The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, a United Airlines DC-10 with 298 people on board crashed at Sioux City, Iowa. There was no definite word yet on the number killed or injured. Soviet Pres. Gorbachev said his perestroika reforms are being jeopardized by the coal miners strikes and Gen. Jaruzelski was elected President of Poland. We'll have the details in the News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, Secretary of State James Baker joins us for a News Maker interview to talk about Europe, East and West, as well as U.S. policy towards the Middle East and Soviet Union. Next we'll have an extended excerpt from the hearings of controversial civil rights nominee William Lucas, then our weekly series on drug solutions. Tonight we talk with Doctors Mary Ann Pentz and James Dwyer, leading researchers in the fight against teen-age drug use.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: A jumbo jet has crashed in Iowa, a United Airlines DC-10 with 298 people aboard crashed in Sioux City late this afternoon. It was trying to make an emergency landing at the Sioux City Airport. The fight, United No. 232, was on its way from Denver to Chicago. The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane had complete hydraulic failure before it crashed. Airport officials said the plane crashed in flames, flipped over, and broke into several pieces. Emergency crews are on the scene, there are reports of survivors, but it's not clear how many. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Soviet Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev sounded a warning today. He said that perestroika economic reforms are being seriously jeopardized by the growing strikes in his country. Dozens of coal mines have been closed down by striking miners. We have a report from Moscow by Geoffrey Archer of Independent Television News.

GEOFFREY ARCHER, ITN: The Soviet leader's speech to the Soviet Parliament this morning which was unscheduled was a clear sign he now sees his whole reform program in desperate danger. The country could soon consider means to ensure the situation does not run out of control, he warned, a hint that tough anti-strike measures might become necessary, even perhaps the use of the military. He said the Communist Party was far behind the rest of society in implementing perestroika. As a result, its leading role in society may be weakened, he cautioned. Over a million tons of coal production has been lost, threatening industry and power generation. The problem for Mr. Gorbachev is that the whole Soviet economy is controlled by the party and it's the party he has to rely on to implement change. Railway workers are also being called to strike from August the 1st, Mr. Gorbachev revealed. He said it was an acute situation, fraught with grave consequences.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: This evening a Soviet government spokesman said many of the striking miners in Siberia had returned to work following the Gorbachev speech. Others were expected to go back tomorrow morning. There was no word about strikers in the Ukraine.

MR. LEHRER: In Washington, there was a rare public declaration of differences within the Bush administration. Defense Sec. Dick Cheney said he did not support the administration's decision to sell advanced computers to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He said the Commerce Department action meant computer capability with military applications would not be available to the Soviets and their allies. It is one of the things we will be talking to Secretary of State Baker about right after this News Summary.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Poland's Communist Party Leader, Gen. Wozcek Jaruzelski was elected President by a margin of one vote. He was the only candidate offered the job. Jaruzelski was hailed as an advocate of national reconciliation, but Solidarity's parliamentary floor leader neither endorsed nor opposed his nomination.

MR. LEHRER: Back in this country, William Lucas was challenged directly today about his qualifications to run the Justice Department's civil rights division. Lucas is the former sheriff of Wayne County, Michigan, who switched parties from Democrat to Republican. Pres. Bush nominated him for the civil rights job. But at his confirmation hearings today before the Senate Judiciary Committee he was questioned about his ability to handle the job. Committee Chairman Joe Biden asked whether he was sensitive enough to the needs of the disadvantaged.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, [D] Delaware: There's got to be a sense of mission, a sense of -- anyway, do you understand my point?

WILLIAM LUCAS, Asst. Attorney General-Designate: I do, Senator, and let me just conclude by saying this. I can assure you that if you're talking about a fire in the belly, if you're talking about a commitment to correct these things that I know of first-hand, I assure you you will have it.

MR. LEHRER: We will have an extended excerpt from the Lucas hearings after the News Summary.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Adnon Khashoggi, the Saudi financier and arms dealer, was extradited to the United States. He arrived late this afternoon in New York under extremely heavy security. Khashoggi will face charges that he helped former Philippine Pres. Ferdinand Marcos in illegal real estate deals here. Khashoggi has also been named as a middle man in the Iran-Contra scandal. He was arrested in Switzerland in April at the request of the United States.

MR. LEHRER: Two important government reports on the economy were out today, first on inflation. The Labor Department reported the Consumer Price Index grew a modest .2 percent in June. That is the smallest increase in that rate in 16 months. Most of it was caused by sharp drops in energy prices. The Commerce Department in a separate report said new housing construction was up 7 percent in June. It had declined the four previous months.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: A major study on aspirin has concluded that healthy men over age 50 appear to cut their risk of heart attack nearly in half if they take an aspirin every other day. The study confirms an earlier version of the research released a year and a half ago. Researchers involved in the study warned, however, that people should not start taking regular aspirin unless they consult their doctor or other health professionals.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to a News Maker interview with Secretary of State Baker, the William Lucas hearings, and another drug solutions interview. NEWS MAKER

MR. LEHRER: We go first and foremost tonight to the Secretary of State James Baker. The Secretary has just returned with Pres. Bush from 10 days in Europe that included the Paris economic summit and visits to Poland and Hungary. He has returned to a Congressional fight over talking with the Palestine Liberation Organization among many many other things. He is with us now for a News Maker interview. Mr. Secretary, welcome.

