The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. In the headlines this Friday, Gramm, Rudman and Hollings offered a constitutional correction to their budget cutting law. Philadelphia garbage collectors agreed to work after being declared in contempt of court. And Philippine terrorists released an American missionary unharmed. We will have the details in our news summary in a moment. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: After the news summary, we focus on the LTV bankruptcy with steel analyst Lou Schorsch. Then a major discussion of drugs in sports with Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns; ex-pro football star Mercury Morris; Sonny Hill, former network sports commentator; and Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post. Then excerpts from today's tax reform negotiations. Today's agenda: helping the middle class. And finally, Elizabeth Brackett shows us the latest pictures from the Titanic.News Summary

LEHRER: Senators Gramm, Rudman and Hollings today offered a P.S. to their famous budget cutting law. They announced the creation of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings II -- a bill designed to bring back the automatic budget cutting provision of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings I. The U.S. Supreme Court threw that out last week on grounds the involvement of the Comptroller General in certifying the need for automatic cuts was unconstitutional. That's because he is an employee of Congress, rather than the executive branch. Gramm-Rudman-Hollings II would remove the Comptroller from the process and turn the function over to a Presidential appointee, the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Senator Gramm spoke at a news conference today about the need for the change.

Sen. PHIL GRAMM (R) Texas: In this bill, we will go back and reestablish an automatic mechanism which will force the President and the Congress to act. We believe the backup provision can and will work, but it creates uncertainty, and that certainty will induce the Congress and the President to delay action which could produce a legislative train wreck and an economic disaster for America. We want the Congress to know with certainty that we're shooting real bullets, that we are going to meet these targets. And we are confident, with a reconstituted Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, that we will meet the $144 billion target this year and that we will do it without an across the board cut going into effect.

LEHRER: The senators said they would offer their legislation as an amendment to an upcoming bill that raises the national debt ceiling. Robin?

MacNEIL: The White House announced that the U.S. and Soviet Union will meet in Geneva soon to discuss nuclear tests. The meeting will start about July 25. Moscow's been pushing for a total test ban. The U.S. has maintained that some tests are still needed and that verification problems for any ban must first be resolved.The administration said today that no firm date has been set for talks on setting a Reagan-Gorbachev summit. The U.S. has been pushing for rescheduling of talks between Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze and Secretary of State Shultz, which Moscow cancelled after the raid on Libya. The State Department said they may meet when the Soviet minister is in New York for the United Nations general assembly in September.

LEHRER: South Africa dominated the news day at the White House. President Reagan told reporters after a rose garden ceremony, he was still opposed to punitive sanctions against South Africa. Mr. Reagan met at the White House today with British Foreign Minister Sir Geoffrey Howe, who will go to South Africa next week in a major European effort to reach an accommodation between the white minority government and the rebelling black majority. Howe explained his mission this way:

Sir GEOFFREY HOWE, British foreign secretary: The central feature is lthat we all want to see an end to apartheid and fundamental change to replace it. We're all concerned to try and find the best way which we can bring our efforts to bear with that of the Commonwealth and that of the European community to bring about that change.

LEHRER: There was also the matter of diamonds and the White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan. Yesterday, Regan was quoted questioning whether American women would be willing to give up their jewelry as the result of sanctions against SouthAfrica -- a major source of diamonds in the world. Today, President Reagan accused the news media of distortion and ethics violations in reporting the story. Regan's statement was made originally on background without his name being mentioned.Today House Speaker Thomas O'Neill, women's rights leaders and others criticized Regan's statement as being insulting to the intelligence and to the anti-apartheid commitment of American women.

MacNEIL: The U.S. troops who flew to Bolivia this week today began raiding cocaine plants in the tropics of Northeastern Bolivia. The Associated Press reported that six U.S. army Black-Hawk helicopters were used in the raids. The helicopters and 100 U.S. soldiers were sent to Bolivia to help local narcotics officers crush that country's vast cocaine industry, which U.S. officials see as a major supplier for this country and Europe.

In the Philippines, the U.S. missionary kidnapped by Moslem rebels last weekend was freed unharmed today. Presbyterian evangelist Brian Lawerence of Madison, Wisconsin, said he was treated well.

LEHRER: There was a crack in Philadelphia's municipal workers strike today, but not in Detroit's. In Philadelphia, a judge found the city's garbage collectors in contempt of court this morning, and later in the day union and city officials said the workers would be back on their jobs at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow. The judge had said he would fine their union $40,000 a day beginning Monday if they did not do so. In a live television appearance this afternoon, Mayor Wilson Goode said he would fire workers who were found in contempt and refused to work.

WILSON GOODE, Mayor, Philadelphia: If any workers fail to report to work by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, we will send notices of dismissal to these workers, and we're in the process now of processing job applications to replace workers if, indeed, that becomes necessary. I would add that we have 20,000 workers -- potential workers, I should say -- on the list who are prepared to start.

LEHRER: In Detroit, a different story. A judge there refused a city request that its 7,000 striking employees be ordered to return to work.

MacNEIL: A parade of show business, sports and political witnesses turned up in Washington today to condemn any further advertising of tobacco products. They testified at hearings of the House Health Subcommittee on proposed legislation to ban all such ads. One witness was Patrick Reynolds, grandson of the founder of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

PATRICK REYNOLDS: If the hand that once fed me is the tobacco industry, then that same hand has killed millions of people and will continue to kill millions more, unless people wake up to the hazards of cigarettes. Cigarette advertising is the single biggest lie perpetrated on the American people. I believe that cigarette advertising is promotion of a poisonous product, and that it is moral, right and good to eliminate all advertising of cigarettes. This is a virtually black and white question. To allow continued advertising of cigarettes when they are proven killers is plainly immoral.

