The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, Chinese authorities arrested two wanted student leaders and expelled two U.S. reporters. Democrats elected Richard Gephardt of Missouri as House Majority Leader, the House failed to override a Presidential veto of a bill raising the minimum wage. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: After the News Summary, we go first to events in Congress, a Roger Mudd report on House Democrats voting for their new leaders, and a News Maker interview with one of the winners, House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, then a documentary report on Cambodia, as the Vietnamese prepare to pull out after a decade long occupation. Next, Charlayne Hunter-Gault with another in her series of interviews on the drug crisis. Tonight Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley. We end with a Jim Fisher essay on the changing auto market.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: China told two American reporters to leave the country today as Beijing stepped up its criticism of what it called U.S. interference. John Pomford of the Associated Press and Allen Pesson of the Voice of America were given three days to leave. The White House said it would protest the expulsions. Chinese authorities also said that 32 participants in pro democracy protests had been arrested, including two of the twenty-one students on the government's most wanted list. We have a report from Beijing by Jeremy Thompson of Independent Television News.

JEREMY THOMPSON, ITN: The show trials have begun. The latest phase of the Communist Party witch hunt, in the dark three young men accused of allegedly inciting riots and burning public property, they looked liked students though they were referred to merely as criminal elements. The prosecutors of Shanghai People's Court sternly cross-examined them as spy cameras on the wall recorded the charade to be broadcast as an example to the nation. Severe punishment is almost certain, the phrase "not guilty" rarely heard in Chinese courts. The round up of so-called counterrevolutionaries continues a pace, among the latest batch two leaders of the unofficial Beijing students union who led the pro democracy campaign. Twenty-two year old Joe Fan Quo on the government's most wanted list had run away from Beijing to the safety of his home in Sian only to be turned in by his own sister. In this new age of fear, not even one's closest relatives can be trusted as the people's priority has become protecting their own freedom. A state television shows endless pictures of the arrested handcuffed, often beaten, crouching and cowering in gray cells, this highly calculated propaganda campaign is clearly having its effect.

MR. MacNeil: The killing of student demonstrators by Chinese troops 10 days ago apparently went on in more than just Beijing. The military also moved on demonstrators in the Chinese central city of Chengdu. These pictures are the first evidence of that. They were taken by a Chinese student and smuggled out of the country by Britain's Independent Television News. Witnesses said soldiers clubbed, beat and stabbed demonstrators during two days of demonstrations. Unlike the demonstrations in Beijing, these had turned into riots. A whole block was gutted by fire, including a police station and a department store. Students at the Chengdu University are still boycotting classes and many have fled the city to avoid arrest. The ITN correspondent who filed those pictures was arrested and interrogated for five hours today. He's now confined to his hotel room. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: In this country, Democrats in the House of Representatives elected new No. 2 and No. 3 leaders today. Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt was elected House Majority Leader and Congressman William Gray of Missouri Majority Whip. Afterwards, Gephardt told reporters it was time to get the House back on track after the ethics turmoil over the past few months.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, Majority Leader: This is our time to make a difference, and to move this House away from the partisan wrangling and the rancor and the bitterness and to reassert an agenda for progress for this country, that's what we're going to do, and we're going to make it happen.

MS. WOODRUFF: Democrats said their new team, including House Speaker Tom Foley, represents a new generation of leadership. We'll have a News Maker interview with Congressman Gephardt in a few moments.

MR. MacNeil: One of the first tasks of the new Democratic leadership team was to try to override yesterday's Presidential veto of the minimum wage bill. They failed to do so on a vote of 247 for override and 178 against, 57 votes short of the 2/3 majority needed. From the start, the Democratic leaders acknowledged success was unlikely with conservative Democrats supporting Mr. Bush. But during the debate this afternoon, there were heated exchanges over the President's demand that the minimum go no higher than $4.25 an hour. The bill passed by Congress put the minimum at $4.55.

REP. CARL PERKINS, [D] Kentucky: If we don't override this particular piece of legislation today and this harsh Presidential veto, then what we're doing is taking the heads of the poor working people of this country, putting them down in a pond and letting the air go out of the lungs. Because we're not giving them any air to breathe. We're not giving her any room for tomorrow. We're not giving them any hope; we're not giving them any future.

REP. BOB MICHELS, House Minority Leader: The President's position on increasing the minimum wage to $4.25 per hour over three years with a permanent training wage made good sense. It made good policy, but it apparently didn't make good enough political sense to satisfy the climate around here. The President's plan is a good one, it's responsible, it's humane not only because it provides an increase, but it rejects the kind of excessive increase which will take job opportunities away from those who need them most.

MR. MacNeil: The House also began considering legislation to bail out the savings & loan industry. As debate started, Pres. Bush urged congressional leaders to resist industry attempts to weaken the bill with amendments. Those amendments would exempt thrift institutions from having to risk their own capital. The President also asked the Congressmen not to allow the legislation to be stalled.

