The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. These are the main news headlines. A Soviet report raised the Chernobyl injury toll to 1,000. Defense Secretary Weinberger said the U.S. was no longer bound by the SALT II treaty. Syria says it's trying to release hostages in Lebanon, if necessary, by force. President Reagan has selected sites in Nevada, Texas and Washington for possible nuclear waste dumps. Details of these and other stories in our news summary coming up. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: After the news summary, we have a newsmaker interview on SALT II with top arms control advisor Paul Nitze, a debate over whether the special prosecutor procedure really works, a documentary report on the use of steroids by athletes, and finally some words about art in Texas from Gallas newspaper columnist Molly Ivins. News Summary

MacNEIL: A Soviet news agency, Novosti, indicated today that the number of people injured by the Chernobyl disaster was 1,000. Previously the Soviets have put the figure at 299 who needed hospitalization. The Novosti report said that the first medical teams to reach the scene selected the 100 most serious cases out of 1,000. Also today, Dr. Thomas Gale, the American treating the worst radiation cases, said that more than 100,000 people risk developing cancer because of radiation exposure. He spoke in an interview with the BBC.

Dr. ROBERT GALE, bone marrow specialist: If there really are 100,000 or more people at risk, and they have received the types of doses that we've heard, then I think it's not unlikely that there might be a thousand or thousands of people who develop excess cancers.

MacNEIL: A high-ranking Soviet official, Lev Tolkunov, said that a special government commission and nuclear scientist will report to -- the cause of the accident in four to six weeks. Tolkunov, who heads the house of union, one of two houses of the Soviet Parliament, told reporters in Bonn that the report would be given to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Jim?

LEHRER: Defense Secretary Weinberger had some follow-up words today about the SALT II decision. He said the United States will definitely ignore the unratified treaty in the fall by arming B-52 bombers with new cruise missiles.President Reagan announced yesterday two missible-carrying nuclear submarines would be retired in order to stay within SALT's deployed missile limits. But he said Soviet violations of the treaty made it probable the U.S. would do the same when U.S. interests dictated. Weinberger's remark, made to reporters at West Point, New York, seemed to confirm that position. The Soviet news agency TASS said today the Reagan decision was forced on him by pressure from within and without the United States. The statement accused Mr. Reagan of resorting to lies about Soviet violations to justify U.S. noncompliance in the future.

MacNEIL: Syria's defense minister, Mustapha Tlass, said today that his country is working hard to free Western hostages in Lebanon. Tlass told a French radio station he was sure the four French hostages there would be released, and that if Syria knew where they were, it would use force, if necessary, to free them. Tlass also said the U.S. bombing of Libya last month had delayed Syrian efforts to free the French hostages.

In Athens, Syrian president Hafez Assad said Syria does not sponsor terrorism, and will cooperate with an international campaign against it.Assad condemned the attacks on Rome and Vienna airports as terrorism which did not help the Palestinian cause.

LEHRER: Secretary of State Shultz had Africa on his mind today. He addressed a special United Nations General Assembly session on Africa, saying it was time to rethink economic approaches. Shultz said African governments must abandon policies that have stified innovation and led to so many economic problems in so many African nations.

GEOGRE SHULTZ, Secretary of State: The United States and other donor countries have had to learn another hard truth -- that well-intentioned programs can produce dependency rather than self-sufficiency, economic stagnation rather than self-sustaining growth. And we have all learned another sobering truth: flawed governmental policies can hurt economies just as surely as the natural calamities that have afflicted Africa. No amount of foreign assistance and no measure of good intentions can alleviate the hardship caused by a government bent on misguided policies.

MacNEIL: President Reagan has decided the nation will need only one dump for nuclear waste, and has narrowed the choice to three potential sites in the West. The three sites announced by the White House are Yucca Mountain, Nevada; Deathsmith County, Texas; and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington. Potential second sites in the East were abandoned, following heavy local opposition. Energy Secretary John Herrington told a news conference how the three finalists were selected.

JOHN HERRINGTON, Energy Secretary: These are tough decisions. We've got to get that point straight. It's not -- we're not looking at a popularity contest here or looking for the popular way out. This is a problem where we have fuel around this country in pools of water near utilities, and we need to solve this problem.And it's tough to make the decision on how to solve the problem. Today's decisions are the culmination of extensive evaluation of these and other potential sites during the past three years. The department's work included the compilation of through environmental assessments and widespread public comment. More than 20,000 comments were received by the department and were incorporated into this decision.

MacNEIL: In Carson City, Nevada, Governor Richard Bryan said his administration has filed five federal court suits to block any further effort to place a waste site in that state.

LEHRER: The stock market hit another record today. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 25 points at a historically high 1878. And there's an interesting follow up to yesterday's announced shut down of the Baltimore News American. The Times Mirror Company, owner of the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, will buy the Baltimore Sun newspapers and its two television stations. The announcement was made in Baltimore. The price will be 60 -- $600 million. The Sun papers became the only papers in Baltimore with yesterday's demise of the Hearst-owned News American.

MacNEIL: That's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to an interview with arms control advisor Paul Nitze, a debate over the special prosecutor system, a documentary report on the use of steroids by athletes, and finally an essay on art in Texas. The Future of SALT II

LEHRER: SALT II is first on the table tonight. Yesterday President Reagan said the U.S. will retire two missile carrying submarines to stay in compliance with that treaty. But today Defense Secretary Weinberger said the U.S. will go out of compliance in the fall when new cruise missiles go on a B-52 bomber. And the Soviet news agency TASS accused the U.S. of lying about the whole thing. We're going to talk to Paul Nitze about all of this in a moment. He is the Special Arms Control Advisor to the President and Secretary of State Shultz. But first, a reminder of what the SALT II treaty is and isn't from correspondent June Cross.

