The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, former hostages asked Congress to investigate charges politics delayed their release by Iran. Boris Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian republic and U.S. wholesale prices shot up in May. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Roger Mudd is in New York tonight. Roger.

MR. MUDD: After the News Summary we turn first to the political fight over the crime bill with Attorney Gen. Richard Thornburgh and Sen. Joseph Biden. Next we get a report on efforts to block a gun control ban in Chicago and then two former hostages and two Congressmen on new calls for an investigation into whether presidential politics played a role in the 1981 release of the hostages from Iran. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Eight of the former U.S. hostages in Iran asked Congress today to investigate allegations about a deal to delay their release. A former aide to Pres. Carter said recently the 1980 Reagan presidential campaign may have promised Iran weapons in exchange for holding the hostages until after the election. Fifty- two Americans were taken captive at the U.S. embassy in Tehran following Iran's Islamic revolution. They spent 444 days in captivity and were freed just minutes after Ronald Reagan's inauguration. Two of them spoke at a Capitol Hill news conference this morning.

BARRY ROSEN, Former Hostage: The question of whether there is evidence of any wrongdoing must be answered by an unbiased bipartisan congressional investigation with full subpoena power. Unless this happens, speculation and unanswered questions will erode public confidence in our electoral system.

MOORHEAD KENNEDY, Former Hostage: We are not concluding that something happened. We are simply saying that there is evidence something might have happened of such a serious nature that it should be investigated right away.

MR. LEHRER: We will have more on this story later in the program. Roger.

MR. MUDD: Boris Yeltsin has defeated his Communist rivals in the Russian republic's first presidential election. Russian voters also dealt a symbolic blow to the Communist legacy of Vladimir Lenin in a separate referendum. We have a report from Tim Ewert of Independent Television News.

MR. EWERT: As the ballots were counted today, Soviet radicals were already celebrating what they view as a breakthrough. Mr. Yeltsin's triumph is the first nationwide vote in favor of accelerated reform and sent a clear signal to Mikhail Gorbachev. And Mr. Yeltsin, resting at his country home today, wasn't the only radical to win popular approval. Moscow's reformist mayor, Gabriel Popov, was re-elected with a 65 percent vote. There was a similar margin for Leningrad's Anatole Subcek, an outspoken anti-Communist, and 54 percent of Leningrad's voters approved changing the city's name back to pre-revolutionary St. Petersburgh, all of which will leave Mr. Gorbachev in no doubt about the impatience for change.

MR. MUDD: Yeltsin will be heading for Washington next week. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Pres. Bush wants to discuss Yeltsin's new position and the future of the Russian republic. Soviet foreign minister Bessmertnykh today told German officials in Bonn his country still has nuclear weapons in Eastern Germany. Bessmertnykh promised weapons would be withdrawn, but he did not say when.

MR. LEHRER: U.S. wholesale prices were up .6 percent in May, the largest hike in seven months. The Labor Department said increased gasoline and tobacco prices were the primary reason. Retail sales also rose in May. They were up a full percent, with the sale of cars and other big ticket items leading the way. The Federal Communications Commission today granted local governments the right to regulate cable television fees. The new rules affect 60 percent of the nation's 9600 cable systems. Until now, most were exempt from regulation.

MR. MUDD: Israel's foreign minister, David Levy, met Sec. of State Baker today in Washington to explain his government's position on the U.S. plan to convene a Mideast peace conference. Last week, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir sent Pres. Bush a letter in which he rejected a compromise U.S. proposal. After a two hour meeting today with Baker, Foreign Minister Levy said the peace process was not stuck but that there were problems. He said Israel had made concessions and he called on the Arabs to take what he described as practical steps.

MR. LEHRER: The eruption of the Philippine volcano intensified today. Thousands more fled to safety as an approaching tropical storm threatened to trigger devastating mud flows down its slopes. We have a report from Mark Austin of Independent Television News.

MR. AUSTIN: Mount Pinatubo has been at rest for more than 600 years. Now it's awakened with a vengeance. Once again today a dramatic plume of ash and debris shot of thousands of pieces into the sky. A pall of gray cloud now hangs ominously over the surrounding area, a blanket of ash covering the countryside, a wintery darkness in the middle of summer. With every eruption, towns and villages in the shadow of the mountain have been showered with volcanic ash. It falls like hot snow. People cover their faces against the searing heat. Motorists use headlights in the middle of the day and the roads have to be constantly swept, shoveling away the ash to keep escape routes clear. There's also worry about the health hazards they face. Tens of thousands of Filipinos are fleeing the area, taking with them whatever they can. They're refugees from another devastating display of nature's power. Evacuation centers have been set up by government agencies and private relief organizations. Medicine and food are handed out. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of aid has reached the area. Rivers flow down the mountain slopes. In some areas it's a brown muddy sludge, the effects on livestock and agriculture incalculable.

MR. LEHRER: Philippine television reported Clark Air Base was looted today. The base is just 10 miles from the volcano. It was evacuated yesterday. A Pentagon said munitions stored at the base were safe and secure.

