The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MS. WOODRUFF: Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary, we consider the breakdown of power sharing talks in South Africa with representatives of the government and the African National Congress. Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett talks to voters in Denver about conflicting images of Ross Perot. Correspondent Tom Bearden describes the effort by property rights advocates to slow down environmental regulations. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. WOODRUFF: President Bush called today for quick congressional action to end the nationwide railroad strike if the walkout occurs as planned at midnight tonight. Mr. Bush said he was not optimistic that negotiators for Amtrak and major freight carriers would reach agreement with their unions before then. The dispute over wages, work rules, and job security. In anticipation of a strike, Amtrak has begun cancelling many of its runs. President Bush talked about the impending strike at a picture taking session at the White House this morning.

PRES. BUSH: Should a strike occur, Congress ought to do in this instance what they've done twice before, two preceding events like this, and that is to move promptly to protect the American people and to end the strike through legislation. And that's -- I feel very strongly about it and I think in this instance, should a strike occur, Congress has an obligation to move fast to protect the American people, whether it's a lockout or a strike.

MS. WOODRUFF: This afternoon, Amtrak announced that it had reached a contract agreement with two of its six unions, but there was no indication of a breakthrough with the others. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said a rail strike would lead to 570,000 layoffs in rail-related industries in two weeks; 180,000 of them would occur in the first two to three days. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Israeli voters went to the polls today and appear to have rejected the Likud government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Exit polls from Israeli television predicted the opposition Labor Party would win 47 seats in parliament to 33 for Likud. Such an outcome could significantly alter the direction of Middle East peace talks. Robert Moore of Independent Television News reports from Jerusalem.

MR. MOORE: For 15 years, Israel has been dominated by right wing governments. There is today a strong possibility that era has drawn to a close, that Yitzhak Rabin may become the next prime minister. It would inject new life into the Middle East peace process, for Rabin has pledged to hand to the Palestinians significant autonomy.

YITZHAK RABIN, Labor Party Leader: Therefore I hope that a new chapter, a brighter one, will be reopened for Israel.

MR. MOORE: Seventy-six-year-old Shamir has promised never hand over one inch of Israeli territory, winning him much support among the right wing Israel. But he is now seen by others as an old and tired figure, and all the time with astonishing speed, the face of the electorate is changing, Ethiopian Jews, Russian immigrants, all voting here for the first time, making it a difficult election to predict. One constituency is a known quantity. The Jews who have settled in the Arab-dominated West Bank regard a victory by Rabin with horror. Their vote will go largely to Shamir and his policy of expanding settlements. And below such settlements are the disenfranchised Palestinians, working in the fields, but with no political rights. Yet, it is their future that is most at stake in this election. They have been barred from traveling outside the occupied territories, Israel's democracy overshadowed by its control over 2 million unwilling Arabs.

MR. MacNeil: South Africa's main black opposition group, the African National Congress, today broke off all political power sharing talks with the white minority government. The ANC General Secretary said they would not return to the negotiations until an international commission investigates a township massacre last week in which 42 people died. The ANC blamed the government for that and other incidents of political violence. Its move today effectively halts the six-month-old negotiations for a transition to a multiracial democracy in South Africa. We'll have more on the story after the News Summary.

MS. WOODRUFF: The U.S. today tightened sanctions against the government of Yugoslavia. The action was announced on Capitol Hill by Sec. of State Baker. He said Belgrade's only remaining consulate in the U.S. would be closed and its ambassador in Washington would no longer be recognized. The U.S. would also push to further isolate Yugoslavia's two remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro from international organizations. Baker said the U.S. would take additional steps to ensure that humanitarian aid reached the breakaway republic of Bosnia. He spoke at a Senate Foreign Relations hearing this morning.

JAMES BAKER, Secretary of State: It's hard to believe really in this day and age that armed forces will fire artillery and mortars indiscriminately into the heart of a city, flushing defenseless men, women and children out into the streets, and then shooting them. It is an absolute outrage, Mr. Chairman. It is barbaric and it is inhuman. The world has condemned the Belgrade government for these outrages. It has imposed sanctions on the regime there, but in our view, more must be done. Serbian militias inspired by Belgrade cannot be allowed to continue to perpetuate this humanitarian nightmare.

MS. WOODRUFF: At the same hearing, Baker said the U.S. has not ruled out the use of force to solve the Yugoslav crisis. He said the U.S. might participate in a multinational operation if that should become necessary. He said consultations were underway with other U.N. Security Council members. Libya offered today to let two suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 stand trial under the supervision of the United Nations. The two men were indicted by the U.S. and Britain in the December 1988 bombing. Both are suspected Libyan intelligence agents. The U.N. imposed sanctions against Libya after it failed to surrender them. It was unclear whether Libya would not allow the men to be tried in the U.S. or Britain, as the U.N. had demanded. The Bush administration had indications long before the Gulf War that Iraq might be using U.S. farm loans to buy weapons. That disclosure was made today on Capitol Hill by State Department official Frank LeMay. His testimony came before the House Judiciary Committee, which is considering whether to seek the appointment of a special prosecutor in the matter. LeMay said he warned his superiors of possible abuses in an October 1989 memo, but those warnings were apparently ignored. A short time later, Iraq won another $500 million in U.S. credits.

MR. MacNeil: President Bush today made good on his threat to veto a bill which would reverse a ban on using federal funds for fetal tissue research. Mr. Bush said it was "inconsistent with our nation's deeply held beliefs." He has previously said it might encourage abortions. Proponents of the bill said the research could lead to treatments for such diseases as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and diabetes. On the U.S. campaign trail today, Vice President Dan Quayle visited a public housing project in an area of Los Angeles damaged by last April's rioting. He was there to announce a federal grant to set up a program for residents to buy their own units. But his appearance led to this confrontation.

