The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, the Associated Press said two U.S. aircraft carriers are awaiting orders to strike Libya. Two FBI agents died and five others were wounded in a Miami shootout. And dropping oil prices sent wholesale prices way down in March. We will have the details in our news summary in a moment. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: After the news summary, our major focus is Libya. With national security experts and members of Congress: is a military strike at Qaddafi likely and is it justified? Then a report on cutting dairy herds to reduce the glut in milk. And a book critic looks at the remarkable pre-publication hype for a book by David Stockman.News Summary

LEHRER: There were increasing signs today the United States will launch a military action against Libya. The Associated Press said two American aircraft carriers were moving toward a rendezvous in the Mediterranean, where they will await orders to strike Libyan targets. The AP attributed the report to Pentagon sources. White House spokesman Larry Speakes declined to comment on that report or anything else involving terrorism and Libya. He said he was still in a no-comment mode. And in Australia, Defense Secretary Weinberger was asked about the possibility of a Libya strike. He said he was not in a position to say yes, no or maybe. From the other side there came another threat from Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. He said Libya was prepared to attack any nation in southern Europe in response to threats from NATO. Robin?

MacNEIL: At least in public, Washington is not getting rousing encouragement from its Western allies for military action against Libya. Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney urged President Reagan not to use a shotgun approach. Italy and the Netherlands called for an urgent meeting next week of European Community foreign ministers to discuss terrorism and the tension between the United States and Libya. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said that Bonn had many indications that Libya had a hand in the Berlin bombing, but he told a news conference he was still against economic sanctions and wary of U.S. reprisals. In West Berlin the security chiefs of the three Western powers, the U.S., Britain and France, were reported after long deadlock to have agreed on some emergency security measures. The U.S. wanted a formal order banning Libyan diplomats based in East Berlin from crossing into West Berlin. Britain agreed with that, but France reportedly refused, saying there was no firm evidence linking the diplomats to the disco bombing last weekend.

LEHRER: The Soviet Union today ended its self-imposed nuclear test moratorium. The announcement was made in Moscow by the Soviet news agency Tass. Tass said it was done because the U.S. set off an underground nuclear blast in Nevada yesterday. White House spokesman Speakes said the announcement was expected; the Soviets had said they would lift the moratorium the next time the U.S. conducted such a test. Also today, May 14, 15 and 16 were firmed up as the day Soviet Foreign Minister Edward Shevardnadze will come to Washington to work out details for a second Reagan-Gorbachev summit.

MacNEIL: In a Miami suburb there was a bloody shootout between FBI agents and suspected bank robbers. It left two FBI men and two suspects dead, and five agents wounded. We have a report from Joyce Evans of station WCIX.

JOYCE EVANS, WCIX [voice-over]: Authorities from jurisdictions all over Dade County wasted no time getting to the scene of what's being called the most grisly police shootout this year. But they were all too late to save the lives of two FBI agents and two men suspected of committing a string of bank holdups and armored car robberies throughout the Miami area. Police say the agents were on routine patrol when they spotted a stolen car that allegedly had been used in several holdups in Southwest Dade.

JOSEPH CORLESS, FBI: The agents initially spotting the vehicle called for help, for assistance, and some point after obtaining what they believe apparently was sufficient assistance there was a confrontation with the subject vehicle. Shooting ensued, which resulted in the death of two subjects, death of two agents, and the injuring of five agents, two of them superficially.

EVANS [voice-over]: Residents in this normally quiet neighborhood were astounded to come home and find bodies and weapons strewn about their lawn and the area crawling with police. Those who were home at the time of the shootout say they couldn't believe their eyes.

BILLIE HOLLOWAY, eyewitness: Other people said, "Oh, they're filming." I said, "If they're filming, where are the cameras, where's the crew, where's the set-up?" You know? This is something that it went down very, very, very fast. Extremely fast. The gunshots, a lot of gunshots went on through in just a matter of minutes. It's hard to tell.

LEHRER: In Washington, FBI Director William Webster said the death of the two agents has had a major impact on the bureau. He said the shootout was not an accident.

WILLIAM WEBSTER, FBI Director: There is every indication from all of this and from what we know that we were dealing with two particularly violent individuals who did not shoot out of excitement or fear, but that it was a part of their modus operandi. Today's tragedy is a severely felt loss to the FBI. It is difficult to recall so many agents killed and injured in a single incident. As in law enforcement everywhere, dedicated men and women put their lives on the line for all of us each day. This is a violent world, but it would be much more so were it not for their fidelity, their bravery and their integrity.

MacNEIL: In economic news today, wholesale prices fell sharply in March for the third straight month, led by declines in gasoline and heating oil. The wholesale price index was down 1.1 . Retail sales were down 0.8 in March, the first fall since October. With April 15th approaching, the White House released President and Mrs. Reagan's tax return. It showed they earned $394,000 in 1985 and paid just over 31 , or $122,000, in federal taxes.

LEHRER: The U.S. Civil Rights Commission today failed to adopt a staff recommendation to condemn set-aside preferences for minority businesses. The staff report said set-asides benefit mostly wealthy black and hispanic businesses and were too expensive. It recommended they be suspended for one year while the whole concept was reexamined. Today's vote was 5 to 3 to send the report back to the staff for revision and was seen as a defeat for Clarence Pendleton, the commission's outspoken chairman, who opposes set-asides. Pendleton, a Reagan appointee, was opposed on the issue by the White House. That resulted in kind words for the administration from a critic, commission member Mary Frances Berry.

