The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, the FAA issued a warning about a possible U.S. airliner hijacking in Europe, the House voted to raise the minimum wage to $4.55 an hour, and two scientists announced a nuclear fusion discovery that could lead to a major energy revolution. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, our lead segment looks at the question of how to handle terrorist threats. We get three perspectives from Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, terrorism expert Neil Livingtstone, and airline security expert Jack McGeorge. Then extended excerpts from today's floor debate on the minimum wage. Next, a News Maker Interview with two scientists whose discovery could provide unlimited, clean, and inexpensive energy during the next century, and finally a Jim Fisher essay on truck stop radio.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: A major controversy erupted today over a Federal Aviation Administration warning about a hijacking attempt. The FAA issued the warning March 16th. It said there was the possibility Palestinian terrorists would try to hijack a U.S. airliner in Western Europe. The warning went to U.S. airlines and airport security officials in the United States and Europe, but was not made public. It became known today through a leaked story in a British newspaper which said the hijacking was timed for the upcoming Easter weekend. U.S. Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner confirmed the warning today, but denied the Easter angle and lamented the fact that it had become public.

SAMUEL SKINNER, Secretary of Transportation: The major concern we have right now is to try to determine who released this information on an unauthorized basis and whether or not our sources of intelligence in the world have been compromised. Hopefully they have; hopefully no one will have lost their life over this, but it is a very serious matter.

MR. LEHRER: The British news report grew out of a political debate over whether warnings were properly handled before the Pan Am 103 tragedy in December. Two hundred and seventy people died when a bomb on board blew up, a Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland. We have a report about today's developments in Britain from Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

LOUISE BATES: The men from the Federal Aviation Authority arrived in Frankfurt as the news broke in London that terrorists may try to hijack an American plane this Easter. Security at Frankfurt has been tightened since the Lockerbie bombing. The fatal bomb could have been loaded there, but the latest threat will make air travel more time consuming for all passengers. The security staff looked for three Middle Eastern men flying on forged passports. Passengers flying from Heathrow had more to worry about. Despite stricter security controls, there was a flagrant breach this week when three young men were able to get on and off a British Airways jet completely undetected and make a video recording of their adventure. The Lockerbie crash has embarrassed the British Government because of the confusion over the way warnings about the bombing were handled.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The House today approved raising the minimum wage to $4.55 an hour by 1991, despite President Bush's threats to veto such an increase. The vote was 248 to 171. It came after they rejected the President's more modest increase from $4.25 from the current $3.35. Republican opponents of the higher wage complained that it would result in fewer jobs, but a majority of Democrats disagreed.

REP. TOM TAUKE, [R] Iowa: With the proposal that is before us for a $4.55 minimum wage, we are going to lose over 600,000 jobs in this nation. It seems to me that that is an enormously high and cruel price to pay for putting a little more income in the hands of some individuals in this nation.

REP. JIM WRIGHT, Speaker of the House: Those are the people for whom this bill is intended, the working poor. They live in every Congressional district, every community. You see them daily whether you notice them or not. Their names don't show up on campaign contributors lists because they can scarcely afford to keep body and soul together with the wages that they get and an ever rising cost of living, but they are the very people whom we are elected to represent.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The bill now moves to the Senate where the President says he has enough votes to sustain a veto. In other economic news, the government said today that the economy expanded at a moderate 2.4 percent annual rate in the last three months of 1988, the slowest advance of the Gross National Product since 1986. The Commerce Department said the figure was held down by last summer's drought and masked strong underlying growth at year's end.

MR. LEHRER: A major scientific discovery about nuclear energy was announced today in Salt Lake City, Utah. Two scientists said they had successfully created a nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature. They said it could lead to a usable technology for generating heat and power.

STANLEY PONS, University of Utah: Basically we've established a sustained nuclear fusion reaction by means which are considerably simpler than conditional techniques. Deuterium, which is a component of heavy water, is driven into a metal rod and it looks exactly like the one I have in my hand here to such an extent that fusion between these components, these deuterons in heavy water are fused upon a single and new atom, and with this process there is considerable release of energy and we've demonstrated this could be sustained on its own. In other words, much more energy is coming out than we're putting in.