JUNE CROSS [voice-over]: The agreement is known as SALT II, SALT standing for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Three American presidents took office during the seven years of negotiations, and President Jimmy Carter finally signed it with Leonid Brezhnev in June of 1979. But the Senate considered it a bad deal for the U.S., and that, combined with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year, torpedoed the treaty. Those who favor letting the treaty lapse say it hasn't done much to halt the arms race, because neither side is in a position to build nuclear weapons any faster than they already have. That's a point of view championed particularly in the Pentagon. But treaty advocates at the State Department and elsewhere say SALT II has slowed the speed of the Soviet build up in areas key for the United States. The first is in the total numbers of bombers, land-based missiles and submarines each side has built since 1979. The treaty limits these so-called missile launchers to a total of 2,400. The Soviets had about 2,500 launchers when the treaty was signed, and they've held to that level. That's permitted the U.S. to catch up from 1,800 nuclear missile launchers in 1979 to 2,200 now. Far more important from the U.S. point of view are the limits on missiles with multiple warheads. These weapons, called MIRVs, are considered particularly dangerous, because one missile can reach as many as ten different targets. The treaty sets a limit of 1,200 on multiple warhead missiles.The Soviet Union has 1,130. The United States, 1,190. Candidate Ronald Reagan called the treaty fatally flawed in 1980. Yet, as President, Ronald Reagan has chosen to abide by the SALT II treaty.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: I know that I set a policy some time ago that we would continue to observe the restraints of the SALT II treaty. But in keeping with whether the other signators of the treaty did so also. Now, there are -- we know there have been violations, and we still have not come down hard on what balances what and what we should do. But we are willing to observe those restraints if they are willing also.

LEHRER: Now to a newsmaker interview with Special Arms Control Advisor, Paul Nitze. Mr. Nitze, welcome. Yesterday the President said the U.S. will stay in compliance and will retire these two nuclear submarines. Today Secretary Weinberger said, "Oh well, in the fall we're going to be out of compliance when the cruise missiles go on these B-52 bombers." What -- what happened in 24 hours?

PAUL NITZE, Arms Control Advisor: You don't quite correctly report what the President said. The President said that he would dismantle those two submarines, but not in order to stay in compliance with the treaty, but because it was more effective and more efficient, cost-effective-wise, to retire those submarines than to keep -- than to recore them and overhaul them. They have a very short hull life, and it would have been an inefficient thing to do to recore them and give them -- and put them back to sea.

LEHRER: But it was done in the context of the new Trident submarine coming on board this summer, which would have put the U.S. out of compliance with SALT II. I mean, the President mentioned that in his statement, or Larry Speaks' statement certainly reflected that.

Mr. NITZE: Larry Speaks --

LEHRER: I didn't make that up, I know.

Mr. NITZE: No, Larry Speaks said that technically we would stay in compliance with the treaty from here on out until this fall, by virtue of having dismantled those two submarines. But the decision was made not because we wanted to stay in compliance with the treaty, but because of the cost-effectiveness considerations, which had motivated the joint chiefs, and they recommended against recording those two submarines.

LEHRER: Well why -- okay. Why make an announcement on one day that essentially says the United States, for whatever reason, is going to remain in compliance with SALT II, and then 24 hours later the Secretary of Defense says, "Oh well, in the fall we're going to do this, and we're going to be out of compliance."

Mr. NITZE: No, but you misunderstood me. There is no conflict between what Secretary Weinberger said and what the President said.

LEHRER: I understand that. But my question is why do it that way? Why do it one day and then change it the next?

Mr. NITZE: The President wanted to make a single decision. He had to make a decision at this time as to whether or not to dismantle those submarines or whether not to dismantle them. He had to make a further decision as to whether he wanted to do that in the context of abiding by his mutual -- his restraint policy, which he announced in 1982, or whether he didn't want to do it in that context. He finally decided that he wanted to do this in the context of having considered whether or not it made military sense, and the -- because his primary aim is to see that the program for maintaining our modernization -- our strategic modernization program can be maintained. To divert those funds to this purpose would have been unwise.

LEHRER: So essentially then, what the policy of the United States is toward the SALT II treaty now is forget it. It no longer applies, and we will no longer make any effort to comply with its provisions.

Mr. NITZE: I think, again, I would phrase it differently. The President's 1982 statement was that we would abide by the limitations of SALT II and not undercut those limitations if the Soviet Union did likewise.The Soviet Union has not done likewise. It is not a question of violating a treaty. The treaty never was ratified, as you pointed out earlier. It would have expired, if it had been ratified. What the President said was a policy statement which was contingent upon it being bilateral restraint -- restraint on the part of the U.S.S.R., as well as restraint on the part of the United States. There hasn't been restraint on the part of the U.S.S.R. Therefore, the President has said that he does not think there is a point in continuing unilateral restraint -- in other words, restraint only by the United States and not by the U.S.S.R. If -- he also went on to say that if the U.S.S.R. were to take measures which would bring them back toward restraint, making it mutual, making it on their part as well as ours, then he would take that into account.

LEHRER: Secretary Weinberger also said today that he did not expect the Soviet Union to ever do that. Do you agree with that? Do you not expect them to do so either?

Mr. NITZE: No, I think the Soviets often do things that one doesn't except. And, therefore, I continue to hope that they will move toward making this policy multilateral, to give us time so that we can negotiate a program of deep reductions. In the arms control sense, this is what the President wants. He wants to see deep reductions negotiated between the two sides. That's what we hope will happen.

