The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, there was new fighting in the City of San Salvador, Sec. of State Baker said Soviet behavior in Central America is the biggest obstacle to better relations, the Czech parliament voted unanimously to end the Communist monopoly on power. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, two lawyers present the arguments the U.S. Supreme Court heard today in an abortion case. the issue is parental notification. The lawyers are James Bopp and Janet Benshoof. Then we continue our pre Malta summit coverage with former British Prime Minister James Callaghan and we close with a Roger Mudd report on the photographs of one of America's greatest writers, Eudora Welty of Jackson, Mississippi.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: There was new fighting across the capital of El Salvador today. Much of it took place in an affluent area of the city where many U.S. embassy workers live, including the U.S. Ambassador. Salvadoran troops used tanks and air force planes to try to knock the rebels out of their strongholds. The U.S. embassy was closed to the public because of the fighting. U.S. officials said leftist guerrillas briefly overran the home of an American embassy officer but were driven out by Salvadoran troops. No injuries to U.S. embassy personnel were reported. In Washington, Sec. of State Baker called the attacks acts of desperation, but he said Central America would be a big issue at the Bush-Gorbachev summit.

JAMES BAKER, Sec. of State: If Gorbachev can help bring perestroika to East Germany, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia, he certainly can help foster the new thinking in Cuba and Central America. As I said two weeks ago, Soviet behavior in Central America remains the biggest obstacle to an across-the-board improve in United States-Soviet relations.

REPORTER: Mr. Secretary, when you met with Shevardnadze, you were assured, as I understand it, that the Soviets would use their influence to stop the Nicaraguan armed shipments, the Soviet arms trans shipments. What do you think's happened?

SEC. BAKER: All I can gather is that either the Nicaraguans are lying to the Soviet Union or the Soviet Union is lying to us. We prefer to believe it's the former.

MR. MacNeil: Sec. Baker said Pres. Bush would urge Gorbachev to continue to support useful change in Europe, adding that any attempts to intervene forcibly to prevent continued reform would be dangerous and destabilizing. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Soviet Pres. Gorbachev started a three day visit to Italy today. The official greeting came from Premiere Gilio Andriati, but thousands of cheering Italians welcomed him as he toured Rome. The Soviet leader left his car to greet some of them in person. Gorbachev will meet with Pope John Paul II on Friday. In Czechoslovakia today, the Parliament voted to end the Communist Party's 40 year monopoly of governmental power. And a top government official said free elections may be held within a year. We have a report from Prague by Sonia Russeler of Independent Television News.

MS. RUSSELER: The Communist Party today tried to seize the initiative back from the opposition. The prime minister, Ladislav Adamec, met this morning with party leaders allied to the Communists to outline his strategy. By suggesting free elections within a year, he's gambled it may give the Communists enough time to try to reform themselves into an electable party, and the sooner the elections, the less time the opposition have to organize themselves. This afternoon the parliament's special session was broadcast live on television for the first time. They voted unanimously to change the constitution, ending the party's formal monopoly on power. This rubber stamping institution today once again approved a decision by its party leaders. Yet, this time the deputies effectively signed away their seats, including Milos Yakis, who until last week was the party leader.

MR. LEHRER: There was also a high visibility defection today in Eastern Europe. Olympic gymnast champion Nadia Comaneci went to Hungary from her in Romania. She asked the Hungarians for a temporary settlement permit. As a 14 year old, she won three gold medals at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

MR. MacNeil: In Brussels, NATO Defense Ministers said the Warsaw Pact remains a military threat and pledged to keep the alliance strong as reforms sweep Eastern Europe. The ministers agreed there would be no unilateral military reductions until formal agreement on conventional arms cuts is reached with the Warsaw Pact. U.S. Defense Sec. Dick Cheney promised no unilateral reductions of U.S. forces and NATO's Sec. Gen. Manford Woerner said Cheney had been realistic and reassuring. The Associated Press said the air force has chosen bases in six states for MX missiles to be carried on trains. Fifty of the missiles which carry ten nuclear warheads each will be placed on twenty-five trains to move on civilian tracks in times of crisis. The home bases chosen for the trains would be in Louisiana, Texas, Washington State, North Dakota, Arkansas, and Michigan.

MR. LEHRER: Rajiv Gandhi stepped down today as prime minister of India. His resignation cleared the way for his political opponents to form a new government. Gandhi's party lost its majority in last week's parliamentary elections. Gandhi had served as prime minister for five years.

MR. MacNeil: In Lebanon today, thousands of Syrian soldiers took up combat positions near the Christian enclave in Beirut. Christian soldiers under the command of Gen. Michele Aoun got ready to fight off a possible attack. Aoun was fired yesterday as army commander by the new Syrian-based president, but he refused to go because he opposes the Syrian presence in Lebanon. Thousands of Aoun's supporters spent the night outside his headquarters, forming in effect a human shield to help protect him.

MR. LEHRER: The abortion issue returned to the U.S. Supreme Court today. The justices heard arguments in two cases involving parental notification before an abortion can be performed on an unmarried teen-age girl. State laws in Ohio and Minnesota were in question. We'll have more on the story after the News Summary.

