The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary, we focus on politics, interviewing Republican Presidential challenger Patrick Buchanan, plus political analysis by Gergen & Shields. To close tonight, we have a conversation with the new reformist leader of the Teamsters Union, Ron Carey. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The leadership of five more republics said today they would join the new commonwealth of Soviet states. That came as ethnic violence flared in another of the separatist republics. We have a report from Moscow by Gaby Rado of Independent Television News.

MR. RADO: It was another day of ominous official silence from the Kremlin, Mikhail Gorbachev cancelling the one scheduled engagement he had with businessmen. A spokesman did, however, say his boss would only resign when the last "i" was dotted on the death of the old Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin carried on with his business, meeting a group of deputies in his office of the Russian Federation. He had nothing to say on Mr. Gorbachev's future. The word did later leak out that the two men had talked over the phone. The Soviet President is said tonight to have accepted that the commonwealth is a reality. That was confirmed this morning by a statement from the summit of five Central Asian republics, making it clear they wanted to join the new body, though adding that the Minsk agreement did come as a surprise to them. The mainly Muslim republics had to say that because earlier this week they'd condemned the Slavic treaty. The U-turn shows how quickly political realities have changed in five days. There is a growing Islamic revivalist movement in Central Asia threatening to split the local population from the large ethnic Russian minority who are viewed as colonizers sent by Moscow. Existing tensions would have reached breaking point if the old Union had broken up along ethnic lines. Today's violence in the Moldovan town of Dubossery is an ominous sign of such ethnic conflict erupting. A number of people were killed in a gun battle on the bridge over the Dinesta River, which divides ethnic Romanians to the West and Russians on the East.

MR. LEHRER: Sec. of State Baker spoke about the political turmoil in the Soviet Union today. He leaves this weekend on a trip which takes him to several republics and meetings with Presidents Yeltsin and Gorbachev. He held a news conference at the White House this afternoon.

SEC. BAKER: For some time it has been clear that power and authority has derived increasingly from the republics and not from the center. But those that are determining the new political arrangements of what I referred to yesterday in my speech as the new Russia revolution must come from within and not from outside. We cannot and we must not inject ourselves into this purely political process and as the President made clear at the cabinet meeting yesterday and again in comments this morning, we will not so inject ourselves.

MR. LEHRER: Baker also said the safety and control of the Soviet nuclear arsenal would be on his agenda. Reporters asked President Bush if he was concerned about the latest Soviet developments during a White House photo opportunity today.

PRES. BUSH: We have symmetric interests in the peaceful reconciliation. We've got interest in the fundamental interest and responsibilities of the whole world for the nuclear weapons question and I want to see that that is handled with the maximum amount of safety. And the assurances from the center and from the republics have been very good on that, incidentally.

MR. LEHRER: Later in the day, Mr. Bush spoke by phone with Gorbachev. Gorbachev assured him the command and control of Soviet nuclear weapons remains secure. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the 30-minute conversation also included discussion of the commonwealth agreement and Soviet economic reforms. The seven major industrial nations held a meeting in London today. They decided to speed up emergency food aid to the Soviet Union and the republics. A statement from British officials said the food situation had deteriorated in recent weeks, particularly in the large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: North and South Korea signed their historic non- aggression pact today. At the ceremony in the South Korean capital, Seoul, the two sides put a formal end to the Korean War. They pledged to help reunite millions of relatives separated when the Korean Peninsula was divided in 1945. They also vowed to work to eliminate nuclear weapons from the Peninsula and set a December 21st meeting to discuss that goal. The United Nations today urged the international community to restore sporting and cultural exchanges with South Africa. In a resolution passed unanimously, the General Assembly said South Africa had made progress towards ending apartheid. The U.N. also encouraged countries to lift remaining economic sanctions as South Africa moves towards a non- racial, democratic political system. The white minority government will open power sharing talks with black and other opposition groups next week.

MR. LEHRER: In U.S. economic news, consumer prices rose .4 percent last month. Higher gasoline and food prices were the highest risers. The Labor Department also reported Americans' average weekly earnings increased .2 percent in November. That followed a drop of .7 percent in October. President Bush said today he wants to give $15 billion in block grants to local governments. He spoke about the proposal during a teleconference with mayors and other local officials. He said the money would have no strings attached and would be part of the economic growth package he will announce in January.

MR. MacNeil: The autopsy results on British media magnate Robert Maxwell were made public today. The report by Spanish authorities said Maxwell suffered a heart attack. It said he died from that or from drowning after the attack caused him to fall from his yacht. The report ruled out poisoning and said foul play was unlikely. Maxwell died five weeks ago as his yacht was cruising off the Canary Islands. His media empire is near collapse from massive debt. Since his death, hundreds of millions of dollars have been discovered to be missing from two of his companies and their pension funds. The Irish Republican Army has claimed responsibility for a powerful bomb blast that injured more than 60 people. The one-ton bomb exploded yesterday outside a police station in a small town near Belfast. Most of the injured were in the police station and a Catholic church filled with worshippers. The blast blew out windows in houses more than a mile away.

