The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth in Washington. After our summary of the news, we go first tonight to Congress's attempt to intervene in the baseball strike. Two Senators and two former pitchers talk it out, then Spencer Michels reports on mental health care delivery in California prisons, and finally, the third in our series of conversations about espionage in the post Cold War world. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: The House of Representatives turned to the foreign policy and defense side of the Republican Contract With America today. Members began debate on a bill designed to limit U.S. involvement in United Nations peacekeeping operations and increase spending on missile defenses, among other things. President Clinton said it would impinge on the constitutional authority of the President. The Secretaries of State and Defense have said they would recommend he veto it. Here's an excerpt from today's debate.

REP. DAVID SKAGGS, [D] Colorado: This legislation is a constitutional tragedy, putting a power grab, driven by mindless, bumper sticker politics ahead of the historic and critical authority of the President of the United States to manage our foreign relations and to command our nation's armed forces. If the Democrats had been so unprincipled as to try a stunt like this when a Republican was in the White House, the Republicans would have been absolutely and rightly outraged. Yet, you have no shame in portraying this today.

REP. FLOYD SPENCE, Chairman, National Security Committee: Mr. Chairman, we are about doing our duty and protect the American people, and we're going to do it. We want our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, as liberal as they might be, and how they play their game, I don't care, we want their help in protecting the American people. We want them to join us. If they don't want to do it, that's their problem. We're going to do it anyway, and it's going to be done here on this floor.

MR. MAC NEIL: A vote on the bill is expected tomorrow. Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: The Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings today on a bill that would partially lift Major League baseball's antitrust exemption. Players have said they would end their six- month strike if the exemption is lifted. We'll have more on the story after the News Summary. In economic news today, the government reported consumer prices jumped .3 of a percent in January. It also said industrial production rose .4 of a percent, with factories operating at their highest rate in more than 15 years.

MR. MAC NEIL: Surgeon General Nominee Dr. Henry Foster began making courtesy calls on Senators today. His nomination has run into controversy over the number of abortions he performed as an obstetrician-gynecologist. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said today Republicans should not focus on the abortion issue since it could be divisive for the party. President Clinton joined former Presidents Bush and Ford today for entertainer Bob Hope's annual golf tournament. The golfing group was rounded out by defending champion Scott Hoch and Bob Hope, himself. The charity event was held near Palm Springs, California. Mr. Clinton is the first sitting President to play in a professional golf event in 20 years.

MS. FARNSWORTH: The man accused of killing two abortion clinic workers last December pleaded "not guilty" to state murder charges today. John Salvi has been charged in the attacks at two clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts. He faces life in prison if found guilty. Officials plan to defer a trial on federal charges until the state case is over. The federal charges could carry the death penalty.

MR. MAC NEIL: Russian and Chechen officials agreed to extend their short-term cease-fire today. Negotiators met in a region bordering the breakaway republic. More talks are planned to reach a permanent accord. In Taiwan, at least 67 people were killed when fire swept through a nightclub. Authorities fear more victims may be found. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That's it for the News Summary. Just ahead, a whole new ball game, some troubled prisoners, and mum's the word. FOCUS - HARD BALL

MS. FARNSWORTH: We lead with a look at the latest attempt to break the deadlock over baseball. After efforts by President Clinton to mediate the strike failed last week, today Congress got into the act. A Senate Judiciary Subcommittee held a hearing on legislation that would change the rule for baseball's owners. Ever since 1922, baseball teams have been exempt from federal antitrust regulations because they were not considered interstate commerce. That meant players could not use the courts to charge antitrust violations in labor disputes like the one over the salary cap that owners want to impose. Some Senators of both parties now say that should change. They testified at today's hearings, along with representatives of the players and owners.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, [D] Vermont: We've had a preemptive strike. We've had unilateral imposition of a salary cap. We've had failed efforts in mediation. We've had a loss of one season, and now we have the likely obliteration of a second season. At the same time, we have pleas from all corners to resolve the current impasse, and those pleas are falling on deaf ears. In my view, Major League baseball exemptions from federal antitrust laws has significantly contributed to the problem that faces us all today. Had Congress repealed that out-of-date, judicially proclaimed immunity from law, I believe this matter would not be pestering today.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH, [R] Utah: Seventy-three years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that professional baseball is not a business in interstate commerce, and, therefore, immune and out of the reach of the federal antitrust laws. This ruling was almost certainly wrong when it was first rendered in 1922. Fifty years later, in 1972, when the Supreme Court readdressed this question, the limited concept of interstate commerce upon which the 1922 ruling rested had long since been shattered. The court in 1972 accurately ordered that baseball's antitrust immunity was, as Sen Leahy said, an "aberration" that no other sport or injury enjoyed but left it to Congress to correct the court's error. This aberration in the antitrust laws has handed the owners a huge club that gives them unique leverage in bargaining and discourages them from accepting reasonable terms. This is an aberration that government has created, and it is an aberration that government ought to fix.