WOMAN: Excuse me, you said you helped the community, but how do you know about the community? Do you live over here? Do you know the situation in our community?

VICE PRES. QUAYLE: The only way you're going to find out about the situation --

WOMAN: But are you a resident of this community?

VICE PRES. QUAYLE: -- is come and talk to the people. Is there anything wrong talking with people?

WOMAN: Well, do you live -- are you --

VICE PRES. QUAYLE: I want to talk to people. I'm talking to people here.

WOMAN: But you don't live here, so you don't know our problems here --

VICE PRES. QUAYLE: Is there anything wrong with coming to talk to the people here?

WOMAN: -- is --

VICE PRES. QUAYLE: Is that wrong?

WOMAN: It's different if you live here and you be here and you know what's going on. That makes a great difference, because talkin' can't help nothin'!

MR. MacNeil: The Bush administration continued its criticism of ross Perot today. The attack came from drug czar Bob Martinez in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Houston. He said Perot's proposals for fighting the war on drugs were "reckless, wild west covert operations." He described Perot as "a secretive computer salesman, with a penchant for skulduggery." Perot's campaign chairman, Tom Loose, appeared on NBC this morning to answer reports that Perot had hired detectives to investigate President Bush and his family when Mr. Bush was Vice President. Loose said, there were "no investigations, no detectives." He said the reports were a distortion in the political process from people who have specialized in saying we will do whatever it takes to win. Jesse Jackson today praised Bill Clinton's newly announced economic plan. It includes $200 billion to create new jobs and rebuild infrastructure. Jackson told the Mayors Conference it is a major step in the right direction.

MS. WOODRUFF: Four major airlines have agreed to settle an anti- trust lawsuit accusing them of price fixing. American, United, Delta, and USAir will pay more than $400 million in cash and discount fare coupons as part of the settlement. All four airlines denied any wrongdoing. They said they settled to avoid the costs of fighting the class action suit. The German automaker, BMW, announced today that it will build its first manufacturing plant in this country. It will open in 1995 near Spartenburg, South Carolina, and will employ 2,000 people by the year 2000. United Press International will be sold to a London-based Middle East broadcast group. The nearly $4 million sale was approved today by a judge overseeing the bankruptcy filing of the 85-year-old news agency.

MR. MacNeil: Mob boss John Gotti was sentenced to life in prison today. He was convicted in April of racketeering and five counts of murder. One of his victims was rival mobster Paul Castallano, who was gunned down in 1985. Outside the federal court in New York today, hundreds of Gotti supporters broke through police barricades when they learned of the sentence. The judge denied a motion for a new trial. Gotti is expected to appeal. That's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to the latest crisis in South Africa, the public debate about Ross Perot, and property owners turn the tables on environmentalists. FOCUS - THE PEROT FACTOR

MS. WOODRUFF: Now, voters react to Ross Perot. The Texas billionaire has been the talk of the Presidential race ever since he said a few months ago he was thinking about running. But lately, with the burst of news coverage, much of it probing into Perot's past life, including some unusual investigations and other ventures, public opinion has grown more skeptical. The New York Times, CBS News Poll released today showed that the percentage who viewed him unfavorably has more than doubled since April. As Perot was making plans to visit Denver last week, our correspondent, Elizabeth Brackett, went there to talk with a group of voters. Their conversation mirrors those taking place in living rooms and offices all across America.

MS. BRACKETT: We're here tonight to talk a little bit about Ross Perot. As you know, he's now ahead in the polls. One-third of the country said that they like Ross Perot and the man hasn't even announced yet. So we thought we'd take a look, try to listen to what you have to say about him. Carrie, I'm going to start off with you, because you are a Perot supporter.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: I've been interested for a long time in his career and what he's accomplished. And I'm in business -- I'm an attorney -- so I've watched and read, you know, in various journals about his goings-on for a number of years. So I've been a fan long before he ever took this turn.

MS. WOODRUFF: Alan, you're also an attorney. But you say you haven't known much about Ross Perot. What are your thoughts about him now?

ALAN SWEETBAUM: I am concerned because I really don't know where he stands on a lot of issues. Over the past several days I've been reading up -- been reading about him and to be perfectly honest, I don't like what I've read. I personally believe that the support he has does not run very deep.

MS. WOODRUFF: Dennis, you're an investment banker. We're sitting in your living room, and you're a Perot supporter to an extent. Now, as you learned more about him, how did that change your attitude toward him?

DENNIS BACHOFER: Well, I'm still a supporter of him. Unlike Alan, I think his support does run deeper. But his support is really a negative vote on what's going on in Washington today and I think that is very pervasive in the country. And I think that the country looks at him as someone that will shake up that system back there.

ED DAWSON: But I just question, would all of the people who are on the bandwagon for him, would they be there if he was just an average person who had these ideas, without a billion dollars behind him, without the money behind him?

DENNIS BACHOFER: I don't think they would be, but people that are for Clinton wouldn't be for Clinton if they thought he was just an average person, nor for Bush, but to get to that point, you have to be better than average. I mean, nobody's looking for an average guy to run the country.

ED DAWSON: But Clinton and Bush have --

CARRIE KRAMLICH: It might be --

ED DAWSON: -- a track record politically. They have gone throughthe whole process politically over the years. And I see Perot as a person who has somehow tried to circumvent the political process because he is rich to get into office without paying his dues.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: How can you say that when what he did was said, I, I will go to the people, if the people want me on the ballot. And I have been involved in Colorado since day one. I can assure you that it is the people, the groundswell support, that are putting him there. So how has his money and how has his political tricks accomplished this?

