27. Dr. Stobo, the chairman, sat down with several chief residents and plain told them, ''Well, Hacib Aoun has AIDS. ''

HOLMAN: Johns Hopkins officials say top administrators had to be told of Dr. Aoun's condition in order to arrange financial help for him. Dr. Theodore King, hospital vice president, also said staff doctors had to be told that one of their colleagues had acquired AIDS. Dr. THEODORE KING, Johns Hopkins Hospital: Certainly if you had someone within your department acquire AIDS in this manner, you'd be irresponsible if you didn't bring it to the attention that there is a problem with acquiring AIDS when we care for our patients.

HOLMAN: Dr. King insists those disclosures alone do not constitute a breach of confidentiality. But Aoun and his wife say news of his illness spread quickly. Dr. PATRICIA AOUN: We got a call from a reporter from the Baltimore Sun who had information concerning my husband's illness. They wanted to write a story about it. And -- Dr. AOUN: Look, medical students knew, (unintelligible) house officers knew -- HOLMAN: (to King) Who broke the confidentiality? Dr. KING: I would have no idea. And your question assumes that confidentiality was broken. I don't think it became common knowledge among general people within the hospital community. I think it became knowledgeable to people who were immediately involved in certain areas of medicine department, including the cardiology service.

HOLMAN: The Chairman of the American Medical Association takes a stricter view of confidentiality. Dr. Alan Nelson says knowledge that a physician has AIDS should be severely limited. Dr. ALAN NELSON, AMA: I think that physicians with AIDS should be afforded the same rights to confidentiality as any other patient with AIDS, should be afforded the same opportunity to make a living as anyone else, understanding that casual contact doesn't transmit that disease. And a physician who has positive AIDS antibody tests, assuming that there's no risk whatever to patients, should not be discriminated against and identified.

HOLMAN: According to Aoun, as news about his disease spread, so did rumors about how he contracted it. He says Hopkins officials openly suggested he was bisexual, or promiscuous, leaving him bewildered and angry. Aoun is suing the institution for slander and liable. Johns Hopkins officials firmly deny all of Dr. Aoun's charges. Dr. AOUN: You know, I have been an individual of unquestionable conduct up to this time, and (unintelligible) and the lawyers decided -- or somebody up there decided -- that I wasn't it anymore, I was somebody else. Dr. DAVID GLASER, Johns Hopkins Graduate: His reputation became gone -- he just lost his reputation entirely.

HOLMAN: Denver physician David Glaser is a recent graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School, and a friend and former student of Aoun's. Dr. GLASER: Despite the size of Hopkins, it's a pretty small community in some ways, and the word, I think, had permeated pretty much the entire hospital, especially since AIDS is such a sort of feared or easily gossiped subject anyway.

HOLMAN: Johns Hopkins officials initially challenged Dr. Aoun's account of how he got AIDS, questioning the accuracy of the AIDS test performed on the leukemia patient's blood. They now say his story is probably true, but they say the more important issue is how he should be compensated. Aoun's attorney, Marvin Ellin, agrees, but says from the start the hospital lost sight of its basic obligation. MARVIN ELLIN, Aoun's attorney: They have been less -- I think -- than forthright in dealing head on with the problem that exists here, and that is a physician who has contracted a fatal illness while trying to help a patient. He wanted to continue to work. He wanted the assurance that when he dies that there would be certain death benefits for his widow. It must be remembered that he contracted this disease in the course of his employment.

HOLMAN: At the time of his diagnosis, Dr. Aoun was doing heart valve research in this Hopkins cardiac unit. But Aoun says he didn't want to run even the smallest risk of passing the AIDS virus to a patient, so he asked his department chairman for another job. Instead, says Aoun, he was told to see hospital and university lawyers about going on workmen's compensation. Dr. AOUN: I didn't even know what the workmen's compensation was all about, so I asked the doctor what it would amount to, and basically it came back to be something really terrible. And I asked him, ''Do you think that's fair?''