BUD SELIG, Acting Baseball Commissioner: President Clinton recommended that we agree to mediate our dispute with the union with the help of former Labor Secretary William J. Usery. We readily agreed and for four months, we worked very hard with Mr. Usery, meeting every time he suggested and modifying our proposal several times at his request. On February 7th, Mr. Usery made his recommendations. While they were not what we would have wanted and included significant concessions to the union, we were prepared to recommend them to our ownership, and we repeat that pledge today. The union, unfortunately, rejected Mr. Usery's recommendation, denouncing his suggestions and attacking him personally. The clubs have said that they will not let the union strike cripple the game and cities that host our teams for another year. We have said that we will play the 1995 season with those players who want to play. Because of that commitment, thousands of stadium workers will have jobs in 1995, cities will receive revenues from regular season games, there will be spring training in Florida and Arizona, and the clubs will still be able to support teams in 170 Minor League cities. Thus, the purported economic justification that some have used to encourage Congress to take the extraordinary step of becoming involved in a private labor dispute is just not present. We will play baseball in 1995.

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON, [R] Wyoming: Want to know my real perspective on the antitrust exemption? All I care about is whether it serves the game of baseball, not the owners, not the players, but the game of baseball and its fans. Baseball was a great game when players made an awful lot less. And I loved it. Baseball was a great game when teams generated a lot less revenue too, and people loved it. If one has to have millions to induce one to stay in this game, to play it, or to own or operate a team, then baseball is better off without them.

DONALD FEHR, Players' Representation: They players' position is very simple and in one respect maybe almost the weakest position a union could take. The players' position is that we will agree to eliminate salary arbitration and that other than the minimum salary, which is a minuscule portion of the total salary bill, let each owner pay a player whatever he or she wants to pay them, subject only to the condition that if the player and the owner can't agree on the terms of an employment agreement, let the player go look for another job, and let the owner go look for another player. What in the world is so terrible about that? That's how the rest of America works.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, [D] Delaware: I think if you all don't get something done, one of the things I've thought about doing is maybe, which would please a lot of people, giving up this job and starting a national organization to boycott baseball when you do come back, boycott baseball when you do come back. I think I share the view of an awful lot of people in this country, that as much as we want you to come back, if you all don't come back soon in Major League baseball, let's all go watch Minor League baseball and boycott you all, because if you don't settle this pretty soon, I think you're going to see this, this feeling of anger you are detecting coming from both sides of the aisle rising, and I don't think we ever do anything very well when we're angry.

MS. FARNSWORTH: We hear from two members of the Senate with different views on lifting the antitrust exemption. Sen. Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, is for it. He's also chair of the Senate Task Force on the Expansion of Major League Baseball. Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, is against it. He's a member of the Judiciary Committee. Thank you for being with us. Sen. Graham, let's start with you. Why, why do we need a limited repeal of the antitrust exemption now? Why are you for it? Why now?

SEN. BOB GRAHAM, [D] Florida: I guess a better question would be why and how can you justify a continuation of an exemption to a basic law that applies to all other professional sports and most commercial enterprise in the United States, and that is that thou shalt not collude together to form monopolies and cartels against the public interest. Major League baseball had this exemption because of a bizarre ruling of the Supreme Court in 1992 which found that this activity was an exhibition, not a business. Certainly, you could not describe the billion dollar business which is Major League baseball in 1995 as not being a commercial enterprise. The Supreme Court in 1972 recognized the error of its ways and asked the Congress to pass legislation to repeal the exemption which it had granted 50 years earlier. Congress now for better than 20 years has refused to do what the Supreme Court suggested that we ought to do. For that reason, I suggest that Congress doesn't come to this with clean hands, that it is involved in this matter. It helped to create the environment that has now led to eight work stoppages in Major League baseball since 1970, this latest one lasting over six months.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sen. Specter, what's wrong with that? What's the danger in repealing the antitrust exemption?

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, [R] Pennsylvania: Well, I would go back to a question you asked Sen. Graham. Why make the change now? And the answer is that Congress should not get in the middle of a labor dispute between the owners and the players. The Supreme Court didn't exactly say in 1972 the Congress should change the antitrust exemption. The Supreme Court said that it would be up to Congress to decide what Congress wanted to do. And we are not about to make a decision under the pressure of this situation when we have so many important items to take care of. We have a very strong mandate right now to cut government expenses, to reduce the size of government, cut taxes, to deal with important problems of crime, and I think that the parties here have been waiting for Congress to act, and if we made it plain that we were not going to act and intervene in what is a private dispute, they'd go back to the bargaining table and decide it for themselves, which is the way America really works.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sen. Graham, do you think they would decide for themselves, or wouldn't they?

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, let's look at the last 25 years. There have been eight labor stoppages in baseball. There have been none in basketball. There have been four in football and two in hockey. So baseball has had more labor stoppages than all the other major professional sports in America combined. Congress can't take the position that we're out of this issue, that we have no responsibility. It's been precisely because Congress has tolerated the existence of this judicially imposed exemption from the antitrust trust that we're in this situation that we are today. The existence of the antitrust law has tilted the playing field and has made it much more difficult for there to be a voluntary negotiated resolution. It has also poisoned the relationship between owners and players, has made it more difficult for a negotiated settlement. I believe that Congress has been a co-conspirator in creating the circumstances that have led to this series of labor stoppages, that Congress now has the responsibility to take an affirmative action to level the playing field. I'm not suggesting that we ought to impose a settlement, but we ought to create an environment in which it is more likely that just as in other professional sports which do not have an exemption from the antitrust law, that the parties will be able to reach a resolution.