MR. LEHRER: Jewish settlers were evicted today from a house they occupied in Arab East Jerusalem, but others were allowed to stay in another house they seized yesterday from its Palestinian residence. Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Collak criticized the settlers. He said their action threatened Arab-Israeli peace talks in Washington. There were no Washington talks today. They resume on Monday. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Patrick Buchanan, Gergen & Shields, and the new man in charge of the Teamsters Union. NEWSMAKER

MR. LEHRER: Patrick Buchanan is our lead story tonight. He's with us for a Newsmaker interview about his just-announced candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination. Patrick J. Buchanan is widely known as a conservative columnist and television commentator.

PATRICK BUCHANAN: ["The McLaughlin Group"] The chickens are coming home to roost for President Bush.

MR. LEHRER: Whether he is appearing as a regular panelist on the McLaughlin Group, moderator of Capital Gang, or co-host of Crossfire, there is no mistaking where Buchanan stands on an issue.

ANNOUNCER: ["Crossfire"] On the right, Pat Buchanan.

MR. LEHRER: Buchanan is 53 years old. He was born in Washington, D.C., educated in private schools operated by the Jesuit order. He was valedictorian of his high school class and attended Georgetown University on a scholarship. He has said, "My views, my values, my beliefs were shaped by being a member of an Irish-Catholic conservative family of nine children." After college, he went to journalism school at Columbia University in New York and became a newspaper editorial writer. In 1965, he became an assistant to Presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and after the 1968 election was named a White House speechwriter. He left the government during the Ford administration to begin a career as a syndicated columnist and panelist on radio and television opinion programs. He returned to the White House as President Reagan's director of communications in 1985. Two years later, he was back in private life as co-host of the CNN program "Crossfire." He has taken a leave of absence from his television and newspaper commitments to run for President. He made his announcement on Tuesday, flanked by his sister, a former Treasurer of the United States, and his wife of 20 years. And now to Patrick Buchanan. Mr. Buchanan, welcome.

PATRICK BUCHANAN, Republican Presidential Candidate: Jim, thanks.

MR. LEHRER: Why do you want to be President of the United States?

MR. BUCHANAN: Well, I think I'd like to be the individual who presided over a shift in American policy from the end of the cold war to the new era of challenges this country faces abroad. I think George Bush is basically a decent, honorable, patriotic man who is addicted to the policies of the past and some of the ideas of the past. And I think that, I think we're entered into a new era where the challenges to the United States are going to come from dynamic Asian capitalism, from Europe, and that Mr. Bush is still living, if you will, in the mid 20th century frame of mind.

MR. LEHRER: Where are you living?

MR. BUCHANAN: I think I look at the world and I think I see it more realistically than the President does. I believe the dynamic force shaping our world now in the Soviet Union and everywhere is nationalism, ethnic self-determination, and desire for freedom and independence, and I think Mr. Bush is wedded, if you will, to sort of a skull and bones foreign policy, where you deal with the leaders, be it Gorbachev or Deng Xao Ping, and you make your arrangements with them. And I think he's put us behind, behind the curb, and behind the future in Ukraine, in Croatia, in China, even in the Baltics, where we were 37th to recognize Lithuanian independence. And I think the future's going to require a new nationalism, a new patriotism in the United States, where we really begin to put our own country first. And I think my ideas, for example, phasing out foreign aid, bringing 250,000 troops home from Europe, stopping the illegal immigration in the American Southwest, whether I prevail or not, I think these ideas, Jim, are going to be the ideas of the 1990s and they are going to prevail. George Bush is a man of World War II and of a great generation, a Col. Stinson man. And that world is really ending. And the United States did a tremendous job, I think, in a cold war, winning it together. But I really think I see the world more clearly than he does. And there's another reason. I think Mr. Bush is what you might call a big government Republican. He does believe in government. Under him, we're spending 25 percent of GNP. We're running the largest deficits in history. He raised taxes, went back on his promise, because I think he believes that "the environmental President" and these things, that is the kind of President he wants to be. And I would take the party and the country in an entirely different direction.

MR. LEHRER: The phrase that has come to be the label for your position is "America first."

MR. BUCHANAN: Right. It's my own fault.

MR. LEHRER: That's an old term. It was a term that was a negative term used back in World War I.

MR. BUCHANAN: No. It was just before World War II the America First Committee was charged with having left America disarmed. You know who'd led the America First Committee at Yale? It was Gerald R. Ford. Potter Stuart was his No. 2. He got a hundred bucks from a young student from Harvard named John F. Kennedy who said your work is vital. These were people who wanted to basically keep America out of a war between Hitler and Stalin and between the Japanese and Chinese. And there were some bad people associated with that movement and there are some bad people associated with the interventionist movement. But I think when you had Pearl Harbor, the whole country united and those who were isolationists, and I am being called, and those who were interventionists came together.

MR. LEHRER: And are you, do you buy the isolationist label now? Are you in isolation? Is that part of being America first, forget the rest of the world, protect only the United States and on the United States' interests?

MR. BUCHANAN: I think it's a label the President has used on me and I think it is inaccurate in this sense. I think the United States, what do we have, almost $1 trillion in trade, we're going to be the greatest exporting nation in the world. I do think this. America's carrying of the full burden, almost the full burden of defending Western Europe and of defending Japan, as they were sort of being rebuilt, I think more of that burden is going to have to be transferred to the Germans and the Japanese and we are going to have to focus more of our resources on rebuilding our own industry, our own manufacturing, and the rest of it. We are $4 trillion in debt. That debt was run up by us winning the cold war. But I think now we're going to have to focus on our own country. I was up in New Hampshire. I've been out to Detroit and places like that. I mean, people are really hurting. Mr. Bush might say there is no recession or he might deny there is a recession. But New England and New Hampshire in the pits of a recession. It's lasted three years in New Hampshire, so I think we've got to focus more of our attention on rebuilding our own strength so we can be a great force in the world. The United States can't come home from the world, no.

