The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Here are the main news stories today. Washington is sending military equipment to unarmed Costa Rica following clashes with Nicaragua. The stock market fell sharply after more warnings of higher interest rates. A congressional committee said 38 babies died because of bureaucratic blundering in Washington. Polish leader Jaruzelski had talks in Moscow after two police clashes with Solidarity. Jim Lehrer is off; Judy Woodruff's in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Also on the NewsHour we'll have a special focus on this Sunday's election in El Salvador, with one final look at the candidates and an interview with rebel leader Ruben Zamora. Texas writer Larry L. King gives us his special perspective on his home state one day before voters there choose a presidential candidate. And, finally, another political story, the role of women in this year's campaign leads us to the question of the vice presidential nominee and whether it helps the Democrats to pick a woman.Arming Costa Rica

MacNEIL: The United States is speeding up planned military aid to Costa Rica and is considering new emergency aid following attacks by Nicaragua, the White House said today. Costa Rica says the Sandinistas have bombed and machine-gunned towns and border posts this week. Costa Rica's foreign minister, Carlos Jose Gutierrez, said today that his country would consider breaking diplomatic relations with Nicaragua if the attacks did not stop. Costa Rica, which has no army, declared itself last November to be a neutral and unarmed nation, but its soil has been used as the launching place for attacks on Nicaragua by anti-Sandinista rebels operating with U.S. assistance. U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica, Curtin Winsor, told reporters the U.S. was sending jeeps, trucks, patrol boats, two helicopters and light weapons and ammunition. Just over $2 million-worth of such aid has been approved for this year, and the administration has asked Congress for an additional $7.85 million for similar aid. White House spokesman Larry Speakes said today that Costa Rica has "asked for our assistance, and we're looking at their request. We're also going to talk to the OAS, the Organization of American States, and pursue diplomatic avenues." For more now on the administration's response to the border incidents between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, we turn to L. Craig Johnstone, deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs. He was formerly director of the State Department's Office of Central American Affairs. Mr. Secretary, what has Costa Rica asked the United States for?

L. CRAIG JOHNSTONE: Well, so far, quite frankly, they haven't reached a final list of exactly what it is that they need. We are in active consultations with the government of Costa Rica. No formal request has been made, but I think one can be anticipated. They have a general need for essentially light military equipment. They don't have a standing army, as you know, and as a result, they live pretty close to the margin on military equipment, and in the face of the major intensification of military attacks over the course of the last week, there clearly will be some needs.

MacNEIL: How seriously does the administration regard these incidents on the border?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: Well, I think we take them very seriously. This is not the first time that Nicaragua has attacked Costa Rica. There have been, in fact, a long series of attacks over three years. But the intensification has been quite dramatic over the course of the last 10 days, and we take them very seriously indeed.

MacNEIL: Does the United States consider it may indirectly have prompted the Sandinista attacks with its aid to the contra rebels who are operating from Costa Rican soil?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: Actually, if you look back historically at the pattern of Nicaraguan attacks on Costa Rica, and if you look at the motivations that have been behind these attacks long before there are any anti-Sandinistas operating in Nicaragua, I think it's quite clear that the Nicaraguans have used these as an effort to try and coerce their neighbors into a form of accommodationism. I think in this case it will prove to be a particularly unproductive tactic for Nicaragua.

MacNEIL: Are you saying that the Nicaraguan -- the Sandinista attacks on Costa Rica's border towns have nothing to do with the contra attacks on them from Costa Rica?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: Well, of course it's impossible to rule out whatever the motivation is.We don't have the window into the Sandinista motivation. I think it's fair to say that the attacks that have taken place have not been associated in any way with anti-Sandinista attacks within Nicaragua. That is to say that they have been very calculated efforts on the part of Nicaraguan forces to provoke something with Costa Rica. You'd have to ask them as to the motivation.

MacNEIL: Does the administration regard this as a widening of the conflicts in Central America?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: Well, it certainly is a serious devlopment. I think time will tell whether it's a real widening of the conflict. It's something that we have to take very seriously because Costa Rica is essentially an unarmed state. It's a democracy. It is, if you will, the flourishing example of what countries in Central America should all be like in terms of political development. And therefore we have to take with particular seriousness any unprovoked attack on Costa Rica.

MacNEIL: If such attacks went on, and, as you say, Costa Rica does not have an army, would the United States consider sending U.S. forces there to defend it against Nicaraguan attacks, since Costa Rica has no army of its own?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: Well, obviously, in terms of the questions of the hypothetical use of U.S. forces, this does not appear to be a case of invasion from Nicaragua. It looks to be something that Costa Rica can handle on its own, provided that it gets an adequate amount of support from its friends.

MacNEIL: Does the United States feel that Costa Rica -- that it's appropriate that Costa Rica remain neutral and unarmed in all this swirling activity around it?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: I think we're very sensitive to Costa Rican tradition and particularly to their decision not to have a military force. We intend to do absolutely nothing to try to promote the militarization of Costa Rica.

MacNEIL: But that's --

Sec. JOHNSTONE: We are very sensitive to that whole issue.

MacNEIL: But that has been --

Sec. JOHNSTONE: But we also have to be sensitive to the fact that they are under attack.

MacNEIL: Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but that has been charged by critics of the administration policy, has it not, that it is an aim of the administration to militarize Costa Rica?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: I think those that haven't understood the policy very well have made allegations of that type, yes.