MR. LEHRER: A reminder that Dr. Pons and his colleague, Dr. Martin Fleischmann, will be with us for News Maker interviews after the News Summary. In Washington today, there were two more guilty pleas in the Pentagon bribery scandal. A defense contractor, Teledyne Industries, agreed to pay $4.3 million in penalties for the actions of an employee who entered into a corrupt and illegal arrangement, and a suspended civilian official of the Navy, Stuart Berlin, pled guilty to receiving a bribe in exchange for inside information on a Navy contract. Authorities said he has agreed to cooperate with the government's continuing investigation of the bribery scandal.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Tunis, PLO Leader Yasser Arafat said today that the first formal talks between the Bush administration and the PLO were positive and would produce a fruitful conclusion. Arafat's remarks came after being briefed on the meeting yesterday between U.S. and PLO officials. It was reported that the U.S. asked the PLO to stop the uprising in the occupied territories, but Arafat denied the U.S. made that request. Meanwhile, there was more violence in the occupied areas. Hospital officials said soldiers shot and killed a 14 year old boy and wounded 18 other Palestinians. Israeli officials said its troops were not in the villages in which the teenager was shot. The death toll since the uprising began 15 months ago now stands at 410 Palestinians and 17 Israelis.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Government today expelled a Soviet trade official based in New York City. The State Department said the move was in retaliation for the Soviet expulsion of a U.S. Army attache last week. That was in retaliation for the U.S. ouster of a Soviet military attache accused of spying. State Department Spokesman Charles Redman said the U.S. Government expects today's action will put an end to the matter.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead, how to handle terrorist threats against airlines, the minimum wage debate, the prospect of the ideal energy source and truck stop radio. FOCUS - FEAR OF FLYING

MR. LEHRER: We go first tonight to the hijack warning story. The warning was from the FAA about a possible hijacking attempt of a U.S. airliner in Western Europe by Palestinian terrorists. It went to U.S. airlines and airport security people, but not to the public. It came to light today only because someone leaked it to a British newspaper. The publication triggered a familiar uproar over whether the public should be told about such terrorist threats.

JOHN ROOT, Husband of Victim: My wife died, hundreds of people died on Pan Am Flight 103. I think it's now time to let us, let the individual American, decide what flight he's going to be on. Our country was founded on principles of democracy, of each person being responsible for his or her own life. Pan Am and the United States State Department took that freedom of choice away from my wife and away from those hundreds of Americans and I think that's wrong. They're treating us like children and we should have the right to decide for ourselves.

MR. LEHRER: Those same objections were raised last December after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. U.S. officials then justified the fact that the government circulated bomb warnings to overseas personnel and to airlines but not to the public.

PHYLLIS OAKLEY, State Department: [December 22, 1988] We receive dozens of these kinds of threats. We have to evaluate them in light of the current circumstances, in light of possibilities, as you say, in light of experience of what we've learned from other terrorist incidents, particularly those that have been thwarted, and then we make judgments about what we should do. And as I've said, in this instance, even though it was an unverified threat, we took action and we notified -- let me repeat that we notified the Federal Aviation Authority which has the responsibility for working with the carriers, with the airport security people, those people who can do something about a security threat.

REPORTER: Who has the responsibility to warn the American people when your own specialists regard a telephone threat as serious?

PHYLLIS OAKLEY: [December 22, 1988] I have given you the best answer I can to that question, saying that we have established certain ways of evaluating and looking at the threats and how we can take the appropriate action in response to that threat.

REPORTER: You notified embassies but not traveling Americans.

PHYLLIS OAKLEY: [December 22, 1988] We notified the people who have responsibility for security. We notified the airport authorities and we notified the carriers. We thought that that was the appropriate way to handle this because they are the people who could do something about security.

ALLAN McARTOR, FAA Administrator: [December 23, 1988] We did, in fact, notify the air carriers, the State Department and the airports, and they did go to a heightened level of security in response to that alert. It has been a generally accepted premise in our society which after this accident may wish to be redebated, that information and threats as it is generated is brought into the professional law enforcement and security system, and that that information is shared between intelligence, law enforcement and security, and that the professionals in that business then deal with those threats. If, in fact, that is not what the will of the public is, in the future then it ought to be redebated, but up till now that is the way that these things are handled.

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: [December 23, 1988] I think all the precautions that could be taken were taken with regard to warning the airline and all, but if you stop to think about it, such a public statement with nothing more to go on than an anonymous telephone, you'd literally have closed down the air traffic in the world.

MR. LEHRER: Now we get three additional views of how to handle airliner threats. They are those of Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, Republican of New York, who is sponsoring legislation that would require some public notification, Neil Livingstone who teaches security studies at Georgetown University, is President of the Institute on Terrorism and Subnational Conflict, a Washington-based consulting firm, he's also the author of seven books on terrorism, and Jack McGeorge, a security expert and head of his own consulting firm, the Public Safety Group, he was formerly with the Secret Service and traveled as a bomb and airport security expert with four Presidents. Senator, to you first. Let me read to you what Secretary Skinner said today about the fact that this information had become public. He said, "It compromises our nation's intelligence gathering efforts, it jeopardizes the lives of airline passengers and it is counter productive to the ongoing efforts of the Civil Aviation Community to provide a totally effective security system." Do you agree?

