The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko and Secretary of State Shultz met for five hours in Stockholm today, two hours longer than scheduled -- talks the U.S. called detailed, candid and good. We examine the ground they covered and the prospects for thawing superpower relations. The president of the American University in Beirut was murdered today. We look at what that killing says about the U.S. presence there. Jim Lehrer is off; Judy Woodruff is in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Also tonight we have some news from the medical beat -- reports on a wonder drug and a not-so-wonder drug. We look at just how far transcendental meditation has spread -- all the way to Iowa. And we'll review The Life and Times of Michael K, the new work of one of South Africa's best-known novelists.

WOODRUFF: In Stockholm, a senior American official took an optimistic view of a meeting between Secretary of State Shultz and Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister. In an atmosphere of strained relations between Washington and Moscow, Shultz and Gromyko talked for two hours longer than planned, and the senior official described the results as good. There were differences of opinion, the officials said, but both sides made an effort to explain their positions.

This was Mr. Gromyko's day to express -- address, rather, the European security conference, and he arrived with a hard-line speech charging the United States with pursuing a policy of nuclear war.

ANDREI GROMYKO: New missiles, bombers and aircraft carriers are being churned out in some kind of pathological obsession. New means of mass of mass destruction are being experimented with. In short, the U.S. administration is an administration thinking in terms of war and acting accordingly.

WOODRUFF: Late in the day Secretary Shultz drove up to the Soviet Embassy and began a meeting with Mr. Gromyko that lasted more than five hours. Later, a senior American official said the talks were detailed and candid, covering nuclear arms control, human rights and Soviet-American relations. The Soviet news agency Tass was more specific. It said that Gromyko resolutely denounced U.S. policy during the meeting. Tass said the talks had been conducted in a totally frank and principled manner, a phrasing which in Soviet terms indicates friction and possibly even outright argument.

Two former U.S. arms negotiators said today that public charges by the Reagan administration that the Soviets might be violating arms treaties will only hamper efforts to reach new agreements to curb nuclear weapons. The two, Gerard Smith and Paul Warnke, told a news conference in Washington the administration should have exhausted all private and diplomatic means of trying to assess the extent of Soviet cheating before going public with the charge. Warnke headed the U.S. team that negotiated the SALT II treaty in 1979.

PAUL WARNKE, former arms negotiator: There are questions, serious questions, questions that should be raised and that the Soviets should be compelled to answer. But facing them with a public charge of violation, it seems to me, is not going to produce the desired result. What we have to ask ourselves -- whether we are more interested in charging violations, whether we are more interested in confrontation with the Soviet Union than we are in trying to preserve those parts of an arms control regime that have already been put in place. I think it's obvious that there is a struggle within the administration between those people that want arms control and those people who would like to see it all scrapped. Now, this struggle isn't new. It exists in every administration. But I think it's quite clear that the opponents of arms control have a stronger hand and a louder voice in this administration than has been the case in the past.

WOODRUFF: The administration, in a classified report to be submitted soon to the Congress, accused the Soviets of two violations and five probable violations of several arms treaties.

Meanwhile, the administration is under attack from conservative critics as well. A group called the Conservative Caucus today asked a federal judge to rule that the President broke the law by voluntarily following terms of the 1979 SALT II treaty despite the fact that the Senate refused to ratify the agreement. At a news conference Caucus Chairman Howard Phillips explained why the suit was filed.

HOWARD PHILLIPS, Conservative Caucus: It is our view that this administration has not merely unconstitutionally and illegally but unwisely as well reduced America's defenses and subordinated U.S. defense strategy not to the vital interests of our country, but to the false promise of arms control.

WOODRUFF: Phillips conceded the Caucus may have trouble having its suit taken seriously since it is a private political organization. Robin? Shultz-Gromuko Talks

MacNEIL: Now we turn back to the important Shultz-Gromyko meeting in Stockholm. To give us the Soviet and American perspectives on some of the key issues they discussed we have two analysts. Jeremy Azrael is considered the leading Kremlinologist at the State Department. His title is special assistant in charge of Soviet affairs at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. Professor Alvin Rubinstein is an expert on Soviet foreign policy. He teaches political science at the University of Pennsylvania and joins us tonight from public station WHYY in Philadelphia. We begin with the issue that has recently set the tone of the superpower relationship, arms control and intermediate missiles in Europe. Last December the U.S. and NATO began deploying Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe to offset Soviet deployment of medium-range missiles aimed at Western Europe. The Soviets responded by walking out of three different sets of arms control negotiations on intermediate missiles, strategic missiles and conventional weapons.

Mr. Azrael, just first of all, in a general sense, is it an encouraging sign that these two gentlemen talked for five hours today instead of three?

JEREMY AZRAEL: I think it's indicative of the success of our efforts to continue a dialogue with the Soviet Union and our efforts to, in that dialogue, to review the full range of issues that are on the U.S.-Soviet agenda.