LEHRER: What kind of violations have the Soviets committed of the -- I realize the treaty was not enacted, but the guidelines of the treaty. What kind of violations have they committed?

Mr. NITZE: The treaty clearly provides that neither side shall build more than one new ICBM missile. Now, the Soviets have not declared that their SS-24 was a new missile. Again, they've also begun to deploy the SS-25, which is clearly a new missile, which is the second missile in clear violation of the SALT II treaty.

LEHRER: And the United States, until this fall, has not done anything comparable to that as far as violating the precepts?

Mr. NITZE: It has not. It has scrupulously abided by the -- both the qualitative and the quantitative limitations of the SALT II agreement.

LEHRER: What do you say to TASS saying today that the United States is just lying about all this?

Mr. NITZE: This is the type of accusation one runs into regularly from the Soviet Union.

LEHRER: It doesn't upset you when the official Soviet news agency accuses the United States of the President of the United States of lying?

Mr. NITZE: I -- they have done it so often that I've gotten hardened to that.

LEHRER: Do you expect that kind of thing to ever stop?

Mr. NITZE: I hope it will, but they're really -- it's been a persistent pattern of accusations against the United States of doing exactly the things that they themselves are doing.

LEHRER: Is this kind of thing reflected at all at the Geneva arms talks -- where you say the real guts of all of this has to happen is the arms reduction talks in Geneva. Is there a new attitude there? The talks have just been going on now, again, what?Two weeks, right? Or maybe it was last week when they started up again.

Mr. NITZE: I would say that the movement of the talks in Geneva has been very slight. There has been some movement. I wouldn't say there has been none. But the movement has not been very great.

LEHRER: Are you optimistic that there is going to be a settlement before any -- I mean, is there going to be a settlement before a possible summit meeting this fall between Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev?

Mr. NITZE: Well, Mr. Reagan is not asking for a settlement. He's asking for movement on the Soviet side in the direction of making a policy of restraint bilateral -- making it on both sides, so that both sides, not just we, would be exercising restraint, but they would be exercising restraint. And I don't really think that that's too much to ask of the Soviet Union. Why should we be the only one who do constructive things toward making a summit possible?

LEHRER: Paul Warnke and other critics of U.S. Policy on arms control have suggested that the new announcement on SALT II, which was essentially, as you've just confirmed, that the U.S. will no longer be bound by this, because the U.S. position is the Soviets have violated it anyhow, that this really opens up all -- closes down all possibility of an arms control agreement any time soon.

Mr. NITZE: I don't believe that at all. I have not seen, ever, the Soviets move by unilateral concessions on our part to do things on their side. They really only respect those who take a serious position toward questions of this kind. It's got to be on both sides before they really take you seriously.

LEHRER: Was that figured into this decision on SALT II as to what it might -- what the end result of this decision might be on the arms talks in Geneva?

Mr. NITZE: Certainly that was taken into consideration. And I would agree with you that it's hard to be sure that one's right about those judgements. We make the best judgements we can.

LEHRER: I mean, you kind of roll the dice and hope that this causes the Soviet -- we'll do this, hope the Soviet Union will react in this way, and that will happen as a result, is that correct?

Mr. NITZE: Or rather, I'd put it that they are apt not to be affected by decisions of this kind. They'll do what they intended to do in any case.

LEHRER: I see. And generally, you are optimistic, though, that there will -- that there has -- that something is going to be -- is going to come up at Geneva, based on a little bit of movement thus far?

Mr. NITZE: You can't be in my position of working on the negotiations with the Soviets without being inherently optimistic.

LEHRER: All right. Mr. Nitze, thank you very much.

MacNEIL: Still to come in the News Hour, a discussion about the need for special prosecutors in cases like Michael Deaver's, a documentary report on the dangers of steroids for athletes, and an essay on art in Texas. Spotlighting Special Prosecutors

MacNEIL: It's now just a matter of time before a special prosecutor will be appointed to investigate the conflict of interest charges against former Presidential aide, Michael Deaver. A three judge panel in Washington announced yesterday that they'd received a petition from the Justice Department recommending that such an action be taken. This would mark the sixth time a special prosecutor has been appointed under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Those previously investigated and cleared of charges were Hamilton Jordan, President Carter's Chief of Staff, accused of using cocaine; Tim Kraft, Mr. Carter's national campaign manager, also accused of drug use; Raymond Donovan, President Reagan's First Secretary of Labor, accused of ties to organized crime; Edwin Meese, now Attorney General, accused of ommissions from his financial disclosure forms of various financial transactions. The fifth appointment was made last month to investigate charges that former Assistant Attorney General Theodore Olson gave false testimony during the Congressional investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency. We turn now to a discussion of just how necessary the special prosecutor is. Joining us from the public television studios of WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, is Republican Congressman Tom Kindness. Congressman Kindness is on the House Judiciary Committee, and in 1978 opposed the original law providing for a special prosecutor. We also have the man who originally for the appointment of a special prosecutor in the days of Watergate. He is John Banzhaf, professor of law at George Washington University. Joining them is a former special prosecutor. He is Arthur Christy, who was appointed in 1979 to investigate the charges against Hamilton Jordan. He's now in private law practice in New York.

In Columbus, Congressman Kindness. You, as I understand, are still opposed to the special prosecutor idea. Would you tell me why?

