The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. In the news tonight, Senate-House negotiators began reconciling tax reform bills. Congress reaffirmed $12 billion in budget cuts thrown out by the Supreme Court. A federal task force is being sent to aid farmers hit by the Southeastern drought. Ten Catholic nuns kidnapped in the Philippines were released. We'll have the details of these stories in our news summary coming up. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: After the news summary, we look at the heat wave in the South with a Tom Bearden report from North Carolina and a newsmaker interview with the governor of South Carolina. Then Judy Woodruff and Norman Ornstein look at day one for the tax reform conference committee. Scientist Thomas Cochran and Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle debate the monitoring of Soviet nuclear tests. And we have a report from California about Irish terrorism, the British, and a new U.S. treaty. News Summary

LEHRER: This was the tax reform conference committee's first day on the job. It was spent mostly laying out the differences between the House and Senate versions that must be negotiated away. The committee began their day at the White House for a kind of Presidential pep rally on the task ahead. Afterward, delegation leaders Senator Robert Packwood and Congressman Dan Rostenkowski said they also made an unusual request of President Reagan.

Sen. ROBERT PACKWOOD (R) Oregon: It will not help the process if each night on the evening news there is a comment from the White House about they did not like provision F that the conference was considering today.

Reporter: Did you ask him not to comment?

Rep. DAN ROSTENKOWSKI (D) Illinois: I suggested that the President withhold comment on it, as he did when we wrote the bill in the House. It was a very -- didn't say anything, but I don't see any disagreement with that. I want to -- no, I'm not muzzling the President. What I want to do, though, is I want to give us an opportunity to write a conference report that may change day by day. It doesn't necessarily mean that when we concluded deliberations in one section of the bill that we can't revisit it. And for the President to make comments on it on every paragraph of the bill I think would hurt the compromise.

LEHRER: The House and Senate voted overwhelmingly today to stick to their guns on Graham-Rudman-Hollings. A joint resolution was approved which reaffirmed $11.7 billion in across the board cuts mandated earlier by the budget cutting law. A Supreme Court decision declaring unconstitutional the automatic provision of the law made today's vote necessary. Robin?

MacNEIL: Officials in Southeastern states hit by the drought of the century have turned to Washington for help to feed livestock. Across the region, it was another day of temperatures in the 90s, and, for the 11th day in a row, in the 100s in Columbia, South Carolina. The Agriculture Department said it's sending a task force to assess the need for help for farmers whose crops have dried up and who have no fodder or water for livestock.

In Philadelphia, with huge piles of garbage still growing from a 17 day municipal workers strike, garbage collectors defied a court order to go back to work. The city's garbage trucks were lined up and ready this morning, but so were striking trash haulers who maintained picket lines in front of truck depots. When some garbage collectors apparently prepared to obey the court order reported for work, there was pushing and shoving before they all agreed to continue their strike.

Striking worker: I said go back and tell the mayor to give this union a decent contract, and we'll go back and get all that stuff on the street.

KEN ARRINGTON, city official: Well, if they don't comply, then we'll have to take names and whatnot and turn those names in to the commissioner of streets, who will make the next decision.

MacNEIL: In Detroit, where 7,000 city workers went on strike two days ago, Mayor Colman Young threatened to go to court to force them to go back to work. Those on strike include clerks, garbage collectors, mechanics and bus drivers.

LEHRER: The LTV Corporation filed for bankruptcy today. The huge Dallas corporation asked for protection while it reorganizes under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy law. The petition was filed in New York City on behalf of the parent corporation and its 65 subsidiaries, including LTV Steel, the nation's second largest steel company. A company statement said the action was caused by weakness in LTV's steel and energy business over the past several years. LTV ranks 43rd on the Fortune magazine list of the nation's 500 largest industrial corporations.

And another bad economic sign came out today. Housing starts were down .8% in June, according to the Commerce Department. It was the second straight month of decline.

MacNEIL: President Reagan intends to stick to his decision to scrap the SALT II treaty, despite the forthcoming meeting to discuss it with the Soviets. That's what his senior arms control advisor, Edward Rowny, said in a Voice of America interview. He said, "I think the decision has been made, and I don't see a reversal." A group of private scientists who installed nuclear monitoring devices in the Soviet Union said today they did so to encourage Soviet officials who want arms control. At a news conference in Washington, Princeton physicist Frank von Hippel explained their political motivation.

Dr. FRANK VON HIPPEL, Princeton University: The willingness of the Soviet leadership to let U.S. seismologists install this equipment shows that the doves over there have more influence than ever before -- at least for a time. It would be a tragedy if the combination of U.S. hawks and Soviet hawks were to defeat this willingness and our arms race went back to business as usual.

LEHRER: Sir Geoffrey Howe came to Washington today on a mission of peace in South Africa. The British foreign secretary has launched a major diplomatic effort to bring the white government of South Africa to negotiations with anti-apartheid black leaders. He conferred here with Secretary of State Shultz and other U.S. leaders. He will go on to Pretoria next week. Both the United States and Britain are opposed to further economic sanctions against South Africa, but the Reuter news agency said today the British position might change if the Howe mission fails.

On another tough issue for the British, the United States Senate today ratified a new treaty with Britain that would make it easier to extradite suspected Irish terrorists from the United States. The treaty had the strong support of the Reagan administration. The Senate vote was 87 to 10 in favor.

