The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. In the news today, the Reagan administration called a truce with Moscow in the escalating war of the diplomats. President Reagan launched a 13 state campaign blitz to help Republicans on November 4. Consumer prices rose modestly last month. We'll have the details in our news summary coming up. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: After the news summary, we have three main focuses on the News Hour, starting with the spy wars going on between Washington and Moscow. We size up the impact of the latest U.S.-Soviet tit for tat with a journalist and two intelligence experts. Next, a look at Hungary 30 years after its unsuccessful revolution. And finally, a debate over a pregnant woman's legal responsibility to the fetus she is carrying. News Summary

MacNEIL: The Reagan administration called a truce in the escalating competition with the Soviets to expel diplomats. The United States did not retaliate for yesterday's Soviet explusion of five more American diplomats and the withdrawal of 260 Russian workers. Instead, State Department spokesman Charles Redman appealed to the Soviets to get on with bigger matters.

CHARLES REDMAN, State Department spokesman: We hope that this set of issues can now be put behind us. There seems to be common ground in the mutual acknowledgement of parity and reciprocity as the foundation of our diplomatic relationship. We need now to get on with resolution of the larger issues affecting U.S.-Soviet relations and build on the progress made in the discussions at Reykjavik.

MacNEIL: Reykjavik and arms control were President Reagan's chief talking points as he hit the campaign trail in a 13 state blitz to rally support for Republican candidates on November 4. Campaigning for Senator Bob Kasten in Milwaukee, the President repeated that he and Mikhail Gorbachev had come closer to arms reductions than ever before, but that Star Wars or strategic defense research was needed in case the Soviets cheated.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: No responsible President could rely on Soviet promises for his country's safety. The record on their treaty violations is clear. We can either bet on American technology to keep us safe or on Soviet promises. And each has its own track record. I'll bet on American technology any day.

MacNEIL: They're calling this Mr. Reagan's last campaign on the grounds that he won't be running for President in 1988. His principal effort is to support Republicans in key races that will determine which party controls the Senate. Judy?

WOODRUFF: The nation's social security recipients will find the smallest raise ever in their checks next January, because the inflation rate has been so low this year. The government announced today that retirement checks will go up a modest 1.3%, or $6 a month for the typical retired workers. That calculation is based partly on the Labor Department's announcement today that consumer prices rose last month a seasonally adjusted .3%.The Commerce Department, meanwhile, said today that new factory orders for large, durable goods jumped solidly last month. The 4.9% gain was the biggest monthly increase in almost two years. That was enough to send the stock market on a sharp climb today. Dow Jones Industrials ended the day up 26.5 points.

MacNEIL: The captured American Eugene Hasenfus was scheduled to appear in a Managua people's court today to plead to arms smuggling charges. Hasenfus' court appointed lawyer told reporters, "There are some things we will deny. I will not say what." He did say that he's spent two hours with the ex-marine -- only the second time he'd been allowed to confer with his client. Hasenfus is expected to get legal advice from ex-attorney general Griffin Bell, even though the Sandinistas have refused to allow Bell to represent him in court. Another former U.S. attorney general, Ramsey Clark, arrived in Managua on a fact finding mission.

WOODRUFF: U.S. and Israeli teams searched the Eastern Mediterranean Sea today for a missing American submarine hunting plane with a four man crew. An Israeli officer said it would have great intelligence value in the wrong hands. The object of the search was a plane called an S3A Viking, like this one, assigned to the carrier John F. Kennedy as part of the U.S. Sixth Fleet. The plane had been scheduled to return to the carrier early Tuesday evening, after a routine patrol north of Egypt. But Israeli radio said today that contact was lost after the plane transmitteddistress signals off the coast of Cyprus just before it was due to return.

MacNEIL: The plane crash death of Mozambique's President Machel continued to raise questions and trigger disturbances today. The Mozambique government said it would convene its own inquiry into the crash in South Africa that killed 30 others, besides Machel. One survivor was quoted today as saying he heard a shot. The lights went off, the engine stopped, and the craft flew blindly without power for more than three minutes before crashing. South Africa, which denies any involvement in Machel's death, has invited both Mozambique and the Soviet Union to join its inquiry into what caused the Soviet staffed plane to go down on Tuesday. Among foes of the South African regime, there's already begun a rush to judgement. Today there were anti-Pretoria protests in front of the U.S. embassy in Zimbabwe. And in South Africa itself, there were still angrier demonstrations, as Michael Buerk of the BBC reports.

MICHAEL BUERK [voice-over]: The evidence so far may suggest it was an accident, but radical opposition groups here are convinced Pretoria was to blame for President Machel's death. Today's memorial service at Brits University swiftly became a protest demonstration. The accusations were pointed and emotional. Several hundred students, mostly but not exclusively black, spilled out across the campus and inevitably clashed with police, whose actions we are not allowed to show under the state of emergency. The demonstration, like many before it here, ended in clouds of tear smoke.

MacNEIL: In Washington, a class action suit has been filed against the State Department on behalf of 259 black diplomats. They claim that only 6.3% of more than 4,000 foreign service officers are black, and that blacks are often branded troublemakers and posted to dead end jobs in developing countries. A State Department spokesman said there'd be no immediate comment on the charges.

WOODRUFF: Polish solidarity leader Lech Walesa was today refused permission to travel to the United States to receive a humanitarian award. One of Walesa's aids quoted Polish officials in Gdansk as saying that Walesa had not properly completed the passport application process. Walesa had been invited to attend a ceremony in Los Angeles on Friday sponsored by a California group called the John-Roger Foundation.