MR. LEHRER: You mentioned immigration a moment ago. There's been much comment about a comment that you made recently. You said, if we had to take a million immigrants and say Zulus next year or Englishmen and put them in Virginia --

MR. BUCHANAN: Right.

MR. LEHRER: -- what group would be easier to assimilate and cause less problems for the people of Virginia. What did you mean by that?

MR. BUCHANAN: Well, my view is this, Jim. God created all men good and I think all men equal in their basic natural rights. But He did not create them all equally assimilable in an English- speaking society which has, you know, British institutions and has a basically a Euro-American culture. One example: The American Indians, they're native Americans that have been much longer than you and I, but they have not been assimilated in American society, whereas, the Dutch who came over are totally assimilated. And my point is in this country we have some serious problems I think of ethnic tension, rivalries, and the rest of it, and I think when you decide on legal immigration that matters of culture, of language, of religion, of ethnicity have got to be taken into consideration, you've got to discuss 'em, because we're deciding now with our immigration policy what the America of the United States or the United States of say 2020 or 2050 is going to look like. And on immigration, on illegal immigration, I would try to stop it cold. You can't do it completely, but I would try to stop it cold in the Southwest. And then I would institute a national debate. I mean, take a look at New York City, the case of Bensonhurst, Howard Beach, Crown Heights, Central Park, the ethnic hatreds and rivalries and tensions, and I would ask myself, what is happening here? One of the things that's happened, I think, is that our institutions of assimilation, public schools, churches, families and the rest, are collapsing all around us at the same time there are flood tides of immigration into the country. And I think this contributes to some of the social problems we've got in America.

MR. LEHRER: You mean, the country would be better off if there were more people like you and me, than people who are black or Hispanic?

MR. BUCHANAN: Not necessarily you.

MR. LEHRER: No, okay. But I mean people who look like us.

MR. BUCHANAN: Not necessarily.

MR. LEHRER: It's an appearance thing. It's a racial thing?

MR. BUCHANAN: It is not an appearance thing. But let me talk about the racial aspect here without stepping on any land mines, I hope. Look over our country's history. Let's take some terms, Dread-Scott, Gettysburg, Plessey vs. Ferguson, Brown v. the Board of Education, Watts. Those are all about our effort, successful by and large, but still failed, to assimilate into our society that 10 or 12 percent of Americans who are African-Americans. It has been a very, very difficult thing and we've had great turmoil and civil war over it. What I am saying is that if you are allowing immigration to pour into our country, I think these matters of background, culture, where folks come from, what they believe, religion, language and the rest of them are things we're going to have to consider in the United States. One example: I think the President's wrong when he says we ought to make Puerto Rico a state of the United States. The Puerto Ricans voted and said we are a Spanish-speaking culture, Spanish people. I think if you brought them into the United States, we would have the same problem Canada has with Quebec, where people, they have lived together a hundred and so many years, and yet, Quebec now wants to go its separate way. All over the world ethnic identity is becoming more and more important. In Yugoslavia, Slovakia, we are not immune to that.

MR. LEHRER: George Will, a fellow conservative columnist, says that you misunderstand what the United States is all about. He says, "Becoming an American is an act of political assent, not a matter of membership in any inherently privileged or especially appropriate group, Caucasian or otherwise." You're saying just the opposite, are you not?

MR. BUCHANAN: No. No, I'm not.

MR. LEHRER: That this is basically a Caucasian nation.

MR. BUCHANAN: No. No. What I'm saying is basically this. Look, anybody who comes from anywhere can be a good American. They can come here, but if you have large numbers of immigrants who bring with them their own culture and who want to create a multicultural society in the United States, I think if you look at what is happening around the world, where multicultural societies are coming apart, that you ought to consider that in terms of an immigration policy where we take 2/3 of the immigrants, legal immigrants, I think in the entire world, and we take one to three million illegals, many of whom go back, from Mexico. I think it's a problem that's got to be looked at and it is a problem, Jim, that people are talking about I think in their own homes, and it's one that really I think is going to have to be tabled in the public policy debate and will be.

MR. LEHRER: When you say people are talking about it, you mean while people are talking about it.

MR. BUCHANAN: I mean they're talking about it in California. Pete Wilson had to raise taxes and one of the reasons he did is that children of illegal immigrants are entitled to be educated in public schools there. It is a problem. People in California, some people in California are moving out.

MR. LEHRER: Another area in which you've drawn fire this week is the area of Jewish-Americans. William F. Buckley in an article in the "National Review" this week has raised some questions about your attitudes toward Jews. And he says, it is impossible to defend you against the charge that some of the things you have said in the past were anti-semitic. Have you read this article, first of all?

MR. BUCHANAN: No.

MR. LEHRER: Well, he cites several examples. Let's take one of them. It was your comment during the war before the Middle East War that there are only two groups beating drums for the war in the Middle East and that is the Israeli defense ministry in its Amen corner in the United States and then you went on to say later that "kids with names like McCallister, Murphy, Gonzalez and Leroy Brown" were going to do the fighting. Now, Buckley says this: "There is no way to read that sentence without concluding that Pat Buchanan was suggesting that American Jews managed to avoid personal military exposure even while advancing military policies they uniquely engineered." Now, is that what you meant when you said that?