MacNEIL: In the Philippines, ten Carmelite nuns were released by Muslim rebels after being held captive for five days. The nuns said they'd been well treated. Officials said no ransom was paid. Army officials said they were confident that an American Protestant missionary, Brian Lawrence of Madison, Wisconsin, would be freed. He was captured by another group last weekend. The Muslim rebels want greater autonomy from the Manila government.

Syria said today that it could not stage armed rescue of American and French hostages in Lebanon, because they're held in areas they don't control. Syria's vice president, Abdel Halim Khaddam, told a news conference in Paris that the hostages were being held in an area controlled by Lebanese militias -- not the Bekaa Valley controlled by Syria. He added, "They would run the risk of great damger if we were to mount an assault."

LEHRER: Finally in the news today, NASA said its engineers have restored tape recordings from the crew cabin of the space shuttle Chalenger. A preliminary analysis shows the shuttle astronauts did not know the craft was about to explode. NASA said the recordings show the conversation between crew members was perfectly normal right up until the explosion that killed them in January.

And that's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to the heat wave in the South, to day one of tax reform negotiations, to the debate over monitoring nuclear testing in the Soviet Union, and to a report on the new Irish extradition treaty. Scorched

MacNEIL: We focus first tonight on the drought and heat wave still afflicting the Southeast -- in some places the worst drought in 100 years. It is farmers who are feeling the most severe effects. The state of North Carolina is asking for disaster assistance for 50 counties. Correspondent Tom Bearden reports on the struggle of one North Carolina family to stay on the land.

TOM BEARDEN [voice-over]: Twenty-eight year old Steve Outen is cutting down and plowing under what's left of the corn he worked so hard to plant this spring. It is not an easy thing for him to do.

STEVE OUTEN: We put in a lot of hours back in the spring planting that corn. You do everything just right, put on the right amount of fertilizers and everything. You do everything you know how to do, and then something like this just messes it all up. I mean, what can you do about this?

BEARDEN [voice-over]: In some places near Charlotte, there hasn't been rain of any real consequence since December. In a normal year you wouldn't be able to see the ground in this soybean field.

MELVIN OUTEN, farmer: That tree there finally bit the dust. That drought weather killed it.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: The 53 year old patriarch of the family, Melvin Outen, says it's almost a waste of time and fuel to try to salvage what's left. But they still try.

MELVIN OUTEN: We just moved it and baled it up. First time in 30 years of farming we've ever done that. But we're just attempting to salvage it. If we'd had a supply of hay, we'd have just plowed it under. But we're trying to get something to feed our cows.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: The Outens run a small dairy farm near Charlotte. This summer's crops were supposed to have fed their herd of cows. The dead corn has already been paid for with borrowed money. Now they'll have to pay for it again by importing grain to keep the herd alive. Other farmers in this area have been forced to sell off their herds. Sales at the local auction barn are 300% above normal. And cattle feed isn't the only crop the Outens have lost.

MELVIN OUTEN: This peach here came off a tree I had near the well. I kept it watered. That's about a normal sized peach for here. These two peaches there came off of a tree farther away that didn't have any water.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Twenty-four year old Tim Outen works the dairy with his father and older brother. The farm has been in the family for three generations. But they're afraid this may be the last generation. Melvin Outen says crop losses may top $50,000 this year. And this drought is merely the latest in a long series of setbacks.

MELVIN OUTEN: It's not isolated here. This is the worst I've ever seen, but we've had, oh, six out of the last ten years have been drought years.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Outen says they're at the end of the line. One more bad crop next year, and he's calling it quits. And quitting raises a disturbing vision of the future for the whole family, particularly for Melvin's wife, Doris.

DORIS OUTEN: I would hate for us to do that. My husband's worked real hard in building up the herd, and he enjoys it. It's something that he's always done and always wanted to do. And it's not like quitting a nine to five job. You can just walk off that and leave it. But like this is home. You don't walk off a dairy and just leave it.

MELVIN OUTEN: I took over for my father here on the farm, and I always had that in mind that the farm would be carried on -- my sons would operate it. But I can't encourage them to stay in farming the way things look now.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: The elder Outens aren't really worried about themselves. They're near retirement. What they're most concerned about is the radical change in lifestyle their children might have to suffer -- having to leave the farm and find work in a part of society that is totally alien to them. Steve's wife, Denice, grew up in the suburbs. She is adamant about wanting to stay in the country.

DENISE OUTEN: All my life I've wanted to live on a farm, meaning land. As long as we can make a living somewhere, being in the country is the thing I want to be. I'd never want to move into the city again, ever.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Denice runs a dog kennel and a grooming business at home to bring in extra money. She and Steve say they might try to expand that business to take up the slack if they're forced to sell out. But living from crop to crop is unnvering.

DENISE OUTEN: It's hard enough for him to do what he does. He works long hours. He has very low pay for the amount of work he puts in. And from the fact that I am not used to this, it does concern me.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: And Steve knows that ex-farmers often find it very hard to find work.

STEVE OUTEN: A farmer can do a little bit of everything, but I don't know if he can do any one thing good enough to go out and get a job doing that and make a living at it.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: For months, nearly every afternoon, gray clouds have taunted the people who live here with thunder, a little lightning, sometimes a short shower, but never anything that amounts to much. The weathermen blame it on what they call a Bermuda high pressure system which has stalled over the region, blocking precipitation. The experts say even torrential downpours are already too late to help much this year. The eggshell fragile farm economy is now even more tenuous. The Outens try hard to be optimistic, but even that is difficult these days.

MacNEIL: That report was by Tom Bearden. For a view from a neighboring state, we go to Columbia, South Carolina, to talk with Governor Dick Riley. He joins us from public station WRLK, Columbia.