HOLMAN: That Dr. Aoun lacked job security and life insurance is not unusual. Nationwide, doctors in training typically have one year contracts, Forty percent of teaching hospitals do not provide full disability coverage for house staff. Thirty percent do not pay the full cost of life insurance. The Association of American Medical Colleges says it may be time to reconsider benefit policies. Dr. AUGUST SWANSON, Asso. of American Medical Colleges: Even though the possibility of contracting AIDS in the workplace is small if one follows usual precautions, the severity of the disability if AIDS is contracted is such that institutions need to review those policies, both disability and perhaps life insurance benefits as well. Dr. GLASER: I think they have to show support, because this is something that could easily happen again. More and more patients are coming in with the AIDS virus, and there's blood exposure all the time to physicians, to nurses, to all health care professionals. And certainly you shouldn't have to face the prospect of losing your job, losing your reputation, losing all your benefits. Dr. AOUN: The things that were being requested were very basic. Keep my wife and baby, life insurance. This gave me peace of mind. And give me a job. I need to work. I'll work until the day I have to go into the hospital. Because that's my nature. That's all I have done all my life.

HOLMAN: Negotiations between Dr. Aoun and officials here at Johns Hopkins proceeded haltingly. Aoun says that at one time he was offered a job, but no payment to his family if he died. At another time, he was offered the payment, but no job. Dr. KING: I truly believe everyone wanted to prepare something for Dr. Aoun that he and his wife would find acceptable for themselves as well as for their baby. And truly, the institutions were making all efforts to arrive at such a package. It is unfortunate that it wasn't worked out. HOLMAN: (to the Aouns) They say the whole case is about money. How does that statement strike you? Dr. PATRICIA AOUN: If my husband could have his health and his reputation and the last eight months of his life back, they could keep their money. It's not a question of money. It's a question of human dignity. Dr. AOUN: There has to be something good that comes out of all of this, that a hope that we're slowly, little by little, passing the message to our health workers, take care. And even if you take care, be sure that you're protected economically. And do not ever -- because these patients need you -- push them aside, no matter how afraid you are of the illness. Do not -- now, I'm one of those patients, and I wouldn't want to be left by myself in a room with the nurses not wanting to come in contact with me or the house officer, because I have the infection. Because next time it could be them. And because that's what medicine is about, it's about taking care of people, and it's about taking care of the people that need you the most, and these patients are the people that nowadays in the 1980s need you the most. MacNEIL: A postscript, Dr. Aoun has been hospitalized twice in the last month. He's now back at home, receiving intravenous medication. Citing the tenuous nature of Aoun's health, the doctor's lawyer petitioned the Baltimore Circuit Court for an early trial date. The presiding judge agreed, and the trial will begin in early January. For more on the fear AIDS is causing in the medical community, we turn to Patricia Neighmond, a reporter who has covered the AIDS problem extensively for National Public Radio. Patricia, we know what AIDS is doing to society in general. What kind of a problem is it now inside the medical profession? PATRICIA NEIGHMOND, National Public Radio: Well, it' a problem that is growing inside the medical profession, particularly now that two years ago there were a number of AIDS patients that physicians and hospitals were treating for the first time. Today, not only are there numbers of AIDS patients, but there are growing numbers of people who are infected with the virus. So for sheer numbers, there are more people that are coming to hospitals and coming into doctors' offices for the first time that have the virus. Doctors are afraid. It's a problem I think that doctors are not particularly proud of. I think there's some embarrassment in the community as evidenced by our difficulty getting physicians and surgeons to speak with us about this concern and this fear. They wouldn't want to go on tape, and they didn't want to talk to us about it -- at least identified, they didn't want to speak -- MacNEIL: But you got quite a few to talk off the record -- Ms. NEIGHMOND: Yes, we did. MacNEIL: Yes, without being named. Some quite prominent surgeons have said -- for instance, a famous heart surgeon -- said that he will not operate on AIDS patients, and made no bones about it. How widespread is that? Is there any sense of how many doctors are just refusing to treat AIDS patients? Ms. NEIGHMOND: Well, it's unclear