PRES. BUSH: And tens of billion dollars are going to have to be spent to clean up this whole matter of savings and loans. Our estimate is that it's costing about $10 million a day for every day that action is not taken. And in my view, it is time for the American public and our administration to say that enough is enough and to earnestly ask for the support of the Congress.

MS. WOODRUFF: The nation's newest and most powerful rocket was launched today from Cape Canaveral. The Air Force's Titan 4 blasted off this morning with a secret cargo on board. The Associated Press reported that it was carrying a $180 million satellite designed to give early warning of missile attacks. An Air Force spokesman would only say that the secret payload had been successfully deployed.

MR. MacNeil: Soviet Pres. Gorbachev today appealed to the West to lift restrictions on high technology transfers to help rebuild Soviet industry. On the second day of his visit to West Germany, the Soviet leader met with business leaders in the high-tech stronghold of Stutgart. He was given a look at some of Germany's best technology. Once again, he got out of his limousine when he saw thousands of West Germans had crowded the city's main square for his arrival. He spent several minutes shaking hands and signing autographs.

MS. WOODRUFF: Finally in the news, the Queen of England has knighted the former President of the United States. Ronald Reagan's new title is Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath. It is one of the highest orders of chivalry. The honor was given this afternoon at a lunch in Buckingham Palace attended only by the Reagans, Queen Elizabeth, and Prince Philip. Mr. Reagan will not be known as Sir Ronald. That is reserved for British citizens. That's it for our News Summary. Just ahead on the Newshour, the new Democratic leadership, the struggle for Cambodia, the Prime Minister of Jamaica talks about the war on drugs, and a Jim Fisher essay. FOCUS - LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP

MS. WOODRUFF: We focus first tonight on the 259 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and their attempts to heal the wounds by the ethics in-fighting of the past several months. As we reported, they selected their No. 2 and No. 3 leaders today. We'll have a News Maker interview with the new Majority Leader, Richard Gephardt, but first this report on today's events inside the Democratic caucus from Congressional Correspondent Roger Mudd.

ROGER MUDD: After six months of upheaval and uncertainty and embarrassment, the Democrats of the House of Representatives today finally put an end to their turmoil. Last week, they picked a new Speaker. Today they picked a new Majority Leader and a new Whip, their choice as leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri, and as his assistant, William Gray of Pennsylvania. Gephardt's selection by the Democratic caucus was never really in doubt. From the moment he announced, the 48 year old Gephardt who came through the 1988 Presidential Campaign as Mr. Clean was the prohibitive favorite to succeed Tom Foley. His only opponent was Ed Jenkins of Georgia, a Southern conservative, but who along with most of his Southern colleagues had supported Gephardt's Presidential campaign. The caucus vote for Majority Leader, Gephardt 181, Jenkins 76. Jenkins said after the vote that he ran to make a point, that the Democratic Party must include conservatives in its leadership.

REP. ED JENKINS, [D] Georgia: There are only forty-three, forty-four Democrats in the deep South in the House. We were able to only get 76 votes. I'm very pleased from those from the liberal side that saw fit to support me. I think long-term this is good for the party. After all, 76 members do represent about 40 million people in this country.

MR. MUDD: The choice for assistant majority leader called the Whip was much much closer. William Gray was an early favorite, but a Justice Department news leak about an investigation into Gray's office payroll produced some uncertainty in the current ethics crisis. Gray, an ordained minister from Philadelphia and the former budget committee chairman, was opposed by David Bonior of Michigan, the current Deputy Whip, and a 44 year old Vietnam Veteran, and by Beryl A. Anthony, Jr., of Arkansas, 51, the current chairman of the House Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The race was thought to be close enough for a second ballot. But Gray's aggressive denial of the Justice Department leak seemed effective and Gray won on the first ballot, Gray 134, Bonior 97, Anthony 30. Soon after the caucus vote, the new House Democratic leadership was presented to the media by Speaker Foley.

REP. THOMAS FOLEY, Speaker of the House: I know I can speak for each member of the Democratic caucus and say that this was truly in one sense a difficult choice, in another sense an easy choice, difficult because it is hard to choose between people of great ability and talent and commitment to the party, easy because whatever the consequence was, we knew we were going to have great leaders to serve the caucus, the party, the Congress, and the country. We're satisfied that this is a leadership team which can represent, as I say, the needs of our party and caucus, and more importantly, the needs of the country. And I now take great pride in presenting to you the new Majority Leader of the 101st Congress, Dick Gephardt of Missouri.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, Majority Leader: Thank you very much. First let me say that I am honored and humbled by being chosen by the Democratic caucus to be their Majority Leader. I said to the caucus today that I feel that America faces the toughest challenges that we've ever faced. The reason that they're tough is because they are so difficult to see but in my humble opinion, America is beginning to be in a state of decline and we as Democrats have to lead even though there's not a crisis, even though the Presidency is held by a different party, and even though getting our consensus together on the Democratic side is always difficult to do. Ladies and gentlemen, it's my great honor and pleasure to present our new Majority Whip, Bill Gray of Pennsylvania.

