The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, the Justice Department announced it had broken a major drug ring. Controversy grew around embattled Attorney General Edwin Meese. The new contra aid package passed the Senate. We'll have details in our news summary in a moment. Jim? JIM LEHRER: After the news summary, we look at the push on Attorney General Meese to step aside with former Attorney General Eliot Richardson, former Meese associate Gary McDowell, Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter, and Congressman Patrick Swindall. Then we take a second look at novelist Toni Morrison who won the Pulitzer Prize today. And we close with baseball writer Roger Angel's Ode to Spring Training. News Summary LEHRER: The Justice Department today announced what it said was the largest drug arrest in history. Two hundred and thirty three people in the United States and Italy were named in warrants. More than 130 of them were taken into custody today. The were charged with participating in a major operation that imported heroin from Italy to the United States. The FBI said the ring distributed drugs through pizza parlors and was part of the famous ''pizza connection'' case that was broken up several years ago. Attorney General Meese was among those officials making today's announcement today in Washington.

EDWIN MEESE, Attorney General: It is the largest international drug case ever developed by the Department of Justice. This case will have a significant impact on heroin imports into this country through Italy. The purpose of the investigation was not merely to seize drug shipments, but rather as is part of our national strategy, to penetrate the entire structure of an alleged drug ring and then dismantle it. This has been a far -- this has had a far greater impact on drug supplies and trafficking than the mere seizure of random drug shipments. MacNEIL: The controversy over Attorney General Meese's continued tenure at Justice grew today. Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said President Reagan should talk to a top Meese aid who resigned this week, and then decide whether Meese should stay. Assistant Attorney General William Weld, who resigned on Tuesday, was reported as saying he would have moved to indict Meese if the decision had been his. Senator Specter said that statement required a presidential inquiry. Meese is the target of a broadening criminal investigation by special prosecutors and several members of Congress have called for his resignation. Meese went to the White House today for a meeting on an undisclosed subject. Yesterday, Mr. Reagan said Meese had been a friend for 20 years and had his full confidence. LEHRER: The Senate today gave overwhelming approval to the $48 million contra aid package. The vote was 87 to 7 for the money that will provide food, medicine, clothing and shelter for the rebels over the next six months. There is also aid earmarked to help the children of Nicaragua, who have been hurt in the seven years of civil war. Today's debate reflected strong bipartisan support for the measure, but not everyone agreed.

Sen. JESSE HELMS, (R) North Carolina: What this package does is to put the final seal of doom on the hopes of the Nicaraguan resistance to get rid of the communist Sandinistas. No other face can be put on it. Sen. NANCY KASSEBAUM, (R) Kansas: We finally now have in both the House and Senate a broad base bipartisan package. It isn't all that some would have hoped, and it's more than what others would have hoped. But I think the important message we send is that both the House and Senate have spoken clearly in support of this particular package. Sen. CHRISTOPHER DODD, (D) Connecticut: There will be some I gather will vote against this because it does anything, some may vote against it because it doesn't do enough. And I suppose if you wanted to draft an agreement around here, a document that's going to please everybody, you'd be dreaming. So in a sense we've done I think the best we can under these circumstances. LEHRER: The House passed the legislation yesterday, so it now goes to the White House for President Reagan's signature. MacNEIL: Secretary of State George Shultz left today for a third trip to the Middle East to pursue his formula for getting Arab/Israeli peace talks started. He will stop in Rome before flying on to Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In New York, Israel's United Nations Ambassador resigned to speak out against Shultz's meeting last weekend with two American Palestinians. Ambassador Benjamin Natanyahu said the meeting raised a question of the value of American commitments. Israel contends that Shultz violated the spirit of an American agreement not to deal with the PLO. Israel said today it would lift its blockade of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip effective tomorrow. Authorities claim that the clamp down prevented greater violence than the four dead and 70 wounded during clashes between troops and demonstrators yesterday. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir visited the West Bank today and said the Palestinian rioters would be crushed like grasshoppers. LEHRER: Vietnam will return the remains of 27 U. S. servicemen missing since the end of the Vietnam War. The Defense Department made the announcement today in Washington. Twenty seven is the largest single turnover thus far. A spokesman said the U. S. had no way of knowing where the remains had come from. They will be taken to Hawaii where forensic experts will attempt to identify them. Twenty three hundred and seventy seven Americans remain officially listed as missing from the Southeast Asia war, 1750 of them in Vietnam. MacNEIL: The White House today acknowledged a minor setback to its efforts to oust Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega. Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater confirmed reports that several U. S. firms had paid taxes due the Panamanian government, and Noriega had used the money to pay military wages. The White House is asking U. S. companies to pay future taxes into an account Noriega can't touch. In Panama, the strike against Noriega entered its 11th day, but appeared to be weakening. More grocery stores joined the chain that broke the strike yesterday. And the government closed down for the four day Easter weekend. LEHRER: The federal government was ordered today to broaden its rules on granting amnesty to illegal aliens. A U. S. district judge in Washington invalidated a U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service eligibility rule. It said aliens must have been known to immigration authorities by January 1982 in order to be eligible for amnesty under the new immigration law. The judge said tax, social security or other documents may also be used to establish residency. MacNEIL: The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today. Toni Morrison won one for her novel Beloved; the drama award went to Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry, the nonfiction book to Richard Rhodes for The Making of the Atomic Bomb. William Meredith won the poetry award. David Herbert Donald for Biography, William Balcom for music. Major newspaper awards went to reporters on the Charlotte North Carolina Observer, the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Enquirer, the Alabama Journal of Montgomery, the Lawrence, Massachusetts Eagle Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, and the New York Times. And that's it for the news summary tonight. Now, five views of the Edwin Meese controversy, an interview with Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison, and an essay about spring training. Legal Liability? LEHRER: The Edwin Meese story is first tonight. There were more calls for his resignation today on newspaper editorial pages and elsewhere, following the dramatic resignation of six Justice Department officials Wednesday. But President Reagan's attorney general and longtime friend has refused to budge. Today, he declined to even discuss it. An attempt by reporters to get him to during a news conference about a major drug bust went like this:

REPORTER: Mr. Meese, are you planning to resign, sir? EDWIN MEESE, attorney general: I will not be answering any questions on topics other than what we're announcing here. Let me say at the outset, though, that I can assure you that the Department here at Main Justice and throughout the country, in our many U. S. Attorneys offices and the field offices of the various components of the department, is in full operation. The business of law enforcement is going forward energetically and without interruption. Our strong management team is on the job. I hope, and I fully expect within the next several days to be announcing various appointments to fill those vacancies that are in the Department, and at that time I will answer any questions on other matters beyond those that we are here for today. REPORTER: Is it your statement to us here, that the timing of either the operation or the announcement of the operation today has nothing to do with your difficulties with the calls for your resignation, or with the resignations at Justice earlier this week? Mr. MEESE: Absolutely. This date today was fixed quite some time ago, before any of the events to which you refer ever occurred. So this has been something that's been contemplated for quite some time. Yes? REPORTER: Tell us, please, why the President has not yet been briefed on the resignations of two top officials and the turmoil within the department? Mr. MEESE: That's not a topic that is relevant to the subject today. REPORTER: Sir, defend yourself against suggestions that Mr. Weld before he resigned -- Mr. MEESE: This question obviously is not on today's topic. So I'm only going to answer questions on this topic. LEHRER: Earlier in the day, Meese's stewardship came up at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on antitrust law.

Sen. HOWARD METZENBAUM, (D) Ohio: I believe very strongly as we sit here that the President owes a duty to the country. Maybe a much higher duty than that which he owes to his personal friend. And that will be to bring about the resignation of Mr. Meese at the earliest possible date. I don't say that in a pejorative way, but rather the fact that I think it's a question of respect for law and order in this country. Sen. STROM THURMOND, (R) South Carolina: I will not countenance any corruption in any way, shape or form in the Justice Department or any other department of this government. However, I don't think we can try cases here, as I understand this matter is in the courts. And I think whatever's done has got to be done in the right way. Sen. METZENBAUM: Mr. Rule, if there is any comment that you'd care to make, a propo of Mr. Meese and the department, we certainly give you the opportunity to do so. CHARLES RULE, t Attorney General:Assistan All I can say is that everyone watches and reads the news media to see what's going on. But the business of the country, the business of justice goes on every day. In the antitrust division, I can tell you that we are moving ahead, there is much left to be accomplished. And I'm there for the duration. LEHRER: The Meese story now is seen very differently by former Republican Attorney General and a former Republican Justice Department official. Eliot Richardson was Attorney General under Richard Nixon. He is currently a partner in a New York based law firm. Gary McDowell served as Associate Director in the Justice Department's Office of Public Affairs under President Reagan. He is now a resident scholar at the Center for Judicial Studies in Washington. Mr. Richardson, the Christian Science Monitor said this morning that White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker should go to Mr. Meese and ask him to step aside if not permanently, at least temporarily. Do you think that should happen? ELIOT RICHARDSON, former Attorney General: Yes, I do agree with that. There are various ways of delivering the message, but I think it's a message that needs to be delivered. The question at this date is not whether Attorney General Meese is guilty of something, or whether he is indictable or whatever may come out of the investigations, the question really is one of leadership of the Department of Justice and of the confidence in the Department of Justice. The state of morale in the Department has to have been very deeply shaken by the resignation of the Deputy and of the head of the Criminal Division, the most sensitive agency of the Department, together with their two top assistants. This can only reflect a situation that must extend deeper in the minds of many, many people there, and how any person could continue to give the effective leadership to the department in those circumstances seems to me unimaginable. Meanwhile, the public looking on is bound to wonder whether the quality of judgment, direction that ought to be given to difficult issues is being provided in circumstances in which the Attorney General is beleaguered and will have to be continuing to address the kinds of questions he was trying to fend off just now in his press conference. LEHRER: Mr. McDowell, do you agree with that? GARY McDOWELL, Center for Judicial Studies: I am one of those who thinks that Mr. Meese ought to stand his ground and stay the course. I think that if he is innocent, as I firmly believe him to be, then he has an obligation to stay in the office, have himself exonerated and be an example for those who enter public service. I think anybody who's innocent of wrongdoing to give into cries and allegations of these sorts that are circling the Attorney General, to leave office under those circumstances does a disservice to the very idea of serving in the government. LEHRER: But what about the two points that Mr. Richardson makes? First of all, what it's doing to the internal operations of the Justice Department, and also what it's doing to public confidence in the administration of justice by the Department? Take them one at a time. Mr. McDOWELL: Well, the public impression I think is one that is shaped and molded in large part by what people hear and read. And anytime Ed Meese has been