The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. In the headlines today, the nation's nine leading mobsters were indicted and arrested. The nation's governors formally called for an across-the-board freeze of the federal budget, and the U.S. Senate considered emergency credit help for farmers. Robert MacNeil is away; Judy Woodruff is in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: After the news summary tonight we have a newsmaker interview with a top prosecutor involved in the arrest of those Mafia figures. Next, a focus section on the MX debate with senators on opposite sides -- Democrat Gary Hart and Republican Pete Wilson -- followed by a report from California on how that state's economy will be affected by what Congress does about the MX. And, finally, a look at how one huge housing project in New York City is carrying on the fight against segregation. News Summary

LEHRER: The federal government moved on the leadership of organized crime today. Criminal indictments were unsealed against the leaders of New York City's five Mafia families, charging them with running a variety of illegal mob activities from murder to labor racketeering. The five leaders and four others were charged with overseeing the rough stuff as members of a governing body called the Commission of the Cosa Nostra, another term for Mafia. FBI Director William Webster came to New York to announce the indictments and arrests.

WILLIAM WEBSTER, FBI Director: We now know this much about the Commission, that it's a governing body separate and distinct from the individual LCN families; that it includes high-ranking members of all five of the New York La Cosa Nostra families; that these La Cosa Nostra families communicate throughout the United States with each other through this commission and occasionally expanded membership; that illegal activities that cross family lines must have the Commission's approval, and that extends to their own in-house discipline, including hits and murders. All the things that help to undo our society are now confronted square on by this indictment, and we are now taking out the top players, and we expect that this code of silence that used to lock up our information about the organized crime is virtually a thing of the past.

LEHRER: A federal official involved in the investigations will be here for a newsmaker interview right after the news summary. Judy?

WOODRUFF: Top Reagan administration officials made a major pitch to Congress today to approve funding for the MX missile. Secretary of State Shultz and Secretary of Defense Weinberger made a rare joint appearance before a Senate hearing, making the case that the American bargaining position at the upcoming nuclear arms control talks will be seriously weakened if Congress doesn't come up with the necessary financing for the MX, which they refer to as the Peacekeeper. Shultz told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, "This is no time to cast doubt on our national resolve." Weinberger backed him up.

CASPAR WEINBERGER, Secretary of Defense: We're about to resume negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, seeking significant and mutual verifiable reductions in the strategic arsenals of both sides. As George Shultz has just indicated, a continuing Peacekeeper program is vitally important to our ability to achieve the deep reductions that we see. There are two obvious and very crucial, critical reasons for this. First, if we indicate that we're not going to correct our current deficiencies, the Soviets have virtually no incentive to negotiate seriously. Why should they? Why should they seek to reduce their arsenals if we have signaled that we are going to permit them to maintain and perhaps expand advantages they currently enjoy? And, secondly, if we should halt or slow a program that we ourselves recognize to be critically important, we'll certainly convey, unmistakeably, a message to the Soviet leadership that we lack the will and the resolve to achieve our goals in the world.

WOODRUFF: Meanwhile, in another hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the President's chief arms control adviser, Paul Nitze, said the U.S. and the Soviet Union were approaching a new round of arms talks with what he called major substantive differences between them.

Amb. PAUL NITZE, Senior Arms Control Negotiator: It is important that we keep our expectations in check, and that we prepare ourselves and the public for a long process. The fact that the Soviets have agreed to these talks does not mean that they are ready to drop their unacceptable substantive positions at the table or to give up their propaganda campaign outside the conference room. It is likely, therefore, that in the new negotiations the Soviets will at some time attempt to hold progress on intermediate-range and strategic nuclear arms hostage to our movement in the defense in space forum, where they clearly want to inhibit the U.S. research program on strategic defense. In doing so, they will seek every opportunity to exploit any divisions within the NATO alliance and within the United States.

WOODRUFF: Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko painted an equally complicated picture of the arms talks during a visit to Rome today. Gromyko told his Italian hosts that the talks will be difficult, and he urged them to oppose U.S. plans for a defense system in space. Later in the program we will hear from two senators on opposite sides of the debate over the MX and its role in the arms control process -- Democrat Gary Hart and Republican Pete Wilson.

LEHRER: Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker issued another of his dire warnings today. He told a House banking subcommittee that continued federal budget deficits could eventually lead to a dramatic fall in the value of the U.S. dollar. "What rises excessively at some point may fall the same way," he said, "and that would not be a very pretty picture if and when it happens." He repeated his often-stated appeal for reducing the deficit by cutting spending or even raising taxes, if necessary.

The governors of the 50 states weighed in on that same subject officially today. They passed a resolution at their Washington meeting of the National Governors Association calling for a freeze on federal spending, a freeze that would include defense spending and Social Security. The resolution passed by a 27-9 vote. Afterwards the two governors who chair the association explained the message behind the vote.

Gov. LAMAR ALEXANDER, (R) Tennessee: The bottom line of all of this is that for the second straight year two-thirds of the governors, Democrats and Republicans, have taken what I think anybody must say is a strong, far-reaching stand in support of a broad-based approach for reducing the national deficit and is willing to help the senators and the congressmen and the President, if he wants it, to take whatever political heat is involved in doing that.

Gov. JOHN CARLIN, (D) Kansas: The bad news is, yes, we'll have cuts. But the good news is that we'll do something about the deficit which will benefit all of us. I mean, it's not an all-win situation, I know that. But I know the big loss that's coming day after day with the continued deficits, and so it's worth the sacrifice. What this resolution says and what we're all saying over and over again, if we sacrifice and sacrifice fairly, the sacrifice will bring us a great return.