MacNEIL: Professor Rubinstein, what does five hours say to you?

ALVIN RUBINSTEIN: It could easily mean that each party was delivering a speech to the other. I think that the description of the talks as candid and frank signifies that there was no major shift in position by either party. So I would not read too much into the extra two hours that they spent together.

MacNEIL: Mr. Azrael, back to you. Did the United States go into this today with any realistic expectation that the stalemate over the European missiles might be broken?That the Soviets might be persuaded back to the talks?

Mr. AZRAEL: There is from our side a standing invitation and a consistently expressed hope that the Soviets will resume negotiations. It seems to me that if they reflect seriously on their own interests and if they reflect seriously on the flexibility that we have shown, they will return to the negotiating tables, but the choice is clearly theirs.

MacNEIL: Professor Rubinstein, what interest would the Soviets have in backing off their very public and adamant refusal to return to these talks unless the NATO pulls out the missiles it has begun deploying?

Prof. RUBINSTEIN: Well, if the Soviet leadership believes that we were moving rapidly toward some very dangerous kind of confrontation in Europe, they might pause and perhaps make some concessions. But if they do not, if they regard this as a bargaining position on the part of the administration and possibly even as part and parcel of the expected announcement by President Reagan that he will run for re-election, then the Soviet Union might remain adamant in its position. They have for the past two years maintained that they are definitely opposed to the deployment of Pershings, and they have received, as far as they are concerned, no indication from the Reagan administration of concessions that they could accept.

MacNEIL: Mr. Azrael, it was reported yesterday by Mr. Nitze that the administration was considering possible inducements to the Soviets to return to the talks -- inducements that would not compromise the situation. Is it likely that Mr. Shultz was able to offer any tempting morsels to Mr. Cromyko today in that regard?

Mr. AZRAEL: I think that anyone who has studied carefully the positions that the President put forward after the shooting down of KAL, both in START and INF, will recognize that they evince considerable flexibility and that there is negotiating room there that a prudent Soviet negotiator would want to explore.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Judy?

WOODRUFF: In his speech Monday President Reagan said the U.S. and the Soviet Union should work to lessen tension in the world trouble spots as a first step towards improved U.S.-Soviet relations. The President specifically referred to the problems of the Middle East. There U.S. troops in Lebanon are less than 60 miles from Soviet advisers who are manning anti-air defense missile systems in Syria. The U.S. is eager to get Syria, the Soviets' Middle East ally, to push for a settlement in Lebanon. The Soviets are seeking to expand their influence and diplomatic role in the region.

Mr. Azrael, let me ask you. Do you think it's likely that Mr. Gromyko and Mr. Shultz discussed the Middle East today?

Mr. AZRAEL: I am confident that they discussed the Middle East in this as in all their previous discussions.

WOODRUFF: Well, is it safe to say that the United States would be pushing the Soviets to in turn push the Syrians to reach some sort of an agreement on Lebanon?

Mr. AZRAEL: We're trying very hard to elicit Soviet cooperation in achieving a Lebanese settlement, and one of the ways in which they can help is certainly to urge their Syrian allies to be more cooperative in the reconciliation process.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Rubinstein, do you think that request is likely to be successful?

Prof. RUBINSTEIN: It hasn't been in the past; I see no reason to assume that it would be in the future. The assumption that the Soviet Union would be willing to pressure one of its major clients in the Middle East in order to bring about an improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations, it seems to me, is an inaccurate one. It's fallacious.The Soviet --

WOODRUFF: Why -- what do you mean by that?

Prof. RUBINSTEIN: The statement, for example, that we are trying to persuade the Soviet Union to take a more constructive position and bring pressure to bear on the Syrians so that we can pursue the peace process in the Middle East assumes that the Soviet Union would be prepared to possibly jeopardize its position with the Syrian government by bringing such pressure to bear in the interests of an improved relationship with the United States. Now, I know of no instance in, certainly, the last 10 years of the Soviet Union bringing such pressure to bear on any prime Third World client, be it Vietnam or Cuba or Syria or Ethiopia or Angola.

WOODRUFF: Well, are you saying that the administration is just whistling in the dark if that's what it's trying to do?

Prof. RUBINSTEIN: I'm afraid that I'm saying that I think the basic assumptions that would underlie such an attempted initiative would not be grounded in the reality as seen by the Soviet Union or based on the record of Soviet diplomacy in the Third World.

WOODRUFF: Well, Mr. Azrael, how do you respond to that?

Mr. AZRAEL: Well, I think it's safe to say that we're pretty familiar with the Soviet Third World record, and it has certainly not been a record of self-abnegation or of efforts on behalf of stabilization. On the other hand, the Soviet Union, we are sure, is aware of the risks of escalation that do exist, that we all perceive in the Middle East, and we have laid down one of the criteria that the Soviet Union, by satisfying one of the criteria that we would use in assessing the overall relationship. And --

WOODRUFF: What is that?

