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MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.
MR. LEHRER: I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the day's news, we will look at worry over who controls the nuclear weapons in the Soviet republics' new commonwealth. We have reports from Moscow and Washington, plus the analysis of four experts. Then comes the first of a series of conversations about the Bill of Rights. Former Chief Justice Warren Burger is the guest. NEWS SUMMARY
MR. MacNeil: Sec. of State Baker won assurances from Russian President Yeltsin today on the Soviet nuclear arsenal. Baker met within the capital of the rapidly crumbling Soviet Union. At the meeting, Yeltsin requested U.S. diplomatic recognition for his republic and said Russia would take over the Soviet seat on the U.N. Security Council. On weapons security, Yeltsin said three of the four republics with nuclear weapons would give them up, leaving Russia as the only nuclear state. He said the weapons would be under the strict control of a single command. Yeltsin also said the new commonwealth of independent states would begin operating by the end of the month, with 10 of 12 former Soviet republics as members. Baker later met with Soviet President Gorbachev and praised the accomplishments of the embattled leader.
SEC. BAKER: The world is fundamentally different, Mr. President, than it was two or three years ago. Those fundamental changes are due in no small part to your efforts.
MR. MacNeil: Gorbachev's future in the new commonwealth was raised again today. Yeltsin was asked by reporters if the Soviet President would play a part in the new alliance. Yeltsin said it would be up to him to decide. Jim.
MR. LEHRER: Germany today asked European community nations to recognize the independence of the Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia. They declared independence in June. The German appeal came at an EC ministers meeting in Brussels. In Croatia, the Yugoslav Federal Army continued a pull-out from some of its barracks today. The withdrawals came despite heavy fighting between Serbs and Croats in several Croatian towns.
MR. MacNeil: The United Nations voted today to repeal its resolution equating Zionism with racism. The vote was 111 to 25, with 13 abstentions. Zionism is the philosophical basis for the state of Israel. It calls for the recreation of a Jewish state in the ancient Holy Land. The U.N. resolution was passed in 1975. President Bush called for its repeal last September, saying it stood in the way of a Middle East peace effort. A second week of Mideast peace talks began in Washington today. Israel and the Palestinians remain stalled over procedural issues. Another team from Israel met with Syrian negotiators, but there was no word of progress from their talks. Officials in Egypt today said as many as 476 people may have been killed in Saturday's ferry sinking. We have a report narrated by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.
MS. BATES: It was Egypt's worst modern maritime disaster and it happened in a matter of minutes. The Salem Express Ferry hit a coral reef and sank like a stone. Rescue teams worked in stormy conditions to bring survivors safely to shore at Safaga. Nearly 500 people were feared drowned. Many of these survivors, bedraggled and bewildered, spent hours in icy waters before being picked up. Some said they were abandoned by the ferry's crew and forced to jump into the Red Sea to avoid certain death. Others told of passengers being pushed aside by crewmen clambering into lifeboats. The passengers were Egyptian Pilgrims and migrant workers returning from Saudi Arabia. For those who got out alive, relief was overwhelming. A government investigation is trying to find out why the ferry was off course when it hit the reef. It's also asking why some people weren't rescued for up to 12 hours. The survivors, not knowing whether their relatives were alive or dead, were treated in hospital in Safaga. Meanwhile, the navy continued the grim search for bodies.
MR. LEHRER: A bombing led to the shutdown of London's main railroad stations this morning. The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for it. It exploded shortly after 6 AM near the tracks on a busy station. There were no injuries, only havoc from morning commuters. Full rail service was not restored until noon. The IRA has claimed at least 25 bomb attacks in Britain since December 1st.
MR. MacNeil: In U.S. economic news industrial production fell by .4 percent last month. The Federal Reserve Board said that left the nation's factories, mines, and utilities running at less than 80 percent of capacity. Earlier in the year industrial production had been strong and economists thought it might lead the rest of the economy out of recession. The Conference of Mayors reported hunger in the U.S. cities increased this year and local governments were having a hard time keeping up with it. They said requests for emergency food aid were up an average of 26 percent and 17 percent of food requests went unmet. The Mayors also reported a rise in homelessness. The number of people seeking emergency shelter rose 13 percent. Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, president of the group, spoke at a Washington news conference.
MAYOR RAYMOND FLYNN, Boston, Massachusetts: We are calling on the President and the Congress to match every new dollar sent to Russia with new dollars to feed needy, hungry families in America. Both of these goals are worthy of America's attention by our national government. If it is a good policy to feed hungry people in the Ukraine or Minsk or any other former republics in the Soviet Union, then why isn't it such a good idea to feed people in cities and towns all across the United States?
MR. MacNeil: The Mayor's report listed unemployment and other job problems such as low wages and layoffs as the leading causes of hunger. Lack of affordable housing was cited as the main cause of homelessness.
MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case which challenges the current method for allocating congressional districts. The process is based on census data and has been used since 1941. It takes districts away from states which lose population and gives them to states with more people. A federal court in Montana declared it unconstitutional. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in February, with the decision expected by next summer. President Bush attended a birthday party for the Bill of Rights today. It was 200 years ago Sunday that the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution were ratified. Mr. Bush signed a proclamation honoring the document. The ceremony took place at the Montpelier Mansion near Orange, Virginia, home of the Bill of Rights author, James Madison.