MR. MUDD: An original copy of the Declaration of Independence fetched a record price today. An Atlanta investor paid $2.4 million for the document at a Sotheby's auction in New York. It's one of twenty-four remaining originals and one of three still in private hands. The seller was an anonymous Philadelphia businessman who found it in the frame of a painting he bought at a flea market for $4. That ends our summary of the day's top stories. Ahead on the NewsHour, the crime bill, the fight against a Chicago gun ban, and the 1981 release of U.S. hostages in Iran. FOCUS - LAW AND ORDER

MR. MUDD: Crime and the federal legislation to fight it is where we turn first tonight. Pres. Bush says Congress has been dragging its feet in failing to meet his deadline of 100 days to act on what he calls his violent crime control bill. The 100 days are up tomorrow. We'll hear from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, but first Kwame Holman has this background report.

PRES. BUSH: I wasn't asking the Congress to deliver hot pizza in less than 30 minutes. That would be revolutionary for Congress. I only asked -- I only asked for two pieces of legislation in 100 days.

MR. HOLMAN: It was his 67th birthday and the President was ad libbing last night during an unusual speech from the White House Rose Garden televised only by the cable network C- Span. What was usual was his self-defense on charges he has ignored domestic issues and his blaming of Congress for not moving in two areas in which he has made specific proposals.

PRES. BUSH: It is hard for the American people to understand, frankly, why a bill to fight crime cannot be acted on in a hundred says, or why Congress can't pass a highway bill in a hundred days.

MR. HOLMAN: Democrats have countered by noting that the House has passed the President's Mexico trade initiative, campaign finance reform, and other programs. They call the President's charges of foot dragging on crime political posturing.

SPEAKER FOLEY: I think it's unfortunate that the President's been persuaded to engage in this kind of what I think of as largely gimmickry.

SEN. GEORGE MITCHELL, Majority Leader: And so I think we'd all be better off if we concentrated on the substance of the legislation, rather than on what I think are meaningless political deadlines.

MR. HOLMAN: In fact, the main features of the crime proposals of both the President and the Democrats are remarkably similar. Both proposals would extend application of the death penalty to more than 45 more federal crimes principally involving murder, limit court appeals of condemned prisoners, relax the so-called "exclusionary rule" that restricts the use by prosecutors of illegally obtained evidence. The Democrats' crime bill also allocates $1 billion directly to local law enforcement agencies and it contains a gun control provision. The President hasn't offered a gun control measure but says he won't sign any gun initiative that is not part of an overall crime bill. On guns, the Democratic plan bans a number of domestic assault style semiautomatic weapons and calls for a waiting period before a handgun could be purchased. The bill also offers states money to update their criminal files, but states would have to agree to run background checks on prospective handgun purchasers in order to get the money. The passage of the President's 100 day deadline intensifies the political nature of the crime debate as both parties look for issues for the 1992 election.

MR. MUDD: Joining us now is the chief sponsor of the Democratic plan, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he joins us from studios on Capitol Hill, and in our NewsHour studio is Attorney Gen. Richard Thornburgh, who is, of course, the point man for the Republican bill. Sen. Biden, why didn't Pres. Bush get his pizza in 30 minutes?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, I guess because he treated it kind of like it was pizza. We could have had a crime bill last year, Roger, if the administration was prepared to talk about guns, deal with taking them off the street, and we are moving on the crime bill. We're going to take the crime bill up with the United States Senate as early as tomorrow, if not by then by Tuesday. And it's kind of -- it's a little bit like my saying, Mr. President, you said to us you needed new federal judges and so on, an unusual measure, I propose putting 85 new judges in for a Republican President to appoint, and that was done on 200 days ago, and the attorney general will tell you they have not sent up nine names for those new judges to fight crime. And there's a hundred and thirty vacancies out there. That'd be the similar kind of demagoguery, if I was going to engage in that, as the President's kind of doing now, but it's good politics I guess, but it's not good law.

MR. MUDD: General, since when did Pres. Bush think that the Congress could do anything in a hundred days with a big issue as this one? I mean, isn't a hundred days realistic to begin with?

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: I think it realistic, but now that it's past, I think it's time to concentrate on the substance of these bills and really to look at the fine print, rather than the sloganeering. There are a lot of differences between the President's bill, which is a comprehensive bill supported by virtually every national law enforcement organization, and the bill that Sen. Biden's proposing as an alternative. It's time to debate those. It's time to give the President, I believe, an up or down vote on the comprehensive bill that he's proposed.

MR. MUDD: Sen. Biden, given Pres. Bush's successes in foreign affairs, do you think his heart is in the domestic agenda and specifically the crime bill?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, I don't know. It surprises me. Some of the things contained in his proposal kind of surprise me. For example, there's a thing called the Alien Terrorist Removal Act which allows a judge on the request of an attorney general without the defendant in the courtroom in an in camera proceeding to deport someone, no matter what the circumstances, if they can convince a judge. I mean, that's like the Diploic Courts being imported from Northern Ireland to the United States. I can't believe the President knows that's in there. I can't believe the President knows what's in his bill is not only a good faith exception to the exclusionary rule but police could literally under the way the attorney general has the law written, whomever wrote it has the law written if they're looking for guns go through every neighborhood, every door in a neighborhood at night, break down the door, go in. As long as they found a gun, notwithstanding the fact they didn't have a search warrant or probable cause to believe a gun as in there, it'd be all right. I mean, I can't believe the President knows those kind of things are in his bill.

MR. MUDD: General, does he know what's in the bill?

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: He knows full well what's in the bill and he also knows full well what's in Sen. Biden's bill, a bill that would effectively abolish the death penalty in 36 states and at the level of the federal government, a bill that would impose new technical requirements on good faith police work that's being carried out on our streets, a bill that would lengthen the delays that already eat up so much time in most conviction hearings, and a bill that offers the fools gold of a supposed billion dollars in aid to state and local governments, while the Congress today cut $1/2 billion out of federal law enforcement efforts. Let's look at the fine print and I think we'll find that with the support of virtually every law enforcement organization in the country, the President's bill comes out as a pro law enforcement bill.