ALICE CHAVEZ DALY: I think we're looking, we're looking for somebody to save us. And it's -- Perot is like a very romantic vision and a lot of us are -- we're really disenchanted with our current administration. There's something about Clinton that doesn't go down well. And so what other choice do we have? We're really just grasping at straws.

MS. BRACKETT: You're not supporting Bush and you're not supporting Clinton either. You're angry with the Democrats as well?

ALICE CHAVEZ DALY: I really am. When I go into the voting booth - - this is what I really believe now -- when I go into the voting booth in November, it's going to be voting from my gut. And it's going to be a very emotional vote and it's going to be very much a protest vote. I will vote, but at this point it's kind of up in the air.

MS. BRACKETT: Do you see Perot, Lois, as the protest candidate of the moment? Now, you are a supporter of Perot to some extent.

LOIS GREEN: I have been very interested in Mr. Perot, yes. And I was quite impressed with business people who had worked with him and said that when he had a problem, he would get all the experts for these different problems, get all their ideas, and then he would make a decision from that, which I was quite impressed about, that he was successful in making a business very proper and prominent and successful. I just have been quite impressed with him thus far.

MS. BRACKETT: Larry, you're a physician and usually a Democrat - -

DR. LARRY HERGOTT: Usually.

MS. BRACKETT: -- and not sure about Clinton. What do you think of Mr. Perot's business success, does that transfer into politics?

DR. LARRY HERGOTT: I think that a lot of people could have been where Ross Perot is, not a lot, but there are certain select people who could have been where he is. I think this is a dissatisfaction vote. I think that anybody who's shown a high level of competence in a high managerial position -- maybe Peter Uberroth or Gen. Schwarzkopf, almost -- you know, there are a score of people who probably could have achieved the same thing. I think this is clearly a negative kind of positivity or popularity he has. I -- when I heard he got 35 percent of the exit poll and was leading, I didn't know whether to laugh or give thanks or emigrate. I mean, it was -- [people laughing] -- how can we have decisions about somebody who's being defined by he isn't much, much more than who he is?

ALICE CHAVEZ DALY: Yeah, that's true.

ED JONES: My question would be to Ross Perot, even if you got - - and I don't think he will win because I think the balloon is going to fall here in the next couple of months -- but even if you got there and you could not get along with Congress, what are you going to do now? Are you going to do like you did with General Motors and quit, walk away, because things are not going your way? I think -- I think the American people are not stupid. Pretty soon they're going to want to know, what do you really stand for, Mr. Perot.

MS. BRACKETT: Now what has been said about Ross Perot to date? Because still many of the American people don't have a clear idea of where he stands, that he's somewhat -- is that he's somewhat of a blank page, that people are projecting what they want to see in a President onto the character of Ross Perot. What do you think about that?

JOHN BACHOFER: Well, like you said before, most people don't have a clear idea on his views on, for instance, foreign policy in the post Cold War society, health care, inner cities, he's never been clear on what his actions are going to be. Yeah, everyone hates what's happening in our inner cities, but what are you going to do about it? I mean, he's been very, very vague.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: Even if you come out with very defined platforms spelled out in absolutely meticulous detail, such as, no new taxes, you don't live up to those, that you turn on them anyway once you're in office, and a concern in this group here about his not addressing the issues, but the American public doesn't seem to be accepting that. And I want a logical explanation for that, other than it's just a fad.

MS. BRACKETT: You mean why the American public is not concerned about the lack of issues --

CARRIE KRAMLICH: Yes, that's right.

MS. BRACKETT: -- that have come forth from the Perot campaign?

CARRIE KRAMLICH: Yes. How do you explain the polls?

DR. LARRY HERGOTT: That's a real leap. I mean, the exit polls are people who voted and only a third went for him; two-thirds didn't go for him. So I think that's a little bit of a leap, to say that they're not concerned.

MS. BRACKETT: Jan, as you know more about Mr. Perot, have you learned more about him, and as you've learned more, how has your opinion changed?

JAN ECKHARDT: A little bit, a very little bit, but as I find more about him, I don't like him even more. I think he's a very big businessman that would make a very poor President. And I know everybody talks about the economy and nobody knows more about the economy than I, because I was laid off a job just about three months ago, so I'm battling the economy at an older age. And it really gets tough. But there are other areas of interest for me. And one of my main interests is environmentalist. I am an environmentalist. I'm a very strong environmentalist. And I don't see that he's going to be very helpful in those areas at all.

MS. BRACKETT: When you hear the word "businessman," which is certainly how people have defined Ross Perot, as a very successful, entrepreneurial businessman, is that a positive or a negative for you -- go ahead -- as a businessman?

JOHN BACHOFER: I think most people would agree that it takes a different set of skills to run a business than those required to be the leader, a political leader of a country, of a nation, especially a nation like ours, highly intricate --

CARRIE KRAMLICH: What are they? What are they?

JOHN BACHOFER: No, no, no. Let me finish.

DENNIS BACHOFER: Bush has not been --

JOHN BACHOFER: Let me finish.

DENNIS BACHOFER: -- you have business skills, you don't have political skills -- they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

JOHN BACHOFER: I'm not saying that that's true. But all I'm saying is, is that don't throw qualities upon the man that have never been proven. What are his political -- what is his political experience? None.

DENNIS BACHOFER: Here is the question before the house. Are you going to vote for Clinton, Bush, or Perot? Now then you say he doesn't have or may not have the political skills. Bush obviously has had tremendous experience in politics. He's been a career politician. The question toyou is: Do you want four more years?

JOHN BACHOFER: Yes, I do.

DENNIS BACHOFER: Did you listen --

JOHN BACHOFER: And let me say why.

DENNIS BACHOFER: Did you listen to the people after the State of the Union Message? The mood of the country is no, they don't want four more years.