exactly how many are refusing to treat AIDS patients. We don't really know that. But what we do know are anecdotal reports from a growing number of physicians who treat mostly AIDS patients. They tell us that they have had difficulty getting surgeons to operate. One doctor says it's common for him to go through four or five surgeons before he'll find one willing to operate on one of his patients. Another doctors says it's difficult for them even to get surgeons to agree to consultations to discuss whether an operation needs to be done. They will very often be waiting a week or two before the surgeon will actually discuss the operation with them, and then very often doctors say the surgeon would delay the operation, recommend perhaps drug therapy or they'll say perhaps the patient needs to quit smoking. They might recommend a number of other therapies before they will operate. Eventually they will operate, but doctors say that it is -- that they are convinced that the surgeons would operate within minutes if this person was not positive for the virus, or did not have AIDS. MacNEIL: So they're just dissembling in other words -- and finding other reasons -- Are AIDS patients getting bounced around from one doctor to another? Have difficulty finding a doctor who will treat them? Ms. NEIGHMOND: I think a number of them are, but they're not that aware of it. The doctors who treat mostly AIDS patients say that they will go through numbers of surgeons and they will try to seek medical care for their patients, but they very often don't tell the patient this. They don't let them know -- MacNEIL: Is it only surgeons who are refusing, or is it people -- in other words, people who don't have to cut and produce blood as part of what they do? Is it other parts of the business? Ms. NEIGHMOND: Well, there are less reports from physicians. I mean, AIDS doctors say that they are far less at risk. I mean, they simply examine patients and they do not come in direct contact with blood or bodily fluids. Dentists are refusing to care for patients in large numbers. They are regularly exposed to blood and bodily fluids in the course of very, very informal and typical examinations. MacNEIL: Realistically, for those -- the young doctor there in Denver said in that report that there's blood exposure all the time. In that situation, how high is the risk of a doctor catching AIDS? Ms. NEIGHMOND: The Federal Centers for Disease Control -- I asked them the same question, and they will not give odds for one in a million, or one in five hundred. There have been estimates by other sources that the average person faces a risk of one in a million; for health care workers who come in direct contact with blood and bodily fluids that that risk contracts to perhaps one in five hundred. If you are you one of those doctors who is that one, it's indeed a great risk. But nonetheless, there's no way really to measure the risk, the government -- MacNEIL: What special precautions are they taking to protect themselves? Ms. NEIGHMOND: Well, they're taking the precautions that he government recommends. The government recommends gloves when they come into direct contact with blood or bodily fluids. They recommend wearing a mask and goggles and a gown when there's a likelihood that they blood may splash or splatter. In certain situations, surgeons may wear rubber gloves. They may choose to not be handed sharp instruments by an assistant. They may pick up those instruments themselves, therefore lessening the likelihood of a puncture or a cut to their hands as they're operating. But there is only a limited amount of protection a surgeon -- MacNEIL: Let's talk about the ethical side of this finally -- it's -- for most of us on the outside, it seems to go against what we understand medical ethics to be for a doctor to refuse a patient in need. How is the profession dealing with that? Ms. NEIGHMOND: As of now, the medical societies -- none of them have come forward with a policy specifically recommending guidance for doctors in treating AIDS patients. They will say -- the American Medical Association says the doctors have the right to refuse treatment, especially if they consider that they cannot treat the specific diseases associated with AIDS. They will tell them that if they feel they need to be treated by a specialist that they can therefore refuse treatment. The College of Surgeons is now apparently developing a policy, but has not come forward with one. There are a number of doctors who feel they would like to see the Society come up with a specific policy. MacNEIL: Well, Patricia Neighmond, thank you very much for joining us. David Mamet LEHRER: Finally tonight, a conversation with David Mamet, the writer who creates dialogue that jumps and crackles. He writes it as a playwright in plays that include the 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner Glengarry Glen Ross. He writes it as a screenwriter in movies like this summer's big hit, The Untouchables.