MR. MUDD: What --

SEN. BIDEN: Every law enforcement organization in the country supports all those things that the attorney general just suggested in my bill are things that are unnecessary or are fools gold. The President talks -- what the attorney general is talking about is post conviction delays. This is supposed to make the street safer and they keep focusing on habeas corpus, as if habeas corpus was the name of a criminal who works behind a garbage can in an alley, is going to mug people. Every one who is filing a habeas corpus petition is in jail. The attorney general talks about and the administration talks about making the streets safer, yet, they don't put one new policeman on the street. The attorney general and the administration talk about how we're going to make the streets safer, yet, what they do for example, they want to make the law tougher. You know, right now we already passed, of the 230 laws we passed, if you have this much crack in your possession, you go to jail for five years, no probation, no parole, yet, the attorney general will not prosecute someone in New York unless they have to have five times that much and will not prosecute someone in Miami, unless they have 100 times that much. The attorney general talks about the death penalty. I mean --

MR. MUDD: What are you holding in your hand?

SEN. BIDEN: -- my Lord. I'm holding a quarter.

MR. MUDD: Okay.

SEN. BIDEN: And that, by the way, if you have that much crack, that big -- I'm sorry, I guess you can't see -- the law we passed last year says if you have that much crack, you go to jail for five years, no probation, no parole. We also passed a law that said all right, if you're a drug kingpin, you go to jail for life. The attorney general since he's been attorney general last year and the year before by their own statistics have only sent four people to jail for life out of all those millions of folks out there who are involved in this process.

MR. MUDD: May I ask --

SEN. BIDEN: The list goes on and on and on.

MR. MUDD: May I ask both of you, given the great similarities between the Bush bill and the Biden bill, why is there so much acrimony? I mean, you do agree on a lot of things, don't you?

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: We agree on a lot of things, but I've tried to point out some of the differences. In Sen. Biden's bill there is a provision called the Racial Justice Act which has very little, if anything, to do with racial justice, and a lot to do with simply abolishing the death penalty in the 36 states and the federal government where it is now. This is opposed by virtually every state attorney general across the nation, Democrat and Republican alike. And Sen. Biden's bill wherethere's a concern about delay in the criminal justice process, it doesn't solve the delay. It adds more delay. And most of all, talk about putting more policemen on the streets, true enough, the President's bill would not put one additional police officer on the street, but at least it wouldn't take 450 FBI agents, 150 DEA agents, and over 100 federal prosecutors off the streets, which the action taken by the Congress today would do in cutting our appropriation.

SEN. BIDEN: Wait a minute.

MR. LEHRER: Go ahead, Senator.

SEN. BIDEN: That's not true. The budget committee, which has no authority and only sets out broad guidelines and recommendations to the authorizing and appropriations committee, as you know from covering this Hill for so long Roger, has nothing, nothing to do with line item.

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: This is the action by the appropriations committee on the full House today.

SEN. BIDEN: The full -- but every single time we have proposed additional money for police against your will, for federal and state police, we have eventually come up with the money. But it's kind of hard for the appropriations committee over there. The President's saying he's going to veto a bill if it contains that kind of money and me sitting here saying we need those, they're saying Biden why are you making us walk the line like this if the President's going to go ahead and veto it anyway?

MR. MUDD: Gentlemen, before we run out of time, I must ask you about the gun control aspects of the bill. There is now in the Biden bill the provisions of the Brady gun control bill as amended by Sen. Mitchell which would provide for a seven day waiting period and a mandatory police background check before a handgun sale could be made. General, what do you think of that provision?

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: Well, the President doesn't have any objection to reasonable regulation of handgun sales so long as it is part of the comprehensive anti-crime bill that he proposed. He will not accept a partial solution and I hope we're close to agreement on this if we can deal with the very serious questions I've touched on this evening relating to the President's bill.

MR. MUDD: But I --

SEN. BIDEN: I would invite, Roger, the attorney general to meet with me tonight. We can compromise on the death penalty because we have all these crimes we both want it for on habeas corpus and on the exclusionary rule and we can have a bill tomorrow if they're willing to accept the two gun provisions along with that and along with helping local police.

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: You take the President's positions, we've got a deal and we'll make that hundred days.

SEN. BIDEN: Now that is a typical compromise of this administration. You take my position and I'll compromise.

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: We're willing to take your position on handguns and we can do it right tonight. If you want to do that and you've said it publicly, let's get it done.

SEN. BIDEN: And you'll take it on assault weapons as well.

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: Surely.

MR. MUDD: Okay. So you work out your deal and let me ask a couple of more questions. So much of the bill as I read it and read about it has to do with terrorists and habeas corpus and good faith exceptions and exclusionary rule. Nothing seems to go to the crime, street crime that most Americans know and are afraid of. How do you answer the -- the bill seems to be a product of national politicians who are trying to get on the right side of an issue and don't know quite how to do it.

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: Roger, that's not really true, because this is a bill that was developed in cooperation with law enforcement officials across the country following our crime summit held here in Washington this spring and it's supported by prosecutors, it's supported by police organizations. They know that our criminal justice system today lacks credibility. What the President's bill would do in its comprehensive nature is provide for swift, sure, and, yes, tough punishment for those violent criminals, that small, relatively small group of people who terrorize our communities by putting them away in prison and getting them off the streets.