MacNEIL: Representatives of the tobacco industry and groups which oppose an advertising ban as an infringement of free speech will testify next month.

LEHRER: Finally in the news today, the first television pictures from the S.S. Titanic were released late this afternoon.They were shot by a U.S. navy robot camera on the bottom of the sea, where the luxury liner sank on its maiden transoceanic voyage 74 years ago. Here are scenes recorded by the undersea camera as it roamed the Titanic. The narrator is Robert Ballard, leader of the expedition from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

ROBERT BALLARD: Here we are looking over the bow at the big boom that's used to lower the secondary anchor into place. Up through the promenade, looking into the promenade windows, and rising up to the deck above. An overhead lifeboat davit with its block, as we disturb these rust-cicles and they fall down like a rain of iron.And into the inner compartments. On the second and third deck we see this crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

MacNEIL: That's our news summary. Coming up, more complete pictures from the Titanic, analysis of the LTV bankruptcy, drugs and sports, and tax reform negotiations. Meltdown

MacNEIL: It is being called by some the single worst development that could happen to the U.S. steel industry. It occurred yesterday, when the nation's second largest steel company, the Dallas-based LTV Corporation, filed for bankruptcy. It's the largest bankruptcy case ever, with the company asking protection from more than 20,000 creditors.LTV now joins Wheeling-Pittsburgh as the second major steel maker to file for Chapter 11 in recent months. Other major companies, like Bethlehem Steel and Inland Steel, have also suffered major losses, and there are few signs of a turnaround in the recession-plagued industry. For more on the LTV story, we have this report from Scott Pelley, of station WFAA in Dallas.

SCOTT PELLEY [voice-over]: LTV headquarters in downtown Dallas presides over one of the largest companies in the United States. Its main divisions include LTV Steel, LTV Aerospace and Defense, and LTV Energy Products. Together, these divisions amassed more than $8 billion in sales last year alone, making LTV number 43 in the Fortune 500.But this giant of industry has been troubled for several years. The largest division, steel, has been hardest hit. This Youngstown, Ohio, plant is one of several facilities subjected to closings recently. The company says cheap steel imports are cutting into its markets. The steel division has been LTV's largest single liability. In recent days, top executives realized the cash flow from steel operations would not be sufficient to make payments on some loans.

CHARLES PALMER, LTV spokesman: This decline below what we had expected to be happening in the last several weeks made it clear tht we would not be able to meet our near term obligations. And it was a decision that Chapter 11 was our best option at this point.

DENNIS TESZROW, stock analyst: Steel problems at LTV are both external and internal. The external problems are the import situation, as well as high labor costs throughout the U.S. industry and some outmoded plants.

PELLEY [voice-over]: The energy division has also been losing. With a depression in the oil industry, there is almost no demand for LTV's oil drilling and production equipment. LTV's last profitable year was in 1981, with $386 million. But with each succeeding year, losses have grown until 1985, when the company lost almost $724 million. In this year's Fortune 500, LTV has the distinction of topping the list of the biggest money losers. The only jewel in the LTV crown is the aerospace and defense unit. Its list of contracts includes the multiple launch rocket system, components of the B-1 bomber, the army's new high mobility vehicle, and major work in the Strategic Defense Initiative. Most LTV employees in Dallas-Fort Worth work on defense contracts, sothe impact on jobs locally is expected to be minimal. But elsewhere, the company is seeking to reduce its costs and drop operations that will be unprofitable. The final approval for such changes will rest with the bankruptcy court.

MacNEIL: Now we explore the impact LTV's bankruptcy will have on the steel industry with Lou Schorsch, an analyst with Mckinsey and Company, a leading management consulting firm.Mr. Schorsch joins us from public station WQED in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Schorsch, first of all, was it steel that drove LTV into bankruptcy, or steel plus the oil problems?

LOU SCHORSCH, steel industry analyst: I think the oil problem was part of it for LTV, but steel problems were probably a sufficient condition for the events of yesterday.

MacNEIL: Now, what happened in steel? What -- the company executives are saying they suffered primarily from foreign competition.How do you read it in steel?

Mr. SCHORSCH: I think imports have been a problem for the industry for quite some time, so it's difficult to see the events of yesterday as being due to the import problem. In the United States, as well as worldwide, the basic problem in steel is a great amount of excess capacity -- too much capacity chasing too little demand. That's the background. In LTV's case, they gambled a couple years ago that by acquiring Republic Corporation -- another major steel producer -- they could improve their cost position by consolidating facilities and gain a stronger market position. Now they appear to have lost that gamble yesterday in part because the acquisition of Republic brought with it significant liabilities in the form of pension costs, high debt, and some problems with iron ore costs.

MacNEIL: So that was a bad deal buying Republic.

Mr. SCHORSCH: Well, in hindsight it appears to be the case. I think if we look at the situation today, though, Chapter 11 is just that -- a chapter. It's not the entire story. And it may well be that as LTV emerges from this situation, it will be a much stronger competitor with a much lower cost base, so that a couple years from now we might look back and say that acquisition is something that did make sense.

MacNEIL: Well, in getting to a lower cost base, is that going to enable them to go back to their unions and say they want more concessions in wages and working conditions?

Mr. SCHORSCH: I think it's difficult to say now what's likely to happen on the wage side as a result of this Chapter 11. The company recently completed negotiations with the union that led to a new contract. The union saw the company's books, recognized the financial situation, and cut a deal that if that was appropriate only a few months ago. I think there's a good chance that the union is going to view the Chapter 11 situation as a mechanism to impose sacrifices on the other stakeholders in the company -- that is, the banks, suppliers, contractors and so on -- that the union feels it's already made.

