The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, House Speaker Jim Wright said he would fight ethics charges and win. The Iran-Contra trial prosecutor called Oliver North a liar who couldn't stop. Wall Street rebounded with moderate inflation news. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in Washington tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, we hear about closing arguments in the Oliver North trial from National Public Radio Correspondent Nina Totenberg, then a report on a fight over the future of a military base after it's closed. Next, a News Maker interview with British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, and finally Arts Correspondent Joanna Simon talks with Moonstruck Actor John Patrick Shanley. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: House Democrats gave their Speaker, Jim Wright, a standing ovation today when he said he would fight ethics charges against him and win. The Speaker appeared before the House Democratic caucus the day after the Ethics Committee charged him with repeated violations of House rules of conduct. The Speaker met with reporters outside the caucus meeting room.

REP. JIM WRIGHT, Speaker of the House: I told my colleagues that I intend to go before the Committee at the very earliest possible moment to answer these charges and prove that they are unfounded. I told them I intend to fight and I intend to win. I told them that I have never done anything to dishonor this institution and I never will.

MR. MacNeil: Emerging from the same meeting, the Democratic Whip Tony Coehlo predicted many of the charges against the Speaker would be dismissed and he said Wright would still be Speaker in the next Congress. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The prosecutor in the Oliver North trial today methodically tried to dismantle North's American hero image comparing him to Adolf Hitler and Joe Isuzu, a television character who tells lie upon lie. In his closing arguments to the jury, Prosecutor John Keker said the former Lieutenant Colonel followed Hitler's maxim that the victor will never be asked if he told the truth. In response, Defense Attorney Brendan Sullivan called the comparison outrageous. After he finishes his closing arguments, there will be time for rebuttal on Wednesday, and then the nine week old trial will go to the jury.

MR. MacNeil: In economic news, share prices surged on Wall Street today as traders took the latest inflation figures as moderate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up by almost 42 points. This followed the release of government figures showing consumer inflation rising in March by .5 percent. So far this year, the Consumer Price Index has risen at an annual rate of 6.1 percent. The government also reported that construction of new homes fell 5.4 percent in March.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The bipartisan agreement to aid the Nicaraguan Contras was signed into law today at the White House. The accord, which passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, provides almost $50 million in humanitarian assistance through February 1990. At that time, that Sandinista Government has promised democratic elections. This afternoon during a signing ceremony in the Rose Garden, President Bush said he was still skeptical that the Nicaraguan Government would live up to its promises.

PRESIDENT BUSH: The success of the Central American peace process and the prospects of national reconciliation in Nicaragua depend on full and honest Sandinista compliance with the repeated pledges of democracy and freedom. We've yet to see genuine Sandinista compliance. Thus far they've refused to negotiate with the opposition regarding the necessary conditions for fair elections. It's clear that close international scrutiny and sustained pressure will be critical to induce Sandinista compliance.

MR. MacNeil: French President Francois Mitterrand called President Bush today to talk about ways of ending the fighting in Beirut, but Secretary of State James Baker said there's little the U.S. can do. More people were killed in Lebanon's capital city today, but the rain of artillery shells stopped long enough to allow the evacuation of dozens of civilians recently injured. Tom Brown of Worldwide Television News narrates this report.

MR. BROWN: Artillery duels continued throughout the night as Christians and Muslims pounded each other's sectors. After the planes had subsided, smoke from burning buildings filled the night sky. By dawn another eight people were dead and a further forty- three were wounded. With daybreak, the bombardment became intermittent and the extent of the damage was all too visible. Vast areas of the city are now little better than waste ground. During the leio, rescue services evacuated 70 injured Muslims from hospitals in West Beirut. Escorted by relatives, half of them were taken to the Port of Sidon where a Lebanese boat ferried the injured to the French vessel. Accompanying them were the French Ambassador, Paul Blanc, and Bernard Cushnar, France's Minister of Assistance. After delivering its human cargo, the Lebanese boat returned to port with supplies of medicine. The remaining wounded Muslims were due to join the ship later, its plan to fly the evacuees to hospital in France for full treatment.

MR. MacNeil: In Beijing, thousands of students staged a demonstration for more democratic reforms. In scenes unprecedented for the Communist era, the students tried to force their way into the office of Premiere Lee Ping, but were repulsed by troops. A thousand students sat down outside and before they were dispersed, one said, "We can wait for days for an answer if we have to; China has waited years for democracy."

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Poland today, there was a symbolic reconciliation between Labor Leader Lech Walesa and the man who had him imprisoned eight years ago, Communist Party Chief Wojeck Yerezelski. It was the first face to face meeting since the Solidarity leader's arrest. The hour long meeting in the Parliament building took place one day after Solidarity was legalized by the Polish Government. After the meeting, neither Walesa nor other opposition participants commented on the meeting. Yerezelski said he felt satisfaction, adding, "We've come a very difficult and long way."

