The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, there were more violent protests by Palestinians in the occupied territories in Jordan. Pres. Bush appeared ready to extend most favored trading status to China. The House passed a far reaching bill to protect the rights of disabled Americans. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, we preview the Senate debate on banning the sale of assault weapons [FOCUS - NEW ASSAULT] with Senators DeConcini and Hatch. Then Part 2 of our series on a dividing Canada [SERIES - CANADA DIVIDED]. Robert MacNeil interviews the premier of Newfoundland. We have a report on the ever moving football team named the Raiders [FOCUS - RAIDERS' RETURN?] and we close with our Tuesday night essay on the works of artist named Matisse [ESSAY - MUSE OF MOROCCO]. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Violent protest continued in Israel and Jordan today in the aftermath of Sunday's massacre of seven Arabs by an Israeli gunman. In Arab East Jerusalem, hundreds of demonstrators, mostly Palestinian women, clashed with Israeli police outside the U.S. Consulate. Arab members of Israel's parliament called the police action brutal and unnecessary. There were other violent clashes in the occupied territories and in neighboring Jordan. We have a report narrated by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

MS. BATES: Violence and bloodshed are the price Palestinians and Israelis have paid since Sunday's ruthless act when an Israeli gunman shot to death seven unarmed Arab laborers. Troops firing on Palestinian stone throwers protesting against the murders have left 12 Arabs dead and more than 800 wounded. Israeli police also tear gas to break up themassive demonstrations. The army extended a curfew on the Gaza Strip, home of the murdered Palestinians, as well as most of the West Bank, to keep protesters off the streets. Throughout the area Palestinians closed shops and refused to go to work in Israel. Hundreds of thousands broke the curfew. In Jordan, thousands of Palestinian refugees are furious over the massacre. Clashes with the Jordanian police left at least two people dead and dozens more injured. The violence is among the worst yet seen since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in 1987.

MR. MacNeil: U.S. officials renewed their call for Israeli- Palestinian peace talks. State Department Spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the United States believes that the absence of a peace process contributes to violence in the Middle East. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Pres. Bush has decided to extend most favored nation trade status to China. Republican Congressional leaders said that was the indication they got during a breakfast meeting with Mr. Bush at the White House today. They said Mr. Bush hinted he would announce a one year extension later this week. That brought sharp criticism from Senate Democratic leader George Mitchell. He said it sent the wrong message to China one year after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

SEN. GEORGE MITCHELL, Majority Leader: Should we, by now giving the Chinese government what it wants casually adopt the Chinese government's casual dismissal of our concerns? I say we should not. We should not because it is contrary to our principles, contrary to American interests, and wrong.

MR. LEHRER: One of the Republican participants at today's White House meeting disagreed. Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island was asked by reporters if the United States had responded properly to China's behavior.

SEN. JOHN CHAFEE, [R] Rhode Island: I think we have properly expressed our outrage, and the question is when you've got a country that has a history of xenophobia like China does, the way to treat it is to break off all relations or to continue to try to achieve the goals that we believe in, and I think to cut us all off would make a great mistake.

MR. LEHRER: The President's decision will affect the price of about $12 billion in annual exports from China.

MR. MacNeil: The Soviet Union took a step towards a radical change in its economy today. Soviet Pres. Gorbachev's senior advisers approved a new program that would implement a market economy over five years. If approved by parliament, the program would double food prices. Also today the breakaway republic of Lithuania announced major power cuts because of the Soviet fuel embargo. Starting Friday, the government will cut off electricity to factories and hot water to homes. Only essential services like hospitals will continue to receive power.

MR. LEHRER: The President-elect of Romania offered today to form a coalition government with the two defeated parties, but opposition leaders said no thanks, one saying he planned to challenge the results. Official election returns showed interim President Ian Iliescu received nearly 86 percent of Sunday's vote. It was the first democratic election in Romania in 50 years. Hungary's newly elected premier said today he will lead his country out of the Warsaw Pact. Joseph Antal called for negotiations with the Soviet Union and the five other Pact nations about to withdraw. He said he hoped Hungary would join the European community in the next decade.

MR. MacNeil: In India, several hundred thousand mourners turned out today for the funeral of the chief Muslim religious leader of the Northern state of Kashmir. He was killed yesterday by unidentified gunmen. Government security forces in the capital city, Srinigar, stayed away from today's funeral. At least 47 people were killed yesterday when troops and demonstrators clashed. The countries of North and South Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula reunited today after 300 years of separation. The new red, white, and black flag was raised at midday ceremonies. South Yemen was the Arab world's only Marxist state, while North Yemen was pro-Western. The new state, known as the Republic of Yemen, ranks among the world's poorest.

MR. LEHRER: The House of Representatives today passed a civil rights bill for the disabled. The vote was 403 to 20 for the bill that protects against job discrimination. It also guarantees access to public accommodations, transportation and telecommunications. Negotiators still have to iron out differences with a similar bill passed by the Senate last fall.

MR. MacNeil: The National Transportation Safety Board today recommended restraint seats for children traveling on airplanes. The plan would require safety seats for all children who weigh less than 40 pounds or are shorter than 40 inches tall. Members of the Flight Attendants Union welcomed the move. A spokesman said child restraints are necessary for thousands of children who fly on commercial flights every day.

