The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, the leader of the West German Parliament resigned after saying Hitler brought glorious times to Germany, Israeli authorities prepared for violence following an expected PLO declaration of a Palestinian state and President Reagan laid a wreath and made two speeches to mark Veteran's Day. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary, we start with the Kristallnacht controversy in West Germany, we discuss modern German feelings about the Nazi past with a German Editor, Thomas Kielinger; Foundation Executive Jurgen Wickert; and the chairman of America's Kristallnacht observance, Ronald Lauder. Next, will New York's experiment with free needles for addicts reduce the spread of AIDS or increase drug use? New York City Health Commissioner Stephen Joseph debates the Rev. Reginald Williams, who directs a Harlem drug rehabilitation center. Then Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks with a woman once an addict, now a rehabilitation worker. We close with excerpts from today's Veteran's Day speech by President Reagan.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The President of the West German Parliament quit today because of a speech. It was a nationally televised speech he made yesterday to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Crystal Night, a night of Nazi rampage and murder against the Jews. The official, Philipp Jenninger, said there were glorious times under what he called "Hitler's triumphal procession" before the war and the holocaust. He also made remarks that were interpreted as being disparaging of Jews. Jenninger in resigning today saidhe had been misunderstood. He said he was shocked at the reaction and expressed deep sorrow for any offense his remarks may have caused. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Israel mobilized militarily and diplomatically today in the expectation that Palestinians will proclaim a Palestinian independent state this weekend. We have a report from Jerusalem by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

LOUISE BATES: Hundreds of troops poured into Jerusalem's old city to keep the peace in the run up to the Palestinians' impending announcement of a separate state. The movement of Palestinians have been severely curtailed. Rigorous searches are the norm at the many check points set up to seal them inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Only Jewish settlers are allowed to travel freely. The army's closed the entire Gaza Strip, and its 650,000 Arab residents are under curfew. The Palestine National Council meeting in Algeria is expected to proclaim a separate Palestinian state, although to do so, it must acknowledge Israel as a nation. Some Palestinians are preparing to celebrate the ruling; others plan to protest. Some say that it'll damage the 11 month uprising against Israeli rule. Either way, the government has promised to crush any violent outbursts.

MR. MacNeil: At the same time, Jerusalem launched a diplomatic offensive to keep PLO Chief Yasser Arafat from presenting the independent state plan to the United Nations. Prime Minister Shamir, himself, asked U.S. Amb. Thomas Pickering not to grant Arafat a visa, and the plea was reinforced by Israeli diplomats in messages to the State Department.

MR. LEHRER: Blacks will again be forbidden to use many parks, swimming pools, and municipal offices in South Africa. An official of the conservative party said today such segregation will be instituted in the many towns where it controls local government. That includes 90 such localities alone in the rural and mining areas of the Transba, the country's largest province. The official said such action was the party's manifesto as endorsed in recent elections. He said, "whites only" signs will be used to mar the forbidden areas. Yesterday, the U.S. State Department in Washington issued a statement urging the federal government of South Africa to resist such efforts to turn back the clock.

MR. MacNeil: The Reagan administration has launched another attempt to get the Supreme Court to overturn its Roe versus Wade decision making abortion legal. Solicitor General Charles Fried filed a brief yesterday with the high court, saying that an upcoming Missouri case was an appropriate opportunity for the Justices to review the 1973 decision. The administration tried to get it reversed in June 1986, but by 5 to 4, the Justices upheld the concept that state laws making abortion illegal are unconstitutional. Pro choice groups said the timing right after the election was political, but the Justice Department said the timing was dictated by the length of internal discussions. The administration has also moved to lift the ban on home work in the garment industry, fulfilling a campaign promise Ronald Reagan made in 1980. The bans were imposed 47 years ago to stop exploitation of immigrant and child laborers. New labor regulations published yesterday would allow home work for the first time since the 1940's in trades making gloves, embroideries, buttons and buckles, handkerchiefs and some jewelry. The Labor Department said it would assure compliance with federal labor standards, but unions plan to challenge the ruling in court.

MR. LEHRER: President Reagan today marked his last Veteran's Day as President. He laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and he spoke to a large crowd at the cemetery's public amphitheater. Then he went on to the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial for another ceremony and speech. We will have an extended excerpt from that speech at the close of the program tonight.

MR. MacNeil: Also coming up on the Newshour, German feelings today about the Nazi past, free needles for addicts, and a talk with a former drug queen. FOCUS - NIGHT TO REMEMBER

MR. LEHRER: Our lead story tonight is about an anniversary remembrance gone sour. The anniversary was the fiftieth of Crystal Night, the night the Nazis made their first major attack on the Jews in Germany and Austria. The President of the West German Parliament spoke of Crystal Night yesterday from the Parliament on national television. Reaction to what he said about Hitler's regime forced him to resign today. We will discuss the resignation and what it says and does not say about Germany and Austria fifty years later following this report on what happened yesterday by Nick Glass of Independent Television News.