MR. MacNeil: Saudi Arabian Finance Minister Admund Khashoggi, who served as a middle man for U.S. arms sales to Iran was arrested in Switzerland today at the request of the United States. The Justice Department is trying to have him extradited. A U.S. federal court has charged Khashoggi with acting as a front for Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and claims he helped them conceal their ownership of art and New York office buildings bought with money allegedly stolen from the Philippine Treasury.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And finally in the news, a Pennsylvania coroner said today that '60s activist Abbey Hoffman committed suicide with a massive overdose of the drug known as phenobarbital combined with alcohol. Hoffman was found dead in his New Hope, Pennsylvania apartment on April 12th. That's our News Summary. Still ahead, the North trial draws to a close, the future of a closed military base, the British foreign secretary and Moonstruck's John Patrick Shanley. UPDATE - DAY IN COURT

MR. MacNeil: First tonight the Oliver North trial which is drawing to a close in federal district court in Washington, D.C. Today lawyers for the prosecution and defense began closing arguments. Also in court was Nina Totenberg, Legal Affairs Correspondent for National Public Radio. Nina, the closing arguments for the prosecution first, what struck you as the most important points made by John Keker?

NINA TOTENBERG, National Public Radio: Well, the prosecutor, John Keker, returned -- [TEMPORARY STATION POWER OUTAGE]

MR. MacNeil: You disappeared in a black flash.

MS. TOTENBERG: The wrath of the Lord, we're having a thunderstorm here.

MR. MacNeil: I see.

MS. TOTENBERG: But let's get back to the wrath of the courtroom for a minute, okay? Prosecutor John Keker returned to his theme of lying as the grand theme of the trial. He said, what this case is all about is honesty at the highest levels of government. He said that the tragedy of this case, of the tragedy of Oliver North is that he cared so much about freedom and democracy in Nicaragua, but he forgot about the demands of freedom and democracy at home, and he forgot about them, said the prosecutor, when he let lying become a habit. It first became a habit when he lied to Congress, said the prosecutor, and later on when the Iran-Contra affair began to unravel, not only was lying a habit, but deceit became North's watch word. And he destroyed documents and lied to the Attorney General.

MR. MacNeil: How did the Hitler reference, which seemed so extraordinary, come up? Was it in that context?

MS. TOTENBERG: I'm going to read this so I'm completely accurate. What prosecutor Keker said was, "Nowhere in this case is there a better picture of Oliver North than in the false letters he drafted for his boss, Robert McFarlane, to send to Congress.". And then Keker pointed to one letter and he said, "It's false. It was intended to throw Congress of the track. North and McFarlane," said the prosecutor, "were following Adolf Hitler's strategy the victor. We'll never be asked if he told the truth.".

MR. MacNeil: Besides the lying theme, Nina, what about some of the other themes from the trial, the personal use of funds personally?

MS. TOTENBERG: Well, interestingly, Keker returned to that only a relatively short period of time, and he used the venality theme, the petty thievery theme, to buttress his lying theme, and he said, look, here's this guy who's spreading cash all over and now he comes and he puts his hand on the bible and he swears to tell the truth and he tells you he's got 15 grand in the closet in a steel box, do you believe that, said prosecutor Keker, do you believe that story? In fact, said Keker, he was raiding the operational account that had been set up in the White House with the help of arms dealers Richard Secord and Albert Hakim, and that had been set up, he said, because Secord and Hakim were making a killing off of the profits that Oliver North steered to them and no wonder they were willing to buy a security fence for Oliver North, no wonder they were willing to give him money for his operational account and let him spread cash all over.

MR. MacNeil: Was the tone of Keker's attack on North a pitch above what he's been using in the interrogation of North? It sounds very harsh.

MS. TOTENBERG: Yes, I would say that's so. It was, on the one hand, it was harsher, but on the other, it was more principled. While during the week of cross-examination that we heard, so much of it was about the lowest common denominator, the money, and lying at the lowest levels, Keker sought repeatedly to return to the theme of the damage that lying in government can do and why this is important, and he may have overstepped the bounds of more than good taste when he compared North to Adolf Hitler, but that's what he was striving for. He quoted Jefferson, the bible, Abe Lincoln. And he was seeking a higher plain than just petty thievery.

MR. MacNeil: How did North take all this?

MS. TOTENBERG: I really couldn't see him very well. He sat in the seat that he uses from time to time where his back is more or less to the audience. He looked very gray today, pallor gray, the whole defense team looked pretty gray I'd say.

MR. MacNeil: Now Brendan Sullivan began his closing argument and he rebutted some of these points. What struck you about the way he went about it?

MS. TOTENBERG: He was either in fact or by calculation almost out of control. His voice was quavering when he began addressing the jury. For the whole first half hour of his address to the jury his voice was shaking, it was very strident in tone, and he was outraged, he said, at the reference to Adolf Hitler, and again I'm going to read to you what he said, "It should send a course of rage through all of you. This man is not Adolf Hitler. You should be offended by it. Anyone who would link Col. North to Adolf Hitler is not credible and should not be believed. It is sick, it is twisted. Everything the government sees in this case they see through a dirty glass. The government is off the track in its case, it's run wild, and it's up to you, the jury, to stop it."

MR. MacNeil: Go on, I'm sorry.