MacNEIL: So you're saying there is no wish to militarize Costa Rica?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: Absolutely none, and we have a great deal of respect for Costa Rican political structure. It is, in fact, the model that we would hope would be copied in Central America, and therefore we would do everything in our power to try and stand by it.

MacNEIL: Is it likely that the United States will be sending Costa Rica articles -- military things that are equipment that is more sophisticated than the things I mentioned the ambassador as saying are already in the pipeline? I mean, would it go to larger guns or planes, or would it remain small arms and transportation and so on?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: Well, certainly in the range of issues that we have been looking at with the Costa Ricans over the last 24 hours, this range of items, we're talking very much in the order of things that Costa Rica already has on hand, but which are in short supply, since they're not prepared to engage in any kind of military activity. I should point out that Ambassador Winsor was talking about things that have been already provided, are in the course of being provided or have been asked for in terms of future monies we have requested already from the Congress. We still have under consideration whether this current situation needs a short-term, a rapid short-term response.

MacNEIL: That's a possibility? A rapid, short-term response, is it?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: It's within the realm of the possible, yes.

MacNEIL: And what did Larry Speakes mean by saying that the United States was also going to pursue some special diplomatic efforts in the case of these incidents?

Sec. JOHNSTONE: Well, Costa Rica has taken its case in previous incidents of Nicaraguan aggression to the Organization of American States. It has filed complaints there in the past. We would work very closely with Costa Rica and with all of the other countries in the hemisphere to see what additional steps need to be taken along that line.

MacNEIL: Mr. Johnstone, thank you for joining us.

Sec. JOHNSTONE: Thank you.

MacNEIL: Judy?

WOODRUFF: The Reagan administration denied today that it is supporting the moderate candidate Jose Napoleon Duarte in Sunday's run-off election in El Salvador. State Department spokesman John Hughes said the U.S. government has scrupulously avoided taking sides. But Hughes acknowledged that a pro-Duarte labor confederation has received over a million dollars in U.S. aid money, and he had to defend the decision not to grant Duarte's right-wing opponent, Roberto D'Aubuisson, a visa to visit the U.S. earlier this year. The administration is telling reporters, however, that it expects Duarte to win, and officials say they hope that that will give a boost to the President's aid requests for El Salvador in the Congress. In connection with that, officials are saying Mr. Reagan will probably make a televised speech to the nation next week to explain his Central American policy.In El Salvador, leftist rebels said today that they will block voting in Sunday's run-off election by mining main roads, confiscating voter cards and stepped-up fighting. The army has been put on maximum alert as it tries to foil guerrilla initiatives. Airborne forces swept suspected rebel hideouts northeast of the capital of San Salvador. Five hundred government troops here are trying to root out a force estimated at 800 guerrillas. Meanwhile, the president of El Salvador's central election council says that the results of Sunday's polling will stand despite fears of widespread voting fraud. The country's voter registration system, designed with U.S. aid, produced major complications in the first round of compulsory voting on March the 25th. Four hundred thousand of the nation's 1.8 million voters were unable to cast ballots. In that first election, the Christian Democratic candidate, Duarte, took 43% of the vote. His closest rival was rightist candidate D'Aubuisson, with 29%. Since neither had 50% of the vote, Sunday's run-off was required under Salvadoran election law. The two candidates, with markedly different views on how to end the fighting in El Salvador, have been waging an increasingly bitter campaign. Reporter Charles Krause, on assignment for this program, took a look at the Salvadoran presidential race. The Salvador Vote

CHARLES KRAUSE [voice-over]: Christian Democrat Jose Napoleon Duarte is the odds-on favorite to win Sunday's election and become El Salvador's first honestly elected president in 50 years. An engineer and graduate at the University of Notre Dame, Duarte has been a politician most of his adult life. He served as El Salvador's appointed president from 1980 'til 1982, and has long advocated economic and social reform. During his presidency, though, he was criticized for carrying out land and banking reforms that were badly administered. Over the years Duarte has acquired a long list of enemies: the rich, who hate him for being a reformer; the left, which distrusts him for being a Democrat; and the armed forces, which tortured and exiled him a decade ago because he won an election that threatened reform. Duarte's support comes from El Salvador' non-violent middle -- teachers, factory workers, small businessmen and the urban unemployed. His presidential campaign this year has had one predominant theme: all Salvadorans must enter into what he called "a social dialogue" to overcome their deep political differences.

JOSE NAPOLEON DUARTE, Salvadoran presidential candidate: The extreme right believe that they can solve the problem by killing and destroying all their enemies, and the same thing believes the extreme left. They want to eliminate everybody. This is the reason why we need to change. There is always hope. And this is what I'm trying to sell. I'm trying to sell hope. I'm trying to sell faith -- the faith in people, the faith in God.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: If elected, Duarte says he would try to rob the extreme left, the guerrillas, of their support by attacking the economic and social roots of their insurgency. He says he would try to end right-wing violence by prosecuting and jailing members of the country's infamous death squads.