Mr. AZRAEL: That Soviet cooperation both in not shipping such huge quantities of arms in Syria and facilitating a Lebanese settlement would be an indicator of a desire on the part of the Soviets to really improve the relationship, an improvement that we are ready for and eager for.

WOODRUFF: Well, now what would be the incentive for them to do that?

Mr. AZRAEL: The incentive to them would be, presumably, the larger improvement in the relationship that would come about through a series of steps with us, in cooperation with us, to settle regional conflicts and to reduce areas of risk, particularly risk of direct superpower confrontation.

WOODRUFF: Well, Mr. Rubinstein, does that make sense to you?

Prof. RUBINSTEIN: It makes sense, but it sounds like a watered-down version of linkage theory, and the fact of the matter is that the Soviet leadership has never accepted the notion of linkage, not since the concept was originated in the 1970s. And, again, I come back to the hard reality of looking at what the Soviet Union has actually done in the Third World. I know of no instance in which the Soviet Union has, in the interest of trying to improve relations with the United States on a bilateral basis, been prepared to unilaterally abstain or reduce the level of armaments or support for a prime client in the Third World.

WOODRUFF: And, Mr. Azrael, you disagree with that?

Mr. AZRAEL: No, I don't disagree with it at all, and we're not counting on Soviet cooperation in order to pursue our objectives in the region. On the other hand, we are making it perfectly clear that we would welcome Soviet cooperation, that our policies in the area are not inimical to Soviet interests, and that movement in a cooperative direction could have ramifications throughout the relationship. It's not a question of direct linkage; it's a question of linkage as a fact of life and an expression of the Reagan administration's rather holistic approach to the entire relationship. It's that we take Soviet Third World involvements seriously and are not exclusively prooccupied with arms control, as important as we recognize arms control to be.

WOODRUFF: All right, thank you. Robin?

Macneil: Yes, pursuing this, U.S. and Soviet policies compete directly with each other in other areas of the Third World, especially Africa and Central America. In Africa the U.S. wants Angola to send home its garrison of Soviet-financed Cuban troops as the first step towards working out a settlement with South Africa over control of Namibia. The Soviets just announced they would resupply the Angolan army with military equipment lost when South Africa invaded Angola last month.

In the Western Hemisphere the U.S. accuses the Soviets and their Cuban allies of arming and aiding the Nicaraguan government in an effort to destabilize El Salvador. The Soviets say the U.S. is supporting right-wing dictatorships, and today Mr. Gromyko harshly criticized the U.S. invasion of Grenada.

Mr. Azrail, what kind of argument would Mr. Shultz have made to Mr. Gromyko today on the Cuban troops in Angola, why it would be in the Soviet interest to cooperate there?

Mr. AZRAEL: What Mr. Shultz, I am sure, said to Mr. Gromyko was that we are working, together with a number of European states, to facilitate a Namibian settlement, and that that settlement is much more likely to come about if Cuban troops are withdrawn from Angola, that that is a requisite just as South African agreement to Namibian independence is a requisite, and that they both are linked.

MacNEIL: Well, would he also, to use Professor Rubinstein's word, used linkage and said, "And you do this: encourage the Cubans to take their troops out of Angola and that will improve Moscow's relations with Washington. That will improve the atmosphere between us"?

Mr. AZRAEL: I think our message to the Soviets all along has been that we take all of these geopolitical issues very seriously, that the relationship is complicated by the Soviet efforts to exploit regional tensions, to exacerbate regional tensions, and to prevent the peaceful settlements of regional disputes, to turn them into superpower disputes.

MacNEIL: Professor Rubinstein, given the argument you just made, how would the Soviets hear this presentation as applied to Angola?

Prof. RUBINSTEIN: Well, Robin, you have given the answer, or at least the Soviet answer -- the decision to resupply the Angolan forces with equipment and supplies that they lost in the recent fighting with the South Africans. There is an additional problem, namely, the Cubans. It is not easy -- indeed, it may not even be possible -- for Moscow, even if it wanted, to order the Cubans to leave Angola. Fidel Castro has a long-standing commitment, and a very deeply felt commitment to the MPLA leadership in Angola. And moreover, it would be very difficult for the Soviet Union to pressure the Cubans to pull back. After all, the Soviets argue that the Cuban troops have been legitimately invited into the country by the Angolan government and that there should be no pressure to remove them until South Africa itself has abided by the U.N. decisions on Namibia.

MacNEIL: Mr. Azrael, turning to Central America, why would the United States think it might be in -- the Soviets might see it in their interests to cool it a bit in Central America?

Mr. AZRAEL: The one reason for cooling it in the area is because it is a very high-risk area in which Cuban prestige is threatened and Soviet prestige is threatened. Once again we have a case in which on-the-ground efforts by the United States go hand in hand with an effort to make it clear that our policies are not self-aggrandizing, that we are interested in settlements, but that we are prepared to defend our interests in other ways and pursue them in other ways if need be.