MS. TOTENBERG: That was how he spent most of I'd say the first hour. He, interestingly enough, spent most of the time that he got today, and that's about half the time that he'll get, on the petty thievery charges and he said repeatedly these are just so puny that what North is actually charged with is converting $4300 in traveler's check to his own personal use and a security fence to protect his family and this is so puny, these charges, and so ridiculous, and so laughable on their face that the government has brought in all this other stuff, the notion of the car that he paid for with cash, the account that was set up allegedly to benefit North's children by Secord and Hakim. They brought up all this other stuff that North is not charged with, Sullivan stressed, and he told the jury, when you go back in that deliberation room, you see what he's charged with and if he's not charged with it, don't hold him responsible for it.

MR. MacNeil: Had Keker thrown Sullivan off balance by the Hitler charge which he had to spend a lot of time and emotion rebutting?

MS. TOTENBERG: I'm not sure that he threw him off balance. He may have thrown him a lot of meat that he could throw back at the jury. Sullivan seemed genuinely outraged. Now all trial lawyers can feign genuine outrage. This lawyer has been at work for this client for something like two years and seems quite caught up in his cause and he seemed infuriated, enraged by the allegation.

MR. MacNeil: The combative Sullivan who was seen in the Iran- Contra hearings?

MS. TOTENBERG: Absolutely. That's the Sullivan we saw today, a Sullivan bathed in righteousness, just saturated with fury. There's no other way to describe it, and he repeatedly portrayed North as this American hero who had put his life on the line, faced a wall of machine gun fire only to find himself the victim of higher ups, the low ranking colonel who was sent to face charges in the courtroom while Robert McFarlane got to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and got no jail time.

MR. MacNeil: Putting yourself in the jury's position, did you think either the prosecutor or the defense counsel made, introduced any new points or any different emphasis that you hadn't heard before?

MS. TOTENBERG: Well, for the defense, which had spent almost no time at all on the venality charges, the petty thievery charges, the defense spent a lot of time in the rebuttal trying to rebut that and trying to make light of that and trying to make it seem ridiculous, something that the defense had not done during its time in court, but then as I mentioned in another appearance here last week probably the most devastating witness against North was the very last witness who was the financial officer for the National Security Council, and she testified that when Oliver North said he had $15,000 in a steel box in his home, he was always chasing her down the halls, needing $5 to get home, and that his financial needs so struck her that she reported it to the security officer. So it may be that Sullivan, the defense lawyer, felt he simply had to finally take on this issue, that North had been too damaged.

MR. MacNeil: So Sullivan continues tomorrow, then what happens?

MS. TOTENBERG: Sullivan has roughly two hours or more tomorrow. Then the prosecution which has the burden of proof also has the last word, so it has a rebuttal.

MR. MacNeil: Right, okay.

MS. TOTENBERG: And on Thursday, the jury will be charged by the judge.

MR. MacNeil: Okay, Nina, thank you once again.

MS. TOTENBERG: Thank you, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead, the future of a closed military base, Britain's Sir Geoffrey Howe, and Moonstruck's John Patrick Shanley. FOCUS - BASE OF CONTENTION

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We focus next on the latest round in efforts to reduce the number of active military bases in the United States. Today the House voted 381 to 43 to go along with the special Pentagon Commission that voted shutting down 86 military bases and partially closing five others. What happens next to these bases is an issue for communities around the country. We look at one of those communities, San Francisco, where the Commission recommended closing the Presidio Army Base and not going forward with the plan to reopen part of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Steve Talbot of public station KQED in San Francisco has our report.

STEVE TALBOT: The Presidio Army Base is as old as San Francisco, the city it once guarded.

MAYOR ART AGNOS, San Francisco: It's kind of like gold has been discovered and everybody has all of the fancies that you see when gold has been discovered. We've got gold fever because people are thinking of everything that they have ever wanted could be there.

MR. TALBOT: The Presidio is one of the most attractive pieces of real estate owned by the federal government. It looks like more like a country club than an army base.

COL. CHARLES O'BRIEN, Presidio Public Affairs: The Presidio is one of the nicest military posts in the country. It's really outstanding to be assigned here. It's kind of one of the places that a lot of people dream of at least one time being assigned. The quarters are very nice and we do have a golf course, as do most military reservations.

MR. TALBOT: There are virtually no combat troops stationed at the Presidio. It's easier to find an antique canon than a modern weapon. Founded by the Spanish in 1776, the Presidio is a living museum, with more than 300 historical buildings, including these Victorian houses built during the Civil War. Today the Presidio is the administrative headquarters of the Sixth Army, which oversees the reserves and the National Guard in the Western United States. The Presidio's most distinctive feature is its parklike atmosphere. It's an open post. Anyone can stroll or job through the base, see the sights or watch the sun set in the ocean.

COL. CHARLES O'BRIEN: We firmly believe that we've been a good neighbor. This has been an open post, one of the few completely open posts in the military. We maintain it at a very high standard and the army feels that it's taken care of as good as it can ever be taken care of and that it's completely accessible to the civilian population and it would never be more accessible under any circumstances than it is now.