MR. BUCHANAN: First, Mr. Buckley is quoting from two separate columns. The phrase "McCallister, Murphy, Gonzalez, and Leroy Brown" was in response to an editorial in the "Economist" which says the Americans have to do this even if it's going to take a million troops. And I said it's not going to be British boys. It's going to be Americans with the names of McCallister, Murphy, et cetera. Now why isn't that anti-Polish or anti-Italian, or anti- German?

MR. LEHRER: My question is: What did you mean? Did you mean what he says?

MR. BUCHANAN: He's got two -- he takes segments of two columns.

MR. LEHRER: Forget what he says. What did you mean when you said that? Did you mean that Jews --

MR. BUCHANAN: Of course not.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

MR. BUCHANAN: What I mean, look, if you take the armed forces of the United States, I think the idea that Irish and Hispanic and blacks represent the majority of the ground troops is accurate. It's a good phrase. There's nothing wrong with it.

MR. LEHRER: But he's wrong when he claims that was anti- semitic, anti-Jewish?

MR. BUCHANAN: Yes, he is.

MR. LEHRER: You have also said that Congress is an Israeli- occupied territory. Now, what do you mean by that?

MR. BUCHANAN: I said on the McLaughlin Group in response to a question, Jim, they said, do you think that the Congress of the United States will resist this demand for further aid? I said, threw out a crack I'd heard, I said, no, the Congress of the United States is Israeli-occupied territory. What I meant by that is the most powerful lobby in Washington which Congress can't stand up to, one of the most powerful is certainly the pro-Israeli lobby. It has gotten its way in this town year in and year out, and I don't think the automatic votes of the Congress of the United States for 3 and 4 billion dollars' worth of aid to Israel are necessarily in the national interests of the United States, and that comment, which is to ridicule the subservience of the Congress of the United States is perfectly valid.

MR. LEHRER: Do you believe there are members of the Congress of the United States who are voting the interest of Israel over the interests of the United States?

MR. BUCHANAN: No. I think they're voting the interest of a powerful lobby which they can't stand up to in many cases, one of many. They cave into lobbies all over this city. I think the Congress of the United States where it's got brave men on both sides is an institutional coward and that when a powerful lobby can influence or defeat them back at home and they can't get much support on the other side for a vote, many of them who will even tell you privately, they will tell you privately, I can't stand up to that kind of heat, they will vote for it.

MR. LEHRER: But why have you singled out this particular -- if you say there are many powerful lobbies?

MR. BUCHANAN: Well, this was a question that was thrown to me on the McLaughlin Group about Israeli aid. Should I have talked about the National Rifle Association at that point?

MR. LEHRER: No. But I mean this, there's a pattern, as you know, that this is what William F. Buckley was talking about. Why don't you just state what your position is right now?

MR. BUCHANAN: With regard to --

MR. LEHRER: Toward Jews and Israel. And if you were President of the United States -- let's put it very specific -- if you were President of the United States, how would you change U.S. policy toward Israel and why?

MR. BUCHANAN: Well, my view with regard to Israel is Israel is entitled to peace, to security, to recognition, to a lifting of the Arab embargo, and to revocation of that 1975 revolting Zionism equals racism resolution. I also believe that the Palestinian people are entitled to justice, to self-determination, and not to be dispossessed from land on which they and their ancestors have lived a thousand years. I do not believe my government should subsidize Israeli socialism, which we have done. And I do not believe we should subsidize a policy on the West Bank, on the Jordan River, which denies the Palestinian people rights which I support from Lithuania to Croatia. That's my view on Israel. With regard to the American-Jewish community, I think they are entitled to every constitutional right. I think they are good Americans as I am. I would be against any kind of racial or ethnic quota that keeps them out of colleges or universities. They are entitled to political activity just as I am, but if I also believe that Pat Buchanan is entitled to stand up and speak out against any kind of political lobby, whether it's the Greek lobby, aid for Greece, or whether it's the pro-Israeli lobby, aid for Israel, without being called vile names.

MR. LEHRER: And you think that's what happened to you?

MR. BUCHANAN: Let me tell you something, Jim. When this, this little flap is 18 months old, I made this crack, I know Buckley's talking about an 18-month old column, let's forget that. When this broke, I made that wiseacre crack about the Amen corner. It was wiseacre and it was very funny. You know what happened as a consequence of that? People called my newspaper that carried my column and said, drop Buchanan. APAC listed five conservative columnists who accepted.

MR. LEHRER: That's the Jewish --

MR. BUCHANAN: The pro-Israeli lobby, right.

MR. LEHRER: The Israeli lobby.

