The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, the Reagan Administration warned the Polish Government against using force to stop labor unrest, and joined with the contras in accusing the Sandinistas of undermining the Nicaraguan Peace Talks. And the Transportation Department announced a random drug testing program for U. S. railroad employees. We'll have the details in our news summary in a moment. Robin? ROBERT MacNEIL: After the news summary we get an update on the stalled Nicaraguan Peace Talks from a contra leader and a Sandinista representative. Then a documentary report about depression with a mental health expert discussing how to combat the disorder that affects millions of Americans. We'll handicap the upcoming presidential elections in France with a former U. S. Ambassador and a political analyst. And finally, essayist Clarence Page weighs our fascination with lightness. News Summary MacNEIL: The Reagan Administration today condemned the Polish Government's use of force against striking workers, but did not expect it to disrupt the forthcoming Moscow summit. Police using percussion grenades raided Krakow Steelworks at 2:00 a. m. to break up the 10 day strike and arrest its leaders. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the Administration deplored the use of force against peaceful demonstrators and was watching the situation with concern.In Gdansk, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and several thousand strikers of the Lenin Shipyards braced for a similar police assault. Walesa and some 3000 workers refused to leave when management shut down the yards and ordered them out. Hundreds of riot police cordoned off the yard. In a message smuggled out, Walesa said, ''The whole world is watching us, and the whole world must react with sympathy. '' Other work stoppages and demonstrations by university students were reported in other Polish cities. Jim? LEHRER: In Washington, White House spokesman Fitzwater also had some strong words for the Sandinista Government of Nicaragua. He accused them of systematically undermining the peace talks with the contra rebels, particularly in the last 72 hours, by arresting opposition political leaders and closing down three radio stations. Contra leaders held a news conference in Washington to make the same accusation. They also charged the Sandinistas with holding up humanitarian aid to the contras.

ADOLFO CALERO, contra leader: The aid of the U. S. Government has been held as hostage by the Sandinista Government all this time. The Sandinistas have tried to force us into a choice of hunger or surrender, which we simply have refused to accept. The Sandinistas have shown no intention to arrive at peace and freedom in Nicaragua. And the resistance will keep on doing its best to negotiate for democracy and for freedom and for peace in our country. LEHRER: Cuba today offered to remove its troops from Angola if South Africa will remove its from neighboring Southwest Africa. The proposal was made in London following a two day conference aimed at ending the 12 year old Angolan civil war. The United States, South Africa, Cuba and Angola participated in the conference. The Cuban representative told reporters his country's troops will depart under a four year timetable. There was no immediate response from South Africa. MacNEIL: In Israel today, a Jewish settler in the occupied area shot and killed one Arab villager and seriously wounded another. A radio report said the incident began after Israeli civilians tried to drive Palestinian shepherds from a field near an Israeli settlement. The report said the shepherds responded with stones, and the Israeli civilian then opened fire. In Lebanon, Israeli backed militiamen reportedly killed several Arab guerillas and destroyed some 60 houses in the village of Maidoun. The village was the focus of the two day Israeli incursion into Southern Lebanon, in which at least 40 guerillas and three Israeli soldiers died. Today the last elements of an Israeli search and destroy team withdrew to Israel and its security zone. According to government sources, the Israelis carried back 20 captured guerillas, and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin warned of new raids if Palestinians continued cross border attacks. Three newly freed hostages returned to France today and the embrace of French Premier Jacques Chirac and their families. The three Frenchmen had been held in Lebanon for three years and their release yesterday was seen as an election eve coup for Chirac. France denied it paid ransom for the release, but confirmed it was completing talks on repayment of the one billion dollar loan from Iran. One of the freed French hostages said today that he'd shared a cell with American Terry Anderson during his captivity in Lebanon. In Washington, the White House said it was pleased the French hostages had been released, but hoped no deal had been struck that would undercut U. S. policy on terrorism. LEHRER: Back in this country, disaster struck a Louisiana oil refinery today. An explosion and fire at a Shell Oil Company facility at Norco left one person dead, 42 others were injured, six are missing. Twenty five hundred residents in the area were evacuated. The cause has not been determined. There was also a spectacular fire last night in Los Angeles' tallest building, the 62 story First Interstate Bank Building. A man trapped in an elevator died. At least 40 others were hurt. The fire broke out on the building's 12th floor and spread to four others before being contained. And in Henderson, Nevada, one person was still missing following a jarring explosion yesterday at a rocket fuel plant that killed one man and injured 250 others. The blast spewed flames and toxic smoke into the air, shattered windows 10 miles away and was reportedly felt by passengers on a Las Vegas bound jetliner. MacNEIL: Transportation Secretary Jim Burnley today called for random drug testing of railroad employees in safety related positions. The announcement was made at a press conference in Washington.

JIM BURNLEY, Secretary of Transportation: This rule making would require all carriers subject to Federal Railroad Administration jurisdiction to establish random drug testing programs. The proposed rule would also apply to railroad employees covered by the Hours of Service Act, including engineers, brakemen, conductors and yard workers directly involved in the movement of trains. All carriers subject to FRA jurisdiction would be required to establish random drug testing programs. MacNEIL: Burnley also urged state governments to crack down on drunk driving by commercial bus and truck drivers. He proposed a one year license suspension for first time violations and a lifetime ban for a second defense. That's our news summary. Still ahead, problems at the Nicaraguan Peace Talks, battling the blues, France goes to the polls, and some thoughts on lightness. Right Turn? MacNEIL: First tonight, we look at the French presidential election. On Sunday, the people of France will decide whether to take a pronounced step to the right or continue with the interesting compromise they now live with between socialism and conservatism.