REP. WILLIAM GRAY, Majority Whip: I did not give a lengthy statement to my colleagues today, other than to remind them of a little illustration that I gleaned from Peanuts, and that was simply to remind them of one segment where Charlie Brown was watching the television, Lucy came up and said, "Change the channel". And he said, "Why should I?". And she said, "You see this," and he moved away from the television and in the final frame he is walking away and she is watching the television and he looked at his hand and said, "Why can't you guys do that?". My friends, I see my responsibility working with Speaker Foley and Majority Leader Gephardt and the Deputy Whip, David Bonior, as helping the Democratic Party inside this institution of getting together and doing that.

MR. MUDD: Not in years has there been such a massive upheaval in the party's hierarchy. No longer is a Southerner among the elected leadership and the new No. 2 and No. 3 leaders came to Washington scarcely a dozen years ago. This has been a genuine changing of the guard.

MS. WOODRUFF: We go now to a News Maker interview with the new House Majority Leader, Missouri Democrat Richard Gephardt. I talked with him earlier this afternoon and asked him if his position meant he has given up all hope of being elected President.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, House Majority Leader: Well, that verdict came back on Super Tuesday, and the voters let me know I think where we were going. I really think it's inconsistent to be a good Majority Leader and to try to do anything else, certainly run for President, so what I've simply said to people is that I will not run in 1992, and that you can't be doing two things at once. As long as I'm Majority Leader, I'm going to give it all of my energy.

MS. WOODRUFF: So you've ruled it out only for 1992, am I hearing you right?

REP. GEPHARDT: It's hard to see your life way down the road. The one thing I do know is that having been elected, I'm going to give this job all of my energy, and that means clearly and certainly that I cannot, will not run in '92.

MS. WOODRUFF: The old team of Democrat House leaders left under an ethics cloud, founded or unfounded, do you have any reason to think that there are any potential problems with this new team, you and Mr. Foley and Mr. Gray?

REP. GEPHARDT: I don't think so and I think that rather than spending all of our time looking at ethics questions, although they're important and if there are any they need to be resolved, we've got to get back to an agenda in the Congress to move this country in a positive direction. The American people elected us in the Congress in 1988 and George Bush as President to address the country's fundamental challenges and we've got to get back to that and I hope we can.

MS. WOODRUFF: How will this new team be different from the old leadership team that included Jim Wright and Tony Coelho?

REP. GEPHARDT: Well, a lot of what we will do is what they would have done. I don't want to sit here and say that everything's going to be different, but obviously, we are different human beings than they are and we're going to have priorities that we will try to bring and hopefully, we can get an even greater consensus among the Democrats and between the Democrats and Republicans so that we can really address some of these fundamental challenges. Perhaps things did get too partisan. Jim Wright in his speech said that maybe he had pushed too hard and had been too aggressive sometimes because he felt he was out of time. I think if we go back to basics, put people in rooms, begin to talk to one another, understand one another's viewpoints, maybe we can make some substantial progress over the long-term.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, specifically, a lot has been written, a lot has been said, as you know, about how you and Mr. Foley, in particular, are a lot less partisan, a lot less go for the jugular, if you will, than Mr. Coelho and Mr. Wright. What does that mean? Does that mean you're going to be more conciliatory towards the Republicans?

REP. GEPHARDT: Well, we're going to be partisan. Both of us have strong beliefs about what needs to happen in this country and those beliefs are rooted in the values of the Democratic Party. And we will fight as hard as we can for those beliefs and we will have harsh and sometimes very difficult policy disputes with our friends in the other party. But by the same token, I think we both understand that to get a lot of significant legislation done, it takes bipartisanship. And when that's called for and that's appropriate, and when we can do that without giving up what we believe in, which we won't do, then that's what we'll do. So I think you're going to see a different style simply because we're different human beings, but I don't think you're going to see a lessening of us asserting the beliefs of the Democratic Party and our own values and beliefs.

MS. WOODRUFF: Are you saying -- just let me try to pin you down a little bit more -- are you saying that it's more important then to try to reach a consensus even if it means getting only half a loaf, rather than holding out for everything the Democrats want in a whole loaf?

REP. GEPHARDT: Well, that's a judgment you have to make in every different case. In the minimum wage bill which we're talking about now, we have very strong feelings about what ought to happen. We carried that through to a bill that we sent to the President's desk. Now he's vetoed it, now we have to see whether that will hold or whether we'll move on to a new bill. You do what is best in a particular situation to get your beliefs to be realized. Sometimes that means fighting to the end. Other times that means compromising and getting the best that you can.

MS. WOODRUFF: But on the minimum wage, the President has won this one so far. I mean, it appears that you will lose the attempt to override this afternoon. If that happens, haven't the Democrats lost a fairly significant battle on this one?