MR. MacNeil: That's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to worries about nuclear weapons and Boris Yeltsin's new commonwealth and a conversation with former Chief Justice Warren Burger. FOCUS - NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE?
MR. MacNeil: Controlling nuclear weapons in the disintegrating Soviet Union is our lead focus tonight. The nuclear issue is at the top of Sec. of State Baker's agenda. His itinerary is a trip across the new nuclear map. It began in Russia, but will continue on to the republics of Kazakhstan, Byelorussia, and Ukraine. Soviet nuclear weapons are stored in all four republics which are joining the new confederation. Our coverage begins with a report on the Baker trip from Correspondent Gaby Rado of Independent Television News.
MR. RADO: The sitting into which James Baker strode was familiar, St. Catherine's Hall in the Kremlin, but that's where similarities of the past ended. There to receive him was Boris Yeltsin of Russia, not Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union. The picture said more than any formal announcement the Gorbachev era was over. And when they sat down to talk, President Yeltsin had in his team Marshall Yevegny Shaposhnikov, Soviet defense minister, as well as Soviet Interior Minister Viktor Baronikov. The United States was now negotiating with Yeltsin's new commonwealth. Mr. Baker had come to Moscow to get reassurances that the former Soviet Union's nuclear weapons would still be under some kind of central control. After four hours of talks over a wide range of issues previously Mr. Gorbachev's domain, the two men faced the cameras as Boris Yeltsin explained how the four republics with nuclear weapons would answer the U.S.A.'s concerns.
BORIS YELTSIN, Russian President: [Speaking through Interpreter] In an emergency there will be discussions and consultations among the heads of state with the Supreme Commander in Chief of the armed forces participating as well and the final decision to launch the forces or to use them may be taken only after these consultations.
MR. RADO: Almost in passing, Mr. Yeltsin mentioned that Russia wished to take the Soviet Union's seat on the U.N. and that he expected the Baltic nations to join the new commonwealth. Mr. Baker gave the diplomatic answer to a question about who now runs the former super power.
SEC. BAKER: You know, that really is a question that should be directed to those individuals and it is a question that gets directly into the political processes and transformations that are underway here. And it is, accordingly, the kind of question that I will not be responding to.
MR. RADO: Later, Mikhail Gorbachev's meeting with the U.S. Sec. of State was a far shorter, almost embarrassing affair. Mr. Baker has in recent days publicly upset the President by saying that the Soviet Union no longer existed. Today the words were flattering but in the way of farewell.
SEC. BAKER: The world is fundamentally different, Mr. President, than it was two or three years ago. And as I have pointed out before, those fundamental changes are due in no small part to your efforts.
MR. RADO: Mr. Gorbachev's words had a hint of melancholy.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV: [Speaking through Interpreter] In the historic situation that we now find ourselves it is quite natural that we maintain contacts with the President of the United States and also the Secretary of State. And I think this is all because history has once again accelerated its pace.
MR. RADO: Whatever future role Mr. Gorbachev sees for himself, if any, it won't be that of commander-in-chief of the new commonwealth's armed forces. Boris Yeltsin made that clear today, saying the job should go to someone in uniform.
MR. MacNeil: The Soviet news agency Tass reported that Gorbachev told Sec. Baker control over nuclear arms does exist and there is no need to be concerned. But the West really is concerned and Bruce Van Voorst, national security correspondent for Time Magazine, explains why.
BRUCE VAN VOORST: The most useful way of grasping the Soviet nuclear threat is to distinguish between strategic and tactical weapons. Soviet strategic nuclear weapons are those which threaten the outside world, that is, those carried by intercontinental ballistic missiles or long range bombers. They are located in four of the new states. By far the overwhelming majority of warheads, over 17,000, are in Russia, making it the second largest nuclear power in the world. Ukraine, with nearly 5,000 warheads, may well be the world's third largest nuclear power, bigger than France or Germany and possibly China. Additionally, there are strategic warheads in Byelorussia and in Kazakhstan. Although strategic weapons directly threaten the U.S., the immediate threat of loose nukes is at the tactical level. Ashton Carter, director of the Center for Strategic Affairs at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, describes what's involved.
ASHTON CARTER, Kennedy School of Government: The tactical weapons are artillery shells, land mines, short range missile warheads, naval weapons, and these are more numerous than the strategic weapons, more widely deployed, have less strong safeguards than the strategic weapons and theymight, therefore, get wrapped up in acts of political violence among the republics and, therefore, more likely to be used than the strategic weapons. They're a greater danger, in my judgment, than the strategic weapons are. There's been much too much focus on the apex of the command and control system on footballs and fingers on buttons and on strategic weapons and not nearly enough attention on non-strategic weapons and sergeants and lieutenants who normally have physical custody of non-strategic weapons.
MR. VAN VOORST: Nonetheless, Ukrainian sergeants or Byelorussian lieutenants or even Middle Eastern terrorists who gain control of nuclear weapons cannot easily use them. There are a whole series of electronic enabling devices which arm the weapons. But most of these devices are short-term value against relative amateurs or terrorists who can be bypassed or overridden over the longer run.