MARY FRANCES BERRY, U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner: As much as I have been a critic of the administration's policy on civil rights, I must find that I am in agreement with the administration's policy on set-asides according to the statement that was released yesterday by Mr. Larry Speakes on behalf of the administration. And what I agree with is the President's understanding that sometimes in order to remedy racial subordination, Jim Crow, segregation and the past effects of that and the continuing effects, one needs to use statistical remedies that may be weakly or strongly enforced, but that they are acceptable remedies.

CLARENCE PENDLETON, chairman, U.S. Civil Rights Commission: This administration has to make up its mind whether it wants opportunity for all or preferences for some, and has to stop speaking with a double voice, have a double meaning. The American public needs to get a clear signal from the President down, do you want preferences or do you want opportunity? And I think the statement by Mr. Speakes continues to do mayhem to this Constitution and keeps us in a debate among one another as to what this administration wants.

MacNEIL: Italian health officials today said they have found more than 300 wines contaminated with wood alcohol, far more than previously reported. Twenty-two people have died in Italy since late March after drinking tainted wine. A U.S. government agency has advised American consumers not to drink Italian wine for now, and some retailers have removed Italian wines from their shelves. Italy is the largest exporter of wine to the United States, and an Italian government official described the federal warning as an exaggerated reaction.

LEHRER: And finally, in Lebanon a kidnapped French teacher was rescued today. He was identified as Michel Brian, who is 42 years old. He was seized near his home in Moslem West Beirut three days ago. Syria said its security forces rescued the teacher, while other reports from Lebanon said he was freed early this morning when a group of rabbit hunters came across him and his captors. There was an exchange of gunfire and he escaped. But the kidnap news was not all good news from Beirut. Authorities said an Irish teacher named Brian Keenan was reported missing today and feared kidnapped. Fifty foreigners have been kidnapped or are missing in Beirut since January 1984.

MacNEIL: That's our news summary. Coming up, a major discussion on what President Reagan might or should or can do to Libya; also a report on cutting dairy herds to reduce the milk glut; and the most carefully promoted author of the year, David Stockman. Libya: Bracing for Action

LEHRER: We go first, foremost and mostly tonight to the Libya story, to the growing possibility of a U.S. military strike against Libya in retaliation for terrorist acts, particularly in the bombing of a West Berlin disco last weekend. The Associated Press reported two American aircraft carriers, the Coral Sea and the America, are heading for a rendezvous in the Mediterranean off the coast of Sicily. There they will wait for the order to launch a strike or strikes against Libyan targets. We explore the options, the possibles and the wisdom involved in such an order if and when it does come from several angles tonight, first from the viewpoint of a former national security advisor to a president. The president was Carter, the advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, now with the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Dr. Brzezinski, should the United States strike Libya, in your opinion?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Well, that depends on meeting, in my judgment, three basic preconditions. The first I would say is that if there is really incontrovertible evidence that the Libyans were responsible for what happened in Berlin, then we're justified, because it was a causus belli, so to speak.

LEHRER: A what?

Dr. BRZEZINSKI: A causus belli, a cause of war, an act of hostility. But in that case the United States should first of all issue, in effect, a public indictment of Qaddafi. Lay the evidence on the table, share it particularly with our West European allies, but make it also available to the American public, so that the justification for an act of war, for the use of force, is fully laid out. I think this is important if there is to be sustained political support for such action.

LEHRER: This should be laid out before the action is taken?

Dr. BRZEZINSKI: Or in conjunction with that action, just as the action is being initiated. Perhaps we would not wish to telegraph by too many hours the fact that we are initiating action, but I would say that by and large by now our intentions are fairly well evident, and hence a laying out of the case I think should come very closely in connection with the action.

LEHRER: Well, as you know, Dr. Brzezinski, the word from the people both at the Pentagon and the White House has been that, no, they cannot do that because it would compromise intelligence sources.

Dr. BRZEZINSKI: Well, I suspect that the nature of the intelligence is already pretty well understood internationally. In any case, it seems to me that in an action of this gravity, one has to weigh the benefits and the costs, and taking action without laying out the case I think would be unwise, because it would deprive us of the political support we need. And after all, one of the purposes of that action is not just to punish Qaddafi but also to isolate him. And that brings me to my second element, namely that in my judgment we should do whatever we can, particularly diplomatically, to convey the impression that we are not heading towards a confrontation with the Arab world as a whole. There is a tendency among the Arabs, an understandable one, to identify with Qaddafi. And I think we ought to try to prevent that, and the way to do it at the very least is for the United States to show a more active interest in the promotion of a peaceful settlement in the Middle East. Our diplomacy in that regard has been too passive in my judgment, and in that context there is the real risk that action against Libya which then galvanizes Arab support and sympathy for Qaddafi will be seen as part of a larger American confrontation with the Arab world as a whole. And that is very important to avoid.

LEHRER: Assuming that the United States does have evidence, incontrovertible evidence, to use your term, that Qaddafi and Libya were behind these terrorist acts, makes the decision to strike militarily, what kind of strike should it be?

Dr. BRZEZINSKI: That's my third point.

LEHRER: Okay, all right.

Dr. BRZEZINSKI: It seems to me that we have to think through not only the military but the political consequences of the nature of the military action. In my judgment, just a quick military attack against primarily targets military is not going to have any lasting political and psychological effect. Our purpose should be to impact on world public opinion and on Qaddafi in such a way that there is a sense of embarrassment, of futility, on his part. Just killing a few Libyan soldiers, hitting a Libyan missile site or an airfield or a naval base won't do it. I would suggest, for example -- and this is merely by way of example -- that far more effective would be some action which in effect announces to the world that because of Qaddafi's murder of Americans, because of his hostile act in Berlin, the United States is now imposing on Libya a penalty, a 10-day total embargo, on all of Libya's communications and trade with the world. In effect, we're taking military action to close down Libyan ports; we're taking whatever military actions are necessary to prevent the use of Libya airfields by civil transport; we are jamming and interfering with all Libyan telecommunications and written communications with the world. And for 10 days Mr. Qaddafi's sitting there and stewing and unable to do anything.