LEHRER: The farmers also kept the Washington heat on today. Their representatives, members of Congress, governors and other state and local officials continued to press for more emergency credit assistance. But as the Senate continued its debate on such legislation, President Reagan told a group of Republican legislators he would not support anything more. A large delegation from South Dakota, including its governor and members of the legislature, brought their case to a meeting of the congressional rural caucus.

Gov. WILLIAM JANKLOW, (R) South Dakota: This is a national problem of national magnitude. It's why we have a national government. We submit in South Dakota it's as important as regulating billboards along highways. It's as important as the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit that our national government became concerned about. It's as important about the drinking age for the young people in America. We're being asked to take cuts and we'll take them. We're experienced in that in South Dakota. We will take our share of the budget cuts, it's not fair that we take more than our share. And when you start picking and choosing amongst all the various special interests in America, you reach gridlock and nothing will ever be done. The only fair way is to treat everybody the same, just as we've had to do in the states. We wouldn't be holding these hearings today, nobody from South Dakota would be here except our congressional delegation, and we wouldn't have to be indulging on you people to listen to us if we weren't running deficits of a magnitude that the world has really never known. They have caused and driven up interest rates to the point where farmers are going broke. And I close by saying this, they have also destroyed our world markets. Where I come from, you're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. We ask you to become part of the solution.

LEHRER: There was also a piece of economic news on inflation today. The Consumer Price Index for January increased a modest 0.2 , the Labor Department said, meaning inflation remains very much under control.

WOODRUFF: A private study released today charges that hunger in the United States has reached epidemic proportions and that President Reagan's policies have made it worse. A group called the Physician Task Force on Hunger in America spent one year investigating hunger in this country, and their spokesmen said today they found that despite the economic recovery hunger now afflicts at least 20 million Americans. Two of the doctors who worked on the report describe their grim findings.

Dr. GORDON HARPER, Physician Task Force on Hunger in America: This is not a hidden problem, and the report beautifully summarizes, in small town after small town and large city and medium-sized city, we have not been anywhere in eight states and in over 12 months in this current study and in New England in the previous year -- we've not been anywhere where we had to look hard to find hungry people.

Dr. J. HARRY BROWN, Physician Task Force on Hunger in America: What we have in this nation is what the World Health Organization calls silent undernutrition. It's the child whose minimum body weight for his height or her height should be 25 pounds and who is at 19 pounds. To the lay observer and oftentimes to pediatricians, that child will simply appear to be a skinny child. But upon examination, clinical examination and measurements, we will find out that that child is in fact clinically malnourished, experiencing growth stunting, growth failure, which we call "failure to thrive," which is of two sorts -- not being tall enough for their age or not weighing enough for their height. So that is what we are seeing here.

WOODRUFF: The study called on Congress to increase welfare and food stamp benefits and ease eligibility requirements, to restore free and low-priced meals for school students, to expand the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program and to offer more meals for the elderly. A White House spokesman said yesterday, when asked about the report, that officials there had not received a copy of it.

LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court today added another assist to the poor defendant in a criminal case. The court ruled they have a constitutional right to the help of a psychiatrist in preparing a defense, the cost of that psychiatrist to be paid by the government if the defendant is unable to pay. The court said the defendant's sanity must be in serious doubt and seen by a trial judge as a significant factor in the trial. The ruling came in an appeal of a murder case from Oklahoma. And there was another development in the Joseph Mengele case. Declassified CIA documents released by two senators, said the so-called "Angel of Death" doctor was involved in drug trafficking in South America in the 1970s. Mengele conducted human experiments at Nazi concentration camps in World War II in which thousands of people died. There have been recent reports that he is still very much alive and living in South America. The U.S. Justice Department, among others, are investigating.

WOODRUFF: Israel moved today to clamp down on Shiite Moslem guerrillas operating in Southern Lebanon. Israeli officials ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the entire area it is occupying there, and Israeli soldiers raided another village and rounded up more than 200 people for questioning. It was the latest of the Israeli raids on more than a dozen villages since last week. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said such tactics would continue as long as the Shiites continue attacking Israeli troops. The government of Lebanon has filed a protest about the Israeli activity with the United Nations.

Meanwhile, in Poland the Solidarity Union today canceled a nationwide protest strike because union leader Lech Walesa said the threat of the strike had already forced the government to scrap plans for food-price increases. Crime Crackdown

LEHRER: We look first tonight at the blow struck today against the Mob: the indictment and arrest of nine organized crime leaders, including the alleged bosses of all five crime families in New York City. A key figure in the investigations which led to today's action is Michael Chertoff, the assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. He is here now for a newsmaker interview.

First, let's begin with the beginning. Who are these nine people?

MICHAEL CHERTOFF: Well, Jim, the indictment alleges that five of the defendants are bosses of five New York La Cosa Nostra organized crime families, and the other four defendants are senior members and important members of those families.

LEHRER: And they're all members of something called the Commission. Tell us what that is.

Mr. CHERTOFF: That's correct. The indictment charges that there is an enterprise or a group called the Commission, which really is the ruling council of La Cosa Nostra in New York and in the United States, and that these men are members of and associated with the Commission.