REP. GEPHARDT: Well, we think the President's wrong, we think the American people are on our side, but we think the President has his constitutional responsibilities. If he vetoes a bill, we've got to get 2/3 to override it. If we do not do that, then we've got to go back and get the next best bill that we can get. The American people want the minimum wage to be raised. I think we've got the better of that argument. I find it ironic that Pres. Bush is talking about giving a capital gains cut to the richest people in America and he can't go to a minimum wage that I think most reasonable minded people would think is reasonable, which is the bill we passed.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is Democratic pride at stake here?

REP. GEPHARDT: I think there are a lot of people, both Republicans and Democrats, that think this wage ought to go up to a higher figure and think that the training wage the President wants is not an appropriate thing to do in this bill. I don't think there's Democratic pride at stake. I think there are very strongly held believes at stake and we're going to fight as hard as we possibly can to have those beliefs be realized.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. You talk about dealing with the Republicans on issues and yet that is not entirely what this has all been about. How do you deal with the sort of partisan broad sides that you've been getting from some in the other party like Congressman Newt Gingrich? What do you when charges are made, when charges are leveled? What will the Democrats do? What would your advice be?

REP. GEPHARDT: Well, first where there are ethics problems or ethics violations, we have to see that those are solved under the process and the rules we have in the House and we are bound and determined to do that, but as Bob Michel, the minority leader, a Republican said the other day, neither party has a corner on ethics. There are some ethics problems among members in both parties. Where they exist we've got to resolve them and do it properly, but when you go over the line and you start using innuendo and rumors and leaks in order to try to assassinate people's character, then I think you've really gone into what I call the politics of the dark side and I don't think our party or anyone in it should practice those kinds of politics.

MS. WOODRUFF: What do you do when it comes from the other side?

REP. GEPHARDT: Well, you don't respond in kind and you don't go tit for tat because then you'd just be duplicating something that you abhor and think shouldn't be done. What we should do in those cases is try to point out to the American people what they are doing. When you get a press release like we did the other day from the Republican National Committee intimating that the Speaker of the House had done some things that he had not done, but not saying it clearly, trying to get the issue into play, I think that is innuendo, rumor, I think it is totally improper, and I think we ought to point that out to the American people and if we will, I think they'll see it for what it is.

MS. WOODRUFF: There are not only differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, there are also a couple of differences, policy differences among some of you in the leadership. I mean, trade is one example. It means, setting labels aside, you're known as more of a protectionist, Speaker Foley is known to be more of a free trader. For example, he voted against some attempts that you made last year to require tougher actions against unfair trading partners. When the trade issue comes up, whose view is going to prevail?

REP. GEPHARDT: First, I can't let it pass that we have different goals in trade. We both are for opening markets abroad and increasing foreign trade, not decreasing it. I don't know of any person in the Congress that really is a protectionist, and I'm certainly not. We may disagree, Tom Foley and I, on the exact mechanics of how to force those markets open and there I'm sure we are good enough friends and hopefully intelligent enough that we can agree to disagree in some of those areas where we have disagreements. But our disagreements are few and they certainly are usually not on overall goals but only on the means to best try and reach those goals.

MS. WOODRUFF: So you both can continue to have different positions on an issue like that one?

REP. GEPHARDT: Well, I don't know of any two human beings in the world that don't have some disagreements. I often said when I was in Japan recently that my wife, Jane, and I often have some disagreements about what ought to happen in our household, but we never let the disagreement lessen our respect, or our affection for one another. I think that's the way it has to be between peoples and countries and that's the way it has to be between leaders in the House of Representatives.

MS. WOODRUFF: Just quickly on Japan, you said after a trip a few months ago to Japan that the United States ought to become more like Japan, Japan ought to become more like the United States. What did you mean by that?

REP. GEPHARDT: Well, our systems are really terribly different. They don't have anti-trust laws, we do. We don't have great close cooperation between our private businesses and the government, they do. Their distribution system is very different than ours and very difficult for us to penetrate. If we're to have a good, sound economic relationship, they have to become more like us in the way their economy and their society is structured and formed, and on the other hand, we have to become more like them. As that happens over the next years, then we can have a much more level playing field between us and we'll have a fairer chance of entering, penetrating, being successful in selling our products in their market.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, Congressman Gephardt, thanks for being with us, and once again, congratulations.

REP. GEPHARDT: Thank you very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour, a documentary report on Cambodia, Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks about the drug problem with the prime minister of Jamaica, and Essayist Jim Fisher looks at the new market for automobiles. FOCUS - BACK TO THE KILLING FIELDS

MR. MacNeil: We turn now to the tragically scarred but often forgotten nation of Cambodia, which finds itself caught up in the politics of the super powers once again. Yesterday the Bush administration asked Congress for approval to send arms to anti- Communist forces there in order to prevent a return to power of the Khmers Rouge, who murdered a million Cambodians between 1975 and '78. But many legislators said they oppose getting involved in a Southeast Asian civil war. Three weeks ago at the Gorbachev summit in Beijing, the Soviets tried and failed to get the Chinese to stop backing the Khmers Rouge. The renewed urgency comes from an approaching September 30th deadline when Vietnam is supposed to remove its army which occupied Cambodia 10 years ago and ousted the Khmers Rouge. Our report from Nom Pen, which includes some grim reminders of the Paul Put years, comes from Mary Ann Maskery, a correspondent for Crain's Business Publications.