LEHRER: Isn't that an act of war?

Dr. BRZEZINSKI: Of course it is.

LEHRER: Several acts of war?

Dr. BRZEZINSKI: It is. I'm not against the use of force. As I said earlier, if we can justify it, if we can develop international support, we should do it. But the act itself should convey Qaddafi's weakness, futility, isolation. Simply going in, bombing some asset of his and disappearing, doesn't have that effect. We have to make him sit there, to stew there, to show that he's unable to do anything about it, and make it very clear that the next time the penalty will be stiffer, the embargo and the blockade would be longer. That demonstrates the futility of his actions that isolates, that puts him in a position which is very awkward. Simply going in there with a few bombers, bombing and flying away, I don't think will have that effect.

LEHRER: What about the reaction that this kind of action will get from Qaddafi? More terrorist acts, etcetera. You heard the points against it.

Dr. BRZEZINSKI: Well, that I'm afraid is part of the dilemma, namely that simply hitting him and not really hurting him in a way that does hurt, making him lose face, showing that he's incompetent, making many more Libyans concerned about the economic consequences of his action, is not going to be effective. If we simply attack a military target and disappear, we'll probably just give him more incentive to retaliate in kind with more bombings, more assassinations. I believe that the action should be designed in such a way as to put maximum sustained -- and gradually building up pressure on him. And this requires a military action which is refined to have political and psychological consequences.

LEHRER: What do you think of the way the administration has handled the rhetorical buildup up to this point, to possible military action?

Dr. BRZEZINSKI: I don't have too much objection to it if there's going to be a serious action undertaken. It is a war of nerves; it probably generates some anxiety and uncertainty, but I do think that the administration needs to do much more to avert the twin dangers to which I have already alluded. One, we do not wish to be isolated from our allies, and that means we have to build a more credible case than we have so far. We haven't yet succeeded in convincing our allies and we have to do so. And secondly, we have to minimize the political costs, which to some extent are unavoidable, but nonetheless to minimize the political costs in the Arab world. And here too, we have been much too passive.

LEHRER: Fine. Dr. Brzezinski, thank you very much. Robin?

MacNEIL: For another perspective, from an American with years of service in Libya at the U.S. Embassy there and private industry, we turn to Henry Schuler. Mr. Schuler is now the director of the energy and national security program at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Mr. Schuler, do you think the U.S. should take military action against Libya?

HENRY SCHULER: Robin, if there is incontrovertible proof, then it's probably justified. But I don't think that it's wise to take military action, because I don't know what the objective of that military action would be. Presumably what we want to do is to isolate Qaddafi from regional, other regional countries, and we want to undermine his support at home. I fear that if we take military action, we do just the opposite. It's counterproductive, it rallies the other powers within the region and rallies the people of Libya to his support.

MacNEIL: Do you agree with Dr. Brzezinski that if there is, to use his phrase -- some people in the administration have used, incontrovertible proof, that military action would still be unwise?

Mr. SCHULER: Well, I still don't see what objective. It's probably justified, but that doesn't make it wise. I think that we need to put on the sort of economic and political isolation that Dr. Brzezinski indicated, but not just for 10 days; I think we should do it on a sustained basis without the military intervention.

MacNEIL: How do we do that?

Mr. SCHULER: We do it through establishing an unequivocal example for our own industry by getting the remaining American companies out of there, and then by going to our allies and not asking but advising them, as Dr. Kissinger said on this program the other night, that there are responsibilities that go with their alliance membership.

MacNEIL: Is it an inhibition on the administration's action that there are so many Americans and American companies still in Libya?

Mr. SCHULER: I would be very much surprised if that's an inhibition because the American citizens who are there are there in violation of the law of the land. The companies are there only for a temporary period of time, supposedly until the end of June.

MacNEIL: But you believe it weakens the case morally with the allies and so on, do you?

Mr. SCHULER: Well, it sends mixed signals to the allies. We go to them and urge them to impose economic sanctions and they say, "Well, clearly you're not very serious about this if you allow your American companies to continue to be there." Similarly, the American citizens who were ordered out of the country by the President say that if the companies can be there, why can't we stay there?

MacNEIL: What is your own hunch reading all the signs in Washington this evening whether some action is imminent or not? What do you think?

Mr. SCHULER: I'm afraid I believe it's imminent. I think that there is a frustration, and certainly I personally share that frustration. I've been trying to get rid of Qaddafi for a good many years, longer than most. So I can share the frustration, but I don't think that that is a sound basis for policy.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you, Mr. Schuler. Jim?

LEHRER: Another opinion now from a former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is George Carver, who spent 26 years with the CIA, including three as CIA mission chief in West Berlin and chairman of the U.S. Intelligence Coordinating Committee in West Germany.

Mr. Carver, how do you feel about whether or not the United States should take a military strike against Libya? You heard what Mr. Schuler just said.

GEORGE CARVER: Well, I have great respect for Henry Schuler and Zbig Brzezinski, both of whom are colleagues of mine, but I disagree with both of them. I think we have to retaliate in some form. For one thing, if we were to back down now after all that's gone on, we would be like the Duke of York with his 40,000 men marching up the hill and then marching down again, and put ourselves in an awkward spot. Secondly --

LEHRER: Why is that? What kind of awkward spot does that put us in?