LEHRER: Now, what does the Commission do?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, the Commission is involved with regulating the relations among the Mafia families. The families themselves have the jurisdiction, so to speak, to conduct illegal activities internally, but if they're illegal --

LEHRER: You mean by district and geographical area?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Not geographically but according to their membership. But if they're illegal activities --

LEHRER: I don't understand what you mean, "according to the membership."

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, in other words, each family has a certain number of members and associates, and those members and associates, when they conduct their illegal activities that do not impinge upon the activities of members of other families, are free to do so under the discipline that is laid forth by their officers. But when --

LEHRER: Can you give me an example of that?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, for example, if there were a situation in which one were trying -- two different members of two different families were trying to extort from a single victim, there'd be competition between them and there might be a possible conflict. And what this indictment alleges is, in a situation like this, the Commission intervenes and the Commission decides, "We'll do this as a joint venture. We'll divide up the proceeds." Or it decides who will have priority in terms of carrying out the crime.

LEHRER: I see. All right. Now, does the Commission have power to act in and of itself? I mean, did it make decisions, okay, let's kill those five people or let's do some bribery over here, that sort of thing?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, the indictment alleges that members of the Commission actually voted and made decisions about particular crimes. For example, that they made a decision to carry on a scheme of extortion over a period of several years under which concrete companies would be forced to pay a certain amount of money for the privilege of getting designated to receive certain concrete-pouring contracts.

LEHRER: From whom? Contracts from whom?

Mr. CHERTOFF: That would be from general contractors, construction firms in the city of New York.

LEHRER: So if you're the head of Concrete Company A and you wanted to do business with somebody over here who wanted some concrete, the only way you could do business was go through the Mafia? Is that it?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, according to the indictment there was an entity called the Club and the members of the Club were actually part of a scheme of bid-rigging which was administered by the Commission and its agents. And the Commission would decide who would get a particular job. And then that company would be entitled to receive that job and the other companies might be directed, for example, to submit a bid that would be over the winning bid, or they would be higher than the bid that the designated company would submit.

LEHRER: And then the companies would in turn kick back to La Cosa Nostra?

Mr. CHERTOFF: That's correct. The price of admission was a kickback.

LEHRER: All right. Now, how do you know that all this happened?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, evidence, of course, in this case as in any criminal case, is presented to a grand jury, which hears the evidence and votes. In this case, as has been developed in public proceedings, there was electronic surveillance, physical surveillance and the testimony of a considerable number of witnesses.

LEHRER: Now, I've read about a wiretap or an electronic surveillance in a Jaguar automobile that apparently gave you an awful lot of information. Is that correct?

Mr. CHERTOFF: That's correct.

LEHRER: Tell me about that.

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, there were approximately 750 hours of conversations taken from that automobile, conversations involving very high-level members of the Mafia charged in this indictment.

LEHRER: Whose Jaguar?

Mr. CHERTOFF: This was a Jaguar owned by a man named Sal Avellino. And in the conversations, for example, defendant Salvatore Santoro, there are conversations picked up in which he's a participant. And these conversations, as well as an amount of electronic surveillance that was done by the FBI, which is wholly apart from the Jaguar, were part of the evidence that made up this case.

LEHRER: Has the Mafia gotten sloppy, or have the techniques of electronic surveillance improved dramatically?

Mr. CHERTOFF: I wouldn't say they've gotten sloppy. I would say that there has been an increase in the sophistication of law enforcement when it comes to using electronic surveillance and exploiting opportunities to be effective.

LEHRER: Meaning there's nothing new or fancy about putting a bug in a Jaguar automobile, right? You just happened to get away with it and in the past didn't?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, maybe someone didn't have the idea in the past.

LEHRER: Didn't have the idea in the past! I see. What happens now? I mean, these are all big shots in organized crime. Does organized crime end because these guys have been indicted, or what happens?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, I wish I could say to you that it ends, but of course it doesn't. Let me first say that an indictment is only a charge, and the next thing that happens is the government has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt at a trial. And that's the way our system works. I think if you look at this indictment and recent indictments which have been brought down in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, you see a lot of charges accumulate against significantcriminal figures. That's probably not going to wipe out the Mafia, but I think it's going to shatter the myth of invincibility which for many years really sheltered these organized crime figures.

LEHRER: We in our news clip at the top of the program, in the news summary, FBI Director Webster said that he hopes this will break the code of silence. What does he mean there?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, there is a notion, and for many years law enforcement was confronted with it, that people just don't testify against the Mafia because they're afraid or because there's a code of silence. And I think as people see cases brought against the major organized crime figures, they'll realize that the Mafia is not invincible and that in fact the government really has the weapons to use against the Mafia. That may encourage them to break their silence and come forward.

LEHRER: Has it happened yet?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, I think there have been in the past, in trials, people who have come forward and testified. There has been a successful witness protection program, which I think is a testament to the ability of the government to protect witnesses, and I think that indictments which would have been unthinkable 20 years ago in terms of the myth of the Mob are now something that are almost routine.

LEHRER: Now, this Commission, did it hold regular meetings in downtown hotels and that kind of thing? Tell us a little bit about that.

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, I don't think at this point I can go into the particulars of the evidence that's going to be introduced at the trial. The indictment does make clear that the Commission was meeting and the Commission was actively making decisions both with respect to extortions in the construction industry and with respect to certain murders.

LEHRER: But they didn't have a regular meeting place or anything like that?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, I think in terms of the specifics of that I don't really think I can talk about it.