Mr. DUARTE: The bomb exploded, and now we have to pick up the pieces and try to rebuild the country back. It will not be easy. We know that. It won't be done overnight.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: In contrast, Duarte's opponent is offering Salvadorans a quick fix, at least insofar as dealing with the left. Roberto D'Aubuisson promises, if elected, to unleash El Salvador's armed forces in an attempt to defeat the guerrillas militarily. Young and charismatic, D'Aubuisson's support comes from the country's small but powerful economic elite and poor but politically conservative campesinos. He can be extremely polite and charming, yet he's a man whom many Salvadorans fear. D'Aubuisson has been accused of direct ties to El Salvador's death squads. A former army intelligence officer, he's denied the charges but has never openly criticized the violent methods used by the extreme right. Democrats in Congress have made plain that future U.S. economic and military aid to El Salvador could be jeopardized by a D'Aubuisson victory. Yet conservative sectors of El Salvador's army, which badly needs continued U.S. military aid, are rumored to be unhappy at the prospect of a Duarte victory.

Col. RICARDO CIENFUEGOS, Salvadoran army spokesman: Well, like you say, it is a rumor. But we have established a policy and we will respect what the high command has decided. Anyone that wins the election, that's the one that we're going to respect as the next President.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: When Salvadorans go to the polls again this Sunday, they will vote for the candidate whom they view as best qualified to end four years of political violence. In San Salvador and in Washington it is widely expected that a majority of El Salvador's voters will choose Mr. Duarte.

MacNEIL: Salvadoran military sources said today that left-wing guerrillas last night blacked out northern El Salvador with bomb attacks on six power lines, and said they killed 10 soldiers conducting an anti-rebel sweep. Today's guerrilla warning about disrupting Sunday's election was identical to one issued before the first round of the elections on March 25th. But in a recent interview with our special correspondent Charles Krause, a leading rebel spokesman took a different line. Krause talked with Reuben Zamora of the FDR-FLMN. Reuben Zamora Interview

REUBEN ZAMORA, Salvadoran rebel spokesman: Those elections are not representative in the sense that, one, they exclude an alternative, and we say the most important alternative in El Salvador that were represented by our front.

KRAUSE: What will your position be with regard to the May 6th elections? Will you allow them to go ahead, or will the guerrillas try to disrupt them?

Mr. ZAMORA: It will depend on how the army behaves, because for the previous round of elections the army launched big operation with the previous day of the election against our forces, and therefore there was a lot of fighting, especially the eastern part of the country. If the army stay quiet, we will stay quiet as well.

KRAUSE: Yes, but that's what you said before the March 25th elections, that the FMLN, that the guerrillas would not attempt to disrupt them, and yet there were cases where guerrillas took identity cards, and in fact where there were attacks on towns the day of the election. So why should we believe you?

KRAUSE: There were some incidents in which our people take the identity cards of the population. Those incidents did not play any substantial -- have any substantial impact on the elections, and in that same way, we recognize that it was not the line of the FDR-FMLN. This is something else to be corrected, quite clearly. But, secondly, in terms of disrupting or not disrupting the election, the question is very clear for us. We have to defense ourselves against the attack of the army, and we will do it again if the army attacks us.

KRAUSE: Does the FMLN-FDR care whether Duarte of D'Aubuisson is elected president?

Mr. ZAMORA: In a sense it doesn't make a difference, because being D'Aubuisson or Duarte the president will do or will go as far as the high command of the army and the American embassy allow him to go. But, in another sense, it could make a difference because if D'Aubuisson is elected, I think the possibilities of negotiations are completely out because he is, in principal, against any negotiation and dialogue with the FDR-FMLN. If Duarte is elected president, then the chances of our political settlement, I will say, are more -- are better because Duarte is not opposed in principal to dialogue and negotiation. But, in the other hand, the danger of a direct massive U.S. intervention in El Salvador is more pressing then because it will be easier for Reagan to send the Marines to defend Duarte than to defend D'Aubuisson.

WOODRUFF: For a different look at the election in El Salvador and the problems that will be facing whichever candidate wins, we turn to Ernesto Rivas-Gallont, El Salvador's ambassador to the United States. He has just returned from a trip to El Salvador. Mr. Ambassador, if Mr. Duarte wins, as everyone is now expecting that he will, what sort of reaction do you think there will be, first of all, from the right, from Mr. D'Aubuisson's supporters?

ERNESTO RIVAS-GALLONT: Well, obviously they won't be happy, to say the least.But I do't expect -- no one expects a serious reaction to disrupt or to challenge the vote of the people. One must be very much aware, of course, of the fact that it's the people of El Salvador who are going to vote to elect a president next Sunday, to change from a government by the few to a government by the many. And everybody has to respect the outcome.

WOODRUFF: And yet Mr. D'Aubuisson has said, has threatened that the violence will increase if the moderate Mr. Duarte wins.

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: It's his personal perception, perhaps. I see, of course, that violence will continue in the country. This is not to say that an election -- whoever is elected will end the violence in El Salvador. Nonetheless, there are solutions in sight, and I think that the candidate who wins will pursue -- will have to pursue resolutions to the problems.

WOODRUFF: Do you think Mr. Duarte will win?

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: Polls show that Mr. Duarte is well ahead of Mr. D'Aubuisson.

WOODRUFF: What do you think the difference will be then? If he wins, if the civil war, if the fighting is going to continue, what difference will it make?

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: Well, Duarte has proposed to form a social compact among all political and labor forces, all El Salvadorans. Through this social compact to address the problem of violence, to address the problems of -- the underlying problems of the Salvadoran situation.

WOODRUFF: But what makes you think it's going to work? Your country has been racked with violence --

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: What is the alternative?

WOODRUFF: -- for years.

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: What is the alternative? It's got to work. We've got to give it a try. And whoever is elected on Sunday will have to give it a try because of the mandate he will receive from the people.