Mr. CARVER: It's an awkward spot projected against our nonresponses to terrorism over the past decade. We've projected the image that attacking Americans, killing Americans, going after American facilities is a riskless form of activity. There'll be huffing, there'll be puffing, there'll be talk of economic sanctions, but in the event, nothing's going to happen. We have to break that pattern, and breaking that pattern is going to require some use of force.

LEHRER: You were going to say something else and I interrupted.

Mr. CARVER: Well, I was going to say simply that if we have -- we cannot focus solely on this particular incident. We have to recognize that this is in a whole stream of terrorist actions which has been going on for years. A single strike against Libya is not going to change Qaddafi's mind, is not going to change the pattern of action with respect to terrorism. We have to start a new pattern which conveys a new signal, a new message as a result of American actions. Foreigners are very rude and nasty. They pay relatively little attention to what we say; they pay a great deal of attention to what we do or do not do. A German plane is hijacked, as one was, a Lufthansa plane some years ago, the Germans put Bondes Grenzschutz Grouppe into another plane.

LEHRER: What's that? What's that?

Mr. CARVER: The border police anti-terrorist group. They chase it down to Mogadishu. They go aboard the plane, they shoot the four terrorists, no passengers on board are injured, and there has not been another German plane hijacked since then. We talk, stage media spectaculars, wring our hands, and American planes get hijacked all the time.

LEHRER: On the intelligence question, you heard what Dr. Brzezinski said, that the time has come for the United States to make a priority decision. If it means blowing some intelligence sources, let's put the evidence out on the table about Qaddafi and terrorism. What do you think?

Mr. CARVER: Well, I may be reflecting my former profession, but I just do not agree. I think there are certain intelligence sources you cannot compromise. The evidence suggests -- and I don't know; if I did know, I certainly wouldn't be talking about it on this program -- that we have a communications intercept.

LEHRER: Meaning that we're tapping the telephone lines, or through a satellite maybe getting some information.

Mr. CARVER: Or sucking in information out of the air, and even it it's encrypted we can read it perhaps.

LEHRER: What do you mean, sucking it out of the air?

Mr. CARVER: Stuff that is put on the air by microwave can be intercepted by anybody's dish, including the one for which it is aimed. This is how the Russians, for example, in the United States intercept our domestic telephone calls.

LEHRER: So, just to talk in specific hypothetical situation, let's say that at the People's Bureau, the Libyan embassy in East Berlin, if some message was going to them, say, from Libya.

Mr. CARVER: From Libya.

LEHRER: Right. The United States or the West could suck that message out of the air and read it?

Mr. CARVER: Well, they could suck that message out of the air, as could the Russians, as could anyone else with detecting equipment. Now, whether or not we could read it, that's the question. If we could, that's something that has got to be protected. In 1927 --

LEHRER: But Mr. Carver, that's already appeared in print. If you and I are talking about it now, don't the Libyans know that we can do that?

Mr. CARVER: They do not know which message we read, and in that sense, as the tacticians would put it, which ciphers might be compromised. In 1927, Jim, the British government, to score a domestic political point, put into the parliamentary record some Comintern cables out of Moscow about fiddling with a British labor union. They scored their immediate political point, but it was decades before the British government could read another piece of Russian traffic. The compromise that you can do to technical collection by exposing precise details of an intelligence intercept or to human collection if we know about it because of a meeting that was held in the Libyan bureau attended by someone who was working with us and there were only five people at the meeting, coming up with hard evidence is going to condemn one person to a very sticky death. So I think that we have to be specific -- be emphatic if we have what we consider proof, but necessarily too specific, unless we're prepared to give up future capabilities we may urgently need.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Now the view from Congress, from Democratic and Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee. Joining us from a studio on Capitol Hill are Democratic Congressman George Brown from California and Republican Richard Cheney from Wyoming.

Congressman Brown, first of all, do you have the feeling that military action is imminent this weekend or in the next few days?

Rep. GEORGE BROWN, Jr.

I think that the nature of the information we're getting from administrative sources indicate that some action is imminent, yes.

MacNEIL: Do you agree with that, Congressman Cheney?

Rep. DICK CHENEY: I don't think it's useful to speculate, Robin. Obviously, given what's on the public record, the movement of the task forces and so forth, some sort of response would seem to be in order.

MacNEIL: Now, is -- Sam Nunn, Senator Nunn of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate, said today that the administration owed Congress some consultations, suggesting that there wasn't much consultation so far. Without telling us what they're saying to you in the White House, are you being briefed as members of the House Intelligence Committee?

Rep. CHENEY: Robin, my -- we are briefed on a regular basis, on a weekly basis, in the House Intelligence Committee on recent developments.

MacNEIL: Are you up to speed on this present situation?

Rep. CHENEY: I am satisfied that I know all I need to know at this point, and I would disagree with what we often hear from the Hill, the cry for consultation in advance, let us in on the decision, we want to share responsibility. It seems to me that this is a clear-cut case where the President as Commander in Chief, in the interest of protecting American lives and wielding the military authority that we've given him previously, is justified in taking whatever action he deems appropriate in discussing the details with us after the fact. I don't think you can have 435 members of the House participate in that decision.

MacNEIL: Congressman Brown, do you feel appropriately up to speed in this situation? Have you been adequately briefed, do you feel?

Rep. BROWN: No, I haven't been adequately briefed. But I missed this last week's intelligence briefing, so that may be the reason. I would go a little further, however, and state that I agree with Nunn and I agree with the reaction that Chairman Fascell of the House Foreign Affairs Committee made after the last Libyan episode, that the Congress should be more informed than it is. I would say specifically that in the case that we are planning a military strike against Libya, if we are, that that's an act of war and it shouldn't take place unless the Congress is consulted.