Rep. THOMAS KINDNESS (R) Ohio: I think it's been very expensive for the American taxpayer, and I'm not sure that we've increased the amount of confidence that the American people can have in the prosecutorial process. There's a certain level of additional confidence, perhaps, but no one's able to measure that. But it certainly has been expensive in terms of dollars. You very seldom really cure a problem by inviting more legal procedures and getting more lawyers involved.

MacNEIL: Well, the office was created because a need was perceived that government officials particularly when accused, formally or informally, of certain wrongdoing, had no effective way to answer the charges and have them resolved in a way that the public could trust. What other way is there?

Rep. KINDNESS: Well, actually the main thrust was to get the special prosecutor provisions in the law so that people could have confidence that high government officials who were alleged to have been engaged in wrongdoing were actually going to be prosecuted if that was the proper thing to do. It's a side effect, and a change in the law was made in 1982 or '84 in order to reimburse those people who are subjected to these special investigations or special prosecutions -- to reimburse them for their legal expenses. It becomes trial by ordeal when a special prosecutor is appointed, and a lot of legal expenses are incurred by the person who's under investigation. That's been corrected, let's say, by the Congress by agreeing to reimburse those people for those legal expenses, and the taxpayer picks up the bill.

MacNEIL: Apart from the expense, do you think the system is working?

Rep. KINDNESS: Is the system working at all, perhaps is the question. I think the Department of Justice institutionally has the capability of dealing with the prosecutions and with the investigations of these cases. We have a lot of checks and balances in our system -- in our constitutional system -- which work pretty well. The Watergate case, for example, which gave rise to the demands for special prosecutor provisions, really came out all right. I think the public interest was served. But largely because the Congress took up its oversight responsibility and started looking into it. In the case of Hamilton Jordan, at the other end of the spectrum, I think there never would have been all that expense incurred for lawyers' fees and time if there hadn't been a special prosecutor provision that required a special prosecutor to be appointed. It just wasn't worthy of being indicted. The charges weren't substantiated.

MacNEIL: Well, let's go to Washington and Professor John Banzhaf. You just heard the congressman say a special prosecutor really isn't needed after these years of seeing how it works. What do you think?

JOHN BANZHAF, George Washington University: Robin, I couldn't disagree with him more. I think the problem is today under the law, as the courts have interpreted it, we have to rely upon friends and close political associates of those suspected of crimes both to initiate the process to bring a special prosecutor, and then to a large extent to define the scope of the investigation, which they have often done in such a narrow way that people can escape. For example, there never was an investigation of debategate, even though high government officials, including Mr. Meese, Mr. Casey, and others, were suspected of crimes. The federal judge said in his opinion that there's enough evidence to indict, much less to investigate. We never got to the bottom of that.

MacNEIL: Just background debategate for us.

Mr. BANZHAF: Debategate was the situation where the debate papers for President Carter left, apparently illegally, left his camp and wound up, admittedly, in the Republican camp, where they may have been used to help Mr. Reagan in that debate.

MacNEIL: Tell me why you think special prosecutors are needed -- still needed, as opposed to the congressman's view.

Mr. BANZHAF: Well, I think the problem is this: we looked at Watergate. Watergate was a situation where high government officials, all the way up to the President, were engaged in a series of crimes. And because the Attorney General was a close political crony and in that case, indeed, was involved in the crimes, there was an investigation. I disagree with the congressman. A lot of dumb luck -- if Judge Serica had not acted improperly, perhaps illegally, in threatening to sentence people to long terms, if John Dean hadn't broken, if those tapes had not been available, we never would have caught Mr. Nixon. The problem is today every president has learned one lesson from Watergate. That is, don't appoint the special prosecutor. So if today we had the same very serious events going on in the White House, there would be no way that anyone could force a special prosecutor into office to investigate it. We would lose if there were another Watergate today.

MacNEIL: So you believe it's needed, but it's not working properly, is that --

Mr. BANZHAF: I believe it is needed, but what is -- what we need to complete it is some mechanism so that where the Attorney General has a close political or personal conflict, that he can be forced to appoint a special prosector, just as today public interest groups, and even individuals, can go in and sue other federal officials where they act contrary to the law, even where it involves prosecutorial discretion.

MacNEIL: Are you saying that in a case like the present one, Attorney General Meese, being a close political associate of Michael Deaver, didn't have to appoint a special prosecutor unless he -- unless he wanted to?

Mr. BANZHAF: Unless he wanted to, unless he felt like it, unless it was politically expedient. In Meese's own case, it was very clear that we never would have had a special prosecutor to investigate Mr. Meese, were it not for the fact that he wanted to be Attorney General, and there are enough senators on the confirmation committee who said they required it. And even there, by limiting the scope of the special prosecutor's mandate, we never did find out what Mr. Meese's role -- possible role was in the debategate situation. Maybe he shouldn't be Attorney General. Maybe he should be in jail. We don't know. We'll never know until we have a mechanism so that we can get somebody who is totally independent to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in the White House.

MacNEIL: Let's go to Arthur Christy, who was a special prosecutor in the case of Hamilton Jordan. Professor Banzhaf said it isn't working right, because the Attorney General has the discretion of whether to appoint a special prosecutor or not.