MARY ANN MASKERY: The guns of the Cambodian Army sometimes jam because they're rusty. A communications line from outpost to main camp is strung six feet off the ground, an easy target for one quick slash of an enemy knife. Camouflage is attempted even over a white jacket. This is the army that is supposed to defend the country against Paul Put's Khmers Rouge after the Vietnamese pull out. The army exercise was supposed to impress foreign journalists with the capability of the government troops.

COMMANDER BEN SAVY, Cambodian Army: [Speaking Through Interpreter] You can see and witness here that our revolutionary army forces are strong.

MS. MASKERY: The army's less than smooth performance helps explain why it has often done so badly against the Khmers Rouge. Still, officials insist the army has improved enough for the Vietnamese to leave. Prime Minister Hun Sen dwells on recent victories.

HUN SEN, Prime Minister, Cambodia: [Through Interpreter] The main factor is due to the growth of our defense forces, especially the dry season mocking up operations at the enemy's bases along the Thai border. It forced the enemy, especially the Paul Put gang, into a state of confusion. They were completely cut off between the borders and inside the country. They were obliged to split up their forces into small units which were easy to move around to avoid our operation and to continue small scale guerrilla attacks.

MS. MASKERY: The frequent sight of missing limbs contradicts claims of great success. Many of the casualties are the result of a fruitless effort to control contested areas with land mines. Paul Put's Khmers Rouge still command large parts of the countryside 10 years after they were pushed out of power by the Vietnamese. In their camps along the Thai border, they dictate the lives of some 75,000 refugees. These are the same people who tortured and killed at least 1 million Cambodians. They left behind a grisly record, the photographs they took of their victims before they killed them, children, mothers and babies, families, anyone with education, modern skills, even a driver's license. The scenes of torture are preserved in a school building the Khmers Rouge turned into a prison. Now a memorial goes up over the fields where thousands of bones were uncovered from mass graves. It is this gruesome legacy from Paul Put that gives the current regime and the Vietnamese who sponsor it a kind of moral authority. When the Vietnamese troops pushed the Khmers Rouge across the border in 1979, they were regarded as heroes, at least in Cambodia. But the government of Nom Pen still bears the imprint of Vietnam, despite the claims of Dith Munty, First Vice Foreign Minister.

DITH MUNTY, Foreign Ministry: [Through Interpreter] The Vietnamese came in here only to respond to our request. My country, Capucia, is fully independent.

MS. MASKERY: Cambodia's former head of state, Prince Nordodom Sihanouk, a leader still revered by many Cambodians, visits a Cambodian refugee camp on the Thai border.

PRINCE NORODOM SIHANOUK, Former Head of State: We will do our best to try to get back for our homeland independence and peace.

MS. MASKERY: He is part of a rebel coalition that includes the Khmers Rouge and has support from the West and China. Their main task was to force Vietnam out of Cambodia. One year ago, Vietnam invited foreign journalists to witness what was supposed to be a major troop withdrawal, done with great ceremony and fanfare. Diplomatic sources in Bangkok estimate only 15,000 troops out of about 135,000 actually left the country. Still, it was considered the first serious troop cut in 10 years. This December's troop withdrawal ceremony was more modest as troops passed Nom Pen on barges. But Vietnam claims the numbers will be larger, 50,000 they said by year end. Cambodian officials say the cutback has already been substantial.

HUN SEN, Prime Minister, Cambodia: [Through Interpreter] Up till now, 3/4 of the Vietnamese Army has withdrawn.

MS. MASKERY: The flags, almost identical for Cambodia and Vietnam, reflect a long held Vietnamese dream of an Indochinese federation under Vietnamese control. Vietnam is unlikely to drop that dream even if it does pull out all troops in two years as it has promised. The call now for negotiations is described in altruistic terms.

DITH MUNTY, Foreign Ministry: [Through Interpreter] We want a political settlement because we want to put an end the war which has already caused deep suffering for the Capucian people.

MARY ANN MASKERY: If Vietnam does completely withdraw, it will leave a Cambodia just beginning to recover from nearly 20 years of war and the devastation of Paul Put. Nom Pen is a vibrant city again. The Khmers Rouge had turned it into a ghost town, but the people have returned, too many people for the inadequate water system. But the food supply at least appears to be stable. Morning in the market place of Nom Pen. There's no shortage of food. A few years ago, Cambodian refugees gave the world an image of a starving people. But there are free market forces at work now and the result is a better economy than the one in Vietnam. There is more food in Cambodia than in Vietnam, less inflation, and much less Communist ideology. After Paul Put, there was no serious attempt to collective the farms. Hul Lim, Vice Minister of Planning.