SEN. SPECTER: I have to disagree with Sen. Graham. I think that it is fine to take up this issue but not when there is a dispute going on. The President submitted a bill for binding arbitration, and I think you can have that with government imposing it if you're dealing with the firemen, with the policemen, where you have issues of public health and safety. But when you have a private dispute, that dispute ought to be settled by the parties. The one thing that I think did come out of the hearings today is that the parties, themselves, ought to submit to binding arbitration. They had a mediator, Mr. Usery, and he came up with a suggestion which was acceptable to the owners. Now the players are saying that they are willing to submit to binding arbitration, and I think that when there's a sense of the anger and how much the American people want the strike settled, and a good bit of our discussion today involved reminiscences, my own -- being interested in baseball, as I said, first meeting Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth on a baseball calendar when I was eight years old and hanging around the local hotel where I grew up, in Wichita, Kansas, seeing the baseball stars, and Sen. Biden, Sen. Simpson chimed in with great anger. And I think that anger is going to mount as we move toward April and toward the date to start the season. But these parties are going to have to work it out themselves. That's the American way.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, is your opposition to lifting the antitrust exemption or partially lifting it, is it basically that it's principle that we should not get involved while they're in the middle of their bargaining, or is it partly that you feel it would put the balance too much on one side or the other in their conflict?

SEN. SPECTER: A big part of it is that we ought not to intervene. You keep talking about a level field. Well, there's nothing more level than talking about a baseball field, and we ought not to get into it in the middle of this dispute. There's also a very important concern I have as a Pennsylvania Senator with two baseball teams, the Phillies and the Pirates, if the baseball antitrust exemption is eliminated. That is a significant step on teams in small markets moving away. The Pirates, a great tradition in Pittsburgh, are worth a lot more money if they're going to be located in Florida. Tampa-St. Pete would value the Pirates at about $140 million compared to about $80 million, so that when Sen. Graham from Florida and Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania face off, we have a little bit of our states' interests involved.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. If we have time, we may come back to that, but Sen. Graham, I want to ask you, what would be the effect, in your view, of repealing the exemption? What do you see happening that would help resolve this, specifically?

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, spring training would start almost immediately.

MS. FARNSWORTH: There wouldn't just be a walkout in that case, you don't think?

SEN. GRAHAM: Because the players have indicated that they would go back to work as soon as Congress passed this legislation; they would not wait to see the results of the legislation, but its passage, which would create for them a level playing field for negotiations would be enough to send them back to the diamond. This is a very important issue for my state. Spring training is supposed to start in many communities tomorrow. Spring training in twenty -- for twenty teams in seventeen cities in Florida is an important part of the economy for the next six weeks. It represents over $300 million of income to those communities, many of which have indebted themselves to build the facilities where the spring training games take place. So it's important for us that this matter be resolved as rapidly as possible. I would hope that it would occur voluntarily, but six months of unproductive negotiations do not give one a great deal of optimism that that's about to occur, so I think the next best thing we have is to pass this legislation which only lifts the antitrust exemption for labor-management issues. It's not to get involved in matters such as the relocation of franchises, and where the players have said, if passed, they'll go back to work.

MS. FARNSWORTH: But, Sen. Graham, isn't it possible that if the salary cap issue is still outstanding, the owners would just lock the players out?

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, that's another possibility, but I think that the -- the owners ought to in good faith be willing to accept the position which the players are going to take, and that is with a level playing field, they'll go back to work. The players are the ones who initiated this preemptory strike in order to avoid the owners imposing settlement upon them, and they say they're ready to end the strike, go back to work.

SEN. SPECTER: The last question points out the problem. That is that it would be resolved, the players are going to go back on their terms, if they have really blackjacked the Congress into this action. And contrary to what Sen. Graham says, this is not going to happen immediately. Congress is not going to move, considering the agenda we have, and we've been spending a lot of time, and I think it's pretty clear that the players have been looking to Congress for an answer. And to satisfy their demands doesn't meet the interests of the owners. These parties and the American way have to negotiate and settle it themselves as private parties.

SEN. GRAHAM: But they ought to be settling it as private parties when they're all playing by the same rules, not playing by rules that are different than that available to football, basketball, hockey, and virtually every other commercial enterprise in America rules which tilt against the players or the owners and which have contributed to this very tumultuous labor-management period for a quarter of a century, and now the prospect of not only having lost the first World Series in ninety years but losing a whole season in 1995.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sen. Graham --

SEN. SPECTER: But I would say on the rules, if we're going to change 'em, fine, let's change 'em, but let's not change 'em in the middle of this dispute.

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, we had an opportunity to change them last year before the dispute broke out into open confrontation, and Congress refused to do so.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Just briefly, Sen. Graham --

SEN. GRAHAM: We have a responsibility to act now.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Briefly, we have to go, but do you think there's a chance this will pass quickly? You heard Sen. Specter sayit just can't get through quickly.

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, I hope so. I'm afraid that if Sen. Specter wills that it will not go through quickly or will not go through at all, he and those who share his opinion have a substantial capability of making their prophecy become reality.