MR. TALBOT: If the Presidio shuts down, more than 3,000 civilians will lose their jobs. Another 2500 military personnel will be transferred, but the Pentagon estimates that closing the Presidio will save the Defense Department $74 million a year, so the closure is proceeding by the numbers.

COL. CHARLES O'BRIEN, Presidio Public Affairs: We had taken care to warn all of our employees, both military and civilian, that there's no need to panic, because this is a long process and our employees responded by not panicking.

MR. TALBOT: The exodus will be a phased withdrawal, not a sudden retreat. The army will leave gradually between 1991 and 1995. The commanders of the Sixth Army will relocate to Ft. Carson, Colorado. The Letterman Army Hospital, which does not meet earthquake codes, will be shut down. But there is no precise battle plan for what happens next. Private developers would love to take over. These 1400 acres of beautifully landscaped hills in the heart of San Francisco are worth billions.

REP. BARBARA BOXER, [D] California: No question that there will be pressure, but I will say this. You know, since day one, when this issue came up, 95 percent of the calls I'm getting into my office is keep that Presidio open and beautiful and don't let the developers get their greedy hands on it.

MR. TALBOT: It's easy to see why developers would be sorely tempted. The Presidio is bordered by San Francisco's wealthiest neighborhoods, Pacific Heights and Sea Cliff. This colonel's home would easily sell for a million dollars in San Francisco's highly inflated real estate market, especially with this view of the bay and this 18 hole golf course just down the road. Private developers would love to get their hands on the Presidio but their hands are tied thanks to the foresight of the late San Francisco Congressman Philip Burton. Legend has it that Burton never went outdoors unless it was to have a cigarette, but he left a magnificent environmental legacy. In 1972, Burton pushed legislation through Congress creating the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It's now the most popular national park in the country. The legislation also stipulated that if the army ever leaves the Presidio, the National Park takes over the entire base, golf course and all. Private developers, no matter how much they covet the Presidio, can't touch it unless they can convince Congress to change Burton's law. The superintendent of the park can barely conceal his delight.

BRIAN O'NEIL, National Park Service: Anyone in my position would be foolish to say they're nothing but excited. This is one of the special resource areas that exist anywhere in this country and certainly the world.

MR. TALBOT: But in San Francisco politics there's always some irony, and the twist here is that the local, very liberal Congresswoman Barbara Boxer wants the army to stay at the Presidio.

REP. BARBARA BOXER: In some ways it is ironic that I am here saying don't close this base, because I have been a real proponent of cutting out the duplication and the waste and the fraud and the military. I mean, it's been what I built my career on.

MR. TALBOT: But Boxer fears that the Park Service won't have the budget to keep the Presidio as well groomed as the army has and if the army has, she wonders who will pay to clean up some low level toxic waste problems at the base. But Superintendent O'Neil believes that the park can generate its own revenue.

BRIAN O'NEIL: You know, whether it becomes a Smithsonian West or whether it becomes a Pacific Rim Center or whether it becomes a major educational institution that's what we want challenged people to think.

STEVE TALBOT, KQED: And O'Neil says there's already a model for what can happen, Ft. Mason. When it comes to converting abandoned military bases, San Francisco is a city that knows how. This base, Ft. Mason, was shut down in the early 1970s. Since then, it's been converted into a very popular area, with everything from parks to a performing arts center. When the generals left, the Buddhists moved in. The Zen Buddhists of Tassajara were permitted by the National Park Service to operate a restaurant at Ft. Mason. The restaurant known as Green's is wildly successful. It's one of the pioneers of vegetarian California cuisine. Green's is the centerpiece of a non-profit trust that administers the old fort on behalf of the Park Service. It's a place where if you pardon the pun, swords have been turned into Ploughshares, just one of the many non-profit peace groups, environmental organizations and theater troops that now occupy Ft. Mason. Last year, nearly 2 million people visited the converted fort, where visitors can now wander through the Mexican art museum, see a World War II Liberty ship, or just play a game of football. The abandoned fort under civilian management successfully attracts tourists and locals while generating jobs and revenue. In 10 years, this is what the Presidio might look like.

MAYOR ART AGNOS, San Francisco: Ft. Mason here in San Francisco is a mini model of what we could do and expand from that.

MR. TALBOT: But considering how to convert the Presidio to civilian use is not the only challenge the Mayor faces. He also must figure out how to make the best use of the virtually abandoned portions of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard on San Francisco's Southern waterfront. The Pentagon Commission on Base Closures recommended cancelling a much ballyhooed plan to home port the battleship Missouri at Hunters Point. The Pentagon said it would be a waste of taxpayers' money to dredge the bay and build new docks to accommodate the refurbished battleship.

SCOTT MADISON, Hunters Point Naval Shipyard: Well, I thought it confirmed what we out here at the shipyard had been feeling about the home porting project, that it was basically your pretty typical pork barrel scheme, it didn't really have that much to do with strategic planning and national defense.

MR. TALBOT: Scott Madison is a leader of a group that represents the civilian tenants at the shipyard. Their plea is that the Missouri deal was cancelled because they might be able to stay. There are more than a hundred blue collar businesses that lease space from the navy and there's a thriving community of some 350 artists. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the navy has not used most of the space at the shipyard, so civilians began moving in about 10 years ago. In 1986, the navy announced plans to bring the Missouri here and evict the civilian tenants. Now that the Missouri appears headed for a home in Hawaii, the tenants hope that they will be allowed to state.