MacNEIL: I see -- the union having made its contribution, it feels.

Mr. SCHORSCH: I think you're likely to see some reductions in employment costs probably on the work rule side rather than in wages, but I think that's not going to be the major story coming out of this bankruptcy.

MacNEIL: The Wall Street Journal, which leads on this story today, says that this promises to radically alter the way steel producers compete from now on. Do you agree with that, and if so how?

Mr. SCHORSCH: I don't know that it's necessarily going to change the way companies compete. Companies have been competing mainly on the basis of seeing who could cut their costs the most. That's unfortunate, but that's the way the industry has been going. I think what this does do is it gives, potentially, LTV a much stronger relative cost position compared to the other producers, and therefore it puts pressure on them in the future. That's the basis of competition that might change. But it's going to still be a cost driven industry, unless managers can figure out a way to shift the emphasis away from cost and more towards things like service to the customer and so on.

MacNEIL: Is that -- does that mean that this is going to drive the price of steel down even further?

Mr. SCHORSCH: I think that's probably the major short term catastrophe connected with this bankruptcy for the industry as a whole, in that LTV, which is a very major producer --

MacNEIL: Why is that a catastrophe? Wouldn't lower prices make it more competitive with the foreign imports?

Mr. SCHORSCH: Well, the industry basically lost about $900 million on sales last year, largely -- in steel operations -- largely because prices have been coming down. Now, it is the case that the U.S. price level continues to be somewhat higher than the world price level, but companies were losing money last year at the prices that prevailed in the marketplace. To see prices go down even further is something that has to be bad news for steel companies.

MacNEIL: One of your competing analysts told the Wall Street Journal today that other bankruptcies may be coming along. He thought there was a 50-50 chance that Bethlehem might declare bankruptcy by the end of the year. How do you feel about that?

Mr. SCHORSCH: I wouldn't want to comment on Bethlehem's situation. I think certainly this measure increases the pressure on steel companies and, increasingly Chapter 11 bankruptcies, I think, are being viewed as, in a sense, a strategic option for management to restructure its cost base more in keeping with the actual conditions in the U.S. market. I could note, though, that I think that same analyst, if I know who you're referring to, a couple weeks ago put the chances of LTV's going bankrupt at that same 50-50.

MacNEIL: I see. The steel industry was predicting something of a turnaround this year. What happened that it didn't occur?

Mr. SCHORSCH: I think basically people have misread the conditions in the market. We would view 1984 as basically a peak year. I think people did view that this year possibly would see a continued recovery from the 1984 and '85 levels of consumption, and that hasn't happened. I think, in addition, people were looking for some price relief, particularly as the import restraints that President Reagan has imposed began to take effect. Now, it hasn't happened, I think, because there is still too much capacity chasing too little consumption in the market, and that consumption is probably on the way down now.

MacNEIL: Well, given those realities, is there going to be further shrinkage in the U.S. steel industry -- more people getting out of the business, more plants closing down?

Mr. SCHORSCH: Well, I'm not sure that the Chapter 11 --

MacNEIL: I didn't -- I didn't mean -- I know they're not getting out of the business. But I meant, is there going to be further shrinkage of actual capacity?

Mr. SCHORSCH: I think that there is still about 25 to 30 million tons of excess capacity in this market and something over 100 million tons worldwide.

MacNEIL: How much --

Mr. SCHORSCH: And really that's the basic problem. And until that is somehow eliminated, then the problems will persist.

MacNEIL: What proportion is that 25 to 30 of U.S. output?

Mr. SCHORSCH: Of the integrated capacity -- and that's where the shrinkage would occur -- that's something on the order of 30 to 40%.

MacNEIL: Integrated means plants that make everything. They aren't -- or full system plants.

Mr. SCHORSCH: No, I mean plants like LTV's or like a U.S. Steel's, like an Inland National, etc. -- plants with a more traditional blast furnace technology, as opposed to the so-called mini-mills that are regional in scope, use an electric furnace, typically are more prosperous and growing compared to the integrated sector.

MacNEIL: Is there a good long term future for U.S. steel -- meaning steel in the U.S.?

Mr. SCHORSCH: I think it's -- we're probably seeing it at somewhat its darkest hour right now. I think that long term mini-mills, again, represent a very appropriate technology for the U.S.And increasingly as they grow and integrated companies adapt to those conditions, we'll find that you can't talk about those two separate sectors. I think, in addition, U.S. producers have a very significant advantage in terms of being close to what remains a very attractive market by world standards. And if they can make that the basis of competition instead of the entire production chain, then I think that the prospects are not quite as bleak as they might appear at this moment.

MacNEIL: Well, Mr. Schorsch, thank you for joining us from Pittsburgh.

Mr. SCHORSCH: My pleasure.

MacNEIL: Jim?

LEHRER: Still to come on the News Hour tonight, a special discussion about why sports stars use drugs and what can be done about it, day two of the important tax reform discussions, and a good look at the Titanic on the bottom of the sea. High Scorers

[clip from TV commercial]

MERCURY MORRIS, former cocaine user: There was this guy, a nationally known sports hero. And then I got busted. As a result of my lust for cocaine, I bypassed high and went straight to messed up. I mean, zoom. There was no stopping. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about, because you're taking the exact same ride. A phone call could help you. It took prison to help me.

Announcer: Call 1-800-662-HELP.