FIDEL GONZALES, Association of Flight Attendants: We don't have to have a crash to have a child be a flying object. It's pointed out that turbulence is a very significant everyday occurrence in the airline, yet a flight attendant has nothing to work with and that flight attendant has to instruct the parent to hold the child on the lap basically because this is what the airlines have been teaching them.

MR. MacNeil: The proposal must still be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. That's our summary of the news. Now it's on to the new crime bill, Part 2 of our series, Canada Divided, and a football team on the move and an essay on Matisse. FOCUS - NEW ASSAULT

MR. LEHRER: Assault weapons is where we go first tonight. Banning their manufacture and sale is a key part of an anti crime bill on which debate opened this afternoon in the U.S. Senate. We will have our own debate after reprise of an earlier backgrounder by Roger Mudd.

MR. MUDD: It was the killing of the 5 children and wounding of 29 in a Stockton, California school yard just over a year ago that generated intense political pressure on President Bush.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I am very concerned about this. I would like to find a way to do something about this and we are going to take a hard look to see what we can do about it if anything that would be helpful.

MR. MUDD: He responded last summer by banning permanently the import of 43 types of foreign made semi automatic weapons. From AK47 made in China to the Uzi made in Israel. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire Arms claimed that none of the 43 models had any legitimate sporting purpose. However the Bush ban did not touch American made semi automatics. The BATF has no authority on domestically made weapons. To reach them Democratic Senate DeConcini of Arizona broke with his gun lobby supporters to introduce Senate Bill 747 prohibiting the future sale, transfer, receipt or possession of at least 5 American made semi automatics. Current owners could still keep and continue to sell their guns.

SEN. DECONCINI: My feeling is that there is a time and a place to try whatever might work against this drug problem.

MR. MUDD: Weapons covered by the Deconcini Bill include the Mac 10, a nine millimeter rifle current price about $400, the Mac 11 a cheaper version of the Mac 10 $350. The Street sweeper a 12 gauge shot gun priced about $600. The Striker 12 similar but more expensive than the Street Sweeper price $850. The Tech 9 a nine millimeter pistol price about $300. The colt rifle Ar 15 and the Colt Carbine the CAR 15 both selling for about $1200. In addition to outlawing those weapons DeConcine also proposes a ten year sentence for using them in a violent or drug related crime. So the battle lines over gun control have been drawn once again. One side is Hand Gun Control Incorporated, a hand gun lobby headed by the skilled Sara Brady whose husband Jim Brady became a hand gun victim during the 1981 Reagan assassination attempt.

MR. BRADY: I had no choice but to be here today because of too many members of Congress have been gutless on this issue. I think another member said they have been afraid to take on the National Rifle Association. They have closed their eyes to the tragedies like mine, ignored the statistics. Well this statistic has decided to break his silence.

MR. MUDD: Much of the debate over Deconcini's Bill has turned on the difference between a semi automatic military assault weapons favored by criminals and a semi automatic hunting rifle favored by sportsmen.

MRS. BRADY: Well we thank you for taking the time to see us.

MR. MUDD: Sara Brady lobbying Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon says the difference is a deadly one.

MRS. BRADY: The Deconcini Bill talks about this particular group of guns which is as you can see assault weapons which are not the type of guns.

SEN. HATFIELD: Street Sweeper.

MRS. BRADY: Have you ever seen one of your Oregon Hunters with a Street Sweeper. These are not hunting rifles.

SEN. HATFIELD: It would puree a deer before you could skin it.

MRS. BRADY: Exactly.

SEN. HATFIELD: I don't like hair in my meat.

MR. MUDD: Maryland Gun Dealer Sandy Abrams claims the difference is not so much deadly as it is cosmetic.

MR. ABRAMS: The only difference between this semi automatic hunting rifle and what the media has been calling an assault rifle is basically cosmetics. Plastic horn. pistol grip, combat. Simply cosmetics. They are the same caliber, the same rate of fire, the same velocity. The bullet will go no faster from this gun than this gun they are exactly the same. This gun is importable this gun has been banned.

MR. MUDD: The Administration calls the Deconcini Gun Section burdensome. It prefers simply banning ammunition clips holding more than 15 rounds. later tonight the Senate is expected to vote on removing the Deconcini Language altogether this isolating the gun control issue from the rest of the Crime Bill. The outcome is too close to call.

MR. LEHRER: Now to two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who come down on opposite sides on this assault weapons issue. Senator Deconcini, Democrat of Arizona the Author of the Proposed semi automatic weapons ban and Senator Orrin Hatch who is a Republican from Utah. They both joins us from studios on Capitol Hill. Senator Deconcini what is the evidence that if your Bill or your provision were enacted there would be an effect on crime?

SEN. DECONCINI: Well that is a very good question and there is no assurance whatsoever. That is why the Bill is carefully crafted. It has a sunset clause in it. It mandates an eighteen month study to see the effectiveness of banning these nine weapons. Four of them domestic guns that are not banned under the President's ban now to see what effects that would have. It seems to me not unreasonable on any Second Amendment rights of any individual to try to do everything you can to attack the problem and go after these guns. Only 1 percent of the 200 million guns that are owned by the Americans and these semi automatic weapons and yet in violent and drug crimes 20 percent of the weapons end up being these kind of weapons and my Bill goes after these weapons that are the weapons of choice of drug dealers.

MR. LEHRER: Senator Hatch do you dispute those statistics?