SCOTT MADISON: We have successfully without any intention on anyone's part converted a military installation to a productive civilian peacetime activity I think to everyone's benefit.

MR. TALBOT: It does seem like a good deal. The navy collects rent for property it's not using and artists and small businesses have space they can afford, but the navy seems reluctant to give the civilians the security of long-term leases. Mayor Agnos hopes to change that.

MAYOR AGNOS: Basically what we'd like to do is work with the navy in a joint venture that will make maximum use of that land for what the navy needs as well as what the city needs in developing the economy of our city.

MR. TALBOT: At Hunters Point and Presidio, the wheeling and dealing have already begun. The navy, which is facing a housing shortage in the San Francisco area, has its eye on the housing at the Presidio if the army leaves. San Francisco State University has announced that it wants the Presidio for a new campus. Even Congresswoman Boxer is preparing for the day the army leaves town.

REP. BARBARA BOXER, [D] California: We are working on a second track, which is how to make it the most spectacular park, you know, in the history of the world. I mean, we know the Presidio deserves nothing less. It is a jewel in our midst.

MR. TALBOT: Now that the trillion dollar defense spending binge of the 1980s is over, many in Congress believe that base closings and military cutbacks are inevitable. Conversion of military bases to civilian use may become a national trend, and San Francisco, with enough practice, could become "the" expert in the field. NEWS MAKER

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next a News Maker Interview with British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe. His one day whirlwind visit to Washington yesterday was his first since President Bush took office and comes little more than a month in advance of an important NATO summit meeting in Brussels. Our interview follows this background report from Correspondent Charles Krause.

CHARLES KRAUSE: It was the British Foreign Secretary's first visit to Washington since the Bush administration took office in January. His tight schedule included meetings with members of Congress, with top administration officials, including Secretary of State Baker, and then yesterday afternoon a meeting at the White House with President Bush, the purpose of the visit to review issues of importance to the Western alliance. Among the issues on Howe's agenda, short ranged Lance missiles based in West Germany. The United States and Britain want to upgrade the nuclear missiles which NATO says are still necessary to deter a conventional attack. Moscow, on the other hand, has proposed eliminating them and all other nuclear missiles from Europe. For its part, West Germany, where the missiles are located, is caught in-between. The Kohl Government in Bonn hopes to delay any decision on the Lance missiles until after federal elections in 1990. Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader's economic and political reforms at home and his diplomatic and military initiatives abroad have made Gorbachev one of the most popular figures in the West. In London, just a few weeks ago, he demonstrated once again how dynamic and even charismatic he can be. Crafting a response to Gorbachev's so- called "charm offensive" and more specifically a response to his proposals for reducing conventional weapons in Europe is near the top of the Western agenda. At the United Nations last year, Gorbachev offered to unilaterally withdraw 5,000 Soviet tanks and 50,000 Russian soldiers from Eastern Europe. The proposal is widely popular in Western Europe, but NATO officials are concerned. Even after Gorbachev's unilateral cuts, they say, the Warsaw Pact would still enjoy a 2 to 1 advantage in key weapon systems, including tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers. Last month in Vienna, where another round of conventional arms reduction talks got underway, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze tried to put some of the Western fears to rest. The Soviet proposal calls for the Warsaw Pact to make deeper cuts than NATO, to equalize troops and weapons systems on both sides, 10 to 15 percent below current NATO levels. NATO's position calls for reductions 5 to 10 percent below current levels. The Soviets also propose a second phase of cuts totalling 25 percent more. NATO is opposed to a second round of cuts. Beyond the technical issues of how many troops should be withdrawn from Europe and how many weapons systems should remain, the Bush administration believes that easing military tensions in Europe will require political changes as well. Secretary of State Baker made the connection clear in Vienna last month on the eve of the new talks.

JAMES BAKER, Secretary of State: Only when the causes of the historic division of Europe have ben removed, when we have achieved the free flow of people and information, when citizens everywhere enjoy free expression, only then will it be possible to eliminate totally the military confrontation.

MR. KRAUSE: Yesterday there was no disagreement between Howe, Secretary Baker, or President Bush on that score.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I talked with British Foreign Secretary Howe yesterday and asked what was on the top of his agenda when he met with President Bush at the White House.