MR. CARTER: With a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of time, the personnel in any of the republics that came into possession of nuclear weapons would ultimately learn how to use them.
MR. VAN VOORST: For that reason, many experts urge immediate moves to isolate and reduce the danger. In a congressional initiative, the Senate and House last month voted $400 million to aid the Soviets in dismantling the nuclear threat. To the distress of any observers, the administration still hasn't signaled how it intends to spend the congressional money. Michael Mandelbaum, director of East-West Studies of the Council on Foreign Relations, urges more direct action.
MICHAEL MANDELBAUM, Council on Foreign Relations: Well, I think there are three things we can and should do immediately. First, we need to talk with the leaders of the states that have formed the commonwealth about the command and control of their strategic weapons. And we are entitled to do so because, after all, they have signed arms treaties with us that cover these weapons and we are entitled to know, we are required to know who's in control of that. Second, we ought to be willing to provide all technical assistance necessary to assist in the dismantling of nuclear weapons. We should set up a crash program to build dismantling facilities on the territory of the former Soviet Union. And however much money that takes we ought to be willing to spend it. If that means raiding the Pentagon budget, it's money well spent. A dollar spent destroying a Soviet, a former Soviet nuclear weapon on site is worth $10 trying to prevent the consequences of that weapon reaching us once more.
MR. VAN VOORST: Aside from the weapons, themselves, there is the threat of the leakage of weapons components, or nuclear technology, or fuel, or even experts to the outside world.
MICHAEL MANDELBAUM: The greatest danger is not that some disgruntled lieutenant will shoot off a nuclear weapon in unauthorized fashion in Ukraine or in Kazhakstan. I think the greatest danger is that some disgruntled lieutenant who hasn't been paid for two months will take a nuclear weapon that he controls and sell it to the highest bidder. And we have reports that there are countries with money, with nuclear weapons programs that we would not like to see acquire nuclear weapons that are going into the black market for weapons or for their components or for scientists and technologists who have the information and have the knowledge to help these other countries accelerate their quest to get the bomb. We know that there are governments with money, with aggressive foreign policies that would love to get their hands on bombs. And, unfortunately, in the former Soviet Union there are now several thousand people who can help them do so and who are now unemployed and perhaps desperate.
ASHTON CARTER, Kennedy School of Government: We have to worry not only about nuclear weapons leaking outside of the Soviet Union, but of nuclear materials and the scientists who know how nuclear weapons are designed, know how to build them, know how to take care of them. They might emigrate to Libya or Iraq or North Korea, and participate in the nuclear programs of those countries. So we have a brain drain problem that could be the most significant brain drain since Werner Von Braun came to Alabama to build rockets for the U.S. Army after the collapse of the Nazi empire in World War II.
MR. VAN VOORST: Faced with this unstable situation, the administration has moved slowly, some say inexcusably so. But in fairness to President Bush, the constantly changing situation in the Soviet Union has inhibited innovative policy making. Administration officials argue that they are doing what they can under uncertain circumstances. White House officials insist one thing is clear. U.S. strategic interests dictate that only one thing remain on the Soviet nuclear button.
MR. LEHRER: We get four additional views now of command and control of nuclear weapons in the new world of the Soviet Union. William Odom is a retired army lieutenant general and a former director of the National Security Agency, he recently returned from a trip to the Soviet Union, where he met with many military officers. Dimitri Simes is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ted Warner is a senior defense analyst with the Rand Corporation. And Stephen Cohen is a professor of Soviet politics at Princeton University. He joins us tonight from Princeton, New Jersey. Gen. Odom, to you first. How do you analyze the strategic threat to the United States, that's the big ones that can hit here?
GEN. ODOM: Well, I don't think it's a very serious threat now. And I think that wringing our hands about doing something about it is the wrong attitude to take. We're seeing a transformation from empire to nationally self-determined state. And we ought to welcome that. It's a necessary condition if we're ever to have any liberal development in the successor states. If we trip to the side of trying to shore up the central authority for that purpose, we could --
MR. LEHRER: Just because of the nuclear thing.
GEN. ODOM: Just because -- we could end up asking 270 million people who remain in an empire which they don't want in. So I think we have to let that political process sort itself out. But in the process I really don't think, given the tight control that has traditionally been there on the strategic forces, that that is a terribly serious problem.
MR. LEHRER: Ted Warner, how do you feel about that?
MR. WARNER: Well, I agree that this is not a major problem that we face today. The new commonwealth is much preoccupied, just to put it mildly, with their internal difficulties. They seem to have sorted out among themselves, particularly the three Slavic republics that have the vast majority of strategic nuclear weapons, they have sorted out the fact that the one unified factor of the new commonwealth will be some part of the Ministry of Defense and the general staff and the whole apparatus designed to sustain and control and maintain the nuclear weapons. They do need to move to have Kazakhstan, which also has about 1500 strategic weapons, included within that overall arrangement.