SEN. HATCH: Well the only citizens in my opinion that are going to be hurt by this Bill are law abiding sportsman citizens. The criminals will still be able to get these weapons and will still be able to use them. As a matter of fact they are not going to comply with the section 43 registration requirements of the particular bill and therefore the people who are going to have to suffer from this kind of Bill are decent American sports people.

MR. LEHRER: Yes we will get to that. My question is do you dispute Senator Deconcini's statistics of the one percent and 20 percent?

SEN. HATCH: I dispute the 20 percent. I think that the facts are it comes down to about 3 percent.

MR. LEHRER: Three percent Senator Deconcini?

SEN. DECONCINI: The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Fire Arms told me.

SEN. HATCH: That is what they told me.

SEN. DECONCINI: That isn't what they told me Orrin. The point is that these are the guns that they are confiscating now. These are the guns that the drug dealers are using now. You take this gun here is this a hunting rifle or hunting pistol whatsoever. There is no question that the Mac 11 is built for one reason and that is to kill people and these guns are bought. Some 80 percent of these guns are purchased from licensed dealers and those purchases are by the drug dealers because they send in a straw person to buy them. They like this gun it has a lot of firepower. Don't tell me that you can go hunting or even target practice with this type of weapon.

SEN. HATCH: Let's understand that law biding sports people use these to target shoot with. Some of them may use them to hunt with. The actions in those guns are identical in long weapons hunting semi automatic rifles. But more importantly if you look at the statistics of the confiscation of criminal weapons you will find that a small percentage of them are basically these type of guns. law biding citizens to buy these. Some of them collect them , some of them use it for target practice some of them use it for other legitimate sporting purposes. I would have to say I don't buy them but the fact is I don't see coming down hard on them is fair.

SEN. DECONCINI: Well it is important to know Orrin that we don't come down hard on any one who owns these weapons today.

SEN. HATCH: Sure you do. You require them to fill out this firm when they buy them when they transfer them.

SEN. DECONCINI: You don't have to deal with any regulatory agency or with the Federal Government. You go to any licensed gun dealer. If you don't have the form 4437 for this weapons that I have hear you mearly go to a licensed dealer with the weapon and he gives you one. And that is so any body who still wants to use it can use it. I don't know that is any infringement or any risk involved that the Federal Government might say I won't give you a form because I don't like you.

SEN. HATCH: If you don't have the form with the gun and if you don't have the form when you transfer it and you can't get the form from the guy that transfers it to you you are subject to a $1000 fine and up to six months in jail. Now that is how they get vicious about that.

SEN. DECONCINI: Is that asking too much to do something for the police of this country who are literally begging Congress to help them stop the use of these weapons. I think that it is worth any infringement that you may feel and I don't think there is any infringement. Besides it has a three year sunset clause. So if this doesn't work and you are right and it is not going to make a bit of difference other than keep you from buying a gun and you can already use the one if you have one. For three years it seems to me not any infringement on Second Amendment rights to help the police. They are asking for this. This isn't something I woke up one morning and said let's do this because it will be controversial.

SEN. HATCH: Not all the police are asking for it. The police leaders are asking for it but the rank and file are not. I think that it is important to point out that in the Fire Arm Protection Act that we passed several years ago. Both of us were strong supporters of that. We banned the use of a certain kind of automatic weapons. These are not automatic weapons. These are semi automatic weapons. You have to pull the trigger each time. They are hard to convert to automatic weapons and most of them, in fact all of them are owned by decent law abiding citizens and not used in crime.

SEN. DECONCINI: Yes and they can still own them and use them. It does not take any of these guns away or infringe on their rights.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you this question Senator Hatch the point that Senator Deconcini made. What would be the harm of at least seeing if this would have an effect on the use of these weapons in crimes. In other words to inconveniences a few sportsman a little bit what would be the crime if it happened to work?

SEN. HATCH: Well we found that the reason we passed this landmark bill called the Fire Arms Owners Protection Act a few years back and it was a monumental fight. The reason we passed that is because we found that sporting people all over this country were being abused by Government Officials who were requiring these forms and all of these other bureaucratic regulations that do rise up as a result of this type of legislation and then they become bits of fodder for the gun control group in this country to start pushing for more controls over law abiding sports people. So I think the reason a lot of law abiding sports people don't want this type of legislation is because they know it will lead to worse legislation. They know it will lead to more bureaucracy. They know it will lead to more unjust law suits and litigation and cost to them and attorneys fees and it will be abused that it the reason. You can have a lot of abuse in three years. So there is no question about it.

MR. LEHRER: My question to you is that is a worse scenario than would be the problem of these guns falling in to the hands of criminals?

SEN. HATCH: That is right because the criminals are going to have them anyway. Why sock it to law abiding sports people because we don't use good law enforcement tactics to get rid of the criminals. And let me tell you. This is a large part of the Bill that is a big fight between one side of the Senate and the other side because one side is going very light on criminals and the other side wants to get tough on criminals. And I think this Bill is part of the light side let me tell you.

SEN. DECONCINI: But that is not how the budget or other processes work hear. You take the Bush Administration that says this is a burden to pass even the Deconcini proposal and yet what do they do. They ask for less BATF Agents to enforce the law. So you can't have it both ways. You can't be cutting the budget in law enforcement and saying we don't need any of this type of legislation that would limit temporarily these guns that drug dealers are using because we are going to do more enforcement. We are not doing more enforcement.