Governor, what's the effect of this drought and heat wave in your state?

Gov. DICK RILEY (D) South Carolina: Well, the fact is it's very, very critical. It's as serious as it can be. The -- 1986 is the hottest, driest year in this century -- really since we've kept records of the weather statistics. So it's very critical. It's especially critical, of course, for farmers, for the heat, for poor people, for those who are in substandard housing and that kind of thing. But it's very, very critical.

MacNEIL: How many counties in South Carolina are really severely affect ed by this?

Gov. RILEY: Under our state water law, we have defined severe drought conditions in 13 counties that have already been identified under our state law.

MacNEIL: That's 13 out of how many?

Gov. RILEY: Thirteen out of forty-six. We are in the process, of course, of gathering information to request a disaster declaration from the Secretary of Agriculture in Washington, and our estimate at this time is that two thirds of those counties will qualify for disaster declaration.

MacNEIL: Well, what can be done about it? What will aid do? What can the federal government do?

Gov. RILEY: Well, the federal government, under the laws, doesn't do much. That's another source of concern. Loans -- low interest loans -- for qualifying farmers. We've also notified SBA that we intend do --

MacNEIL: Small Business Administration.

Gov. RILEY: -- file for a declaration. We can get some Small Business Administration loans for ancillary businesses who work with farmers. Some small amount of emergency for feed in the event a declaration is declared. There's some relief, but it's certainly not a great deal, considering, as was pointed out in North Carolina, the serious situation farmers have been in over the past several years.

MacNEIL: So is this part of a trend of drying years? Are you sharing a trend like the farmer in North Carolina?

Gov. RILEY: Certainly this year is an example of the driest, as I say, on record since December of this year. We have been lower in terms of water than any time on record. Average for the middle part of the state, for example -- I was looking today -- is around 28 inches of rain at this particular time. The lowest on record is 1933 -- the year I was born -- it was about 16 inches. This year it's 8 1/2 inches. So it's that much lower than the lowest year we have on record.

MacNEIL: You heard the farmer in North Carolina fear that he might be -- that this drought might drive him off the land. Is that -- does that possibility face farmers in South Carolina?

Gov. RILEY: Certainly it does. Some of our farmers that are the most seriously affected by the double combination of drought and heat are those dairy farmers who depend on pasture land. Pasture land is virtually devastated. And they gave that example there. But other farmers are going to have very, very serious problems that just -- it's a compilation of things over the years, but this year is going to be especially bad.

MacNEIL: Is the -- does this result in permanent damage, or when the rains come back, assuming they do, are things going to be okay again?

Gov. RILEY: Well, if we had a significant amount of rain August and September, which unfortunately are normally two of our drier months -- the soil itself has become very dry. So it's getting beyond the point of just impacting lakes and rivers. It is impacting now aquifers. We are pulling off of our aquifers. In other words, we are mining our own water for making up for the drought causes. And so it will take a substantial amount of water slow soaking into the ground, going into the substructure in order to correct it. It's not something that will be corrected quickly or easily.

MacNEIL: Well Governor Riley, thank you very much for talking to us tonight.

Gov. RILEY: Thank you.

MacNEIL: Jim?

LEHRER: Still to come on the News Hour tonight, the tax reform conference committee's debut, the argument over verifying nuclear tests in the Soviet Union, and the impact of the new extradition treaty with Great Britain. Taxing Assignment

LEHRER: This was opening day for the tax reform conference committee. Judy Woodruff does our opening day honors. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: There will probably never again be as much harmony among the tax conferees as there was today. This morning's session consisted of mostly formal statements with just a few strong messages sprinkled in, starting with the newly named conference chairman, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski.

Rep. ROSTENKOWSKI: This conference is more than a meeting of politicians to settle legislative differences. It is an historic economic summit. When we quit this conference, we will leave behind a plan that brings great stability and certainty to the marketplace and an end to years of preference and unfairness that have set taxpayer against taxpayer. The final version will settle some old scores between working families whose taxes are withheld each payday and those who cleverly shelter high income from taxation. It is a re-shifting of tax burden from individuals to corporations, particularly those that pay little or no taxes.

Sen. PACKWOOD: I don't know where we will come out. I know the Senate feels very strongly about the rates. Chairman Rostenkowski says he's willing to start with the Senate rates. I've heard him say several times that he'd be pleased to end up with the Senate rates. But it's a decision that every one of us is going to have to make individually and collectively as to whether or not we're willing to give up a pleasantry for the rates. And the choice will come as this conference moves on and looks at bauble after bauble after bauble that we would perhaps like to add back. Are we willing to stand the pain of the cost of putting back the bauble?

WOODRUFF [voice-over]: Despite Packwood's warning, members of the conference committee wasted no time listing the changes they'd like to see made.

Rep. J. J. PICKLE (D) Texas: First, on Individual Retirement Accounts, I believe we should try to preserve current incentives for individual retirement savings. As one of the coauthors originally to one act, I think it's tremendously important that individuals be able too save for retirement and not just depend solely on Social Security, and I hope that we can find a better solution to the IRA problem than exists at this point, at least in the Senate version. We must avoid punitive tax increases on our domestic energy industry -- an industry that is flat on its back, due to unfair trade practices by foreign producers.