[voice over]: Seven years ago French voters swung to the left, and by a heavy majority chose the veteran socialist Francois Mitterrand. His party later took control of the parliament and tried briefly to expand the economy with new government spending, but also nationalized numerous private companies. But rising unemployment and a falling franc soon produced disillusionment, and the electorate swung to the right in parliamentary elections in 1986. The result was that the socialist president Mitterrand was forced to share power with a conservative premier, Jacques Chirac. But French voters appeared to like this unusual form of divided government. The polls show Mitterrand a strong favorite to win reelection, running against Chirac, who will remain premier even if he loses the presidential race. Chirac's problem will be maintaining leadership of the conservative movement if he loses. A key factor in the outcome will be the votes of about 14% of the electorate, which went to the far right candidate, Jean Marie Le Pen in the first round election last month. He ran a campaign against foreign immigrants, a popular issue with unemployed workers who might otherwise be expected to vote socialist or communist. A last minute element of uncertainty has been added to the race with the release of French hostages in Lebanon. Chirac is taking credit for the hostage diplomacy. Whether this affects the election could depend on what voters think of any deals that might have been struck with Iran to gain the hostages' release. MacNEIL: [on camera] We get two perspectives now on the French story. First from the former U. S. Ambassador to Paris, Evan Galbraith, but also from an analyst we've seen frequently discussing American politics, William Schneider of the American Enterprise Institute. When not immersed in U. S. polling data, Mr. Schneider follows French politics. Mr. Ambassador, do you think Mitterrand's going to win? EVAN GALBRAITH, former Ambassador to France: Well, that what the polls say. But I don't think it's entirely clear how the Le Pen voter in the first round is going to vote in the second round, nor can one be certain that the communist vote will vote in a block for Mitterrand. MacNEIL: If you added up all the votes on the right, including Le Pen's, then that would be a majority over Mitterrand in the first round? Amb. GALBRAITH: Yes, that's right. MacNEIL: What do you think, Bill Schneider? WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, American Enterprise Institute: I think Mitterrand is in the lead. We don't know the impact of these hostage events or the events in New Caledonia, which have also come to a head this week. There was the murder of several Frenchmen and then recently -- MacNEIL: Let's separate those out and discuss them in a minute. But just on the -- what do you think of the overall situation? Mr. SCHNEIDER: Oh, I think it looks good for Mitterrand. What he's basically done is defang both of his enemies. He brought the communists into his government and then they were discredited. Then he served with a conservative prime minister and the government responsibilities fell on him. And Mitterrand's been above it all. So I think -- I used to argue that no French president who would serve for seven years could ever get reelected because he'd make too many enemies. Mitterrand I think on Sunday is about to prove me wrong. MacNEIL: Now, just explain one thing since you're in this business. The French don't let their opinion polls be published, there's a law against publishing in the last week, is that right, before the election? Mr. SCHNEIDER: That's exactly right. It's against the law to publish a poll, so all the speculation about the impact of these dramatic events this week is just pure speculation. MacNEIL: So how do we know what the polls are? Mr. SCHNEIDER: We don't know what the polls are. They showed Mitterrand with a strong lead and we know what the intentions of the various voting groups were from the first ballot, the Le Pen voters, the communist voters, but we don't know the effect of the current events. And that has a cost, you see. Because what we have to deal with is gossip and speculation instead of real data. MacNEIL: Now, what do you think the effect will be, first of all, of the release of these three hostages through Mr. Chirac's direction of the negotiations? Amb. GALBRAITH: First of all, there are polls, but they're private and they can't be published. So there's constant leaks about what has been said. And there are those who claim they have access to this information and that's one of the problems that stir up the thing. As to the hostage, I think it probably will help Chirac. The law and order issue and how to deal with terrorists, the efficacy of the government in dealing with the terrorists, that's one of the big issues. Mitterrand when he took office originally in 1981, let a number of terrorists loose, and that's caused a lot of anguish and it's become a political issue in the whole hostage being brought to light again reinforces that sort of issue. MacNEIL: ButMr. Chirac recently released to Iran an Iranian Embassy official who had holed up in the French Embassy and refused to cooperate with French police, and he's been criticized for that. Amb. GALBRAITH: He's been criticized by Mitterrand, but actually it was -- from a popularity point of view it was positive. MacNEIL: How do you see the hostage thing playing, Bill Schneider? Mr. SCHNEIDER: Well, it's hard to tell. First of all there have been a lot of accusations back and forth about each side, in this case the President and the Prime Minister, running against each other for President, trying to make deals with hostages. So I think that breeds a lot of cynicism. And second of all, last year it's been revealed that the French did pay part of that debt to Iran as more or less a ransom for hostages. And I think the French are going to be very suspect about the possibility of a deal in this case. MacNEIL: I see. Which would react against Chirac. Mr. SCHNEIDER: It would not help the Prime Minister Mr. Chirac in his bid to become President. MacNEIL: Let's discuss the Le Pen factor for a little bit. This is an extreme right wing manifestation in France, and a very racist one to a degree. Is this just a temporary explosion of frustration or is this now a permanent force again in French politics? Amb. GALBRAITH: I don't think it's accurate to characterize it as an extreme right wing. There's all types of people who come together to vote for Le Pen. Many of them are not extreme. The genesis for the whole movement is the large number of Arabs and North Africans who've moved into various urban sections in French towns that have caused problems in the neighborhoods and resentment. Marseilles is a big case. Le Pen actually came out first in the first round in Marseilles, which is in many areas very heavily populated by Arabs now. So that's really the fundamental glue, the catalyst that brought all this together. But there are also those who use the Le Pen vote as a sort of an act of defiance on both of your Houses type of approach. And those people will be voting more with their mind instead of their heart in the second tour. It's very hard to say how it's going to go, but Mitterrand has by and large taken a lassez faire policy with respect to the immigrates, as they call it, and I would suspect that a number of those within the Le Pen group, who are socialists or communists, and there are some, I suspect many of those may not vote at all. They don't want to vote for Mitterrand, and it's very difficult for them to