SEN. SPECTER: Well, we're not going to filibuster. We're not saying that. There's just no agreement in the Congress, and we've got a lot of important items on the economy and crime control and foreign policy that deservedly come first.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay, gentlemen, thank you very much for being with us. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Still ahead, mental health in prisons, and the future of the CIA. FOCUS - HEALING TIME

MR. MAC NEIL: Next, mental health in America's prisons. Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the last of six new crime bills. One of them will authorize $10 1/2 billion for prison construction. In California, some prisoners and their advocates claim the money would better be spent on mental health care delivery. In a recent lawsuit, a federal judge agreed with them. We have a report from Correspondent Spencer Michels of Public Station KQED-San Francisco.

INMATE: [shouting] Jesus saves, but God is the savior!

SPENCER MICHELS, KQED-San Francisco: In California prisons, as in many others around the nation, one out of every four inmates has experienced some form of mental illness. As many as 8 percent have a major mental disorder, according to a statewide study. Lawsuits allege and at least one federal court has agreed that the mental problems of many inmates are deliberately ignored, while the state lavishes attention and money constructing new prisons. In the last decade, 17 new facilities have gone up. Before that, there were only 12 in the entire state. Projections are that with longer sentences, the inmate count could nearly double to 230,000 by century's end, requiring at least 20 more prisons. At San Quentin, near San Francisco, one of the prisons that receives new inmates, attempt is being made to identify those who need medications and other psychiatric care. It is here, the critics claim, that the prison mental health system starts failing.

PRISON OFFICIAL: [questioning prisoner] Are there any medical problems?

INMATE: None.

PRISON OFFICIAL: Psychiatric problems? INMATE: No.

PRISON OFFICIAL: Any allergies?

INMATE: None.

PRISON OFFICIAL: Are you currently taking medication?

INMATE: No.

PRISON OFFICIAL: Have you ever tested positive for tuberculosis?

INMATE: No. If you got it, you know.

PRISON OFFICIAL: Are you suicidal?

INMATE: Yeah.

PRISON OFFICIAL: You're suicidal?

INMATE: Yeah.

PRISON OFFICIAL: Okay. Take one of those. Go back where you were.

MR. MICHELS: That inmate seemed to say he was suicidal, right?

PRISON OFFICIAL: Yeah, but I don't think he understood English very well, but I'm going to still refer him to the psych just in case.

MR. MICHELS: Anybody ever bring a translator in here?

PRISON OFFICIAL: If there's a real question about a medical problem or a psych problem.

DONALD SPECTER, Prisoners' Lawyer: There are not sufficient screening mechanisms to determine if he's suicidal, to determine if he has a major mental illness.

MR. MICHELS: Don Specter is director of the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit law firm that advocates prisoners' rights. Specter has sued the California prison system, alleging that the lack of treatment for mentally ill prisoners is unconstitutional because it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Experts say similar conditions, though not quite as bad, exist in other states.

DONALD SPECTER: All we want is care so that prisoners do not suffer unnecessary harm or pain or commit suicide. We want minimally adequate care to make sure they don't lapse into psychosis when there's no need for them to do it. We want to give them medication to make their schizophrenia go away.

MR. MICHELS: Partly as a result of Specter's lawsuits, San Quentin recently has begun additional screening for mental illness. Within three days of arrival, all inmates talk with a psychologist for a few minutes. Many seriously mentally ill patients are transferred to psychiatric treatment units at other prisons. Whether it always works that smoothly is in dispute. Lawsuit plaintiffs claim many mentally ill patients are denied treatment and are kept in the general prison population too long. Robert Askew, who is now on parole, has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. He served two years in prison for mayhem. Before being admitted to a prison psychiatric unit, he spent almost a year at San Quentin and Solano prisons, partly in the administration segregation unit.

ROBERT ASKEW, Parolee: That's what they call "ad seg," where they keep you when you need psych drugs and "ad seg" is a punishment segment of the jail. It's isolation.

MR. MICHELS: Askew's goal was to be transferred to the California medical facility at Vacaville, the state's principal prison for holding mentally ill inmates.

ROBERT ASKEW: They were so overloaded, there wasn't enough beds at Vacaville, so we were getting stuck in the hole just to be held over till there was a bed open at Vacaville, so we could get there. So they never had preparations to give us any medications in the first place, and when I started screaming, hey, I need my meds, I'm going crazy in this cell, man, I can't take this, I need to calm down --

JAMES GOMEZ, Director, California Prisons: I think it's atypical. I think there are cases out there that do get backed up, but I think it's atypical.

MR. MICHELS: California's prison chief, James Gomez, disputes the allegations that the system is neglecting mentally ill inmates. Vacaville, he says, does an increasingly good job.

JAMES GOMEZ: You haven't seen any snake pits. You haven't seen any severe mental illness that's being unattended to.

MR. MICHELS: Vacaville is configured and staffed to treat about a thousand severely mentally ill inmates. Some of them say the treatment varies even within this prison. Joe Adams has a brain disorder, and for now is housed in an acute care unit at Vacaville.

JOSEPH ADAMS, Prison Inmate: This is a good program right here, but upstairs, that's where they neglect you.

MR. MICHELS: How do you know?

JOSEPH ADAMS: Because I came from up there.

MR. MICHELS: What do you mean?

JOSEPH ADAMS: Well, say, like, if you're on the main line and you get in a fist fight, or any kind of trouble, what they do is, they just lock you up, and your treatment ends, whether your mental illness caused that incident or not. It's like, man, they just -- you're through.

MICHAEL PICKETT, Warden: We are not locking them up and we're not abusing them. We're not not treating them. They come here for treatment, and they get it.