SEN. HATCH: I am just as critical of the Administration on those points as Senator Deconcini. That does not justify this type of legislation that become bureaucratic excess to hurt people who are decent law abiding citizens. We saw it before and that is why we went through that battle before and I don't want to do it again.

MR. LEHRER: Senator Hatch you saw on the tape what Jim Brady said. A high Official of the Baltimore Police Department said the same thing today that the National Rifle Association exerting political clout on you and others in the Senate that has caused this situation. Is that true?

SEN. HATCH: That is a bunch of bunk. You have some police leaders in this country who are not following the wishes of the rank and file police people.

SEN. DECONCINI: I don't think that is true.

SEN. HATCH: Let me just finish. Some of them are decent police people too. But let me just tell you that is bunk. I don't think in my case it makes to much difference whether the NRA wants it or not. I clearly led the fight for Mc Clure Volcker in the Senate and I saw thousands of decent law abiding citizens abused by the Federal Government. I didn't like and we put a stop to it. But we got tough on crime in that Bill. The one part of the Deconcini Amendment that I do like is the ten year criminal penalty. I think that is the way we should deal with it. let's get tough on the criminals. Let's not pick on the people who literally abide by the law.

MR. LEHRER: Senator Deconcini is the NRA the power behind the scenes on this?

SEN. DECONCINI: They certainly are the most effective lobby. They are not behind the scenes they are out in front with them. They have every right to do that. The problem with the NRA on this issue is that they are over looking their best allies. Somebody that they used to count on. The Police Associations in this country count on the NRA for tougher penalties for helping them fight drug dealers and other violent criminals and now the NRA is on the other side. Well what are they saying: Enforce more. You don't see the NRA up here pushing the ten year penalty for felons with such a weapon. You just see them up here opposing any trial basis.

SEN. HATCH: That is not fair. I think that the NRA has been up here pushing tougher penalties. They certainly have with me and I can tell you whether the NRA likes this or doesn't I have seen the practical application of these types of legislative pieces on the lives of sports people and frankly it is really offensive and we went a long way to resolve that with the Fire Arms Owners Protection Act and we got tough on crime in the process and it has worked very well and we don't need this legislation.

MR. LEHRER: Senator Deconcini how do you respond to Senator Hatch's major point this is an inconvenience to sportsmen and it will get out of hand and they will be abused?

SEN. DECONCINI: Because it does not set up with bureaucracies that regulate the issuance of the form 4437. Now if you buy any weapon from a licensed dealer you must fill out a form. That is now the gun controls that are Federal laws. You must fill out this form. If you don't fill out that form and you have one of these guns that are banned then you are going to be subject to penalty. If you are a law abiding citizen like Senator Hatch or I would be is you go down to any licensed dealer, not the government, not the bureaucracy. He gives you the form now how do you answer a bureaucracy from that. I want to answer another point. The Fraternal Order of Police, National Fraternal Order of Police says many of us sportsman and members of the NRA and we are concerned with the impact of your Bill but more importantly we are mindful ever increasing daily assault on ourselves and the innocent victims of America. That is what this is about. This Fraternal Organization of Police Organization has NRA members and they support this Bill.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Hatch.

SEN. HATCH: Well, let's just be honest about it. This bill isn't going to do anything to stop these type of weapons being obtained by the criminal elements in our society. And in that form --

SEN. DECONCINI: We don't know that. We don't know that.

SEN. HATCH: In that form that he's talking about, you can't just simply go down and get another form. You've got to have the form from the fellow who sold it to you.

SEN. DECONCINI: No, you don't, no, you don't.

SEN. HATCH: Well, you sure do. And frankly, it's just another way of abusing the second amendment rights of decent sports people in this country. I'm really concerned about that. I've seen it time after time and frankly why are we picking on the people who are decent in this country?

SEN. DECONCINI: The point is, Orrin --

SEN. HATCH: But it isn't going to do anything, it seems to me, to those who are criminals in this country.

SEN. DECONCINI: The point is we're not picking on those people because we let them keep their guns. All they have to do is get the form, not from the government. Who we're picking on are the drug dealers enhancing the penalty to 10 years and doing something, and if it doesn't work, if my friend from Utah's right and it doesn't work, in three years it disappears, and that's put in there just to overcome that argument.

MR. LEHRER: Speaking of disappearing, that's what we have to do tonight right now. Thank you, Senators both very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the Newshour, Part 2 of Canada Divided, the Raiders try going home again and a new look at Matisse. SERIES - CANADA DIVIDED

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight the second day of our special series Canada Divided. Canada is torn by new tensions between the English speaking majority and the French speaking province of Quebec. The dispute is over a constitutional amendment called The Meech Lake Accord, which gives Quebec the status of a distinct society within Canada. Quebec would also have a say in immigration policy and three of the nine seats on the Supreme Court. Like other provinces, it could opt out of federal social programs and could veto future constitutional changes. To make it binding, it's supposed to be adopted by June 23rd, but three provinces, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, are now demanding changes. That's seen as a betrayal by Quebec's premier, Robert Bourassa.

PREMIER ROBERT BOURASSA, Quebec: For 30 years, English Canada was saying that, what does Quebec want? When I was re-elected for the third time in '85, I said, you said, what does Quebec want, that's it, five things which you had offered to us before, my friends, so I'm not asking for the moon. I'm asking for things which had been offered to Quebec. And now after three years, after it had been ratified by all the premiers and the prime minister in a solemn ceremony in Ottawa, you said no, not all, but, you know, a good proportion of English Canadians, no way. So how do you feel we should react to that?