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE, Foreign Secretary, Great Britain: Oh, we were talking about the whole East/West relationship, main item. We've just recently met President Gorbachev and Mr. Shevardnadze in London. There's an upcoming NATO summit. We were talking also about South Africa and the Mid East, those are the main topics.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are there any big problems, as far as you're concerned, with the upcoming arms talks?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: No problems, no. I think we have to go on making the most of the opportunities that are though for getting arms control, arms reduction talks underway and working effectively, but at the same time we have to maintain people's willingness to sustain effective defense and security forces, and it's quite difficult to maintain both of the former at the same time.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why is that?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: Well, I think people like to believe everything is going one way or the other and they like to think that everything in the garden is lovely, so if we're getting arms control reductions, why not do away with defense altogether, I'm exaggerating, but the fact is that we do have to maintain our nuclear capability, we have to keep it up to date, at the same time as we're improving the overall climate of relations.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, does that have anything to do with what appears to be a continuing skepticism at least in Britain about Gorbachev and his intentions?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: I think not just in Britain. I think we in Britain have done more than anyone to wish Gorbachev well to hope that he succeeds in this amazing task of trying to reconstruct the Soviet economy from the bottom upwards, so we hope he succeeds in that. We want him to succeed in a more positive thinking in foreign policy, we're all for that, but who knows whether he will succeed. There are still very powerful influences at force in the Soviet Union that want to maintain a strong military posture. What happens if he doesn't succeed? So we have to have a long historical view of these things andbe ready for the worst while hoping for the best.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But is there an actual skepticism about Gorbachev, himself, and his own intentions?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: I don't think so really, no. I think if you read all his speeches, he recognizes that the Soviet Union is a busted flush in terms of economic policy and politics. He's got to start again. If he's going to succeed in that, he has to rethink some of the dreadful foreign policy entanglements they got into, so he's pulling out of Afghanistan. He's looking again at whether he gets value for money from all the money he pours into Cuba and so on. On the other hand, he's still maintaining a very powerful and enormous stock of chemical weapons. He's still got a huge army and collection of armed forces two or three times larger than NATO's got in Europe, so one has to look at every aspect of the man and his policy.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There's been some criticism that the West has been dragging its feet in response to Moscow's proposal for major reductions in conventional arms. How do you respond to that?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: I don't accept it. I think what one's got to remember is that the West has for years been saying, look, we want to see headway on arms reduction, chemical, nuclear, and above all in Europe conventional, because of the huge surplus of Soviet tanks, artillery and so on, we want to see headway on that. I actually presented at Vienna only six weeks ago the West's proposals for very big reductions in those things and the Soviet Union have now come back with some rather dramatic things trying to outbid that. Well, since we've spent 10 years trying to persuade them to move at all, we'd like to see them coming up to respond to the offers we've now made and really have some headway on that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, in addition to meeting with the President, you were also on Capitol Hill today and one of the members of Congress, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin recently said that the NATO position was too cautious and didn't respond to the public desire in the West to reduce military spending. Did that come up with him today and did you confront this issue?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: I noticed that and we have talked about it obviously. It comes back to the same point. For year after year after year, we've been trying to make headway with the Soviet Union on arms reduction. At last we've got them to agree to the start of fresh talks, having wound up the failed ones. We've put forward dramatic proposals for actually getting their surplus down, reducing our total as well. Now we want them to negotiate seriously about that. The ink is hardly dry on those proposals, so it's hardly time for us to begin tearing them up, begin to produce some new ones. Let's walk before we try to run. Let's make headway on these.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is that what you told Les Aspin?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: That's what I've been telling everyone I've met today.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, how did he respond to that?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: Well, there's another side to the case obviously. I don't accept it. It's not that I'm against successful arms control, but we want to make headway and we in Britain have been playing a very big part in trying to promote it. But let's go step by step in a realistic fashion.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But what about the perception that apparently is quite widespread due in part to Mr. Gorbachev's charismatic visiting around the world, that he is more interested in reducing arms than NATO? I mean, is that perception a problem for you and do you agree that that perception does, in fact, exist?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: It represents a problem I think for two reasons. One, because people have been used to living for so long with unfaced, unmoving Soviet leadership, that the change to Mr. Gorbachev, a real man, talking about real things in an approachable human fashion gives people a great sense of relief. One's then got to look at what's actually happening. Remember that he's got this tremendous surplus stock of weapons of all kinds and as I said the other day, he can go on producing well armed rabbits from a well stocked hat for a long time. He's got a lot more weapons than we have to dispose of so people have to be warned without being told that Mr. Gorbachev is not a decent guy, without being told that we must fail to trust him at every point, but simply being told, look, we have to watch carefully what is actually being proposed because they've still got a very large stock of weapons, they've still got more chemical weapons than the rest of the world put together, they've still got more tanks than NATO and the Warsaw Pact put together. So there's a long way to go. We're ready to go down that road with him, but let's do it carefully.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you respond to those who argue that NATO should actually leap frog over the force reductions that NATO has proposed and come down to as much as half if the Warsaw Pact group will come down to that level? Is that just a totally unrealistic proposition?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: Well, it's surely, as I say, trying to run before you can walk. If you've got a situation where the Warsaw Pact has got about three times as many of the key weapons like tanks and artillery as we've got, and if we say, right, let's get underway, let's make significant reductions on our own side and let's make reductions on your side to bring them level with us, now they've got to do much more disposal of weapons than we have, because they've got three times as many to begin with. Now let's see the color of their money in that respect. If they really will do that, if they will stop the tremendous production of tanks that's still going on, they're still producing new tanks, still producing new submarines, so there's time enough to begin making even more dramatic ones when we've got this one under our belt.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Looking at Gorbachev's proposals and his appearances around the world and his talk of a common European home, I believe, including the USSR and not the United States, I mean, what do you think he's up to with that?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: Well, I think the common European home is rather an attractive phrase. He's talked about a common Pacific home. He's even talked about a common Arctic home. So he's got a lot of homes he's reckoning to plan. The truth is that the European home where European civilization, human rights, democracy, self- government, freedom, where it really flourishes, is a home not designed in the Soviet Union, it's a home designed by us in Western Europe and by you on the other side of the Atlantic. It's a home for which we've laid the foundations and if he is willing to let the people of the Warsaw Pact move into our kind of social, political, liberal structures, if he's willing to let the Soviet Union do it, then we're glad to welcome them, but I think we are better qualified to claim to be the architects of the common European home. It's a nice phrase for him; we've been working at it for a long time.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you don't see him engineering Western Europe into a position away from the United States?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: I think that remains a longstanding objective of Soviet foreign policy.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Where is it now? Has it changed any?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: No, that's something that hasn't changed. That's why it's very important to keep NATO together, because European security and North American security depends on our sticking together in NATO. The Soviet Union would like to detach us very much. And that's why I think that we want to take care that the common European home doesn't exclude the United States. If you look at the 35 countries that have been taking part in all the Helsinki negotiations, that's the Warsaw Pact countries and the 16 NATO countries, including America and Canada, and the neutrals in Europe, that in a way is the framework for establishing the broad bases of human rights throughout Europe and North America.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Finally, let me just ask you -- I mean, there have been so many changes since you were last here -- especially with the U.S./Soviet, I guess you could call it rapprochement, other developments in the world, do you see this as the beginning of some sort of definable era in international relations, indeed, the end of the cold war and perhaps some other phase of existence?