At the Vatican today, there was an urgent appeal for contributions, as Vatican officials forecast a record $56 million budget deficit for this year. The statement, issued after a two day meeting of cardinals, said the Vatican expects some $52 million in revenue this year, with some $108 million in expenses.

MacNEIL: Finally in the news, a team of U.S., Canadian and British doctors said they have mapped for the first time the structure of a protein that is a major cause of heart disease. Reporting in Nature magazine, the scientists said they now understood the structure of the protein APO-B, which in some people causes a buildup of cholesterol and hardening of the arteries. This discovery should enable doctors in the future to take measures early enough in patients' lives to reduce their risk of heart disease.

That's the news summary. Coming up, Soviet diplomats and spies, Hungary 30 years after the revolution, and the fetal abuse trial in California. Spy Stores

MacNEIL: For an American ambassador at an important place like Moscow, there are a few nice perks to the job, like having a chauffeur and a household staff. But today, none of that staff was around, their absence the latest episode in the tit for tat spy expulsion match going on between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The 260 Soviet citizens who do a variety of clerical and household jobs around the Moscow embassy and the Leningrad consulate, and probably some low level espionage as well, were ordered off their jobs yesterday by their ultimate boss, General Secretary Gorbachev. That was in retaliation for the U.S. order shrinking the size of the Soviet embassy in Washington. Today, as we've said, Washington called a truce, saying it hoped the issue could be put behind them. We take up this saga of the spies who came out of the kitchen with two top ranking veterans of the espionage business. But first, we go to the Moscow story and the Donald Kimelman, the recently returned Moscow correspondent of the Philadelphia Inquirer. He joins us from public station WHYY in Philadelphia.

Don, the stories are rather lighthearted from Moscow today -- U.S. marines washing the dishes and so on. How will the absence of those 260 Russian workers affect the real work of the embassy?

DONALD KIMELMAN, Philadelphia Inquirer: Well, it's going to affect the work of the embassy in a lot of very important ways, I was just sort of musing that if they had expelled a third of the diplomats, they might be able to absorb that more easily than getting rid of the Russian staff. I think the first thing you have to bear in mind is that the Russian staff at the embassy is the permanent staff at the embassy. They're the ones that are there year in and year out. In any given summer, you might have two thirds of the diplomatic personnel turning over. These are also the people who know how to deal with the Soviet bureaucracy. And a lot of the work in an embassy is just that -- all kinds of requests that have to be made in very formal, flowery letters, any kind of travel arrangements you have to deal with the bureaucracy, taking care of visa applications, dealing with Soviet customs. You know, that's a whole art in itself. And the embassy ships a lot of stuff in and a lot of stuff out. Just picking up the diplomatic pouch, which you think of as something being very confidential and that only very high ranking diplomats could handle. If fact, the pouch is lots of very huge, heavy bags that Soviets carry for the embassy personnel with just a diplomat looking over to make sure they don't peek and see what's inside. And I could go on and on.The whole subject of drivers and mechanics to keep the fleets of cars running. They perform a big function in that embassy.

MacNEIL: Why so many? I mean, do the other Western embassies have that proportion of Russian staff for their diplomats?

Mr. KIMELMAN: I don't know the exact answer. I was actually surprised that the number was 260. I read today that there were actually 50 drivers working for the embassy. But I wouldn't be surprised if the ratios are similar. Soviet help is very cheap, and embassies have a lot of rubles on hand anyway, so it costs them about nothing to have them. And in that kind of very inefficient society, they're useful.

MacNEIL: Are the Russian employees a security problem? Are they spies?

Mr. KIMELMAN: Are they spies? Clearly, they're nobody that you would trust with any kind of confidential information. And they have the embassy organized in such a way that all the important secure work is taking place in a part of the embassy where Soviet personnel are not allowed. So where they're working is a part of the embassy that's essentially open to everybody. And, you know, I've been in and out of there a lot. I talked today to a diplomat who was in the political section who left Moscow recently, and he agreed with me that they're just not a -- if it's tiny, tiny security problem, that's outweighed by just the usefulness of having those people there.

MacNEIL: Well, does the presence of the Russians around -- and I suppose the presumption that some of them, at least, are KGB agents -- does that mean that American diplomats in Moscow have to behave even more rigorously about their security than they do in other embassies? I mean, do they have to watch what they throw in the wastebasket or the garbage or --

Mr. KIMELMAN: Well, I think in Moscow the way -- your entire life in Moscow, you're more security conscious than you would be in another embassy. You assume that your apartment is bugged, that your phone is bugged, that perhaps your car is bugged. You're just very careful anyway. And so that same common sense would carry over toward any kinds of dealings with Soviet employees. But the structure of the embassy, there's a whole section where all the important political work, the economic section, the science section, they are really completely sealed off from any Soviet personnel. And they have their shredding machine and all of that stuff up there.So I just don't think that they have to be any more careful than they normally would be. They have to worry more about the walls listening than their staff listening.

MacNEIL: Why wouldn't it be a good idea to employ Americans in those jobs?

Mr. KIMELMAN: Well, I think --

MacNEIL: Like -- as the Russians do here. I mean, they don't employ American nationals for menial jobs here.