SEC. BAKER: Thank you, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: First, on some of today's news about selling computers to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, do you support the decision?

JIM BAKER, Secretary of State: I think this decision demonstrates, Jim, how tough it is sometimes to determine what's strategic trade and what's not strategic trade. There's a clear difference of opinion here between the Defense Department on the one hand, the Commerce Department on the other. That means, of course, that the President will make the ultimate decision. I'll be guided in terms of where the State Department comes down on it by what the technicians say because it's a very technical issue. It depends on whether or not technical people think there can be military uses of the material being sold.

MR. LEHRER: But the Commerce Department has pretty much made the decision, has it not?

SEC. BAKER: Well, the Commerce Department has the authority to make the decision. The right to make this decision is given by statute to the Secretary of Commerce. The President, of course, has the ultimate authority though. And he could modify it, he could amend it, he could revoke it if he wanted to, I don't think he's going to do that.

MR. LEHRER: What do you think about the Secretary of Defense speaking out publicly on this as he did today, in opposition to the Commerce Department?

SEC. BAKER: I think that again this is an issue that the President has the ultimate authority to speak, speak on and speak with respect to, so what you have here is just an honest difference of opinion on a question that is sometimes extremely difficult to resolve, what is and is not capable of being used strategically. And it really boils down to the opinion of very very technical experts. We saw a number of instances during the two terms of the Reagan administration where there were clear differences of opinion between Commerce and Defense. Many times we'd just get hung up and wouldn't be able to make a decision because of that, so decisions here are always tough.

MR. LEHRER: Is the decision to do this linked at all to the trip to Poland and Hungary? In other words, does Eastern Europe need these computers bad enough? Did they ask for them?

SEC. BAKER: No. The Commerce Department would argue to you that this is not state of the art stuff, this is stuff that they can get in any number of other countries. It is easily available, it does not have any strategic value but the Defense Department will argue that is has significant strategic value and we ought to continue to ban it but it was not a decision that was taken as a political matter because of what is happening in Eastern Europe. That is not what drove this decision.

MR. LEHRER: But from the State Department's point of view, is it a good thing to sell these computers?

SEC. BAKER: It's a good thing to sell as much non-strategic material and equipment as we can. And you're asking me to make a decision that really only some very technically-oriented type people can make. We're in favor of course of seeing an expanded relationship with Eastern Europe, and I'd be glad to talk to you further about the President's rather remarkable trip there and what's going on in Poland and Hungary. On the other hand, we don't want to see strategic technology go out the door either, so we've got to try and walk that very difficult line.

MR. LEHRER: I don't want to make too heavy weather over this, but the Secretary of Defense, the man the President chose and the Congress confirmed as the guy who's supposed to know this, says hey, don't this, this would be giving away things that have military capability.

SEC. BAKER: On the other hand, the man that the Congress and to who the law gives the authority to make this decision says, wait a minute, we've got to be rational in the way we take a look at this and we should not ban material that a country in the Eastern bloc could get from any other country in the world or many other countries in the world that is not of any strategic value. So it's a question of balancing these interests. That's what's happening here.

MR. LEHRER: When is it going to be resolved?

SEC. BAKER: I don't know. I can't give you the answer to that. It depends on when the President considers it.

MR. LEHRER: I see. Okay. Speaking again of Poland, Gen. Jaruzelski was arrested President today by one vote. Is this a good thing for the United States of America?

SEC. BAKER: I think stability in Poland is a good thing for the United States of America and I think it's a probably good thing that he was elected, yes. Because there was a very difficult situation there. The political reform is growing so rapidly in Poland that you had a situation where they didn't have a chairman or a president so I think it's probably a good thing.

MR. LEHRER: It's been suggested, as I'm sure you're aware, that Pres. Bush's visit to Poland gave Jaruzelski a boost that helped him get this job because before Pres. Bush went there, he had, Jaruzelski had said, no, I'm not going to run and Solidarity said, no we don't want anything to do with him, Mr. Bush comes and embraces him and now Jaruzelski decides to run, Solidarity backs off and now he's the President.

SEC. BAKER: I know that's been said. It's my understanding, based on what I've heard today, that Solidarity did not support him. So he wasn't supported by Solidarity but they backed off and he, therefore, garnered enough votes to be elected. But, listen, the reforms there are dramatic, no one would have dreamed a year ago that they would have gone to elections, that they would be seeing the type of political change that's taking place there, and it is important that that not be aborted early in the process. It's a difficult enough process so it's probably a good thing for them to have a president, to have one who's experienced, who's been there before, who can oversee the transition, if you will, to political pluralism, and that's what's going on in Poland.