LEHRER: Mercury Morris, former star running back for the Miami Dolphins, former convict. He is one of four people who are with us now for a special conversation about drugs in sports -- a conversation triggered by cocaine deaths, arguments about mandatory tests, laments about images and other recent developments that some say are adding up to the biggest scandal, the biggest tragedy, in the history of sports. The agenda for our discussion will be set by an essay written and spoken by Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated magazine.

RICK REILLY: In the last few weeks, two athletes have died young at the end of the line -- the cocaine line. And it seems like everybody's trying to talk us through it, pointing fingers this way and that, bleeding and blathering on, but not a one of them having the vaguest notion of what to do about it.

[voice-over] When Maryland basketball star Len Bias died, Reverend Jesse Jackson said, "On a day the children mourn, I hope they learn." But eight days later, Cleveland Browns safety Don Rogers, a man who didn't learn, put the same pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. If you want to learn a lesson from all this, learn this: the big lie is over. Sports can't bury its head inthe sand anymore. There are too many bodies buried there. Good young men are stacking up, and we're stumbling over them.

The danger now is numbness. Who can keep up with the cocaine box score? From Mercury Morris to Mike Norris, from Dave Parker to Daryl Porter, from Steve Howe to the Tulane coke for points scam. Are we too shellshocked to care anymore? Not that drug abuse is new in sports; it's just seemed to pick up a terrible new momentum.

Sixteen years ago, Doc Ellis pitched a no-hitter on LSD. Four years ago, Montreal Expo Tim Rains took this sliding head first in order not to break bottles of cocaine he had in his back pocket.

[On camera] I think what we all feel is a relentless helplessness. And maybe there's nothing we can do ti make it go away, but at least we can try. First, the big lie has to be over. Drug hypocrisy is everywhere in sports. We should be equally as outraged when a hockey great like Pelle Lindbergh kills himself with alcohol as when Len Bias does with cocaine.

[voice-over] Now the NFL announces its intentions to test players for cocaine and other drugs, but the league continues to drag its feet on testing for steroids, even though 30% of the league uses this dangerous drug. Baseball Commissioner Peter Uberoth gets a notion last April that drugs are over with in baseball and that this season would be virtually drug free. Meanwhile, NBC sportscaster Tony Qubeck, who knows the players a little better than the commissioner, says the use of amphetamines -- or greenies, as they're called -- has never been higher.

Another thing: it's time to get through our heads that the modern jock star is different from everybodyy else. He's starkly unprepared to be Captain America and to carry all the baggage that comes with the uniform -- from the great expectations we heap on them to the seamy acquaintances trying to get next to them to the undying adulation that smothers them. If, like Tom Sawyer, Bias and Rogers could have witnessed their own funerals, would they have known any better who genuinely cared for them? The Rogers funeral was moved from his high school gym to the Arco Arena in Sacramento, where more than 2,000 family and friends mourned.Does anybody have 2,000 family and friends? How many of those people cared for him for more than his strength and his speed?

Bias had been flunking his entire course load in Maryland this spring, and nobody seemed to care or try to stop him. Could he sense that? Every college and pro team has a muscle coach, but how many have an emotion coach?We should insist that teams hire full time sports psychologists or counsellors -- people who can help athletes come to terms with themselves.

[on camera] Finally, nobody ever takes a test without going to class first, right? Why, then, do we give drug tests without teaching first? Drug education has to begin before it's too late -- in elementary school.

[voice-over] And when a kid gets to college, make him take Real Life 101. Give him the first year off to find out where the library is, learn how to write a check, fend off dealers and agents, make friends, and learn to like himself for more than his ten foot jump shot. Then we test.

The civil liberties dangers to testing are serious, but rigorous, random testing of the kind proposed by the NFL is at least a deterrent to cocaine use. We're talking about lives now; not starting halfback jobs. A partial deterrent is better than no deterrent at all. If an athlete fails one test, his season is over. Not his scholarship; his season. If a member of a team fails a test at a championship event, then the team season is over. Now that might get a few coaches' attention.

The untimely deaths of Len Bias and Don Rogers got our attention. Will it be enough? Don Rogers and Len Bias didn't learn in time. Can we?

LEHRER: Those were the thoughts of Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated. We add to them now those of four others: Mercury Morris, a pro football star of the '70s who served prison time for cocaine possession; Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns football team; Sonny Hill, former network sports commentator, active in recreational league basketball in Philadelphia; and Tony Kornheiser, sports columnist for theWashington Post. Tony Kornheiser, who's been telling the big lie?

TONY KORNHEISER, Washington Post: Well, I think that you have to differentiate on some level between the use of cocaine -- a killer drug, a recent drug -- and the whole history of performance aiding drugs in sports for hundreds of years now. I mean, we've seen cyclists and weight lifters and hammer throwers all use stimulants to improve performance. I think what's happened in the 20th century is we've upped the ante by having salaries of 300 and 500 and a million -- you know, 300,000, 500,000, a million dollars a year for athletes now. So athletes will do anything to keep a competitive edge, to keep that salary, to stay on the team. I mean, I suspect that in the NFL today that if a nutritionist came in and said he could guarantee that every player in the league would take a tenth of a second off their time in the 40 yard dash if they'd do something crazy like eat luggage, that the next day, everybody in the NFL would be at American Tourister's doorstep munching on garment bags. You have a livelihood to protect now. It's not just the winning; it's the winning and the money. And management over the course of time -- we've all read about this -- trainers have given out amphetamines, greenies. Management has asked people to take xylocaine to mask the pain to continue playing.

LEHRER: What's xylocaine?