NICK GLASS: Heinz Galinsky, a survivor of Auschwitz and Chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany arriving at the Bundestag yesterday. He'd been invited to attend the special session but not to speak, although some opposition MP's had wanted him to. The special session was to commemorate Kristallnacht, that night in November 1938, when the Nazis showed them to be murderously anti-semitic. In an overnight terror, 91 Jews were murdered and hundreds injured. Kristallnacht is regarded as the harbinger of the holocaust. There was only one speaker in the Bundestag yesterday, Herr Philipp Jenninger. This was the speech that would cost him his job as Bundestag President. In 1938, he would have been six years old. In his speech, he tried to imagine what adult Germans were thinking then.

PHILIPP JENNINGER, Bundestag President: Perhaps, there was less individual freedom, but the people were better off, the Reich was undoubtedly once again greater and more powerful than ever before. Isn't that why the leaders of Great Britain, France and Italy came to see Hitler in Munich? As far as they Jews were concerned, hadn't they in the past as was suggested then, assumed a role beyond their station? Wasn't it about time they were curbed? Hadn't they perhaps deserved to be put in their place? Above all, didn't Nazi propaganda, wild exaggerations apart, correspondent essentially with one's own suspicions and convictions? When things really deteriorated, as in November 1983, people could always turn a blind eye, say to themselves it's none of our business, look away if it repels you. It's not our problem. Ladies and Gentlemen, anti-semitism existed in Germany and in many other countries long before Hitler. Hitler's so-called perspective of the world wasn't unprecedented. This kind of thinking existed long before him.

MR. GLASS: Herr Galinsky listened to the speech from the public gallery. He refused to comment afterwards. Silence, he said, was more eloquent. Another concentration camp survivor, Ija Eri, an actress, couldn't bring herself to look at the speaker and others seemed to feel the same. Some 50 MP's staged a walkout, most of them from the opposition Social Democrat and Green Parties. There was both astonishment and obvious anger. One MP accused the speaker of delivering his speech as if the events of 1938 were some child's fairytale. Others were shocked and far less charitable, including this callfor Herr Jenninger's resignation. The man, himself, seemed stunned by his reception. There was a polite shake of hands with Herr Galinsky but he was already a worried man. His resignation was announced in the Bundestag this morning. In a statement, Herr Jenninger said he was deeply shocked and depressed by the reaction to his speech. He said many listeners had misunderstood him.

MR. LEHRER: Now to the perspectives of two West Germans and a former U.S. Ambassador to Austria. Thomas Kielinger is Editor in Chief of Rheinischer Merkur, a West German weekly news magazine. Jurgen Wickert is the American representative of the Naumann Foundation, a political development organization affiliated with West Germany's free Democratic Party, and Ronald Lauder, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Austria from 1986 to this year, he now heads the U.S. Crystal Night Remembrance Week Committee. Mr. Kielinger and Mr. Wickert to you first, as West Germans, how do you feel about what Mr. Jenninger said?

THOMAS KIELINGER, Rheinischer Merkur Magazine: Absolutely outraged and in a state of shock because I have no explanation for it. The reason I have no explanation is it is not the Germany that I know. The speech may have meant well and may have tried to cast an historical analysis, but it was to my mind totally lacking in sensitivity. It wasn't really historical analysis either, because it left out the biggest, biggest historical fact of them all, that when you refer to the early years of Hitler's regime, the Germans paid an enormous price to enter into that part of that history and the price they paid was the absolute removal of human rights in my country. And for a man to look back on such an occasion and not mention this incredible price we paid at the outset and the even worse price that we paid after '38, to me lacks a sensitivity which I find appalling, but at the same time totally unrepresentative from my country and my generation.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Wickert, your reaction.

JURGEN WICKERT, Naumann Foundation: I agree in great part with what Mr. Kielinger has said, but I think we have to go a little bit deeper or further. The fact that this can happen in the Federal Republic of Germany, 43 years ago from the end of the Nazi time, is something which we all should very deeply think about, and I think the question how can this happen can only be answered by the fact that a deep and sorrow discussion in the past decades has not taken, has not been realized in my country, and if people don't think enough, they also don't find the words for what they want to express --

MR. LEHRER: What is Mr. Jenninger guilty of? What did he do? Is it what he said? Is it what he did not say? Is it the occasion which he chose to say it? What exactly would you say, would you lay at his feet as what he did that was so bad, Mr. Wickert?

MR. WICKERT: I think it's not so much a question of guilt. I mean, Mr. Jenninger certainly is a man of honor and he, I'm sure, tried his best. But the question is, is that it is not a personal situation in which a President of the Bundestag is. He represents our Parliament, if we cannot leave it to him and to his judgment what is right and what is wrong.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kielinger, what Mr. Jenninger says he was trying to do, and he admits now very unsuccessfully, he was trying to describe the situation in Germany at the time of Crystal Night, 1938, and the things that led up to Hitler. I would ask you the same question. I'll repeat it, what I just said. Is it what he said, when he said it, what did he do that was so outrageous?

MR.KIELINGER: I think the outrageous thing about it is that you cannot talk about that period in my country's history without understanding the horrific results of that period in time, and as you look back on it, to try to be so cold blooded and simply resuscitate the feeling of the time, as if nothing had happened since '38 and if the denial and the abolition of human rights hadn't occurred five years before, I think totally misses the point of history and histography. He tried to be some kind of voice from the past, as it were, and simply reinstall the feeling of that era, but I don't think you can do that as you look back from 40 years and 50 years later. I think you have to give the historical context. You cannot I think talk about that period in our history with this cold blooded sort of analytical resuscitation of a spirit of an era not giving it the contextual results and what went on before and after. I think this was the basic fault here that I found.