in trouble over the last seven years, there are those in the Senate and the House and the media who would call for his resignation. This is not new. This is an old story in that regard. I think that the stories that are circulating, the allegations that are out there are largely unsubstantiated. There've been no allegations of wrongdoing forthcoming from those who resigned, Assistant Attorney General Weld and Deputy Attorney General Burns, and I think the public is getting misinformation on that. LEHRER: You do not believe the report that Mr. Weld said that if he were up to him Mr. Meese should be indicted? Mr. McDOWELL: I don't know whether to believe that or not. Mr. Weld has never said that for the record. I think an important point also in resignations that need to be made is that there's a difference in Arnie Burns and Bill Weld. They may very well have reached the same destination, but I would suggest it was by vastly different routes of thinking and calculation. And I think that is something that has not been exposed. They're not speaking to this issue. If there are wrongdoings that they can point to in the life of the Attorney General or others, then they have an obligation to step forth and in public light say what those are. And to defend their account of why they would be moved to leave the Department of Justice at this time. LEHRER: And short of that, then, you think it's a mistake to try to interpret their motives? If they don't talk about it publicly, what are we to do? Mr. McDOWELL: I think they have an obligation to talk publicly, or if not, then we have to interpret their silence as being indicative of nothing very substantial to offer. LEHRER: What about that, Mr. Richardson? Do Mr. Burns and Mr. Weld have a public obligation to come forward now and say, Okay, here's why we quit. Let's stop this speculation about it. Mr. RICHARDSON: I think they would be very public serviced to do that. But I really also want to address the point that Attorney General Meese has not been proven to be guilty of anything. That I respectfully suggest is not the point. The question is whether in the circumstances he can be an effective attorney general. This is a department which perhaps beyond most is important that there should be public confidence in its total integrity. And I have been -- I have not up to now been among those who have reacted to earlier reports of situations that have been referred to to independent counsel, that have involved the attorney general. His very nomination began with an investigation of that kind. But when the situation's reached a point when the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division and the Deputy, for whatever reasons, have felt strongly enough that they had to leave, something is very seriously wrong. First, Bill Weld is the -- was the former United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. That's a job I once had. I know something about his performance as United States Attorney. He was selected to head the Criminal Division because of the integrity and effectiveness with which he had enforced the criminal law of the United States in that District. I know him to be a man of great integrity as well as ability. And in these circumstances, you have a situation in which it's impossible to put the pieces back together and restore the kind of confidence in the Department that we the people are entitled to have. LEHRER: Mr. McDowell, what about that? That the issue is no longer Edwin Meese, it's the administration of justice and the public confidence in this major body of the U. S. Government Mr. McDOWELL: I have to agree with Mr. Richardson that the Department of Justice is a special department. It's not Labor or Interior, it stands for something, it stands for our domestic peace and happiness. And the Attorney General's office is highly elevated and properly so under our scheme. But the departure of two men should not be presumed to be the departure of the only two men of such integrity -- LEHRER: Uh -- Mr. McDOWELL: -- to leading men -- as -- LEHRER: Let's get that straight. There were two men, Mr. Burns and Mr. Weld, and four of their assistants, who quit. Mr. McDOWELL: Two deputies each -- LEHRER: Right, two deputies each -- right. Mr. McDOWELL: But there are others there, men of great integrity, and great public service, who stayed with Mr. Meese and who intend, as far as I know, to stay with Mr. Meese. And it's dangerous I think to look at those who have departed, and -- Mr. RICHARDSON: Well, we've had a lot of speculation about the Solicitor General, whether he should leave. That in itself is very disturbing signal. He may or may not leave. But the fact that he has agonized publicly over whether he would stay. This is a man who represents the Department of Justice, indeed the entire government of the United States in the Supreme Court of the United States. And where he is going through similar kind of soul searching -- and of course we read in the newspapers today that grafitti are appearing on the walls of the interior of the building in one way or another. All I can say is that this is not the kind of image that the chief legal agency, law enforcement agency of the United States should be projecting to the people of the United States and the world. LEHRER: But, Mr. McDowell, your feeling is that no matter what, man is innocent, he should not be hounded out of office, no matter what image this is giving, or whatever the consequences are of the ''hounding. '' Mr. McDOWELL: I think that's right. I think there's a grave danger in allowing someone to be hounded from public service simply by the volume or the frequency of the declamations against him. Ed Meese has stood his ground before. He has been exonerated before. And I suspect he will be this time. And I think it would be gravely wrong, not only to him, but to the Department of Justice itself, to allow the Attorney General to be in service at the whim of popular opinion, however that may be -- Mr. RICHARDSON: May I suggest that this is the wrong standard. A special counsel and special prosecutor has to consider the question whether there has been a prosecutable violation of criminal law and whether or not it is provable by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. In the standard of probity that should be expected of a person holding the office of Attorney General is much higher than that. If there were evidence coming anywhere near the prospect of proving violation of a criminal law in the case of a person being considered for the office, he should not be confirmed. And the question now is not whether he can withstand the determinations by a special prosecutor that he should be prosecuted or not, the question is whether in these circumstances he maintains the kind of standard that I think we're entitled to expect in that office. LEHRER: Mr. McDowell? Mr. McDOWELL: Well, I think again that it would be gravely wrong on the part of the Attorney General to step down now. I think it would be wrong on the part of the President to ask him to do so. If there is wrongdoing, it should be forthcoming, and