MacNEIL: Professor Rubinstein, as you see it, would the Soviets feel that the situation is risky enough or dangerous enough to make them want to, as I said before, cool it there?

Prof. RUBINSTEIN: On the contrary, there is very little risk involved for the Soviet Union. There are no Soviet troops, no Soviet forces directly involved in Central America. From the Soviet perspective, they have a very low-cost operation, which is creating a great deal of internal discussion and dissent in the United States. It's creating tensions between the United States and a number of the countries of Latin America, and it's also creating a certain amount of alliance dissonance over this question of what should the American policy in Central America [be]? I think that the Soviets have everything to gain from continuing to provide the Cubans and the Nicaraguans with the level of assistance that they so far have been providing.

MacNEIL: Mr. Azrael, does the United States -- did the United States go into this meeting with Mr. Gromyko today, the first high-level contact between the two superpowers for many months after a period of apparently deteriorating relations, with a sense that things were getting dangerous and something needed to be done to reopen contact to reduce the level of danger?

Mr. AZRAEL: No. The Soviets have been, of course, using scare tactics very assiduously. We went into the meetings, I think, determined to explain ourselves once again to Moscow, as we have done before, including, I should say, throughout the period of this alleged total freeze in relations. That is an illusion. We went in determined to explain ourselves, to explain our purposes. We went in to express our interests, to express our hopes in cooperation, and to make it clear to the Soviets that the choice was theirs and that there was a real choice. If I can go back for one second to the sorts of things that Professor Rubinstein has been saying, it is not the administration's -- the administration does not take an optimistic view of the way in which the Soviet Union is likely to respond. It simply is awaiting a Soviet response and wants to make it clear that we in turn are ready to respond constructively and positively.

MacNEIL: Well, we'll have to see when we learn more about what happened between the two gentlemen in Stockholm today. Thank you both for joining us. Judy? University Killing in Beirut

WOODRUFF: In Honduras, a passenger who was aboard the helicopter that was forced down last week said today that it was possible the aircraft had strayed into Nicaraguan airspace. The pilot of the helicopter was killed after he made an emergency landing on Honduran territory a few hundred yards from the frontier. Captain Christopher Maitin, an Army engineer, said Nicaraguan soldiers fired at the helicopter for about three to five minutes after it landed. Maitin said those aboard the helicopter did not have any indication that they were lost and thought they were on a course that would have kept them 30 miles from the border. That mission was described as a routine administrative flight to an airfield where the Army engineers are working to improve a Honduran military airfield.

Terrorists again dominated the news from Lebanon today. The president of the American University in Beirut was shot in the head by two gunmen posing as students. Malcolm Kerr had just gotten off an elevator and was about to go into a meeting on campus when he was killed. A few hours later an anonymous caller told the Beirut office of a French news agency that a group called the Islamic Holy War was responsible for Kerr's death and the kidnapping Tuesday of the Saudi consul in Beirut. The caller said Kerr, who was American, was a victim of the American military presence in Lebanon and added, "We promise you that not one American or Frenchman will remain in this country."

However, the top Druse Moslem leader in the country, Walid Jumblatt, issued a statement blaming both terrorist acts on right-wing Christians. Shiite Moslem leaders have also denied that there is such a thing as Islamic Holy War. That group has also claimed responsibility for the suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut last October.

In Washington, President Reagan issued a statement saying that Kerr's assassination must strengthen our resolve not to give in to the acts of terrorists. At the State Department, spokesman Alan Romberg could shed no more light on who was responsible.

ALAN ROMBERG, State Department spokesman: What this group is, whether there indeed is a group as such or whether different people doing different things are using the same name, we just don't know anything about it.

WOODRUFF: Romberg said the U.S. government would not just sit back, however. He said it would cooperate with Lebanese authorities in their investigation. Robin?

MacNEIL: The American University of Beirut was founded in 1866 by Presbyterian missionaries, but today it is non-sectarian with Christian and Muslim students. Many Arab statesmen are alumni. The University is chartered in New York and has its finance and development offices here. The chairman of the board of trustees is Najeeb Halaby, former chief executive officer of Pan American Airways.

Mr. Halaby, can I ask you a couple of practical questions? First, how many Americans, faculty and students, are there in the University?

NAJEEB HALABY: There are about 40 American faculty and over 150 students. It's been declining, the number of Americans, over the last 10 years of civil and other warfare.

MacNEIL: As a result of what's happened today does the University administration now regard them as potential targets of terrorists?

Mr. HALABY: We thought we had taken adequate security precautions, much more stringent than in the entire history of the University. But we are reviewing them and seeking that balance between an open university where scholars can study rather than a cockpit where factions fight, and we hope with the help of the authorities we can assure security. But like the kamikaze attacks that we all saw in World War II and assassinations here at home, it's very, very difficult to maintain openness, search for truth and look more and more like a garrison. So we cannot guarantee --

MacNEIL: I see. Have you given any thought to closing the place?