MR. MacNeil: In economic news the government reported that the economy grew at an annualrate of 2.7 percent from July to September. This increase in the 3rd quarter Gross National Product would mean that for the first nine months of the year, the economy grew at 3 percent annual rate. The General Accounting Office said today that the government would waste as much as much as $150 billion in taxpayer's money. The report blamed antiquated accounting systems, lackadaisical management and no real commitment to do better. The GAO report told Congress most of the problems are known and in many instances have been known for years, but they remain uncorrected.

MR. LEHRER: There was a bomb scare at Los Angeles International Airport today. Police officers blew up a suitcase thinking an explosive device was inside. It turned out to be only a video game. The suitcase was checked for an Avianca Airlines flight to Bogota, Colombia. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to abortion's parental notification issue, former British Prime Minister James Callaghan and to words and pictures from writer Eudora Welty. FOCUS - TEEN ABORTIONS

MR. LEHRER: Abortion is once again a lead story. Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the issue of parental notification. Can States require teenagers to notify their parent of their decision to have an abortion? Today's Court argument centered in State Laws in Minnesota and Ohio. We will have our own argument two lawyers involved in today's cases right after this background from Fred De Sam Lazaro of Public Station KCTA Minneapolis, St. Paul.

MR. LAZARO: Four years ago when she was a high school junior this rural Minnesota women we will call Cindy decided to end an unplanned pregnancy.

"CINDY": It was just to hard to tell my parent and I was nervous in school. And I came here and I pretty made up my mind that I was going to have it done.

MR. LAZARO: But when Cindy arrived at the Midwest Health Center a Duluth abortion facility she was told that both here parents would have to be notified first. After notification, she would have to wait 48 hours before the procedure could be preformed. The state law enforced between 1981 and 1986 was championed by Minnesota right to life activists. People like Jill Busum and Liz Schieferbaum regulars on the picket line downstairs and outside the Duluth abortion clinic.

CITIZEN: They should be made to see what they are carrying what the baby looks like and I think that they need to get that from someone who doesn't stand to make money by them choosing abortion.

PICKETER: By this law they won't be taking their right away from having an abortion.

MR. LAZARO: That's the key argument the State of Minnesota is making before the Supreme Court.

JACK TUNHEIM: We're not asking the court to reverse Roe v. Wade or even diminish its effect in any way in ruling on our case.

MR. LAZARO: Asst. Attorney Gen. Jack Tunheim says the parental notification law does not dispute the abortion right. But Tunheim argues that unlike an adult women a minors abortion right is not absolute. He insists there's a compelling state interest in encouraging parental involvement in the decision. That Tunheim says was the stated goal of legislators who drafted the law.

MR. TUNHEIM: They felt that I think parents are the individuals who know the minor the best, who are the best able to provide the kind of advise both from any emotional, moral, physical standpoint.

MS. ROCKNE: You can't by law force parental support, parental responsibility.

MR. LAZARO: Susan Rockney an abortion rights lobbyist at the Minnesota legislature says right to life law makers pushed the measure through with only one purpose that is reduce the number of abortions by making them difficult to get.

MS. ROCKNE: The girls that we're talking about are being hurt by this law, they come from dysfunctional families. They come from situations where they couldn't possibly talk to both parents. They come from single parent households, battering households, incestual relationships, people that don't even know where there father is and your supposed to find him or he is the one who caused your pregnancy and you're supposed to notify him. I mean there are sort of by passes on that if you had told the cops within 48 hours that you were an incest victim and you are 13 years old. It's totally unreal, won't happen.

MR. TUNHEIM: There are exceptions to protect the minor women in those situations.

MR. LAZARO: Tunheim says two parent notification is intended to protect the rights of non custodial parents. He says the law also allows minors who don't wish to notify either or both parents to go to a judge instead. Cindy used this so-called court bypass when she sought her abortion. At the time she says her father was unemployed and both parents had been in a serious automobile accident.

"CINDY": I couldn't put more stress on them by telling them that and it would have been hard on them.

MR. LAZARO: Cindy was one of about 4000 Minnesota minors who chose a judge over their parents. Teen advocates say for many it was the lesser of two daunting options.

TEEN: I had nobody. My step mom but she had no custody of me My dad wasn't about to sign papers. My mom didn't care about me.

MR. LAZARO: 19 year old Lorrie says she felt humiliated but had little choice but to go to a judge. She sought to abort a pregnancy when she was 15.

LORRIE: I begged him and I said please give it to me, you know, It was really uncomfortable because the guy kind of looks at you like what kind of girl are you.

MS. ROCKNE: It is terrifying to these young girls who have never been in court who feel they have never done anything wrong. You go to court when you have done something wrong.

MR. TUNHEIM: It was expeditious, it was anonymous, it was non- threatening. Certainly any kind of instance in which an individual has to go before the judicial system in some respect is at least uncomfortable, but I think the court system made a valiant effort to make sure that they were not adding addition burden to minor women who came before the court to seek permission to have an abortion.

MR. LAZARO: Right to Life sponsors acknowledge it did bring down Minnesota's abortion rate their stated overall objective, but in legal arguments they insist that abortions remained readily available to minors. That's because the central issue in the case is whether notification placed an un do burden on a minor exercising her abortion right. A upheld in the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe V. Wade decision. However, with the Roe benchmark itself seeming precarious to many legal scholars few people seem willing to predict the fate of the Minnesota and Ohio cases.