MS. BRACKETT: There's no doubt that the mood of the country right now is anti-politician. Now, Bill, you have an anti-politician sentiment this year. You may represent that portion of the population.

BILL WHITLOCK: It's the first time in years that I've not been involved in my party at the state convention level and active campaigning, because I -- I'm not a great fan of Bill Clinton. I may not vote for him, but chances are I will end up voting for Clinton because I feel that he is the best bet. But I still -- I understand the disgust with politicians because I feel -- as I say -- I'm left out.

ALAN SWEETBAUM: I tend to agree that just because you happen to be successful in business does not mean that you're going to be successful in politics. And I personally believe that there are politicians today that could do a good job, that are "can do" kind of people, who can get our country running again. I think most people believe they aren't running. And that's why people are looking at Ross Perot. I personally think Clinton is our best hope, but I would reluctantly vote for him.

MS. BRACKETT: How different a President would Ross Perot be?

DENNIS BACHOFER: If you could say anything about Ross Perot, whether you like the guy or you don't like the guy, he is a doer and he is a "can do" guy. I mean, he has obviously come --

MS. BRACKETT: What does that mean?

DENNIS BACHOFER: That means that he took a company up to a multibillion dollar enterprise.

JOHN BACHOFER: You're trying to make him out to be an entrepreneur. He's --

DENNIS BACHOFER: That's a "can do" guy. He did it. That's a "can do" guy. Secondly, he is obviously someone that has not come up through the political party system.

MS. BRACKETT: How would that impact on his Presidency?

DENNIS BACHOFER: I think that earlier in the conversation we talked about the fact that if you have a Republican President and a Democratic Congress, it's at loggerheads and they can't work together. I think he will be exactly the opposite, because he's not part of either the Republican or the Democratic Parties --

JOHN BACHOFER: But he's domineering --

DENNIS BACHOFER: -- and, therefore --

JOHN BACHOFER: -- and stubborn.

DENNIS BACHOFER: -- therefore will be able to work with those people if he is, if he is President, much better than a Republican could work with a Democrat or a Democrat with a Republican.

MS. BRACKETT: All right, John, what kind of a relationship do you think that Ross Perot would have with Congress?

JOHN BACHOFER: I think they'd be constantly bashing heads. Most people that have had business relations with Ross Perot would prefer to never again have business relations with him. His view - - he just yesterday made a grandiose statement that he would not support a free trade agreement with Latin America. Okay. That is one step forward and three steps back as to what we've been trying to accomplish within a global community. We need to set up a global economy.

MS. BRACKETT: Lois. Let me ask Lois a minute. Lois, what kind of a President do you think Ross Perot would be? Would he be different than what we've had?

LOIS GREEN: I'm sure he'd be very different, but when you were talking about the global economy -- and I agree, we need a global economy -- but I think Ross Perotis thinking about America first. And he doesn't want jobs, labor going South.

JOHN BACHOFER: But he truly doesn't understand the impact.

MS. BRACKETT: Let her finish.

JOHN BACHOFER: Okay, go ahead.

LOIS GREEN: That's just my feeling that I'm getting from what I've read about him. And, of course, that's all you can know is what you read and what you hear, but that he doesn't want us to ship all our labor and jobs South, when we're already losing so many jobs. And I think basically, being an honest man, he's thinking of the United States.

MS. WOODRUFF: Larry, what kind of a President do you think he would be?

DR. LARRY HERGOTT: I think he would be -- of the three candidates -- he'd be the person potentially that would give the most, we'd have the highest gain, but he's also the highest risk because of the unknown nature and all this talk. I think that Mr. Bush we at least know, he's the most predictable. He's already been defined by what you do, or what he won't do. And so we sort of know him. Clinton is probably the best gain for the least risk. But I think it's potentially very risky to have somebody like Mr. Perot in. And I'm not anti-Perot. I just don't know yet. But I'll know by late October. But I think he's sort of highest gain, potentially highest risk.

ED JONES: Ross Perot to me would not be a compromising President. If Ross Perot gets mad, what does Ross Perot do? Shut himself up in the White House, I ain't going to do it.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: Make up your mind. Do you know what Ross Perot is going to do or not? He doesn't know, so how -- [people speaking at once] argue both ways!

JOHN GARCIA: What he gives us are glimpses. But if you really look at what he's saying, he's saying, I'm not an inside guy. And he is. He's been within the beltway more times than anyone else. That's how his wealth came to be. He got contracts that were not bidded.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: I'm astonished at the close-mindedness.

JOHN BACHOFER: It's not a matter of close-mindedness. It's a matter of lack of information.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: But you've made up your mind.

JOHN BACHOFER: We are basic -- no, no, no.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: You've all said that you won't vote for him no matter what information comes out.

JOHN BACHOFER: No, no, I did not say that.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: I find that frightening. You say you find Perot frightening.

JOHN BACHOFER: I did not say that.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: I find that frightening.

JOHN BACHOFER: What I'm saying is, is that all we have to base our view on this man is all based upon his business background. And that's all we have to base it on at this point.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: And all we have to base Bill Clinton's experience on or George Bush's is his political career.

JOHN BACHOFER: But that's what we're talking about is a political position. We have a better way of analyzing his ability to run a country based on his history.

CARRIE KRAMLICH: We've had generals run this country. We've had business people run this country. We've had people like the Kennedys, who had a lot of money. There's no --

JOHN BACHOFER: But you can't --

CARRIE KRAMLICH: We're being too close-minded about what it takes.

JOHN BACHOFER: -- in any one instance reflect on --

CARRIE KRAMLICH: Give him a chance!

JOHN BACHOFER: I am.

MS. BRACKETT: All right. All right. Thank you all very much. It's been a very good discussion.