psychologically to vote for the right. So we'll probably see some voting en blau, abstaining. And the question is whether or not Chirac will get a sufficient percentage of the total vote to push him up to 50%. MacNEIL: Suppose Mitterrand, Bill Schneider, the situation stays as it is, Mitterrand is reelected President and Chirac remains at least until there are new Parliamentary elections as the Prime Minister. What kind of government does that mean for France? Mr. SCHNEIDER: Well, I think the President is going to try to get a government that's more to his liking. It'll be very difficult for him to govern in collaboration with Mr. Chirac. I think what he's going to try to do is form a new alliance with the center parties, with the sort of voters who supported Ramon Barr in the first vote this time. There's always been a sort of dream of a center party in France. And this time it could happen. You could have a socialist president trying to govern in collaboration with a centrist government in Parliament, which really leaves the communists out on the left and the Gaullists down on the right. And isolates them in opposition. I'm not sure that's the best thing for France, but I think that's what Mitterrand has up his sleeve as the new government. MacNEIL: Do you see that? Amb. GALBRAITH: No. I don't think the UDF, which is the other party on the right, and it's aligned with the DeGaullist Party, I don't think they're prepared at this point to break with the majority. It would be an act of weakness on their part. It would be seen as pure political maneuver, which would be held in disrepute. MacNEIL: Would you explain something. Amb. GALBRAITH: There's a lot of people in that party, that group, that's a group of parties, UDF, who do not really viscerally find themselves capable of dealing with the socialists. MacNEIL: To put it in very simple terms, how do you have a president of one party and a prime minister, who presumably has to command a majority in the Parliament, of a group of other parties, how has it worked? Who sets the policy and who carries it out? Amb. GALBRAITH: Well, it's fairly clear in the Constitution that the government is run by the Prime Minister and his ministers. So most, 90% of the power is in the hands of the Parliament and the government. And the French President under that split cohabitation arrangement that we've just seen, has in fact very little power except he has control over the armed forces and he has the power to dissolve the parliament. The latter is a significant weapon in that politicians don't normally like to be forced to run for office. So -- also he has the power to sign a certain number of documents. So certain appointments had to be agreed to with him. But by and large it worked reasonably well, like any other parliamentary form of government wherein there was a large majority for the government. They were able to function quite well. MacNEIL: If the present situation continues with Mitterrand's Prime Minister -- with Chirac as Prime Minister -- what does that mean from the point of view of the United States? Amb. GALBRAITH: Well, first of all, I don't think Chirac will stay. If he's beaten as President in his campaign for President I would have thought he would resign, under which case the President would have to appoint somebody else and that somebody else would have to be ultimately approved by the Parliament. And if the Parliament rejected it, it may well be that Mitterrand would do what he said he was going to do, namely then dissolve the Parliament and you have a legisla -- MacNEIL: (unintelligible) Amb. GALBRAITH: -- his willingness to do that or not I think depends on whether or not he gains a large majority in his victory or if it's just a squeaker. If it's very close, I suspect he'll be reluctant to dissolve the Parliament, because he would then probably lose and that in turn would detract from his standing. Just after having won, to lose is not very helpful. MacNEIL: In terms of U. S. interests and policies, what would that sort of government with Mitterrand continuing in the presidency mean? Mr. SCHNEIDER: Well, I think it's going to be a problem. If Mitterrand wins, you're going to see a kind of wait and see attitude by French business and foreign business. It will be a certain lack of confidence that will be in the air. That will manifest itself in the form of a lack in investment, and I think that lack of investment's going to be coupled with a certain flight of capital as a result of the imposition of a new wealth tax. You might well see the imposition of exchange control again, which Chirac has gotten rid of. You may well see ultimately a need to inflate by an increase in the money supply in order to get the economy going again. And there we are probably will result in inflation and in price control. So I have a very dismal scenario before me in terms of what could well be the consequences of a Mitterrand victory. And that could be very damaging to the United States because France is an important ally and we need them with a strong economy. MacNEIL: Do you share that pessimism, Bill Schneider? Mr. SCHNEIDER: Well, I think the President may be tempted to carry out some of those policies, and I do share the economic pessimism. On foreign policy I think we've learned over the years that it doesn't much matter, Giscard, Pompidou, De Gaulle, Mitterrand, they've all pursued more or less the same policy of national independence. What really worries me here is, you know, you've got this Le Pen vote out there, and it certainly was racism, but it was something more than that. Imagine in the United States if our government was run by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans and people became unhappy with the government, what would they do? They very well might go to the extremes. Essentially that happened in France. Because you've got to remember during Mitterrand's presidency in the last seven years, the communists have been in government, the socialists have been in government, and the conservatives have been in government. And that's one of the reasons why there's this sudden mushrooming of this extremist vote. I think that's going to be a problem. The right is divided and they don't quite know what to do. Basically, the right in France has the problem that the left used to have with the communists. There's a large block of votes that they can't win with and they can't win without. The problem is that this is a key to keeping the socialists in power, and if the socialists get too much power and feel too confident, they may pursue some of those risky economic policies that the ambassador has outlined. MacNEIL: We have to leave it there. Bill Schneider and Evan Galbraith, thank you very much for joining us. Battling the Blues LEHRER: Next tonight, depression and mental illness. This week the National Institute of Mental Health kicked off its first ever public service campaign, designed to called attention to the nation's number one mental illness. Charlayne Hunter Gault has more on this problem. Charlayne? CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Jim, depression is not just the blues, it's a painful illness that experts say will strike ten million Americans in the next six months. The cost to society are high: 156 million days lost from work; an estimated $10 billion a year lost from the economy. But so are the costs to the individual sufferers with only one in three seeking available treatment. Some of those people recently told their stories to correspondent Art Hackett of Public Television Station WHA in Madison, Wisconsin.