Sen. ROBERT DOLE (R) Kansas: One matter that concerns me is that fact that some of the deductions we start losing in January 1, '87, and the rate cuts don't take effect 'til July 1, '87.And so there's not a 27% rate in 1987; it's a 38.5% rate, which is not what we've been advertising to the American taxpayer. And I have a view that many taxpayers will be filling out their returns in 1988, unless that provision is changed, will be a little bit frustrated and a bit cynical about all the good things they've heard about tax reform. We also, I think, on our side correctly went after tax shelters -- real estate. But did we go too far? Will we cause economic disruption? I think that's a matter we probably will address.

Sen. MALCOLM WALLOP (R) Wyoming: I have some concern for the economy. The tax bills before us are on the thin edge of constricting our ability to grow and to save, and I question the consistency of a very aggressive trade bill and a tax bill which promotes consumption while raising the cost of capital. So whilst we're in the process of trying to be fair to the middle class, let us keep in mind that the best fairness to the middle class is a job in a marketplace that is competitive with the imports and exports that this country must have. And that requires competitive capital in this world. So before we leap to burden the investoral side of our economy in our effort to do something better yet for the middle class, let us not forget that middle class needs an income before he can or she can enjoy a tax rate.

Rep. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D) Missouri: I think the litmus test of all of this is, what will the American people -- and when I say the American people, I mean all of them -- what will they say about this on April 15 of next year and the year after and the year after that when they sit down to try to work out their tax form? Will they say we did a good job of dealing with them fairly in trying to create greater simplicity, or will they say that we backed up and didn't do the kind of quality job that we could do?

WOODRUFF: To help us look ahead to what we should expect from this joint House-Senate tax writing committee, we have with us veteran Congress watcher Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Norman, those statements we just heard about taking care of business, taking care of the energy industry and IRAs -- are those going to be the main points of contention?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN, political scientist: There's no question that we're going to be having a lot of jockeying around over the energy industry -- that Rostenkowski is going to use that as a major point to show the difference between the House and Senate bills. The House took on the oil and gas, the timber and other industries of that sort, with oil and gas being right at the forefront, and he's going to try to put the Senate on the defensive on this. But remember that something like that is relatively small in dollar terms when we're talking about the huge amounts that are going to be discussed with the IRAs and relief for the middle class and taxes on corporations generally.

WOODRUFF: How are they going to decide which benefits -- which tax benefits stay in and which ones go? What does it come down to when they make those decisions?

Mr. ORNSTEIN: Well, what we've got here almost, Judy, is a giant jigsaw puzzle where every piece that they take out -- where they provide additional relief -- they're going to have to find some way to put it back in. And probably what's going to happen here is we're going to see a series of preliminary votes. When they get done with that, we'll see that they're 50, 60, 70, maybe as much as $100 billion short in revenue. And then they're going to find 25 billion or so out of corporations, as they've been discussing. We have almost a consensus on that. Over and above what the Senate had taxed them, which is about 100 billion now over five years. So they'll go up to 125 or so. Then they're going to come to this crunch point -- one that Packwood essentially said -- do you want to provide more relief in terms of interest deductions or relief for the middle class or for the charitable contributions? And if you do that, you, practically speaking, got one place to go, and that's the rates. Then remember one other point. When they get to the end, they're going to turn around and look at whether or not they benefited the wealthy more. And if they have, they're going to have to do something more for the middle class.

WOODRUFF: Well, speaking of the rates, both Packwood and Rostenkowski said on this program last night, and then we heard them say again today, "We're going to aim for 27%". What's the betting? Can they keep it at 27%?

Mr. ORNSTEIN: My guess is that in the end, when they get to the end, they're going to go up to 28 or 29, because when push comes to shove, you don't have the American people out there saying, "It's got to be 27. If it's 28, I'm really going to be upset." But if you don't do something about some of the specific deductions, they will be upset. I think they've got give up to 30. Past 30, it becomes much, much more difficult.So betting is it will go up.

WOODRUFF: Is there anything -- is there anything specifically that we can say it's fair to say right now that they've agreed on -- I mean, tacitly agreed on among themselves?

Mr. ORNSTEIN: I think that they've agreed that they're going to come to a compromise on the Individual Retirement Accounts. And I think that they've agreed that they're going to start with this 27% rate.My guess is they've also come to some tentative agreements on how they're going to phase this plan in. Remember, they're very concerned about that for the reasons that Dole suggested.

WOODRUFF: You mean the timing.

Mr. ORNSTEIN: We start with all these loophole closings on January 1, and then you don't get the rate reductions -- the goodies -- until July 1. So when people fill out their tax returns in March and April of 1988 -- when Senator Dole's running for President -- he's worried that everybody's going to get a tax increase -- or a lot of people will -- in the first year. And it will bring the economy down a little bit too, and it will be bad news. They want to push those closer together. But it costs money --$25 billion more. That's another part of the pie. They're going to have to find a way to increase it, and that's why the rates are likely to have pressure.

WOODRUFF: Earlier in the program we heard Packwood and Rostenkowski at the White House saying, "We hope the President doesn't open his mouth every day and comment on what we're doing." How much difference does it make what the administration position is on these issues as they go along?

Mr. ORNSTEIN: Frankly, not very much. In a bill like this, right now the conference knows that they are in the catbird seat. Whatever bill they emerge with is going to sail through the House and the Senate, and the President, practically speaking, is going to sign it into law. So the administration has pretty limited leverage. Maybe on some issues where they apply some public pressure they can create a little shift here and there. But I think what Packwood and Rostenkowski want is simply to have a little freedom to go about their business of wheeling and dealing without getting a lot of jarring pressure from news people based on what the administration -- not just the President, but Don Regan -- is saying publicly.