MS. WOODRUFF: As we said, that conversation was recorded last week, before President Bush angrily reacted to reports that Perot had investigated the Bush family's financial dealings in 1986. FOCUS - ROLE REVERSAL

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight, we have a report on the similarity of tactics of opposing sides in an environmental debate. Tom Bearden reports.

MAN: I want to welcome you all here tonight. I want to welcome Dan Taylor from Sacramento.

MR. BEARDEN: The monthly meeting of the Mendicino, California chapter of the National Audubon Society. It includes bird sighting reports.

MAN IN MEETING: Yesterday afternoon in Mendicino Bay, there were what I estimated 500 loons.

MR. BEARDEN: And political activism.

WOMAN IN MEETING: Initially I have done a sample letter for us to support, for any of you who are willing and able to support Don Edwards bill on House Bill 4255 to -- it's called "The Wetlands Reform Act." And if you wanted to send these xerox copies, you could, but of course, it always carries more weight if you would rewrite this over in your own handwriting and send it in.

MR. BEARDEN: Audubon and other large environmental organizations have been very successful in influencing legislation over the years, because they employ time-tested and well honed tactics, like letter writing campaigns, to promote their interests. But now their own tactics are being turned against them. This crowded garret office in a 200-year-old farmhouse near Cambridge, Maryland, is the nerve center of the Fairness to Landowners Committee, the FLOC for short. Its members battle against government encroachment on private land, a fight that often puts them in conflict with those who want to preserve land or animals or settings of historic value.

WOMAN: And I wanted to talk to him concerning a meeting.

MR. BEARDEN: Peggy Reigle leads the FLOC. Seven days a week she spends most of her waking hours in this room. Much of what she does would be very familiar to an Audubon or any other environmental activist. Reigle says the FLOC now has 10,000 members in 35 states. It got that big through old-fashioned grassroots organizing. In April, Sara Rhine and Claude Robbins drove to the Houston airport to greet Reigle and her husband, Charlie. Rhine wanted to establish a Texas chapter of the FLOC to fight a proposed wildlife sanctuary. They wanted no time, plotting strategy even as they drove to Rhine's home on the Trinity River, about an hour East of Houston. [DISCUSSION IN CAR]

MR. BEARDEN: This fight is over the bottomlands near Liberty, Texas. Recently, landowners discovered a 1985 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service study that targeted 52,000 acres here as a future wildlife refuge. Some of the people who own that land and the 3,000 homes, weekend cabins, and fishing camps on the property became alarmed they would eventually be forced to move. The nucleus of the new group gathered for a catfish fry to talk about how to stop the refuge designation.

SARA RHINE, Property Owner: It's kind of hard to believe that anyone could come in and just take your property. So I think it's a protective device that they're saying they can't have my property.

PEGGY REIGLE, Property Rights Advocate: They can take your property. They are supposed to pay you a fair price. That is frequently not what happens. You get, you know, a devalued buck.

MAN: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm proud that we've got as many people here that we did.

MR. BEARDEN: Later that night at the local high school, about 300 people showed up to hear Reigle speak. She told them about writing letters, researching county land transfer records, testifying at public hearings, demanding environmental and economic impact statements to justify projects like the proposed refuge, all tactics that environmentals have used to advantage in years past.

PEGGY REIGLE: The wolf is at your door and the wolf is Uncle Sam. And he wants your land. And the next move is up to you. [applause]

MR. BEARDEN: About 50 people signed up to join the FLOC that night and they got a few donations to cover some of the expenses. Reigle told the rest of the FLOC about the Trinity River people in the next issue of her newsletter. It's a vital tool in keeping the membership informed. Reigle believes there is also great value in coordinating with other like-minded groups across the country. She frequently talks with Ann Corcoran, who publishes her own newsletter from her home on the other side of Maryland.

PEGGY REIGLE: Through Ann and through other members of ours who let us know about a Nevada organization or a Utah organization, we developed a directory of about 120 organizations.

MR. BEARDEN: The groups exchange information and compare notes on useful tactics. For example, they found that the most effective publicity involves stories about personal hardships suffered at governmental hands, people like David Lucas. Lucas bought two beachfront lots on the South Carolina Coast in 1986, planning to build a house on each of them. Two years later, the legislature passed a Beachfront Management Act designed to prevent erosion and storm damage. It also prevented Lucas from building on his land. Lucas sued, saying the action was a taking, the legal term for the government depriving him of his property's value. Environmentalists say they are at a serious tactical disadvantage in arguing their side of this kind of case. John Echeverria is the counsel for the Audubon Society.

JOHN ECHEVERRIA, Counsel, Audubon Society: There is always an individual, a claimant, who says that his property values have been injured. And generally, the justifications that we and others will present for those rules and regulations are based on community values, an attempt to prevent pollution to the community as a whole, and so, in a sense, the harms that the regulation is designed to prevent are harder to identify and more dispersed than a particular economic injury that the landowner is setting forward.

MR. BEARDEN: While one side trots out an egregiously wronged property owner, doesn't the environmental group many times also trot out pictures of lovely animals and spotted owls and so forth, and say, this is what we're going to lose if we don't enforce these regulations? What's the difference?

JOHN ECHEVERRIA: Well, there's a -- I'm not sure that an animal is as compelling as an individual when it comes to presenting the case to the American people.

MR. BEARDEN: Dead birds, dead seals in Prudo Bay is pretty compelling stuff. I mean, don't you use the same tools that they use to promote your -- not to say there's anything sinister about that -- but don't you use the same tools and the same tactics?

JOHN ECHEVERRIA: I'm not aware of that.