MacNEIL: Congressman Cheney, you've heard the discussion until now, starting with Mr. Brzezinski, that if the United States has incontrovertible proof from intelligence sources, it is time now to tell lay its case on the table or it risks not convincing first the allies and the rest of the world that it has justification for attack. What's your view? Is the interest -- which interest is paramount in this case?

Rep. CHENEY: It seems to me the interest that's paramount is the one that Mr. Carver cited, that you have to protect your sources and methods. There's no reason to lay out the details of the information. If the President of the United States reviews it and feels it's adequate, if senior administration officials, civilian and military, review it and feel it's adequate, if senior members of Congress who have access to it see it and feel it's adequate, there's no reason in the world to lay that out and in effect make it impossible ever again to take advantage of our capabilities in a particular area. I think there's been far too much discussion at this point of the nature of the information we may have. We elect people to make these decisions for us, and we ought to trust them to do that.

MacNEIL: But isn't there a very relevant precedent here, Congressman Brown, in the way President Kennedy handled the Cuban missile crisis? The world was dubious then, including a lot of the allies, for instance President de Gaulle didn't believe it, until he was actually shown it, and then he said immediately, "Yes, you must go ahead." I just wonder, do you see that as a valuable precedent? Where do you see the balance of interest lying at the moment?

Rep. BROWN: Well, I think the nature of the political situation today is that the American people are going to have to be convinced that there is incontrovertible evidence of the involvement of Libya. And even then there's going to be a strong political argument. I would agree with Dick Cheney, however, that there should be no public discussion of intelligence sources and methods which would compromise those sources and methods. I think, however, that you're going to have to present, lay out, the results, without giving away the data with regard to sources and methods. Lay out the results in such a way that the American people and the American Congress are convinced of it. Even then, you will not get agreement that an act of war is the appropriate response.

MacNEIL: You think, Congressman Cheney, there is justification enough on the record already for some kind of retaliatory strike, do you?

Rep. CHENEY: I do.

MacNEIL: You don't, Congressman Brown?

Rep. BROWN: No, I don't think so at all. You're getting into a very sticky area here in which, in effect, you're saying that because the Libyans were involved in throwing a bomb into a cafe in Berlin that the United States is justified, we'll say, in throwing a bomb into a cafe in Libya. I don't happen to agree with that.

Rep. CHENEY: George, nobody's suggesting we bomb cafes in Libya. The President has been very judicious and very measured in his response and his use of force against terrorism. It seems to me this is such a clear-cut case that we do in fact have to respond. I can't conceive of a situation in which the President of the United States would order an attack against civilians. He's never done that, George, and he's not about to.

Rep. BROWN: Well, Dick, we have a crime committed in another country. One American is dead as a result of that crime, and a lot of the nationals of that other country are dead.

Rep. CHENEY: And dozens of Americans wounded.

Rep. BROWN: Dozens of Americans were wounded, that's correct, as well as nationals of West Germany. Does the United States have the right to intervene in a situation involving a crime in another country and take retaliatory action involving an act of war against a third country?

Rep. CHENEY: A terrorist act is an act of war. A terrorist act that is sponsored by a government, in effect the government of Libya, which uses its status in terms of its diplomatic pouches to ship terrorist activities, terrorist weapons and so forth, deserves a response.

Rep. BROWN: Would we concede the right to West Germany to take an appropriate response of the same nature if a West German is injured in a terrorist accident even in the United States?

Rep. CHENEY: If it's sponsored by Libya and hosted by Libya, and if there's a pattern over a period of time, as there clearly has been with respect to Libya and U.S. targets, then I think the Germans would be perfectly justified in responding.

MacNEIL: Well, gentlemen, I don't want to interrupt you, but we'd just like to widen this discussion a bit. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes. Mr. Schuler, what do you think of that argument that we just heard between the two congressmen about the right of the United States to intervene in a third country?

Mr. SCHULER: I haven't any quarrel with the right of the United States to intervene in Libya in this situation. If the evidence is there and if we have appropriate targets, and if we know that we can get in surgically and out easily, then by all means we have a right to do that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best course of action if it does not accomplish some objective, and our objective is to stop Qaddafi's support of terrorism. And I don't see that bombing targets in Libya is going to intimidate Qaddafi or bomb him into submission.

LEHRER: Well, that brings us to the central question. What do you think the impact of such a military action would be? What would be the effect of that?

Mr. SCHULER: Well, let's take the various targets that are suggested. It's suggested that we'll hit the terrorist training bases. Well, surely the terrorists have now left the barracks and are somewhere off in the desert, so we're not going to hit any --

LEHRER: You mean, you think they watch American television?

Mr. SCHULER: Well, I would hope so. So we're going to hit empty barracks and that's not going to accomplish anything, except that we can be sure that Qaddafi will produce a schoolbus the next morning that has been blown up, and he will say that 37 Libyan children were killed in this bombing raid, and henceforth the civilian targets in the United States are justified because his civilians were killed. That's one set of targets. Now, supposing the target is Libyan military bases. Now, if there's anybody we've got to rely on to help us get rid of Qaddafi, it has to be the Libyan military. And I simply don't believe that by going in and killing Libyan military personnel that we're going to bomb them into mutining against the government. It seems to me that human nature is the same worldwide: you rally round the leadership when you are attacked. The third set of targets that is suggested is economic targets. Now, that's the dumbest of them all, because here we are --

LEHRER: Oilfields, things like that.