MR. MacNeil: The storm has caused some to predict that Canada will break up with parts wishing to join the United States. While that seems far fetched, the passion stirred up has thrown the future of a nation uniting two cultures and two languages into question. Tonight the view from Newfoundland. Newfoundland and Labrador is Canada's 10th province, the last to join and the poorest. Until 1949, the huge island off the Atlantic coast was still a British colony. Centuries before Columbus discovered America, the Vikings made settlements on Newfoundland. Now its tiny population, only 1/2 million, wants to build a modern economy on the traditional shipping, fishing, hunting and tourism. There are dreams of an offshore oil boom and industrialization. But for now, the province is plagued by high unemployment due to a fishing slump caused by in part by over fishing by big foreign trawlers. Newfoundland's coast is dotted by hundreds of small fishing villages. The fishing industry provides one of every four jobs in the province. It's the topic that consumes most people. When we asked one fisherman if he cared about Meech Lake, he asked, "Are there any fish in it?". There is resentment though at Meech Lake's recognition of Quebec as a distinct society.

CITIZEN: They're a distinct society too. We're all distinct, I guess, in our own way, so they shouldn't have any special privileges because they're a distinct society.

CITIZEN: We have over 700 fishing communities in this province, and every one of them to themselves they're distinct. I mean, they all speak different dialects. Some communities even have people that settled from parts of England and Ireland and Scotland and they even have two and three dialects in one community, so we consider ourselves very distinct when it comes to Canadians.

MR. MacNeil: "We're distinct too" is a line you hear over and over again in this province. The people here have a very strong Newfoundland identity.

CITIZEN: I'm strictly a Newfoundlander. There's not much here on Newfoundland but --

CITIZEN: Newfoundlander for us.

CITIZEN: Newfoundlander for us, but a close Canadian second.

MR. MacNeil: The people here generally defer to their politicians in political debates like Meech Lake.

CITIZEN: We don't know if it's fit to be eaten. That's what we say around here. It's only been in the last year or so that we've been hearing a few things about it. But all we're doing really, I suppose, most people, they don't understand what it's about but we're just going by our Premier. I mean, if he thinks it's not good for our country, I mean, for Newfoundland, well, you know, we're going to stick with him. Obviously he's a smarter person than we are. I mean, you know, I'm sure he's got better advisers, lawyers, and whatever. He knows loopholes that's in it.

MR. MacNeil: Newfoundland originally ratified the Meech Lake Accord, but a new premier, Clyde Wells, has reversed that, saying that the deal to keep Quebec happy weakens Canada's federal government, this at a time when Newfoundland needs the support of the federal social programs more than ever. I spoke with Premier Wells in the provincial capital of St. Johns. Premier Wells, thank you very much for joining us.

PREMIER CLYDE WELLS, Newfoundland: My pleasure.

MR. MacNeil: Put simply, why did Newfoundland rescind its ratification of Meech Lake?

PREMIER CLYDE WELLS, Newfoundland: Because the amendments to the Canadian constitution that would be brought about as a result of the implementation of Meech Lake were very much against the long-term interest of Newfoundland in that it would prevent effective Senate reform, which is very important to our future, and in that it would create a special legislative status for one province that no other province would have, and I think that this would be destabilizing for the long-term interest of the country and as well it would so limit or impair the ability of the federal government to expend funds that it may impair its ability to carry out its obligations under the constitution.

MR. MacNeil: Put in concrete terms, for a relatively poor province like Newfoundland with a small population needing the federal social programs, you would feel that the funding of those programs might be threatened if a large province like Quebec could opt out of them?

PREMIER WELLS: Yes. If a large province like Quebec than say Ontario, who could more easily carry on their own programs, chose to opt out of certain types of programs that the federal government might wish to implement to correct regional, economic or social disparities in the country, then the requirement that they pay large sums of cash to Ontario and Quebec would act as a deterrent to implement the programs at all.

MR. MacNeil: It would take money out of the federal kitty.

PREMIER WELLS: It would take money out of the federal kitty and just simply be handed over to say the larger provinces who would opt out and leave the smaller provinces without the ability to carry them out.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think Quebec has pushed the rest of Canada too far, particularly with reference to the bill making signs in English illegal?

PREMIER WELLS: I don't think that pushed Canada. That's of no concern to Newfoundland in the real sense. That had no bearing whatsoever on Newfoundland's position in this. It didn't, it wasn't a factor in it at all. It's caused a reaction in some parts of Canada, perhaps some of it amongst the people in Newfoundland as well that this was an example of the approach Quebec would take if they were accorded or affirmed a special legislative role, then approaches similar this would be taken and other provinces would react to that and then there'd be another reaction in Quebec and another reaction in the other provinces, but I don't think that it was the basis for the expression of concern. The problem with the Meech Lake Accord is that it reflects principles that are anathema to a true federal system, unless you operate on the principle that Quebec is one of two equal parts in the federal system, and the other equal part may be further subdivided into nine provinces if they're of a mind to do that, but what Meech Lake amendments represent, in fact, is a concept of a federal nation that has only two parts to it.

MR. MacNeil: Are your objections, since you're the only province that's rescinded its ratification, are your objections grave enough, fundamental enough, to risk the break up of Canada, in other words, to refuse to ratify, therefore, pushing Quebec out of the confederation?