HUL LIM, Vice Minister of Planning: [Through Interpreter] Every family is taking responsibility. They get their own plot and family members help each other.

MS. MASKERY: Before American bombers extended the war into Cambodia, the country produced about 3 million tons of rice. After 20 years, the harvest is gradually coming back. The target this year is 2.6 million tons.

HUL LIM: [Through Interpreter] If our people can achieve this quota of 2.6 million tons of rice production, we are going to be able to solve our food problems.

MS. MASKERY: There is some small entrepreneurial business but basically the economy is rural, based on farming and fishing. By nature, the produce is abundant but prices are still high. Currency, which was eliminated under Paul Put, has returned, but it takes a lot of it to buy even a little. The government insists inflation is not a problem, perhaps not compared to Vietnam, where inflation is estimated at 1000 percent. In Cambodia, inflation is closer to 300 percent. The average office worker in Nom Pen makes $2 a month. That means a bowl of noodles could cost two days' pay, but people still buy noodles and they still buy other products, like Double Mint chewing gum, Nescafe coffee and other American and Western goods that find their way into the free markets, even major luxury items like audio tapes, VCRs and televisions. The people get the money by moonlighting on second and third jobs.

HUL LIM: [Through Interpreter] In order to get more income when they are free from work, the majority of official employees are now encouraged to increase family production.

MS. MASKERY: Workers can set up any number of entrepreneurial jobs. By various means, old lifestyles are coming back. Un Lun paid $1,500 for a Honda Motor Bike. He works as a driver, but he says in the days before Paul Put, he was rich. Other signs of the past are returning. The monks have come back to walk Lan Kah. One thousand monks were living at this temple before the Khmers Rouge took power. Some monks survived the Paul Put years by going to Vietnam. When they came back, they learned that 700 monks had died, only 24 returned. The schools, once emptied by the Khmers Rouge, are busy again. Cambodia is trying to catch up, to replace the skilled workers and technicians killed under Paul Put. Signs of Western influence are becoming more apparent in Nom Pen. A video tape of the Jackson 5 entertains one dining hall. Michael Jackson's latest album is heard nightly in another. But perhaps the most incongruous moment occurred during the latest Vietnamese withdrawal. As troop barges sailed down the Mekong, the Nom Pen police band entertained the crowds with renditions of American rock. The Cambodians await the end of foreign rule and perhaps the end of their international isolation. In Jakarta and Paris, their factions talk about putting together a future government and their patrons, China and the Soviet Union, have started talking about the same thing. Meanwhile, the royal palace in Nom Pen remains unoccupied. Outside it is a monument to the glories of an ancient empire. Inside it is an empty monument in a country that lost control over its future nearly 20 years ago. SERIES - TALKING DRUGS

MR. MacNeil: Next, Charlayne Hunter-Gault's regular Wednesday night conversation looking at solutions to the drug problem. Tonight, Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Until recently, Jamaica's main drug problem revolved around its illicit but lucrative crop of marijuana or ganga, as it is known there. But today Jamaica is increasingly being used by international drug traffickers as a trans-shipment point for cocaine, a problem that is severely straining the meager resources of the small island nation. On a visit to the United States last week, Mr. Manley discussed this problem with U.S. officials and laid out some ideas for solutions. During the visit, I asked him about both his proposals and his insight into the changing nature of the drug problem in Jamaica.

MICHAEL MANLEY, Prime Minister, Jamaica: Originally, the Jamaica problem started with marijuana as a part of a sub-culture, and then came the phase when it developed an economic significance through the export of that to the United States. More recently, the whole thing has been completely transformed in that two things happened, in that Jamaica started to become a trans-shipment center for Latin American cocaine moving to the United States, and in due course, the forces that do that kind of criminal activity in a sense conscripted and absorbed into their own export operation the ganger export business. I think they're the people who are using Jamaica as a trans-shipment center, hit on the idea that Jamaica is a small way side market, so they began to drop cocaine off in Jamaica. But it was also quite clever of them because that meant they began to conscript an army of pushers who would operate to defend the route. And so slowly what you've seen is the development of a different structure of crime and the beginnings of a problem of cocaine use both in poor communities and even in the high schools. My feeling is in my country my first responsibility is to try and create a drug resistant population. That's my responsibility if I am any kind of a leader in my own country. For that reason, we're going to be one of the first smaller third world type countries almost in the world. That's going to start a serious program of complete universal drug education in our primary, secondary, and tertiary educational system.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's not happening yet.

MR. MANLEY: The first classes are going to start in September.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you're saying that throughout these small countries in the Caribbean and in the third world, this kind of education doesn't exist?