WOODRUFF: How long do we think this is going to go on?They've said about a month. Do you think that's fair?

Mr. ORNSTEIN: I think a month is the bare minimum, and we're going to get some very difficult issues. My guess is we're going to be talking about pretty close to the end of August, and then Congress won't be back until September 8.We probably won't see any resolution of this until mid-September at the earliest.

WOODRUFF: So maybe not Labor Day on the President's desk.

Mr. ORNSTEIN: It's almost impossible to get it to the President's desk by Labor Day. And it's going to get caught up with budget issues too. They won't be around on Labor Day, so they can't, practically speaking, send it to the President before Labor Day.

WOODRUFF: Well, we'll have you back to talk about it. Norman Ornstein, thanks for being with us. An Eye on Arms

LEHRER: We look next at a new twist to the old argument over nuclear testing. The old argument is over the Soviets' push for a comprehensive ban on nuclear tests and the U.S. counter-push for better verification methods. The new twist is the return this week of a private group of American scientists who installed three seismic monitoring devices near Soviet nuclear test sites. The scientists, such as Dr. Thomas Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council, claim these devices answer U.S. government problems over verification -- a notion U.S. government officials, such as Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, dismiss as nonsense and as pro-Soviet propaganda. Both Dr. Cochran and Secretary Perle are with us. Dr. Cochran, who headed the monitoring group, is first.

I'm curious, Doctor. How did -- whose idea was this to put those monitoring devices there -- yours or the Soviets'?

THOMAS COCHRAN, test ban advocate: That was our idea.

LEHRER: You went to them and said, "Hey, we've got some seismic monitoring devices. Please let us put them up."

Mr. COCHRAN: We went to them and proposed that we set up three stations adjacent to their nuclear test site and man them with U.S. and Soviet scientists and also put up three seismic stations adjacent to the Nevada test site and, again, man them jointly. The objective would be -- was to demonstrate that the Soviets were -- would accept in-country monitoring stations to verify whether or not nuclear testing would occur and a willingness to participate in this type of activity.

LEHRER: And you put -- you have put the devices there.

Mr. COCHRAN: We -- we're in the process of doing that now. We just got over to the Soviet Union on the Fourth of July and got out in the field on about the 9th of July.We've established some of the seismic instruments at the first station and are in the process of exploring the other two stations for good locations.

LEHRER: Don't tell me more than I need to know on this next question, but what exactly does the seismic device tell you? Let's assume it's in place and it works. What kind of information will it give?

Mr. COCHRAN: Well, as a kid I'm sure you put you ear to the railroad rail to listen to see whether the train was coming, and basically we're doing the same thing, except we can pick up signals from either earthquakes or explosions. We want to set up some instruments close to their nuclear weapons test site to detect whether or not they're setting off tests. Now, eventually, under an arrangement where both the United States and the Soviets stop testing completely, one would want perhaps 25 or more such stations spread throughout the Soviet Union to indicate whether or not they're testing -- not only at their test sites, but in other areas of the country as well.

LEHRER: So if they were in the right place -- you had enough of them, and you had them in the right places, you could correctly determine whether or not either side was -- and let's just talk about the Soviet Union -- that the Soviets were or were not testing. Is that correct?

Mr. COCHRAN: Down to some level of explosion. Down to a certain threshold. And we believe that with say 25 stations and very sophisticated instrumentation that that threshold is so low that any testing below that threshold would not be militarily significant.

LEHRER: Is it your position that this -- that these devices meet the objections of the U.S. government on verification?

Mr. COCHRAN: Well, they're not -- they're similar types of instruments. In the past when administrations have negotiated the issue of a comprehensive test ban, discussions were usually framed in terms of black boxes and tamper-proof equipment and so forth. The approach we're taking is somewhat different. We're putting instruments out in the field and running a cooperative research program where our scientists and their scientists are working together in an air of mutual trust, rather than an air of distrust and having to have some sort of tamper-proof equipment.

LEHRER: The Soviet government has cooperated fully with your group, right?

Mr. COCHRAN: Totally, yes. They are very much committed to making sure that this program succeeds.

LEHRER: What do you say to those who suggest you and your group are being used by the Soviet government for propaganda purposes?

Mr. COCHRAN: Well, it was our proposal to begin with. You could argue that they have been used by us, but actually this is -- the issue of verification has been a sticky point ever since the Eisenhower administration. And we both -- our group and the Soviet Union -- share a common objective to demonstrate that that is no longer a problem. And I might point out that when we briefed the president of the National Academy of Sciences in this country -- Dr. Frank Press, who was President Carter's science advisor -- he congratulated us and said we've accomplished what he wasn't able to do.

LEHRER: All right. Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: And now the administration view from Richard Perle, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy and a key figure in arms control matters.

Mr. Secretary, is this private monitoring agreement the beginning of an answer to the administration's concerns about verifying a test ban?

RICHARD PERLE, Defense Department: No, I don't think it is. And I think I ought to say at the outset that it is the view of the administration that even if we could verify a complete cessation of nuclear testing, it would not be in our interest to terminate nuclear tests as long as we depend on nuclear deterrence, depend on nuclear weapons. Because we believe that making those weapons as safe and effective as possible and retaining them in the smallest possible numbers ought to be our central objective, and that requires nuclear testing. So we don't share their objective.

MacNEIL: You say there will always be need for nuclear testing?

Mr. PERLE: So long as we depend on nuclear weapons. If you're going to ride in automobiles, it's a good idea to test them. And with nuclear weapons the sensitivity and the danger is even greater, and it's therefore that much more important that we be sure that the weapons work.