Mr. KIMELMAN: That's a natural question. And I suppose some of the people can be replaced and will be replaced. One thing, of course, is that it's very expensive to have an American working over there. Not just because the salary is higher, but because you have to provide travel and schooling for kids and apartments and all of that. But beyond that, you know, there aren't that many Americans that have terrific Russian. The Russians are a lot better at training their people in English than we are at training our people in Russian. And I just can't imagine how many Russian speaking secretaries the State Department has now. And not only Russian speaking, but able to deal with the people at the Bolshoy Ballet, getting theatre tickets for a visiting senator, to deal with the tourist travel agency to get train tickest to get a diplomat to an important travel assignment down south. I mean, there are just so many ways that you need Soviets to deal with Soviets. And the correspondents are aware of that as well, and we all have Soviets working for us.

MacNEIL: So for a while it's going to be difficult for senators to go to the Bolshoy, is that it?

Mr. KIMELMAN: Well, I think it's a little -- it goes beyond that.

MacNEIL: All right. Thank you very much. Judy?

WOODRUFF: We go now to Washington side of the story to assess what it will mean for the Soviets to run their embassy here with 55 fewer top intelligence operatives. In briefings yesterday, Reagan administration officials said the mass expulsion would "decapitate the Soviet espionage operation in the U.S." We'll take up that question with former CIA Director William Colby and with Ladislav Bittman, who spent 14 years as a Czechoslovakian intelligence officer before defecting in 1968. Mr. Bittman, who joins us from public station WGBH in Boston, is the author of several books about Soviet intelligence.

Mr. Colby, who is ahead in this game? Are we keeping score, and if so, who's ahead?

WILLIAM COLBY, former CIA director: I don't think you keep score. We are applying the concept of reciprocal attitude toward the Soviets. And that's the only way to live with them is to -- if they have 215, we should have 215. If we have to use Soviet employees, why then, they ought to use American employees. You've got to do it on a reciprocal basis with them.

WOODRUFF: What about this claim that the administration official made yesterday that they've suffered a crushing blow, or we've decapitated the Soviet intelligence operation in the U.S.

Mr. COLBY: Well, we've certainly sent home a lot of people that we had some indication were involved in espionage in some fashion. They will grow a new head, though -- there's no question about that -- over time. Because, through replacements and so forth, they will send more intelligence officers here. The fact is, they have fewer of them as a result of these reductions. And that makes it easier for our FBI to keep track on the ones that are here.

WOODRUFF: How serious a blow, Mr. Bittman, do you think we've dealt to the Soviets with these expulsions?

LADISLAV BITTMAN: Well, I think that it will seriously hurt the Soviet interests in the United States for probably, I would say, for about two years. They will have to limit the scope of their operations on American territory. But it is a temporary blow. They will use other channels. For example, all satellite countries -- intelligence services of East European satellite countries like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Rumania -- they will be used to replace, actually, the losses that suffered -- that the KGB suffered here. Then there is another potential channel that they can use to replace the case officers who will have to go home. We have to take into consideration the fact that the Soviets have a great number of illegals on the territory of the United States. That is, agents who were sent here under a new identify to live on the territory of the United States --

WOODRUFF: You mean as business people or --

Mr. BITTMAN: In a variety of jobs and professions. And this network of illegals is actually designed for a situation when, for example, there would be a war between the two countries. Or the intelligence operations would be very seriously paralyzed because of massive expulsions of diplomats. So some agents, the most important agents, can be taken over by the illegals.

WOODRUFF: Well, but let me go back to you, Mr. Colby. It doesn't sound like what the two of you are saying, it's, you know, we've really done much damage to what the Soviets are trying to do.

Mr. COLBY: Well, let's face it. The Soviets are going to spy on us out of a feeling of compulsion on their side. It's absurd the degree they do spy on us, because they can get more out of a copy of Aviation Week than we can get out of weeks of work over there. There's no question about it. Because of our open, free society. But they still have this compulsion to spy. They think that there's something hidden back there that they need to get.We're going to conduct our operations against the Soviet Union, because they're a great secretive place, and it's very hard to learn the important things that we need to know about Soviet society. So we're both going to continue to prosecute this effort to find out what the other has that he's keeping from you. Now, you suffer setbacks from time to time.Some of your agents get caught. Some of them get sent home. All the rest of it. But you're going to continue the effort, because you have to.

WOODRUFF: How -- how much does all this spying really matter? I mean, it's -- let me come back to you, Mr. Bittman. It sounds like what Mr. Colby was just saying is that the Soviets to some extent may be spinning their wheels -- that they're doing some unnecessary work that may not really produce them much more than what they could find by reading a magazine.

Mr. BITTMAN: Well, to a degree you are right. The Soviets are not as paranoid as they were 20 years ago, when it was very important for them to collect even very easily traceable information from open sources. They preferred to get the information from secret sources. Now I think that they are much wiser. They know that American literature, American press, is an enormously valuable source of extremely important information in the field of military, science, political affairs, economic affairs. So they learned their lessions. They know that they can find extremely valuable information from open sources.

WOODRUFF: But they still do the human intelligence. I mean, they place a great deal of value on it.

Mr. COLBY: Well, they still want agents of influence. They still want to get inside of our technology. They'll look ahead at the years that would be waiting. They like to get our communications secrets. We've caught Americans who have been selling them these things. There's no question about it; they're still trying to learn that last little bit. Even though they know about 90% of what important, they're going to try to get the last 10%, out of a bureaucratic compulsion of their intelligence services, if nothing else.

WOODRUFF: Should we assume that every Soviet citizen who's either working in a diplomatic position or business or whatever is in some way connected to the KGB or the other military intelligence?