LEHRER: Okay, all nine of them are basically very old men. Does the fact -- won't the younger people just step in? Won't they be delighted that this has happened and just step in and keep going and say, "Well, we got rid of those guys without having to kill them ourselves?" That's what's happened in the past, I understand.

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, of course it's speculation to wonder what the younger people will do, but one sometimes hears the argument that it's not perhaps worth pursuing this because someone else will come in and take the place of the person we've convicted. We don't believe that that's true. If people have committed crimes, they should be punished for them. And that's both a question of justice and it's a question of demonstrating that these things cannot continue with impunity.

LEHRER: One of the officials at the news conference today said today marks the beginning of the end of organized crime in America. Was he right?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, I think that's a fair statement and an optimistic statement, and we hope that it's true. But it will require more work and more resources, and we're prepared to do it.

LEHRER: What kind of work? What is the magic key that you still haven't got?

Mr. CHERTOFF: I don't think it's a question of a magic key. I think it's a question of hard labor over a long period of time. Cases like this are not made through dramatic events. They're made because many agents, many officers, many prosecutors spend hours dafting affidavits, getting court-ordered surveillance, monitoring.

LEHRER: And then you need some -- occasionally you need somebody with a neat idea -- "Let's put a bug inside a Jaguar." That helps too, right?

Mr. CHERTOFF: That's one idea, and I think there have been some others, which will come out.

LEHRER: That are just as dramatic as that?

Mr. CHERTOFF: Well, I don't want to get into comparing drama, but I think that that was obviously a very good idea, and I think that really a lot of agencies deserve credit for being creative in pursuing law enforcement.

LEHRER: Mr. Chertoff, thank you very much.

Mr. CHERTOFF: Thank you.

LEHRER: Judy?

WOODRUFF: Still to come on the NewsHour, Senators Gary Hart and Pete Wilson debate the MX missile, a report from California on how that state will be affected if it is or isn't built, and a look at one New York City housing project's experiment with desegregation. MX and the National Will

WOODRUFF: Our next focus segment looks at the latest skirmish in the long-running battle over the MX missile. The MX barely survived efforts by congressional Democrats to cut its funding last year. Congress-watchers have predicted that a similar stop-the-MX effort might be effective this spring. But President Reagan and his top advisers have different hopes. They want Congress to continue funding the missile as a sign of U.S. determination. Formerly known as the missile experimental, the MX has become a centerpiece in the Reagan administration's strategic buildup. The multiple warhead missile can destroy 10 separate targets. It can hit within 400 feet of targets 6,000 miles from its launch site. The MX is itself a chief target of Congressional budget-cutters who want to pare defense spending. The first 100 MX will cost some $21 billion. Today at a Senate hearing Secretary of State Shultz and Defense Secretary Weinberger said Congress should fund MX production. They said the MX has become a test of the U.S. national will. Shultz rejected charges the administration wanted the MX as a bargaining chip in arms control negotiations with the Soviets.

GEORGE SHULTZ, Secretary of State: We need to be doing the things across the board that we think are in our interests and that we think add to deterrence, as essentially generating the strength we need to bargain effectively. At the bargaining table, obviously, I say to me it seems obvious, that if we are going to be successful in persuading the Soviet Union to do what at least rhetorically they said they wanted to do in Geneva, namely, have radical reductions in nuclear offensive armaments, we're going to have to be talking about the whole variety of our programs and their programs. So that would be the nature of the dicussion.

Sen. GARY HART, (D) Colorado: So on the one hand you're saying that the strategic modernization program is not negotiable, but on the other hand it is.

Sec. SHULTZ: I referred in bargaining chips to the -- I didn't say they're not negotiable. I said they shouldn't be thought of as items that you do simply for the sake of creating a bargaining chip. You should do them because they contribute to our defensive capability.

WOODRUFF: The U.S. negotiating team to the Geneva arms control talks with the Soviets was also testifying on Capitol Hill this morning. Delegation chairman, Ambassador Max Kampelman, stressed the importance he places on the MX funding.

Sen. PAUL TRIBLE, (R) Virginia: What in your view would be the effect on our negotiating position if the Congress decides not to deploy the MX?

Amb. MAX KAMPELMAN, U.S. arms negotiator: In my opinion, Senator, I think it would be damaging to our position in the negotiation were this Congress to decide not to fund the MX proposals that are now before the Congress. It strikes me that if I were in the Soviet Union sitting in Moscow and found that some items on the table which I hoped to get from the other side were removed from that table without the requirement for me in Moscow to make a single concession in the negotiating process, that I would be far less likely to be considering making those suggestions until I saw the evolution of the movement to otherwise remove those issues from the table. I think that as a negotiator I would like to have as much on my side of the table as is practical and reasonable and responsible to have, so that I can use those ingredients as part of a very serious negotiation.

WOODRUFF: President Reagan also got into the act to win support for the MX. He hosted a briefing at the White House this afternoon on the issue. But as we said, the main administration pitch in public was made before the Senate Armed Services Committee. That's where Secretaries Shultz and Weinberger made their rare joint appearance today. To continue the debate over the controversial missile, we have joining us two members of that committee -- Republican Senator Pete Wilson of California and Democratic Senator Gary Hart of Colorado. They are in a studio on Capitol Hill. Senator Hart, let me begin with you. Do you agree with Secretary Shultz's statement that the MX has become a our national resolve, our national will?