WOODRUFF: What do you think the reaction of the military will be? Do you think he will get the support of the military that he obviously needs?

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: It's quite clear -- it's quite clear. Only yesterday the minister of defense went public to radio the army's decision to support whoever is elected by the people of El Salvador. And the army will have to work with the president to look for solutions to the problems of El Salvador.

WOODRUFF: And yet there are still rumblings, unnamed sources in the military are still telling American reporters that they're not going to tolerate any significant structural change in El Salvador.

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: Well, what I know of is the statement made by the high command, the official statement made by the high command of the armed forces, supporting the electoral process. So that's what I have to go by, and that's what I believe in.

WOODRUFF: However, in one of Mr. Duarte's previous experiences as president it was the military that --

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: Well, you're talking about 1972.

WOODRUFF: That's right. Twelve years ago.

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: Twelve years ago, and the army has changed dramatically since then. It's true that, just to cite an example, last week two local commanders were put in prison because they were engaged in political campaign. They are in prison now. That hadn't happened before, ever.

WOODRUFF: What about the death squads? Mr. Duarte has said that he's going to crack down on the death squads. Can he really do that? Aren't they an independent force, and what control does he have over them?

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: Over the death squads? I don't think anyone has control, quotation marks, over the death squads. But what I'm sure of is that Mr. Duarte or whoever is elected will have to work with the investigative authorities to crack down on death squads from both the left and the right. He'll have to do it. It's part of our problem, and we have to look for solutions to our problem.

WOODRUFF: But what makes you know that he'll be successful?

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: Well, we can't guarantee success, but we can certainly try, can we not?

WOODRUFF: He has also said that he will have dialogue with or negotiate with the left.

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: The problem in El Salvador is a two-faced problem. It's the military problem and the political problem. The president who is going to be elected on Sunday will come into the government with a very strong mandate from the people of El Salvador to find solutions to the problems. One of these avenues is to dialogue, to talk -- not to share power. There's a big difference between the two. But a political solution must be found to the problem parallel with the military solution to keep the guerrillas at bay while we work on the political solutions to the problem.

WOODRUFF: But we just heard in the interview with Mr. Zamora, as one of the leaders of the left, that they are suspicious that a Duarte victory might give the United States more reason to intervene even more.

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: We must, of course, be aware that Mr. Zamora is a political enemy of the country; he's a member of the guerrilla forces trying to topple the government to come into power. So he's got a point that he makes.

WOODRUFF: One last quick question. All these allegations about American meddling in the elections. Do you have any evidence that the U.S. government has been involved indirectly?

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: The U.S. government's assistance in the process of change that has been instituted since 1979 is welcome in El Salvador. But the United States is not meddling in our internal affairs. It's the people of El Salvador who are electing a government. We understand, of course, the anxiety of the American public about the United States meddling in foreign affairs in other countries, but this is, of course, an American problem. We are grateful for the American assistance that we've received and hope to continue to receive in the future.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador Rivas-Gallont, for being with us.

Amb. RIVAS-GALLONT: Thank you very much. Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Robin?

MacNEIL: Stock prices dropped sharply on Wall Street today following more predictions by influential economists that interest rates will rise. The Down Jones average of 30 industrial stocks, which had risen moderately this week, dropped more than 16 points today to close at 1165.31. Analysts blamed the fall on predictions by Henry Kaufman, chief economist at Solomon Brothers, and Alean Sinai of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, both prestigious Wall Street firms, that interest rates would go much higher. "Spectacularly higher," was the phrase used by Kaufman in a speech in Fort Worth, Texas. He said this would happen unless an effective fiscal policy is introduced in the United States. In other economic news today, the monthly figures on unemployment showed no change in April. The rate remains steady at 7.8% of the work force. Judy?

WOODRUFF: The Food and Drug Administration admitted today that it made a mistake when it permitted the sale of a vitamin supplement that has been linked to the deaths of 38 infants. Dr. Mark Novitch, the FDA's acting commissioner, told a congressional hearing today that his agency should have required new tests for the drug before it was allowed to be marketed. The drug is a Vitamin E supplement called E-ferol aqueous solution. Last month it was voluntarily taken off the market by its distributor, O'Neal, Jones and Feldman Pharmaceuticals of St. Louis after several infant deaths were reported. The drug was given by injection to correct a Vitamin E deficiency in premature babies. The government said it learned last November that the drug was being sold without FDA approval, but the agency took no action to stop it because it considered the drug a variation of one already on the market. The FDA's handling of the case was roundly criticized at today's hearing, both by congressmen and by doctors who had used the drug.

Dr. CARL BODENSTEIN, neonatologist, Spokane, Washington: We treated 25 babies at Sacred Heart Hospital and 15 babies at Deaconness Medical Center in Spokane. Four of the babies became extremely ill with a very unusual and extremely difficult set of problems now referred to as a syndrome. Three babies died from uncorrectable kidney failure, and one from a consequence of uncontrolled bleeding. We carefully worked up possible infectious causes and were left only with toxic causes as possibilities. The only new material that had been introduced into our nursery practice from December on was the use of E-ferol.

Rep. TED WEISS, (D) New York: Had you known that E-ferol was not FDA-approved would you have used the drug?

Dr. BODENSTEIN: It is my feeling relative to this substance that if I had known whatsoever that clinical trials had not been performed for safety and efficacy, I never would have used this material.