Mr. HALABY: Only occasionally have we thought of that. It was a very dark day for the University. In 118 years this was its darkest day, but tomorrow the sun will rise again, and we're determined to keep this university going. It's in many ways the best thing we Americans have done in the Middle East in this century. It's non-commercial; it's non-military. It's benign, creative, and we teach and heal, and the Middle Easterners love us for it. And so we think it must go on. And we get aid from the taxpayers. We think it's a good investment by the taxpayers, and we hope they do, too.

MacNEIL: The University in its history has been amazingly untouched by the turmoil of Lebanon and Beirut. Given what Judy just quoted of that anonymous caller claiming that President Kerr had become a victim of the American military presence, do you think that the University has now become a target and has become politicized because of the way in which the American military presence is regarded by, particularly, some Muslim factions?

Mr. HALABY: Some speculate that the bombardment from offshore against the Arab positions in the mountains cause a retaliation on American targets, and one could have thought that there might be some attack on the University. But there hasn't been. We have been, as you say, nearly unscathed all through these factional fights of the last 10 years, and there's very good reason. Amongst the leaders in the Middle East there are some 500 who are either prime ministers, foreign ministers, other key leadership people, and they love the place, just like many alumni love their alma maters. The second, it's benign. It doesn't threaten anyone. It pursues reason. And in a sense, over the long term, the only hope in the Middle East in that reason shall be more prevailing.

MacNEIL: Well, given the overheated atmosphere there at the moment, and the antipathy of some -- obviously, some terrorist groups towards anything American -- you're a man very sensitive to Muslim sensitivities; your daughter is married to King Hussein of Jordan. Could it be that the University, because of its original Christian character, is now regarded by these people as a political entity?

Mr. HALABY: A majority of the students are Muslim. We have many scholarship students. We always catered to the poor and the underprivileged and to give them the opportunities that we give in the United States with an American liberal education. I would say that we have a great deal of affection and respect, and even during the Israeli siege of Beirut and the invasion, we were spared. Now, we've had a kidnapping of our acting president, our beloved David Dodge, in the last 18 months, and now the assassination of this beautiful man, born on the campus, dedicated, with his lovely wife Ann and the four kids, to exporting the best of America, the most creative, productive, benign things we do -- our ideals, our technology and so on. But until this day we've had very little damage and a great deal of respect, almost a sanctuary.

MacNEIL: Of course, the ideals of the American liberal education are precisely those things which infuriate some of the most fundamentalist Muslims, are they not? Like certain Iranian groups, because it's regarded as an erosion or a threat to their own values.

Mr. HALABY: That is our challenge in the whole world.

MacNEIL: Is any thought given to gaving a Muslim president at the University, and would that make any difference?

Mr. HALABY: We haven't looked at the religion of the president; in fact we shouldn't, under the laws of the state of New York, where we're incorporated. We have looked at whether he should be an American citizen or not. And our Mideast friends have wanted an American president. They want someone who exemplifies the best of American education. And so far we have tried to provide them with such an individual. Malcolm Kerr certainly met the highest standards. He was attracting people despite all of the hell in Beirut to come and work there. We hope they will keep coming. His example of sacrifice and that of his family was such that he drew people. And back in this great country of ours there are lots of people ready to go out and serve, to export our ideals rather than our airplanes.

MacNEIL: Briefly, you mentioned the American shelling. Have you said anything to the U.S. government about your view of U.S. activity there and what it is doing to the civilian American presence in Beirut?

Mr. HALABY: We have tried tokeep completely out of politics and depoliticize this university. That's the way we feel the tradition should be. So we haven't really taken political positions. We have said to the [State] Department, as this tension rises and as the retaliation and the re-retaliation occurs, don't forget that we have American citizens and we have tremendously important American interests, and a 500-bed hospital and a campus with 4,500 students. Don't forget that and provide us with what security you can.

MacNEIL: Have to leave it there.Mr. Halaby, thank you for joining us. Judy?

WOODRUFF: A spokesman for King Hussein said today that Jordan will not act on President Reagan's Middle East peace plan because Washington has failed to get the Israelis to pull their troops out of Lebanon or to stop their settlements on the West Bank. Jordan's information minister told reporters that until those things occur the ball is in the American and Isreali court. The Reagan plan calls for Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in association with Jordan.

A nightmare experience for several hundred Japanese coal miners today.Fire broke out in that country's largest coal mine, more than 700 feet below the ocean floor, killing 24 and trapping at least 60 more. The mine is located on Kyushu, the southernmost island in Japan. More than 600 workers escaped. Just a few of them were injured. The victims appear to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, and rescuers fear that those left in the shaft may have also been exposed to poisonous gases. Their families waited for word above ground in a snowstorm.

We'll be back in a moment.