Mr. BITTMAN: Not every Soviet citizen now. It differs from one country to another. Usually it is something between 30 and 50% of the diplomatic personnel and representatives of various trade organizations, journalists. Between 30 and 50% of them are KGB staff members. But in addition to this number, there is a large group of people among the professional diplomats -- regular diplomats -- who cooperate with the KGB for, you know, political reasons, because they are party members, because they are representatives of the Soviet Union abroad. So they have the responsibility, the duty, to help the KGB. And this increases the number of people who are actually involved in espionage to -- in some cases -- to 70% or even higher.

Mr. COLBY: This is a very important element of the situation. If an American officer -- intelligence officer -- needs somebody to go make a secret meeting and doesn't want to trigger the opposition to following him, and he goes to a fellow in the American mission there and says, "Would you make this secret meeting for me?" The other fellow will probably say, "Me? Engage in espionage? I'm a diplomat. I'm in the Peace Corps. I'm in the information service. I have nothing to do with your spy business."

WOODRUFF: Whereas --

Mr. COLBY: But if you're a Soviet, you go to the person, and you say, "Go make the meeting." He says, "Yes, sir." And he goes and makes the meeting.

WOODRUFF: What about -- Mr. Kimelman was discussing this point -- but do the Soviets have an upper hand in all this, since they don't use American personnel in their embassy in Washington, and we do? The Americans do use Soviet personnel over there, and therefore, the numbers, it seems to me, have worked to their advantage.

Mr. COLBY: Well, I don't think they have an upper hand, quite frankly. I think we have all the advantages. Not the little ones. The little ones like that, yes, they have an advantage. But the value of a free society, the value of a free look at the situation, the fact that we can have a debate in our country about these things, I think the free society makes us enormously stronger.Sure, they have advantages. They learn all these things about us and that we struggle hard to learn about them. But on the values, I don't want to change our society for theirs.

WOODRUFF: Don Kimelman in Philadelphia, you want to jump in there?

Mr. KIMELMAN: Of course, he's right on the major point. But I -- you know, what I don't understand about this whole controversy is why it had to be done in this way. If the administration made a serious decision that they wanted equal staff levels, and they were willing to absorb the pain of losing a lot of their Soviet people, then it could have been done in a gradual way, giving the Soviets a certain amount of notice. I mean, there had been a built in tradition that they were allowed more people because they employed more people. That was understood. So if you wanted to change the policy, go ahead and do it. But to sort of do it in this way, as an instant retaliation to their retaliation to your expulsion. I just think it was a mistake and that the disruption caused by it is going to make life very difficult in the embassy in Moscow.

WOODRUFF: Bill Colby?

Mr. COLBY: Well, I think the goverment has made that decision. They've said, "Let's call off this reciprocal expulsion business. Let's stop for now. Let's get back to more important things." They're absolutely right.

WOODRUFF: Okay. Have you been -- I know we were having some audio problems with Boston there, Mr. Bittman. Did you hear that, and did you want to make a final point? I think he may not have heard the last comment. Well, gentlemen, we thank you all three for being with us -- Mr. Bittman in Boston, Mr. Kimelman in Philadelphia and William Colby here in Washington.

Mr. COLBY: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Thank you all.

MacNEIL: Still to come, a documentary look at Hungary 30 years after the anti-Soviet uprising, and we analyze the implications of the fetal abuse trial in California. Committed to Communism?

WOODRUFF: Next, a focus on the past and the present. It was 30 years ago tonight that the first shots were fired in what became the Hungarian revolution, a brief and bloody attempt by that East Bloc nation to free itself from postwar Soviet domination. The revolution failed, but in the three decades since, a unique form of communism has evolved in Hungary -- one that includes free market economic reforms and less rigid political ideology. Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET, Los Angeles, recently visited Hungary to prepare the public television documentary, "Hungary Pushing the Limits." Kaye filed this report for the News Hour.

JEFFREY KAYE [voice-over]: In the autumn of 1956, protestors in Hungary denounced Soviet control and demanded political and economic freedom. On the 23rd of October, peaceful protest exploded into an armed uprising. Within days, the Red Army pulled out of the capital city of Budapest to regroup. In their absence, Hungary's government collapsed.Some rebels settled scores with the secretpolice. A new government was formed. It withdrew Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. The victory was short-lived. In early November, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered troops back in force. The Soviets overwhelmed the poorly equipped rebels and executed their leaders. Some 200,000 Hungarians fled abroad as refugees.

Today, 30 years after the uprising, Hungary is a loyal member of the Soviet bloc. There are an estimated 60,000 Soviet troops on Hungarian soil. Nevertheless, Hungary has moved away from the Soviet model. It has boldly adopted many aspects of the free market system and developed an economy that's been dubbed Gulag Socialism. But Hungary's well publicized flirtation with Western style reform is at a crossroads. Its economy is falling behind the dramatic growth rate of the 1970s, when free market policies first took effect.

Politically, liberalization has emboldened government critics, particularly among the young, to demand further reforms. This demonstration, recorded by an amateur photographer, reflects a growing dissatisfaction -- a sentiment confirmed by the communist government's own opinion polls. Ivan Volgyes, an American author who fled Hungary in 1956, has also found growing pessimism. Volgyes makes regular trips to his homeland to study politics.

IVAN VOLGYES, author: The cynicism is at an all time high. People today view the system as no longer being in their own benefit, but they don't know where to go -- especially the not so well paid members of the working class, people who are on retirement income, people who are -- especially women -- raising their children alone, disadvantaged people. In other words, about 45% of society who are asking the question very clearly, you know, why others get rich. "What does this regime do for me?"