MR. LEHRER: Yeltsin's assurances today to Sec. Baker, the ones we just saw in our News Summary and also again in Gaby Rado's piece, is that enough? In other words, they're all going to be going together, Russia's the one who's going to control it? Is that one finger on one button?
MR. WARNER: First of all, there have been, we've heard from President Kravchuk in Ukraine that there are going to be multiple fingers at the top, that the collective leaders of the commonwealth will have a shared responsibility for making any decision for use. So it will be three fingers on a collective apparatus, a single apparatus, however, that would control the strategic nuclear weapons. The other republics have not yet agreed, by the way, that Russia would have all the weapons on its territory. They've said they will not send their nuclear weapons back to Russia; they're prepared to have them destroyed under international auspices in the years ahead, but they will not redeploy them back to Russia. Instead, there'll be this collective authority at the top and a unified structure, the same structure that exists today, transferred over to the commonwealth.
MR. LEHRER: Steve Cohen in Princeton, would you, just on the political level now, do you believe that the chances that this collective new leadership, this new collective leadership, the chances of it ever wanting to put three fingers on the button to raid the United States with strategic nuclear weapons is very, very unlikely?
PROF. COHEN: I think it's very unlikely but I don't think anything we observe today is likely to be there tomorrow. The situation in the Soviet Union, including all these agreements and all these assurances being made to Sec. Baker about his stable of sand in a wind storm, a ferocious struggle over power and property is underway in the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons have become a party of that property, an instrument in that struggle. A lot of these whom men we refer to as the leaders of the new commonwealth don't like each other or trust each other. And this struggle is going to go on and on. Nor am I as certain as Gen. Odom that the more decentralization there is, the more liberal development there will be. I don't think liberalism or democracy has much to do with what's going on in the former Soviet Union today.
MR. LEHRER: But translate that into the possible use of these, these strategic nuclear weapons.
PROF. COHEN: Well, I'm not an expert on strategic nuclear weapons so I will take Gen. Odom's view and Ted Warner's view that they are not a threat, however, I think the gentleman in your piece before made the right point. It's the tactical weapons that are the real danger. And they're a danger for three reasons. First of all, they're easier to use, secondly, they're located in areas in the former Soviet Union where civil wars may break out, and thirdly, according to Soviet sources, the Soviet defense ministry doesn't know exactly where all those weapons are. It was reported, for example, on Soviet Television about a week ago that they are not clear whether or not there are tactical nuclear weapons in the former republic of Georgia which is also the site of a potential civil war.
MR. LEHRER: Dimitri Simes, how would you assess the threat, first of all the strategic threat and then we'll talk about the tactical thing in some detail.
MR. SIMES: Well, I agree with my colleagues. Strategic threat today is negligible. But I also agree with Steve Cohen that if you are talking about central control over nuclear weapons, you imply that there is going to be strong central authority. Commonwealth is a transitional arrangement. It is not just our guess. It is those who signed this agreement amid themselves. And as Steve said, there are conflicting expectations. Yeltsin is talking about using this period of transition to move towards federation. He wants to have unified control over all forces, except ground forces. Ukrainian President Kravchuk is talking about something completely different. According to him, it is just a transit station on the road to total independence and he wants to take control over everything, except strategic nuclear forces. The bottom line is this is a very uneasy, troubled arrangement. Nobody knows how long this arrangement will survive. And in my view, there is only one credible way to deal with this problem, the Yeltsin way, to say that all nuclear weapons have to be removed from the republics. It can be done under international control. They don't have to be surrendered to Russia. I agree with what Michael Mandelbaum --
MR. LEHRER: Well, where do they go if they don't go to Russia?
MR. SIMES: There are facilities for dismantling nuclear weapons in the United States. There may be in Europe. We have to be creative. We have to be generous. But I don't think that we can afford to keep these weapons in other republics indefinitely. And incidentally, the greatest leverage the West has over other republics is today when they're seeking our recognition, when they're facing desperate winter, and when they believe that the survival of their new political needs may depend upon us. We have a window of opportunity.
MR. LEHRER: Gen. Odom, having just returned and talked a lot to these military people, do you agree with Dimitri Simes that there is a window of opportunity for the United States to come in there now and get something done about these nuclear weapons?
GEN. ODOM: I don't think that we have as much leverage as perhaps he suggests. I think that situation has to sort itself out politically before we will have someone with enough authority to let us participate in any significant way. Let me say that the most positive development I think is that Yeltsin does not want to restore the Russian empire and reimpose Moscow's control over non- Russian peoples. As long as Russia stays on that line, I think the prospects of any big conflagration in the former Soviet Union is fairly small, therefore, I think it's very important for us to support Yeltsin and support the Russian liberals because they have taken quite a different course from the Russian rebels in 1917, or any time earlier, so that's very positive. I think that --
MR. LEHRER: Now how does that help the nuclear question?
GEN. ODOM: Well, I think it means that the Kravchuks and the Krukeveches and the Nazarbayevs will not be as afraid of Russia and I think that's why they want their finger on the button right now. They do not want to put themselves into the position for either Yeltsin or a successor to Yeltsin to intimidate them. And when they are assured that that intimidation is not going to be the case, then I think the points that Dimitri is making are much more compelling.