MR. LEHRER: In American political terms though, the fact that Pres. Bush came and the fact that Jaruzelski got elected President, does that give the United States a leg up, in other words, with Jaruzelski, that he might say, hey, I couldn't have done it without you? Does the relationship, a better relationship, exist because of it?

SEC. BAKER: I think the approach Pres. Bush took when he went to Poland was exactly the right approach. One, we're not over here to disturb or disrupt or to stick a finger in the eye of the Soviet Union. We are pleased with the political and economic reforms that are taking place. We'd like to find a way to support those. He saw Solidarity leaders and elected members of the same, their parliament, the same. He saw Jaruzelski himself, he saw all the various elements, and was seen with them, so his approach was a very balanced one and this is a good thing I think for stability in Poland and, therefore, it's a good thing for the United States.

MR. LEHRER: Did you, the President or anyone else, represent the U.S., give any private signals to Solidarity about Jaruzelski?

SEC. BAKER: No, I don't think you could accuse us of that. We're not going to involve ourselves in internal politics of Poland.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Walesa, he was very outspoken in his disappointment about the amount of money. He wanted $10 billion, and the United States said 125 million, and then there was the economic summit in Paris, and the message that came out of there - - now correct me if I'm wrong -- the United States said, look, it's Western Europe's responsibility to help Eastern Europe than it is the United States, is that the correct message?

SEC. BAKER: No, that's not the message that came out. The message that came out, the United States went in there and took the lead, the first time ever, in driving for a concerted effort to support Eastern European countries, Poland and Hungary, and was able to generate that support. In fact, there was a pretty good debate in the Senate about whether there would be a prompt follow on meeting, and the President, himself, spoke out in the plenary session, and the decision was made right there in the meeting of the heads of state. The lower levels had not been able to reach agreement on that and the President was able to get an agreement from all the countries that they would join with us and that we would all concert our support for Poland and Hungary, so I really don't believe the impression you give is the right one.

MR. LEHRER: Then what do you say to Walesa's disappointment, has he got a legitimate complaint?

SEC. BAKER: Well, what we say is we want to help you but you've got to help yourself. You've got to adjust and you've got to reform your economy, you've got to move to a free market, you've got to have the trade unions over there, and Solidarity is one of them, be perhaps a little more understanding and reasonable in their demands with respect to benefits and five years of paid maternity and paternity leave kinds of demands, that's what you. And you say though if you'll reform and if you'll adjust, we'll be there to help you. But what they really do need to do is move to encourage private enterprise and private sector involvement, and that's what this $125 million that the United States is putting up will go toward.

MR. LEHRER: As I'm sure you're aware though, what they say in response to this, that's all well and good, Mr. Secretary, but in the meantime, we've got serious economic problems, we could have riots, we could have anarchy here, if you do not help us get through this immediate economic period.

SEC. BAKER: We are. We are helping in that way. We are helping by calling for a rescheduling of their fairly significant debt on the most liberal and expeditious terms. That will give them a fair amount of cash flow relief. We're calling for immediate food aid because they've got some food shortages in Poland. This is the first time the United States has been in the forefront of efforts to help these Eastern European countries, and the reason we are in the forefront because they are making dramatic progress in opening up their societies to political pluralism and in trying to move toward free market economic systems. That latter undertaking they are finding quite difficult. It's hard to move from a central planned statused economy to a free market economy when you've been in a central planned economy for forty or fifty years.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Gorbachev's having the same problem in the Soviet Union.

SEC. BAKER: Yes, he is.

MR. LEHRER: Today he spoke to his Parliament and he said that perestroika reforms are in serious jeopardy because of the strikes. Is that just talk or is that serious --

SEC. BAKER: I don't think it's talk. I think if it were not true, he would not be saying that. I believe that. I think that, you know, we want perestroika to succeed. We think that perestroika, the success of perestroika, will mean a more stable, a more open and a more secure Soviet Union, and that's good for the United States. Because they will be more open and more secure, they'll be more stable and that's what we need. So we want to see perestroika succeed and we don't want to see it aborted by --

MR. LEHRER: The strikes.

SEC. BAKER: Well, by violent unrest.

MR. LEHRER: The ethnic unrest.

SEC. BAKER: Strikes or anything.

MR. LEHRER: Because the ethnic unrest also has been blamed on the economy.

SEC. BAKER: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: But Gorbachev wrote a letter to Pres. Mitterrand during the summit and said I'd like a place at that table, fellows.

SEC. BAKER: Didn't really quite say it that way.

MR. LEHRER: I'm paraphrasing.

SEC. BAKER: Wasn't asking to be a member of the G-7.

MR. LEHRER: But he wanted to be involved.

SEC. BAKER: He said he wanted to cooperate and he wanted to help address the economic needs of the world and particularly the developing nations of the world and it's another example I think of the Soviet Union moving in our direction. The Stalinist model has failed. It's discredited. They admit it themselves, and this is yet just another example of that I think.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, how does the United States and the West -- you say the United States and the West has a terrific stake in perestroika being successful -- how do we help Gorbachev succeed without underwriting the transformation of an old enemy or whatever? You've heard that argument. What is the proper role here?