Rep. JOHN CONYERS, (D) Michigan: Why did we have to wait until 38 infant deaths occurred before the intravenous E was withdrawn?

Dr. FRANK BOWEN, neonatologist, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: It was a confusing process when the thing went through. I think that the appropriate action that probably wasn't taken was allowing the preparation to be marketed in the first place through -- and I don't understand whether it was a loophole mechanism or what the mechanism -- what the administrative mechanism was by way this thing got on the market as some nutritional supplement instead of the drug which it was.

Rep. ALFRED McCANDLESS, (R) California: It would appear to me that we have a question here in this particular situation, is it the new application of an old drug or the old application of a new drug?

Dr. MARK NOVITCH, acting commissioner, Food and Drug Administration: It's an old drug in a new dosage form, at least new to the market since there's none marketed now as a single entity. Vitamin E is sold as part of multi-vitamins. You can get intravenous multivitamins, but in rather small supplement quantities. No one is legally on the market with an intravenous, single-entity Vitamin E. There have been injectables, that is, intramuscular Vitamin E preparations around for many decades. But what you have in E-ferol is an old drug entity. Vitamin E, in a new route of administration and in a new formulation that is potentially, and may very well turn out to have been disastrously, toxic.

Rep. WEISS: I'm having some difficulty hearing you. It's not your fault.

Dr. NOVITCH: Mr. Chairman, in my testimony I said that there were differences between the existing and long-marketed intramuscular forms and this new product, E-ferol, that was intravenous. The difference was that this is a different route of administration, and that is an important difference, and in retrospect would lead us to conclude that it should have been the subject of a new drug application. We're not quarreling with that.

Rep. WEISS: This is, by your acknowledgement, a new drug. It has not been determined for safety. Therefore, when you -- that is, the FDA -- received word that this unapproved drug was out there on the market, there should have been no question as to whether in fact there are other vitamins out there, whether your resources were sufficient, whether there ought to be a higher or a lower priority. It seems to me that the obligation of FDA was in fact to say, "Hey, we've got somebody out here who is potentially endangering the lives and health of the American people. Let's call them in, let's get that stuff off the market, off the shelf." And I assume that you're not saying that we've now adopted a new standard by practice which says, in essence, that we have the old "each dog is entitled to one bite" theory, that we're not going to look at drugs, even though we know that they haven't been proved for safety, until they start killing people. You're not saying that that's the new standard of the FDA, are you?

Dr. NOVITCH: No, of course I'm not, Mr. Weiss.

Rep. WEISS: I tend to think that there may have to be a total review and revamping of that agency because, the way it looks right now, the American public has no reason to be confident that when they take a medicine or drug that in fact the FDA had done right by them as far as affording them protection.

Dr. NOVITCH: I think the FDA is a well-functioning organization, and I think the American people do too. I think they think we work and our system works in their best interest. I think that the system failed badly in this instance, and we ought to focus on it and anything surrounding it that can prevent that from happening. But I, with all respect, must reject the idea that the agency is a failing agency that doesn't work well, that doesn't have conscientious people and isn't working in the best interests of the public health of the American people.

WOODRUFF: Congressman Ted Weiss of New York, who chaired today's hearing, says that information about the case will be turned over to the Justice Department for possible legal actions against the distributor or the manufacturer, Carter-Glogau Laboratories, which is a subsidiary of Revco Incorporated of Twinsburg, Ohio. The company has said it did nothing improper or illegal in selling the drug.

[Video postcard -- Buck Meadows, California]

MacNEIL: Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko today accused the United States of bleeding Poland white with economic sanctions and promoting acts of subversion by supporting the banned trade union Solidarity. Chernenko's remarks came at a Kremlin dinner honoring Poland's leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who is in Moscow for his first working visit with the Soviet president. Jaruzelski arrived today following two days of protest and disorder this week by Solidarity. Here is a report from Chris Smith of Visnews.

CHRIS SMITH, Visnews [voice-over]: General Jaruzelski's talks with Russian leaders have come at a highly embarrassing time, coinciding with this week's widespread public unrest in Poland. They were arranged last month, well before the demonstrations in support of Solidarity, but the question is, why didn't anyone realize May Day could have been a day of protest? The unrest is certain to have been a major theme in the talks with Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko, and observers believe there may have been disagreement. Although the day ended with Jaruzelski getting the Order of Lenin in honor of his 60th birthday last year, the Polish leader might well have been wishing that the talks had been arranged at least a week earlier.

MacNEIL: The United States denied another Soviet accusation today. This one charged that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was scheming to arrange the emigration to the West of Yelena Border. She is the wife of the prominent Soviet dissident, Andrei Sakharov, who lives in exile in the closed Soviet city of Gorky. The U.S. says the charges are wholly unfounded, but Soviet police are stationed outside her Moscow apartment.

There was a second day of student protests in South Korea today, the second day of Pope John Paul's visit. Five thousand students clashed with riot policeat Korea University, where tear gas was used to disperse the anti-government demonstrations. The Pope also paid a brief visit to an island leper colony after he held an outdoor mass in the southern city of Kwangju, where hundreds of students died in riots four years ago. The Pope was greeted by nearly 70,000 worshipers in Kwangju Stadium. He celebrated the mass in Korean, a language he's been studying, but delivered his sermon in English.The Pope offered the grace of the Church to those haunted by the tragedy of the Kwangju rioting.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: Governor George Wallace said today that he would ask President Reagan to declare Alabama a disaster area following yesterday's barrage of tornados that lashed his state. Six people were killed and at least 80 others injured by 43 tornados which swept across the South. Hardest hit was Montgomery, Alabama, where shattered homes, splintered trees and tangled power lines confronted clean-up crews today. Five deaths were reported here, including one woman who lived in a trailor that was thrown 50 yards by a twister. The local chapter of the Red Cross said that some 20 families were left homeless. Thus far this spring, some 102 deaths have resulted from 491 separate tornados, making 1984 the worst year for them in a decade. Robin?