SEN. BIDEN: Roger, every single one of those police organizations also say that the President's bill does not go nearly far enough. And let's put this in perspective, Roger. If both our capital offenses were in place last year by the attorney general, the Justice Department's own letter to me, four people out of the twenty-three thousand, five hundred murderers last year, four would be put to death. If the exclusionary rule were changed as outrageously as is being suggested, it only affects 1 percent of the 5.7 million felonies that are committed a year. And on habeas corpus when you take my idea they only get one bite out of the apple or theirs that you essentially eliminate federal habeas corpus, all those people are already in jail. Now you want to talk about crime in the street. Let's assume we resolve our differences or we accepted everything the President wants. It doesn't do much at all unless you put more police on the street. They oppose our additional prisons. They oppose the establishment of boot camps. They oppose establishment of a police corps. They oppose the establishment of more aid from rural law enforcement and on down the line. That's where my mother's going to be protected when she shops at Pathmark on Saturday evening.

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: I don't think it sends a very positive signal to the American people about our interest in their well being to support a bill that would abolish the death penalty in 36 states and at the federal government level.

SEN. BIDEN: That's simply not true.

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: That's what Sen. Biden's bill would do.

SEN. BIDEN: That's simply not true.

ATTORNEY GENERAL THORNBURGH: Thirty-six attorneys general believe it would and I think that's what it suggests.

SEN. BIDEN: Quickly --

MR. MUDD: I'm sorry, Senator. Since you've agreed to meet later - -

SEN. BIDEN: Has he agreed? I'm here.

MR. MUDD: Tell me where you're going to meet, at some out of the way pizza parlor.

SEN. BIDEN: I'll bring the pizza.

MR. MUDD: All right. Thank you both very much. Good luck tonight at your meeting.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight a fight about guns in a housing project and the hostages and politics story. FOCUS - DISARMING PROPOSAL

MR. LEHRER: We look now at an unusual local twist to the gun control debate. Elizabeth Brackett reports from Chicago that the National Association and others are fighting a firearms ban in housing projects.

MS. BRACKETT: Sirens silent, the long line of Chicago police cars moved toward their goal, a surprise raid on a Chicago Housing Authority Project. Sixty cops specially trained to work in the project surround the nine story building. No one can leave. No one can enter. Police secure the dim hallways. They are followed by Chicago Housing Authority or CHA security and CHA inspectors. The sweep is on. The objective: ridding the development of illegal residents, often gang members, gunsand drugs.

TENANT ARGUING: No. 1 I don't have no drugs. This is a drug free house, okay. So when you come in here, I don't want my house all rumpled up and tore up in disarray. Don't come in here -- okay --

MS. BRACKETT: CHA employees cannot search the resident's possessions for guns or drugs. Neither can police without a warrant. If weapons or drugs are seen in plain sight, police are called in for an arrest. These procedures were set up after tenants claimed their civil rights were being violated in earlier sweeps. Still CHA Chairman Vince Lane says the sweeps have begun the long process of taking the projects back from the gangs.

VINCE LANE, Chicago Housing Authority: Chicago's gangs are organized. They control the drug traffic in these developments and what they have done is they have armed literally young teenagers and they use these young teenagers to strike fear in the hearts of residents and to control their territory.

MS. BRACKETT: The sweeps began here in the Rockwell Gardens Development two years ago. The playground of the school in the project is between two buildings controlled by rival gangs. Before the buildings were secured, the daily crossfire was so bad that the playground could not be used. Security has improved some at Rockwell Gardens, but the changes have not stopped the gangs from shooting. Last summer when five year old Megan Stevenson sat on a playground swing, a bullet went through the base of her skull. It is still hard for the youngster to talk about that day. Tell me what happened when you were on that swing last summer.

MEGAN: I got shot.

MS. BRACKETT: Were you afraid?

MEGAN NODDING

MS. BRACKETT: And when you go outside now, do you think about that?

MEGAN NODDING

MS. BRACKETT: How does it make you feel?

MEGAN: Bad.

MS. BRACKETT: And what would you like to tell that boy who shot you?

MEGAN: I don't like him.

MS. BRACKETT: Incidents like this have Vince Lane on a crusade to get guns out of the projects. He has begun vigorously enforcing a 20 year old provision in the CHA lease that bans the possession of firearms.

VINCE LANE: Let's get rid of all the weapons, particularly in an environment like public housing where gangs and drug dealers hang out, so that we can try to make it a normal community environment where these kids can go to school without being harassed and where mothers can go out and shop and go to meetings to work on community problems just as any other neighborhood.

MS. BRACKETT: But Lane is running into some stiff opposition. The National Rifle Association is threatening to sue the CHA. The NRA contends that a weapons ban is a violation of CHA tenants' constitutional rights to bear arms. Richard Gardiner of the NRA says he understands how dangerous the Chicago Housing Projects are. Last year there were 71 murders in the projects, three times the rate of the city as a hole.

RICHARD GARDINER, National Rifle Association: That's precisely why people would not want you to get rid of firearms, because firearms are a very useful tool for self-defense, probably the best self-defense tool known, and that is precisely the reason why people don't want to give up their constitutional rights is because they want to exercise them for their own protection. And this lease provision prevents them from exercising their right to self- defense, which is very clearly a fundamental right.