film clip from [The Untouchables] ROBERT DeNIRO: I'm gonna tell you something. Somebody messes with me, I'm gonna mess with him. Somebody steals from me, I'm gonna say, ''You stole. '' Not talk to him for spittin' on the sidewalk. You understand? Now, I have done nothing to hurt these people. But they're angered at me, so what do they do? Doctor up some income tax. For which they got no case. To annoy me. D'they speak to me like men? No. To harass a peaceful man. I pray to god that if I ever had a grievance, I would have just a little more self respect. LEHRER: Now he's done it both as a screen director and writer in the just released movie, House of Games.

[film clip from House of Games] LEHRER: Our conversation was about the differences for him between movies and plays, among other things. (to Mamet) You seem to be very excited about making movies. Why? DAVID MAMET, writer: When I started off in theatre about approximately 20 years ago, you could get together and you could do theatre in the church basement, you could do it literally with no money. And I came to New York and off off Broadway was in flower, and again people got together and said, ''What about this?'' and went over to a church or a community center, and the next week it was on. And those times, at least people in my generation, seem to have gone for a number of reasons. One is that real estate in the big city has gotten so expensive, theatre's gotten so expensive. The other is that people who were 20 when I was 20 are now 40 when I'm 40, and it's tough to assemble a cast of friends of yours to work cheaply and quickly, because they're all off paying their mortgages just like I am. So that movies, one of the many reasons I'm excited about movies is it gives me an opportunity to get together and work time after time with the people who I'd been working with before. LEHRER: But you're one of this country's leading playwrights. You're not suggesting that you have trouble getting people to do your plays, are you? Mr. MAMET: No, it's not that so much. Well, for example, I had my own theatre company in Chicago for a number of years, and I would put on five plays by me in the course of a year. Nobody in Chicago or anywhere else for that matter wants to see if I could write that many plays anymore, wants to see that many plays by me. My interests have changed over the years, and I would rather now spend three and four years working on a very, very closely structured traditional play -- it takes a long time to write -- rather than dash off a bunch of episodic plays. So what am I going to do in the interim? So movies are a wonderful thing. LEHRER: Why? Why are they wonderful? Mr. MAMET: Well, you get to work with your friends. You get to appeal to a broad audience. The theatrical audience -- at least people in my generation -- seem to be shrinking year by year. Theatre is really -- a healthy theatre is really an outgrowth of a community, just like a healthy church. The church is only -- the church is made up of theological principles which are passed down from generation to generation. And the congregation which is fixed and which cares about each other enough to apply those principles to each other. It's the same with the theatre. You don't job in a church to talk to the congregation, and you don't job in a theatre to talk to a community. A theatre must be an organic outgrowth of the community, because all a theatre is, is people talking to themselves about themselves. New York has become a city of transients, and so what has been traditionally the hub of American theatre really is no longer, although there is still theatre here, because the theatre now in New York caters to transients. There isn't a theatrical -- there isn't a community of playgoers in New York as there was fifteen years ago. But there is a community in this country of movie goers. As a country, we go to the movies, and they are our theatre. LEHRER: Somebody sitting in Texas and Illinois and New York and California, they're all going to see the same movie on the same night, and that ties them together? Mr. MAMET: That's right. Sure. Because the movies are a huge conglomerate, which is elected by the -- if you want to take a Darwinian view, it's elected by the country at large to talk to the country at large. Every time we buy a ticket, we cast our vote in a very, very real way for the people that we want to see next. LEHRER: All right. You did the Untouchables, you were the screenwriter for that. What's it like just to be the screenwriter? Mr. MAMET: It's like, it's like being somebody's aunt, you know? Being an aunt is -- it's not a very responsible position. You want to go out there and be the best aunt you can. Nobody cares much. And that's what it's like -- LEHRER: Did you feel valued as a writer in Hollywood around movie people, just as a writer? Mr. MAMET: No, there's a tradition in -- I was treated, and am treated to this day exceedingly well by -- for a screenwriter by Hollywood standards, which is to say badly. LEHRER: Badly? Mr. MAMET: Yeah. LEHRER: Describe what badly means as far as being treated as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Mr. MAMET: Well, in the theatre, the playwright is kind of (unintelligible). The playwright traditionally chooses the director and through that the cast. And influences what happens in all aspects of production. Which is kind of nice if you're the playwright. And then to go from there to being a screenwriter, as Scott Fitzgerald says, they treat you like a secretary -- the only difference being that they call you 'sir,' because that's just not the tradition in Hollywood. The tradition in Hollywood is the director makes the movie, the star sells the movie, and if the screenwriter doesn't work, throw him out. Get another one. LEHRER: When did you decide you also wanted to try your hand at directing? Mr. MAMET: When I first went out there as a screenwriter, I think is the answer to that question (laughter). LEHRER: When you first were treated badly, because you realized that's where the power was if you really wanted to make a movie? Mr. MAMET: It wasn't that I was treated badly, it's just that I wanted to be able to take things on to their logical conclusion. LEHRER: I got you. Mr. MAMET: Like if you ever worked with an architect or a designer or something like that, there comes a time when you take the architect's, the