SEN. ALFONSE D'AMATO, [R] New York: Well, I think the Secretary is right in terms of the leaking of this kind of information and with the kind of specificity which might, indeed compromise the intelligence gathering apparatus and compromise people in their lives. Having said that, I think it's absolutely essential that we establish a mechanism whereby when a credible threat is received, one which the intelligence people put some credence in, that the people are giving an opportunity, given a notification, as well as the security people and the air carriers. Now having said that, if we don't do that, what we've seen now is a system likened to having a fire alarm that never really reaches the fire house, because if you leave it to the carriers, their so-called heightened security, it was absolutely nothing in the case of Pan Am Flight 103 and all the other flights. Their security operations are absolutely totally lacking and if the people know that there really is a danger as it relates to terrorist activities, they will demand, and I think our FAA should demand more professional security personnel and better activities. Right now we have a shambles. It's like looking to a parachute that has holes. And it's too late once you find out that there are holes in the chute. But certainly I think there's a question of do we have adequate personnel, are they trained? Did you ever look at some of the people who are the security people? They get paid minimum wage, you wonder what the training is, and I wonder if abroad where these threats are even more prevalent and more dangers whether the level of security personnel is much better than those that I've seen on our domestic carriers. Now I'm just saying that we are terribly lacking, and this business about saying, well, you would put a halt to the airline industry, that's nonsense. As a matter of fact, if you would impede because it would take more time, I think people would feel more secure to know. There's a profile done on everyone who travels. Where are you going? Who packed your bag? Did you leave it with someone? Are you carrying something for someone? That's the kind of thing that allowed those. And secondly, unless and until you have the kind of sophisticated equipment to see to it that you can identify any possible explosives, you'd better have all of the luggage hand searched. It's about time that we recognized that terrorism as a new article of warfare is being waged and the American people and the public know this and have a right to be protected.

MR. LEHRER: And do you believe in this specific case, the one of the issue raised today, that the public should have been automatically told of this warning?

SEN. D'AMATO: Once it was a credible threat, then the public should have been alerted that there is a likelihood of some terrorist activity, not with the specificity that there are three people who are looking possibly and come from a certain region to carry this out, that's too detailed, but certainly that there is an alert of some credibility so that people can make an informed decision as to how they're going to travel, if they're going to travel in a particular region. And secondly, and maybe more importantly, it will have the impact of seeing to it that the airlines do what they should. And I think that's a failing on the FAA. I think they should have an absolute obligation to insist on minimum security standards. That doesn't exist today.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Livingstone, how do you feel about whether or not the public should have been told about this specific threat, the one we're talking about tonight?

NEIL LIVINGSTONE, Terrorism Expert: Well, I think that Sen. D'Amato is dead wrong on that regard, and I agree with much of what else he says, but on this issue, you're going to shut down the system and you're going to shut it down because hoaxes are as good as terrorist actions in many cases. We even classify them as terrorist actions today. And the difficulty is is that when the terrorists learn that all they have to do is put a hoax into the system and we will react to it, you can bet that we'll have a tremendous proliferation of threats against airlines because they know that they can shut down the system. We already have two to three credible threats a day and we cannot basically tell the public every time we get one of these that we may get terrorist action, because many of these are credible threats, but very few of them turn out to be real threats.

MR. LEHRER: How are we telling the public shut down the system?

MR. LIVINGSTONE: Well, because I think at least initially the public is going to change its travel plans, it's going to be like a yo-yo virtually. They're going to react constantly. They'll move their tickets from one carrier to another carrier and if that carrier is threatened, to a third carrier. They'll move their reservations. Quite frankly, I think you're going to panic the public and we really, we really don't want to do that, and I think it should be up to the government using its own devices to deal with the threats credibly in the background and as Phyllis Oakley said earlier today, the State Department Spokesman, let the people --

MR. LEHRER: Actually that was recorded. The piece we ran was after Lockerbie, I'm sorry.

MR. LIVINGSTONE: Okay. But as she said, leave it to the people that can really do something about it, rather than to stampede or panic the public.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. McGeorge, how do you feel about it?

JACK McGEORGE, Airline Security Consultant: I would agree with Mr. Livingstone largely, however, I'm not so sure this issue of credibility of the threat that we always can establish how credible the threat is. The Senator has indicated that we should inform the public when we have a credible threat. Rarely do we have specific information that says on this day this action will occur and that information comes from a continually reliable source, very unusual that we would have that.

MR. LEHRER: That would almost have to come from somebody within the group that was planning the hijacking or the bombing or something, is that right?

MR. McGEORGE: Absolutely, a party to the act. The way those groups are structured, small cell-like organizations, that kind of a fink is very rare.

MR. LEHRER: Well, in this case, the warning, the British press account said that the warning was specifically over the Easter weekend. Now Mr. Skinner and the FAA said that was not true at all, they did not have that kind of specific information.

MR. McGEORGE: Well, that sounds to me probably much more likely the case, that they didn't have that kind of specific information. I believe that the government acted quite responsibly in this case. I too agree that Mrs. Oakley's prior statements that those people who have, are in a position to have an impact on security, they should be told. The public is in no position to make an informed judgment. We could not possibly by any conceivable means give them all the information that would be needed for them to make informed judgment.