Mr. SCHULER: Yes, here we are, setting a precedent. The Iranians would like nothing better than an excuse to attack the Saudi oilfields in order to reduce the production glut in the world. And for us to attack economic targets in Libya, oilfields, sets a precedent, is likely to kill European technicians, and seems to me serves no purpose. So I don't know what the target is that's going to accomplish our goal.

LEHRER: George Carver?

Mr. CARVER: We have a perfect example here, Jim, of why terrorism is so difficult for a democratic society to cope with. Every time there's a terrorist depredation, every time Americans get killed, this kind of argument goes on in the government. There are always splendid reasons why any particular option should be ruled out. But the net result is we never do anything, and attacking Americans is perceived to be riskless. That is a perception we must change, and I personally believe it's going to take a use of force to change it.

LEHRER: All right. So I reverse the question, though, to you. Mr. Schuler has just gone through the negatives that he thinks would go through these -- if we hit these targets. What are the positives?

Mr. CARVER: We mustn't think that there's going to be a positive permanent result out of a single action. If we go attack terrorists' training camps, which I happen to think, personally, is the best Libyan target to attack.

LEHRER: Do you think they'll still be there?

Mr. CARVER: I don't think they necessarily will still be there. I think, for one thing, if you're going to respond to terrorism, you should do it within 24, 48 or, at the most, 72 hours after the fact. The time to have hit those training camps was five days ago. But we have to lather and talk and wheel around ships and argue in Congress, and the moment for action is passed. And this is one reason why hitting Americans is such an easy thing to do, because it involves no cost. We've got to change that pattern of action, Jim, and a good place to start is in Libya within the next few days.

LEHRER: Congressman Cheney, what do you think would be the result or the impact of our hitting these military targets or hitting civilian targets or hitting economic targets in Libya?

Rep. CHENEY: Well, I certainly wouldn't hit civilian targets. I think military targets or terrorist targets are appropriate. I frankly found very attractive Mr. Brzezinski's proposal to embarrass Qaddafi in effect by isolating him from the world for a specified period of time. I think the result would be, though, that our allies, while they might publicly find it difficult to endorse it, many of them privately would wholeheartedly endorse it. My experience in the Arab world has been to find that one of Mr. Qaddafi's own colleagues, an Arab political leader, was the first one to call him madman several years ago in a private conversation to me. So I think many Arab leaders would as well welcome a deliberate, measured, cautious U.S. response to what has been an obvious act of terrorism by Mr. Qaddafi. I think it would be very positive; I think it would make it clear to him that in the future he cannot attack Americans without having to run the risk that he will have to pay some price himself.

LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Congressman Brown?

Rep. BROWN: Well, I have a great deal of difficulty in agreeing that the use of military force or violence is going to solve any of these problems. I happen to feel that Mr. Brzezinski gave a rather rational proposal here when he said that we could look -- we should look at the root causes of this, which basically is the failure to solve the Palestinian problem in the Middle East, and we should act in such a fashion as to indicate that we're interested in solving that problem, not alienate the Arab world, which indiscriminate violence against Libya is going to do under any circumstances. And certainly if we're interested in continuing what has been a century-long effort to achieve a rule of law in the world, we should try and set an example of how to act in some legal and just manner in trying to resolve this problem.

LEHRER: What about George Carver's point that we Americans lather too much about these kinds of decisions?

Rep. BROWN: Well, George Carver's point of view is exactly why we get into wars all the time. It's always appropriate and macho to respond with violence when you're hit with violence. I can't argue with that. I think when the Libyans attack, we should attack them. We should respond with an appropriate attack. But I would say that Mr. Carver's position suffers from the fact that he doesn't seem to be interested in finding out why this violence occurs and doing something to alleviate the causes of it.

LEHRER: Mr. Carver?

Mr. CARVER: I'm very interested in finding out why. Terrorism has got to be attacked on a wide variety of fronts simultaneously. But constantly finding reasons for inaction is not going to help solve the problem. We need to do -- our 40th President, President Reagan, needs to do what our third and fourth presidents, presidents Jefferson and Madison, did so effectively. When they had to cope with a problem in North Africa coming out of Libya, they dispatched the fledgling U.S. Navy and sent the Marines to the shores of Tripoli and that took care of the Barbary pirates. And that I think is a lesson we should all remember.

LEHRER: And Mr. Schuler is shaking his head.

Mr. SCHULER: Yes, because exactly what happened was that the Philadelphia was sent in. It was captured, and 372 officers and men languished in the prisons in Tripoli for eight years until President Madison paid tribute to get them out of there. Now, that's the kind of situation that military hostilities and military engagements can lead to, George.

Mr. CARVER: Henry, it was a combination of force and diplomacy. There are always people who are going to suffer. You can always demonstrate those who suffered by the particular action you took. You can't prove the lives that you saved, and that's why these decisions are so tough.

LEHRER: Mr. Schuler, Mr. Carver, Congressman Cheney, Congressman Brown, thank you all very much. Robin?

MacNEIL: Still to come on the NewsHour, a report on cutting dairy herds to deal with the milk glut, and we talk about the biggest noise in publishing, David Stockman's new book. Trouble on the Farm

LEHRER: Next a report on an effort to match supply with demand. The dairy farmers of America have supplied 12 billion more pounds of milk products than there is a demand for. The Department of Agriculture's way to correct that imbalance: put some dairy farmers out to pasture. Our report is from Victoria Fung of public station KCTS-Seattle.

NEAL VAN WEIRINGEN, dairy farmer: I have been on this farm right here since 1953. I bought this from my dad in 1953. So I guess you'd say that it's been kind of a tradition, and it's been kind of a family affair.