MR. LEHRER: How do you read that, Ted Warner?
MR. WARNER: Well, I agree with Dimitri that there's a considerable window of opportunity. You may remember, of course, in late September and early October, President Bush and then President Gorbachev made their unilateral initiatives in response in the case of Gorbachev. When a delegation was here from the former Soviet Union in late November, they made clear that that commitment, the commitment to get rid of a large number of tactical nuclear weapons, means the Soviets are committed to getting rid of up to 15,000 nuclear weapons. They're committed to do so at this point but they are literally unable. They cannot afford it. They don't have the facilities to do so. I agree we need to be creative in particular to try to install technologies on the scene that would disable the weapons, make them useless as military instruments, even before you go to the final steps of their dismantlement and conversion.
MR. LEHRER: As an expert, tell me how easy or difficult that would be to do.
MR. WARNER: I don't know enough about the nuclear weapons, themselves, to know in detail how that might be done. That is an area where we need to put together the expertise that we have in our weapons development community with expertise of the Soviets, who know the design of their weapons, and get it done promptly.
MR. LEHRER: General, how do you --
GEN. ODOM: I'm a little worried about the enthusiasm to demilitarize some of these weapons. The thing that will make them useless quicker is to allow them to stay unimproved for a considerable period of time. The tritium gas --
MR. LEHRER: Just let 'em sit there?
GEN. ODOM: That's right. The tritium gas has a half-life of about 12 years. And after about a year, a large number of them will no longer be useful. After about five years, about half of them won't be useful. So they, if they're merely left alone and kept as they are, they will deteriorate. And even if some of them proliferate out into the third world as weapons, it would take expert crews to use them, or it would take a while for the locals to learn how to use them. What could be, in my mind, much more dangerous would be to demilitarize these things, take out the fizzle material. We would have large amounts of plutonium and enriched uranium. That would be much easier to transport to third world countries. It would be easier for Iran to take that into its program and build the bombs it knows how to manage, rather than take these mystery bombs with different technologies that they don't understand very well from the Soviet Union. I think if we can get the Soviet military into receivership to Russia, and I really agree with Dimitri here, and I think some of the senior military I talked to said that is the obvious best solution. But the biggest obstacle to it that they saw at the time was Gorbachev's reluctance. Gorbachev was really reluctant to see Russia become the recipient of the old military. And those weapons will slowly die. And I think they're better guarded in military hands than to have that fizzle material out where it won't get near the attention for security.
MR. LEHRER: Well, let's move from the specifics of the nuclear weapons to these broader political things. Steve Cohen, you heard what was said earlier. Do you believe that the United States and the West should be in there now, supporting the commonwealth, and recognizing the independence of these republics and getting on with the reality, as people say?
PROF. COHEN: I don't. Sec. Baker here at my university last week gave a speech about what we're going to do. And it was clearly the speech of men who want to do the right thing. But the stunning thing about it was, it was a pledge to involve ourselves so deeply in Russia and in the Soviet Union that we were bound to create a backlash. For example, it may be so, as the experts say, that many Russian weapons have to be dismantled. But there's not a word in there about dismantling any American weapons. And that is a recipe to ensure that one day there will be a Russian leader who will look back at this and say what it was all about was America attempting to make Russia weak militarily to favor ourself. Secondly, this struggle for power and property that I mentioned before which is underway inside this territory is going to go on. We don't know who's who in half the republics. If we recognize Russian Ukraine, are we also going to recognize Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan? I mean, how are we going to make these judgments? I don't think we should get so involved in their internal politics. We should do the right thing, which is the humanitarian thing. Everybody knows what that is -- provide nutritional and pharmaceutical goods -- but we are meddling in a politics that is explosive and that we do not understand.
MR. LEHRER: Is that what we're doing, Dimitri?
MR. SIMES: Well, I think that what Steve just suggested is to involve the Soviet Union, the United States are in Soviet politics and on the losing side. Are we not supposed to recognize Russia and Ukraine? It's a fact of life that these are now independent states. And the same is true for Byelorussia and most other states in Soviet territory. Also, we've got to stop talking about the former Soviet Union. It's difficult not to do it because there is no other term yet. But if we are talking about --
MR. LEHRER: What do you call it? When you think of it, what do you think of now?
MR. SIMES: I am talking about a Eurasian-led mass with a variety of independent and vastly different states. And because they're independent and vastly different, there should be highly differentiated American policy approaches.
MR. LEHRER: And you think that's a reality now? That's no longer in the works?
MR. SIMES: I think this is a reality and you should treat them differently. They are very different in terms of their strategic importance to the United States. They are different in terms of how far they are on the road to economic reform and, of course, their human rights records are completely different. Having said that, Steve is right. There is a danger of being overly involved, of provoking Russian nationalism. We have to be sensitive and careful. But we are very involved. If you provide humanitarian assistance, especially in a visible way, as we are beginning to do now, if they are asking for your technical assistance, for your guidance in terms of teaching them about democratic institutions, you go there, you are visible, some people like it, a lot dislike it. Once you are involved on a massive scale, I think you should try to make it work and that requires a coherent policy, and that requires the President of the United States to explain it to the American people as a national security priority.