MR. MICHELS: Vacaville Warden Michael Picket thinks many inmates and the prison law office are asking for "sky's the limit" mental health care, better than they would get on the outside.

MICHAEL PICKETT: It's everything for everybody, no matter what the need, no matter how much it costs. Okay. Cost is irrelevant, and basically that's what you'll hear in some of these lawsuits. You'll hear the inmates say, well, they ought to be doing this, and they ought to be doing this, and they ought to be doing this, there ought to be more therapy, more drugs, more clinicians, we shouldn't be locked up at all, and I mean, I guess the thing that's missing in all of that is that we're trying to do all of this in a prison environment.

SPOKESPERSON: Medication. Next for meds.

MR. MICHELS: While the lawsuits allege some mentally ill inmates fail to get adequate medications, many of those who get them claim they are a major help. In addition to medications, prison critics want mentally ill prisoners to take part in therapy sessions. Vacaville does provide some therapy, often simply a chance for seriously ill inmates to talk to each other and therapists about prison life.

INMATE: And the cell, it's too cold in there.

THERAPIST: Have you asked for extra blankets or anything else?

INMATE: I haven't asked them for any.

THERAPIST: Why don't you do that, ask to get at least an extra blanket in the meantime until it is repaired.

INMATE: Okay.

MR. MICHELS: Critics say few mentally ill inmates in California and elsewhere get enough therapy. This prisoner, who violated parole, is assigned by a classification committee to the general population where therapy sessions are less frequent than in the lock-up units. The lawsuits charge that once a prisoner goes back to the general population, he gets little besides medication. One of the plaintiffs is current Vacaville inmate David Heroux, who is serving a 25-year term for robbery, assault, and rape.

DAVID HEROUX, Prison Inmate: There's no such thing as rehabilitation, as far as I'm concerned, you know. So what they do is they drug you, and they give you some Thorazine, Prolixon, and Haldol. I've been on everything except the right medication.

MICHAEL PICKETT: All we're trying to do is just get 'em evened out so that they're not hurting themselves and are not hurting us. Another population of 'em, we're trying to get their skill levels up and their coping abilities up so that we can get 'em out of these very expensive, locked wings into a general population setting, and they get along.

MR. MICHELS: The warden's goals don't conform to reality, according to V. Meenakshi, who resigned in frustration in 1990 as chief psychiatrist at Vacaville. She has been back in side recently and found a system she says is worse than when she left.

V. MEENAKSHI, Former Chief Psychiatrist: The result is patients don't get better, and that means they have to stay locked, which means that you have to provide even more staff.

MR. MICHELS: Part of the problem, Dr. Meenakshi says, is that correctional officers are not adequately trained in their six-week course to deal with mentally ill, potentially suicidal inmates like David Heroux.

DAVID HEROUX: Most of the time none of them are qualified to come down that tier and talk to me, when I'm tellin' 'em I want to kill myself, I don't feel good, I'm hearing and seeing things, the officer's the first one that hears this. The officer has to make the determination. If he feels that you're a manipulator, he's not trained properly for it.

MR. MICHELS: A federal district judge has been unimpressed with Vacaville's attempts to comply with previous court orders mandating improvement. He recently ruled that the state prison director, James Gomez, was in contempt of court for deliberately failing to provide adequate psychiatric care. The judge, saying the prison system has contributed to needless human suffering and loss of life, levied a $10,000 a day fine on Gomez but delayed enforcing it. Gomez cited plans developed with the court that he says have been followed, and he pointed to reforms that prove he is not deliberately indifferent to the mental health needs of inmates as one magistrate found.

JAMES GOMEZ: Is it deliberately indifferent that we have gone up to 400 mental health staff within our system from a low of about 150 when I became director?

MR. MICHELS: Numbers are only part of the problem, according to former Vacaville psychiatrist V. Meenakshi. She testified against the corrections department in a recent lawsuit alleging that the prison administration and staff stifle treatment.

DR. V. MEENAKSHI: The attitude has been that inmates ought not to be provided any more than the bare bones treatment. Anything more than that, they're very resentful. They do say they don't have it coming. This is the very words I've heard from people in Vacaville.

MR. MICHELS: The department says it intends to upgrade mental health treatment at Vacaville and at the rest of its prisons. At the same time, it will appeal the contempt decision, hoping for a favorable ruling from a more conservative appellate court. Despite the judge's findings of willful neglect of mentally ill inmates, there has been almost no reaction from California legislators. They, like their counterparts across the country, have been passing laws to keep more people in prison longer. FOCUS - POWER STRUGGLE

MS. FARNSWORTH: Next tonight, updating the search for low-cost, renewable energy resources. Time Magazine Correspondent Eugene Linden reports.

EUGENE LINDEN, Time Magazine: Among the various ways scientists have tried to capture the sun's energy, this is one of the most elaborate. Here at the Solar Research Center of the Sandia National Laboratories, a huge array of mirrors called heliostats is used to reflect the sun's rays on to a central tower. Like a giant magnifying glass, these mirrors concentrate the sun's energy, sending temperatures well over a thousand degrees.

PAUL KLIMAS, Sandia National Laboratories: This was a half-inch thick aluminum plate. We placed half the heliostats that we have in the field out here onto the plate, focused the sun onto the plate, and it melted through the plate in 23 seconds. And you can see that it did so with great authority.