MR. BUCHANAN: I went out to speak in the country and a little girl from the Junior League said I get these horrible calls from New York about you. People there, individuals who are pro-Israeli go around the country and speak in synagogues and say, call CNN and get Pat Buchanan taken off the air. Those kinds of tactics, in my judgment, are un-American. They are done in the name of the First Amendment and they violate the spirit of the First Amendment. You know me. I've been in this town for 25 years, 30 years. I'm controversial. I am sometimes insensitive, I am tough and I am hard, but I think that this type of thing is beyond the pale. And I will say this. When this whole incident broke 18 months ago, I have never received more public support and private support from journalists in my entire life. People called my home that I've argued with for years and said, Pat, stand in there. This is what Bill Munroe of NBC said in the Washington Journalist Review. He described this an attempt at journalistic murder of a career. And that's what it is. And I'm going to stand up to this. Well, right now I'm running the campaign, but, you know, I think I stood up to that. It was an effort to smear me, intimidate me, and silence me. It didn't do the last two. I guess it did some damage in the first count, but that's where I stand.

MR. LEHRER: Pat Buchanan, thank you very much.

MR. BUCHANAN: Thank you. FOCUS - GERGEN & SHIELDS

MR. MacNeil: Now some end-of-the-week political analysis from our own team of Gergen & Shields. Judy Woodruff's in charge. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: They are David Gergen, editor at large at U.S. News & World Report, and syndicated columnist, Mark Shields. Well, gentlemen, is this message that Pat Buchanan is delivering, as we just heard it, is this the message that's going to sell? David.

MR. GERGEN: I think that Pat Buchanan passed a very important threshold test this past week and that was he was taken seriously as a candidate. I mean, here's a man who's never held public office. He's never run a department or agency. He's never run a business. He's never met a payroll, but he does have one thing that's very important. He has a clear trumpet. He has a message and I think it has been taken seriously already. Rather than being treated as a journalist who eccentrically wandered into politics, he was treated on the front page of most of the newspapers in this country as a serious candidate and George Bush has already indicated that he now plans to go to New Hampshire to campaign against him.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is this a message that's going to sell, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: I think it is. Let me just emphasize what David said. Not only did the press take Pat Buchanan seriously, the President did. The President twice in two days went after Pat and engaged him on Pat's own turf. I think Pat Buchanan is misread as a candidate. He is generally accorded high marks as a messenger because he is a very gifted, and able and successful television broadcaster, but I think the message is a lot more compelling than a messenger, quite frankly. It is --

MS. WOODRUFF: The message is more --

MR. SHIELDS: That's right, of taking care of America first. You can go right through the issues, the hot button issues that Pat Buchanan mentions, bringing the American troops home, standing up for American textile workers that were making $8 an hour against forced labor in China who ere making 25 cents an hour, that that's unfair competition, all the Council for Foreign Relation arguments on free trade kind of melt away when you hear those kind of graphic truths. So I think, I think it is. I think it's a very serious message, especially at a time of economic downturn and a time of uncertainty abroad.

MR. GERGEN: I don't think they melt away, as Mark argues. I think they, frankly, the argument needs to be joined, and that's what the White House has to do and that's what others have to do. But I do think he is going to be taken seriously. There is not one better state in the union for Pat Buchanan to begin in than New Hampshire because it is a state that's in near depression.

MS. WOODRUFF: Because it's in near depression it's ready to hear this, the America first message?

MR. GERGEN: I think that Mark is right on America first having a lot of resonance, but also Pat will be seen as a vehicle and a voice of protest, protesting against the establishment in Washington, against the President, against the Congress, against the mess that has led these terrible troubles that people are experiencing in their own lives economically.

MS. WOODRUFF: You said a minute ago, David, he's never held public office, he's never been elected to anything. Mark, can the fact that he's been a commentator, a columnist, somebody who's spent his career, most of his career, he's worked in the White House writing speeches and so forth, as a commentator and a columnist, is that a plus, or is that a minus?

MR. SHIELDS: I think he probably comes from one of the few professions that is held in lower esteem than politics, ours. But I think --

MS. WOODRUFF: The polls don't really show that.

MR. SHIELDS: The polls, just ahead of used car dealers and God love used car dealers, but the reality is, Judy, that the disadvantage of a liability has become a virtue. I mean when they attack him as somebody who's never held office, they're taking Pat Buchanan, who was born in Washington, D.C., educated in Washington, D.C., went to school in Washington, D.C., married and worked in Washington, D.C., and making him the outsider. So it is giving him a credential.

MR. GERGEN: He's caught the wave. I mean, a year ago Pat was looking at this and he decided not to run, but with the economy down, the President vulnerable, and from the rights point of view, the conservative point of view that the President has capitulated to the left, there's a lot of unrest out there and Pat is exploring that and catching it.

MS. WOODRUFF: How is what he is saying different from what David Duke saying? And I mean that as a serious question. He's talking about keeping foreigners out, keeping that special European quality to the United States. I mean, a --

MR. GERGEN: I disagree that that's what he's saying.

MS. WOODRUFF: -- lot of people are going to say that's white America.

MR. GERGEN: I disagree he's saying that foreigners out to be kept out. I think there is --

MS. WOODRUFF: He said keep immigration down.

MR. GERGEN: -- a lot more nativism in David Duke and there's a lot more racism in David Duke. I don't think Pat Buchanan is a racist. I don't think he's an anti-semite. I think he is skirting the edges of issues that are extremely explosive in this country but that people do care about. And I think this question of the cultural composition of the country is something that we've now heard about a great deal from blacks. We've heard about it a great deal from Hispanics, certainly native Americans, and we're starting to hear whites talk about it a lot more. It's very explosive. It's something we need to treat with a great deal of understanding and a great deal of understanding of each other, because there are an increasing number of people in this country who feel like they're victims. And now the whites are beginning to feel like they're victimized, that they're being, in effect, overrun. You know, I think we all believe that the people who've come to these shores, whether Hispanic, Asian-American, or European, have made enormous contributions to the vitality of American society. But there are a number -- you know, the nature of this society is changing. In the next 10 years, you go out and speak to American companies, we all do that and talk to the work force, and you go out and you speak to all these white males who are working in these companies, in the next 10 years, only 30 percent of the people in our work force are going to be white males. 70 percent are going to be women and minorities. That's going to be a terrific change, we ought to be prepared for it and I think it's causing a lot of frictions in society.