SEC. BAKER: Well, the proper role is to assist them in trying to move to a free market economy. And they need technical assistance. It's not a case of funneling money in there and nobody is suggesting that. It's not a case of relaxing our strategic -- you were talking about strategic exports -- it's not a case of relaxing our guard with respect to strategic exports. It's not a case frankly of letting our guard down on military preparedness, I mean, until we see actual reductions in Soviet forces. The one thing they've been able to do very very effectively and efficiently is build a massive military machine, so until we see that actually pulled in, we ought not to pull our own down, but as they begin to reduce, we should reduce. And that, of course, was the suggestion of the President's conventional forces initiative at the NATO summit but we assist them in every way that we can because it is important that they having admitted the failure of their system and seeking to embrace the type of system that we have and that we know succeeds, it's important that we try to assist in that if we can.

MR. LEHRER: After you've been Secretary of State now, what, eight months, right?

SEC. BAKER: Six.

MR. LEHRER: Six. I don't know where I got the extra two. I take it you're impressed with Gorbachev. I read between the lines what you've --

SEC. BAKER: Well, I'm impressed frankly with the places that are taking place in Eastern Europe, in Poland and Hungary, I said before this trip really impresses upon you how far reaching, breath taking, in effect, those changes are, and I think how real they are. I think there are similar changes underway in the Soviet Union, and of course the General Secretary is the reason those changes have been taking place in the Soviet Union.

MR. LEHRER: Do you believe him? Do you trust him?

SEC. BAKER: I think Pres. Reagan was right when he said trust but verify. I think that's the standard. I think we ought to be prudent in our approach to the Soviet Union, we ought to be realistic, but we ought to extend the hand if they truly reach out to us, whether it's in arms reduction or request for technical assistance on economic issues and things like that, we ought to be willing to engage.

MR. LEHRER: But I meant him personally. When he says to you, Jim, Baker, boom, boom, whatever, do you believe him?

SEC. BAKER: Well, I have no reason -- of course I've only had one meeting with him -- it only lasted three and a half hours and I have no reason to disbelieve him as a result of that one meeting.

MR. LEHRER: Okay, and let's talk about the Middle East. The Senate, while you were overseas, the Senate was on the verge of passing legislation that would have set some restrictions on the kinds of people the United States could talk to, representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the word isthat you got on the phone with Sen. Jesse Helms and you got the legislation delayed. What's this all about?

SEC. BAKER: Well, it is a provision that would be attached to our authorization bill that would basically at least in its original form in my view terminate the dialogue that's been established between the United States and the PLO?

MR. LEHRER: How would it terminate it?

SEC. BAKER: It would make it -- it would terminate it by saying, in effect, that no appropriated funds could be used to engage in a dialogue with anybody who'd been a conspirator in or an accessory to or participated directly or indirectly in a terrorist activity and so forth. That would be very difficult. It would be very difficult to maintain the dialogue in the fact of that kind of language when you consider that the Palestine Liberation Organization was, in fact, a terrorist organization. Of course, they met the United States' 13 year old conditions between the United States and the PLO and when they renounced terrorism and accepted UN Resolution 242 and so forth back in December of 1988.

MR. LEHRER: But the United States representative in Tunis has talked to -- the problem here, as you know, is over Abou Iliad, who's the No. 2 man in the Palestine Liberation Organization.

SEC. BAKER: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: The man who was involved in terrorist activities, including the Munich massacre of the Israeli athletes in 1972. Now when was it decided that the United States would talk to him? Explain what the position was that led to those talks?

SEC. BAKER: The position is, as I mentioned earlier, in December of 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization met the three conditions that the United States had put forward as conditions for a dialogue that had existed for some 13 years, so we began a dialogue with the PLO through our ambassador in Tunis, and we said this is the only channel that we will use for this dialogue. And it is the only channel that we do use. He has talked to a number of individuals. We didn't say that we wouldn't talk to anybody or that we wouldn't talk to members of the PLO. We said we would begin a dialogue and we have and we did and we've talked to a number of different --

MR. LEHRER: And you want to continue to talk to Iliad and anybody else, right?

SEC. BAKER: What we did, we think it's important, their having met our conditions of 13 years, it's important that we maintain this dialogue if we're going to make progress toward peace in the Middle East. If the legislation that you referred to were to pass in the form that Sen. Helms submitted it, in our view it would mean that we would have to terminate the dialogue. We think that would be frankly, we believe, I'm not sure there's agreement on this over there, but we think that would adverse, as a matter of fact, to the interest of the state of Israel. One thing we know is it would end the dialogue and we think it would mean there would be less chance of our making progress toward peace in the Middle East.

MR. LEHRER: Have you worked out a deal with Sen. Helms?

SEC. BAKER: No.

MR. LEHRER: You mean the bill is still hot?

SEC. BAKER: The bill is, they're still working the bill up on the Hill.