ART HACKETT, WHA, Madison: This is the story of a little known illness that quite literally knocked a Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge from one side of the bench to the other. But for this disease, Martha Bablich might be preparing to judge cases instead of argue them. In 1985, the condition forced Bablich to step down from the appellate judgeship to which she was elected at the age of 34. The illness was clinical depression. MARTHA BABLICH, attorney: You don't really understand that something is dramatically wrong with you until you start getting symptoms as I did towards the summer and fall of '81 -- such as hyperventilating, crying jags, and I'm not a crier, but uncontrollable crying, inability to eat, inability to sleep, and just anguish. MARIE KEMP: The main thing that bothered me was the fatigue. And I just, I couldn't do anything.

HACKETT: Thirty year old Marie Kemp is from Blancherville. Ms. KEMP: I took care of the kids. They had a lot of TV dinners, because I just couldn't cook anything. As long as it was something I could pick off the shelf and put in the oven that was fine. And of course I started to feel guilty because I wasn't spending any time with the kids, and I started to realize that every time they came and asked me to do something I would always say Later, later, and later never came. My doctor finally mentioned depression. And my immediate reaction was, Well, what have I got to be depressed about. Nothing of major trauma or sadness had happened that I should be upset about. And I guess I just wasn't thinking of it in the terms of clinical depression.

HACKETT: Clinical depression is an illness that just happens to affect your emotions. That makes it a mental illness. In fact, depression is the most common mental illness. But it is, doctors stress, also a physical illness. The effort to learn more about treating depression brings Marie Kemp to the University of Wisconsin Hospital once a month. There she goes through a battery of tests to assess the effectiveness and potential side effects of a new antidepressant drug, Phlevoxamine. Developing and assessing new drugs is difficult because of uncertainty over why people get depressed. Doctors just don't know. UW hospital psychiatrist, James Jefferson: Dr. JAMES JEFFERSON, Univ. of Wisconsin Hospital: I suspect that depression is going to turn out to be something like fever. It's a clinical symptom and there are going to be a number of different causes of it. And each of those causes that can be isolated then can have a fairly specific treatment developed. But right now if somebody says I feel like this, you say you're depressed. It's like sticking a temperature (sic) in someone's mouth, and saying, ''You've got 105 degree fever,'' but that doesn't say what's causing the fever. Ms. KEMP: I think I've been feeling better. It's definitely not going downhill. I don't know how much better I've been feeling, but it's good.

HACKETT: Whatever it is that was causing Marie Kemp to feel good or bad, she is not alone in being afflicted with it. Five percent of Americans are suffering from depression right now. Ten percent of us will be depressed at some point in our lives. Better than two thirds of depression patients are female. Doctors aren't sure whether that's due to some physiological difference between the sexes or to the fact that men are less likely to seek treatment. Although it is widespread, depression is fairly easy to treat through drug therapy. The problem is getting people to seek treatment and stick with it. Marie Kemp, for example, received medication for depression from her family doctor. It didn't help. She stopped taking it. After noticing this ad seeking volunteers for a study of the new antidepressant drug, she is back on medication again. Ms. KEMP: It's just really interesting -- nondescript little gray capsules. The kids always want to know what it is.

HACKETT: Kemp and her doctors don't know what the pills are. To avoid biasing test results, doctors and participants are told only that the capsules contain either the new drug Phlevoxamine or a standard antidepressant drug, or nothing at all, a so called placebo. In return for free treatment, Kemp faces monthly lab tests and countless interviews. Ms. KEMP: The fatigue right now is the biggest problem. I still don't have a whole lot of energy to do things. And the ambition has been getting a little better, I've actually been doing things that I've been wanting to do for a long time, but I've just been avoiding.