MS. ROCKNE: I'd rather bet on football than trying to bet on this court.

MR. LAZARO: The Supreme Court ruling will have potentially wide ranging implications. Lawmakers in 31 states betting on public opinion have already passed laws requiring either parental notification or consent. Polls show they have the support of a large majority of Americans, including many who say they support abortion rights.

MR. LEHRER: Now to our argument. Janet Benshoff is Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom projects. She argued against Minnesota's notification law before the Supreme Court today. James Bopp is the General Council for the National Right to Life Committee which filed an Amicus brief supporting parental notification laws. Mr. Bopp why should parents be told of a daughters intention to have an abortion?

JAMES BOPP, National Right To Life Committee: Well, for two reasons. First is that parents have constitutionally protected rights to supervise the upbringing of their children and that has been guaranteed by the Constitution. It explicitly by court decision, at least, since 1923. And so they have a constitution protected relation with their child. And secondly that the child needs the involvement of her parents in order to make critical life decisions or other wise a minor will victimize themselves because of their own improvident judgement.

MR. LEHRER: What's wrong with that argument?

JANET BENSHOOF: Well Mr. Bopp misrepresents what's really at issue here. First of all he has filed a brief asking that Roe V. Wade be over turned. He doesn't really advocate for parental support in all instances.

MR. LEHRER: Let's get to that in a moment. What is your argument against parental notification and his point that why parents should be notified. Why do you think parents should not be notified?

MS. BENSHOOF: He only thinks.

MR. LEHRER: Why do you think parents should not be notified?

MS. BENSHOOF: I think that parents should be notified but that should be at the minors options. Nor do I think that biological parenthood alone demands notice. The Minnesota law says that you must find your biological parent and notify them even if you have never lived with them. We've had instances of clients we represented where they had to find out who their father was in order to get consent for an abortion. That's how extreme this law is. This law isn't really about involving parents, this law is about terrifying young kinds and driving them away from medical care.

MR. LEHRER: What about his point, that the constitutional rights of parents are at stake here. Do you disagree with that?

MS. BENSHOOF: The Supreme Court has never said that there is a constitutional right of parents that is greater than a constitutional right of minors to exercise their privacy rights. In fact, there have been Supreme Court cases that say unwed fathers who have never seen the child aren't even entitled to adoption notice which is of course a much more draconian legal step than not getting a notice of an abortion. Mr. Bopp wouldn't let parents force an abortion on a child because he is against abortion. He would only let parents force child birth on 12 and 13 years old.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bopp, what about her answer on the constitutional question of parents rights.

MR. BOPP: Well, it was those constitutional parents rights that the court has established since the beginning of this century then sighted to justify a right to abortion. So it's ironic that we now have a right to abortion which was built on the rights of parents and the protected realm of family relations that is now being turned against families and against parents to what really amount to a radical restructuring of the way we view families and parents.

MR. LEHRER: All right, we're obviously not going to resolve that. You wanted to make a charge about Mr. Bopp that he is really interested in something other than parental notification.

MS. BENSHOOF: Absolutely. What this law is about is the state of Minnesota and other states trying to restrict abortion as much as possible. Mr. Bopp doesn't think that parents should have the ability to tell their daughters to have an abortion. he only wants to deter abortion.

MR. LEHRER: She's right about that, isn't she?

MR. BOPP: Yes. There nothing secret about the view of the National Right to Life Committee.

MR. LEHRER: So you don't believe in parental notification. You don't want any kind of abortion?

MR. BOPP: I didn't agree with the first part. There are only so many charges I can deal with in one answer. But it is hardly any secret that the National Right to Life Committee wants to protect innocent human life in the womb except in the gravest of circumstance. But certainly parental notification if we're going to have legal abortion and to the extent that we do have legal abortion is justified on its own merits. That is that Minors in order to need parental guidance, they should not be left to abortion clinic counsellors or abortionist or their own girlfriends in order to figure out how to deal with very grave situations.

MR. LEHRER: But your hope would be that the parents would say don't get an abortion?

MR. BOPP: Well, in some cases that is true, I mean, the abortion rate decreases. In other cases, they agree to the abortion and in those circumstances the girl is better off.

MR. LEHRER: Is the record clear from your point of view Ms. Benshoff that where there are parental notification laws in effect in Minnesota and elsewhere that is has resulted in fewer abortions?

JANET BENSHOOF, American Civil Liberties Union: Well not elsewhere. For example in Massachusetts girls are able to go a neighboring state New Hampshire. But in Minnesota itself which is a rural state there is only two cities in the whole state that offer abortion services. Some of our minors in the pathetic were forced into unwanted child bearing because of the oppression of these laws. We had situations where minors lived in families that battered each other. We had minors that had dying parents who they felt that they couldn't tell and unlike what Mr. Tunheim said the State of Minnesota's position was at the beginning of this show. The State of Minnesota position as well as Mr, Bopps is to even take away the court options. What the State of Minnesota argued today in the Supreme Court is that both biological parents must be ferreted out even though 50 percent of minors don't live with both biological parents and there should be no court bypass no court by pass no matter if those parents never even married each other.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bopp, what about that? How in the world could you enforce something like that? And why would you want to.

MR. BOPP: Well Binanc's study of parents have both rights and responsibilities to their children.

MR. LEHRER: She goes beyond that. She's talking about parents where they don't even who the parents are and that sort of thing.