MR. LEHRER: Amb. Lauder, what was your reaction to what Mr. Jenninger said as a American, but an American with a special interest in Austria and that part of the world?

RONALD LAUDER, Former Ambassador to Austria: This was a very insensitive speech made doubly insensitive because it happened on the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, but I don't agree with the two other speakers. He did understand what he was saying. He understood very much. All Germans have heard about what happened that night. That speech just lacks sensitivity. One of the things we learned from Kristallnacht is we must take action. I think the West German Government did take action and for that, they should be commended.

MR. LEHRER: You mean the fact that he quit so quickly?

MR. LAUDER: That's correct.

MR. LEHRER: That contrasts with Austria. The Austrian Government had no service at all commemorating this, did they not?

MR. LAUDER: That's correct. The one thing the Austrian Government did is it had a minute of silence, but the statement the Austrian Government made the day before is that, I think I'm quoting, they cannot commemorate every event of 1938, but this was not any event.

MR. LEHRER: What is your reading, sir? You say he knew what he was doing, knew exactly what he was doing. What is in the atmosphere that caused him to do that, that he would think that this was an all right thing to do?

MR. LAUDER: I think he was trying to educate people but he was talking too much about Hitler's misguided achievements. He should have been talking about the evils of Nazism.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Mr. Wickert, that it was really a matter of emphasis, no?

MR. WICKERT: Well, I would say that we should see what occasion it was. It was not a lesson on German history, but it was a, "the" commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the end of the German Jews, and I think the President of the Bundestag should have shown the grief of our country and of our people for what has happened and not tried to elaborate on why something like this started.

MR. LEHRER: All right, let's pick up on the point with all three of you, the point that you made earlier, that one of the problems here is that you don't believe, at least, your country has yet come to grips with its history on this matter. Explain that. In what way has it not?

MR. WICKERT: It's not long ago that we had Bitburg and that as an indicator.

MR. LEHRER: Bitburg is a cemetery in Germany where President Reagan went to commemorate the war dead, including some former members of the SS, right?

MR. WICKERT: Right, and the controversy that was started by that visit, and we had the famous historical strife, the quarrel of the German historians whether this is just one example of some bad times in history which every country sometimes has, or whether it was a really a singular and outrageous time, the Nazi time and the holocaust. And I think it's significant that we have these things. Whenever you scratch a little bit of the ice, you're already through and it is just incredible what comes out of that very tiny, thin layer of ice.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kielinger.

MR. KIELINGER: I would give a slightly different interpretation and beg to somewhat disagree here. What shocked me particularly about this speech is, as I said before, I found it so unrepresentative. I do feel that even the young generation now, the further we move them away from their time, re very aware of their past and confronted as best they can. While you did have this historian's debate, I think it has taught us a great lesson and it has deepened our sense of our involvement in the course of this century, and the guilt and the horrors and the atrocities. And this speech completely paid no tribute to this educative process that I see at work in Germany. I would be rather more optimistic than you, Mr. Wickert, in the analysis of how deeply we have come to grips with our own past, far more confident, in fact. I've now returned from the United States and have lived in my country again for three years, and I'm confident that the people around me are really absorbing the lesson of what happened.

MR. LEHRER: What is the lesson they are absorbing?

MR. KIELINGER: They are absorbing the lesson that when you talk about this period, there's more to the picture that you see before you and simply describing some of the reasons the Germans felt Hitler was an okay man, a great man, lionized by foreign statements and so forth. You cannot insensitively describe the triumphalism that some Germans may have experienced, without at the same time expressing shock at the very rape that your own country experienced in 1933, and the even more horrific crimes that were committed after. I stressed the term context in my original statement, and I will come back to it. This was a speech out of context. You said quite rightly it was to commemorate Kristallnacht. I didn't hear too much of that. I heard a sort of explanation which sounded awfully like an exculpation. I'm sure the gentleman didn't mean that. Mr. Jenninger, I know him personally, is a very forthright and honorable man. But I think the emphasis or lack of the context is something that I deeply resented.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador, how would you contrast the situation in Austria on this question of coming to grips with the past and the situation in West Germany?

MR. LAUDER: The Austrian Government still lives under the belief that they were the first victim. They were not the first victim, they were an accomplice, and until this lie is put forth and rectified, it's impossible for the Austrian Government and the Austrian people to accept what happened during World War II. They must change this lie. They must understand that although they may have been a victim, they were, in fact, an accomplice also.

MR. LEHRER: Do they have serious conversations, are there serious conversations among the Austrians, at least that you were aware of when you were there, about these kinds of issues?

MR. LAUDER: About 24 hours a day they discuss it. It's a issue that because of Kurt Waldheim is discussed all the time in Austria, but there is always the question were they the first victim or were they an accomplice.

MR. LEHRER: If this speech had been made in Austria, would there have been a similar reaction?

MR. LAUDER: I think if this speech had been made in Austria, there would have been a similar reaction and I think the Austrian Government would have acted the same way as the West German Government did.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Wickert, what is your feeling about Mr. Kielinger's point about coming to grips with the lessons? How would you describe the lessons and how your people, the people that you know at least, feel these lessons are being handled?