MS. WOODRUFF: So, Mark, is he in a way playing -- is he going to so weaken, could he potentially so weaken George Bush that the Democrats have a stronger hand going into this election?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, there's two things that could happen. First of all, if he beats George Bush in New Hampshire, which I don't hold outside the realm of possibility. I mean, I think there's --

MS. WOODRUFF: You don't hold outside?

MR. SHIELDS: I do not. There's a resentment of George Bush. New Hampshire made George Bush in 1988. George Bush would not have been the Republican nominee and the President of the United States if he had not won New Hampshire. He won New Hampshire on a simple pledge that he would not raise taxes and Bob Dole would. Bob Dole wouldn't take that pledge, refused to take the pledge as a responsible public servant and public citizen and didn't. George Bush did, broke his word. So you've got that going for him as well as the dissatisfaction and the anger and the hurt and the pain up there. But I think what it shows more than anything else - - and David said it right at the outset -- Pat Buchanan knows what he believes. That's the biggest threat he presents to George Bush. He knows who he is and he knows what he believes.

MS. WOODRUFF: Because you're suggesting the President does not?

MR. SHIELDS: The President does not have a clear trumpet. I mean, as Sen. Nancy Kassebaum said just two weeks ago when the trumpet sound is uncertain, who is going to follow the trumpeter? And that's what the President is. He is the one who plays the trumpet. And it's an uncertain trumpet the President's sounding.

MS. WOODRUFF: So what is the -- David.

MR. GERGEN: Let me say a couple of things. One is there are signs already since Sam Skinner's coming to the White House it's loosening up. I think it's going to be a better operation. I think you're going to see a stronger operation and a stronger President in the next few weeks than what we've seen in the last few weeks. I do think that Mark is right about this tax pledge. I would assume Buchanan would try to wrap it around the President's neck. I would assume, Mark, that Pat will go to New Hampshire and say I'm taking the pledge not to raise taxes, will George Bush take the same pledge for the next four years, as he did four years ago?

MS. WOODRUFF: And will the President have to do the same thing?

MR. GERGEN: Well, I think that puts him in a dilemma, puts the President in a real dilemma.

MR. SHIELDS: The fear that some Democrats have, Judy, is -- those Democrats you see fear everywhere -- is that some of the messages that Pat Buchanan has, the populism, the economic populism, taking care of America, which is also a theme running through Democratic candidacies, will somehow be tarnished or discredited because of Pat's embrace of it if Pat, in fact, is seen characterized, lampooned or regarded as either an anti-semite or a nativist, and that somehow that would take on a coloration.

MR. GERGEN: If I were George Bush right now, I'd send Dan Quayle to New Hampshire and go toe-to-toe with Pat Buchanan. Dan Quayle has legitimate conservative credentials, he's a better politician than most people think. If he takes on Pat and does well --

MR. SHIELDS: Dan?

MR. GERGEN: -- I think it would raise Quayle's stature and Quayle has a very, very strong personal self-interest in defeating Pat Buchanan in 1992, because if he does not, he knows that Pat Buchanan could be at the forefront of the conservative movement for 1996 and both of them will want to be President.

MS. WOODRUFF: But you don't think that makes people take Buchanan's threat more seriously if he sends the Vice President?

MR. GERGEN: No, I don't think so. I think it would be a smart move on his part.

MS. WOODRUFF: We'll see if you're right. David Gergen, Mark Shields, thank you for being with us.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the new head of the Teamsters Union. But first, this is pledge week on public television. We're taking a short break now so that your public television station can ask for your support. That support helps keep programs like this on the air. PLEDGE BREAK SEGMENT

MR. MacNeil: For those stations not taking a pledge break, the NewsHour continues with an extended excerpt from today's Senate Finance Committee hearing focusing on the recession and what to do about it. There are a number of economic recovery plans circulating in Congress. Today members of the committee heard the ideas of a group described as representatives of the middle class.

VICKI YANCEY, Management Consultant: I'm 34 years old, college educated and married with two elementary school children. I consider myself an average middle class representative and it is of the middle class that I would like to speak. Like much of our middle class, I was brought up with the American dream. Both of my parents were the children of immigrants. Neither went to college, yet, during the 1950s, my father bought a house and raised five children in New Jersey on his salary as a welder. My mother stayed at home. They budgeted their money carefully and did without luxuries, but all five of us grew up in a secure middle class environment. Four of the five children have gone on to college. My parents' expectation was that we would continue the tradition of having a better life than the generation before. As for me, despite the fact that my husband has an MBA, we learned it was virtually impossible for a family of four to live a middle class existence in the Washington area on one salary. Everything we had been brought up to believe has proved obsolete as we've struggled to make ends meet and were unable to buy a home. This is not the legacy I want to hand down to my children. Indeed, I wonder what life will be like for my children's generation when the expectation is that they will be unable to attain what their parents had. When two paychecks are not enough, then what? A whole generation of men and women who have already been required to grow up in a day care environment will have even less to give to their own children. My spouse and I would like to be in a position to help our children when they start out on their own if we can, however, if progressive legislation does not reverse the decline within the middle class, this will become increasingly difficult. At this time, my husband and I have no savings, a home that is decreased in value, and we wonder where we will get the money to send our children to college. Diving deeply into debt in our middle age is a very unappealing possibility.