MR. BOPP: She's misrepresenting the statute. The statute only requires that reasonable efforts be made by the physician to contact both parents. And that's well established standard in the law, And if those efforts are made then no notice is necessary. If the minor doesn't know the address and doesn't know where he is then there is nothing that can be done.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree that that's what the Minnesota law is?

MS. BENSHOOF: The Minnesota law is that you have to use reasonable diligence. We've had many a young minors who had never met their father but they know that he lives in San Diego and they know his name. So they don't have to ferret him out and they have to inform this stranger about this.

MR. BOPP: Oh, my word, that's a phone call to the directory and that certainly would be a reasonable step. But the point is she is trying to use these extreme examples to reverse the general presumption that parents act in the best interests of their children. What she wants is a constitutional right of every minor to have a secret abortion and in fact today argued in court that minors also have a constitutional protected right to choose what family they live in and to withhold vital information concerning important life matters that minors have.

MR. LEHRER: Is that true?

MR. BOPP: Absolutely not Mr. Bopps' view of the family is that the Government should tell family members what to say to each other. He is saying that women who have divorced spouses who were battering them and in many instances we've had people under physical danger should be forced to talk their ex husband. When this statue was in effect women who have had orders of protection were forced to tell ex husbands about the daughters pending abortion in order to obey the law. The government here is coming in and telling family members what to say to each other. We are all for family communication and for reasonable laws that encourage family communication. But the State of Minnesota didn't put one penny in helping these poor minors, these minors who need counseling. They need medical help and they need encouragement to talk to their parents. But instead of this they are putting criminal penalties on minors and their mothers and their doctors if this so called family that State thinks is a family which are purely biological parents and daughters. If they don't talk to each other that is a crime.

MR. BOPP: She wants some 13 or 11 year old girl to decide for her. An immature 13 year old to decide whether or not it is in her best interest to tell her parents. Obviously we have laws to protect minors and people who do not have mature judgement to make decisions about whether or not they should tell their parents critical life matters, I mean, when a minor gets arrested for a traffic offense the law requires parents to be notified. That is certainly as important as a drunk driving charge. It is in the critical situations where life situations like abortions that minors are most reticent to involve their parents but they need them the most.

MR. LEHRER: Based on the Webster decision on your reading of the court are you going to win this?

MR. BOPP: I think we are. I think the real interesting question is whether or not the court will use this as an opportunity to overturn Roe V Wade.

MR. LEHRER: Do you think it will?

MR. BOPP: I think it should?

MR. LEHRER: What do you think's going to happen? Did you get any clues from what the Justices asked you today in the Court.

MS. BENSHOOF: I think the justices looked at our briefs and saw the facts about family life and what happens to these kids when these criminal laws are imposed on them. So I'm heartened by their response to the kind of factual situations that we showed happened under the Minnesota laws.

MR. LEHRER: You mean the questions that were asked?

MS. BENSHOOF: Absolutely, and I think that they are very sympathetic to the idea that the government can not make forced speech a crime.

MR. LEHRER: Is your side concerned that they could use this to over turn Roe V Wade.

MS. BENSHOOF: Well, the United States Government has come in also and asked that Roe V Wade be completely over turned in this case. Not only abortion but contraceptive rights also and the court didn't ask one question about that. So I hope that they are not giving.

MR. LEHRER: The decision this summer right?

MR. BOPP: By June.

MR. LEHRER: Thank you both very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour, A British view of the summit and Eudora Welty, Photographer. SERIES - SUMMIT AT SEA

MR. MacNeil: Next another in our previews of this weekend's Bush-Gorbachev summit. Tonight we have a British view after this excerpt from today's summit meeting by Sec. of State James Baker. He told reporters at the White House that reforms underway in Eastern Europe are the only path to long-term stability in the region and said that Soviet Pres. Gorbachev faces extraordinarily difficult challenges.

JAMES BAKER, Secretary of State: This meeting comes at a very unique time in United States-Soviet relations. At this time of great change, it makes sense for the two leaders to get together for two days of informal, personal discussions, discussions which can foster preparations for a successful, full scale summit in late spring or early summer of next year. We are quite realistic about the staggering tasks which face the reformers. My guess is that no one is more aware of these than Mr. Gorbachev, himself. But the real question, if I might suggest it, is not whether perestroika will succeed or fail. The real question is this: Do you engage the Soviet Union in a search for mutual advantage in this time of uncertainty? And our answer to that question is a resounding yes.

REPORTER: You mentioned German reunification, what will be our position at the summit?

SEC. BAKER: On the question of German reunification let me simply say that I think that our position on that should essentially embrace four principles if you will. First of all, that self- determination must be pursued without prejudice as to its outcome, that is, we really shouldn't endorse or exclude any particular vision of unity. Unity can mean a lot of things. It can mean a single federal state, it can mean a confederation or it could mean something else. If there's unification, the second principle I think, if there's unification it should occur in the context of Germany's continued alignment with NATO and an increasingly integrated European community, that is there should be not trade of neutralism for unity and there should be no dilution of the Federal Republic of Germany's liberal democratic character. Third principle, in the interest of general European stability, I think I would prefer to see moves toward unification be peaceful, gradual and part of a step by step process. And lastly, with respect to the question of borders, which was not addressed in Chancellor Kohl's speech, I think we should reiterate our support for the principles of the Helsinki final act, recognizing the inviability of frontiers in Europe, and allowing for the possibility of change in those borders only through peaceful means.