designer's plans and you say, ''That's great, but I think I would rather like the walls striped rather than solid color,'' and you see this look in their eyes, these people whom you've hired. It says, ''This man doesn't know what he's doing. This man is wasting his money. If he wants to get my advice, why doesn't he follow it through the whole way?'' Which is kind of what it's like being a screenwriter. LEHRER: And now you've done House of Games, which you not only wrote, but you also directed. It's your movie, isn't it? Mr. MAMET: Well, it's my movie to the extent -- somebody -- Andrew Saris on the Village Voice made up this theory years ago called the Auteur Theory, which as far as I can determine means that he director is the author of the movie. I don't think the director -- having been a screenwriter for a number of years -- I don't think the director is the author of the movie. He is on the other hand the director of the movie. And this movie that I just did, House of Games, I did both, and I really enjoyed it. LEHRER: The -- whether it's House of Games, The Untouchables, many of your plays, particularly Glengarry Glen Ross, there is always -- there's something in there about business -- that crime, con, whatever, is the American way of business. Do you really believe that? Or is that just something that your characters -- explain that to me. Is that --? Mr. MAMET: Well, I think that there is a lot of fraud in America -- there's probably a lot of fraud in every country's business, or sharp practice, anyway. I happen to be an American, so it's the only country I know anything about. I think that when times get hard as they are now, people become frightened, and it becomes more difficult for them to be -- some people -- to be ethical. I think everybody at any time when faced with the possibility of getting something for nothing is tested, and I think when people are frightened, or people are worried, that sometimes they don't pass the test so well. I think that's certainly the case in America now. LEHRER: I get the impression in House of Games that your con men were essentially saying, ''Hey, look, we're just playing by the rules. We're playing the same rules that --'' they didn't say it, but the implication was that General Motors -- fill in the blank -- were also playing. Is that a correct reading of what you're saying in a lot of these things? Mr. MAMET: Yes. Which is not to say that I espouse that view. I once worked in a fraudulent land sales organization -- I was very young -- and I was faced with two choices, either get over your scruples, or get out of the job. And at that point I got off my scruples, and I did what was a job of questionable legality in selling bad land over the phone to people who could ill afford it. And what happened to me, I remember, as I'm sure what happens to most criminals, is they'd say, ''Well, these fools, they deserve whatever happens to them. '' It's a way of protecting yourself. LEHRER: When you sit down to write something, do you sit down to write with a theme in mind, or with people in mind, or where do the germs usually come from? Mr. MAMET: Well, I get my ideas the same way as anybody else. You know, everybody walks down the street talking to themselves. They say, ''If I could just go back there again, what I'd say to that son of a gun,'' or ''You know what happened to that guy who won the lottery? Boy, if I won the lottery,'' etc. So I think we all have a very -- I know we all have a very active fantasy life. And being a writer, or being maybe any kind of artist, I don't know, is just being aware of it, is not discarding that idea: What if -- LEHRER: Are you nervous about how House of Games is going to be received, whether it's going to be a (quote) successful movie? Mr. MAMET: Oh, sure, one is always nervous. It -- the interesting thing to me is it doesn't make any difference if you're doing a reading in a church basement that you just rehearsed that afternoon, or putting a play up on Broadway, people -- I'm one of them -- like to be liked and love to be loved. LEHRER: If you don't care about it, it would be hard to do, wouldn't it? Mr. MAMET: Yeah, one cares very, very deeply -- of course, over the years, you develop a certain protective way of dealing with criticism. LEHRER: How do you deal with it? Mr. MAMET: I swear quite a bit at bad reviews. I make up speeches about -- I have this fantasy -- there's a couple of critics in New York, who -- if people would write to you care of this address, I'll be glad to give you the names, and also some of the speeches, as a matter of fact. And I have -- see, this is my fantasy -- but somebody doesn't know what I think about these swine, and that I'm invited to introduce them at a Rotary luncheon or something like that. So that's one of my fantasies, I'm going to write that speech. That's one way of dealing with criticism (laughter). LEHRER: If you and I sit down five years from now, what would you like -- and we're talking only, say, we can't talk about anything that happened before right now, what would you hope that we would be talking about? Mr. MAMET: That's a very good question. Maybe -- I'd like to start another theatre company. So I would hope that perhaps we'd be talking about that. I love teaching, and I love directing, and working with the same people time after time after time. And the nice thing about working in theatre and movies is that you can just flip flop from one to the other and the change is not only as good as a rest, but better than a rest. So I'd like to start in a few years flip flopping my energies back into working on -- where in a theatre, it's as I say, can't write all the time -- what I'd like to do is direct and teach in the theatre. LEHRER: And maybe a couple or three more movies, too, in the -- Mr. MAMET: A little bit can't hurt, right? LEHRER: Sure. That's what they say. David Mamet, thank you very much. Recap MacNEIL: Finally, another look at the main points in the news. President Reagan said he'd like a Senate vote on the Bork nomination this week. Debate could start Wednesday, with a vote Thursday. Vice President Bush officially became a presidential candidate. Hurricane Floyd hit Southern Florida. And the Minnesota Twins won the American League play off by beating the Detroit Tigers nine to five. Good night, Jim. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.