MR. LEHRER: But how serious a matter is this? Are you going to pull out all the stops you can command to stop this?

SEC. BAKER: Well, we're doing what we can, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: But no deal, no deal yet?

SEC. BAKER: Working it in on the basis of quiet diplomacy.

MR. LEHRER: Quiet diplomacy. So in other words, you're not going to say any more about it. I got that message. Now, the Shamir election proposals, are they dead?

SEC. BAKER: No, I hope not. We've been working very hard to implement the Shamir election proposal. We've been talking to a number of leaders in the European community. The President talked to the summit seven. I talked to my counterpart foreign ministers and have been for five or six months. I think we've moved them, many of them, towards support of the elections proposal. We've been talking to Arab governments because we think it offers a real prospect of moving the peace process forward. When Prime Minister Shamir came to the United States, he said I think we ought to look at the possibility of elections in the territories, we ought to look at the possibility of discussions between Israelis and Palestinians in the territories, leading to elections, he said, in order to launch a political negotiation. We think that that deserves to be worked very hard and we're working it very hard.

MR. LEHRER: You disagree with the PLO's position that the situation is dead as a result of Shamir embracing some new rules - -

SEC. BAKER: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: -- that the party put on these negotiations.

SEC. BAKER: Yes. We do disagree with that. I will say that we were concerned when the party rules came out that Israel might in a sense be devaluing its own initiative. We have since satisfied ourselves that the initiative is very much alive and well, that they're pushing it, that the Israeli Government subscribes to it. The Prime Minister, himself, says it has not changed one iota, and they are in the process I think of working out arrangements to reaffirm it. So we continue to support it, we think it offers great promise and hope, we hope it does. It's the best thing we know of that's going in favor of making progress toward peace in the Middle East.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for being with us tonight.

SEC. BAKER: Yes, sir, Jim.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead on the Newshour, Pres. Bush's controversial civil rights nominee and keeping teens off drugs. FOCUS - THE RIGHT CHOICE?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight Pres. Bush's controversial nomination to the top civil rights job in the Justice Department. Today the Senate Judiciary Committee began confirmation hearings for William Lucas to be the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. The nomination of Lucas, who is black, immediately drew fire from major civil rights organizations. They contend that he lacks courtroom experience and civil rights involvement. We'll have excerpts from that hearing in a moment following this background report from Kwame Holman.

MR. HOLMAN: In 1985, a Detroit magazine described William Lucas as perhaps Michigan's most charismatic political figure, hailing him as a classic American success story.

MR. LUCAS: I announce my candidacy for the office of Governor of the State of Michigan.

MR. HOLMAN: It was then that Lucas, a Democrat, surprised many fellow blacks by leaving the party and running as a Republican for Michigan's governship. Although he had solid support from then Pres. Reagan, Lucas lost his bid to become the nation's first black governor since reconstruction. Both glory and controversy have marked the path of the 61 year old Lucas. Born to Caribbean immigrants, orphaned at 14, Lucas was raised in Harlem. A track scholarship enabled him to attend Manhattan College. Next came Fordham Law School. After graduation, Lucas worked briefly at the Justice Department, but resigned when he failed to pass the bar exam. Lucas's later contention that he was a Justice Department lawyer is one of several inconsistencies in his resume that plague his nomination. Lucas joined the FBI's Detroit office and later was elected sheriff of Wayne County, which includes Detroit, serving from 1969 to 1982. It was in that last year as sheriff that Lucas lost a 20 year old son to suicide. During the 1970s, Lucas was the target of lawsuits, charging he tolerated police brutality, overcrowding, and inhumane conditions at the police force and jail he administered. Despite being fined and held in contempt by the courts, Lucas handily won election as Wayne County executive running as a Democrat. But, again, allegations of impropriety arose. Lucas awarded a $100 million contract to a firm he later worked for and in an application to the New York state bar, Lucas omitted the fact that he failed the Washington, D.C. bar examination. Other inconsistencies and the fact that Lucas has never tried a case prompted news reports and columns that question his ethics and qualifications. The stories also note that the civil rights community has split on the Lucas nomination.

ARTHUR KROPP, People for the American Way: The civil rights community is together on this and I think that Bill Lucas will be defeated because of it.

MR. HOLMAN: Arthur Kropp is president of People for the American Way, a liberal watchdog group which has organized an anti-Lucas phone campaign.

MR. KROPP: It seems that what the Justice Department is looking for is a figure head. This isn't someone who knows civil rights law, that has any experience, legal experience, to speak of, never went into a courtroom. Yet, we're expected to believe he can head one of the largest departments of lawyers in the government.

MR. HOLMAN: The NAACP also opposes Lucas, but Detroit Democratic Congressman John Conyers says Lucas is probably the best candidate civil rights activists can hope for.

REP. JOHN CONYERS, JR., [D] Michigan: I'm just saying that I think that he's as good as we're going to get and I think he's committed to the job. I think he will grow into it beautifully.