Sen. HART: Oh, certainly not. I don't think it's seen that way by a majority of members of either house. I think the administration has successfully confused the Congress, if not the American people, about whether the MX is necessary for this country's protection and deterrence or whether in fact it is an object or an item to be negotiated over in Geneva. And until the administration decides that, it's going to be awfully hard for the American people and their elected representatives in Congress to understand it.

WOODRUFF: Senator Wilson, which is it?

Sen. WILSON: Well, it's actually both. Judy, in order for something to be a so-called bargaining chip, it obviously has to have substantive merit. And the real value of MX is that it is a part of our triad and specifically, as it relates to the arms control negotiations, about which we are guardedly optimistic, next month, as Ambassador Kampelman has told you we need it and, specifically, more specifically even than he was, we need it in order to provide incentive to the Soviets to come to an agreement limiting warheads and throw weight. We don't have such an agreement now. If those who are persuaded to give up MX unilaterally do so, they're doing the work of the Soviet negotiators. They are taking away the incentive without which we can have no hope for such an agreement.

WOODRUFF: Senator Hart, what about the point that Senator Wilson just made and Secretaries Shultz and Weinberger made today that it's a necessary part of the triad, that it's something that we need as part of our strategic deterrent?

Sen. HART: Well, to a degree the administration has victimized itself. It came into office talking about something called the window of vulnerability, which we haven't heard much about in the last two or three years or more. And the reason we haven't heard about it is that, as of the spring of 1983, the administration decided to put the much more powerful, larger, more multiple-warhead missile in the silos which it said were aleady vulnerable to accurate Soviet missiles. And it was that basing decision which caused the erosion of support for the missile, where a lot of members of Congress were willing to go along with some basing mode that was mobile and survivable, but fell off the wagon on the issue of putting a heavier, more attractive target in places that the administration and the President himself admitted were already subject to a first strike from the Soviet Union, and I think that's been the biggest problem.

WOODRUFF: Is that your problem with it?

Sen. HART: It's my principal problem. I think we ought to modernize the triad. That's not the issue. We're going forward with Trident submarines and Trident missiles, air-launched cruise missiles. We are modernizing and making more accurate the warheads on the Minuteman missiles and we're going forward with, now, the B-1 -- I don't think that's a wise decision. And, finally, I support, as many people do, a single-warhead, mobile system in adequate numbers to operate as a real deterrent and a survivable deterrent. Survivability is the real question.

WOODRUFF: Senator Wilson, what about the survivability question? How convinced are you that the basing mode that the administration has chosen is one that's going to work?

Sen. WILSON: Judy, I am convinced that it was the only decision left to them by Congress. And I would say to my friend, Senator Hart, and others who are looking forward to the mobile missile that if they thought that we had fun with the basing of MX, just wait until they try and get people to adjust to having a semi pull up next to them at a stop light carrying a mobile missile. We're going to be right back into the same situation, and there are always some who are ready to support the next weapon system. And, frankly, the Trident of which he speaks, the weapon that he is looking forward to from the Trident submarine, the D-5 missile, won't be available to us for three more years. What we need are not blueprints. We need weapons now and particularly now, when we are going to be negotiating in March, trying to bring about arms control. You cannot, as Ambassador Kampelman said, negotiate without offering incentive.

WOODRUFF: But on the MX, are you certain, do you feel as certain as you can be that the basing mode, the Minuteman holes that they would put the MX in is the best method available?

Sen. WILSON: Well, I think that you have to understand that the state of the art is changing. There will be a report out from the President, from the National Security Council, I would gather about the first of March, that will address measures that can be taken. They will include hardening and, down the road, the possible deployment of some kind of defensive technology. So no one is saying that a fixed missile in a silo isn't more vulnerable than a submarine, and yet it is a part of the triad. There are problems that relate to the submarines that we haven't discussed. There are advantages to the ground-launched missile that are -- that make it a necessary part of this three-legged response without which we really do not have the same degree of deterrence.

WOODRUFF: Senator Hart, are those reports that he referred to going to be enough to persuade you, do you think?

Sen. HART: No, I don't believe so. I think the record should reflect, when Senator Wilson says that the silos were the only place left to put the missile, that the opposition to a mobile MX, which had considerable support in the Congress in the '70s as a survivable missile, the opposition to making that system mobile came from the President's own party and particularly the senators in Utah and Nevada where that mobile system was to be placed. And it was a political decision which General Scowcroft himself admitted when the report came out recommending that these be put in silos, General Scowcroft himself, speaking for the commission, said it was not a military decision to put them in silos; it was a political decision.

WOODRUFF: But even if it's not the perfect decision, what about the administration argument that if you take the MX off the table now that the Soviets don't have any incentive to reduce their own arsenal?

Sen. HART: Where has the administration been in the last four years? The administration had a full term to negotiate some limitations on nuclear weapons, including land-based ICBMs, and failed. It now claims that it's going back to the bargaining table in its fifth year and it needs these weapons in order to be able to negotiate. Well, I rst of all don't think the Soviets are all that much impressed by foolish actionson our part. There's a much greater difference between resolve and doing something which makes no sense at all. I think the MX scares the Russians all right, but not because it's a deterrent and a survivable system. It's because it's a first-strike weapon and would be emptied of its silos, perhaps under the mistaken impression this country was under attack.

WOODRUFF: Senator Wilson, how do you respond?