MR. WICKERT: Well, first I want to say that this was not an action by the German Government. I mean, Mr. Jenninger stepped down on his own decision. He was not asked or forced, so it was, I don't see anywhere where the government was involved in this question.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah, but he was a leader of the government, right? Is that what you meant, Mr. Ambassador?

MR. LAUDER: Yes, I did.

MR. LEHRER: That as a government figure he acted, even if he acted on his own.

MR. LAUDER: He acted on his own, but I believe the West German Government asked him or requested that he react in some way and perhaps in resignation.

MR. LEHRER: He's a member, of course, of the same party of Chancellor Kohl. And are you saying that you think Chancellor Kohl was involved in the decision to resign?

MR. LAUDER: I don't know the answer to that.

MR. LEHRER: Do either one of you all know?

MR. KIELINGER: I think most definitely. Don't let's forget the Chancellor is about to come to the United States.

MR. LEHRER: Next week.

MR. KIELINGER: Next week, Monday and Tuesday, and holding very important meetings with Jewish leaders on Monday, and this statement, the speech in Parliament, came at a most unfortunate moment. I think it was absolutely imperative for the Chancellor for him to receive, to be received well enough, that something like this as traumatic as stepping down from an important office occurred. Nothing less than that, I'm afraid, would have done this case. And in our country, politicians don't resign easily, as you know.

MR. WICKERT: More and more.

MR. KIELINGER: And the fact that he did tells you a great deal about his realization, belated though it was, just what kind of opposition he would face.

MR. LEHRER: I want to get back to the lesson question in a minute. But let me pick up on -- you say you know Jenninger, all right, is that right?

MR. KIELINGER: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Know him well?

MR. KIELINGER: Oh, yes.

MR. LEHRER: Do you know Jenninger?

MR. WICKERT: I met him here on the proclamation of the German American Day on the 6th of October, last year.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador, do you know Mr. Jenninger?

MR. LAUDER: No, I do not know him.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, let me ask the two of you. What is your own analysis? What does your head and your gut tell you that happened in this case? What caused him to do this?

MR. KIELINGER: You have to remember that 3 1/2 years ago the President of our Republic, Mr. Van Weitziger, gave a universally acclaimed speech that tried to handle the past in a most masterful manner, showing all the various sensitivities that Mr. Jenninger yesterday lacked. And I have a hunch on that momentous occasion, the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, he tried a little bit of his own historical analysis. I don't know if he wanted to go one better than the President three years ago, but I'm sure he tried to give another one of those speeches that people will remember, and he was so intimately involved himself with the text that he didn't even show it to anyone else, other than his closest speechwriters and advisers, and no one outside his office knew about the text beforehand. And this is something else that I deplore here, that on an occasion like this, you not clarify your own draft and your text of your speech. This is what the President did three years ago, and it was not done in this case.

MR. LEHRER: So let's go back to the lesson then, Mr. Wickert. What lesson is there if Mr. Jenninger knew, he probably wouldn't have made the speech the way he did?

MR. WICKERT: That is certainly right, yes, but I think there are several lessons we can draw. One is that our democracy is in place. If this would have happened 50 years ago, this gentleman would be applauded. Today he has to step down and even though he does this in his own will, he does it within the shortest possible time. That is very good and it's a positive sign. On the other hand, the lesson we have to learn is that it is not enough to have one President like Mr. Van Weitziger, who is able to address for an entire country, in the proper words, in dignified words, our grief about what had happened in the past. It's not enough. There should be more people to be able to do this.

MR. LEHRER: What is it that is not being expressed by the ordinary people of West Germany?

MR. WICKERT: It has no grief, and as far as I know, the word "grief" or trauer in German hasn't been in the text at all.

MR. LEHRER: Grief.

MR. KIELINGER: Not in the text of the speech, but it is in the population.

MR. LEHRER: That's what I meant, in the population.

MR. WICKERT: The population, yes, but not in the speech. So it, the speech really was out of the population's --

MR. KIELINGER: Out of the mainstream.

MR. WICKERT: -- the mainstream of the population's grief about that time. The other lesson is I think that we have to continue our young people, our educators first and our young people and inclusive the older people, obviously, of what had happened and what has to be done in the future to be able to live in a strong democracy. Of course, it will never be repeated, and it's not a question of anti-semitism in Germany, but it's a question of whether somebody can stand up and say what he wants and regardless of his position, of the dignity of the occasion, of the German Parliament, and I think we have to see and to be more careful and watchful in the future where else could the rights of minorities be in danger also in our country.

MR. LEHRER: What do you see the lesson of this event being, Mr. Ambassador?

MR. LAUDER: I see the lesson is one of speaking out. I'd like to add one thing, that Heinz Galinsky, who we saw before, who's the head of the Jewish community and very articulate on these questions, asked to speak that day and he was turned down. He was turned down so that Mr. Jenninger could speak. I feel that the lesson we have to learn is we have to speak out. Kristallnacht teaches us that we must act. Anti-semitism is a light sleeper. It wakes up easily. It's like a cancer. We have to stop it the minute it happens, and I think the West German Government in this case acted correctly.