MR. LEHRER: Does it require choosing sides?
MR. SIMES: Sometimes it does require choosing sides. It's very unfortunate, but if, for instance, if there is, indeed, a dispute between Russia and some other republics over control of nuclear weapons, yeah. It doesn't mean that you have to be provocative. It doesn't mean you have to be tactless, but you may use your influence to offer some gentle encouragement.
MR. LEHRER: General, did you get the impression when you were there that what the United States does matters at all to the people on the ground there in the Soviet Union right now, trying to, as Steve Cohen has said many times, trying to sort out their own power situation?
GEN. ODOM: Yes. I think those people who have good relations with the United States and have some nod from them feel they have an advantage in the internal battle to some degree. And I think both the Russian rebels and the Ukrainian independence groups are very worried that if the U.S. stands on the sideline too long, there will be some kind of recentralization under Gorbachev and the more conservative elements in the military, and they will be set back a number of years and they are very concerned that that not happen. And that's why I said I think supporting Russian liberals who want to let the other republics go is a very positive and progressive thing to do. I'm really surprised to hear Steve Cohen suggest that we not recognize these states because it's been our policy since 1946 to decolonialize all empires. We did that to former British colonies, to French, Spanish, and Portuguese. I don't see why we should, Moscow's old colony should receive less favorable treatment.
MR. LEHRER: Why are they different, Steve Cohen?
PROF. COHEN: Well, I didn't say we shouldn't recognize them. What I said is we shouldn't do it right now. But let me remind you that in March of this year, there was a referendum in the Soviet Union about whether people wanted a union, and 76 percent said they did. Now we're in a situation where apparently nobody wants a union. And that doesn't tell us what there's going to be next year. Let's say we recognize these new 12 states. Twelve new states in the U.N., then it turns out six months from now that the Central Asian states say well, really we want to be part of a larger Russian Federation, do we un-recognize them? Do they leave the U.N.? Factors are moving ferociously fast. There's nothing to be gained for us immediately, recognizing all 12 of these states. Moreover, Gen. Odom sees a political landscape even in Moscow, one of the most liberal cities, that I don't see, and all these Russian liberals that he wants to embrace. It is awfully hard to find a Russian liberal today and certainly hard to find one anywhere near power. I don't even think Mr. Yeltsin would describe himself as a liberal and I don't think - - I mean, I don't know what Dimitri thinks, but I wouldn't call Mr. Yeltsin a liberal. He may be a necessary good leader, but a liberal he isn't.
MR. LEHRER: Ted Warner, how do you feel about what the United States should do toward the commonwealth and these independent republics?
MR. WARNER: Well, the point I'd like to bring in is that the leadership of each of the major republics today have a common interest in reducing nuclear weapons. All of them have declared that as a goal. Three of the major nuclear republics, Byelorussia, or Byeloruse, as they call themselves, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, have all grassroots movements that want to make them nuclear free. Their leaderships have said they're willing to go in that direction of being nuclear free if they can find an international context to do so. We have the context already in the exchange of reciprocal commitments to reduce nuclear weapons, tactical nuclear weapons, which by the way did include the reduction of a large number of American weapons as well to meet the point that Steve Cohen raises. But in the tactical business, we've got a commitment on the boards but no capability to follow through. We and perhaps other parts of the international community can help bring that capability about.
MR. LEHRER: So there's nobody on the other side of this question is what you're suggesting.
MR. WARNER: As far as substantial reductions in this massive arsenal of twenty-seven to thirty thousand nuclear weapons, there seems to be virtual unanimity across the republics between elites and in the masses that these numbers should be cut back.
MR. LEHRER: So politically it doesn't matter then whether or not we go, whether we take the step of recognizing the commonwealth and forgetting the Soviet Union or do what, in other words, do what Gen. Odom is suggesting, or do what Steve Cohen, it doesn't matter, we can do this other thing.
MR. WARNER: There can be no doubt. In relatively near-term we are going to recognize both Russia and Ukraine and probably others will follow. Whether that means that all of the states coming out of the former Soviet Union come in rapid secession, I'm not so clear. But most certainly those major republics that have become independent states we need to recognize and we can move ahead to help dismantle these weapons.
MR. LEHRER: All right, gentlemen, thank you all four very much. SERIES - FIRST FREEDOMS
MR. MacNeil: Next, we begin a series of conversations about the Bill of Rights. This week marks the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. Over the course of the week we'll hear different views on how the document that so defines this country has stood the passage of time. We begin with the words of the Bill, itself, Article 1: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Article 2: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Article 3: "No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." Article 4: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized." Article 5: No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public danger. Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." Article 6: "In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense." Article 7: "In suits of common law where the value in controversy shall exceed $20, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law." Article 8: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel andunusual punishments inflicted." Article 9: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or discourage others retained by the people." Article 10: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people.
MR. LEHRER: How has this Bill of Rights stood the test of time? Well, our first conversation about that is with a man who spent important years interpreting the Bill of Rights for a living. He is Warren Burger, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986. Charlayne Hunter-Gault spoke to him last week.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Chief Justice, thank you for joining us. Can you just briefly play historian for us and tell us why we have a Bill of Rights and what's important about it.