MacNEIL: Then why has verification or the lack of adequate verification been the ostensible reason for opposing a test ban?

Mr. PERLE: Well, there are a couple of issues here. Let me say first that there are limitations on nuclear testing agreed to between the United States and the Soviet Union and presently in effect pursuant to treaties and agreements. One of these agreements limits the maximum size of the test that either side can conduct to 150 kilotons. We think there's evidence that the Soviets have exceeded the 150 kiloton limit. And beginning some four years ago, the Reagan administration proposed to the Soviet Union that they permit on site monitoring of their nuclear tests with new technologies that would give us a high degree of reliability in ascertaining the yield, so that we might verify what is presently an unverifiable agreement.

MacNEIL: Well, will these private experiments be useful as a foot in the door for that purpose?

Mr. PERLE: Unfortunately, they're not useful technically. Now, if they foreshadow a Soviet willingness to talk with us about monitoring of their tests to be sure they're not exceeding the 150 kiloton level, that would be a welcome development. But there's no evidence that that is going to be the case. And indeed, all the evidence suggests that the Soviets are using this experiment to demonstrate something that it doesn't in fact demonstrate -- which is that a comprehensive test ban would be verifiable. And we don't think it would be verifiable. And we wouldn't want one even if it were.

MacNEIL: The other scientists -- we quoted one of them in our news summary: Frank von Hippel of Princeton -- said that the willingness of the Soviets to let them do this shows that the doves there have more influence now.And he went on to say -- I don't know whether you heard it, it was the beginning of the program -- he went on to say, "It would be a tragedy if the combination of Soviet and American hawks defeated this." Now, as someone who's often regarded as a hawk yourself, what is your response to that?

Mr. PERLE: Well, I don't know how Professor von Hippel knows who the doves and who the hawks are. I hope he's right that there are in Moscow men who would consider seriously the sort of on site monitoring that we have proposed to the Soviets in the past, and that we will be proposing to them again shortly when we meet, probably in Geneva, to discuss this issue sometime in the next several days, as a matter of fact. But up until now, I think it's important to note that while the Soviets have been prepared to engage in the project that Mr. Cochran has described, they have been unwilling to permit any official American monitoring of their tests. And they took this position throughout the period in which they were conducting nuclear tests, some of which we believe were in violation of the threshold test ban.

MacNEIL: Finally, is it true, as reported in the New York Times today, that the administration is considering linking a -- not a test ban, but a reduction in the number of tests -- to arms control and reducing the number of strategic weapons?

Mr. PERLE: Well, we think the priority in arms control is, in fact, the reduction in the number of strategic weapons. That is what we've been proposing from the beginning. And the President and Secretary Gorbachev at the summit in Geneva last year agreed that we would aim toward 50% reductions. That's our first, our principal, and for the sake of the world, the most important priority in arms control. Limits on testing have very little in the way of consequences for the number of nuclear weapons or the stability of the balance between us.

MacNEIL: But is a reduction on numbers of tests being considered?

Mr. PERLE: I don't think that we are going to be proposing reductions in numbers of tests.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Dr. Cochran, how about the secretary's point that it's all well and good for the private thing, but the Soviet Union has always resisted official on site monitoring by the United States.

Mr. COCHRAN: The Soviet Union has invited the administration to participate with us in this verification approach. We've invited the administration. The Soviet Academy of Science has invited the administration to participate. It --

LEHRER: Is that -- and the administration has said no?

Mr. COCHRAN: Well, our view is that we ought to have a government to government arrangements that provides for adequate verification. This private arrangement doesn't do that. The sites are located well aaway from the actual test site. At the moment, the Soviets say there are no tests going on, so there's nothing to measure. It's not a seismically active area. And it's a technically and scientifically unsound experiment that in no way proves the ability to verify for either a comprehensive test ban or the improved verification of the existing threshold.

LEHRER: A charade, in other words?

Mr. PERLE: Well, it's scientifically inadequate, and the government would not lend credence to the efficacy of this experiment by joining them.

LEHRER: Dr. Cochran?

Mr. COCHRAN: Well, his statements are simply not true. First of all, it is a seismically active area, and we have --

LEHRER: What does that mean -- seismically active?

Mr. COCHRAN: It means whether you get many earthquakes in the region in order to better understand the geology of the site. They've -- we have the seismograms to prove it. I've brought a seismogram back with me.

LEHRER: A seismogram is just a reading of the --

Mr. COCHRAN: Of the seismonitor. Secondly, the Soviet Academy of Sciences has offered to conduct explosions in the area if we want to get a better calibration of the area. The -- they're open -- the administration is open to propose some different type of an arrangement over there if they wish -- if that's what's keeping them from participating. They simply don't want to participate because they don't like the politics of the operation, which is that a comprehensive test ban can be verified.

LEHRER: Is that right?

Mr. PERLE: Well, we don't agree that a comprehensive test ban can be verified. And as I said, we think it wouldn't be in our interest even if it could.But we are most anxious to establish whether the Soviets are living within the current agreement, which provides for a maximum of 150 kilotons. And toward that end we have proposed and will again be proposing to the Soviets that they permit -- permit us to go to their test sites and take instrumentation and make measurements of the yield of those tests. And we've invited them to come to our test site and measure our tests. And they've rejected all of that.

LEHRER: You are, you know, an expert on all of this. How do you read the Soviets' willingness to go along with Dr. Cochran and his group on this?