MacNEIL: The bickering between Walter Mondale and Gary Hart continued today as they faced votes tomorrow in Texas that could almost lock things up for Mondale or revive Hart's chances. In complicated primary-plus-caucus voting tomorrow in Texas, 169 delegates are at stake. The polls show Mondale ahead, and observers give him the edge because most prominent Texas Democrats back him. But Hart's campaign says Texas looks ripe for an upset. Mondale today demanded that Hart apologize for criticizing the Carter administration's handling of the Iranian hostage crisis. Hart rejected that, saying Mondale couldn't run on the basis of his experience as vice president and not accept full responsibility. Mondale revealed today that he and the Reverend Jesse Jackson had a private meeting two days ago to discuss the importance of unifying the Democratic Party at the convention in July. In Texas today, Mondale touched down in five cities, and touched base with several voting groups, including a predominantly hispanic crowd in Corpus Cristi. He criticized the Reagan administration's civil rights record.

WALTER MONDALE, Democratic presidential candidate: -- the Civil Rights Commission. They've tried to turn it away from being the conscience of our country to a front office for the politicians in the White House. If I get elected I'm going to do two things back there. The first thing I'm going to do is fire everybody they hired.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Jackson was further north on the Gulf coast, in Beaumont, speaking to a crowd that spilled out of a small church. He attacked the delegate election system as unfair.

Rev. JESSE JACKSON, Democratic presidential candidate: The rules took away the delegates. Mondale has 39% of the vote, but 50% of the delegates. He has delegates that he did not earn. I don't have delegates I did earn.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Hart was campaigning in Ohio and Indiana, which have primaries on Tuesday. On a visit to a print shop in Cincinnati he again criticized Mondale's independent delegate committees, but stopped short of saying he would challenge the seating of Mondale delegates at the convention.

Sen. GARY HART, Democratic presidential candidate: The fact that Mr. Mondale took hundreds of thousands of dollars of political action committee funds and now says he will give them back, but only after all the primaries are over, raises serious questions about the legality of that money, and those questions will have to answered by the Federal Election Commission. If the Federal Election Commission rules that the money was improperly or illegally obtained -- and that money was of course used to win delegates to the convention -- then I think the Democratic National Committee has a serious question on its hands which it will have to answer, and that is, are those delegates properly elected?

MacNEIL: As each of the important primary and caucus battles has come and gone, we've asked a writer from the state in question to describe it for us. Tonight the state is Texas, and our political essayist is author Larry L. King. Texas Essay

LARRY L. KING [voice-over]: The Texas of legend is a vast prairie sparsely populated by cowboys, hick farmers and small-town mystics who divide the time between fistfighting in saloons, singing born-again church hymns and striking it rich in the oil business. The average Texan of that legend is a composite of John Wayne, Elmer Gantry and J.R. Ewing, with a smattering of Steinbeck's ragged Joad family tossed in.

[on camera] But that mythical Texas is no more, if indeed it ever was. Democratic presidential hopefuls looking to the May 5th state caucus with 116 of its 200 national delegates at stake are advised not to hoohaw through the Lone Star State dressed like Roy Rogers headed for a goat-roping. Only a few surviving working Panhandle ranch hands and Yankees freshly arrived in Houston play cowboy these days. Texans have become city slickers.

[voice-over] Even the revered Alamo, standing on Texas' most hallowed ground, is crowded by a modern department store and fast-food outlets. Should General Santayana's invading army return, it likely would be asphyxiated by San Antonio traffic fumes before reaching the first barricade. Texas began its conversion from rural to urban as early as the late 1920s, though for a long time almost nobody noticed. The move from county to town to city rapidly accelerated during World War II and the immediate postwar boom. Oh, sure, you can still ride the 600 miles between Fort Worth and El Paso with little to observe but sagebrush and jackrabbits. Those arid stretches constituted a geographic shell game, however. About 16 million people now call themselves Texans, and that's about a fact. Indeed, Texas is the third most urbanized and populated of the 50 states, behind only California and New York. In Houston, Dallas and San Antonio it boasts three of the nation's 10 largest cities.

The last campfire has flickered out, the last horseman passed by. Modern Texas knows all the blights and ills of any urbanized, industrialized society. Crime, pollution, poverty, smog, decay. Crosstown traffic in midtown Manhattan holds no more terrors than Houston freeways. In South El Paso one may find precincts as hopeless and scabby as any in the South Bronx. Texas industry, as is true of the state's increasingly polyglotted and sophisticated population, has become more diversified and exhibits a brash, bustling energy often astonishing to newcomers.Where once cotton, cattle and oil reigned supreme, one now finds empires of high technology, petrochemicals, insurance and high finance, giant agri-biz, steel, timber, manufacturing, even a thriving shipping industry. Building proceeds apace, though much of the growth is in areas where growth no longer is considereda total blessing. Austin, for example, continues to sprawl and multiply, even though a sizeable faction in that capital city is as cool to new expansion as a mother-in-law's kiss.