MR. HOLMAN: It was the question of whether Lucas is qualified that dominated his confirmation hearing today.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, [D] Delaware: I want to become confident that you stand out as a person, the person, who is qualified to be hired by the American people to run the most important civil rights law firm in the land. I, as I indicated, I have not made up my mind. I am favorably disposed to you. One of the things that you are going to have to speak to, as you well know, is your lack of technical legal experience.

SEN. HOWARD METZENBAUM, [D] Ohio: The nominee sent to us by the Bush administration is a likeable person with strong political ties. The question which we must confront is whether Mr. Lucas's background and records suggest that he will provide us with the strong and vigorous civil rights leadership which this nation sorely needs.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY, [R] Iowa: The brief against this black man says that he lacks experience, that he's not capable, that he's not somehow up to the job. Now that's got a lot of cruel irony in it. How sad it is, isn't it, for these same shop worn arguments used by the bigots of old to keep generations of black Americans down for centuries are being used today. This is worse than a makeshift, a make way argument, it's just plain offensive.

SEN. STROM THURMOND, [R] South Carolina: Mr. Lucas, how do you view your role as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights division? Have you given any thought as to the best manner in which to carry out the vital function of the civil rights division in enforcing our nation of civil rights low, other than what you've said?

WILLIAM LUCAS, Assistant Attorney General-Designate: I view my role as a leader, as an adviser to the Attorney General and hopefully to the President of the United States. I see carrying out that role by being able to bring good management, to utilizing the staff, which is something that I'm accustomed to doing, getting the best out of the individuals, recruiting properly, being able to manage a budget properly, being able to select the cases that are necessary to prove a point if it is necessary, being able to use the skills that I have gained, and the experience, the lifetime experience that I have gained, and the understanding that I have gained in the many positions that I hold. Gentlemen, I can assure you if a case is brought to me involving, and it could very well be, involving a cross burning on the lawn of a citizen, this is not cold facts to me, gentlemen. I have been there. I have smelled the smoke and I have smelled the fear of those people. I also know what it is to tell those people I'm sorry, we can only assign someone here for a week, or two weeks and so forth, and the concerns that they face. I know what those feelings are and I believe I will be able to translate real live feeling and empathy to people and motivate them because I understand.

MR. HOLMAN: Lucas also was questioned about a number of recent Supreme Court decisions affecting affirmative action, decisions that have come under sharp attack from civil rights activists who view them as setbacks.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, [R] Pennsylvania: Do you think that any of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the affirmative action field changed existing law?

MR. LUCAS: I think what they did was to make it much, make it, refine the decisions. I don't think they will have a significant impact on cases that will be brought before the court. I think that they clarify it to some degree.

SEN. SPECTER: How about the question of change, because the purpose of my question is to ask your view of the propriety of the change in law in the face of longstanding rules.

MR. LUCAS: All these cases, a common thread running throughout all of these recent decisions was the fact that the Supreme Court said clearly that we are going to interpret, speak to the plain meaning of every statute before us.

SEN. SPECTER: That's what the court always does.

MR. LUCAS: Their feeling is that this had not been the practice in the past, that there had been additions in the filling out of certain meanings, but in this case, I think this court appeared to be saying, we are going to do it, and if we are incorrect, then Congress in its judgments can make the corrections and put the plain meaning of what they mean. We're not going to interpret.

SEN. SPECTER: Just shift the burden of proof as to whether the court should follow Congressional inaction, whether the Congress has to make changes in the law.

MR. LUCAS: No, sir. Their feeling was not switching it but making a determination on the facts of the statute they had before them. I am not in a position of course to defend the learned gentlemen. I am new to the law. I can only tell you what the interpretations appear to me.

SEN. SPECTER: Well, you've been a lawyer for a long time, Mr. Lucas. My reading of the cases is that there's a change. If you disagree with that, then I would represent to you that I'll reread the cases and I would ask you to reread the cases, but are you saying that there is no change inany of these five big recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action?

MR. LUCAS: Sir, to my limited venture into the law, I do not see any significant change and I would not.

SEN. SPECTER: Any insignificant change, any change at all?

MR. LUCAS: I believe that there are some tightening of the laws.

SEN. SPECTER: I have your views on it. If you don't think there's been a change in the law, I'm interested in the way you read the law.

SEN. HOWARD METZENBAUM, [D] Ohio: I'm not going to inquire further of you on that at this point. Let me come back to it. But I want to talk with you about some personal matters. In 1985, you were stopped at the Seattle airport for entering the United States with undeclared merchandise. At that time, jewelry and wearing apparel were seized. The value of the undeclared merchandise was approximately $8900. When you were stopped, you said, well, I just have some sweatshirts, a lot of sweatshirts, sweatshirts, you came back to that subject even after the facts came out. My question is: How do you explain your concealing receipts and merchandise from the Customs inspector?

MR. LUCAS: I reported exactly what I was advised of. I did not personally examine any of these things to find if the reports were given. My family advised me later that they believed that many of the items they bought were hand crafted. Some were purchased at duty free stores and they believed those were not instances and matters that they had to declare.