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: I think it's an extremely exciting time to be doing my job as Foreign Secretary because there have been a great deal of positive changes. The way in which we can now talk to the Soviet leadership by contrast with the gruff rebuttal one used to get from Gromyko, if one talked to human rights about Gromyko, he simply said, you're lowering the tone of the conversation, that's different and we have got opportunities for making headway, whether in Southern Africa or in Cambodia or in Southern Africa, but we mustn't assume that just because things are going well on some fronts now that it'll all go right forever more. We always have to keep on working at it. Democracy has to remain particularly vigilant because we can always too easily slide into easy come, easy go. It's only come because we've retained our unity and or willingness to defend ourselves.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Sir Geoffrey, thank you very much for being with s.

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE: Thank you very much. CONVERSATION - JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, a conversation with an Irish- American writer whose heart, soul and prose our pure Italian. Our Arts Correspondent Joanna Simon talks to John Patrick Shanley.

JOANNA SIMON: Some of the warmest, fieriest, most passionate scenes of the Italian community in New York today happened in the recent film Moonstruck. The characters are impulsive, head strong, volatile. The dialogue is angry and impetuous. [SCENE FROM MOONSTRUCK]

MS. SIMON: Heartfelt, sentimental -- yet the source of all this brio has never been to Italy and doesn't even speak Italian. He's John Patrick Shanley, a 38 year old Irish-American from the Bronx. Shanley found the inspiration for his seven plays and two movies closer to home, right on the streets of New York's little Italy. The color and energy of this neighborhood are a constant source of interest. In a cafe on Mulberry Street, Shanley explained.

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: Most of my good friends that I grew up were Italian, and I used to go over to their houses and I used to be very impressed with their different life. Guys would be using their mother's hair spray and the mother would be serving meatballs and Coca Cola for breakfast and it just seemed like the whole world had been stood on its head. The guys seemed to be really interested in clothes and in my house all the guys just put on what was, you know, still didn't have any holes in it in the morning, and they were more open sexually. They talked about having sexual feelings, the parents, the children, it's like astounded. And it's a wonderful world. These people have a lot of the language here and body language that I've been denied from the culture I've specifically come and if I could put that, if I could put their language together with my language, I would feel like I could fully express myself, which was why I started writing about Italians in the first place.

MS. SIMON: After begin kicked out of five high schools, Shanley eventually graduated from New York University tops in his class, but the route out of his tough neighborhood took years and a major detour.

JOHN PATRICk SHANLEY: I joined the Marine Corps. I was an anti- tank assault man and a flame thrower, gunner, and worked with plastic explosives and cannons and all of this stuff and I found it very civilized. The neighborhood that I came from, the Bronx, was very violent, and the difference between it and the Marine Corps was really that the Marine Corps had rules. It had the uniform code and military justice, and my neighborhood didn't really have that, so there was to me about the same level of violence but it was easier to be called to task for stepping past a certain limit in the Marine Corps. So I found it kind of relaxing, strangely enough.

MS. SIMON: So then what happened after the Marines?

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: I was a truck unloader; I was a paint contractor, I was an elevator operator, I was a locksmith, I was a glacier. I was a sandwich maker for a long time. In fact, I was so deeply involved with sandwich making that I remember when I was about 22, a guy asked me, what are you doing, and I said, well I'm assistant manager in a sandwich shop, and he said, yeah, yeah, but what are you going to do with yourself? I said eight more months I figure they may make me a manager in the sandwich shop, and he said, but what are -- you're not going to be -- and I didn't understand what he was talking about. I had never thought beyond that and I liked it there very much, so I just did these jobs with no particular thought to the future. The future had no reality for me.