Mr. KORNHEISER: It's a pain-killing drug. And you won't even feel the pain. Then you can run for a touchdown. There's literature in sports about this. My feeling is that it is a small leap in what is a drug culture with athletes now to go from a performance aiding drug, like steroids, over to cocaine for recreational use. And that what we have to look at is the entire -- the atmosphere created by athletes using drugs in order to maintain their lifestyle.

LEHRER: So the management of professional sports has winked at this sports culture -- I mean, this drug culture just like everyone else?

Mr. KORNHEISER: Absolutely. And what is happening now, and not to impugn their motives and say that they're not sincere, but essentially now you have a management-labor issue over issues like drug testing. And perhaps the players will give in in order to get something economic down the road. I mean, management has been part and parcel of this.Players have the responsibility to know what's right and wrong and legal from illegal. But management has, over the course of time, encouraged them through the social compact that they say to athletes, "You take care of business on the field, and we'll help you take care of business off the field."

LEHRER: Art Modell, is management guilty as charged?

ART MODELL, pro football owner: No, I'm afraid not, Jim. A number of points that bear commenting initially: number one, I don't believe the incident of cocaine usage in professional sports is any greater than in society as a whole. The manifestation in sports, because of its high visibility, has called attention to the problem. Perhaps the death of Don Rogers -- his legacy -- will be to help others who are not professional athletes, but just school children. Now, as far as the management responsibility, the Cleveland Browns have been the most progressive organization in professional sports in its drug rehabilitation program. But it has come up short in the case of Don Rogers. Now, we can't -- we -- our program is designed for the ones who voluntarily come forward and seek help, and it has actually performed miracles.Some of our greatest players are dead sober. One player I can identify because he came -- went public himself is Charles White. He's no longer with the Browns. He's now with the Rams. He's been sober now for two and a half, three years. He's a graduate of our program.

LEHRER: But -- excuse me. But what about the point that Tony Kornheiser just made and Rick Reilly made in that essay -- that essentially there has been a drug culture in professional sports that -- to use Tony's term -- it's a small jump from greenies and pain-killers to cocaine?

Mr. MODELL: I grant you, there have been use of the greenies and the uppers and the downers for a period of years, and there has been progression, tragically, to the use of cocaine. But I think that --

LEHRER: Hasn't this been done with the acquiescence and the cooperation of management of professional sports?

Mr. MODELL: Well, we have a strict code of use of amphetamines. We have unscheduled stops by league office personnel to take our inventory of our pharmaceutical drugs and medicines in our trainer's cabinet. And we better not have any unprescribed drugs on premise. What they do on their own, it's a difficult thing to police.

LEHRER: All right. Let me ask Mercury Morris that. What do you think? Was it a small or a big step for you to cocaine?

Mr. MORRIS: I think it, once again, it was just a progression of situations, not necessarily the necessity to go from one particular remedy to another. But when I first started in the National Football League, I can remember the doctor giving us mood pills and --

LEHRER: What kind of mood pills? What kind of mood?

Mr. MORRIS: That was my response too. I asked him what these were, and he said that they were simply to get you in the mood. And at that particular time --

LEHRER: To do what? To do what? To go play football with?

Mr. MORRIS: To play football. To play football. Of course.When someone was down or not feeling well -- let me tell you something. In 1969, also, I can recall being given a Seconal, which equates out to a red in street terms. But this is a highly lethal barbiturate. And also being allowed to drink beer at that same time. And barbiturates and beer and alcohol are one of the most lethal combinations that you can come up with.So it's not really a question of did the NFL give out any drugs. It's did the NFL have a certain acceptability for what was necessary at that time. I can think of many occasions when I was afraid to get a shot. I would rather go through the pain. But after a while, you realize that the cortisone and xylocaine and those 60 minutes within the parameters of the necessity that you have to have that shot, you find yourself asking for it, as opposed to having someone give it to you.

LEHRER: What about this additional point, Mr. Morris, that professional athletes, particularly stars -- you were a star -- begin to think of themselves as so special that they can do anything. And the law, whether it has to do with cocaine or has to do with anything else, becomes irrelevant. Is that -- is that true?

Mr. MORRIS: I don't think that that's true at all. I think that it's -- it's more or less of a romance that America has had since the '60s with drugs. At that particular time in my generation, because I graduated from high school in '65 and from college in '69, and this country went through a particular era of acceptability in those facets. And where a complete culture or a generation was allowed to do these things under the guise of a solution at that time. And then in the '70s it became a chic thing to do to be involved with the upper echelon and high class drugs, if you want to call them that. Then it trickled down into the rest of society. Well, it's always been there. It's just that now the availability of more people has caused it to be a gigantic problem.

LEHRER: Sonny Hill, who's with us from public station WHYY in Philadelphia. Mr. Hill, what about Art Modell's point, and Mercury Morris has just commented on it too, that basically this is not special to sports -- that the use of drugs in sports is no higher than it is in society as a whole. Do you agree with that?

SONNY HILL, youth counselor: Well, I think that's a great point on the part of them, because it really is. What happens is, these problems don't become paramount until it happens to someone who is highly visible. Unfortunately for Bias and Rogers, they're just the ones to trigger it. The thing that concerns me most about this is that we're only going to put a bandaid on it. Six months from now, they probably won't even be talking about this situation.It will be something else. Let me just regress a little bit. About a year ago or two years ago, we had a very serious epidemic of education, which we still have. Education has now been put on the back burner while we deal with the drug situation. So education is still there. We've got to come up with a long term commitment to attack and approach this problem through education. And also, our adult segment of our society has to begin to stand up and be adults. What happens is that we turn our back on the youth and on the negative elements of our society, and we let them run whatever's going on. Back in the '50s and the '40s, we were outside, and we were visible as an adult community, and we did things. We don't do that anymore. We want to sweep things under the rug, we want to turn our back, and we want to pretend those problems are not there. So we've got to approach these problems head on, and we've got to attack it as it is, so that we can eliminate this problem to a large degree. And we've got to do it through education and a sustained effort.