KAYE [voice-over]: Hungary's economy is staggering under a massive foreign debt. The government has tried to push industry towards a free market system. But it's still pouring money into unprofitable state enterprises, such as this factory in Budapest which manufactures industrial equipment. The country is also trying to cope with inflation, as well as austerity measures demanded by Western banks. Hungary's economic schizophrenia has caused a housing shortage. There's almost no homelessness, but many people live in crowded or inadequate conditions. The government has left it to the private sector to provide most new housing. There's a building boom for the affluent, but great numbers of Hungarians can't afford to buy homes on the free market. Less affluent Hungarians compete for a limited number of public housing units.

Twenty-one year old Gyongy Breznitz and her family have been on the waiting list for government financed housing for two years. Breznitz worries not just about her living arrangements, but about her marriage. She's seen other families break up because they didn't have decent places of their own.GYONGY BREZNITZ, [through translator]: They struggle in apartments that they have to share with parents or in-laws, and they get fed up with it. They work all day, and when they get home, they're preached to like children.

KAYE [voice-over]: The Breznitzes live in the 19th council district of Budapest, where they are among 1,300 families on the housing waiting list. On this day, Gyongy Breznitz has an appointment with a housing official. The news is mixed. The family must wait another five years to get a permanent apartment. In the meantime, they can have temporary housing, but they'll have to share a communal bathroom with other families. They accept the deal, because it's better than their current arrangement. Gyongy, her husband and son, now live in a two room house with Gyongy's parents. Even with new temporary housing, the Breznitzes have few hopes their lives will improve.

Mr. BREZNITZ, [through translator]: I mean, we don't have concrete ideas. It's miserable.

Ms. BREZNITZ, [through translator]: We'll just have to see what happens.

Mr. BREZNITZ, [through translator]: I tried to find a second job, but I couldn't. But even if I could, there's no assurance that things would be better.

KAYE [voice-over]: Unlike the Breznitzes, the majority of Hungarians benefit from the economic reforms. Liberalization enables three out of four Hungarian families to supplement their incomes by moonlighting or by running side businesses. In Budapest, Janos Hamori spends his days as a supervisor at a state owned engineering firm. When he finishes at the office, he joins his wife Erzsebet at their fledgling drafting company. The Hamoris are part of an emerging business class created by the reforms.

JANOS HAMORI, [through translator]: I started this business because I thought it would be quite profitable. There was a market for our work.

ERZSEBET HAMORI, [through translator]: I think there's a good future for our business, because it's cheaper for the big state companies to hire us than to do the work themselves.

KAYE [voice-over]: While Western style reforms are most obvious in the cities, the most far reaching changes have taken place in the countryside. Reform, coupled with modernization, have made farming the most successful component of Hungary's economy. The agricultural sector has more than doubled its output in the last 30 years.Farms sell their wares on the open market. Unlike other state owned enterprises, they're no longer bound by the dictates of central planning. Like city residents, farm workers often have their own businesses on the side. This couple raises pigs and sells 20 a year. The entrepreneurial split is particularly evident on Vatsi Street, Budapest's version of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills or Fifth Avenue in New York. Hungarians are so proud of this tourist spot that when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Budapest in June, he received a personal tour from Janos Kadar, who is head of Hungary's communist party even since the 1956 uprising was crushed. Kadar has carefully toed the ideological line with a succession of Soviet leaders. In turn, the Soviets have tolerated Hungary's move towards market economics and consumerism. Kadar's longevity seems based on a series of deals that allow Hungary to enjoy the highest standard of living in the Eastern Bloc.

Mr. VOLGYES: One is a deal that he made with the Russians. And that deal is that in exchange for stability and at least an official acceptance of conformity with ideology, he can do what he wishes. The second deal is with the people -- that as long as a nation doesn't revolt and accepts the general tendency, one gives, in exchange for that, the right to live as freely as possible.

KAYE: [voice-over]: The Soviet Union may be using Hungary as a guinea pig. Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky told a Budapest news conference that his country will benefit from the Hungarian experiment.

VLADIMIR PETROVSKY, Soviet deputy foreign minister [through translator]: In some ways, our Hungarian comrades have advanced ahead of us. We are learning from each other. We shall use our mutual experiences to build socialism, even though we build it in our own individual ways.

KAYE [voice-over]: All indications point to a continuation of Hungary's reforms, despite the country's economic difficulties, discontent, Hungarians still seen willing to settle for their compromise: an alliance with the Soviet Union in exchange for material comforts that most of their Russian neighbors have never known. Abusing the Unborn?

MacNEIL: Our next focus segment is about doctors' orders. We all get them, but we don't always follow them. The choice is ours, and so are the consequences.But what if a pregnant woman ignores medical advice that affects the health, even the survival, of her unborn child? Should she be held responsible? According to one district attorney in San Diego, she should be prosecuted. In fact, just such a case is now working its way through the California courts. A background report now from public station KPBS in San Diego. The narrator is Ken Kramer.

KEN KRAMER [voice-over]: One year ago, Thomas Travis Monson was brought into this neonatal intensive care unit following a difficult birth. After a short stay, he was transferred to a more advanced facility. Six weeks later, he died. The cause of his death: fetal distress syndrome. Now his mother, 27 year old Pamela Rae Stewart of El Cajon, a small town just east of San Diego, is being charged with neglect of her baby -- neglect before the child was born.

Stewart is being charged with a misdemeanor: withholding of medical care during a complicated pregnancy. Authorities contend that she willfully ignored a doctor's advice concerning her condition. Lieutenant Randy Narramore supervised the El Cajon Police Department investigation of the case.