JUSTICE BURGER: We almost didn't have a Bill of Rights. When the 55 delegates were meeting in Philadelphia from May until September of 1787, there were only 3 men at that convention out of 55 who wanted a Bill of Rights. Now, the reason for that was that most of the states had their Bills of Rights. These men were not sure what this new monster, national government was going to be, and there was concern about a conflict between the state Bill of Rights and the national Bill of Rights. And then others said that it's not necessary, this new national government we're creating under this Constitution is a government of delegated powers, it has only those powers which the book says it has so you don't have to say what it can't do. Well, the arguments of George Mason and several others said the message from the people they were getting was if that's true, let's put it down in black on white so nobody can have any doubt about it. But they didn't do it. Then when they got to the conventions to ratify the Constitution and Madison, himself, who was the real architect of the Constitution found out they probably couldn't get it ratified unless they promised to put a Bill of Rights in. And that was what we might call a gentleman's agreement and then they carried it out. And it was Madison, himself, who in the First Congress, as a Congressman from Virginia, introduced the Bill of Rights to be added to the Constitution.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And what's so important about it?
JUSTICE BURGER: It makes it clear what this big new government, and to a lot of people this new national government looked something like the King of England or the King of Prussia or the King of France, they, they were worried. Now, there was nothing new. We did not invent the idea of free speech or free press. They'd had free speech and free press in England for a century before. And from the time our first ships landed down in Virginia, and up in New England, the people were practicing free speech and there was largely free press. The only interruption with that was briefly when the alien and sedition laws were passed; they were repealed very soon. So having had those rights, they didn't worry about it. Sometimes people in the media, I have a little fun teasing them, and pointing out that free press is the fourth item in the First Amendment. Well, it doesn't mean anything, the sequence, but it does, I think it can be explained that they were more concerned about religious freedom, because in some of the states they were carrying over the Church of England as "the" church and the only church. So religious freedom comes first and then freedom of speech and then freedom of the press.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But I think the phrase you used a few moments ago perhaps sums up the Bill of Rights in that it says what the government cannot do.
JUSTICE BURGER: In a sense, I grew up on a farm, and I think of it sometimes as a harness, the Bill of Rights as a harness on the horse of the Constitution. Here this Constitution creates a totally new form of government, which the world had never seen anything like it, and yet, the people wanted in black and white what the government could not do.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But it was also seriously flawed, wasn't it? I mean, there was tacit encouragement or acceptance of slavery, silent on the issue of women's equality.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: No question about it. No question about it. And the matter of women's rights is more easily explained in that at that stage in our history nowhere in the world did women have any of the kind of rights that we're talking about. On the slavery question, of course, that was the big flaw. But the men from, until Gibson, they were all men at that time from the Northern states, from New England, the Puritans and the others, abolitionists, wanted to do something but in their private conversations, it was perfectly clear to them that if they tried to do anything about slavery in here the Southern delegates would walk out and the whole thing would collapse and we would not have any Constitution at that time. Now whether their judgment was right, no one will ever know, historians generally agree that that's what would have happened, and I think it would have happened. All the plantation states would have said, no, they would have walked out.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Tell me how you've seen this document, the metamorphosis of this document, to today. I mean, what's changed in our understanding of it?
JUSTICE BURGER: I think much more emphasis and focus on individual rights than forty or fifty years ago. I've been a member of the bar for exactly 60 years since I graduated from law school. I've argued cases in the Supreme Court and in other courts and I have noticed in that time much greater sensitivity to the individual rights. Now sometimes some people think that's been carried too far, in the criminal law particularly, and there is now something of a revolt developing on that, but that's the way our history has gone.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean cyclically, pendulum swings?
JUSTICE BURGER: Well, it isn't a pendulum. It's more, a little more emphasis at sometimes. It isn't really a sharp pendulum swing. Just think it was 1896 when the case of Plessey against Ferguson was decided. That was after we had the Civil War amendments, after slavery was abolished.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That was the case that affirmed segregation.
JUSTICE BURGER: Separate but equal.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Separate but equal.
JUSTICE BURGER: And here the Supreme Court again over I think the most eloquent dissent ever written by John Harlen, the grandfather of my colleague, John Harlen, and he predicted that this day, this terrible case would have to be changed and it was.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It was in 1954 in the Brown versus Board of Education.
JUSTICE BURGER: It was gradually being changed, however, in the sense that courts around the country, especially in the North, were refusing to follow those.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How much does the Bill of Rights, how much is it subjected to the social mores of the time? And how much does it stand above them?
JUSTICE BURGER: I'm not sure that I'm qualified to answer that. I'm not a sociologist or an anthropologist. I hope it's in some respects ahead. It should be, it should be a goal to achieve it, and just as we had the Civil War amendments for a long time before they were carried out and given full effect, it sets the goal, sets the pattern of what ought to be done, and for the most part with some serious flaws and shortcomings it's got better and better slowly all the time, very slowly some of the time.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Anthony Lewis has written that, the New York Times columnist and legal observer, has written that a menacing shadow is being cast over the Bill of Rights. He was referring to the Russ vs. Sullivan decision in which the court said that federal aid to medical clinics means that doctors can't discuss abortion as an option. Do you see a change over the way the Bill of Rights is being applied, and do you think we are likely to see the conservative majority on the court reverse some of the rights that have been established?