[Video postcard -- Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina]

MacNEIL: The Commerce Department said today that new housing starts fell 5% in December, but that 1983 as a whole was the best year since 1979. Some economists said the December drop was another sign that economic recovery is slowing down, as predicted. Others put the December figures down to harsh weather, which restricted outdoor work.

Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige attributed the housing rebound in 1983 to several factors -- the recovering economy, improved credit, tax incentives for rental housing, and favorable demographic patterns. "Favorable demographic patterns" means more people set up new households.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: The Supreme Court made it a little easier today for the press to cover criminal trials. In a unanimous vote the Court ruled that the process of selecting a jury should be open to the public and to news reporters. Only as a last resort, the Court said, may trial judges conduct jury selection in secret. The decision set aside rulings that have allowed California courts routinely to conduct secret jury selections in murder cases. Before today's decision there was confusion in lower courts over whether jury selection was to be considered part of a trial, which the Court has said should be open, or a pretrial event, which may be closed.

And remember the mini-scandal over former President Carter's debate briefing books? Well, the chairman of the House subcommittee that spent seven months looking into how those and other White House documents ended up in the possession of the Reagan campaign said today that he has put off any public hearings on the matter. Michigan Congressman Donald Albosta had scheduled committee hearings to begin a week from tomorrow. Topranking officials of the Reagan administration, including White House Chief of Staff James Baker and CIA Director William Casey were expected to be called to testify, but today Albosta said he wanted to avoid what he called "partisan bickering" and a media extravaganza in an election year. He said he would go ahead with a written report of his findings and decide later if public hearings were necessary.

Robin? M-I-U v. Fairfield, Iowa

MacNEIL: Now an update on a growing story that touches on education, religion, the law and politics. It is the battle of fundamentalist Christian schools against the laws of several Midwestern states -- tonight, Nebraska.

[voice-over] A fugitive minister returned by helicopter to Nebraska today in defiance of state authorities who have had a warrant for his arrest for two months. The Reverend Everett Sileven, who directs a small unaccredited church school in Louisville, was cheered by some 300 supporters who had gathered at the school. The crowd had gathered to protest the continued jailing of six men who are fathers of children at the school. The men have been in jail on contempt charges since November 23rd for their refusal to testify about school activities.

Nebraska authorities and church leaders have been at odds over the school's accreditation for more than five years. For the past several months, supporters of the school have been looking to the Reagan administration for aid in fighting the Nebraska courts. But today the Reverend Sileven, who claims wide support from Christian groups across the country, reversed field and attacked Mr. Reagan and his aides.

Rev. EVERETT SILEVEN, Faith Baptist School: I have just returned from a tour of the East Coast. In the past 12 months I have been in over 500 churches and spoken to nearly one million people. I assure you that there is a massive and deep sense of betrayal by our President and his administration.

MacNEIL: Late this afternoon the White House said it had no comment.

In Fairfield, Iowa, a small town in the heart of the state, the followers of an Asian mystic are trying to promote world peace through transcendental meditation, which is called TM for short. It's a method of contemplation calling upon the practitioner to focus his consciousness inward.Although the meditators believe they're working for peace, they're arousing hostility among the citizens of Fairfield who are afraid the newcomers will take over the town. Here is a report from Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN [voice-over]: Organizers are calling it the most ambitious mass meditation in history -- over 7,000 practitioners of transcendental meditation or TM have assembled to meditate for world peace. One of them is Florida businessman Walter Ciccolo.

WALTER CICCOLO, TM practitioner: I've been meditating for 10 years, and TM has changed my life. I think it has brought me some peace.I really think that it has brought me some inner growth.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Another meditator here is magician Doug Henning.

DOUG HENNING, magician: I give wonder to people, but I have to get the wonder from somewhere, and where I get it from is my deep transcendental meditation. I go inside of myself and come out and when I come out I'm completely renewed and refreshed, and I see the world with a sense of wonder. Everything looks miraculous. I see the wonders of nature all around, and I'm able to share this wonder with the world. The real magic is man's infinite potential inside of himself. He can really do anything he dreams of.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Here at Maharishi International University meditators from 40 nations have gathered to practice the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It is a fully accredited university located in Fairfield, Iowa, a cornbelt community of 9,000. Twice daily, TMers meditate en masse under huge domes, segregated for men and women. They meditate in silence, concentrating on a specific thought and focusing their attention inward. They claim they achieve a state of deep rest, rejuvenated energy and clear thought. And by meditating in such large numbers, they hope to improve the world.

Mr. CICCOLO: Every time you find a little peace within you, you're going to pass that on to the next person you meet, knowingly or unknowingly. You may smile at them the right way or you may say the right thing just because you're a little less stressed, and that has to have its echo in the world.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Based on their understanding of physics, the TMers theorize that the individual consciousness achieved in mass meditation can have an effect on worldwide consciousness. They expect to radiate positive energy throughout the world, causing stock markets to rise, crime rates to go down, and even changes in the weather.