VICTORIA FUNG, KCTS [voice-over]: Neal Van Weiringen was born and raised on a dairy farm, and he's been in the business for 33 years. Yet he's ready to give it all up: his small farm in western Washington state, his 39 dairy cows, the family legacy. That's because there's a crisis in the dairy industry, a nationwide milk surplus that's forcing prices down and bringing farmers to a financial breaking point. Neal Van Weiringen is better off than most other farmers.

Mr. VAN WEIRINGEN: Right now I would say I'm making a little money, but not a great lot.

FUNG: It's pretty tight, huh?

Mr. VAN WEIRINGEN: It's pretty tight, right.

FUNG [voice-over]: To help farmers like Neal Van Weiringen, the federal government has come up with a new program that will pay dairy farmers to quit the business. It's called the whole-herd buyout.

[on camera] Under the whole-herd buyout program, the federal government will pay farmers to reduce milk production by sending their cows to slaughter. It'sprobably the most drastic measure the government and the dairy industry have taken to deal with the growing milk surplus. For many farmers the buyout program will mark the end of a way of life passed down from generation to generation.

[voice-over] Despite his roots as a dairy farmer, Neal Van Weiringen is anxious to take advantage of the whole-herd buyout.

Mr. VAN WEIRINGEN: One of the biggest reasons I'm going into this is I'm not too far from 61 years old and I think it's a good plan for a guy that's in the age bracket that I am, is to get into retirement and then maybe get rid of your herd and help another farmer stay in business by beefing your whole herd out and letting some other farmer stay in that wants to stay in.

FUNG [voice-over]: Neal Van Weiringen met the March 7th deadline to file for the whole-herd buyout. He submitted his bid to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the amount of money he needs to get out of the business. Low bidders who are chosen must agree to sell off their herds and stay out of the dairy business for at least five years. The goal of the whole-herd buyout is to eliminate up to one million cows, reducing the nation's dairy herd by 7 . The massive slaughter is seen as the only way to reduce America's enormous surplus of milk.

WOODY BERNARD, dairy extension agent: It's the most radical program they've ever come up with. It's probably -- and probably it may be the last program that the government comes up with. The government said that if this doesn't work, we're going to get out of it, basically. They're going to have to control production at this point; the government's just not going to go on putting that much money into supports.

FUNG [voice-over]: The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that 148 billion pounds of milk will be produced nationwide this year. But only 131 billion pounds of it will actually be consumed. The Department of Agriculture has indicated it will buy five billion pounds for the military, school lunch programs, giveaways to the needy and other programs. That leaves the projected surplus of 12 billion pounds that no one knows what to do with.

Why so much milk? Productivity has skyrocketed. The U.S. has half as many cows as it did in the 1950s, but they're yielding three times more milk. Another reason for the oversupply of milk is that consumption is falling. There are fewer milk drinkers around now that the postwar baby boomers have grown up. Many cholesterol-conscious adults are reaching for soft drinks instead. The oversupply of milk is causing prices to fall. Falling prices are causing farmers to increase production to keep up their cash flow. Increased production in turn is making the surplus problem even worse. Many of the farmers who put in bids are in debt, or like Neal, they want to retire. They see the federal buyout program as a way to cut their losses. After weeks of suspense, Neal Van Weiringen finally got the word on his bid.

VOICE: %%%to congratulate you. You're one of them.

Mr. VAN WEIRINGEN: I am one of them. Oh, boy.

VOICE: See you then. Okay, Neal, goodbye.

Mr. VAN WEIRINGEN: Bye-bye. Holy suffering pups. I'm out of the dairy business.

FUNG [voice-over]: Cows earmarked for the whole-herd buyout will be slaughtered gradually over an 18-month period to avoid a glut in the beef market. In the meantime, there is talk within the dairy industry of setting up a quota system to limit production and prevent another milk surplus crisis.

LEHRER: That report by Victoria Fung of public station KCTS-Seattle. Cattle ranchers have said the dairy herd program will lower beef prices and reduce the value of their herds. They want a federal court in Texas to stop the dairy farmer buyout. Stockman Book: Read All About It!

MacNEIL: Next Monday, David Stockman starts to tell all, or maybe he doesn't. One way or the other, the book he's been writing since he quit his job as White House budget director, a book called The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, will start appearing in excerpts in Newsweek magazine. Some see the whole affair as the triumph of PR. The book itself won't be out until April 23rd. Stockman was paid $2.4 million, the largest advance in the history of his publishers, Harper & Row. Some insiders wonder whether the book will have the mass appeal to make a profit. To stir up interest, the publishers have contrived what the industry calls a strip tease: revealing the contents little by little. One of those watching the show is the book editor of The Wall Street Journal, Claudia Rosett.

Ms. Rosett, how many copies will Harper & Row need to sell of this book to make it profitable after advancing Stockman $2.4 million?

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Well, according to Harper & Row, if they sell out the first printing they will achieve --

MacNEIL: Which is how many?

Ms. ROSETT: Three hundred twenty-five thousand copies. They'll be well above the break-even point. Some others in the publishing industry are a little unwilling to overtly dispute that with Harper & Row themselves, but they wonder if even that would do it. I mean, I've heard figures ranging from 250,000 at the low to about half a million at the high.

MacNEIL: Now, how does that range of sales compare with other best-selling books these days?

Ms. ROSETT: It's a lot of books. Just to give you some rough standard of comparison, one of the big best sellers in recent years, Jean Auel's The Mammoth Hunters, about cavemen, little stories about cavemen, sold about that same number and was considered a runaway best seller. Now, that was a book with a very broad appeal that people anywhere would want to read. This is not that kind of book. This deals with far more involved issues of policy. It's not something that you're going to pick up for light reading on the bus.