he should be able to address that at that time. The leadership question I think is a valid one. And I think no one doubts that. But I think there are two ways of looking at it. And I think leading office under pressure when you're an innocent man is not the way to handle it. LEHRER: Do you agree with Mr. Richardson that there is a special standard that goes beyond whether or not the man is technically guilty or not guilty of a criminal violation for the Attorney General? Mr. McDOWELL: There's another standard that I think is imbedded in the one Mr. Richardson points out. And that is, certainly one wants an Attorney General who is above reproach, as he does any cabinet official or political official. But in a certain sense, too, an Attorney General, like other officials, are politically vulnerable. They're subject to smear campaigns, they're subject to all kinds of political reprisals in Congress and elsewhere. And we have to make sure that we give him every benefit of every doubt. And not simply at the first blush of dissatisfaction whisk him away. LEHRER: Speaking of Mr. RICHARDSON: When his own deputy and two -- they aren't -- surely they're not subject to (unintelligible) by smear campaigns. LEHRER: Speaking of editorials, I quoted one from the Christian Science Monitor. The Wall Street Journal said this morning that Mr. Meese is being hounded out of office and that he says the same thing that you do, and that he is a victim of a sleaze campaign rather than part of a sleaze situation in the Reagan Administration. You agree with that? Mr. McDOWELL: I think that's absolutely true. And you look back from the moment of his confirmation as Attorney General, the thirteen month very costly investigation that turned up nothing, the other allegations that have been out there, lying there for a long time, with independent counsel not bringing any charges against him formally. He is a man who has no blemish on his record other than the allegations of his critics. And that's not a fair basis by which to put him out of office. LEHRER: We will come back to you all, gentlemen. Thank you very much. Robin? MacNEIL: Yes, next we turn to the reaction on Capitol Hill, with three different congressional perspectives. First, Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican from Pennsylvania, also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Representative Pat Swindall, Republican from Georgia, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, who joins us from Atlanta. Senator Leahy, we've heard two very different points of view. Which do you agree with? Sen. PATRICK LEAHY, (D) Vermont: Well, I feel and have felt for some time that so much has happened that the Attorney General really has to step aside and to be fair to the President, be fair to the Department of Justice, whether that's through resignation or taking a leave of absence with an acting Attorney General would be up to him and the President to decide. This is not a case where he is running the Department of HUD or something like that. He embodies the justice system in this country. He's the chief law enforcement officer of this country. And all that entails. Everybody here knows that there is chaos now down at the Justice Department. There's not way of papering it over. Morale is the lowest that I've seen it in years and year. The President's not going to tell him to go, because the President's very loyal to him. I think it's now time for Ed Meese to be loyal to the President and say, I don't want you to leave as part of your legacy shambles in the Department of Justice. I'll step aside. MacNEIL: Senator Specter, we reported earlier what you said about the President should call in Weld and find out what he really meant about the reported statement that if it had been his choice he would have moved to prosecute. Have you moved any further than that? Where are you tonight on what Mr. Meese himself should do? Sen. ARLEN SPECTER, (R) PA: Well, at about the same spot I was this morning. I think the most critical aspect of the matter so far has been the statement attributed to William Weld that if it were his call, close a case as it is, that he, Weld, would indict. Now, William Weld is the former Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division at Justice. He's not a critic, he's a former subordinate of Attorney General Meese. And if what he says -- if he really said that, and as reported, then I think that puts a very different complexion on the matter. And I would hope that the White House, the President would make that determination, and I think it could have an impact on the President's thinking. MacNEIL: Congressman Swindall, where do you come down? Rep. PAT SWINDALL, (R) Georgia: Well, I'm very concerned about the rule of law. I think that that is one of the things that distinguishes this country from a lot of other countries. And I think that it's a mistake, particularly when the legislative branch, the same legislative branch that recently passed the special prosecutor statute, that basically I heard on the debate was designed for this very type of situation -- so that the legislative branch doesn't find itself in the posture of trying to basically hang someone in the executive branch by accusations. I think it's a very, very dangerous precedent when you begin to call for people to resign based on accusation rather than fact. And that is the reason we have special prosecutors, for them to look at the facts. If we look at facts in this case, we see that in the past as the other folks have discussed already, Mr. Meese was examined, and you can bet your bottom dollar when a special prosecutor goes in and looks at an individual, they are going to look at you with not only a microscope, but a proctoscope. And what we see in Mr. Meese's case is the fact that he was given a clean bill of health. Subsequently, the Senate confirmed him. Now we see new accusations, and I would say that all we need do is to look at what happened to former Secretary of Labor Donovan. Look at the former acting director of NASA, and see what happens when you begin to remove people from office, or ask them to be removed from office, based on accusations rather than based on facts. I'm willing to wait and see what the special prosecutor -- MacNEIL: What do you -- Rep. SWINDALL: -- looking at it for eleven months -- Sen. LEAHY: If we were talking about the Department of Labor or the Department of -- that might be so. But that's not the case here. This isn't a case where somebody is saying we're going to declare Ed Meese guilty without a trial. Not at all. But what we're saying is that the Department of Justice, where the embodiment of law enforcement and the justice system of this country is, has to be led by somebody who isn't under constant attack. You can't have somebody as Attorney General who is spending more time with his own attorneys trying to stay out of trouble than he is in prosecuting the laws. It's entirely a different thing. MacNEIL: Senator Leahy, let me ask you a question. If you were the subject of an investigation, which you thought was in some way tarnishing