MS. BRACKETT: Seventeen year old Chikail Morgan, a star basketball player on his high school team, lost his life to a gun last September. Now his mother's photo album ends with shots of her son's casket, rather than the graduation pictures she had looked forward too. Betty Morgan thinks the NRA is wrong.

BETTY MORGAN, Tenant: Do they live in CHA? Tell 'em to move in and see how it is, then try to not ban them or whatever. See how it goes then. After they lived here and see how it is and everything, they'll know, you know, it'd be better off without the guns, because anybody in CHA has got a gun and stuff, who to say who ain't going to get killed.

MS. BRACKETT: Some tenants, even those who have directly experienced the violence, agree with the NRA, though few have heard of the organization. Sheila Easley sits on her balcony and remembers her 19 year old son, George. He was cut down by gunfire at 11:30 in the morning as he stood in the yard of the Stateway Garden Project three months ago.

SHEILA EASLEY, Tenant: And I think it's the first time I've sat on this porch since then.

MS. BRACKETT: Now she holds her son's child and remembers that terrible day.

SHEILA EASLEY: When my son got killed, I was around at my girlfriend's, that's Apt. 612 and I just jumped. And I told her, I said, George is down there, and she said, Sheila, you're just overreacting. And I said, no, my baby's down there. And about a minute or two later my boyfriend came up and told me my son had been shot and he was dead.

MS. BRACKETT: Despite this tragedy, Easley does not think CHA should be able to ban weapons.

MS. EASLEY: If you're going to ban guns, are you going to only ban guns at the Chicago Housing Authority?

MS. BRACKETT: What's wrong with that?

MS. EASLEY: What's right with it? If you're going to ban guns, ban guns. If you can have a gun inside your home for your protection, this is our home, this is our home. You might have 'em piled on top of each other, but this is our home. And I think that you're supposed to be able to protect your home.

MS. BRACKETT: The kids at Grant School who hear gunfire nearly every day fear a gun ban almost as much as they fear the gunfire. Do you think people living in CHA should be able to have guns?

STUDENTS: [In unison] Yes.

STUDENT: I do, because that's protection. The gang may still break in your house. When they break in, they have a gun just in case you try to try something with them, so you have to have a gun to protect yourself.

STUDENT: You should be able to have a gun because you never know when somebody's going to try to jump on you or take your money or something or just walking somewhere. I think you should be able to have a gun in your house. I think you should.

MS. BRACKETT: This kind of thinking makes Chicago Police Chief Leroy Martin angry. He says residents, especially children, must learn that more guns are not the answer.

CHIEF LEROY MARTIN, Chicago Police Department: If the residents or NRA can show me meaningful statistics where residents have apprehended or prevented criminal acts from occurring, then I'll be a proponent for that. The guns that we're taking from people belong to gang members that are renting weapons from legitimate people to go out and shoot up innocent citizens standing on the corner. But I wish the NRA would come and purchase this building and then they can let all the gun toters and pistoleros move in here. Tell 'em to buy it. Buy this building. We'll sell it to them. They're the lobby for the manufacturers of guns and they want to sell guns because they make money. The NRA couldn't give a damn about these people living in these housing projects, couldn't give one damn!

RICHARD GARDINER, National Rifle Association: If there's a single person in the Housing Authority who becomes -- who's victimized because he doesn't have a firearm to defend himself, that's one person too many. And if we can save, if a single life can be saved by eliminating this lease provision, then we consider that to be a major victory.

MS. BRACKETT: The CHA has responded to the NRA by saying it has no intention of revoking the ban on weapons in the housing projects. The NRA says it will go ahead with filing a lawsuit against the CHA for a violation of the constitutional right to bear arms. FOCUS - HOSTAGE TO POLITICS?

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight the Iranian hostage story. Today eight of the fifty-two Americans who spent 444 days as captives of the Iranians in 1980 and '81 demanded a congressional investigation. They want to know the validity of recent charges their release was delayed by reason of politics, 1980 presidential politics.

RONALD REAGAN: I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear --

MR. LEHRER: January 20, 1981. At the same time Ronald Reagan was being inaugurated the nation's 40th President, 52 American hostages were leaving Iran, ending 444 days in captivity. Could the timing of the two events be more than a coincidence? Did the Iranians delay releasing the hostages in exchange for promises from Reagan campaign officials for arm shipments and military spare parts? At a press conference today, some of the former hostages called for an investigation.

BARRY ROSEN, Former Hostage: I would like to see all the possible information come out. I'm not at all certain that, as you would say, political machinations were introduced in the campaign, but I believe that there is a good possibility, and I feel very strongly that without a congressional investigation, these allegations will continue on and on.

MR. LEHRER: The issue of whether there was a deal resurfaced eight weeks ago in an article written by Gary Sick, a former National Security staffer under Pres. Jimmy Carter. Sick said he was told by a number of sources that Reagan operatives held numerous meetings with Iranian officials, that Reagan's campaign manager, William Casey, and Vice Presidential Candidate George Bush went to Paris to negotiate the deal, and that the Reagan administration delivered on the deal after the election. Now Pres. Bush denied Sick's story.

PRES. BUSH: Was I ever in Paris in 1980? Definitively, definitely, no.

REPORTER: Did you ever meet with any Iranians?

PRES. BUSH: [May 3, 1991] That's all I'm going to tell you. That's all. But please print it and let's try to stop this rumor mongering that's going on, stop repeating rumors over and over again.