LEHRER: Tony Kornheiser, I've heard people say, since Len Bias and the Rogers death, that if professional sports doesn't clean up its act on drugs, that two things are going to happen: they're going to lose the public support, and then they're eventually going to get hurt very badly -- not only the professional sports -- the owners, such as Art Modell -- but also the players -- the new Mercury Morrises -- because the public is going to turn their backs on them if they don't clean it up. Is that a serious motivation or a serious threat?

Mr. KORNHEISER: I think it -- I don't know if it's a serious threat, but it's certainly a serious motivation. I mean, you have situations here where drugs have existed in sports for hundreds of years. And they've certainly existed on the professional level in the last 15 and 20 years. I mean, athletes have been, you know, fed steroids like laboratory rats and, you know, blown up so that they can be better and better players. What's happened now is that both management and labor has sensed the wind in their face -- the wind of public outrage in their face -- and people are saying, "For that amount of money, can't they at least stay straight?" And consequently, I think that the rush now on drugs -- again, not to doubt anyone's sincerity -- but they could have had the sincerity five and ten years ago as well. Now there's also

LEHRER: So your position is --

Mr. KORNHEISER: There's an economic motive. Sure they knew about it. And now there's an economic motivation. And these NFL franchises are worth, you know, 75 to $100 million. I mean, if suddenly the public loses confidence in the people playing the game and they don't want to see it on TV and they don't want to come out to the stands, there's a huge economic loss.What the owners are concerned with, and I think rightly so, is the health of their human investments -- the players that they're paying salaries to.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Is that right, Mr. Modell?

Mr. MODELL: Not totally.

MacNEIL: Partly right?

Mr. MODELL: Partly right.

MacNEIL: You're getting scared financially?

Mr. MODELL: No, I'm not getting scared financially. I'd rather apply my thoughts to the human terms that are involved more than the economic. There've been drugs around for years. Daddy Lipscomb died of an overdose of heroin 20-some-odd years ago. We don't like it at all. It's not a matter of protecting our investment. It's a matter of protecting and preserving the integrity of the game.

MacNEIL: Okay. Let's discuss from here on in what you do about it. Our essay said that the random drug testing that the commissioner has proposed and is now the subject of negotiation or -- what is the term?It's going to be --

Mr. MODELL: Collective bargaining.

MacNEIL: Collective bargaining between the unions and the management is the only way to go. And he says it may have civil liberties problems, but it is the only way to go. What is your position?

Mr. MODELL: Well, my position is very, very clear. I do not accept for one moment the invasion of privacy that is proposed by some people on the labor side. I think when a player signs on to play professional football, he surrenders that privacy, as I did when I bought the Cleveland Browns.

MacNEIL: So you're in favor of random testing?

Mr. MODELL: Not random; unscheduled testing as a deterrent to usage.

MacNEIL: Mercury Morris, how do you think the players feel about that?

Mr. MORRIS: Well, I can tell you right now that from an individual standpoint, I'm sure that they are in disagreement with it, because this was handed down as a mandate more than a viable agreement between two people or two groups, so that they could live together for a common bond of trying to get this problem solved. And what you have here --

MacNEIL: Well, are they concerned enough about solving it to -- when the collective bargaining is joined -- to agree in some kind of negotiated thing that they would submit themselves to unscheduled testing?

Mr. MORRIS: Well you see, that's what it's going to have to come to. It's going to have to come to a healthy compromise between both groups. NFL management can not expect to come into the bathrooms of every NFL football player and expect for them to urinate in a cup and then test this cup and then come back and point the finger at them with no remedy whatsoever for this effectuating change that they've caused. A person has been pointed out, so to speak, by this drug testing. Well, that's fine, as long as that person, along with that drug testing, if they have a viable plan for counseling, for the type of education that's necessary so that that person can be aware of his involvement and aware of the choices. Because you choose to do this, just like you choose not to. And you have to bring it down to that level. You can not come in and take someone through a superficial remedial program called a rehabilitation program and then it's -- you drive them through like a car wash, and then on the other side you come out. And from the outside the man looks clean, because he's complied with your mandates. But on the inside, he still has the exact same problem. So the clarity comes from NFL management and from the NFL Players Association coming to a happy medium of what's best for the game. When --

MacNEIL: Let's ask Mr. Modell -- let's ask Mr. Modell's reaction to that point.

Mr. MODELL: With all due respect, Merc, I don't agree. This is not a management decision. This is a decision made by Pete Rozelle for the good of the game. The game includes players, management, fans everybody that's involved. We didn't seek it. We knew -- everybody knows that something has to be done. I don't think -- I think it transcends in importance the collective bagaining process. It's not a bargaining chip. I would hope that Gene Upshaw would have embraced this program. We didn't know about this program in detail until the public at large was notified. It's a good program.It's a step in the right direction. We must clean u our act, and we must save lives in the process.