MR. MANLEY: Not yet. I think we're going to be one of the pioneers. And that's partly I think because it's partly levels of development and sophistication and things of that sort, but partly because there's been this huge focus on this enormous U.S. market and U.S. problem which has drawn its own responses from your authorities and within your society. And all results are that the rest of the world has been looked at not in context of user but supplier so the whole focus has been on those who supply that market. We -- I myself am not prepared to take that view. I will do all the things I can to help the U.S. with the supply problem and to deal with it in Jamaica, but I am watching my country in danger of sliding down that slippery path of becoming a drug culture society and I can't conceive of any society worth building on that basis. I see the threat to our institutions have the massive capacity to corrupt that the cartel wields, has at its disposal and so I feel our responsibility is first of all to make sure that we don't have that kind of a country. I think that too few countries are realizing that the drug problem is neither national or bilateral, it is universal. Right now the evidence I have shows that the drug dealers think that the U.S. market is about saturated with cocaine so they'll experiment with crack and other things, but they think that market's saturated. So they are already probing England and Europe, which have been traditional heroin markets. I think the biggest problem of all comes from the interaction of two things, one that you are dealing with people who are ruthless, they are well financed, they're very skillful, they are very experienced, and they are international, which means they literally can pick and choose their means, their methods, their routes they choose, and so on and so forth. Now over against that is a relatively inexperienced intelligence capability, interdiction capability, that is now trying to deal with a very sophisticated operation. And so that in controlling the flow, there is the huge technical problem that results from that. So this thing is organized globally, directed globally and managed globally. They're so skillful that if I, for instance, begin to block my airports, as I'm trying to do, as a weigh station to the United States market, there are six others they can choose.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How are you blocking your airports?

MR. MANLEY: We have done two things. We had to move our army in temporarily because we discovered that our airports had become like a sieve, the whole thing I think had been completely corrupted, and huge amounts were going through our things, landing in Miami, places like that, threatening our own economy, and doing all that danger and damage to you. So what I did was to move out all the people there who were responsible, put in the army on a temporary basis, unarmed, but just to have a force that was disciplined and could hopefully manage the situation while we trained a new type of force.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Was that effective?

MR. MANLEY: It's not been 100 percent but it's been a vast improvement, and there's the other aspect in that where there are different levels of capability, skill, and detection, interdiction, and intelligence and so on and so forth, you get soft points in any kind of international defense system against drugs. That is what has led me for instance to exploring the idea of some kind of international force that would deal with interdiction, have narcotics agents, intelligence services, training, that sort of thing, which was organized internationally and could be on call to countries who suddenly find themselves in the middle of this crisis.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Like an INTERPOL?

MR. MANLEY: Right. Like an INTERPOL specific for this kind of thing, but particularly if I suddenly find myself in the middle of it, and I don't know who's doing it -- my intelligence services are not good enough to even pinpoint who the Mr. Bigs are -- to be able to bring in a force that could help me while I try to train my people to a high level of skill is valuable for me and very valuable for the international effort. So that's a thing that we floated and we are beginning to explore it, possibly trying to get a UN convention about drug trafficking in which countries pledge mutual support to each other and under whose aegis you could begin to develop a trained international force of that sort.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But I remember a time in Jamaica where your government got really tough because of violence associated with drugs, back in the early '70s, you had a gun court and very stiff sentences for people caught with even gun paraphernalia, indeterminate sentences, all kinds of things that some civil libertarians quarreled with, but it seemed to be effective in the context. What happened?

MR. MANLEY: What happened to Jamaica is that Jamaica became preoccupied with other problems. Jamaica developed all sorts of internal tensions which I think distracted everybody's attention, diverted everybody's attention from that problem. But in fact, you know we were the first country in that part of the world to work with a drug enforcement agency on a program of eradication, of interdiction and of crop substitution where we began to train our farmers who would grow marijuana to get into other crops that they could have an alternative livelihood.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There's been a suggestion in recent months that the U.S. begin to do something like that once again with the coca crops in countries where they grow, Colombia to name one. How do you feel about that? Can the United States just do that?

MR. MANLEY: That's one of the things that we feel you could get around if you had an international force, if you had a force that would come in to help you with eradication, wouldn't be identified with a super power and questions of sovereignty, but would be an international force whose very personnel might be the same but whose sponsorship would seem to be different. And certainly would hope with that problem, or with crop substitution, I know this is controversial, some people have said that that is rewarding, people who have been in criminal activity. I frankly think that's a totally naive and almost childish point of view, if you don't mind my saying so, because the truth is that most of the people that grow these things are traditional, they are generally peasant farmers who have grown up with this as a way to survive and live. The criminals are the pushers and the trans-shippers, the people who gun people down just to get it where they want and so on and so forth, and generally the grower is the simplest of peasant farmer. Our feeling is that if he is going to be asked, as you must, to give up what he knows as a little support for his children and family, then you owe it to him in common humanity to go straight another way that is legal and acceptable. And your common sense tells you that if you want to unite the community around that person, show the human concern and interest, because if you don't, you may appear, though you're doing what you have to do, you may appear like a tyrant, just blotting out this little guy's chance to live, whereas, if you help him, everybody will unite around the fact that you're doing something positive.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: If you were advising our drug control director, William Bennett, on what you think he should do from where you sit and from the needs that you and the countries in the Caribbean have, what would you say?