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you all three very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour, will free needles reduce AIDS or promote drug use, thoughts of a reformed drug queen, and a Veteran's Day remembrance. FOCUS - AIDS AND NEEDLES

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight a controversial experiment to stop the spread of AIDS. This week, New York City began exchanging new needles for old ones from drug addicts to learn if such a program can reduce the spread of AIDS. Nationwide there are now 77,994 cases of AIDS reported, with nearly 1/4 of the cases reported among I.V. drug addicts. Many health experts believe that the AIDS epidemic will spread mainly through this group in the future. The small scale New York program is the first such government- conducted experiment in the United States. The man behind it is Dr. Stephen Joseph, New York City Health Commissioner. He joins us from public station WGBH in Boston. Also with us is a man who strongly disagrees with the program. The Rev. Reginald Williams is Program Director of Addicts Rehabilitation Center, a residential treatment center in East Harlem, and he's also the interim pastor of the Charity Baptist Church in the South Bronx. Dr. Joseph, first to you. What, briefly, is the goal of the program? What do you hope to achieve?

DR. STEPHEN JOSEPH, Health Commissioner, N.Y.C.: Well, you very correctly said, Robin, this is a small experimental pilot program, and our attempt is to see if a program such as this can be effective, first of all, in getting larger numbers of addicts on into treatment and second of all, whether it can be effective in reducing needle sharing and hopefully, reducing the transmission of the AIDS virus from addict to addict and on to their sex partners and unborn children.

MR. MacNeil: Now, tell us specifically how it works. You want and you had up to about 10 of them starting this week, you want addicts to come in each day, give you a needle they have used, and get a clean one and go away and come back the next day.

DR. JOSEPH: Well, the participants in the program are not coming to us off the street. These are people who have gone to an established treatment program, a licensed treatment program, and been turned away because the waiting lists are so long. They're told there's no room in the inn and we can't take you into treatment. Those people can be referred to us, and when they come to us in addition to a medical checkup and discussion about informed consent, the basis of the program is counseling about stopping drug use, about safer drug behavior if you must use drugs, about safer sex behavior, and an exchange of dirty injection equipment for clean injection equipment on a continuing basis, and most important of all, we continually try to get that person on into drug treatment. In fact, of the people that we've seen in our first three days of operation this week, we've already gotten several on into drug treatment, which is the most important bottom line.

MR. MacNeil: You face enormous overwhelming, even community resistance here in New York to this idea. You wanted to have a number of centers where this could, these needles could be given out. You've been reduced to one in downtown Manhattan. Are these people who live very disordered lives going to suggest themselves to the discipline of coming once a day all the way down, traveling all the way to lower Manhattan to get these needles?

DR. JOSEPH: Well, of course, that's what we're trying to find out. So far this debate has been marked by assumptions on all sides, including mine. The importance of doing this is to find out what the data really shows us. You know, no one comes easily to this, Robin, but the numbers tell us we have over 200,000 people in New York City who shoot I.V. drugs, over 100,000 of them are already infected with the AIDS virus, and we only have 35,000 people in treatment. Now even if you tripled drug abuse treatment in New York City, which we must do, you would still have 100,000 I.V. drug users outside of treatment. And so we've got to look at anything that might help us, anything that might be useful to do, and this small, carefully controlled experiment is to tell us whether this might be of help or not.

MR. MacNeil: Rev. Williams why are you so opposed to this plan?

REV. REGINALD WILLIAMS, Addicts Rehabilitation Center: Well, first of all, he, the Commissioner mentioned that as an experiment and we've been guinea pigs to experiments in the past, the black community, minority community were subjected to that with the syphilis tests down in Alabama, back in the early 40's and 50's. The methadone came with the same kind of promises. He's talking about 240,000 drug addicts in New York City, and yet, this program that he's proposing is only for 400 total, which will not lead any statistical validity to any of his findings, less than 1 percent. The money and the energy that has been spent for the last two years in terms of trying to provide free needles and the resources that have gone into that would be better served by doing what the addict has asked for in the first place. They've gone to a center, they've asked for help, and while you saying, no, there's no room, rather than giving out free needles to help them perpetuate their death, we should be providing more treatment beds.

MR. MacNeil: What is wrong with giving out the free needles? What is wrong with that in itself?

REV. WILLIAMS: Well, giving out free needles would be paramount to giving an arsonist matches and telling them not to strike them, or giving out a gun to a young child and saying, go get your own ammunition. These people have a problem, they're fighting. They've come to a realization that they cannot do it alone. They go seeking help, and here we have our government, who has crossed over the threshold of education into promotion. It's one thing to educate people to the dangers of drug abuse and say what the AIDS virus is capable of and how it's transmitted. It's something else to promote that death by giving them hypodermic needles which is illegal in the State of New York.

MR. MacNeil: That's a widely held view, Dr. Joseph. How do you justify that and square that in your own conscience, you as a representative of government crossing over that line to become a promoter?

DR. JOSEPH: Well, first I agree with the Reverend that the most important thing for us all is to get substance abuse treatment expanded, but the reality is that as a nation, as a state, and as a community, we have not been able to come to grips with that issue. We have had before the state for 12 months now a proposal to rapidly increase 4,000 additional treatment slots in New York City, and we've not gotten either the authorization or the funds from the state whose responsibility drug treatment in New York City is to do that. And the reality is we're faced at the same time with the crisis of the AIDS epidemic with the 1900 women who've had diagnosed AIDS in New York City, with the 350 children who have had diagnosed AIDS in New York City, 90 percent of them black and Hispanic children, we're faced with these twin crises. And while I agree with the Reverend entirely that our most important bottom line is expanded treatment, we must do everything we can at the same time that will be useful in saving lives, in preventing more misery and death, and we need to find out honestly and by facing it squarely, whether a needle exchange is a useful adjunct to expect --

REV. WILLIAMS: There is a falsehood in that assumption.