MR. LEHRER: But what about the Senator's point that if you tell the public this puts some heat on you professionals to make sure that security is as best as it could be?

MR. McGEORGE: I object an resent the Senator's inference that the security professionals are not doing what we're supposed to be doing. I do truly believe that, and I know many of the security professionals in the business, that we are, in fact, acting as responsibly as possible. I cannot take issue with his comment that the guards or the operators of the X-ray machines might not be better trained. This is true. You have masses of them. When you have masses of anybody, you cannot pay them the very highest wages. That is an unfortunate reality. But the people that plan security policy and in this country and industry are pretty doggone professional about what they do, and to suggest that we are not I believe is ill informed.

MR. LEHRER: Senator, you're ill informed?

SEN. D'AMATO: Well, let me suggest to you that if you think the trained personnel that relates to our security is sufficient and adequately trained, I think you're rather ill informed, and I think you ask the traveling public that. And if you think that the precautions that have been taken as a result of their being a continuous terrorist activity and threat, particularly on international travel from abroad, that we're doing sufficient as it relates to taking the profiles of passengers, why don't you recommend that your clients do that, I mean, in the airlines? Because it would be inconvenient, because they don't want to jam up and have people come an hour and a half early, but you should be doing that. You should be finding out where the people are traveling, what they're carrying, who packed their bag, and if you have a credible threat and you think -- and by the way it's almost ongoing now -- you should look at the luggage and see to it that it's not only x-rayed, because you can't determine today some of the kinds of explosives through X-rays, but that you hand searched it. You've got to understand that it's about time that the American people understood that there is a continuous terrorist threat, they have the right to have the best that we can possibly do in terms of providing security, and I would say that that doesn't exist now. In spite of your outrage at my suggestion, the facts are that we can do a lot better and we're not doing enough.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. McGeorge.

MR. McGEORGE: Realistically, you cannot now hand search all the bags in the major airports. I'm working with a particular major airport on this problem. We're talking about hundreds of bags per minute moving through that airport, per minute. Right now, the physical facilities required don't exist. The Senator is quite correct in that the technology today does not allow the positive identification of explosives or other hazardous devices and that hand search is at this moment the only way that you could do that, assuming the guard would recognize it. I can assure the Senator that there is a great deal of effort going on right now to identify how can we do that, not piddling and diddly, but really fierce effort.

MR. LEHRER: Let me move to another part of the question here. Mr. Livingstone, does the fact that the public now knows about this specific threat increase or decrease the possibility that the hijacking will come off or be attempted?

MR. LIVINGSTONE: Well, it probably decreases it right now because everyone is looking, everyone is watching. Maybe even some other group that had planned a hijacking this weekend because of the extra alert, it probably will suppress that kind of activity now, but it doesn't mean it won't happen three weeks from now or a month from now, and I would have to say in response to both what Jack has said and the Senator has said that the real problem is that we've tried to make the airport our first line of defense against terrorism, whereas in reality, it's the last line of defense. And where we really need the help today is with allies or so-called allies like Greece that won't expedite a terrorist bomber to us today, with Germany, which rather than extradite a terrorist who killed an American in cold blood on a plane, TWA 847, they chose after trying to weasel out of it every other way to try them themselves. We're not getting the cooperation from our allies. We're not taking effective action against terrorist sponsoring states, and terrorists when we find them. We can't solve this problem purely at the airport.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Meanwhile, we have many millions of Americans and others planning to fly in the next few days back and forth between here and Europe on U.S. airlines and other airlines. Mr. McGeorge, what is your advice to them?

MR. McGEORGE: Fly. There is no --

MR. LEHRER: Would you do it?

MR. McGEORGE: Absolutely. There is no reason in the world why a U.S. citizen should not get on board our carriers today and be as assured as they can be that everything is being done to protect their safety.

MR. LEHRER: Within the context that you outlined a minute ago that everything cannot be done for a variety of reasons.

MR. McGEORGE: Everything that can be done is being done that can reasonably be accomplished and more and more is done all the time as is mandated by law and just by common sense. There's no reason why you shouldn't fly today.

MR. LEHRER: Senator, what's your advice?

SEN. D'AMATO: Well everything that can be done is not being done. There is not the hand searching of luggage.

MR. LEHRER: We know that.

SEN. D'AMATO: It may be some inconvenience. It may be rather difficult, but I think at the very least, you don't have the profiles being done on passengers and the questions asked that may avert this kind of tragedy, and I think at the very least we should begin to implement these kinds of procedures, safety procedures, to at least cut down on terrorist activities, and if you're doing that, these targets become less available, less opportunity for this to take place. Now that's what we should be doing. What we're worried about is inconveniencing passengers and they might use a foreign carrier. Now that's the kind of argument that I've heard. The fact is though the American people would be willing to pay for this increased security and I think if they recognize that what we face today is a new kind of warfare, terrorism, and that's what it is, and we'd better gear up for it, and we're not doing it.