PAUL COHEN, Unemployed Grocer: My unemployment benefits ran out in mid September. Two months later, I was forced to apply for welfare, something I never in my life dreamed I would have to do. I thank God and Sen. Bentsen that the extended benefit program was passed last month and I'm now receiving unemployment again. I'm scared to death. I don't know what I'm going to do at the end of February when my benefits run out again. I see no light right now. My mortgage is 550 a month and I barely get it up so far. I've been getting utility assistance to pay some of my bills but it's been tough. This unemployment situation has been a shock to my children. During the month I was forced to go on public assistance my youngest daughter, who is nine and a half, said to me, we're on welfare? My kids are insecure right now. They're very emotional since I've been out of work. We and the millions like us need help. I need a decent job with healthy benefits to support my family.

NANCY McKENNA, City Worker: My husband and I found it very frustrating when we applied for financial aid last year for our son to go to college. We were told we make too much money and we own a home, if we want the financial aid, sell your home. And I would like to know where we would go. We have two other children and you have to take a loan out to send your son to college and then you have another tuition too right after Christmas, and then you have to take another loan out, and you still are repaying the first loan you took out. It just seems that it's a never ending battle. My husband is an electrician in New Jersey and his job security is not good. He can get laid off at any time. He can be out of work for two, three months at a time, or two to three weeks at a time, whatever the case is. I had to start full-time in June in order to send my son to college. My husband works hard, I work hard, and we're not getting anywhere, anywhere. I want to be able to give my children the best and the things that we didn't have growing up or the opportunities. I just don't know, you know, where to go anymore for help. The job situation is terrible. There's a lot of people out of work. I have a lot of friends that are in the same situation that I'm in and it's like no matter what committees you listen to, no matter what hearings you turn on TV, you don't hear answers. All you hear is people talking. You don't see any action taken. I just want to get up one morning and turn on the radio and turn on the TV and say, well, this is what's being done.

MR. MacNeil: Next week, the House Ways & Means Committee resumes hearings on proposals to cut taxes to aid the economy. CONVERSATION

MR. MacNeil: The Teamsters Union got a new president this week, reform candidate Ronald Carey. In an election supervised by the federal government, the 1 1/2 million member union chose Carey by mail-in ballot. Carey, 48 years old, has been president of a Teamsters local in New York City since 1967. He beat out two longtime union officials associated with the Old Guard. That Old Guard ran one of the most corrupt unions in America. Three of its last five presidents spent time in jail. Former union president Jimmy Hoffa is believed to have been murdered by mob elements who turned against him. Three years ago the federal government filed a racketeering suit against the Teamsters and the union eventually agreed to purge its mob connections and hold democratic elections. Mr. Carey, the winner of that election process, joins us now. Mr. Carey, welcome.

MR. CAREY: Thank you.

MR. MacNeil: Congratulations on your victory.

MR. CAREY: Yes.

MR. MacNeil: What percentage of the Teamster vote did you win?

MR. CAREY: I think the numbers have not all been calculated but at this point it's about 51, 52 percent.

MR. MacNeil: Does that mean, to put it bluntly, that a lot of Teamster rank and file are still supporting the old guard and could still have said to be supporting corruption, a corrupt union?

MR. CAREY: No. I think what it says is that there is a tremendous amount of people that have been intimidated over the years, maybe looked at this balloting process, the whole election process, as a way that some of the union officials could sense how they voted. I think it also indicates that there's an awful lot of apathy out there, members who are fed up, and it's been designed apathy and people who just felt that there is no way they could change this union.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think some members still feel intimidated, some rank and file still feel intimidated?

MR. CAREY: Absolutely.

MR. MacNeil: By what specifically?

MR. CAREY: Well, there are ways that they can get back at them, lose the job, or move them in different directions, that kind of thing has happened throughout the years.

MR. MacNeil: What power do you have as the new president with the kind of support you've just indicated? What power do you have to root out corruption, to eliminate corruption in the union?

MR. CAREY: Well, first of all, under the constitution, I have broad rights and responsibilities to do just that. And I won't hesitate to do that because what is at stake here is this union, is its reputation, its ability to go out there to organize, to build, to negotiate contracts. Look what's happened to us, the distraction, the fact that the past four general presidents were indicted. Look what it says to the public, what it says to our members. So I do have broad rights. I do intend to use them.

MR. MacNeil: Give us an example of something concrete you could do right away, for example.

MR. CAREY: For example, if someone is caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they'll step aside. They won't. They're out. And that's the way I will run it. Also, at the convention we had proposed an ethics commission which now will be operated independently and operated impartially without the control of the general president of the Teamsters. And they would go out there and look at improprieties or look at wrongdoing, kickbacks, and things that have gone on for years. Teamster members are fed up. They want a union to work for them. They want decent contracts. They want good, solid grievance procedures. They want decent pension programs and they want leadership that will be out there working in their interest and who has the guts to throw the bums out.