MR. BEARDEN: Audubon and other environmental groups aren't taking the private property challenge lying down. They have their own successful newsletter to counterattack. At this editorial meeting, the staff was discussing upcoming articles on the subject.

MAN IN MEETING: Were you satisfied that we did finally get enough wide use kind of articles?

WOMAN: Yeah, I think it'll be fine. I just -- I think it's important to -- to get people thinking it's not a spot thing, but is happening over the long-term.

MR. BEARDEN: The opposition is usually referred to as the "wise use movement," a reference to several Western groups who've gotten a lot of publicity advocating mining and drilling for oil in national parks.

JOHN ECHEVERRIA: Elements of the wise use movement have stood up on national television and said they're out to destroy us and we have to take that seriously, not only because of what they're saying, but because of the financial support that they're attracting from the traditional interests that we've been opposing, the timber companies, the mining companies, and the oil companies.

MR. BEARDEN: The tactical challenge for Reigle is to avoid being so characterized.

PEGGY REIGLE: We get funding from moms and pops. We get five dollar, twenty-five dollar, fifty dollar contributions.

MR. BEARDEN: No corporate funding?

PEGGY REIGLE: No corporate funding, no.

MR. BEARDEN: Her counter-tactic is to point out that the environmental groups, themselves, get money from corporations.

JOHN ECHEVERRIA: We get a tiny fraction of corporate support -- and I must say it's a very different nature. A company does not contribute to the National Audubon Society because it thinks it's going to benefit its bottom line, but that's exactly what's going on in the wise use area.

MR. BEARDEN: But if you take the money and you accuse them of taking the money, and it's coming from the same folks, isn't what's sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander?

JOHN ECHEVERRIA: No. I think it's a very different issue. The question is: What is the money being used for? What is the real agenda here?

MR. BEARDEN: One of more interesting disputes is who really is the underdog here. Property rights advocate Corcoran, a former Audubon lobbyist herself, says her side is a bunch of small landowners arrayed against the powerful and well-funded environmental lobbying machine.

ANN CORCORAN, Property Rights Advocate: The environmental movement has become an industry in this country. It's contrary to what Audubon would like to think, that we are being funded by big oil and big gas, et cetera, et cetera, they're the ones that are being funded by big oil and big gas and big timber. And they've become a true industry, a multimillion dollar industry in this country. And I think they have forgotten their roots.

JOHN ECHEVERRIA: When I hear that the National Audubon Society is a national Goliath, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. There are a couple of points. When we go up on Capitol Hill, there are a handful of us fighting an army of lawyers and lobbyists for the mining companies, the timber companies, and the oil companies. We are the Davids. We're fighting Goliaths on Capitol Hill. And we need to fight those battles. But we're not just an organization with a Washington office. We're a national organization with 600,000 members, over 550 chapters, activists working on local and regional and national issues all around the country.

MR. BEARDEN: How big is your budget?

JOHN ECHEVERRIA: The budget is 40 million approximately.

MR. BEARDEN: Six hundred thousand members, forty million. They claim that they are little, small grassroots private property owners against a Goliath that has six hundred thousand members.

JOHN ECHEVERRIA: The thing to understand is that the property rights movement, the so-called "wise use" movement, is being used by major forces in this society, the oil companies, the timber companies, the mining companies, putting a lot of money into certain elements of the wise use movement to use them as a vehicle to carry out their agenda. They have resources that far out match ours.

MR. BEARDEN: The battle will continue in congressional hearings, the courts, and perhaps most importantly, at the grassroots.

DAN TAYLOR, National Audubon Society: If we stopped with the play book we used in the 1970s, then it would be easy for interests which are opposed significantly to the interests which we support to borrow those techniques and to make use of them. There's a compelling difference though. It is the heart, it is the commitment, and it is the abiding love which we have committing ourselves to making the world a better place, not out of self-interest -- none of us get rich out of environmental protection -- we do it because we believe in it and we want our children and our children's children to be able to experience, have some of the same experiences that we had growing up.

PEGGY REIGLE: They're very, very concerned, because we have exposed their tactics, what they're doing to individual landowners, what the bureaucracy is doing to individual landowners, and these are heart retching tragic cases. And we do it because we think it's time to let America know what's going on.

MR. BEARDEN: Both sides say they want to see balance restored to the relationship between environmentalism and property rights. Judging from their actions, both seem to believe that achieving it is to a considerable extent a matter of tactics. FOCUS - ON THE BRINK

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, the decision by the African National Congress today to walk out of constitutional negotiations aimed at ending white minority rule in South Africa. The breakdown of talks follows increasing violence in the black townships which the ANC blamed on the government of President F.W. DeKlerk. The ANC imposed several conditions before it would resume negotiations. We'll get the views of the South African government and the ANC in a moment. Our coverage begins with a report from Mike Hannah of Independent Television News.

MR. HANNAH: After a day of deliberation came the announcement that was feared but expected, a continued suspension of all negotiations unless the government accedes to a number of demands.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, General Secretary, ANC: The ANC reaffirms its commitment to a negotiated resolution of the conflict in our country which would bring about democracy, peace, and justice. The refusal of the regime to accept such a settlement compels the NEC to review the current negotiation process. The ANC has no option but to break off bilateral and CODESA negotiations. The NEC will be keeping the situation under continuous review. The response and practical steps taken by the DeKlerk regime to these demands will play a critical role in determining the direction and the speed with which bona fide discussions can take place.

MR. HANNAH: The executive committee meeting that decided the shape of South Africa's immediate future began early this morning, the discussion centering around the vital question of whether or not to withdraw from the negotiation process. There was no comment immediately after the talks, but some delegates are sure to have argued that the ongoing violence makes it difficult to justify the negotiation process to their constituencies. One, who in recent weeks has been particularly perturbed, is youth leader, Peter Mokaba.