Sen. WILSON: I respond by saying that Senator Hart has a very convenient memory. His sense of history is a little flawed. We were at the bargaining tables with respect to both intermediate-range and strategic missiles, and it was the Soviets who walked. And to say that we are just now beginning these negotiations is simply untrue. They are -- nally the Soviets are back, after abandoning their stated conditions for returning, and I am hopeful that we will be able to agree or come to agreement to limitations on throw weight and on warheads. But I can assure you that we will not do so if, in fact, we unilaterally, the Congress of the United States, has removed the MX from our inventory. Then we have robbed the Soviets of all incentive to negotiate on that specific weapon system. And they outnumber us by three to one with respect to intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are the most destabilizing weapons in their arsenal and in our own.

WOODRUFF: Senator Hart?

Sen. HART: Well, first of all, my recollection of history is based upon public statements by key officials in the administration, whose names are well known, that the administration had no intention of negotiating an agreement until it achieved its so-called modernization or buildup. The administration came into power in 1981 saying we were so far behind that it was ridiculous to seriously negotiate. They went to the bargaining table I think out of political necessity because the people of this country demanded it, but over and over again stated publicly and privately that they had no intention of negotiating an agreement until the force modernization occurred. We can't take something off the table that's never been on the table. The fact of the matter is the majority of the members of Congress have never come to an all-out commitment to the MX missile. To say now that to turn it down is taking something off the table I think is just not an accurate statement of the fact.

WOODRUFF: Senator Wilson, do you think now the introduction of the strategic defense initiative, the whole Star Wars issue, is going to in any way weaken the administration's argument for the MX?

Sen. WILSON: No, in fact long term -- and it's difficult to say how long -- the combination of a strategic defense deployment, particularly around the MX missile force, the counterforce, would enhance its survivability and make it more credible as a deterrent.

WOODRUFF: Do you agree, Senator Hart?

Sen. HART: Well, I think there is a great deal of speculation. First of all, it seems to me to be contradictory to be talking about an offensive arms buildup at the same time you're saying that's an awful thing to do and what we have to do is make offensive weapons obsolete by this elaborate and, many of us think, unworkable, system of space defenses. The administration, once again, as with MX, hasn't gotten its act together or its lines straight as to what the strategic defense initiative is. Earlier this week one key official, Ambassador Nitze, was giving a speech in Philadelphia saying this is purely a research project, if it works out then we'll go step by step in evolving and deploying it. The next day before theArmed Services Committee, the undersecretary of defense was saying the strategic defense initiative is central to the defenses of the United States. Well, the administration has to decide. It's either a research project, which it has hopes for, or it is central to our defenses. I can't see how it can be central to our defenses when we don't even yet know what it is.

WOODRUFF: I'll give each one of you a chance to predict what you think's going to happen on MX funding. How much of what the administration wants is it going to get? Senator Wilson, what do you think?

Sen. WILSON: Well, I am hopeful that they will get what they are asking for. I might point out that of the $21-billion cost that you described we have already paid for two-thirds of it. It would be very penny-wise and pound-foolish to forego getting a weapons system when we have in fact paid for two-thirds of it. I think that, finally, the argument that we need it both to achieve arms control negotiations and to achieve the kind of substantial deterrent that is really required to get those arms control agreements will prevail, and I would hope that we will have a healthy bipartisan vote.

WOODRUFF: Senator Hart, what will the administration get?

Sen. HART: Late in the last session, as you'll recall, Vice President Bush had to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate to save the MX at all because a bipartisan consensus had begun to form against it. I think right now if in fact the MX survives this Congress it will be only under very, very heavy conditions imposed in the law that require the administration to go forward as quickly as possible with some negotiations and continually report back to Congress as to what kind of progress is being made. And even that may not pass. The MX is in serious trouble.

WOODRUFF: Well, I know it's something we haven't heard the last of on this program. Senator Hart, Senator Wilson, thank you both for being with us.

Sen. WILSON: Thank you.

Sen. HART: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Jim? MX: The Local Angle

LEHRER: Finally on the MX, there are also local angles to the debate that have little to do with bargaining chips at Geneva and similar arms control matters. Senator Wilson's home state of California, for instance, is where 50 of the MX missile production is done. Out there, while Congress argues about canceling the whole thing, work goes on on the first 21 missiles. Stephen Talbott of public station KQED-San Francisco, reports.

STEPHEN TALBOTT, KQED [voice-over]: This is the second stage of the MX, a 30-ton rocket designed and built by Aerojet General near Sacramento, California. Fifty percent of the work on MX is done in California, employing 12,000 workers at different companies. The MX may be a bargaining chip in Geneva and a hot political controversy in Washington, but out here it's a job. It's an economic issue.

DAN BROWN, Aerojet General: It's difficult for me to speculate on what the Congress is going to do, so I'm not going to do that. But obviously if the project closed down we would suffer some hurt.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: California boasts a $27-billion aerospace and defense industry. Twenty-two percent of everything the Pentagon spends it spends here. And 660,000 Californians work in the defense industry, nearly 7 of the state's workforce. President Reagan's defense bonanza has fueled California's economic growth, but it also leaves the state vulnerable to sudden fluctuations in spending. The state assembly recently held hearings out of concern for the kind of impact defense cuts like cancellation of the MX would have.

Mayor ANN RUDIN, Sacramento, California: Such talks make us fear that the outbreak of true peace would bring massive unemployment and a major depression.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: Ann Rudin is the mayor of Sacramento. Aerojet's the biggest employer in her county.

Mayor RUDIN: Communities find themselves having to support military programs more for the jobs and economic subsidies they provide than for their national security significance.