SEN. METZENBAUM: For you as a law enforcement official to be traveling and to be found guilty of -- guilty perhaps is the wrong word -- but in fact you did pay a penalty -- intent established and concealment, that's very strong language and it's disturbing.

MR. HOLMAN: Finally, Lucas was asked by Wisconsin Democrat Herbert Cole why the civil rights community opposes his nomination.

MR. LUCAS: I have been puzzled about that, Senator. I really have been puzzled about that. The objection, some of it has come from people who know me, but a greater deal of it has come from people who never met me, have never sat with me, never talked with me, have judged me as I saw very early in the statements that I made that we don't understand this but we'll hold our nose and go along with it. You'll read that in some of the clippings. I suspect there's some of that as well. I feel very very uncomfortable about it and very sad. I would like all of you to look around in this room and see what I've been able to accomplish from where I came from and with the help of a wife and intelligent children, we have been able to demonstrate what it is possible to do. So if that's not the greatest civil rights statement there is and if my being here today, win or lose, is not one of the greatest civil rights statements, I don't know what else is. I've done it. [applause by Lucas' family] Forgive the family.

MR. LEHRER: The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear from 20 additional witnesses. No date has yet been set for a committee vote. SERIES - TALKING DRUGS

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We turn now to our weekly series looking at solutions to the drug problem. Tonight we focus on a study that the National Institute of Drug Abuse hailed as one of the most important primary prevention studies ever done. In its conclusion, the study found that a comprehensive, communitywide program is far more successful than the schools alone in helping teen-agers avoid drugs. The five year old ongoing study involves 22,500 sixth and seventh graders in 42 schools in Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. It was conducted by a team of psychologists and a statistician from the University of Southern California. Recently I spoke with lead psychologist Mary Ann Pentz and statistician James Dwyer in San Francisco and asked them why they chose Kansas City for their study.

MS. PENTZ: There is a national yearly survey that's conducted on adolescent drug use. It's called Monitoring the Future, and it's conducted by Dr. Lloyd Johnston and his associates out of the University of Michigan. And they show that across the country drug use is not too different, whether you're in Los Angeles, New York, Kansas City, Texas, that drug use really occurs across the country.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What was it about this age group that made them good targets for the study?

MARY ANN PENTZ, University of Southern California: Several people have theorized that when young people, as well as adults for that matter, go through periods of extreme exchange or transitions that it makes them vulnerable to trying out new things, and as applied to adolescence, one of these theories is that making a school change to a new school, middle school and junior high school, constitutes a major change for them, and what they try to do when they make the change is to try to emulate their older peers. And one of the ways they do that is if they see an older peer drinking or smoking, they try to adopt that behavior. So we looked at that as a particularly critical year to start working with young adolescents.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's age --

MS. PENTZ: Typically age 10 or 11.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Tell me about the relationship between cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana.

MS. PENTZ: In the early years of this study, we focus heavily on evaluating the effects of the program on cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana, because they're considered gateway drugs, which means that there has been some research to show that early use of these substances in adolescence typically leads to use of other illicit drugs later in life. So the idea of a primary prevention program is if you can start early enough and prevent the use of cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana, then you're more likely to prevent the use of other harder drugs later on as well.

JAMES DWYER, University of Southern California: Now in terms of the relationship between cigarettes and alcohol and marijuana, we find in our data set at least that the best predictor of subsequent abuse of alcohol, marijuana or cigarettes is early use of cigarettes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How does it actually work?

MS. PENTZ: I think the easiest way to respond to that is describe what a teen-ager might go through on a daily basis. A teen-ager wakes up in the morning and goes to school and gets that day's lesson in this program. Let's say the current affairs and social studies and history teachers get together and they're working on health issues in general, population based health issues, and they talk about smoking and what's happened in smoking in this country, the political changes, the mass media campaigns that have led to lower smoking, the health messages, the Surgeon General's messages. Then the teen-ager leaves school and before they leave school one of the activities we have that is actually generated from the parent program is called "Bushes, Bathrooms and Buses", where parents, and peer leaders and teachers monitor the surrounds of the school to keep them drug free. So for example if a student goes to the bathroom, there's no smoking or drug use there, because it's been monitored by the peers and the teachers. If they go off campus to a local convenience store, we've already worked with the store managers to get them to agree not to sell cigarettes and alcohol to minors, and then they get on the bus and the bus driver and peers are watching that no drugs are used on the bus. They get home and recent surveys suggest that the television is on six to seven hours a day in the American home. If something is scheduled for the program that evening, whether it's a television commercial, news series or radio or television talk show, students and parents have been alerted to watch that on TV or listen to that on the radio and they review the messages there that are consistent with the program. And then at night when dad comes home or mom or both, depending on who are the working spouses, they sit down and they have homework to do with the child, part of which, for example, involves reviewing, parents discussing with their children what was it like when I was growing up, what were the drugs that were used, how did I successfully stay away from drugs, or if I didn't, what happened to me, so that's a homework activity. In terms of the community organization component of the program, while all of this is going on, city leaders and business leaders are organizing award benefits for students, they're organizing speakers to come into the schools and business leaders to talk about how to stay drug free on the work site, organizing parents that way. And then at the health policy level, the students, parents and other adults in the community are aware of changes that are going on in smoking laws, drunk driving laws, smokeless tobacco laws at the city level.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What you're describing seems to me very difficult, that you have to be constantly vigilant. How hard is that to achieve?