Lt. RANDY NARRAMORE, El Cajon Police Department: The specifics were, the doctor told her stay off her feet, get plenty of bed rest, to refrain from using any drugs or narcotics, refrain from sexual intercourse, and also if she began hemorrhaging to contact the doctor immediately. She was told to do certain things and not to do other things. And if she didn't do these tings, that it could harm the child. And sure enough, it did.

KAYE [voice-over]: On November 25, paramedics brought Pamela Rae Stewart to this hospital near El Cajon. According to her admission report, she advised the medical staff that she had been bleeding for 12 hours after having engaged in sexual intercourse. Shortly after arriving at the hospital, her son was born with massive brain damage. Dr. Paul Zlotnik was called in to assit following the emergency Caesarian delivery of the baby.

Dr. PAUL ZLOTNIK, Grossmont Hospital: We were informed by the family of the use of drugs. And we're required by law when there's any suspicion for that to screen infants, as well as mothers. And if they are positive, they must be reported to our children protective services.

Lt. NARRAMORE: The child was born with amphetamines and marijuana in its system. It was found that she began hemorrhaging and did not contact the doctor for several hours. And because of those reasons, we felt we had a violation.

KAYE [voice-over]: The coroner's report linked the death of the baby boy to fetal distress syndrome and indicated it was related to maternal drug use. After a two month investigation by El Cajon police, the case was turned over to the Crimes Against Children unit of the San Diego district attorney's office.

HARRY ELIAS, prosecutor: On October 1, an employee of theSan Diego district attorney's office served upon the El Cajon Fire Department the University of California San Diego Medical Facility and Grossmont Hospital subpoenas with regard to medical records concerning both the defendant and the infant.

KAYE [voice-over]: The prosecutor has charged Stewart under a California law that says a fetus is a living being from the moment of conception. This is the first time the statute has been used in an abuse case. It was originally designed for child support cases.

Mr. ELIAS: What we're talking about is conduct that occured while the victim was still in vireo -- was still a fetus. And this particular statute, which mandates a parent to provide proper medical attendance and remedial care also, within the body of the statute, specifically states that a child conceived but not yet born is a person protected within that statute. And that's why it's applicable to this case?

REPORTER: Is it the position of the defense that she's done absolutely nothing wrong in this case.

RICHARD BOESEN, defense attorney: That's correct. She wanted this child. She wanted this child very badly, and she wanted a healthy child, and she did everything within her capabilities to insure that that occurred.

KAYE [voice-over]: Stewart's lawyer contends his client is being used as an example. He accuses the district attorney's office of selective enforcement of the law.

Mr. BOESEN: I don't think really that the statute has application in a case like this. I think there are some incredible constitutional issues which have to be addressed. And I just don't think it's the appropriate case. If there were going to be a test case, I think that I, as a prosecutor, would have chosen a very different kind of case.

Mr. ELIAS: We didn't go looking for any particular case. I sure didn't go looking for any case, and I have no reason to believe El Cajon did, looking for any particular defendant or waiting to see some case that came down the stream to file. The facts came to the attention of law enforcement. They investigated it. They thought there were sufficient facts that it should be presented to the DA. And then it came to me, and when I read it and read the law, it appeared that what I had matched the law that was in front of me.

JUDGE: First of all, regarding defense council's leave to demur in this matter.

KAYE [voice-over]: If found guilty, Stewart faces a maximum of one year in a county jail and a $2,000 fine. This case will likely turn into a long legal battle, setting precedents as it makes it way through the courts.

MacNEIL: One person who believes that those precedents could be dangerous if the case ends in conviction is Lynn Paltrow. She's an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and is assisting in Pamela Rae Stewart's defense.

Ms. Paltrow, why should this young woman not be held responsible for the death of this child?

LYNN PALTROW, ACLU: Well, first of all, there is much evidence that the allegations made in the case are just not true. And for example, the district attorney has made clear that the use of drugs is not the issue in the case.

MacNEIL: Even though the coroner's report, as we just saw, says so.

Ms. PALTROW: That's correct. What the case boils down to is a situation in which a woman did not get to a hospital, allegedly, fast enough to satisfy a district attorney. The kinds of questions it raises are enormous. When we permit doctors to deputize themselves or we create prenatal police patrols that check up on women, we do nothing to help women or to promote good prenatal care in this country. For example, if a woman fears that she's going to be prosecuted for her behavior during her pregnancy, the likelihood is that she's not going to go for prenatal care at all.

MacNEIL: We can't, obviously, try this case. And we're not going to do that. We want to raise the larger issues. But I just want to ask you, you say that the evidence is not -- doesn't fit with the allegations. But what about the other allegations -- that she ignored the series of advice that the policeman outlined?

Ms. PALTROW: That is all allegations in this case, and it will remain to be seen at the trial whether the government can prove that. But we have a real danger when we allow medical advice to be turned into the force of law. What they're saying is, she should be punished under the criminal laws, without noticce, for not following doctors' advice. Let me remind you that 25 years ago, for example, it was thought that proper treatment during pregnancy was DES. We now know that DES does not prevent miscarriages, and in fact, causes cancer in the next generation. Now, if a woman said for no good reason at all, "I don't want to take DES," 25 years ago, would we subject her to criminal prosecution? Would we force her to take that drug, even though it seemed as if it was unreasonable not to?

MacNEIL: Is your position absolute on this -- that no woman ever be prosecuted for her behavior that might injure her fetus or might have injured it?