[on camera] And there have political changes. This year's presidential crop will find the Democrats much closer to the national norm than in older times. For decades Texas Republicans held no primaries, or only token ones. They routinely joined Tory Democrats in electing conservatives to almost all statewide offices and congressional slots. Now, however, Republicans must attend their own knitting to protect their 41 seats in Austin, seven in Washington, and a slew of local officeholders. The day of crossover voting is about at an end.

[voice-over] The evidence that true Democrats now control their party in Texas and that sizeable black and hispanic minorities increasingly play larger roles became apparent two years ago when four liberals and a moderate gained statewide offices. These new powerbrokers, excepting Governor Mark White, who is officially neutral, all have endorsed Walter Mondale for president. So has Congressman Jim Wright of Fort Worth, the House majority leader, and Congressman Mickey Leland of Houston, a liberal black, as well as the reigning state Democratic chairman, two former national Democratic chairmen from Texas, Robert Strauss and John White, and city mayors and county officials by the dozen. Senator Gary Hart has been endorsed by but a single congressman from Dallas, Mark Frost, and by black State Senator Craig Washington of Houston. The endorsements of Mondale and Hart by the two highest-ranking black officials in Texas certainly galls the Jesse Jackson camp, and may make it less confident that increased black and hispanic registration will mean all that much to Jackson's cause.

These endorsements may suprise outsiders unfamiliar with the instincts of Texas incumbents to pragmatically cuddle up to whatever power sits tall in the saddle. This is the state, remember, that produced the arm-twisting Lyndon B. Johnson and crusty old Speaker Sam Rayburn, who was fond of warning his congressional colleagues, "Those who go along get along." That lesson apparently has been learned by Texas politicians regardless of generation, creed or color. Exactly that breed of pragmatic cat will be calling the shots at district caucus meetings across Texas on May 5th, and should give Mr. Mondle the lion's share of its national delegates. Mr. Mondale seems to have a thinner edge in the meaningless beauty contest.

[on camera] Once again, Senator Hart and Reverend Jackson figure to do much better in the popular vote than their final delegate counts likely will reflect. Should it turn out as expected -- that is, should the preceived power figures pervail, then Texans will prove in yet another way -- this time politically, rather than economically or demographically -- that it is indeed taking on the traditional colorations of the older urbanized states.

MacNEIL: That view of the political scene in Texas going into the weekend voting was by author Larry L. King. Judy? Women and the Vice Presidency

WOODRUFF: House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill made some news on the campaign front today. He endorsed a woman for the Democratic nomination for vice president. O'Neill said he is promoting New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, because, in his words, "all the factors are in her favor." O'Neill told The Boston Globe that Mrs. Ferraro, a 48-year-old lawyer who has served three terms in the House, has been an effective member of Congress. "She's a Catholic and she's very smart," he said. An aide to O'Neill said the Speaker feels that Mrs. Ferraro would add to the Democratic ticket dramatically. Mrs. Ferraro told reporters earlier this week she was having a marvelous time responding to questions on speculation about herself and the number-two Democratic slot, but she said she was not seeking the post and planned to support the candidate on the ticket, whoever he or she is.

The idea of a woman vice president has been getting a lot of attention from many quarters lately, as National Public Radio's Cokie Roberts reports.

COKIE ROBERTS, National Public Radio: Female political power has already arrived in the Lone Star State. Texas politicians learned about it the hard way when the women's vote decided some recent elections.

[voice-over] Two years ago the top vote-getter in Texas was State Treasurer Ann Richards. Her votes helped the Democrats score an upset victory in recapture of the State House.

ANN RICHARDS, State Treasurer: There was no question that women did turn out in numbers, and because I did get more votes on the ticket than anyone else in a seriously contested race. And I think the governor has acknowledged that the vote of the women of the state of Texas was really crucial to this election.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: In Houston and surrounding Harris County, primary ballots boast the names of more than a dozen women, women running for state legislator, judge, party chairmen; women raising money for political campaigns at places like the Houston chapter of the National Women's Political Caucus, where party talk centers on female political participation.

WOMAN at NWPC party: You go to any of the meetings. I don't care if it's a labor union or a Republican meeting or anything, and the majority of the people there that are there to hear the candidate are women.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: Women are not only listening, they're acting. All over the country, voter registration drives are putting more young women on voting lists than young men. In Houston, one group is attempting to add 9,000 female names to the registration rolls by November. So far in 1984, from New Hampshire on, the vote of the women hasn't differed markedly from the men in the presidential primaries, but according to one polling organization, women have turned out in greater numbers than men in every single election this year.

St. Treasurer RICHARDS: The polls are showing us that for '84 we're going to see women outvote the men by about six million, and when women start voting in those kinds of numbers, it's going to really translate into real power and real politics.

ROBERTS: Should it also translate into a woman vice president?

Ms. WILSON: Sure. I think the mood of the country is, as reflected in the early primaries in New Hampshire, the talk of new, the talk of change. I think the country is very receptive to something new. I think Jesse Jackson and the sort of vitality that he has brought to the presidential campaign -- sort of an excitement -- that also translates into that newness. And the country's ready for a woman.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: A number of polls in recent months show a woman could add considerable strength to a presidential ticket. That's why the Democratic candidates are talking seriously about the matter, says National Women's Political Caucus chair, Kathy Wilson.