MR. MacNeil: What is the false assumption?

REV. WILLIAMS: Well, the Commissioner is erroneous when he says there's a state responsibility to provide treatment for residents of the City of New York. That goes back to an asinine agreement between a former Governor and a Mayor. The City of New York has responsibility to provide treatment for its citizenry and not to just be involved in terms of enforcement.

MR. MacNeil: That's an issue we can't get into here with this time. Let's stick to this thing. The widely held belief in the public too which you expressed, what I don't understand is if a person is already an addict, how does giving him a clean needle promote more drug use?

REV. WILLIAMS: Well, it's just the wrong message. If you've given an addict -- first of all, again, the assumptions - -

MR. MacNeil: You mean it discourages him from stopping?

REV. WILLIAMS: Exactly. We've moved from just saying no to now, here's a needle and I think not only for that person but for our community and our unborn and small children, that's not the message we want to send.

MR. MacNeil: Dr. Joseph, what's your response to that, the message it sends?

DR. JOSEPH: Well, let's look at the first two people who came into our program on Tuesday. They were two men who had been turned away from a treatment center in Brooklyn that morning. They came to us. We were able to refer them to treatment programs that would take them, but not for several days or several weeks in the two cases. And in that interim period between the time they came to us and the time they will go into treatment -- and hopefully, they have a better chance in going into treatment because we have a therapeutic connection with them -- in that interim time what we are doing is making life safer for their sexual partners, their children, the people who otherwise they would share injection equipment with. I said at the beginning, Robin, this is not a decision that anyone has come easily to, but I think that given the pressures upon us by the twin epidemics and drugs, we are duty bound to find to find out everything that we might do that might help. And that is my answer to your previous question in terms of any qualms that I might have, given the charges that have been made.

MR. MacNeil: What about that, Rev. Williams, the idea that they've got -- the city is bound to do something, and -- well, you heard his argument.

REV. WILLIAMS: Well, it seems like we never have the time or the resources to do it right, but we always have time to do it over. And I would suggest to the Commissioner and the city administration that they listen to those persons who have been involved in this fight for a long time, people like Mr. James Allen, who is the Founder/Executive Director of ARC, with 31 year of history, and to say, look, it's not working. If you take the Commissioner of Police in the City of New York, the Special Prosecutor on narcotics, the Congressman Rangel who has a 10 year term and serves as the House Select Committee on Narcotics, everyone, Hilton Clark, city councilmen, are in opposition to this. One of the reasons why it has not been discussed is that the city's program has no insurance and the very first time a person, an addict, OD's from one of the city's needles, the city is going to be bankrupt, and the Commissioner is subject to being a co- conspirator in any legal proceedings that would follow. It just doesn't make any sense. We're walking down the wrong road.

MR. MacNeil: How do you reply to all those people he's just listed who are against this idea?

DR. JOSEPH: Well, I won't take the time, Robin, to giveyou the list of all the people who support the idea, from the Surgeon General to the Bar Association and the Medical Society in New York City, and many of the people with the great experience in substance abuse treatment. I think what we've got to look at is that much of this represents an exact analogue to society wanting to turn its face away from the people who need help in the face of the AIDS epidemic. As society did with homosexuals in the early 1980's, we now want to turn away from the drug addict and from their wives and sex partners and children. That's not going to happen on my watch, Robin. We are going to do everything we can to find out what will work and what we can do. And even if it's not the most important thing, such as vastly expanding treatment, which is a long, hard road, we still are duty bound to find out whether other approaches will work as well. I don't see how as the person responsible for the public health of New York City I could fulfill those responsibilities if I did anything --

MR. MacNeil: I'm sorry to interrupt. We've run out of time on this, but we'll watch the program and see how it works. Dr. Joseph, thank you for joining us. Rev. Williams, thank you for joining us. CONVERSATION

MR. LEHRER: Now to another conversation about drugs. It's with a New York woman named Florence Simmons. She's a former drug user and drug dealer who now works at drug rehabilitation center in New York. Her conversation was with Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: This is Florence Simmons, at home in the decayed and threatening streets of one of New York City's most impoverished black areas. It's on streets like this one that Florence Simmons' life with drugs has come full circle, starting when she was known as "The Queen", a name she earned as one of the best cooks or makers of crack, a new, cheap, and deadly form of cocaine. That was in her heyday as one of the biggest drug dealers in her part of New York until she made the near fatal mistake of sampling her own stash. That eventually led to a one way rollercoaster ride downhill from drug queen to drug addict and a long near fatal stay at the bottom, a brush with death that helped transform her from drug addict to drug fighter.

FLORENCE SIMMONS: [Talking to drug addict at her counseling office] What makes you feel like really this is it this time, why?

DRUG ADDICT: Because all the programs that I've went into --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now Simmons, who is 37 years old, spends most of her days like this, in a small church-sponsored program, People United to Save our Children.