MR. MANLEY: I would say, No. 1, to continue to give us the bilateral support that they're giving now.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's between the U.S. and Jamaica.

MR. MANLEY: Which is very helpful, so continue that if possible, beef it up a little. No. 2, examine with us the whole question of a multilateral force, some kind of regional or completely international force that could be built up under some kind of agreed sponsorship and international or regional authority, but thirdly, I think that the critical thing for all of us in the end is whether we can all, large or small, get the kind of public education, child education, and consciousness raising programs going that eventually begin to kill the demand side.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you can go up against the cartel's millions and billions and everything they have with that approach you think?

MR. MANLEY: You have to fight the cartel in the short run. You have no choice. You have to fight them. All I'm saying is that you're going to be fighting a very very long war. What the cartel is doing is supplying a $500 billion market. Until you can find a way to reduce that market because people don't want it anymore, and that is to do with education, it is to do with poverty, with ghetto hopelessness, with maybe kids who are coming out of broken homes and are trying to patch up their own shattered lives, you know, I don't pretend it's simple. But you know, I think we have to begin to understand that in the end, the root of the problem lies in the question why is there this terrible voracious market.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Prime Minister Manley, thank you very much.

MR. MANLEY: Thank you. ESSAY - HARD SELL

MS. WOODRUFF: As longtime viewers may have noticed, essayist Jim Fisher of the Kansas City Times spends much time driving through the rural Midwest, so it's not surprising that from time to time he thinks about the market for automobiles in his part of the country.

JIM FISHER: Listen when you watch television or as you drive. Don't the car commercials seem more frenetic than a year ago? Now it's a harder sells. Car sales are down in the Midwest, not much, but enough, enough to crank up the pressure. The reason, the drought last year. Withered soybeans and parched corn translate directly into no new car. You can see it in rural areas, big old cars, the last miles being cajoled out of wheezing engines, body rust ignored, chrome dull. Statistics tell us that Americans are now keeping cars longer, seven years as opposed to four a few years ago. Out here, in a lot of cases, 1982 models are considered almost new. But the car lots clustered around the big cities are full. Vast acreages framed by massive signs that display names most of us had never heard of 15 years ago, and only now in the Middle West are we getting what both coasts have had for years, the so-called autoplexes and car cities, shiny, modern, so late 1980s. The backbone of rural county seat business, the car dealer, is largely gone down. Some are simply out of business, others has merged are moved off to bigger towns. It's not uncommon now to se most of the General Motors, Chrysler, or Ford product line advertised on a single sign, plus an import or two. Times sure have changed. Was it just 20 years ago when a car buyer had but three companies to buy from, when an import was a rarity, when America, so fat and confident, sold mostly to itself, when the world seemed far away in a place like this, Haddam, Kansas, population 200, one where gasoline prices shot up 20 cents a gallon because of a mistake by an oil tanker captain in far off Alaska, and the ministers of OPEC tightened the screws in equally distant Austria. Still, one of those old fashioned dealership signs is here at the East end of Main Street. Remember the Pontiac Indian? Frye Motors is no big city dealership. That's Glenn Frye over there, talking to a customer. He's been selling Pontiacs since they had the chrome strip on the hood and trunk, 33 years, and they still do business here the old-fashioned way. They dicker instead of "dealing". Glenn's 72, the president and salesman of Frye Motor Company. The waiting room is the cafe across the street. It's owned by the dealership, which also sells lawn mowers and garden tillers. You can get a cup of coffee or a hamburger while you wait for Glenn's son, J.D., to fix your car. J.D. is the vice president, mechanic, parts guy, and the one who gets to sweep out the place. Frye may be a small town dealer but he's also a hard-headed Kansan, a realist. He knows parts of every grain field around Haddam, Washington, Clay, Cloud, and Republic counties, is dedicated to crops that will be sold somewhere other than the United States, not specifically this field here or that field there, but that's what happens. That's how the world works now. Just as foreign production lines are dedicated to the American car market. So Glenn also sells Japanese Isuzu pickups. Just sneeze and you can pronounce it, Glenn says, and they sell good, his customers like them. America in 1989, an old time dealer like some of us used to know in a place a lot of us came from but not a man standing still. Pontiac may build excitement, but not enough to do without hearing a few words now and then from Joe Isuzu. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the major stories this Wednesday, Chinese authorities expelled two American journalists and announced that two demonstration leaders had been arrested. House Democrats elected Richard Gephardt of Missouri as Majority Leader and William Gray of Pennsylvania as Democratic Whip. The House failed to override Pres. Bush's veto of the minimum wage increase. And the first launching of a new Titan 4 rocket went off successfully at Cape Canaveral to carry a secret military payload into orbit. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.