HACKETT: All of this in an effort to find another drug, one that might be more effective and have fewer side effects. Dr. James Jefferson: Dr. JEFFERSON: There continue to be new drugs introduced every few years. Now that's sort of the good news. The bad news is there's never been a new drug introduced that's any more effective than the old drugs. And the old drugs may be effective in let's say 70% of individuals' first attempt.

HACKETT: And in some cases like Martha Bablich's a drug that works has too many side effects. Ms. BABLICH: I felt like a zombie on the other two. Just like I was viewing the world through cotton pads. It was a terribly unpleasant sensation.

HACKETT: Her attempts at drug therapy were complicated by the fact that she was also abusing alcohol in an effort to kill the pain of the depression. Ms. BABLICH: I'd heard about antidepressants. I think I assumed they were like tranquilizers and that therefore they were a thing I'd never stoop to take, you know. I had no understanding of the disease as a treatable physical illness that manifested itself in a psychological way. Dr. JEFFERSON: When someone breaks their leg, they go and get their leg fixed. I think that's very obvious, I got a broken leg I should do something about it. One of the problems with depression is it affects the part of the body that allows one to do something about it, which is one of the problems. And if you broke your leg and you said you had to walk to the doctor, it wouldn't work out very well. Ms. BABLICH: The Freudian viewpoint I think most of my age were raised on is that depression is grief or anger turned inwards, and how you treat is you talk about it long enough so that you can deal with the grief or work out the anger. And I tried that. It didn't work. I got worse and worse. Dr. JEFFERSON: It's really important to review treating depression as not either/or in terms of being on antidepressants or being in psychotherapy, because often a blending of the two is really important.

HACKETT: There is one other treatment used for depression when even drugs don't yield relief, and it will probably surprise you. It's ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, or as it's known in the vernacular, the shock treatment. It is not the violent ordeals you may remember from the movies. The patient is anesthetized and given muscle relaxants. When the shock is given, this is what happens. The patient's head rolls back and her toes wriggle. UW Hospital psychiatrist Dr. Krishna Dagupta says it's uncertain why ECT works, but it's suspected to have something to do with a group of chemicals in the brain, catecholamines. Dr. KRISHNA DAGUPTA, University of Wisconsin Hospital: We think that the reason it works is that it releases catecholamines into the brain -- might be just the shock HACKETT: These do what? Dr. DAGUPTA: Well, catecholamines are involved in depression. We're not sure exactly how, but we know that somehow that they're involved. And we think that it might be because of that, but we really don't know exactly why it works.

HACKETT: But it does work. And work well. Dr. Jefferson: Dr. JEFFERSON: And there's been no treatment that's been shown to be more effective than electroconvulsive therapy in terms of getting people better.

HACKETT: ECT does have side effects, such as temporary memory loss that could last as long as nine months. It's serious treatment for serious cases of a serious illness. And that is what doctors want to drive home. It is serious. Something depressed patients sometimes take a while to accept. Ms. BABLICH: My doctor's partner, who saw me one day on an emergency basis, said to me, ''Look, you're trying to treat your depression with what you call strength of character, by refusing to take these antidepressants. And that's equivalent of trying to treat acute appendicitis with strength of character. It won't work. Let us help you. '' That made sense to me. HUNTER-GAULT: Up to 90% of all depressions can be treated, and to help encourage sufferers, the National Institute of Mental Health is waging its first national education campaign. It includes public service announcements like this one.