PETER MOKABA, President, ANC Youth League: Those that opposed us before are not making it easy for us or for the young people underground to change their views about them. The kind of violence that is taking place in our country today is making political -- political education for reconciliation most difficult.

MR. HANNAH: The government's security forces and the Zulu-based Inkathamovement are still regarded as the enemy by many in the streets. And some in the ANC have gone so far as to claim that elements in government are using the security forces and Inkatha to break the ANC's popular support. The ANC continues to point to the events at Boypaton last week as final and conclusive evidence of security force involvement in the violence. Police today continued their investigations at the Quamadala Hostel, where the Boypatong attackers are alleged to have lived and as a sign of their apparent concern, high ranking officers arrived to supervise the operation. In another development too, the acting president, Pik Botha, made a plea for an end to the political impasse.

PIK BOTHA, Foreign Minister: There is a duty under three major players, the government, the ANC, and Inkatha, to come up with something new, to come up with something that steers away from the antagonism and public accusations and boldly say to each other, our people demand from us, we have only one country, only one South Africa. We owe it to this South Africa to put our political differences aside and get to the hard core of this violence.

MR. MacNeil: We're joined by South Africa's ambassador in Washington, Harry Schwarz, and the African National Congress Deputy Chief Representative to the United Nations, Kingsley Makhubela. Mr. Makhubela, your leader, Nelson Mandela, later today told reporters that if the government met the most important demands the ANC would review its position. What are the most important demands?

MR. MAKHUBELA: Well, he didn't say if the government met those demands, they would review the negotiations. We have put forward a lot of demands to the government which we think will speed up the whole negotiation process like the agreement that we made previously with the government, the phasing out of the hostel system, which we correctly identify as the enemy barracks of some sort to launch attacks on communities. This is one of the issues, the question of the control of the security forces, and to bring those who have been involved in the violence to be punished actually and to allow an independent commission of inquiry.

MR. MacNeil: International commission?

MR. MAKHUBELA: International commission of inquiry into the question of violence. The government has been refusing this. We don't know why do they refuse, for instance --

MR. MacNeil: In other words, you were raising these demands before the recent violence?

MR. MAKHUBELA: We did, but I think now they've become more acute to be raised with the government in the light of these mass killings which, in our view, is taking a new level now.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Ambassador, how do you think the government is going to respond to those demands now?

AMB. SCHWARZ: Well, I think the first thing is that quite obviously the government wants peace. The government wants the negotiations to continue and I think the ANC, itself, has said that it wants the negotiations to continue. Now, obviously, the way to solve it is to be talking. There is not much point in saying we're not going to talk to each other, therefore, we're going to solve a problem. And I think that's really the dilemma that the ANC has. It can only solve the problem by talking. And this is really what we say should take place.

MR. MacNeil: How literally does the ANC hold Mr. DeKlerk's government responsible for the violence? I mean, are you saying that he directs it, that he condones it, that he knows about it and looks the other way? What really does the ANC charge the government with right now?

MR. MAKHUBELA: Well, recently, a few days ago, the ANC have unearthed a plot by the security forces. Two operations have been going on ahead to destabilize the ANC, one coded name, Operation Thunder, and the other one code named Operation Spring Book. These have been operations by the security forces to destabilize the ANC. We are looking forward to the revelation, to detailed revelations of this operation.

MR. MacNeil: Well, are you saying that these plots, if they were plans, if they really existed, were knowingly formed by the security forces -- sorry -- formed by the security forces with the full knowledge of the government deliberately to destabilize your movement?

MR. MAKHUBELA: Well, one might be inclined to believe that because, for instance, the state president went to the scene of this massacre and despite an accusation that the people have leveled against the security force's involvement, that the security forces actually transported Inkatha people to this place and then they actually participated in the operation, but his response was that the security forces are not involved in this, without even trying to say to the people, we'll investigate this complaint. For instance, at the same time when the attack was taking place in Boypatong, people who have previously massacred people at a funeral, a night vigil funeral in Subaking, a few kilometers from the current scene of massacre, have been released and the judge is saying that the security forces or the security forces have shown a lot of insufficiencies in stating their case against these people. And of course, it's the security forces that the people are saying that are involved in the crime, and how can they be sufficient in preparing their cases against those people?

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Ambassador, it's widely believed by human rights groups who've looked into the situation in South Africa that police units, whether they are so-called "rogue units," out of control of the government or not, have complicity in the violence in the past because some of them have not accepted the inevitability of reform and an end to apartheid. Does the government accept any part of that evidence that some units of the police are out of government control?

AMB. SCHWARZ: I think we've got to start off right at the beginning by making it quite clear that there's a difference between policemen, or a number of policemen acting incorrectly and the government or the state president being involved in it. And there's a very big difference of that and I think there is a difference between allegations which are being made and proof which is being furnished or evidence that's being furnished. To suggest that the state president is involved is without substance. That, in fact, there might be police involved, that's another matter. In fact, I think it's been demonstrated that a number of policemen have been arrested, a number of policemen have been charged, a number of policemen have been convicted and there is no hesitation on the part of the state president to take action against any rogue element that may exist. It's been proved that he has done so.

MR. MacNeil: Well, does the government believe since the Boypatong killings and after Mr. DeKlerk went, himself, ostensibly to express his sympathy for the victims, and was sort of rushed, the hostile crowd forced him to leave, is it now believed by the government that there may have been some of this rogue police element allied with the Inkatha movement involved there?