Mr. HENNING: The most important thing is everybody's trying to create world peace. And the technology that we're doing here in our meditation is the greatest way to create world peace that I've ever heard of.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: To back up that contention, Maharishi University scientists cite a recent experiment that they claim shows a correlation between increased numbers of meditators and reduced numbers of death on the battlefield. M-I-U physicist Dr. David Orm Johnson.

Dr. DAVID ORM JOHNSON, M-I-U physicist: We have a large number of people in Jerusalem, and whenever the group in Jerusalem grew to the threshold number, the war deaths in Lebanon went to virtually zero. The average number of war deaths on all other days during this period was 28 per day, and during the periods when the size of the coherence-creating group was large, it was one per day.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: But while the TMers focus on peace around the world, they have serious problems with their closest neighbors, the residents of Fairfield, Iowa. This is police Sergeant Tom Baker.

TOM BAKER, police sergeant: If they're going to produce peace and tranquility on the face of the earth, they'd better start with Fairfield because this place needs it about as bad as anybody, and they're the cause of most of it.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Sergeant Baker says the TMers have brought unrest to his normally peaceful community. Since Christmas the arrival of the TMers has nearly doubled Fairfield's population. But the biggest shock came earlier this month when the meditation conference was extended indefinitely and all 7,000 participants were encouraged to move here permanently. Now, for the first time, Fairfield has housing and traffic problems, and the town has to cope with sudden changes in its character. Bob Rasmussen is Fairfield's mayor.

BOB RASMUSSEN, mayor, Fairfield: Of course it puts us all in a very awkward position where we're just not able to handle this on such a short term. For instance, we have tremendous traffic problems twice a day because at 7:30 in the morning they all get in their automobiles and race to the dome to meditate for an hour and a half, blocking traffic every which way. Then at 4:30 in the afternoon they go through the same procedure again until 6:30 or 7 o'clock, and we have just a limited amount of services. I'm concerned that their stress is being transferred from them to the people in the community, and the mayor is getting his share of it certainly.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Dewayne Hootman has lived in Fairfield all of his life. He runs a local coffee shop.

DEWAYNE HOOTMAN, Fairfield businessman: They'll never convince me that TM will control the weather, world events or anything else. In fact, it -- when they was supposed to have their taste of utopia out there, which was supposed to cause peace and everything, they had an outbreak in Beirut, an uprising again. They was to control the temperature around here. She was 25 below zero, 10 inches of snow on the ground. If that's utopia, we don't want anymore of it, not in this town!

HOLMAN [voice-over]: But the university counters that the four-week-old mass meditation conference has already had positive global results.

Dr. JOHNSON: One thing that we predicted would be that worldwide there would be an improvement in the stock markets of the world, and this is a world index compiled by Capital International in Geneva and reported in The Wall Street Journal, and what we see is that there was a declining trend in the three weeks before the course began on December 17th, and from that point on you can see there is a very clear increase in this worldwide stock market.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: In addition to the everday inconveniences, the meditators are accused of bringing to Fairfield, strong theological differences have erupted in the town. Local Christian ministers recently banded together to form a Citizens for Truth Committee. Pastor Jim Batey.

Rev. JIM BATEY, Citizens for Truth: There are eternal consequences to their practicing of TM. The Bible says -- quotes Jesus saying, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come unto the Father except through me." These people are trying to attain a relationship with the Creator outside of that, and to me that's -- they're following a false path.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Bevan Morris is president of Maharishi International University.

Dr. BEVAN MORRIS, president, M-I-U: TM is not a religion. It's an educational technology for experiencing the most profound state of human awareness that there is. Instead of the less profound states that have unfortunately afflicted mankind throughout its history.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: The TMers predict a bright future for all here in Fairfield. They believe that even a greatly expanded community of meditators can coexist peacefully here. But some of Fairfield's original residents see a different future.

Mr. HOOTMAN: If the college remains and continues to grow, Fairfield's gonna to die. The only thing that'll be left here will be the people at the college and the people that practice TM and belong to the college. Everybody else'll be gone.

MacNEIL: With the enrollment at the TM college going up every week, the townspeople are afraid it'll only be a few years before they are outnumbered and lose control of their own town. Judy?

WOODRUFF: From the medical beat, stories today about one drug that's being used with great success and another that hasn't lived up to the early hopes for it.The successful drug is one called prostacyclin, which has produced dramatic help for stroke victims. It was described at an American Heart Association meeting by a Texas doctor who said four out of eight patients who received the drug in early trials showed improvement, some of them dramatic. One man who had lost all movement in his right side and in his speech recovered both within minutes.

The other drug, cyclosporine, once had aroused great hopes for use on patients who have organ transplant, helping them to overcome the natural tendency of the body to reject foreign tissue. But a report in the New England Journal of Medicine has said that no statistical evidence can be found to show it is any more effective than other drugs used for the same purpose. Even so, researchers say that cyclosporin is useful, and they continue to recommend it for the majority of kidney transplant cases.