[commercial] VOICE: Clinical depression is not just a case of the blues. It's feelings of hopelessness, guilt. It's difficulty making decisions, concentrating, remembering. It's changes in eating and sleeping patterns. It's loss of interest in everything. Millions of Americans who suffer from depression can be treated effectively. To learn more, write Depression, Rockville, Maryland 20857. HUNTER-GAULT: With us to tell us more about depression is Dr. Frederick Goodwin, Scientific Director of the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Goodwin, what are you hoping to achieve as a result of this campaign? Dr. FREDERICK GOODWIN, National Institute of Mental Health: Well, we have found that there are a large number of the ten million patients who have been diagnosed with our surveys who have not sought treatment within even the last year. That is to say that over half of the patients who suffer from depression, which was so nicely described on your piece, don't seek treatment. And we found in looking into why this is that they have attitudes that really do describe a sense that it's something they should be able to take care of themselves, as a weakness of character. I think as Ms. Kemp said, that was a struggle that she went through. And that's very common. We also found that people in the public in general are much more willing to take medication for a headache or a backache than they are indeed for something much more serious, in depression. So we still have this strong moral sense in our culture that anything that has to do with how you're thinking or feeling, or how you're functioning in a mental sense, we really ought to be able to fix for ourselves. HUNTER-GAULT: And so this campaign is aimed at changing societal attitudes as well as the attitudes of people who may be suffering from depression? Dr. GOODWIN: Yes, and it requires across the board, that is, we have to change attitudes of the public. We also have to change attitudes of various health care providers. HUNTER-GAULT: I want to get to that in a minute. But let me ask you this question first. I mean, how do you distinguish between the ordinary down times or just the plain old everyday blahs, and some serious problems, because one of the women in the tape piece described the situation in which she was deep into depression before she was moved to do something about it? Dr. GOODWIN: Well, it'svery important to think of depression as a whole spectrum of disorders. Because normal depression is part of everyday life. In fact, it's healthy to be able to experience disappointment and sadness. The difference is if it goes on relentlessly, week after week, and if the feelings and thoughts of depression begin to get complicated by inability to sleep or to stay asleep, loss of energy, incapacity to have any sense of pleasure. You know, when you can't turn away from your troubles and find pleasure in something that is your favorite thing, that's the difference. That's not normal. Also we find that if the symptoms begin to interfere with daily life, just functioning, routine functioning, if you're so preoccupied with those symptoms that were so well described by your patients, that's clinical depression. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Now, there were a lot of uncertainties even in what the doctor had to say. He said you don't -- that doctors don't tend to know what causes depression. Tell me about the -- how do you arrive at what drugs you're going to use and on whom? Dr. GOODWIN: Well, it's not too different from large areas of medicine in general. We still arrive at treatment choice by clinical criteria. The first thing we have to decide is whether this depression is serious enough and interfering with function enough to require medical treatment, not just psychological treatment. And often, by the way, those two kinds of treatment are best used in combination. If the symptoms have a lot of the physiological dysfunction, sleep loss, the appetite loss, the inability to remember and think clearly and concentrate and have low energy, being totally drained as Ms. Kemp described, if these are the symptoms, then medications are probably going to be necessary. HUNTER-GAULT: Where do you start? I mean, let's take a mild case. What do you start with if you've got a mild case? Dr. GOODWIN: A mild case would first involve a person looking at their life situation, seeing whether there's some things that are going on that are kind of chronically frustrating and self defeating. Trying to sort of separate those things they might be able to do something about from those which they can't and might have to accept. It involves people doing a few mental exercises like sort of lining up things that are good about what you are and what you're able to do, and paying attention to those, putting some of the negatives aside for a while. That sounds awfully hokey, but in fact it works at least for people who aren't too seriously depressed. HUNTER-GAULT: At what point do you get into the drugs then, if you could briefly tick off those for me and tell me what they do. Dr. GOODWIN: Let me just say before we get into that, another big problem these days is alcohol and drug abuse, which is often feeding the depression. People are trying to take a drink, as Ms. Kemps said, you try take a drink to make her feel better, or take a drug, and that just makes it worse. So the avoidance of those things and getting one's life in order in the sense of regular habits is good. Now, if the drugs are necessary, we have a whole host of antidepressant drugs, and as the piece said, they're effective in about 70% of the patients. The other 30%, many of them can be helped by drug combinations or ways to, special ways -- and that takes a specialist to do that. But also we have to remember that the majority of depressions are recurrent. And they recur in two different patterns. One is so called unipolar, when a person has depressions that are interrupted by normal periods or nearly normal periods. And the other, which is a more serious illness, which is bipolar depression. That's manic depressive illness. Now here, the individual, when they're not depressed, gets high frequently. And initially that high seems great. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean bubbly high, not on drugs. Dr. GOODWIN: Right. Bubbly high, but it's very much like a cocaine high. So in that sense it's similar to a certain drug high. And they have lots of energy, they don't need any sleep, they're very, very outgoing, they're very, very optimistic, they have very grandiose plans, their mind is racing very quickly. And pretty soon, though, that process can go on to the point that they're doing foolish and reckless things, they're getting into unwise business things, and so forth. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you do for those people? Dr. GOODWIN: Those people need primarily Lithium, which is a drug that is used to maintain. And it in effect normalizes the high and low moods, and it is used in a longitudinal sense for prevention of episodes in the future. HUNTER-GAULT: Is there any side effect to that? Dr. GOODWIN: There are side effects to all drugs, as was pointed out. But the side effects are relatively mild compared to the clinical therapy. HUNTER-GAULT: And you said the unipolar, what do you do for that kind of person? Dr. GOODWIN: Well, if they have the very recurrent form of unipolar illness, they too can benefit from drugs like Lithium. On the other hand, if they have just a single episode, you try simply to get them out of that episode, then you use the Tricyclocanta depressants, some of the drugs that were mentioned in the piece. HUNTER-GAULT: The phlevoxamine -- Dr. GOODWIN: Phlevosamine is a new drug that's coming out, it's still under study, it hasn't yet been on the market. But there's a whole family of these drugs. The new ones appear to have fewer side effects. HUNTER-GAULT: What ever happened to the talk therapy, psychotherapy and stuff, is that still, is that out of favor? Dr. GOODWIN: Well, I think the older talk therapy that was referred to earlier as Freudian, that is the very long exploring every aspect of one's life, is not a very necessary treatment for most depressive patients. However, the short term therapies that help a patient focus on current problems, focus on aspects of their thinking which might be feeding the depression, that is, negative attitudes that patients often can change, this can be very helpful. Also, interpersonal therapy. Just going through a person's life with the kind of interpersonal situations they're in with their spouse or their adolescent child, or their boss, and looking at self defeating patterns. HUNTER-GAULT: Let me ask you this very quickly. How prepared are doctors, general practitioners, internists, because you know, generally people go to their doctors when they feel fatigue -- how prepared are the doctors to recognize depression and then deal with it? Dr. GOODWIN: Well, that's one of the targets of our campaign at the Institute is to educate professionals. Because the first line of defense against depression is for physicians and other professionals to recognize it. Because if a person goes to the doctor and says, I can't sleep, or can't stay asleep at night, they may not tell them that they're depressed. They may just have that symptom. One of the problems is, however, that our insurance system is such that doctors aren't reimbursed for their time very well. They're mostly reimbursed for procedures they do. And in fact the diagnosis of depression, like that of many medical problems, requires a careful history and a careful listening to a patient and that takes time. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Dr. Goodwin, thank you very much for being with us, and good luck in your campaign. Alien Amnesty MacNEIL: The nation's immigration offices closed their doors last night, ending a once in a lifetime amnesty opportunity for millions of illegal immigrants. More than 1. 6 million aliens took advantage of the government's offer. But there are as many as half a million aliens who did not apply. Many of those are aliens seeking political asylum. Correspondent Tom Bearden looks at one such group of aliens caught in the middle of the immigration battle.