Ms. PALTROW: Yes. Under --

MacNEIL: Never be prosecuted.

Ms. PALTROW: Never. Under no circumstances should we use the criminal law that way. That's not to say that we don't find that people have moral obligations and ethical obligations. But we shouldn't use the criminal justice system in this way to terrorize women and to permit encroachments on civil liberties the likes of which we've never seen.

MacNEIL: How is this woman being terrorized, in your view?

Ms. PALTROW: This particular women, for example, has already lost a wanted son. Eight months later, after a physical and emotional trauma, she has already spent six days in jail while they were discussing the bail. Women all over the country have been affected by this case. Both Richard Boesen and I have received calls from women who are concerned that their behavior during pregnancy might subject them to prosecution. There are 900,000 women in the United States who suffer miscarriages or stillbirths each year. Every one of those women could be subject to criminal investigation or prosecution if we permitted the criminal law to be used in this way.

MacNEIL: Okay. We'll come back. Judy?

WOODRUFF: For a different view, we turn to John Robertson, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. He has written numerous articles on the topic of reproductive rights. He joins us from public station KLRU in Austin, Texas.

Professor Robertson, you heard the point that Ms. Paltrow was making -- that what is happening here in this case will lead many, many other pregnant women in this country to fear that they may not be doing enough to take care of the fetus they may be carrying.

JOHN ROBERTSON, University of Texas: I don't think that is true. The rights of women and mothers are very important, but the rights are not absolute. There are limits. There are limits to what women can do with their children after birth. There are limits before birth as well. In the case where a woman has decided not to abort but to go to term and have a baby, she, as do fathers and other persons, have obligations not to injure that child who's going to be born. And allegedly, the facts in this case constitute an instance of a woman having been on notice that serious damage can occur to her child which she has chosen to bring into the world. And allegedly, that occurred here.

WOODRUFF: Well, at what point are you saying the rights of the fetus overtake -- begin to overtake -- do overtake the rights of the mother?

Mr. ROBERTSON: Well, I don't think this is a case of fetal rights at all. This is not a case of a right of the fetus to be born and not aborted. This is a case of a child who is going to be born -- of a fetus that is going to be brought to term at the wishes of the -- the mother to be born healthy, where it is possible for the child to be born healthy. In this case, the child presumably would have been a healthy newborn baby if the mother had followed the doctor's advice, as most women in these circumstances would have done. It in no way interfers with a woman's right not to have a child -- a right to abort. This obligation arises only after she has chosen to go to term. In this case, it's the same day at which the baby is born that she engaged in the behavior which had allegedly a clear, harmful impact on the child.

WOODRUFF: But where would you draw that line? I understand you're saying in this case it was that day. But you know, someone else might draw the line and say, well, it goes all the way back to the first day a woman realized she were pregnant, and she had to take vitamins. And if she didn't take the vitamins, she might be subject to criminal prosecution. Are you -- would you carry it that far?

Mr. ROBERTSON: Well, it is important if the mother's conduct will affect the offspring and she is going to go ahead and bring the child to term that she engage in reasonable prenatal conduct. I think we would agree there's a moral obligation to do so. Most woman would engage in such conduct. The important policy approach here would be to educate and counsel women and make sure that access to prenatal care is available. But in an egregious case where a women has willfully ignored advice that is essential to assure the well being of the child, in such a case it may be permissible to bring a criminal prosecution.

WOODRUFF: It sounds as if you're arguing that the word of the doctor or whoever's giving the medical advice would then always prevail over the word of the mother or the view of the mother. Is that correct?

Mr. ROBERTSON: No. In the case of the criminal prosecution, there would have to be proof that her failure to follow that advice caused substantial damage to offspring. If this child had been born and the doctors had advised that the mother bring the child in on a certain day for necessary medical care, the mother had refused to do it, there would be no question at all about her having violated a duty -- a legal duty, as well as a moral duty -- to her child. The fact that the conduct occurred before the child was born does not matter morally or legally if she, indeed, is intending to bring the child into the world.

WOODRUFF: Professor Robertson, stay with us. Robin?

MacNEIL: Ms. Paltrow, what about that point -- that it doesn't -- there's no moral difference in this case because the child was not yet born, since she intended to deliver the child, from a child -- from a mother who neglected to take an already born child for treatment the doctor had recommended?

Ms. PALTROW: Well, the difference is, by talking about a child, you obscure the reality that a fetus is part of a woman's body and, in fact, completely biologically dependent on her. Thus, virtually everything she does affects the fetus' well being. And if we allow medical advice to become the standard, then we could hold a woman criminally liable if her doctor advises her to stay in bed to secure that pregnancy, but she gets out of bed to take care of her three year old child or her dying father. And what we fail to do is to look at the woman as the social and biological unit with that fetus that she is and take account of her life. What's really frightening is the claim that some kind of reasonable standard and proof somehow protects women. If we allow the criminal law ever to be applied, then all women are potentially subject to prosecution. Even if Pamela Rae Stewart is proven to be innocent, which I'm confident that she will be, she has had to suffer all of this attention, six days in jail. We're talking about all women having to come up to some standard.

MacNEIL: Let's just clarify that point. Is that right? Is that the case that you're arguing -- that all women would have to meet some standard and, in failing to do so, would be liable for prosecution.

Mr. ROBERTSON: Absolutely not. What I'm arguing, that there are prenatal actions that could affect the welfare of children that the woman has chosen to bring into the world. The best way to assure that welfare is to educate, give information, make access to prenatal care available. But in an egregious case, where a woman has ignored advice and caused substantial harm, it is within the constitutional power of the state to try to deter such harms in the future by bringing the prosecution.