MacNEIL: Not much sex appeal.

Ms. ROSETT: Not that you would expect, no.

MacNEIL: Describe this process that I said the industry calls the strip tease in more detail. What are the steps in that strip tease?

Ms. ROSETT: Well, that's the way it struck me. The steps have been -- the whole thing has been held under wraps much more than books usually are. Normally, weeks in advance of publication date the reviewers will receive bound galley proofs; they can start reading it. You'll see reviews sometimes weeks in advance. For this nothing has been made officially available. A few things have been -- they've negotiated a few very quiet deals with less than five publications, they say. So first of all, nobody's got the copies of the book except people who have sworn not to talk. Now, it's started to seep out. You're seeing little tiny excerpted quotes. But what they have actually orchestrated is they sold the first serial rights to Newsweek magazine for a reported $250,000. The first of those will be on the newsstands next Monday, and that will be the first sort of lengthy excerpt that anyone -- that the general public gets to see. That's the first giant sort of dropping of the drapes.

MacNEIL: The bombshell, if there is one.

Ms. ROSETT: That's right. If something's going to blow up, it should be in that excerpt. Then the following -- on Thursday the 17th, Barbara Walters interviews David Stockman on 20fi20, on which presumably we hear a little bit more, because by that time she will certainly -- well, she's seen the book already and we can assume --

MacNEIL: He removes another crucial garment, is that right?

Ms. ROSETT: That's right. Then onthe 20th his old confessor, William Greider, talks to him --

MacNEIL: That's the Washington Post reporter who interviewed Stockman for the notorious interview in the Atlantic Monthly.

Ms. ROSETT: Yes, the "none of us really understands what's going on with all those numbers" interview. Then the final Newsweek excerpt on Monday the 21st. And then on the 23rd, the following Wednesday, publication date finally arrives; David Stockman gives a press conference at which presumably he's finally open to the public, and then he takes off on a three-week promotional tour. So this has been sort of little bits of skin showing here, and an ankle dangling there. You know, you can sort of piece together things. The catalogue description of the book. People who have seen it who are willing to talk a little, but, you know.

MacNEIL: Well, from that kind of rumor and insider information, is the word in the industry that the book does contain stunning revelations?

Ms. ROSETT: Not that would drop an ox. I mean, not the kind of thing that is necessarily just going to sell like crazy. What you're hearing generally is that it contains some sort of spicy stories. It's got -- apparently he attacks Mr. Regan, Mr. Meese, Jack Kemp; portrays the President, if you judge by a few of those little excerpts that have sort of seeped out, as sort of a, you know, a good leader but a bit of a dolt. But it's not clear that that's really enough, that there are sort of real revelations there. Everybody knows he's been fighting with these people.

MacNEIL: Well, what one wonders as a journalist is, could there be anything more stunning than the things he said in those Atlantic articles several years ago when he still had the job? When he said, in effect, that the administration, and he was part of it, was trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public and do things by sleight of hand that couldn't be done?

Ms. ROSETT: Well, probably not. I mean, the problem was, he was with the administration then, and he was still making -- you know, he still had a big voice in what was happening in policy. In fact, at the time -- it was a time of sort of mad excitement, fast action; they were really trying to push through a program, and suddenly there's David Stockman saying these incredible things, talking about Trojan horses and magic asterisks. And first of all, he's not with the government anymore; second, it's not clear that what he's saying quite adds up to the current picture. For one thing --

MacNEIL: Excuse me. One would ask, then, why did Harper & Row give him $2.4 million?

Ms. ROSETT: Well, various theories, and I think the best one is just there was sort of a bidding frenzy, that Stockman for a while was sort of holding court as publishers would parade through, and he would tell them what was going to -- what kinds of things he wanted to cover in the book. And it's also true that this is sort of Harper & Row's chance to throw their hat in the ring, to show that they bid on big books and so on. I mean, they're a substantial publishing house, but the big two are really Simon & Schuster and Random House.

MacNEIL: So there may be a strategy beyond this particular book?

Ms. ROSETT: Oh, yes. Some people are wondering, is this kind of a loss leader? Now, it could potentially be a pretty big loss leader.

MacNEIL: Is the speculation in the business, in the publishing industry, that all this strip tease, this gradual disclosure, may detract from actual sales of the book itself?

Ms. ROSETT: That's very possible.

MacNEIL: Or do they enhance it? How does that work?

Ms. ROSETT: Yeah, see, that really does depend on what's finally in the book when it stands naked on the stage. Because for one thing, some of this has already probably appeared in the March 1986 Penthouse, where syndicated columnist Donald Lambro interviewed Stockman in late '84. And he was told at the time he couldn't print anything that he heard until Stockman had left office. Stockman left; he sold it to Penthouse, and this is a piece that goes through sort of attacking various Republicans, in which -- in the administration, which seems to be, from what I've heard, a lot of the gist of the book, that the problem is the administration. In fact, according to Stockman, probably the administration more than Congress.

MacNEIL: We have to leave it there. Claudia Rosett, thank you. Jim?

Ms. ROSETT: Thank you.

LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday. The Associated Press reported the advance of two American aircraft carriers toward a rendezvous in the Mediterranean. There they will await orders to launch a military strike against Libya. White House and Pentagon officials maintained what presidential spokesman Larry Speakes called a no-comment mode. And in Miami, two FBI agents were killed and five others were wounded in a bloody shootout with robbery suspects.

Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour tonight. Have a nice weekend. We'll see you on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.