MR. DWYER: Well, it was very difficult. And a community that's considering mounting a program like this has got to make a real commitment at lots of levels. It involves resources in terms of dollars, also lots of people's time and that sense that this is something that's important, that we all have to do and need to do in this community and if the community is prepared to make the commitment, what our results say is that they have a reasonable chance of success in reducing demand.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about the cost, is it very expensive to implement?

MS. PENTZ: It's a little difficult to estimate the exact costs, because we get many of the costs donated very often. When city leaders get involved and business leaders, sometimes they donate costs such as mass media prime time coverage, but when we have attempted to make estimates, some of our estimates have averaged about $24, 22 to $24 per student per year. And that also involves or includes evaluating a program, in other words, the research component. Other programs around the country that just involve school programs, no mass media, no community organization or parent programs sometimes can average as low as about $2, $6 per student.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But the critical ingredient here is the comprehensive nature of the program.

MS. PENTZ: That's correct.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There is some perception that the drug abuse among young people is increasing. Is that statistically borne out?

MS. PENTZ: There is a very large and legitimate concern in this country about the drug use problem, but most people do tend to overestimate the number of young people who actually use drugs. In a prevention program, one of the first things we do is correct that misperception because it could work against us in a prevention program. For example, if a classroom of students thinks that a hundred people around them use drugs when only 10 percent do, then they might say it's okay for me to use drugs too because everybody's doing it, so it gets students talking about where do their perceptions come from and how to change those perceptions and realizing that the social norm is not to accept drug use, that, in fact, a very small proportion of people on a regular basis actually do use drugs.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is the general attitude that young people have today about drugs? Are they complacent about them? Are they worried about them?

MS. PENTZ: I think there are changes in young people's concern depending at their age or grade level. We tend to see in late elementary school up through fourth or fifth grade that drugs are a very moral issue, that fourth and fifth graders are very scared of drugs. They're still willing to listen to adult authorities, including policemen and parents and others who say just stay away from drugs, it's bad for you. By middle and junior high school, so the early teen years, 10 through about 14, adolescents may not be responding so much to a scare tactic or the feeling that it's bad for them, but more a social concern about well, should I smoke a cigarette or not, I want to be as cool as I can be, so what's cool, and if we can build into a program that there are different ways to be cool that don't involve drug use, that helps them meet peer pressures in social situations.

MR. DWYER: In those schools where we intervened and we did get a reduction in use, we also got a change in what the children said they expected from their peers if they used. So where use went down, you also got children saying that they would expect their peers to react negatively if they did use. So we suspect that what the program really does is change the way in which drugs are perceived in a school and that leads to subsequent reduced abuse.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What advice would you give to drug control director Bennett from your experience?

MS. PENTZ: Well drug use prevention typically has been looked at as being in either one of two camps, working on the supply side of prevention, law enforcement typically, and drug enforcement, or the demand side. The project that we've been involved in works mostly on changing the demand for drugs, but it is suspected that if we are, in fact, changing the whole environment and the whole acceptance of drug use in a community that, in fact, that may benefit the supply side prevention programming as well, so it's theoretically, we could get to the point of having whole cities be watchdogs against drug dealers via having worked on demand side of prevention.

MR. DWYER: The bottom line of this evaluation is that efforts to reduce demand when supply is plentiful can be successful but it takes a concerted, comprehensive program as we have described and the history of cigarette addiction in this country also attests to that, and I think this, the results from this program, sort of add to that history, and that is that without any control on supply, the cigarettes are plentiful, available to anyone who wants to buy them, we have, nevertheless, been successful in reducing the prevalence of cigarette use from over half of the adult population to about 30 percent. And this program has reduced that use at an even faster rate than that national decline so it is possible to reduce abuse by focusing on prevention on the demand side even if you can't control the supply. And we could do a lot more to control the supply, but even if you don't, you can make an impact on the demand side. That's the bottom line.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Dr. Pentz and Dr. Dwyer, thank you both for being with us. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, a United Airlines jumbo jet crashed during an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa. The Denver to Chicago plane, United Flight 232, went down in an open field just short of the runway. A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said the plane experienced complete hydraulic failure before it crashed. There were 298 people on board. A local hospital reported there are some survivors. In other news, Soviet Pres. Gorbachev said the striking coal miners in the Ukraine and Siberia are jeopardizing his perestroika economic reforms and Gen. Jaruzelski was elected President of Poland. On the Newshour tonight, Secretary of State Baker said that was probably a good thing for Poland and for the United States. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Thank you and good night.