ANNOUNCER: Well, good morning again, Stan. Holding very well at the moment. Dow Jones Industrials plus 8.28 at 1200 even; volume, 54 million shares. The defense stocks are not faring all that well this morning. Lockheed, down a half; Rockwell, unchanged; Northrup, down another 7fi8ths.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: At the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco, defense stocks have been hot items throughout the Reagan arms buildup. Some, like Lockheed, are still highly recommended. But for investors today putting money in most California defense stocks is coming to the feast a little late, according to E.F. Hutton.

BROKER: Well, you're going to see the $20,000 credit not earning interest --

TALBOTT [voice-over]: For stockbrokers the prospect that Congress may cancel the MX has cast a shadow over major MX contractors, companies like Rockwell International.

MARTHA WADDELL, E.F. Hutton: Oh, it'll have a major effect, and I think that the fact -- part of the fact that the stock we anticipate being flat for the next three to six months is affected by that, that there's some insecurity in it. And the one thing the market cannot deal with is insecurity.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: Rockwell in Southern California is the biggest defense contractor in the state, builder of the space shuttle and the B-1 bomber. It's also the main California contractor on the MX.

PAUL FULLER, Rockwell International: The Peacekeeper is probably the toughest military program we've had because of the fact that it has to be reapproved every year. So that makes just the continued flow of the contracts a little bit difficult. It means you have to renegotiate every year for the production programs, and therefore the costs are up slightly because of that.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: Rockwell is building the fourth stage of the MX and its top-secret guidance and control system. After Aerojet's rocket motor hurtles the missile into the upper atmosphere, Rockwell's fourth-stage computer will position and fire the 10 nuclear warheads.

Mr. FULLER: We start delivery in the spring of 1986 and the first 10 units are deployed by December of '86 at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and Nebraska.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: Unless, that is, Congress postpones or cancels the MX, in which case Rockwell would lose several billion dollars in contracts and 3,000 Rockwell employees would lose their jobs.

BILLY CRUCE, Rockwell International: As long as I've been in this business you learn that this happens all the time, and it's not something that you only experience once in a lifetime. It's something that you deal with all the time.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: But nobody likes living with uncertainty, and in the defense business the desire for security has created a constituency in favor of defense spending. Workers and companies alike want to keep the government contracts coming in.

Adm. EUGENE CARROLL, U.S. Navy (retired): Once you get the program rolling, the money itself builds a constituency.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: Retired Admiral Eugene Carroll opposes the MX on strategic grounds, but he and others fear that Congresswill be loath to kill a program on which so many companies and workers depend.

Adm. CARROLL: All of the manufacturers build up political support in congressional districts. The Congress wants the money to go into their districts, so they vote for it. It doesn't make sense strategically, but it has a life of its own and it's almost impossible to kill.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: Brigadier General Gordon Fornell is the Air Force program manager for the MX. It's his job to convince Congress to vote for the missile.

Gen. GORDON FORNELL, U.S. Air Force: I'm not confident, but I feel that all the people in the Congress -- and it'll be a close vote, I'm sure -- but I think they'll see the relative value of MX and its contributions in the overall arms control discussions in the setting that we find ourselves the latter part of March. And I think we'll be there.

TALBOTT [voice-over]: When President Carter canceled the B-1 bomber in 1977, Rockwell and the Air Force launched a major lobbying campaign which revived the program under President Reagan. The constituency in favor of the MX may not be as cohesive or effective, but California's MX contractors won't give up without a fight.

LEHRER: That report by Stephen Talbott of KQED, San Francisco. Racial Quotas Under Fire

WOODRUFF: Our next focus section deals with an issues that never seems to go away, how best to avoid racial segregation in housing. The place we look in on is Starrett City, one of the nation's largest federally funded housing projects, a totally integrated community of some 20,000 residents. But the area of New York City that surrounds the project is, like most cities, sharply segregated, and the methods being used in Starrett City are highly controversial. Robin MacNeil narrates our report.

ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]: Starrett City in Brooklyn is an example of the melting pot at work. For George and Evelyn Domens the giant housing development has been home since it first opened in 1974. Domens is a commercial building supervisor, a man proud of the economic strides he's achieved in life. The Domens think that Starrett City is a good place to live.

GEORGE DOMENS, Starrett City resident: It's reasonably safe, good facilities for the children and in an area that is spacious, there's playgrounds and shopping malls. I love living here at Starrett City.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: The Starrett Corporation has taken special care to provide first-class facilities for sports, child care and shopping. Management said it had to do those things to attract New Yorkers to an urban, high-rise community on the outskirts of Brooklyn. To keep crime to a minimum, a chief concern of residents, Starrett City operates a security force with full police powers. A measure of the community's success is the waiting list of some 17,000 families. One of the things the Domens like in particular is that Starrett City is integrated. More than a third of the nearly 6,000 apartments are occupied by black, Hispanic and Oriental families.

Mr. DOMENS: The efforts on the part of the Starrett City Corporation to maintain an integrated community pleases me very much. I feel that integration is part of the problem of housing in this city, and I like that effort on their part.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: The effort involves the use of racial quotas and separate waiting lists for whites and non-whites. The general manager of Starrett City is Robert Rosenberg.

ROBERT ROSENBERG, Starrett City Manager: If we did not take race into account, the market force, the numbers -- if our waiting list is 75 black, it would not take very long for the project, the development, to tip. Whites would stop applying and whites that live here would start to leave. And thus we would end up with another ghetto, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: The process Rosenberg describes is referred to as "tipping." Starrett management has studied the history of tipping in the surrounding area of Brooklyn. The research was done by urban planner Oscar Newman.