your office that you hold, or the public respect for your office, would you step down, or resign, or step aside temporarily, if you knew in your heart that you were innocent? Sen. LEAHY: If I was running the Department of Justice, with the responsibility of that, of course I would have to step aside. I don't think if anybody has a sense of history and a sense of responsibility they could do otherwise. I think what I would do, though, if I felt innocent, I'd go to the President and say, Look, put somebody in there as acting, let me step aside on a leave of absence, or whatever, clear my name and go on. But for the sake of the Presidency, the sake of the country, the sake of the Department of Justice, I'll step aside. MacNEIL: Senator Specter, as a senior member of -- a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Thurmond, went to Mr. Meese today to express the concern in Congress over this. Did he carry a specific message from all of you, from you Republicans? Sen. SPECTER: I think that when Senator Thurmond talked about concern, he certainly expressed a minimal level of our feeling. There is at least concern. MacNEIL: I see. But he didn't on behalf of all you Republicans say something more specific or incisive to Mr. Meese? Sen. SPECTER: Well, I wasn't there when Senator Thurmond talked to Attorney General Meese, but I know that Senator Thurmond feels very strongly about the matter, as do many of us. If I might make an amplification here. MacNEIL: Sure. Sen. SPECTER: When we talk about allegations, I don't think that a man ought to stand aside simply because they're allegations. And I think that Mr. Meese is entitled to the strength of his own convictions about his case. If the independent counsel were to come down with an indictment, there would be a profound change in the matter. Now, if William Weld, the former Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, has reached a conclusion on evidence -- and I don't know that he has, but he's reported to have -- then that makes a very significant difference. I don't think you wait until an indictment runs its course through trial and appeal to have a resolution of the issue. That's why I think that it's a very significant matter as to what Weld has found. And I think he has the duty to speak up about it, I think the White House has a duty to inquire about it, and if that doesn't run its course, and if in fact Bill Weld came to that conclusion, I would hope he would come forward publicly. MacNEIL: Congressman Swindall, what do you say to the point Senator Metzenbaum raised -- and we saw it earlier on our program -- that the President in this case has a duty that may be higher than his loyalty to Mr. Meese as a friend, a duty to the country. Rep. SWINDALL: Well, I do think the President has a duty that is higher than his friendship to Mr. Meese. But I would say that the duty rests not in the area that Senator Metzenbaum mentioned, but rather in the area that we are talking about something far greater here than the office of the Attorney General. We're talking about the United States of America. We're talking about a system of justice. Where individuals are presumed innocent. We're talking about a country in which we have just passed legislation, which I might add Congress exempted itself from, that says that we will deal with these types of issues through special prosecutors who are charged with responsibility of looking at the facts, not just simply looking at accusations. My great concern right now is that we're on the verge of setting a new standard for the Attorney General, for that matter any other cabinet post, and that standard is that the moment someone cries with any type of accusation, politically motivated or otherwise, we are then going to say that they must resign because there is now the appearance of impropriety. That is a very dangerous (unintelligible). MacNEIL: Well, our former Attorney General, is putting it differently. He says that at the Justice Department, in that particular office, there is a standard of probity required to keep public confidence in the office that goes beyond the ability to defend yourself against charges and to a case where it is not quite possible to prove to the satisfaction of a jury that something has happened. That that is a unique standard of probity there. Rep. SWINDALL: If Mr. Richardson is correct, then I suspect that when the next Attorney General that the next President of the United States appoints is charged on the night that he is appointed and confirmed by the Senate with some type of accusation, no matter how unfounded, no matter how bizarre, then under Mr. Richardson's standard, that individual should step aside immediately. That's a dangerous standard. MacNEIL: Senator Leahy? Sen. LEAHY: I didn't understand Mr. Richardson to say that at all. I think what we're all saying is that if you have the Department of Justice, and we do, it stands for something. It stands as a symbol of justice and as our country 200 years' evolution of that justice system, and everybody, Republican or Democrat, has the right to expect it to be run well and run as a symbol of justice. It is not being run as a symbol of justice now, because of the concerns over Edwin Meese. And I think that he has a duty to the Department of Justice, to the President and to the American people, to step aside and let somebody run it and restore that symbol of justice. MacNEIL: Senator Specter, in the moment remaining, let me ask you and Mr. Swindall a political question, Republican question. A lot of political analysts are saying that if Mr. Meese does not leave, this will be a great gift to the Democrats in the election coming. How do you feel as a Republican about those comments? Sen. SPECTER: Oh, I think there's a very significant political detriment here. Now, I think that detriment has probably already accrued, whatever happens in the future. But I think the issues are much more important than the political ones, the issue about the administration of justice, what happens to this very important branch of government, what happens to this department is much more fundamental. MacNEIL: Mr. Swindall, how do you feel about the political issue I raised? Rep. SWINDALL: I would agree with Senator Specter that certainly this issue ought to transcend politics. Obviously it doesn't. Obviously it has been a well defined theme by the Democratic Party from the very outset of the Reagan Administration that they are going to run on a sleaze factor. The point is that sleaze factor has hurt a lot of men. It has hurt, as I mentioned earlier, Ray Donovan. As he said after his jury trial and millions of dollars of expense, ''Where does one go to get their reputation?'' The justice that we talk about so frequently also applies to the Attorney General of the United States, and I would hope that we're fairminded enough to wait and see what the special prosecutor himself concludes, not what individuals who are very politically motivated may want to see accomplished -- and that is the immediate resignation of a very conservative advisor to the President. MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim? LEHRER: Yes, let's bring Eliot Richardson and Gary McDowell back into this. Mr. Richardson,are you suggesting a new standard, that a person is accused of something that -- even in the U. S. government, but particularly at the Justice Department, they should immediately step aside? Mr. RICHARDSON: No, not at all. I don't think any old accusation should have this consequence. What we have here, though, is a situation in which there have been prolonged investigations, situations in which the Attorney General has in a sense been involved through friends of his, whose activities have been the subject of indictment, or may still be the subject of additional indictments. At the very least, these things shouldn't have happened. But then when you have two people, who surely cannot be politically motivated, reach the conclusion that the situation has become so intolerable that they can no longer be associated with the Department, then I think you have crossed a line at which something should happen. LEHRER: Congressman Swindall, how does the resignation of Mr. Burns and Mr. Weld fit into your thesis about the politics and trying to hound Mr. Meese and the Reagan Administration? Rep. SWINDALL: Well, I'm very concerned about the resignations, and I think that they're very predictable. I can understand that it would be very difficult to work in an office that has been beleaguered by the types of accusations and again I think it's important -- these are all accusations. And I think the problem with Mr. Richardson's stand is that he would say that because the accusations result in investigations that that in and of itself makes an individual less capable of serving. The truth of the matter is what he's really saying is that if you're investigated and found clean three times, that somehow makes you less capable of serving than if you're never investigated. I would say it's just the opposite. But I do understand why these individuals resigned. I think that we have created a very undesirable atmosphere, and that is one of the concerns that I have with the new approach that we're seeing, to trying to basically run people out of office through sleaze. LEHRER: Mr. McDowell, what about Senator Specter's point, that the President is obligated to sit down with Mr. Weld, if not with Mr. Burns too, and find out why these men did leave? Mr. McDOWELL: I think that's perfectly legitimate. I said earlier that I think that Mr. Weld and Mr. Burns have an obligation -- LEHRER: But does the President have an obligation to ask them? Mr. McDOWELL: I think it would behoove him to do so. I don't think there would be anything unseemly about that. And if I were in his position, I would want to know what prompted them to do what they've done in so public a way with so little explanation. LEHRER: Yeah, yeah. Senator Specter, what is your reading as to why that has not been done? Why there's a lack of curiosity as to why these two men quit? Sen. SPECTER: Well, I'm not sure that it hasn't been done. I think that there is a lot of activity going on at the White House now, and I would not be surprised if there were some changes in position. LEHRER: You think that -- Oh -- I think I heard what you just told me -- that you think that maybe the President, or the people at the White House, may be soon talking to Mr. Weld and Mr. Burns? Sen. SPECTER: Well, I think so. I know that there's a lot of concern. We've talked about what Senator Thurmond has expressed publicly. I know there's a lot of concern at the White House. And these matters have a way of percolating, and hopeful that something will be done to find out what the facts are. I'm not prepared to see Ed Meese dismissed on the appearance of impropriety. There are a lot situations where we talk about appearance of impropriety. But I'm not prepared to deal with that in the political context. I want to know what Weld said. Weld has reviewed the case. If Weld thinks that an indictment is appropriate here, that's very significant. I would then ask Weld what are the factual matters that you base that conclusion on? And if that holds up, then Weld's conclusion as to an indictment would be really tantamount or equivalent to independent counsel's conclusion as to an indictment. And then I think the President has to face the question as to what he would do, what President Reagan would do if the independent counsel were to indict. And that's the President's call. LEHRER: Yeah. Congressman Swindall, what do you think of that scenario? Rep. SWINDALL: I totally disagree with it, because if that were the case, we really would in effect say that a special prosecutor means nothing, that a subordinate of an individual who is the subject matter of a special prosecutor determines on his own that that individual whom he has looked at the evidence upon ought to be indicted, that that somehow supersedes the special prosecutor. I would dare say that -- Sen. SPECTER: May I come back in on that? LEHRER: Yes, sure. Sen. SPECTER: The reason that I say what I did is this: You bring in independent counsel, special prosecutor, because you don't want to settle for what William Weld is going to do, because he's a subordinate of the President. And he may exonerate a subordinate of the President and of the Attorney General. And he may exonerate where he shouldn't. But I do not think that it applies equally that he's going to indict if he shouldn't. But I wouldn't accept Weld's conclusions. I would say look behind that to the facts and see if Weld's conclusions based on fact warrants indictment. Sen. LEAHY: And the fact of the matter is that the President has an obligation to do precisely what Senator Specter has said. After all, the President is charged in the Constitution with enforcing the laws. LEHRER: Gentlemen, we have to leave it there. I was going to ask Gary McDowell if he thought -- you know Attorney General Meese better than anybody else here, whether you think he really in fact will go. Yes or no? Mr. McDOWELL: I think he'll stay. LEHRER: No matter what? Mr. McDOWELL: I hope. LEHRER: All right. Well, I wasn't going to ask you what your hope was, but just what you thought was going to happen. Gentlemen, thank you all five for being with us tonight. Toni Morrison MacNEIL: Next tonight, the winner of one of the 1988 Pulitzer Prizes. She is Toni Morrison. And in a conversation broadcast last September, Charlayne Hunter Gault discussed the novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction today. It is called Beloved. CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Beloved is the story of a runaway slave, Sethe, who tries to kill her children rather than see them return to slavery. She succeeds in killing only one, a daughter named Beloved. The story unfolds around the return of Beloved's angry ghost. She moves into the house with her mother and sister, Denver. Here Morrison reads from a passage that illuminates Denver's view of the murder and Sethe's need to make Beloved's ghost understand it. TONI MORRISON: Sethe was trying to make up for the handsaw. Beloved was making her pay