Mr. PERLE: Well, I think it's significant that they have been willing to go along with an experiment that does not provide the kind of data one would truly need, while rejecting an arrangement that would provide the kind of data that we need. And I think the public relations implications of that are pretty obvious.

Mr. COCHRAN: We need to clarify one point. Mr. Perle is interested in verification of the threshold test ban -- whether they're cheating on the 150 kiloton limit. I believe Mr. Perle is out of step with his consultants on this matter. Most of the seismologists outside of the government -- Dr. Archenburg, Dr. Sykes, Dr. Evington -- do not believe that there's any evidence that there's a militarily significant violation of the 150 kiloton limit -- that it's due to miscalibration of the site. Our work that we are doing over there --

LEHRER: In other words, the Soviets aren't violating the 150 --

Mr. COCHRAN: Have not. Have not in any military -- militarily significant way.

Mr. PERLE: You've got those fudge words in there, I note.

Mr. COCHRAN: With regard to --

LEHRER: Meaning?

Mr. COCHRAN: It's also a statement made by the head of the seismic monitoring program at the Livermore National Laboratories. Meaning that under the treaty, one is permitted to violate it on occasion by accident. It's just that -- and there is a statistical sampling problem in terms of whether you're actually under or over, because of the uncertainty with which one takes these measurements.

LEHRER: Practical question, Dr. Cochran. What happens next, from your perspective? Anything?

Mr. COCHRAN: What happens next? Well, we will continue our program. We will continue to collect data that will be useful to Mr. Perle with regard to calibration of the site to test whether or not they've --

LEHRER: Whether he wants it or not, you're going to give it to him.

Mr. COCHRAN: He wants it. His people have indicated that they'd love to see the data, and we're going to provide it to them. And --

LEHRER: You want him to bow out, Mr. Secretary?

Mr. PERLE: No, I want to get over there with instruments that can measure Soviet tests and do so accurately and effectively. And the only way we can do that is if the Soviets will open up the test site. They have not been allowed to go --

Mr. COCHRAN: There is another way.

Mr. PERLE: They have not been allowed to go to the test site. They're 100 kilometers away, no more.

LEHRER: I'm not allowed to go on. None of the three of us is. Dr. Cochran, Secretary Perle, thank you both.

Mr. PERLE: Thank you. Terrorist or Patriot?

MacNEIL: As we reported, the Senate today ratified a treaty making it easier to extradite Irishmen accused by Britain of terrorist acts. Democratic Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri said in the debate that terrorism is terrorism, whether its perpetrators are Arabs in the Middle East or, as he said, "people with rosy cheeks and speak with a brogue." The treaty was strongly opposed by people who regard members of the Irish Republican Army and other groups fighting the British not as terrorists, but as freedom fighters. We have a report now on a man likely to be one of the first affected by the new treaty. Spencer Michaels of public station KQED, San Francisco, reports.

SPENCER MICHAELS: On the sixth floor of this building is a man who has been held behind bars for the past five years -- held without a conviction, without bail, without a trial. Some say he is a patriot. Some say he is a murderer. In any case, he is the subject of delicate, diplomatic maneuverings between the United States and Great Britain over and extradition agreement. His name is Bill Quinn.

[voice-over] Born and raised in San Francisco, his childhood was typically American. These high school pictures, shot 22 years ago, are some of the last taken of him. It was then Quinn found his Irish roots. And in the early '70s he went to Ireland and joined the outlawed Irish Republican Army -- an organization dedicated to ousting the British presence in Ireland. The British say Quinn became involved in IRA activities and want him to stand trial for the murder of a London bobby and for taking part in a bombing conspiracy which took place during 1974. Some British newspapers have branded Bill Quinn public enemy number one. Such notoriety forces him, like many in the IRA, to keep a low profile. He refuses pictures or interviews. His brother Jim, who acts as a spokesman, neither confirms nor denies Bill's guilt, but says that Bill is a freedom fighter.

JIM QUINN, Bill Quinn's brother: I would say he might be considered a revolutionary. He might be considered part of a long-established noble history of civilians in Ireland who work to gain their self-determination and their civil rights.

BERNICE, Bill Quinn's aunt: Bill is not a terrorist. I know him, and he's a very kind, caring person who believes in freedom, and I hope everyone does.

MICHAELS [voice-over]: But the British feel that no excuse can justify the serious crimes of which Bill Quinn is accused.

ANDREW BURNS, British Embassy: Murder is murder. I mean, people may have all sorts of complicated motives of why they commit the murder, but the rest of society is entitled to protect itself from such crimes.

MICHAELS: Bill Quinn came back to San Francisco. But in 1981 he was arrested by the FBI after the British requested his extradition. Since then he has been held here -- in temporary holding facilities at San Francisco's Hall of Justice. What's held up Quinn's return to England is the current extradition treaty between the United States and Britain. Signed in 1972, the treaty contains a political exception clause which exempts from extradition those accused of crimes that are of a political nature committed in another country.

MR. BURNS:: The United States has long been a country of asylum and safe haven for political dissidents from around the world. So has the United Kingdom. All we're saying is that murder is murder. And if you murder someone, you shouldn't be able to say, "Well, I did that for political reasons," and get off Scot free.

MICHAELS [voice-over]: Patrick Hallinan, Quinn's defense attorney, believes that Irish have no choice but to fight back.

PATRICK HALLINAN, Quinn's defense attorney: And it's British soldiers that are in the north of Ireland -- 30,000 of them. And it is Britain that is viewed as the oppressor, as it has been viewed as the oppressor since 1068. To say that you can't strike at the oppressor itself -- it is -- it's irrational.