MAUREEN SANTINI, New York Daily News: Mr. Secretary, I just wanted to make sure I understood your comments before about a possibility of a crackdown. Are you saying that there are circumstances under which the United States would support Gorbachev if he cracked down against people in his own country?

SEC. BAKER: It depends on what you mean by crackdown, Maureen.

MS. SANTINI: As a situation in which there is a possibility of violence.

SEC. BAKER: Suppose you have Azerbaijanis and Armenians actively fighting each other, killing each other, would it be inappropriate for the central authority to try and restore peace whether it was through martial law or otherwise? That's far different, than using force, in my view, that's far different than using force to suppress the peaceful dissent from policies that the central government might be pursuing.

MR. MacNeil: Now we hear from James Callaghan who was British prime minister from 1976 to 1979 and is now a member of the House of Lords. I talked to him yesterday from London. Lord Callaghan, thank you for joining us. Mrs. Thatcher on her visit here has presumably given Pres. Bush her advice on the forthcoming summit. What would your advice be to him?

JAMES CALLAGHAN, Former Prime Minister, Great Britain: That it's a very valuable occasion in order to test out how Mr. Gorbachev thinks things are going in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, because I believe there'll be a fundamental difference between the two. He seems to be content to allow Eastern Europe to go its own way rather, but the Soviet Union I think there is going to be a much firmer grip, we're not going to see much democracy in the Soviet Union for some time, and that's probably inevitable because the Communist Party is the glue that holds it together. So I think that's the first thing I think that needs to be said.

MR. MacNeil: Does it make you at all uneasy as an Englishman to think of these two discussing the emerging shape of Europe, your Europe, in a time of such rapid change?

LORD CALLAGHAN: If I didn't know Mr. Bush, the answer would be yes. If it were perhaps for someone else, I would be more worried, but Pres. Bush knows enough about the situation not to run into any difficulties. There are many hidden difficulties there and he could easily arouse suspicions. I noticed that he has been at pains to try to dispel them. I for example in many ways if this had not been arranged a deux between the two of them, it might have been helpful if Pres. Mitterrand had been present as the current chairman of the European Community, because these are issues that basically concern Europe. Whereas, in the past when the two have met, when two Presidents, a President and the General Secretary have met, both Presidents now, but these have been basically started by Nixon, for example, and Kissinger about nuclear strategic matters which concern basically the United States and the Soviet Union. Now they're on very much more sensitive ground.

MR. MacNeil: What risks do you see that you think Mr. Bush will avoid but what risks do you see?

LORD CALLAGHAN: Well, the risks are risks endemic in the present fluid state of Europe. For example, I do not want to see us rushed into anything that might help the reunification of Germany without conditions. I believe for example it's very important if we are to avoid arousing a lot of suspicions in a number of the continental countries that there should be a peace treaty concluded in which Germany, the Federal Republic and Eastern Germany would accept the existing borders of Germany before they could begin talking about the possibilities of confederation or federation or reunification or whatever it is, that's the first thing I think that is important.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think therefore that Chancellor Kohl's announcement this week of West Germany's willingness to move towards practical steps, towards federation, that that is premature?

LORD CALLAGHAN: No, I don't think it's premature but I think it must run in harness with other things and those other things I repeat are first of all a final definition of the boundaries with the Germanies renouncing those pre-war boundaries which were acquired and being ready to exist along the older, nicer line as they do now, that's the first thing. The second problem is of course that we don't know how Europe is going to turn out and I think whereas our first flush of enthusiasm was of great delight because of the freedom that is being apparently secured, although it hasn't, it isn't there yet, I think our second thought is how unstable is the unfreezing of the Warsaw Pact and the NATO alliance, how unstable is that going to make Europe? And I could see a number of the old problems reasserting themselves. We've already seen some, for example, the problems that Yugoslavia is having, nothing to do with the Warsaw Pact, but is there, nevertheless. The other problems that exist of great minorities in Europe that are in somebody else's boundaries, all this has got to be settled I think before we could really see a new Europe emerging out of the situation. I hope that Pres. Bush and Mr. Gorbachev will talk about these difficulties. Clearing their minds is what is needed at the moment, getting a good analysis of the situation, let all the ideas tumble out as they are, and then we can later on settle down to working it out. Any thought of reducing American troops to a thousand I think somebody suggested is absolutely ridiculous. I could think of nothing that would be worse for Europe.

MR. MacNeil: Why would that be worse for Europe right now?

LORD CALLAGHAN: Because it would create more instability in Europe, it would create, recreate all the problems that Europe has fortunately been able to keep under control at the moment, because of the existence of the cold war. Now the cold war is unfreezing. All these old problems are going to come to the surface again. We need the United States as a stabilizing influence in this situation whilst we are all trying to build a new structure for Europe. That is what is required now. The Warsaw Pact and NATO are of course instruments that have served us well, but like all instruments, they will have to be adapted to changing circumstances. I'm not saying removed. I think they are both essential. They'll have to adapt.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Poncet on this program last night said there is a big difference between no troops in Europe, American troops, and some troops. Do you think that the situation as the threat of war recedes, that there could be some American troop withdrawals?