ARTHUR CHRISTY, former special prosecutor: Well, I would agree with the professor. I'd respectfully disagree with the congressman on the need for the act. I'm not sure I agree with Professor Banzhaf that it's not working. Yes, the Attorney General does have some discretion, but it seems to me that an Attorney General, where he is put in the position, as I think the present Attorney General is, probably doesn't have that much discretion. He probably has to do it. Yes, the law says he has the discretion, or if within 90 days he can find no reasonable grounds. But I'm inclined to think that it has been working. If you go back to the original act in 1978 where the threshold was really pretty low at which you would appoint a special prosecutor, that has been amended so that it's been upgraded. You've got to be a little bit more evidence before you will appoint the special prosecutor. Additionally, they have added a section which provides that the special prosecutor will be guided by whatever guidelines the Attorney General written or unwritten with regard to the prosecution of criminal cases, which is important, I think, because in the Hamilton Jordan case, where I was the special prosecutor, I don't think any United States attorney would have ever prosecuted that type of case. At least, no United States attorney in an urban area would have done it. And I think that the Attorney General might then have -- might have been able to say, "It's not our policy to prosecute." But he didn't do it, and I didn't think that I had the discretion to do it. But that's now written into the law.

MacNEIL: When I asked the congressman about the purpose of the special prosecutor in helping public officials accused of wrongdoing to clear their name, he said, "Well that actually wasn't the main purpose. The main purpose was to assure that people in high places were prosecuted if they were suspected -- seriously suspected -- of wrongdoing." How do you see the balance between those two functions?

Mr. CHRISTY: Well, I think he's right. I'm not sure that it was contemplated that it could be used by the accused, so to speak, or the target. On the other hand, I think that's reasonable use of it. Because if you have a case, such as Mr. Donovan, and there are rumors floating about that he's connected with organized crime, he has no forum in which he can defend himself. If he's not indicted, he can't be tried and acquitted if he's innocent. So therefore, it seems to me, the right of the target to ask for a special invetigation or an independent council, as they're now called, I think has merit.

MacNEIL: It's come to sound like a kind of glorified lie detector test. I mean, Michael Deaver says, "I want a special prosecutor so I can prove I'm innocent," as have sometimes people say, "Let me take a lie detector test."

Mr. CHRISTY: Well, I think that that may be judged something that comes from the act. I don't think you can say we're only going to use it when we want to use it against somebody who's accused and not let the target have the advantage of it.

MacNEIL: So you think it's useful and by and large working.

Mr. CHRISTY: I think it's -- I think it's more than useful. I think it's important. I think that, for example, if the person accused -- well, take Mr. Donovan. And he's going to be investigated by another member of the cabinet with whom he had had breakfast, lunch and dinner three days a week. You have a problem, at least a perception in the public's eye, of divided loyalty if -- if the Attorney General conduts the investigation of another cabinet member and comes out clearing him. Therefore, I think an independent counsel is important.

MacNEIL: Congressman, how do you see that particular situation?

Rep. KINDNESS: Well, I certainly agree that we ought to provide for whatever degree of confidence the public can have in this whole process.But lawyers like to play around with legal concepts and, of course, use time and collect fees. And I'm not sure that the public interest is ever going to be perfectly served by the special prosecutor provisions of the law, but I think we will see more trial by ordeal in the news media whenever there is mention of a special prosecutor being considered or appointed.

MacNEIL: What -- You mentioned that before. What do you mean about the trial by ordeal? Are you saying that the existence of the special prosecutor system encourages the media to spin out a long trial by ordeal, as you call it?

Rep. KINDNESS: Yes, I think so. It's news. When a special prosecutor is mentioned or when a special prosecutor is appointed, naturally that's going to be reported, and the next thing that the news people are -- the news gathering people are going to do is see what happens and whether the special prosecutor does his or her job. And that continues to be news. That's not a criticism; it's a fact.

Mr. BANZHAF: But Robin, I think he's got it just backwards. If you will recall what happened when Edwin Meese's special prosecutor was appointed, there was a lot of publicity immediately beforehand. Once the special prosecutor was appointed, because people believed that he would do a fair and credible job, the publicity dropped off. Everybody waited until the report was in. And then I think it was generally accepted. And if you look at the costs, as you said before, we've had six of these in the eight years that the law has been in effect. I think the news is reporting today that we spent some $200,000 just on keeping Mr. Marcos up for a week or so. I think an investigation or two every year of top White House officials, if it really dug out corruption, would be well worth the cost, and if it keeps us away from the constitutional crisis we had in Watergate, then it will be worth any amount of money.

MacNEIL: Congressman? What about, first of all, Professor Banzhaf's point that once a special prosecutor is appointed, then the news media lay off until the report comes out?

Rep. KINDNESS: Well, I think that certainly could be the case sometimes, but let's see what happens in the Michael Deaver case. Let's watch in the days ahead.

MacNEIL: And what about the cost thing which has been raised?

Mr. CHRISTY: Well --

MacNEIL: You're actually one of the gentlemen who's earned the money that they're talking about.

Mr. CHRISTY: I think the cost of our investigation -- '78 and '79 -- '79 and '80 -- which ran about six months, was somewhere around $165,000 or $170,000. I don't consider that that's a great amount for what we did. That was for everything, including, you know, grand jury testimony transcripts, investigative reports and so on. I don't know what the subsequent investigations cost. I shouldn't think they ran a great deal more. And I think if you add up the cost to the government of all five prior investigations, it's no going to be an extraordinary figure. It's certainly one that is not going to even make a dent in the budget. And I think that what we get for it is important.

Mr. BANZHAF: And indeed, I think in many cases it comes out lessthan equivalent Congressional investigations. There was a Congressional investigation of debategate, but because they didn't have subpoena power, they didn't have a grand jury, they couldn't plea bargain and so on, they were not able to get to the buttom of the case. On the other hand, they spent a great deal of money just fooling around going it.

MacNEIL: Congressman? Congressional solution costs more, the professor says.