JUSTICE BURGER: Well, I can't undertake to predict that. I know Tony Lewis, have known him for years, a fine writer. He is a little bit more of a worrier than I am. It's good to have the worriers around to keep our attention focused on these things. In my mind, that was not a First Amendment case at all. You are on the staff of this station. You can't say or do whatever you want. You can't use this time and these facilities to project your own views or if you did, you might not be working here. An employer, and the United States government is the employer of these doctors, can say, if you want to give advice on this subject, you go somewhere else, you can't do it here on our payroll. I think that case has been misconstrued by the media and by a lot of people.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Some scholars have argued that the Bill of Rights is still flawed, that some of its provisions need reconsidering, that it's over rated. How do you respond to that?
JUSTICE BURGER: That is as with anything in this life, it could be better here or there.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Like where, for example?
JUSTICE BURGER: Well, that's a harder one to answer. If I were writing the Bill of Rights now there wouldn't be any such thing as the Second Amendment.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Which says.
JUSTICE BURGER: That says a well regulated militia being necessary for the defense of the state, people's rights to bear arms. This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word "fraud," on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. Now just look at those words. There are only three lines to that amendment. A well regulated militia -- if the militia, which was going to be the state army, was going to be well regulated, why shouldn't 16 and 17 and 18 or any other age persons be regulated in the use of arms the way an automobile is regulated? It's got to be registered, that you can't just deal with it at will. Someone asked me recently if I was for or against a bill that was pending in Congress calling for five days' waiting period. And I said, yes, I'm very much against it, it should be thirty days' waiting period so they find out why this person needs a handgun or a machine gun.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about the opinion polls, finally, that suggest that the Bill of Rights would not be popularly supported if it were up for ratification today?
JUSTICE BURGER: I don't believe that at all. I don't believe that at all. In fact, I think it's a little bit ridiculous. Any poll can be manipulated by how the question is asked and if you ask some active member of the NRA if the Second Amendment should be changed, of course, he or she would go up in the air.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's the National Rifle Association.
JUSTICE BURGER: Yes. I don't want to get sued for slander, but I repeat that they have misled the American people and they, I regret to say, they have had far too much influence on the Congress of the United States than as a citizen I would like to see -- and I am a gun man. I have guns. I've been a hunter ever since I was a boy.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you think the poll suggesting that the public wouldn't support a Bill of Rights is just wrong?
JUSTICE BURGER: It might not be exactly the same as this one. It might have some more things in than are here. It might just, bail provisions right now to provide that if a person comes into court charged with one crime and he is now on bail from a previous crime for which he has not yet been tried that he shouldn't be released, that's a debate that's going on right now. There might be some stricter provisions about bail. But I'm not even sure of that. When we have the hysteria that we have right now, with six, eight, ten people being killed over a weekend in a small area like Washington, people get a little bit emotional. I don't think we ever want to change the Constitution or any part of it based on some immediate emotional appeal and that's why that's, of course, where the Supreme Court and all the other judges come in. And the judges will see to it that emotion doesn't dominate these things.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mr. Chief Justice, thank you for being with us. RECAP
MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, Sec. of State Baker met for four hours with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin promised the new commonwealth of former Soviet states would secure Soviet nuclear weapons under a single command and the United Nations General Assembly voted to overturn the 1975 resolution which equated Zionism with racism. Good night, Robin.
MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with the next in our series of conversations on the Bill of Rights. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.
Series
The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour
Producing Organization
NewsHour Productions
Contributing Organization
NewsHour Productions (Washington, District of Columbia)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/507-sx6445j916
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Description
Episode Description
This episode's headline: Nuclear Nightmare?; First Freedoms. The guests include LT. GEN. WILLIAM ODOM, U.S. Army [Ret.]; TED WARNER, Defense Analyst; STEPHEN COHEN, Professor of Soviet Politics, Princeton University; DIMITRI SIMES, Soviet Affairs Analyst; WARREN BURGER, Former Chief Justice; CORRESPONDENTS: CHARLAYNE HUNTER- GAULT; GABY RADO; BRUCE VAN VOORST. Byline: In New York: ROBERT MacNeil; In Washington: JAMES LEHRER
Date
1991-12-16
Asset type
Episode
Topics
Social Issues
Global Affairs
Race and Ethnicity
War and Conflict
Religion
Military Forces and Armaments
Politics and Government
Rights
Copyright NewsHour Productions, LLC. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode)
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Moving Image
Duration
01:00:14
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Credits
Producing Organization: NewsHour Productions
AAPB Contributor Holdings
NewsHour Productions
Identifier: NH-2168 (NH Show Code)
Format: 1 inch videotape
Generation: Master
Duration: 01:00:00;00
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Citations
Chicago: “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” 1991-12-16, NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-sx6445j916.
MLA: “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.” 1991-12-16. NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-sx6445j916>.
APA: The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Boston, MA: NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-sx6445j916