FLORENCE SIMMONS: [Talking to same drug addict] So you had to stay and try it this way. So you're officially in our program.

DRUG ADDICT: Thank you.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Counseling addicts of all ages, holding group prayer meetings, encouraging former addicts to share their stories with active users.

YOUNG BLACK WOMAN: [in group counseling session] I smoked crack from the day I conceived to the day I gave birth. When I gave birth, I was so hooked on crack I was layin' on a stretcher knowing that I had two nickels sittin' on the dresser, and I still wanted to pull that pipe, but I was still in pain. But I thank God today that he done changed my life.

YOUNG BLACK WOMAN: [in group counseling session] I started shootin' heroin at the age of 15; I've smoked crack; I sold my body; I've sold drugs; I've stole. I want to say to all the sisters and brothers that are out there on drugs, the worst thing in the world --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And talking about herself and her story, one woman's way of fighting the scourge that almost killed her.

MS. SIMMONS: [leading group counseling session] Because I was there, I was there when crack first formed the name of crack. Remember that. i was the crack cooker. My habit was over $2,000 a day, a day.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Recently Florence Simmons shares her life experience, starting with what it took to be a successful drug queen.

FLORENCE SIMMONS: Being, being able to run a drug ring, being a woman, being able to handle and deal with the people outside, the drug abusers, and knowing how to talk to the drug pushers to get drugs to them, being brave, what they call outside, not afraid of anything, and knowin' how to handle myself. I had a lot of money, a lot of money, where I can travel -- I never, I didn't know what it was to wear the same clothes twice, anything I thought I wanted.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Was it very dangerous?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: It wasn't dangerous for me because I had body guards and everything, and I wasn't afraid. The money made me, the money was really my shield.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There came a point where you stopped selling drugs and started using drugs. What happened? I mean, how did that happen?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: I wasn't able to sell any more. I started using. What happened as I just eventually started, you know, being around the people that I was around, and looking at them, seeing how they were feeling, I just one day with some of my friends, her brothers were big drug dealers, and I just saw she was already using, so I just started pickin' up and diggin' in my package, and after I gave her some, I started getting high too.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And what happened?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: I liked it and I kept -- I said, wow, this here, it makes you feel good, you know, and so I just kept wanting and kept wanting -- I consumed over $2,000 a day, sometimes more than that, and I didn't have a dime several hours after I had that money, it was all gone. I didn't miss lovin' nobody. I didn't love. Love wasn't in me at all. I just hated -- I had a mean streak of anger in me and for someone to smile, it was like you were cursin' at me. It hurt at me. It was like a knife stab. I didn't like to see nobody happy. I remember I broke up people homes and everything, because I had a habit of going around giving -- if you wasn't on the drug, I would give it to you and you was all right. I would keep giving it to you, then you would have the habit. Then you would need me, because I would have to cook it for you, I would have to buy the drugs for you because if you didn't know the streets, you just couldn't go out there and buy it because you'd get beat. The same way today; you would get beat.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is this how drug dealers function? I mean, this is not just your way of doing things, right?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: Sure. If they had any love, how do you think that they can take from their children, not feed 'em, leave their children and forget? A day -- to a person who's using drugs, a week is like a day. That's how somebody can go to the store and they can go for a week and come back home and don't realize why somebody's fussin' at 'em because they feel like it's just been some hours. See, that's -- I mean, when you're high off of that drug, you can hear a spider walkin'. That's how people can accidentally kill someone because you hallucinate and you have no friends. Now everybody can get down and say let's get down and let's get a quarter or a half a quarter or something. Everybody's so happy, they're chippin' in together and they're smokin'. As soon as the drugs go, everybody is suspicious of one another and usually a fight breaks out.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What happened to you that made you give up your habit and your attitude about drugs?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: I almost lost my life twice. It had to be the grace of God. I remember that I was going to jump out the window because I was sittin' there, lookin' at birds flyin', and the sun was so bright, and I remember somethin' sayin' you can fly just like those birds. That's why I can understand how somebody can jump out of a window and think they can fly. I wound up with fifteen years of drugs, five years of alcohol, and all this, a total of twenty years, all of this was my life, and it was about goin' into my fifteenth year I started really feelin' tired because I wasn't gettin' high anymore. And I was tired of the things that I was doin'. And really I would come into a thing of in and out the way I treated my children, you know, and when I would be able to see for a minute, I felt bad, but there wasn't nothin' I could do about it. The incident I remember of my daughter, how she was standin' on this blue crate fixin', she had flour, Aunt Jemima flour and water in a bowl, and then she was makin' pancakes. She was right next to me. I was right next to her at the other side of the stove, but I was making crack. And for only for a second, I realized and I felt somethin' just for a second, I looked and everything got bright, I'll never forget that, and I looked, and there she was standin' there and her brother was just holdin' on to her. They had become inseparable. Nothin', everything they did, they did together. They went to the bathroom together. They did everything together. You know, she had become his mother.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: She was five?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: Five years old. She had became his mother. Before I go back to drugs again, I ask God to take my life if I would ever -- I would rather -- before I -- if I had a problem so bad that I felt like I was -- if I picked that drug up -- I would kill myself first, because I know what I went through already and I can't go through that again.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: They arrested you for credit card fraud, right?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: Yes. And for some reason when they locked me up, I'm tellin' you the truth, I said, I'm glad, that's good, I'm glad, because I knew I wasn't, I knew I wasn't goin' to stop on my own. I knew I couldn't stop on my own and I knew I didn't have the strength to walk into a program. You know, that's why this program is good, because if you call places, they always give you an appointment, and it seems like if a place gives you an appointment, that turns you off right then and there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Where are the mistakes? Where is the system making its mistakes with drug users, do you think?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: I believe a lot is goin', they go by the books. You know, a person can go to school, they can read books, and they can get a degree for somethin' like this, but that's not gonna help a person really, because I wouldn't, I wouldn't open up to you. I wouldn't tell you all the horrible things that I really feel. It's like stupid. You wouldn't understand, no matter what you read. You just wouldn't understand.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you see any light at the end of this tunnel, any, any hope?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: Yes, I do.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Where? How?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: Through me and through other individuals I have met and through people even like yourself who are concerned about taping this for someone else to see. All of this means something,because there's somebody that's sittin' out there that went through what I went through or may not even have got to the point that I got to, and hearin' some of the things what I've been through and also sometime when you lay it out what a person is doin', and they say, wow, that is right, because I didn't see it until I was out of it. I didn't have nobody to sit down and tell me.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is it possible, you think, to get a handle on it?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: We could get a handle on it if we have a little program like this I believe in every burrow, if we make more programs like this where you can just walk in and you can get some kind of help.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is this something you have to fight the rest of your life or does there come a time when you're totally free?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: You're always gonna have to fight and everybody that's an addict will tell you that, it's an everyday fight. I can smell a cigarette sometimes and that brings the symptoms of me gettin' high. I can inhale the smoke and it feels like wow, it feels like I just sniffed some dope or shot it or somethin', and I feel the taste of the dope in my mouth, I feel it all, and all of that comes back to me.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So it's a constant struggle?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And for somebody not as strong as you who don't have the supports that you feel you have, what hope is there?