TOM BEARDEN: This is the immigration service's Casa San Juan Detention Center. These teenagers are illegal aliens. Some of them walked a thousand miles or more to get to the United States, only to be captured by the border patrol as they tried to cross over, or picked up on the streets later. Most are from Central America, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras. Refugees from war, death and poverty. The way they decorate their rooms says a lot about them. Magazine pictures of weapons juxtaposed with coloring tearouts of Walt Disney characters. They hope to avoid deportation by applying for political asylum. Adults making that claim are routinely released on bond while the length legal process follows its course. But under U. S. law, juveniles can only be released to their parents, an adult family member or a legal guardian. Some children have no family in the U. S. In most other cases, the parents are also here illegally and are afraid to come forward. So the youngsters wait for the immigration courts to decide their fate, a wait some critics contend is intolerable. Barbara Camras is an attorney for an organization in Los Angeles called El Ruscata, which provides legal assistance for alien juveniles. BARBARA CAMRAS, attorney: Juveniles are treated rather poorly under the system. They are not kept separated from the adults, they are thrown in together in the dormitories, and there are no special educational provisions made for them. So they are just left there with nothing to do, and they just spend their days, which seem endless, waiting with some hope to be released.

BEARDEN: Critics point to what used to be the Mardi Gras Motel in Los Angeles as an example. It was converted into a detention center and is run by a private contractor. One 13 year old Salvadoran spent two months here with little else to do but wash his one set of clothes every other day, then lay on his bed until they had dried on the railing outside his room. The same contractor runs this center in El Centro, 120 miles east of San Diego. Here, women and unaccompanied children live in a dormitory setting in what was once a work camp. Father Richard Estrada is a Los Angeles priest who works with undocumented children. Fr. RICHARD ESTRADA: It's very lonely. They get frustrated. They just go through a lot of depression. Mostly because of the boredom. And they have a lot of suicidal thoughts.

BEARDEN: Critics say long term confinement under these conditions is inhumane. Harold Ezell is the regional INS commissioner. HAROLD EZELL, INS Regional Commissioner: Well, it's not inhumane. It may not be the Las Vegas Hilton Resort, but it's very adequate, the feeding standards are U. S. Government standard. And the space is clean and it's livable. And I would imagine insome situations it's better than where they lived before they came to America.

BEARDEN: INS San Diego District Director James Turnage. JAMES TURNAGE, INS District Director: These children, and mainly these are big kids, 14 to 17 years old, they are not those serving time or in a reform school or any of that. They are simply being housed under humane conditions until we can return them to their home country.

BEARDEN: Turnage says detainees at Casa San Juan, for example, don't just sit around. They get more than six hours of schooling each day, education that teacher Joy Wasserman says is much to their benefit. JOY WASSERMAN, teacher: We had one boy who stayed here for ten months who had no family -- he's from El Salvador -- who had had no education at all. And in the time he was here, he learned how to read and write Spanish, he learned basic math facts. And at the end of the ten months a family was found for him, and he's living very well and he's doing beautifully.

BEARDEN: But Camras says Casa San Juan is a showcase, that similar programs aren't available at other centers. Ms. CAMRAS: Otherwise, there are no educational facilities provided, there are no books, no supplies, pencils, papers or anything else for the boys.

BEARDEN: Only about 3% of all asylum petitions by Central Americans are granted. That leaves agencies like El Ruscata to use delaying tactics to, in the words of one staffer, delay the inevitable, eventual deportation. District Director Turnage says that's one of the major reasons children stay in detention. Mr. TURNAGE: It keeps people in the detention facilities longer, causes more crowding, creates the kind of questions that you're raising here: How come these people have been in so long? And I don't, I deplore those tactics, frankly. BEARDEN: Are you saying in essence the people who are making the complaints about the long term detentions are at least partly responsible? Mr. TURNAGE: Exactly right.

BEARDEN: But attorney Marco Antonio Rodriguez says the INS uses delaying tactics of its own. MARCO ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ, attorney: They try to detain as long as possible for parents to come in and pick them up. Now, the assumption is that most of the parents or guardians who are going to come and pick them up are undocumented, and at that point, immigration service is going to be able to put them into the potential proceedings also. BEARDEN: They're using the children as bait, in other words? Mr. RODRIGUEZ: As a way to apprehend all the family members that are undocumented in the United States. Mr. TURNAGE: That's not true either. If and when a parent or legal guardian or adult member does come forward and they're in the United States illegally, they are allowed to walk in, they walk out. We -- if they're here illegally we will set them up with a hearing before an immigration judge, to come back at a later date and resolve their immigration status. But they are not being -- the children are not being kept as bait to pull these people in.