MS. SIMON: But you, while you were in the sandwich shop, you were writing poetry.

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: I used to -- I worked for a sandwich shop that had white sandwich bags which made excellent pieces of paper to write poems on, and at home in my files are at least 30 white paper bags with penciled, long, sometimes very long poems on the backs of them. Sometimes you'd see like a two or three bag poem, and I did that, I don't know why I didn't get fired. Actually I seemed to be very good at it. I seemed to be able to get my job done and to write the poetry without really short changing the people that I was working for.

MS. SIMON: I want to you know, how did you get from that point to where you were actually making a living, although granted not a very good one, writing for the theater?

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: I did anything and everything that anyone asked me to do that I could in good conscious do if you would pay me, and during that whole time I was also writing and when I made enough money to go home and write for a few weeks, I would go home and write for a few weeks, but the whole time in the back of my head knowing, knowing that the wolf was at the door and I was under tremendous pressure to go out and make enough money to pay yet another month's rent. I had reached a point in my life where I felt tremendously isolated from my fellows. I'm a very social being and I get a great deal of nutrients from being involved, being a member of the human race, and I felt that if I did not reach out and get ahold of somebody and communicate something of what I feeling to somebody, I would die. [SCENE FROM PLAY]

MS. SIMON: That feeling surfaces in Italian-American Reconciliation which recently offered off Broadway at the Manhattan Theater Club. The character's passion threatens to erupt like Vesuvius as the hero, Juan Hughey Maximillian Bondigliano, schemes with his friend, Aldo, to reconcile with his wife. [SCENE FROM PLAY]

MS. SIMON: All of Shanley's trademarks are there, headstrong romance, the urge to embrace, a need for understanding. The climactic scene occurs when Hughey confronts his ex-wife in her garden. He feels his life can't go on without her. [SCENE FROM PLAY]

MS. SIMON: Tell me about your actual working methods. How do you get your ideas, what comes next, what is the process?

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: I write to solve problems in my life as a man so I walk down this road, life, and I come to obstacles and I become mystified and don't know how to proceed. Sometimes these obstacles are extremely upsetting, sometimes they're merely intriguing, but I need to figure out how to go around them, or go over them, or disperse them in order to go on. I try to describe everything that I know, and the nature of the problem in the first five or ten minutes of what I'm doing, and then proceed into unknown territory with the audience at my side for the remainder of my journey.

MS. SIMON: In Moonstruck, what was the problem you were trying to solve?

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: In Moonstruck, Cher's character, Loretta, Loretta has a plan. She has decided that she is going to marry this guy, that she can get this guy to the point where he will ask her to marry him, and even though she doesn't love him, this, she figures out, is the best she can do and she wants to get on with her life. And lo and behold, she meets this other guy that happens to be Danny Iello's brother, and she falls for him. And this is very alarming and upsetting to her because it throws her plan in a pile on the floor, it's just not going to work. So when she attempted to take control of her life, she really was selling herself short, and when life happened to her and she finally accepted that her fate was not to have her plan her way, she was freed to be much happier than she ever could have been.

MS. SIMON: What made you decide to try film?

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: Money. Again, I had a national endowment grant which was enough to last me for a year. I mean, that grant is like $15,000, so we're not talking the high life. We're talking about being able to survive in New York City for a year. And I knew that it was going to run out and that I was going to be back painting people's apartments, which is extremely difficult work, and very time consuming and leaves you very little energy to write, and I knew that I had to do something to change my situation.

MS. SIMON: A lot has been made about the fact that you don't play by the Hollywood rules. You've created your own rules. Tell me about that.

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: In film the ordinary way of doing business is a writer either has an idea or does not have an idea and is brought into a room with other people who wish to make a movie and they come to a legal agreement before anything is written and the writer accepts money, and from the first day that the writer begins to work, everything that the writer writes is owned by somebody else. Since I came from the theater, I didn't really know or care very much about that system of working, so I just wrote the movie that I wanted to see, and then when it was all done, I would go to the business people and the film community and the artistic people and say, this is the film that I want to make, do you want to make this film, and if they didn't want to make it, that was fine, I would go to somebody else.

MS. SIMON: But it also took a lot of guts to do that, because you could never work again with that attitude.

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: I could never work again with any attitude that I could cook up. You know to me, I'm used to living hand to mouth, and I'm never going to give that attitude up and I come out of a blue collar environment, which is probably the greatest dream of any of our lives was not to have to work for anybody and I'm not about to give that up.

MR. MacNeil: Shanley is currently collaborating with producer/director Steven Spielberg on a new movie. RECAP

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Once again the major stories of this Tuesday, House Speaker Jim Wright told his Democratic colleagues that he would fight the ethics charges against him and win. At the Oliver North trial, the prosecutor gave his summation to the jury. He characterized North as an habitual liar. North's lawyer called the charge outrageous. And in economic news, the consumer inflation rate rose at a moderate .5 percent in March. That news sent stock prices higher. Good night, Robin.

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