PREMIER WELLS: Well, I disagree with the proposition that that's a consequence. But we have done what's right anyway, you see. We've said, if that's going to be, if those are the alternatives, accept the Meech Lake Accord as it is or risk a split in Canada, if those are the alternatives that the people of this province decide and we have provided for a referendum in the problem. But we have gone further. We've said no matter what the results of that referendum, if the majority ofthe people of this nation, in fact, want the Meech Lake Accord as it is, Newfoundland should not be able to stop it. So we've also provided for implementation of the accord if a national referendum approves it, no matter what the Newfoundland referendum does.

MR. MacNeil: If there were a national referendum, what do you think the result would be?

PREMIER WELLS: If there were a national referendum, my judgment of the attitudes at the moment are that they would reject the Meech Lake Accord as it is by perhaps more than 2/3 of the total population of the country. However, there would be a period of time leading up to the actual vote taking that would be a period of intense discussion and political debate, and attitudes may well change in the time, they may change one way or the other.

MR. MacNeil: Let's turn to the point that has caught people's attention in the United States, that is some prominent Canadian politicians saying if this doesn't work, if Quebec leaves, other parts of Canada would find themselves joining up with the United States, or drifting into the American embrace. Your fellow Atlantic Premier, Mr. Buchanan in Nova Scotia, said it recently. What is your reaction when you hear other Canadian politicians saying that?

PREMIER WELLS: I don't think that that's a prospect or a probability. It remains, of course, a possibility, but I don't think it is at all probable or I don't think it's in prospect at this stage. If for whatever reason Quebec chose to go on its own and no longer be a province of Canada, Canada could still function, the balance of Canada could still function. Alaska is not contiguous to the lower 48. Hawaii is a long distance away from the continental United States, so it is possible to function in that way. It would be a lot more difficult for the Atlantic provinces to function effectively as for provinces as Canada without Canadian territory in-between them and the remainder of the country. Obviously it's more difficult but it's obviously not impossible. There's a classic example of how well it's worked in the case of Alaska and Hawaii.

MR. MacNeil: Quebec nationalism appears, if you judge by speeches and by opinion polls, to be growing every day through this debate. Do you think even the Meech Lake Accord, designed to keep Quebec happy, will satisfy that nationalism?

PREMIER WELLS: No, I don't think it will satisfy it, and one of the things is the whole Meech Lake issue has contributed to this and exacerbated that problem, because to start with, you have the prime minister traveling all over Quebec and much of the rest of the country saying, if the rest of Canada doesn't accept Quebec, doesn't accept the Meech Lake Accord, it is a rejection of Quebec. That's totally false and without any foundation at all, but if you're a residence of any particular province and the prime minister of the nation is saying if the rest of Canada doesn't do what your leaders are proposing, they are rejecting you, then naturally you can understand that they may react to that kind of thing and may accept that expression of opinion, and that really contributes to it unfortunately.

MR. MacNeil: What is Canadianism to you? What is the essence of what makes you different because you're a Canadian from the Americans with whom this country is growing so much closer economically because of the free trade agreement?

PREMIER WELLS: We have a good deal in common with the United States, and that is because the source of our fundamental principles of law and administration of government came to the same source. The British parliament persisted. We both have a similar approach to values and social values and values in justice and political values, but Canada is, in fact, different in other respects. We have a greater sense of supporting amongst the various parts of the nation. There's a commitment that's spelled out in Section 361 of our constitution that the national and provincial governments are committed to provide for the personal well being of our people in all parts of the country and the reasonably comparable level of public services no matter where we are in the country or what the economic capability is. That's why we had the concept of equalization payments and transfers from the federal government to enable a transfer of economic capability from the wealthier parts to the poorer parts of the country. That's a commitment that is not as strong, although there may be some elements of it present in the United States, but I don't think it finds the kind of strength in the United States that it does in Canada.

MR. MacNeil: Is this a real crisis now? Can Canada really fall apart over it?

PREMIER WELLS: If you're asking the possible, obviously you had to say it's possible. Is it probable? No, I don't think it's probable, but it is certainly possible and only somebody prepared to blind themselves totally would deny that it is possible. I don't think it is probable, but in terms of assessing attitudes and positions in Quebec, I caution again that I don't have the kind of personal knowledge that would allow me to make an intelligent judgment on that question.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Premier Wells, thank you very much for joining us today.

PREMIER WELLS: Thank you very much for doing me the courtesy of inviting me to do so.

MR. MacNeil: In Ottawa, a key member of Prime Minister Mulroney's cabinet resigned last night over Meech Lake. Lucian Bouchard was minister of environment but also Quebec political minister, as such the point man in Mulroney's effort to sell Meech Lake. Bouchard returned to his native Quebec in protest against efforts to accommodate the Meech Lake critics. Besides Bouchard, two other members of Mulroney's conservative majority in parliament have left his conservative ranks in protest. Our series continues tomorrow when we move on to Ontario, Canada's richest and most powerful province, whose premier is all for the Meech Lake Accord. FOCUS - RAIDERS' RETURN?

MR. LEHRER: Now the story of a football team that moves up and down the California coast. The team is the former Oakland, now Los Angeles, and perhaps soon to be again Oakland Raiders. The reporter is Robert Honda of public station KQED-San Francisco.