Mr. MORRIS: Art, Art. I'd like to -- I'd like you to address to this one situation right here. In my lectures, I use Don Rogers as an example. And I show them that clearly -- and I'm sure you'll agree with this -- that the Don Rogers in the morning -- the one who worked out in preparation for the seriousness of coming to camp in July -- now, that Don Rogers clearly had no idea of what the Don Rogers who freebased six grams -- or six times the lethal amount that would kill him. So we have a direct dichotomy here between two people. That is one person. You have Don Rogers in the morning who works out for the Cleveland Browns, and you have Don Rogers in the evening who took six times the lethal dose. That is not a question of drug testing. That is a question of understanding. And once you build your understanding, on top of that understanding you can build anything. And that's where the compromise is going to have to come from.

MacNEIL: Let's bring in Sonny Hill in Philadelphia to pick up another point that was mentioned by Rick Reilly. What about stiffer penalties for teams -- for -- first of all, for players who violate. They lose -- they're out for the season. And for teams, who would also be out for the season if there was drug abuse caught in the thing, to give greater incentive to coaches and owners.

Mr. HILL: Well, I think the point that Mercury Morris is making is a key note. There has to be a full base operation of how you're going to attack it, and it should be attacked through education. Just to say you're going to have random tests or you're going to have scheduled tests or whatever tests won't really be the deterrent that you need. This is a sickness. This is not just --

MacNEIL: You don't think random tests would be a deterrent?

Mr. HILL: That's only one part of it. You've got to educate people to the problems that are going on.

MacNEIL: And you don't think that stiffer penalties, like kicking a team out of a championship if one of its players was caught --

Mr. HILL: Well, look at Michael Ray Richardson in basketball.Look at John Lucas. Look at John Drew. All three of those guys were put out of the NBA, and they were given more than one opportunity.

MacNEIL: Tony Kornheiser, what --

Mr. HILL: But they're still sick.

MacNEIL: Tony Kornheiser, what do you think of this suggestion of much stiffer penalties for players and teams as a disincentive or deterrent?

Mr. KORNHEISER: Well, it seems to me that you don't have to -- I mean, first of all, I would resist mandatory drug testing. I mean, not only on constitutional grounds and on self-incrimination grounds, but the notion to me, is the public safety really endangered by people in satin shorts playing professional basketball perhaps using cocaine? And I don't think you can make the same case for that as you can for airline pilots or for air traffic controllers or police. In terms of -- in terms of punishments, it makes sense to have hard and fast punishments. That's probably a -- that's probably a good way to go. And I think that some sort of deterrent is reasonable. But if we treat people -- you know, if we have some sense of optimism, and we don't automatically assume that everyone is guilty and therefore has to prove their innocence, then you look at someone whose performance is affected either by drugs or by his horoscope or by, you know, biofeedback. And if he's not doing the job, you fire him. That's how these things ought to work.

MacNEIL: What do you feel about tougher penalties on teams to give coaches and owners like you a greater incentive to crack down?

Mr. MODELL: We have penalties in place right now for illegal drugs that we should not be giving out. Team management is subject to substantial fines. But that's not enough.We must get to the individual. And I agree with Mercury that education is an imperative part of this. Education should start in the sixth and the ninth grades for society as a whole. But to take a Don Rogers and say, "Don, this is not the thing to do. Stay off drugs," had we known it at the time, is not the answer. A loss of income, a loss of job. They earn an inordinate amount of money for people in our general population, and they have an obligation -- and obligation on the playing field and off the playing field, not only to management, to public at large, but most importantly, to the youth of America.

MacNEIL: We have to leave it there.

Mr. MORRIS: -- closing point before you --

MacNEIL: I'm afraid -- I'm afraid that's our time. I hate to stop you, but that is our time. So Art Modell in New York, thank you. Sonny Hill in Philadelphia, thank you. Mercury Morris in Miami, thank you, and Tony Kornheiser in Washington. Helping the Middle Class

LEHRER: This was day two for the 22 members of Congress charged with rewriting the nation's tax laws. They are still in the discussion phase, trying to mesh the House and Senate tax bills. At today's session, they decided to seek outside advice, and for that they turned to Treasury Secretary James Baker. It was a discussion worth listening to. And as part of our continuing coverage of the great march toward tax reform, here is an extended excerpt from it.

Rep. J. J. PICKLE (D) Texas: There is -- seems to be a general consensus. We're going to try to give more money to the middle income group. And the question comes down, what is middle income group? What are the brackets? And how do we pay if we give that to them? Where's it come from? And that's the question I wanted to ask you on, Mr. Baker, to comment. What would be the middle income group and how do we approach it?

JAMES BAKER, Treasury Secretary: Well, we've defined the middle income group, Mr. Pickle, as the group between $20,000 and $50,000. We would --

Rep. PICKLE: Between 20 and 50.

Mr. BAKER: Twenty and fifty, twenty and forty, something in that range. Now we've never -- we've never suggested that we would not favor increasing the percentage cut to the middle class as much as we can increase it. We do favor that. But we also raise what I think is an appropriate question, and that is, how do you pay for it? This is not a case, Mr. Pickle, of favoring big business or people that don't pay taxes or failing to close loopholes at the expense of the middle class. That's not the issue here. The issue here is jobs. We do not think we should raise the cost of capital in this country in a way that would cost us productive jobs. That's not going to help the middle class at all. And you can't have it both ways. You can't talk about that fact that the United States is no longer internationally competitive and talk about that fact that we need to do things on the trade side and at the same time come over here and hammer us on the cost of capital. That's the issue. We would like to see the middle class get as big a break as they can get. But you got to figure out how you're going to pay for it. And all we're saying is, we should look carefully at how we're going to pay for it.

Rep. PICKLE: Well, Mr. Secretary, you and I have no disagreement on that. And the question is, how do you pay for it. Now you say you want to pay for it, but not at the cost of -- you don't indicate to me how you're going to pay for it. That's what I'm asking you. How do we pay for that?