MR. LEHRER: But as a practical matter, assuming that the conditions remain what they are over this weekend, over the next several days, in light of this threat, the fact that it's become public now and everybody in the world knows about it, what would be your advice to somebody contemplating a trip?

SEN. D'AMATO: My advice would be to find out what kind of security is the airline that you are going to be traveling on taking to protect you as best they can and I have to tell you --

MR. LEHRER: And shop on that -- I mean, shop around on that fact.

SEN. D'AMATO: I would find out and I think people are going to begin to ask those questions. And my friend over there who's laughing and chuckling, I have to tell you something, I don't think it's funny, and I think that if we're going to be worried that inconveniencing and causing delays and causing some disruptions are not worth taking every possible avenue to prevent these kinds of attacks, why I just disagree with you tremendously. I don't think we're doing the job, and I think that simple checks at airport after airport will reveal glaring deficiencies. Now I'm not attacking the experts. I'm saying that the system is not one which is designed to prevent a calculated terrorist attack.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Livingstone, what would be your advice?

MR. LIVINGSTONE: Well, naturally I would say fly as well, but I will tell you that --

MR. LEHRER: Why would you say fly as well?

NEIL LIVINGSTONE, Terrorism Expert: All right. First of all, sometimes it takes a tragedy like 103 to really focus our attention. I will tell you that most of the major American carriers flying out of Europe are already hiring firms who are implementing the Israeli techniques that Sen. D'Amato is talking about, the profiling of passengers, greater scrutiny and better scrutiny of both the luggage, the hand luggage and the baggage. There are new techniques in place. Our problem is we haven't seen a lot of that here in the United States yet, because we haven't had the threat originating in the United States. I think it's a matter of time, it will happen here, and we will have those same techniques applied here, but they're being done in Europe already.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. McGeorge, do you detect a reluctance on the part of U.S. airlines that Elal, the Israeli airline, does and all the other things that the Senator has talked about?

MR. McGEORGE: I do not know that we can compare directly an airline the size of Pan Am or TWA with an airline the size of Elal. Nor can we compare --

MR. LEHRER: Because Elal's so much smaller?

MR. McGEORGE: Much smaller, and with very very few routes, very few airplanes to deal with and a population that is well disciplined in this regard. I don't know that we can make that comparison. Also, Pan Am, for example, the last time I was coming in and out of London was before the 103 incident, they most certainly did stop you and ask you did you pack your bag and these same questions that the Senator has raised were most certainly asked before the Flight 103 incident. These things are not unknown in those countries -- they're routine in those countries where these hijackings and bombings have originated as Neil just mentioned. And I agree with Neil totally, that here you have not had the problem originate and hence, they are not taking as high a profile in that regard security-wise. Will it happen? I agree with Neil. Probably it will at some point unfortunately.

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen, we have to leave it there. Thank you all three very much for being with us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead, the minimum wage debate, a possible new energy breakthrough and truck stop radio. FOCUS - RAISING THE MINIMUM

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next we look at the minimum wage bill which was approved after debate today in the House of Representatives. Kwame Holman reports. They are fast food workers, supermarket employees, gas station attendants. They are the millions of minimum wage earners who might soon benefit from a pay raise, their first in eight years. On Capitol Hill today, members of the House argued over that raise. Most Democrats favored a minimum wage increase from the current $3.35 an hour to $4.55 an hour over three years. But the Democrats' plan would permit employers to pay a subminimum training wage for up to 60 days to employees just entering the work force.

REP. TOMMY ROBINSON, [D] Arkansas: In my poor State of Arkansas, raising the minimum wage is going to help the economy. These people will have more purchasing power. They will pay more sales taxes and other taxes, but beyond that, look into your own situation. My wife and I, we have six children and many grandchildren. I have to ask myself, could I feed my family on $3.35 an hour. I can't even feed my family on $89,500 a year.

REP. JIM WRIGHT, Speaker of the House: I don't ask you for any other reason, except these are the people who look to us and without us, they have no champion, they have no intercessor. They do the work, they have the pride, they have the dignity, they have the self-respect to want to work, and I'm asking you for this vote today for one simple reason. Vote for this bill because it's right and you know it's right.

KWAME HOLMAN: House Republicans took to the floor with several reasons to vote against the Democrats' plan.

REP. WILLIAM CLINGER, [R] Pennsylvania: I think the fact is that history will tell us that in the past every time we have raised the minimum wage as dramatically and as great amount that we have that we propose in this bill two things have happened. One, inflation goes up, and two, employment goes down.

MR. HOLMAN: Most Republicans argued in favor of a more modest increase in the minimum wage proposed by President Bush, up to $4.25 an hour within three years, and an extension of the period employers could pay a training wage to six months.