Rep. KINDNESS: I don't know any figures on that, but you can be sure that the Congress would have been doing something else if they weren't doing that, and it would be costing the taxpayers money, of course. But I think the point remains that there are checks and balances in our constitutional system, including a lot of balances between the executive branch and the legislative branch, and the Constitution does give the executive branch the responsibility for the enforcement and prosecution of -- enforcement of the law and prosecution of crimes.

Mr. BANZHAF: But Congressman, if there is a crime being committed in the White House, what constitutional protections are there?The Attorney General refuses to prosecute, Congress can't force that prosecution. The most you can use is the very cumbersome, almost never used impeachment process.

MacNEIL: I was going to come back on that point, Professor Banzhaf. Mr. Christy says that actually the Attorney General, although he has theoretical discretion, actually has very little. I assume you were saying because the political pressures build up.

Mr. CHRISTY: In certain cases, yeah, I think that's true.

Mr. BANZHAF: The political pressures didn't force him to act in debategate, with regard to the EPA cover-up, you'll notice that although three fifferent people were charged in the judiciary report, he has asked for a special prosecutor only on one. So I don't think the political pressures work. We can't rely upon political pressures. We need somebody who is totally independent of political pressures -- appointments made by the independent judiciary.

MacNEIL: What's your comment on that?

Mr. CHRISTY: I'd like to address a question to the professor which has not been raised, but I think that the issue of the constitutionality of the act someday is going to come under attack. The last few -- independent counsel, by the way. It's no longer special prosecutor. The independent counsel have all been appointed where the target has asked for it. So nobody has been unwillingly brought to the defense table. I think that there will be a very serious constitutional attack on the whole act the next time that somebody -- independent counsel is appointed, where he has not been asked for by the target.

Mr. BANZHAF: You're right. The weakness of the pesent act is indicated by the fact that in most cases the targets are asking for it. But the one judge which has looked at the constitutionality has held it constitutional. The American Bar Assocition and many other groups who testified also said it's constitutional. I think it's worth passing it and then letting the courts decide whether it's constitutional, rather than the current situation.

MacNEIL: Gentlemen, we have to leave it there this evening. Mr. Christy, Professor Banzaf and Congressman Kindness, thank you for joining us. Steroids and Sports

LEHRER: Next, an update on the use of a drug that makes you stronger. Athletes use them. They're called steroids, and last week federal law enforcement agencies announced a national crackdown against their illegal use. Good luck on that, said some, who pointed to a burgeoning $100 million black market in steroids. Tom Bearden has our report.

TOM BEARDEN [voice-over]: The pressure to win, to be the best -- for some, the pressure is overwhelming. So they take risks with the body they worked so hard to perfect. For a growing number of athletes, that means taking anabolic steroids -- prescription drugs derived from the male hormone testosterone. Their use has become so common among powerlifters, for example, that there are now two kinds of competition -- one for those who take steroids, and this one specifically for those who don't. Athletes who use steroids say they get bigger, stronger, and are able to train harder.

Athlete: Initially, I wanted to see what they were like -- if they would work to improve my performance in my sport. So I tried them, and of course they work.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: This woman is a world class powerlifter who felt she had to take steroids to reach that level of competition. We've distorted her voice to protect her identify. In reality, because of her steroid use, it sounds like a man's voice.

Athlete: I was adding five pounds, ten pounds here every week to my lifts. And that was wonderful. I mean, that was wonderful, euphoric feeling to get stronger and stronger quicker. Of course, also, some of the side effects, like oiliness of the skin and acne -- not just on your face, but on your back and on your shoulders and on your chest -- and increase, of course, in body hair, little bit of a voice change, things like that. Also some particularly nasty side effects for women. Moreso than men.

BEARDEN$0, [voice-over]: Twenty-five years ago, only a few fanatical powerlifters were using steroids. Today they're being used by everyone from pro football players to junior high school linemen. From aspiring Olympic champions to people working out in health clubs. Some of them are merely imitating their favorite well-developed movie stars. Steroids were originally synthesized to help people recover from serious injury. Today they can be obtained from physicians who prescribe the drugs for thousands of athletes or illegally on a massive black market where they can be ordered through toll-free telephone numbers and sent through the mail. With widespread abuse comes an increasing incidence of serious side effects. Dr. Terry Todd is a former champion powerlifter. He took steroids for three years when he was competing in the sixties.

TERRY TODD, former powerlifter: There have been a lot of young people in the sports that use a lot of steroids with heart attacks, a lot of people with strokes, a lot of people with liver difficulties, a lot of people with ungovernable tempers -- you know, an inability to stay married, an inability to maintain any kind of relationship, a tendency to flare up at your loved ones at the slightest provocation. All of these kinds of things your loved ones at the slightest provocation. All of these kinds of things are really serious. And when you've been up close to them, as I have, and when they have hit your friends, taken them away, killed them, then you do begin to be very concerned, and you feel lucky.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Todd now administers a sports library collection and teaches powerlifting at the University of Texas in Austin. He says most athletes who aspire to be champions feel they have little choice, no matter what the risks.

Mr. TODD: The more willing an athlete is to take risks with his or her body,the greater the chances for success. At least, this is how the athletes view it. And, to some extent, they're correct. Because, make no mistake, steroids provide an enormous advantage in competition in athletics in virtually any sport you care to name. Some sports they provide an absolutely unstoppable edge.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: But why are so many athletes taking the drugs if their side effects are so widely known? One reason is that athletes don't believe the medical profession's warnings.