AMB. SCHWARZ: Well, I think firstly he didn't go ostensibly to show his sympathy. He wentthere to show his sympathy. The head of state, when he's faced with a situation that some of these people have been murdered, I think correctly goes to show his sympathy and his understanding. I think the question has to be asked why he was not allowed to do that. And the second issue is, there is every endeavor on the part of the government to investigate how that killing took place. Some people have already been arrested in regard to it. And there is action being taken. So I don't think it would be said that President DeKlerk has done something in relation to this which is anything but to try and show understanding and sympathy for the people who, in fact, who've been massacred here. And we feel very strongly about it. We don't want that. It, in fact, derails the negotiating process. And the one thing which President DeKlerk wants, which we want, is negotiation. And there's no doubt that some people are trying to derail that negotiating process. There's no question about that.

MR. MacNeil: You agree with that, that some people are trying to derail it?

MR. MAKHUBELA: Well, I don't agree with this, but --

MR. MacNeil: Who do you think it is who's trying to derail it?

MR. MAKHUBELA: Well, the government precisely. It's also to their benefit to slow down the whole process. They have openly stated it in the posit, the process taking rather a very fast pace, and they need to slow up the pace. And there are elements, of course, who are benefiting from the derailment of the negotiation, quite correctly, but since DeKlerk came to power in 1979, eight thousand people have been killed. And out of the 8,000 people killed, none of the perpetrators of this violence have been brought to justice. They are always being released.

AMB. SCHWARZ: Not true.

MR. MacNeil: The ambassador says it's not true.

MR. MAKHUBELA: Who are they?

AMB. SCHWARZ: There are many trials; there are many convictions; and there are records of --

MR. MAKHUBELA: Who are they?

AMB. SCHWARZ: -- into the hundreds. Let's take the simple example of the one which you know and that's Captain Mitchell, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

MR. MAKHUBELA: That's an old case before he came to power.

AMB. SCHWARZ: The trial took place only a relatively short while ago.

MR. MAKHUBELA: 1983.

AMB. SCHWARZ: There are hundreds of people who have been prosecuted, hundreds of people who have been convicted. You can't ignore the truth.

MR. MAKHUBELA: I'm saying out of the eight thousand people who have been killed since he came to power, we need to know how many people have been brought to justice. Mass murderers, people have been killed in Masenvile squatter camp. The police later only said they escorted criminals to safety and no arrests have been made. And these are the type of questions that we want to know what's happening.

AMB. SCHWARZ: Let me ask you a question. Do you think that the ANC is entirely blameless in respect of the violence? Don't you think that everybody in South Africa, in fact, bears a degree of responsibility for the violence, and that the leadership of all the parties should get together? And remember one thing -- and I ask you, who has broken off the negotiations? Is it the ANC, or is it the government? Who is keen to have negotiations? Who has asked that we should continue to talk and not go onto the streets?

MR. MacNeil: Let me put the ambassador's question in another way here. Some observers think that the real breakdown of the talks happened before the violence, it happened last month, that you had reached a deadlock with Mr. DeKlerk and the government over your demand for straight majority rule in the Fusa Constitution and his government's effort to preserve some kind of protection for the white minority, safeguards for the white minority. Is the violence now really just a good excuse to break off the talks because politically you were deadlocked?

MR. MAKHUBELA: No, no, that's not a case, because we tried to - - we have been trying with the government to try to find a solution to this deadlock since CODESA too. And a lot of meeting has been going on to try to get a solution to this. But the question of reconciliation and to carry our constituency along during this process of negotiation is becoming very much difficult with the involvement of the security forces in the violence. And quite frankly, the government has done nothing to try to bring those who are involved to justice. And it has become very much difficult -- or as the ANC will end up negotiating, the leadership will end up negotiating without carrying the membership.

MR. MacNeil: Do you believe, Mr. Ambassador, that the ANC has to come back to the negotiations eventually?

AMB. SCHWARZ: Well, the ANC has itself said that it's coming back to the negotiating table. And I think it's also correct that the ANC announced its plans for mass action before the violence took place. I think that's a fact; nobody can dispute that. The difficulty is that in the interim while there are no negotiations, there are people who are going to suffer as a result of it. And in the end, we are going to have to solve the problem by negotiation. Everybody agrees to that. The ANC agrees to it; the government agrees to it. The other 17 parties at CODESA agree to it. So it's only a question of time before we do it. And I must say to you that many of the things which the ANC says should be done we agree with. Obviously, one can go through a whole lot of them. If you remove the rhetoric and remove the insults, then, in fact, you can get down to some basic things on which we all agree. We want peace. We want an end to the violence. And by the way, the control of the security forces would be under the hands of an interim government, so the sooner we get an interim government in South Africa, the better it will be for the ANC and for all the people.

MR. MacNeil: Do you believe that the government needs signs of progress in the talks for reasons of confidence in the South African economy and so on enough that Mr. DeKlerk is going to have to give in to some of your demands, have an investigation of this violence and so on?

MR. MAKHUBELA: I think Mr. Schwarz is saying that our demands are quite justifiable, for instance, the demand for an interim government. He's agreeing with that. And I think he needs to address this acute question of violence. It's very serious, I think. It's actually affecting the whole negotiation process. There's no need to go in and sit in conference rooms discussing while people are being butchered outside. And people who have been given -- people who have got the responsibility to bring this, this carnage to a stop are not doing anything to do that.

MR. MacNeil: Well, we've heard both your points of view. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for joining us. Mr. Makhubela, thank you. RECAP

MS. WOODRUFF: Again, the other main stories of this Tuesday, workers at Amtrak and the nation's freight railroads plan to strike at midnight if negotiators fail to reach a new contract. President Bush called for quick congressional action to end the strike if it occurs. Israeli exit polls predict that voters have turned out the government of Yitzhak Shamir and President Bush vetoed a bill to permit the use of federal money for fetal tissue research. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Judy. That's the NewsHour tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with an analysis of the results of the Israeli election. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.