REP. STEVE BARTLETT, [R] Texas: It is somewhat surprising to me that the proponents of a minimum wage increase weren't dancing in the streets when the President offered a real bona fide minimum wage increase, a compromise, a change in minimum wage in which a minimum wage increase could occur, without precipitating massive job losses.

REP. STENY HOYER, [D] Maryland: This amendment is too little too late, too little too late. We have waited far too long to keep those at the very bottom of our structure that want to work, that want to be productive Americans, too long have we delayed encouraging them to do so.

MR. HOLMAN: However throughout the course of today's debate loomed a threat issued by the President.

REP. STEVE GUNDERSON, [R] Wisconsin: The simple issue we have is do we want a bill or do you want a political issue? If you want to truly raise the minimum wage, this is the only game in town, the option that we're about to vote for.

MR. HOLMAN: President Bush said repeatedly it would be his minimum wage plan or nothing and earlier this month, sent his Labor Secretary, Elizabeth Dole, to deliver that message to both Houses of Congress.

ELIZABETH DOLE, Secretary of Labor: [March 3, 1989] I want to say that any more expansive approach at this time would be unacceptable because it would decrease job opportunities. Legislation outside these parameters would call for a veto. This is as far as the President can go.

MR. HOLMAN: Anticipating the first veto of his administration, President Bush this week released a letter in support of his position and signed by 35 Senators, more than enough votes to withstand any attempt to override his veto in Congress.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I have made very clear, the Secretary strongly making this point, that in an unusual move we made our best offer first and this letter seems to indicate that the Senators understand this and so we're hopeful that we can go forward on our initiative with enough votes in our grasp here to see that we don't bust the budget and increase pressures on inflation by going beyond that which the Secretary has agreed on here.

MR. HOLMAN: Despite the threat of a veto and with the support of a handful of Republicans, the Democrats' minimum wage package prevailed. The House now awaits similar action in the Senate with a similar outcome expected. Democrats in that chamber have made it clear they're willing and ready to challenge the President on the minimum wage issue.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, [D] Massachusetts: I hope that I wasn't hearing that anything above, anything in terms of total increase above what the administration is going to get a veto, then we're laying right out for a confrontation, maybe that's where it's going to end up. Obviously, we can hopefully try and work this out. We may work it out in a satisfactory way. I'm terribly interested in trying to do so. There's too many people who if we don't work it out are not going to benefit, but I hope that we're not getting the thing that is take it or leave it as an opener, maybe we are.

ELIZABETH DOLE: Sen. Kennedy, this is as far as the President can go. He'll sign up to $4.25, but not higher than $4.25.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: Okay. I'll make it very clear. I'll do everything I possibly can to get it raised higher and we'll have to let the chips fall where they may.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Senate is scheduled to begin its debate over the minimum wage bill early in April. NEWS MAKER - FUSED WITH ENERGY

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight, a discovery that's being hailed as a major breakthrough in the world of science. As we reported, two scientists at the University of Utah in what they call a ridiculously simple technique have come up with a way to achieve controlled nuclear fusion in a test tube. Today's announcement sent scientists scurrying to duplicate the experiment and if it holds up under scrutiny, the Utah discovery could pave the way for an unlimited clean and cheap supply of energy for the entire world. There are two types of nuclear energy, fusion and fission. The most familiar is nuclear fission. That's when two atoms are split apart. The power and energy that result from this spit were first seen in the atomic bomb that devastated Japan during World War II. Today nuclear fission is relatively common place, produced and controlled in nuclear reactors, but it's expensive and has many drawbacks, especially safety. Ten years ago, the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania leaked massive amounts of radiation into the environment. More recently, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl killed 31 and injured thousands. It was recently revealed that the vegetables grown in the countryside around the nuclear reactor are still contaminated with radiation almost three years after the accident. Also, the radioactive waste which results from fission is extremely dangerous and costly to dispose of, and the question of where to dump it has become a major environmental battle. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, has few such problems. Fusion occurs when atoms collide. This fusion releases tremendous power and energy. Fusion is what makes a hydrogen bomb explode, but unlike atomic energy, scientists have been unable to convert fusion into practical use, an effort they've pursued for the past 35 years. The advantages of fusion are many. It's less radioactive, therefore, the waste disposal problem is reduced, if not almost eliminated, and the power released by fusion would be inexpensive and abundant, capable of supplying the energy needs of the entire world. Here with us now to explain their work and its implications are the two researchers. Stanley Pons is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Utah. His collaborator is Martin Fleischmann, a Professor of Electro Chemistry at the University of Southampton in England. Gentlemen, to you both, congratulations. Your discovery is being hailed as a breakthrough. Professor Pons, how accurate is that?