KATHY WILSON, National Women's Political Caucus: Everybody's talking about it. The unions are talking about it. The press are talking about it. Party stalwarts are talking about it, you know.People are talking about it everywhere. Women are excited about it. And the candidates are talking about it.I think that the candidates are taking the possible nomination of a woman as vice president very seriously because I think they're beginning to view it not so much as a liability but as a way to win. Polls consistently show that while some people would be repelled by a woman on the ticket, more people -- and in particular, women -- would be attracted to the ticket.So then in a very strange way, a woman on the ticket might provide the margin of victory.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: A supermarket magazine, Woman's Day, conducted a random, unscientific survey of its readers. One hundred and fifteen thousand women answered, and fully 25% of them said they'd change their party allegiance to vote for a woman vice president. Readers like Nancy Manweiler of Austin could hardly be considered wild-eyed feminists. She's a junior high school vocational counselor, a military wife and a Republican.

NANCY MANWEILER, counselor: I think I would be more inclined, yes, to look seriously and say if it were a Democratic ticket and a woman were running I think I would say, "Gee, if there's any way I can support her, I would," simply because I think it's so important to have a woman running.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: Phyllis Lambrecht of New Braunfels, Texas, is a life-long Democrat.

[interviewing] If there were a woman on the ticket, would that make you more interested in the ticket?

PHYLLIS LAMBRECHT, secretary: Oh, but very definitely. I think I would vote for a Republican if he had a woman vice president.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: Phyllis Lambrecht lives a few miles from where she was born. Oil company accountant Particia Lee has come a long way from her Florida home, where her father was a sharecropper, her mother a domestic. Patricia Lee wants a woman on the ticket, even if some call it tokenism.

PATRICIA LEE, accountant: Whether she got there as a token or for whatever reason, even to be a token you have to have some qualifications and something going for you. So I don't care how she gets there as long as she's there.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: But others, like law student Nancy Townsend, who went back to college and law school after caring for an elderly grandmother, worry that a woman on the ticket might drive away men.

NANCY TOWNSEND, law student: I just don't think they're ready for it. Men don't want to relinquish, you know, vice presidencies -- junior vice presidencies in corporations now without a fight.

ROBERTS: For all its he-man, cowboy image, it's Texas that's produced a bevy of female vice-presidential mentions in recent years.

[voice-over] In 1972, State Legislator Frances "Sissy" Farenthold sought the vice presidential nomination at the Democratic convention in Miami Beach. Though she came in second, Farenthold says men didn't take her seriously.

FRANCES FARENTHOLD, vice presidential candidate, 1972: I go back and think of '72. I was down on the convention floor, but I was told, and people phoned in, because they were chagrined that Walter Cronkite said, "There is a lady named Farenthold from Texas that wants to be vice president," and then the thing went off to a commercial. So that wouldn't happen this time.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: Texan Anne Armstrong was ambassador to Britain when Republicans talked of her as a running mate for Gerald Ford in 1976.

ANNE ARMSTRONG, former ambassador: That's past history.I think it's part of what's happening today that it was in the news, that it happened to be Anne Armstrong being considered, but I think what's exciting now is that there is not just one being mentioned, but that we've really got a host of women who are fully qualified to be president. And both parties have them.

BARBARA JORDAN, former congresswoman: The women were always there -- power accruing, power developing. But in the past year, year and a half it has become -- it has surfaced, and it is pricking the conscience.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: Then-Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan aroused the 1976 Democratic convention with her keynote address, the first to be given by a woman or a black, and supporters briefly floated a Barbara Jordan vice presidential balloon. Now a professor at the University of Texas, Jordan believes the men in charge of the political parties better get used to the idea of a woman on the ticket.

Ms. JORDAN: I would be the last to denigrate the judgment and wisdom and foresightedness of male politicians. Having said that, I don't think they quite realize how volatile this involvement of women is or portends to be. And I think this is not seen because this is not in our experience. This is not in our American political experience. It will be seen. They don't see it now. They can't internalize it. But it's going to occur, and it's going to be a surprise to them.

ROBERTS [voice-over]: Says National Women's Caucus Chair Wilson, who keeps in touch with the presidential campaigns, the Democrats could produce the suprise this summer.

Ms. WILSON: I think that it is possible that three hours before the decision is made the male nominee may very well see that this is the trump card to victory.

ROBERTS: What odds would you give it?

Ms. WILSON: I think 50-50 right now.

WOODRUFF: Democratic presidential candidates Walter Mondale and Gary Hart have both said they would consider women as running mates, and Jesse Jackson has committed himself to putting a woman on the ticket if he is the nominee. Robin?

MacNEIL: A final look at today's top stories. The United States is speeding up military aid to Costa Rica. There have been two incidents this week along the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border.

In El Salvador, it's the final sprint before Sunday's presidential election.

The Food and Drug Administration says it made a mistake when it let doctors use a Vitamin E supplement for premature babies.

In Texas, the Democratic presidential candidates are rounding up their supporters for tomorrow's delegate caucuses.

And, finally, "Where's the beef?" a hamburger chain's popular advertisement that saw a second life in this spring's Democratic presidential sparring. Well, maybe Madison Avenue knows something the rest of us don't. The slogan, "Where's the beef?" has been temporarily retired in favor of a new campaign that pushes new products, primarily baked potatos.Politicians, take note.

Good night, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Where's the spud? That's our NewsHour for tonight. Have a good weekend. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.