MR. LEHRER: The story also set up a national debate, including on this program.

GARY SICK, Former National Security Staff, Carter Administration: [May 3, 1991] Well, I don't think the question of whether George Bush was in Paris or not is or ever has been the issue. The real issue is whether there were meetings held between people involved with the Reagan campaign during that period and high Iranian officials to discuss the hostage issue, and that -- is there a whole series of meetings that were held with regard to that, that evidence has showed up about it, and I think the matter should be dealt with on the basis of the evidence.

RICHARD ALLEN, Former National Security Adviser, Reagan Administration: I believe Gary's story is false. I believe that it really is an obscenity to charge that people like Mr. Casey, Pres. Bush, then Candidate Bush, I or others associated with our campaign would willfully, knowingly put at risk the safety and perhaps even the lives of American hostages held by a foreign power.

MR. LEHRER: One of the former hostages urging the congressional investigation is Moorhead Kennedy. He was a foreign service officer who was acting head of the economics section at the embassy in Tehran at the time of the takeover. One who did not sign the letter to Congress is Bruce Laingen, also a former foreign service officer. He was the No. 2 official at the embassy. Mr. Kennedy, what brought you to this point?

MR. KENNEDY: Well, I thought like Gary Sick, like many, that these were coincidences, maybe certain people had tried to contact the Iranians, but then Gary Sick pulled together a great deal of evidence in the course of his research -- Fifteen people who had had knowledge of these meetings and also analysis of the kind of behavior the Iranians were displaying which tended to tie in with the alleged talks. And it -- I looked back on some of my own experiences, the assurances given to us by our own captors. We hope to have you home in time to vote. And this was repeated to me and to many others as well. And then I think --

MR. LEHRER: You mean that they were that conscious, you were surprised they were that conscious of our elections?

MR. KENNEDY: Yes, very conscious of that whole time, explained the electoral college to us. Oh, yes, they knew all about that, but you see they were holding us, among many other reasons, in order to keep the revolution going and fervor high. And when they had their constitution and their parliament admit in September they didn't really need us anymore, and this ties in very much with Gary's analysis. A final point, when I came home at Gridiron Club Dinner, white tie, hostages being made a great deal of, I ran into William Casey whom I'd worked for many years before. The last time I'd seen him he'd been very cordial. He cut me dead. He wouldn't speak to me and my wife said, oh, let's get out of here. It was an extraordinary rebuff and this only proves that he didn't like hostages. But at that point I began to wonder what was really going on.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Laingen, you are just as familiar with what Gary Sick and others have said. What conclusion have you reached?

MR. LAINGEN: Let me make it clear at the outset, Jim, that I fully understand why my colleagues have signed this letter. If there is credible evidence to support it or to warrant a full investigation, I'd be there too in support of it. I simply haven't seen myself sufficiently credible evidence to bring me to that conclusion and it would have to be very credible for me because my skepticism rests on two fundamental points. The first is that I continue to feel -- and I'm accused of being politically naive for this reason, for saying so -- that it would be difficult for me to imagine any American in a responsible position in or out of government to engage in that kind of what I call venality affecting American citizens held abroad. But more importantly, after 40 years in Washington, I perhaps should be more, I shouldn't be accused of being politically naive, but I continue to feel that way strongly about this particular charge. But more importantly, my second area of skepticism is that I find it very difficult to believe that in Washington in the midst of an election campaign, leaky town that this is, a deal, if it had reached that point, of that consequence, could have been kept secret. I find that very difficult to believe and whatever I might feel about Bill Casey, he was assuredly politically smart, and I would think he would be the first to realize the adverse consequences of that kind of thing going public, which it might have if it had leaked. For that matter, I also cite the only evidence I've got, since I wasn't here, neither Mike nor I have any direct observation, we did have the impression from our captors, and I think Mike would agree that if they wanted anything, they wanted to avoid doing anything that would facilitate the re-election of Jimmy Carter. They didn't like Reagan but they most assuredly held full disdain for Carter.

MR. LEHRER: Now how do you know that?

MR. LAINGEN: And surely, Bill Casey must have known that too. In other words, what I'm saying, they didn't need to take that kind of risk if they did.

MR. LEHRER: What --

MR. LAINGEN: How do I know?

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. What do you base that on?

MR. LAINGEN: I think most of us had impressions from those who were holding us -- in my case at that time it was army guards -- I didn't meet the student captors until later -- but I certainly got that impression throughout, that they had utter disdain for Carter, they didn't want to do anything to facilitate his re- election.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kennedy, what is there -- can you pick out one or two points that Gary Sick has made that put your imagination factually that whatever Bruce Laingen might say it doesn't sound possible, you even agreed that it, initially, you didn't think so too -- but what is there that Gary Sick has laid out to you that makes you think it might have happened?

MR. KENNEDY: I think the most impressive is the number of people with knowledge of these alleged conversations that didn't have any reason to know each other. It's quite a variety of witnesses, not all of the best quality people obviously, but certainly enough of them. And the other, as I mentioned, was the timing, which is really extraordinary, including a second rescue attempt which the hostages were moved around again because of. All these things confirm my confidence in Gary's research to the point that I think a further investigation is needed.

MR. LEHRER: Now you look at those same -- you looked at the Sick points too. Now what is there about them that makes you come down on the other side?