STANLEY PONS, University of Utah: Well, it certainly is a breakthrough in the field of nuclear fusion. We have a cell which is comprised simply of a block of metal which is immersed in deuterium oxide, which is heavy water, and the amount of heavy water present on the earth, of course, is enormous. It's virtually an inexhaustible source of fuel if it can be used for a fuel.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Heavy water is -- what makes it heavy water? I mean --

PROF. PONS: Well unlike normal water where each of the hydrogen atoms in the water have a single proton, heavy water, the hydrogen atoms in heavy water have both a proton and a neutron, each one of them do.So it's a heavy isotope, if you like, of water.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you were saying.

PROF. PONS: In this particular cell we use an electrical current to change the water into deuterium gas, the heavy water into deuterium atoms rather. These are then forced in the lattice, the metal lattice by the current and are highly compressed in that lattice. They are compressed to the point and are retained close enough to each other for a long enough time that atomic fusion occurs.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. I want to get into the details of that experiment in the simplest terms possible in a couple of minutes, but let me just ask you, Mr. Fleischmann, this is also being hailed as the ideal energy source. Is that the case?

MARTIN FLEISCHMANN, University of Southampton: Yes. There would be many advantages in using it as an energy source, because as was referred to in the run-in to this program, the reaction would be clean, the fuel supply would be -- and as Prof. Pons has said, the fuel supply would be plentiful, and it could in this embodiment be carried out, we think, in a very simple manner.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The fuel supply being inexhaustible does that relate to this heavy water?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: Yes, the content of water in the sea, the sea water.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Because as I read it this afternoon, it was the prevalence of sea water that made the supply the so inexhaustible?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: Yes. It's the content of heavy water in the sea and the natural water in the sea which would be the fuel in this instance.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Does it indeed have the potential of transforming the world's energy force, energy supply?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: Well, if the engineering problems can be solved, certainly, yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is that a big "if"?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: In any scientific investigation, in any investigation, there are always the problems of science and then there are the technical problems, but of course we do not see such massive technical problems in this instance as there might be in some of the other approaches which have been tried so far.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now you've described this process as ridiculously simple, something that could be done in a freshman chemistry class. Mr. Pons, in the simplest of terms, how exactly - - you did this in the kitchen, right?

PROF. PONS: I think the kitchen thing has been blown up a little bit today.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, it's pretty sexy, maybe that's why.

PROF. PONS: It's the simplest of electro chemical cells. It contains two electrodes. It contains a large palladium electrode that serves as the device for containing the deuterium. It contains another electrode, an anode, which is wrapped around that, but electrically isolated from it except by the solution between them and you simply pass a current between the two electrodes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How did you know you were creating nuclear fusion?

PROF. PONS: Well, first by the enormous amount of heat that was generated, there is no known chemical process or other process that we're aware of that could explain such huge amounts of energy and subsequent to that, we have detected particles that are associated with nuclear fusion reactions over and above normal background --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How long did this go on, I mean, in time?

PROF. PONS: You mean the running of the cell?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Right.

PROF. PONS: We have sustained cells for several hundred hours over the last few years. The latest experiments have been running one or two hundred hours at very high energy outputs.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Fleischmann, was there anything else that you could see or feel during the course of this experiment?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: Could you repeat the question, please.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Was there anything else that you could see or feel during the course of this experiment that gave you more information that you were actually generating nuclear fusion?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: No. I think Prof. Pons has given really the correct description, the main indication which we had that we had nuclear fusion was the extremely large release of and continued release of energy, of heat energy, from the electrode.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Scientists the world over and governments have spent, as I understand it, billions of dollars with very sophisticated equipment trying to generate the incredible amount of heat that would simulate the heat in the sun to create this reaction. What led you to think that you could do it at room temperature?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: Well, the conditions in this cell, the conditions in the electro chemical cell, are completely different to the conditions which are now investigated in the conventional approaches to nuclear fusion. I think one can best explain it in quantitative, simple quantitative terms, by saying that if you pass an electric current into the cathode under the conditions which we have used, then if you try to achieve the same conditions in the cathode by compression of the gas, you would need a billion, billion, billion atmospheres, that is, a billion, billion, billion times pressure at the surface of the earth, and it is this enormous compression of the species in the lattice which made us think it might be feasible to create conditions for fusion in such a simple reactor.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What were the chances of this working, Mr. Pons?

PROF. PONS: What were the chances?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I read today somewhere it was like one in a billion.

PROF. PONS: We thought it was a very small chance. I don't know exactly how to answer what the odds are but the science seemed perfectly reasonable. That's why we tried it. We just felt that many other things could have been going on and that's what we've taken four years to check out, to make absolutely sure to our satisfaction that it is not due to any other process.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You heard the things that I articulated going into the piece about the possibilities with this kind of process, the cheap, inexhaustible safe supply. What are some of the other benefits of this particular kind of energy that you can think of?