MR. HONDA: To the man in the mask, Mike Umphenour, and a lot of other fans in Oakland, the Raiders were more than just a home team. The silver and black was part of their identity, an identity still holding nine years after the team left town. What kind of changes did you go through when the Raiders decided to leave Oakland?

MIKE UMPHENOUR: It was a very sad day. I had followed that case for two years. I listened to the news every night, they had Sports Talk, and it was like taking a part of me away and it still is that way.

MR. HONDA: A lot of Oakland fans felt the same sense of loss when the Raiders left in 1981. They had been raised on trademark come from behind wins propelled by legendary stars such as George Blanda, Cliff Branch and Ken Stabler. But in 1979, Los Angeles tried to lure owner Al Davis and his raiders away. Davis demanded $20 million in renovations to the Oakland Colosseum as his price to stay. WhenColosseum officials only agreed to part of the team, Davis took his team South. Some people said the City of Oakland had been betrayed. Some said it was the other way around. In any case, the team was gone and would not be back, or so it seemed. Diehard Oakland fans gave the team a rousing welcome last year when the now Los Angeles Raiders came back to play an exhibition game against the Houston Oilers. The game was also the way for Davis to test the waters on a possible return to Oakland. Attendance in Los Angeles had dropped steadily and deals to move to nearby Irwindale as well as Sacramento had fallen through. The Raiders lost the game but won back the fans.

CLIFF YATES, Raiders Booster Club: If they do come back, I think the ticket sales would sell and show to the city of Oakland and to Northern California, where most of the Raiders fans are, that we are serious about having them back.

MR. HONDA: And regardless of how people felt about it, all is forgiven?

MR. YATES: More than forgiven.

MR. HONDA: Local officials also seemed willing to forgive and forget. The city had spent millions of dollars in court to try and force the Raiders back, first for breach of contract, then later officials tried to claim the team through eminent domain. Their attempts failed, but after seeing the enthusiastic response at the exhibition game, Oakland and Alameda County were willing to talk deal. The head of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, Don Perata, took the ball and ran with it.

DON PERATA, Alameda County Supervisor: It is a team that has been identified with a "can do, overcome the underdog" mentality that many people have. We see ourselves that way. We're always being put down. You are living in the shadow San Francisco. We understand that. The Raiders match that identity. It is phenomenal. You wouldn't believe it unless you experience it. It's like nothing I've ever seen before, but it's there, and it's certainly worth having.

SPOKESMAN: Al Davis made his telephone call. He will bring the Raiders back to Oakland provided that --

MR. HONDA: The city and county put together a proposal that would cost at least $600 million over 15 years. Most of the money was guaranteed to the Raiders. Those guarantees would eventually come back to haunt the dealmakers and kick off a public back lash against the team. For example, the city and county agreed to buy up all the tickets for the entire 15 year lease and take on the job of selling them to the public, a guarantee of about $300 million. The Raiders were to also receive about 66 million in what some called franchise fees, including almost 55 million for a so-called "operating loan" and another 53 1/2 million to renovate the Colosseum. Oakland and Alameda County also agreed to take on the risk of the long-term revenue bonds needed to generate much of the capital. Many of the bonds would have still been active for another 15 years after the lease ran out. Any outstanding interest would have been paid by the city and county. At first, it seemed the public liked the deal. Early in April, Oakland and Alameda County began taking advance ticket orders and about 1200 fans lined up. Phone orders also came in at a rate of 200 per hour.

DON PERATA: We are practically at fail-safe point right now. We are trending towards an absolute sellout, which means that the $60 million profit over the 15 years would be realized.

MR. HONDA: But many Oakland citizens began getting scared and angry over the Raider deal and its huge price tag. They said the city could better use the money to deal with Oakland's many well publicized problems. The city is still dealing with over $250 million in damage from last October's earthquake and public safety officials admit the city would be devastated and overwhelmed by another quake. Yet Oakland's troubles go further than that. Almost 25 percent of the population currently live at the poverty level, and almost half the city's children ages 2 through 5 live in poverty stricken families. The Oakland school district is in such bad financial shape that the state has taken over day-to-day operations. At this school, Principal Clementina Duron points out students are obvious Raider fans but may not get a chance to play any sports, themselves. If you didn't do these extracurricular activities in terms of raising money and you didn't get outside donations, what would happen to the sports program here?

CLEMENTINA DURON, School Principal: Essentially it would be confined simply to PE classes. There would not be the extras that promote our future athletes.

MR. HONDA: Nazim Rashid was also frustrated by the Raider deal. Rashid is a member of Oakland's crack task force and Volunteers of America. He goes around to schools promoting their anti-drug programs.

NAZIM RASHID, Crack Task Force: You have people that are strung out. You have families that are being separated. You have crime. You have drive by shootings. And then when we have something like the Raiders coming to town, all of a sudden, the attention is put on the Raiders, trying to get them in, and not doing anything about the depravation, the killings every day.

MR. HONDA: California Gov. George Deukmejian further fanned the flames of dissent. In an only slightly veiled threat, the governor said if Oakland can afford to give the Raiders so much money, then the city shouldn't ask the state for earthquake relief or any other financial aid.

GOV. GEORGE DEUKMEJIAN, California: I just hope that the city of Oakland doesn't have any requests for any state funding coming along, that's all.