MR. LAINGEN: I haven't seen any definitive evidence that that kind of deal was actually made. I've seen all kinds of charges from people who Gary, himself, suggests are low level operatives, the arms merchants and that sort of thing, with very dubious reputations allegedly to support these charges, and I find it very difficult for that reason to accept what they are saying. In the final analysis, of course, we'll never know fully because both Bill Casey and one of the Hashamis, who is one of those Iranians supposedly involved, and a very dubious character from people who talked with me, someone told me at noon today if there was a liar, it was he, he's dead too. But, Jim, I go back to what my colleagues said this morning. There is investigation to a degree already underway, I understand in the Hamilton subcommittee in the House. And if that kind of looking at the facts today suggests a further investigation, I'd be for it too. But I haven't seen that evidence accumulate to that point yet.

MR. LEHRER: Well, let's bring in now, into the discussion two members of Congress who have heard the pleas for an investigation and thus far have given different answers to those pleas. Congressman Butler Derrick is a Democrat from South Carolina and a member of the House Rules Committee. Congressman Henry Hyde is a Republican from Illinois, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. They're both on Capitol Hill tonight. Congressman Derrick, what is your response? You think there should be an investigation, is that correct?

REP. DERRICK: I've been concerned with this for 10 years and let me tell you what we do know. We do know that the Shah went down in the late '70s and he had the fourth largest military establishment in the world, all of it American equipment. We do know that Iran, most of that equipment was no good to them without the parts. We do know back at that time that the Carter administration had put an embargo on parts and arms being shipped to Iran. What we do know is that these hostages were turned loose just minutes after Reagan was sworn in in 1980, and there is strong evidence that shortly after Reagan took office, arms and parts started flowing into Iran in a tremendous number. You know, it's something that has worried me for years because of these inconsistencies. Why did this happen? And why did the Iranians stop negotiating with the Carter administration several weeks right before the election? I don't know what happened, but I know that responsible people have made serious allegations. The former President of the United States who said that, you know, for a long time he didn't want to believe it, I don't want to believe it either. I don't think anyone does want to believe it, because if it did happen, it comes close to being treason. Not only that, eight hostages this morning, Mr. Sick's investigation and other responsible people, what is happening in the House now is there is a small mini investigation, you might link it kind of as a grand jury action, to see if there is reasonable cause to move ahead. I don't know how that will come out. I know that I hope that these allegations are not true, but I think that it goes to the very roots of our democratic system if when serious allegations like this are made that we do not investigate 'em and if the allegations do show reasonable cause, I would think that I would probably support a further investigation.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Hyde, do these charges warrant a full investigation?

REP. HYDE: I wouldn't say so yet, but that's a decision the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate will have to make and take the responsibility for it. There's no new evidence. Eight of fifty-two hostages have called for an investigation, and I can understand that. But sometime ago, the intelligence committee, the foreign affairs committee, the judiciary committee, and government operations committee, only the Democrats, mind you, the Republicans have not been welcome in this investigation, h ave been invited to investigate what leads they have. To date, evidently, they don't have sufficient credible evidence to justify a full blown congressional investigation. Now this is as damaging on people like Richard Allen, people like George Bush, Bill Casey's memory as anybody. It is despicable. So they I should think would want an investigation too, but by the same token, just to investigate implies there is something credible there. And I don't see that yet. This has a great smell, aroma of politics, because it was in July of 1990 that the General Accounting Office was written by John Conyers, the chairman of the government operations committee, to start an investigation. Republicans never learned of this for 11 months, and then they learned of it from the media. Now the General Accounting Office is an arm of Congress, not the Democratic Party. But you'd never know it by the way they handled this. We don't have a report yet from them. That was in July of 1990 that they were assigned this. There is no report. They will give you an oral briefing, if you're lucky. So the politics of this is very suspicious. The lack -- most of these people that have been cited by Mr. Sick are either anonymous or dead or very shady. So I really don't know. If the Speaker wants an investigation, by all means call for one. Please let Republicans participate so it's bipartisan and not a grand jury indictment, as we've heard. May I just say one last thing. I'm sorry to be so verbose. If Butler Derrick, my good friend, will read Gary Sick's book, "All Fall Down," on page 370 he'll find that Carter offered $150 million worth of weapons and ammunition to the Iranians if they would release our hostages. They didn't even get a response to that directive, that missile that was sent over there, so it wasn't only the Republicans offered weapons. They were offered earlier in October by the Carter administration and they didn't get any response. Mr. Laingen is quite right. The Iranians had no use for the Carter administration.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Derrick, what about Congressman Hyde's smell of politics, is he -- is his nose working?

REP. DERRICK: Oh, I don't think so at all. I think the people that I've been connected with in this investigation, and I know I speak for myself and I'm sure Henry's not referring to me in that sense, you know, we are, the last thing we want is a witch hunt. But these are serious, very, very serious allegations that have been made against people and they ought to be corrected. And I would think that the Republicans, quite frankly, would be the first ones that would want to call for an investigation. And as far as Mr. Hyde is concerned about the Carter administration negotiating with the Iranians, remember that it was the Carter administration that was our government. That was the President of the United States who was negotiating with the Iranians. And what we're talking about is the possibility of a deal that was made by a political campaign with a foreign country that said that if you will keep Americans imprisoned so we can get elected, then when we get elected and you turn 'em loose, then we're going to give you parts and we're going to give you whatever else it is that you need, and there is evidence that this started flowing right afterwards. You know, I don't know whether these allegations are true, but they are serious enough, they've been made by serious people, and they should be cleaned up.