for it. But there would never be an end to that. In seeing her mother diminished, shamed and infuriated her. Yet she knew Sethe's greatest fear was the same one Denver had in the beginning -- that Beloved might leave, that before Sethe could make her understand what it meant, what it took, to drag the teeth of that saw under the little chin, to feel the baby blood pump like oil in her hands, to hold her face so her head would stay on, to squeeze her so she could absorb still the death spasms that shot through that adored body, plump and sweet with life, Beloved might leave, leave before Sethe could make her realize that worse than that, far worse, was what Baby Selts died of, what Ella knew, what Stamps saw, and what made Paul D. tremble, that anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came in your mind, not just work, kill or maim you, but dirty you, dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore, dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. And though she and the others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best thing she was was her children. Whites might dirty her alright, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing, the part of her that was clean.

HUNTER-GAULT: Toni Morrison, what inspired this theme? Ms. MORRISON: I read an article in a 19th century newspaper about a woman whose name was Margaret Carnon, who had indeed killed a child, her children. She was a fugitive slave and rather than have them go back she decided to take them all into a place of oblivion. And it was an article that stayed with me for a long, long time. It seemed to have in it an extraordinary idea that was worthy of a novel -- which was this compulsion to nurture, this ferocity that a woman has to be responsible for her children, and at the same time the kind of tensions that exist in trying to be a separate, complete individual. HUNTER-GAULT: You said that she had no right to do it, but I would have done the same thing. I mean -- Ms. MORRISON: It was the right thing to do, but she had no right to do it. I think I felt -- the claims -- you see, those women were not parents. They -- people insisted that they have children, but they could not be mothers, so they had nothing to say about the future of the children, where they went. They could make no decisions. They frequently couldn't even name them. So that they were denied humanity in a number of ways. But they were denied that role, which is -- early -- it has nothing to do with history, it's what women do. And so she claimed something she had no right to claim, which was the property, her children, and claimed it so finally that she decided she could not only dictate their lives, but end them. And when one knows what the life -- what their future would be, her decision is not that difficult to understand. HUNTER-GAULT: You've talked about previous accounts of slavery being simplistic and not probing the interior beings of the characters. Is this -- how difficult was it for you to probe the interior being of characters, albeit black, still from a long, long time ago? Ms. MORRISON: Well, my disappointment in some of the accounts was based on the fact that this is so large, you see. And then the big problem is slavery is so intricate, so immense and so long, and so unprecedented, that you can let slavery be the story, the plot. And we know what that story is. And it is predictable. And then you do the worst thing, which is you -- the center of it becomes the institution and not the people. So to focus on the characters and their interior lives, it's like putting the authority back into the hands of the slave, rather than the slaveholder. HUNTER-GAULT: What is the rationale for the ghost? Ms. MORRISON: First of all, I really wanted her past, her memories, her haunting memories, not to be abstract. I wanted her to actually sit down at the table with the things she's been trying to avoid and explain away -- which is this past, this terrible thing that happened, to confront it, as a way of saying that's what the past is, it's a living thing, it's this relationship between ourselves and our personal history and our racial history, and our national history, that sometimes gets made sort of distant. But if you make it into a person, then it's an inescapable confrontation. The other was it was part of the milieu of black people to think in terms of a very intimate relationship between the living and the dead. They didn't have that sort of modern -- dismiss them, they didn't dismiss those things. HUNTER-GAULT: This book, Beloved, has received almost no critical reviews, just total acclaim. But one of the things the critics have said both about this book and the character of Sethe and other works of yours is that you draw characters that are larger than life. Does that disturb you, or is that even a criticism as far as you're concerned? Ms. MORRISON: It used to disturb me, but I realize that what they are saying is that life is small. My characters are not bigger than life. They are in fact as big as life, and life is really very big. We tend to cut it down these days smaller and smaller and smaller, to make it fit I don't know what, a headline or a room. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think that modern readers have a diminished view of life? Ms. MORRISON: The readers don't, but the writers are making it smaller and smaller. HUNTER-GAULT: Why? Television? Ms. MORRISON: Maybe so. We've been cut down to screen size, and to show articles dwelling in the life of a complicated person over a complicated period in fiction is not in vogue. It's shorter, it's smaller, it's narrower geography. One could do it to history and biography, but not in contemporary life. HUNTER-GAULT: What happens as a Toni Morrison who has been responsible for introducing so many new voices into American fiction, (unintelligible). As you move farther and farther away from your editing responsibility because of the success of your own publishing, who fills that void? And what does that do -- how does that make you feel? I mean, in a way, you're abandoning your children -- Ms. MORRISON: It's true, I am abandoning them as an editor, but I am convinced that the more I am well known, the better known I am, the easier it is for other writers to come along. If I till that soil myself, in publicity, traveling around Europe, selling books, lecturing, what have you, then all of the younger people who won't have to break down the same doors, they'll be open. They will write infinitely better than I do. They will write of all sorts of things, no one writer can ever touch. They will be stronger, and they will be delicious to read. But part of that availability and accessibility is because six or seven black women writers, among whom I am one, have already been there and tilled the soil. Rite of Spring LEHRER: Finally tonight, some words about baseball as it prepares to open its 112th Major League season this Monday. They come from Roger Angel, who writes about baseball for the New Yorker Magazine. He spent some time in Arizona during the final days of spring training.