Mr. BAKER: Well that's -- I think that's something that this conference has to examine in --

Rep. PICKLE: Well, I understand that, but do you have any recommendation for us? You have a view for us. You've indicated that you're in agreement now. What does treasury recommend we do?

Mr. BAKER: Well, there are a lot of things I think you could do. One thing you don't do, in our view, is go in here and diminish, for instance, the depreciation provisions that are in the Senate bill and raise the cost of capital. What you shouldn't do, in my opinion, is start talking about raising the rates -- either the individual rates or the corporate rates -- in order to do it. It's a lot easier to tell you how not to do it than it is to tell you how to do it. And we -- our position is we'd like to see it tone, if you can come up with a way to do it that doesn't destroy economic growth.

Rep. PICKLE: Well, I'm not going to keep quibbling this. I'm trying to get you to be -- tell me something the direction you think -- treasury thinks we should go. That's my point.

Mr. BAKER: Mr. Pickle, we'll be glad to provide you with a case by case analysis, but let me say this: the Senate bill gives the middle class a 6.6% reduction, as against a 6.4% reduction for everybody else. Now, if we can find a way to increase that, you'll have no objection from me, from the treasury or from the executive branch. We simply want to raise a caution flag here that we should not do it at the expense of jobs.

Sen. JOHN CHAFEE (R) Rhode Island: Mr. Chairman, I just want to voice one thought here if I might. The whole thrust of the approach today seems to be who's getting a cut here, who's getting a cut there, who's getting the most cuts. The purpose of this exercise from the beginning wasn't to give everybody a tax cut. It was to take the tax code and make it fairer. And that was the objective. And hopefully to make it simpler, and hopefully also to make it more economically efficient. In other words, to have capital flow in the direction that was best for the nation and not be guided by tax purposes. But the thrust of the approach here this morning is who's getting a cut here, who's getting a cut there. And what we're seeking is fairness. And I just want to voice that before everybody thinks that the whole -- at least one senator's approach here is solely to give group A or group B or group C a tax cut. Titanic: Inside Story

MacNEIL: All this week, a machine the size of a lawn mower has been taking a few scientists on an incredible journey -- the stuff of the most improbable adventure stories. Today the pictures it took inside the sunken ocean liner Titanic were released for everyone to see. We now get a much fuller look with correspondent Elizabeth Brackett, reporting from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT [voice-over]: The eerie, silent remains seen through the Jason Junior's cameras were once elegant salons and dining rooms like this one.The little robot floated down the grand staircase that had been elegantly panelled in oak. This afternoon, Dr. Ballard described the spectacular new pictures taken by Jason Junior.

Mr. BALLARD: We hold the ship on station above the Titanic and go through all the necessary checks on the submarine, as well as the vehicle itself. This pre-dive period takes about an hour to an hour and a half, and hopefully we're in the water by 8:00 to 8:30. With Jason in its garage, safely nestled in in front of Alvin, we lower it with this large A-frame. Two divers stand on the sail to detach the handling lines. If anything, this is the most nervous part of the entire dive is getting it off over the stern of the A-frame and safely in the water and de-coupled from the support ship. Our first images, generally, with our down-looking sit camera -- here we are looking down beneath it over the bow at the big boom that's used to lower the secondary anchor into place. And turning, we come in for a closer run with our color camera on the arm of Alvin looking at the bollards on the starboard side of the bow. The strobe is a still camera going off. Coming up the side of the ship, you can see these iron-cicles that hang down like giant icicles of rust. Up through the promenade, looking into the promenade windows and rising up to the deck above. An overhead lifeboat davit with its block, as we disturb these rust-cicles and they fall down like a rain of iron. And the current quickly blows it away and exposes the upper deck of the ship.

Now, having landed on the boat deck, we deploy Jason Junior, who takes a close-up inspection of one of the electrical winches, and then proceeds down the staircase and into the inner compartments. On the second and third deck, we see this crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, ornamented by deep sea coral.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: The Jason, the undersea robot that explored the Titanic, is the most advanced vehicle ever used in underwater exploration. It was built at the institution here in Woods Hole in just the last six months.

DANA YOERGER, Woods Hole Institute: We were trying to build a vehicle that would really give us a very high quality platform for doing video underwater in, of course, very extreme environmental conditions, and something that would function reliably out there when its time to shine really came, so --

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Dana Yoerger was part of the team that designed and built the Jason Junior. The vehicle, shown here in a test pool, is about the size of a lawn mower and throws off 400 watts of lights for the cameras. Yoerger says so far the little robot has lived up to its expectations.

Mr. YOERGER: The quality of the video that they've been getting, apparently, is excellent. And they got good stills yesterday, we heard. And that's really its job is to go back and bring those images home. And we think that's what it's done.

BRACKETT: What can the Jason do that other vehicles can't do?

Mr. YOERGER: Well, it can get into all of those interesting, tight corridors that a large, manned submersible can't. And that's really -- that's really Jason Junior's job. Also, it's a stepping stone to our larger plans to do this kind of work completely remotely from the surface.

BRACKETT [voice-over]: Ballard and his crew will not return to Woods Hole for another week, bringing with them thousands of additional photographs of the Titanic's final resting place.

LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday. The original authors of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget cutting law offered an addition that will bring it into compliance with a Supreme Court decision that said its automatic cut provision was unconstitutional. Garbage workers in Philadelphia agreed to pick up the garbage tomorrow after being held in contempt of court and threatened with being fired.And an American missionary was released unharmed by Philippine terrorists after six days of captivity. Good night, Robin.

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