REP. HYDE: I'm not objecting to the fact of negotiations. I would have been concerned if the Carter administration and Mr. Sick and Amb. Sullivan hadn't negotiated. But I just want the point to be made that the Carter administration offered weapons to the Iranians in exchange for the hostages. So this notion of an embargo just isn't factual.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Hyde, what about Congressman Derrick's major point though, you hollered politics, he says it should be in the Republicans' major interest to get this cleared up through a clean investigation one way or another?

REP. HYDE: I think in the General Accounting Office, which is supposed to be an investigative arm of Congress, goes on an 11 month investigation, 85 man days, at a cost of about $50,000, never notifies the Republicans, never notifies the Minority Leader or any of us, that smells of politics, and when we hear about it 11 months later by accident and there's no report filed -- I mean, let us in on what's going on. Otherwise, it smells of politics.

REP. DERRICK: As Mr. Hyde, who is one of the brighter members of the Congress --

REP. HYDE: Thank you.

REP. DERRICK: -- well knows, if we have a formal investigation under the rules of the House, it must be a bipartisan thing and the Republicans will be --

MR. LEHRER: Would you object to that, Congressman Hyde, a formal investigation by the House of Representatives, a bipartisan committee of some kind?

REP. HYDE: No, sir. And I'd like to be appointed to it. I have a great and abiding interest in all of this. I was in Iran just a couple of weeks before the Shah abdicated. I'd be very interested in this. But I don't want a dog and pony show holding up a lot of people to charges and accusations by anonymous arms merchants that are hard to find and I want the Speaker of the House and I want the Majority Leader of the Senate to take that responsibility. Do they think there's credible evidence? They've been at this for a year now. If they do, let's have the hearings. I'm all for it.

REP. DERRICK: That is not true. They have not been at it a year. They've been at it about six weeks.

REP. HYDE: July of 1990 was when --

MR. LEHRER: What is --

REP. HYDE: -- Conyers wrote the GAO to look into this.

REP. DERRICK: Well, that isn't the Speaker.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Derrick, what is going to happen?

REP. DERRICK: Well, I don't know. There is a preliminary investigation going on to try to see if there is enough evidence, a reasonable cause to proceed further, and I think that decision will be made shortly.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Laingen, if there is a congressional investigation and if this turns out to be the case, what should happen?

MR. LAINGEN: Well, I'd be sick at heart if it turned out to be the case.

MR. LEHRER: I mean, is it --

MR. LAINGEN: Most Americans would.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, do you agree with Congressman Derrick that this would go right to the heart of what our country's all about?

MR. LAINGEN: Yes, I do.

MR. LEHRER: That serious?

MR. LAINGEN: Yes, I think it is that serious, when Americans are held -- this isn't arms for -- this isn't the Iran-Contra affair, where we made a mistake in trading arms to get hostages out. This, if it is true, would be using arms to keep hostages in, keep Americans under duress that much longer, and that's pretty serious indeed. I just wanted to make a point with reference to the point that was made about how curiously within minutes after the Reagan inauguration we were released. That didn't surprise me in the least because the Iranians at that point had an arrangement, had a deal to get their money, at least the bulk, some of their money back, their assets. They didn't want to lose that. They honestly didn't want to run the risk of dealing with Reagan, who they had some apprehensions about because of the tough language he had been using in the course of the campaign. Nor am I surprised by reports and the credible evidence that the Israelis began shipping some arms fairly shortly thereafter. They had their own reasons for arm shipments of that kind.

MR. LEHRER: The Israelis.

MR. LAINGEN: The Israelis. And for that matter, I think I would not be surprised if elements within the incoming administration didn't see some merit in that kind of show of support.

MR. LEHRER: But that's different. All of that would be permissible with you, is that correct?

MR. LAINGEN: Understandable, I'm not sure it'd be permissible.

MR. LEHRER: Understandable. Mr. Kennedy, would that bother you if what Mr. Laingen just laid out happened, that there were these conversations, there were these things going on, the Israelis, this and everybody kind of knew about it, and would that upset you?

MR. KENNEDY: Well, I think what is upsetting is that those arms shipments obviously reflected some policy judgments that had been made before they took office, and I think there is some ground for suspicion that some underlying deal had been made before the Republicans came into power. Now to pick up on the question you asked Bruce, if this investigation does show that there was a conspiracy to abet a kidnapping, there was almost treasonable contact with a power hostile to the United States, if the release of Americans was delayed, I wouldn't frankly be surprised. I think we're looking at a very corrupting thing, which is the lust for power and I think if anybody was involved, it was someone like William Casey, who got his training in the OSS, where these niceties were not very much observed. I think these are all possibilities that have to be looked into. But I think the worst thing that could happen is not to investigate at all.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, in a word, Congressman Hyde, the worst thing to do would be not to investigate this?

REP. HYDE: Yes, I agree, and I'd like to defend Bill Casey who can't defend himself. He has a very distinguished career. But in any event, it's being investigated. The GAO has been on it for a year.

MR. LEHRER: Got it. Got it. Have to leave it there. Congressmen, gentlemen, thank you. RECAP

MR. MUDD: Once again, the other main stories of this Thursday, Boris Yeltsin has won the Russian republic's first presidential election and will meet with President Bush in Washington next week, and U.S. wholesale prices rose sharply in May. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Roger. We'll see you tomorrow night with Gergen & Shields, and the Robb versus Wilder war in Virginia. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.