MacNEIL: Well, what is an egregious case? What about Ms. Paltrow's example of a doctor who advises a women, perhaps who has a history of miscarriages or something, to stay in bed for several months. But she gets out of bed, because she has to look after her other children, thus disregarding the advice. And suppose the child is born damaged or stillborn or whatever.

Mr. ROBERTSON: Well, obviously, there is a balance in here of the burden on the mother of taking the care involved against the burden on the offspring. There would be cases where the advice is so burdensome on the woman involved that it could no be morally or legally asked of her. In this case, however, allegedly, she was asked not to use drugs, not to engage in sex, and come to the hospital as soon as she started bleeding. That is not an unreasonable burden to ask of a woman at this stage of gestation.

MacNEIL: Ms. Paltrow?

Ms. PALTROW: Well, talking about cases where women have to come up and justify their behavior during pregnancy, even -- you can come up with some sympathetic examples where we're very unhappy about a woman's behavior. But I'd like to give one example. There was a case out of Georgia where the doctors felt that a woman had to have a C-section, that the fetus --

MacNEIL: Caesarian --

Ms. PALTROW: Caesarian delivery, right. That the fetus had a 99% chance of dying, and the woman herself a 50% chance of dying. Now, that seems like incredible medical certainty -- the kind of medical advice that could convince a court. And in fact, in this case did. The court ordered her to report for that C-section. The woman ended up not reporting. She did not want to go in for that major surgery. And it turned out that she delivered a perfectly normal, healthy baby. So I think that's an excellent example of why we can't ever permit the criminal laws to enforce what is only medical advice.

MacNEIL: You're saying never, and Professor Robertson, is saying sometimes. Can you define for us better where you would draw the line, Professor Robertson? For example, the Surgeon General of the United States now advises women in warnings on cigarette packages that it is harmful to their fetuses to smoke during pregnancy. If a woman smoked during pregnancy and the fetus were in some way damaged, should she be prosecuted? Smoking is a legal activity.

Mr. ROBERTSON: At this time, no. Because the evidence of substantial harm of offspring from smoking is now shown. There may be a risk of lower birth weight, but there is not clear evidence that more substantial harm would occur. If it became known that smoking a pack of cigarettes a day would cause the child to be born severly mentally retarded, I think that would be an appropriate case for persuasion and education and, perhaps, in certain cases, direct sanctions as well. But smoking at the present time is not in the category of posing such a substantial risk.

MacNEIL: And what's your comment on that?

Ms. PALTROW: Well, first of all, I think we agree --

MacNEIL: If it became absolutely watertight that smoking a package of cigarettes a day would cause a certain effect in the child and women did it, that they could be prosecuted.

Ms. PALTROW: Again, we keep having this illusion of medical certainty in every case. A lot of what happens for women is that they have inadequate prenatal care. It isn't just simply that they smoke cigarettes or they take drugs or don't take a certain kind of medication. It's a whole complex set of circumstances. And there's no simple rule that says you do this or that, and the result will be a certainty.

MacNEIL: Well, obviously, a woman who didn't have medical care couldn't be prosecuted for disregarding medical advice.

Ms. PALTROW: Well, can women -- 25% of all women in the United States in the prime child bearing ages have not medical coverage for prenatal care or delivery. Now, could they be held responsible? It seems to me --

MacNEIL: Could they be, Professor Robertson?

Mr. ROBERTSON: No. No. In fact, I think that focuses the main issue in this area. Prosecution should not be the main policy tool here. Education and assuring access of women to prenatal care is the more important think to be doing in this area. Prosecution should be reserved for extreme cases, and direct seizures of the woman's body should be even rarer.

Ms. PALTROW: We -- he makes it sound as if you can single out which are the exceptional cases. There have already been cases, for example, in California, where a woman who had been released from a psychiatric ward had been determined to be able to take care of herself. And during her pregnancy, somebody felt that she might be a danger to her fetus. They confined her for the last two months of her pregnancy, under the California commitment laws. Now, ultimately, a court ruled that that was completely inappropriate. Meanwhile, this woman has spent two months of her life in confinement. So that if you allow any use of the criminal law in this area, you will be permitting vast intrusions into women's lives, based on some theory of protecting.

MacNEIL: Then how do you insure that women will look after their fetuses?

Ms. PALTROW: Well, I think we agree on something. We absolutely need to have funded prenatal care in this program, sex and reproductive health education, funding for abortion and family planning.These are all the things that enormously help lead to good prenatal care. Over the years -- the last few years under the Reagan administration where there have been cuts in programs -- we've seen declines in -- we've seen increases in infant mortality. So there's no question there are positive things we can do.

MacNEIL: Do you agree on that, Professor Robertson?

Mr. ROBERTSON: Of course. There are positive things which should be done. But there will be a small group of women who will act unreasonably, who will willfully risk the well being of the child that they have chosen to bring into the world. They had no obligation to have this child. And it is important that the state in egregious cases take some action to prevent such heavy burdens on the children and on society that must bear them as well.

MacNEIL: I have to thank you for joining us from Austin, Professor Robertson, and Lynn Paltrow in New York.

WOODRUFF: Now for a final look at the top stores today. The Reagan administration called a truce with Moscow in the escalating war of the diplomats. President Reagan launched a 13 state campaign blitz to help Republicans on November 4. And Eugene Hasenfus is scheduled to make another apperance in Nicaragua's Sandinista court. Good night, Robin.

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