MR. LINDEN: Researchers use the heat generated by the field to produce steam and generate electricity. As is the case with all forms of renewable energy, the challenge isn't about power. It's about cost. Of all the ways to produce electricity, natural gas and coal are still the cheapest but only by a hair. To keep ten 100- watt light bulbs like this one lit for one hour takes one kilowatt hour of electricity. It costs the utility about five cents to produce this much power using coal or gas. To do the same job with wind generators now costs just about the same, while solar thermal energy and solar cells can range anywhere from eight to twenty cents per kilowatt hour. If renewable energy sources are to replace fossil fuels on a wide scale basis, they have to meet or beat the cost of generating electricity from coal and gas. Although solar energy still hasn't broken this threshold, costs are dropping fast. When the first solar thermal plant began operation in the early 1980s, it cost about 80 cents to produce a kilowatt of electricity. Over the last 15 years, however, engineers have been able to bring down the cost of generating solar thermal electricity to little more than 8 cents per kilowatt hour. Paul Klimas, who heads of renewable energy research at Sandia National Laboratories, expects the first commercial solar thermal plants to go on line in about five years.

PAUL KLIMAS: The solar thermal technologies, all of them, are quite viable. They will be competitive, and those views are shared by several private sector companies in the United States, the utilities, Bechtol, Rockwell International, Cummins Engine Company, large American companies, stockholder-held companies that are very, very careful about how they make their investments, and they are investing tens of millions of dollars in this.

MR. LINDEN: Another part of the renewable energy picture is wind. In California today, there are more than 17,000 wind turbines in use, supplying electricity for more than 2.5 million pumps. Ten years ago, the cost of generating electricity from the wind was about 25 cents per kilowatt hour. Over the last decade, engineers have been able to drive down the price of wind power to below 5 cents per kilowatt hour, making it directly competitive with traditional forms of fossil fuel. For a utility company, wind power has become an economically viable alternative. Last year, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District put up 17 wind turbines. Over the next two years, the utility plans to erect 133 more. Paul Olmstead is a project manager for the utility.

PAUL OLMSTEAD, Sacramento Utility District: It's good for us as a utility because when it's hottest in Sacramento, 50 miles to the east of us, it's also the windiest out here. So in the hot July afternoon when people come home and turn on their air conditioners, that is the exact time when these are generating the most energy. So from a match, it matches our load needs perfectly. And we're going to use this capacity here to offset our need to go out and purchase expensive purchase power from other utilities.

MR. LINDEN: Olmstead's point is important. In the middle of the day when everyone is plugging in and turning on, the price of electricity can soar, costing more than 25 cents per kilowatt hour. At these prices, even the more expensive solar cells begin to look attractive. Invented some 40 years ago, photovoltaics, or PV's, as they are called, found their first applications in space, powering satellites. As efficiencies increased and prices fell, however, PV's found their way back to Earth. Today, solar cells power everything from emergency coal boxes to household appliances like this calculator. Unlike other forms of energy production, PV's have no moving parts. They simply lie there, pumping out electricity as long as there is light. This makes photovoltaics virtually maintenance free and gives them the ability to power a hut or an entire city. Don Osborn is a senior project manager for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

DON OSBORN, Sacramento Utility District: The costs of photovoltaics have come down tremendously. When this plant was first constructed, PV power was running somewhere around 40 to 50 cents a kilowatt hour. We've brought that down today to below 20 cents a kilowatt hour, cutting that in half. We need to cut that down another three times to around 5 to 6 cents a kilowatt hour for this to be fully cost competitive. We expect that to happen in the next five to six years.

MR. LINDEN: How far and how fast manufacturers can bring down their cost is the billion dollar question. Although the cost of photovoltaics and other renewable technologies has come down in price, making predictions is a risky business. Dan Yergin, an energy consultant and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, says experience has taught him to be a skeptic.

DAN YERGIN, Cambridge Energy Research: We don't know what surprises, what surprises are going to come out of a laboratory somewhere in California or in Japan that will change the whole picture, and, you know, 15 years ago, IBM didn't think that the PC's were going to rule the world. Well, there are going to be surprises, and we don't know what's going to happen. Really, the answer is going to be provided in the competitive marketplace. And there are going to be winners and losers, and people are going to make bets, and some are going to succeed, and some aren't. But that's the history of technological innovations since the Industrial Revolution began.

MR. LINDEN: Probably the greatest threat to the development of renewable energy is cheap, clean natural gas. With new reserves coming on line all the time, gas prices remain low. This, combined with the fact that up to 70 percent of the nation's fossil fuel plants are nearing retirement age, has some experts worried. They fear that utilities are about to commit the country to yet another generation of fossil fuel-fired electric plants, leaving little room for renewable energy. Still, others argue that the renewable energy question is simply a matter of will. Dennis Hayes is a longtime activist and president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmentally-oriented philanthropy.

DENNIS HAYES, Bullitt Foundation: The kinds of investments that are needed to drive down the cost of solar are trivial. It's measurable in a few billion dollars. If you could give me 5 percent of what this nation has spent unsuccessfully trying to bring nuclear technology into being and let me spend that 5 percent my way, without any kind of governmental interference, on an array of solar investments, I can guarantee you -- I'd bet my life -- that within five years I would have solar technology that produced electricity for 5 to 6 cents a kilowatt hour. We know how to do it.