OSCAR NEWMAN, urban planner: Well, we looked at half a dozen projects surrounding Starrett City and we found that the projects were stable up to about 18 black and 78 white. And we found that, out about the 18 to 20 percent point, if no controls were used to keep the projects stable or integrated, the projects went predominantly black in about five years.

Mr. DOMENS: It's hard to admit it, but the truth is that in black communities city services diminish and city services is what you need.

EVELYN DOMENS: At least when it's interracial they have a certain pride where they want to keep up the surrounding area, improve it, and in the black community it sort of goes downhill.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Linden Plaza, about a mile down the road from Starrett City, bears out Mrs. Domens' point. When it opened in 1975 the apartment complex was racially mixed, with the same kinds of middle-income families that live at Starrett City. Today the tenants complain of crime, vandalism and management neglect.

LINDEN PLAZA RESIDENT: When I moved here the building was very nice. As a matter of fact, the whole complex was. We had flowers and plants and things in the lobby. And then as time went by, you know, more blacks started moving in. The whites started moving to Starrett City or either they would move out, you know, further out in Queens and all. So like the floors stopped being mopped as regular and all. The incinerator room started, you know, the garbage started piling up where they used to keep it very neat and clean. And everything just went kaput.

Mr. DOMENS: I think I would be terribly disappointed if the community, if Starrett was to relax their quota system and allow all minorities to move in. This is not a thing against minorities, but it's a thing against city services.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Domens admits that he has an insider's perspective, but what about the outsiders -- the blacks and other minority families who have unsuccessfully sought an apartment at Starrett City? After two years on a waiting list, Joe Percival got so angry about Starrett City's rental policies that he sued.

JOE PERCIVAL, prospective tenant: It was very, I would say, degrading and dehumanizing, because on several occasions we went back there to meet with the renting agents and to find out about the status of the application forms, and we met people who were in there one day in one hour, spoke to a renting agent. They did a credit check on them and they were told to come back in x amount of days to sign a lease and pick up their keys. In the meantime, we were waiting. We were waiting for months going on years when they kept telling us that they had no two-bedroom apartments.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Now a writer, Nancy Stiefel was hired in 1977 to work weekends as a receptionist at the Starrett City rental office. Upset about the way black applicants were being treated, she soon quit and recently wrote an article about her experience.

NANCY STIEFEL, writer: I remember the security guards were instructed to try to turn away black people from the gates downstairs by telling them that they needed appointments, and white people were encouraged to come up whether or not they had appointments.

Mr. ROSENBERG: What we really had to do, frankly, is find whites who were willing to live in an integrated community, not to try to find those few whites who wanted to live because they were committed liberals. We could never fill a place of this size. So now we had to create a situation where whites would be willing to accept integration.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: At Starrett City the fact that a successful integrated community is based on racial quotas troubles some residents. One of them is the Reverend Adrian Tenhor. The Tenhors have lived at Starrett City for many years.

Rev. ADRIAN TENHOR, Starrett City resident: I struggled with the whole question of quota systems and on the surface it looks highly discriminatory. I have families in my parish, black families, who have relatives who want to move in. We'd like them to move in right away. But it does not always work out that way. The world the way it is and the world the way it should be are two different worlds. The world the way it should be, should be any family could move anywhere anytime. But the nature of racism means that there has to be some design to the community.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: That's not the way the U.S. Department of Justice views the situation. The federal government is suing Starrett City for what it calls discriminatory practices. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights William Bradford Reynolds explains why.

WILLIAM BRADFORD REYNOLDS, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights: The Fair Housing Act says you cannot sell or rent to individuals on the basis of race. You cannot exclude people because of their race from apartment houses and you cannot include them. This was a practice that depends on a quota and quotas are necessarily exclusionary. And here what the practice was, was to exclude blacks from available dwellings, reserve those dwellings for white tenants, and that is something that you cannot do under the Fair Housing Law.

Mr. ROSENBERG: Mr. Bradford Reynolds has it in his head that he doesn't think integration's important. He thinks that equal access is important. Well, equal access means segregation for the reasons I have spelled out, that all that will happen is if that's going to become the rule, then and there will not be any integrated housing developments.

Mr. BRADFORD REYNOLDS: Well, I think integration as a goal is something to care about, and I think that there are an awful lot of affirmative action techniques that can and should be employed in order to encourage integration as a goal. But one of those that is not permissable is to exclude people on the basis of race or include people on the basis of race.

Mr. DOMENS: You know, quota systems are only a temporary solution to the problem. I'm not too crazy about quota systems, but in the case of integration we've got to have some white people in order to be integrated, and if we let everyone come in that applies, we're going to wind up with a total minority community.

WOODRUFF: A decision is expected any day now in the Justice Department's suit against the operators of Starrett City. Jim?

LEHRER: Again, the major stories this Tuesday. The federal government indicted and arrested nine leaders of organized crime in America, including the heads of New York City's five Mob families. They were charged with overseeing a wide variety of crimes from murder to labor racketeering. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker issued another warning, saying the value of the dollar will come crashing harmfully down one day if the federal budget deficit is not controlled. And the nation's governors passed a resolution urging an across-the-board budget freeze that would include defense and Social Security.

Good night, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff. Good night.