LORD CALLAGHAN: Oh, certainly. I think that the present proposal is a modest one of the withdrawal I think of 30,000 American troops and 320,000 Soviet troops, that is a modest proposal that I think should be carried through in the present conventional arms reduction negotiations, and then let us embark upon a second round in which I think an additional number of American troops could be withdrawn, but I would want to see the new structure emerging in Europe before I would talk about any large numbers.

MR. MacNeil: As an Englishman who fought in the second world war and is of that generation and experience, does the prospect of German reunification frighten you at all?

LORD CALLAGHAN: Yes and no, basically no, provided these conditions are met. I think that the leadership that the federal republic has had over the last 40 years, the fact that Europe is becoming more inter-dependent and that is recognized in Germany as elsewhere, the kind of democratic instincts that I think have animated the German leadership and the German people make me reassured. On the other hand, I must recognize that there are large numbers of Germans who are living outside of what were the old pre 1937 borders of Germany. There is I suppose every hope that another Hitler would not arise. But you have perhaps noticed that atiny insignificant Republican Party in Germany is already calling for some changes in the boundaries and borders that existed at the end of the war. I believe that would be highly dangerous.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think the new German reality and the prospects of more German unity should make Britain more anxious to proceed with the integration of the European community than is Mrs. Thatcher's policy to proceed now?

LORD CALLAGHAN: Well, I of course don't come on this program to attack Mrs. Thatcher obviously, but in terms of policy, I must say the way you formulate the proposition, I agree with it entirely. I think we are being too blinkered in our outlook at the moment. We should recognize that these great changes give Europe the opportunity of becoming a continent that can play its place in the world, take its place in the world alongside of the Soviet Union and alongside the United States, have as many responsibilities, look after itself, as it should do, and has done in the past. All these things are possible but I think Britain should play a large part in it. If we don't, I think the loss will be certainly ours and it will also remove a pretty stable element from Europe. So I shall go on pressing that we play a much larger part.

MR. MacNeil: Do you have a feeling that the changes in Eastern Europe are permanent, irreversible, or don't we know yet?

LORD CALLAGHAN: We don't know yet. I certainly don't have a feeling that they are irreversible. What is going to happen of course is that when the first flush of democratic freedom has been passed and governments have to take very difficult and hard decisions in order to get the economy right, people will start to grumble and if those grumbles get too loud, you know what follows, the man on horseback, the armed, the troops, some adventurer, I think there is a very certain and unstable period ahead, a period of optimism, a period of hope, a period of rejoicing, as far as I'm concerned, but not a stable situation. These are not conventional democracies with the restraints that we practice in our democracies and they've got to go along that path for sometime yet. So there's another reason why I don't want to see American influence removed. You don't want to remove your influence now and have to come back again later.

MR. MacNeil: Do you believe that Mr. Gorbachev's position is secure and that his policies will remain in the foreseeable future the Soviet policy?

LORD CALLAGHAN: I think he is certainly more secure than are the newly fledgling elements that are emerging in these other countries, because his authority still rests upon the Communist Party, and the Communist Party is the glue that is holding the Soviet Union together. I don't know what other glue could hold it together at the present time to be absolutely frank with you, whereas in these other countries we cannot see that same glue there. So I think Gorbachev is pretty, pretty firmly established. How far he can succeed is another matter. That I think is of greater doubt unless he has considerable help, and I hope that one of Pres. Bush's conversations with him will be how can we assist you, how can we help, in order to make sure that you can see this great Soviet Union emerging from its present economic difficulties without great political unsettlement.

MR. MacNeil: To what extent, if at all, do you think the West, the U.S. and the West, should be hedging its bets on Mr. Gorbachev in case he doesn't survive?

LORD CALLAGHAN: Well, we can hedge our bets by maintaining our arms strength. It would be very I think wrong of us at this uncertain stage, and I argue only that it is uncertain, not that we are doomed to fail, but at this uncertain stage, I believe we should maintain the NATO alliance in a strong position able to follow the changing political structures that I trust will emerge but also ready to be able to protect us if indeed there should be, as I hope there will not be, a reverse.

MR. MacNeil: Going back to something you said earlier about perhaps it would have been appropriate to invite Pres. Mitterrand to take part, do you think after this Malta summit that American- Soviet summits are going to continue to be the proper forum to discuss the emerging East-West relations or should there be a wider forum in the future?

LORD CALLAGHAN: I have thought about that and it's an interesting point you raise. I believe they are reaching the end of their usefulness, except where the direct relationship, the bilateral relationships are concerned. That is to some extent true, for example, of the START negotiations on nuclear weapons and there I think there is a very important meeting place and role for them both to play, but even in the nuclear world, you know, I think it would be wise, because we want to be able to control nuclear proliferation, we want to be able to control the deterrent, I think it would be wise if the area was extended, and of course on other grounds, on the settlement of Europe, that would be impossible for the Soviet Union and the United States to tackle. As regards other parts of the world, well I think it would depend to some extent on how far a newly emerging Europe was ready to play its part. Britain usually has because we had a worldwide empire at one time, France does too because, to a great extent, because of her past. So I think that there are new structures that have got to be thought about before we come to any final conclusion.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Lord Callaghan thank you very much for joining us.