PROF. PONS: To me the most important asset of fusion energy is of course the elimination of pollution of our atmosphere, the greenhouse effect, pollution, the ozone penetration of our upper atmosphere, these things could be eliminated due to the fact that we would not be putting anything into the atmosphere.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And also I understood that they will have some effect on acid rain, is that right, Mr. Fleischmann?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: If you do not burn fossil fuel, you of course eliminate the production of sulphur dioxide which is the cause of acid rain in our environment. Any step to alleviate the production of carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, of acid rain, and carbon dioxide pollution of the atmosphere is desirable.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What will it take to develop this technology into usable, something usable for generating heat and electricity and energy?

PROF. PONS: The technology that's going to be required can be envisioned. There are lots of different types of cells and lots of different types of devices that you can imagine. Basically what we're producing here, it will be, the first product will be hot water, so you would use this to either drive some sort of generator or turbine to generate electricity. Again, we think that the technology that we're facing here is much simpler to accomplish than the more conventional methods, so I think we have a very good chance of pulling it off.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How soon do you think we will see its benefits? How soon will it be possible to see its benefits?

PROF. PONS: I think laboratory prototypes could be built fairly soon but I would not look for a commercial device or a device 10 years minimum, that would be an absolute minimum I think, 20.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ten years.

PROF. PONS: Twenty years.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ten to twenty years. Mr. Fleischmann, many of the scientists our staff talked with today are skeptical about what you have done. How do you plan to convince them that this is really the breakthrough that it's being hailed at in some quarters?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: Well, we have been skeptical about it now for five years and as I explained earlier on this afternoon, you can never prove a scientific discovery right, you can only prove it wrong, and I think others will have to examine our results, extend them, and try and see whether our interpretation is in fact correct, partly correct or wholly correct, so only time will show whether this is so and whether we can take the next step towards developing the technology.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Pons, when will this be available for scrutiny by the scientific community?

PROF. PONS: I would anticipate that it will be in the literature sometime in May.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Sometime in May.

MR. FLEISCHMANN: May I come back on this do you think?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Yes.

MR. FLEISCHMANN: I would strongly urge everybody to wait until the work is described in the scientific literature before they attempt any such experiments.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is there any particular reason for that?

MR. FLEISCHMANN: Well, in any experiments on nuclear energy one has to be cautious and I think I would commend people to wait until the publications appear in May.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, that's a very good caution. I'm not sure I understood everything that you all said, but we'll look forward to the results of your work. Thank you very much, Mr. Fleischmann and Mr. Pons for being with us. ESSAY - TRUCK STOP RADIO

MR. LEHRER: Finally, Essayist Jim Fisher of the Kansas City Times travels down the highway to Southeast Missouri to listen to the radio.

JIM FISHER: This is big rig and big farm country, the boot hill of Missouri which each fall pours out a torrent of corn, soybeans, rice and cotton. Now though it's stripped to brown. It's that fallow time, time for another cup of coffee, to repair machinery as the radio plays country music. Seasons don't seem to matter out on Interstate 55, Memphis to St. Louis and points between and beyond. And trucks are ceaseless, tires singing, flaps blowing, aerials bent at 65 miles an hour plus. And what's that on the truck radio? Is that Cousin Carl talking about his mother-in-law again? [Radio Program]

JIM FISHER: Even with the winter winds, folks are smiling again along the interstate in places like Couter, Bragadocio, Reeds, Birney, and Homes Town. Cousin Carl, born Bill Anderson, is back on the radio after an absence of four months, the time since getting cross ways with another station up -- he does his three hour show at the truck stop at Marston, Missouri, as his fans watch, truckers pay their fuel bills and the Peterbilts and Pennwursts idle outside. [Radio Program Excerpt]

JIM FISHER: The fact is Cousin Carl's an institution here in the boot hill. His ratings are through the roof. He plays the old country music, he sells tire cases and center pivot irrigations, water beds and catfish dinners, but what he does best is tell stories. [Radio Program Excerpt]

JIM FISHER: Sure it's whimsical and corny, but it's more than just laughs. Listen closely and you'll hear a form of the English language, one a lot of the so-called experts may sniff at, but one a lot of folks still use, borrow ditch for roadside depression, stay abed for sleep late, smoother than a mouse's lips for slick, paint on the rest for ignore. From tiny KCGV, 1370 on the dial, come the words, phrases and intonations of a long dead grandma or other relative, ones we knew before this country somehow got more gloss than substance to it, where sophistication became more important than reality, in a time when shock radio and crash television seemed to have seized the air waves, when bodily parts are casually discussed and even more surprisingly displayed, where shouted profanity is the norm, where people get their noses broken, and where the laughter always seems nervous. Cousin Paul is a happy exception. He brings us home, if only for three hours a day. [Radio Program Excerpt] RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, the FAA issued a warning to U.S. airlines and airport security personnel about the possibility of Palestinian terrorists hijacking a U.S. airliner in Western Europe, the House voted to raise the minimum wage to $4.55 an hour and two scientists announced the discovery of a simple nuclear fusion technique that could open the way for an almost unlimited new supply of energy. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Thank you and good night.