Robin? J. M. Coetzee

MacNEIL: In recent weeks we have brought you the views of several literary critics on the books they've found most interesting in 1983. Tonight we begin regular reviews of newly published books chosen by our group of critics. This evening the new novel, The Life & Times of Michael K, by J. M. Coetzee. Its reviewed by Richard Locke, editor, critic and president of the National Book Critics Circle.

[interviewing] Mr. Locke, just sketch in for us the setting and the plot of The Life & Times of Michael K.

RICHARD LOCKE: Michael K is a 31-year-old worker in a public garden in Capetown who helps his ailing mother on a journey away from the city, which is clearly riven by war. What Michael tries to do is escape from the city and make his way to a farm. There he wishes to live by himself, because his mother has died early in the book, and to make life for himself simply as a cultivator, as a farmer. At every point in this journey to the farm he's interrupted by forces of the state in some way or another, either hospital bureacracies or a work camp or a labor force. And again and again he tries to get back to this sort of aboriginal state outside of history, living simply on the land, and yet history won't let him escape. Again and again his journey is interrupted or he is thrown off this state of almost Eden-like possibility for himself.

MacNEIL: It's set in South Africa. Are there references to the racial situation in South Africa?

Mr. LOCKE: They're all very indirect. The author is very careful to make Michael a universal person.We never know whether he's black or white. We know his age. We have no real sense of any particular rulers or current events in the usual sense. There is a war on. There is a military government of some kind. There are checkpoints on the roads as he makes his way out of the city. But we never get anything very much more specific than that.

MacNEIL: So what is compelling about the book?

Mr. LOCKE: The physical detail is so intense, our immersion in the consciousness of someone who really exists on the very edge of human life is very vivid. And one begins to feel very strongly that this man who barely exists in any civilized way, who represents the absolute common clay of humanity at a very minimal level -- we're intensely drawn up in his own intense desire for elementary freedom, simple subsistence.

MacNEIL: Would it mean something different to an American reader than to a South African reader?

Mr. LOCKE: I think that South Africans might catch more subtle references to specific qualities of South African life -- the existence of a curfew, the particular form of the bureaucracy. But Americans, I feel, will feel, again, very strongly reminded of many of the kinds of issues that all of us are concerned with, the issues of the most elementary kind of human rights and human freedom.

MacNEIL: Where does the author, J. M. Coetzee, fit in the tradition of this kind of book, which is a sort of parable, I gather, and part realistic?

Mr. LOCKE: No, he's very much in the line of someone like George Orwell. His hero, of course -- his name, Michael K, is an allusion to the nameless hero of Franz Kafka's stories of more urban and sophisticated political oppression. Coetzee seems to be determined to make a case for basic human rights at a very, very concrete and immediate way. That does come out of that tradition of Orwell.In a way, this man Michael K is like Robinson Crusoe in reverse. Instead of being shipwrecked, he chooses to be shipwrecked away from history. The thing is that nothing in political life will allow him to escape that much.

MacNEIL: Tell us a bit more about J.M. Coetzee, the author.

Mr. LOCKE: Coetzee is a 43-year-old South African who was educated both in America and in Capetown. He is quite successful as a literary figure in South Africa. He's been very highly praised by such figures as Nadine Gortimer, who is one of their leading writers, of course. And he's been also the recipient of two of South Africa's leading literary prizes. He's by no means an invisible man.

MacNEIL: And his previous book, which was highly regarded, was --

Mr. LOCKE: Waiting for the Barbarians, which is an extraordinary, again, political fable based on the conventions of realistic narrative.

MacNEIL: Thank you.

[in studio] We've been discussing The Life & Times of Michael K by J.M Coetzee, published by the Viking Press.

Speaking of George Orwell, The New York Times reported today that Orwell's novel, 1984, is having a phenomenal revival. Orwell's bleak picture of a totalitarian future, first published in 1949, has become the fastest-selling book in America, selling at a rate of more than 50,000 copies a day.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: And taking one final look at today's major stories.

Top American and Soviet diplomats met in Stockholm, Sweden today. One U.S. official said the meeting between Secretary of State Shultz and Foreign Minister Gromyko was detailed and candid.

In Lebanon the President of the American University in Beirut, Malcolm Kerr, was murdered this morning. The Islamic Holy War group claimed responsibility for the assassination.

Here at home there was some good economic news. Housing starts soared last year, the best year for that key industry since 1979.

And finally tonight, an example of what some people will do to get attention for their cause.

[voice-over] This morning, the environmental group, Greenpeace, U.S.A., began what it called a penguin vigil across the street from the State Department. The vigil is a protest against a 16-nation meeting going on inside. The nations are looking into potential mineral exploration in Antarctica. Greenpeace opposes such resource development. The Greenpeace penguins may not have felt right at home, but they certainly looked it in today's snowstorm in Washington.

Their vigil is expected to continue for 10 days.

Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Judy. That's our NewsHour tonight. We will be back with another tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil.Good night.