Athlete: Probably the biggest mistake that the anti-drug people made a couple years back was when they came out -- the doctors came out with a big blanket statement that was on the pharmaceutical packages that said warning: anabolic steroids do not enhance athletic performance. They tried to just claim that they wouldn't work and they weren't good. Well, that's not true.They do enhance athletic performance. They work like a house on fire. They can really help you out. And so once the kids caught on that the doctors were lying to them about drugs, then the figured, you know, they're probably lying about side effects. These things also aren't going to hurt us.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: But it may be more fundamental than that. It may be because many young people firmly believe in their own invincibility.

Athlete: I had heard some of the risks. And the health risks I passed off, because I figured, "Ah, I'm an athlete. I'm healthy. I'm young. I'm not going to have anything bad happen to me. Athletes are real bad about thinking that nothing bad is ever going to happen to their health. And there's this sort of omnipotence that we have that we think that nothing will ever hurt us and we're never going to get injured. And we're always so surprised when it happens.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Some athletes use steroids because of the lure of wealth. Terry Crawford is the women's track coach at the University of Texas. She will coach the women's Olympic track team in 1988.

TERRY CRAWFORD, Olympic track coach: Well, I think there's a tremendous amount of pressure on athletes today to perform and to be the best in the world. And I think not only in terms of prestige and ego and sort of their place in society, but also now in the sport of track and field, particularly with the post-collegiate athlete, there's the opportunity to increase their financial security by their performance in their sport.

BILL CURRY, football coach: We are raising a breed of young people that have been taught from age 11 or 12 that you've got to win, and you do anything to win, and one way that you help yourself win is to get bigger and stronger, and one way that you get bigger and stronger is to take anabolic steroids. And it doesn't matter what happens when you're 40 years old, you've destroyed your various organs and changed your hormone balance and that sort of thing.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Bill Curry in the head football coach at Georgia Tech. Curry has felt the pressure to use steroids himself.

Mr. CURRY: Twenty-one years ago, I was trying to make the Green Bay Packer football team, with Vince Lombardi as the coach. And I was too little. So I began to take these wonderful little blue pills that a friend of mine gave me and told me would help. I went from a body weight of 220 to about 240 in a couple of months. Solid. I thought I was an animal.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Curry counts himself fortunate that his father convinced him he would do irreparable harm to his health, and he maintains one can be drug free and still be a winner.

[on camera] Can a person play in the line or play defense in the NFL without using steroids?

Mr. CURRY: Sure. Oh gosh, yes. There are a lot of guys doing it. And there are a lot of us that did it through the years, and we were all -- many of us were told we were too small or too slow and that sort of thing, and you just pump iron and take supplements if that makes sense to you and eat a lot, get big, and get the job done. You don't need to -- you don't need to damage your liver in order to do well.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Curry put his convictions to the test at Georgia Tech. He instituted a voluntary drug testing program on his own initiative, despite the obvious risk to his coaching career.

Mr. CURRY: We have urinalysis going on a random basis without any warning. The guys aren't forced to take it, but all the players participate on the football team, and I'm really pleased with that. Because we really did not make them do it. The peer pressure has become, "Let's don't do it. Let's see if we can't perform well without it."

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Curry's team has done well. Last year his Yellow-jackets won eight, lost two, tied one, and went to a bowl game. But Curry's team is the exception. Drug testing in U.S. collegiate sports remains controversial. The National Collegiate Athletic Association will begin a modest testing program next year. Some coaches, like Olympic women's swimming coach Richard Quick, support the idea.

RICHARD QUICK, Olympic swimming coach: I'm in favor of all the testing. I'm just sorry that it's come to that. I wish that sport could be looked on as just an adventure between teams and individuals and not such a life or death win-lose situation.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Others, like men's Olympic track coach Stan Huntsman, are more ambivalent.

STAN HUNTSMAN, Olympic track coach: No matter how advanced you think you go in detecting drugs, somebody's always a step or two ahead, so the problem really is, I think, it's going to have to be a theoretical problem or a philosophcal problem is that hey, if those guys want to do it or those people want to do it, then let them have their games, and then let's have another game of clean games for the people that don't want to get involved and have a -- have two world championships.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Todd says athletes in the past have beaten the test by using steroid substitutes not yet outlawed. He says the next substitute could have frightening consequences. Some competitors are now using a substance called Human Growth Hormone, or HGH. There is no test for its presence yet available. Up until now, it hasn't been widely used, because it was very rate. The only way it could be obtained was by extracting it from the pituitary glands of cadavers. But now genetic engineering will allow it to be manufactured in quantity. The prospect of HGH appearing on the black market deeply concerns Todd.

Mr. TODD: It has a lot of people very frightened, because it has the capacity, not only theoretically to make the muscles larger and thicker, but it can also make a person taller.If a kid takes it during a growth spurt, for instance, that kid -- a normal child -- can become, theoretically, for taller -- six, eight inches, maybe taller than that. And correspondingly larger in terms of bulk and bone structure. I mean, in other words, what I'm saying here, I want to be just as plain as I can, it seems that you can take a personwho would be predisposed to be six feet tall, 200 pounds. That person could theoretically be made into a seven foot tall, 400 pound man.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Tood is worried that the lure of glamorous career in professional sports could entire some parents into dosing their children with HGH.

Mr. TODD: So we very well may be entering the era of the monstrous athlete -- an athlete created much larger than nature intended that athlete to be, as a result of the taking of a certain substance that is now going to be available as a simple prescription drug.

Dr. WILLIAM TAYLOR, physician: This is a particular youth that was on a body building magazine --

BEARDEN [voice-over]: Dr. William Taylor is a private practitioner deeply worried about HGH abuse. He told this recent seminar in Austin parents are already appearing in his office seeking potentially dangerous HGH treatments for their children.