MR. MacNeil: What about some of the extremely high salaries that some local Teamsters still get, what are you going to do about that?

MR. CAREY: Well, some of the positions that I took at the convention was to eliminate multiple salaries. We cannot afford it. This is not --

MR. MacNeil: What's a multiple salary?

MR. CAREY: Well, that's where an individual works one job and then is given another job. It's a rewarding system. And the result is there are some union officials making six and seven hundred thousand dollars. And we just can't afford it. This union has been run, it's been operated like a corporate country club. And those days are over. The party is over. We have to get back to running a union basically with the basic concepts and for the members.

MR. MacNeil: If you're successful, what difference will a reformed Teamsters Union make to the labor movement in this country?

MR. CAREY: I think what's happened to the labor movement in this country is that most labor officials are pretty much out of touch, feel frustrated with the legislation, with the worker replacement, with the politicians, and with the fact that the growing number of non-union groups, I mean, it's just tremendous, and they've lost touch with that. What we have to do is we have to get back in touch with the members. We have to show them their interests come first. Look what's happened in this country. The middle class is being eroded, the things that labor unions have fought so hard for, the replacement worker bill. We're not asking for an uneven playing field. We're asking only for the right that we not be permanently replaced. Our Teamster Union, by the way, has supported the very same people that replaced the flight controllers.

MR. MacNeil: You mean, the Republican President?

MR. CAREY: Absolutely.

MR. MacNeil: Ronald Reagan?

MR. CAREY: Absolutely. And we've supported the Republicans three times.

MR. MacNeil: And you supported Bush in the last election.

MR. CAREY: That's true.

MR. MacNeil: Now, are the Teamsters automatically going to support Republican candidates this time?

MR. CAREY: As the next general president, I won't be supporting those people who aren't supporting the causes of labor.

MR. MacNeil: Can you swing the whole rank and file the way it used to be, at least if not delivered, at least promised the way it has been in past elections?

MR. CAREY: I think it can and I think the way that that's done is we have to put out to our members the facts. What have they stood for? What have they worked for? What are they interested in? Let's look at the record. Let's have our members be given education to communicate on those issues and then have them tell us what direction we should be going. If we look at the direction that we've gone with the Reagan, Reagan-Bush era, it's a horrible one, it's a nightmare. Look at the National Labor Relations Board. We can't get a fair shake there. I'm going to work to get a fair shake. I'm going to work to get out there, to talk about working people's problems, to bring this union forward and make it work for the members. They are the important part of this election.

MR. MacNeil: Have you got a favorite Democrat already?

MR. CAREY: I haven't looked at all the positions at this point, but I certainly am looking at them.

MR. MacNeil: So you're saying that the full power, you feel persuasive enough that you could swing the full power of the Teamsters Union behind a Democratic Presidential candidate?

MR. CAREY: I think that's possible. I don't say it's 100 percent. But I think our members have a right to know what positions they've taken. Our members have a right to know that today going out on strike, one strike and you're out.

MR. MacNeil: Are the Democrats stressing labor issues to suit you at the moment adequately, with enough passion do you think?

MR. CAREY: Some of them are. And I've heard some good things. I'm concerned about some of the switch-overs.

MR. MacNeil: And some of them aren't good.

MR. CAREY: That's correct. I'm concerned about those that support the Mexican free trade where, again, it's another classic illustration of where they pit worker against worker, American worker against Mexican worker. And I don't see how we'll get a fair shake on that one. How can we with a wage rate of $3 a day, if that, no environmental protections, no health, no compensation, no pensions, no benefits, and American workers are receiving 8 and 9 dollars, 10 dollars an hour? How will they buy the products?

MR. MacNeil: Unionism in this country was built on industry and industrial unions. Do you think with the great decline in American manufacturing jobs and the huge shift into service jobs, often lower paid, that American, the labor movement, organized labor, can be revived, can grow, can become strong again?

MR. CAREY: Absolutely.

MR. MacNeil: On what -- how do you rationalize that?

MR. CAREY: Well, first of all, let's look at where the jobs are. First of all, the growth in this country in terms of jobs are in the non-union sector. Unions, organized labor today is about 15 percent, if that, so that tells us there's 85 percent of people out there that could be organized, that should be organized. That's a priority for this union. That's the strength, the very lifeline of organized labor is building, and that's what I will do in the next five years.

MR. MacNeil: Are the Teamsters now, and are you going to cooperate with organized labor coming under the AFL-CIO umbrella?

MR. CAREY: Well, we already are and I think it's kind of just a lot of hot air. I think what the Teamsters ought to be doing is leading the charge. We've been the tail and as far as I'm concerned, we should be leading the charge out front, working with unions. We have to look at what's happened in this country and all over the world. I mean, work can be replaced in the United States, but yet in Poland that isn't possible. Isn't that strange?

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. Carey, thank you for joining us.

MR. CAREY: Thank you very much. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, the leaders of five more republics said they would join the new commonwealth of foreign Soviet states. Sec. of State Baker said the United States must not interfere with changes in the Soviet Union and North and South Korea signed a non-aggression pact. The agreement formally ends the Korean War. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back on Monday night with a conversation with Chief Justice Warren Burger, the first in a series on the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. I'm Robert MacNeil. Thank you. Have a nice weekend.