BEARDEN: Miguel Martinez Hondo is from Honduras. The law requires those seeking asylum to prove in detail that they would be subject to political persecution should they return home. Wanting a better life isn't good enough. To a casual questioner, Miguel doesn't seem to qualify. BEARDEN: Why did you come here from Honduras in the first place? MIGUEL MARTINEZ [through translator]: Because I understand that you make more money here in the United States when you work. We're not exactly poor where we're from, but we're looking for a better life by coming to the United States. BEARDEN: No political reasons? Mr. MARTINEZ [through translator]: Also due to political reason and inflation and lack of job.

BEARDEN: But immigration attorneys say it takes hours of interviews to overcome the children's fear and mistrust of the system and to help them prove their qualification for asylum. Attorney Joan Anyon: JOAN ANYON, attorney: And many of them can't articulate it. They know what they've seen, but they can't put it in the context of these very strict requirements.

BEARDEN: Anyon, Sana Loue and Carl Parow are part of the San Diego Bar Association's volunteer lawyer program. Most of the children can't afford to hire legal help, so the bar is organizing a group of attorneys to provide it free of charge. But Parow says it won't go very far. CARL PAROW, attorney: Our program is going to be a stopgap measure. We will do a very important service, but it will not be adequate to meet the needs.

BEARDEN: Anyon says a solution will take more than private help. Ms. ANYON: So there are some agencies who are funded to provide services, but there's nothing similar to a public defender where an individual is entitled to representation. BEARDEN: Do we need a system like that? Ms. ANYON: I think it would benefit the alien and I think probably it would benefit the system as well.

BEARDEN: Loue says something has to change because lengthy detention is simply unjust. SANA LOUE, Attorney: The length of time they're spending in immigration detention very often is greater than whatever prison time they would spend if they had been convicted of illegal entry.

BEARDEN: The INS is showing increasing flexibility in dealing with the situation. Just before Christmas in Los Angeles, the agency released more than two dozen juveniles into the custody of the Catholic Church as part of a test program. Father Estrada and the Church have guaranteed that those released will show up for all future court appearances, satisfying one of the main reasons for detention. But despite arrangements like this, the reality is that most of the children will be expelled and the odds are that most of them will be back, illegally, within weeks after they are deported. Unbearable Lightness? LEHRER: We close it off tonight with an essay about a light subject. The essayist is Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune.

CLARENCE PAGE: Let there be light, said the advertising world. And there was light. There is light. Lots of light. Light beer, light wine, light food, lots of light food. Light bread, light potato chips, light mayonnaise, light syrup, light margarine, light cheese, light salt, light soy sauce, light salad dressing. Today, even our dogs can eat light. Light is the way we think in the '80s. It pervades our food, our cars, our shelter, our relationships. We even have a light spelling for light: Lite, lighter than light. And it doesn't stop with food. [commercial] Spokesman: This room is full of soft, relaxing, light music.

PAGE: They have light FM radio, no heavy bass. Light rock radio, no heavy metal. And that which was heavy is becoming light. There's USA Today, light news. Jiffy divorce, light commitment. Home shopping network, light shopping. Television evangelism, light salvation. Rock video, light fantastic. We even have light cigarette lighters. That's the light decade for you, don't refill, don't repair, just replace. Why do we love light?There's a lot to like about living light. It sounds like fun, floating, buoyancy, balloons, bubbles. It sounds like energy, illumination, power. It sounds like knowledge, enlightenment. A small child is called bright. An outstanding person is called a shining light. Light sounds like freedom, freedom from gravity, darkness, burdens. Freedom from the burden of thinking about anything heavy. In the sixties we cared a lot about freedom. Maybe that's where our love for light living began. We cared about freedom from racial and sexual discrimination, from the draft and the possibility of death in Vietnam. From the old stands of class, status, and public as well as private behavior. Pretty heavy stuff. In the seventies, the Me Decade, we turned inward to free our bodies as well as our minds. From the Maharishi to racquet ball, a guru for every taste. Then along came light beer. Lite Beer. At first it was sold as something to help us lose weight, but that didn't work very well. Of all the things most beer drinkers are worried about, losing weight probably isn't one of them. So the marketing wizards tried another approach: lightness. More satisfaction, fewer consequences. That's lightness in the eighties: freedom. Not just from fat, but from heavy times, decisions, issues. [short scene from Unbearable Lightness of Being] PAGE: Like in a popular movie of the season, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, that tells the story of Tomas and his wife Teresa, who flee Russian tanks in 1968 for Switzerland where they can be free. But Teresa strangely decides to go back and she leaves Tomas a note. She cannot bear this lightness, this freedom. ''I'm weak and I'm going back to the country of the weak,'' she says. And she does. Tomas goes, too. For them, the lightness, the smorgasbord of choices the world of freedom had to offer was just too much to bear. Can lightness be unbearable? Only when it becomes a burden on your mind and soul. So the next time someone says, ''Gimme a light,'' relax! Take it easy. Take it light. But take it. Recap MacNEIL: A final note. We told you we were going to discuss the growing tension between Nicaragua's Sandinista Government and the contra rebels on tonight's program. Unfortunately a fire in a Capitol Hill office building computer room snarled late afternoon traffic. As a result, one of our guests was unable to get to the studio in time for the scheduled segment. Our apologies. Again, the main stories of the day. The United States criticized Poland for using force against striking workers as labor unrest continued, despite a police crackdown. And the Transportation Department announced a program of random drug testing for railroad employees. Good night, Jim. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.