LORD CALLAGHAN: A pleasure. CONVERSATION

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight Eudora Welty, one of America's most honored and respected writers of fiction. It turns out Ms. Welty is also a photographer, and this week a book of her photographs is being published by the University Press of Mississippi. She talked about the photographs in a recent conversation with Correspondent Roger Mudd.

MR. MUDD: For half a century the best known most memorable photographs of the American south during the depression came from the camera of Walker Evans. Evans had been hired by the Farm Security Administration to publicize Southern poverty and thus help pave the way for some of the New Deal social programs. Evans' Southerners were grim, almost morose. They were tattered and barefooted. They were the bitter dregs of American society. His photographs were powerfully editorial and fixed indelibly in the nation's eye an image of a malnourished, ignorant and resentful Southerner. But this month there will emerge in a new book quite a different photographic vision of the depression South, a compassionate one, a merciful one, and it comes from the camera of one of the South's most celebrated writers of fiction, Eudora Welty.

EUDORA WELTY: Those are not posed pictures. They're exactly, I'll be walking along and begin to talk to people and say, just go on with what you're doing, do you mind if I take a picture? I think they were mostly pleased.

MR. MUDD: In 1936 when she was 27 and not yet a published writer, Eudora Welty began traveling all over Mississippi as a publicity agent for the State Office of the Works Progress Administration of the New Deal, visiting families and government projects and carrying with her everywhere she went an Eastman Kodak.

EUDORA WELTY: These were poor times, poor poor times, and nobody had any, everybody did their own work and everything, and it showed. Everybody was poor. A lot of people had never had a photograph of themselves and told me that, and I sent them copies and they remembered, even the grandchildren of some of those people come to see me. They're glad they've got that. It's a record again. Nothing was intended except to show how things were.

MR. MUDD: What is it about people, Eudora, that makes them want to pose for a picture? They're always flattered when you say can I take your picture, and they always kind of swell up and put their hand on their hip.

MS. WELTY: Actually I wasn't thinking about that kind of posing, the kind that the great photographer Walker Evans did, because he posed all those people you know to show their sad sorry state. He was making a sociological part. That was his purpose. That was not my purpose. I was just, in a way I was trying to enter their lives I guess or something. I mean, I wasn't trying to enter their lives. That sounds worse than taking pictures. I was interested and I think they were interested.

MR. MUDD: So Eudora, do you remember this woman on the cover?

MS. WELTY: Absolutely.

MR. MUDD: What do you remember about her?

MS. WELTY: I remember, I love that pose. I was walking down the street with a camera one morning. And it was Saturday. She was not working. I thought I'd take a picture of people on their days off. And we said good morning and I said do you mind just staying the way you are and let me take a picture, she said it was all right with her.

MR. MUDD: That was the way she was when you were walking down the street.

MS. WELTY: Absolutely. Who could have ever done such a perfect pose as that? I loved the way she was looking on the street.

MR. MUDD: Almost alluring, isn't it?

MS. WELTY: It is.

MR. MUDD: There's no disguising that hip, is there?

MS. WELTY: No, or intent to disguise it.

MR. MUDD: And this one, Eudora is called "A Woman of the 30s", a lot of pride in that face, isn't there?

MS. WELTY: Absolutely. It's indominatable, utter poverty, and so proud and standing. That's my favorite one I think of any I ever took.

MR. MUDD: Is that right?

MS. WELTY: It's so marvelously impressive to me and I'll never forget it. It was a bitter cold day and I suppose all she had was that sweater.

MR. MUDD: And this one is "Delegate", Jackson 1938, delegate to what, Eudora?

MS. WELTY: It could be anything, the EDC, or the DAR.

MR. MUDD: WCTU?

MS. WELTY: I don't think they had badges. This is in front of the governor's mansion.

MR. MUDD: In Jackson?

MS. WELTY: In Jackson. She was probably had been to a tea or something but those badges I love, they reach almost to the floor.

MR. MUDD: It looks like an ambassador plene potentiary.

MS. WELTY: She too looks indominatable.

MR. MUDD: Eudora, tell me about the connection between photography and fiction.

MS. WELTY: I really don't think there's too much direct connection. I suppose it all depends on the taker of the picture and the writer of the fiction, and it must differ from individual to individual, but in my case I'm a professional writer but an amateur photographer and I think the same thing probably led me into both, a love of observation and traveling around. I know that I didn't get things from the pictures to make me write, but I think lots of times I took pictures of the things that had meant something to me which I used in a story. So both of them came into my brain but one didn't come from the other. other.

MR. MUDD: Are there qualities that fiction and photography share?

MS. WELTY: Yes, I think so. Don't you? But I don't think they're on the same level in your mind somehow. I suppose it's the same attitude that makes you want to take a photograph that makes you write stories, that is, if you're interested in your fellow human beings and what they're doing, and where they live and details, I love physical details. And so that observation could make you do either I suppose. But fiction is an internal process and photography is not. I don't make up what I take. It's there.

MR. MUDD: Eudora Welty's photographs are now at the Mississippi Department of Archives & History in Jackson. By the time she stopped taking pictures, she had accumulated more than 1500 negatives, which she added to the department's wealthy collection. In 1971, she published a slender volume of her pictures called "One Time One Place". The new book entitled simply "Eudora Welty Photographs" will be the collection's first full scale public exposure. Just as a political reporter, I'm drawn to that picture, "Political Rally at the Courthouse Grounds" --

MS. WELTY: That's almost my favorite.