Dr. TAYLOR: He brought his son in. He was six foot six, he was 16, he was a terrific basketball player. The father was interested not in getting growth hormone from me, but my advice on how much to give. He already had his supply from the gym. He brought the growth hormone with him, and he said, "How much do I give him, Doc? How much do I give him?"

BEARDEN [voice-over]: The author of several books on performance enhancing drugs, Dr. Taylor believes HGH should be as strictly regulated as narcotics. Dr. Robert Kerr is a California physician who has prescribed steroids for thousands of athletes in the past, and has advocated their use under professional care.But Dr. Kerr told the same conference he's changed his mind.

Dr. ROBERT KERR, physician: At one time, I felt that if a physician could evaluate athletes who desired to take anabolic substances, and for those found to be good candidates prescribe the drug for them, then there would be no need for them to go and see the black market dealer. But this is simply not the case. Many of these athletes, some who might even be considered the most trustworthy, will have their prescription filled at their drugstore and then visit their black market dealer in the neighborhood, just to see what illegal drugs can be supplemented with the legal medication.

BEARDEN [voice-over]: While medical authorities wrestle with the sensitive legal and ethical questions of how to best prevent drugs abuse, Coach Curry thinks one of the best preventive measures is to give athletes a strong dose of reality.

Mr. CURRY: Perspective is everything. A realistic perspective on life does not include a very high probability of a professional athletic career. If you can make a young person face that and make that young person walk up this hill and go to calculus class and get ready to compete in the real world, then you have provided him with a fallback position if his dream doesn't come true. A Letter from Texas

MacNEIL: Finally, an essay about the difference between "art" and "ort." The essayist is Molly Ivins, a columnist for the Dallas Times-Herald.

MOLLY IVINS: Many people will tell you Texas is beautiful. Mostly Texans will tell you that. Well it's true, in parts. But there is a lot of Texas that's not much to write home about. Parts of it are just plain homely, and then here and there ugly barely covers it. But what does mankind do when faced with the challenge of ugliness? Man creates "ort" is what he does -- builds his own beauty. And that's what we do down here in Texas, too. And I'm about to show you some ofit, so don't say you weren't warned.

A lot of our ort is found in front of courthouses so as to let folks know it's official. Now this here is a statue of a peanut found in the courthouse square in Floresville. And here's a statue of a shrimp right here in downtown Aransas Pass. In Seguin we have a statue of a pecan. Not everybody likes it. Crystal City, Texas, happens to be the spinach capital of the universe. You may not have known that. It's hard to make a good statue of spinach, so they built one of this guy instead. [Popeye] Now out here in Odessa, which is way to hell and gone on the other side of the state, and I hope you appreciate the trouble we went to getting here, is this piece of ort. [a jackrabbit] Now we are in Paris, Texas. Just like Paris, France, this Paris is famous for ort. Here, for example, is a statue of a brahma bull on the roof of the Fina filling station. This is a fine example of a genre of Texas out -- the cow on building genre. I don't know why we like to put cows on the roof, but I kind of like it.

Now here in the Paris cemetery we found the stone of the late Willet Babcock which, as you can see, says, "Love Never Dies." Mr. Babcock passed on to the big ranch in the sky back in 1881. And you see here on his stone a statue of Jesus leaning on the cross. Looks a little tired to me. Come around to the back side of Jesus, you'll notice he's wearing cowboy boots. The wind just lifted his robe a little so we can see them. I thought you'd like that. Actually, the best statue of Jesus I ever heard about was one made out of tunafish for the centerpiece of an Easter buffet. It had little pimento stigmata in its outstretched little tunafishy hands, but I can't show it to you, 'cause it's already been et.

Some ort does not do a thing in the way of overcoming ugliness. In fact, it just compounds the problem. This is probably the ugliest statue in the whole state. It's the goddess of liberty which normally resides on top of the state capitol, which houses the state legislature, which is bad enough without having this thing up there. Right now it's down here being fixed, because it started to come apart. But instead of taking advantage of this great opportunity to improve the statue's looks, all they're doing is restoring it to its original state of ugliness. They made this new, unimproved statue of the goddess of liberty out of recycled aluminum. Specifically, out of old beer cans. Now you know that is true, on account of this is the MacNeil-Lehrer show, and they wouldn't let me make anything up. What else would the state of Texas make a statue of liberty out of except old beer cans? It's legal to drink while driving in Texas, which many Texans believe is an ort in itself.

Now here's a statue I think would look good on the state capital. It's our state bug, the roach. Can we see how it would look on top of the capitol? You all want to hear an old roach joke? You know how come all Texans wear pointy-toed boots? So's we can stomp the roaches that hug in the corners. Well, it sure has been a pleasure visiting with you all about ort in Texas. Sincerely yours.

MacNEIL: Just to reassure you, the goddess of liberty will be put back on top of the Texas State Capitol on Saturday.

MacNEIL: The Lurie cartoon tonight is about terrorism and who's responsible. [Lurie cartoon: a hound labelled "The West" is on the trail of a set of footprints alternately labelled "Syria" and "Libya." A wider view shows that the footprints are being made by a man with a hammer and sickle insignia on his back.]

LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this day.A Soviet news agency reports that 1,000 people were injured in the Chernobyl nuclear accident, which is three times higher than previous official Soviet reports. Syrian officials said they would use force to gain the release of Western hostages in Lebanon, if they only knew where they were. And the Department of Energy narrowed its nuclear dump site possibilities to three Western locations: in Texas, Nevada and the state of Washington. Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's our News Hour tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.