MR. BURNS:: The point is that in a democracy there are many, many other ways of getting your views across and expressing your views, of trying to persuade other people of the rightness of your views. And we've all along said, if the majority in Northern Ireland were convinced that it was right and appropriate to break away from the United Kingdom, fine. I mean,that is their political right. It's a perfectly open society for people to argue that case. What we say and what I think most people in the Western world -- indeed, throughout the world -- would say is that in a democracy you don't need to resort to murder and violence in order to get your views accepted. . .

MICHAELS [voice-over]: The worldwide trend to get tough on terrorists has resulted in a new supplement to the treaty that is now being considered by the U.S. Senate. If ratified, it would prohibit fugitives from claiming political exemption from extradition if they were accused of committing certain, specific crimes -- crimes of violence; crimes like those which Bill Quinn is charged with. U.S. attorney Joseph Russoniello, who is in charge of extraditing Quinn, believes the treaty supplement will deter terrorist groups like the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

JOSEPH RUSSONIELLO, U.S. attorney: We have plenty of murder fugitives in this country who are engaged in the same activity. They are entitled to and gain little sympathy from our general populace. There is nothing that separates Quinn from that gang, in my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, he is a murderer. And the sooner we're able to move in the direction of aggreeing that certain kinds of acts are so abhorrent to the conscience and to the sense of a civilized people, the sooner we'll be able to deal effectively withinternational terrorism.

JIM QUINN: Bombing. He's accused of bombing. He's accused of killing. But these are things that happen in every war. So my question sort of is, why is ot okay for USA to bomb Libya, but somehow that's not murder. I mean, if you're going to outlaw all murder, that's fine. But until we do, let's not confuse -- let's not call one side terrorism while the British are shooting children dead in the streets of Ireland. That any resistance to that should be terrorism is, I think, ridiculous.

MICHAELS [voice-over]: Jim Quinn typifies the attitude of those Irish-Americans who sympathize with the IRA cause -- a sentiment that is widespread among the 40 million people across America who claim Irish descent. Many of their forefathers first settled in San Francisco. At the turn of the century, the city's population was one quarter Irish. Today that heritage is still in evidence. But the Irish presence here goes far beyond the pub and the dance floor. In effect, part of the city's Irish community are fighting the battle against England here in the U.S.

This is a meeting of the Bill Quinn Defense Committee. Members are working to get the Supreme Court to prevent his extradition to England. They know that if the Senate ratifies the new treaty or if the Supreme Court refuses to hear his appeal, Bill Quinn will be sent back to Britain to stand trial. And that will be an affront to both their heritage and their beliefs.

[on camera] What are you, Irish first or American first? How does that fit together in your mind?

MARY McCORMICK, Bill Quinn Defense Committee: I feel I'm Irish first. It's been dug in so deep from the start with Irish parents and Irish family. And when you see what's going on and you see what's happening to your family and your friends back there, it's incredible to think that people wouldn't be fighting. It seems the logical course to start fighting, rather than to sit back and take it. And anybody that isn't fighting that's back there -- I think they're the ones that have got the problem.

MICHAELS [voice-over]: Quinn's stand against extradition also gets some support from certain factions of the church. Across the bay from where Quinn is imprisoned, Father William O'Donnell of St. Joseph the Workman in Berkeley has offered sanctuary to Central Americans since 1983. Should the new treaty be ratified, he vows to offer sanctuary as well to what he calls Irish patriots.

Fr. WILLIAM O'DONNELL, St. Joseph the Workman: England has been in Ireland for 800 years. Their final stand is in Northern Ireland. And the people there have, for all this time, been expecting and demanding their -- the right to rule themselves. And so it's morally incumbent upon us to give sanctuary to those patriots, as to the peasants in Central America who are true patriots who are trying to have a democratic form of government.

Mr. URSSONIELLO: I've always been struck by the fact that the American supporters of the PIRA are the most naive, the least informed as to what is really going on in Ireland. I've travelled to Ireland extensively and have met with many, many people. And there is no sympathy for the PIRA. There is no sympathy for terrorism in any stripe, under any guise, for any purpose, no matter how good the motive.

MICHAELS [voice-over]: Critics charge that such anti-terrorist zeal from U.S. officials today is insincere. They say American is paying back Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for allowing the U.S. to use English air bases to attack Libyan terrorists, and that's what lies behind changing the extradition treaty. But the British say that's nonsense.

Mr. BURNS: There's no pay back. You only have to look at what the President and the Prime Minister, but the other leaders of the industrialized world said at Tokyo at the economic summit when they discussed terrorism. They said we must fight terrorism more effectively, and there are various ways of doing that, including tougher extradition treaties.

MICHAELS [voice-over]: If the treaty is ratified, Bill Quinn will be the first to feel its effects. But while he and his supporters glorify his role as an Irish freedom fighter, they fear he has already become the sacrificial pawn in an international political game.

MacNEIL: And just a reminder that that treaty was ratified by the Senate today and becomes law.

Once again, today's top stories. Senate-House negotiators began reconciling tax reform bills. Both houses of Congress reaffirmed $12 billion in budget cuts thrown out by the Supreme Court. A federal task force is being sent to aid farmers hit by the Southeastern drought. LTV Corporation -- the parent company of the nation's second largest steel maker -- filed for bankruptcy. And NASA reported late today that audio tape recordings recovered from the space shuttle Challenger showed the crew was unaware of impending disaster just before the ship blew up. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.