MR. MUDD: Is that right?

MS. WELTY: Yes.

MR. MUDD: The way they sit, even the wife sits as her husband sits, which is on the haunches.

MS. WELTY: On their haunches.

MR. MUDD: And the split watermelon.

MS. WELTY: Well, there was a political speaking and everybody there had watermelon because they came in from out in the county to hear the speakers on the courthouse grounds and the speaking went on all the time at the same time they were eating and talking.

MR. MUDD: Not listening.

MS. WELTY: Not listening. They came for the sociability I guess.

MR. MUDD: Tell me about the pageant of the birds.

MS. WELTY: I was walking along the street one day and saw two or three black women walking along, carrying wings over their arms made out of tissue paper, so I said I'm interested in what you're carrying, what are those wings, and they said we're having a bird pageant, want to come, I said, thank you I will so I went. And the birds came into the church to a packed house. Each one had a little introduction like last but not least the sweet dove of peace, the beautiful canary, for pleasure as well as profit, and so all the way down the aisle they whistled like canary birds and turned. They really were the birds. It was just marvelous.

MR. MUDD: What happened to the Mississippi that you photographed 50 years ago?

MS. WELTY: Well, it improved I hope. It also vanished the way everything else is vanishing everywhere. You know, things are getting alike everywhere.

MR. MUDD: Mississippi's gotten malled.

MS. WELTY: We've got malls. Jackson is mall after mall like the expanding universe. Downtown is gone.

MR. MUDD: Do you think that's better?

MS. WELTY: No, I think it's worse.

MR. MUDD: Worse.

MS. WELTY: And I don't know what could ever be done about it, but I'm sorry about it.

MR. MUDD: Eudora, do you think life has changed so much in Mississippi that you could go out and do what you did again with your camera back in the '30s?

MS. WELTY: Never, I don't think in the slightest beginning I could do it again. I mean, I don't think it's there to be done. It would be entirely different in every respect. I know a lot of black people in Jackson and you know, the whole relationship is different the way it is in the whole country.

MR. MUDD: I think that's probably the sweetest picture of all, "Brothers".

MS. WELTY: I think it is too. I was glad I caught that moment.

MR. MUDD: And this one, Eudora, "Mule Face Woman", it's a picture of the poster.

MS. WELTY: Yeah.

MR. MUDD: But not of the woman.

MS. WELTY: No, not of the woman.

MR. MUDD: Why not?

MS. WELTY: It's the poster I was interested in. I loved primitive art. It came with all the fairs and everything and I took lots of pictures of the posters because they were somebody's dream, you know, of what, this was the idea of a mule face woman who you see is wearing an evening dress and had pretty legs and was looking very coyly at somebody. No I wasn't interested in her.

MR. MUDD: In the woman herself.

MS. WELTY: What was in the tent.

MR. MUDD: Did you go into the tent?

MS. WELTY: No.

MR. MUDD: Why, Eudora?

MS. WELTY: I didn't want to see the real mule face woman. I dreaded the real mule face woman.

MR. MUDD: How about this one, Eudora, "Village Pet", Mr. John Paul's boy, Rodney, who is he?

MS. WELTY: Rodney is a ghost river town about 3 miles from the Mississippi, the river had gone off and left it. It was deserted and I went to look at it and took pictures all around and this man appeared and said -- his name was not John Paul, I've forgotten his real name -- but he said, I'm Mr. John Paul's boy, I'm glad to see you. I called him a village pet because he was a little retarded I think but obviously everybody loved him in this town, and he took me around and showed me everything, and he said there's the post office over there, but I never got a letter. He said, I go every day. I wrote him some after that, I mean post cards and things.

MR. MUDD: Poor thing.

MS. WELTY: But his life was very, on a very small scale. He was very sweet.

MR. MUDD: In his marvelous introduction to your book, Reynolds Price says that the quality that he keeps seeing in your photographs is a quality he doesn't seen in anyone else's photographs, it's the quality of mercy. Do you agree with that?

MS. WELTY: I'm very happy to note, to think he thought that. That was not conscious either, any more than invading. I think I was actually, I suppose it was pure human interest in a person that you meet.

MR. MUDD: As an observer.

MS. WELTY: As an observer, but there's some kind of relationship that was struck up between the object of the picture and the photographer I think. I don't know what you'd call it.

MR. MUDD: It's empathy, isn't it?

MS. WELTY: I think it's empathy, that's what it is, that's exactly right.

MR. MUDD: Almost 20 years ago Eudora Welty wrote about her picture taking, "I learned quickly enough when to click the shutter, but what I was becoming aware of more slowly was a story writer's truth, the thing to wait on, to reach there in time for is the moment in which people reveal themselves. Insight doesn't happen often on the click of the moment like a lucky snapshot but comes in its own time and from nowhere but within." RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again the major stories of this Wednesday, leftist guerrillas overran the home of a U.S. embassy official in El Salvador, but no one was hurt, Sec. of State Baker said Soviet policy in Central America was the biggest obstacle to improved U.S.-Soviet relations, and the Czechoslovakia parliament voted to end the Communist Party's monopoly on governmental power. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the Newshour tonight and we'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.