MR. LINDEN: Ultimately, renewable energy sources have to make it on their own. Unlike the situation in the last decade, when dreams of a solar-powered future founded on cheap oil [failed], a leaner and more self-reliant industry feels it is poised to meet that challenge. CONVERSATION - SECRETS

MR. MAC NEIL: Finally tonight, another in our series of conversations on the future of U.S. intelligence. Margaret Warner has more.

MARGARET WARNER: There's a special breed of spy novelist, former spies, like John Le Carre, who practiced espionage then left the active arena to write books about it. One leading American spy- turned author is Charles McCarry. While a magazine writer overseas in the 1950s and 60s, McCarry also served as a covert agent for the CIA. He then turned to writing full time, producing such novels as The Tears of Autumn, Better Angels, and Second Sight. Thanks for being with us, Mr. McCarry. Tell me, do you think that the United States still has a need for secret intelligence and secret intelligence agencies in this new post Cold War environment we find ourselves in?

CHARLES McCARRY, Author: Yes, of course.

MS. WARNER: For what? Why?

MR. McCARRY: Well, the world is not yet a safe place. The primary target of American intelligence throughout the Cold War was Russia. It's still an unpredictable place, still in possession of enough nuclear weapons to blow up the United States and I suppose most of the world with it. There are other problems around the world. I think the intelligence gathering is changing, the economic intelligence, intelligence about the environment. I think the government needs to know what people are likely to do.

MS. WARNER: Why do those functions have to be carried out by a special agency like say the CIA? Sen. Moynihan we had on the show on Monday, and he said we should just abolish the CIA, let the State Department and the Defense Department do, you know, divvy up the work between them.

MR. McCARRY: Well, the original concept was that the President would have a source of information that was unpolluted by politics and unpolluted by political agendas or bureaucratic agendas. And I think that's generally been true in terms of the intelligence presented to the President. It takes up half an hour of his day in the morning. And he gets this wonderful sheet of gossip that tells him what he might expect that day or that week or at some point in the future. And then he goes on with the rest of the day.

MS. WARNER: You know, of course, since you left the agency, we've entered the age of the spy satellites and all this technical means of surveillance. What is the special role that remains, do you think, for the kind of what they call human intelligence, the kind of old-fashioned spying you write about?

MR. McCARRY: It's often said you can't photograph the human mind. All you can know about it is what is revealed in another human being. Intelligence is really based on relationships. You make friends with people, you win their trust. They tell you things. Very often they have a motive for telling them. You check what they tell you against what someone else tells you. You check it against other sources. If I remember the classification system that was in force when I was in the agency, there was one, documentary absolutely true; two, probably true; three, possibly true; four, possibly false. I never saw a report that wasn't labeled three, possibly true, which of course meant that it was also possibly false. So you can never be sure but if you have 80 percent of the information, then you can guess at the rest.

MS. WARNER: Connect the dots.

MR. McCARRY: Yes, and make an educated guess, instead of guessing in the dark.

MS. WARNER: And then, of course, there's the most cloak and dagger aspect of human intelligence, covert operations. And I guess by that, I mean not just collecting information or intelligence but actively trying to change the political situation, or foil a political attempt by the target country. One, do you think that's still going on, and, two, is there still a role for that?

MR. McCARRY: That's always been the rub.

MS. WARNER: What do you mean?

MR. McCARRY: Well, I mean, someone else pointed out this is a very, very old profession. And in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 13, by the way, to quote a little scripture, the Lord instructs Moses to send a reconnaissance party of twelve Israelites, one from each tribe, into the Land of Canaan, the promised land, to make -- to spy out the land. They did so. Eleven of them came back and said, well, it certainly is a land of milk and honey, but the cities are well fortified, and the people are giants. We felt like grasshoppers seeing them, and we seem grasshoppers to them. But one, Kaleb, said, Well, that may be true, but we can still conquer the promised land, as the Lord has instructed us to do. The Lord was very angry at the other 11 and struck them dead. But He gave Kaleb and his descendants the Land of Canaan, which was the promised land, in all perpetuity. I think there's a lesson in that. Kaleb told the chief executive what he wanted to hear. And that's the built-in difficulty with the hot wiring covert action in particular to the President. I think the cases in which the agency has gotten into difficulties in the media and in the public mind have usually involved things like the Bay of Pigs or the overthrow of Ziem in Vietnam or the secret war on Castro or Nixon's attempt to blame the agency for the Watergate break-in. These have been cases where Presidents have instructed the agency to do things which are -- accomplish domestic political objectives for the President. It's very difficult to resist that. So I suppose -- and this is -- this has always been -- in my novels I've solved it, of course, by, by separating the espionage service from the rest of the agency -- but in real life, of course, you have to deal with Congress, and you have to deal with reality, and it may be more difficult to do that.

MS. WARNER: So do you think that -- what do you think appropriate targets for covert operations would be today, operations designed to foil something, to actively take some kind of a role? Are you talking about terrorist organizations or who?