MR. HONDA: Opposition to the deal culminated with a petition drive set up by a group calling themselves Voters Against the Raider Deal. Recently the group turned in more than 31,000 signatures to try and put the deal on the November ballot to let the public decide. During the petition drive, city officials reworked the deal and reduced the guaranteed money from 602 million to 428 million by requiring the Raiders to sell the end zone and upper deck seats. However, organizers of the referendum drive were not mollified by the new deal.

FRANK RUSSO, Voters Against Raiders Deal: At first when we started gathering signatures, the city attorney was out there saying that this was not the proper subject for a referendum, that the act was administrative rather than legislative. It was fairly obvious what was happening there. After we had gathered 24,000 signatures, the deal was "revamped".

MR. HONDA: Once enough signatures were verified, Supervisor Perata said any election would be a moot point.

MR. PERATA: The Raiders have said that if it goes to an election, we are withdrawing our current commitment, we are no longer in approval of this deal because we never negotiated in good faith with an idea that it would go to a public vote.

MR. RUSSO: We would like to see our elected officials go back to the drawing boards, renegotiate things, come up with a better proposal, one that we can support. We certainly don't want to go through the referendum process again.

MR. HONDA: In a surprise development, that's exactly what the elected officials did. At the recent city council meeting, Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson was expected to announce the deal was dead. Instead, Wilson said Oakland and the Raiders had agreed to try and work out a new deal with less guarantees.

MAYOR WILSON: What I propose to do is to reopen discussions with a view to attempting to arrive at some kind of a resolution.

MR. HONDA: For Raider fans in Oakland, the reprieve is better than nothing and their hopes, as always, refuse to die.

MR. UMPHENOUR: It would be a great feeling, but I also face reality, and no matter where they are, I'm still an Oakland Raider fan.

MR. HONDA: What happens if they stay in Los Angeles?

MR. UMPHENOUR: Well, then that's the way it is and there's nothing I can do. I've done everything possible I can to be a good fan, a supportive fan, vocal. That's all I can do.

MR. HONDA: Oakland officials say fans will have to wait about four to six weeks before any new deal is worked out and this time the public is expected to have much more input. As far as guarantees are concerned, probably the only one everyone now agrees on is that when dealing with the Raiders nothing is ever really guaranteed. ESSAY - MUSE OF MOROCCO

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight we have our Tuesday night essay. Amei Wallach, art critic for New York Newsday, has some thoughts about one of the great artists of the 20th century, Henri Matisse.

MS. WALLACH: It rained the first time Henri and Emile Matisse disembarked to Morocco late in January of 1912 torrentially and every day for a month. Trapped indoors in a tiny hotel room, he painted what he'd come to Morocco to find, nature poignantly reduced to a vase of magenta irises. "Shall we ever see the sun in Morocco," he wrote plaintively to Gertrude Stein. Renewal was what he was after and when the sun came out at last, Matisse discovered in Morocco even more than he'd hoped for. He sent his children a jaunty sketch of H. Matisse by himself. For nearly a decade, Matisse had set the standard for modern art in Paris. He had been labeled a wild beast by critics and an outraged public for the violence of his unbridled color. But by 1912, the jutting angles and radical distortions of Picasso's cubism was what looked new and was getting all the attention. Matisse was beginning to seem nearly decorative to avant garde Paris. But in Tangeres that year, Matisse at 42 found a kind of painterly and spiritual paradise. He achieved a voluptuous calm that ensured his endurance, along with Picasso, as one of the two most influential artists of the 20th century. It wasn't just the exotic cafes, the hidden doorways, and the domed tombs that infused and altered his work. It was a particular quality of light, so liquid, so gentle, he called it, that it made everything pulsate and spill over in thin washes of color. In Morocco, nature was so lush he could paint a garden in Tangeres as a magical garden of eden. To underline the religious point, he made three points, a tryptic like an altar piece, triptychs became his obsession in Tangeres. In the years since, the triptychs have been dispersed all over the world, but an exhibition that's currently at the National Gallery in Washington en route to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and then Moscow and Leningrad brings them back together again for a concentrated focus on Matisse and Morocco. You can see how Matisse's fascination with the line of an arch led to the Kasbad Gate. He let light melt shapes into layers so transparent even a seated man dematerializes into the wall. The Kasbad Gate is the right wing in what's known as the Moroccan tryptic. Theleft is the view from indoors out into infinite blue. The center is the prostitute, Zirah, one of the few women Matisse could find to paint unveiled in Moslem Morocco, kneeling like Mary at the Enunciation. He painted Zirah often, with the full front simplicity of the Byzantine icons he'd admired in Russia. By his second visit that year, it was October, and the sun had baked his remembered green scrubby peach. He interspersed that peach with aqua and gray in the Moroccan cafe, a meditation on essences and abstractions that's simply unmatchable. He said of that painting, "I go toward my sentiment, toward ecstacy, there I find calm." Paradise, it turned out, was ephemeral. Three years later in the middle of World War I, he remembered the Moroccans in a painting as dark, as disjunctive and as threatening as the world around him. Three decades after Matisse left Morocco, Matisse concentrated on the sensuous details of the real world. Then, sick and bedridden, in the last years of his life, he rediscovered paradise. It was in those final years that he designed his great paper cutouts infused with a spirit he had discovered in Morocco. They were sunny, they were ecstatic and they exuded light. I'm Amei Wallach. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, there were more violent clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian demonstrators over the Sunday massacre of seven Arab workers, and there were more indications Pres. Bush will extend most favored nation trade status with China. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the Newshour tonight and we'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.