FLORENCE SIMMONS: If you don't have a made up mind, God cannot do anything for you without a made up mind. You have to be tired of being tired. That's all it takes. Without your made up mind, nothing can be done for you, nothin' at all. And this right here is not a lifetime thing. You can't beat the streets. You see people are dead and gone and the drugs is still goin' on stronger. So it's no win. No one is exempt. FINALLY - SUPREME SACRIFICE

MR. MacNeil: We close tonight with excerpts from the speech President Reagan made today in ceremonies for Veteran's Day at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: We are gathered today, just as we have gathered before, to remember those who served, those who fought, and those still missing and those who gave their last full measure of devotion for our country. One of those who fell wrote shortly before his death these words. "Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own and take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind." Well, today, Veteran's Day, as we do every year, we take that moment to embrace the gentle heroes of Vietnam and of all our wars. We remember those who were called upon to give all a person can give and we remember those who were prepared to make that sacrifice if it were demanded of them in the line of duty, though it never was. Most of all, we remember the devotion and gallantry with which all of them ennobled their nation as they became champions of a noble cause. I am not speaking provocatively here. Unlike the other wars of this century, of course, there were deep divisions about the wisdom and rightness of the Vietnam War. Both sides spoke with honesty and fervor, and what more can we ask in our democracy? And yet, after more than a decade of desperate boat people, after the killing fields of Cambodia, after all that has happened in that unhappy part of the world, who can doubt that the cause for which our men fought was just? It was, after all, however imperfectly pursued, the cause of freedom, and they showed uncommon courage in its service. Perhaps at this late date we can all agree that we have learned one lesson, that young Americans must never again be sent to fight and die unless we are prepared to let them win. But beyond that, we remember today that all our gentle heroes of Vietnam have given us a lesson in something more, a lesson in living love. Yes, for all of them, those who came back and those who did not, their love for their families lives, their love for their buddies on the battlefield and friends back home lives, their love of their country lives. Yes, gentle heroes and living love, and our memories of a time when we faced great divisions here at home and yet if this place recalls all this, both sweet and sad, it also reminds us of a great and profound truth about our nation. But from all our divisions, we have always eventually emerged strengthened. Perhaps we're finding that new strength today and if so, much of it comes from the forgiveness and healing love that our Vietnam veterans have shown. For too long a time, they stood in a chill wind as if on a winter night's watch and in that night, their deeds spoke to us, but we knew them not and their voices called to us but we heard them not. Yet, in this land that God has blessed, the dawn always at last follows the dark and now morning has come. The night is over. We see these men and know them once again and know how much we owe them, how much they've given us, and how much we can never fully repay, and not just as individuals, but as a nation, we say we love you. Now before I go, as have so many others, Nancy and I wanted to leave a note at the wall, and if I may read it to you before doing so, "Our young friends, yes, young friends, for in our hearts you will always be young, full of the love that is youth, love of life, love of life, love of joy, love of country, you've fought for your country and for its safety and for the freedom of others with strength and courage. We love you for it, we honor you and we have faith that as he does all his sacred children, the Lord will bless you and keep you. The Lord will make his face to shine upon you and give you peace now and forever more." Thank you all and God bless you. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story of this Friday, the President of the West German Parliament resigned and apologized for talking in a speech about glorious times Hitler brought to Germany before the war and the holocaust. He said he had been misunderstood. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. Have a nice weekend and we'll see you on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.