MR. McCARRY: I think what every American knows from long experience is that covert action on a large scale really doesn't work out. It's virtually impossible in society to keep something that large quiet and secret. On the other hand, as I said, intelligence work is, is a matter of small accomplishments achieved with great difficulty and expense. If we can -- someone once said to me when I was working, the job in the intelligence service is to stay in with the outs. I think that that's sort of -- that sort of covert action in which you help that who may in the future take power in a country which is a one-party state or is ruled by despots is acceptable, but I think you keep it small, and you keep it personal, and you remember that it may be exposed.

MS. WARNER: How good do you think the CIA's balance sheet is after 50 years? How good have they been at this on balance?

MR. McCARRY: I think they're unquestionably the best intelligence service in the world.

MS. WARNER: And how would you answer, again, Sen. Moynihan, who says we should abolish the agency because they missed major political developments like the demise of the Soviet Union's economic system, for instance?

MR. McCARRY: Well, of course, you know, all of these bits and pieces come in from all over the world every day, and they're put into the hopper, and it's sort of like getting a lot of parts for a watch, and if you shake the bucket hard enough, you don't necessarily get a Rolex. Mistakes are made. You can't possibly know everything, but it's better to know something than to know nothing.

MS. WARNER: Now, the CIA you write about in your books or the characters in your books are the dashing, romantic figures who are also really smart, really canny, very effective, and it doesn't quite jive with the picture we got of say Aldrich Ames, who came off as kind of a bumbling careerist who was -- whose drinking and sloppiness was overlooked by his superiors. Has the CIA changed since the days you were in the agency?

MR. McCARRY: Well, I don't know, but I can say that I didn't know anybody like Aldrich Ames in the days that I was in the agency. I thought it was the most intelligent group of people with whom I had ever been associated. They were devoted; they were patriotic. They were intellectually honest, and I might say also that it was a very humane organization in its personnel policies, probably the most humane I've ever known.

MS. WARNER: What do you mean humane?

MR. McCARRY: I mean, they took care of their own. There was a wonderfulatmosphere back in the 50s and 60s, a kind of absolute freedom of speech, if you want. It was a kind of republic of IQ. I suppose -- I would say that the men and women that I knew in the agency had, you know, were 20 points above almost anybody else I've ever worked with as a group, and I think that that was Allen Dulles' recruiting. He appeared to want to recruit every bright young man in America. I think that he --

MS. WARNER: Including you.

MR. McCARRY: -- pretty nearly succeeded in that.

MS. WARNER: Well, I'm sure, though, you probably read at least the stories involving Ames and his behavior and so on. I mean, can you explain why someone like an Aldrich Ames did flourish at the CIA of the 80s and 90s?

MR. McCARRY: Well, he says it was the money. If I were writing a novel about him, fiction, I would make it come out slightly different.

MS. WARNER: How?

MR. McCARRY: I would make it a CIA operation, and I would make him a dupe of a tremendously clever control who fed him information which she fed to the Russians.

MS. WARNER: But I don't think that is what happened, of course.

MR. McCARRY: No, I don't think it is either.

MS. WARNER: And why -- why do you think his behavior was overlooked by his superiors? I mean --

MR. McCARRY: I simply can't answer that. My guess is incompetence on the part of some of the people -- inattention. The explanation that I've read in the press is the old boy network, you know, a kind of sense that once you're in, you're worthy of trust, and your, your motives and your behavior can't be questioned. I think that there's some of that in an organization in which theoretically everything is known about everyone. You know, it's a very liberating thing to have been investigated to a fare-thee-well and to have no secrets and to be, you know, working with people and thinking with people who also have no secrets. It relieves you of a good deal of tension. In Ames' case, obviously, he had a secret.

MS. WARNER: Some critics feel it's just become too big a bureaucracy, it's sort of become like any other department. Is that different from the way it was when you were there, or when you were in the field?

MR. McCARRY: Yes. It was -- in those days, it was scattered all over town. You know, what is Parkinson's proposition, the first or the second, dying institutions build monuments to themselves, you know, the British Admiralty built that great big building for itself in London at the very moment when the British fleet ceased to count for very much strategically. I think the agency continues to count for a good deal, but in the old days, they were scattered all over town in temporary buildings and in rented offices. And there was less propinquity and less chance to bureaucratize, and I thought that that was a good thing. It led to independent thinking and independent action, and a lot of initiative, which is very difficult to achieve if you're in a row of five offices, and you have to pass the piece of paper, you know, from the first to the fifth.

MS. WARNER: So what would be your advice to the new director at the CIA who's coming in? I mean, could he take it back to that kind of organization of like-minded but independent and scattered operators?

MR. McCARRY: I think they might consider breaking off the espionage services, the clandestine services, from the rest of the agency. It's a rather small part of everything that's happened, and putting it in Utah or somewhere.

MS. WARNER: You might have some major defections at that point. [laughing] Well, Mr. McCarry, I'm sorry that's all the time we have, but thanks for being with us.

MR. McCARRY: Thank you very much, Margaret. RECAP

MS. FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, the House began debate on a Republican-sponsored national security bill. It would restrict White House control over foreign and defense policy. President Clinton has said the bill is unacceptable in its current form. And consumer prices rose .3 of 1 percent in January. Good night, Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Good night, Elizabeth. That's the NewsHour for tonight. Before we go, our apologies to two former Major League pitchers, Steve Stone, and Jim Kaat. We planned to include them in tonight's baseball discussion but were unable to solve some last- minute technical difficulties. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.