ROGER ANGEL: Each year in March, I journey to Arizona and then to Florida, or vice versa, to watch a sampling of the current and future Major League baseball players do their morning stretching exercises on dew dappled lawns, and then play a few innings of morning B squad ball, and an afternoon exhibition game. Each year, this excursion brings me such freshness of pleasure that I must find new excuses within myself to justify such dulcet bystanding. Duty, for instance. I'm there at the camp as a reporter, to be sure, having been dispatched sunward to search out the news and the special sense of the coming season. It is my secret Calvinist fear that baseball will run out on me someday. And I'll find nothing fresh at the morning camps, despite my notes and numberings. Or go newsless on some sun filled afternoon, and so at last lose this sweet franchise. Baseball saves me every time. Not the news of the press so much as its elegant and arduous complexity, its layered substrata of nuance and lesson and accumulated experience, which are the true substance of these sleepy, over familiar practice rituals. Almost everything in baseball looks easy and evident. But really learning the game can take a lifetime, even if you keep notes. Consider the catcher. Bulky, thought burdened, unclean, he retrieves his helmet and mask from the ground, where he has flung them moments ago in mid crisis, and moves slowly again to his workplace. He pulls on the mask and firms it with a soldierly downward tug. Armored, he sinks into his squat, punches his mitt and becomes wary, balanced and ominous. His bare right hand rests casually on his thigh while he regards through the port (unintelligible) the field and deployed fielders and the state of the world. The hand dips between his thighs, semaphoring a plan. And all of us, players and umpires, and we in the stands, lean imperceptibly closer, zoom lensing to a focus as the pitcher begins his motion and the catcher half rises and puts up his thick little target, tensing himself to deal with whatever comes next, to end what he has begun. These motions, or most of them anyway, are repeated 140 or 150 times by each of the catchers in the course of a single game. And are the most familiar and least noticed gestures in the myriad patterns of baseball. Our eyes and our full attention rest upon a moment, the moment when he must stand alone. Upright and unmoving on a third base side of home, and prepared to deal simultaneously with the urgently flung or relayed incoming peg and the oncoming baserunner. To handle the one with delicate precision, and then at once the other violently and stubbornly at whatever risk to himself. Sometimes three or four games go by without his ever coming up, or coming to completion. The whole thing a street accident, the slide and the catch, the crash and the tag, and the flying bodies with the peering off, holding back his signal until he determines that the ball has been held or knocked loose there in the dust. A couple of years ago I began to wonder why it was that pitchers taken as a group seem to be so much livelier and more garrulous than hitters. I considered the possibility of some obscure psychological linking. And the more obvious occupational discrepancies. Pitchers have a lot more spare time than other players. But then it came to me that a pitcher is the only man in baseball who could properly look on the ball as being his instrument, his accomplice. He is the only player who's granted the privilege of making offensive plans. And once the game begins, he isin concert with his catcher, the only man in the field who knows what's meant to happen next. Everything in baseball begins with a pitch. And every other part of the game. Hitting, fielding, throwing, is reflexive and defensive. The batter tapping the dirt off his spikes and now stepping into the box looks sour and glum. And who can blame him? For the ball has somehow been granted and (unintelligible) to the wrong people. It is already an object of suspicion and hatred. And the reflex that allows him occasionally to deflect that tiny, onrushing battle to his bat is such a miraculous response of eye and body as to remain virtually inexplicable, even to him. At the Major League level, baseball skills such as hitting, pitching and catching, are astronomically beyond the abilities of us in the stands. And it is somehow good news that we can never really or fully understand how the great players are made either. No matter how hard we try. If we knew it all, the game would seem less, rather than more. Recap MacNEIL: Once again, the main stories of the day. The FBI announced the biggest drug arrest in history. Two hundred thirty three warrants were issued in the U. S. and Italy to break a ring allegedly importing and distributing drugs through pizza parlors. As controversy grew around Edwin Meese's continued tenure as Attorney General, Senator Arlen Specter told the NewsHour he believes the White House will ask William Weld to explain why he quit his senior Justice Department post. The new aid package for the Nicaraguan contras passed the Senate. Good night, Jim. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.